Video Kills the Podcasting Stars

Tom Nixon (00:01.662)
Welcome back everyone to Bullhorns and Bulls Eyes. Curtis, I got a two part question for you. Number one, did video kill the radio star? And if so, who or what is it coming for next?

Curtis Hays (00:15.296)
I can’t answer that question. don’t know. Did radio kill? I don’t know. Radio is still pretty big. It is. Especially, you know, is podcasting radio? Could you consider that radio? Or is it its own channel?

Tom Nixon (00:19.762)
Video kill the radio star.

Yeah.

Tom Nixon (00:29.684)
I don’t know. I’ve often told I have a face for podcasting, so it must be somewhat close anyway. Well, if you can’t answer the question, I bet somebody can that we could bring on who probably even got the reference to the Buggles song from 1970. That was it. What’s it coming for next? Which was kind of the serious part of the question, which is, is video going to supplant other sorts of content marketing? We’ve sort of brushed on that topic in the past.

Curtis Hays (00:37.267)
Curtis Hays (00:45.652)
I thought there was two parts. Was that two parts?

Curtis Hays (00:58.728)
Yeah, we have, mean, video, there’s so much I want to do for clients with video. We’ve talked about podcasting, we talked about, you know, shorts and how much they get consumed and all those types of things. But, you know, I have so many clients who are doing advertising. They are so focused at the bottom of the funnel. And I’m like, if you could just give me a 30 second commercial. It doesn’t have to be commercial, just a 30 second video that talks about your brand.

Tom Nixon (01:04.808)
I know you do.

Curtis Hays (01:27.114)
There’s so much we could do with that on YouTube, on social media, know, other channels and inexpensive. It’s just getting over that hump of actually getting something created, which I think there’s two parts to that. And we might cover a little bit of this today that prevents brands from doing this. One is they’re a little scared at the investment and what they’re really going to get out of it because sometimes bringing out a camera crew and doing all those types of things can be expensive. But I think more than that.

They probably don’t know what to say. What is this going to be? And to some company down, a brand down into 30 seconds and try to share something is somewhat difficult.

Tom Nixon (02:13.426)
Yeah, I got a friend who works in production. He’s worked at all the big agencies in town, big projects, you know, flying to LA and shooting trucks, right? And he told me once he said the hardest part is the idea. So I think you’re right. I think I think you’re right. I both counts. Well, we should stop guessing. We should actually bring an expert in to answer some of these questions and more. And you got just the guy.

Curtis Hays (02:35.08)
Yeah. So this expert, I’ve been trying to get on the show for a year. And I don’t know if he was just waiting for us to be legit or not. I ran into him last year at a fundraising event for, let’s see, Rochester Christian University, which I hear he’s an alum. And I was like, man, you got to be on the podcast. You’d be a perfect guest.

Tom Nixon (02:44.372)
Still waiting.

Ryan (02:46.894)
you

you

Curtis Hays (03:04.072)
And I think he was waiting for us to just like actually be a legitimate podcast to join in. And we’re, we’re about to hit that 50 episode mark. So maybe he’s just, but you’re, I think you’re going to be episode 48, maybe Ryan. So just, just shy. He felt just shy the episode 50. but no, you’re, you’re actually, you’re a busy guy, Ryan. You weren’t, you weren’t avoiding us. you’ve got podcasting that you do. You’ve got a business you’re running, tell studios.

Ryan (03:18.348)
Yeah.

Curtis Hays (03:33.588)
So I’m really excited to have Ryan Correll on the episode today. He’s right around the corner from me. You’ve got a facility recording studio in Auburn Hills, right? Over by where the palace used to be.

Ryan (03:46.306)
Technically or in township, but yes, border Auburn Hills.

Curtis Hays (03:48.009)
Orientownship. Yeah. tell us about the, tell studios, you know, how that all gets started and how long you’ve been in business and what you’re doing for brands.

Ryan (04:02.264)
to all the good stuff. Well, thank you for having me. It hasn’t. I just want to say I am I am busy, but I’m not too busy. I’m very intentional with my calendar and how I spend my time. I’ve wanted to be on this since we talked originally, but I think there was just for me like I’ve been through a handful of assistance and people who have been I’ve delegated my calendar to and there I have like five other shows of people that have asked me to be on there in.

It is just, don’t know what’s going on and like why we can’t dial this in, we’re, but we’re, it’s not the case. But yeah, this is normally like, this is my fifth, fifth or sixth episode of the day of for my show. I’ve, I’ve had four or five interviews today. So this is not my show. But I’m, I love doing this. This is so fun. I love talking about the work that I get to do, the problems that we get to solve. I mean, I love how you guys are even talking about

Curtis Hays (04:34.526)
You’re in demand. It’s okay. We’re here now.

Ryan (04:59.064)
the clients that you have, like why they’re not doing video, because we all know that, you know, the quickest way to build trust is in person. Like when you are networking, you know, when you’re hanging out with people, when you’re having coffee, when you’re just being with other people, you get to see what they’re really like, and you get to actually ask the questions and hear the inflections and understand, they really passionate about this, or is this just like,

They have to do this instead of like they get to do this. So, you know, the next closest thing to building trust in my mind, the tool that can be leveraged 24 seven, you create a video that talks to your ideal audience that addresses the number one problem or one of the top three problems that your ideal client faces and in how you solve that problem. Like you can create a video, a 30 second.

piece, not talking about yourself or your brand in here. I’ve been doing video for 20 plus years and you know, we’ve got this amazing studio in Lagaurian and it is cool and those are neat things. But what’s the most important and the most compelling, I think to our ideal clients is that we help businesses make more money, get better leads, save a lot of time, stop repeating yourself. You know, every discovery call, if you’re saying the same exact things,

every single time. It’s like, did you know you could make like a couple of FAQ video or one FAQ video after somebody books a call with you and the next page, the thank you page or whatever, uh, says registration confirmed, watch this video and you, you talk for 90 seconds and just kind of cover, uh, a few of the things that people always ask are the things that you always say they can watch that. And then you hop on a call and you don’t have to talk about that. So I am very passionate about the way that video can be used. Um, my

love for this started forever ago when I was making zombie videos in like seventh grade with my buddy Matt, his nickname was Pup and that’s what everybody knew him by. Never would I have ever dreamed that somebody would have given me money to make video and the first video that I made money on it was like hundreds of dollars and I was like, my gosh, these people are, they not know that I would do this for free?

Ryan (07:17.294)
So, you know, I went to Rochester College. It’s now Rochester Christian University. I worked in the enrollment department. I convinced my boss to buy me a video camera and a computer so could start telling the stories of the school that my life was changed at this university. And I wanted to, I knew that if other people heard about the life transformation that was possible by going to university, by going to this particular university, that that would be compelling for the right students. And so that’s what I got to start doing. And then eventually I was like,

I only want to do video. So I left the school in 2004 and started my video production business and it’s taken on a lot of different forms over the years, but telling stories and really kind of get into the heart and soul of who a brand is, why they exist, what problem do they solve? Those are the things that I love drawing out so that a brand doesn’t have to think about that. They can keep doing the thing that they do and we can help tell the story so that they can get alignment with their, with their ideal.

audience their dream clients.

Tom Nixon (08:14.204)
love it. Curtis. I’m so jealous because for the people who are watching this podcast, they can see of course, Ryan, the video guy has the best frame shot, the best lit room, but not only that, he’s got a voice for radio going back to that and a face for video. What the heck? This guy’s I know he’s got the hair for video too. I just, mean, I’m losing my mind. Well, let’s let’s stroke his ego even more.

Ryan (08:28.238)
You

Curtis Hays (08:31.99)
I’m a little jealous of his hair, right?

Ryan (08:32.426)
man, wow, stroking all the feathers here. This is, man, you’re too kind, Tom. Checks in the mail.

Curtis Hays (08:41.566)
He did, Tom, you, did, Ryan did ask, are we doing this recording over a Riverside or are you guys coming to my studio? So the offer was there for us to come on site and get, you know, the whole professional set up. We might have to take them up on that for a take two. Nice.

Ryan (08:55.032)
This is my home studio, just side note. And I’ve also been collecting lights and cameras and mics for 20 years. So, you know, I’m a few steps ahead of most in that regard.

Tom Nixon (08:58.023)
jeez.

Tom Nixon (09:06.226)
Yeah. Well, alright rain check on the in-person recording for sure. But I gotta tell you a story quickly. There was about a year ago. I was in a meeting with Curtis in a client and Curtis took the microphone to make a point and he said, I saw this on LinkedIn today and Tom, you’re going to love this. And this guy that I follow on LinkedIn said, stop hiding behind your logo. Companies are hiding behind their logo. That was you.

What did you mean by that? And why do you think companies want to hide behind a logo and what should they do instead?

Ryan (09:43.022)
I don’t know what post you’re talking about. No, I’m just kidding. You guys are like, this is what we’re talking about. Nope, no idea what you’re saying. I don’t believe that. Yeah, you know, I work with a lot of filmmakers, right? So like nine years ago, I started coaching.

Tom Nixon (09:45.396)
Yeah

Curtis Hays (09:46.126)
you

Tom Nixon (09:50.494)
Good.

Ryan (09:59.074)
my favorite people, which are people that do this work that get to tell stories using video. And I understand the struggle as a creative, but also as a business owner. And I love the business side of what we do. I love sales and marketing and operations and mindset and all the things that have helped me stay in business for over 20 years. And since the beginning, I’ve been going to video conferences with other filmmakers and, you know, so I have all, all of these groups of friends that, that do this work. And the thing that I find consistently,

with a lot of these solopreneurs is they don’t put their face on their website. They talk in terms of we instead of I. you know, 10 years ago, I think there was probably a little bit more. I don’t even think it was. I mean, it was fine in my mind. My preference is like, don’t do that. Just show up, you know, as you know that, especially today, so many

clients, so many businesses know that, yeah, there’s like people hire, they scale as they need to. So if you need to bring in contractors to do a job, then you bring a contractor. So it could just be one person. Maybe it’s a couple of people. You don’t have to pretend to be something that you’re not. Authenticity is the thing that builds trust is the thing that creates life long clients, creates raving fans.

when you can show up as who you really are, that’s how you’re going to be able to work with your favorite people. So when you think of your favorite clients and maybe a name comes to mind for both of you, or you’re like, man, if we just had this person, you know, time, you know, if they could duplicate themselves, like they’re just the best, like whatever those characteristics are. And there’s something about the way that you’re wired and the way that they’re wired, that there’s this connection. And when you have that, it’s like, that’s, that’s the best.

That’s the best thing. And so when you can show up as your brand, if you are the brand or, know, you work at a, at a large agency and there’s, you know, some key people, but when you can humanize the brand, get the logo out of the way, get the, you know, 50 years in business, like that stuff’s great. And that can help at some point in the funnel. But the, the, we want to do business with other people. And the best way to do that is to show up.

Tom Nixon (12:18.163)
Ahem.

Ryan (12:26.39)
and to say like, hey, we’re real. We don’t have it all figured out. We got a lot of things figured out. We’re sort of experts, quote unquote, in this space. We’ve been doing it for a long time. Made a lot of mistakes to get to the spot where we feel more confident than we did 20 years ago. showing up like that is, I mean, that works for me. I’m drawn to that. When companies show up and you never see

the CEO or you never see the person that works at the desk. It’s like, what is like, what are you hiding? Like what, what is this? Create a connection, draw me in. And, you know, like a great example is like when you sit down with the CEO of a massive company and you actually hear this person’s heartbeat and why they do this work and why they care. And they share a story of somebody that they’ve helped an employee or a client.

Tom Nixon (12:59.357)
You

Ryan (13:21.708)
And you hear these, these real stories that there’s like something magical happens there. And we’re drawn to that. We’re drawn to real stories. We’re drawn to people being open and authentic and, not trying to leverage the power of the brand, but really leverage the power of the story. I think that’s the stuff that, especially as we’ve got AI that’s entered the room and, you know, soulless AI, then like, you know, you’ve got

Tom Nixon (13:44.2)
Yeah.

Ryan (13:49.048)
humans who have this beautiful soul and these beautiful stories. So that’s what we’re competing against. So the people that are just going to use AI to market themselves aren’t going to be working with their favorite kind of people. but the people that are showing up and saying like, Hey, this is where the people behind the brand, like we are the reason that the brand exists. and this is what you get. I think those are the people that are going to, not have as much competition in the future.

Tom Nixon (14:16.88)
Excellent. Well put. Curtis, do you remember that moment when you said, alright, I’m stealing this? Stop hiding behind your logo. Yeah.

Curtis Hays (14:23.196)
I do. Yeah, I do. I just, felt like we were struggling with it with quite a few clients that were helping or brands that were coming to us and asking for help.

Ryan (14:27.982)
Mm.

Tom Nixon (14:33.598)
Yeah.

Ryan (14:34.008)
So what did that mean for you, Curtis? Like, how did you receive that? I mean, I don’t know if I’m explaining it a way that you’re like, yeah, that’s what I thought. Did you think of it differently?

Curtis Hays (14:45.042)
Yeah, so there’s a few technology clients that I have who want to talk about, you know, features and the software and, you know, all these other things yet there actually are people behind the platform. Like literally there are and those faces customers actually see. So why when you’re out doing your marketing, are you hiding those faces? Right? So they’ve, they’ve, they’ve unhumanized a very humanistic thing.

And it’s an education platform. So that was one example. Shortly after that, we did a site for, it’s kind of a home construction, not full home building, but in that home and construction space and very competitive market. And we started looking at their competitors as we were designing this website, you know, taking in all the materials, we felt like we had good storytelling, but they were giving us all the assets to put up on the website and everything was like photos of their work.

And then, you know, we got to the about page and they gave us the about content and there was no photos of them. You know, 30 some years in business, they’ve got all this great work. People are going to be showing up to their home, to your home, right? So you want to know who’s going to actually show up. And so it’s kind of a light bulb that went on. I look at another service business that we support. People again come to their home.

And they’ve got shorts on Facebook that they post of their actual technicians, know, commercials they’ve written that really humanize their technicians, that they have families and, you know, people at home as well. And, you know, they’re able to connect those stories to what they’re actually doing for customers. And it was just really, and they’re having a ton of success in the market that they’re in. And so it was just really dawned on me and what a lot of Tom and I have talked about. He shared with me and educated me on this sort of art of storytelling.

Ryan (16:28.556)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Curtis Hays (16:39.388)
and really connecting with your customers. And it’s like, how can you connect with your customers if you only talk about what you do? And you’re not really having your differentiator in there of who you are. And then what is really, I think we’re in this now as we entered the ever evolving world of AI, it’s really like an age of authenticity. Like everybody’s talking about authenticity now that’s really like cutting through.

all of this technology. I love what you just said, like leverage the power of the story. Like just, just so important. It’s just, it seems so difficult. There’s so much friction to get that story out. don’t know, Tom, and Tom, you’re, you’re good at that sort of in the, interviewing process. I feel like you’re a great interviewer just kind of pulling out that story and then, you know, getting that out and sort of then weaving it into.

I guess what would be storytelling. There’s one thing to interview a client and get their story. It’s another thing to like actually turn that into marketing messaging.

Tom Nixon (17:45.0)
Yeah, and I love to do the output of the storytelling. So, I love getting the inputs, decoding it, and saying, this is what the human who hears the story is going to connect with. But I’m like you, where it’s like a big proponent of, I love to write and I love to read, but like there’s nothing that the written word can accomplish quite as well as a video. Unless, you know, it has its moments, right? A sunny day on a beach, I’d rather read a book than watch a video. But

Ryan (17:54.861)
Mm-hmm.

Curtis Hays (17:54.878)
Yeah.

Tom Nixon (18:13.85)
Ryan, how do we get brands over this? friction that Curtis mentioned either it’s a legacy baggage mindset that this is going to be cost way too much and take way too long or it’s I can’t come up with the idea. How do you help companies overcome?

Ryan (18:29.932)
Yeah, well, let me just add to like outside of hiding behind the logo, there’s also let’s hide behind stock footage. Now let’s hide behind AI stock footage. And when I go to a website and I see the group, you know, multiracial, you know, just hanging out, pretending like we’re all it’s like that’s so fake. You guys, I saw that on somebody else’s website. I said it’s like it’s posed. It doesn’t feel good at all. There’s it’s not.

Tom Nixon (18:37.524)
Hmm.

Tom Nixon (18:41.396)
Yeah.

Ryan (18:59.054)
authentic, like, ugh, like cringe. So first thing is like communicating to the client that’s like fine with using stock and stuff that just doesn’t feel real. It’s like guys, we see that from a mile away and it doesn’t build any trust. It’s like, okay, why are you just using filler stuff? there’s no differentiation here. Our stories differentiate us, our passion.

Tom Nixon (19:02.878)
Totally.

Ryan (19:28.118)
our experience, when you put those things together, there’s no other company that does what we do. It’s similar, right? But like my story is different, my experience is different, my passion, my why, it’s all different. And so how, you know, articulate that in a way where somebody can hear that and resonate with that, show real faces of the real people that are working there, even if they don’t, you’re like, they’re not models. It’s like, that doesn’t matter. I mean, do you not try to sell when like,

Tom Nixon (19:39.284)
Mm.

Ryan (19:58.99)
Do you not hop on discovery calls? Cause you’re like, well, like I, you I don’t look as good as I want to know you get on a call because you need to make the sales. So try to educate the client. So we’re, we’re, are showing up on video or we’re showing up in person, but you know, making a video for our website, there’s this disconnect of feeling like, well, now it’s real. It’s like, wait, no, you just were on calls all day on video calls. Like just take the heart of what you’re saying there. And like, let’s turn it. It doesn’t have to be.

awkward. You don’t have to look into the camera. mean, right now everybody’s looking in the camera. So what if you just did like a zoom call with somebody and you had somebody ask you some questions about why do care about this work? Like, why do do it? Like, what’s what’s it what’s in it for you? Like, what’s a favorite client success story? What’s been like the biggest challenge that you’ve had in this work? Like, break this down? Have you ever thought about quitting and like, what was the thing that kept you going? Talk about real stuff. Okay, like, I’m not answering the question, but I’m just sort of like, yeah.

Tom Nixon (20:49.669)
Ha

Curtis Hays (20:50.014)
But we use that Ryan, let me just add something there that, and I’ll let you get back to what Tom’s question was, but we’re actually doing that with the podcast. that specific example you said where this stuff can be reused, I’ll be on a discovery call with a client. We’ll be talking about a specific topic and I’ll say, you know what, I covered this in a podcast episode. I have no problems sharing this with you right now, but do you mind if I send you an email afterwards? I’ll send you a clip.

you know, right to that section of the podcast, go ahead and listen to it. And then they get to hear us, you know, in an authentic way, naturally talk about it, ask questions back and forth, see how passionate we are about the specific topic, and hopefully learn a little bit more. And we’ve had clients really dig into that of I’ve shared it and then, or before they were clients, prospects who then went and watched four or five episodes, came back on our second call with senior leadership.

and basically said, deal’s done. We don’t need to talk anymore because we listened to five of your podcasts and we’re drinking the Kool-Aid. mean, that literally happened.

Ryan (21:53.154)
Mm-hmm. Yep, yep. And for you guys, you’re like, well, my video stuff didn’t look as good as Ryan’s and my voice didn’t, like his mic is like awesome. But guess what? You got the sale. Like, you know, the things that we tell ourselves, like, well, it’s not as sweet as we want it to be. Yeah, but you did it and it worked because it was real and it was authentic and you showed up and maybe, you know, down the road, you have this internal desire to make it look better or whatever, but.

at the end of the day, like the client doesn’t care. Like if you, if they figure out that you can solve their problem or you’ve talked about all of the things enough to where they’re like, this guy’s an expert. He knows what he’s talking about. That’s the goal is to build that trust. Sometimes we can shoot a testimonial film that looks like this. And it’s just like, wait, that just seems a little too polished. I mean, is this, is this real? Is that a paid actor? I don’t know. So, so we have clients right now where we’re like, Hey, you know what?

Tom Nixon (22:42.804)
Hmm.

Ryan (22:49.464)
we’re actually gonna do this over Zoom or we’re gonna use an iPhone for this. We just want it to have this like, you know, handheld kind of real raw authentic vibe, because that’s what we’re doing. We’re doing a piece for a local college and we want it to have this feeling of like, yeah, it’ll look like a student just pulled their phone out and shot that video. That’s the vibe that we’re going for. So we come up with a lot of different excuses.

like as to why we don’t do video, costs, you know, cost prohibitive. Where do we start? We don’t have the idea. The goal isn’t to make a Super Bowl commercial. I mean, we will make a Super Bowl commercial for you, but it doesn’t have to be super slick. I think there are the companies that are big enough that do that. And that’s all the stuff that we see.

right on TV or when we’re watching Amazon or wherever those commercials look amazing and they’re hilarious and those costs so much money. Like let’s be real, most of our businesses aren’t there and it would be just ridiculous for us to spend six, seven figures on a video. Showing up on a podcast and sharing your story, it’s like shoot, how much did that cost us? I don’t know.

like 35 minutes and it was real, raw, relatable. One of the things that we do, know, client calls us and says, hey, we know we need to do a video. We saw our competitors got one. We want to do one. So we’re just kind of scoping out pricing and all this stuff. What I say, there’s two options. There’s two kinds of clients that come to us. One, that’s probably an agency that says, here’s exactly what we need.

We need this kind of camera. We need these kinds of shots. We’ve got the voiceover. We’re like ready to go. We just need you to put it together, show up with your nice cameras and make it happen. And then there’s the bulk of the people that call us and say, hey, we’ve got some ideas. Maybe we’ve done video before. Maybe we haven’t. We know that we need something in it. We want it to be on our homepage and the goal is this. Okay. So if that’s you, then

Ryan (25:02.934)
really before we hit record, we need to spend some more time building out the plan and really understanding what it is that we’re trying to create, making sure that your team is in alignment, that everybody on your team says like, yeah, that’s the video that we need, okay, versus workshops were done in the past where you’ve got, you know, sales, you’ve got HR, you’ve got the CEO, a couple other people. And the first question I ask in these workshops is like, okay, like,

What’s your, like, I don’t want you to, like, CEO’s going last and the person that called first, they’re going second to last. So everybody else, what’s the purpose or the goal of this video? You got it in hand, what’s success look like? And everybody goes around, everybody has a different answer. So we leave that workshop with alignment. So what I pitch when somebody’s in that spot of like, they don’t know exactly what they want, maybe they’re…

They don’t want to do the interviews, but they’ve got some ideas and questions. It’s like, okay, cool. This is a great start. But before we commit to five, 10, $20,000 or whatever, let’s commit to a smaller amount. Let’s do a workshop where we get your stakeholders together. I’m gonna take you through our framework. I’m gonna ask you a lot of questions and make sure that everybody’s in line with the goal, success.

the keywords that would be used for this piece, all of these different things. And then we build a blueprint and we deliver a blueprint. The blueprint has three different packages that they can pick from all based around the budget that we’ve talked about. And it’s got like, these are the guts. This is if you were to scope this project out correctly to any video company, the things that we put in this document are all the things that somebody would look at and be like, I know how to make this video. I know what it requires versus that same company reaching out to us.

to ask for a quote, reaching out to two other, because we got a triple bid this thing, so let’s call three different video companies. And they explain as best they can. Every video agency owner or videographer is going to ask different questions. Some are new, some are old, some have the experience, they know the questions to ask, and whatever. But they’re going to get three completely different quotes that have completely different scopes and all of the different things.

Ryan (27:15.704)
put this blueprint together to say, you can take this now and now you can go triple bit it if you want. We don’t even have to do it. We got paid for the work of putting together the blueprint in this workshop. And you don’t have to, you’re not coming up with the idea. You’re not coming up with the soundbites. We’re gonna do that. We’re gonna pull that stuff out of you. We’re gonna know that if the goal of this video is to get more sales.

One way to do that is to build trust. How are we gonna build trust? We’re gonna do some testimonials. So we’re gonna grab your three best clients or whatever. And the questions we’re gonna ask are all about transformation. What was life like before working with this company? And what is life like now? We know it’s not perfect, but like it’s better. And why is it better? What happened? What does life look like now? So we know the questions that are gonna get us the answers. so…

Tom Nixon (27:51.38)
Mm.

Tom Nixon (28:02.942)
Thank

Ryan (28:07.724)
And then if we’re doing a brand video and it’s going to highlight the CEO and the secretary who’s worked there for 25 years, we’re going to start with the end in mind and know that, okay, like we need a sound bite that really gets to the why, why this business versus the competitor, what makes you different? Why do you guys care? And so we’re going to have those questions and it’s not like you’re going to get it wrong when we ask the questions. You might not feel comfortable, but after sitting in a 10, 20, 30 minute interview,

Tom Nixon (28:20.756)
Hmm.

Ryan (28:35.982)
there’s gonna be this like rapport and this feeling of like, oh, okay, I’m not on. It’s not like, okay, we’re live and like say all the right things. It’s like, no, no, it’s very conversational. And the more real raw authentic you are, the more that people are gonna feel that. So is that helpful? Did I answer the question?

Tom Nixon (28:51.666)
Yeah. You’re well, for one, you’re hitting all of our high notes. You said the power of why authenticity, what was life like before you hired my client, all of those things that he does. Yeah. I’m happy to know. Yeah. Curtis, I wanted to ask you because going back to our last episode with Matt Luria and you were the one that encouraged him to start a podcast, which was ironic or funny to me because I was the one that encouraged you to start a podcast.

Curtis Hays (29:00.862)
He’s got your framework, Yeah. Very similar frameworks.

Ryan (29:03.371)
Tom Nixon (29:18.046)
But you are the one that encouraged me to incorporate video into this podcast, which was not the plan. You’re a huge proponent of video for all of the reasons. I’m sure philosophically that you and Ryan have both articulated, but knowing you there has to be an analytical reason as well that is rooted in data or facts or something. What do we know about video in digital marketing that could prove the business case to anyone listening out there still apprehensive about doing marketing?

I know for one, we talked about like the the cost say on YouTube is phenomenally affordable. But what are some of those key metrics?

Curtis Hays (29:58.559)
Yeah, well, I think so many brands are not doing marketing at the top of the funnel, right? So top of the funnel, just building awareness and all of these companies are putting all of their money at the bottom of the funnel. And guess what happens when, you you’re trying to drive conversions and everybody else is trying to drive conversions. Everybody’s part of the same auction. And the more people that are part of that auction, they’re going to increase costs. So.

That same sort of home construction company I was just talking about, they, they’ve seen their CPCs at bottom of the funnel. So their cost per click go from like 12 to $15 to 70 to $80 cost per click. Now, if I had a video for that same company, I’m at two cents of view and I could hit do it yourselfers, homeowners at these income levels and these specific areas.

with a video at two cents a view in Southeast Michigan for a fraction of the cost. Think at two cents a view, how many eyeballs I could get on a 30 second commercial. And they would have one click that cost them $80 that came to their website. They have no clue if that was the right person or not. They just happened to search some search term, could have been a bot. And that’s gone. That moment that that person came to your website, if they weren’t captured, they’re gone.

Tom Nixon (31:17.608)
Mm-hmm.

Curtis Hays (31:27.712)
And so, you know, let’s say I want to get to a view a day, a couple impressions a day, at least one view per day, and I get you in that cycle for a month. And now you’ve seen our video 30 times, hopefully I’m on top of mine. And so if you are in market, you’re thinking of us. So that’s where I think that comes from for my clients and where I really want to utilize it. Cause I see how much money is being spent at the bottom of the funnel. And I’m like, man, if we could just move.

a small fraction percentage of that budget up into the top of the funnel with a video and do some brand awareness. Like I think, I think you can really do a lot. And, and now’s the time to do it again, authenticity. It’s your opportunity to tell your story, to really connect with your ideal customer. And, you know, again, it just, goes a long way. Now for me doing video, I was trying to do some stuff on my own.

Like, pre-COVID, I wanted to start doing some speaking engagements. I wanted to start talking about SEO and different things. I got a camera. I was trying to do some stuff on my own. And that just all got shelved during COVID. Obviously, there’s no events, no speaking opportunities. So I shelved that whole thing. And when you came to me with the idea with the podcast, I did want to see if we could do it with the video because I saw the opportunity of utilizing that content. I think I’ve always been a believer.

I’m even more a believer now having actually done it for myself and seen it work. But yeah, I mean, I just, you know, I’ll create 10 different shorts out of a single episode that we record and I post those all over. It was like tons of views. Yeah.

Tom Nixon (33:06.536)
But that’s another metric because our shorts get more views than our full-length videos do, right? I bet we get more video short views than we do audio listens going back to people want to see it’s easy to get video into someone’s feed. It’s not as easy to get a piece of audio into somebody’s feed on LinkedIn. You got to create a video basically to get the audio into LinkedIn, which kind of segues me, Ryan, to a question I wanted to ask you.

Curtis Hays (33:12.986)
by a ton. Yeah.

Tom Nixon (33:35.22)
going back to friction, I think too many people think they do have to make Super Bowl video or it’s not commercial or it’s not worth it or you know, why would anyone want to watch a video about our company? But there’s very non-traditional ways that you can think about video, which is I think what companies need to do now, beside the let’s do the corporate video five and a half minutes and nobody’s going to watch. I went to a website today. I the coolest thing. It was tell studios.com and in the lower right hand corner where you would expect to see a chat bot.

Ryan (33:39.854)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan (34:00.174)
you

Tom Nixon (34:04.926)
There’s this little three second video on loop. I’m like, that’s that’s Ryan. So I click on it and you know, sure, the contact if I can start a chat if I wanted to. But it’s you talking to the person in a very unscripted, seemingly unscripted way in your communicating your brand before I’ve even asked to watch a video. So tell us how you came up with that idea. We should. I’m going to put a link to your website so people can check that out. That was brilliant. And again, non-traditional.

Ryan (34:30.54)
Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I mean, I do stuff like that. I’ve also made like a handful of gifts of me like doing funny like grabbing both of my the plants that are in this room and kind of like between two friends and coffee, you know, just like think of the most popular gifts that you see that you exchange with your friends and I try to recreate those and I send those to people like I make new contacts with people at events. Whatever get ready to do an episode of somebody I’ll text them.

Tom Nixon (34:45.332)
You

Ryan (34:58.926)
whatever, and it’s all sort of like my brand is I just believe in these little touch points that I want people to know that you’re gonna work with real people, real people that care and that want you to succeed and that also don’t take things too seriously and that enjoy these opportunities. I don’t remember, I’ve been a huge video ask, it’s the company, video ask or type form.

Tom Nixon (35:10.025)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan (35:27.214)
fan of theirs for a long time. When I get people to sign up for courses, digital courses or other things that we offer on the thank you page, I usually have a video that says, hey, thank you so much for signing up. I have three quick questions for you. First one is why now? Like, why did you decide to sign up? And then somebody can respond with a video, an audio or a text. And then I’ve got two more questions. Like usually the second question is,

Okay, so if you do this, you go through this course and you do it, what does life look like, you know, after like an ideal state? Like what do you achieve or what do you want to do here? And then the third question, is there anything else you want to share? And when people show up on video, I’m like, this is amazing, right? They’re doing the thing. And, but regardless, it’s an opportunity again, to, to build a connection. had a, I received a response yesterday from a guy and he said,

Tom Nixon (36:05.63)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan (36:16.108)
I love this funnel. This is so cool that you’re, you’ve got this video thing and I’m giving you a video and I sent him a video back and guess what? I don’t care what it is that I’m, I’m, I’m to pitch him something like I’m, selling this, this cohort and he is for sure going to buy this thing because he’s, he’s, the funnel is interesting. And I sent him back a video message to just say to dude, thank you for responding. gave him a thoughtful response and

Yeah, I’ve seen it build trust for our clients and I see it build trust for the work that we’re doing.

Tom Nixon (36:49.714)
Yeah, amazing. Curtis, what’s your final thought? So I know we want to convince clients to do more video. Everybody do more video and it doesn’t have to break the bank and doesn’t have to take forever. What’s your final thought? Maybe a final pitch based on what we learned from Ryan today.

Curtis Hays (37:05.63)
Well, I think the important thing and maybe you need somebody like Ryan to help you, you know, figure this out, but to not try and do what Ryan’s doing on his website or not trying to necessarily do exactly what we’re doing. Like we talked, our last episode was with Matt Loria, which actually Matt Loria is who invited me to the Rochester Christian University. Yeah. So that was the event we were both at together. but, you know, he’s doing his own thing. I mean, he…

Ryan (37:23.714)
Yeah.

Ryan (37:28.055)
That’s right.

Curtis Hays (37:31.243)
came up with this idea of, I have lunch with people and all the time, and I talk to these great leaders. And so, you know, why not just put them on camera and have those conversations and share them with the world? Right. And so he took something that was natural and, you know, I don’t want, I’m going to use a different word other than the word authentic, but you know, it was basically just him, you know, it’s like, Hey, I’m going to do something I do naturally and I do every day. But,

Tom Nixon (37:52.368)
It’s true, though.

Curtis Hays (37:59.979)
but put a camera in front of me and a microphone and record it. And that’s essentially what we’re doing. mean, how many times, Tom, do we have conversations and we’re like, my God, this should be a podcast. Like, you know, we’re riffing on something.

Tom Nixon (38:11.988)
Exactly. Well, I say that about just about everything, unfortunately, truth be told. This should be a podcast. We’re talking about Yacht Rock. Let’s make a podcast about it. I did that.

Ryan (38:16.622)
You

Ryan (38:21.385)
Yeah.

Curtis Hays (38:21.824)
Yeah, you did. So yeah, I mean, I think and just really own it. I mean, that’s like, well, we were three episodes in, I was like, all right, let’s own this brand thing, right. And I brought the hat. Right. And it was like, just, you look, might look like a fool. And half the people are going to say you look stupid. Why are you wearing a hat? And whatever, but it’s just like, own it like, you know, be your brand and do your thing and show up.

be consistent, have fun, be real, be, be, be, yeah, I mean, and, I mean, we are, I know the season two here, Ryan was a little slow for us, like season one, once we got off the board, once we got to like episode six or seven, and then we, Tom and I, what we did was we set a schedule. We’re going to record every

Tom Nixon (38:55.476)
Cause then you’ll keep doing it.

Ryan (39:05.283)
Mm.

Curtis Hays (39:15.136)
Two days a week, I think it was at the time last year, we record two days a week, we’re gonna release an episode every Tuesday, we’ll get ahead, that way we can take a break in the summer. We got through 40 episodes in the first year, it worked great. We got a little slow starting this year, but then I now hired, I asked Claudia on her team, we just had Claudia a couple episodes ago, dude, it’s exploding. Like once I got Claudia on board and she’s now doing the scheduling.

Tom Nixon (39:18.781)
Easy one,

Curtis Hays (39:40.883)
when she had experience in this space previously and she’s reaching out and she’s coordinating calendars and she took all that off my plate. Like we, we hit the flywheel. I mean, we’re going to be booked out for the next three or four months, not because we’re popular, but just because we’re creating momentum and you know, we’ve got the right people doing the right things. We’re having fun doing it, you know, getting fun guests like you Ryan on that really have, you know, good stories to share and really good solid expertise that.

You know, people have an opportunity to learn from and are willing to share, you know, their craft. And you certainly are somebody, I mean, I highly recommend people follow Ryan on LinkedIn. Got a lot of insights in the space. Really, really good stuff to follow. So anyway, those are my final thoughts.

Ryan (40:19.928)
Thank you.

Tom Nixon (40:25.85)
I love it. Yeah. It took quote. think it’s Oliver Perry. I’ve met the bottleneck and he is us. So we had to get out of the way and let Claudia do all this so we could, know, otherwise it would have never gotten done. And Ryan’s a very busy man, too. So we want to let him get back to his day job, which might be more fun than a podcast. I don’t know. Sure. It looks fun. But you have a course, don’t you? Ryan, that you is it a free course that you offer for people who want to get going with video?

Ryan (40:44.973)
Nah.

Ryan (40:51.022)
I should have a free thing. will have a free thing. I’m currently prepping a cohorts that is definitely not free. if there’s so many people I run into that believe like, man, there’s somebody already in our space that already has a YouTube channel. They’re already they’ve got a podcast already doing this. Why should I enter the space? And my encouragement is again, it’s like nobody has your voice, your experience, expertise, passion, your why it’s very unique. You need to show up. There’s a reason you go to library and there’s eight

thousand bazillion books on business is because everybody has a little bit of a different take and The world needs you I always encourage people your message is more important than your mug So get over what you look like get over what you sound like this cohort is for anybody who’s been on that fence That says I know I should be showing up on video. I just don’t know what to say I don’t know what does this even look good Do I sound good do I I don’t know how to start a video or end a video so somebody that wants more confidence on camera that

knows that they should be showing up and that wants some accountability and that wants to do it with a group of business owners and entrepreneurs that are committed to saying like, hey, we’re going to spend six weeks together doing this, learning this. It’s going to be awkward. My first video is going to be terrible. My second one’s probably not going to be much better, but it’s about putting in the work and showing up. And when you get so many videos done, you’re going to look back at your first one and be like, my gosh.

I would have never gotten this far if I never hit publish on that one way back then. I’m so glad I did. So the cohorts, you can learn about the cohort if you go to tellstudios.com slash cohorts. So that’s there. then I’ve got, like if you’re trying to figure out like what video you should be doing for your business, mean, testimonials, super important, testimonials, case studies, FAQs, easy way to save time by just creating some FAQs and you don’t need

all the production things. We’re happy to do it. We’re happy to do it in our studio wherever. But if you want to figure out we’ve got a quiz, you can go to tellstudios.com slash video quiz. Let me just make sure that’s the right URL. Yeah, it’s video slash video quiz. And you can take the quiz and we’ll give you some information on what we think might be best for you. But thank you guys for having me. This is fun. I love your passion. You guys are so kind with all of your words.

Ryan (43:12.694)
and all of the nice things that you say about me. I’m like, I’m to make my wife listen to this.

Tom Nixon (43:12.82)
Ha.

Curtis Hays (43:16.512)
I

Tom Nixon (43:17.694)
Well, we’ll see because you’re, you’re going to pass the final quiz. So we will put all of that stuff into the show notes, but can you answer this one question?

Curtis Hays (43:24.064)
Well, jokes on Ryan though, because he doesn’t realize it’s only our moms who listen to this podcast anyway.

Tom Nixon (43:28.884)
They’re going to like us better than they like you. all right. Final quiz. Who posited that video killed the radio star.

Ryan (43:29.981)
shoot!

Ryan (43:42.51)
I’m sorry, what was the word you said? Positive?

Tom Nixon (43:44.766)
Yes. Who, who posed that question and put it into pop culture? All right.

Ryan (43:50.834)
You know, I’m gonna get this wrong, but I wanna say like Eddie money. The Buggles, you did say that, I heard you say that, I’m like I don’t know who the Buggles are, but I mean I remember the video, I remember it was like 1982, was that the first air on MTV? Yeah, so I did know that. Okay.

Tom Nixon (43:57.16)
You’re in the right era. It was the Buggles, the first video ever to be played. Yeah.

Tom Nixon (44:07.316)
That’s when it was the first video to air on MTV, which I think was 1981 because we last year. Yeah, but the song came out 1979 fun facts. If you want to learn more about that type of thing, go to the IROC podcast out of the main got my plug in. Thank you everyone. Thank you, Ryan. We’ll have you back. It’s my new Easter egg. It’s kind of like it’s my version of your cowboy hat.

Ryan (44:21.966)
There you

Curtis Hays (44:25.426)
Is this your new thing? You’re trying to do this? Is this your new thing? You’re trying to do this on every episode plug? Shameless.

You

Ryan (44:37.174)
It’s not even an Easter egg. Like you just like, you know, no shame, just like, okay, guys.

Tom Nixon (44:41.17)
What’s an Easter egg? If you have like a two-year-old and you hide the Easter eggs like on the top of a pillow. That’s what I mean by Easter egg. All right, Ryan. Thanks. This was fun. Next time at your place in the next time for everyone else right here on Bullhoards and Bullseyes. See y’all.

Ryan (44:46.956)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Ryan (44:53.741)
Awesome.

Ryan (44:57.198)
Thanks guys.