Chris Schwager on Why Every Business Needs a Video Strategy

Meet Chris, the founder of Ridge Films and the creator of the Desktop Video Studio, a system that helps business owners create professional video content consistently without the complexity of traditional production.

For more than 25 years, Chris has watched the video industry evolve from VHS tapes and DVDs to AI-powered content creation and remote production. What started as a traditional video production company eventually transformed into a business focused on helping founders, executives, and professionals become more visible through video.

In this episode, Chris shares the journey behind that transformation, including the business lessons that came from years of trial and error, learning sales and marketing, and discovering that creating great videos isn't enough if you don't understand business fundamentals. He explains why visibility has become one of the biggest competitive advantages for modern companies and why simply owning great equipment won't help if you don't have systems that make content creation sustainable.

We also dive into one of the biggest challenges business owners face today: getting comfortable on camera. Chris breaks down the four obstacles that stop most people from publishing videos, from technology and scripting to performance anxiety and finally hitting publish. More importantly, he explains how those barriers can be overcome through repetition, coaching, and simple systems instead of chasing perfection.

One of the most powerful moments of the conversation is Chris's story of surviving a near-fatal drowning accident, an experience that completely changed the direction of his business and forced him to rethink what he truly wanted to build. That turning point led Ridge Films to focus entirely on helping professionals become more visible through video rather than remaining a traditional production company.

Chris also shares practical examples of how businesses can use video beyond marketing, including personalized sales videos, onboarding, customer communication, and website content. Instead of treating video as occasional content, he explains why companies should build systems that make video part of their everyday operations.

The conversation finishes with Chris's perspective on AI, consistency, mindset, and why knowing exactly what you want is often the first step toward building a business that actually reflects your vision.

Whether you're a founder, marketer, agency owner, content creator, or business leader trying to build authority online, this episode is packed with practical insights on using video to build trust, create stronger customer relationships, and stand out in an increasingly crowded market.

Learn more about Chris:
Ridge Films: https://ridgefilms.com.au
Video Marketing Podcast: https://www.ridgefilms.com.au/blog?tag=video+marketing+podcast
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ridgefilms-videomarketing/videos
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisgoor/

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Today we're joined by Chris Schweber, founder of Fridge Films. We talked about why most businesses are staying visible, how to build authority on camera, and why video is much bigger than marketing. Let's get into it. Thanks so much for joining us and for people discovering you for the first time. How would you describe what you do today and who are you?

SPEAKER_01 0:18

I describe what I do as um niche for the first time in uh 25 years of our existence in this company, Ridge Films, which started traditionally, you can even tell by the name, Ridge Films, started traditionally as a video production company that was aspiring to make films that swiftly changed within about the first four or five years when we realized that corporate was the way that we're actually going to make money out of our business and uh consistently, and uh you know that was going to be done through helping, I guess corporates mainly, or corporates and small business, but larger size small businesses to help promote their business, and we were producing videos for them. But back in 2002, you can appreciate there's no social media or yeah, god, the internet was like 10 years old. Um and you know, certainly no YouTube at that point. So we were we actually started as like VHS and then you know DVD. I don't even know if Vitor, if you know what VHS is. Do you know what I actually did? Yeah, so it makes me a bit of an old geezer, but but what's what's interesting is the transformation, there's been significant you know, move in that in the last 25 years around video, it's obtainable now, not just for the rich and for the corporates, but micro businesses now. And by 2020, well, by 2019, really, so there's not much to really to report between 2002 and 2019. We ran a business like we knew what we were doing. Uh, the reality is we were good at um you know producing videos, and we thought that was our niche, we thought that was our you know point of difference in the market. And it wasn't. It really wasn't. There wasn't nothing really that connected us to the world. We were we had this kind of ideal that you know, oh we'll just keep doing what we're doing, keep drudging through the the world, and people will come, you know, it'll just be automatic. And over time, what we realized, you know, between those two periods was not going to be the case that we actually get off our asses and get out there and understand the fundamentals of business, which were beyond just content creation, but understanding the finance and the marketing and the sales and uh the operational stuff and the processes that need to be built in order for this to be sustainable and growing. Yeah, it was just like two creative dudes that didn't know any better. You know, that that was kind of like that was kind of like the world that we lived in, you know, just didn't know really any better. We'd we'd not had any business, you know, formal business training or or any of that stuff. Um, so you know, we had to learn all that literacy and all that understanding. We we uh connected with networking groups around 2012, we connected with networking groups and and started to get familiar with with how the world worked in business and how the world in the how the economy really worked, you know. And um, and so that was an exciting time, and so we got pretty familiar with sales and marketing and all that sort of stuff by by 2019. Back to my my little milestone here, was when we were realized that going to and from prospective buyers locations was was killing us in time, and we were just exhausted at the idea of you know spending an entire day in some cases going to like three meetings because of travel and missed and then they were just they weren't converting that the way they should. So yeah, we just committed over overnight that we were gonna do all this via Zoom. And back in 2019, Zoom video conferencing really wasn't that big a deal, it wasn't that popular, right? But it certainly helped us, it certainly made a big difference for us, um, because we didn't have to go anywhere, you know. But the the reality was in its first instance, we were looking pretty pretty shabby, and not not like we are now. Cut to my B cam here, right? Not like now, okay. So we had the crappy webcam and the door and the blurred background and anything we could get to show up looking more pro, right? And it was just horrible. It was just horrible. The the reality was we didn't we didn't feel comfortable, comfortable, comfortable charging thousands of dollars for our product or service under these conditions. That was just lying in the sand. That's that's the way we we uh we thought about ourselves. And it was you don't you don't you kind of like slouch your shoulders when you know that you look shit, right? It's like yeah, like there's no confidence to build, right? It is what it is, and here you are, you're trying to demonstrate uh visibility, you're trying to demonstrate you know authority, you know, and what you can provide for for others that are that are buying into you. And this was as good as it gets. And so overnight, really, we we thought, bugger this, we're gonna develop a studio that's gonna enable us ability to to jump on here and go live and look the part, right? And literally from from that moment to now, I I pretty much look the same. You know, like I've been in the same position, standing the same spot, you know, same background, you know, a couple more cameras, of course, but but that's that's pretty pretty pretty much it. But you know, by so we had this thing, it was a kind of like a prototype, a pilot, if you like, you know, called the desktop video studio. And we'd built two of these things, and uh, you know, one for me, one for my business partner at the time. And then by 2020, when the world went to its own video pandemic, right? Guys that ordinarily didn't know what they were doing were sitting up on a Monday morning up in their bed with a bedhead in the background doing Zoom calls, seeing your executives and stuff, everybody. It was just horrible, right? And we thought, okay, maybe this is a good time to launch something new, right? Something different. And within uh a couple of months, we had six orders for these desktop studios. We didn't even have parts because you know the shipping had ceased and there was no parts coming in. So we were like taking money, taking orders, just trying to figure out what this was was going to be, really. And and at the time it was just equipment. It was like, oh, let's just get some gear out, like let's build these, build what we have, right? And because of the delays around the shipping, we the first kit we ever gave to a client was my business partners. We literally dismounted it and it just went, There you go, over to you. Uh you know, that should hold you off for a while because we didn't want you know bad blood and complaints and whatnot. So, but after that, it would the rest is history. We we worked as a hybrid business for for many years, like just still doing producing videos for for businesses and then still uh and then uh you know doing these kits on the side sort of thing until a at a point. Well, the the turning point for that really again that why we went all in on the desktop video studio was uh in April of uh 2023. I had a uh I was dragged out of a pool unconscious, um, and that was a um significant moment in my life. I'd I'd done some uh Wim Hof breath holding underwater as a dick move and passed out. And I was out for a significant amount of time, and um the the realization afterwards was I was pretty close to death. Uh I was close to death. Had my brother-in-law not pulled me out of the water, I I think from reports I was out for about eight minutes. That's and um had had he not been there, and I think to a certain extent the rest of my family, my wife, my kids, uh, their families, etc. The uh the uh in-laws family there, they're not been all around, I would have been gone, you know. I was I was fortunate enough to to open my eyes and to uh hear what they were saying. Oh Chris, you've drowned in a pool, and immediately no two things. Uh God, that was that was such a great sleep. Um, and the other was the other was oh, I can't believe I passed out. What a dickhead, right? That's absolute idiot. Um uh and so that that became a turning point because I out of that experience I realized that the life that I'd been leading uh was not by design, it was just me coaxing through and um not making the decisions and not uh you know setting my North Star and actually going for what I want. It was just me just riding through, you know, I was like 40 something years of age, here we go, you know, just doing my thing in an unhappy, in an unhappy uh, you know, business partnership. Um felt my hands were tired and that things weren't moving quick enough and that I had very little control and yet I seemed to control everything. And and um so that that then you know transformed into uh a serious discussion with my business partner. We exit he exited, we we paid him down, we got rid of debt, and we we actually just shaped the business in the way that I wanted it to be shaped, and that was to to go all in on the uh desktop video studio and coaching and really understand more about the our philosophy and and uh what we were really uh out there to do, and and that is to serve the the world that's typically uh in invisible and get them to to market leaders, to get them with out there with authority and and understanding how to uh to use video to their advantage now, um in a more professional and and easy way. So that that pretty much takes us today.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Yeah, one thing that I find very interesting is that from the whole story that you've been telling, I see that there was a lot of interesting points that got you to where you are, and I feel like those moments helped you to develop some sort of confidence that is necessary in order to do what you're doing now, to be in front of the cameras now. And at the same time, I do think if we were to compare with traditional production work, it is much more accessible. Anyone can do this. If so, if there's anyone like watching you right now and they're like, hey, I want to start a production company, maybe like 20 years ago, it would be much harder. And now, like you said, you can get your equipment and you can kind of you know find that confidence in yourself to market, to find, you know, the perfect partners. Do you do you think um I I want to know a little bit more about the process for you to finding that confidence to sell your services and to be where you are now and to have the network that you do have now?

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Yeah, it's it's not something that you sit on your hands with and just hope will happen.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:31

And it takes repetition, takes skill, understanding, patience. You know, you gotta you gotta surround yourself with good people, you know. And I think it's I think there's a sense of arrogance from well, definitely from us or from me in particular, that just thought, oh, I'm just a shit, right? Like who cares? You know, people will come, they'll see how fucking amazing I am, and they'll do, they'll do stuff with us. Um and the reality is if you what what what you want you need to go out and get and focus on. And if you don't focus on it, you don't don't expect, don't, don't cry because you haven't achieved it, right? Like the amount of times I've done these vision boards and put all everything I want down, and then I've stuck it away in a drawer and you know pulled it out six years later and realized I'd achieved like you know 90% of what was on the board, but I I hadn't realized it yet. Yeah, so the that happens all the time, uh you know, used to happen all the time. You know, I pull it out. Oh, I've done the trip to I've done the cruise, I've done the trip to Thingo, I've got the car, I've got the kids, I've got the it was amazing, amazing, right? And because I hadn't had a date on it and I hadn't had it in in front of me continuously, it wasn't something that I focused on, you know, and so um, you know, if you talk about the things that honestly get you to where you need to go in business, they're probably the hardest things. They're probably the hardest things that you do not want to do. And I probably refer to sales right now. I think everybody universally says that sales is they don't love it. Okay. I I won't say universally, I think they're sales guys, yeah. They go, I love it, this is the best, you know. I make commish, bro, you know. Um, but uh majority of people that I meet anyway just struggle with it, struggle with it. And it's it's like it's it's hard. It's definitely hard. And the way that I get better at it is I just keep showing up, keep doing the word, keep, keep understanding that through um through failure there'll be a success. Because I'll figure it out. I'll figure it out, I'll keep figuring it out, keep getting my my my score through AI after every call, looking at the gaps, looking, understanding where I I didn't fill in the didn't answer the questions, I didn't listen, right? And improve on that. So I'm uh self-perpetuating um a human being here. I like personal development, I like growth, and I like understanding that you know I'll invest in myself. We've invested tens of thousands of dollars in ourselves every year for the purposes of of betterment here. It's not just oh we'll we'll just kind of get a couple of YouTube videos and figure it out. So we really do spend the time to make sure that we have good people around us to make sure that we're we're hitting the mark, you know. And um, and that that that comes through doing the work, being uh repetitious about doing the skills, understanding uh what we want, um, and understanding how to to accept feedback, even in the even in the face of failure, even even when it's just when you're told your shit and that you haven't listened, you know, it's right there in front of you. And and just accepting it and go, cool, breathe it in and move on.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

Would you say you were always like business savvy? Did you always want to do this since you were very young, or do you think it's something that because uh what I hear from a lot of the guests is this is something you're born with, and you can always reinvent yourself and always find a new way. Or do you think anyone can develop this skill to do what you do? If you're a creator or business owner trying to stay consistent online, editing can easily become a full-time job. That's why VidBrills exist. Vidbrill is a professional video editing service built for creators. You get a dedicated human editor who learns your style, pacing, and workflow over time. You upload the footage and your editor handles the cuts, captions sound, color, thumbnails, and short form clips. We also offer limited revisions within your editing hours. You can try vidbrills with a $100 try a week that includes 10 hours of editing. Go to vidbrills.com to get started. Stop editing, start growing.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

I think anyone can develop it, uh, but just maybe not. There's the elite, right? There's not to the caliber. It already comes to a lot of the time I see people like I see a lot of people on stage, I see a lot of people speaking on stage, and you know, I look at what makes a great speaker versus what makes somebody that just doesn't quite nail the charisma, and there's there's actually logical reasons why. They'll if they don't see it and they don't understand it and they don't develop the skill around it, they'll always be where they are, which is you know, mediocre or just someone that's kind of forgettable, I guess. Yeah, you know, and then there's those that actually go out and they they they do they do the preparation, they they have the runs on the board, they're speaking continuously, they're on stage, they're speaking continuously, they understand the methodology behind speaking, they understand how to make connection with people, they understand how to make every single person in the audience feel that they're speaking to them. Yeah, and that as I say, when you're doing it day in, day out, or at least you know several times a week, that that becomes pretty rampant skill set that you're developing. And there's those that may not have that and may not have been looked taught in the same way to mark the audience and make connections and work the stage and be very clear on the what they're they're after. And it's just uh it's chalk and cheese, right? So it's a skill that can be developed. Like the amount of people I see either, oh, I want to be a speaker, I want to, you know, I'm a speaker, I'm a speaker. It's like it's so cool, I love that you're a speaker, but you know, what makes you different in a sea of other speakers? So so there's a there is a skill development, totally. Um there's a mindset that needs to come with that as well. People underestimate that the mindset need to understand where your where your uh mindset traps are, so that you can understand how you can overcome that. Fear of failure, fear of success, self-sabotage, self-doubt, you know. Ten toxic mindsets. And I I constantly I constantly keep coming back to those because they're just so it's just so relevant that people understand where they fall flat, where they are. Let me just pull pull something up here and I'll I'll quickly uh No worries.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

We can edit this out if you want, or we can leave it.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

Leave it in, mate. It's all good. I'm I'm a happy man.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

I do like something a bit natural, you know, when it comes to content.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, I just want to quote them off. Not that it matters. Um, but yeah, I mean understanding those so that you can gravitate towards those and go, what are the bottlenecks in what I'm doing? Like, yes, it could be lack of skill, lack lack of opportunity, lack of understanding around the methodology of speaking, and then there's mindset. It's like, all right, what am I telling myself? You know, these are the things that can often uh catch people, and really smart professionals, right, would would say, Oh, I didn't like that take a shit.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

And yeah, well, why were you shit? And they can't articulate it, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

So they don't sort of understand it's a combination of something, pinpointing that something, and also a combination of the language that they're telling themselves, you know, and uh if they can if they can figure those two things out, they'll probably actually be more proactive at getting what they want because they'll go, oh, okay, that's my um that's my um, you know, pro uh imposter syndrome coming through, right? It's like, oh, okay, I get it now. So if I was to then push against that, what would I what would a a non-imposter be doing, right? Be getting fucking on with it. So these are the things that are often um just made-up stories as adults that we that we have. Um and you know, look, I would say arguably the the reason why there's not more people doing video in the world, right? For the same reason. They're caught in a world where they think that you know everybody gives a shit.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

Yeah, that's one thing that I wanted to get into with you because I I want to understand, I think it's something that you do talk about too, which is like, why do a lot of people buy equipment and they you know they they prepare everything and they create the whole studio and but they actually don't post anything, they don't act on it. Where do you think that comes from? Do you think it's only insecurity, or do you think people still misunderstand the power of social media, especially when it comes to founders, CEOs?

SPEAKER_01 19:56

Yeah, if they valued what they were going after more, they would they would have more motivation to achieve it. The reality is most people go, oh, I should do a video. Well, let's go into the local bloody tech store and we'll see about getting a professional camera and look like a bloody pro. The reality is the reason why people don't is there's four four ways of breaking it down. And as far as I'm concerned, these are universal, okay? Tech is one, and tech seems to be for a lot of people the focus. Like if I get a new camera and a ring light, surely that's it. Yeah, that's gonna be it, right? That'll make that'll make all my video work, right? Surely, and then they get it back and they're like, okay, we unbox this and unbox that. Well, how does all this fucking work, right? What what what are we gonna do here? You mean I gotta set this stuff up? You mean I've got to dial it in and find a way to have a repeatable process? How do I do that? Okay, so that's one. Tech is one. Okay, the next is once they do get it set up, and they're like, all right, I've spent hours, I've I've I've challenged my mindset, I've come, I'm waking up the next day, I'm fresh and I'm ready to start producing my videos. What do I say? Oh, you mean I've got to come up with a script and come up with something to say? Oh, okay. Well, maybe I'll come up with this uh this idea of um uh just I'll just tell them what I do to start. Well, how do how do I do that? Oh, they're not gonna know, they're not gonna want to know that. Oh, that sounds silly. No, that's that that doesn't seem to work. How do I do I write a script or do I just do it off the cup? So what happens is they're starting, you can hear the trend happening, they're starting to to build this caloric load in their heads, right? Of decisions, of things that they don't know anything about. Okay, and then they get to they get, I gotta go, I'll get the script, I've got the script, right? I'm ready, I've got my gear, I got my script, I'm ready now. Okay, I'm ready to record. Okay, take one. Let's go. Boom. They're in. They do their take and they fumble on the very first word that they say. Uh-oh. Okay, I'll go again, I'll go again. Stop. Go again, right? This is what we call the record, repeat, delete cycle, right? I'll go again. And they get a sentence in, and then they get a paragraph in, and they get it all the way to the end, and they fuck up the last word, and they're like, ah, surely that's gotta be easier than this. And then two hours, three hours, four hours goes by. And guess what they've done? Nothing. They've actually not achieved the desired outcome. Or they've gotten there and they've said, It's I've recorded my first video, but and that butt comes loaded, absolutely loaded, right? So performance is the next one. Okay, so we've got tech so far, we've got message, what to say, and we've got performance, how to deliver it. And then they get their video built, they get it finished, they finally get it finished. It's it comes with lots of butts. I don't know, like, is it any good? I don't know. I guess I'll have to figure out uh figure that out. Let's publish it, right? How do I do that? When do I publish? Right? Where do I go? What do I do? What do I publish? Right? You know what? Should I what am I what are people gonna say about me when I publish this? Um is it am I gonna do more harm than good if I publish this? Uh I don't think I'm gonna publish this. And so they don't publish it because fear of success, fear of failure, self-doubt, self-sabotage, imposter syndrome, all of these things come into play, and they're like, nah, nah, this is not for me. This is too hard, this is too hard. Okay, and so they've just spent a considerable amount of money, time to learn the try and learn the skill, time away from their business, and energy. All in the wrong spots because they didn't have a methodology, they didn't have a coach, they didn't have someone to guide them through. And uh so they've got a very deflated kind of tail between the legs sort of view on video production, and um that could have been resolved if they just realized that it's 101 things that need to be bitten off one thing at a time. Yeah, just be patient with your body, be patient with your mind, just accept this as a new skill. There's gonna be things you don't learn and things and adversity and ways you have to overcome those things. If you have somebody in your lane and someone mentoring you through it, it's a hell of a lot easier. And those four things are precisely the things that we coach our members through so that they don't get stuck in that rut, but they have good clarity over what they're what they're wanting.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

Is there anything that you've learned in video marketing now that you know now that in the beginning you felt like completely different about that you were approaching in a different way, that now you look back and hey, maybe that wasn't as effective as what I'm doing now?

SPEAKER_01 25:02

Well, maybe video marketing, just in that phrase, was the lack of understanding that uh it's all about marketing. Great point it's not all about marketing.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Great point. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

Like the most successful video I've got right now is a little dipshit sort of thing I do on my iPhone for for people that I meet with. Okay, and what what happens, what we noticed was uh people book in with me through typically through our video ads that we run, and their meeting goes directly into my calendar. But if that meeting's not for a week, there's a potential that they may not show up because by the time that meeting comes by, they're like, What's this? I inquired what uh while I was having a glass of wine on Saturday afternoon, I have no idea what this is about, right? And so the uh the energy has dropped out of that, the excitement has dropped out of that, and so we we record videos between them booking and the meeting, we record a video, and this is me on my iPhone saying, uh, g'day Vito, uh great to uh see that you dropped into the calendar for our appointment on Friday. Uh I'm Chris, the CEO and founder here at Ridge Films, and I'm super pumped to learn all about your business. And I've had a good look at your site, and uh, you know, one thing I want to know, Vito, is like what's your challenge when it comes to producing videos? I really want to investigate that, and we really want to go through that. And maybe if it all works out, I'll offer you a bit of a solution of how to how to overcome that, you know. But look, here's the thing, Vita. What I really want for you right now is just make sure your camera and your microphone are switched on before our appointment. The zoom link for the appointment is in the calendar entry, so you're gonna go ahead and and check on that and just make sure that it's ready to go before before our appointment. And the most important thing, Vita, the most important thing is just to reply confirmed to this email so I know that you've watched this video and that we can have a really productive session together. Okay, so look forward to catching up on Friday and uh just reply confirmed, and I'll see you then. Big smile and a wave. Now, that video that I've just said was like less than 60 seconds, right? And it's done wherever I am in the world, okay? So I've done these from wherever, Japan or wherever. On my smartphone, and then it gets taken over by my team who go and process it and get it out to where it needs to go. That's a play of one. That's not a marketing video. That's a that's a nurture video for a prospective buyer. The doing that process that I just mentioned, no matter where I am on my smartphone, has meant an 84% increase in people that show up to those appointments and show up earlier. They actually they're there before I'm there now. Right? Now that's that is uh instance of a really valuable piece of video content that is not marketing and it's not polished. It's not marketing, it's not polished, right? And so the the um the to to be to be good at this, you've got to be pro-video. Pro video. Not oh well, I've got to be under my desktop studio all the time so that I can, you know, so I convey professionalism. You know, it's just it's just not the case, right? Video, it comes in many shapes and sizes and many forms. And um, and I think, yes, for the most part it is marketing, but there's a whole bunch of unexplored territory for the average person in business that if they recognize the pitfalls in their own business processes and the gaps and the challenges and the things and where uh things aren't communicated clearly, they could go and find those and then they could fill those gaps with video. And you know, you could go, well, we do that mean we've got to go spend five and ten grand to go and produce these professional videos. No, you've got to be an implementer. If you're an implementer, you you can pull pull out your smartphone and go, great, that video's on there, good, it's it's there, fill in that gap, it's it's plugging that hole there, we'll polish it up later. It's not a tattoo, it's not meant to be, you know, it's not there to demonstrate how unprofessional we are. It's just there to support people and help them. And if we're helping them, then there's a good chance that they'll they'll respond really nicely to that. And um, and so that there's just a world of video visibility there that people aren't considering right now, and they're just like the amount of websites that I go and check out are you know people very capable professionals running big teams, and I look at their website and I'm like, where's the fucking people here? Like you've got nothing that differentiates you. And if you just had a video, like a little video ass pop-up thing, you don't even need to like make it fit on your web page. Like a little pop-up here on the right-hand side with you going like that would be just some way of them forming a connection with you. Because if they're seeing you, you're visible, there's familiarity. If there's familiarity, there's increase in trust. And if there's increase in trust, there's a higher opportunity uh that they'll do something, right? And uh people are just completely underestimating the power of video in this way, and so for that reason, I'm pro-video. I say that the video is it comes in many different forms, and marketing is probably the most prolific, but but it's also the other things that you can do to improve your business by having a pro-video or a video centric mindset. That's it.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

I think it's interesting because every time people ask for my advice on social media, which is something that I'm more of a professional about, I always tell them, hey, you have to be in front of the camera. People are craving connection, people are craving this kind of because people are lonely nowadays. Everyone is on their phones, they want to be seen, they want to be heard. So whenever we're like, let's start a new YouTube channel, focus on making people being heard. But I've never thought about it in a corporate way, the way you just explained it. And it makes a lot of sense because it's also a way of connecting with people. So, like I said, they they just uh they come earlier to the meeting, and the reason why they do that is because somehow they've already built some sort of trust and connection with you before the first meeting. So that's actually genius. And how did you learn that? Was it something that you just came up with as you were doing? Is it something that you learned from someone else? Because one thing that I kind of want to do a segue and ask another question, which is what is the actual cost of a leader or a founder being invisible in the market right now?

SPEAKER_01 31:41

Very good, yeah. I like this. Okay, I'll start with the first part one. I went into the studio back in I think 2000. We came into this room into this building about 2012, and I remember at that time walking into this, to the to where I am now and going, This this will make me a million dollars. This affirmation of this will make me a million dollars. The more I get out there, the more visible I'll become, the more visible I'll become, the more uh the easier it'll be for people to buy from me because they'll feel like they know me. And with if they know me, there's a high probability they'll trust me, and if they trust me, there's a high probability that they'll do business, right? And we'll do th great things together, right? So that that confidence came from like you know, putting my stake in the ground and saying, well, you know, this is this I can I can look at this as just a workplace, or I can look at this as a as a place where through through my own um ingenuity in some regard that I'll be able to glue things together and and just keep that portfolio of Chris just building so that they can't get away from me. You know, and so just just the the success story out of that is a guy in the States who pinged me on um LinkedIn, he sent me a message, and that message was broken into four elements, and they were Chris, you don't know me, but I've been stalking you for the last year. I've watched all your video success stories, I see that you worked in the states, and I'm ready to become a client. And when I got on a call with that guy, it was like I transacted in the meeting, it was like 40, 50 grand opportunity. That happened in like an hour. Well, because he had gone out and explored tr other options, he'd tried to find people that were similar to us, and he most likely couldn't, and then he went on all of our pages, and I'm sure all through social media, I don't know exactly what his profile for or his you know appetite for video was, but I'm I'm assuming he's watched a lot of content, he's spent a lot of time doing his due diligence. But when it came to transacting and buying, I did I had to do very little work. Went through my little rudimentary thing, but I I processed the payment, and I was like, that is powerful, right? For a transaction of that size, which is one of our biggest studios, that was like that was just an easy decision for him, and uh and and far easier than me going back and forth and chasing him and following him up, oh mate, what do you think? Uh you're gonna go ahead, you know, it just happened. Um, and so that that there I think is a is a very important thing to to understand that that can happen to anybody, okay? And it just comes down to to understanding uh how to put a system in place that allows you to do that. Don't think of videos like all right, I'm gonna do what Chris does, go to the tech store, pick up the camera and go through everything that I talked about. No, you've got to build the system. If the system is not in place where you're repeating that continuously and you're showing up on this thing every single day, and you're doing the reps and you're getting better at it, and it's becoming easier and you're looking for new ways to introduce video into your business, then you're gonna do well. Um, but it's got to be a system, it's got to be infrastructure into your business, just like any other thing that you implement in your business. Social media planner, digital strategy, you know, buddy, you know, new employee, right? They work because you've got processes around them. Yeah you know, and if they don't, it's because you need to get better organized. You know, it's like outsourcing, okay, outsourcing the Philippines. Yeah, we tried that when their first attempt to try that was a failure because we weren't ready. We weren't outsource ready. And the next time we tried it, I've still got my employee to now, he's now head of operations, he's been with me for six years, okay, because we were organized, right? And so that that's you know, be video ready, okay, is is maybe the the message out of that. Be video ready. You know, there's nothing stopping anybody from pulling out their smartphone and recording a video. But are you able to show up and consistently do that even when nobody watches, even when the views aren't there, even though when you don't know what you're saying and you've run out of things to say, and your confidence is at all-time low and you've had and your business sales are dropped, and you don't know. Are you willing to show up? Because that's it, that's what it's all about, man. And that's what business is is getting punched and punched and punched up until you're beaten and broken, and then taking a breath and going, all right, well, yeah, it's not forever. Let's get back up on the horse, let's keep going, let's keep going, let's keep going. I'll change it here and there.

SPEAKER_00 36:35

Yeah, because I I've the way you're talking about things, I'm thinking about let's say a CEO comes up to you and it's someone who's very metrics obsessed. How do you sell your service to that person when what we do on social media and with video production and editing, it's relative, the result is not gonna be guaranteed. So, how do you have enough confidence to sell your services to someone who's metrics obsessed?

SPEAKER_01 37:03

Well, metrics obsessed, you know, it's like metrics is not going to give you the skill set, is it? You know, you still you gotta learn all this shit. You know, we're not out there. We have we have a D, we have a done for you slash do it yourself business, effectively. Yeah. So the the installation of all the gear and all that, that's the part that's done for you. Okay, and um when we first started handing out these kits, right? We were like, oh no way, no, like if people are just getting gear, we're just gonna compete with the tech companies. That it needs to be housed in this in this sea of knowledge, because otherwise it's gonna be a means to an end here, it's gonna collect dust, people are gonna go, oh, I've got all this gear, and I still don't have any idea, I still don't have the right processes in place to be able to pump these videos out all the time. So it need to be embodied in knowledge in order to do that. Because if if it was if if it wasn't, it's it's not gonna work, it just wasn't gonna work. And so we are not a video tech supplier, you know, and we're we're making sure that people understand that as as quickly as we possibly can. Yes, this studio is can be installed for you, done for you. All we need is a desk, a room, a you, and a computer, and we'll make you look like I'm I'm presenting for you right now. We'll make you look like look at all of the studios worldwide, right? And you'll see exactly the same thing, same lighting, same background. You know, we're kind of McDonald's fires it, so to speak, uh, by having a system that allows you to get it onto your desk, it doesn't take any floor space, it's one button switch, so you don't have to set up stands and do all that kind of crap. It's all done and ready to go. And and um then we just got to make sure that you use it so that you implement it correctly. And so there's a lot going on in that in that first six months, okay? There's a lot of uh you know uncertainty, there's a lot of skills to be built, there's a lot of confidence to be built, and that comes to a point where you know businesses will you know be generating $500,000 in sales over three years because they are showing up on this thing each day. They've now created video ads, they now have they now have um you know video content all over their website, they're showing up on their sales calls, feeling confident and ready to go, and the best person in that on that video call. That's that's that's almost a given. Like that's almost a given, with the exception of you, Vito, right now. Uh it's it's the it is the uh exception, right? There's not many people that show up with a setup, right? They're they're like, oh yeah, as you can see, oh it's uh it's horrible around here, and it's like, dude, that's why I'm here to help you, you know. Yeah, um, but the metric, that is, these are the ways that we measure. Um we measure through through interviewing, you know, a um TV presenter, for instance, who says, All right, well, I've got I had like 24 bloody YouTube subscribers, now I've got 190,000. Um, we measure it through through people's time, and uh the fact that they've saved you know 30 hours you know every month because they've been able to just show up on this thing rather than having to to pith fart around and do what they were currently doing, and having this as introduce new ways of doing things in their business that they've never been able to do before. Um, and uh of course the cost savings, you know, relative to having a video production crew or someone coming in and this and the time and unfortunately the time and the scheduling that comes with that, there's no real way around that. You know, they don't they can't be responsive, they can't jump on here at eight o'clock at night and just record a video if they don't have the setup, okay? And so for businesses that want to report on the budget or they want to report on things that are happening in the world, like our TV presenter, she you know, like Erin Molin is an exceptional um client of ours who when we when we got her studio in installed, we realized she had a seven-year-old child in the next room, three-bedroom place, and she had resigned out of her role in in professional TV. Okay, so she got our studio in place in this in this bedroom. When we started working with her, she goes, Oh what, you mean I've got to record a video and then actually like upload it and do all this other stuff. So her her time was so precious that the idea of stopping a recording, figuring out how to save the file, uploading it to somewhere was not in her best interest. And so we actually got her the system, and you know, it was using uh Riverside to support that, whereby she would just do her interview at two o'clock in the morning with ex-prime minister of the UK. She would uh switch off her unit, she'd go back to bed, or she'd ping her editor, right? Go back to bed, and by the morning she'd wake up and there'd be 10,000 views on YouTube already for her. That's the system, okay? And having that approach to video is is a game changer, right? Can you imagine having video out there working for you, and all you've got to do is show up and be you half the time.

SPEAKER_00 41:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:52

And realize that these these types of recordings are going to be constituted in a whole bunch of different ways. Like you're going to use this recording for whatever user, right? You're going to maybe snip it up, you use it for your audio and your video, right? For YouTube. We'll do the same. I'll have all I'll have all I'll have further control over here because I'll have, well, maybe one of you. You'll have to give me your file, by the way. Um, but we'll we'll integrate it into this, to this, so that that we've got our three cameras and your and your camera, right? And we'll we'll splice and dice, put it on our podcast and our YouTube channel, and our social media clips, right? And that that's that's leverage. Our one-hour session today ends up being you know, years of content. Yeah, that's and imagine that you've got a client on on here doing the same thing. You've not only got the years of marketing content, you've also got the ability to snip it up into testimonial pieces and integrate that and repurpose that for years to come. So that is real leverage there when you start thinking about video in that way, is how to repurpose and reuse and recycle. And then businesses aren't then nitpicking at certain dollar value. They go, oh, well, hang on a sec, but if I invest in a studio or invest in a service like yours, Vito, it's like, oh, uh, okay, so I see the scalability of this and the opportunity of this long term that it's going to uh enrich our business. Um, and that's I think what lots of people are excited by is uh the long-term benefit.

SPEAKER_00 43:14

Yeah. Um also you promise clients that they can publish their first video uh within seven days of installation. So one thing that I want to know is what needs to happen in those first seven days for somebody to actually build momentum.

SPEAKER_01 43:29

Well, what's good about that is that they've already got the text order to a certain degree, right? They've got the lighting, sound, camera, teleprompter dialed in, ready to go. So that's like yeah, done, tick, right? All we're gonna do now is get their script written, get their performing that script, and then get them publishing the video. Okay. Now we we we're not we acknowledge that that's actually a fairly easy thing for us to do for our clients. Yeah, it's fairly easy. And the reality is we're gonna work with them anyway, right? But yes, our priority is get that. Video produced. What's interesting when people show me, so I get a lot of I I get support via WhatsApp, right? I I expect people to to hit me up during the week and ask me questions on WhatsApp and I answer those questions at you know, audio reply, and that's how we do a lot of our feedback for them. And I expect to see videos that they've published because if I've done my job properly, it's to get them to quickly overcome some limiting beliefs around what this is all going to be, and that you know, publishing their video doesn't make it cemented in stone, but it's just a fleeting moment in time. If they commit to it, I'll know that they're serious about producing videos. So the key here is to get them continually moving the right direction, not second guessing themselves. Oh, you know, I didn't I haven't done this and I haven't done that. It's like just get on with it. Stop your bitching, you know, like just get on with it. Just do what I'm telling you to do. The script is written for you. Like we're we're at that point in in the in AI as scripts are getting a lot easier to produce. Then we just need to get you to perform that video, and of course, you're gonna look and sound amazing, right? So now it's just some performance performance tricks.

SPEAKER_00 45:08

One thing that I want to know when it comes to uh scripting, uh now we have this massive surge of AI and it's go growing exponentially and super fast, and we're seeing this massive flow of AI content out there, which in a way it's kind of getting overflooded, but at the same time, if you're actually creating your own content, it might be easier for you to stand out in a sea of generic content. How do you guys make your scripts stand out in a sea of generic content where people can just like type whatever they want on Claude and get a script in seconds?

SPEAKER_01 45:44

Oh look, it all comes back to like why are they doing the video in the first place? And I like this is some there's some content pillars there that need to be uh identified for social media in terms of the things that they'd like their market to see about them. You know, if you imagine this, right? You're you're not visible, nobody knows, and anybody that you know does business with you has never seen you on social media before. So just showing up is like phase one, right? Show up and say something. People be like, oh, I saw your I saw your post the other day, right? You know, we're not talking about maybe the scale of social media content that perhaps you're you're talking about. We're not a digital social media agency, right? And so that's not our specialty. We have agencies to support us through things like video ad creation and whatnot. So we we are learning just like everybody else. Yeah, the the realization around video is like it's a C, it's a it's a tone C within the C of marketing, within the C of you know, your business activity, right? So there's a lot of different things to video, of course, that is um, and a lot of different ways that you can that you can take it. So the heavy, the heavy load on, you know, uh standing out can sometimes just be reduced down to something as simple as, well, have you got a video on your website? Let's just talk about that for now, right? You're telling me that you've got website visitors coming there and you're pointing people to your shop front and you don't have a video there, right? Let's just address that, right? So let's let's just get some simple what we call um uh you know low-hanging fruit, quick wins, right? Let's get let's just get a video on your website. Let's start there, okay? And like the thing is with um, you know, with our site, when when we first started uh well not when when we were starting getting really video centric, it was like our goal was to have a video on every single page of our site, you know, and that that's that's there to a point where they can't really get away from it. Like if we if we uh don't have a video on the pages like what's happened here, why is there video missing? Um but the the the the video needs to be valuable, okay. And I think that's part of the issue with with AI, it's part of the issue with with people just willy-nilly posting content is they're not considering what what their audience really needs to know. And uh, you know, they're not orchestrating it in a strategic way that makes it makes it interesting for people. And so getting on there and just kind of having a little having a blurb, walking down the street, and it's the same video over and over again, like them walking down the street, uh, then it becomes over time a little bit monotonous and a bit noisy, and it's nice to change things up and do do different things and have a diversity of of content. And you know, that goes across all of the different areas of where people are being seen, right? Like video brochures, like we we've been putting these out recently. We've we've had these out there for years, you know, video brochures. I don't like you know, open it up and you get that's pretty cool. That's that's personalized, right? Yeah, that's that's a personalized video just for you know dead leads, people that came through our funnel and didn't buy from us, you know, get go send one of those out. So that that's an opportunity to to um to be uh to be using video in combination with tactile video brochure that goes out in the post and actually have to go follow a process to open it up and to view it. You know, these are the types of things, these touch points, the multitude of touch points that people need in order for uh you to be truly visible at the moment. It's not just by showing up on on social all the time. It's like if they go to the site or they go to their other social media platform that they hang out in and you're not there, well you're not there, are you? So it's like you know, the trick is be everywhere, you know. That's my approach to it, and have a strategy in place to be to be prep prolific on all of these platforms, and so that you are demonstrating your expertise continuously, no matter where they are. Um, and you know, this is a classic example of me coming and guesting on this on this podcast for you. It's right. My opportunity to spend an hour and demonstrate further my my knowledge to the world, right? So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:56

Do you think that's that is what will separate people that actually win with videos in their business from those that remain invisible, like say in the next three or five years?

SPEAKER_01 50:08

Oh mate, it's now, you know, it's fucking now. Like the amount of the amount of people that rocking up saying, oh man, like you know, I don't know, I'm not I'm getting out competed on, I can't do it, you know, I'm not showing up, I've tried video, I can't do it. Like, you know, yeah, I get all types of people like uh uh I've got five videos that I put up on TikTok. I'm like, okay, where else? Like, no, that's it, just TikTok. And I'm like, oh you got no, you got nothing on the side. You've got nothing Yeah, right, right, okay. So so it is now, it is now. Like there's people that do that want a lot, they want a lot of change to happen. And uh they they are committed to investing because they know that they don't want to piss fart around with it. Um so there's those that have been burnt, you know, trying to try and themselves or have tried it with other companies or tried something before and it's not worked, and there's those that are like, okay, I know that this is going to be a right fit for me and let's get going. Like, let's rip in, show me what I've got to do next. And I think when they kind of resign to the fact that this is not something that they should just do hastily, that this is a true investment here that needs to be considered, um then they're in, they're all in. And I'm there to to to do achieve the brand promise, I'm there to achieve the goal that we that they that they're wanting to do, and I'm wanting to see them grow. And then in five years' time, if we've not spoken for a while, I want them to be able to pick up the phone and know that they can call me and we can reconnect and that we're there for them, yeah, you know, to to to get to get them to get them to their next their next level.

SPEAKER_00 51:43

Uh if you could give just one final advice to anyone who wants to be where you are now and do what you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 51:50

Hit me up, because I need somebody. I need someone to substitute me. Um do well, you know, I'm I'm fifty almost 51 years old, years young. Uh and it's been a 25-year-old gen. And and a lifetime in video. And a lifetime in video. Yeah. And I'll stand here and say I don't know everything. Um and then I'm constantly learning. And uh I think you've just gotta, if this is about what to do next for you, is just find what you want. Um and don't com don't complicate it. What do you want?

unknown 52:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:30

Because a lot of people will tell you what they don't want, or they'll convoluted in a bunch of processes, and that's caloric load. That's lots of choices, lots of things to decipher. If you pinpoint it down to what you want, the process of how you get there will come. The people that surround and and and come along for that visionary ride that you're going on, they'll they'll be part or they won't be part of it. You'll decide as you go. Don't let it confuse what you're setting out to do here. And to do that, you understand what it is that you want, what's your North Star, what's gonna bring you joy. It's gonna change, it's gonna evolve. But the key thing is just to keep focusing on it. And as I said to you earlier on the podcast, pick pin it up, get it print it out, draw it out, however you want to do it, however you want to visualize it, get it documented, get it up on the wall, put a little date next to it, and look at it. And just look at it and breathe it in, and so that where your where your you know focus goes, energy flows. Okay, so just keep keep imagining what that's gonna look like and how that's gonna feel for you. And you know, tell people, talk to them, tell them what you're what you're going after. People love other people that have a very clear vision or goal of what they want, and uh they'll gravitate towards that. So the how you get there will come and you'll know that if it if the things around you are matching where you're heading, it'll be uh it'll be the right fit for you.

SPEAKER_00 54:07

That's actually a great way to end this. I'll leave all your links in the description. If there's anything you'd like to mention to promote right now, please do so so we can finish this.

SPEAKER_01 54:18

Good on you. Thank you. I really appreciate your time and uh great chat. I love uh podcasts where I do most of the talking, so thank you, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 54:26

Awesome. Thank you so much for joining me today. And yeah, we'll be in touch.

SPEAKER_01 54:30

You're welcome, Vito.

SPEAKER_00 54:32

The businesses that win with video are not the ones with the best gear, they're the ones that consistently show up. Like and subscribe, and check out the rest of the Fit Bros Insiders podcast. I'll see you next time.