No Fat Cats - A Podcast for Creative Teams

Gabe Petersen was bored and at home scrolling through LinkedIn when he realized that he had a lot of connections.  It was towards the beginning of COVID-19 people didn’t have anywhere to go and were happy to jump on zoom calls, especially if it meant they would get to be on a podcast.

And that is what Gabe did.  With his background in real estate, he started The Real Estate Investing Club Podcast where he has produced over 40 episodes within the span of four months.

What Gabe found worked the best for promoting his podcast was when he created all of the additional content and sent it to his guests as a package that could easily be distributed to everyone and shared on social media.

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Eric Thayne started filming super hero videos as a kid with his friends in his backyard using Hi8 tapes.  He has always loved filming and producing beautiful looking images.

He continued pursuing his passion and love of filming and turned it into a business where he started off shooting anything people would pay him to do.  But he had this passion and desire to get better and produce more cinematic pieces.

Eventually he was ready to take the next big step and spent about $10K on a Canon C100mkii and the original Ronin gimbal.  He went out with the camera, expecting it to look great, but was quickly disappointed.

The images didn’t look particularly cinematic.  He even sent the camera back to Canon, because he thought it was broken.  Canon sent it back saying it was fine.

It was then that he realized that it’s not just the camera that makes something look cinematic, it’s how you light everything you are filming that matters most.

He learned how to improve his skill set by learning from other producers and DPs who were doing the kind of work that he aspired to be doing.

Then he realized that other people were struggling to produce cinematic images as well.  Plenty of people had good cameras, but weren’t getting the look they wanted.

That’s where Cinema Mastery was born.  However mastering cameras and light are one thing, but managing SEO, email sequences and marketing a business is another.

At that point Eric brought on a mentor who had done what he wanted to do to help him grow his business.  And over the years that is what he credits with his success.  It’s the thousands of dollars he has spent on courses, business mentors and coaches that has led to having over 13,000 people take his online courses or sign up for some type of coaching from him.

Check his story out!

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“In 2020, every story is a COVID story.”

For many nonprofits the season between Giving Tuesday, the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, and December 31st is traditionally a big time for giving.  It's an important time for ensuring that the nonprofit can continue to work the following year. During this time being able to communicate the impact of your work is crucial.

When COVID-19 first hit the US, everyone wondered if it was going to be a season, but it’s clear that for those who work globally, this is going to stretch well into the year and into 2021.  The challenge facing everyone right now is how to connect with their audience and tell engaging stories of people triumphing and escaping adversity, while addressing COVID.

Beth Allen, who is the Communications Senior Manager at Food for the Hungry, dives into how they are doing just that.  How do you keep people safe without compromising someone's life just trying to get a story?  If you work around the world, how do you get people to send you content?  How do you adjust your layouts when the quality of your content isn't as good?

Along the way we also talk about what it means to have informed consent for people when you are gathering stories and how to think through the complications of talking about someone’s story without revealing that someone actually had COVID-19 and the stigma that might bring.

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Food for the Hungry

Getting a lot of likes may feel good, but they don’t pay the bills.  If you want to be able to actually make money online eventually you need to bring online followers into a sales process.

Nicki Friis started off doing modeling work and enjoyed all of the attention and likes, but it led to eventually dealing with a bit of depression.  After working through it, he reached a healthy balance where he was able to get back into marketing, but not attach his self worth to the number of likes of his personal content.

In this episode Nicki dives into his current sales funnel and how he attracts potential clients.

We also dive into differences between Scandonavian vs American audiences.  The sales process of having a funnel works the same in both Denmark and the US, but there are differences in how you communicate your offer.

Part of this is probably do to how Danish people compare themselves to others vs how Americans would.  We dive into cultural differences between Denmark with a socialist background and America being more individualistic and capitalist.

However based on Nicki’s observations, he believes that social media is changing culture for the younger generation as they become more comfortable trying to stand out from the crowd and that communications styles are starting to merge in some ways.

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“Every day that you decide not to take action, who suffers the most and why?  The more specific you are about the person who is suffering about your inability to take action the easier it will be for you to take action.”

In this episode with Brenden who runs the MasterTalk YouTube channel, we dive into what it was like for him to be committed to creating his own content related to public speaking. But guess what, Brenden doesn’t even like the filming or editing process.

However he knows that somewhere there is a 16 girl named, “Julia” who is afraid of public speaking, and that if he doesn’t produce his videos with helpful tips she will never improve as a public speaker.

If you have struggled with finding your niche, which I definitely have, listening to this episode will motivate you as a creator, for sure!

When he was in high school Erik was a self described “C” student who didn’t really like school.  He had undiagnosed ADHD which meant that he had a hard time focusing on the right things.

Then when he realized that if he set up systems, rules and productivity workflows that he would be able to get the right work done, he became a lifelong learner of the topic.

He started the podcast Beyond the to Do List back in 2012 and has produced over 330 episodes.

In this episode we talk about he focuses, the journey in starting his podcast and how he is intentional about scheduling social media time.  When was the last time that you made a list before you went on social media?  He recommends doing that, so that you can connect with people you care about but don’t get stuck in the never ending scroll.

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Evan is the Founder of Caffeine Marketing and small business investor. Caffeine Marketing makes profitable marketing easy for small companies. As an investor Evan helps small companies double and sometimes even triple their bottom line.

If you haven’t heard about StoryBrand, you gotta check them out as they are one of my go to resources for marketing tips.  But before you do, listen through this episode with Evan.  He really brings some great great advice by walking through elements of StoryBrand.  We dive into tips for using social media and making sure your content stands how to develop a sales funnel.

If you work at all in any kind of sales, recruitment or fundraising, you need to have a sales funnel.  You need a process of engaging your audience, building a relationship with them and eventually asking them to commit.

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What if your company’s most valuable asset is being underused? What if listening and collaboration is actually key to unlocking the brilliant ideas hidden under the surface?

In this episode, Lauren Green, a professional graphic facilitator and the founder of Dancing with Markers, talks about the power of using unorthodox methods and engaging the people around you to foster creativity. With the Covid-19 pandemic still raging on, she gives some essential tips for facilitating collaborative creativity on Zoom.

Lauren also gives insight into how real leaders, in both big conferences and board room meetings, facilitate conversation between others to get the best and most creative results. Though it takes humility, if leaders can acknowledge they don’t have all the answers and listen for the best ideas, then they can compile them and move forward with confidence.

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Trying to have conversations about race can often feel overwhelming. We can be consumed by worry, always wondering, “What if I say the wrong thing?”

Feeling like you don’t know what to say, many people ignore these tough, but important conservations about racism in hopes to avoid the risk of awkwardness. But, in this conservation, Tay Brown--athlete, talk show host, and influencer--talks about the importance of engaging in these conversations, despite the fear of being uncomfortable.

In this episode, we dive into the content that she is currently producing related to conversations with athletes and how she is using her platform to engage in topics that are currently relevant to our time. Through her hard work commitment to blend modern media with both sports and activism, Tay Brown inspires listeners to use whatever platform they have for good.

Everybody loves comfort. But, what if the modern age of comfortability we are so addicted to actually has negative effects on our creativity?

World-renowned entrepreneur, speaker, and author of the upcoming book, The Creator Mindset: 92 Tools to Unlock the Secrets to Innovation, Growth, and Sustainability, Nir Bashan gives fresh insight into how everyday people can rejuvenate their creativity by embracing uncomfortably.

In this episode, we dive into the world of creativity and its importance for business success. Nir Bashan has done extensive research into the power of creativity for modern businesses and has spoken to people across the world about seeing people discover their own potential. We discuss what productivity looks in a world of comfort, the lasting retention of uncomfortably, and even the importance of failure in the journey of creativity!

Nir Bashan passionately believes that everyone holds within them a store of untapped creativity, which can be used to reach unfound success. Whatever industry you find yourself in, you won’t want to miss the mindset-changing tips found in this conversation!

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Are you struggling to find guests for your podcast?  Let’s face it, regularly finding people for a podcast can be a lot of work.  At first you can pull on your friends and family, but at some point your immediate circle of people to have on your show starts to slim down.

You can tap connections and ask for referrals, but at some point it’s easy to get stuck in the place where you aren’t big enough that everyone wants to be on your podcast, but also need to grow and find more guests.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if there was an easy way to find people who wanted to be on your podcast?  Well James Mulvany set out to do just that when he created MatchMaker.fm, a site for helping podcasters connect with podcast guests and vis a versa. It’s basically like Tinder, but for podcasters and completely free!

James had first started the website podcast.co as a way of helping people host their podcasts, but then realized that people were having a hard time finding people to be on their podcasts, so he created the site www.matchmaker.fm. 

How to Work Cross Culturally with Video Crews — Barak Bruerd

In this episode we dive in with Barak Bruerd who is based in Jinja Uganda and explore how to better work with international video crews.  Right now with very little international travel happening, working with local crews on the ground is a must if you want to get anything done.

This requires even more being able to communicate the key purpose behind your goals, what you want to do with the video and spend even more time making sure everyone is on the same page.

Barak currently works for One World Health overeseaing a health clinic in Uganda and has a ton of communications experience, so he gets the combination of knowing development programming and balancing communication to donors.

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How do you tell stories in the middle of a pandemic and how do you produce films that inspire people? No one is producing highly polished pieces right now unless they were filmed before the pandemic, but there are ways of telling great stories without necessarily relying on high production values.

In Wesley's conversation with David Johnson from Silent Images we dive into how they are dealing and moving forward in the midst of the shutdown.  Silent Images is based out of Charlotte, NC and does photography and video work for nonprofit and charities around the world.  I'm a huge fan of their work.

In fact the Disney Movie, Queen of Katwe was created after Silent Images first produced the original documentary about the real girl.  David and his team know how to tell great stories.

In this episode we dive into how nonprofits especially use video for different purposes.  We distinguish between videos for social media where the goal is to stay on people’s minds and the need for high quality crafted stories that are used for fundraising.  Not all of your social media pieces have to be amazing, but when you are wanting to really connect with people, a powerful story is one of the best ways to do that.

Nonprofits need to connect with their donors without creating donor fatigue.  During this time while giving might be low, it’s all the more important to stay connected with your donors through stories so that once things do come back to normal, people know who you are and feel ready to take that next step with you.

The Takeaway

1. Stay at the forefront of people’s mind, inboxes and social media
   
2. Challenge yourself to find inspiring stories.
   
3. Make the most of what you have and check out Silent Images How To Series on YouTube.
   

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The last several months our online interactions have skyrocketed.  It has become apparent all the more during the Covid-19 Pandemic.  In this podcast we dive into a conversation with Manuel Leon who is a digital designer who has transitioned over to being a user interface designer.

Right now more than ever business is happening online and the way you interact with potential customers is crucial.  But during this period areas of our lives have gone online very rapidly and in some cases this territory is really new and people don’t know how to transition to online.

In this podcast Manuel shares how his work has changed and his tips and recommendations for making your digital products as good as you can with the resources that you have.  Then put it out there, gather feedback and then reiterate.  And since rules are being rewritten right now that’s what we need to be doing, whether it’s creating an online course, online content, anything that involves interaction.  We need to be trying things and doing multiple iterations.

Contact Manuel

With the Covid-19 shutdown, everyone has been affected, and churches and houses of worship are no exception.  During this time video has become central to the way that a lot of churches operate.  For some that have already been doing video and streaming it online, the transition has been fairly easy, but for others that haven’t done anything online before it’s been a learning process.

Everyone is having to pivot and learn some tips for how to adjust to an online only audience.  In this episode with Chris Jacobsen, Mike Jones and Cameron Davis we dive into their experiences creating video content at their churches and their experiences being participants.

What people need now is connection to other people.  And whether that is through a large zoom call or a watch party of a pre-recorded service, there are ways to creating that interaction that will feel true to who you are.  

In this episode we share some tips for helping create those connections.  For example make sure the person talking is making eye contact with the camera, as this will help the viewer feel more connected to the speaker.  Also if you create a 10-minute countdown before or after the service for people to make comments online, that will also provide some more time for people to connect.

But most importantly make sure that in everything you do, make sure it feels genuine and transparent, so that it’s an extension of who your church is on a normal Sunday.  Also make sure that you as a church keep your core reason for being at the center of who you are, and don't let yourself over produce your message.

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Chris Jacobsen

How is working from home going for you?  I personally love the fact that I can be around my family more, and connect with people through video calls.  I’ve been able to attend several webinars related to topics surrounded Covid-19 and how it’s changing our business models.

But several weeks into the lock down, I noticed that I was having a hard time going to sleep.  It was a bit harder to separate work from home life.  I would lie in bed for a while and was having a hard time calm down.  I think in part it was because I was spending too much time reading the news and on my computer before going to bed.  It was causing stimulating my mind, and making it so that I couldn’t get the rest I needed.

But then when I started reducing my screen time before going to bed and leaving my phone to charge outside of the bedroom, I noticed that it was quite a bit easier for me to get to sleep.

If you have struggled at all with any of these issues, this episode is for you.  Kim Kimball is a life coach and in this episode we talk about all of these issues.  She talk about learning to pay attention to your body and what it’s tell you.  She shares her tips for staying focused during the day and knowing when to disconnect from screens and technology.

In order to thrive and not just survive during these times we all need to make sure we are aware of what our bodies are telling us in order to stay at peak performance during this season.

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Melissa Henry is a personal brand photographer who works with business owners and helps solve the problem of obscurity.  She does that by helping them narrow their focus and then by capturing unique, creative images that help them be more visible.

She works with entrepreneurs, speakers and authors who have a message that they want to get out there.

During the Coronavirus pandemic, Melissa has seen all of her photography shoots be canceled as no one is interacting with others in person.  But what she has noticed is that people still want to show up online, but they need help with their strategy work and want coaching on how to take photos of themselves at home.

Melissa has started coaching people via a video call on how to take photos of themselves, but most importantly is focusing on strategy calls and helping people find clarity on who they serve and how they help people so that their images can actually reflect that message to others.

Often times businesses have multiple ways that they can help people, but they ultimately need to be able to communicate the one problem that they solve.

We also dive into personal branding and how having a strong personal brand will help you even if you work at a much larger company.  It will be easier for you to get a promotion or will also make it easier for you to get another job at a different company if people know who you are and how you can help them.

Get a Hold of Melissa

“The new norm is that we are in an unprecedented time and we need to create a communications plan that responds to the crisis that we are in. We are all having to go into crisis communications mode.

Hit pause on your brand comms and start thinking of a new communication strategy that will take us through the near term.”

With the coronavirus outbreak all of us are having to think through how we communicate internally and externally and Kathleen one of the co-founders from Mighty Ally brings us some great tips on how to do that.

First we need to make sure that we are communicating clearly and frequently.  You almost have to over communicate internally so that we are all on the same page.  Get your team aligned or else you won’t be able to respond to anything.

After that go externally and get as close as you can to your customers or clients.  Do empathy mapping.  Figure out what they need and how you can help.

With regards to your communications no one expects polish with regards to production values, but your message should be thought through an on point.

During this time we need to be telling stories to help reassure people by creating a sense of connection and motivation. 

Times of constraint and challenge can actually motivate people to come up with creative innovations and solutions.  During this time we need to make the most of what we have.

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Mary Dougherty is a wedding photographer who only does 15 weddings a year.  But like all of us she started doing anything that people would pay her to do.

Overtime she built a base by blogging consistently and posting regularly on social media.

However once she had her first kid she no longer could keep up with everything she was doing and it forced her to focus on what was essential to keeping her business going and that was really making sure that she took care of her clients.

During that season she focused on doing less, raised her prices and valued her work.

Besides doing weddings she also coaches other photographers and hosts a camp in the Adirondacks where photographers can get together and shoot real couples learn from each other and build their portfolio.

Her biggest tips for people during the Coronavirus Stay Home are:

1. Clarify who you are.
   
2. Show up for people
   
3. Reach out to people for virtual coffee dates
   

Get a hold of Mary:

Right now everyone is staying at home, but that doesn't mean the work has to stop.  In fact now is a great time for establishing a video strategy for yourself or your company.  Shoots are being canceled and no one is meeting in person.  With no one bugging you at the office, you can turn your phone off and create a video strategy for yourself right now.

Here are the 5 steps I take you through in this episode.

1 Audience: You need to know who you are targeting and I need to understand who your

audience is so that I can help you reach them.

2 Goals: This is what you actually want to accomplish. Are you driving sales, building trust,

connecting with people?

3 Content Plan: What are you actually producing in terms of videos? We will develop a plan

to guide your work. When you are very busy, it's hard to daily come up with a new plan for

everything you need to do.

4 Distribution: Where are you going to be posting these videos? Once you post them you need

to make sure they have been optimized for your viewers. Then we can track the metrics and

adapt as needed.

5 Production Rhythms: Once you have a plan, you will need to develop a plan for consistently

producing your own video content. It will be my job to make sure you are on track, give you

help along the way with production and continually tweak your video strategy.

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10 Video Maxims that will Save the World

The Coronavirus is here and the social distancing has begun.  During this time where large groups are limited and travel is being restricted, the power of video is only more important for connecting people and keeping trust strong.

Also not to mention that doing more video conferences reduces greenhouse gas emissions and helps mitigate climate change.

During this season here are 10 video maxims to guide your video strategy.

1. Video will save the world
   
2. Personal eats polished for breakfast.
   
3. Consistent trumps perfect
   
4. 50% of success is your title and screenshot
   
5. The most important part of video is audio
   
6. Unless you are on social where captions rule
   
7. Video is the horse not the cart
   
8. Live Video needs incidental contact
   
9. Funny over quality
   
10. Polish = Salesy

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Season 2 kicks off with an interview from Ryan Koral who runs both Tell Studios and Studio Sherpas.  On one hand he manages a business that produces documentary-style videos for companies and on the other he tells other video business owners what's working and how to do better.

He is never worried about training his competition, because there is enough work to go around.  

In this episode he shares how he co-founded a coaching business while managing his own.  When it comes to promoting his business he brought up the Content Bucket Strategy, thanks Graham Cochrane, as a plan for creating yearly content for yourself.

If you are thinking about becoming a business leader who is also a through leader, this episode is for you.

Get a hold of Ryan

How often do you share your work with your audience and show them your metaphorical scrapes and bruises along the way.  Often we think that we need to portray that everything is awesome with our lives and our work in order for people to want to work with us.

But what is perhaps more powerful is showing that we have the ability to grow, adapt and improve.  No one wants to showcase bad work, but when we have the ability to show our mistakes, and explain how we are learning, growing and overcoming them, our audience is much more likely to connect with us.

The two pillars of connecting with our audience are authority and empathy.  The natural tendency is to push the authority piece, but isn’t not easy to show empathy.  When we share in our struggled, people can see that we are human and it helps us connect with us at a deeper level.  This leads to trust and leads to people wanting to work with us.

This is the second interview with a Gen Z creative.  Tim is a graphic design who is still in college.  In this episode we dive into Tim’s strategy for Instagram and other platforms.

It was interesting to see how he mirrored Tess’s thoughts about Facebook, that it’s used a lot for personal work, but not nearly as much for Instagram.

And Tim also expected advertizements on social media to be rather personalized.  And he didn’t seem to mind when they tried to sell him something that he actually needed.  In fact he found it rather helpful!

Get a hold of Tim:

Tess was excited about her high school track season when the unexpected happen, she suffered an injury that put her out.  So what did she do?  She decided to start a photography business by posting one photo a day for a year.

Guess what? It worked!  She took photos for people for free and then asked them to invite all of their friends to like her Facebook page.

In this two part series Wesley sits down for an interview with a Gen Z photography creator to hear directly from her about what it was like to grow a business through social media.

Throughout the interview they dive into how social media is impacting Gen Z both the negative and positive and dive into Tess’ strategy for creating a wedding and lifestyle business.

Some tips from Tess

Make sure you personally show up in at least every 9th photo in your photo feed.

Make sure you tell personal stories in each photo description. When people feel a connection to you they are more likely to buy from you.

Do lots of behind the scenes content so that people feel like they know you a bit more.

Everything seems to be going subscription these days.  Whether it’s the movies we watch, the groceries we buy, the cell phones we use, the software we use, everything has an subscription model these days.

It provides the producer a more reliable stream of income and in turn allows them to offer the consumer a discounted rate due to reliability.

In this episode Wesley talks with Mitch Beattie about he is leveraging the Subscription Model for his production business.

We also discuss the importance of just getting content out there, yet also taking time beforehand to think through who is your audience and what do you actually want to accomplish.

Overall both of us seemed to notice that there is an ongoing trend towards being more authentic and targeted, while not necessarily pushing the production values as high, as this can lead to people immediately writing your stuff off as an ad.  This seems to be especially true on Tik Tok.

Get at a Hold of Mitch

Every organization has people in it that wouldn't be considered "creatives" in the traditional sense.  They are great at doing their job, but aren't necessarily used to expressing their work in a "creative" medium.  Helping those people produce something amazing takes excellent communication skills and the ability to sell a goal and a vision.

Whether it's archeology or international affairs, Nick has always found ways of producing creative content wherever he is at.

In this episode we hear how Nick goes about building trust within the teams he creates and the importance of making sure you bring the right people to the table from the start.

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There are really only seven basic story that we really ever tell.

You have two options, you can either spend a lot of time figuring out the story that you want to tell and thinking you are just being creative, or you can figure out which of these story types your story is, and save yourself a lot of headache.

Since using this formula Bryce has won 3 regional Emmy Awards and 2 Automotive Communication awards for his documentary-style marketing videos.

I know that as a creative, I like the idea of being original and coming up with something new, but there is really “nothing new under the sun”.

If you embrace this concept, you will be able to focus your energy on telling the story in a creative way, rather than just grinding your wheels.

In this episode we also talk about the need to just create content, and how having stuff live on your hard drive will never really go anywhere.

We also dive into how LinkedIn is an untapped gold mine that we should be in more.

In this episode we talked about:

Your stories are only going to be as strong as your main character.  You don't find strong character's by accident.  It takes lots of hard work and determination.

In this episode Wesley interviews Samo Zeal, who went through the Muse Storytelling process and was a part of a crew that told the story of a 94-year old granny who danced despair away.  

When searching for the character they looked for uniqueness, desire and complexity.

They also made sure that their film only focused on one person as a central character.

Regardless of whether you film or not, hearing this process will make you a better writer and storyteller.

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What do you love doing?  Do you get to do it at least 20% of the time with your current position or job?  Being able to be creative and do what we love is so important and no one wants to look back at a year and regret all of the things that they wanted to do, but didn't.  Let's make sure that 2020 is the year that you passionately pursue those things that you love and that are important to you.

This podcast is broken down more like an audiobook with short chapters and deliberate periods for reflection.  4:09-Chapter 1: What Do You Love Doing? — 12:37-Chapter 2: Did You Do Everything Last Year that You Wanted to? — 15:43-Chapter 3: Saying No — 20:22-Chapter 4: The 20% Challenge — 26:11-Chapter 5: Habit Stacking and Planning — 37:10-Conclusion and References

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In this episode we dive into the 5 stages of Design Thinking: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test.  While they are normally applied when creating products for consumers, after listening to this episode you will have some key take aways for why you need to apply these principles to your creative process.

Too often someone comes up with an idea and commissions someone to create it.  They get to work prototyping and figuring out how to make that idea.  

However if we first stopped and reversed this process we would be much better off.  If we tried to actually understand the person using product, defined what their problem is and then came up with as many different way of solving their problem, we would in the end come up with much better and creative products.

Quotes

“Before you do anything, we're going to stop and make sure we understand our users. We're actually going to make sure we're not only addressing a problem, but addressing the right problem.”

“We have to understand our user in order to properly give them something that they need or want.”

“One of the things that we do most often in business is we look for one right solution. We rack our brains trying to find that one right thing when, more often than not, there's not just one answer. There might be three or four possible answers that all would work wonderfully.”

“So a lot of times when we do this, we think about what to build or what to create. But in design thinking, we build in order to think.”

“We have a motto of fail faster and fail cheaply. If we fail on a small scale and learn really fast why we failed, that's awesome because now we know what doesn't work about the idea, so we can fix it and make it right.”

“You prototype as if you know you are right, but you test as if you know you are wrong.”

“Design really used to be a marketing tool to get people to buy something, and now it's more of a tool to create change.”

Links

Are you being strategic in your use of video or do you just create content because you need to do something?  In this episode we dive into how to develop a clear strategy that achieves marketing goals.

“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”

“A good strategy starts with the audience in mind first, so you need to know who you're trying to reach with your content and what sort of action you want them to take.”

“As a brand or business, you need to show up for your audience in a way that makes them care about the outcome that your brand or business can provide to them. It's not about you, it's not about your brand or business, it's about your customers and your clients.”

“If your content can show up and connect on the right emotional level with them right at the beginning of the journey, then they're more likely to go on that journey with you.”

“The role of people like us as video strategists is to help people identify where the gaps are and then to plug the gaps with the right videos and use them in the right way.”

Links

Show Notes

Should you be going back to school to advance your education or just learn by watching videos on YouTube?

There are a lot of journeys you could take to advance your career and the creative industry is definitely one of those spaces that allows for a lot of flexibility. (Some like medicine do not.)

The most important part is you need to keep learning.  How you go about doing that is entirely up to you!

In this episode Wesley sits down with Mike Jones for a conversation about how he got into filming and the exciting journey that it’s been for him.

Quotes:

“And right before my 30th birthday, guess what? I had a six-figure income, a company car, things were looking really good. And I really thought life was at a pinnacle for me right then. And then of course, that changed.”

“When I think about weighing the cost benefit analysis for education, I don't know that I can do that. Because I think you just have to do you.”

“But really it comes down to, 'Where do you want to go?' What are you going to be satisfied doing?  I mean, seriously, if you go and get on with a crew and you work hard, you show up early and leave late. You leave your smartphone in your car, so you're attentive on set, you'll get noticed, and you'll do work.”

“You’re always in school, you are always going to be learning in this business.”

“Data and statistics are good for the written word. But story and relationships are going to be better built by video.”

Get a Hold of Mike Jones:

While it's fun to take a road trip by yourself and be spontaneous, tour buses don't work that way.

If you want to get people on board your bus and going where you want them to go, you need a plan.

In this episode we go over a seven-step framework for helping you create a plan to make your next project a smashing success.

1. Identify the Problem

2. Define your Audience.

3. Feel, Know and Do

4. Brainstorm Ideas

5. Plan to Engage

6. Plan to Plan

7. Know your Docs

Following these steps and implementing them will get your project off to a fantastic start.

Referenced Resources

How to Love Your Job or Leave It — Christa Davis

Have you ever felt stuck at your job?  Well Christa Davis’ motto is “Love it or Leave it”.

In this episode on leadership and coaching we provide three questions to ask yourself:

1. Do I feel unmotivated, when I normally don’t feel like that?
   
2. Am I rationalizing my current state and saying, “I’m trying to make it work”?
   
3. Do I feel stuck in a box of habitual thinking?
   

We also review your rhythms and the importance of them for keeping you at the top of your game.

Quotes:

“You can be good at strategy… but if you don't do the inner work, and you're not able to actually connect with your team and mobilize them and lead them.  You're only going to go so far.”

“I think the first thing for leaders is to do their own inner work. Because they can only take their teams in their organizations as far as they've taken themselves.

“Leaders really need to be that example and lead with being vulnerable, making it a safe space to make mistakes.”

“Especially for leaders, also sharing their own stories of failure, and being open about those and what they've learned from them.

“But if people are scared to speak up, or they don't feel comfortable owning things, it's not going to go anywhere. So that's why when I say, creating a culture of it, and to create a learning culture, it comes from, I would say, both the leaders, but also the organizational systems and processes.

“I think people like the concept of innovation, but sometimes they don't like the process of going through innovation.”

Get a Hold of Christa

Show Notes

In this episode Wesley sits down with John Paget in Buffalo, NY for a conversation about the work he has done for the city to help transform the narrative that Buffalo tells itself.  His film Buffalo: America's Best Designed City has over 1 million organic views on YouTube.  We talk about the process for making that film and the impact it had.

We talk about why you sometimes need to break the rules to go "viral" in the podcast.

Stories that acknowledge past wrongs and are viewed collectively, can act as a form of confession for moving forward.  In the podcast we explore how his film did just that.

Quotes:

"I've heard is like, if you don't, if you're not doing exactly what you want to be doing, if you can't get hired, doing exactly what you want to be doing, just start doing it and, you know, build that library of work, build that experience, and then that will lead to the connections to do that kind of work."

"I've always, throughout my entire career have always tried to be on the cutting edge of innovation, in terms of what camera tools are available and being developed a new techniques. But the techniques should never just be for their own sake, they should serve somehow the creative strategy, and the story."

"If you have a calendar, or a deadline for filming, usually if there's three months or a year, depending on how long you have, I like to mark off a third of that, just for creative development. Thinking through. "Okay, what is the strategy? What is the script, the concept" and perfecting that before we pick up a camera and go shoot.

Referenced Links:

Buffalo: America's Best Designed City

Show Notes

Many creatives spend a lot of time producing content for the digital space, but if we aren't careful they world can keep us from really enjoying the real world.  This can be in part because they get sucked into the digital one, or because they haven't structured work in such a way that it lets them have that freedom.

In Wesley's conversation with Arley we talk about how Arley got started as an animator and then dive into the 3-month road trip that he took with his wife around the US.  

For some the idea of taking 3 months off is unheard of!  We dive into what he had to do get there and in part it comes down to how we prioritize our lives.

Show Notes

Wesley sits down for his conversation with Paul Omps, from Key Insight Marketing, who is a marketing strategist.

In this episode we explore what it's like to work in the digital workspace with clients around the world and how to avoid all of the distractions that multitasking can bring.  As more and more people are “factional” or contract work it can be hard to balance demands of multiple clients, but it is possible to continually get better at this art.

We also talked about the importance of knowing your ideal clients and helping your customers walk through that process. One of the ways to do this is by asking the question, “Why”. Often people say, “I need a viral video”, “I need to increase sales”, or :I need to get a new logo”.  And if we just ask the questions, “Why” we can get to the deeper issue that they are facing and help people think through that whole process at a deeper level.

We explore why it's important to have you breaks or lulls in your work so that you can grow and refocus your creativity.

Lastly we focus on the importance of strategy with that being the real value that you can bring to the table and making sure that you don’t get caught up in being a simple commodity producer.

Many creatives work as contractors.  Even if you work as a Director of Photography for a major Hollywood blockbuster film, you probably are just a 1099 contractor who is responsible for paying your own taxes AND planning for retirement.

I have definitely had my share struggles of figuring out how to run things financially and plan for retirement.

In this episode we go over some of the financial basics whether you are an employee who has a workplace 401(k) or are self employed and need to think about how you save for retirement.

When you enjoy your job, you may not be able to imagine yourself doing anything else, but the reality is that life and old age has a way of catching up with us.

My goal with this episode isn’t to make you a financial genius, but merely to make sure that you know enough to ask the right questions and have some tips for finding your own financial advisor.

Even if just one person is able to gain something from this episode, it will be worth it.

Understanding Generation Z

Bart leads Caylor solutions which focuses on helping higher ed institutions with recruiting and marketing.

Since he primarily works to attract younger students who are 16-18, he understands what makes Gez Z tick.

Here are some quick tips about Gen Z:

Angie Schultz is a StoryBrand certified copywriter.  Having previously worked together, Wesley and Angie have realized the importance of having a clear strategy in place in order for the media you produce to actually have an impact.

Just having good video or media content doesn’t necessarily translate to sales.

Video just for video sake isn’t good enough, it needs to be part of a larger sales funnel.

Bottom line is if it doesn’t convert into new donors or new sales, you may need to work on your media strategy more.

It’s really natural for organizations to talk about themselves about all the great things they do, and it seems that people are naturally going to follow you into that journey.  But really, our brains aren’t going to take the time to  process a message unless we realize how it adds value to our lives.

Good media needs to be entertaining or it needs to solve a problem.

You need to be able to paint a picture of what success looks like if you want people to partner with you.

Companies spend a lot of money on marketing, but a lack of strategy can make that a waste of money.

The StoryBrand Grunt test is : In 5 seconds, visitors to your website should be able to answer these 3 questions :

1. What do you offer?
2. How does it add value to my life?
3. How do I get it?

Pose the video title as a question so customers purchase based on what they’re feeling internally.

ie. I mow my lawn because I want to impress my neighbor.

It’s tough internally to see areas of improvement on your content because you’re so close and connected to it.  Sometimes it’s good to get a fresh set of eyes on your website or work and give you an evaluation.

Basic sales funnel - capture an email through a lead magnet then follow up with intentional sales campaign until they’re ready to take action

Be aware of baby boomers and generation X,Y,Z - you may have to cater your marketing differently for each generation. Ex baby boomers may not feel as comfortable putting their credit card into online as a millennial would.

I was frustrated.   All around me I was watching people waste a lot of money executing creative projects that weren't clearly thought out and weren't bringing them a return on their investment.  While I love knocking projects out, it was the strategy issues that were really tripped me and my clients up, ultimately costing them money.

This podcast is a series of conversations that looks at strategy, execution and leadership with the goal of helping high-performing creative teams get even better.

Some of the best creative work gets done in teams and my goal is to make you better at managing that process, by becoming better at planning, producing creative content and leading the team you work with.