Participants:
Steve Wershing
Julie Littlechild
Julie Littlechild: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Stephen Wershing: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Stephen Wershing: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Stephen Wershing: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Stephen Wershing: Stephen Wershing: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Stephen Wershing: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Julie Littlechild: Stephen Wershing: Stephen Wershing:
Welcome to Becoming Referable, the podcast that helps you become the kind of advisor people can’t help talk about. I’m Julie Littlechild and this week, Steve and I are focused on video. More specifically, the many ways that you can use video to engage with both clients and prospects. Throughout the pandemic, video has become a way to deliver and to maintain a personal connection. But here’s the thing, it’s not going anywhere. Steve and I discuss the specifics of using video at four different stages of the client and prospect journey as a way to add real value. We’ll share lots of real examples of advisors who use video in very creative ways and hope to inspire you to create some of your own. Finally, we examine the technical aspects of producing a meaningful video and make the point that you probably have everything that you need to get started right now. And with that, let’s get straight to the conversation.
Hey Steve, good to talk to you as always?
Julie, nice to see you again.
Well, we’re talking about video today.
Yay!
Yay! We’re going to get, I think really tactical on this one. And we did an episode with Candace Carlton on video that we should put in the show notes as well because I think it fits really well with this overall topic that we’re looking at today. But really wanted to dig in on video as part of the communications process and in particular as a way to really create more connection. Well, let me ask you, I think we’re both seeing different examples of this. We’re both using video in different ways. Why do you think video needs to be such an important part of a communication strategy?
Well, for a couple reasons, one is that that’s what people are doing more now so if you’re not doing the current technology, chances are other people will get access to your prospects and clients where you are not. But also I think one of those things that really has been emphasized during the pandemic is that since we could not get together in person, we seek out other ways and that people really feel like they can get to know you if they get to see you in motion.
If you think way back to the beginning of our project here on this podcast, one of the earlier guests was the founder of GuideVine. And that’s where that all came from is that a key component to determining whether you wanted to go see an advisor or not was whether you thought you would like the person personally. Whether you would have a personal connection and that video could deliver that feeling that people feel like they get to know you a little bit. And so from a prospecting side, there’s that element to it. But also, it’s important especially if we can’t get together in person, that we’re doing things that help our clients feel like they’re maintaining that personal connection.
Well, and we’ve got some examples and different ways to use video but it might be also helpful to just clarify because I think when we talk video, people think often, I’ve developed educational videos say from my website. We saw a lot of advisors doing that and it can be daunting and it’s still a great idea but I think as much as anything we’re talking about, how can I just use video more often in order to create that ongoing connection? Would you agree with that?
Yes. Yes.
Yeah. And there are different tools for that and many different ways to use that. You had an interesting way of looking at it though, that I thought would be helpful to frame the conversation. You said there are four stages to using video. Can you talk us through that?
Yeah. Different ways of using video can be in that four parts of the relationship. One is before you meet, to get introduced to someone. One is a way of meeting. As you’re developing that relationship, as you’re working on bringing on that client, you can use video to maintain a personal connection as they work their way through the process. I’m sorry, as a way of getting introduced. Before you meet would be the prospecting stuff. A way of meeting is that stage where they begin to interact with you, guiding people through the process so you can maintain that personal contact as they go through the initial process. And then keeping in touch with existing clients is that fourth step.
And so maybe we can dig into this and talk about some examples. The first one you met, which I think is really interesting one, which is when it’s still a prospect. And again, creating that kind of connection. Do you have any examples? Or what would you recommend as to the kind of video that might work here?
Well, the first and probably most important is having a profile video of yourself on your website so that if someone gets referred to you, if someone discovers you and they go to your website and they see the messages and they’re attracted to the kinds of things that you do and how you position yourself, they can also then sort of get an introduction to you. That kind of profile video, I think, is the first, most important one.
And one of the ways that we’ve used video a little and I’ve seen it used is to also do that on a more personalized basis. Again, maybe not as slick but the ability to send a quick video that is personalized to the prospect. Just, “Hey Bob, so looking forward to meeting you. Here’s the kind of work we do.” Or, “Here’s what I know about you and we’re excited to talk about it.” It could be a 60 second clip but something about that I think just creates this different level of connection and it’s different enough that it shows you care to some extent as well.
Right. Exactly. And to me, that would be that that second level, that way of meeting thing. Where the profile video that you may have on your site may be relatively slickly produced and has a high production value, people don’t necessarily expect that for one of those introductory videos. But as you’re saying, that can be a very powerful thing. It’s very different to be handed a business card as if anybody did that anymore. But to get handed a piece of marketing or a business card versus having a personalized message come through on video, as you and I have spoken about before on the podcast, that it’s not exactly the same as meeting someone in person but there is that sort of, it’s pretty close in a lot of ways to meeting somebody in person.
And so if you’re sending a video as an introduction to someone, especially if it’s personalized, it’s only inches away from actually putting your hand out and shaking somebody’s hand. You can really give people the impression of standing there in front of you. And when you want it to be personal like that, you’re better off not having it slickly produced because what you want it to feel like is that, hey, there’s a person standing right in front of me and talking with me. If you do that with too high a production level, it won’t feel personal, it won’t feel like a real interaction.
That’s right. You don’t want to a slick thing that you add a personal front end too. It’s not like fill in the blank. Hi, Bob.
Hi, state your name.
Yeah, exactly. And these are pretty easy to do. Once you get over the, how am I going to look and what am I going to say? I think these are pretty easy to do. When you say as a way of meeting, that’s what you mean there.
That’s the kind of thing.
As a way of making an introduction. And I think with referrals, that’s really powerful. Because that’s a different level.
Right. And the cool thing about using it with a referral is that you’ve got the name of the person you’re meeting. You obviously know who referred you and so you can give them a personal message, you can say, “Hey Bob, it’s really nice to meet you. And I was really excited that Sally sent you over and she mentioned this about you.” It’s again, it’s almost like really having a conversation with somebody, even if you haven’t met them yet.
Well, and I think, it also creates this sense of, wow, this person actually put some time into this already. And I do think there’s a level of reciprocity that might come with that. At least we’ve certainly found that. Where I know we’ve been using video a lot and I’m happy to share some examples later is, is more on the, what you called sort of guiding through the process. Can you give me a view on what that might look like for an advisor?
Yes. One of the things that can be challenging for advisors is that if you’re doing a comprehensive financial planning process, there’s a lot that you do in the process and there’s a lot that you need the client to do as well. Pulling together different documents or preparing things for it. And it can really be a great help if you provide little tutorials as you go along the way that if it’s in advance of a meeting that can present what to expect when you come in and how this is going to go. And then as a follow up to a meeting, essentially helping explain the homework to them. Whatever you need them to do next and then what you’re going to be doing in the office. One of the things that I think we both say a lot is that one of the challenges that advisors have is communicating value when the client’s not sitting in front of you.
And so if you have a meeting and the client really likes the meeting and you gather the information that you need and you’re ready to move to the next step of the planning process, once they leave, they don’t realize how much work you’re doing in the office to put together the financial plan or whatever other preparations you’re doing. But if they get a video then a day or two after you’ve been there that says, “Now here’s where we are in the process. And this is what we’re doing. And this is what we’re analyzing and this is what the next step is going to be.” It can really communicate value while you’re working on things behind the scene but it can also keep you in touch with that person all through that process, even if they’re not sitting in front of you.
And I don’t think we can underestimate how hard it is to sometimes digest written documents. This is the area where we found has been incredibly helpful and it’s a different business, I appreciate, but the example hopefully holds. Once we go through a process of crafting a survey for a firm, for example, there’s a lot of back and forth and there’s a point where we send them the recommended survey. Now I defy anyone to just read a survey and know how the data is going to be used and why we’re asking a question this way and how that’s going to tie into the background variables and all of that. We’ve just taken to recording a five minute video that goes with it and says, and I literally am sitting at my computer, say, “Let me walk you through this.” And it gives them context and feedback has been amazing, but also it makes it clear and so you reduce all of those questions that can come up.
Exactly. Now, a lot of advisors also are using a lot more technology in terms of their interactions. I use eMoney like many advisors and that has a client vault. And one of the things that we do is we try to get the clients to hook up all their accounts to that system so that when we go to do the plan, we’ve got updated numbers all the time. They don’t have to bring in a lot of printed statements and that kind of thing. But just like you were saying, giving them a written document that tries to guide them through that platform and get to the right spot and then connect their accounts, that can be hard, even for somebody who’s relatively familiar with technology.
But just like we’ve done in documenting procedures that we give to new staff members, if you just pull something up like Snagit or some little way of capturing video in real time and it captures the screen and it captures your voice, and you say, “Look, you go to this spot and you click on this and you go over here and you type this in and you click that,” and they can see it. Holy cow, is that easier for them.
Hey, it’s Steve. We’ll get back to the show in just a minute but first I’d like to make you an offer. Every week I send out a tip or an idea to help you become more referable. It might be something I’ve picked up during an advisory board meeting. It might be an idea from one of our amazing guests. Every other week I announce a new interview on the podcast so never miss an episode or maybe it’s something I’ve picked up from a new research report and I deliver it right to your inbox. Would you like to become a little more referable each week? Then send an email to steve@theclientdrivenpractice.com and I’ll even throw in my latest alert, Five Reasons You Need to Listen to Your Clients Now Before Someone Else Does. Just put Five Reasons in the subject line. That’s steve@theclientdrivenpractice.com and put Five Reasons in the subject line and I’ll send you your free guide right away and then a little tip about how to become more referable every week. Now, back to the show.
Yeah. And even just going back to your comment on the first with prospects, sending a proposal to someone which again, they’re often lengthy and dry.
Well, that’s a separate issue.
And just being able to say. Well yeah, it is. But let’s assume that’s the case. There’s nuance there. And so again, we’re often recording something that might be even up to 10 minutes to say, not only for whomever you’re sending the information to but it makes it easier for them to share it with others. If it’s, I need to send this to my spouse, it’s just going to make it so much easier.
And let me just emphasize too, you may not even realize how much difficulty your clients are having with this stuff. I’ll give you an example. We were doing an advisory board and we were evaluating the clients, the new portal that they were using, the new vault that people were operating with. And we were asking questions about, how useful do you find it? And one of the questions that we asked was, how easy was it for you to get to learn how to use it? And almost everybody in the room said, “I couldn’t figure it out so I called Pat and she walked me through it.” And Pat was the administrative assistant to the firm. The owner had no idea that 75% of his clients had to call the administrative assistant to walk them through the process.
But Pat knew.
Pat knew. But she probably didn’t make an issue. It’s part of her job.
No, she’s just adding value, exactly.
Obviously there are all kinds of implications to that. One is, let’s just hope Pat never leaves. And another one is how much time is Pat investing in this? That was a real eye opener that what that advisor needed to do was to record a video of how to get into this thing and make that available to a client when they introduced a vault to them. And that ended up saving a bunch of time and being a much better process and a more fail safe process. As you were saying, it can be really hard to walk through a written document, especially when technology is involved.
And do you know, I don’t know if there’s an answer to this question, but it’s finding the line between this will be a great video and they really need us to give them a call and walk them through something. And because there are things where sometimes I feel, it’s almost like we try to make everything another, an FAQ that nobody reads or an instructional video that nobody watches and they are perfect in some places but I think there’s also times where it’s a bit more complex, where they want that hand holding.
Right. Right. And I don’t know that there’s a pat answer to that. I think it’s one of those things that you want to do some, just like you do, you want to do some testing, you want to do keeping in touch with clients. And so if you think that something can be facilitated by video, again, these don’t have to have a high production value. You can do them very quickly and you can do them simply and try it out with a few people and then ask them. And if it’s something that you know a lot of people are going to have to do and it’s exactly the same way for each person, it’s probably best to do it on video. And if it’s something that’s a little more customized or something that’s a little more unusual or differs from client to client, then it’s probably something you want to get on the phone with and coach them through.
Absolutely. You also mentioned a final area to use these videos, which was really just keeping in touch. What are you seeing there?
A lot more advisors are doing sort of video updates as opposed to blog posts or weekly newsletters or that kind of thing. And I’ll go back to someone that we’ve had on the podcast before Brian Fricke, who’s an advisor in Florida and he does weekly videos. His clients all get a 10 minute video, five or 10 minute video once a week. And when we asked clients about that in his advisory board, that’s the favorite part of their communication program to the clients. They love getting them. And we’ve asked a few different ways, a few different times, “What would you change about that?” And then they say, “Nothing. We love getting those things. We love watching them.” And here’s the key thing too for becoming referable, we love sharing those things with our friends. And so if he’s giving a market insight or if he’s giving a financial planning tip or something like that, he’s gone from just hearing about that, I believe to where he encourages people to share that with other folks as a way of getting his name around.
You’re also reminding me that is as great as these tools are, there’s some things to watch out for. I watched a video on someone’s website recently and I will not name names, which was by a long shot, the worst video I have ever seen in my life because it was entirely about this individual. Almost jaw dropping in the level of self involvement. And I thought, I really didn’t understand it but it’s a very extreme example. But we’ve got to be careful that videos are to make connection and they are about the adviser to some extent but as much as anything they’re still about the client and how we can help.
Right. Exactly.
And you also mentioned the advisor doing this on a newsletter. I have to imagine that he’s pretty good on camera. Have you come across people who are struggling with that side of things who feel like, yeah, this makes sense but I freeze up. I’m not comfortable. I look stiff. I don’t know.
Yeah. I know that a lot of people worry about that and a lot of people are stiff at the beginning. And if you’re just totally freaked out every time a camera gets turned on in front of you, then maybe you don’t want to use video.
This might not be for you.
This might not be for you. But a lot of it is just doing it. It’s just getting comfortable with doing it. And again, don’t overproduce it. It’s different to sit there with your iPhone and pretending like you’re talking to somebody on FaceTime than if you walk onto a production set, with lights and big cameras and that kind of stuff. What I find is that, if you’re doing just the sort of small personal thing, if you just do it a few times, it becomes a lot more comfortable. And if you’re uncomfortable with it, try a few out and just get opinions from relatives or a few close friends and see what kind of feedback you get. And if people say, “No, that’s you,” I think that’s a good projection of your personality. I thought you did fine. Even if you think you were terrible, horrible, it’s like, you probably don’t have this experience. But when I go back and read my own blog posts or if I listen.
Oh always.
Look at old presentations, it’s just the worst thing in the world.
No. Yeah, hate watching videos. Do them all the time. Just hate watching the stuff.
Exactly, exactly, exactly. It’s like, I just put together a new speaker reel and I’m looking at it like, oh God, it’s terrible.
I wanted to dig in on some examples here and also maybe we can talk about this separately or as part of sort of the technologies that are available to do some of this. Can you share any just good examples of what you’ve seen work here?
Yeah. One person I wanted to mention is Benjamin Hardy. And so he has written a number of books. I didn’t even realize I had already read a few of his books without putting together that it was the same guy who’s written a bunch of those. And he’s become my new hero because I think he’s coming out with a book a year or something like that.
Wow.
He’s cruising right along. And somehow I got on one of his mailing lists so every day or so, I get this email with a video that he’s recorded. And it’s really, there are a lot of really good lessons in there. And so one of the lessons is he’s sitting in his living room recording these things. He’s not on a set. He doesn’t have any special background or anything and he’s just recording it so you’re looking at him, you can see his living room behind him. You can see the earbuds in his ears and he’s just talking to his smartphone or his web camera, whatever it is, but he’s very focused with a message. And it ends up being pretty effective. Now he’s taken the game up a few notches because he’s inserted a bunch of stock video footage of landscape scenes or people doing things with pull quotes, superimposed over it.
That’s not hard to do but it gives the video a very different feel. And he’s developed a huge YouTube following because all of these things of course get posted on YouTube. And I think he’s built an enormous community, an enormous following just by doing those things. And you have to invest a little time to think through the thought that you want to use to explain to people but my sense is actually producing it does not take all that long. He’ll record his thing. He’ll probably send it to somebody on his staff or a freelancer that he hires to edit it and to put the stock footage in so visually it breaks it up a little bit, makes it a little more interesting and then to superimpose the quotes on it, put a nice title on the front and then release it. But really all in all I don’t imagine that it’s a particularly big investment of time and it’s a great way to get stuff that stuff out there. You can just Google or you can go to YouTube and find Benjamin Hardy and you’ll see, he’s got a gazillion videos up there now.
It’s very technical number there. What else have you seen?
There are a few things that advisors specifically can use. There’s one technology called BombBomb and it’s specifically designed to incorporate videos into email. If you want to send something to your clients or if you want a video that you can send to prospective clients or people that you just meet, that’s one easy way to do it. You don’t have to worry about how you’re going to take this file and stick it in an email. And just automates the whole thing. And so it makes the whole thing easier. Look up BombBomb and I’m sure that there are other technologies that are similar to that.
There are. And we were using BombBomb and somebody raised a red flag to me on security, which is completely unfounded. I have not looked into this at all but it was a good reminder that we also need to really look at the providers. Loom is definitely one that has a big following and similarly, really easy to use. You can record your head alone talking, you can share a screen, you can have both of those things. It also gives in both of those cases, although I think Loom might be a bit more advanced, allows people to add comments, so they can be listening to the video and it’ll say, at minute two they said X. And so I think there’s a lot. But even without those tools, you can get Zoom and just record it.
Yeah. That was another one.
And send it.
And I do that a fair amount is just to record something on Zoom. I open up a meeting, it’s just me in the meeting and I hit record and then save it or you can do it with a guest. And so you can have a meeting and record it that way.
Yeah. And the other technology to consider this really depends on the type of video though, is some form of online teleprompter. I usually really discourage any kind of scripting with personal videos but if it’s something you’re going to use often, it may make sense. But there are some really cool teleprompters that you can have that flows on your iPhone while you’re talking, that’s on your computer. It doesn’t have to be the big setup and they’re free and they’re online. It’s really pretty easy to use.
One word of caution I will have about teleprompters is that until you get used to using a teleprompter a little bit, just be very careful with them because the temptation is to stare at the teleprompter, not pay attention to what’s going on in your face. And I’ve had a number of advisors who’ve worked on doing videos for a blog that they were putting out and they just looked so dead panned because it’s staring at the monitor and they’re reading it right off it, not paying any attention to projecting any emotion at all.
Yeah, it’s really good point.
Before you put it out there, just try it out a few times and then watch the recording and make sure that you’re using expressions on your face. And that it actually looks like you’re having a conversation with somebody as opposed to staring into the lens.
And this is one of these things that over time you just get better at. I always think of it as acting. And it really is a bit that way. I do recall some of the first videos I ever created that I was trying to do in a professional way. And I was working with a guy who did this and he kept saying, “Don’t script it. Don’t script it.” But it was my safety. I just couldn’t get comfortable. And it didn’t work very well. But eventually it was just sort of trusting the process and an editor. Where else in life do we have someone who can just cut out the bad stuff?
Right, exactly. Exactly.
I said, what?
For most people, bullet points probably work better. Have a series of bullet points with the things you want to cover and then just talk about each of them from there, as opposed to trying to script the whole thing out. Because if you try to script the whole thing out, if you’re not good at it yet, if you don’t know how to memorize a script and perform from it, you’ll end up reading it and that doesn’t look good on video.
It really doesn’t. You’ve mentioned a few tools. You can do this on your smartphone. You can do it with a webcam. Maybe it’s worth saying if you’re using a camera on your computer, use a webcam, don’t use the one that you’re looking down at on your laptop. These are things you just sort of figure out once when you do it. But anything else that you think is helpful on the equipment or app side for anyone?
I think we’ve covered a lot of the apps that I could think of to use. And I’ll just reiterate the importance of what you just said. You can buy a decent webcam for 30 or 40 bucks. And make sure it’s at eye level, make sure that there’s light in front of you so you’re not in the witness protection program. And use a halfway decent microphone. Don’t use the camera or the microphone that are in your laptop, get an inexpensive microphone or headset and make sure that the lighting and the audio quality are halfway decent and then just try it out a bunch of times and you’ll get better at it.
Yeah, absolutely. Let me ask you one more question before we wrap up, if someone was thinking about integrating video more, where do you think they should start? What do you think is the highest value thing that they could do on video?
Well, apart from actually paying someone to produce a profile video for your website because having that video on your website, I think is the highest value thing but it’s not the easiest one to get into.
True, true.
That’s one where you’re going to want to bring somebody in and get some production value. But I think having that on your site is if there was one piece of video, that would be the one. But then I think, the best leverage would be just to do little video updates for your clients because you can do those easily. They’re are people who already know and like you. It gives you an opportunity to practice a lot in front of a camera. And so I would just start with little updates that you can distribute to your clients on a periodic basis.
Well and I’ll just pull one other tactical piece and this came up in a podcast that you and I did around content and breaking it down. The idea that sometimes the best place to start with content is to just make note of all the questions that clients have asked you. Just start there, five questions that clients have asked. Because I think that comes naturally in terms of response. You don’t need to script and study. And just respond.
Exactly. And if you do that, if you write down the questions that clients are bringing, chances are other clients will have the same question. There’s a higher likelihood that whatever you’re talking about, it’s going to be of interest to more people.
Absolutely. Well, it was good to talk to you today and this is such a great topic. Thanks for sharing some of those examples. That was great.
Thank you, Julie.
Hey folks, Steve again. Thanks for joining us on Becoming Referable. If you like what you’ve been hearing, please do us a favor and rate us on iTunes. It really helps. You can get all the links, show notes and other tidbits from these episodes at becomingreferable.com. You can also get our free report, Three Referral Myths That Limit Your Growth and connect with our blogs and other resources. Until next time, so long.