107: Video

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Time to Listen: 36 min. 02 sec.
David Lecours and Josh Miles share advice on the use of video for marketing professional services firms.

Mentioned in This Episode 107 Video

  • Why professional services firms should use video as a marketing tool
  • What content and stories can be told best by video
  • Where you should distribute your videos
  • How to create video: DIY vs. Professional
  • A video production process

 

Resources Mentioned

 

We Want to Hear From You

Has your firm utilized video as a marketing tool? What tips do you have? What did we forget? Do you have some examples to share of great professional services marketing video?

 

Podcast Episodes 1–100

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Transcript From This Episode

Announcer: Welcome to PSM. The Professional Services Marketing Podcast: it’s inside applied.

David Lecours: Hello and welcome to PSM show. If it’s about professional services marketing, we’ll be covering it here. I’m David Lecours and this is Episode 107. It’s Friday, December 22nd 2017. Josh Miles my cohost is joining me. How are you doing tonight Josh?

Josh Miles: Hey doing well. How are you David?

David Lecours: Good to have you. Want to remind our audience that they’re listening via iTunes or their favorite podcast player, go over to psm.show. And if you’re listening via psm.show, go over to iTunes to subscribe. Today’s episode. Super excited. We’re going to talk about video as a marketing tool. What do you think about that Josh?

Josh Miles: I think as long as we can also cover whether or not it killed the radio star then I’ll be very satisfied with our episode on video or all of the millennials sitting here like I have no idea what they are now talking about.

Announcer: Insert sleeper on that note. This is PSM insight applied.

David Lecours: All right. So like you said we’re talking about video today. Josh is video a good tool for professional services and why.

Josh Miles: Well you know I was just talking to our client this week about video and video. You know the bar for entry is so low so you know one person in their iPhone right now can be a video production powerhouse. And of course you can you can pretty much spend as much as you’d like to on video to get really professional voiceover on screen talent or motion graphics but it really is just a great tool for professional services because there’s so much of what professional services firms do that I think really benefits from you know showing off the personality of the people and also the very visual work that many of these firms take part in. What do you think are some of the strengths for professional services firms.

David Lecours: Well you hit on the head especially because people are buying people you know we don’t have products to show that people can you know drool over the beautiful paint job or the details. You know it is a person in most cases are buying it might be a process. Certainly their expertise but a way to get to know somebody via video is so much more effective than just looking at a photo and perhaps a read by you know when you see somebody speaking to you. You could look into their eyes and you know human beings are wired to make these micro judgments. You know good or bad that’s what’s kept us alive through the millennia. You know our survival is kind of dependent on assessing people and video is such a good way for marketers to you know get their people out in front of people and let them talk and express themselves. So yeah I don’t think it’s a brilliant medium for professional services.

Josh Miles: You know I wonder if this is like what people used to say about publicity that you know all PR is good PR or all exposure is good exposure. David for professional services firms is all video good video?

David Lecours: No.

Josh Miles: You know I think I set you up to be the bad guy there.

David Lecours: Yeah. No. Yes sometimes like the greatest strength is also the greatest setback right. And with video being so available and so easy to produce it is tending to just you know without your eyes on it and start filming and you know for some internal purposes that’s OK. But when you’re for you know you’re a professional services firm charging huge fees you need to be able to communicate with professional low quality stuff. So now I don’t think it’s all equal. And then also you know maybe your question to me Josh was like What if we have somebody that just doesn’t communicate well. Do we force them to be on video. What are your thoughts there.

Josh Miles: Yeah I think there’s something endearing about really getting to the personality of people who do well on screen. And my guess is most people who do well in person will also do On-Screen but there’s something about looking into a lens that especially if you’re not used to it the first few times you’ll just freeze up so that natural inclination doesn’t mean that it’s going to be one shot one kill to get in and do a perfect take so it might take awhile to get used to it might even take a little bit of coaching even with the footage that you’re not even planning to use so it’s practicing on the iPhone or whatever device you have handy in recording a little sample video for your firm to say OK. Did you know you kind of hold your head to the left when you start talking or do you know that your eyes flutter around or did you know that you’re having a hard time stuttering or you know things that just may not be natural or habits that you have interpersonally or things that may rise up when you turn that video camera on for the first time.

Josh Miles: So I think doing those test runs is a great way to kind of work out some of cobwebs and there are some gray sort of tricks you know rather than having somebody stare into the lens of a camera which can be intimidated you just position the camera off to the side or use you know dual cameras and get somebody going in a conversation. And so hopefully they’ll forget that the cameras that are there looking at the actual interviewee and with technical staff talking about what they’re passionate about and then they light up and everybody be you know charming when they’re talking about something you’re passionate about. So you think she has is scripted. She’s somebody strong get them you know in their comfort zone and then you’ll be able to get to where we’re diverting a little bit getting into some of the details. This is exciting and I think it’s worth mentioning just in terms of back to kind of bring us back and why video works so well. What’s the old adage you know a picture is worth ten thousand words. So what’s VDO worth. Now.

Josh Miles: I think it’s approximately a gazillion knowing that you have what is a 30 frames per second. So you know moving image and all the warmth and all the personality that comes with that where you can kind of infer that in a photograph you really start to experience and feel that when you see it in motion.

David Lecours: Absolutely. And the truth is we’re in marketing in the business of persuasion and film and video has an incredibly persuasive you know for you know think about some of your favorite TV documentary films propaganda films even though they’re all super persuasive. So yeah use this power for good and they can be really effective for it.

Josh Miles: So I have to admit this is a little bit off script but I was shopping for a new backpack for my laptop. You know I’m I’m getting of age of carrying my bag on one shoulder you know for the last 20 years it’s just starting to do some wear and tear. So I thought, all right I need something you job skills sir and straight them off kilter a little rotator cuff action going on. So

Josh Miles: I started I started searching. And you know all of the Web sites have all these beautiful exterior photos of the backpack. But I was really trying to see which ones had the best like tool control on the inside or you know pockets for all the dongles and gizmos that connect them. And it’s so frustrating to have a bag that you open it up and it’s just one big black hole where everything kind of falls into. And you know lo and behold I ended up buying the bag. There was a company that had this six minute long video just on this one model showing all the different ways it works and what every little strapped does and all of the things that they had thought about and who would have thought that I would watch six minutes of video on one backpack. But ultimately that’s what helped me make the buying decision and I know there are probably a lot of firms out there that are thinking well we need to like a 30 second video or you know a minute and a half video and I think all of those are kind of defaults when we think about attention spans these days.

Josh Miles: If it’s something you’re really interested in and it’s actually good content you know I think Netflix especially has showed us people watch lots of content. It’s good content.

David Lecours: Yes absolutely. Well you know that’s that was a little off-script but I’m going to forgive you because it actually is a perfect segue into what we want to talk about next which is what kinds of things should be making the content and you just nail on that. If your firm has a unique process or if it has a project to even let you finish. Let’s just stick with the process for example so this will be the equivalent of opening up the backpack and looking in and in your case wanting to find out all these great like nooks and crannies that you can put your keys and so forth. So literally open up your firm and show off these these different nooks and crannies and processes that would be helpful for a buyer when they’re trying to decide you know because it’s a big question mark when somebody is going to hire your firm in fact is a huge risk that they’re taking because all you’re promising is future delivery and they don’t know for sure if you’re going to deliver.

David Lecours: But it does show the process of delivering in the past or if you can show unique approaches to solving problems that can make for a very compelling video maybe even six minutes that Josh will watch. All six minutes of it.

Josh Miles: I may have even paused then read watched sections over and over just to make sure I understood how stuff works.

David Lecours: So I knew you have to be like your guide my new favorites. But yeah so just who talked about you know certainly videotaping people. What are some other things that professional services firms can focus on to include in their videos?

Josh Miles: Well some of the things that we’ve talked about war especially projects you know in a in a world in which we can get our hands on drone footage pretty easily that creates some pretty compelling stuff. And even if you don’t have access to that or want to hire someone who is more of a drone film expert really simple things like little slider bars and you know to be able to make some more professional looking moves maybe things that you haven’t thought about using a camera for but bringing on even an amateur film student they can start to show you how some of those little things can really help change the look as opposed to just you know a motion shot of what your photograph would’ve been of the building or the space but you know showing people interacting with those projects it’s not just about showing the Spartan or Stark empty building and how beautiful it is but showing the actual users interacting with the space and how it works or timelapse.

Josh Miles: I think those are all really great ways to to show off a project. So if David if you’re thinking about other ways that you could show off your people and video what might some of those be for you.

David Lecours: Well I have to admit I’ve had great success in utilizing something as simple as a GoPro to capture when I am speaking at conferences and speaking publicly because it allows me to extend that experience considerably beyond the actual event. Right so only so many people can fit into that room only so many people are going to be there. If I can share that experience on video I can use it as a follow up to those who have attended. And I can then make it publicly available on a website or on YouTube so that anybody that perhaps wasn’t there can experience the event and expertise. So yeah I would recommend that if your leaders are speaking and definitely you know at a minimum get a GoPro if not you know hire a production company to capture that because there’s just so much rich content in that.

Josh Miles: I think that GoPro is a great idea because at least in my experience so many of the conferences if it’s not main stage they probably aren’t videoing the Hawks so it may be the only opportunity you have to to capture that content personally. Of course I want to clear this with the conference organizers and whatnot but yeah I think that’s a great way to make sure that you’ve got record of what you talked about and allows you as the speaker marketer a presenter to go back and do a little postgame analysis and you know how it is so true. Are you doing weird things are you standing in front of the projector or did you forget advance the slide. You know it’s a great way to coach yourself.

David Lecours: When I was real involved with Toastmasters for about 10 years. I purposely joined a specific club because one of the benefits they offered was that they videotaped every speech and you got a DVD that really had those of your talk and man it was painful to put that thing in the player and watch it because nobody likes to watch themselves. But it was so insightful so yeah that learning aspect or you know circling around is critical. In our last episode. Josh we were talking about you know we’re truly energy people and communicated culture. It is video a good way to do that. If so how?

Josh Miles: Yeah I think even as we talked you know you and I are each being hired frequently to help market a firm for that express purpose to attract and retain and demonstrate with the cultures. And a couple of the firms that we’ve done video for in the past that’s really what the video was all about. You know and the tone of each of them has been very different and so one that we did was really technical and it really kind of showed off process oriented stuff and that Ferman kind of the very professional nature of working there were another and the one that we did was a little bit more relaxed and laid back and you know still talked about process but more about kind of the culture of being there and I think video is just a really great way to demonstrate that. So if you you can talk all you want about having an open or diverse or professional culture but being able to show it. I mean nothing really beats that prior to coming in for the interview or the tour like video.

David Lecours: So you have an event and it’s something that’s going to get people out of the office maybe there’s an adult beverage there. It was just a great way to get people to open up and communicate in a way that is perhaps more authentic and show that your firm is a fun place to work and so much of that is what people are looking for. You know of course you’ve got to be good technically. But if you’re marketing for people it’s got to be appealing and you know being in unique situations and celebrating your wins or you know compelling educational events are fantastic things to videotape and even if you don’t create a whole video about that you can use that as the role or alternate footage with other videos that you kind of have that is quote unquote stock in your video library.

Josh Miles: Yeah I watched another marketing agency present a couple of years back at the brand new conference and they had so much historical footage of their their team hanging out and you know pinning up work on the wall or you know over the shoulder of a designer working on something and everybody in the crowd was just amazed how much of that they captured and his tip was just you know we just film it all the time. It just became natural that we just assigned to somebody on the team and we would just roll footage all the time and we just got used to it so so cool and they went to do this more comprehensive video about where they’ve been and kind of what their their history was it was cool to be able to pull out all their footage and then use it in their video. And man I wish I wish somebody would turn a video camera on in our office about 15 years ago so we had that footage to go back to a archive for when you’re doing your documentary. You’ll

David Lecours: be censored for it. Exactly. So that’s just a few examples of the types of things you can videotape. You know we can talk about it. We can show it to you. So let’s put some links Josh in our Web site PSM show and then folks can see some of the types of videos they’re talking about.

Josh Miles: Yeah and I think it’d be good to show off. You know maybe some of the ones that you and I have individually worked on as well as just some some favorite examples that we pull from both from the professional services world and then maybe even some that are outside of them more in the BTC realm of certainly include that backpack link for you as well.

David Lecours: And then also that sock company that gosh for now yeah bombers and I need to individuals impulse buy is simply because of that video. So we’re going to link to that as well. This is amazing. You may open up your pocketbook and start buying socks and backpacks today.

David Lecours: How are sponsors. Yeah. Yes but they could be in the future. So kind of.

David Lecours: Why professional services to use videos. Some of the topics where do these videos show up.

Josh Miles: So there’s obviously lots of places that you could put video not the least of which is social media or your Web site. But I think you really want like a home for all videos all in one place. And although I was I kind of hated on YouTube for a long time. Most of that has waned and I have now come to realize that YouTube is the second largest search engine in the universe next to Google who owns them. So why have all of your optimized video content in one place on YouTube. And then of course the side benefit is it’s really easy and take that video and embedded in your web site and the place that in other places but always highly recommend these days that YouTube is kind of the primary home or the repository for all those videos so even if you want to kind of you know section them off or retire them at a time you can you can do that as well and kind of leave the the important ones out there everybody can see them.

David Lecours: Yeah that’s a tough one because you know that your team player is so glamorous and gorgeous when sitting on the let’s say but you know probably the average user doesn’t mind. We as designers are a little more hazy shall we say about these things but you just can’t ignore the benefits of having your video content on YouTube be for the reasons you mention that people are going to be searching. And there’s a great chance they’re going to stumble on your video if you take the time to put in a data keywords that will encourage somebody. Make it easy for somebody to find you. So yeah even if you choose not to host your video on YouTube for your Web site you should definitely have a channel you know whether it’s YouTube or Syria where video sets as well so that people can find it there.

Josh Miles: Then of course there’s all of the you know we could probably spend the whole episode just talking about live streaming live video on Facebook and the various social media. You know the other place that you can use that same video. And this is a tip that I recently picked up. And who knows in five minutes this tip may not work anymore. But Facebook it turns out tends to prefer when you upload video directly to Facebook and not just when you embed a YouTube bullied into Facebook. So it actually algorithmically if that’s a word it kind of gives preferential treatment to video. When you put it natively just up into Facebook and you’re not linking to an external site presumably because they can’t go anywhere else if they’re watching the videos added to Facebook then you can’t click through to YouTube or click through Romeo or to the Web site. You’re kind of stuck there on Facebook so hopefully that’s a beneficial hack out there to somebody who’s listening and Facebook is an important part of your marketing channel. I

David Lecours: know this is also true with just still images in that if I put something directly into Facebook photo it gets placed much higher than if I posted using something like Suy host to my Instagram Twitter and also Facebook or if I post something on Instagram that then gets transferred to Facebook. Facebook doesn’t treat it as valuably as if I were to as you mention just posted directly.

Josh Miles: I’ve also found recently that you know when I’m doing a talk to work in a short video clip inside the presentation or inside of my slide PowerPoint. Heaven forbid but also used Keano mostly on my side and they seem to handle Vainio much more elegantly than they used to and you know working with teams to make sure that you’ve got the audio coming out. You know it’s just a really nice augmented piece to talk to. You know as the speaker you get to stop talking for a minute and just kind of show. This little clip even if it’s 30 seconds I think it’s a really nice thing and audiences tend to really enjoy it. What other uses are you seeing. Yeah

David Lecours: I see it on that part because it’s just a nice bit of variety and you can bring in other voices. So let’s say for example you’re speaking and talking about a case study and talking about a project client that you did a great job. Well yeah you can talk to your to your face but your audience is going to start to tune out a little bit because that sort of frequency or your voice is continuous even if she’s got vocal right. The link you included a video of that client you know talking about that project to service support. There’s sort of like your d’Eau testimonial where you get a virtually brought them into the room and then they’re talking on video use that in several presentations and yeah gives you as a speaker a break and it’s just another voice for the audience to hear.

David Lecours: But yeah what else is the trade shows. You know so a new exhibit at these different trade shows and to have a video you know even if it’s sort of without sound on a loop in your trade show can be real active. I could see using video when you’re being interviewed. You know whether it’s a formal presentation in your view where you’re kind of down on a short list because usually you have a chance to make a presentation or even if it’s an informal interview where you’re just meeting with somebody casually either in person or you know a lot of times we’re meeting with clients or potential clients in other parts of the country and I’m able to do a strange year and show video or something or maybe you’ve got a partner this you know can’t be there. And you know you could actually record something specific for that meeting which I think would be pretty darn impressive.

David Lecours: You know Jack couldn’t be here but he really wanted to express himself. And so here’s Jack and then he played a video on your tablet you know right in front of somebody demonstrate some technology. I’m

Josh Miles: sure there are more what other channels are there for sure showing the idea that the one variation on the trade show slash presentation interview concept friend of mind went to go work for to call them in a company who probably an insult. But they do some really cool stuff and one of the things they have is this contraption they call the magic door and you open up the door and it’s a full size screen inside of the door frame. And so it’s kind of like transferring you to this other worldly dimension and they’ve used it before where like the CEO walks out of the door and you know gives credence to greet you with this video message. Hey guys I couldn’t be here today but here we are in the you know out in the back. And here’s what all the guys are up to. And let me take you through the warehouse and it was just a really interesting concept. And you know dragging a full sized door into somebody’s conference room has got to be like What are they doing. What does this mean to open this thing up. I have a video message on inside it was pretty pretty phenomenal so I thought that was those…

David Lecours: screens are so good now now I mean you’ve got almost edge to edge resolution and they’re big and they’re high def for K it’s just yeah we’re living in a great time to get here. All right so let’s move on to the next. Unless you have something else that. No I think it the transition to the how yeah how would somebody go about you know we in the beginning we you know pulling out your phone and we think that does have a place. Yeah sort of the dilemma is do you do it yourself versus hiring a professional. Of course you know as marketing manager you go to the CEO and say hey we want to do professional video first thing he’s going to say is we’ll catch you just use your iPhone. And so just tell me a little bit about like you know why somebody you know what are the pros and cons of DIY versus hiring a crowd.

Josh Miles: Well I guess you know if you’re going to do it with your phone. One of the biggest challenges you’re going to have is not only the picture of the video making sure that you’re giving the writing on the right lighting but the sound is probably the thing that you’re going to notice the most. So one of the best hacks for that is just finding a nice microphone that will plug into your phone and can clip on to somebody and get a little bit more direct sound. But you know I would always recommend it’s just something that you just can’t get a crew out quickly. You know there are so many different price points that you can do video bringing somebody in who knows what they’re doing with a professional rig and good lighting and understands how to use the camera. It’s just you know always going to create a better product.

Josh Miles: But you know at the same time there’s something endearing about the you know just turning your phone on yourself and saying hey around here the projects and things are going good. And look at all the things that are happening and here’s the ribbon cutting today. And you know that kind of post I think plays really well on social media or kind of the you know the spirit of the moment as opposed to you wouldn’t really put that video on your homepage. It’s not the same kind of thing way you’d show at the beginning of a presentation. So I think you just kind of have to weigh each of those like how important is this moment. You know is this like why are we sharing our mantra or a big message here that we want people to rally behind. Or are we just trying to make sure that we document this moment and get that out to our friends. So that’s kind of how we weigh those. I

David Lecours: like that. And I think you touched on sort of the medium has to match the message so the message is sort of quick and informal and impromptu you know placing it on social media Facebook or Instagram. You know it just feels like the environment that that is organic. But if you were to sit somebody down in a dark room in a leather seat and have a recliner. Now you look at the expectations because now people are comparing that to you know professional cinema. So where you show that video needs to match the actual content and what you said about image quality versus sounds or somebody professional told me once you know people are a lot more forgiving of less than perfect imagery but they’re less tolerant of horrible sound. For some reason it’s just so grating to try to hear somebody crackle or mumble or because the sound Kasher is terrific.

David Lecours: I will say you know if you are shooting with a phone and you want to look a little bit more policy you know put the phone in some sort of tripod device or. Now they’ve got these hand-held circuit is the name is Gimbel Am I getting that right.

Speaker 10: Yeah or. It’s basically like a handheld steady cam so it’s cool.

Josh Miles: Yeah exactly Iris graphics and whatnot but that helps that Eva shot as you’re as you’re moving around and keeps the motion pretty smooth.

David Lecours: And those are really impressive. I mean you can get it for a hundred and fifty bucks and a lux pro versus sort of like trying to chase somebody and you know making your audience nauseous.

Josh Miles: So maybe we should talk a little bit about the process so assuming you’re not just pulling out your phone and hitting record you know what would what would the process look like to create and edit and develop and publish in a video like where would somebody begin.

David Lecours: Definitely. I want to talk about it there’s one other thing I just want to kind of wrap up with this sort of part. People often think when they think video they have to capture moving objects right. You have to sort of capture somebody in action and sometimes it’s just not realistic you might be trying to communicate something that’s already happened. Don’t be afraid to find stills photography. And then when you add voiceover To that you know you get to use what’s on the documentary role. It’s like the Ken Burns effect where a still photograph slowly hands or zooms in or zooms out. It adds a little bit of motion but you know you don’t have the cost of having to go out to a particular location and set up and light it and all that kind of stuff. You know be creative about the content that you already had in use.

David Lecours: So to your flash process Yeah I think there’s kind of in my mind sort of five steps and there are probably more but I’ve heard it sort of defined this way and the first one is called creative development and that’s sort of getting really clear why you’re shooting this video how you’re going to do it. What kind of professionals are not officials are going to use you know to be involved who’s going to shoot who’s going to head it this way to write the script. It’s going to have to make approvals. Internally it’s establishing things like budget and availability of talent and locations and of course clarifying you know what’s the personality of the video going to be is it going to be consistent with your brand personality or are you going to try to change perception.

David Lecours: And I think also in this first phase it’s a good idea to have a expectation of about how long the video is going to be because that’s going to have a direct relationship with you know your budget. This is what we call story development and just want to talk about that. Sure. I

Josh Miles: mean really this is about the writing or imagining piece of figuring out what the script is going to be. Is there a dialogue or are you just going to kind of get people talking on screen or you have them to be more more scripted in this story. You know what kinds of images are you and how onscreen and these kind of scripts would really be traditionally kind of a two sided piece or a two column piece of paper where you’ve got kind of description of what you’re seeing and what’s on screen on one side and then what are the words or the conversations or the questions on the other it really helps to kind of keep things clear as you’re moving through the production and then ultimately in the traditional sense you could create some storyboards which could be as simple as just hand drawn or stick figures in the different situations showing kind of how tight the camera is and the angle you know starting to give the production crew an idea of what you’re expecting to see. David maybe you could tell us a little bit about preproduction.

David Lecours: Yeah. So as you go through these steps if you’re a marketing director and you need to get sign off on these items that’s so much easier to get sign off from your boss or somebody Cecilie with you know the story script. Well I wouldn’t say it’s easier but it’s certainly less costly to do it at that point when you’re still developing the script. Then after the production and the shoot is already doing so. We recommend that whoever needs to sign off on your video you know does so before each. Next phase starts to take off. So the next phase you asked about joshes preproduction and so this is where you’re sort of planning and scheduling the shots. So now if you’re hiring a professional you’re planning with them and scheduling you know availability of both the location and talent people that are going to be in your film you’re playing out who is going to be involved.

David Lecours: You know a very professional job and would have a director. You would have a director of photography somebody in the lighting and somebody howling sound. Now you know for smaller budgets you know you can get away with probably two people and they sort of take on two of those roles. And finally of course you know in this space you got to think about permissions. You know don’t forget if you’re shooting in private property you need to get a property release and if you are shooting people you need to ask them to sign a model release. Yeah. Josh that’s all good stuff. I

Josh Miles: think next is the actual production of the video itself for as I like to call it the hurry up and wait stage. I think if you’ve if you’ve done really good homework on the preproduction actual shooting should be pretty smooth. David and I actually had the pleasure of working on a video together a few weeks ago and you know that was a really smooth production for us even though it was a little bit of kind of figuring things out once we got there we had enough things lined up in advance that we had more than enough time between each shot and kept it all pretty simple. So the actual filming or recording or you know this could also get into whether it’s voiceover and all the content that you really need to collect before you get into what’s called post-production. Maybe you could walk us through that.

David Lecours: Yeah it’s the last phase so you captured all this original footage of the sound and imagery. Now you got to sort of bring it all together and you know where the story really gets told effectively is and can post post-production and this is where the editing happens. This is when any sort of facts get included for really being fancy whether those speeches full effects or sound effects. I think it’s also really key to integrating music whether that’s just it under voices and it’s real soft and it sort of builds a crescendo. Music has such an emotional socially charged catalyst that it can really make your piece more effective. You know if you’ve got good music of course the music has to blend with the personality of the piece and then also your target audience. That’s sort of the last part so post-production and then of course after that you get to decide you know where to put it.

David Lecours: But those are the five Seso So create a story to tell in preproduction production and postproduction and we’ll have some place to describe in greater detail at PSM show if you want to learn more.

Josh Miles: Well I think we certainly want to hear from you and hear your firm has ever utilised the video as a marketing tool. What maybe what tips you have or what learnings you had and maybe not such a positive way it would.

Josh Miles: What did you mess up. What did you do really well and what did you forget along the way. So we’d love to share some of your examples as well maybe we can tweet those out or include those in the show notes after we get this piece live so please head over to PSM show and scroll down to contact us and let us know your thoughts on video for professional services.

David Lecours: Well that also brings us to the end of episode 107. Josh PSM show is moving forward. This will be our last episode of 2017 and we’ll come back strong in 2018. I always want to remind you you’re listening to PSM show via our website Eichten is natural remember to go back to the site and just describe where your favourite podcast player isn’t subscribed to PSM show for professional services marketing. If you can find it just go to one of those and search ‘PSM’ professional services marketing and it’ll pocket and if you like this show one of the best things you can do is give us a rating or at iTunes and it will always open to hearing your comments and suggestions for future shows. I know we have plans to do some more interviewing not each other but actual guests. So you write to us at psm.show and let us know who you’d like us to interview. So that’s it for this episode of PSM show. From Josh Miles and myself David Lecours. Bye for now and we’ll see you in the New Year.

106: Bold Brand 2.0

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Time to Listen: 22 min. 34 sec.
David Lecours interviews Josh Miles, author of Bold Brand 2.0 about the process of writing the second edition of his book.
 

Mentioned in This Episode 106 Bold Brand 2.0

  • Why publish a new edition vs. new book?
  • What content in the book has been revised?
  • How is professional services marketing different from consumer marketing?
  • How marketing professional services firms used to be “unprofessional”
  • The Talent War: blending HR with Marketing
  • Is attracting talent and clients mutually exclusive?
  • How Marketing helps with employee retention
  • Going through the process of branding is as valuable as the branding artifacts
  • The book doesn’t prescribing solutions, but more about education
  • Tips and insights to allow firms make their own decisions
  • 4 Types of Rebranding
  • Brand: balance where you are now vs. where you are headed
  • Writing a book requires commitment
  • Outline the book first

 

Resources Mentioned

Bold Brand 2.0

Available on Amazon.com
 

Podcast Episodes 1–100

To read the show notes and listen to previous podcasts (the pre- Josh and David era) – click here

Subscribe to our Podcast

To subscribe to the PSM podcast in iTunes – click here

 

Transcript From This Episode

Announcer: Welcome to PSM. The Professional Services Marketing Podcast it’s inside applied.

Josh Miles: Hello and welcome to PSM show. It’s about professional services marketing we’ll be covering it here. I’m Josh Miles and this is Episode 1 0 6 for Friday December 8th 2017. Although we were actually just in San Diego together last week, we are across the country from one another tonight. David, welcome to PSM.

David Lecours: Great to be here. Josh excited for another show are really making some progress.

Josh Miles: Yeah absolutely.

David Lecours: Of course I want to mention, I’m real proud of our relatively new web site which can be found at psm.show. So if you’re listening the iTunes or however you get your podcast. Check it out because we’ve got additional links we’ve got show notes. We’ve got some good stuff in there that you’ll benefit from today. We’re going to do something different. We’re going to do a very first interview and I have to admit it’s kind of cheating because I’m going to actually interview Josh about his new book for granted but it’ll be good practice. I have done a ton of interviews on air so this will be a safe environment. Hopefully Josh will be a cooperative guest.

Josh Miles: Not get too combative!

David Lecours: That’s right. But yeah he’s got a new book out it’s called Bold Brand 2.0. : Leverage brand strategy to reposition, differentiate and market your professional services firm.

Announcer: They see PSM insight applied to Josh this is actually the second edition of your book. Tell me why you decide to do a new edition versus not doing a totally new book.

Josh Miles: So the kind of funny thing was I didn’t set out to do a second edition. I actually about a year ago decided I was going to go in the studio since I’d had so much fun with my other podcast obsessed show. And I would just lay down some audio for the audio version of my first book and I was you know a couple of years after I’d been out and I frankly made it about halfway through the book and started realizing oh I need to rewrite that section and come back and record it maybe I should we wrote this chapter a bit of that case study doesn’t make any sense. So we nobody uses flicker anymore for marketing so some of these key studies were getting a little bit old and dusty so I decided Well shoot I need to go back and rewrite the book in a few sections.

Josh Miles: Anyhow just to do the audio so maybe I’ll actually just create version 2.0 the book so the further I get into it the more committed I was so the next stage actually has to go back and do that audiobook now which I haven’t recorded the first minute for yet. But big plans in the new year to have that launch very early in 2018.

David Lecours: So as you’re saying the words you’re realizing that they just didn’t ring true as much as they did in the past and it made sense to update a lot a lot of the intro. Any idea how much percentage wise you updated.

Josh Miles: I think it’s probably somewhere just shy of a third of the book is new so part of that is it’s a little bit longer a book than version one. So unscientifically half of those updates are totally new content and half the updates are just refreshed case studies and in updates to older sections.

David Lecours: Well then it makes sense yeah. It’s not a totally new book.

Josh Miles: It’s revising stuff that you mentioned for the first time around it was it was like a year of writing and editing. And this time around it was more like four or five months of writing editing. So it was you know obviously a lot faster to go into material you’re familiar with as opposed to writing stuff from scratch but made it a lot easier to release the second edition and you know it’s exciting to have it back out there again.

David Lecours: Absolutely. So in the subtitle it talks about how to market your professional services firms. How do you see marketing for professional services firms as different from say is this consumer A.B.C. or even retail marketing.

Josh Miles: So what’s interesting and I’m sure you know this is the in the professional services space. As recently as in the 70s that was really seen as an unethical thing to market your professional services firm and even in the early days and I would say up until the last 10 years especially most firms really saw business development efforts such as you know getting together for a meal or drinks or sponsoring a non-profit or you know taking your prospect out to golf you know was marketing or if you were really forward thinking in the 80s perhaps you had a big yellow pages ad right. Thankfully most firms have moved away from from the latter tactic but there’s still a lot of firms that have that kind of history when it comes to marketing. So just a basic understanding of all the things alaw Inigo Montoya you know they they keep using this word marketing but I’m not sure they know what it means.

Josh Miles: So we had a lot of fun in the book kind of unpacking. You can just kind of the basics of here all the that are part of marketing and you know there are certainly some firms out there who have been killing it for a long time and they get it and they have embraced it. But so many firms come from this heritage of marketings a really weird thing and it’s maybe even a dirty word. So like helping them understand the difference between all the things that marketing can be and how they’ve seen it in the past was kind of a big deal.

David Lecours: Yeah it’s certainly changing the mindset. I think my experience is that there are still those in a leadership position that came from the when as you mentioned even you know some professional organizations you know strictly forbid marketing it was only seen as unseemly and not professional but it was forbidden that it was ever illegal. But it was certainly highly discouraged. Absolutely. So you know similar to your firm. Many of our clients have driven to rebranded or redo their Web site due to a need to attract and retain a talent. I mean I can speak frompersonal experience. We just had a client and the reason they hired us to rebrand was strictly because they wanted to attract and retain talent. So I enjoyed the fact that in your book you have this new chapter about the talent war. Tell me a little bit about you know how that town fits in with branding and marketing professional services aren’t we sort of blending HR with marketing here.

Josh Miles: Yeah absolutely. And I think the interesting thing is how often we’re hearing from firms about we know we need a new Web site and we know our prospects deserve a better experience. But honestly the reason we’re hiring you are the reason that we’re even going out for this Web site or appear this branding RFP is because we need to attract and retain better talent. And you know for me personally sort of even in my young professional years each year was just a word that would make me itch. Is not something I was ever excited about and it was I’ve come to realize you know having now owned a business and you know employed lots of people over the years that it’s the kind of the rules and regulations side of H.R. that was always frustrating or boring or annoying. And it was it was the talent side of H.R. that was really invigorating and it’s really about figuring out what somebody is best at and determining if that’s a match for you or your need for your culture and your team and you know finding the right fit for the right person. I mean that stuff is really exciting especially when it comes to then helping our clients determine those kind of things. I mean so we’re not we’re not literally doing the hiring for our clients but we are helping them better position their firm better tell her story and kind of create the pieces that help them especially on a track to peace. You know it’s harder for us to help on the routine but the track peace is certainly something that we can help them get the word out there. And I thought it was interesting I was doing some research for this chapter in particular and it’s something I’ve been talking a lot about when I’m when I’m doing talks on this chapter is this idea of you know so many firms tell me if you’ve heard this before but they’re they’re just having the hardest time finding people with that you know the five to 15 years of experience for some reason that is just like a missing piece for them. Have you seen that at all?

David Lecours: Yeah no it’s a definite phenomenon and it’s because our eight or nine years ago we had this vague recession and young talent that would now eight or 10 years of experience just chose not to go into. I’m speaking specifically about the architecture engineering construction industry and so there weren’t jobs there when they graduated from college. They didn’t go into the industry. So now there’s a whole demographically in the workforce. So yes firms are struggling to catch up. Sort of phenomenon. I think we have to admit is in this is that the economy is good. Firms are rallying people are moving around a little more freely than they have in the past. So you know there is a little more lubrication in the job market for transferring from one firm to another. So yeah people want to work harder to retain people.

David Lecours: You know one day you said you know like that firms are coming to you to help them recruit and retain. And do you think that you know by having a quality branding with clear messaging. Yes it helps to recruit. But do you think that it also would help to retain existing services like try and sort of those intangibles that somebody would say with a firm because they can point to a website that they’re proud of?

Josh Miles: Yeah I think that’s definitely part of it. And you know especially when you hear the complaints amongst Millennials in particular but also lots of other age groups or that there’s just kind of a lack of communication or sometimes even phrase it as a lack of transparent it’s just that the leadership has a hard time communicating what they think and feel and believe in where they’re going and what their vision looks like and they think those are all things that really come into play when it’s time to kind of put a finer point on what your brand is about. So if you’ve gone through that kind of process chances are that your your Web site maybe has to find better and that your leadership team is on a more similar page. I mean so many firms you walk into and if you ask 10 different people in the leadership team what it is that they do know you’re likely to get 10 very different answers. And that of course is not a great environment to be able to get your young talent on the same page let alone be able to retain them.

David Lecours: Yeah that’s true and something you know there’s almost something about going through that process of branding and sort of getting everybody to agree on a unified message and messaging that is as equally important as the artifacts that come out of it. Of course the logo and the visible part is that there’s something outstanding about you know getting everybody to agree to a process and go through that. So yeah many people in the same firm are saying the same things because clearly communicated. So let’s say hypothetically you know you get hired by a firm and you are you know working with them on a rebranding to recruit and retain exclusive. Or do you think their side benefits are recruiting and retaining clients at the same time.

Josh Miles: Yeah I think it’s you know the new business side depending on who you ask in the firm is often either the first or second priority there. So it’s not that more coming in to solely focus on talent but that attract and retain of the client side it’s certainly either a coequal or a very close second in priority. So think again the better job you do of articulating what your firm is about the easier job you’re going to have. Not only of attracting recruits but also it makes it more clear if you as a client might be a good fit to work with the firm.

David Lecours: Yeah absolutely. So to put this out is our audience. I know your planes are full with marketing but you guys are probably better at marketing for talent than H.R. Is this is something that you want to take on? It certainly is within your wheelhouse. You have the skills. Instead of marking for projects you are marketing for talent. Let us know your thoughts on this particular topic. So here’s a little bit you know one thing for sure is that it’s not a you know does it sort of give somebody step by step how do everything you’ve kind of taken an approach of giving strategies and knowledge and let the user kind of make up their mind to choose what they’re going to do for themselves. Talk a little more about that decision and how it came to be.

Josh Miles: Yeah I guess one of the sections first and foremost that comes to mind. A good friend of mine who’s an intellectual property attorney helped me with some of the content on the IP. I’m going to say law in quotes chapter because we have this big friendly disclaimer at the start of that chapter basically saying this is not law. This is not legal advice. And she helped me but that together. But you know just trying to give an IP example is just a good microcosm of the book is that it tries to walk through all the big picture ideas that maybe you wouldn’t have any reason to know anything about beforehand. And I think most people even myself included before I saw her doing research for the first version of the book like I couldn’t have told you the difference between T.M. and Essem and our ball and you know copyright and all these different marks and when you can claim them in what you have to do to use them and what to look out for and you know to that chapter again it’s just kind of an example where we tried to do with the entire book which is to provide enough navigation that you can start to understand each of these big picture topics whether it’s naming your firm or you know choosing a positioning or you know what makes for a good trademark or you know what with the basics of a modern website might be so kind of walk to everything from positioning through marketing with that really big picture idea. So we’ve got lots of tips along the way of you know when it comes to hiring a copywriter. If you don’t find yourself or fancy yourself as more of an advertising writer with the strength and kind of developing voice that’s a really smart place to hire an external person. But something like a brand Auda is maybe something you might be able to pull off on your own. If you are kind of research minded and feel like you can kind of pull the pieces together and get a good look at what the rest of the market is doing. So there are lots of little tips and insights throughout the book letting you know you know not only the high level info but also maybe seek help on this and here’s somewhere that maybe you could you know if you’re brave you could try to do it yourself like that sort of a T-shirt a fish get them the knowledge about fishing but you’re not going to actually fish for them.

David Lecours: I mean it’s kind of interesting you know if it were sort of a very conservative take a look at everybody that bought the fall. You have a bunch of firms doing the exact same thing. You know so so much of marketing is about differentiation. So I appreciate that. Yeah you’re laying people because marketers are smart right now think they want to be told exactly what they want to do. Seems like you give them options and they can decide.

Josh Miles: Yeah. And really it’s you know one of the sections in the book we talk about what I call the four different types of re brands that there are. The first is you know the just the window dressing where you change the outside but nothing on the inside is really the same. And that’s where I think it feels less than genuine. So you know you didn’t change anything on the inside which you got this fresh new face. The second type is where you know things are really great on the inside and really externally all you’re doing is catching them up so that the market knows us something great. But when you look or read or you know try to learn more about it you just don’t get that same connection. So those are actually some of my favorite ones to work on where the firm is already great. They just don’t have the brand to match the third one being. You’re kind of working on both. So you’re doing maybe some strategic planning or some some realignment and rebranding to match and then the fourth one is the one I just call showing off. So there’s not really any reason why you needed to re brand you were just bored and had some budget to burn. So I think those are the kind of projects that are that are typically dangerous for you. You just end up kind of messing with things when they’re when they were ready to be changed. So you know again was kind of a an interesting finding that we had in the process of writing the book.

David Lecours: Sounds cool. Don’t you think that should be you know the sort of nagging or catching up in terms of sort of positioning themselves and the way they talk about themselves. She can be a little bit ahead of where they are so that sort of becomes aspirational. Do you feel comfortable sharing that sort of stuff.

Josh Miles: Yeah absolutely. And you know I think there’s always this delicate balance especially when we talk about those four different types of re brands. You don’t want it to be so aspirational that that you feel like just say yeah you’re truthful. But I think if all your brand does is just sort of state historically where you’ve been then it’s really not very exciting for the team to rally around. So I think it’s great to have a mix of that postin acknowledgement of where you’ve been and where we are right now. But this is really what our values are about and this is this is where we’re going to go in the future. So it’s it’s we’re you know some firms will develop like a vision statement could go by many different names but I think that’s another place where you can stand to be a little bit more aspirational in how you’re messaging something. So it’s it’s really about where we’re going and not just about where we are if we’re stuck or you know the reality of running a business.

David Lecours: So Josh has done this 2.000 times. What would you recommend to other marketers.

Josh Miles: Well I I think I may have skimmed over to a little bit and I said it took me a year to write it the first time it actually took me about four additional years to that talking about writing. And then when I finally committed and had a publisher you know it was about a year of actually writing the book. So if you’re not committed you will never get the thing done and you really have to just commit to dates. I ended up through the coaching of our editor and the first version writing the table of contents first. You know sort of like an outline and then they had me write you know maybe a paragraph description for each of the chapters. Then they had me build out some additional bullet points for each chapter and then really it was just about adding some meat to that outline and that outline kind of became all of the chapter so it was really interesting writing against an outline in that way.

Josh Miles: And that’s that’s definitely something that I would recommend have somebody who’s either an editor or publisher to kind of help hold your firm accountable to hitting your dates and also that way doesn’t like overtake everything that you do for five years.

David Lecours: I have to admit that question was kind of a teaser because we had the worst couple of interviews coming up with the publisher and also we will probably do a topic on sort of the marketing and how you can leverage it to position yourself as a leader and it will probably also do another topic. It’s claim that Josh was alluding to there is just the process. How do you get who you want your team to hire ghostwriters you are a copy editor. But all that stuff. So I’m putting sure your listeners for future episodes because the books are for people definitely still reading and it’s a great tool to position yourself as somebody who knows what they’re doing. And thankfully we have Josh with us today because he knows what he’s doing. That’s your fault. Any questions I didn’t ask you about the book. Anything you’ve been dying to answer?

Josh Miles: No I think it was again it was a really great process and it’s one of those things probably like when you get off of a roller coaster you’re like are going to do that again and then you know that your next trip to the amusement park you’re like I don’t know if I’m going to do it or this time. It was great. Not going out the second one and hopefully that bad audio book is definitely right behind it.

David Lecours: Cool. So, it somebody wants to learn more about the book or should they go?

Josh Miles: Well that’s a nice softball question David there will come to a head over to bold brand dotcom where they can read a little bit more about the book and certainly they’re interested in having me come speak to their group bird chapter business available for that too. And then of course there are links there to buy both the Kindle and the print editions from Amazon.com.

David Lecours: And someday soon the audio version, you heard it from Josh. and some from Josh shearings in that audience we want to hear from you. You know have you produced one right to. Give us a great question and we’ll mention your name in the next episode. We recently received advice from Barb and we got another name from Eric asking us the differences between marketing and business development and to explore our B2B versus B2C so stating that for future sode as we explore these topics and as always goes to show you just scroll down and ask the best way to contact us.

Josh Miles: All right. That almost brings us to the end of episode number 106 of PSM show. If you’re listening to the PSM show website went pop over to iTunes Stitcher or your favorite podcast player and subscribe for your regular dose of professional services marketing goodness. Search for PSM professional services marketing and hit that big subscribe button. If you have any questions comments or suggestions for future shows guests, please write us a note over at PSM.show. Next week we’re excited to jump into our thoughts on Video. So that’s all for this episode of PSM show from David Lecours and myself Josh Miles. Bye for now.