Episode 325: Video Content’s Role in Modern Sales and Scaling Businesses

Intro

0:00:18 – (Bob Woods): Welcome to the Making Sales Social podcast featuring the top voices in sales, marketing, and business. Join Brynne Tillman, and me, Bob Woods, as we each bring you the best tips and strategies our guests are teaching their clients so you can leverage them for your own virtual and social selling. This episode of the Making Sales Social podcast is brought to you by Social Sales Link, the company that helps you start more trust-based conversations without being salesy through the power of LinkedIn and AI. Start your journey for free by joining our resource library. Welcome to the show.

0:00:36 – (Bob Woods): My guest today is Alex B. Sheridan, who in my mind is Mister Video when it comes to helping two b salespeople and sales teams use video so that they have their own visual 24/7 sales reps and brand builders for their business. Through his company impacts marketing and that’s spelled I M P A X s.

0:01:50 – (Bob Woods): He guides seven and eight-figure companies to build systems and strategies to drive revenue, build the brand, and empower sales teams through video. With his many, many, many videos on social media, he’s got a lot of them. They are all fantastic. He helps individuals and smaller businesses by using video as well. Alex has also joined the podcast world with his own podcast called Founder Talk, which he launched just a few months ago. So he’s just getting going. So give that a listen as well, or, you know, a view, because as you’d probably expect, it’s available on video as well.

0:02:28 – (Bob Woods): So one more quick thing. Alex is a rare two-time guest here on Making Sales Social. The last time he was on was in November 2022, which is several lifetimes ago in Internet time and video time and social time and all that stuff. I’m really looking forward to catching up with them and discovering how things have changed and improved with video and sales since then. So let’s get things rolling. Alex, welcome to Making Sales Social.

0:02:56 – (Alex Sheridan): Thanks for having me, Bob. It’s a pleasure to be back. And it’s crazy. It’s been almost two years since the first round.

0:03:02 – (Bob Woods): I know, I know. And we’ve communicated a lot just between us since then. But I’m like, should really have Alex back on just because there’s been so much that’s been happening. Let’s just tell the world about it. So our first traditional question is always about making sales social. Here is, what Making Sales Social means to you? And I have a feeling video is going to be involved, but that’s just me.

0:03:27 – (Alex Sheridan): To me, when I hear the phrase Making Sales Social, it’s just meeting the customer where they’re at, which happens to be on social media. Everyone is using their phone. If you’re in line, standing somewhere, if there’s a commercial break, if there’s anything that’s not directly taking our time and attention, for the most part, people are pulling out their phone, and they’re a lot of times, either messaging or they’re pulling out social media. So to me, to make a sale social is to, hey, bring your level of expertise, your knowledge, your insights, your stories, bring them to social media through video, because that’s the closest thing that we have to be in person or on the Zoom call and use it to influence people, to drive sales.

0:04:04 – (Bob Woods): Yeah. Succinctly put. And yet, and you had a lot of stuff going on there. Couldn’t agree more with it all. So you were, as I said before, you were on your show, on our show coming up for two years now. It was like, it was episode 133. I remember that. And we’re up into the 300s now. So it’s so, so it’s been a little. But we do it twice, but we do two a week. So that number’s, like, a little misleading, but still, it’s a lot of episodes.

0:04:31 – (Bob Woods): You’ve been making videos now for nearly five years, and today, this question changed literally about an hour and a half before. Before we, uh, before I played pressed record here, just because I thought it was so impactful. Uh, if you could read the LinkedIn post that actually chronicled your journey in those five years, I’d really appreciate it.

0:04:58 – (Alex Sheridan): Of course. So here’s the post. Nearly five years ago, I made my first video on LinkedIn. It got zero likes, zero comments, and less than 50 views. The next several videos I made, did about the same. Did I quit? Nope. Did I think the video doesn’t work? Nope. I kept going. I kept getting better. It took 100% ownership and I began to learn why certain videos performed and why others did it. I got out of my comfort zone and started trying new video concepts like edutainment, behind-the-scenes, et cetera.

0:05:32 – (Alex Sheridan): I learned how to turn new connections into paid clients on LinkedIn using zero sales pitches. And I continued posting multiple videos every single week on LinkedIn, attracting my ideal clients in the process. Eight months after that first video, I was doing ten to 20k months in revenue. And then my, what was then my side hustle? Thankfully, I was able to quit my full-time job and turn that side hustle into a full-time business in July 2020, right after maybe a few months after COVID hit.

0:06:04 – (Alex Sheridan): Yeah, it was crazy. It was a crazy time when that happened. So in July 2020 when that happened, when I was able to leave the corporate job because of the videos and the content I was doing on LinkedIn, I reflected a lot on how far I had come and how I’d be starting this new entrepreneurial journey. I went back and looked at some of those first few videos from 2019. And in one of the videos, one of the first ones, I’d say maybe it’s the first three or four or five videos I did, I dropped a comment in there.

0:06:32 – (Alex Sheridan): And so this is four plus years ago now the comment said, hey, it’s me from eight months in the future. It’s me from eight months in the future. You got no likes and no comments from this video. But I’m proud of you for not giving up because look where you are today and look where you’re going.

0:06:52 – (Bob Woods): That is, that is so impactful. I’m, that is, that is just so tremendous. And, you know, it, it does take work. It does take, it does take work. It does take time. But, you know, and you’re one example, but there are a lot of other examples from a lot of other people who start using video and they don’t stop. They keep going. So to say that you’ve been successful is obviously an understatement. And you’ve been at the forefront in showing the importance of video content, not only for sales but, you know, we encourage video in social sales a lot. And I’m getting back into it more.

0:07:34 – (Bob Woods): I definitely want to do even more with it. I actually look at your stuff to help me out. Don’t tell anybody about that. But all that’s even, you know, video is more important now than before, ever before. I’m just going to toss this wide open. What have you learned?

0:07:54 – (Alex Sheridan): Oh, man. I mean, are we talking? Are we talking since that, or, you know, since that initial video? Are we talking last couple of years? What are we talking about?

0:08:02 – (Bob Woods): Let’s just go last couple of years, probably. I mean, because, um. Because that’s probably like the Stone Age in terms of. Of video and things like that. I think it’s probably a little more important. Yeah, yeah. You got to talk a little bit more about the past couple of years.

0:08:16 – (Alex Sheridan): Well, I’ll give you the. The past couple of months, what I’ve learned the most.

0:08:20 – (Bob Woods): Yeah. Okay.

0:08:21 – (Alex Sheridan): Cause it’s been a. It’s been a dramatic shift for us in the past two months, even. Cause, wow. From posting, you know, maybe three videos a week on LinkedIn, three or four on TikTok, you know, a couple on YouTube shorts. Let’s just call it under ten a week to now post 40 videos every single week across four channels on social media.

0:08:39 – (Bob Woods): And these are different videos?

0:08:41 – (Alex Sheridan): No, the same videos. So ten on LinkedIn, ten on TikTok, ten on YouTube shorts, ten on Instagram. Now, the days may vary and things like that. The copy may be adjusted, but, but, but 40 plus video. So when you go through a process like that, because. And then I’ll just give you the background in terms of why we did it, my hypothesis. And then at the end, I’m going to tell you whether or not this was right or wrong or what the results I found out, because I think it’s important to, once you test that hypothesis, to report back on what happened.

0:09:08 – (Bob Woods): Yep.

0:09:09 – (Alex Sheridan): So I had this theory, and I said, you know, I really think the time is now to go all in on video. LinkedIn’s got the new TikTok style video feed, or relatively new. It’s pushing video out like it never has before. I said, I just think there’s a window of time right now where if we were to go all in on video, I think it could dramatically transform our business in a positive way. So I thought more engagement, more reach, more leads, more business, more opportunities. And really, for me, Bob, it was. I wanted to push myself.

0:09:38 – (Alex Sheridan): I feel like I have been in this spot. And I think that’s one of my learning lessons with video, are you’ll get to the spot with the video where you get kind of good at it and you get kind of consistent at it, and then you kind of ride that wave for a period of time, and then you look back six months, like, I’m kind of doing the same stuff I did six months ago, you know, which maybe there were some things in there that worked, and it’s good you want to keep doing, but oftentimes there are things we need to change and evolve and we need to learn and grow.

0:09:59 – (Alex Sheridan): So to me it was this experiment of what if we quadrupled the amount of videos that we put out? What would happen? Would the results go up? Would I see the engagement rise? Would I see it pay off? And the second part of that is, if we’re going to do that, what is that process going to be like? What do we need in terms of a process and system? How do we need to adjust the strategy? And then really importantly, what people do we need on the content team besides myself to pull this off? Because it’s not a one-person type of show when you’re trying to post that many videos.

0:10:30 – (Alex Sheridan): So we went through this whole process and I think we’re a couple of months in now almost. We’ve seen everything go north in terms of engagement, reach impressions, inbound leads, new clients, won speaking opportunities, and podcast invites. Everything has gone up as I had expected. But the biggest learning lesson was assembling the right team, and building out a strong system and process that’s very, very tight because you have little to no room for error when you just got that much stuff coming out every single week.

0:11:04 – (Alex Sheridan): But I think the biggest thing was, and I’ll just give you a little bit more of a macro learning lesson, was that it’s possible and you can do it. And a seven-figure business, even a six-figure business, definitely an eight-figure business, can do this. They can go all in on video and get serious about this and post 40 plus videos every single week on social and get the kind of results they want from it, that it is possible and it’s not.

0:11:28 – (Alex Sheridan): You don’t have to be Gary Vaynerchuk or Grant Cardone or any of these huge, you know, ultra-successful entrepreneurs for decades to do this.

0:11:38 – (Bob Woods): Yeah, that’s real interesting that you bring that up because you imagine that, that a Gary Vee or Grant Cardone is going to have like people upon people upon people that just toss at this stuff. You’re doing it, with a smaller team, I imagine. I’m assuming. I’m not really sure, but, um, when it comes to that, people are probably listening to this and they’re thinking, okay, when does this dude actually sleep? Or when does this dude get work done?

0:12:04 – (Bob Woods): How about that? I mean, especially when, you know, we, we still have to sell, we, we, we still have to prospect, we still have to do all that stuff. How are you handling all of that?

0:12:16 – (Alex Sheridan): Well, so that’s where the systems and processes, and the team comes into place.

0:12:20 – (Bob Woods): Right.

0:12:20 – (Alex Sheridan): So I was telling one of my clients earlier, I’m like, I’m actually spending less time creating content now than I was a few months ago. I’m posting three times or more the amount of videos because what I did is I invested back in the business and invested in good systems, processes, and automation and the team. So now I used to curate all my own videos, for example, now I have Brandon, our content director, doing that. I would go through and, you know, trim up all the videos, and then I would send them to editing and the editor would do them, but then I would have to write all the copy from scratch.

0:12:49 – (Alex Sheridan): I would schedule every single post from scratch. I, and now I have people helping me do that. And so I own certain aspects of this process, of course, but a lot of it’s been taken off my plate. So oftentimes a lot of people think, oh, you must be creating content, you know, all day, and that’s all you do. And I’m like, most of my time is not spent creating content. It’s spent with clients, with my team on, you know, events, things like that. This, right?

0:13:13 – (Alex Sheridan): And sure, some of it is creating content, but the systems and processes and then the team is how you scale it without taking a ton of your time.

0:13:21 – (Bob Woods): Yeah. So that’s all great. And if I’m, let’s take this with two routes. Let’s take this with large companies and then with entrepreneurs, smaller teams, and things like that. How would you advise them to get this kind of help, especially with entrepreneurs, people like that, understanding that they don’t necessarily have the budget? At least starting out, hopefully, they will have the budget as things grow. But at least starting out, they don’t have these kinds of teams in place and things like that.

0:13:58 – (Alex Sheridan): Robert? Yeah, I think the important thing to note is this wasn’t my team, how I started. Right. This isn’t where I started. It was a team that I kind of gradually built over four and a half years. I started doing everything myself. I was editing all my own videos. I was trimming everything. I was obviously recording them. Then I figured out one day that, oh, I could hire a video editor in the Philippines and it wouldn’t cost me an arm and a leg, and they could actually take off the video editing that I was doing, which was a couple hours every single day, at least, because I was doing a lot of videos even back then.

0:14:28 – (Alex Sheridan): And that was a light bulb moment for me where im like, huh, this thing called leverage, this thing called, if I can get the right resources and people in place, I can actually really leverage my time to go do things that will actually grow the business instead of spending time doing mundane tasks that I just don’t need to be doing at this point in time. So I think to me, it’s, it’s, if you’re a smaller business solopreneur, you know, you’re trying to grow your business, leverage the resources and time that you do have. Now, if you’re a bigger team, um, I would still have the same advice, although now you’ve got resources to be able to put up behind it. So now you can hire maybe someone in person that can film you, that can be on-site, that can be more bought in and embedded in the team and get better content, more dynamic content.

0:15:11 – (Alex Sheridan): But I would still, for video editing, leverage talent abroad. I mean, I would still hire folks in the Philippines and even for social media management and things like that. So that’s really it. I think you have to start somewhere. So don’t, you know, don’t freak out if you’re, you know, if this was me four years ago and I was like, man, there’s no way I could have that many people on my personal brand content team. Of course not.

0:15:30 – (Alex Sheridan): But maybe that’s a goal to get to at some point. And I think if you’re a big company, it’s like, what are you waiting for? If you’re a seven and eight-figure business, what the hell are you waiting for? You got to build a video content machine today, right? And I mean, if you, that should be one of the number one focuses in your business to be able to grow and scale it without hiring a bunch of salespeople.

0:15:49 – (Alex Sheridan): That’s the modern-day hack.

0:15:52 – (Bob Woods): Yeah. Yeah. Especially because if you don’t do it if your competition isn’t going to be doing it, they probably will be for sure.

0:16:00 – (Alex Sheridan): It’s a guarantee.

0:16:02 – (Bob Woods): Yeah. So before we got rolling, you were talking a little bit about salespeople and hiring and how, and how you’re starting to see the video, and we’re not talking about AI because we could talk about AI and sales and, oh, my God, you know, AI is going to burn everything down and no one’s going to have jobs anymore. Let’s talk about video because you said something that surprised me. So why don’t you go ahead and start with the part that surprised me and then go into that a little bit more just with what you’re hearing and learning?

0:16:36 – (Alex Sheridan): Well, I think in a lot of ways, the modern-day sales rep, as we know it is dying and it will die. In the days of building out these huge SDR teams, these sales develop the people that would set meetings for companies and then the sales executive would come in and close the deal. And that whole structure is. And if you look at all the research in the reports, it’s bloated, it doesn’t work as much. It costs way too much money these days to do all of that, to hire all those people and pay them all this and the benefits and this and that, and it’s just not working as well as it used to work back then when everyone was at their desk in their office. Now people work from home and just the environment. Different people are less receptive to some of those cold outreaches than they were five to ten to 20 years ago. Definitely. 

0:17:22 – (Alex Sheridan): So if you just look at the landscape, it’s kind of. You could look at that and say, oh my gosh. Well, that’s changing. That’s kind of scary. But on the flip side, it’s creating unbelievable opportunities for companies to be able to create more leads, to generate more leads for their business, to create more demand for their business through the use of content, using video as the 24/7 sales rep. Because instead of me talking to you today, Bob, and maybe we reach, you know, a few hundred, a few thousand listeners from the podcast, which is great, but then I’m recording this so I can take this and transform this into five to ten videos that on LinkedIn right now, with the way they’re handing out organic reach on videos. Insane.

0:18:04 – (Alex Sheridan): This could reach a million people.

0:18:07 – (Bob Woods): Yep.

0:18:08 – (Alex Sheridan): So that’s hard to do with a sales team where you’re dumping in a lot of money and resources and time and training and things like that. So I think what we’re seeing just across the board, in a lot of cases, doesn’t mean there won’t be salespeople.

0:18:21 – (Bob Woods): Right.

0:18:21 – (Alex Sheridan): It just means the way we looked at building sales teams and business development departments, it’s getting fewer people and sales rep focused and more video content and AI to be able to scale one person into 20, to scale the founder into five sales reps, because the founder CEO is building their personal brand on places like LinkedIn, or they’ve got sales embedded in their customer buyer journey, or on their website, and when you book a call.

0:18:50 – (Alex Sheridan): So the landscape has definitely changed dramatically. And I was in sales, I did B2B sales for almost ten years. So I live that life. So I’ve been on the other side of it.

0:19:01 – (Bob Woods): Yeah, definitely. So, I normally ask this question at the end, but this is the perfect opportunity to ask it right now. Um, and we’re not ending things, by the way. This is just a great time to ask it. Um, I usually end with one of those what one thing can you do right now? Types of things. So, when it comes to everything that you just said, how can founders and salespeople either start to prepare themselves or start to act so that they’re not left behind with this sea change that’s coming? And I’m going to preface this with when I talk about this with AI, I always say, learn AI, and start talking with ChatGPT, or whatever generative AI that you’re using so that you get to know what it can do, what it can do, and more importantly, how it can help you do your job better. Now.

0:19:57 – (Bob Woods): Now kind of apply all that to, like, video and, and give some sorely needed advice. It sounds like.

0:20:05 – (Alex Sheridan): Well, if you want to get good on video and social media, there are two ways to do it. One, you’re going to go out and try it yourself. Probably makes a long, a lot of mistakes. It’s going to be probably pretty costly in terms of time, resources, energy, and effort. Or you hire an expert to shortcut you as fast as possible to the route of success, and they’re going to embed what they know into your business.

0:20:27 – (Alex Sheridan): And so you’re going to be able to start not on day one, but on day 255. So most people are starting off the race. All right, day one, I guess. How do we record this? What should we say? What do we do versus you starting with an expert on 200, you know, day 265, where you’re starting with the plan, with a process, with the system, with the right team in place, with the right equipment, you know, you’ve got everything that you need.

0:20:48 – (Alex Sheridan): Um, but I would say this best place to start on video. There are videos that you can create now, right today that will help you increase sales, that will help you close more deals. I call those buyer-ready videos. So these are the bottom of the funnel, right? So if you think about the top of the funnel, we’ve got to post videos on social and generate awareness and create demand. That typically doesn’t happen. Day one, you’ve got to be posting for a little while, and there’s social selling. Of course, you can do on day one that would help that, but a lot of times it just takes some time to build up that demand.

0:21:18 – (Alex Sheridan): The buyer-ready videos. An example would be on a website. How do you work with your clients? A video on pricing, faq videos. A video. This is something we implemented somewhat recently this year where when someone books a call with me, they now get an email automatically sent to them with a video. And I’m saying, hey, thanks so much for booking a time with us. We’re excited to chat with you. Hey, just so you know, here is what to expect from the call.

0:21:42 – (Alex Sheridan): Here are a couple of different resources and pieces of content that you’d want to check out before the call if you’re curious. And here’s what’s going to happen after the call in most cases. So again, what I’m doing is I’ve got videos on pricing, videos introducing myself, and videos talking about how we work with clients. I’m just replicating myself to where I’m saying, I don’t need a sales rep to go down all these different avenues now with a buyer, I can do this through video.

0:22:07 – (Alex Sheridan): So I think those are the instant ways that I’d look if you’re like, where do I start? Like I’d probably, I would definitely start getting on social media. And for most b, two B companies, LinkedIn, you need to learn this today, not tomorrow, not yesterday, not three weeks from now, today. But I would also get videos embedded in the sales process and in the marketing process.

0:22:25 – (Bob Woods): Yeah. So that’s something that I don’t, I would bet that most people are not doing just because just because they’re not thinking about video in that way. So it’s like one of the things that, that I’m always talking a lot about is using video indirect messaging, especially on LinkedIn, because it’s very important you have eye contact and everything going on there because no one else is doing it.

0:22:52 – (Bob Woods): Still. No one else is doing it. I don’t know if this is your intent or not, but the way that I see is you’re extending that type of eye-to-eye contact, for lack of a better term, to go through the entire sales process so that there is someone who is trusted, you can trust the other person on, on the sales end of things, for lack of a better phrase, because they’re appearing to you all the time. They, also become top, I just had this thought. They also become top of mind with you, too, as you’re, and hopefully, your product becomes top of mind as well as you’re going through everything. Is that, I mean, am I on the right track?

0:23:32 – (Alex Sheridan): Definitely. I mean, so the video DM’s on LinkedIn, meaning that you pull out your phone and you still got to do it on mobile now, and you find someone that you’re connected to and you find them, maybe you engage with them first, whatever it is, and now you’re sending them a video DM on LinkedIn, that, to me, I’m sure you would agree, is more social selling. Right? We’re not trying to create demand, we’re trying to reach out to a specific person with a specific request or whatever it might be.

0:23:56 – (Alex Sheridan): I think those are tremendous. And we studied that across the board. We almost created an app around this exact thing where we studied over 1000 people, a thousand different DM’s that were sent across the board through a lot of different sales reps. And the conversion rates were anywhere from eight to 15%, which is pretty freaking good when you’re talking about cold outreach, right? In terms of booking meetings, eight to 15%, somewhere around that range.

0:24:17 – (Alex Sheridan): So yeah, I think all that’s great. And then to your point, once you get people in and that the DM’s are something you can do on day one, you can start LinkedIn today and start doing that. And start drumming out meetings on the first day of doing it.

0:24:29 – (Bob Woods): Yeah, you don’t need or go entertainment or whatever. It’s just you talking to someone one on one.

0:24:35 – (Alex Sheridan): And then you’re posting content and your profile is set up the right way to where you’ve got a clear path to conversion. And so they go to your profile, they start seeing your content now because you’ve engaged with them. This is how the LinkedIn algorithm works. And then to your point, you’re top of mind. So I’ve got prospects or former clients that literally, I talked to a former client now earlier today that’s going to sign up with us.

0:24:56 – (Alex Sheridan): He had been seeing my videos for the last few months. I worked with them maybe a year, year and a half ago. We had a nice six-month engagement. And then he moved his way and I moved my way and we kind of, I’ve changed a little bit on how we offer our services. But he’s seen my videos and said, I really like what you’re doing. I want to learn how to do this in my business. You talked about this, this, and this.

0:25:14 – (Alex Sheridan): I’d like to, you know, clarify some things and maybe see if we can partner. And now he’s going to become a client again. So that doesn’t happen if I don’t put out content consistently in the feed. So you’re staying top of mind for prospects and your pipeline. You’re staying top of mind for former clients and you’re staying top of mind for current clients, which is always good.

0:25:31 – (Bob Woods): Yeah, absolutely. And I think that you hit upon the key, which is consistency. You have to be consistent, which I think is so important. One thing that we actually hadn’t discussed before, but I wanted to get your take on it, and I guess you could probably take this just from not only your own social presence but also what you teach and train on others. Because we at social sales link, we integrate video, but we do also, we also encourage regular posts, we also encourage ebook posts, we also encourage polls, and things like that.

0:26:12 – (Bob Woods): When you take someone in as a client, are you concentrating on just video or are you using all those others as well? Maybe with more of a concentration on video?

0:26:21 – (Alex Sheridan): I would say it’s 80% of its video.

0:26:25 – (Bob Woods): Okay.

0:26:25 – (Alex Sheridan): Yeah. Only because, you know, the video content is on the website. The video content is, if you look at the social media platforms, it’s just predominantly video content, especially now with LinkedIn and the new TikTok-style video feed. So I would say, yeah, 80%. But it doesn’t mean that if there’s another, like, we still believe in posting picture posts on LinkedIn with a good story that ties back into the business, those get great reach.

0:26:48 – (Alex Sheridan): So something that’s.

0:26:49 – (Bob Woods): Yeah, and actually your, your post that started out, this whole thing today was actually a post with a photo. So.

0:26:58 – (Alex Sheridan): Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean, look, anything that works, we want to leverage it. We just believe that you’re going to get the most kind of bang for your buck out of video today because of all the things that you can do. And then you can also repurpose it and use AI to make the text post to turn it into, you know, designs or carousels or other things too. So, you get a lot of reach with video.

0:27:17 – (Bob Woods): Yeah. And then, and then just in case you’re, you’re listening to this, especially if you’re listening to this on your phone and you’re like, wait, LinkedIn has TikTok-style videos. You know, you just, you just launch your, your LinkedIn and there’s, as soon as it tries to get in with my face ID, there is a, there’s an icon bottom left next to your home icon that says video. And you click on it and it’s just like TikTok. You can, you can scroll through, you can, like, you can, I think you can comment. I just, I just, yeah, well, and.

0:27:51 – (Alex Sheridan): Let me say this too because some people might not have that on my home, not yet, at least on my homepage, on the feed, I don’t have that video icon. So if you’re on, but if you’re on LinkedIn on your mobile app and you’re scrolling through the feed, as soon as you see a video click on the, actually click on the video, and then it will take you in the TikTok style video feed where you can scroll and now all of its video and you can like. And comments and things like that.

0:28:15 – (Alex Sheridan): See, someone’s looking like right now. Like, I don’t see.

0:28:19 – (Bob Woods): Yeah, so, so it sounds like that, that is, you know, yet again on LinkedIn’s very slow rollout schedule and everyone has it yet because I honestly, I wouldn’t have known that because I think I’ve had videos since like them, or that actual icon since the very beginning. So that’s actually really good to know. So if you do have it, you can go do it my way. If you don’t have it, Alex has your back on that one.

0:28:44 – (Alex Sheridan): Yeah. And the most important thing, I don’t know if we’re going to get into it, is that I’ve been posting links, I’ve been posting videos on LinkedIn for the past almost five years. I have never seen them give this much organic reach to LinkedIn videos. It is insane. I was showing you before the episode started that in the last seven days on LinkedIn, we’ve got over 603,000 impressions. I talked to LinkedIn last week, one of the representatives, and they verified that those impressions are pretty accurate. I mean, there are some bots and there are some things in there that shifted a little bit, but they said it’s pretty accurate. But we’re seeing single videos get anywhere from 30, 25, 30,000 to all the way up to 100 plus thousand impressions.

0:29:27 – (Alex Sheridan): Not just mine, clients of ours, even people that just started posting up on LinkedIn in the past 30 days, new people that don’t have a huge following. So this is unbelievable. It’s like, I don’t know how long this is going to last. No one does. It’s not going to last forever. We know that. So it’s like maximize that, that, you know, window of time on LinkedIn while you can.

0:29:49 – (Bob Woods): Yeah, because like I said before, LinkedIn, when it comes to social, tends to lag other social networks in terms of features and things like that. So, I mean, you know, obviously on, you know, TikTok is nothing but video. Instagram has been huge in video, for a while now. LinkedIn is on that upward slope, and, an upward slope does mean that it’s, that it’s a bit of slog to get involved, but once you’re on there and you get to the top and it starts going downhill, and this, in this case, downhill, meaning much easier be on beyond that roller coaster. Yeah, let’s use rollercoaster. Be on that roller coaster and really take advantage of the speed that you’re going to get from it. I mean because you can get on it right now.

0:30:35 – (Alex Sheridan): Yeah. Just for the audience because they may be listening to this and. Okay. Got it. I should start doing videos. What types of videos should I be posting on LinkedIn with a new feed? My next question.

0:30:43 – (Bob Woods): Thank you.

0:30:44 – (Alex Sheridan): Yeah, in that case, I would say nine by 16 vertical. So picture the same format as TikTok, Instagram reels, and YouTube shorts. And you’ve got to follow the content fundamentals just like you would on any other platform. This means in the first, 2nd, or two you need an engaging hook which could be a bold statement, a start to a compelling story, or a value tease. Hey, I’m going to show you how to do this without sacrificing this is this right?

0:31:08 – (Alex Sheridan): Any of those types of things can work and then you probably want to be around 60 seconds or less. You can go over that but you probably, just for a safe zone, you probably want to be around there and you want to be dialed into your target clients and their pain points and what they’re trying to accomplish and share your unique, your unique perspectives and ideas and insights to help them.

0:31:29 – (Bob Woods): Yeah.

0:31:29 – (Alex Sheridan): And high-level version.

0:31:31 – (Bob Woods): Yeah, it’s the very high-level version and it’s, and it’s funny you mention that because I was, I was on a, I was on a LinkedIn webinar late last week about, about creating those short-form videos that LinkedIn actually put out itself. And you basically reiterated what was, you know, some of the things that were discussed in that video. So you know, obviously Alex knows what he’s talking about and that just proves that he knows what he’s talking about. So this actually gets into your Be Smart video strategy which I will point out if you go to impactsys.com, Impax s.com,

0:32:06 – (Bob Woods): you can download this. I have downloaded it. It is absolutely brilliant. But why don’t you talk a little bit about the be smart video strategy and you know, being the content, which I think is a really important part of it besides all of the actual, you know, structure that you get from it as well.

0:32:27 – (Alex Sheridan): Yeah. It all came down to this kind of philosophy where it’s stop creating all of your content and start being the content and I’m going to get a shirt that says I am the content because I think that’d be a fun shirt to wear around. But that’s the premise is that, hey, throughout the day were on these podcasts, were on calls, were meeting with the team, were going about our day, were talking to clients.

0:32:51 – (Alex Sheridan): You’ve got content throughout the day. You’re just not capturing it, you’re just not recording it. So the level one to this phase one, the simplest way is just to say, hey, set up your smartphone in your office office and start recording calls and podcasts that you’re on and things like that. Right? That’s what I did for years. And it really worked to help generate 60% to 70% of my video content. What I wanted to do was to take it a step. It doesn’t mean that you don’t create content, by the way, either. You still need to create content from time to time and things like that. There’s always a benefit in doing that, but I’m saying don’t waste the stuff that you have throughout the day.

0:33:24 – (Alex Sheridan): So I wanted to take a step further and say, how do I get out of my office and really give people a different level, more dynamic viewpoint of me and what I’m doing behind the scenes and how I work with clients? And to me, that’s the Be Smart strategy, where we show you in that PDF document that you can download for free on the website, no name or email required. You just can straight download it. It’s ungated.

0:33:47 – (Alex Sheridan): It walks you through the process of, first of all, what do you need to do to be able to set something like this up? What is the process and system that you need to put in place? And potentially who would you need to hire or have around you to be able to create and film you while you go throughout your day? Again, you can do it yourself, but we really show the scenes on how you would do this if you were to bring someone in, or maybe for a seven, eight-figure business, they have someone on staff already, an assistant, and executive, another team member, that they could just have them film a couple of hours every single week. And that works too.

0:34:20 – (Alex Sheridan): So, and then we show kind of the post-production and how you would take the clips, curate the videos, get them in video editing, post-produced, and then post it on social. So it’s kind of that whole process of how do you become the content instead of always having to create it from scratch, which is a massive time saver and it allows you to scale yourself because again, I am talking to a client or I’m talking to you instead of that one on one meeting. Now I can create the content, I can be content to get it curated, get it post-produced, and post it.

0:34:49 – (Alex Sheridan): And now I can get in front of hundreds of thousands of people. So I just created time.

0:34:54 – (Bob Woods): Yeah. Yeah. That’s huge. And. And just from some of the videos I’ve been seeing recently, it seems like you are obviously walking the walk and talking the talk on that, too. So if you want to see examples of this, go to Alex Sheridan’s. Go to his. Where am I going with his LinkedIn profile? Alex B. Sheridan, you scroll down to his content section. You can actually have your videos highlighted in that contact, in that content section directly on your profile. Rather than having.

0:35:27 – (Bob Woods): Rather than having your posts there. Just click through some of those. You’ll see how he does it. And you can possibly get some ideas from that as well.

0:35:37 – (Alex Sheridan): You’ll see us. We’re going through the airport. We’re traveling. We’re hanging out with clients. We’re on calls. We’re walking to the coffee shop. I mean, we’re driving. We’re in an Uber. We’re downtown. We’re recording a podcast. We’re getting footage from just about everything. But at the same time, Bob, as, you know, being intentional, it’s not just recording. I’m ordering a coffee at Starbucks, and I recorded that. And that’s content. No, that’s not content. There needs to be a strategy, and you need to be intentional with it.

0:36:03 – (Alex Sheridan): But if you do it, it’s a. It’s a hell of a strategy.

0:36:05 – (Bob Woods): Robert, by the way, what happened with that one guy who fell down in the airport?

0:36:10 – (Alex Sheridan): The girl who fell. Oh, man. So when. Yeah, so we were just recording, you know, and all of a sudden, this biggest noise hits. And I looked behind me, and it’s. This lady had fallen at the airport. I think she literally ran into the sign. There was nothing else around her. Or maybe she just, like, lost her footing or whatever it is.

0:36:28 – (Bob Woods): Wow.

0:36:28 – (Alex Sheridan): And so it was this funny moment where, like, you know, we’ve. Of course, I was, like, concerned at first. I was like, are they okay? You know, I look back and. But then I saw them start to get up, and they seemed like they were fine. So at that point, I didn’t want to make it more embarrassing for them, because as long as you all take a tumble, right? And it’s like, hey, just ignore it and keep moving on. I don’t want to draw. But.

0:36:46 – (Alex Sheridan): So we just kind of watched, make sure they’re okay. And then kind of after we realized they were okay, and I got up, then I and my content director were kind of, like. We were having a little bit of a laugh about it because it was just kind of funny. It was just funny.

0:36:57 – (Bob Woods): Yeah.

0:36:57 – (Alex Sheridan): Yeah. And then that made its way into our videos.

0:36:59 – (Bob Woods): So, yeah, so my, my actual point there was, was what was going to be, you know, as long as it’s not too embarrassing for, for someone or something like that if, like, a screw-up happens like that, it’s okay to put those in, but you have to show that you’re human, too. And, you know, maybe other people are human. And obviously, Alex didn’t dwell or concentrate on it. It was just like a really quick cut that was funny. And to the video, I think.

0:37:27 – (Alex Sheridan): And by the way, we didn’t show their face. Right. Because we weren’t trying to, like, embarrass them. And then the other thing is, like, most of the mess ups, 95% of the mess ups that, that we show on video are for me, you know, or for me doing something silly or goofy or I messed up something or we do. We have a bloopers reel that’s going to be coming out next week that is just a minute long or so of just me doing goofy stuff or messing up. And so, yeah, I think, look, we’re all human.

0:37:49 – (Alex Sheridan): Um, as long as everyone’s okay and they’re good and they’re healthy and they’re spot like, we got to learn to laugh at stuff. You know, it’s. Yeah, it’s part of being a human being. And that stuff should be in your videos because, yeah, it’s more relatable and it’s. It shows the human side.

0:38:01 – (Bob Woods): Yeah. So let’s talk a little bit about it. Let’s, bridge that just, from that humorous moment in a video to a bit more of an edutainment. So that’s educational entertainment. It’s called edutainment. Um, it’s a subject that a lot of people and companies, no matter what the size, are probably saying, okay, this sounds great, but how the heck do I do that? So, Alex, how the heck do they do that?

0:38:28 – (Alex Sheridan): Well, there’s a lot of ways that you can do edutainment. I mean, it could be a unique setting or following you around with the camera as you’re walking, instead of walking and talking in a unique environment versus just sitting behind your office with your typical background. It could be some unique things that you’re doing in the editing to kind of bring the story to life. Not gimmicky stuff that is annoying, but just stuff that pops up, that relates. If I talk about my LinkedIn profile, then I point here, my LinkedIn profile pops up. And so you got a nice visual to go with it. Or, you know, it could be something where you’re telling a story and now it’s going to the b roll of you doing that. I could say, for example, I could pull that clip that we just showed there about that girl hauling in the airport, and then I could play the b roll of that actually happening behind it. So you’re kind of getting that, wow, this is kind of, I’m being entertained as I’m being told this story.

0:39:15 – (Alex Sheridan): And then you’ve got kind of the next level, which is you could do skits and a bit of acting and you can add some humor in there and things like that. I think for most people, that seems a little out of reach at first in the beginning. But there’s a lot of opportunities, as you know, that I’ve done with, you know, playing different characters or personifications. Or, you know, you can pin LinkedIn versus YouTube and have them be human beings versus platforms. Or you could be talking about Salesforce versus, you know, another platform and kind of personify those and bring those to life. There’s a ton of, or you could play, you know, a CEO and a character and you’re showing some of the mistakes they’re making. Or, yeah, there’s tons of stuff. At the end of the day, I always look at content, especially ads. I think ad, this is, the biggest problem with ads is when I scroll through the LinkedIn feed and I see an ad, to me, the problem is that I knew it was an ad within the first half a second.

0:40:10 – (Alex Sheridan): That is not good. Right. It’s like if your ad looks like an ad and I spot it as an ad and right away I know it’s an ad, then you failed the first step in marketing your services or products. To me, I should look at and go, oh, this is really good. Wait, is this an ad? Oh, wow, I didn’t realize this. Right?

0:40:26 – (Bob Woods): Yeah.

0:40:26 – (Alex Sheridan): So that’s, yeah.

0:40:27 – (Bob Woods): And I think that’s key, especially because, and I don’t know why the, the marketers who, who put together videos for social where, where you get that feeling, aren’t watching the broadcast and, and streaming networks and things like that because they’re putting out videos that are more and more like TikTok videos.

0:40:45 – (Alex Sheridan): Jeff. You know what it is, Bob?

0:40:46 – (Bob Woods): It’s regular ads.

0:40:48 – (Alex Sheridan): It’s the reason that happens with ads and I’ll speak to LinkedIn specifically, is that in most cases, the people that are putting together the creative for those ads are not putting out video content or good organic content that performs at a high level every single week. So they simply are so removed from it that they wouldn’t even know what it would look like to put it in the feed versus us who are putting out content and videos every single week. We know what it takes to get something to perform what you need to say in the first second how the copy needs to be and how it needs to look like an organic piece of content.

0:41:20 – (Alex Sheridan): We know this stuff. A lot of those folks, they don’t know it. They’re removed from it. They’re not creating. You have to be a practitioner. You have to be doing this stuff all the time to really get the full grasp of it. So it’s people in these executive boardrooms and these meetings and they’re saying, well, we need an ad for LinkedIn. All right, well, let’s, let’s make it this font color and this border and this, that needs to say, you know, and it’s like, that’s not at all what we would want to see in the feed. That’s not going to trick it. That’s not going to, no one’s going to think that’s a good organic piece of content. They’re going to think that’s an ad.

0:41:48 – (Bob Woods): Right. And they’re going to scroll past it, which is, sure.

0:41:53 – (Alex Sheridan): Right past it.

0:41:54 – (Bob Woods): Yeah, scroll right past that sucker. So hopefully that wasn’t a little too inside baseball there. But I just think it’s, it’s just, it’s just fascinating when, and basically, if you are doing a video or if you’re doing content and video and things like that, don’t make it look like an ad, like an advertisement. If there’s one takeaway from that, be yourself, yourself.

0:42:17 – (Alex Sheridan): And here’s a solid quick tip on that, Bob. Go for people like how do we make an elegant ad? Go test organic content, see what performs and what people resonate with, and then create something you’re identical or closely related to, or take that and boost it with a CTA.

0:42:32 – (Bob Woods): Yeah.

0:42:32 – (Alex Sheridan): Organic first, then run the paid on the stuff that, you know, already works with the audience.

0:42:37 – (Bob Woods): Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I guess my new, now last question is going to be, you know, with marketing departments at these seven to eight-figure companies, they hear, and probably the C suite, too, and higher-ups there, they imagine their reps using video and they’re like, oh, my God, what are we unleashing here? I mean, you know, some of our reps are good. Some are a little wild. Some are, you know, with that in mind, how can large, how can these leaders ensure consistency in the video messaging coming out from their sales reps across different, across all of these different platforms, mainly LinkedIn. But depending on what you’re doing, it could be other platforms, too, while maintaining creativity and encouraging creativity and engagement.

0:43:32 – (Alex Sheridan): Robert, I think when it comes to, and we’re talking about social media, right? So salespeople creating video content for social media, how do we make sure that the message is not, it doesn’t go against our brand, it doesn’t, you know, violate things? I think at the end of the day, Bob, it comes to trusting, having the right culture and leadership, and then trusting your people. Like, trusting that, hey, you’re a grown adult. You know what our culture is here. You know how, you know, we lead and what’s, you know, expected of you and our values and, you know, how, what it takes to win here.

0:44:01 – (Alex Sheridan): We now trust you to be able to go post content that lives up to that. And are those standards? And I think if the same way you would set any company policy, it’s like, I’m going to treat you like an adult, not a child. So if you’re going to post, like, a great example is, this is my content director just posted his first video or the first piece of content today, and he’s posting a video later on this weekend. I, I’m not worried about, like, oh, is he going to say something that’s off or this or that? I trust him to put together something that speaks to him, that is his truth, and I’ll help him guide him through that process if he needs it.

0:44:34 – (Alex Sheridan): But the other day, I trusted him to post something good. And I don’t mean it’s like high performing, I mean, like, good in line with our values. He’s not going to be mean or post something that weighs out from, you know, way different than what we believe in. He understands what we’re building here, and it’ll have his own unique perspective story, and message to it, as it should. But I, I think you’ve got to have a level of trust with your team, and I think if you can’t do that, then what are we doing here? I mean, that’s how I see it.

0:45:00 – (Bob Woods): Right? Yeah. And, and I do think, and I would hope that the people who are probably doing or who would want to do video are probably going to be more of either, the high performers or more of the trustworthy people in the first place because, because they, they care about not only the company, but their own image and everything else, and, and they’ll probably be okay. But I just wanted to get that out a little bit. More just for those companies that are like, I’m not too sure about this, especially because we see it a lot with, with, with our clients and the individuals coming into us. Like, well, the company doesn’t let us do this because they don’t want us, you know, going off the rails and stuff like that. And it’s just like, you really need to trust your people, I think.

0:45:42 – (Alex Sheridan): What’s the other option? We shackle everyone and chain them up and say, you can’t talk about anything. You can’t have a voice. You don’t get to post content or run it by us before you do. Not five years old. Yeah. Look, I trust you to go do it. And if you don’t do it or you violate something, then we’re going to have a conversation. That’s probably the only conversation we’re going to have.

0:46:00 – (Bob Woods): But.

0:46:01 – (Alex Sheridan): So I think it depends on the size of business compliance. There are a lot of different factors, of course, that would go into it, but I think for the most part it’s people are scared that they’re going to lose people or they’re going to say something or this or that. And it’s like, look, leaders lead the way and empower your people to do the same and trust that they’re going to make the right decision.

0:46:19 – (Alex Sheridan): And if they don’t, then you need to let that person go and hire people that will make the right decision. That’s culture.

0:46:26 – (Bob Woods): Yep. And I think that that’s, that is the perfect wrap for the podcast itself, except to say if our listeners want to get in touch with you or find out more information about you, discover where you’re at, and doing all this video stuff, what would they do?

0:46:43 – (Alex Sheridan): I’d say LinkedIn’s the best place to go for more short-form content, YouTube for long-form. But the website, if you go on that, uh, the front page of the website, you’ll see get my best content here. There’s a tab where you can join the email list, which I only send out once a week. And it’s literally my best stuff. Like, it’s stuff I don’t share on social media. So definitely get subscribed to that. And then the second thing would be, if you’re curious about putting out more video content and being the content versus just creating it, then definitely download that PDF. If you scroll down a little bit, you’ll see the smart video strategy and you can download that with no name or email required.

0:47:17 – (Bob Woods): And we’ll have links to the website as well as to Alex’s LinkedIn profile directly in show notes. Also, don’t forget about the Founder talk. The podcast is available on platforms.

0:47:32 – (Alex Sheridan): Spotify, all of them? Yeah. That’s where I interview founders and talk about their journeys of building scaling and selling businesses, and they pass down learning lessons and insights that are definitely highly valuable.

0:47:44 – (Bob Woods): How’s that been going so far for you?

0:47:46 – (Alex Sheridan): I love it, man. It’s such a passion project for me. Like, I didn’t, I honestly, we’ve won business from it, of course, from having guests on and post-producing and that kind of stuff. So there’s a strategy element to it. I just love it, and we only do in-person stuff that was just a personal choice. It makes it a little trickier, but it’s, but it’s been a fun experience. I really love just having good conversations. Just conversations like this. It’s like good conversations.

0:48:07 – (Bob Woods): Jeff. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And today’s was, I mean, was definitely excellent. I’ve really, really appreciated having you on video for business guru, Guru, and podcast host Alex B. Sheridan. Thank you so much, really, for joining us today. Hopefully, you will start a trend with more two-timers coming back and giving us updates and learnings and things like that since the last time they’ve been on the podcast.

0:48:34 – (Alex Sheridan): I appreciate it, Bob. Thanks for having me on.

0:48:36 – (Bob Woods): Sure. Thank you for streaming this episode of Making Sales Social. So remember, when you’re out about this week and every week, be sure to smile for the camera and make your sales social. Don’t miss an episode. Visit socialsaleslink.com podcast. Leave a review down below. Tell us what you think, what you learned, and what you want to hear from us. Next. Register for free resources@linkedinlibrary.com

0:49:06 – (Bob Woods): you can also listen to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Play. Visit our website, socialsaleslink.com for more information.

Outro:

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