Interviewer: Josh Fonger

Guest : Rick Cesari

Duration: 52:21

Please Note: The following is a computer auto-generated transcript and will include some inaccuracies.

Josh: (00:54-00:56) Hey Sorry are you there?

Rick: (00:57-01:01) I am, my Xoom was acting up a little funny today.

Josh: (01:02-01:04) It’s good now.

Rick: (01:05)  How are you doing?

Josh: (01:06-01:07) I’m doing good. I’m doing good. 

Rick: (01:07-01:08) Where are you located?

Josh: (01:08-01:11)  I’m located in Scottsdale. 

Rick: (01:12-01:36) Oh, that’s a nice spot. I was down there probably about a month ago. There is a company called 6th Division there. I don’t know if you ever heard of them. Yeah. Yeah. So we we have a client, a big Amazon client that is looking to do more off Amazon marketing. And so we spent a session down there. It was really informative. Really great stuff.

Josh: (01:37-02:04)  Yeah, those are good guys over there. I don’t know them personally, but I know of their work. So. Oh, very good. Very good. So let’s see here. I’m looking at this. I’ve got I’ve got the video screen over there. Some not looking up into space looking. I’m looking at you. I had some back to back to back meetings. So I’m a little behind, but. (All right.) Should be hard to catch up in just a second. So have you a chance to look at any of the podcasts?

Rick: (02:05-02:18) I have to be honest with you. I haven’t. I’ve been neck deep in my book launch. And so I apologize for that. Who’s a who’s your audience? And like what? What? Tell me a little bit about your business and what you do.

Josh: (01:37-02:54)  Yeah. So and just so you know, the camera’s cutting off the top part of your head doing it tilted up, there you go. So basically that book where they work the system. My business partner wrote that book about how to improve your small business. It’s based on his life story. And basically, we help companies organize so they can scale. So most companies that listen this podcast are between 0 employees and 20 employees. And when that range, they’re trying to grow the next level, but they’re stuck. Don’t know why we help them docent their processes and procedures so they can actually grow their business.And so ,

Rick: (02:55)  They’ll put their operations in.

Josh: (02:56-03:19)  Yeah, basically how to how to get the things out of the brain into some place where they can train, cross-train and actually delegate and get some freedom. Usually owners we work with are working 60, 70, 80 hours a week and we’re trying to help them work like a normal person. You know, their scheme insanity. So,

Rick: (03:20-03:22)  Not being an entrepreneur and working normal hours hand in hand, sometimes, 

Josh: (03:23-03:28)  Sometimes they don’t. We just want it to be forever. So. Exactly. So, yeah.

Rick: (03:29-03:38)  Mostly e-commerce. Our businesses are more standard, you know, brick and mortar type businesses or just any of the above.

Josh: (03:39-05:17)  You know, I would say that probably 60 60 40 in terms of traditional to online, but every traditional company has an online component to it. Yeah. So you in. Ones that are 30 percent is like a hundred percent online and there are international, but there are all English speakers get about twenty five thousand people that are pretty active on our email list that are get this delivered to them and then we have a decent following on Facebook and other social media outlets. And so we’ll go live and we’re going to transmit this live on our Facebook page we recorded. And then after that, we’re going to edit take out the pick up on the front and the back and then we’ll put into i-Tunes and YouTube and Twitter and LinkedIn and everything else. And a couple months, actually. So we’re pretty backed up, but probably 60 days from now. I know you’re about to launch, so it will go live today, but then it’ll go live in a big way in 60 days. That’s awesome. So we will twice. And we’ll put some money behind it and get out there. Now, I had my. Assistant, do the research on you want to read this report. Can you tell me if it if she’d chosen the crazy or so I’m going to say house walk through the outline here. So we’ll actually interview for about 30 minutes. So we go live on Facebook. I’m going to say when I’m interviewing Rick and it’s pronounced a sensory Cesari necessary, I might screw that up when I go alive. But I’ll try your best.

 Rick: (05:18-05:20) Don’t or I’ll correct you. Rick Cesari.

Josh: (05:21-06:42) And so I’ll just reiterate here. So I don’t get it. All right. Rick Cesari. And then I’ll talk about how they can get Sam’s book if they stay to the end of the pod or into the podcast. And then once I know that we’re slinked up, it’s working live. I’ll be looking over here. Then I will say, Ricky ready to go? You say ready to go. And then I’ll actually start the standard podcast. I’ll say welcome to the workers podcast. I’m your host Josh Fonger. Tell you, we have a special guest, Rick Cesari, who is going to talk to us about how your business in your brand can help you develop a powerful video marketing strategy. And then I’ll say, Rick, I was editing her work here. Rick has helped major brands from GoPro to George Foreman, Phil Billy DA Brands through brand response advertising and strategic video marketing. His upcoming book, Video Persuasion, aims to put big brands proven video, right? Proven, proven they do. Marketing these, brands prudent video marking techniques into the hands of small business owners. Investors or mentors and sellers and and others.

Rick: (06:42-06:50) I think that comes from interview valet, the booking service that I use.

Josh: (06:51-07:20) Yeah, I like that. Good work. So I’m going to. And I’ll actually go longer with your intro because your intro is quite interesting. Some say a best-selling author, speaker, consultant and marketing and marketing and brand strategy guru, Rick is bringing his expertise to us today, sharing best practices in video marketing so you can successfully influence your customers and build your brand. And I also welcome the show, Rick. OK. And then I would ask you how you got into this line of work.

Rick: (07:21-07:33) So awesome. I apologize. But what’s your first name? (I’m Josh).  I would like to know that. So I thank you. Thank you, Josh.

Josh: (07:34-08:09) Yes. And so, Rick. So Sam Carpenter, he wrote that book and then I’m his business partner. I actually actually bought Sam Carpenter out a few months ago out of the business, but everyone knows him. The book’s been around for ten years, has kind of a cult following. Oh, great. It’s in it’s sort of third edition. It’s, had a couple of million downloads online. So we also give it online. So it’s in a bunch of languages. So he’s kind of the he’s the guru of our brand. (And it was all the work.) Yeah. I’m the implementer. So, yes, he’s sixty nine. He just hangs out now.

Rick: (08:10-08:15) Well I’ve spent a lot of time promoting other spokespeople and gurus and things.

Josh: (08:10-08:50) And then somebody ask a bunch of questions about video persuasion, video marketing, how video marketing is changed, how high, how small companies can utilize this. How is it different. Small companies can buy the big companies, you know. And so the first question going to be very much a softball question. You can play at your story and I’m talking about the book. Certainly I get a book right in front of me here. The digital version, not the one. And then at the end. And if I run out of things to ask you, I’m also an ask you the questions that interview about life says. So four key ways to make audio video perform better.

Rick: (08:50-08:58) I think any, you know, just having a conversation. You’ll be curious about some of the things I say and that usually works really great.

Josh: (08:59-09:43) And then at the at the end, you’ll know we’ll get to the end. Can we ask you a question? Such as, what’s one thing you want to leave the audience with? I didn’t ask you about. So anything that you think is relevant to small business owners who want to really, you know, engage with video marketing. I’ll ask you that question. And then the last question will be where can you go find you? And then you can certainly your website. And then I will exit. Thank you, everybody, for joining us in the podcast. And tune in next week for another biz expert like you. Now, you’ve got quite a rese here. What is the main thing you’re selling right now? Is it keynote speaking, the book? consulting? What is the main thing you’re trying to get out there?

Rick: (09:44-10:26) I would say to consulting, you know, companies will hire myself and my partner to kind of develop direct to conser marketing plan and then we help them implement it.

And then anything, you know, we don’t we you know, we still do larger video productions, but we more you know, I refer  that other vendors that I use and stuff like that, but help people come up with a, you know, marketing strategy. I guess. OK. I hope Background’s in direct response marketing. So it’s all going to be. Revolved around that type of marketing.

Josh: (10:27-10:38) Ok. Now let’s see. So you got the book, but really in the end, the book is leading to work with clients. And your ideal client would be what kind of client?

Rick: (10:39-10:52) You know, somebody that’s doing anywhere from two to maybe 30 million and wants to, you know, wants to scale their business up from there.

Josh: (10:53-10:56) And there they’re probably already doing some video marketing, but just maybe doing it.

Rick: (10:57) Yes.

Josh: (10:58-11:03) Is it more video advertising or a video marketing?

Rick: (11:04) Advertising more.

Josh: (11:05-11:11) Advertising more. Okay. All right. And then what medi do you like to use?

Rick: (11:12-11:58) Basically, any of the social platforms and then, you know, when companies are the right size and they have the right foundation, we still use TV, you know, direct response TV spots and that type of thing. It’s not a good way to start out these days, but once they’re a little larger, it makes sense. But I hope a lot of AMA large Amazon sellers with, you know, creating videos for their products, you know, videos that sell demonstration videos. You know, e-commerce companies. You know what videos should be on their platforms? Restaurant business owners, you know, how can they incorporate video into what they’re doing?

Josh: (11:59-12:03) Cool. Yeah, it’s great. I would be asking my questions that will help me in my business.

Rick: (12:04-12:11) So that’s the best kind of conversation.  So that was a curious about something. Usually your listeners are, too.

Josh: (12:12-12:58) Yeah. Oh, yeah. This is this is a hot topic. This is critical. So I’ve got questions. It’s just off of my head so I can. Give me some and so I’ll read to the rest of what like a wrote for me.

1. You might even throw in some of your fun stories about Go Pro or George Former or I had a couple of fun stories about both of those. Awesome.  Really fun.  All right. Well, then I’m ready to go. I’m warmed up. I will click a few buttons here. So we go live on Facebook. And how many interviews are you done for your book if you’ve been doing them all all month long?

Rick: (12:59-13:09) Yeah, I’d say probably around twenty five or thirty in the last few weeks or so, which is great. I like I like to do it.

Josh: (13:10-13:14) Okay. I feel bad. You didn’t watch the podcast?

Rick: (13:15-13:22) No. And I do try to a different podcast and things to. I know you learn a lot 

Josh: (13:23-13:27) Yeah, I’ve been I’ve been on fifteen the last month an I used to interview Valla as well as OK.

Rick: (13:28-13:50) Yeah, they’re great. I went to this last year pod fest in Orlando because they had a day on Friday before the actual thing. It was all about YouTube and I wanted to learn more about YouTube and YouTube marketing and it was really good. It’s definitely crazy. How long you’ve been in podcast. 

Josh: (13:51-13:54) We’ve actually been doing it for years, 

Rick: (13:55-13:57) Well, you’re the brother now is like starting a podcast. 

Josh: (13:58-15:03) Yeah, we we use it purely use it as a. Hold tried to spell persuasion. Yeah, so we would do one podcast a year and then it was one podcast a quarter and then now there was one podcast a month. And this year we’ve done one podcast a week. And so maybe we have like that or now. Sixty five.  Seventy episodes. (Let’s watch it. )Yeah. It’s really well and so. Keep going. I might actually open up another podcast because I I do coaching consulting for companies but I also certify coaches. That’s a new thing. And so my sort of separate podcast kind of just four coaches who want to be better coaches. So video persuasion. We’re live in 10 seconds. I’ll make it this up. Cesari , Cesari , Cesari says there. Oh, man, I’m totally scared. 

Rick: (15:04-15:05) Well, you’re not the only one. Everybody. Everybody, Julius Caesar,  Cesari.

Josh: (15:06-15:20) Cesari. OK. Well. I’ll do my best but no guarantees. All right, three seconds.

 

Josh: (15:21-15:43) OK. So we are live on Facebook and I’m looking forward to be interviewing Rick Cesari today. Before we kick off the podcast, I’d like to mention that we’re giving away a free copy of that book right there behind me, work the system. So if you want to find out how to win that book for free, go to work system dot com at the end of this program. Now, Rick, it looks like we are alive or things linked up. Are you ready to go?

Rick: (15:45-15:46) I’m ready to go, Josh.

Josh: (15:47-16:52)  All right. Let’s do it. Welcome to the Work the System podcast, where we help entrepreneurs make more and work less using systems. And I’m your host, Josh Fonger  today with a special guest. We have Rick Cesari, who’s going to talk to us about how your business and your brand can help you develop a powerful video marketing strategy. Rick has helped major brands from Go Pro to George Foreman build billion dollar brands through brand response advertising and strategic video marketing. His upcoming book, Video Persuasion, aims to put big brands proven video marketing techniques into the hands of small business owners, entrepreneurs, inventors, Amazon sellers and others, and best-selling author, speaker, consultant and marketing and brands tragi guru. Rick is bringing his expertise to us today, sharing best practices in video marketing so you can successfully influence your customers and build your brand. All right. Rick, really excited about this interview today, especially after our pre our pre-show prep here. Give us the story. Give us the story about how you got into video marketing.

Rick: (16:53-20:27) I’ll do that. And just first of all, Josh thanks for having me on your show. I really appreciate it. And before we dive into my background, I just want to mention, because you talked about, you know, working with major brands like Go Pro and George Foreman. Just so your listeners know, I started working with the products we’re going to talk about today. George Foreman, Sonic Care Juice Man Rugg, Doctor, Go Pro I started working with all those businesses when they were doing less than a million in sales are startups and then help them grow some of them into billion dollar brands. So a lot of the information we’re talking about today is geared towards small businesses, startups, that type of thing. So just quickly, by background, I don’t want to take up too much time. So I actually have a degree in biology. I was going to be a marine biologist. And but after college was over, I would have had to go on and get an advanced degree. So instead, I moved back down to Florida, where my family was living. And I was a b for a year. Kind of a bartender and a lifeguard and fun. No. And but I was motivated to do more. So I got a lot of books about motivational books and how people made money and a lot of people back then. And still today we’re making money for real estate. So I started reading everything I could about it going to seminars. And I went to this one seminar where they taught me how to go out and buy a piece of property. And I turned around and sold it and made twelve thousand dollars in two weeks. And in my early 20s, that was like a million dollars. And so I was so grateful. I reached out to our biggest business magazine in Florida called Florida Trend. And I got the guy who put on a seminar, a big article. It helped his seminar business start doing well. And he asked me to work, for him. And so the next couple of years, I started promoting real estate seminars. And just to give your listeners and viewers a little bit perspective. That was back when we were using newspaper ads to promote real estate seminars. But quickly, there were some of the first guys to start using television, direct response or infomercials and learned how to do that by promoting these seminars. Then I went out on my own and was always interested in health and started a company called Trilli Health Products. And we introduced the country to drinking fresh juices by developing the Juice Man brand and educating people about the benefits of it and again, using television direct response to market that. And we are in the right place at the right time, at the right product. And that company grew from zero to seventy five million in sales in a little under four years. Really, you know, that exponential growth and a company out of Chicago, we sold to a company called Salt and Housewares and they wanted to buy the brand, but they also wanted to know the type of marketing we were doing. And they came back to me with new products. One was a homemade bagel maker and the other one was Slanted Grille, which used to be the heat maker. But that turned into the George Foreman Grill. And after that, things just took off and people started coming to me because of the success of some of the products we did. And then was able to work with companies and products like Sonic Care and Claris, Sonic and Rugg Doctor and oxyclean and Go Pro and lots of other things. And so over the course of the time and the reason I wrote this book, video persuasion, it kind of take twenty five years of producing video to get people to respond and encapsulated kind of as much as I learned into that book.

Josh: (20:27-20:44)  So for the small business owner who just starting out in video marketing, maybe they’re hearing this for the first time. What? What kind of words of wisdom would you give them? Like what are the keys to making video marketing work for a small business owner?

Rick: (20:43-22:04) Well, the first thing they really have to understand is if you weren’t using video in your business right now, some form or another, you really need to, because we’re really turning into what I call a video first society. And I just want to read a few statistics to you every second. Almost 17000 hours of new video be produced. Forbes reports that there’s been more video produced in the last 30 days than all the television networks have produced in the last 30 years. This year, nearly 80 percent of all Internet traffic will be made up of videos. So obviously video is becoming persuasive in our society. But then there’s the benefit. Like, you know, video marketing is powerful when viewers watch a video. They retain ninety five percent of the message compared to maybe only 10 percent when they’re just reading text and using video. And an e-mail can lead to 200 300 percent increase in click through rates, including video on a landing page can increase conversion rates by 80 percent. So these aren’t my statistics. These come from places like email platforms like HubSpot and and, you know, video platforms and things. So my message is you need to really understand video, understand the power of video and how you can put it to use to help grow your business.

Josh: (22:05-22:25)  So let’s say that you’ve never done before, but you’re fine. You say you sell air conditioners, right? Should you jp into video marketing and make the brand all about you into personality and can overcome your fears? Or is it better to just try to use video without videos of you? How do you even.

Rick: (22:26-24:29) Yeah, there’s in a couple answers to that question. And really, you know, I got chapter in the book that it talks about, quote unquote, be your own spokesperson, because I really believe that that’s a very powerful way. People want to hear from the founder, the inventor, the owner of the company. And so I one video that I recommend that everybody has on their Web site is really a personal message from the owner that really tells why they’re in business. What the benefit up to the end user is and why you’re different than everybody else out there. And, you know, you need to do those kind of things for your business anyway. But it’s good to have that initial message right on the front page of your of your website. Now, the other thing and this I still do this today. Any business that I consult with, I highly recommend that everyone goes out and talks to their customers or clients. And but at the same time, they’re doing that. They have a video camera running. So basically I’m setting up a testimonial shoot and it doesn’t matter if you’re an air conditioning business, insurance business, whatever, the feedback you’re gonna get from your actual customers is really better than any focus group. And you’re going to hear I ask people a series of questions. You know, why did you buy this product or service? What do you like about it? What do you don’t like? Would you refer it to a friend if you were selling it? How would you sell the product? And at the end of that time, if you have a video camera running, you’ve captured really great sound bites that you can use in your marketing. You know, either e-mails, video, testimonial videos on your website. But the other part of it is you’ve learned a lot about your business and you’ve learned basically how to create a marketing message. So that’s those are just a couple simple ways of incorporating video into your business. Those two aspects of it.

Josh: (24:30-24:54)  What about. And I don’t want to go too deep into this category, but what about technology? And the reason why I ask is because I’ve got I’ve got three or four clients I’m thinking of right now where I’ve told them to do video. They got to do a video. They should do video. And they’re like, well, all I have is a cell phone. I don’t really have a mike yet or I’m become uncomfortable with my lighting. And they just put it off for months and months and months. Is there like a minim standard you need and then after that, you should just go for it?

Rick: (24:55-26:57) Yeah, well, that’s the beauty of where we are today as technology has made it really easy to create video. Back when I was starting making infomercials in the early 90s, it cost us thousand dollars a day to rent a video crew. And, you know, we’d rent a camera and the crew and the lighting and the sound. Now, you just mentioned your cell phone. I have a chapter in a book about producing the video, the actual technical part of it. And really, you can use your cell phone to produce great video cameras in the cell phone are 4d high definition, really great cameras. But I do recommend and I give people, you know, the advice and on which things to get for under one hundred dollars. You can go on Amazon and buy an inexpensive ring light and it actually comes with a cell phone mount and you can buy an inexpensive mike that you can plug into your cell phone. And if you buy those two things and add those, you can go from being, you know, taking like family vacation videos to almost upping your game to semi-professional level videos. And I know that technology is scary. I’m not a technology person. I am more about the content of the videos and but still between, he cell phones today. And then also the other thing I talk about, there’s lots of online apps that let people create video. Give you an example. There’s a, there’s dozens of these, but there’s ones called content samurai and you can have a written blog and you can plug it into, you know, cut and paste, plug it into there. They’ll come up with pictures and titles. And you can add your own voiceover. It’s all templates and you can produce videos just by starting with a written one page docent like this. They can turn it into a video and they’re not the only one. There’s lots of different video video production templates like that online. So really technology has made it easy for, for us to start doing video.

Josh: (26:58-27:20)  Yeah, I think the, the thing that seems to be the biggest time point, I think is fear. Yeah. I think that’s the biggest one. I know for me,  you know, as I’ve transitioned more into, yeah, leading work, the system, as, as Sam has a enjoy more politics and more retirement, that’s been a challenge that I’ve been like, you know, Sam, I liked it when you were on video and he’s like, that’s your,

Rick: (27:21-28:12) That’s the other thing is fear. Fear of getting in front of the camera. And I’ll give you a perfect example. I use myself personally,  about,, in order to promote the new book. The marketing person I’m working with, said you should start doing Facebook lives and , you know, when you first start doing it and you hit that live button and there’s like a countdown, three, two, one, and you’re staring into the camera, it’s a, it’s a little nerve wracking, but you know, you have to think about it in this terms. Nobody was a great athlete without practice. Nobody was a great musician without practice. And you know, the first few times your videos aren’t going to be great. , but I believe that authenticity and honesty makes up for lack of video production. People will forgive you, mistakes, something that doesn’t look professional as long as they know you’re trying. And then the more you do it, the better you’ll get. So that’s like anything else.

Josh: (28:13-28:25)  Yup. And ultimately people want their problem solved. And if you are on there, yeah, you’re not a good presenter, but you can solve a problem that they have. They want to work with you. I mean, you’re a person, , they’re not hiring you because of your presentation skills,

Rick: (28:29-29:14) Right? You’re delivering valuable content. You’re delivering the answer to their question, the solution to their problem. And they don’t really care. You know, and this has been born out, , you know, there’s, I’ve been doing television infomercials for a long time, online video, Facebook ads, and you can have a really slickly produced commercial, but the content is in quite right. And then you can have something like that’s kind of handmade on a cell phone, but the best product ever. And you know that, that one allows outsell the cyclics slickly made production. So it’s really not about, to me, production value, it’s about the content in the video that you’re delivering.

Josh: (29:15-29:44)  So I want to ask you some questions about some of these, these brands that you took from virtually nothing to really big a, and you can choose anyone you want, whether it’s a form of grill or Sonicare, GoPro. What did you, did you know, when you first started working with them that they were going to be big and,  and that’s why I printed the first part of questions. Like, did you have any idea and then what, what did you learn? Like what was the kind of the secrets to making that kind of trajectory? Like was it the prodUct? Was it the video? Was it luck? I mean, how do I, can you recreate that now? Yeah. Recreate it.


Rick: (29:45-33:23) No, you, you, you can. And, I don’t know that luck has a lot to do with it and, and it’s, and a lot of times you don’t really know that a product is going to be really great, but you can get confirmation very quickly from consumers. , and that gives you an early indication. You know, for me in the early days, like with a Sonicare, it was a lot harder cause you’d have to make a TV, a direct response TV commercial, put it out there and then see people order. But I’ll tell you what the best gauge of whether something’s going to be successful is going back to that step of going out and talking to, , customers or clients and listening to their feedback and if they’re excited and passionate about the product. You know, I, I know after talking to 10 or 15 people, did I answer your question that yes, this product’s going to be very successful. So I’ll tell you a quick story about Go Pro. You know, I’d go to trade shows, sometimes looking for products and I, and this is like 10 years ago now, I went to the outdoor retailing trade show in Salt Lake city. And, Nick Woodman, the founder of the company was just starting his business. He was a surfer, he was on the trade show floor. He had a Volkswagen bus. He was selling these cameras out of the back of the bus and cause he’d developed it to take pictures of himself while he was surfing. And, I said, Hey, this looks like a good product. , we should talk about it. So right after the show we flew up to Seattle, we sat down and I have to give him credit that he, basically said, I want to build this into $1 billion company. And I kind of laugh cause I thought that it could be successful, but I didn’t know, you know, how big. And so we did all the television marketing for Go Pro. And so if you’ve ever seen a Go Pro commercial, there’s a really valuable lesson I want to share with your, with your listeners and viewers, is we started every Go Pro commercial out with a brand logo. So you knew right away what the video was about. And I don’t know how many times this has happened to you, Josh, or your or your listeners, where you start watching a video either on or online and you have no clue what it’s about. And, and then it wastes a lot of time and you either click away from it or whatever. So I’m a big believer in letting people know right up front what the video’s about. So that’s what we did with dope pro. And after the initial brand logo came on, there was user-generated footage that people would send into the company, people jumping off cliffs and wingsuits or snowboarders or scuba divers, really cool footage. And then at the end, and this is where the direct response part comes in, we ended each commercial and we said, someone will win one of everything we make every single day. And so you were giving the viewer  a call to action or reason to take an action. And so three things happen, they would go to the Go Pro website and they would leave their email address so they would register for the contest. And so we were able to build a database and remarket to these people. The second thing that happened was that, people would get to the website, they’d see other cool videos, they’d share them with their friends, and it would create a viral effect. And the third thing that happened was more traditional direct response. People would get to the website, they buy the product, and that revenue would have to help offset the advertising costs. So it became kind of a accountable advertising or our an advertising program that paid for itself, which is really the secret of how a lot of small companies can grow.

Josh: (33:24-33:48) Oh, there’s a lot of, a lot of things to unpack in that, but I think the last point is, is key is that for anyone who wants to really go big, your marketing has to paid for by the sales during the first few days. The first few weeks after that lead comes in. And if it takes nine months to convert someone to a sale, that’s going to hurt you. What if you can convert someone to sell pretty quick and pay for the ad or make more than the ad costs, then you can just keep going and going and going.

Rick: (33:49-34:30) Yeah. And what you just said is really the secret of how every one of those products you mentioned, the Sonicare and the juice man and the Oxyclean, every one of those businesses, we, it, isn’t, you don’t discover it overnight cause you’re testing, you’re figuring out. But every one of them created a model where the advertising paid for itself so that we’re able to put those ad dollars back into, , the advertising and it creates exponential growth. And so the hard part or tricky part is figuring out or trying to figure that out. And that involves a lot of testing, but also learning, watching what other people do, learning from other people’s experience, that type of thing.

Josh: (34:31-34:50) So this is going to be a question that’s going to, based on your vast experience, what have you, have you learned, you know, from 10, 20 years ago that is still true today about video marketing and what has, has changed and is totally not true. Like it used to be true, true 20 years ago, but 2019 20 and beyond. It’s not true anymore.

Rick: (34:50-38:50)  Yeah. Well, let’s, let’s start out with what’s true because this is something I try to communicate to everybody and that is human behavior doesn’t change. So I, I recommend a book to people, you’ve probably read this before, influenced the apology. And so basically human psychology, the same hot buttons that people used when they were buying from the Sears catalog when they were doing direct mail, when they were doing radio, when they were doing TV. All those same things work on Facebook and Amazon. So I always urge people to really study history, study marketing books because the answer is out there. So if you understand what motivates people, you know, one of the things in and Robert Cialdini’s book is social proof and social proof was testimonials. That’s what we talked about before, you know, the definition of that, if somebody is in a situation, they don’t know how to act like they’re on a website and they don’t know whether to order or not, and they’re on Amazon, they don’t know whether order or not are there. They’re trying to decide whether to take a left hand turn and don’t know which lane to go into. They look and see what the other person is doing and then they follow that example. So how many times have you gone even to a movie line or like I said, a left turn lane and you, you saw big long line. There are two left turn lines and there’s a big long line in one lane and it’s really small lane in the other because everyone says I must, that’s what the other person’s doing. I need to be doing that same thing. And that’s really the value of like social proof and that’s why we incorporate it into our videos. So, so the things that haven’t changed are really understanding, , human psychology and the reason that people act the way they do and how to push those hot buttons.
And I have a whole chapter or two chapters in here about copywriting and script writing and that is based on,  hitting some of these persuasion techniques from Dr Cialdini. , and then I’ll give you another example and I’ll tell you how things changed. , I like to say that making an interesting video is very similar to, creating a speech that you’re going to give from the stage. And I took a, I read another book and took a class when I was in my early twenties called how to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie. And Dale had a formula for giving a speech that was really simple. He said, tell him what you’re going to say, say it and then tell him what you said. And I’ve actually used that simple formula in my video format. And, it’s, it’s worked and, and obviously I go into much more detail and expand it.
But if you think about somebody who’s a good speaker, they capture the audience attention early, they deliver great content, and then they summarize what they said at the end of it. And you should create your videos in the, in the same way and you’ll have a lot of success. Now, the things that changed, and so, you know, we talked about human behavior, human psychology, whatever. So the thing that’s changed are really delivery platforms. , you know, you’re not using TV and you have a captured audience and you know, you’re, you’re talking about the delivery platforms of Facebook and Instagram and YouTube, versus TV and radio. So really the underlying human behavior hasn’t changed just a different delivery platforms. And I’m sure you know, a year from now there’ll be another hot social media platform that everyone’s using or there already is like there’s one that’s called Tik Tok and I don’t even know that much about that’s coming up. And you know, there’s just always going to be some, a new delivery platform to reach people. What you need to focus on or what your listeners need to focus on is what’s the content that you’re going to deliver across that platform that gets people to respond.

Josh: (38:51-39:20) So this leads to my next question because it’s a moving target. The technology’s changing, the mediums are changing, the delivery mechanisms are changing , as an owner, does it make sense for you to study and learn and try to stay on the cutting edge of these things? Or does it make more sense? This is kind of a leading question, make more sense for you to really understand your business and what people like about your product or service and then find someone who really lives in that world to do it for you.

Rick: (39:21-40:28)  Yeah, I agree with part two of that know, and understand your business. Know what your unique selling proposition is. Why are you different than the competition? How can you make your business better? And then let the experts,  you know, I talk about Facebook advertising, YouTube advertising. I don’t do that myself. I use somebody, I find out, I go online, I go through LinkedIn, I ask people that I associate with who’s the best Facebook buyer, you know, Facebook ad buyers for consumer goods, who’s the best Facebook buyer to promote like a coaching program or an online course. And believe me, the answers come out there and if you start doing a little research, and so I’ll just, go and sometimes I can’t afford to use the best. I mean, and I’m sure other businesses have that thing, but there’s a lot of people that are doing it very well. So I’m, I’ve been in marketing all my life and I don’t try to understand all the different marketing platforms, but I do, I have learned to exactly what you said to try to go with people that know how to do what I don’t do and they do it better.

Josh: (40:29-41:11) Yup. I think that that’s, I kind of gave you a leading question there, but I think that’s true for doctors listening to this, is to, to know the fundamentals, right? Kind of be a Jack of all trades, but really you need to know your customers, know your business, know your product or service, and then look to the experts to help you with those, those things that like, I’m not gonna write my own contracts. I’m gonna have an attorney do that. There’s just no point. , so, okay, this is all, all very fascinating to me. So what do you see as the future play? Because things are moving fast. Where will we be in, let’s just say 10 years? I mean, should people be adjusting the way they do their video marketing based on some kind of future projection that you see?

Rick: (41:12-42:38) I don’t, you know, that’s a great question. I haven’t, I thought about that in terms now, but let me give you an example. I,  and again I don’t, I don’t want to be repetitious, but,  you know, we were using test a good test, good authentic testimonials to promote real estate seminars 30 years ago. And if you think about reviews on Amazon, they’re testimonials. So again, the concept of knowing what works in marketing,  the marketing channels are going  change. , but there’s certain elements that really work and you know, in,  in my book I talk about, you know, how you can get, how any business can get great testimonials. I give them an email sequence that they can use and send out to get people to show up and give testimonials., I talk about direct response, direct marketing concepts that worked in direct mail, but work in video. So it’s really, I think,  you know, I have no idea where we’re going to be. I know that artificial intelligence is going to be a big part of it, but, there’s always going to be a human element to, to, to any business. And so understanding the things, again, the hot buttons that motivate people to me is the secret of success.

Josh: (42:38-42:55) So Rick, we’re kind of running low on time here, so I want to give you a few open ended questions here for you to speak what you need to speak. So, second to last question would be, what’s one thing that I didn’t ask you but I probably should have asked you that you think, our audience is small business owners probably needs to hear about.


Rick: (42-56-44:17)  Yeah. You know, it’s interesting cause you know, I, I would say that,  you know, if they, if, if people aren’t using video, you’re recommending it to your clients. They need to start incorporating video into their business. It’s not that hard. , you know, if you, if you’re afraid of doing it, , there’s other people that professionally can do it, it’s gonna be the worth, the money. Start exploring it and figuring out how to do it. You know, there’s, again, just the basic overview video testimonial videos. And then I, I, you know, one thing I didn’t talk about and people can get a free download on my website, the three most engaging types of online video,  and how you can implement it in your business is a free download on my website, but that is, tutorial videos. You know, how to use a product or service, and then a demonstration video, which is a little different than a tutorial. That’s where you’re actually selling the product. The tutorial is the how to the demonstration is you’re, you’re kind of, you’re selling the product and it includes a call to action. And the third is, is again, we talked about already as testimonials and if you can incorporate those three types of videos into your marketing, into your business, it’ll help boost both sales and conversions.

Josh: (44:18-44:25) Well, very good. So Rick working and people go, if they want to get more information, they want to check out your book, where should they go to?

Rick: (44:26-45:25)  All right. Best place to, get in contact with my is my website, which is Rick Cesari dot com and it’s a, my first name is R-I-C K and the last name is C-E- S-A-R I, Rick Cesari dot com. And I write a weekly blog and a lot of the things we talked about kind of, I go into a lot of depth on there, you can register to get that free download and then you’ll get a lot of interesting, , content rich information from me that I’ll send out to you. And I also have a YouTube channel, which is the same, my same name Rick Cesari but that TV and I tell I make videos. I said, here’s how you make a good,  demonstration video. Here’s how you make a good tutorial video. Here’s how, you can,  the three ways to engage the viewer at the beginning of a video. Lots of great information and I just urge your, you know, your listeners or your viewers to, check it out. They, they’ll get a lot of great video information.

Josh: (45:25-46:10) Well, very good. Well, Rick, I appreciate you taking the time. This has been a really useful information for our audience. Certainly was for me. I’ve got a page full of notes here, so everyone who’s watching this podcast, listening to it, make sure to check us out. Next week we share another podcast with our business experts like Rick or when my previous clients or one of my certified coaches to explain,  how to improve your business to make more work less. And if you want a copy of one of those books right there behind me, work the system, I’ll leave sure of you at info at work the system.com or leave us a copy of your review at the info at work the system.com and then we’ll be sending in one book out a week so you can leave a review anywhere on iTunes or you know, where you’re watching this on YouTube and just let us know what you think. Otherwise we will, , we’ll see you next week. Thanks for you buddy. Thanks Rick.

Rick: (46:11)   Thank you. 

Josh: (46:12-46:16) All right, we are off the live stream.

Rick: (46:17-46:18)    Yeah. Although you had a call to action at the end of your podcast.

Josh: (46:19-46:21) Yes. Yeah, I try to get it.

Rick: (46:22-46:35)    We didn’t even get into that. I mean, but most people, you know, they’ll make a video and there’s no call to action and it doesn’t have to be like, buy this. It’s just like you’re trying to, you know, you have to give the viewer an action to take and you, you know, that’s what you did with your listeners.

Josh: (46:36-47:03) Yeah. It’s, we’ll see. We’ll see what happens. But we’ve been, we’ve been trying that out, and it’s tough to know if it’s working out because like I said, I’ve got about, I don’t know, 15 podcasts in the can already, so I’ll find out in about two months whether this is working or not. , but,  yeah, I want people to leave reviews and then we’ll give him a copy of the book. , and that’s our big lead magnet is the free book that most people don’t read anymore.

Rick: (47:04-47:28)     No. But they like to get information. And I, and I, you know, they do, and I mean, you know, I’m, I’m a big video advocate, but I wrote a book, you know, but it doesn’t make sense probably. But, , people like to get that information and use it as a, as a reference or a how to, but that’s why I kind of take almost all the information that’s in the book and I’m making YouTube videos about it as well. So,

Josh: (47:27-47:36) Yeah. Oh yeah.  Just a different mediums.  Same idea. Yeah. And I think that’s, that’s great. Well, this is, , I suppose pretty fun for me and that’s pretty good.

Rick: (47:37- 47:39) You did, or you do a great job of interviewing too. I really,  enjoyed speaking with you.

Josh: (47:40-47:57) Okay. Well I likewise, yeah, well I will, , you know, I have, like I said, I have an audience of people who are small business owners, so, if they’re saying, Hey, Josh, , Josh, I really want to do video marketing, but I, I can’t myself, I’m stuck. , I should just send them directly to your website. Is that,

Rick: (47:37- 48:06) Yeah. And they can reach out through a contact form and I’m, I’m very liberal with my time. If somebody just has questions or whatever, I just dial answered directly, you know?

Josh: (48:07-49:22) Cool. Yeah. Well that’s a, it’s pretty amazing. I think it’s also inspiring for those people who feel like, gosh, they’re never going to break the one million one million dollar Mark realizing that they’re just one marketing funnel away. You know, like if they can get the ad to, you know, pay for itself with the little bit of money leftover, you can just keep going unless it, unless it’s a really, really strange specialty product, but, you know, cameras or toothbrushes or whatever else.  I mean, I got to go pro, we had a sign of care. I may like those are products that pretty much everyone gets. I think we have Oxyclean I will split it now. So it’s like, if you can make that happen. I think that was, that was what, , I think that was a Jay Abraham’s claim to fame was,  the icy hot. You ever hear his story about IcyHot? (Absolutely) Yeah. So you just have to figure out that equation. And then the, the sky’s the limit. I didn’t even ask you questions. I want to see, but,  how are you back on again? I probably will. Well, what would the, , I was gonna ask you to just myself, how much time should someone spend on direct response? Like ad with video compared to just a purely branding, just like, I mean or, or is there a difference? Cause I’m not a market person.

Rick: (49:23-50:21) No, I, I basically combine the two so I feel like,  you’re building your brand, but all of the videos, should have some type of direct response component. And I don’t mean all of them. Like a testimonial video doesn’t, a tutorial video is more for customer service. You know, here’s how you use the product and, but any type of demonstration video or marketing video,  I, I don’t even know. I’ve, I wrote a book about building brands. I don’t really believe in like just pure brand advertising. It’s always has a direct response component cause you can do both things at the same time. I’m a big believer in you build your brand by selling your product and then offering great customer service and keeping people happy and then they tell other people and it builds, it builds the brand. And so I’m, I’m, I don’t necessarily believe in quote unquote just brand advertising without some type of, CTA involved.

Josh: (50:22-50:48) Yup. I agree too. I mean, because the customer’s coming to solve a problem and so if you’re not directly leading them to a solution, which is buying your product, then you aren’t really helping them, you just talking about stuff.  (Exactly) So, I same thing, all of my teaching stuff always ends. Like I did a lot of webinars and stuff is, you know, you, you need help with this, you should buy this. It’s not a big sales pitch. I’m not doing some big thing, but you should just buy this because

Rick: (50:49-50:51) if you’re having this problem, this’ll help solve that problem.

Josh: (50:52-50:57)  Yeah. Yeah. And  not to be passionate about that, well, this is cool. Well, Rick, I apologize for the background noise our landscapers got here.

Rick: (50:58-51:05) I thought it was a, I thought it was a drone or something, but you know, it never fails. Whenever you’re meant doing video production, that weed wacker starts up and it’s,

Josh: (51:06) It’s is right next to the window.

Rick: (51:07-51:20) Funny. That usually happens to me, but it’s raining today so the yard guys can’t come. But it’s, I’m, I’m glad it didn’t distract you too much. I’m just curious what it was. I thought I was making some noise or something.

Josh: (51:21-51:39) I , I hit mute whenever I wasn’t talking so hopefully it kinda, no, people won’t know what it is. No, and it didn’t happen in the first, you know, first five minutes that they were already hooked in the beginning. And so it kind of was a little bit in the middle. The guy’s right there right now. 

Rick: (51:40-51:41) How to get the copy of your, the book work, the system?

Josh: (51:42-51:50) You can just go to our website if you’re going to work the system.com., I mean, you could buy it if you want to, but we give it away for free as a download. And if you share it with somebody, you can get the audio version for free. So that’s a good, a good lead magnet. 

Josh: ( 51:52-52:03) Yeah. That was kind of our plan, and we need to kind of tweak it a little bit, but is that would make it perpetual is like, Hey, share it, share it with people, get the audio version, and then they’ll stay here. You know, your friends will see it, they’ll get it and they’ll share it, and then we’ll just be 

Rick: (52:09-52:16) The old viral effect. Yep. All right. Yeah. Hey Josh, I gotta jump off. It’s been great speaking with you and  You got a chance to do it again.

Josh: (52:18-52:19) Sounds good. All right. See you. Bye.