Todd Hartley on Story-Telling Through Video Marketing and Working With Tony Robbins

This week, Rita Trotter sits down with Todd Hartley, CEO of WireBuzz, Video Marketing Specialist and world-class keynote speaker. 

Todd shares his experience of working with Tony Robbins, Justin Timberlake, and as a special advisor to the White House, and provided his insights on: 

• The power of video in digital marketing, and how useful it is to accelerate your sales
• Using the power of storytelling
• Overcoming dyslexia and attention deficit issues to become the huge success he is today
• How to utilise AI whilst still focusing on authentic human connection

Find out more about Todd's work here: https://toddhartley.com/

Rita is a health and fitness coach who specialises in helping women over 40 to be healthy and wealthy, through weight loss and/or business coaching. Find out more here 👉 https://thehealthandfitnesscoach.com

New episodes of The Healthy and Wealthy podcast are released every Tuesday 🧡

Watch the full episodes on YouTube

Transcript

In today's episode of the health collective podcast, we are joined by Todd Hartley. He is the author of the number one best selling sales and marketing book accelerating. Yes, he is a force to be reckoned with a sought after keynote speaker, a digital and video marketing visionary and a sales optimization guru. Todd's revolutionary strategies have propelled his clients to new levels of success. This has earned him the prestigious role of Special Advisor to the White House. And he's also worked with huge businesses such as Tony Robbins, and Justin Timberlake are like his foresight and innovation when it comes to marketing and video has made him the go to strategist for billion dollar corporations luminaries and world leaders. And here he is with us to help you with his key insights on video marketing to scale your business. So if you're looking for help in lead generation, or conversion with your clients, then this is the best place that you can be for the next 60 minutes of your life. He is here to share his key insights that are usually reserved for the likes of Tony Robbins and those at business mastery. So if you are looking for help in scaling your business, changing your revenue, or growing your own video marketing portfolio, then listen in for Todd, his strategies, an amazing extended episode, I look forward to hearing how you feel. Let us know if you've got any questions and enjoy.
So first of all, a massive welcome to our guest today, Todd, although I've given him an introduction, he does not need any, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to be with us.
Read, it's awesome. I love the fact that you asked and I'm excited to pour into your audience with you.
Fabulous. So let's start with essentially the reason why I got you on here. So for those of you that know me, you know that I a big coaching fan. And the first time that I was opened to the world of Todd Hartley was a business mastery, learning about video and the keys of video marketing in today's society. And it tripled my business revenue within the space of just three months when I employed some of the strategies. So talking of video marketing, what first of all opened your eyes to why this is so key. Where did your love a video and the exploration of that format come from?
It's a great question you should know I did not own a camera. When I discovered video was the most powerful tool in the business world. I didn't, I wasn't looking for a place to create movies, I wasn't a filmmaker, I was a digital marketer. And I was at I Heart Radio, I was leading digital for seven of their largest nationally syndicated talk shows and inside the data, by the way, for those that don't know, your decisions on what you should do is always in the data. Okay, the answers for what your audience is asking, is always in the analytics. And I was at I Heart Radio, we had data that was probably the largest dataset of how people were looking at information. But it was all people that loved music or talk, talk radio or the spoken word. And we had 1200 stations across the US and we were running marketing for them. And there might be 80 million visitors over a month that would go in and so part of my job Rita was to go to the head of the network and say, here's what our audience is liking. So once a week, I would have a meeting with the head of the network. And I would show him what's working what isn't. And every week the meeting was the same video is getting 10 times the results of anything else that we're doing. And my boss would say, Yeah, that's great. But we're audio people. Were I Heart Radio, and they go Yeah, but they're really video people too. And I felt like such a jerk having that meeting every week with my boss, because it was always the same thing. And by 2007 I was in it for four years by 2007 I decided to recognise and acknowledge that the world was screaming for video. This is right around the time YouTube started. This is right around the time when bandwidth was lower, and I decided that as bandwidth became more available, people's love desire craving for video would become more dominant. and it would be a video tool, that business would be using left and right. And so I planted my flag in the video space. And then bandwidth became available and a career was, I already had a career, but the next version of my career was born.
Amazing. I love that. And the data is, is key. And I think for those who are listening, a lot of them are in their own businesses. And I even to the point of a midsize business, a lot of emotion can be linked with business, and actually just looking at the numbers, looking at the data is absolutely the right way to develop that growth. So in terms of the growth of video, in the time that you have been focusing on this, because for me, as someone who comes from the outside looking into this kind of video world, my biggest memories were things like Blockbuster moving into Netflix, these kind of changes in how the format was delivered. So what have you seen have been the biggest areas of change or development or growth in the area of video marketing since you've been in this industry?
Yeah, I think that's, I think that the biggest growth area for development is the concept of an individual video to one individual recipient. So we all know the concept of one video that goes to many people, I call that a one to many video. And inside that could be testimonials and overview videos and ads and webinars and you know, a whole big laundry list of business related videos. But on the other side, the one to one video is a video featuring a business leader or a salesperson that they've created for their prospect or their prospects decision making team. And what I've discovered is when I create a video for a prospect and their decision making team, they all have such massive clarity and they have the ability to collaborate that I ended up closing a significantly higher percentage of deals and the people that have gone through my training on how to close deals using video just last year, they ended up closing over $6 billion in sales. So it is the biggest open territory for any business leader that wants to get more yeses in their life, creating a simple video for their prospect while their prospect is evaluating their proposal or their solution is going to yield something like 31% More yeses to about 270%, you just mentioned right there, that you got a 300% increase in three months. So you're right in with what I'm seeing across business leaders all over the world.
It's interesting that essentially, this sort of one to one rather than one to many is in essence the word personalised, right is bespoke is human to human interaction. In today's marketing in general, not just video, there is a lot of technology out there to create shortcuts to create time saving. But at its essence, do you feel that regardless of the type of marketing, it's the personal touch, and the effort and the energy that's put into it, that makes the biggest difference? Almost
every single time. And they're absolutely people that are listening are conditioned to think scalability. But conversion is really what we're after we're after converting people into a paying client. And often the most scalable is the least personal. And the least personal has the lowest conversion. So I want to question conventional wisdom. And I want to push back where appropriate. And I want to show people that if you just spent seven meetings with somebody and you're close to closing a deal, or maybe you just had one meeting and they're interested, if you create a little three minute video, how long is it going to take me though, it's gonna take you about three minutes, and then you send them the video, you're gonna win so many more deals, it's the most scalable thing you could ever do is all about winning more deals. So yeah, I just think it's a really beautiful way. And what happens when you receive a video from somebody is and you're evaluating their business is all of a sudden you feel massive significance. You're like, wow, they really value me. Because in our heads, we have a preconceived notion that video has a higher perceived value when you receive it. So don't we all want our prospects to say wow, they really value me. And if you're giving them that level of touch of that level of bespoke attention or Are we showing them what our customer service is going to be like, on the other side of the transaction, that we're gonna go above and beyond and serve them. So they have massive clarity inside their head, and they understand with absolute certainty that we're gonna be able to help them. I mean, it's just a, at some point, it becomes a no brainer. And this is why people are closing a freakish amount of deals, creating personalised videos.
There's two words, that we're definitely going to pick up on significance and certainty because anybody who is watching this and might recognise Todd's hat, those two words might register with you a little bit. Before we move on to that, I'd love to just understand this growth in technology and what's happening. And you said, in your own words, the scalability is the least personal. How do you feel AI is having an effect or will have an effect on the role that video marketing is playing? Because everyone seems to have a lot of fear around AI, fakes and various. So what are you seeing as its role as this develops?
I think you're in the opening chapter. And it's wise for us as business leaders to keep the long term view. And when I got started with AI, and like mass produced video, I was sceptical. But here's what I'm seeing. I booked for my agency, there's one video of me that goes out, and it goes out to our database. And that video is I'll give you an example, just do a little like 10 seconds on, it's like, hey, it's Todd Hartley and I was on your website, one of the things that I noticed is X, Y, and Z. And we and it's, it's hyper relevant to everybody. And the video, the AI switches out the background to their website. So it is all of a sudden, you're getting a personal video, and I'm mentioning things in terms that feel personal. And then once the websites behind you your website, you're like, Yo, this dude just created a video for me, right. And that in the last three months, has booked more meetings for my sales team, then maybe three or four other initiatives that we're doing. So there's and when I get on the phone with them, or I read the reports, or my sales team, when they get on the phone, what they're really hearing is, thank you for sending me that video, it was really helpful in that you went through our website. And so if you do it, right, it has massive scalability, and it can book meetings. Now, there's a lot of cloning technology. And let me just back up. I'm reviewing Ron right now for a SaaS product that I am building. And this would be a technology where we take Rita, and we create a clone, which would be like an AI version of Rita. And then we could type in what we wanted Rita to say. And then the video would go out to recipients and it would look and feel very much like Rita with a slight 10% lack of believability. Now this is the opening chapter in the AI revolution, a couple of things are going to play out, one, the technology is going to get better. And what might feel like a little bit of awkwardness or a lack of believability today, tomorrow will be solved as part of the evolution. So there's a difference going on now what I think is going to play out, I think that's going to work really well. It's currently working in a in its earliest form for me. But I also know that as it gets better, everybody's going to also get their BS detector is going to become stronger. And so it's a little bit of a give and take. And I encourage people to test, like part of the best, most exciting part of business is testing and discovering and realising, oh my gosh, this just booked us 15 meetings this week. And now your business is scaling and growing like so there's like don't miss the massive growth in the future because now it isn't 100% Perfect. Like they never stopped any of us when we went to Blockbuster his kids and got movies, and the movies were 720 P, our brains filled in the details to make it look like it was four, okay? And so just know that technology is going to get better. And you're going to be on the leading edge if you stay hungry and inquisitive. And if you wait, you'll be late to the party.
I think that's a really interesting perspective on it. And it's that curiosity about where it could lead us and rather than seeing change with fear which tends to be the biggest reaction when anything is shifting is that open curiosity that kind of even the way that you were describing it, there was a bit of a childlike curiosity about it, which I think a lot of people in business lose is that sort of childlike hunger to learn and to grow as the world adapts, which I think is great in terms of the video marketing from a one to many, so the way that just for context for those listening, the way that we saw such massive growth in our business, using some of the tools that we learned from you was in the taking people almost through a story on our website. So using video a different key perspectives, so that we could fill in the right gaps, answer the right questions create certainty, at the right time. So that was where we saw such growth. So when it comes to video as a story, that's kind of what I took from you, we're seeing videos a way to tell a story and take someone through this journey. What do you see as the biggest keys that need to be included in that story? If that customer is your hero? What are the biggest keys or insights that you would say in using that one too many through a website or some sort of email marketing trail, something along those lines.
I love it. So just so everybody's following along with Rita, she, we just moved from personal video to video that would be on a website. Okay. So, you know, in our lifetime, we've all looked at videos being like, oh, it's like, there's one type of video. And, and so the biggest distinction in a video on which really we're talking about is a testimonial story. And a testimonial should feature first, a raving client of yours. But the most important element is the video needs to be really about your raving client. A lot of people think that that video because it's gonna be on their website should be about us. But the truth is, as soon as the video is all about you, it feels like a commercial. And then the viewers, the viewers feel like they're being sold to and their defence mechanism goes up. And the way that you lower their defence mechanism is you make the story about the client that's raving. And so we use what is called the hero's journey, the hero's journey, we're all familiar with it. It's the story arc of Star Wars. We give it to you really quickly. And let's make reader a part of this story. Okay, the story arc goes like this, by the way, this would be on readers website. All of you just extrapolate this as when I mentioned Rita that it's your business, okay. And so the video is about readers client, Wendy. And, and it features Wendy. And Wendy says, you know, I was struggling think about Star Wars. By the way, guys, this is all Star Wars. Luke Skywalker at the beginning has a conflict. He struggles, he then goes and his world feels like it's got too much of a burden. He then finds his lovable mentor, which is Obi Wan Kenobi. And then Obi Wan teaches him the way of the force. And there, he has the battle and the transformation and wins the victory and then returns to his life transform. This is a hero's journey. So now let's go back to Wendy and Rita. Wendy says, you know, I used to struggle miserably with this, this and that. And I couldn't get to be the person I wanted to be. I my health was poor, my fitness level was next to zero. And I really wanted to do this, this and that. And I was struggling with an inner conflict. And then I met my lovable mentor Rita, who did XY and Z and coached me up and allowed me to return back to my life transformed, where I can take on the biggest obstacles as a new rebuilt person and my life has never been the same. Now, the beauty of this is, if it's all about Rita, everybody that's watching it feels like they're being sold to. But if it's all about Wendy telling a story and they go along the journey, what they end up doing is they end up forgetting it's a business video, and they fall back into make believe and when they fall back into make believe the guard is down. And now they're envisioning their life. And then going through this transformation break through and now at the end, they get to the end they're like, Okay, so I get it. Rita is the Be the transformation, Queen. And I need reader. And so this is the magic of telling a story, as opposed to doing a commercial. And people know you resist commercials, but the story, and you guys should all write this down and apply it in any of your testimonial stories. The story is the glue that will bind your audience's attention into your solution. If you miss the story, it's a commercial. And when it's a commercial, it feels icky. And you don't want anybody to feel anything, but the transformation that you propose to give them.
I love that. And the story is absolutely the key. I suppose, once this, this whole world comes to a burning crash, wherever that is, we will still have stories to tell each other. So
always, in fact, think about this. Stories are timeless. In fact, since the beginning of time, Rita, we looked up as cavemen and women at the stars. And we told the story of the stars like today, we would tell stories, in books and in movies, so went from the stars, being the stories to cave drawings, being the stories to campfire, surrounded by stories, to books, and Kindles and movies and, and videos on business professionals websites. So the story is like the one true human constant, passed down by generation. And the companies that get better at telling stories, the ones that can do it in a way where it doesn't feel commercially, or achy, are the ones that win at scale.
So if business is about telling stories, and human interaction, essentially, because everything we're saying is it's about at the end of the day, you can have as many scalability automations as you like, but business is about connecting through a commonality of story and understanding your story, if I could move us to a slightly more sort of snow question started probably a bit more challenging than a lot of other people's and growing up you. You're very open about the fact that you suffered with dyslexia and various attention disorders. And how did that have an impact on the story you decided to write for yourself, because every day every year is just another chapter of what we choose to be in the story of our lives. So how did that impact your decisions, your story and your tale?
It's everything. It's the whole foundation, I didn't tell my story. Honestly, until I was probably 40 years old. I was humiliated, and ashamed that I couldn't read or write and was in all the slow kid classes growing up and didn't want anybody to know it. And it damaged my ability to go out and date girls in school, and you know, all of the things that it just got in the way of everything because the negativity and the chatter in my head and it consumed everything, I was less than worthy. And I wrote a story for myself, not physically didn't write it down. I had it in my head. And as a as a 12 year old boy, my grandfather introduced me to some tapes from a new author that just came out, maybe you'll know the name. And it was a book called unlimited power written by Tony Robbins. And whenever my grandfather and I would get into the car and sit in traffic in Los Angeles together, which was like every day, because he was always in our home, and he worked with my parents, we would listen to Tony's books, and I realised that what the teachers were telling me their assessment of me wasn't the final decision maker, and that I was the final decision maker. And then once I realised that I had the power, the unlimited power to Awaken the Giant Within me, and it might sound like a cliche for some, but I it became Tony's books became the owner's manual to my brain. And I learned that I could achieve and succeed and if I was willing to put in the work, then anything would be possible for me. So I I practised every day, reading out loud in my bedroom, because I read in Tony's books that repetition is the mother of skill and I believed him and and I wanted to be a talk show host. I wanted to be on the radio But I was too scared to read in front of people. And so I just put myself through a daily exercise. And it might have been one news article, an entire day when I was younger, by the time I got to college, I was reading the entire paper out loud, whenever my roommate would leave the room, I would stop homework, and I would start my reading because I knew it was a foundational exercise. And I just am a huge believer that if you strengthen your weaknesses, and develop your strengths, and you get consistent with it, your life will never be the same, and you'll be able to go on. And if my case is any example, Excel passed, the people that were in the normal kid classes, because they might have not developed continued developing themselves along the way. And I'm stuck in constant never ending improvement. And I'm 100% committed to it. And I just continue to learn the things. And especially when I'm scared to learn something new, to go from an expert mind to a novice mind that is exactly the challenging moment that I need to roll up my sleeves and learn new things.
You mentioned being scared and the way you spoke about, you know that 12 year old boy or that young lad sort of feeling nervous and scared to read. You fast forward to today. And you are by all intents and purposes a highly successful man in most areas of life. Do you still get scared? What kinds of things still instil you with fear? And if so, how do you face that? Because for a lot of people listening, there's a huge amount of fear still in their own growth, whether it's personal or business, does that still afflict you in different ways?
Not as much because I've, I've defined it differently. Give you an example. You and I met at Unleash the Power Within a year ago in person was our first time meeting. And that was in November in West Palm Beach. And this last weekend, I was on stage for Tony Robbins in front of 14,000 people. And I'm incredibly honoured to be a part of his legacy. And right before I stepped out on stage, my brain was like, Yo, dude, there's 14,000 people out there. But what I really realised is I wasn't scared. I've read channelled it, it's not fear, it's excitement. And the excitement is different than fear. Because I and when I get nervous, I look at it as an opportunity for growth, and an opportunity to serve people and help them get to their next level. So there's very little that I'm afraid of. You ask, so I'll be candid. Today is my wife's birthday. We've been together for 24 years. And we just celebrated the 10th anniversary of her breast cancer survivorship. And that's probably the only thing I'm scared of. And I get scared as we approach every new annual milestone, because it reminds me of how fragile we are.
First of all, a massive Happy birthday to you. Thank you for allowing him to give us his time on this special day. I appreciate that. Absolutely. You know the time he's
at the spa right now. So I gotta keep myself busy.
Wonderful, I love it. And talking about because there are, there are so many accomplishments that you've heard that we really don't have time to list them all. But I encourage anybody to go and research, Todd Hartley and the various different areas that you're involved in. To that I'd love to pick up on. So Tony Robbins, going from that young boy who listened and learned and wanting to emulate this this giant of a man physically and emotionally to it was it was COVID that brought you to working with his team on video marketing. So how did that little 12 year old boy feel when he got that phone call to say that? Hey, Tony Robbins once you know,
you don't have to tell stories except just be really candid about it. And I was the only one in the off office. I had just shattered our office down and made everybody work from home because of COVID. And we had locked down. But I sat in my office and after I got off that phone and I just whimpered, I whimpered for the rest of the day. It was like an 11 o'clock in the morning call. And the rest of the day I was emotionally just shot. Because when I was in my grandfather's car, I pictured myself being a motivational speaker. And I saw that as being my exit strategy to whatever educational problems that I had. And I kind of created a diff For life for myself than what the educators had envisioned for me, and I stuck to the story, and I never left it. And so when Tony called It was surreal, and it was breakout, and transformational, and it felt like, this is your moment that you've been waiting for, and now's your time to seize it. And I want everybody to realise that. I said yes to Tony that day. And I was going to do six or seven trainings, on Zoom for 1500 salespeople in his companies. He's got 105 businesses, you might know of one or two. But he's got a lot of businesses in his portfolio. So I started training them. But what I didn't tell Tony, on that call, is, I was just diagnosed with skin cancer in the centre of my nose in two spots, right here, you can probably see it, and on the side. And I said yes to Tony. But I really had 13 weeks and three surgeries as they were going to reconstruct my nose. So I didn't tell him, but I guess what I was terrified of was getting to do this for my mentor and for his employees, while my whole face was bandaged up. And that was a terrifying moment. But my wife got me to make the right decision, which was to serve him and his staff in this time of need, and put my need. Below that. And in doing so my need to be a GQ model wasn't as important as my need to serve Him and help his companies thrive. And we got to do that together. So I got to be a part of his company taking off and being successful at the beginning of the pandemic. And there's very few things that I'm more grateful for having a moment in time where you can step up and help people.
You just spoke about the cancer on your nose. And it's amazing. As you were discussing story earlier, there was one story that you told it that the original the business mastery, not where I met Todd in person, but the first time that I was able to experience your words was the business mastery the August before and I had just been through a major surgery surgery due to cervical cancer. And I remember sitting in business mastery only seven days later told Please don't move. And you know, if anyone's ever been to one of Tony's events, virtually or all you're doing is moving meaning. And I was in a very, very low place where I thought that I can't serve, I look horrendous, I let overweight, I do not espouse what my business is about. And I felt very, very low in my ability to serve people. And it was a huge amount of ego getting in my way. It was a huge amount of it's all about me. And I remember your story about how you got up and did it anyway, with a huge bandage. I think you shared a photo at that time of yourself. And it really inspired me to forget whatever I was feeling from an ego driven perspective and look deeper. So that depth that you instilled in me and probably the hundreds of 1000s of other people watching. There's not a lot of business people like that. Or if there are they're not as forthwith with their thoughts or emotions as yourself. Where did that emotional drive come from in you because a lot of people say take the personal out of the business. A lot of people like to keep them completely compartmentalised and separate. But for you, it sounds like you can't have one without the other. So where did that drive of emotion. I'm not even expressing myself very well. But it's a feeling it's a feeling of I don't know, humanity that you bring to the way you talk about business that I don't hear a lot. Where did that come from?
Well, probably my parents, they were both entrepreneurs. And they're, they're still entrepreneurs. And we I come from a lot of for generations of entrepreneurs on both sides. And I overheard in my parents house, what I now hear in my house, which is the frustrations, the concerns about payroll, the challenges of keeping everybody thriving. unhappy on your staff. And I've also know that I get to serve people like my parents, or my sisters, all entrepreneurs. And that for me, I listened to the arguments that my parents had as payroll got closer. And, you know, their marriage lasted 22 years. And I know the toll that business has on marriage, and relationships. And one, I think there's an enormous amount of teaching opportunities. And if you're willing to be vulnerable, and you can use those as a way to bring people in, you know, you're supposed to make your message your message. And every time I've done that, it's worked well for me. And I don't know, I just, I get to step out on stage, I feel like I'm helping a whole roomful of people that are struggling just like my parents did, and people who had to have to the night before payroll, take it from the family savings account in order to float the company, and have a lot of dynamic challenges because of that, and I'm particularly uninspired by the perfect entrepreneur. I'm uninspired by them. Because one, I don't believe it, I've never seen it. And two, I think it's the reality of how you get your ass handed to you on a daily basis, and still have to walk down the hall and be polite to the people on your team. Or, you know, maybe you just lost a big deal. And the phone call that comes right after is the call from the bank. And it's for somebody, one of your employees that's trying to get qualified on a home. Like this is real stuff. And entrepreneurs deal with it on a daily basis. And I think it needs to be discussed. And I think people need to be inspired to work their way out of it. And if there's any help or motivation that I can give people to be more successful then by all means, I think that's part of my journey to help them
I love the message your message and absolutely I don't think I've ever met the perfect entrepreneur either. And this is one of the keys if we sort of go back to obviously your area of expertise in marketing and video, morality and marketing. There is a lot of marketing I remember becoming a coach and one of the very first things I ever saw was hey, X amount of money whilst you sit on a beach in Bali doing absolutely jackal. And the morality in that seemed a little bit's squiffy, in my opinion. So where do you see the the line in, in ethical marketing? There's an awful lot out there for small, medium and large businesses, which isn't in that area. So how do you tread that line? More
in marketing than anywhere else? Because marketers are storytellers and marketers embellish as part of the job to elevate up to another level and as part of a marketers training. Okay. So I think it exists more marketing than anywhere else. And, and I also think that marketing is not humble. And it never has been humble. There's never been a good marketing campaign that is, except the ones that I see on the side of the highway, that's about finding God, those are humble. The other ones, marketing needs to be bold. And in order for it to stand out that bold is often a couple of clicks above the reality because they have to embellish, to stand out. So where is the ethics? I think it's important for people to remain ethical when you're telling your stories, the stories, which are your biggest hook to drive people in and reel them in, those stories need to be ethical. And I also think that it's incredibly important to let your clients tell your most important stories for you. So a testimonial story has the highest conversion. I can tell you a story about a company I just spent the the founder of the company was with me. Tony Robbins is Unleash the Power Within we're now BFFs. And his company, I can tell you the story, Rita, but if I had to him tell it, it's more credible. Do you see that? So I can tell you that in 90 days after going through my training has revenue went up 31%. And we brought in $119 million in new sales in 90 days. But if you hear that for me, it's less believable. But if you hear it from him saying, you know my company went through Todd's training and 74 of us learned how to use his strategies and within 90 days we brought in $119 million in new deals. Boo yah, like that right there is a whole different In a world of marketing, so whenever your claims feel like they are too good to be true, yeah, to have somebody else, how it exactly the way it happened for you. And that will give you a really good sounding board of a voice to a credible company, and extrapolate it back to you. And that's why testimonials have the highest conversion rate of any type of video.
I can concur with that when we move to testimonial videos, rather than just before and after kind of still images saw a huge change in the reaction to new leads and new clients coming in. So as somebody who has worked with the likes of Justin Timberlake, Tony Robbins presidents, do you see similar struggles? In terms of using video correctly? Do you see a pattern of behaviours when it comes to using video? Well, or indeed badly, like a lot of us have done?
Yeah, I think everybody is. On zoom all day, I just saw the stats. 300 million people are on Zoom meetings every day. And yet, if you put them in front of a camera on Zoom, they could communicate with their prospect. But if you put them in front of the same exact camera, but it's recording something, their inner chatter in their brain, gets them terrified, and then they shut down. And I think the mistake is missing the opportunity to use a medium like video, to be able to go one to many or one to one, and help people through the process. And I think most people wouldn't want to be on camera. Most people are like, yeah, it's not really my thing. But most prospects prefer it. In fact, people are four times more likely to watch a video than to read four times more likely. So what does that ultimately mean? That means you should be doing video. And it because you want four times the amount of attention, we're in the intention business all of us are. And then when we go to convert them after they watch the video, they're 85% more likely to buy. So the biggest thing that I see is most businesses are designed to sell through written word. But people are four times more likely to watch the video. And when you read, you're only going to retain 10% of the message. But when you watch it in video, you retain 95% of the message. So almost all of sales is knowledge transfer. Because if reader let me ask you this question, if your prospect knows what you know, and believes what you believe about your solutions, buying from you should be a no brainer for them, don't you think? Absolutely. Absolutely. That means the knowledge transfers amongst the most important parts. And if they only retain 10% The biggest mistake that businesses are making is they are asking their prospects who don't want to read because reading is hard, and it takes too many mental calories. But they're four times more likely to watch video and they're 85% more likely to buy if we reposition it and use tech sparingly and do our heavy lifting with video, we're going to have a significantly higher conversion rate, more deals and revenue will will just flow and that to me is amongst the coolest things ever.
95% retention is absolutely insane in comparison game changer. The written word and that game changing that you help other businesses with you know you've led digital marketing campaigns across unbelievable numbers of businesses. What would you say are if somebody is listening saying right I don't even know where to start. I never filmed a video I do I need professional backdrops to I need lighting do I need music? What are the kinds of key fundamentals that listeners need to start implementing? I'm guessing repetition being one in practice, but what are some of the key fundamentals that somebody needs to start implementing video marketing?
It first if you are a high end brand. If you're a a company that justifies higher budgets, your videos have to reflect that if you are a solo No printer, or a startup, or a mom and pop, your videos do not need to be Spielberg. Like you don't need Ewoks walking through the middle of your video, and a Death Star floating by for people to follow your stories, right? So I think Perfection isn't the goal. Connection beats perfection every damn day of the week. So if you can get in front of a camera and make eye contact and demonstrate sincerity and gratitude and provide a transfer of knowledge, and you do that into the camera, I think people will buy from you and accelerated rates. And I know they will, because I've seen the data. And I would encourage businesses to think first about not being scared about meeting a video budget, that's like the first condition response. But now I'm teaching trainings where we're teaching people how to create their own videos using AI. And these things are, are put together really quickly. So I just think people need to start exploring with the technology because it's not the same technology, since the last time they explored it.
So exploration and ensuring that the videos reflect the company, their brand.
If you're a medical device company, and you know, you're like one of these, one of these awards for a medical device company or something that we've worked on, those need to look and feel like they are ready for primetime. And they, you know, if the audio is poor, and the visual quality is poor, and the messaging is weak, they're gonna think that the device sucks. And maybe it isn't safe. But for most businesses, simple video will be sufficient.
Okay, so if someone wanted to be introduced beyond this podcast to the world of odd Hartley, and why buzz and everything that you do, you know, people listening are probably thinking, he works with Justin Timberlake and presidents. That's probably beyond my scope. So what are the different ways that you work with businesses? Do you only work with the likes of Tony Robbins? Or do you have different introduction, introductions that people can experience who maybe don't have the budget of, you know, the US White House?
Yep. I know, it's funny, okay. Because, yes, we do videos of all that, but I have a digital agency that does that. And then when you start working with somebody like Tony Robbins, you realise that you can provide a service, a very high educational service to people that don't have billion dollar projects, right. And that's been a real joy for me, because these are the people that are more like my parents, the ones that I really wanted to serve. So I do trainings, and the trainings are, I do sales trainings, how salespeople use video or business leaders. And the next one is, I also teach how to use video, and AI, to book high quality meetings for yourself how to generate leads, using these tools. And that those are both a lot of fun.
Okay, so if someone wants to do one of these trainings, then make sure that you had to Todd hartley.com I'm guessing it's all within your training,
go to Todd hartley.com. Thank you. And if you're looking for agency work for your business, then wire buzz.com is the place to go.
Back. So to sort of bring the episode to an end, although I could ask you many many questions for hours if I had the chance. Where do you foresee your your personal world going when it comes to business because you have these these large companies, but obviously, you're now doing a lot more speaking a lot more events, and at some point, I presume, becomes a singularity of focus. Something has to give everything to remain in balance. So how do you foresee your next chapter going when it comes to your business?
Yeah. Why are you so damn smart? Rita, how do you know these things? Right. So I'm just kidding. Yeah, I I have a team that runs wire buzz. And you know, I'm the CEO and the founder and I'm in meetings, but the team has been with me for, I don't know, maybe a decade and they know what they're doing. And so I play a role there but my time is spent On the road, doing speaking appearances, I just keynoted an event with Gary Vaynerchuk in New York City. And that was phenomenal and then jumped on a plane and did Tony Robbins event. And so this is a big part of my life is training companies and audiences. And I also have a SaaS product, a software as a service product, where my video strategies are all in there for business leaders, and salespeople to create videos to accelerate the sales process. And that will be launching at Tony Robbins is business mastery event in early January of 2024. And I'm super excited, but people can learn about it early. By picking up my book accelerating Yes, which will teach you how to take your sales process and create a effortless on demand buying experience, where you across five zones in your business, are able to use video to achieve your business goals faster.
Highly recommend the book, the five zones are part of what I was sort of alluding to and we were talking about, yeah, the different ways of using video on the website. So I suppose my final question is, with all of the work that you've done on yourself, because clearly, for someone who is been listening to Tony Robbins, since they are a teenager, you've done an awful lot of personal development and personal growth. And for someone who is now branching out into being on the road, as you said, how do you create the balance in your life? Because a lot of people listening to this go, You know what, even just being stuck at home in front of the computer, I've lost the connection with my spouse, my other half? I don't see my family as much I don't take time for myself. How do you create a balance that means that you've never overall resented what you do? I think a lot of people get to the point at different places where they resent the business because everything else is suffering. How have you trodden that path?
Sometimes not Well, right. My wife has bared and unfair portion of the burden. And, and thank God, we've got a great therapist that we both love. And we trust tremendously. And and we're both willing to work and grow on our relationship. But here's what's really changed since COVID. I'm travelling a lot less. I'm doing most of my trainings for corporations out of this room. And I moved out of our wirepas office, and I moved into a guest bedroom in the house. And my wife and I bought our dream home or up on top of mountain in Scottsdale, and we hike together most mornings. And if your Tony Robbins or your Gary Vaynerchuk, then I will entertain jumping on a plane. But for the most part, I'm really comfortable at home. Like right now. I'm business up here. And I've got shorts and flip flops below. And my wife's coming home and at four o'clock, we're opening up a bottle of wine and we're celebrating her birthday and her parents are going to be in Michigan on Zoom opening up a bottle of wine, and we're going to sit down and celebrate our girl. And that for me is is the most enjoyable part of my life. And if I do get opportunities, I tried to do it remotely because I can impact a business the same way. And they'll get the same strategies and the revenue will go through the roof. And if you are a Tony Robbins, then my wife and I will often make a vacation out of it together. But I don't really want to be on the road. It's got to be the right situation.
I love that shorts and flip flops. I am in tracking buttons and slippers as we speak. So I am totally on board with the business down below. I love it. Look, it has been an absolute pleasure talking with you. I sincerely appreciate all of the time that you have given to us. And like I said, please go and search out Todd Hartley whether it's through his websites, whether it's through business mastery, whether it's through his trainings, but honestly if you impact or make any change in terms of your marketing use the impact of video because it has a sincere effect on how you connect with your audience especially considering the world that we live in. You know here we are talking over video to connect with other people gone are the days where community is face to face. So Thank you so much for being with us today. And thank you to everyone who has listened in and joined us.
Thank you Rita. It's a real treat to get to meet you in person to watch your business succeed and take off to be a part of that gives me an enormous amount of joy. So thank you for filling my bucket.
Amazing. Thank you so much, and I'll see you all on the next episode.