Video Expert Matthew Pierce on Communicating Through the Power of Video: The ROI Online Podcast Ep. 72

But I like to call YouTube the number one how to engine, because you can go learn anything. And what I'm seeing is, which I think is really important for as marketers, and especially as a small marketer. There's lots of competition there. But you can still stand out enormously by being that person that's helpful. And find like, people are looking for stuff. They're looking for answers or going to YouTube saying, How do I do you know, change a light bulb on my GMC truck? How do I do this? How do I do that? And if you can find your, your right audience and the right target there, you can make videos pretty easily that show people and if you've ever seen some of the videos on YouTube, going back to what we talked about earlier, some of them don't look good. They're not shotwell. They're not lit. Well, they're not they don't have a good microphone. But we are desperate for the answers, and we will watch those things. And so I think there's so much to be unpacked from that, because it's really this amazing opportunity that everyone has.

Hi, everybody. Welcome to the ROI Online Podcast where we believe you, the courageous entrepreneurs of our day, are the invisible heroes of our economy. You not only improve our world with your ideas, your grit and your passion, but you make our world better. I'm Steve Brown, and this is a place where we have great conversations with winners just like you while we laugh and learn together. Matthew Pierce, welcome to the ROI Online Podcast.

Thank you very much. I'm glad to be here.

So Matthew, the people that are listening to this, you know, in the first 30 seconds, we have to capture their attention, and sell them on what the content of this episode is going to be about. And in essence, you're bringing us the magic that we need to consider when we want to compete for people's attention. How did you get into this, and what's the big deal?

So there's a lot to unpack there. First of all, let me just say to everybody listening, that you do have time, and you don't have to be 100% polished, you have to be authentic, when you're making video, that's what's really important. Your customer wants to connect with you with an idea with what you're providing them. But they don't necessarily need to see that in full HD, high quality, it doesn't need to sound good. But it doesn't have to be perfect quality every single time. So I think there's a lot of misconceptions about what it means to make video and how hard it is, it's we've come such a long way. I mean, we literally all have a video studio in our pocket. And there's lots of ways to get around that if you don't even want to use your phone, if you just want to do other things, you got a camera webcam, and you've got a screen you can can make a ton of messages that are going to be effective and impactful. And not only just for your customer, but think about your small teams and for others you're communicating with the power of video is just so huge. And there's so much that you can do with it.

Stage fright. There's...

A lot a lot of people don't want to see themselves they don't want to hear themselves. That's that's a big thing they have to overcome.

So we have stage fright in our way, but this word authentic. What am I supposed to do with that word authentic just to be authentic? Does that mean like, I don't have comb my hair? What's the deal?

So being authentic is, I think it's really about presenting yourself the way that you want your audience to connect with you, right? Like, obviously, take care of yourself, comb your hair, brush your teeth, do the things so you personally look good. But it doesn't mean that you have to be out there buying 1000s of dollars worth of equipment and gear, over time, you might decide to make investments, because that's going to allow you to up your kind of overall quality, but that's a decision that needs to come in time. First thing I would say to anyone is go out and prove this out, go make a quick video, but show them your audience. You know? Talk to them in a way that you want them to hear your message, tell them the things that you want them to know about or that you think that you know, help them solve the pain points. At TechSmith we're a smaller software company. We're all about helping our customers and we do that in so many different ways. We you know, everything from tutorials about our software to webinars that teach them and they can ask questions to doing all these things that involve video. Because we know that first of all, we can present an authentic voice oftentimes we don't even use you know, we don't hire voiceover talent, like it might be me or someone else in our team that is actually doing the voiceover or, or being on camera. But also then we can we can take that and really be with someone without being with them. Right? Like it's like looking over my shoulder as I walk you through, you know, the three steps to do X, Y and Z with with one of our products. So I think there's this authenticity of, you know, you don't have to you don't have to spend a lot of money. You don't have to hire a lot of actors and talent to do these things. Just be you. And if you've got some quirky personality that you think isn't going to offend anybody, you don't want to offend them. But you know, it's gonna come across and you know, people see who you are. That's great. You know? I'm from the Midwest for Michigan. And we are typically known as they call it, Midwest. Nice. And so that's one of the things we lean into is, we're just nice people, typically. And we just try to say, Okay, how can I help you? What can I do? And sometimes I think some people probably say we're too nice. But you know, that's who we are. And that's part of our culture, and we try to let that shine through.

So Matthew, you're with a company called TechSmith. But we're meeting you in the middle of the story here. So let's back up and figure out, where you got your jobs? What really convinced you that this is an area that you wanted to become an expert in? And then we'll kind of catch up to where you are now with TechSmith. So, give us a little backstory on you.

Yeah, absolutely. So my background is, I was educated as an instructional designer to learn how to create training and education programs, I was always interested in working in corporate environments, you know, learning how to do business. And, you know, the role like most people have probably experienced with some corporate training or HR training, whether it's, you know, data security, or how to prevent harassment, things like that. And as I was trained, in that, I actually started working at a pharmaceutical company and manufacturing plant doing health and safety, you know, a lot of how not to die, which was fun and good. But it wasn't really where I was, I wasn't really passionate about health and safety. And I had an opportunity to go to the small company called TechSmith, about 15 years ago, and they make software and they make screen recording software in particular. So Snagit is a screen recording software that lets you do images, it does some lightweight video, Camtasia does video. So that was my first introduction to using video is, I was applying to make basically tutorial videos for them full time. And I made my first video as part of my job application. And it's really bad, I still have it, it's not good. I'm lucky that their standards may have been a little bit lower 15 years ago. And so as I got into it, like making video for them as just tutorials, like here's how you do X, Y, and Z. And as I've done that I took on a variety of different roles in the organization, as the company built, you know, grew there about, you know, I started about it was about 100 people, now it's about 300. But I've taken on different management and leadership roles, you know, I ran our training team I ran our technical support teams, went over to marketing and took on a video team, and PR, and social media. And as I was doing all this, what I realized is, is I have a passion for video, I think it's a hugely important tool in your toolbox. It's not the only tool not the only one anyone should use but it's one that has allowed me to connect with so many people. Whether it's a personal like I'm answering a question, I make a quick video for them, which is hugely effective, right? Because they feel so special, like, I made you this video show you how to do this thing you've asked me a question about and you made me video? Like, yeah, I made you a video. And then I can reuse that video later if someone else asks the same question, right? And as I learned that I had this passion for it TechSmith started doing some research about the effectiveness of video. And I started going out and speaking to other people who do training and development, learning and instructional design, and I just enjoy sharing this power so much, because I think we've seen this shift, right? I think really with mobile devices, it used to be you'd have to have a studio and it was 10,000 $50,000 or you're renting for, you know, 1000s of dollars per day to now we literally have that capacity wherever we go. And the problem is no one has taught us how to do it. We're also we're also starters, which is which is great, you can still make a lot of great stuff as a self starter, but felt the need to be able to help people to start utilizing the tools that they already probably have. And learn how to do it more effectively. Because it's easy to make a really bad video that goes on too long says too much doesn't say enough. And there's some some simple things that we can all learn that are kind of foundational, that will make us you know, make our messages cleaner better and easier to understand.

So there's a new word here a new term instructional, instruction design. That's new for me haven't heard that before. Maybe I have and wasn't paying attention. Give us some, tell us what exactly that means?

Yeah, so the idea behind instructional design it's at the end of the day, you're building out something. It could be a training course it could be a video, it could be an interactive e-learning module, you're doing something to reach an outcome and that outcome is probably behavior based like I want you to, you know, start using stronger passwords. That's just one example, right? Or I want you to be more safe at doing this or follow this procedure. So a lot of times outcome based instructional design also tends to look at like motivators and perform, you know, more performance based things, and how do we get you to act? How do we get you to understand and learn? It's really looking at how do you put those things together and design something for someone. And if you're a smaller company, you're probably just doing some of that stuff if you have to, or you're buying it off the shelf. But somebody had to make that. And that's typically what instructional designers do. And the thing that I've learned as having worked in kind of the training field and the marketing field, is there's a Venn diagram of like this overlap, because as marketers, we want people to do things we want them to purchase, we want them to click, we want them to sign up or download. And trainers are very much the same, it's usually just kind of different focus, we're not trying to maybe market to you or trying to get you to learn and understand a product or a function. And once someone goes through your marketing funnel, and hopefully purchases from you, if you like us, you have software, we don't want you just to buy it, we want you to actually be able to be successful at using your tool, because long term, that's going to be much better for both of us, because you're going to get the value out of your spend. And we're going to get see that hopefully that return business with an upgrade or subscription or whatever it might be, because you're finding that value. And so the role of an instructional designer like that I am is to get people to, help them find the value in the tool. So that hopefully they continue to stay a long term or if not lifetime customer.

So a lot of us are familiar with a real rough version of what you're talking about when we've gone to YouTube. And we did a search on how to change a light bulb in this GMC truck. Because we went to pop the hood, this is a true story, popped the hood, how hard can this be? I couldn't get my hand in there. I'm thinking I got to take all this apart? And so it dawned on me, why don't I just just use my phone right here and do a search. And sure enough, there was like 15 videos of just regular Joe's like me, showing how to stand backwards and hold your breath and lean on one foot and actually get that bulb in there and what not to touch it was pretty cool. But we do this all the time we don't think about it. And so I think one of the impactful things about takeaways that the folks that are listening to is you're wanting to get someone's attention, you're wanting to connect with them. And one of the most powerful ways to connect with someone is to teach them something. If there is a learning process in your marketing process, you have just gone around a lot of the competition and started to connect with the human on the other end. And so when you're designing an instructional process, you're considering all of these little ways to really make this easy. No?

Yeah, that is absolutely right, And your observation about YouTube is spot on, you know, we say that Google is the number one search engine. And really number two is YouTube, right? The biggest search engine, second biggest search engine is YouTube. But I like to call YouTube the number one how to engine because you can go learn anything. And what I'm seeing is, which I think is really important for as marketers, and especially as a small marketer. There's lots of competition there. But you can still stand out enormously by being that person that's helpful. And find like people are looking for stuff they're looking for answers are going to YouTube saying, How do I do you know, change a light bulb on my GMC truck? How do I do this? How do I do that? And if you can find your your right audience and the right target there, you can make videos pretty easily that show people, and if you've ever seen some of the videos on YouTube, going back to what we talked about earlier, some of them don't look good, they're not shot well, they're not lit well, they don't have a good microphone. But we are desperate for the answers. And we will watch those things. And so I think there's so much to be unpacked from that, because it's really this amazing opportunity that everyone has. And if you look at the youtubers that are out there that are succeeding, a lot of them, they're not marketers necessarily by like education, they kind of fall into it. They're not instructional designers. They didn't go to get a degree that teaches them theory and kind of that, you know, educational background, but they're just scrappy, and they're really thinking about, what makes for a good video? What's going to be engaging? And, what is the very specific problem I can answer or help someone with it? And that's the key, right? Like, you've got to have specific answers to these problems and you know your audience way better than anyone else. And you know what they're searching for, you know what problems they're having. I mean, we've seen this with TechSmith a ton lately, when we've been really focused on doing this, it's just, you know, how do you answer these questions? Like, How do I? You know people are asking questions like, well, how long should my video be? Or how do I remove background noise from my audio so it sounds better? Or, you know, how do I add a light to make my face not so dark? And we can answer those specific questions, we're much better position to make a connection with them, and then inform them that we have products that are going to help them than we are if we just say like, Hey, we have a product, they don't care, because they have a problem. And they need to see that the product is going to solve the problem eventually. But that immediate problem might not be a product problem, it might be another problem.

I want to pause here just for a moment and talk to you about a program that we have just released called ROI Quickstart Academy for authors. Every day, I talk to business owners just like you who struggle with quickly getting their fundamentals in place, we want to create a great foundation, and we want to grow our business. But the things that are in our way, our lack of knowledge about the specifics, we should put in place, what kind of technology? What kind of messaging? And, what kind of campaigns? And that problem exists for authors as well. And we just chill so good with authors because, well, I'm an author, and I understand everything that you struggle with, you have a great idea, you have a great book, but what do you want to do? You want to get your book in front of more people, you want to make it easy for them to find you learn how they can schedule a time to talk with you, hire you for a conference, or maybe sign up for the services that your book promotes. So what is the Quickstart Academy for Authors? Imagine working with a small group of like minded authors, and the experts from the ROI Quickstart Team, it's a great way to get your messaging clear to be confident with the technology in your marketing automation, and how to run a strategic campaign to get you more of what you want from the investment of your book. To learn more about the Quickstart Academy for authors, you can visit roionline.com or click in the link in the show notes below. And now, back to this episode. Yeah, there's a lot of folks listening, they're like going, Okay, this has been in the back of my mind, but I don't know where to start this necessarily. And I think the number one biggest hurdle is that your first is going to be your worst video, okay? You're going to be embarrassed by it. But if you go, and there's someone that you follow on YouTube, or there's someone that you follow, and for example, I've been watching these videos about Subaru, and how Subarus have these all wheel drive systems, right? And so you're seeing all these guys that just having these really rough videos, but they're showing you how they tweak their Subaru, or whatever. But if you go back to their very first video, it's rough. But that's the way you do, you deconstruct someone you follow. And you kind of notice the pattern first, they just started doing it. Then they started to figure out what their unique perspective was. And then they started to refine over a little time. And I think that's the way that the folks that are listening should consider it, is like, just start. Just start doing your reps. And make some ugly ones. Let's be proud of those. Let's put them on the wall. And like this was video number one, but right now we're at video number 700. Who knows? But you have to start somewhere, what are some ways that you can give us to help us like get past those mental barriers?

Yeah, I mean, you've given the first, my first best tip that I can give you is you have to make that first crappy video. There's just no getting around it and you're going to always look back on it's like, oh, what was I doing? But I can guarantee that if you can get that one done, all you then need to do is look at that and say what's one thing I think I could do a little bit better in video two. And then in video two, do the same thing. And, you know? Video 10 video 100 video 700, if you keep doing that, you'll get considerably better over time, but it takes time. And I think that's one of the things I'll just mention is that I think a lot of people fail at making video because they make that first one and they're like, Oh, this isn't good. I didn't like it. You know? And then they don't make a video two. Well, you're never gonna get better but there are things you can do. So I have like kind of an order of operations in terms of things you should invest in first, the first thing is you're going to do, you know, just make whatever video, use your phone, use whatever you've got. But as soon as you're ready, the first investment I'd make is improve your audio. You know, even if your video is not going to look great, it's not going to be well lit or shaky, or whatever your audio really matters, people will stop watching bad audio, they will, you know, we can have blurry video, or we can have pixelated video or shaky video, but they'll probably stick with it if they're interested. But if the audio is terrible, they're not gonna, they're gonna just stop. So that's the first thing. You know, obviously, then you want to stabilize your device, make sure you've got a tripod or something you can put it on. And then you can go to other equipment like then you can start worrying about lighting or cameras if you want to continue investing, but from a practicality standpoint, outside of the tools. Thing is you've got a process, I like what you said about deconstructing Steve, it's it's so important to go see what other people are doing. But don't try to compare yourself to their 700th video, because they'll have done this process, go find some earlier videos of people that you admire and look to see what they did there. That doesn't mean you can't steal good ideas from the 700th video, but go look at those early ones. And then, instead of just trying to freeform thinking you know everything, write yourself a script. It can be tough, it's like what I am going to say? But it will control exactly your language so that way, you know what to say. You don't have to make it up. But you don't have to be good on camera. You know, some people really don't like the idea of looking at a camera. They don't like seeing themselves they don't like hearing themselves. A script helps control some of that. So that's a piece of advice I give. Next is think about what you're going to show what are the visuals? You know? Are you, is it going to be you just talking to the camera like we're doing here? Or, you know, are you going to have a PowerPoint presentation that you're going to record and turn into a video? Do you want, like graphics? And just sketch those out don't have, they don't have to be perfect. They don't have to be pretty, but just figure out what you want to show so that, you're going to get an alignment between your voice what's being said, and what's being shown. And then it's just start putting it together. There's, and there's I mean, there's a lot more nuances to this right? When you start looking at professional productions. But for most of us, it's pretty simple. We don't have to make super complicated things, I would say kind of some rules of thumb to think about as you're doing this is, you know, how do you keep things moving? How do you keep people interested? So changes on screen can help with that. A little exercise that I do, especially when it comes to marketing content is you look at a television show, just go watch your favorite TV show that you're already going to watch. And just pay attention to how often things change on the screen? Did it change from character to character to background, you know, like scenery? Did they they push in, like with a zoom? And I was doing this one, this was a little while ago, as I think I was watching Stranger Things right? And I just started counting. And it was it sounded something like this 1 1000 2 1 1 1000 2 1 1 1 1000, you know? Like, it was just going so fast. And it wasn't that there was lots of like, wasn't random, but it was changing a lot because that is going to draw your attention and keep you focused. So be thinking about those little things. And again, you're probably not going to get it right the first time. Maybe your first video is just literally this, you're just talking. And that's okay. And then figure out like, Okay, next time, how can you add an intro? or How can you add a lower third to introduce your name? Just those little nuances and just practice, practice, practice. And I can say there's tons of videos out on YouTube that are willing to teach you about these things. Here at TechSmith. If you go to http://academy.techsmith.com, we have a whole library of free resources that talk about script writing, storyboarding, lighting, shooting your first video, getting better audio in whatever environment you're in. And a whole course on screen recording. If you don't want to do the camera stuff, you want to record what's on your screen, all for free, and it's available. You know, just go again, http://academy.techsmith.com. And we teach a lot of these basics. And the reason we're doing that because we want people to be successful. We know this isn't easy. It's not, you know, it's not like we they taught us in kindergarten, how to start making video that, you know? They taught us Reading, Writing, Math, no one taught us how to do video and you know? There's room for everyone to learn how to do this, and anyone can make a good video.

I love that. And so I think some of the stages that you need to consider you go through is first, if we're going to be authentic, then we need to just kind of get in there and start figuring out what our unique perspective is. First get kind of the rhythm and our personality, and become comfortable with it. I think that's part of being authentic. But I think one of the things that you said if you're creating helpful content then I think that's going to empower you to be more authentic because you have a unique perspective. And if you think, Alright, I'm going to create a video here, what is it that I can share that would be helpful? And I think you're going to land in more of your personality and your authenticity. Then once you kind of get in a rhythm there, I think you start paying attention to all the technical details and start to get just little improvements over time. Would you agree?

Yeah I would, put your content first, really, you want to focus on what that is. And my guess is if if we were to do like a consulting, you know, if you and I were to talk, Steve, about your business about what videos you could be making, we could probably come up with half dozen to 100 topics that you feel like you have knowledge about, and you know, your audience is looking for answers on. And once we nail that, then we can start taking this content saying, how do we break it down to two manageable pieces that? Because we really want to focus each video to focus on one thing, we don't want it to focus on 2 3 4 things because we want to keep them concise. But we can we can literally map that out. And once you have that, then you've got a game plan to say like, Okay, this is going to get me through 10 20 30 different videos, where do we want to start? Well start with your most important topics, and then just answer the question, like if someone, you know, called you up and said, Hey, I'm having this problem, what should I do? How would you answer that for them? And that that's going to be real. And that's going to be valuable, because you're going to say things to them that you want them to know. And and then you know? You can always do other things to enhance that later on, or redo it. If you didn't, really didn't like the quality of it, but start with the content, then just take that quality issue, step by step. Don't overthink it, just do the first one do the second one, and get better and better as you go.

Yeah, I like that idea. So that's a little bit of your instruction design coming out in you is that so we sat down and thought, All right, what are the top 50 questions I get asked? I think some people go, I don't know what I would talk about, but you have so much that you could talk about, but you're not really giving yourself credit. And so by going through that exercise, and go, Alright, what are all the questions we could answer? And start writing those out. You're gonna have, you're gonna have videos for a year that you could stumble and bumble through that would be somewhat entertaining, but extremely helpful.

Yeah, and I think there's a couple concerns that come up, when I make this type of recommendation, some people actually say, Well, I don't want to give that information away, you know? There's something they feel it's so sacred or so special, they want people to pay for it, which is fair, there's probably in some of that information. My experience has been, the more that I give away, just the more it returns, right? The more we say try to be helpful, the more we give away, like how we do things are some of our secret stuff. It's not really secret stuff, because it's like, well, they could find it elsewhere. So I'm just going to get my spin on it. It just is super, super valuable. And as for you know, bumbling through it, that's okay. If you're really unhappy with the video, there's a YouTube trick that I think works for most questions. It's let's say we talk about the, the biggest way to drive ROI, right? That's a topic your, maybe that's too broad, but we narrow it down but for example purposes. And let's say we made that video first, and we and next year, we're like, Oh, gosh, that video is not very good. It's kind of embarrassing, it's my first one, well, then why don't we do the biggest way to drive our own value in 2021? And then we can replace that old video with the new and updated one. And so, you know, videos aren't going to live forever, you got to think about how you're going to cycle them through. But there's ways that you know, if you're really unhappy with videos, you can redo it, either you can replace it, you can get more value, kind of help people move forward, because my guess is some of those answers do change over time. And if it hasn't changed, great, you can make a video last for three or four years, that'd be crazy. Videos don't, you know, their lifespan just, for a lot of our stuff just so volatile, are so changing all the time that, you know, you're going to have to think about updating it. So those 50 videos now become 100 or 200 videos because you know, you got the 2001 version or the 2021 version, or some other version that you'll need to create, or maybe there's some new ones, like we said this, but now we know this is true, whatever it might be.

So our conversation right now has been probably around marketing or how a business might want to appeal to their potential prospects or audience. What are some other great applications of video uses that we haven't discussed?

Yeah, so I am a big fan of replacing our meetings that we might be having with video, and that sounds maybe like, well, we need to meet because we need to talk about it. I've been in a lot of meetings at a lot of different places, that just end up being information dumps or presentations. And I'm a real big fan of like, what if we take that presentation portion, and we actually make a video, so the person that's gonna present is going to take that, and take time to make a quick video, and then you send that out in advance of the meeting. So yes, there's time that people still have to make it. So people still have to watch it, they can watch it at a faster speed if they want, you know, 1.5 speed is my favorite, because it gets me through a little bit faster without losing understanding. And then that meeting can really be about what meeting should be about coming together and making decisions or, you know, digging into some data or whatever it might be that you need to do, rather than just the information presentation portion. And now, of course, with the world that we live in with a lot more people working from home, if someone can't be there, because oh gosh, little Jimmy had to get on virtual school and I needed to help them. They didn't miss the meeting, you can say like, oh, here's here's the core information that you needed, you know, in the meantime, can can still go forward with the kind of those purposes. In my circles, we like to call this a flipped meeting. So I think that's one idea. I think any long email, you know, I've written out steps to answer somebody, or how do I do this? I think it's a great way to document processes like that as reminders, work with one of our financial people inside of our organization. And they were doing some taxing that I really clearly didn't understand it. And they just said, you know Matt, I do this about once a quarter and it takes me about an hour and a half to remember what to do every time. He said, I just made a video. And it's not for anybody else. I'm not sending it to anybody. But it's like I put that on, it takes me five minutes to review it, I remember what I'm doing, and I'm good to go. So you know, you got your meetings, you can start to replace, you got long emails you can start to replace, you can just start to capture that information that's like, a little bit harder to remember and just use it for yourself or for others, to give them kind of the empowerment to do those things. One of my good friends runs us a businesses, I think he's around 20-25 employees. And he, you know, he's trying to juggle everything like an owner of a business does, right? You're, you're hiring staff, you're trying to bring in sales, you're trying to make things that are still, projects are being managed. And he said, I just started making quick videos about everything that I didn't need to do, that I knew someone else could do. And he literally just put them on an unlisted channel on YouTube so they weren't public and, he made a spreadsheet and said, anytime someone was hired, he's like, I need you to go watch these videos, this is how you do these things. And that just became a great repository for him to get that knowledge out of his head, put it on his employees to be empowered to do those things. And then if they had questions like, Oh, I don't remember how to, you know, file such and such, well, now they could go back to the video without having to take up his precious time when he's, you know, still fighting all the fire. So it took work took time to get him to that point, it wasn't like he sat down and did his 50 videos. But over the course of a year or two, he was able to build out this repository to help his staff really be more successful.

That's smart. So some other things would be like your customers ask you questions about your product. So you can after they do purchase, you can have little helpful videos that would be fun, entertaining, authentic, that would share descriptions or features or unexpected uses, etc.?

Yeah, I think it's great, teache your audience, your customers how to do the things you want them to do. Because here's the thing, if they're not learning how to use it, and if you have to spend all your precious time teaching them how to use it, that's costly. So tutorials are a huge thing, that's something we found a lot of success with, it goes a long way to help your brand as well, because people like being helped, they want to know that you're there for them. We've even found that a lot of people that are coming in to buy our software will look at our tutorials first. And we think they do that because they want to see what it really looks like and what it really can do. And so I think there's value in saying like, it's kind of like a side marketing. It's not primary marketing. But it's like this added value of marketing that people can see your product in action, they can understand how it's going to work. Because it's kind of frustrating to go into a product and you're like, I don't know what I'm doing here, I'm not sure I'm going to be able to do this, especially if it's something a little bit more complicated, or, you know, a little bit more complex to understand. But you can do that on a personal level too. If you're doing any kind of support, make a video, you can then round up those videos, you know, maybe make it a little less personal, don't say their name, but repurpose those videos to be on an FAQ page if you know you know everyday you're answering the same question over and over. Why not put out a video for that and let people self serve. It might seem a little bit more inpersonal than answering a question. But if you're getting 100 of those same questions every week, that's a lot of time that even if you got a quick part on your keyboard, right, like you're doing text a video just can, you can save a lot of time for them and for

You know, you think about all right, Instagram, tik you. tok, Snapchat, all of these, Facebook, they've all taught us that polished content is real obvious. And we don't trust it as much as just someone on a skateboard with a phone. And so it's acclimated us to expect and have a temperament that it's okay, to have this raw video that we're talking about, just produce one, you've got a camera on your desktop, you got a camera on your laptop, you got a camera on your phone, these are extremely doable in the moment on the fly. And they're already produced, you just upload them and then get the link and share it. And it's good enough. Our culture is okay, with good enough on a lot of videos. This removes a big hurdle for you.

You know, the challenge I think a lot of brands feel like is that, they feel like they're going to project something that's not them, or it's going to somehow take them out of the running, because someone's gonna look at and say, Oh, my gosh, that's not very good. I don't want to work with someone that makes not good stuff. But this is where I come back to the helpfulness that if it's helpful, if it's valuable, it's providing value to the viewer. It's whether that's answering a question, helping them understand your product, what it can do understand the process or anything that's kind of related. If I can take value from your video, Steve, I'm going to feel like it's a win. And I'm really not going to care that you didn't spend 1000s or hundreds of 1000s of dollars to make a great video, are there a time and place for those videos? Sure, right? Like if you're going to go to the Superbowl don't record a selfie, you know? But you know, in terms of advertisement, but most of us aren't doing that we're competing on these platforms that are social based or on, you know, we're trying to get attention on Google or, or wherever it is. People want to know that you're real people, they want to connect with you. There's something about seeing people's eyes, hearing their voice and knowing that like, Oh, they're real, they're genuinely trying to answer my questions. And you can feel that coming from them I think that's a huge thing. Now, if you've got something really particular that, you know, you're going to put a lot of money into, like in terms of, you know, advertisements or whatever, yeah, maybe look at your quality a little bit, right, there's time and place for that. But for a lot of the things that we're talking about today, you know, even just what you're doing, you know, in terms of recording a podcast, or, you know, if you want to go live on social media and ask, answer questions for people, we found that this has been a really great way to connect with people. And it's not about making sales, it's about making connections, and helping people and being there as a value. You know, getting them early funnel, and finding them how you can move them into that maybe eventually to that sales point. But right now, just helping them to make sure that they have their problems solved it's just a huge thing. I can't I can't say it enough.

So this on the fly video, there's three things, the speed, you're getting the market first, you're doing something that your competition is considering, but the same hurdles are holding them back. So to quickly do it, the next thing you're doing is connection, you're showing that you're human, that you're just like them, but you're also delivering an experience that they learn. And so those three things there, if that doesn't convince you just to start doing it. And don't worry about all the technical things, but start to show up and deliver on those three things. I think it'd be a huge advantage for you.

And one thing I'll mention about speed, one of the things that I do a lot is I mentioned screen recording. So you know, as a software company, it's a little bit easier to kind of focus because we have products that are on the screen. But think about slides shows, PowerPoints, you can still include your self-camera in that but there's a lot of information you can convey without ever really needing a camera, whether that's showing someone how to log into your site or you know, you're making a presentation that presents a key idea, you can use screen recording tools to make this quickly and I feel like people are so caught up that they have to be on camera and I mentioned early on that that's that's a concern for a lot of people that are not comfortable. They have a lot of fear about that. You know, I don't look good. I don't sound good. My voice is this, my hair is that, I don't have the hair problem because it's gone away but you know. People are so worried about that. But there are things that you can take as kind of almost, I won't even say intermediary steps, it's a step that make it so you don't have to have some of these same problems. And frankly, if you're, you know, if you're a small business owner, and you're trying to do this, or you're, you know, leading a group, and you're like, I really don't like my voice, my voice is not a voice for radio, you might have someone around you that's in your organization as small as it might be, or a friend who probably has a decent voice that you could just say, Hey, would you mind just recording this audio for me? It's a little bit more work, because you're going to have to do some editing or whatever, but a very easy learnable skill. So I don't want anyone to feel intimidated, that like, Gosh, this sounds hard, it's it really doesn't have to be hard. This idea, get go quick, make something relatable, it's you know, be you, be true to your company, or your values. be that person that you want your customers to see. And you'll do great, and you'll make a great video.

So TechSmith, you have an academy, and you have a promo offer. So tell us about the Academy, what it's going to do? What TechSmith could help us accomplish if we want to? And then tell us about promo. Y

Yeah, so TechSmith Academy Free Online Learning Platform, it's academy.techsmith.com. And it is video courses. And a lot of them are shorter, we got a couple longer ones that are teaching these basic skills about video. So you want to go learn about lighting a video, because you're interested in adding lights to your your production, we've got a short video, and it's all focused on beginners and basics. We've got a whole course that it's about, I'd say about an hour and a half long, it's about 30 tiny, two minute videos that talk about screen recording and that whole process and how you can record your screen tips and advice and things you can add to enhance that. We've got videos about audio, if you want to go learn about that we even got some writing helpful help. So more about incorporating images in and also, along with videos into your hope content that you're creating, to make your users more successful. So I should also mention TechSmith has two flagship products that are included in the promo Snagit, which is a screen recording software that does screen capture, it also does lightweight video, I find it's very effective, you just record your screen, you can turn on your webcam, you know switching back and forth between the screen. And then once you hit stop, it's done, it's produced. And you can share it out to a lot of great sites like YouTube or you can put it on Dropbox or wherever you want to put it to share it. We also have Camtasia, which is a screen recorder. So it's going to be able to record anything on your screen PowerPoints, software, you know, web applications, and it's also a video editor. So you can take your camera video, from your phone or from a camera, bring it in along with screen content, you can add a whole bunch of different types of effects like lower thirds, we've got templates there that can help you to get started and building out that, you can incorporate brand colors and little flying effects to give a little bit of that motion and movement. And both of these you can get 10% off on either individual or as a bundle. If you go to techsmith.com you go to the store and you put in the promo code r o i p o d. So roipod.

All right, roipod promo code. Excellent. So to two products at TechSmith. So academy.techsmith.com. And then the two products are on promo as well. So the Academy's free. That's all free right.?

Yep, absolutely free, there is a login, but that's allowed so we can help you understand where you're at in your course and things like that. So Academy completely free, the products Snagit, I think retails around $50 as an individual user price and Camtasia is around $250. Normally, you can get them as a bundle for cheaper plus to 10% off with that roipod code.

So that's a one time purchase? It's not a monthly subscription?

Correct.

And then, so Matthew, how can folks connect with you personally?

Absolutely. So I am on LinkedIn, you can just look up Matthew R. Pierce that's where you can find me there. If you put Matthew Pierce TechSmith I'm likely to come up as well. If you're on Twitter, and that's your preferred medium. You can find me as @PierceMr Then you can check me out there. Or frankly, if you want to email me with questions, I'm always open to that and my email address, which, you know, I don't know if everyone gives out email addresses or not anymore, but m.pierce@techsmith.com that's m dot Pierce p i e r c e @ techsmith.com and I'm happy to you know, if I don't know the answer, I can redirect you to someone who does or maybe I'll make a video.

Yeah, that'd be nice. So, Matthew, what's one question nobody ever asks. But you'll wish they would.

Oh, gosh, that's an interesting question, what questions I wish they would ask? I think you might have stumped me. I usually not lost for words. I will keep it on topic. I think one question no one asked me is, why have I had so many different positions at TechSmith?

Why wouldn't Matthew, I'm just really dying to know, why he had so many positions at TechSmith?

Because I failed at all of them. No, no, just kidding, you know, it's interesting, because I like, once I found out what instructional design was, I said, that's what I'm going to be. And I went after it. And I thought, that's what I was going to do for a long time. And then, you know, maybe be a training manager. And then maybe someday, you know, something, I always thought I'd be in the training division. But when I learned that there's these other roles, I have been so grateful that I've worked for a company that has just been willing to let me try different things. And I'll be honest, I wasn't good at all of them. Like I ran PR for a little while. Oh, that was a little bit of a disaster, I think for everybody. But I you know, way in over my head. But I've learned the reason I have had so many roles is because I love to explore, and I love to learn new things. And for me, that has been a secret for you know, allowing me to be in a position right now where I've really brought a lot of those pieces together in a way that, you know, I'm probably the only video and learning ambassador, job title out there in the world. And it's been such a great blessing to my life because of that, and just the opportunity to explore and try different things so.

All right, excellent, Matthew. So my favorite quote is "what's the number one how to engine? YouTube." Excellent quote, Matthew. Matthew. Thanks for being a great guest on ROI Online Podcast.

Thank you very much, Steve.

All right and that's a wrap. Thanks for listening to another fun episode of the ROI Online Podcast. For more, be sure to check out the show notes of this episode. And feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn where we can chat, and I can help direct you to the resources you're searching for. To learn more about how you can grow your business better. Be sure to pick up your copy of my book, The Golden Toilet at surprise, thegoldentoilet.com I'm Steve Brown, and we'll see you next week on another fun episode of the ROI Online Podcast.