670. Zoom in on success by zooming out to leverage video. | The Sales Life conversation with author Patrick Frank

Video is structural, not cyclical says my guest, Patrick Frank author of the book, zoom out the video first playbook. There's no question that video is not going away, but while we acknowledge that it's here to stay. We don't fully embrace it today. You'll learn how to leverage the power of video from creating a more memorable visual greeting card of your very own to learning how to create consistent, clear testimonials in sales. You'll also discover that the highest rate of suicide is among doctors and how a video first method can help reduce those numbers and create better doctor, patient relationships. You'll hear why Patrick Frank records everything as well as how speakers can utilize a hybrid model of both in-person and virtual events by talking like an expert, but thinking like a DJ for my teachers out there, I got something for you too. There's even an idea of creating an all-star lineup of teachers. Who can teach with no districts. See the poor kid in the rough neighborhood can potentially gain access to the same level of education that the fluent child across the country can. You're listening to the sales life. One of the top 5% podcasts in the world and the sales life is for those who are either looking to move up. or trying to get back up either way. You're going to have to use the life skills of selling, developing five core skills. The first one is communication, and you've got to communicate to yourself, but also to the world, what you want. It's going to take curiosity. You got to ask questions and no longer live in assumptive statements. It's going to take creativity. When you lack resources, be resourceful. And then it's going to take confrontation. Probably the most important out of the five skills, because you're going to have to call out some things, but in a productive way, if you want to have more, do more, be more than say no more. Enjoy my conversation today with Patrick Frank. My guest today is Patrick Frank video producer and entrepreneur and author of zoom out the video. First playbook, Patrick, welcome to the sales life. Thanks for having me. So glad you're here, man. So Patrick, you write that people, , who are more socially connected, to family and to friends and to community they're happier and healthier and will actually live longer. So how does a video first method do all that? Yeah. Great question. So I think what you're referring to is, , there's a segment of my book where I talk about this product in this platform called attribute and, , attributes is really cool platform where the founder. , receive the gifts from his girlfriend, but it wasn't anything that he opened into a box. Like she literally reached out to all of his family and friends and said, Hey, can you just send me a one minute video about why you love Andrew? And then, so she went through the arduous process of collecting all these clips from Dropbox and Google drive and all this stuff. And then, put together this, this montage, this, you know, however long it was 10, 15 minute video. Um, that included all of these people and played it for him at his birthday party. And he said it was the greatest gift he's ever received. And he was immediately asked her how she did it. And she was like, it sucked, it was super hard. And, and that's when he had the idea to start this platform and this service and this product. And so, , as he was going about, , Pitching this to hospitals and other kind of more corporate kind of uses that, that he thought might be beneficial. It's like, you can't just tell a nice story about, oh yeah. We reach out to your family and friends. Like you have to put some data numbers behind it. And so, , yeah, I think, I think what you're referring to is this there's a Harvard study that showed that it's like a 75. They follow people over 75. And they found that, , the people that were healthiest with their heart and elsewhere were people that had really strong relationships with family and friends. And so I think, , when we're S you know, it's, it's the end of 2021 here, we're still not out of our, , COVID funk. There's still, you know, and, and, and who knows what's going to happen. And, and when things are going to get back to normal, what normally have it looks like anymore. But I think that the one thing that we have learned to do is to have meaningful conversations, connections. Being able to keep in touch with people, , with these tools that we have, like zoom and, and other things. And so I think, I've been trying to do. A little bit better myself. Right. Where it's like, if I'm going to go do laundry, like I'm going to try to call somebody to write, you know, to like, like habit stacking, if you will. Right. So it's like, when you go do something like, can we add a little personal connection? Right. Like, I really love, voice messages lately, too. Right. So instead of just firing off a text, just hold record and just send 10, 15, second little audio message. So I think the message here is what, what kind of personality can you add to. Uh, uh, conversation that was previously just text or email or something like that. , and so it doesn't always have to be video, but I think we have all these amazing tools now with our phones and our computers and our cameras. We should utilize that. And I think that, that that's really one of the main messages of the book is just to say, look, we have all these things available to us. We don't have to do things the way they've always been done. A hundred percent, I think, due to the pandemic, , we've, we've all, we've had no choice, but to adopt, video, but I don't think we fully embrace. So, what do you think is holding people back Patrick from embracing the video aspect and all that it offers, right. Um, I think the main thing is just, it's just kind of habit and repetition. That first week of the pandemic, first couple of weeks, first. It was awkward for a lot of people to be on camera. They don't host podcasts, right. They don't have a YouTube channel. But as we did it more and more, we got more comfortable with it. And now it's second nature. Just turn your camera on hit record or hit join or whatever it might be. And so, um, I think that everyone is now more comfortable on camera. Really helpful and really exciting. And so I think the next step is, is to try to convince people that, Hey, this is actually a superior way of communicating because of various reasons. When I, uh, talk about these new platforms and things like that, , my goal is to, to help people kind of recognize maybe this doesn't need to be zoom. Maybe this doesn't need to be a live meeting. , maybe we can. , be more protective of our calendars. Maybe we can be more respectful to other people's time, whether it's clients, coworkers, whatever. Um, and so I think that that's where a lot of these new video tools come into play here, where, , if I get an email and it's a, Hey, you know, we'd love to talk to you about this, this, this video or something like that. You know, a lot of times. I'll just send a loom video and I'll just say, Hey, I'm going to try to save us a meeting. Here's what I think, blah, blah, blah. If that sounds good to you, you know, we can move forward. But I feel like, , we should be trying to gate things a little bit more. We should be trying to say, not just going to get on a zoom call for any reason. , because then all of a sudden, like our day is shot. Um, so being more deliberate about using synchronous communication and kind of defaulting to asynchronous I think is, is, and if we can prove to people. That this is a better use of their time and a better way of communicating. Then I think that that's when we're going to start to see the shifts. Yeah. I like the, uh, the freedom and flexibility aspect that you offer, , with video, because it is something that , you can watch, on your own time. And then you can also, uh, deliver a message powerfully in the shortest amount of time or most. Uh, amount of time as well. One thing that really struck me in, in your book, Patrick gets 190 pages, but it is due to, could be a Bible worth of information because it crosses so many different fields from family to, , tele-health to virtual events, to teaching, to sale. , I mean, just to live commerce and like to just kind of unpack a few of those different areas, starting , with family. , , I think with video, you know, taking a picture is, is, is vulnerable. , there's an element of vulnerability to it pushing the red button. And having yourself recorded makes you even more vulnerable, but there's no question that you way more connected than say something like a greeting card. As you write about with hallmark, Hallmark's been around since 1910, , and have been there to celebrate and show empathy all the way across and everything in between. , but we're in a day. Now what you say is hallmark 2.0. So, how can we deliver a video first method to family, to loved ones with this, with a video first approach, in this hallmark 2.0 method that we're under now. Yeah. So I think the main thing is it's all about effort. , what's the easiest thing to do for someone's birthday it's to write it on their Facebook wall. What's the hardest thing to do. It's, you know, I don't know, get on a plane and meet them for their birthday. Right. But those are extreme. One of them is very easy in that everybody does it. And on the other side, , I don't know how many people are just going to like randomly hop on a plane and surprise you for your birthday. Right. So I think that the message here is, is, , video takes more effort. There. Isn't a level of vulnerability there. And, uh, and I think that, I think that we need to do a better job of showing the people we love that we love them. And I think that going that extra step and, you know, uh, from Facebook wall moving on up, it's, it's more effort and it's, it's more vulnerable. And I think that that shows that you care. And I think that that's, that's really the, uh, the, the, the message that. Well, it goes so much further to, with, versus a card. A card is great in the moment, but then you throw it in a drawer, man. Like behind me, I have cars that are just there, but, there's just something so unique about a. , R a message that you record and send that they can keep, I mean, forever, and it brings out the emotions and the facial features and the tweaks and the quirks and all of those things that even after you're gone, you know, you leave that residue behind, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think that's a big part of it is that, , and this is something that I think, A lot of people should be thinking about as well, where, if you do want to celebrate something virtually you have a distributed team, whatever, you know, the default is to just to get on zoom. , you're raise a glass, you have a virtual happy hour and then that's it. Right. Um, but if you do make the extra effort, take the extra step of creating this video montage. You're right. It's something that you have forever, you could be playing that video during that virtual happy hour. And that's kind of like the cornerstone piece of that. , and then again, you get to have that and you get to watch it whenever, , you know, in certain, certain, , cases, it probably might make sense to make it public. Right. Put it on your website or share it elsewhere, um, uh, for everyone to see. So, so yeah, I think that, that, that, that, it's, it's, it's a whole, it's just kind of another way to think about this kind of like synchronous versus asynchronous conversation, right. Where asynchronous , is always. It can be transcribed. It's searchable it's , and, and you can watch it at your own time at your own speed. If you're using a tool that allows you to watch something at one and a half or two X speed. So I feel like it's just, it's, it's superior in a lot of ways. And I think, that's something that I'm trying to do is just kind of help people running. Yeah. Yeah. And you're doing a phenomenal job with that. , one thing that was really glaring for me in reading the book was, , as it relates to, , telehealth, , and doctors or physicians have the highest rate of suicide, it was shocking. , why do you, why do you think that is and how can a video first message. , play a part in reducing some of the, yeah, sure. Well, so I think there's, there's two things here that, that I think about when we're having this conversation, the first is just time, right? Like I think doctors work a lot and so the time that they're not working, they don't want to drive to a psychologist office and, and do that whole thing for an hour and then come back. Like that's like a huge part of your day. , and so you can be a lot more discreet with it in a telehealth setting. And I think that that's, uh, both of those things, the convenience and the discretion are two of the reasons why I think that, , telehealth is, is helpful, especially for these, , providers, these, medical professionals, um, because especially in the last two years, like they are under a ton of stress and, and extra work, extra hours. , at their hospital doctor's office, whatever it might be. , and again, it comes with the comfort of doing it, of pulling out your phone. The app works well, you're comfortable doing it. The bandwidth is there, right? Like your at and T and Verizon is reliable. , and so I think all of these things have kind of had to, the infrastructure had to be built in order for something like tele-health to be able to be successful. And I think that now that it's an option and it's pretty. I think it's a lot more convenient and discreet for people that wouldn't necessarily have, uh, you know, prioritize their mental health in a traditional way of having a weekly meeting with a psychologist or other mental health provider. So, yeah. D did I read it right where you said that there are laws that prevent from, physicians recording their interactions with their patients? There are some benefits. , patient could take away from if, if, if these laws were eased or actually there was some clarity added to it that, , a patient could walk away. , if these were these sessions were recorded, what would be some of those benefits? I think it's phenomenal. Yeah. So I, how many times have you gone to a doctor? And she's talking your ear off and you're like, wait, wait, what did you say? Like you don't remember, right? Yeah. Charlie brown teacher. Right. Because it's, if it's all this medical speak and stuff like that. So, I had a time a couple of years ago where I w where I. , I got a diagnosis and I was like, wait, wait a second. Like, can you say that again? Like I literally just like voice memo. Right. And then my wife of course was like, okay, well, how did it go? What did they say? And of course, like, I'm not going to get all the details. I'm not gonna remember that. So like, , here we go, blah, blah, blah. And so, uh, I just think, like, it just makes a lot of sense to be able to have this stuff, to refer back to it. And obviously like, yeah, you have. Your referrals, your doctor's notes, your log, which you don't have access to, which that's kind of crazy, right? Like you go to a doctor and they have all this fail, this whole file, but you don't have access to it in their folder. Can I see what you're writing down about me? Right. I feel like that's only fair. Yeah. So, uh, understandable. Like, like there is a security. Obviously, that's the main thing. And we have, HIPAA compliance law and things like that, about how and where you can store certain things and how you can, who has access to them and how they can access. So there's all these laws here. , and so I think across the board, it is not standard to record tele-health interactions and other, , meetings like that. , But I think it should be because like, like I said, like, I want access to some of this stuff. Like I want to be able to reference it. , if you kind of aggregate all of these meetings together and you anonymize it, you know, kind of like any company that deals in data, you, uh, depersonalize it and you kinda put all this stuff together. Like you're going to be able to find trends and you're going to be able to, , have better data to make decisions. I think if you were. , let's say like every, every, uh, tele-health conversation, , for the month of December is recorded. . Like what, what findings could we have just based on, on searching that data with, let's say with transcripts of all of it. Right. I think it would be really interesting. And I think that there's someone that would, there, there would be some insights that happen there, but right now it's just, it's all, it's just like these conversations happen and then they go away and then, , scribble some notes on your file referral, whatever. So I think that's the next step is getting people comfortable with saying, , Hey, these are recorded. They're saved here for your own use. And, if you allow us to use it as part of a larger study, you know, we would love to include your recordings and data. Like in our research. I think that that's reasonable. I think a lot of reasonable people would agree. Yeah, and I hope there's, there's going to be a stronger push in that because, listening, uh, our rating, you know, what you wrote and listening to what you're saying now, , it at, I think it would being able to go home and really digest everything. And even having the luxury of being able to, , look these words and these phrases and get, some more clarity on those things. We'll be, we'll be. Super powerful. Yeah. , my guest today is, , Patrick Frank author of zoom out the video first playbook and shifting gears a little bit, Patrick on there's no question video's not going away. It's a, as you, right. It's it's not cyclical. It's structural. When the pandemic. Event promoters were scrambling to buy tripods and cameras and everything for these virtual events. And you introduce a hybrid model and you say that, the virtual events are not going to go away, but there's going to be more of a hybrid model on that. But if you're presenting both on camera, , from a virtual standpoint are if you're, , preventing, presenting in person. That when you do, you should talk like an expert, but think like a DJ, would you unpack that method as well as how presenters should, , present in such a way of thinking like from a news desk or as a news anchor? Yeah, definitely. , when we think about professional speaking as a. , job or activity or whatever, you get up on stage, you have a screen behind you and you're able to make eye contact with people in the audience. And, , now that we've, we've taken that model and we've tried to put it online on zoom, but the problem is, is that's not the right model, Because you're missing all that space, like as an audience member on a virtual event, you're missing a whole lot of detail. From the stage or the, that would be stage and being around other audience members and things like that. So what I am helping people to do is to, transition from that mindset of stage, to a mindset of a news anchor, right? Where through a mix of live prerecorded and kind of like Glossier more produced video. You're able to create a virtual presentation that is a lot more engaging than just going through your slides, which is really like, like a webinar right now like that. And so , the opportunity here is how can we make our presentations more exciting? How can we give people a reason to be there live? , and how can we make things that are just more visually and otherwise appealing so that we. Don't lose attention, people closing, open, opening, other windows, they know they're going into their sports betting app or something like that, like while we're talking. Right. And so I think that that's really the challenge and the opportunity. I do think that it is a mix , of live and prerecorded stuff. Right. Where, , so when I say, think like a DJ, the idea here is DJ's are reading a room. They're constantly scanning. I'm playing this song, how's it going over? There is that group of people they're really digging it, but those people over there aren't okay. Next song. I got to get for them. The dance floor. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. That's right, right. I'm not getting hired back for the next one. DJs have an unlimited amount of songs. And they have hardware and lights and all this stuff at their disposal. And so on the fly, they can be making content decisions essentially. And so that's my advice to anyone who's trying to up their speaking game, their presenting game, whether it's with a small team or for, , thousands of people in a online event, , how can you make this personalized for the people watching you? How can you get participation? And how can you keep things interesting with a mix of live and prerecorded content? Yeah. I love the, the thought to, , where, if you're doing something from a virtual standpoint, you can actually hover over other people that are there. And have the. The optionality of being able to connect with them on, on other social media platforms or get to know them a little bit more without all the, , the weird, work the room or cheesy kind of way that in a, , if you're an introvert, it's perfect. I'm an introvert by nature. I'm an extrovert by sales. Cause I have to be, I guess, probably more of an ambivert. Daniel pink, uh, using his term. , but I love that aspect of it where you can actually, get to know people from a virtual standpoint. Right. And I think that that starts with registration, right? From the very beginning, you decided to go to this event, if they're doing a good job, the event organizer, they're going to ask you some questions on registration. What are your interests? What's your background, blah, blah, blah. So then when you enter that. You're automatically seeing those tags on other people, oh, this person has my role at this other company. I should connect with them, blah, blah, blah. In a way that is not as obvious or as used in a live setting, there might be an app for the events, but, , it's not as immediate. It's just like hovering over. Like you mentioned, hovering over someone's face, getting everything about them, their LinkedIn page, everything. Um, and, and starting up a conversation. So, , yeah, I th I think that the hybrid events and the, the virtual events definitely have advantages, especially for introverts. Yeah. You say that you record everything, , obviously with, with the other person's permission, , w a why do you do that? And, and B what value can somebody take from using your, your. Yeah. Sure. So I think, especially as it relates to salespeople, , there's two reasons for it. , the first reason is just for a review, right? If you record your sales call, you drop it into a tool like to script, to create a transcript and you can go through it and you can grade yourself. You can use it, you can coach yourself and kind of say, okay, when they said this, I said this, but I could have done a little bit better job here. I'm repeating this too much. I jumped into this thing too early. Over time, if you, you don't have to do this for every single call, but maybe like there's some big ones or, like there's a certain type of person you're selling to, , that this would make sense for. So I think review is really important. And I think if you go back and review your sales calls, it's probably something that a lot of people do not do. And so this is a really efficient way to do it where you're not just like listening to an hour of all. But again, you're creating a transcript it's searchable. You can kind of look for various terms. , there's also some tools now where you can, if you're recording it live, you can kind of like hit a little button. That's sort of like a bookmark or a highlight or something like that. So you'll know to go back to that timestamp, it'll kind of like leave marks along the way. Super normal is one. , and there there's a couple others that are kind of latching onto this idea of like, kind of like real time. No. And I'm kind of like call as you're as you're doing stuff yet. So I think that that's obviously like, you don't want to get this. You don't want to use those too much where you're distracted from what you're saying, but as a way to just quickly click something to remember, to go back to, to, to rewatch that one segment thing is really smart. And then the other reason is sharing, right? Like if I'm having a sales call and I say something particularly brilliant, I don't even need to show the person. Right. I don't, if I don't have their permission. To to share or, or I don't feel comfortable, especially if they're just a prospect I'm talking to them for the first time I could just cut out them and just have me talking about something. And I can share that out, whether it's on social media or put it, write a blog post around it and kind of, you know, put that video right there in the middle. So it's a way to get content ideas. Blogging tweeting, you know, regular LinkedIn posts. It's something that you're, , trying to do. And you're, you're struggling coming up with ideas like, oh, what, what, what, what should I be sharing? Like what kind of stuff should we be talking about? I think that this is a really good way to create that foundation for different kinds of content. That's a great idea. Because I think a lot of times with salespeople. We feel like the message that we have to put out there on social media is, I'm in the car business. So, you know, we got 10,000 off, you know, banging the hood and all that, but people don't want to hear that crap. Like they, they, there, there really is some, some value that you can drive into social media and, and I love that idea. So you're saying, so let's say for instance, I don't have permission for Mr and Mrs. Smith, but I had a conversation with. That I actually recorded. So you're saying that I could take a portion of what I was actually talking about, clip that part of it out, and then just share that just me speaking on those certain. Yeah. Yeah. And then you could either build on it and kind of like rerecord what you said there and add maybe like an opening and closing or something like that. And so like you could create a new video just based on. That little piece, or you can just kind of share it as it is. And in your caption, you can kind of include that, that kind of bookend information about, you know, like we're talking about this and here's why I think this, that sort of thing. So, um, yeah. And, and like the best part is, is, is. Yeah, this conversation we're having here and, and, and clipping a part of a conversation, sharing it, it's all natural, right? Like we're not scripting anything and we're not necessarily like, , we have to put, we don't have to put SD cards in the camera or the teleprompter. So it was just real natural. And I think that that's what people want to see. Right. They want to see you if I were hiring you or if I were considering hiring you, what would that conversation be? Like? What are some of the, the results that, that, that you would be delivering? What are some of the things that we would be talking. And so if you're able to share conversations with other people and people see that they're like, oh, like he could be the guy for me because I saw how we taught how he approached this one problem, which is similar to a problem that I have. And now I know how he thinks and how he would do it. And I think that this would make sense to have a conversation with him to solve my problem. Roger, that, I mean, I think many times the reason why people don't. Do video is because of this perfectionistic, it's gotta be on 10, but , like I tell my salespeople, , you don't have a conversation and me and you are, sitting there drinking a beer talking. And if I stumble over my words, all of a sudden I take off running and no, you just, you just continue on. People don't want a perfect video there. Th they're not looking for the mistakes, they're listening for the message that, that you have. And so just get over your phobia of it's gotta be perfect. It can't be chopped up sentences. I can't say, just put something out there and the better, the more you do it, , the better you'll get at it, but at the end of the day, it's it get off zero man and, and, and put something out there in the universe, you know? And I, and I think that that also comes with the, if you're pulling something from a conversation, hopefully your you'll, you'll be more comfortable with that as opposed to scripting something. And, oh, like I have to do five takes of this and I'm still not happy with it. And what about my microphone and blah, blah, blah. Like, what about it? You know what I mean? I feel like , when you're staring at a blank page and you're trying to make a video. That's a lot more difficult than just recording this conversation that you're already having and seeing if there's something of value in there that's either worth sharing or worth reviewing or building on in another format, like a blog post or a newsletter blast or something like that. That's great. I think some of the best conversations I've ever had are, , before I hit record on the podcast, having a conversation one-on-one conversation with a customer or a salesperson. Yeah. That was gold and I didn't, and, and I didn't have it recorded. So are you recording? Is it strictly zoom? Do you do your voice memo app? If you're not near a zoom or you're just having a random conversation, like how do you pick and choose when to record. Yeah. , I record most things, but if I know it's going to be, , just like an update on a project or, or like if it's like project specific, I probably won't just because I know it's just going to be like really detailed and I don't know like how much of that is going to be worth sharing or something like that. But yeah, but I would say most prospecting calls, like most kind of, inbound, like someone reaches out referral, whatever. Like I record most of them. Um, and, and check again with, with clients as well. Like more generally, like, Hey, like the three month plan, the six month plan, like what kind of videos we're going to make, blah, blah, blah. Like, I'll definitely record those. And a lot of times that would be something where I'll clip a portion of that and share with the team. Hey, we talked about this animated video, just a heads up, you know, this is what we're thinking. So when we check in next month, , we might something like that. Uh, and again, just to have it, we can go back to that thing three months in three months, we can go back and say, Hey, remember when we talked about this and , is this something, this was the approach and blah, blah, blah. Again, like if you're not recording, that information is just gone. , and, you know, , we're at this point now where we don't really have to worry about hard drive space, right. So you might as well just save it, transcribe it, , have it live somewhere. And then the question becomes like, okay, how can you, what is the system to regularly review and go back and watch some of this stuff. Right. It's great if you have it, but you have to utilize it. And so I think that's something that, that that's not a new problem either. Like if you think about data science and things like that, right? Like people bring in all these companies to do. Work with data and they give all these recommendations and they say, okay, like, you know, based on what we're seeing, you should do X, Y, Z, but how often do they actually execute on that plan and those recommendations in that audit. That then becomes like the, the main issue I would say is what, and I'm struggling with this too. Like I haven't posted on LinkedIn in a while. Like I need to go back and like find some little pieces that I think are worth sharing. That that's definitely on my list to do a better job of. Yeah. And, pulling on that thread a little bit deeper using the descript app, and that's how you and I actually connected was you, your conversation on another podcast actually got me too, because I had been thinking about the script. And when you told me all the ways that you actually utilize it, I ended up getting it and I use it for my podcast, but there are so many ways too, that even if you. You know, creating content and this way, from a podcast standpoint, you can still use it because you can, uh, transcribe it. It doesn't get lost in translation. So your team, the ability for you to clip out certain key aspects of a conversation, and then sharing that with your team a is transcript. B you're letting , the real conversation take flight and nothing gets lost in translation. You know, it's kind of the old analogy where you whisper in one ear, the classroom, by the time it gets to the, yeah, it's all gone. I mean, it's all jacked up. So that really helps. And then what I really like about, , the script. Is the ability to search. So there are times where I'm looking for a key sentence that I remember saying, I just don't remember which video I did it in. I just type in a few keywords and then it brings me exactly to that versus me surfing through 90 videos. Oh, that's amazing. Yeah. I w how would you do that on YouTube? Right? Like you just can't, it's impossible. Yeah. And, you know, I remember, so I've been making videos for a really long time and transcripts are always a luxury. Sending it off to rev.com or something like that. It used to be slow. It used to be expensive, you know, a dollar, a dollar 50 a minute. And if I had a documentary project and I have five hours of interviews, , like that adds up. Right. And if I don't put it in the budget, you know, but, but now we're at this point with these automated tools like Otter and descript and others that have just gotten so good that it's like a no brainer now. And like, my videos are better now because I'm able to find more associations. Right. So if I have a two hour, Right before I would just be looking at this timeline and final cut and just trying to decide, okay. Like they said, this thing here and this thing here, and these are kind of related and blah, blah, but now again, right, because of it's searchable because I can kind of like copy and paste and put different things together. Like the videos I'm making are so much better because I have, I have more mastery over the content. Like I know what everything was said. And then I can make more associations between things that I wouldn't have been able. As it just didn't occur to me or it, it was, it wasn't, it was hard to see again, if I was just looking at a wave form or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, that's powerful. So, , digging a little bit deeper on the sales aspect. And as it relates to testimonials, , no question, the power of testimonials, , but they are. And they're, , they're clunky, how can a salesperson, if I, if I wanna get testimonials or even as a business owner, if I want to get testimonials, but I want to drive a consistent message, but I think so often we expect the red button, it's just so weird. You hit the button and you're just expecting magic to come out. And customers alike. Uh, they don't know what to say. It was a delightful part is so there's no emotion to it. So if I'm going to start attracting, , the testimonials, what are some methods that I can actually use to keep this efficient, , keep it powerful and keep it consistent as well. Yeah. Well, I would think the first thing is just, just keep it short, right? Like it doesn't need to be five minutes, you know, I think if you are. Asking two or three questions that may take two or three minutes. And I think that that's fine. And from there, the testimony that you ended up posting is probably like 60 seconds or something like that. Right. This is a volume game, right. Would you rather have one 30 minute testimonial or 30 one minute testimonials, right. It's obvious, like which one is going to be more beneficial for you? So, um, and as far as just, , how I would go about it. So I, I feel like the obvious thing is at the completion of a project. You deliver whatever it is that you said you're going to, and that they were happy with the work, then it's a matter of, , like I w I wait a few weeks, right. Because you want to see, so if I'm making a video, like I want to see what the results were. If they played it at an event, how many donations did you get? If it was a nonprofit that we were working with, , if it was a social video, like how many clicks did we get? Like, how many, what was the conversion? I don't need, , dollar signs or numbers or anything like that. I need to know that it performed, right, because that's going to be part of it. And then there's, so there's two ways to do a testimonial. So the first would be, I would just interview my client on zoom or something and I would just, you can even tack it on to the end. Let's say you have like a debrief call coming up. You deliver the work it's a month later. You want to have, Hey, I would love to have a quick check in, just see how it performed. You know, we'd love to talk about the next project, whatever you do that. Debrief call. Oh, by the way, at the end of it, I would love to just, I love to record it and just talk for five minutes about the project. We're reaching out to our favorite clients and we're putting together some testimonial videos. We'd love for you to be included. We'd love to promote the work that we're doing for you, because we're super proud of it. And we think that you guys are really great company. Who's not, who's going to say no to that, and then obviously like, it is a little awkward when someone's, , ideally talking about how great you are to you, right? So, um, if that's not your speed and that, that that's not what you wanna do. You could do a asynchronous testimonial capture. There's a great platform called testimonial too. It's literally testimonial dot Tio and basically, , person can just hit record and they'll prompt them for questions. And so if we're going to go that route, , I will say that in my experience, it is a lot easier to interview someone over zoom, , than it is to it. It does kind of feel like pulling teeth to get people, to try some of these. , platforms where, like you said, like the red buttons there and they hit record and they're just by themselves and it gets recorded on the back end. , and in that, but in that case, like that, that is a situation where I would just remind them, Hey, you came to us with this problem. And this was the video we created. And we, you know, like whatever, the key kind of components of that project, where, you know, you just want to outline that for them. Cause they'll say, oh yeah, sure. I'm happy to give you a testimonial. What do you want me to say? Yes. Alluded to, and I don't think there's anything wrong with telling them what to say. It's kind of like if you're asking someone for a, like a recommendation or something like that, like I was going around like trying to get some quotes from my book and stuff like that. So what I would do of course is I would just write it for them. I would say, Hey, I would love a quote for my book. Here's what I'm thinking. Feel free to change it. You know what I mean? And so I think if you just do as much of the legwork as possible, , people will comply and you'll be able to get something. Yeah, that's great. That's great. , using the, , in the few minutes that we have left, I definitely want to bring up, um, a incredible thought that you brought up, as, as it relates to teachers. I know when, again, the pandemic hit that classrooms or the way that we taught was. It was totally disrupted. So some of it was delivering messages and walking away and expecting the students to kind of grasp it itself. And you really dive deeper into the book about, , some ideas on that. But one w the, the thing I really want to harp on is having more of a district list teaching, , Or a district list teachers, I guess I should say in the sense that you could have all star teachers from all over the world, all over the United States and the best of the best. What really struck me is, is I could have a teacher that is really, really good in Seattle. And why penalize a young student that is in a bad area that just. They don't get the same luxuries that somebody in a more affluent area does. And the fact that you can use a video first platform and be able to have this all-star network of teachers. It's almost Patrick to me like a mentorship where you could actually have, I was just kind of spit balling into my mind where you could actually have an all-star teacher teaching the classroom and a younger teacher being the mentor. , and being able to absorb how that teacher does it and is able to facilitate the classroom because they're there, but also be able to draw on the experiences of that other teacher. Can you speak to that? And talking about is a concept of a right, like a district list. , Classroom experience. And so if you think about when you went to college, you had some classes that had a lecture component and a lab component, right. You would learn concepts and then you would put them into practice and do group work and things like that. And so what you're talking about is, , this idea that we can, like, we know who the best teachers are, like they win awards, right? Like, like there is a best seventh grade. Uh, biology teacher, there is the best 11th grade physics teacher, right? Like these are awards that get doled out. And so, um, shamatha, who's a well-known venture capitalist and early Facebook executive. , I, I listened to him on a couple podcasts, gonna talk about this idea of, , finding these best teachers paying them like Steph Curry, like $30 million a year, like paying them like NBA all-stars because they are like, they're the all-stars of their. And if they were teaching all of America's children, they should be compensated for it. And so the idea would be that lecture component of the lecture and lab class, the lecture component would be taught by these all-stars. Because they've been recognized as being the best in their particular subject and their particular grade level. And then locally, you would have a teacher reinforcing those concepts in more of a lab setting, working directly with students. And you can get more granular than that too. Right? So we talk about differentiated learning and different kids have different needs and learning. That lecture, that may be 10 different lectures, right. That may be specific geographically or at an aptitude level or something else that's called differentiation. , and the cool thing about this too, is we go back to it. It's like those lessons don't change. You can do the same lesson year to year minor things might change. , but, but the concepts will stay the same. And so if we invest in this immense of library, of these lectures that we can then kind of standardize in a way for different, grade levels and demographics and, , aptitude and things like that, , and then bring it into, let kids actually work with it in a local setting with a teacher. That's not that all-star teacher, but, someone who has. , more like typical teacher, I guess you could say so. Yeah, I think it's a really interesting model. Obviously. I don't think teachers unions are going to be very excited about it, but, um, but I think that, that, , we, we already have all this access with YouTube and, and other things like that. , the question is how do we get kids interacting with it and how do we get them internalizing it and getting excited about it and being proficient in it at the local. Yeah. , and being able to also, , I like the adaptability aspect of it too, where not only do you have a catalog of, of content, but then also as things change, , you could swap out that one module, , versus having to start from square one again. And it just, , yeah, if you think about every teacher in America, every teacher in the world, You know, I would say probably 98% of them write their lessons themselves. That's crazy. They're all teaching the same stuff. Right? Like my kids in first grade, first grade math doesn't change a whole. From Virginia to Louisiana. Right. And from year to year, it's just, it just doesn't. So like, why are we expecting all these teachers to do all this work outside of the classroom to prepare all these lessons? When in reality they're all just teaching the same thing. Right? So, uh, I just think that there's, this, there's a whole lot of waste there as far as, , we're not utilizing resources properly. And I think that we could do a better job. Yeah. Yeah. Amen to that. , well, man, thank you so much for your time. This has been a delightful conversation. What projects are you working on right now? Yeah, so it's actually, the kind of future. So I've started the book after my experience starting, , edit video calls.com, which I just, as my clients were coming to me and they're like, Hey, we can't film anything, but we have all these zoom calls. I think there's some good stuff in here. Like what can we do anything with this? And so that was kind of the early iteration of that was, Hey, send us your zoom recordings. And we're going to find little shareable pieces and we'll put them into a branded template with a catchy headline. And, and captions at the bottom. And it was just a way for people to have some video while we weren't able to film anything. And, uh, I, we're still doing some version of that. , but I think that, that my focus, the next focus is on that testimonial piece, because I think , that's a piece that people can really get behind us. Like, yeah, this is valuable content to have. So my goal is to work with a hundred creators. So those would be people that have high ticket courses, mastermind groups, things like that. And we'll go and we'll interview some of their best students and we'll create a whole package of testimonial related videos for them that they can put on their sales pages, or they can share on social media and things like that. So I feel like. That's kind of like my focus tactile version of, okay, we've gotten all these zoom recordings, we've done, a thousand or so edits at this point. What were the ones that really kind of landed the best? And I think they are those testimonials. And so I'm kind of going to double down on that format. And I think that's going to be really helpful for a lot of people that are selling things that are in like the 500 to 1500. Range, right. Whether I get like that's membership to, , some kind of paid community, or it's a course, or it's a one-on-one coaching, something like that, people that are selling, um, higher ticket items, , I think having that social proof and being able to collect those stories of those best students and clients. That's going to be kind of the thing I'm going to be focusing on at least for the first part of next year. Yeah. And it's definitely needed. And most people don't know how to, , ask for testimonials , are to create them in such a way , that are super, super powerful. You know, one thing that comes to mind too, as you're saying that is taking some of those best students. And as they're, , finishing say, if it's an online course, asking that student, what was their favorite course and why, and maybe embedding that at the end of each module. So they finish a module and, and they either set the stage for the next module that's coming up. And here's why this one, this is what I got away with. That's kinda cool. It's like, you're, you're utilizing that as part of the course itself, instead of just selling the course it, once you buy, then, then it's out. I actually like that. Yeah. It's it's more integrated. I think that's a cool idea. I urge everybody to, to grab this book. Uh, what I like about it is chapter four is not contingent on you reading chapter one. It's a book that you can actually jump around and no matter what area or field that you're in, Patrick writes and speaks specifically to those things. It's 190 pages. So it tells you right then and there that a it's not long and B , that it's digestible. It's not so overwhelming. I didn't read any of this and was like, oh my God, I don't even know where to start. You made it super easy. And it, wasn't a scary notion to take on and you just, you just gotta start and push off today. , my guest today is Patrick Frank author of zoom out the video first playbook. And where do you like to hang out? And where can people learn more about you? Okay. Yeah, I hang out in my living room with my kids. Now I'm just kidding. Um, I guess Twitter might be the best. So I'm pat Frank on Twitter and you can also go to patrick.video and you can drop me a line or send me a video there and I will 100% send one back to you. Yes, he will. I'm living proof of that. So thank you so much, man, for, for coming onto the sales life. All right. Great stuff. Thanks for having me. That's all the time that we have today. Thank you again to Patrick Frank author of zoom out the video first playbook. And this may be the end of the episode, but it's not the end of the road to learn more on never settling and selling your way through life. Head over to marshbuice.com That's M a R S H B U I C e.com and there, you will find thousands of free resources from videos to blogs and of course, podcasts, episodes, In the bottom, right? Is a mic that connects you to me. Let me know what's going on in your life and how I can also help. I'm no hair, but I'm all ears. If you like the sales life consider subscribing to both the podcast and the YouTube channel. 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