Generating Explosive Growth with Video

In this week’s Manufacturing Ecommerce Success Series, our guest speaker was Jeff Long. Jeff is the Owner of True Focus Media, Manufacturing, and Industrial Marketing. His company helps businesses take their message to the masses using video to educate and inform their ideal prospects.

Today we learned the skill of generating explosive growth with video from our guests.

In this week’s Manufacturing Ecommerce Success Series, our guest speaker was Jeff Long. Jeff is the Owner of True Focus Media, Manufacturing, and Industrial Marketing. His company helps businesses take their message to the masses using video to educate and inform their ideal prospects.

The conversation of the episode started with Curt introducing Jeff to the show. After this, Curt asked Jeff about his business and how he got into it. Responding to this, Jeff said that when it comes to his business, they help companies speak their truth through video.

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Moreover, he also said that his company helps people in generating explosive growth with video while decreasing time and expenses. Moving on, Curt asked Jeff why did he go into entrepreneurship? To this, Jeff said that it was completely new to him.

Elaborating on this, Jeff said that he was not as fortunate as other people and didn’t know anything about manufacturing and marketing. However, when he got into this business, he felt very connected to it and also liked working in this zone.

After this, Curt asked Jeff about his work and what kind of clients he has, and the solutions he provides in generating explosive growth with video. To this, Jeff said that it usually comes down to the pain points of the clients. With this, he gave an example of his recent client as well. Aside from this, he said that this is how you plan your move ahead and make sure you work on what your customers need.

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Moving on, Jeff explained to Curt a little more about generating explosive growth with video. He said that they have a new technology that they use for this task which also helps in generating leads. In addition to this, Jeff explained the entire process of how his company works.

By the end of the conversation, Jeff said that surely content is key, but the video is king when it comes to content. This is why, according to him, in order for generating explosive growth with video, you need to work accordingly and make videos with it.

The conversation ended with Damon and Curt thanking the guest for his time.

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Exit Your Way® provides a structured process and skilled resources to grow business value and allow business owners to leave with 2X+ more money when they are ready.

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45:57

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

jeff, video, people, content, manufacturing, kurt, company, customer, linkedin, damon, talk, type, long, youtube, dude, absolutely, helping, website, manufacturers, customer centric

SPEAKERS

Damon Pistulka, Curt Anderson, Jeff Long

 

Damon Pistulka  00:00

We got Jeff on the stage. Awesome.

 

Jeff Long  00:03

Yeah, I’m here.

 

Damon Pistulka  00:04

Hey everyone. We’re gonna first of all want to get us going live over on LinkedIn. And then we are going to get this show on the road.

 

Curt Anderson  00:14

And Happy Friday everybody. Hope everybody had an awesome Veterans Day. Thank you to God bless all of our veterans out there.

 

Damon Pistulka  00:23

Awesome everyone. Welcome once again, we’re live on LinkedIn now. So we get to go get everybody here on remote with us. Now if you’re listening on LinkedIn, you do need to come to Reno because it’s a lot of fun over here. But welcome, everyone. This is Friday. As usual this time of day on Friday, Kurt Anderson and I have the manufacture ecommerce success series where we highlight awesome people helping people in manufacturing, figure out their ecommerce challenges. And I’m your host Damon Pistulka And I’m gonna turn it over to Kurt Anderson. And let him take it from there.

 

Curt Anderson  01:00

Dude, I this is such an honor and privilege man I’ve been I’m already speechless and we’re just starting the program guys. There’s um, I It’s a shocker Jeff Long it’s a good day today. This is a huge huge day. What is your close friend in Damini know that line? What is it? rising tide lifts all ships? Jeff Long is the rising tide man I think anybody knows Jeff Long if you guys don’t know Jeff, I dropped his LinkedIn profile that chat dropped his website. Jeff, welcome to the program. I’m gonna dig into like a lengthy intro. So let’s just get this out of the way. How are you my friend?

 

Jeff Long  01:37

I’m good. I’m good Kurt. I mean, it was a couple months ago when you were like we need to get you on and talk about this and video did all this. So it’s good that we’re finally here. I know you’re looking forward to it for a long time.

 

Curt Anderson  01:49

And we have an awesome crowd today. My gosh, my friend Trisha, we got Hale we’ve got done we’ve got a bunch of we have like all five time zones are covered here. Greg in Gore gal Dan bigger. My goodness. This is awesome, guys. So Jeff Long, you know, it’s kind of funny because like you almost define life now. It’s like a pre COVID and post COVID. If you had a relationship post COVID. Like it’s like, man, we go back here. So Jeff Long and I connected pre COVID. Thanks to LinkedIn. This is a great LinkedIn Success Story manufacturing, happy hour, our dear friend Chris Lukey. Wonderful group and Jeff Long, and I connected.

And the first day that Jeff started speaking, I’m like, Man, I need to become friends with this guy. We jumped on a call became instant friends. Since that time, we’ve done numerous programs together. Jeff, I think you’ve spoke. We’ve done webinars programs in Alaska for the Alaska MEP Queens in New York City. We’ve done I met the Illinois MEP Temple University multiple times. They keep inviting you back. You crushed it every time. So thank you. Thank you for joining us. Tell us a little bit about true focus media. What’s going on with you and your business?

 

Jeff Long  03:00

Yeah, wow. Thank you, Kurt. Thank you, Damon. I love teaching and just, you know, helping other people. So that’s my goal here is like, give some tips, some strategies. And we’ll dive into that I’m sure. So, you know, brief bio is I own true focus media. We’re a media marketing company for manufacturers, you know, so I, I look for ways to help manufacturers increase their revenue while decreasing time and expenses.

So there’s a there’s a lot of cool ways we do that. A lot of it falls within kind of the media, video marketing bucket in a lot of it between the website design development and optimization services. So there’s a lot of crossover. But I think we’ll probably talk more about the video side of things here today, because that’s a lot of fun.

 

Curt Anderson  03:49

Absolutely. So guys, and you’re in John John’s with us, guys. John. I have another bromance this week, guys, another big bromance going on this week. So welcome, John from New Jersey. So Jeff, let’s dig in. So your really your entire career entrepreneurship, you know, graduated college 2000, you jump right in? Why entrepreneur entrepreneurship, e commerce, what pulled you in that direction?

 

Jeff Long  04:13

You know, I’m not sure. I mean, I wasn’t exposed to a lot of the opportunities that we take for granted, even manufacturing, or marketing or video, like I just didn’t grow up, knowing about all that stuff. And so I went a certain direction actually to work at a church full time, went that direction, and kind of knew it wasn’t the right fit. And a couple frustrating things at the time happened, but they were really cool, because it pointed me back and it let me explore some different avenues that I’d never even thought about before. And that was this video and marketing agency. And so once I went down that path, I mean, it was crazy.

I would stay up all hours of the night writing down different business ideas and what if I worked with this type of company what it was like where are these Ideas come in for it was really, it was like A Beautiful Mind the movie, you know, maybe I’m not as crazy as that guy, hopefully. But it was just like this a waterfall that got turned on. So I write, I’m a creator, I love creating things. I love helping people and making things grow and flourish. I just do that within an entrepreneurial way, obviously with manufacturing and with media.

 

Curt Anderson  05:25

Yeah, and let’s, let’s dig into that. Why, you know, you could have gone multiple different directions share it, you know, you know, started off at a church, you’re in both your folks are college professors, I believe that a true faith based college so no, you know, that’s why you’re a great educator, you’re such a wonderful communicator. Sure look like what what pulled you in the manufacturing direction? Why did you go there?

 

Jeff Long  05:48

Yeah. So when I started the company, in 2003, I had two business partners. And we’d work with a variety of companies and industries. And that was fine. But I got to a point in my career, and I hired a consultant because I’m like, I know I can serve better and be a better business owner and all that. So anyway, one of the things we did was look at the different projects, companies, clients, industries that we’ve served over all those years. And honestly, I knew in the back of my head manufacturing was like, at the top.

But once I laid out all of that, and looked back at my career, it was like, Oh, my word, why did I not jump into manufacturing? Day one? You know, like, it was just a no brainer, I’m, I’m kind of an engineer, mindset kind of guy. Like I kind of get, you know, the precision and all that. And yeah, I’m precise in my company.

And with what, what we do. So manufacturing just made sense, or making cool stuff. I mean, it from a marketing perspective. Many manufacturing companies need a lot of marketing help. I mean, some of them are crushing it right, that the companies I get to work for work with are awesome. There’s a couple I say that, if I didn’t love what I did so much, I’d probably work for them. Like I’d wait those, you know, so I I just love the whole industry. I mean, obviously, within manufacturing, there’s so many subsets and niches and different things, of course, but it’s where it’s at. I think

 

Curt Anderson  07:18

that’s awesome. And so, you know, again, guys, if you’re just joining us, you know, happy Friday, welcome, please drop your LinkedIn profile in the chat box. We have a great, wonderful crew here, Erin, happy Friday. You are. Greg taught me how to do Wisconsin, you know, shout out to whiskey. So put it up in your LinkedIn profile. So Jeff, you know, manufacturing, and we’re with Jeff Long from true focus media. And again, you know, so we’re talking about great educator, just relentless helping manufacturers.

I want to share a quick story. So I think it was August of 2021 of the MEPs reaches out to me and they say, Damon, you love this. So like, Hey, could you do put together a webinar for us? I’m on a family vacation whitewater rafting with my family. They wanted me to turn round a webinar within two weeks, and they wanted it videoed. I didn’t know what to do. I’m on vacation. I’m like whitewater raft down. You know, if I had a signal I called Jeff. I’m like, Jeff, dude, I’m in a little bit of a bind.

What do you got going? He turns around this incredible brand new program for this MEP within a week puts it on video for us. And dude, I’m like, eternally grateful for you. absolutely crushed it. Dr. Lissa, up in Alaska, you know, she loves nice that you did. So you know, you have a who’s who list of of customers clients, Cargill, you know, or the Department of Education in Ohio University of Dayton. Sure. A little bit like the types and I know tons of manufacturers share a little bit of like, the type of client you work with? And what are some of the solutions that you provide?

 

Jeff Long  08:48

Yeah, so um, a lot of it is figuring out some of the pain points, and seeing how we can help. I mean, I was just on a call with a large industrial company this morning, who has a trade show in February, and they’re kind of scrambling like, what do we do? Like, we have this kind of new thing we’re rolling out, but you know, what are some ideas, Jeff, you know, they’re looking at me. And so I’m talking about some of these, like, touchscreen, with pop ups and, you know, enter in your name and an email to get more information so we can get leads and maybe SMS marketing and just some other kind of media stuff.

So I love creating new systems or ways to you know, be more efficient, right. So with that, you know, this video value bombs thing kind of came into play in that, you know, I’ve worked with like you just listed off, you know, Cargill, and air gas and you know, some of these big companies. So we’ve done really big projects where the videos or other marketing stuff, and there’s those are great, but I find a lot of companies struggle with, how do we showcase our products?

How do we get more leads? Yeah, increase SEO get more sales, all while being more efficient. Tall task, right? Yeah. And so content is key, you know, but, but with that video is king. And so that’s why this video, tweet that I like to add video value bombs thing came came to play was like, you know most companies if if I say hey, what are the top types of top five types of videos you can do?

Most companies are like well and About Us video a company history video, you know, they’re all thinking kind of inward focus and I think there’s a time and a place for that but I think outward customer centric videos and content is key. Yeah. Oh, you know, that’s where, you know, this video value bombs thing is like, hey, let’s create customer centric video that isn’t, you know, it’s it’s high quality, but it’s not like Hollywood. Yeah, more about the expert on camera talking than the Hollywood quality.

 

Curt Anderson  11:03

Yeah, that’s, that’s absolutely perfect. Go ahead, David. Go ahead.

 

Damon Pistulka  11:07

Well, I mean, and really what you’re doing is you’re, you’re helping them either by informing, educating, helping them to solve a problem if it’s if it’s applicable. But in the process, as we talked about, in our in our E commerce training, when we’re doing that, it’s like, you have to speak to that customer, not about you, but about their pain and how to solve that pain or something, educate them on things that they could do. And those videos are so much Well, for me anyway, what I found video and I do, I’m just gonna be first I am horrible, don’t edit, don’t do anything. But it’s it’s easy to generate content with

 

Jeff Long  11:46

video. Right? Right.

 

Damon Pistulka  11:49

Cuz he just grabbed me. I mean, you do a great job with your clients. You grab somebody that’s working on a problem, and you document it right there. And that’s content, awesome content for their customers. Potential customers. Absolutely. So

 

Curt Anderson  12:03

let’s I’m going to give a couple shout outs Chris and Kevin from Jennifer. Thank you guys for joining us, Tammy, Mike bird. Mike was at our program this weekend. This week, Damon, we had a fun program at manufacturing dotnet. And Mike was there. So Mike, welcome. Thank you for joining us. Hey, see. So let’s take a deep dive into what Jeff Long provides on high level video solutions. And Jeff, you’ve been doing it for years. And just man if guys please connect with Jeff on LinkedIn if you got some O’Neill, testimonials on his LinkedIn page. Dude, you got Dan Miller New York Times bestselling authors. Perfect.

I have Dan Miller’s book right here. fonio on for Jeff Long, unlike what a great job. He’s a true professional, phenomenal job of videos. Highly recommend true focus media, their team is very skilled professional. Jeff Long is the master of creating videos that make you shine, dude, kudos to you, man. You’re just absolutely crushing it. What I want to do, we’re gonna dig into video value bombs. I want to show an example. That’s cool with you, if you don’t mind. So I’m going to let you guys we’re going a little field trip come along. Right. So here we go. So how did

 

Damon Pistulka  13:12

I just want to say hey, Margo, on LinkedIn live and anybody else on LinkedIn live, let us know you’re there with some comments. And we’ll do that.

 

Curt Anderson  13:19

So a mark on my Argos podcast this week. So

 

13:24

severely limited with in person sales calls with the COVID crisis. Having these videos already made a lot as to get in front of customers digitally, where they could learn about how things up sober offers, as well as benefit from being able to do it on demand. We’re able to break them up for blog posts, we’re able to use them on social media, we’re able to do them in an email newsletter, as well as just have them on our website and our YouTube channel.

Customers can go online, watch the videos at their leisure, or our sales team can utilize them ahead of a sales call, so that our customer might have some additional information before they’re on site. We’ve been generating leads, as well as numerous views on our social media and our YouTube channel.

Working with true focus media has been great. They’re truly a partner for us. They’re working with us on planning our videos, they’ve accommodated numerous scheduling issues we’ve had with different people. And they’ve always been prepared when they come on site. We’ve really enjoyed working with him and we’ve worked with him for several years now and plan to continue in the future. We can’t say enough great things about having videos already made that we’ll be able to utilize for years to come.

 

Curt Anderson  14:23

So kudos to you and I just want to show you know what I love here Jeff is like you know, a lot of us are mainly for our manufacturing marketing group. You know, we some of us get around. We’re like we’re the we’re the cobblers kids with no shoes. People are focused on their clients so much that they neglect their website. Guys go to true focus media you see right here in the URL. It’s a video value bomb. If you Google Video value bombs, you’re going to land on this website,

 

Jeff Long  14:49

or let me interrupt if you just go to Video value bombs.com It’ll take you to this page. Yeah,

 

Curt Anderson  14:58

he bought the domain video dude I love that checked it. I love Jeff talking about this right here 70% of buyers fully find their needs on their own before engaging, and then you have 73% of people are more likely to purchase after watching videos, just share a little bit about that right there.

 

Jeff Long  15:15

I mean, think, you know, to the viewer here, think about what you do, you know, when you’re looking for a product, and granted, not everybody only uses video, but we’re searching for information. So especially in the manufacturing and industrial type space, those customers are still doing their research, right.

They’re, they’re Googling they’re looking at, you know, YouTube, they’re looking at social media, they’re, they’re looking around to get that information. So when they do call a salesperson, they’ve already done their homework, you know, so that, that can be a pro and a con. So I always tell people, if you know, 73%, of whatever it was, you know, are looking for content. Does your company have enough content for them to find, right?

Because I have I’ve seen this in different industries where the company that has the kind of most content or the most helpful content, so videos, articles, case studies, webinars, podcasts, sometimes they win only or mainly, because they’re, they’re mostly well known. Right? I mean, granted, they have to have great products, great people service. Yeah, that. But like, I mean, Kurt, you wrote the book, right, you know, stop being the best kept secret around. And most companies are the best kept secret, because they don’t have content and videos and webinars and podcasts and, you know, a content snowball that gets bigger and bigger that the more they add to it. Yeah.

 

Curt Anderson  16:41

Yeah. Hi, Ted snowball. Man, let’s get another quote for

 

Damon Pistulka  16:46

you write that one down. We got John Johnson some in the comments that I think is real relevant here is that when you put that content out there, you know, a decision is already made, been made. And a lot of times before they reach out to you and that’s true now. And and the video can give them that confidence of making a good decision. Because as we all know, as buyers, it’s about getting confidence in the decision, especially in business, when we’re going to spend 1000s of dollars on things and do it. That video can give them that confidence.

 

Curt Anderson  17:18

Right? You know, and to give a shout out to Greg Miss yo, yo, he is the master of preaching that no light trust, no, like just he was a great job talking about the digital twin. And here it is, you know, like this, I and guys, please go to Jeff Long’s website. Check this out. So I mean this. And I want to point this out for two reasons. Number one, Jeff Long, doesn’t talk to talk. He is walking the walk, look at all this content, all these videos. Now if I’m looking for a video expert, boy, I can really make a sound decision.

Yeah. You know, he’s doing business with Cargill. I’d say Jeff, you did I love this video right here. Stober the company tour. This young woman here does an amazing job of that video. You guys check out these videos, but not even so much. Look at what Jeff Long is doing. What could you be doing with your company and or with your clients for the marketers out there? Jeff, let’s come back to this page. If I’m if you guys so so missing my screen. Yep, you have. I love this right here video value bonds and three easy steps. Could you walk us through this process here?

 

Jeff Long  18:22

Yeah, so the premise is, you know, whether whether I work with a company or whether they do it internally, but but let’s say you know, I work with a company. So one of the biggest barriers to entry is like scheduling and getting this content out of the subject matter experts. Yep. Somebody put in a comment. Aaron, you put in a comment? What are your thoughts on influencers and influencer videos?

I honestly have a heart. I don’t like the word influencer. I feel like it’s been hijacked by people that, you know, we’re sitting there Lamborghinis or pretending that they’re in, like, just so women. Teachers, just teach what you know. I mean, that, to me is influential and, and beneficial. Don’t, don’t try to pretend you’re not, you know, you’re somebody or not.

So. And that’s, you know, most people in manufacturing, they’re not pretenders or making stuff, right? They’re good people. So this three steps is, you know, we identify the subject matter expert, it could be the salesperson, Executive Engineer, customer, even if we want a testimonial. And then we book a monthly call. So every month, we’re interviewing a different subject matter expert. And we do this virtually, you know, especially because of COVID, and travel restrictions and all that. We’re able to do this through a special software.

So it’s kind of like zoom or teams but better. And then we do the rest, right? We edit it, we put it together. So it’s really kind of the three steps besides the three steps that are on the screen there. It’s three things right we have a content roadmap. So we have different pieces of content that we recommend every single month. For example, let me just give the viewer here a couple ideas, you know, if you’re looking to do this internally, so look at your top blogs, articles, posts, whatever you want to call them. What are your unicorns? What are your top results in Google Analytics, create more videos on that, you know, explaining more in depth, that content.

That’s one type of video, another type, and I put a, I released a short video value bomb on LinkedIn today on authority showcasing videos. So interview people in your company, what expertise do they have? How can they teach? What stats and trends are they seen and how that impacts the industry or, or your company? Right? Like, that’s easy, you know, just get somebody to talk about their, that’s why I’m going on and on here. Um, right. So number one is create content following this roadmap.

And then number two is what I call content multiplication. So once the videos are made, you can write articles have audio out of it, you can have different quotes that come out of it that can be used in your brochures and your social media. And then number three is distribution. So we want to put these videos and articles and content everywhere your customers are. So I’ve a list of 40 different places or more now where you can post and repost this content. Some of its social media, some of it’s your website, but like one that I love that most people don’t think about is your email signature, right?

We all send out gobs of emails every day, every week. Imagine if everyone in your company had like a rotating blurb in their email signature, hey, check out our little latest video value bomb or latest, you know, power tip video series. I mean, free advertising right there. So we have you know, a whole list of different places you can post and repost these videos. So yeah, the best and then you get the SEO value, because again, the content Snowball is getting bigger. Yeah, and it it helps automate some of that sales marketing customer service that you’re already doing. Just put content in place to do it more efficiently.

 

Curt Anderson  22:17

Yeah, and with and how you can stretch it out and like, you know, Damon, you do an awesome job. So like this program here, takes the recording, he’s going to take the transcription, puts it on exit your way website does a little as you know, some little summary of the program, backlinks to you know, backlinks are going to go to true focus. So you know, guys, this is such, you know, let’s unpack that. Let’s go. Let’s take it even deeper. Jeff Long. Let’s go further with this. And David, join us today. David. David there. Yeah. Thank you guys for joining us today. John is here. So let’s take a little bit further.

So, you know, we we sign up with you we go through this video value bomb, and I absolutely love what you’re saying like, you know, it doesn’t matter if they’re in Maine, San Diego, they can do it anywhere. Right? You, you, you and I shot a video this week, right? You know, I went through the software super easy, super fun. I’m getting criticized about my lighting Damon I need a little better lighting is what I’ve been, you know, but anyway, so you can take that recording, and you can talk about how you can repurpose it, they can get the transcription, they can start posting it just take a little bit further.

 

Jeff Long  23:19

Yeah, so I mean, I love video. And I think the stats and everything show that video is king, right? But not everybody loves only video. So people want to read, especially with companies that are multi lingual, multi global, whatever, global multi global. So you know, you want to have content in the way that the user wants to consume it right so video, audio, text, etc.

And it really the the hardest part is creating that content once right? So creating the video takes some work then creating the additional pieces of content, it gets a little easier because you’re basing it off of the main piece so that’s why I call it a content Snowball is it the more you create, the more it just gets bigger and bigger as it rolls down that hill.

And yeah, so you know, like we’ve said benefits SEO it’s what people want I mean in right you know, I think like a couple minutes ago Kurt, you showed the page of all the like, kind of high end high quality videos we’ve done again, those I love those those are both fun and beneficial. There’s a lot of ROI. But those aren’t the only types of videos you know what? What Damien’s doing with you know, transcripts and this cutting up videos. That’s what we’re talking about. You know, it’s content marketing is what we’re talking about with a video emphasis.

 

Curt Anderson  24:43

And I absolutely love that and so in our training and so our friend Dan in Alaska, he’ll love this, you know, so we caught How can we be lazy right? How can we be as lazy as humanly possible? And that’s our running joke in the training so like, you know, it’s funny because like, I’ve got Laurie Heidi was one of our trainers. She came in she He’s like, Well, I understand you guys want to be lazy.

So let’s get lazy. But you know, with this strategy that Jeff’s talking, and again, I want to give a shout out to Trisha Stewart, Trisha, happy Friday. Thank you for joining us. She is a global expert on translation services and really gave us a powerful, powerful presentation here back in August on how important that is, if you are taking your business global, but that loss in translation can come so easily. And now with this video with that proper translation, now you can like bridge those gaps or prevent those challenges. Right. I mean, that’s, that’s huge.

 

Jeff Long  25:32

Absolutely. And I want to answer one health question with inhale. I think you work something with fishing or something. Am I correct? So how do I look for clients? That’s what this is. Oh, yeah, yeah. But how, you know, what happens if my target audience isn’t online or isn’t watching videos?

I mean, I don’t know your exact audience. I know. Stats show most people love videos, even when I’m hanging out with family, extended family, older family. I mean, honestly, there’s been times where they are on their phones more than me and my kids. You know, my wife was like, your parents were on the phone the whole time, you know? And I know, you know, so they’re watching videos.

 

Curt Anderson  26:19

Yeah, Mom, get up a Snapchat. Gotta tell mom to get on the TIC tock, again.

 

Jeff Long  26:23

Come on. Right.

 

Damon Pistulka  26:24

And you make a great point to Jeff. And I think that there are some people that are never going to be on the internet for for video. But yeah, YouTube has made it so mainstream for I’ve got an uncle that does a tremendous amount of car restoration stuff. He always is on YouTube, looking at videos, how to fix this, you know, 66, Chevy, Nova, rear differential, whatever the heck, and there’s somebody that’s made a video about this stuff are close enough to get it.

So there’s a lot of people that under understand that. But I also think, too, that while they don’t maybe use the internet for purchasing as much and houses because there are some that don’t you now there’s ways to share it, as you’re saying through email, or through other sort of messaging that you can get it to them.

 

Jeff Long  27:18

Yeah, that’s a good point. And again, we go back to the teaching thing, right? It’s not that we’re doing like these hard pitches, like, aren’t we great? It’s like, here’s how to do this, you know, so I would, you know, that lends itself more to the share ability factor, or like you mentioned, YouTube. I mean, YouTube is the second largest search engine behind Google. And Google owns YouTube, right? Yeah, the power of a one two punch just just by some of these, this video content. So I would experiment, you know, people want to see stuff, and videos help you show stuff. And especially if you’re teaching to me, it’s a win win, but you gotta experiment.

 

Curt Anderson  27:57

It’s absolutely so you know, let’s let’s go lazy a little bit further. So like, an our running joke with our training is like, Damon, you do a great job of like, otter.ai, you know, so like, you know, I’ve been doing some creating some blog stuff. And like, Now, instead of sitting or typing it all the time, I can just go into otter, I can talk into it. Yeah, pull it out, copy and paste it and bam, there it is. So now with this trend, you know, transcription.

Now what we’re what we’ve been preaching with our training is like, Guys, pull out your phone, shoot a quick video. Now you have that video. Now, take that transcription, drop it into otter otter.ai It’s free, right? We’re cheap, and we’re lazy. So let’s be let you know, we have our phone, shoot the video, transcribe it. Now you have video that you can pose, you have social media posts, you could turn into a blog post, I’m like, you literally could create like a month’s worth of content with a 510 minute video Don’t Don’t writing.

 

Jeff Long  28:51

Absolutely, yeah, use the power of technology, you know, and, and that’s why I want to give these ideas because I know so many of the people in on this show here today are either already doing this in some capacity or have the desire and capability you know, and so, you know, obviously, you know, we offer it as a service so talk to me later if you want to help but most of you can do this or want to do this so keep doing it is what

 

Curt Anderson  29:16

Yeah, and again, you know, so for our folks, there’s a lot of marketers, you know, like Mike saying, you know, I’m going to check it out you know, it’s an awesome tool. So again for the DI wire you know that that may be what you use your service, you know, this is a great way to do it, you know, hey, we’re just going to improvise and we’re just going to do it on our own. You know, dine it’s a great fit for done but let’s talk about that manufacturer Jeff you know, like so you know, when you’re dealing with air guests cargo you know, some of these you know, University of Dayton have other companies listed out, they’re probably not going to pull out their phone.

You know, this is a little different strategy that we’re talking about. So this is where that the video value bomb come in. But Damon we talked about this all the time, you know, Google or do go on YouTube and type CNC machine printed circuit board, you know, SMT machine You’ll see hundreds of 1000s of views of just a machine making something nobody’s talking about a human being. So I mean, do you want to work with that?

 

Damon Pistulka  30:12

I’m one of those people, you’re right.

 

Curt Anderson  30:14

And what you want to do is bring that ideal buyer to your facility. You know, if there’s a buyer in Tennessee, and and you’re the manufacturer up in Wisconsin, bring them into your facility, show them the machinery. Right, Jeff? So give us some of the examples of some of the videos that you’re shooting and some of the things that

 

Damon Pistulka  30:31

I love some of those you do, dude, they’re great.

 

Jeff Long  30:33

Yeah, I mean, again, that’s why manufacturing is is easy to work with. I was just thinking about that the other day, you know, we’ve, we, we’ve worked with a lot of companies, a lot of industries, but like, like, there’s some industries where it’s, it’s, it’s people just sitting behind a desk working on a computer, well, how do you make that interesting, you know, it’s like, there’s only so many angles and cool shots, you can get manufacturing, that’s where it is. So, um, I kind of forget your question what you just asked Kurt.

 

Curt Anderson  31:02

But yeah, just share some of the examples of like, you know, going into a manufacturer, what are they asking you to, you know, so say, the folks that are knee deep in it, you know, like, you’re, they’re not resistant to the digital transformation, right? They’re really, they’re almost like, overwhelming you with ideas. They’re not searching for ideas with you shares, like some of those examples of like, what are folks having you shoot? What types of videos are Yeah,

 

Jeff Long  31:26

so, um, we worked with a company, Midwest Fasteners, they’re here in Ohio, where I’m based out of, I mean, they’re not a gigantic global company, like they’re a good manufacturing company, you know, like, you know, small, small business, but yet doing some amazing things. We did a series of videos on their, one of their key components, it helped it’s like a weld with Arc Welding kit type of thing.

So it’s like this little suitcase, you can go and you can do this, this arc welding. Pretty cool. So we did this eight part video series, overview, setup, safety, etc. And once we were done, you know, put it on their website, on social on all these platforms, they went to a massive trade show in Dallas, and this was pre COVID. And they landed one of their largest actually, I think it was their largest customer they had ever gotten. They landed, not because of the videos, I’m not trying to say that at all. Yeah, but they asked the customer like, hey, what were some of the reasons you went with us?

The two things they mentioned were Midwest Fasteners, had a really nice website, which we didn’t make, it was a different company, but really nice, innovative website. And their videos like this customer, this big, huge customer said, we can tell that you’re an industry expert, that you’re on the cutting edge that you’re doing, you know, innovative things, you’re not just kind of the best kept secret around, right. Yeah, yeah. So just little things like that. Again, I don’t think the videos were the catalyst, but they were icing on the cake, you know, to a faster landing that contract.

 

Damon Pistulka  33:06

It’s kind of like a side conversation that you have with the customer about, you’re talking about your kids, you’re talking about sports, you’re talking about the weather, whatever the heck it is, that and video really kind of fills that silence and allows him to, to get more of that on demand. Right? I mean, that’s what I look at it like, yeah, it may not, it may not cement the sale. It may not do that, but it sure certainly provides the the icing on the cake.

 

Jeff Long  33:33

Right? You look at Amazon, I mean, most Amazon products, at least the ones that I look for have a video. And yeah, typically watch the video first, you know, yeah. And it’s like, I’m too lazy to read the description and scroll down and read it, you know, I watched that video, I looked at pictures. So same thing for companies that have ecommerce websites or, you know, just other you know, things we want to see that product in action or be killed or the machinery that does the, you know, the stuff so, yeah, it’s

 

Damon Pistulka  34:04

Yeah. And Greg, miss, you made a good point, you know, there’s no get Goku far with lazy, you know, there is a there is a time and place all the content to and he’s right there is.

 

Curt Anderson  34:16

Right. So and we’ll and we’ll clarify that in a second. But the Jeff you know, again, appreciate your humility, you’re modest.

This is the videos, dude, you know, and the thing is, let’s, let’s, let’s dig into that for a couple of reasons. Number one, as a manufacturer, or as marketers, whatever service you provide your expertise, you know, you know, ingred Greg, Aaron, you know, Gen Alpha Team, whatever service that you guys provide, by having those videos and that content if I’m not a good fit, you’ve I’ve done you’ve done yourself a favor that I’m watching videos and hey, you know what, I’m not the best fit instead of wasting your time and you know, you know, virtual cups of coffee and tighten it up. By putting yourself out there.

What we love to preach is how can you help that ideal bye make a buying decision on a Friday night at midnight. Yes, without having to wait for you to open up your door on a Monday morning. And that’s exactly what that powerful, you know, just intentional, what you’re doing, Jeff is you’re helping your clients be intentional with those video strategies, and it is powerful. So again, I appreciate your modesty about that lead or that new sale. But this is this is where it’s at, you know, this is what companies need to be doing on a regular consistent basis.

 

Jeff Long  35:27

Well, and let me tell you another story. I’m not going to tell you the company just because what I’m about to say. So I was at a company doing some consulting, and they had their top two salespeople on the phone because they were in different parts of the country. And I said, so, you know, tell me what, what’s your sales process? Like? How do you get leads? How do you, you know, just kind of walk through me high level, right?

So their top salesperson said, yeah, so we, you know, we look people up on LinkedIn, you know, different searches and filters. And then we reach out, we say, Hey, I’m Bob Smith. And here’s what I do. Here’s my brochure, or here’s my catalog. I think it was Yeah. And then he just kind of stopped and I’m like, it what else? You know, like, is that it? He’s like, Well, yeah. Like, I mean, is that is that working for you? Yeah. And because I was in the room with the owner.

And the reason I was doing some consulting was because I knew it wasn’t working. Yeah. Like, I mean, you know, it’s, you know, he danced around it a little bit. And I said, Okay, I mean, you know, I try not to put him down too much, you know, he’s working school motto, I said, Well, what if, you know, when you reach out to a prospective customer, say, Hey, um, you know, Bob Smith, from this company, you know, we do this, here’s a short video, video value bomb. You know, that gives the the top three tips about blah, blah, blah, or, you know, that’s a lot easier.

Yeah, it’s an interaction versus saying, Hey, here’s my catalog, buy some stuff like nobody does that nobody buys. Yeah. So it’s, it’s, I think, Kurt, you said a couple minutes ago, customer centric, and that’s, that’s the key to any marketing, right is being customer centric. And the beauty with video in LinkedIn is, if you put a video on LinkedIn, you can copy the URL, and post that into a private message. So you can do in fact, when I reach out to people for a connection request, you know, it’s very simple.

You know, I’m Jeff Long marketing for manufacturers, I typically post helpful tips and whatever on video marketing for manufacturers, and then I, I put one in there. So right in the message, they can click play on their phone on their computer and watch a short video value bomb, you know, and there’s no sales pitch, I’m not trying to hook them in anything, right? It’s right. I’m either a fit, or I’m not, or they’re interested, or they’re not, I don’t, I don’t care, you know, because like, there’s enough people out there. So give value and be customer centric.

 

Curt Anderson  37:55

Right. And again, so whether you do it yourself, you can pull out your phone. So you know, I had an E commerce business 100 years ago. And when YouTube came out, 2006 2007, we immediately started putting videos out, you could go back and find these videos, you know, they have hundreds and hundreds of 1000s of views. Like we’re getting 10s of 1000s of views, almost instantly, just you know, they were how to what’s this product?

How do you use this? You know, so again, each and every single one of you on the call today, you have expertise, you have information that people are longing for, you know, just get out there and just put it out there. And, you know, Jeff, for the manufacturers that you’re working with, talk about like, what are some, you know, you’re sharing some of the successes or some of the things that they’re that they’re that they’re crushing it with? What are some of the hurdles that you’ve had to get over to, you know, to get to that point, and the folks had been maybe a little resistant? Like you said that one gentleman?

 

Jeff Long  38:47

Yeah. Let me let me go back to one more thing, and then I’ll answer that is when the beauty with manufacturing is most people aren’t googling or searching or going on YouTube for CNC, you know, just to watch, like, it’s a specific type of person, they typically have a specific need.

So the types of companies I work with, like, if they’re doing the searching, they’re somewhat interested and and yeah, maybe they’re writing a research paper for you know, their college or university, whatever, I get that but like, yeah, it’s not a, a broad mass consumer product. It’s a very niche specific thing they’re looking for. And there’s not much competition. So yeah, sometimes easily overtake the big dogs that aren’t doing it. Because you’re putting content up. Yeah, you know, yeah, YouTube on other platforms. So anyway,

 

Damon Pistulka  39:38

yeah, you’re exactly right. And that’s one of the things that I think people forget. And when you look at that example, in Kurt, you talk about this a lot in our training, it’s like you have to niche down. And you know, if you make a video and you say, watch this Custom Machining, a motorcycle rim or something like that, you know, or a custom The motorcycle rim the you’re going to give people watch that all day long because they’re a they’re motorcycle junkie be they want a custom rim and you know you just what but that niching down gets you those those specific people that are there to buy there that one and learn to buy.

 

Curt Anderson  40:17

Absolutely I just I listened to and you guys remember Michael Gerber wrote that great business book in the 90s E Myth it was a classic. I listened to him on a podcast just this week and I got you know, guys been around for a long time. His quote was my niche down till it hurts. Yeah, I like man, I thought that was so good niche down to a Hertz. And that can be part of your keyword strategy, your video strategy, so on and so forth.

Jeff, I know we could go all day dude, I want to get back to the tables because I know people are dying to talk to you. I hope we’ve covered every seat. Aaron I don’t know if we’ve covered every question every comment. Jeffrey, let’s take it home dude. So just we’ve dropped your LinkedIn profile. We’ve talked about how to connect with you how to you know, some great tips and strategies any words of wisdom that you want to leave everybody with as far as video goes from that we could take away today?

 

Jeff Long  41:11

Yeah, let me let me give a quick a couple tips on like when you’re doing these yourself right when you’re on camera, whether it’s webcam, smartphone, DSLR whatever. A couple tips. Smile more, right? Even for most of you So Kurt cover your ears. Most of us need to talk faster. Because it we naturally kind of talk slow and and the camera sucks out our energy. Right? It’s a it adds 20 pounds.

I think it sucks out 50% of our energy except for Kurt. So in normal real life I don’t talk this fast. But you know, I love what I do. And the faster I talk the more I don’t know it’s a weird thing. Um, and then when you’re whenever you’re doing like a video like this with a webcam look right at that camera, right like yeah, pewter. I’m actually looking at Damon now but that looks awkward on camera because the cameras right there. So yeah, look right at the camera when you’re doing webinars, Zoom calls, promo videos. It just looks a lot better. I know. It’s for me. Yeah.

 

42:16

Horrible. Grab my cameras right there. Yeah,

 

Jeff Long  42:20

right, right. And then lastly, make sure your audio and video is good. Microphone. Yeah. I’ve got lighting. So Oh, yeah,

 

Curt Anderson  42:30

I need to work. So Trisha, thanks for joining us today. But this is an we’ll wrap up on this. So when COVID hit. My wife is a great school teacher. We were watching Jeff Long how to videos for both of us. And I’m like, hey, my wife’s name is Jill and like Jill, you got to watch it my buddy in Dayton has these awesome how to so she said we’re both watching all these videos.

So she came home remote and had to teach kids. So Geoffrey, my wife, Jill, thanks, you and all her young students last year you made our videos much better. Thanks to your your tips and expertise. So guys, I want to wrap up and, and gosh, I know we could go online. So Damon, I want I didn’t share this 18 Well, I have I can’t do the math. So September of 2020 Daymond. I were like you know what, let’s do something together. Let’s do this little webinar program. And we came up with this wacky idea stop being the best kept secret manufacturing ecommerce success. And I’m like, I don’t have to think about it.

I know who our first guest is going to be. Jeff Long. Dude, you’re our first guest on manufacturing ecommerce success. October of 2020 and Daymond. This is our 52nd episode together, dude. High five to you. Thank you for a year of just awesomeness. Wait, Ron, what a great experience. Bringing Jeff back again on our anniversary. So jazz awesome, dude. Thank you. Friendship. Thank you for all that you do, man.

I can’t express how much I admire you respect you. You’re just an awesome dude. Everybody loves you here. Look at look at the other crowd here man. Yeah, man. Yes, it’s great. Awesome. So it’s great. Guys. We’re gonna close out please stick around. Let’s go back to the tables. Keep picking Jeff Long’s brain his Yeah. Genius. Yeah, if you haven’t connected with him on LinkedIn, please connect with him. Yeah, Jeffrey, Thank guys go out. Absolutely. Have a wonderful weekend. And we’re gonna be back here Monday. Just keep crushing it so Damon Take it away, brother.

 

Damon Pistulka  44:34

Yeah. Thanks so much, Kurt. Thanks. Yep. And I didn’t even realize it was our 52nd episode. This is awesome. I mean, I just feel I feel blessed that we still get people to come and talk to you like crazy. And we’re having fun and we enjoy what we do. And it’s great to have people like Jeff and it is it is it’s super. It’s incredible that you’re here on the 52nd episode. I had no idea this is I’m just looking around

 

Jeff Long  44:59

for Birthday cake or something like yeah, it never Candler

 

Curt Anderson  45:05

Amazon’s Amazon’s gonna deliver it about 230. There we go.

 

Damon Pistulka  45:08

There you go. Awesome. Well, if you were listening to us on LinkedIn, hey, Margo, Chuck and everybody else listening over there, thanks a lot. We’re gonna go back to the tables now on remote.

If you’re listening to us on on LinkedIn, you can always join us on our email, just check out chucks or Chuck who’s Chuck is our they’re listening to us on LinkedIn, but Kurt’s posts my posts during the week on my company’s his company’s, it’s all comes out, you can see the links there. They’re in a lot of places. And you can join us on Remo and you can talk with these cool individuals that are working in manufacturing and E commerce after it. So we’re going to drop off over there and we’re going to begin the conversations at the tables. All right.

 

Curt Anderson  45:48

Thank you guys. Thank you, Jeff. Yeah,

 

Damon Pistulka  45:51

awesome, man.

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