The Trust Frequency | Laura Garfield | Full Battery Media

I sat down with Laura Garfield, co-founder of Idea Decanter, a remote video marketing company serving financial advisors, and honestly this one was a conversation I didn't want to end. 

Laura spent the first decade of her career in TV news, from a one-woman-band station in rural Nebraska all the way up through CBS and CNN, before pivoting into video marketing over a glass of Pinot Noir with her best friend in 2014. The origin story alone is worth tuning in for.

What stuck with me most was the data from their State of Advisor Video Report. The biggest barrier to creating video content isn't cost - it's time at 56%, followed by tech knowledge at 52%. We went deep on why consistency will always beat perfection, why the phone already in your pocket is genuinely enough to start, and how one financial advisor turned 46 emails into 6 new clients simply by showing up with authentic, personal content on a regular basis.

What would it mean for your business if the right person had been watching your videos all year without you even knowing it?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Recently released our very first state of advisor video report. Um, because we'd been in this business for so long without any hard numbers. You know, there had always been this like, I wonder how many financial advisors are actually creating content and releasing it out there. But nobody was collecting that data. And so finally we decided last year in 2025, we were going to be the team that did that. And I can tell you it's quite a project to get people to respond to a survey and then to crunch all of those numbers and build the report. But what was interesting to me was the barriers, the things that stop us and get in our way. And because of the business I'm in, I had, I think, made the assumption that for a lot of us it's the cost. Like if I can't DIY this whole thing myself, then I'm gonna have to outsource this and I don't want to pay for it. And that was actually the lowest response. It was came in at like 21%. The highest was time at 56%. Um, and so people did answer multiple um, you know, responses, but it was 56% time and then 52% tech, like the actual creating the videos. Like, I don't know how to do this. I don't know what gear I need, I don't know how to record it, I don't know how to edit it. And then 38% was coming up with the ideas, like, what am I gonna say? What do people really care about? And then 35% was sharing it. Like, once I get this thing produced, I don't exactly know what the best method of getting it out there and reaching my audience is. So there's all kinds of factors. Um, and really uh, you know, being afraid to just hit record plays into all of that.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

Welcome everybody back to the Full Battery Media Podcast. I have an awesome guest with me today. Would you like to tell people who you are and a little bit about what you do?

SPEAKER_00 2:11

Thanks, Sean. I'm Laura Garfield. I'm co-founder of Idea Decanter. We are a remote video marketing company that serves the financial services industry. And so we work with a bunch of financial advisors creating videos remotely.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

That's awesome. How did you get started in this business? How did you dive down this path? And what was it that called you down this path?

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Well, it was very unintentional. I spent the first decade of my career in TV news. I started in tiny Hastings, Nebraska, uh, at a TV station where I would get up in the morning, go in and grab all the gear and go out and shoot all of the news of the day, come back, write the stories, write the whole newscast, edit all the video for the newscast, and then I would anchor the show and do the weather, which is crazy to think about because I was not a meteorologist. I was just using the National Weather Service feed to forecast. And it was like this very agricultural, like farming part of the world where the farmers depended on their forecasts. And so I would wake up the next morning after I anchored and peek out my blinds and just keep my fingers crossed that I had gotten it right. Um, but from there I moved on all the way up through CBS News in New York and then CNN and then ended up on a cross-country move to the West Coast with my husband. And a good friend of mine, about six months later, a good friend of mine and I were sitting on a kitchen counter uh sipping uh on glasses of Pinot Noir and both trying to figure out what we were going to do for jobs. And we looked at our wine glasses and we looked at each other and we said, wow, we really should do uh video marketing for wineries because there's like 800 in Oregon and 900 in Washington. She was in Seattle at the time and I was in Portland. And so Idea Decanter was born then and there in 2014. And the funny thing was, we had no plans to work with financial advisors. We uh thought we were going to be making just videos about like the experience of uh the uh going to the tasting room for a particular winery or the story behind the winemaker or you know, the tasting notes for a particular vintage. But what we found was that first year, as we started pushing out our content, uh mainly on LinkedIn and YouTube, that financial advisors I knew started reaching out to us and saying, you know, hey, I loved that video about the harvest and the crush, but do you think you could make a video for the homepage of our website? And because financial services is so highly regulated, like this was sort of the beginning of them realizing, I mean, many industries were way ahead of that. But 2014 was sort of the beginning of that wave of um them realizing, hey, if I put a video on my website, people will get to know me in a different way. And so about a year into the business, we took a hard look at um the books, frankly, and said these wine guys keep trying to trade cases of wine for our work. And these financial advisors are helping us pay our mortgages. And so we made a pivot. And here we are today, about 12 years later.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

That's an awesome origin story. Actually, honestly, that's probably one of the coolest origin stories I've ever had on my podcast. I there is so much to unpack there. Like the idea about going out and and like being in rural Nebraska and doing all that and filming all that and coming back. Like, I could relate to that in a couple different ways. I I we were driving, my family was driving cross-country. We were moving from the east coast to the west coast, and our car broke down in this little town in the middle of Nebraska. And I was just like, and we got stuck there for two weeks while they were fixing our car. And it was this is this is the 80s, man. It wasn't like, you know, like they could look up and figure out how to get these things fixed as quick. And so we we we had a lovely stay, but just like I'm thinking about that small town and you going out and doing that. And then, you know, I was I really did a lot of that myself. I worked early on in my career, um, worked in Hollywood, but then I got to work in and around, you know, just a bunch of different things that I I was carrying all of the year. I did all the stuff, I scripted, I posted, I did everything, and it was fun. There's a ways that it's fun, but there's a time where you sit there and you have to go, well, what do I want to be doing? And it's I didn't know that you did all the wine stuff originally. I'm from the Napa Valley, and like I have a barrels and writs podcast that is like I have a wine podcast too, that when you're like Pinot Noir, I was like, Well, hello, Pinot. And uh, you know, you know, it's a good thing, but that's really interesting. Um, you know, and it's interesting too that the pay in the mortgage side, but like I want to ask you too, like, as you start working with people, you know, do you find that people is it easy for them to get into video? Or is it is it is it a challenge for someone to sit there and and put themselves out there on camera?

SPEAKER_00 7:28

I mean, it has always been a challenge for most of us. There are the rare birds who really do love the attention. They love to step in front of the camera. If if there were a red light or an on-air uh light for them, they would love it. Um, they oftentimes love being on the stage too. But the vast majority of us aren't attention seeking so much as like understanding that, hey, it's important for my business to get my story out there. But there's definitely a lot of hesitation. And I think a big piece of what our team does is help people get over that hump because you can let it stop you. You can let it become a barrier. Um, in fact, we recently released our very first state of advisor video report because we'd been in this business for so long without any hard numbers. You know, there had always been this like, I wonder how many financial advisors are actually creating content and releasing it out there. But nobody was collecting that data. And so finally we decided last year in 2025, we were going to be the team that did that. And I can tell you it's quite a project to get people to respond to a survey and then to crunch all of those numbers and build the report. But what was interesting to me was the barriers, the things that stop us and get in our way. And because of the business I'm in, I had, I think, made the assumption that for a lot of us it's the cost. Like if I can't DIY this whole thing myself, then I'm gonna have to outsource this and I don't want to pay for it. And that was actually the lowest response. It was came in at like 21%. Really? The highest was time at 56%. Um, and so people did answer multiple um, you know, responses, but it was 56% time and then 52% tech, like the actual creating the video. It's like, I don't know how to do this. I don't know what gear I need, I don't know how to record it, I don't know how to edit it. And then 38% was coming up with the ideas, like what am I gonna say? What do people really care about? And then 35% was sharing it. Like once I get this thing produced, I don't exactly know what the best method of getting it out there and reaching my audience is. So there's all kinds of factors. Um, and really uh, you know, being afraid to just hit record plays into all of that.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

Uh right. Sometimes hitting the record is literally the hardest part. I um I know that um when I work with people, one of the things that I see is that people oftentimes overthink things as well. There's this analysis paralysis that people have that that pops in. And I will sit there and watch a video and go, you look fantastic. It looks great. And the biggest with this is like my biggest client is sitting upstairs. It's my wife. I shoot all her music videos, I do all of her stuff. You know, she's a big superstar here in Vietnam. And you know, I'm I'm making every single one of her music videos, and I will watch it and go, This is phenomenal. You look and sound great. And she's like, you know what, right here. And so it, I mean, she she pushes me to be better and to make every single video better. And we do that. But one of the things that I find is that sometimes me and my team will have to look at her and go, we just need to ship it. It is good enough. It is a point where, you know, if we go back and do it again, it's it's just it's not it, the return on that investment is not good enough. You know, it's just get it out there, get it out to the world, get people seeing it. It's more important than having it be perfect, you know?

SPEAKER_00 11:28

Yeah, I love that quote. I think it's from Brene Brown. Done is better than perfect. And we talk about that all of the time. One of the things we say to folks is that your first video is going to be your worst video. And you just have to accept that and know that just like going to the gym, it's gonna get better and better. But it is something that the vast majority of us feel about our own content. I mean, like I said, I spent a decade in TV News on air, and I still cringe every time my editing team sends me a link for a video I'm in to review. Like, I don't want to watch it.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

And I was just speaking with a client the other day. She had done her first video project. It was like this founder story where she kind of opened up about like what her grandfather used to say about money and investing and how it had shaped her life and how she worked with clients that way. And she said when she got the video, she didn't want to watch it. And when she watched it, she sent it to five of her friends and said, Do I look high? Like it just seems like I'm not me. And this woman had actually spent 20 years on stage in performing arts before she made this transition into her job as a financial advisor. And so I just share that because it's something that many of us can relate to.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

I've been there. Like I I luckily now I have a team of editors that edits my podcast for me because I hated watching myself. And I hated because I would miss something. The guests would say something, and I always found that I would like I didn't pick up on the something they said fast enough. And then I might go on to my own tangent. And I was just like, it I would bit beat myself up for it. But I finally had to get to the place of just going, you know what? There is so much gold in this that even if I don't miss and or I I I miss some things, this is gonna help someone. And that to me, like I I do content and I love content, but I do content because I originally was a teacher. For 20 years, I taught and it was what I thought was my side hustle that became a main thing. And yet then I was also doing media on the side. But I realized at one point in time, like even when I stopped teaching, I love teaching. So I started podcasting because it was a way that I could teach to a whole new audience. And what I found was is that the the message doesn't have to be perfect for it to help. It just needs to be good enough. And then you're still making an impact on someone's life, you know? And that's something that that's my part of my why. And I think that that's something that, you know, yes, uh Stephen Sinek, start with why. I think that if people can figure that out, the content part becomes a lot easier as well.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

Yeah, and I think if you can turn that um critical eye from, hey, I can't release this, to hey, what can I do better next time? Um, that that will keep you on the right track.

SPEAKER_01 14:31

I love that. Well, I wanted to ask you a question too, because you help people get get going in this. And if someone has never made a video before, what's the easiest way to start today?

SPEAKER_00 14:41

I would say keep it simple. Um, I talk to people all the time who think, oh, well, I need to build out this podcast or this video room in my office. And I need to have, you know, this whole list of different lights and mics and this high-end, a couple of high-end DSLRs. And like simple is great. You know, we started Idea Decanter with $80,000 worth of gear that we would fly around the country and shoot on site with our clients. And in 2019, we transitioned to doing that all through this remote studio app they download. And the professional gear kit we send out is now like $350. And it all centers around our, you know, our clients' phone. And so you really don't need a bunch of high-end gear to successfully create content. And in fact, if you've got a pretty recent phone, the camera on it is better than you know anything. Um, I mean, you obviously can't get depth of field and amazing things like you can in high-end production, but I mean, compared to what you could do with like an iPhone 6, what you can do with an iPhone 16 is stunning. The quality is great. Get yourself a decent mic and uh think about lighting, um, and you're good to go.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

I I I intentionally keep my setup at a at a at a lower mid-level because everyone's like, well, why don't you go super cinematic? I was like, because I want to show people that you don't have to. Like, I've got some cheap lights here, they're little cheap neon lights that are give me a little like background, like ten dollars. And I've got a a Rode uh NT USB mic to plug straight into my computer. It's like 70 bucks. And like, you know, it's like you don't need, and I I I know people that are like, they are like, I got the whole studio set up, and then they can't even figure out how to turn everything on, you know. And I'm just like, keep it simple because it's like at the end of the day, you don't need all the gear. It's fun, it's fancy, but it's not needed for most of it. I'm um, I still have a love of wine and still doing um, like I'm going back for because a bunch of my friends at the wineries in St. Alina and Napa Valley. Um, wine industry got hit pretty hard this year, last couple years. And I grew up around such awesome people. And I will I'm making a documentary this year. I'm gonna go back and do a harvest documentary where I go back and I go to about 12 different wineries and tell the stories of different people that are in the industry, not not the wines, but just talking about the people. Most of what I'm shooting on is the uh DJI Osmo Pocket 3. Like I have the fancy, I've got the fancy Sony, the FX3, I've got all this stuff. I I just am using this little hand, like gimbal camera all the time. It's so easy. And the quality of like that camera is 10 times better than what I was shooting on 10 years ago that was $5,000, you know, handheld. So it's amazing. Like what you have, and like and my go-to backup iPhone. It's hands down my go-to backup, you know, it's such a good little camera. So you got what you need in your pocket to start.

SPEAKER_00 18:01

Yeah. I I tell people like, get on Amazon and search up like best webcam for gamers or 100% best microphone for podcasters, and you'll get you know, ask Chat GPT, you'll get some great answers and it won't be expensive.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

Not at all. I I love that. Well, I want to ask you another question too, because um, why do so many people say they should be doing video but never actually start? I see this a lot.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

I think it's probably those bottlenecks and barriers. Um, and when you think about it, um, if we had the luxury of just being a full-time YouTuber, like that's the only thing we had to think about. Um time wouldn't get in your way. But everyone I know that's working on a video content plan is also running a full-time business and often managing whole teams, just like you are. And so I think figuring out a system that is repeatable, that makes it easy, that doesn't take a lot of time is really the key to getting it done. Um batch recording, I love that, you know, schedule, calendaring out your time so that you can knock out three things or 13 things and then have content to share out. And you don't have to constantly be thinking, okay, well, I need to think about what I'm recording today and hit that on repeat. I think um having a repeatable system and realizing uh when it's time to reach out and get some support. I mean, you may realize the value of content, but also not be the best person to be doing all of the pieces of the content production. So, Sean, I know your team does this for all kinds of people, but I can't tell you how many times I've talked to a financial advisor who has gone down the video editing rabbit hole and three days later resurfaced and they were like, What am I doing? Is this the best use of my time? And it's not 100%.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

Like, that's it. Like, I just hired uh a new executive assistant. I I loving her help so much. Hired her a week ago, and like the other was a day last week where I was sitting there and I was just looking around the room and I was like, I have time. Hang on, I suddenly have time. And so I was able to go and just I went through, walked around, was helping all the rest of my team, and my scheduling and all that was was was passed off to someone, and I was just like, wow, I can breathe. And I think that's one of the things too, is like I I we recently just helped a YouTuber who was editing her own content, 15,000 uh subscribers on her channel, but she was taking 30 hours a week and she was like, I'm having to stop my channel because I can't do 30 hours a week of editing, and also because you know, some people don't realize that like YouTube, it's a slog, you know, she wasn't making the revenue that she wanted to from that. The the the stuff was it's different because she has animal stuff, animal and plants and science stuff, and it's it's it's challenging, you know. But one of the things that she said was like being able to find help is a big thing. And I know that like if you're out there and you're trying to do this all yourself, think about what the value of your time is. Like, that's what I challenge people to think about. Because if if your time is more valuable than what it would cost to get some help, then get someone to help. You know, and I I wanted to ask you this because you touched on it, but do you think that people really need fancy gear, or can someone just use their phone and still be effective?

SPEAKER_00 21:52

Yeah, I mean, we're doing all of our content for financial advisors with their phones, and there's still a phone.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 21:59

Um So 100% with the phones. And on the time front, I'd like to add there's a fantastic book called Who, Not How by Dan Sullivan, the guy who founded Strategic Coach. But it's it was what convinced me that I needed to go back and look at my day-to-day. And now that I hear you say you've got an EA, I probably need one too. But you know what when you track what you do and how you spend your time and realize, hey, this is my greatness, this is what I am really good at. And this is the stuff that doesn't drive me. I'm not passionate about it. And I would be better off, better served handing that off. Um, then you expand exponentially uh the impact you can have on the world just by focusing on what you're good at and letting go of what doesn't drive you.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

Right. Right. There's so much on I you just added to my book list. So uh I love it. There was I have that big problem of thinking I need to do everything myself. And one of the most powerful things for me was learning to trust other people and learning to trust that I can get help. Um but you know, speaking about trust, one of my favorite books about digital media is called Trust Agents, and it talks about how the most powerful thing that you can do. And if you don't haven't read that, go find that book. It's so good.

SPEAKER_00 23:29

I'm writing it down.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

Trust Agents, it's so good. Now, the whole premise of that book is that what you should be doing online, and this is from early, early, you know, YouTube era, it was like you're developing trust. And you know, and when you build that trust, then people start to understand you. And I did this early on, I got into YouTube and talk about not having great gear. My first job, I was a social media manager at a spa in around 2009, and I had a flip cam. Now, what the flip cam was, it was a little square camera with a USB, and that was what I could get convinced my boss to buy me. And I would film with that. It didn't have a lot of angles, it was no zoom, but I filmed all of the the I worked at this really top salon in Los Angeles that like all the celebrities were coming in out of. But I was just filming all these hair tutorials, and we did over like 200 videos, you know, more you know, horizontal, more YouTube style. But I was like, hi, my name is this. Horrible lighting, horrible audio, but we were putting them up on on YouTube. And do you know what happened? We were having people fly in from across the US to get their hair done, and they would come in and they're like, Oh, that's Nelly, that's Mateo, that's that's and they knew everyone in there. And I my boss is like, this is amazing. And so what she went and did, she went and paid a hundred thousand dollars for four videos and it failed because she was like, I gotta go big, I gotta go expensive, and they didn't realize that you gotta, it was about the trust. And when they went super fancy, people were like, Well, hang on, this feels really like super format, super, super, you know, like, I don't know if I can trust this person anymore. But I want to ask you that like, what makes people trust someone when they see them on video?

SPEAKER_00 25:17

There has been some research that you get 60,000 times the amount of information from watching a few seconds of video than reading a few seconds of text. And for the folks we work with in financial services, I mean, you think about a financial advisor and what they're asking someone to do, a prospect. Um, and that is to trust them with their life savings, the thing that they care a ton about. And in a topic that we sometimes find more taboo than even talking about sex, um, people like kind of equate um having those money talks with like going to the dentist. And so trust is super important. And I think that 60,000 times the amount of information comes from the fact that when you read something, you interpret it. I mean, we've all had an email that landed in our inbox that we read in a negative tone. I think we read like 85% of email and like a negative voice in our heads. And you can't do that with video. When you hit play, you really get down to more of the real meaning behind what someone is trying to share with you. And then there's all of the body language, the micro expressions, all of those pieces that can come together and help you feel like you begin to know someone. And in the trust spectrum, it's the know, the like, and then the trust. And so you have to go through that and you just get there much more quickly when you can record it once and share it with a lot of people and they can consume it on their own time. Because if you try to do that hand-to-hand combat one person at a time, it just takes so much longer and it's not as effective.

SPEAKER_01 27:17

I 100% agree. It's interesting too because the one of the things that we've done for my wife's brand, and I I think it's one of the brands that I've built most effectively, was to just be super authentic. Now, when we were having a hard time to share that, you know, when we were doing this, and I understand that with financial services, it's more regulated, but I still think that you can bring in that authenticity because, you know, I with my financial advisor, I trust her because she shoots really straight with me. She's very honest with me and like she gives it to me in a very clear way, you know. And I think that when you can build that trust, it's really important. And I think that in an age where AI is getting more and more, and people are getting spammed by all this stuff, leaning in on that authenticity is going to be so important.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

I say that all the time. The thing the bots can't take from us is our lived experience, our the personal things we've gone through and the metaphors and the analogies that we use. And that's what's so important about sharing your story out there. One of the most effective why stories I've ever heard from a financial advisor was actually talking about how she had been in a car accident and killed someone. And it had financially devastated her and her family. And that had been this turning point for her to want to go into a career that she could help people be better prepared for, you know, catastrophic things happening to them. And I think all of us wonder, you know, are we oversharing? How much is too much? But I mean, that was one of the most personal things that had ever happened to her. And when she tells that story, she builds trust immediately. Um we had a financial advisor we worked with who did a why story, and he didn't have that, you know. Another question we all often hear from folks is like, hey, I don't have this huge tragedy in my life to talk about that would move people to action. But he did a story about like when he was a kid, he um like he still he remembered all of his family's license plates from all the cars they had when he was growing up and all of his high school wrestling stats and all of the phone numbers back in the day, all of the phone numbers of all of his friends growing up. He just had this mind for numbers and he put it to work for his clients, and that's why he was in uh financial advising. And when he shared that video out, he sent it to like 46 of his top clients who already worked with him and already knew him and said, Hey, I just created this video. I'd love to hear what you think. And if you have someone in your life with a financial question, don't hesitate to forward this on. And from that move, those 46 emails, he got 10 new meetings booked, six new clients, millions of dollars in assets to manage. And really from him just sharing some his kind of personal take on things. And AI can't create that for you because AI didn't live that experience.

SPEAKER_01 30:42

Right, right. That's the thing, too. I'm trying to tell people it's like, don't just tell me this is why you should pretend to do this is the best investment account that you can ever have. And I'm like, tell me why. Tell me why it's relevant to you. Tell me how that you use that account, you know, tell me how it helped one of your clients. Like, those are the things that are interesting to me and I'll trust you more on. So I love that. But it's also about showing up. I think one of the things too that I've worked with people, and you know, whether I had this one guy who was a comedian and he did all these funny videos. And I said, What's your secret to getting great content? And he's like, making a new video. And I said, Well, do you keep focusing on the numbers? He's like, I'll tell you my secret. I said, What is it? He says, As soon as I make that video, it's done. I'm moving on to the next one. He's like, I don't pay attention to the numbers. If it takes off, I'm happy. But he's like, Of course, we do do some analysis, but he's like, at the end of the day, I'm just focused on the next video. And I want to ask you about that. Like, why is posting consistently more important than making the perfect video?

SPEAKER_00 31:49

Well, let me tell you about Darren, because he's a financial advisor who had a friend who recommended this guy who would have been kind of a perfect client for him. This um this prospect had a business. Um, he owned a business that was valued like in the $30 to $40 million range, and he was nearing exit. Like he was about to sell it. And um, so Darren says that in retrospect, he wishes he would have prepared differently for their first meeting, but he met with this guy, thought it went okay. Um, and then the guy reached out the next day and said, you know, I've decided to work with a different financial advisor. And Darren lost the deal. And then a year later, the guy reached out and said, Hey, Darren, I think I made a mistake. Um, I have been watching your videos on LinkedIn all year long. They've really hit home with me. You're talking about exactly the kinds of things that matter to me. And this guy I picked, this advisor, like I've hardly heard from him since he took over my accounts. And that is really to me, it just sums up perfectly the value of consistency and and you know, like, like you said, the video's done, move on, keep talking.

SPEAKER_01 33:14

Yep. That's it. You know, I I think that because you just need to be that constant voice in their ear. And, you know, and I and that's what the thing, the thing is too. Like, I I have people that ask me all the time, like, what type of videos actually help people get clients and not just views? And it's something that I I I sit and think about. And I have to answer that myself sometimes, but I'd love to hear your perspective on that. What kinds of videos actually help someone get clients and not just views?

SPEAKER_00 33:44

I like to say that the audience um is a bunch of egomaniacs, and the sooner that you can realize that, I mean, really, we all want it to be about us. And so while the sharing of personal stuff is great and putting your spin on it is important, connecting with them and making them feel seen is what helps them make a decision. And back with that Darren story. I mean, the guy owned a business worth 30 to 40 million and was thinking about selling it. And so when it comes to selling a business, you're thinking about all kinds of things like, you know, how much is my company worth? What can I do right now to make it more valuable when I go to sell it? Um, what are my blind spots? What am I gonna do after I sell it? Am I gonna stay involved? What's my life gonna look like after I step away from this baby I've built? Um, so there's all of those things that that target audience really cares about. So when you can create content that answers those questions, that connects with them, that makes helps them feel seen, which I think today in our disconnected world, we all would love to feel a little bit more seen. That that is what helps really move the needle when it comes to content creation.

SPEAKER_01 35:07

I agree. Helping people feel seen. And you're right, you have to not just think about what is special for you and what you like, but what the client needs to see, you know? And I want to ask you this like, how long should be a video be if you want people to actually watch it? You know, is it like 15 seconds, 45, 90, or should be people do be doing long form or do they each serve a different purpose?

SPEAKER_00 35:31

Yeah, the conventional wisdom back when we started in 2014 and we're doing mainly videos for websites was three minutes or less. And that has dramatically changed. Um, attention spans have gotten shorter and shorter, and in some cases longer, which is sort of weird. But I think it all comes down to the funnel. And if you're um trying to move someone from knowing you to liking you to trusting you to working with you, um, at the top of that funnel, you can't expect much attention from them. So something that's 60 seconds or less, or even 30 seconds, like just showing up, you know, giving them that introduction, that kind of content works well. When they get a little deeper in the funnel and they're more in this fact-finding phase, then you know, a three-minute founder story or a three-minute process story or a case study that helps them relate to you can be effective, or a deep dive on something very specific can hold attention to. And so I think the answer is it depends. Um, because at the beginning, people might not give you that much attention, but once you have their attention, there can be more of it.

SPEAKER_01 36:55

Right. I love that. You just got to get their attention. Uh, what's one mistake people make when they try to sound professional on camera? Because you have this background in news, and I'm super curious from your perspective, what's something that people do wrong?

SPEAKER_00 37:09

Well, we were trained in journalism school to write on an eighth-grade level. And it seems embarrassing, right? Like everybody's smarter than that. I've had some eighth graders come through my life. Like, I can speak above that. And I I need to use these big, I need to use these big words in this jargon for people to really believe that I know what I'm talking about. And I think that's a huge mistake. Um I see, especially in financial services, because that's where I work, um, people trying too hard to lean on credentials, to lean on expertise. When people want you to prove your expertise by connecting with them and helping them with something, as opposed to talking about all of the things that you have done. Um I don't want to say like you can't go deep and be serious about a topic and really dig in and educate people about something. Um, but especially in the short form content, um, trying to get jargony is not gonna connect with anyone.

SPEAKER_01 38:22

I find that um my content that performs the best is stuff that's really simple and gives people an actionable thing that they can work with. And like when I try to get very esoteric, people are like, what? What's happening right now? And I'm just like, it's seemed inspiring to me. And they're just like, I don't get it. And that's okay. They don't have to. But if I want them to show up, you know, it's something you have to think about. You have to think about what they're what they're looking for.

SPEAKER_00 38:51

But some of the um best performing content on Idea Decanter's YouTube channel has been how-to stuff. So really showing people the technicalities of here's how to do this, uh, because it helps them.

SPEAKER_01 39:06

I love that. I and I think that that's it is like the thing that helps people. And if you can empower people, people want to find things of value, you know. Uh, there's this kid that goes around and he asks people, hey, how did you become a millionaire? You know, how did you make this? And like the people like, well, and it's like one, well, I did this. And then people are like, oh, and that his his TikTok is just huge right now. And you think about why he's giving them boiled down condensed advice. And you know what? They they show up for it. Is it the advice for everyone? No, and you don't have to be, but you do have to show up and help at least someone that might be looking for that information. But you know, it leads to my question like, how do you turn one video into something that keeps working for you over time?

SPEAKER_00 39:52

I think it's turning it into a utility player. And we think about not just giving a video a single job. And you know, in video production, there's a lot of different ways to approach it. But when we're working with a financial advisor, our approach is to make it work for you as hard as they can. And so that's sort of a start over on YouTube. Um, if our clients are allowed to use YouTube, which some of them aren't because they work in a highly regulated industry. But those that are allowed to use YouTube, that's the best place to build your video library. And then make sure that content also finds its way to your website because your prospects are going to look you up. And if they hit your website instead of your YouTube channel, you want them to have that experience of, you know, 60,000 Xing your impression on them of hearing what you have to say and beginning to know, like, and trust you. And so making sure you find homes for those videos on your website, and then going over to the social media platforms that work best for your target audience, like if you're trying to work with um, you know, commercial airline pilots or um Costco employees who are within a few years of retiring, or business owners who were thinking about um selling their companies, like uh typically for our um business these days, LinkedIn is the most powerful platform when it comes to social media. Um I would say a decade ago, Facebook played a bigger role, and Instagram does to some extent, but frankly, if a financial advisor is trying to reach someone who is still in the professional world, LinkedIn is really the most powerful place for them to be. So, especially on LinkedIn, natively uploading that content, adding it to your featured section. Um, oftentimes when we search someone up, a LinkedIn profile comes up before their website comes up. So you want to make sure you give them that experience of really getting to know you on your profile. And then last but not least is the inbox and email marketing. And I think a lot of our clients overlooked the power of getting videos in front of your people you already work with, people who already love you, because they can be really big advocates. So making sure you find a way to relevantly land it into their inbox and then have a system where anyone who might want to work with you is getting added to a list and also is getting that content. Um, I mean, there's we could talk for days on email marketing, but I think the one thing to think about when it comes to video and email is that you have no control over when someone gets on YouTube or a social platform. But everybody checks their email pretty much every day. And so even if they don't open the email, they're getting an impression from you by showing up in their inbox because they're gonna see the email shown up.

SPEAKER_01 43:19

I agree. I agree entirely. Now, I wanted to ask you um if you could go back and give your younger self some advice about content, about whatever, what what advice would you give yourself?

SPEAKER_00 43:34

I would say I wish I would have made more videos myself, um, which sounds crazy from someone who runs a video marketing company, but I think I got so busy working on our clients' content. And I also had this kind of personal inner struggle. Um I co-founded a business, and so there's two of us that I feel like both need to be out there. And my co-founder was um didn't come from a broadcast background, and so I had to twist her arm very hard to step in front of the camera. And um, now I think she's fantastic on camera, but I think for me, I wish I would have become a regular content creator with a really aggressive cadence eight years ago. Um, because for folks who did it eight years ago, you grew these massive audiences. And today I think that is harder to do. Um we all have to decide how much time we can dedicate to content creation. Um, but if you're thinking for some reason, like maybe, you know, I'm detracting from my business by putting myself out there or um I don't have the time for this, I think you'll never be able to go back and do it again. Um, it will, I think, continue to be harder and harder with, you know, avatar videos and AI generated content. It's going to be harder and harder to build your audience. And so the harder you work at it now, the more time you give it now, the more it will pay off.

SPEAKER_01 45:21

I 100% agree. I think that what you put in is what you get out, but you have to be putting something in if you want to get something out, you know? I think it's it's it's a basic level thing. But I want to ask you this because I I would love to help you share more about you and what you do. Where can people go to find out about you and what you do with your company?

SPEAKER_00 45:42

Well, YouTube or our website, ideadecanter.com, and we're ideadecanter on YouTube. Um and as I've been talking about, it we do a lot of content for financial advisors, but the advice that we like to share about content creation, which is really what we do in our marketing, could apply to any creator. Um, so if you're interested in finding out more, you can always sign up on our website uh to get on our regular delivery cadence and or subscribe to our YouTube channel and you won't miss a thing.