Making Video Marketing Easier with Nina Froriep

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, video, teleprompter, clients, content, alastair, editing, camera, books, big, talk, easy, nina, person, lens, create, challenge, spend, reading, post

SPEAKERS
Alastair McDermott, Nina Froriep

Nina Froriep  00:00

Once you kind of get the rhythm of what what content really means for video, and how that content shows up and how it’s being delivered, then if you are an expert as a service, providing expert, you probably have more content than what you will ever in will be able to shoot and use.

Voiceover  00:19

Welcome to The Recognized Authority, a podcast that helps specialized consultants and domain experts on your journey to become known as an authority in your field. So you can increase your reach, have more impact and work with great clients. Here’s your host, Alastair McDermott.

Alastair McDermott  00:35

Hey, if you are a regular listener, then you know that I’ve made a decision not to look for sponsorship for the podcast in a major part, because I don’t want you to have to listen to ads before, during the podcast. But I do want to ask you a favor in return. If you are enjoying the podcast and listen on a regular basis, can I ask you to take a minute to leave a review, it’s really easy to do this, you can go to therecognizedauthority.com/review. And it’ll give you options that are appropriate for your device and your listing app. So that’s at therecognizedauthority.com/review. And that link is in the show notes. So thank you, I really appreciate it. Now on to the episode.  So today my guest is Nina Froriep. Nina, you are in Switzerland today. Is that right?

Nina Froriep  01:19

That is correct. Yes.

Alastair McDermott  01:20

Cool. And so you’re, you’re coming from Switzerland, I think a lot of the time I’m talking to you, you’re also in New York City. Is that correct?

Nina Froriep  01:26

Yeah, um, the last couple of years have been pretty much 50-50.

Alastair McDermott  01:30

Cool. Yeah. And I have now visited NYC so I can say it’s a great city. And I spend a lot of time in Switzerland. I have a goddaughter in Switzerland, actually in Neuchatel. So I’ve been to Switzerland a lot. So we got to know each other through a video challenge that you set up a year ago or two years ago. And I find it really, really useful for upping my game in terms of video. And so I want to talk to you about first of all, you know, the importance of video now, I think it’s it, I mean, I think it’s hard to argue that it’s such such an important medium that everybody should be doing it. But yet not a lot of people do it. You talk about the importance of video.

Nina Froriep  02:12

I mean, the importance of video. I mean, first of all, Alastair, I think like the fact that we still have to talk about the importance of video, I find it strange, because at this point, it should be so amply clear that video is just here to say that it’s the medium to use to promote yourself digitally, and especially since COVID. At the latest, where we all are digital, at least us who work in the service industry. So I always I’m always really sort of flummoxed that we’re still talking about it, that it even is necessary, right?  I think where video really sets people apart is that it is a connector, especially in today’s world where we’re not going to physical networking events anymore as much, maybe we’re starting slowly again, it video replaces that to a big degree. Video creates that connection, we can call it an emotional connection. If the word emotional doesn’t resonate with you. It just shows I would say chose people that you’re not some, you know, monster hiding behind the tree, you’re just going to try and devour your resume when you get on a call with them, right?  So video is going to show you who you are, do I want to work with this person is this person basically simpatico to me, and it also self selects people. So if somebody doesn’t like you, they’re not going to waste time scheduling a call with you to find that out that they don’t think that they that they think they could work with you. It’s also a great way for people just to take in information in a more casual way than reading a 5000 word, you know, article that you wrote or, you know, any, any other form. And again, the video part also versus the audio part. I think it just it gives a clear connection and a clearer more information about who you are.

Alastair McDermott  04:10

Yeah, and it helps to build that trust in in a much stronger way than than reading text on the screen. Ken

Nina Froriep  04:17

Yeah, and I mean there’s there’s a lot of you know, very smart people in the neuro science world that talk about you know, how video or and video and audio together help you take in information at like 80,000 times more, etc. I mean, it is not my forte, but I mean there’s staggering numbers that talk about how also your decision making process.  There was a study I once read that was so funny because it’s like this person who took all these statistics about the best car to buy, and they spend exorbitant amounts of time comparing and deciding and blah blah blah. And then they went with the car they wanted from from the from the get go anyway. way, right? So, and it was not the one that came out the best with the statistics.  So we make decisions, our decision making process is an emotional process. And it’s a gut process and video helps with that tremendously. I don’t know whether you ever seen this graphic that I have, where I talk about the customer journey, and how easy it is to move people from, you know, being aware that they have a problem or unaware to aware to interested in moving people along those those steps is really easy. But once you want to move people from being interested, to actually have an intent to buying from you, that is a really hard gap to bridge. And that’s where video comes in with absolute brilliance because it can create that trust, it can showcase your expertise. And it can really help people move from, you know, I’ve got a couple of people I’m looking at which one of them I’, going to buy from to actually, you know, moving them to say, Okay, I’m gonna I’m gonna go with, Alastair.

Alastair McDermott  06:02

So why, why do we have such difficulty? Because I have had the difficulty myself and I have this internal resistance to it. And so many people out there, I mean, people come to you for help for a reason, like, why is it that we have such difficulty with with hitting record on the camera?

Nina Froriep  06:17

I think many reasons. But the top two or three, let’s see, I normally say a number, and then it’s like three more, right?  So I think number one, and this is sort of my crusade is a lot of people are making video a lot more complicated than it needs to be, I always tell my people like I want you to focus on content on being brilliant on your marketing strategy. The shooting, the video part is just a mechanical thing, like opening up your browser and going into your email account and writing an email, it should be as easy to create a video.  But what you want to say in the email, or what you want to say in the video and what you want people to do at the end, when they’ve read your email or watched your video, that is where I want you to spend your time with not the recording part. So I think that’s number one, that it’s too complicated, or a lot of people are making it. I mean, guilty as charged, when I was still doing major big productions, you know, not six years ago, I mean, we would, we would make it as complicated as humanly possible so our clients, you know, really felt they were getting their money’s worth, and they really needed us. But that’s really not not the case anymore. We all have a phone in our back pockets today. And it’s a full-fledged studio, I don’t even bother using the professional editing software that I taught myself to use. I don’t even I haven’t opened that in two years, I do everything in my phone at this point, it’s so quick and easy. And if I have something a little more complicated, I’ll give it to the editor. But that’s what I do.  And then I think secondly, at least from my audience, so I work mostly with people all service based a lot of business coaches, and a lot of them nearly all of them, I would say 45, if not even 55 and over, it’s not the he who start seeing yourself in front of the camera necessarily, right. And not just the ladies, men sometimes are even more hesitant to show up on camera. And so it’s just it’s something that we’re not used to we’re not generation, you know, Z or C or whatever is coming up down the, you know, coming down the pike as the newest generation. We’re not that used. We’re not in the selfie world, we’re not in the I’m on video all the time world and I’m on social media all the time. So I think there’s a bit of a maybe a modesty gap, an imposter syndrome gap. A you know, I wasn’t thrilled to be 50. And I’ll suddenly be in front of the camera after 25 or 30 years of safely hiding behind it. And I got over it really quickly because I had to I had no, you know, I didn’t have a I didn’t feel that I had a choice. If I didn’t want to be the old geezer in the corner somewhere, you

Alastair McDermott  08:57

know? Yeah, I think it is something that you have to get over. I think that you just have to say, Okay, we’re going to, I’m going to do this anyway. And I don’t know if there’s any answer because I’ve, I’ve wondered about this myself, like, I know that, you know, everybody hates the sound of their own voice on audio. And when you start editing your own voice and watch yourself on video, you’re not going to like it. And that’s just because their voice sounds different in our head because of bone conduction and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. So that’s just the way it is. But I think you do you just have to get over. Do you have any answer for apart from that?

Nina Froriep  09:32

You mean getting over it? Not really. I mean, it’s like you said, You did a very sweet video on the last challenge that you did with us where you said just Just do your reps. So what really happens is and this has happened to me, and it was actually a moment that is so crystal clear, remember was about three years ago, I was editing myself for the umpteenth time. And it was the first time that I realized I was smiling at myself because that’s said something funny. And I wasn’t editing Nina, I was editing a person who said something funny. And I was like, wow, finally, the moment where I could sort of distance myself and not say, oh, man, you know, wish I had done that in my 20s, I looked so much better back then. Or, oh my God, my voice sounds really weird. I was just really in the flow of editing a video, whether it being me or someone else, right. And I think that is where you want to get to, but you only going to get there if you shoot video and shoot it consistently. And often when I talk to leads or prospects. And they’re like, oh, I don’t know whether I’m ready or not. I said, like my homework to you is just start shooting, don’t need to use it on social media, just shoot video and get used to the setting it up and to looking at it afterwards. And get used to seeing yourself in hearing yourself.

Alastair McDermott  10:54

Yeah, I agree with that 100% I, I when I was listening to people talking about zoom fatigue, three or four months into the pandemic, and people still talk about it now. But it’s this concept of this fatigue of seeing yourself on the screen. And I realized I have never got that. I think it’s because I had gotten so used to seeing myself on video and things like that, that I’m just you know, this is just what it is. But when I’m normally when I’m recording a video, I can see four, maybe five, five versions of that video, because for example, right now I’m looking at my camera, my camera has little LCD screens, showing me the picture, it’s recording. So I know, I could see myself in the recording studio here. And then I have another piece of software called OBS, which I can see myself in as well. And then sometimes when I’m on Zoom, I see all of those plus I see myself in the gallery view. And what I found is that I think that that Zoom fatigue is a real thing. But you can also get through that and just kind of get used to it. So if anybody is in this is having difficulty with that, I would say you know, just push on through that. Because when you get to the other side, the benefit of just being able to switch on the camera and talk to the camera. I think that that is such a, you know, it’s worth the effort.

Nina Froriep  12:06

I mean, yes, and I think with Zoom, we often just don’t have a choice and what I sometimes do, so I don’t get you know, caught up in what my hair looks like or you know whether my lipstick has worn off or not. There is a setting in zoom where you can hide self view. And especially when I’m with a client one on one, I turn that off just so I’m completely focused on the person I’m talking to. And I think it makes a really big difference because I’m not sidetracked with watching myself. And I want you know, and also wonder, Allister, is zoom fatigue, really fatigue of looking at yourself, or is it just a fatigue of sitting at your desk staring at your screen? You know, 10 hours a day, every day? Or you know, my case? Thankfully not 10, but still enough?

Alastair McDermott  12:54

Yeah, absolutely. One thing I mentioned there was looking at the camera, and that’s something I really got from doing the video challenge with you is, is I need to look down the barrel of the lens more. And that has other impacts. But let’s talk about that for a minute. Why is that so important?

Nina Froriep  13:10

I mean, so simple. If you talk to a person in the street, you’re not going to talk like this and look away from them while you’re talking to them that will be super weird. So it’s the same with with video. I mean, right now I’m looking at you on my screen, rather than looking at you, where I don’t see you, but I’m actually looking into the green light. So if I’m going to create video, in order to connect with my audience, and create an emotional connection, and also show off my expertise, you want to look at them and by looking at them that means you’re looking if you’re on your laptop or with your you know, with a an external mounted camera on your desktop, you want to you want to find out where that lens is make sure you look at it and the same with your phone. I actually always have I don’t have one right now I normally have a little post it with a big fat black arrow on it that you know, I put on with a Sharpie. And I stick that on my phone because you know the you can’t even see the microphone, right? It’s like this little tiny.up here so I make sure that I don’t look at myself while I’m recording myself. But I’m actually looking at that little dot and it makes all the difference in the world.

Alastair McDermott  14:20

Yeah, and I’ve had to train myself and it took me a long time but I’ve gotten to the point where I’m pretty good now when I’m doing say I’m recording for social media or YouTube I’m pretty good at looking at the lens the whole time. When I’m on Zoom I still find myself you know you do need to check you need to look down and and see okay, is the person responding to body language and stuff but I think it’s it’s it’s good to look at that lens as much as you can to try and create that connection for for the other person. I know some people who do that 100% of the time I think maybe that’s too much because then you’re not picking up on the value of having their video but I think there is a balance out there you can take

Nina Froriep  14:54

absolutely. You can also call it out right like what I do sometimes if I have to scream If I move my zoom over to the other screen, because I’m doing something on the main screen, I actually I say to my audience, I say, if I look this way, that means I’m actually looking at you. So they actually know that when I’m looking off to the side, I’m not like, you know, playing solitaire or something like that, right?

Alastair McDermott  15:18

Yeah. Yeah. So, so some of the impacts, I mean, all of these minor things, seemingly minor things, but when the impact of looking at the camera means that if you want to do a video where you have extensive notes, then either you’re going to need a teleprompter, or you’re going to need to do shorter takes, or just have an amazing memory for scripts. So I don’t have an amazing memory for scripts. So what I find is that I do shorter takes. So um, you know, I’ll say two or three sentences, record that. And then I’ll go to my notes, get my notes ready. And then I’ll do the next the next part of the script. I did try using a teleprompter. But what I found was that my, my delivery was too wooden with with the teleprompter. So

Nina Froriep  16:01

yeah, once when, yeah, when I started out, I started out with teleprompter because, you know, I came from big ass productions where, you know, teleprompter man, a woman was standard procedure. And what I found with the teleprompters that we can, you know, use on with, you know, they’re the ones that work with your iPhone, or with your iPad, or the ones that actually scroll over your computer, there at one speed, and we don’t speak anything that’s longer than 20 seconds, 30 seconds, you know, we’ll want to pause, we might want to speed it up somewhere, we might slow down somewhere, and you just have a text set scrolling at the same speed. That’s what makes it delivery. So wooden. The other problem I find with the teleprompters the self teleprompters is if you’re shooting with a teleprompter, in real life, as in like, you know, proper production proper in parentheses, the camera most likely is about, you know, maybe eight or nine feet at least away or three meters away. So the teleprompter is in front of the lens, those three meters away. So if I’m reading, it doesn’t look like I’m you know, going like this. Because if I’m not reading a screen that’s right in front of my face.

Alastair McDermott  17:13

So those those are no side to side motion. Yeah. Or even

Nina Froriep  17:17

even with your pupils. And again, you weren’t here you are, you’re trying to make a connection with people. And all they see is you know, your pupil going back and forth, because you’re reading, and most people don’t know, and this is a really scary part. People don’t know to look for that. Because they’re not a professional like me, who sees instantly what’s going on. But emotionally, they will have a feeling of this person is weird. I’m not connecting, something’s off. And that’s even worse, right? Because I can say, oh, this person is trying really hard to have a teleprompter, and that’s what they’re doing. But if you’re not a professional, you don’t pick up on that you’re just going to be left with an icky or weird feeling. And that’s

Alastair McDermott  17:55

sort of wrong here. But I don’t know what it is. Yeah, yeah,

Nina Froriep  17:58

exactly. Something’s off, and I have no clue what it is. And then so what I do with my clients is just I say, look, you’re the expert, you know how to get from A to B to Z on your video. Yes, you might, in the beginning have to shoot a video 6789 10 times. But that also comes with practice, and your social media videos are not supposed to be much longer than 60 to 90 seconds anyway. And if I have longer content, like doing, for instance, the videos that I do for my, you know, online learning platform, I just I work with slides. So I use a service, like for instance, like stream yard. They’re also great for a lot for lives. And they allow me to for me to be in one half of the screen and my slide in the other half. And then that just speak to the slide and the slide prompts me. And then I can easily do a 15 minute video without flubbing because I have my slide. So there’s great ways to get through your content without needing to prompt.

Alastair McDermott  18:58

Yeah. And I just want to say for anybody out there who who wants to do video or is thinking about doing video is getting a little bit scared by talk of teleprompter and stuff like that, like no, I think the most important thing is, is just start and this goes back to the video you mentioned earlier that I put up by putting in the reps. And what I mean is like doing the repetitions like in the gym, you don’t you don’t learn how to swim by reading books about swimming, you have to get in the water at some point. And it’s the same with video, you actually have to hit record. And some of my first videos were were so bad I literally don’t recognize myself, particularly in that and that one from 2008 that you saw Nina. Yeah, I literally like I don’t look like me and I don’t sound like me. But it’s very cute.

Nina Froriep  19:38

I really loved it. And I’m like wow, I mean Alastair already did videos back then how cool is that? That’s way before I did my own videos.

Alastair McDermott  19:48

I kind of wish I kept doing them at that point. But

Nina Froriep  19:51

yeah, and I mean my first videos well first of all, they were like a full day production. I would like move all the furniture in my living room. And I break out my semi professional cam quarter. And I bought all these like really dinky lighting lighting setup on Amazon which fell over each time my dog only looked at it. And, and, and I just shot like three videos in the whole day it took me, and then they were so good and so stiff, so bad. But you know, I did what I knew from the world that I came from, which was big productions. And it took me a couple, it actually took me a while to get away from those kinds of videos.  And then one day, I know I just did a casual video sitting at my desk was something quick, I wanted to get out there was I remember, it was time sensitive. And I got so much amazing feedback on that video. I’m like, wow, this is it. Obviously, I’m ditching all that massive production stuff I’ve been doing. And from then on, I just did you know what we call – stilll call, and I know it’s a bit of a cliche word – “authentic” or “genuine” videos of me just talking the way I talk.

Alastair McDermott  21:00

Yeah, I think that’s the key is to make it easy for yourself and not making a big production. Yeah, no, I have it. Thankfully, I have it set up now. So you know, the video that I use for zoom in that I’m using for this call is also the video that I use for, for YouTube to set up the cameras in the same place. And so I just have, I just set it up in a way that it’s easy to do. I think that’s the most important thing is that you can press as few buttons and move as as little stuff as possible, in order to get it get set up. And if at the start your prompting, you know, you’re you’re propping up your phone, on a set of books or whatever. So together to the right place. So be it just do it. Yeah. But I think you really do have to just start, I think that’s the most important thing.

Nina Froriep  21:46

Yeah, I agree.

Alastair McDermott  21:48

I want to talk about the content, the actual videos that people could be making, because there’s people are listening. So typically, independent consultants are experts in in some area, one minute videos should they be making and putting out on social media,

Nina Froriep  22:03

short ones. That’s the bottom line short. So and I do have that, you know, fight or this discussion with a lot of especially with consultants, more so than with coaches, who you know, really feel and rightly so that they have this vast knowledge and this big, sort of complex thing to offer. But you know, the the people who watch you on social media, they are window shopping, they’re walking by your store and keep walking. So you want to make sure that you don’t give them the 20 Minute treaty, you want to make sure you give them that quick sort of snackable, as I’ve heard it being called, which I think is very cute, snackable content. And in terms of what content is, it could be just a small little tip series.  So what I always tell my clients is, you know, do you have a lead magnet meaning you know, a paper that you give away for free in return for an email address, where a lot of people have like, you know, top 10 tips to do X or top 15 ways to manage y or do my quiz. A lot of lot of us have quizzes, right? Where we kind of you know, get people into doing the quiz and in return for their email address. The quiz might have 10 Questions 20 Questions, each of these tips, or each of these questions is one video. So if you have your top 10 tips, you have 10 videos right there, make it an intro video, then you have 11 I’m running out of fingers, you know it, it’s really, if you think of your content as sound bites. And we actually work with our clients to have actually several series that they run that are based on tips FAQ, like most frequently asked questions, you could do a series on the questions people should be asking but are not asking. You could do I mean, the sky’s the limit, right? So once you kind of get the rhythm of what what content really means for video, and how that content shows up and how it’s being delivered. Then, if you are an expert, as a service, providing expert, you probably have more content than what you will ever in will be able to shoot and use.

Alastair McDermott  24:28

Yeah, I agree with that. And I had Marcus Sheridan on the show a couple of weeks ago now. And so he has five topics that he talks about in terms of creating content for and that would fit perfectly in. One of those is cost and pricing in your industry. One of those problems in your area. Another is best of tools and resources. Another is reviews of various things related to industry. And the last is how to do something. And those are those are great topics. If you’re looking for ideas take take any of those. His book they ask you answer is very good book as well in terms of ideas for video, sorry for content marketing in general. But I think one thing that’s really important about what you said there is that if you’re doing really short videos, you don’t need to worry about editing, because it’s easier to just reshoot the video than to edit. And it’s absolutely fine to do that as well. Because I find it if I, if what I found in, you know, over the years is that about one minute of video took me about an hour to produce. And I’ve gotten that number down a bit now, but but it’s still pretty much you know, you know, it’s still a kind of rule of thumb that it’s in the back of my head all the time. So whatever I can do to reduce the production time, and just reshooting sometimes is easier and quicker. But yeah, it’s okay to just do a retake.

Nina Froriep  25:53

Absolutely. So, to this day, I only do one take wonders as we called him, and I will reshoot I have reshot up to 15 times. I will reshoot until I get it. Right. Right enough. And that’s a whole other topic. Allister is perfectionism and video, right? Not today’s talk. But I until it’s good enough. And it actually is, for me interesting to see that as a Swiss person who very much believes in perfectionism. And Americans who very much believe in it’s good enough and move on. Right? So I’ve adopted the American way of life when it comes to producing my videos. It’s good enough, we’re moving on. And I’m now first of all, I only batch produce, it is the rare occasion where I will shoot a single video. And then it’s normally because my pants are on fire and I need to get something very specific out. So I batch produce, and I put these videos into into a little app on my phone and I trim back an end, I clean it up, I throw my logo on there, throw a title on there, and I’m done. That whole editing process. And yes, I’ve done it zillion times, takes me no more than maximum five minutes per video, maximum. And these are, I would tell my clients I need to do 60 to 90 seconds. Mine are normally around two minutes. And then I you know, booted over to my computer, and then somebody else does the closed captioning. But the closed captioning also that should not take longer than 10 minutes per video, f it’s a two hour – two minute video.

Alastair McDermott  27:25

Yeah, I think that for me that the key word you talked about there is batching. And that’s one thing I found massively helped with making me more efficient. And just making video much easier was when I shoot in batches. The only thing about that is if you want to shoot in batches, you have to pre plan your content a bit more. Because yeah,

Nina Froriep  27:47

but if you’re doing true, but if you’re doing the series that I recommend, and you’re doing your you know, 10 tips for the one, whatever, you know, lead magnet you have, you want them all you want to, I would then think that you would want to have a visual, visual sort of branding consistency. So I actually shoot those on purpose altogether, especially for us ladies and you know the hair is at the same length for all the videos, I might switch out I have two different pair of frames of glasses I’m it’s might switch those out. So it’s easier to edit and know which videos which sort of a visual reference or like, you know, change my necklaces or something. But it makes it so much easier. When you do your content batch. You shoot them batch and you edit them batch, I think you’re probably saving upwards of like, I’m making this up. But I wouldn’t be surprised it was about 80% of your time. Yeah, I agree with that. And it takes a moment to get to batch. I mean, in the beginning, I could shoot maybe three videos at once. And then I was exhausted. And my brain was on fire. And I now routinely do. I don’t think I’ve ever done more than 12 at once. But I normally do about eight to 10 at once.

Alastair McDermott  28:56

Yeah. The other thing that is that is possible to do when particularly new batch like this is it makes it easier to outsource the editing if you want to do that. Yeah, and I think that’s a good idea is to get external help. So for example, I don’t edit the, the podcast myself I did for the first four or five episodes. And since then the last 45 or 50 episodes have all been outsourced to that to an external editor. And it just makes life so much easier. It’s it’s, there’s a lot of workflow. There’s a lot of little details involved in editing, podcasts or videos, whatever it is, there’s lots of little details to take care of. And so it’s important to maybe try it yourself to see you have an idea what’s going on. But outsource it to somebody and get them to take care of it. And that will make your life easier. They’ll probably be a better use of your time and money as well.

Nina Froriep  29:50

Oh, absolutely. And especially if you tell your editor like I with my editor, we have templates for each of the series that we have or the different kinds of video we have and When I do a series of maybe, let’s say 10 videos at once, I send those to my editor. And then he actually fake mimics to make it look like my little app in my phone. And when I do my live show, which is a, you know, half an hour to 15 minute live thing on LinkedIn, I definitely give that to my editor, I do not want to spend two hours sifting through my footage and figuring out which are the best clips, a professional editor can do that in in a fraction of the time, it would take me, he also is distanced from the content and not married to it. So he will, with much more accuracy, bring me the clips that are the most interesting. And since we have a template setup, he knows exactly what color the tight Texas where it goes, what font to use, how it moves in and out. And once you’ve established all of that, you know, then it’s just boom, boom, boom, boom.

Alastair McDermott  30:51

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, okay, I want to switch gears for a minute, because I want to talk about challenges, because that was how, how we met, my friend Brad told me about a video challenge you were doing. So you do both paid challenges and free challenges, can you can you just tell us what the challenge is, and then a little bit about doing it either as paid or as free? Yeah,

Nina Froriep  31:12

I’m happy to. So challenge is something where you do something intensely for a limited amount of time. And in our case, that is posting a video every day, Monday through Friday. On social media, we normally allow people to choose whichever platform they want. And just make sure that they can offer a link directly to the post, not to their profile. So it has to be made easy for the other participants. And the way it works is when you do it in a group setting, not only are you held accountable, they’re sort of the group pressure if you want of like, you know, keeping up with the video Joneses and making sure that if you know, John posts every Monday through Friday, Susie posts once Monday, Monday through Friday as well. And it what it does, in addition to that is we share all the links together, and then everybody else goes into all the other videos, and give them a like and give them a comment. So not only are you getting used to posting video every day, and but you’re also getting a boost with the algorithm. Because if you have a nice group of like 12 people or 15 people are doing this, and doing this every day, then your content gets a real nice boost.  What it also does, and this is why I lovedthe month long challenges that is which is also how we met Alastair was that, if you’re doing a month long challenge of posting a video every single day, you you can sort of fudge yourself for the first week, if you’re really good, you might be able to fudge yourself through the second week. But at the latest by the third week, whatever isn’t working with your workflows, or whatever isn’t working with the way you’re creating the videos is going to fall apart. So in a way, it’s it, I the month was really set up for you to fail. So you were forced to address all the things that you weren’t addressing. And you were spending way too much time with your either shooting or editing or planning. And you really like were like, Okay, this doesn’t work. I cannot spend every day an hour creating a video. And that’s like a ha.  But if I set aside two hours on Sundays, let’s say or Saturdays or Friday afternoon, whatever it is, and I batch produce all my videos for the week. Now, you know, we have a game changer. And so that was a really nice thing about doing a full month of it. And because it was a full month and it was fully supported. And we had weekly group calls, I charged for it very little. I mean, it was definitely not a moneymaker. But it was a great way for us to also see what kind of videos were coming out of people where people were bumping up, it really helped us create a much more comprehensive program on how to teach people to do video. Because we were it was like a laboratory for us. Right. And it was fun. I just love the challenge. I love the energy of it. So we did the challenge all through 2020 It was also the pandemic time people were sitting at home, a lot of people were more open to a dealing with video and be starting a new hobby or starting something new in general because they had you know more time on their hands on this. So we’re parenting, you know, three, three children who are stuck at home doing schooling right. So some people have some of us had much more time on our hands and others were like completely freaked out and at no time at all.  And then we stopped with it because it kind of it ran its course it was fun. And you know the model the way we’d set it up at I think we charged $250 It was just not you know for what we put in it really would have had to cost like triple that at least to make it worth worth our time. But again, it was a great laboratory and it was fun. And then what we did And we tried this out just recently is we did a mini challenge, where we just did it for one week, it was for free. And it was a way as a lead magnet to get people to, you know, sign up, get into our bed, give us their email. And we actually got a couple of clients out of it. So it was it was well worth it.  About a week, of course, a week and being for free attracts a completely different crowd. And it was really interesting to see, the challenge that we did, the month long challenge was people who already were doing video and wanted to get better at it or wanted to have that in that intensity of it of just like getting getting to it making a commitment for a month and doing it. And I was actually surprised by how few people fell off the horse. Not everybody posted every day, but most people did a pretty good job and but for like maybe one or two people we did I think five of those challenges in 2020 gave up like as in like, you know, I’m done. Bye bye. And with the with a shorter one, it was sort of like, oh, I show up. I don’t show up. And that’s as always I’ll stir. You know, people who pay value what they get people who don’t pay, you know, not so much.

Alastair McDermott  36:16

Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah, yeah. And I found what the challenge was, I did both actually, I did the longer challenge first and did the shorter challenge later, I found with with the with the first challenge, because my video game wasn’t very strong back then. But after hearing Nina, tell me for the fifth time in a row, Allister you need to look at the lens, it starts to get in your head and as you start to actually look at the lens. So and I do appreciate that, because I think you definitely helped me improve everything about how I do video, so that the biggest things that I took away from that are my framing in the in the camera, so that, you know, the the top of my head is near the top of the picture. Because I tended to be kind of down too low in the picture. And then looking at the lens as well, that was a big thing for me. Yep, that plus just the habit of making videos. And regularly getting on there and doing it. I think that’s really important.

Nina Froriep  37:17

Yeah, and again, you know, it does shift sometimes when when, you know, I work with people, and most of my clients already are doing video when they find those, but they’re just, you know, frustrated by the process, or it’s not working out the way they want it to it I always love those moments where I’m like, well just frame yourself a little different or look at the lens or make sure that’s the other big one that your eyeline with the lens is, is on par, right that you’re at the same height, and then see the difference where it’s like, whoa, a mediocre video just turned into a really good video just by because it’s never it’s never the camera, it’s never the quality of the camera. It’s rarely the quality of the microphone, it is mostly people just looking shitty because they’ve got a window behind them. Because their noses at the bottom of the of the screen or god knows what, right? So these little shifts can make such a huge difference. And then once you’ve got that manage, then you can really go and say like, okay, let’s roll up our sleeves and focus on what we should be focusing, which is strategy and content. And of course at the other end Analytics, which is, you know, feeds back into strategy.

Alastair McDermott  38:28

Yeah, yeah. And I find with the analytic stuff, and I worked on my YouTube channel a bit. But I found that the analytics were less important for me. That might be my approach.

Nina Froriep  38:40

You know, everybody’s different there. Yeah. Yeah, I think in

Alastair McDermott  38:43

the world of b2b, where small numbers can make such a big difference that the that the actual numbers, you know, you can get too granular on the numbers, I think.

Nina Froriep  38:55

It’s just another way of avoiding, right. It’s another way of being a perfectionist. So I’m just, I’m working with a client right now who just wants to try out all these different things and have all these different analytics. And I’m like, you can knock yourself out with the analytics, but I mean, my analytics are, I created a video and 10 people signed up. That’s an analytic for me, right? I created the video, no one signed up, I’m like, Okay, what did I do wrong? You know, how can I make that video better? How can I make my call to action more pertinent? Or how can I talk about the benefits of the thing that I’m selling? How can I highlight those in a more appealing way? And yes, it’s it’s fun to see. I mean, we we use shield.ai, which is a great analytics tool for LinkedIn. And, but you know, we use it sparingly, but every once in a while, I’ll be like, to my VA, hey, you know, pull me the top 10 performing posts from the past, you know, year and inevitably when views, it’ll never be posted with video. So we don’t even look at that, because that’s a vanity metric. We only look at engagement. So how many comments, that’s really what we look at comments, and every once in a blue moon shares are great. But the comments is really, that’s, that’s what you want? Do you want people to engage with you?

Alastair McDermott  40:18

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay, so I’m just weary of the time. So I want to ask you a couple of questions. I asked a lot of people on the podcast, I’m really interested in talking to people about what they’ve learned from business failures that they’ve experienced, is there anything that you have really learned from the something that may be a mistake or something like that in your, in your past?

Nina Froriep  40:39

Yeah. So I mean, I’ve been in business for over 25 years, and my business has pivoted greatly, especially in the last six years from being, you know, a big production company where I might have had two or three clients a year. But those clients were massive to now having lots of smaller clients, and sort of, you know, speaking more to volume. And in both scenarios, and I’ve seen it also with companies I’ve worked for, as a freelancer, freelance producer, is overhead can be a killer. And I, I remember, when 911 happened, I had an a big office, I had three employees. And of course, you know, a host of freelancers coming in and out. And I didn’t pivot fast enough, I didn’t look at my cash flow sternly enough. And I hung on for way too long. And it got me into a situation where I had to pay off the loan over the course of 15 years. So I now am super picky. With anything, I’m quite generous with one time, one time expenses, because I’m like, it’s a one time thing, right?  But when it comes to stuff, and it’s I actually have a little spreadsheet, in addition to having, you know, the full accounting software, where you can look at everything, I have a little Excel spreadsheet spreadsheet, into which I put all those little platforms that we are members of right, from zoom to acuity scheduling, to stripe, for your payment, processing, to otter, for your transcriptions of you know, and, and I mean, I’m just looking at all the things that are open on my browser, right? All of these things, they cost 10 bucks a month, 25 bucks a month, some 50 bucks a month, and I have them in a spreadsheet, and at least four times a year, I go into that spreadsheet, I’m like, am I using this? Am I using this? Am I using this? Can I downgrade this, and it’s, it’s a quick 10 minute exercise, and it has saved me 1000s of dollars over the years, because there’s so much shit in terms of these, pardon my French, in in terms of these little software’s and this this little, you know, overhead stuff here and there and everywhere. It just really, really adds up. And so I’m very rigorous in, in editing that. And I’m also very I love working with freelancers, I have some amazing people I work with, I mostly work with Americans paid them as very nice hourly rate, but they’re top notch. And because they’re top notch, you’re going to save me the money I’m spending on their hourly versus somebody who’s a cheap, you know, run of the mill person who doesn’t really know their craft. And I’m very careful with who is on staff or on on like a retainer with me. So I I’d rather spend, you know, a little more money but only when I actually need it rather than a subscription thing that then in the end I’m not using really to its full potential anyway.

Alastair McDermott  43:43

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I agree with that. I also have a spreadsheet for recurring recurring costs, and it was it was the thing the first place I went on, I think it was March 12 2020, when when we started to go into lockdown here. It was the first place I went to okay, what what do I need to trim the fast? I need to find places to cut the outgoing class. So yeah, okay. That’s a really good.

Nina Froriep  44:11

Yeah. That is 25 years of experience. Yeah.

Alastair McDermott  44:16

Fair, fair enough. Yeah. Okay, so I just want to ask you about books because I’m a big fan of books. Is there a business book or resource that you would recommend that you really love?

Nina Froriep  44:25

You know, the books are so individual because we’re all at a different point in our careers where we might need help with this, that or the other. And I’ve, I’ve read my share of them over the 25 years I’ve been in business. I just read this one actually pulled it out of my my bookshelf, because I always get the titles wrong. It’s by Steve Chandler, wealth warrior. The title is catastrophic, but the content is really good. And it’s all really super short chapters. And it just talks about the mindset of making money and of asking for asking for money. So in other words, sales And I thought it was really, really interesting. He has a really interesting approach. He’s done some training that I’m familiar with that I’ve done as well. So it was also familiar language for me. And I just thought he did a really good job.  He also wrote, he’s written like 25 books, business books, I read to others of his but this by far is the one that just also hit me at a time where I needed to hear what he had to share. So I love that book. And then I’m reading this and this is kind of funny, because you know, it’s my own expertise. So this is the seven figure video funnel by Ken Okazaki. Um, I hope I’m saying it, right. So, you know, Okazaki is, you know, he’s not who I want to be when I grow up. But he’s like, he’s the big guy in video marketing. He, there’s some really interesting stuff in the beginning, where he talks about how to systematize con content and strategy and scripting, and some of it is all too rigid for me, and he speaks to a completely different audience than what I speak to. But I really took away some really, really interesting nuggets that I that I thought, I’ll definitely use with my clients, whether I tell them that I got it somewhere else or not. We’ll see. And then yeah, so those are sort of two books from a business perspective that I’ve just been been reading as of late

Alastair McDermott  46:28

cool. And we will add those to the show notes and what about fiction a fiction reader adult?

Nina Froriep  46:34

I’m a huge fiction reader. So I my background at university actually is literature and linguistics. So mostly European, of course focus on on German because I’m, you know, originally from Switzerland, the German speaking part, I am right now actually just spent a whole boatload of money. I love physical books. I mean, I have have them on the Kindle, often as backup, but I love my libraries. I love physical books I bought. So I discovered three new authors this this winter, who are who are writing mysteries in in about Switzerland. And they all have sort of regional specialties. So one of them is I’m up in the high Alps near St. Moritz. So this one guy who only writes about, you know, things that happen up here, and I read one, I just picked up random one of his books, and then to my delight, noticed it was 10 out of 11 or something, something like haha, 10 more books to go. So that those i Those, those I enjoy very much. And there’s a whole bunch of them and do some of them play in the center of Switzerland, some play in Zurich. And they’re not high literature, but they’re all good. And then I love I love this one guy called Pascal mlca. He’s also Swiss. And he wrote that famous book, train to Lisbon Night Train to Lisbon. It was made into a film with Jeremy Irons. And he just came out with a new book and his books are that’s real literature. Just absolutely divine. And then on my I’m waiting for me is Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen who was sort of the the it author right now in America. But that’s like a big fat one. I’m going to save that one for my flight back to New York.

Alastair McDermott  48:14

Very good, very good. Okay, so Nina, where can people find you if they’re interested in learning more.

Nina Froriep  48:20

So I mean, the obvious place is my website clockwise productions.com. But what I always love to tell people is follow me on LinkedIn, because we do as we teach and as we preach, so you can actually see us in action on my LinkedIn profile. We post daily, we posted the same time daily, we engage with different LinkedIn pods, which is another discussion for another time. And we do video at least three times, if not five times a week. So it’s a great way. And we do make various different kinds of videos. So it’s a great way to kind of see what we do and how we do it, and how we also teach our clients to do it. Super. And I’m the only Nina for rip on LinkedIn. So yeah,

Alastair McDermott  49:06

absolutely. Well, Nina, thank you so much for being with us here today. Of course,

Nina Froriep  49:11

it was my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me, Alastair.

Alastair McDermott  49:17

Thanks for listening. I hope you found that interesting and useful. If you’re enjoying the podcast, can I ask you to take a moment to review it, it really helps us out. And it keeps it free from sponsor ads. You can review it by visiting the recognized authority.com/review. And that will give you appropriate options for your device and for your listening app. That’s The Recognized Authority comm slash review. Thank you. I really appreciate it.

Voiceover  49:43

Thanks for listening to The Recognized Authority with Alistair Mackenzie. Subscribe today and don’t miss an episode. Find out more at the recognized authority.com