ï»żWelcome to our community of Resilient Entrepreneurs. Rob Glass is our guest today. He's a thought leader in video production and storytelling. You might have asked yourself over your time as an entrepreneur, can Do-It-Yourself video really transform my business? Well, Rob has 20 plus years experience, he has produced over 2000 videos, he's trained over, get this, 80,000 students in effective video storytelling. If there's anyone who can answer that question, I think it's Rob Glass.
He will share his insights into democratising video making, we're going to find out what that really means. He's a BBC trained presenter and the rest of the story weâll let Rob tell you.
Youâre listening to Resilient Entrepreneurs, the podcast where we speak with business owners from all around the world and from all walks of life in the hopes that something you hear today will leave your business a little richer. Our business, Two Four One Branding supports new entrepreneurs as you launch your business. We offer you the tools you need to succeed, which is exactly the reason that we invite experienced, successful people like Rob to share their wisdom and insights with you on this podcast.
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Rob Glass, welcome. It is wonderful to have you on the show.
Lovely to be here as well. Thank you ever so much for sort of thinking of me and inviting me on.
Well, we're excited to geek out over all things video and storytelling. So let's start with your story. Can you tell me what your childhood story is all about?
Yes, funnily enough, when you start to think about how did it all start, I can trace it back to when I was three, and I can remember that quite clearly because we moved house when I was three and I was still at that school, so it was definitely three and not five or something much older than that. But I remember being in, I don't know what you call it, a PE class, physical education, gym class and the teacher said, Okay, everyone just get down on the floor and on your hands and on your feet, and then that's good, thatâs good, and then balance on one hand and one foot. And I can remember going diagonally opposite. I was going, that should work quite well, Rob, yeah, that seems to be working, and I looked around and all my classmates were going for the hand and feet on one side and they're all toppling over. And I went, super crap on this one Robert! I do remember the teacher going, we all spoke like this âWell done, Rob, Well done Rob. Rob seems to have got the idea over there.â And I've tracked it back to that because that was the day that I was sort of encouraged to think differently and it is a good thing or definitely not a bad thing, and it's to be encouraged, whereas it could have gone either way that day. I could have been encouraged not to think differently and all the pressures that come with fitting in with the norm. So at the age of three, I thought, right, thinking differently is okay, and that's followed me right through school, through university, through, I was an engineer for a while after university and leaving that and thinking I like radio and all that kind of thing. So it's always been implanted in me, this idea that thinking differently is okay, and I think I was very lucky to have a teacher to encourage that in me, I think.
Very lucky. What a gift.
I can remember something else as well around that time. Strangely looking at, still in that house, I still must have been three, I saw a weather presenter on our black and white television and just thinking, trying to eat my meal going, âWell, if I'm going to be a weather presenter, I really need to start drawing a map on that wall over there with my crayons.â I thought, ah, that's a bit of hard work, I won't bother. So luckily for my parents, I didn't bother, I remember having the idea, and sure enough, after I left university, I was an engineer, went into radio, went for a screen test as a weather presenter as a joke because all my friends egged me on to and I ended up becoming a TV weather presenter after all. So I'd had the idea around about three and dismissed it. Cracked on with my education.
You took the long way around there to get there. That's all.
Yeah, and who knows just by thinking differently and stepping out of engineering into radio, which I ended up loving. And that came through thinking differently at university. We had a friend in our third year and discovered we hadn't joined any societies and that's what university is all about, so we joined hang gliding and he wanted to do radio. I wanted to do hang gliding, he wanted to do radio. He embarrassed himself at the cheese and wine, drank too much wine, embarrassed himself at the hang gliding, so we couldn't do that anymore. Couldn't show our faces there again, but the radio worked. And we both ended up loving it and having our own show for a few years. And that's what led me away from engineering into the BBC radio because I realised I had a passion for that kind of thing. And again, just not being scared to make change, I suppose which led to the television job. And so what they were doing, they had TV monitors all around the radio and the television station, because they were the same building. So we were in radio going, âHaha look at all these people coming for a screen test for a weather presenter, we were giggling at how sort of wooden they were and frozen. And they said, you should have a go. I said, no! Well four people said, you should have a go at the screen test so I thought, Oh God, all right. But because I knew my friends were watching, I didn't get wooden, I did a bit, well quite a lot, but I was cracking jokes, not very good ones you can imagine, to my friends, and that worked for the other people that were working in television and were looking for a weather presenter. That worked as well in my favour. So yeah, like I said, I ended up becoming a TV weather presenter and the terror that involves.
I was going to say terror, absolute terror. Most people, the thought of being on video is so terrifying and it stops them, right? It stops them from doing things for their business. It stops them from speaking to the news when they want to launch their business. Because we work with people at the launch stage of business and we find that video, most people are really terrified of. How do you get over that? Stage fright is such a big thing, how have you pushed past that?
Yeah, that's possibly when I do in-person training and that's the biggest thing about video is not the cameras anymore and how to clip the edits, itâs how to be natural in front of the camera. To be clear, I don't think I've ever really totally got over it. It's always a kind of a thing, but I realised if I'm going to make a video and I need to be in it, it's just one little ingredient so I better push myself forward and do the best job I can. I think it really helped when we ended up at the BBC becoming video journalists. It became making films on your own so you didn't have to ask someone else, it really helps when, which isn't what you just said, it helps if you are in control, you know you're filming yourself and you're going to edit it, you know you've got that control. So if you mess up, you know you're not going to let that go out. It's when someone else is making it. I think the nerves set in because you're not quite sure what bits they're going to use. I had someone say to me once, she can stand in front of a crowd of 300, no problem, but it's in front of a camera, I think she said it's âbecause the mistakes live forever.â And I'm going, whoa, steady there, you're making it quite scary.
And when I started as a TV weather presenter, honestly, I was absolutely petrified. And I remember the first time my left leg was shaking so much, I was going, âOK clouds coming in from the westâŠâ and I thought, I can't put any weight on my left leg. It's going, and if this right knee gives out, I am going to just buckle. I'm going to be the first weather presenter to buckle completely. And each day I would mess up some line and I'd be cross with myself and then after, I suppose maybe this is the trick, do it for six months and then you'll start to care a little bit less. You won't be quite so precious about it. And that makes you, helps you to relax a little bit, take the pressure off yourself somehow.
Another thing I did, but I don't recommend it, is to try standup comedy at an open mic night somewhere because that's absolutely terrifying. So presenting in front of a camera is kind of not so bad. Is that some kind of aversion therapy or something? So I tried that just to see how terrifying that was. But I think another way is to just imagine a friend or an actor or an actress you like is standing behind the camera and smiling at you is another way to try and do it. And another thing is all those people you mentioned when you're talking to them, the people on the other side of the camera that are hearing it all or seeing it all, it's just to remember they're on your side and they want to hear what you've got to say. They're kind of rooting for you. It's not like this hostile crowd. It's people that want you to do well and they're rooting for you so that helps as well a little bit. But yes, it is a cold, dark glass lens you look into, which is kind of soulless, which is quite interesting, how youâve got to get through that.
I love how you've just listed four things, four key points for overcoming the terror of being on video. And as you were speaking, I was relating them to any aspect of business that might confront us. You talked about providing yourself an extreme example. So your standup comedy, do something more terrifying and it won't be so bad.
The first point you made was to do it for six months, which effectively means just do it regardless of how you feel and keep doing it and keep practising it and it's going to get better. The other thing was to imagine a friendly audience, which is your business audience, right?
And the fourth point, which is so key is, they want to hear from you. And so all four of your points about overcoming fear in front of a camera, which is so poignant, also relate to so many aspects of business.
Wow, I would never have thought of that connection had I not come and joined you two. And that one about people sort of wanting to hear from you, that's something I read somewhere in training. When you're doing training, you just have to imagine that there is someone out there that, apart from all the marketing and the sales, that does need your help and will be grateful for it. I'm guilty of forgetting that and then just getting down into spreadsheets and lists and go, how does this work? So yeah, that is very interesting.
Yeah, I think it's such a good point that Vicki mentioned there, and you had mentioned about people wanting to hear from you and that's something we often forget when we're thinking about how do we market our business and we wanna get on video and talk about something. And then what holds us back is the thought of that troll that's going to come and attack us. The people who are going to laugh at us cause we mess up or we look silly or we made a mistake or somebody's going to counteract our argument with some fact that we didn't, so we have all this that runs in the back of our mind and just put the phone away, forget it, not going to do it, right? But we forget that hundreds of people, hopefully thousands of people, are following us on social media or our business because they wanna follow us, because they're interested in something that we're doing or saying, so why are we holding ourselves back? I think it's that shift in mindset from I have to do this thing to, I get to do this thing and people need this thing and you're doing it in for service rather than self. It's not the self promotion, it's the service to others. When you just make that shift in mindset, it makes it all so much easier. I think I hit that when we started this podcast, I used to be terrified to talk to people I didn't know. And most of the people we started this podcast with were people we did know for that reason, right? They were a little less scary than talking to a stranger weâd just met five minutes before we hit record, right? But you get over that by taking the action over and over and over again. And it gets a little bit easier and then it starts to become fun. Like this becomes fun. So do you think people can get to the point with video, doing their own video and storytelling for their business, where it's actually fun?
I hope so. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. And I think it's what's exciting for me and for everyone, I suppose, is how it's changing suddenly now, and certainly over the last 20 years, how it's changing at such a rate and it's just exciting to be part of because when we had lockdown, just as an example, on BBC News over here, suddenly Zoom interviews became okay, but before there were sort of frowned upon because the quality wasn't good enough or for whatever reason. So before I was travelling all over the UK interviewing people, even though it's not as big as America or wherever, but it was still taking up all my time driving around everywhere. And then suddenly we were allowed to do it on Zoom and the results is different, but you're still getting the same message so that's one change that's been huge. And that's split over into this idea of people being able to use smartphones for themselves and talk about their agendas, which I think that's what's driven me for the last 10 years is so exciting. If I was working for BBC regional news here, what we'd be saying and how we'd be putting it together, but what would you be saying in your world and how can you put that together? That's just really exciting and it's still uncharted territory to a large extent. I still think there's, if they get over that fear which we mentioned, where that would go? And that's what drives me is going with âWhat if I can just give you the tools to do that?â What are you going to do with it? Because I don't think there's a definitive way yet. I think there's a lot more things that are going to be discovered, which is fun. And the fear, I still get the fear of pushing videos out there, and I shouldn't, but I still go, oh, and make myself send it going âthat's good enoughâ. But luckily, I've learned, you're never sure what people are going to pick up on. Itâll be something you haven't thought of, but it's almost always good so I'm lucky I don't get a lot of people going, that wasn't very good. But it's things I don't expect. So all the things that arenât quite right, just forget them because people arenât going to spot them so that's taken the pressure off that a little bit. But I've always thought making video is fun, making it your own way and having your own ideas and seeing them come to life. Itâs creative and it's fun.
It is, and it's amazing the difference now and the advantages now that business owners have and maybe entrepreneurs and solo entrepreneurs and startups and people in that early stage, because go back 10, 20 years, you'd have to hire a whole film crew with cameras and actors and makeup and hair and it would be a production and it would cost thousands of dollars to create one ad for your business. Now you can turn a phone around on yourself with a ring light and have amazing quality video and you could just talk about your business or whatever idea you want to bring to the world and put it out on your free social media account in minutes. The difference in the technology is kind of mind blowing if you just step back from it a little bit. Right now it sort of feels so normal, right? We have a phone in our back pocket and I've actually caught myself calling it my camera, Iâll tell my kids to pass me my camera. They're like what? I mean my phone, because I know I want to take a picture, because I'm thinking I want to take a picture, right? But it's just become so normal. I used to work for a newspaper, so I used to have a big sports camera with the big fancy lens and I used to take sports photography and I loved all of that. I still have that gorgeous camera, but do I use it anymore? No, of course not, because I can whip a phone out of my pocket and take pictures. So we have this advantage of technology and yet most people still aren't using it.
Hit the nail on the head. I couldn't agree more. I've seen that pattern. I talked to my person I bought my big video cameras off and they said, you need to really change it every seven months. It was about 5,000 pounds. I'm going, do we? Do we? Then on the other hand, I was shown around this, I was being asked to make this video for this charity nearby, and it turns out they never got the funding so the video they wanted to make never happened, but when they showed me around, this was the pivotal point, I suppose. When they showed me around, they showed me all the work. It was for people with brain injuries. All the work that was going on in the individual rooms with the people that worked there and the clients and all the brilliant art lessons and all the brilliant things that were going on, the stories. And I just thought, this is so unfair that you have to wait for a bit of funding to get someone like me with all my big cameras, etc, when iPads were just starting to get good at filming and starting to edit. If I could just show you the ropes, you could start making your pieces not only on your own, but you say the phones in your back pocket and that's the whole point. It's there 24/7, so you are there when that magical moment happens, and if you can capture it then boom, but you'd never get a camera crew in there. âThere's a magical moment happening, I just need, I'll sort out the funding in a minute. Get your camera crew over here.â But there's also, when you do have all the lights and the big cameras, they describe it as, there's also this, I don't know what you think about this, a whiff of propaganda, like do you really mean that when someone's so well framed and towing the company line, whereas if you whip a camera out and it's someone on the ground floor going, this is happening, this is real, and this is really what we're doing. I get excited because I think that's what video should be. It's not propaganda. It's real stuff happening and okay, so it might be a bit shaky or whatever, the rules you're going to throw those away because it's real. And that's what's exciting because you're there when that moment happens, which is why I think it's really exciting.
I really enjoy how you reframe that because it is true that in the past if the video wasn't quality we wouldn't believe it. Now if the video is too quality we don't believe it.
That's interesting. That's a good point.
Yeah.
So we're going towards a more real life scenario. So Rob, you've trained over 80,000 people doing this. So are you willing to share some trade secrets here? How can we help people level up?
Oh, yeah. And the biggest part of the 80,000 was, again, another stroke of luck. Like I said, for six months you just keep trying and every 1-in-a-100 thing comes back good and I was running some training in Munich for this company and their boardroom and everything. And I got really excited because they were a big company, accounting company and I said âEveryone in here should be making video or know how to make it all across the whole company and I could show them because we can get it onlineâ, and I got really excited. And they said, well, we don't need that. And I went, oh, burst my bubble because we use LinkedIn learning. And I went, oh, I wonder what LinkedIn learning is? So I was in the hotel room that night and I searched for it and there's a little webpage that came up - âDo you want to be a LinkedIn learning instructor?â And I went, âNoone's going to read this, yes.â Tell us in 500 words what you do. âSmartphone video trainingâ, that'll do. Because I didn't believe it would get anywhere. Show them a link to something I'd made in my little studio, just flapping my arms around by my desk. Sometimes luck just shines on you and the chap phoned me and said, look, âI hardly ever look at these lists and then for some reason I picked on yours, and what happens is we're doing this series on engaging video and it's just not engaging enough at the minute. And what on earth are you doing at your desk?â Kind of doing all this kind of being engaging. Can you come and make a course for us in California? And I went, ooh, that makes up for all the times it doesn't work. How lucky. And so, tens of thousands of those, 80,000 are through LinkedIn learning and the courses we've ended up doing over there. So that's nice when life throws you one of those little nuggets. So when I was at the BBC, I just thought some features worked and some features didn't, and I just thought that's just the way of the world. Some were really easy, some weren't. And you know, that's just, what can you do about it? Today, the piece came together really easily. And it was really hard work on other days. But then I thought if I'm going to train it, I need to get to the bottom of that because if video isn't your job, your job's something else. It needs to be the easy side. You don't want the difficult scratching your head side because it's not going to work. So I really started to think, just took a moment to think about what I did instead of just doing it all the time.
Gradually it just dawned on me to talk to people and talking to LinkedIn Learning as well, going, oh yeah, let's do this. If we're going to make a video with a smartphone or whatever, I say put the smartphone down for a bit, and we spend just half an hour just having a think about what it is that makes video engaging.
So I think there's sort of three strategies to that, which is what you asked for, I think. So the first one, and do feel free to shout in, I totally disagree with you, Rob, and I'll bring on my army of 80,000 students and say âOhh, we believe in you Rob!â I imagine they'd be saying that, I haven't heard anyone disagree with me yet. Anyway, but I'd love to hear you disagree. But I think when it comes to video and anything like that, the most important thing isn't the camera, isn't the mics, it's not the lights, but it's the audience because if you lose the audience, then everything you've done is immaterial, because no one's going to see it. So the most important thing is the audience, which is why shaky handheld cameras can still work if the audience is engaged with what's the story you're capturing. So that's the first part of it and the second part is, we've got to be honest, we have incredibly short attention spans these days. 10 years ago we used to say it was 12 seconds, but now we think it's gone down to two or three seconds before you, and that's perhaps being generous before you click away from something or scroll away. So the cold hard truth is this, the audience is the most important thing and around about two or three seconds in, they're thinking about leaving your video, because there's billions of others to choose from. So that's what we're faced with. And actually that puts us in a good position, because we go, okay, right. So how do we deal with this?
And I think there are three things we need to think about. And the first one is I call good manners. Applying to video, that means emulating how people experience the world. So we experience the world level, I've got a little bugbear, we don't experience the world vertically, but more and more vertical video is happening. So I'm having to live with that and my answer to that is, I could go on for hours, it's good manners. So when you're in another country, you go to France, it's good manners to speak French. So when I go to another country, for example, Instagram, it's good manners to make vertical video. But there's so much in the world with two eyes you see things landscape. Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked, but good manners. So the eyes would tend to give you an image in your head about which is coloured right, in focus and it gets the lighting right. So we can do that with smartphones now with just one press of the button. It used to be almost a week's course when I started at the BBC, getting the cameras just so, but a press and hold on the screen makes it sort of lock in and you get the really crisp pictures on the bit you want. But it's not just your eyes that experience the world, you've got your brain as well which has got a creative side and a logical side. So the logical side, like I said, likes to keep things level, we don't zoom in. We don't really zoom in, we jump around and our minds give us different images. So I don't zoom and I keep it level, and even if we're jogging around, we'll give a steady image. So that's why we try and keep things as steady as possible, which might involve a tripod or it might just involve us trying to reign in from shaking everything around. And we tend to hone in on just one thing, so panning the camera around is a little bit alien to us as well. So basically, we give ourselves crisp shots and the other part is the creative side of the brain, which gives us a sense of aesthetics, a balance and so we can frame things which are nicely balanced. And if we can do that, then I think we can get the audience through those first just two or three seconds, one nice, well-considered shot.
Then the next thing is we don't experience the world in one shot. We experienced this in lots of different shots and different ingredients. What we do is after two or three seconds, we break up the audience, we reset the audience's attention by giving them another shot and we carry on that pattern for a little bit. And to do that, we can use different ingredients. So there's different types of shots, that's what we call the cutaways, we can talk to people like we're doing now, so talking heads. You could bring in some music, we're using computers at the minute, so screen capture is another element we can bring in. So I think there are seven or eight different elements we can use, graphics, names and texts and things, seven or eight different elements which video can give us, which is how we experience the world. We talk to people, we hear music, we see things, we look at the computer. So we use our different ingredients. So we don't just limit ourselves to one long shot of us talking, puts the power back in our hands really. And the final one, you've already mentioned it, lots we can talk about instructions and things, but what humans really love are stories. So if we can just recognise the story structure of something and then bring that into our video making, even if it's just over 40 seconds or something, then that's what will keep our audience's attention, stop them wanting to click away, and actually make them want to have a positive reaction, which is actually what it's all about. It's not just about making a video. You want to have a positive reaction on your audience and get them to do something positive and change your world that way and it's through well-mannered video, using different ingredients where relevant and telling a story would be a good idea, and that was the difference going right back to many moons ago when I started this answer, when I talked about the BBC when some worked and some didn't I realised looking back and ah it was all the ones that work are stories. And then having read a bit about it there's a structure and I went ahh they all match that story. And if you've got just a moment I think one of the best videos, not now but whenever, there's one of the best videos on social media, I think it's just incredible, is made by a fox called Dixiedo and the best one, well the one I like is when Dixiedo steals a phone. I think she's in some kind of sanctuary for foxes and there's this lovely lady that looks after them. And she's just saying, don't steal the phone, don't steal the phone and this fox runs off with the phone, but the fox changes shot. The fox puts the phone down and gets a shot of the face, a wide shot and gets all the shots we need. And all the time this lady's chasing around the pen and laughing, but it's a perfect story. You've got a hero and what do they want? They want to run off with the phone. What's stopping them, they're being chased. And it's just a perfect little story and that's had, I think, 12 million views. And at the end, they say, you can donate to our charity at the end. And it's just a lovely video, but the point is it's made by a fox and it's super engaging. So if foxes can do it, we can do it as well!
I love all of that, but I want to hone in on the story and the structure of a story you just mentioned there, being really important and being the key ingredient in a successful video. So help people understand what a good story structure looks like.
I like stories that come from real life, so they can all go in different ways. Like I mentioned, the one where I got into LinkedIn learning ended up on a high, but there were 99 that didn't. They're still just as good real life stories, I didn't get that job, or they never phoned back or whatever.
And then I suppose part of it is choosing which one to say, I don't know whether anyone would really be interested in the ones that didn't phone back. But when we've got the power, you can choose the good ones. But I think a classic story and feel free to chip in and I will scribble down anything you add to it and put it in my training. A beginning, a middle and an end, a hero of some description, could be you, could be someone else that clearly wants something and somethingâs stopping them getting it. So that's sort of the beginning if you can establish that, and another thing is just to pop in, a situation of where we are. We need to have a sense of where we are I've discovered. It's a little throwaway thing but it's good to get that in there. I think it comes back from our sort of cave dwelling days when if someone said there's a sabre-toothed tiger going around eating some of us, the first thing you'll want to know is, where? How close? It's just part of the storytelling DNA. We need to know where we are. So apart from people telling a story, they'll tell you where it is, so when we repeat that in our video, a minor detail.
A major detail is hopefully caring about the hero, having some kind of empathy with them, which is more often the case than not so I tend not to worry about it because humans are generally empathetic and you've got to prove them not to be, I think. So caring about the hero and then watching them through the middle with the struggle up and down and whatever it is, it could be the simplest of things, whatever it is they're struggling with. And then at a certain point that you reach the climax of the story when it's do or die and you see what happens and then you have the end which is tying up all the loose ends, the resolution.
So I read a book by Robert McKee called âStoryâ about screenwriting, which I found fascinating and just brilliant. And he sort of flippantly comes up with a formula for it. So he says the beginning with all those things, where we are, who the hero is, what the conflict is, should be 25%. The middle should be 60%, heading up to the climax, whatever happens. And then the ending should be 15%. And so I'm always watching out for that structure, especially on the viral videos that are one-take wonders, one in a millions that work, you'll see, and there's quite a lot of I don't know how do you say it, it's like scone or scone, is it sloth or sloth? The slow moving tree dwelling animals. Or does that mean nothing? Or are you actually wondering what on earth I'm talking about? There are quite a lot of viral videos about sloths. What do you say, sloth? Let's go sloth. Yes, sloth, does that sound right? A sloth on the road and some kind-hearted chap picks them up and it's a one-take wonder over about 40 seconds, it gets picked up. But you think, oh, I'm watching this going, where are we? Well, we seem to be on a road somewhere in the outback, I don't know where sloths are. Is it Australia? I don't know. Somewhere like that. That's all I needed to know.
I'm going to go with Costa Rica.
Okay, Costa Rica, then. I'm right behind you going agreeing and nodding. Costa Rica, definitely.
Who's the hero? Is it the sloth or is it the person? I'm not really too worried yet. Probably the sloth. What's it want? Probably to survive and it's lying in the middle of the road and it moves too slowly and then so that gets established. And then because it's viral, a quarter of the way through, you'll see the person's picking him up and carrying him to the tree. And then that takes the ones that are big hits, that takes 60% of this 40 seconds. But then there's a lovely bit, the one I saw where the sloth seems to kind of wave and smile at the end. And I go, it really cares, and that's in the same sort of 15% at the end. So it's story structures that happen in real time are the viral ones, but my argument is we can't wait around for those one-in-a-millions and hope things happen. We need to be in charge, which is when we bring in our different ingredients and replicate that story, because some of the best stories don't happen in real time, they're just told that way. So that's when we make those with video as well.
So is it possible that you're suggesting here that we can use that formula to go viral? Or is there still an element of random to viral?
Oh, yeah. I still haven't cracked what viral means. It's your department, all kinds of marketing and getting things, algorithms and all that kind of thing to work.
You can't create viral, you can't force viral.
But my view on it all is humans crave stories and that's when the engagement happens. So many times when Iâm starting out, I kind of just go, yeah, I know that, but forget it in my work. So my argument is let's just totally remember it in our work. And so let's, we're making a video, we're trying to build, I do a little exercise in my training where we fold a paper plane and we have a hero trying to make it, and we try and match those points. And then suddenly the video becomes a lot more engaging as a result and it becomes easier as well I think. If you're thinking well, seriously, I've really only got a minute or maybe 80 seconds, 80 I like, because the numbers work a bit better. If it's 80, then by 20 seconds, we need to have established where we are, who the hero is and what it is they want, which becomes a lot easier because you've only got like three shots and someone saying something or narration. So instead of all those big ideas, you go, oh, I've got to condense it all into that and then the structure, you make the structure work for you, I've found. Because the ones that worked from before, they just seemed right and I never really knew why. I should perhaps say this here and perhaps say that there. It took me a ludicrously long time to go, wait a minute, let's just deliberately make sure it's a story. So if I'm tasked with making a video now, I'll go, well, what is the story?
I've tried making 15-second ones for Facebook, because I thought, well, I'll try and make it 15 seconds. I'm going, okay, apply your theory, I'm going to count a quarter of 15, it's about four seconds, isn't it? So within the first four seconds, I need to have established who the hero is and what the conflict is, which is one very short line but I've got to make sure that works. So it's bringing that theory in at every stage and then knowing that because it's a story it'll be engaging naturally. So yeah, it's a mechanism, I suppose.
It'll be useful for our listeners to see an example of your work and we'll put the links in the show notes so we'll be sure to get the right links from you, something that people can really see what we're talking about here.
I'll send you one I made happily through LinkedIn. Someone said, can you come and run a course for us in Abu Dhabi? I said, yeah. So I ended up on this surreal four days in the desert in Abu Dhabi, like you don't, but somehow I did, and they were having a nice comms team, they were having a lovely retreat in the desert, an oasis kind of place. They were trying to get to the top of the sand dune by sunset. And I thought, well, I'm teaching people how to make things with their phone so I picked up my phone and followed that story and I'll send you that link. And if you do end up watching it, you'll see the person, the hero I chose to follow, she didn't end up going, she was the one person that decided I'm not going up the sand dune. And I went, what? And I was filming her at the bottom. And I'll tell you what, sand dunes are pretty hard to run up when the sun's trying to set in trainers there. Yeah, if I ever do write a book, I think it's called Sprinting up Sand Dunes, because it's not easy! So I chose the wrong person and there's so much when it didn't really become a story, but what I love about is that stuck to the structure and I captured it rather than just letting the whole thing just never be told and just disappear. It's just like when you got a video, it's like a currency, I think you've got a good story like that. And everyone that watches is going, I'd quite like to work for Siemens. I'd quite like to work for Siemens because they care about their people and actually caring is one of their values and that's what's behind all the stories is, if you can pin them on one of their values, you go, aha, see, like that charity I told you about, that's clearly one of their values was caring for the clients and that just comes through every story. That's what shines through and that's what I think it's so powerful about it. So I'll send you that link and you can see how I struggle to make it into a story by trying to make up conflict because they were really cool. They're really efficient going, if we say we'll be there by sunset, we will. That's not a story. So yeah.
I love it, the human condition. And it seems to me, you say you chose the wrong person, but I would argue that you perhaps chose the perfect person for that, because to show the person who doesn't make it to the top, who doesn't hit the success peak, is the ultimate story of caring. Like you even care for the people who don't make it.
Yeah, I think I perhaps haven't told that well enough. She was just a little, I don't know, she just said, oh, I've chosen not to go up. So she was super successful herself, but just went, and I was filming her at the bottom and getting my five shots and then went, oh. So I think really the only person that did miss the sunset was me. I should have been following someone else up, but yeah, just the quality of the phone and the point is there wasn't a camera crew out there. So it was only being captured by the phone. And I'd love to think that anyone could make those stories, not just with a few shots and going, that kind of works, send it out. And that's how the values get shared and the goodness spreads, I suppose. So yeah, that's what we mean by democratising video, I think.
Thank you for saying that, I was just about to bring us back around to that. We mentioned it in the intro. What on earth is democratising video?
Yeah, it's the idea thatâs not unique to me by any means, it's the idea that, I get a bit carried away with that in the video, it's a right basically, and it's a form of communication like reading and writing. And I think now it used to be you had to have a camera crew or a television station to make video, but now everyone can make it and should be able to make it and there's just a few little technicalities that need sorting out when it works well in the same way you don't suddenly write a successful novel when you sit down to write a book. I think making a video is much easier than writing a successful novel. But yeah, there's a few little elements that come to it. But yes, it's the idea that you don't keep having to ask someone else to come and make a video for you and get the funding. Because I've been there, I was that person, I've seen how you're fenced in with the budgets and people wanting to get the value for the money for the budget so it has to be on this subject. And it's all just, you're in a cage almost and then a lot of people working on it, everyone wants it done slightly differently. And the video becomes a bit crumpled in a way because there's lots of different ideas coming in. Whereas the democratisation is people with the phones in their pockets going, âI can make a story about this and this is my slant on it and these are my values and this is my voiceâ and it's a beautiful thing really. And I think it's a very good thing because the other alternative was me holding onto all my cameras and going, âNo, you need to pay me to make your video. How dare you think about making video on your own?â Which I think is not right. I did get some grief at the beginning going, so you're teaching people how to do what you do. And I'm going, yeah. And they go, well, that's giving your job away. I was going, no, no, no, it's brilliant. And thereâs work to be had there as well, it's just a different sort.
It's a different mindset on it which I think is really important. And I'm really interested on your thoughts on the technology, because we are certainly in a technology explosion right now with AI and there's a lot of questions on authenticity and a lot of what you've just spoken about is the importance of authenticity in video and what that allows for the storytelling to be really real and authentic. But now there's this other side, the darker side, which you can create fake videos and deep fake videos and some worrying things that people will talk about on the internet about being concerned about. What are your thoughts on where that's going and any concerns on it?
Definitely concerns, yes, and no conclusions. I don't know where it's going, It's very interesting. The advice that I've heard and I'm sticking with is AI won't take our jobs, it's just people that work with AI that will. So I'm making AI as much a friend as possible. I must get around to, I had a little go on one of the free apps that makes, talk into it for five minutes and then you have your own generated presenter, which is you. And then you type the script in and AI Rob just starts to go through the motions and it's fantastic. It's still quite robot-like, how soon that will change, I don't know. So I don't know the answer really, but certainly the lack of trust is going to be interesting if people don't really believe that it really happened. I don't see the point of trying to simulate stuff in our own worlds with all the goodness that's going on. So I've started seeing, I've got no answers. I could just dither for hours now because I just don't know.
There aren't answers, but there's a lot that we're talking about. And I just think the conversation's interesting.
I've seen some footage of typing into AI, âI want this video of this dog walking along a window ledgeâ, for example and the video is stunningly good. It's just a Dalmatian walking along a window ledge, slightly dangerous, but it's AI. I don't really see the point of watching that if it's just been made by AI. I just want to see real things. Will humans just start watching human things and will AI crack on with its own thing and AI will watch that? I don't know. But then that said, some of my favourite films use AI and I go, wow, look at that. So I really don't know, but who knows what's next? The fact we can make an AI Rob as a presenter. I mean, subtitles is another thing. Part of good manners is subtitles for accessibility and that used to be a whole job when you could send stuff away for a few days and it would come back, or it would take me an hour to do a minute. And now on free apps, it takes you like 10 seconds and it's, it's heard everything and written it out and you just change the capitals. That's incredibly good. But it's a whole career, vocation that's presumably dying, I don't know, dying away because yeah, so it's kind of, whoa, what's happening? And someone said, your job is safe as a presenter, you will always need human presenters. I don't think that's necessarily true, but I don't see my job as just a presenter anymore, I think I wear six hats, I can't remember what they all are, but let's try to do it; script writer, trainer, etcetera.
When you're taking off on an aeroplane and the safety video rolls, now more often than not, it's a cartoon. Partly, I think because of accessibility. It can show people from all walks of life and it makes it more engaging, which is a point that you mentioned, what's going to engage the audience. So, we don't necessarily need to see ourselves as real, but I think what happens with humans is we discern what's real, and that will dictate our behaviour in what we watch or listen to. So people can go out there and do as much deep fake as they want, but we'll also become more attuned to that, I believe, because critical thinking does still exist and I think we'll just start to be more selective in what we watch and listen to. As a writer, I can absolutely pick up when something's been written by GPT and I don't object to it at all. But what I do object to is when I see the canned version in something that I'm expected to read. And I'll just switch off and move to the next thing, to your point, it's the attention span as well and what is it that grabs our attention? It's authenticity.
Yeah, so two things, thereâs an app, an editing app called Descript, which translates everything into basically a Word document, the whole. So I had these things where I talked to someone and you probably get the hang of it, I can't keep things short if I'm trying to get to the bottom of a story, especially when these are about award-winning students, they're just brilliant, you can't just talk to them for five minutes and hope to chop it down to two. So some went on for close to an hour and there were such powerful stories. But one chap's first answer honestly was 35 minutes and I couldn't stop him because everything he said was like, Oh my God, wow. Luckily I just found Descript. So that changed it into a word document. So the first thing he says, well, take out all the ums and suddenly you've lost, I think it was eight minutes of the 50 had gone with ums and hesitations. I went, whoa, okay. So I don't have to sit through an hour and edit it out. And then you think, I really have to have him saying that line and that line and that line. I tried to let AI have a go at it. I said, can you make it this? And it just picked out single words and it was like, oh, it was unwatchable. I said, okay, so I'll have to think about it. And the thing I noticed this chat had such a time, I just put it that way. And at one point I can see his eyes reddening and starting to well up. As an emotional story, that is clearly where the emotion is. That line has to be in and I told myself that line is in whatever. And I don't know when AI would ever spot that, and I don't really want AI spotting it. It was kind of me feeling that this was my chat and I had to get it down to two minutes. This is the two minutes I want to represent that chat, but AI really helped me get the initial hour down to about 10 minutes going, that's the stuff I want to work on, so it really helped there. And someone else has mentioned, I'm really not very good at interviewing, trying to get the answers out to people. I get a bit flustered with how to ask the question. It turns out it's never done me harm because whoever I'm interviewing takes pity on me because I'm so bad at asking questions. They always give me such good answers, so I've always got the answers I wanted, but apparently there's AI that will do the interviews for you, which I'm quite interested in because it'll be a human response to an AI question, but still you'll get some material that you wouldn't have had before and you've got something to work with. So I'm watching it all. It's really interesting. And then we've got the Apple VR goggles are coming out. AI presenter is going to pop up everywhere and is that going to become normal and woo, where's it all going?
We don't know, we donât know.
Itâs exciting.
Technology, new stuff comes up all the time and some stuff we adopt and some stuff we chuck out and some stuff takes a while but it'll come back into the mainstream because we just weren't ready for it yet, and that's the fascinating part. And I'm totally with you. It's the wait and watch and see, learn the tools because you're right, it's not the AI taking your job, it's the people who are using it because that's the key part that most people miss. They think the robot's just going to come and take over their job. Well, someone has to program the robot. Somebody has to work with the robot. There's a part of that job that's still there, right? So how are you the one using the tools? How are you the one training other people? So we have to evolve our thinking of work and I think it's going to happen and we're going to look back and go, okay, that was just a different revolution. We had the industrial revolution, we all survived. And I was thinking about this the other day about being a creative, right? So we're all creatives in this space, so we understand this. Creatives are, I think, going to always be needed in history, because we always have been, right? Creativity has just evolved and we've just evolved with the tools and now we just have more tools that make us faster, better at our jobs. So creativity is always going to be a human desire, so learn the tools, so learn how your smartphone works, learn how to create the videos, how to tell the stories, how to use the technology so that you can be better at the good creative side of things. Because I think people want creativity. The reason why we are addicted to TikTok and Instagram is because it's all stories. It's entertainment, it's creativity, and the good ones stand out. They're the ones that go viral, right? We are going to scroll through a lot of bad ones too, for sure. But for the most part, that's the difference, and it's the people who learned the tool that get the viral video or because they've told the perfect story, and like you said, sometimes it's a shot in a barrel, and it's the one in the hundred, one that you post. You don't always know when it's going to be, but the point is you've done a hundred of them. You know you've asked 100 times, you might've only gotten one yes, but the point is the doing, the taking the action, the not stopping because you're afraid of the tool, the rejection, the whatever it is. That's the message I think I'm getting through today.
Absolutely, and those viral videos, the ones you see, I think are the ones that I think I've mentioned that sort of match a story. So it's working with the tools we've got to not leave its chance and make sure everything we do, it is a story each time. I never thought I would, but I found some old vinyl records of mine in the attic and I found a player, a Bluetooth player, and I play those and I think, oh, this is nice. I'm just putting on, and so I wonder how much itâs going to look back on an old film and camera as well and going, oh, this was nice. And I'm just interested in how we come back to that, It's not just me doing that. There's a bounce back, so I wonder as AI goes further and further, how much we'll kind of bounce back and talk back creativity. I wonder if all just theatre tickets will become, we'll all just want to go and sit in the theatre where there's no chance of any AI interfering with any sort of human sort of art. I wonder if we'll all kind of shuffle away somehow, we'll see.
I love that perspective. Is there a little touch of nostalgia going on behind you in your office there, Rob, with that orange telephone on the desk?
I suppose so, yeah, yeah. You can see over the other shoulder, there's an orange typewriter as well I found in a charity shop. Can you see that? It was fluke, really. I have ended up working at home because it's much easier, but I used to have an office, and I needed a phone for it, so I just went, yeah, I'm going to be having one of the old ones, I might as well go orange. I used to work with a client and he used to love ringing me because he said, I know your phone's ringing in the old fashioned way. I go hello and then ring him on that, but it does still work. So then, I got the typewriters as well because I just liked it. Then I put them both on the desk because I thought that when I did my presenting, it needed some colour. Someone told me, you've got a brand going on there with a shirt like this one and the orange. I went, yeah, that was always the idea. And then, not to talk, just fluke. But then I worked out, well, how can I explain what video is? And I went, oh, okay, it's just so happened. I said, well, humans like to talk to each other, that's kind of how we've sort of taken over the planet really. We could type everyone a letter, that's going to take quite a long time, or we could phone someone, it's just a fluke, but actually we prefer video now. So that's what we're going to talk about, they both kind of old school ways of communicating, which were sort of fine in their time, but we've kind of moved on to video. So yeah, I could argue there's a point, but really it's just my nice old orange phone. I use Rubik cubes in my training as well, and the Bayeux tapestry, if that means anything to you, not living so close to Bayeux as I do, 1066 tapestry with William the Conqueror. I use that as an example of them. I keep doing that. I've made a little model of it and I just talk about that's how we edit, we roll the edges of the tapestry and we can sometimes cut it, but you shouldn't cut a tapestry and that's how we edit. And interestingly, if nothing's been interesting so far, I measured my tapestry because you think surely in when they saw this thing was a thousand years ago, but it's all got level shots, they're all in focus because they're sewn with needle and thread and they've got words on them like narrations. It's like a thousand years ago. It's kind of like how we make video, but surely it should tell a story. So I started measuring it for my 25%, 60%, 15%. And I was going, well, how long is it? Surely the conflict is wanting your country and then getting invaded, but I couldn't make the ending, I couldn't make the maths work. And I was going, oh, that's really annoying that it doesn't work on the tapestry. but then I read there's a bit ripped off the end and lost. And I went, ha, I knew it. I knew it. I could tell you how much has been ripped off the end with my formula. I know exactly how much has been ripped off. So that really cheered me up. So mediaeval super sleuth. I like that. So yeah, I like the old school stuff and I like trying to avoid jargon. There's a lot of jargon in video as well, I like avoiding that. So I've come up with my own, just makes sense, B-roll, cutaways, all that kind of thing. I call it stuff happening. It's not caught on yet. And I don't like rules, do this and yeah.
Well, you gotta keep it simple, right?
Yeah, yeah. Some trainings I see, and when we're told you've got to have lighting, you've got to do this and it's, you've got to do this and it takes all the passion out of it. So I come at it as taking the approach that the audience is key and once we start thinking what they want, everything makes sense, and we can give them that or not. I like the old school stuff. Yeah.
It adds to your story, that's for sure. So Rob, I'd love to flip the script on you because we're the podcast hosts and we've been asking all the questions and it's been super fun so far. So I'd love to sort of throw you the curve ball and ask you, do you have a question for Vicki and I?
The interesting thing for me, I suppose is, first of all, I worked in media like you two did and did okay and then became a sort of video journalist and did okay and worked independently, did okay, and then thought I'd like to teach this, and this is how I teach it and I wrote out this is how I teach it, I know they tapestry, rubik cube, explain all the different angles and everything so it makes sense. And then that kind of seems to be half of my work, and the other half is suddenly become marketing. I say suddenly over the last 10 years, more and more scratching my head marketing. And how do I get this out there? How do I get in front of the right people? I'm lucky the feedback I get, I did some courses with the Guardian masterclasses over here. So I'd have a hundred people on Zoom and one that didn't have a single question about the technicalities. I thought, cracked it, I've said everything I needed to and everyone seems very happy. So I've seen it work, but trying to, as a business, an entrepreneur, trying to emulate that every time, I must have tried dozens of different ways and gone no, that doesn't work, no, that doesn't work. Facebook ads, that will work. No, they don't work. Well, I'm just not very good at them. So I'm just wondering, what your thoughts are on the best way to get your message out there and to prompt you a little bit. Is it just organic, helpful content building your tribe? Is that the best way? That's my question. Or is there another way you can tell me that's even better?
Such a good question, and I think the thing that most people struggle with is figuring out, because marketing is such an experiment and what works today may not even work tomorrow. So it's definitely a tricky one, but there's a couple of things that we know for sure definitely works. And one thing, we've been talking about storytelling this whole time, is having other people tell your story. So what I mean by that is using testimonials from people who have taken your class in your marketing in a way to have somebody else say how great your class was, for example, what they learned and what they got out of it. Now, if you can get them to do that on video, all the better because that increases authenticity and believability, right? Because that's really key because you're trying to get people to trust you. So if people are going to give you their money for something, if they're going to buy your course or hire you to coach them one on one or whatever it is that you're doing, anybody I'm talking about here, it's getting them to trust you is sometimes the hardest part. So what you also said about like showing up and teaching and sharing organically online is also massively successful for a lot of people because again, you just increased that trust factor because I'm starting to get to know who Rob is and what Rob's all about. Do I believe Rob? Do I trust that he's going to teach me something that I really want to know? Is what he's teaching valuable to me? And if it is, okay, here's my money. That's going to work because I'm going to say this is aligned with what I'm wanting. It used to take seven times, seven touchpoints for people to trust you and buy from you, right? So it would take that many times. And back in the day, it'd be a newspaper ad and a radio ad and maybe a magazine, and maybe you get on the news if you're launching something or, so we would have all those really big, expensive, hard to do things. And then you'd go to the next stage where everyone was building websites and starting social media, but now we're in this flooded era of massive information, coming at us from all angles and social media, there's so many platforms. It takes more than seven times. That's the bad news, it takes a lot more, but it's the consistency of the showing up, building the trust over time, using other people to help tell your story that I think is the most effective. That would be my top recommendation. What are you thinking, Vicki?
I love that advice. You're so good at giving this advice. And yes, the only other thing I would add would be to flip it back on you because I also am a life coach and I do believe that we all have the answers within us. So here's the question for you, Rob, about your marketing and that is, how can you use your own formula on your marketing? So everything that Laura just talked about with building trust, everything that Laura just said, put that into the formula of the 20, the 40, the 15. What is your story for your marketing? And so how much effort do you put into building trust, the beginning, the start of your story, connecting with your audience? And be clear on who that audience is. How much do you spend in the middle, in delivering? And how much at the end do you pay attention to having that client become a repeat client and looking at ways for them to become a repeat client either through a referral or a testimonial or coming back to use your services themselves?
Oh, that's good. I'm spending all my time in the first 25% trying there because I know my 60% is ready and I have such ideas for getting to the final bit working with people and really supporting them in whatever, call it pioneers, whichever direction they're interested in going. So let's go, I'll help. Where are you going with your video making? Because I know what Iâd do, but I'm BBC old school, what would you do? I know, I can't wait to get to that bit, but I'm stuck. You've got to get through the beginning bit. Stuck isn't the right word. And video testimonials. Yeah, that's so good. It's something that's, it's like standing in front of the camera. It's in fact, I think it's harder. I find it hard asking people for a video testimonial, and luckily I've just got this new little thing going well, yeah, where we worked together for a few weeks and after a few weeks I was talking to one lady and she was, can do, I can do, I can do it all, and I said, I was ready for it. Do you mind if I just press record? At the right moment when she was elated. I did get a very good test, but I've done nothing with it and you're so right. When I'm thinking of buying, of course, that's what I look for. It's like stories, just of course I should use them. It's like that moment, of course, I should use video testimonials, have a word with yourself.
And you have a formula for it. So you could even provide a question, couple of questions to your clients to answer that will shape into your formula beautifully.
Yeah, because if you turn a camera on somebody and say, give me a video testimonial, they're going to be like, ahhh, they're not going to be able to, but if you're just on it, say like we're doing now, like we're recording this podcast, we're just here, and we could say, hey, Rob, what'd you think of this podcast? And you could just say, oh, it was great, I had a great time. Of course you had a great time. But you know what I mean? You could just say whatever you wanna say, and then we could clip that video, ask permission, always ask permission to use testimonials, but then it comes across natural, because it is natural. It's actually how they were feeling in that moment. So that's just a little tip for everybody out there. We're using Zoom, weâre always recording stuff anyway, ask the question at the end. Was this great? What'd you think? Give me some feedback. You get the feedback if it's usable. It's a great tool for marketing just in general, because other people talking great about your business is so much better than you talking great about your business. So that's just a little tip for everyone out there.
I've got another little tip along the same lines, and I think it's sews up something I said. I said, I'm not very good at interviewing and that's exactly that reason getting the question right is not easy, without sort of taking the answers away from someone sort of mentioning the words that you want them to use. That's kind of one of the rules, you don't use them. Hopefully they will if you do use them, are you leading them, all that kind of stuff. But yes, instead of just how was the podcast, my tip is can you ask two questions because it's not a closed question. So youâre going to ask a close question. Was the podcast okay? He's going to get a yes. But try and ask two or three questions. So, for me, it'd be, How did you find the podcast? What were you expecting from it? Did you get that? And was there other stuff? So that's four questions and then you will get a much better answer because the person will talk in sentences rather than just monosyllabic yeses and noes and they will consider all that stuff and give you an answer that you hadn't really expected. So yes and did I have a little question like that up my sleeve for this testimony I did. What brought you to this course? What were you trying to achieve with video and what was it that was holding you back? And what drew you to this course and how was it? And then, so she talked about how, before and after, and her answer was a story, before and after. And a part of my training, I used to just film people and say, just as any story and people just naturally talk in stories anyway, which is another powerful thing. So I use an example of someone just telling this 30 second thing and you can split it pft, pft, pft, and people just do it naturally. So, yeah, they're good to be aware of and sort of use, and then if you start listening to chat show hosts, well, certainly over here, you'll start to hear them use two or three or four question techniques and you get such good answers from people. Once I was at a screen opening of Batman 3, I think it was, with George Clooney. I'm just so bad at this. When I was working for one television station, they had me out there at one in the morning. And suddenly they didn't think he was going to show up. Rob, George Clooney is here. So everyone ahhh, and I had 10 seconds to get a question ready. It was so bad. It was so bad. It was something like, George, we were in an old disused power station in London. George, do you think the gothic setting of Battersea power station is good for Batman? Which is just the worst, the worst question and his face said, that's the worst question I've ever heard. And he laughed at me, he laughed. He went, yeah. And walked on and went, ahhhhh. It was such, such a bad question. To be honest, I still can't really think, 20 years on, I still can't really think of one. I'm still struggling. So whenever George Clooney pops up, I get a kind of nervous tick and I still can't think of one. So like I say, I'm not very good. I'm not very good at that.
I can tell you something you're very, very good at and that would be your standup comedy routine. Aside from your video, of course. So thank you, Rob. This has been so much fun. Laura's cheeks are hurting.
My cheeks are hurting, literally. I've got to massage them. They're hurting, Iâm glad, I'm glad. And I hope everyone listening had some good laughs along the way too, because this has been such a fun conversation, but also such an important one because we forget the power of storytelling, but yet that's how we've learned all of human history is through stories. So it is a part of the creative world we live in. It's something that's always going to be around and we can learn to use them effectively. Learn to just cut them down to those 10 second viral clips but it takes a lot of practice and a lot of work, but it is so fun to have conversations like this. And Rob, you've brought so much light and joy to this podcast today. I hope everyone's enjoyed it as much as I certainly have, and I cannot thank you enough for sharing your amazing stories and bringing all this joy to us today. So Rob, thank you so much. We really appreciated this.
Likewise, I've taken so much away from it. I've been scribbling down everything you've been saying. Yeah, life coach, video testimonials, I love it. I've learned loads. Thank you.
Oh, our pleasure, truly. Thank you, Rob.
It's been real. Thank you, Rob.
