The use of video for marketing or video as a sales tool was growing fast in early 2020 and COVID-19 lockdown has seen it's use explode. You only have to scroll through LinkedIn for a few seconds to come to the conclusion that more video isn't necessarily better.

On Thursday 23rd April at 3pm (BST) 2020,  Sunjay Singh, Creative Director of Life Media UK joins Jon Payne in Episode 3 of Business as Unusual - Winning Business with Video.

With a proven passion for both business and video, Sunjay has overseen the successful creation of hundreds of videos, delivering real results for brands across the globe. His role at Life Media UK sees him motivating a growing team to create standout video content with a real impact.

Here's my key insights from what Sunjay had to say.

Money doesn't matter - lockdown has democratised video for business.

Just because you're getting into video for your business right now, it doesn't matter that you can't get all the cool kit and you're having to create footage on your phone. Your competitors are in the same boat, you can't get a good webcam or a good microphone for love or money in April 2020! Even if your competitors do actually have the budget for big, expensive shoots in the Bahamas with drones, and a big crew, lockdown and social distancing stops them from doing it. 

Here's the top mobile video editing tools:

• Filmora Go 
• Quik
• Adobe Rush
• InShot

Which means you can shoot on your mobile, maintain authenticity and edit your footage for free (or for cheap in the case of Adobe Rush and InShot).

Uncertainty - Context is vastly different for your customers than it was 90 days ago.

Of course the last 90 days has changed the way we all view things and it's not enough to either; continue doing exactly what you were doing before or, churn out the same old "we're all in this together" drivel that's prevalent in so much of the messaging we're seeing from brands that play it safe / boring. Concentrate on your customer's context, how has it changed? Now create content that is relevant to their context, to their thinking right now and demonstrates how your brand values align with that... but please, keep it authentic.

Opportunity - Nobody knows what works, try to get some wierd creative signed off by the boss!

Sunjay talked about how collaboration with other brands and thought leaders can introduce you to new audiences and how in so doing, his business is busier now than it was BEFORE lockdown! That's amazing - but what really struck me was his idea that, while there's a little chaos around, your boss is likely to allow you to push the envelope a little and try something new to cut through the noise. Now is the time to dust off all those crazy ideas you had but didn't pitch because you knew they wouldn't get sign off. Make sure they're aligned with your brand values and pitch them - you might just get a big win!

Transcription:

Jon Payne (00:00):
Hi, my name's Jon Payne and welcome to Business as Unusual. I'm in charge of sales and marketing for digital agency Noisy Little Monkey, and this is a weekly session where we'll dive deep into how the likes of you and I as marketers, salespeople and business founders and owners can stay productive, profitable, and at peace during these pandemic times. And whatever comes after the idea is to reassure you, send you away with some good ideas so that you can improve your performance right now and prepare for the future. This week the focus is around video and we are joined by the wonderful Sunjay Singh. He's the co founder and creative director of life media. Hi Sunjay. Hello. Sunjay. Before we deal, get right into it. Tell us how did you get into video?

Sunjay Singh (00:55):
Okay, that's a good question. So I, I ended up getting a first class degree in genetics.

Jon Payne (01:03):
Of course you did. You did everybody's standard progression into video.

Sunjay Singh (01:09):
So I was always into the theaters as a real whistle stop tour. I was always, always into the theater. And we were running this play when we were like kids, like 16, 17 in conjunction with the UK youth parliament. And it was all around, they were running a project on how extremism affects young people. And we were running this play alongside them. And the second part of their project was to create a documentary and they said, do you want to do it? And Will, who's now my business partner? He was studying film. And I said, do you want to do it with me? He said, yes. We made this documentary, we won an award. We met Ainsley Harriet. And then we said, should we Hello June ... Jill? We said, should we start a business and then did. That's a whistle tour of what happened? Yeah.

Jon Payne (01:55):
Wow. And what was your favorite project last year?

Sunjay Singh (02:01):
We were lucky enough to go to India and stay in really plush hotels and film with amazing companies like Cognisant and InfoSys, which are like billion dollar company so that their offices are better than some nice hotels. And the hotels we were staying in were a lot better than the hotels I'm used to. So yeah, I would say that one.

Jon Payne (02:25):
So we, we like Cognisant as a brand because they put you up in good hotels in India.

Sunjay Singh (02:32):
Yeah. Basically.

Jon Payne (02:33):
Okay, cool. Thanks for the intro, which I didn't get. Okay. you can probably tell Sunjay and I know each other of old and I'm so delighted to have him on this podcast. We're going to talk about winning business with video because that's what Sunjay's all about. While he started out doing documentary, he's a really, really good marketer. So I'm really excited about this. We're going to, and in this conversation going to talk about how the, so it's the standard three things in Business as Unusual... Money. There's a lack of it. I'm quite looking forward to, let's call it two years. When we go money, there's an abundance of it. And then uncertainty people don't want to sign off on budgets. Discretionary budgets have all but disappeared. So how can we not only worry about how we get the money, but actually when we coming out of this, what can we do in the meantime?

Jon Payne (03:29):
And then if we are doing stuff in the meantime, what's the opportunity for the future? So we're gonna look at that in a sec, but someone's paying to put, well, as Danny Baker sometimes says to put the aerial on the roof, we wouldn't be sat here chinwagging although Sunjay and I do sit and chinwag sometimes, but we wouldn't be sat here chinwagging with wow. Blimey. Quite so many of you listening in. If it wasn't for the fact that someone was paying for that camera, this microphone, Sunjay's time, my time, the first person is paying for the time. And let's give them a bit of a heads up is Life Media. Sunjay, you've told us a little bit about you. Tell us a little bit about your excellent production company.

Sunjay Singh (04:12):
Thanks man. Yeah. So our whole ethos and our kind of mantra is film with thought. So we just understood, you know, the, actually there's loads of fantastic filmmakers in Bristol and Southwest and the rest of the UK, but a lot of those filmmakers lacked an understanding of sales and marketing. And for us, your video has to be a sales and marketing tool. So we take all of our clients through a really strict marketing process where we look at lots of things like, you know, purpose, ethos, essential messaging, audience buyer's journey, sales cycles. And we essentially take all of that information and then say, actually from that, this is the type of video strategy that's actually gonna work for you. We don't do vanity projects and we just have a strong focus on, you know, is this going to get you more leads or it's just going to increase conversion rates or staff retention or wherever it might be.

Sunjay Singh (05:00):
So it's very goal driven. And we've been lucky enough then to work with some, some cool brands. So we work people like we do internal comms for ITV recently. Worked with GKN Aerospace, we did some fun stuff with Avon Valley country park, Brothers cider. We do so many events. So we do like Jack Fest at Silverston and Tracks at Silverston It serves them to like large car festivals. And then we work with lots of small companies like mortgage advisors and personal trainers. And we don't have a set vertical. But the idea is, you know, as we all know, cause we will probably marketers or sales people or business owners that those principles are sales and marketing kind of are the same across different industries. So yeah, that's us in a nutshell. Really.

Jon Payne (05:40):
Yeah, true. And what, yeah, you're absolutely right. You can't do a, a, a cookie cutter approach necessarily, but actually stuff working with in a framework is, is standard across the board, isn't it? I was supposed to put in your cred stack there and show some of the logos. I'm really glad that you mentioned them cause I completely forgot it. I've just stuck in your logo. So those of you who've been before know me, I'm gonna give you a bit of an introduction about Noisy Little Monkey, but right now, so that me and Sunjay can, sorry, Sunjay and I really got to get out of my dragged up on the estate. Remember to be a bit more eloquent in the way I speak. So that SunJay and I can make our answers a bit more relevant to you guys.

Jon Payne (06:26):
I'm going to launch a poll now. You should be seeing it on your screen any second. Sunjay you won't cause I'm not launching it for panelists cause I don't know how to do that. And just tell us how big the company is that you work for right now. What it is that you mainly do and at what level you do it. So Sunjay, so you know, we're talking for, to, to people who are, maybe some of them are between jobs right now. Because there are a lot, there is a lot of that about right up to people who are 500 plus seats in their company. It looks like mainly people who are in marketing be really good to get the rest of the, there's data in and we're looking at manager and exec with a bit of board level type people.

Jon Payne (07:13):
I'll leave that up there while I tell you who I am, while you're telling me who you are or, well, no, who Noisy Little Monkey is I founded Noisy Little Monkey about 11, 12 years ago. We are a digital agency that cuts the cost of doing B to B business through tech SEO, marketing automation and sales enablement. We are a HubSpot partner. We've worked with the companies you're seeing on your screen. We've also worked with small companies. And like Sunjay said, he also works for small companies and Noisy Little Monkey has worked with Life Media multiple times for ourselves and for our clients. So yeah, that's it. I'm going to end that poll. Let me just have a look at the results so that we can talk through those. And while I talked through those results, I'm just going to show you we have a lot of free guides on the Noisy Little Monkey website to help you through a lockdown and all of that kind of stuff.

Jon Payne (08:17):
A lot of people are doing a lot more marketing activity, dangerous, particularly with video and stuff that I'm seeing all the time. And I could be accused of that myself. I suspect that actually the quality is quite low and what we want to do is help you get better quality. So there's some free stuff on our website. And Sunjay we have almost a total equal breakdown between, I'm between jobs right now and no 0.5 people in my business from right up to 500 plus. So we are open to all sorts of people. Mainly they're in marketing. Marketing is the winner. Just by the way, for a little bit of color, we're mainly talking to people who are businesses between 21 and 50 or 500 people. So they're small, medium enterprises. And I suspect some of the people who are between jobs come from those as well. But we're talking mainly to marketers with a bit of sales and operations thrown in. And we're talking to people at a management level and there's loads of stuff. The going on in the chat, I hope that link is working. Maybe it's not. Anyway, there's that, I know this Link's working cause I tested it earlier. This is Life Media. What was on, what would we find on there Sunjay?

Sunjay Singh (09:34):
Well we originally called this just forward slash go because it was at the time when everyone seemed to be slowing down and stopping and freaking out. So on this page is kind of like the hub of our Corona era help. So there's all sorts of stuff on there. There's like free guides, there's some useful blogs, like if you want to know how to do subtitles in captioning and stuff, there's all sorts of blogs on there. And then there's links to the webinars that we've been running recently that's all on there as well.

Jon Payne (09:59):
Cool. Excellent. And those webinars, please, let's not leave this one right now. I'd feel embarrassed and ashamed if you were to do that. But if you are if you are looking to do video more yourself, then those videos that Sunday's doing are fantastic. I was on one the other day. I need to catch up on the other two. It's helped me so much just on this. I can't tell you. It's been so useful. Like really good. Okay. That's the free stuff. Last advert. There's loads of people who are ... which this whole podcast is his whole podcast. His whole webinar is about, Oh, we should make this a podcast. Let's make this a podcast. But this webinar is really about people who are struggling to find budget and going through uncertainty. When are they going to be able to find budget?

Jon Payne (10:54):
They don't want to put the brakes on everything. And one of the ways that Noisy Little Monkey has fixed it is, or fixing it for our clients is if you are new to HubSpot and you get their free or starter CRM, we will charge you nothing to onboard you for the first 90 days. We'll do success planning, we'll do a marketing and sales strategy for you. And then we'll coach you. You actually do the setup beyond that first little getting it organised. But we look after you from a coaching perspective and from a strategic perspective, if you know anybody is looking at HubSpot, get them to get in touch. This is a ridiculous deal. I was speaking to the guys at HubSpot about it yesterday. And they can't believe we're doing it cause so many of their other people are putting their prices up, which seems a bit ridiculous.

Jon Payne (11:37):
But there we go. We were already expensive. So video. So I'm now just going to see, there's all these ridiculous stuff about video, but I love it. I love seeing it. So 500 hours per minute is how much gets uploaded to YouTube. This is like end of last year. So I should presume it's more than that now, but 500. So if you thought about that in a day, so if you looked at how much video is uploaded in a day, it would take you a whole year of working nine to five for half an hour with no holidays to watch four minutes worth of that upload. So not even uploaded by day. If you watched four minutes of what they uploaded right now on YouTube, nine to five, half and a half lunch, you, it would take you a year. And there's a billion hours watch daily according to Susan w I can't pronounce this anymore.

Jon Payne (12:38):
I should have practiced that because now I look like a racist. According to Susan, the YouTube CEO who I apologise, mangled. Apparently this is according to HubSpot in their state of video, 2019 72% of customers would rather learn about a product or service by way of video. Now is that because sales people smell? Is it because salespeople are too pushy? Is it because marketing can be really dull when it's written down? I suspect Sunjay's got some answers to all of those things. I wonder whether once we're over this pandemic, whether actually that will continue to rise because people are more used to buying stuff with video demonstrations and all of that kind of stuff. So yeah, a couple of quick stats on the use of video right now. So coming onto our topics that we're going to talk about. Video is clearly important and ubiquitous in a way that we couldn't possibly imagine 10 years ago. So given that discretionary budgets have been cut but bosses are asking us to innovate bosses, or clients for those anybody from agencies here, how does one get started? Or how can we, I mean, video costs loads, doesn't it? So what can we do?

Sunjay Singh (14:03):
Yeah, it's interesting because yeah, I think as marketers we always, there's always a level of having to do evermore with ever less, but during this time period that's like never be more true. So the interesting thing, and Jon, you and I were speaking about this before is like even if you have loads of money to buy the kit, like you try getting a good webcam right now or a really good microphone. Like it's really hard. So yeah, we have to just go from the, from the point of like, we don't have any money. That's actually fine. I think as long as you've got a decent smartphone or some natural light, I think that's probably the best place to start. Or webcam. It would be another great place to start because from an equipment perspective I think it's fine to think, you know, does quality have an impact with regards to the success of your video? 100%. It does. That, but we get, and that's purely because it's always going to be a reflection of the brand. However, you just have to choose the right type of content to produce in a homemade style. And what I mean by that is I used to drive this Kia Picanto and it was just a tiny little car and it was fine for me because I just drove from a to B. But my business partner would take the mickey out of me, you know, rotten just cause it's just like crappy little car. But it was fine. I just got from a to B. and I was fine with that. But then, but if I ever put huge subwoofer in the back and put like 25 inch rims on it and tinted the windows, then I would look like an idiot even more because the car is trying to be something that is not. And I think in a weird way that's the same with video. If you decide that you're going to shoot this cinematic promo video, that's right. Okay. If you're gonna, if you've decided you're going to shoot the cinema cinematic promo video on your phone it either better be really tongue in cheek or people are just going to think you're just, you're being an idiot. If you do a video blog and it's a bit rough around the edges and it's on a webcam or it's on your phone or you do an outreach sales type of video, I think that's going to be absolutely fine. I made a list of a few kind of good editing software that we've tried that we've tried out

Jon Payne (16:05):
That's pretty good. And by the way, if anybody saw that email pop up on my thing is because I haven't got a note thing open and I'm trying to make notes about what you're saying. So while you've made, while you're finding your list, let me make, let me just write down my, my list. That, that T from two of the things you said there was, even if you had budget, right. There's, it doesn't matter cause no one can get, you were saying earlier as well, no one can get a crew out to, you know, unless you're, I guess broadcast media is essential if they're doing news and all of that kind of stuff, but we can't get crews out just to do corporate video so I can sell more websites or more optimisation. So he, people, even if they've got budget, actually this lack of money certainly in video and with the situation we find ourselves in, it's quite democratising or democratising a word, but it's a level, right? Yeah. Talking to Sunjay who's got a first, and I say democratising isn't a word and he pulls a face. Like, I'm not that outgoing.

Sunjay Singh (17:06):
But the, I mean, the other, the other option is animation. There's some great animation companies out there and you know, that can range everything like between Fiverr and, you know, Pixar. So depending on what your new money situation is, there's probably a solution in there as well if you need something, you know, we're working a lot with clients in the moment producing animated videos because you know, the service has changed or the product slightly changed and they need to communicate that. But if we're talking, you know, there's no money then filming stuff yourself, you know, information style videos, educational videos, personal videos, you know, all of that stuff is great.

Jon Payne (17:45):
I'll write down that this, there's authenticity. That's what's key. Right, right now as you say, if you like. So there's a lot of love for the Kia Picanto in the chat. Let's just be clear on that. I didn't realise you were going to light a fire under that. All the best people drive Kia Picantos. Fair enough. I would argue that some of them drive Hyundai. Like my father. But anyway, let me come away from that. But yet authenticity, don't put subwoofer and you have Kia Picanto... if it's on a phone. Don't worry about trying to make it look like it's dropped by Pixar and think about animation as another one.

Sunjay Singh (18:24):
You know, on the back of the authenticity thing, I think the, you know, if you're, if you are going to be the one that gets in front of the camera or if you're trying to convince your employees or your colleagues to get in front of the camera ensuring that they are authentic in their delivery and who they are is, is the quickest way for them to actually produce something that's meaningful. You know, you're the reason that the video quality is so bad right now with regards to content a lot of the time, cause it's either super boring or super cringy. The reason it's boring or cringy is because people are trying to fit themselves into like, Oh, I have to say X, Y, and Z. You know, and we call that kind of like trance language, right? Quite often users, trance language. And the example of that is like you walked into the shop, remember there's good old days where we could go into like proper shops and stuff and you'd go into the shop and somebody, you know, usually like a 16 year old kid would come up to you and say is there anything I can help you with? And you would say, no, I'm just looking. Things like that. Cause there's trance language in society where we hear something we just switch off I think when you're producing the video.

Jon Payne (19:30):
But those of us outside Bristol, can I clarify that? You're saying trance ... As in a hypnotic state?

Sunjay Singh (19:37):
I don't mean the nineties music, but yeah. So you know, when you're, when you're producing those videos, just being really cognizant of what you're saying and making sure it's novel and, and not cliche and being authentic to you. So just on that authenticity,

Jon Payne (19:53):
Oh, a lot of that cliche because there's so much of that about, Oh man, ugh managed not to swear that, I don't know. I'm just going to give it both barrels of the worst one.

Sunjay Singh (20:07):
I was going to say I've got some ideas on the, on the software and stuff after, after you're finished.

Jon Payne (20:12):
Okay. Well my, my little rant is I'm so tired of old white businessmen with phones on selfie sticks walking around their big flipping gardens or walking around that garage or walking around their colossal spare room that they're seem to be recording in saying about how they've become tremendously successful in business. And half the time I think they've just got some money from dad or inherited dad's business and, and it's just the ideas they come up with. They all seem to want to be Gary V like the Gary V of Wilshire or something. Gary V's a poisonous enough character as it is in my opinion. Don't send the lawyers. But yeah. Do we need more cheap Gary V's spouting cliches? It doesn't feel authentic. Total cliche. And I think as you get, when you're doing that thing where you say you're kind of just painting by numbers in what you're saying or you're just following this, the standard ropes that everybody follows. Yeah. You're bordering dangerously close to yet another old white guy on LinkedIn going saw while I was walking the dog today. And I'm going to thought about sales. You know what it is? It's difficult. Shut up.

Sunjay Singh (21:29):
Yeah, never start. That's rule number one for video. Never start your video like that.

Jon Payne (21:37):
Awful. Talk to us about the software then that we should be using now that I've finished my rant, which wasn't very ranty cause I didn't swear.

Sunjay Singh (21:46):
I just, yeah. So just so you know, cause we're talking about no money. What can we do? iMovie and Windows Movie Maker are some of the most basic pieces of software for, you know, computers, Macs, PCs, whatever. But they're actually really good. Like you can't really fault stuff like iMovie if you're using your phone, there's kind of four that I think are super cool so. There's one called quik, which is quick, but with without a C. So Q U I K that's free is simple, is good. There's I think Windows Movie Maker I feel it is free on Windows. Computers. I use mine. So yeah. There's another one called Filmora Go. So film O R a and then go, that's great. That's great value. But then if you want to kind of spend a bit a little bit of money and push the boat out a little bit, Adobe Rush is phenomenal. It's basically Adobe's suite compressed and there's one called In Shot App. It's like two 99 and they do fFilmora Go is for mobile by the way.

Jon Payne (22:53):
You're great at chat (reading the chat from webinar delegates)

Sunjay Singh (22:58):
In Shot App is great because they've got all some social presets. So it's just like boom, IGT TV, Tik Tok like whatever. Like you know, you just get out there and they've got these great like stickers you can add and you know when you're on a low budget, if there's something that you can do that just adds that slight bit of, I've taken a little bit more extra care into this polished, it's like baking, right? Like if you just take your time with the icing, it just makes all the difference. You just slather it on like this is i don't like baking cause I don't have the patience for it. But like, so those four I think are really good. And In Shot App, you know, if you've got the spare £2.99 kicking round, get it is worth it.

Jon Payne (23:36):
And how much is Adobe Rush? That's like a hundred quid, right?

Sunjay Singh (23:39):
I think it's like, no, I think it's like 10 quid a month maybe.

Jon Payne (23:42):
Oh, okay. Yeah, that's why I think it's a hundred quid cause I accidentally bought it the other day and paid 120 quid. Yes. Claire's just put it in the cheque that I paid for a year. Put in the chat, the chat, excuse me. But I'll tell you what, if you've got that spare 120 quid, that is an absolute wonder and it works on your PC and your phone for the same price or your Mac. And it's so easy to use. Even I can use it and I am 50 and without style apart from this, but Tash designed this. Okay, that's really good. So that's some really useful software that we can use that doesn't cost us much. We're getting "is the windows one you just used, called WIndows Video Editor?" Tell you what I'm gonna do. This might crash my PC, but Oh, you know what, I can't see it.

Sunjay Singh (24:35):
I think it might, I think it might be. I think it might be like with, with the the, in short stuff like with the mobile ones, we've been testing that out, but cause we're all mix and we've got the Adobe suite. Like I haven't really tested any of the the computer based ones. So yeah.

Jon Payne (24:52):
So here's a question, a bit of a tangent type question, but one that might, that' bears asking. Okay. There are businesses, Noisy Little Monkey is one. We've put a couple of our staff into furlough cause we want to have a business to come back to. And so therefore we've got a couple of spare licenses for Adobe and one of the spare licenses we've got for Adobe cloud or whatever is cloud creative. It allows us to, has, it means that the I, Jonny Payne, can I use the word Jonny. Ironically there don't ever call me Jonny. I hate it. Either that wasn't for Sunjay, that was for everybody else. I have access to Adobe. Ooh, ACE of seagull poop. Just smashed on the window there. Stop it Fran. Stop it. In the chat there. But yeah, so I have access to Adobe premier and I fiddled around in that and did some cool stuff. I thought would you recreccomned but actually blimey, it used all of the processing power on my PC.

Sunjay Singh (26:00):
Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Jon Payne (26:01):
Yeah. Took ages to expot and actually my results were, it was if maybe it was a bit like a Kia Picanto with a subwoofer in it.

Sunjay Singh (26:10):
You know, here's the thing, like the ones I've mentioned Filmora Go, Quik, Adobe Rush, In Shot App, they are designed for quick, easy to use editing for stuff that you shoot on your phone. A premiere is designed for creatives to build people more. So it's like even if they could make it easy, they won't because they're on the creative side and then we can say, Oh, that tiny edits, it's actually going to take a long time because the exporting. So yeah. The other ones I mentioned that consumer focus, the professional stuff is to help us build a little bit more.

Jon Payne (26:46):
Don't be using Adobe premier unless you've got a lens on a chain around your neck, a Blackberry and a cigarette in a holder.

Sunjay Singh (26:54):
Yeah. It's the equivalent. It's the equivalent of trying to peel a carrot with an axe or something. Right.

Jon Payne (27:05):
All right. I appreciate the effort you put in that metaphor or simile, whatever it is. Right. Okay. That's cool. I think we've, we've covered money guys. Keep those questions coming in the chat. That's really useful. If Claire, if there's anything that you can't, that we don't have an answer to do save it up for the end and we'll make you a panelists so that we can have a bit of a Q and a session at the end. The other thing I was going to say is yeah, stick any questions in the chat? We'll probably look at Q and a as well, but I'll probably miss it. So let's go on. Sorry, just before we move on, how dare you, I'd moved,

Sunjay Singh (27:43):
Sorry. Sorry. Just on money or money. I thought about money on the other part of money is not in just production of course, but it's actually in creation and I was just thinking about, you know, instead of being, if you don't have the budget to pay a company loads of money to come up with the stories and you know, the delivery of how this is going to be, what do you do? So I've just got a few points that I'd wanted to share on that and.

Jon Payne (28:10):
Talk to us, talk to us r.

Sunjay Singh (28:12):
Really simply. I think that now more than ever, you want to leverage stories for numerous reasons and I'm going to fall into that trap of saying, the trance language like but stories are super important. The reason they're point is cause I great vectors for emotion. But like I said, you've got no money to pay agencies to come up with these beautiful stories like Pixar. So the really, really easy thing to do is leverage personal stories and experiences. Leverage the brand story and leverage stories from your employees. These can be things that the, you know, human, real, authentic, small, funny like you know, poignant. It can be whatever, whatever is going to fit within your overall marketing strategy. But I think that great right now, and this kind of leads us into the uncertainty bit and opportunity later on, but I think that great right now because I think the one, you don't pay for them because they happened, they're real, that the best type of story. And two, because of that, they just make such great content. People relate and resonate to it, you know? So yeah, that, that was a, just a little side bit, but

Jon Payne (29:18):
The, what was the webinar you did a couple of days ago? Or maybe it was tail end of last week where you talked about stories being a vector for emotion. What was that called? What, what was, what should people just watch your three, the, your series of three or four webinars, right?

Sunjay Singh (29:33):
Yeah. Which, what was which bit called though the

Jon Payne (29:36):
Just while you were talking, you were talking, you went into some depth about stories being a great vector for emotion and how you could choose three ways to tell that story. And I don't, let's not give that away. Let's people should go watch a webinar because out of context it won't be very good. But that webinar where you were talking about stories and how videos fit in, it was so good. And I walked away thinking the, the employees, it's like doing it, doing it a set of videos about the team and why they work at Noisy Little Monkey and all of that kind of stuff. And then how we do stuff. Man, that blew my mind. It was like, Oh wow, that's, that handles objections all over the place. So yeah, I do, I encourage people to watch all of your webinars of last week, but that one particularly where you're talking about stories as a vector for emotion and people buy with their hearts, not with their heads Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Right. So am I okay to move on to uncertainties? Okay. So as we said, yeah, we were w everything's uncertain. You know, you can't shoot outside. Obviously we don't know when we can. And so it sounds like last as of last night, social distancing is going to last until at least the end of 2020 which is a scary thought. But just from a psychological perspective, let alone paying the bills perfective perspective. So is there, I mean, is now the right time? Is now the right time? And this is a, I'm just, I'm assuming your answer is yes. Is now the right time because we're less frenetic to think about doing more, more video and if so, how do we make sure that we get it in the right place?

Sunjay Singh (31:18):
I'm a big believer of just like the only way we'll all get put of this is to trade out of it. And in order to trade out of this, we're going to need to win customers and order to win customers. We're going to have to market. This is for me, like absolutely the time for us all to double down on, on marketing and, and marketing efforts. And you know, I think you said most of the people in this webinar right now are marketers and we are key workers. We are going to be the people pushing the economy forward. I really believe that just because I think that yeah, this is, you know, we've got to keep the money moving and that starts with marketing. So, yeah. Yeah. Is it the right time? Yeah, absolutely. Oh, say more than ever.

Jon Payne (31:59):
Alan, who was on this last week, on episode two, where we were talking about should we even be marketing right now there's a pandemic said that in his opinion, actually marketing often if we see it, it's fru fru and the department of coloring in. But we help people put food on the table because the guys in the warehouse can't ship products that no one wants to buy. So yeah, while there is a, an element of, well, we're not saving lives or we're not necessarily building PPE you're absolutely right. If we're going to trade out of this and, and we're in a capitalist society, what other way is there... that we need to be doing better marketing? This is the time. So how do you, how do you approach uncertainty in this, in the video sector then Sunjay? Or if we're going to do it, how do we approach it?

Sunjay Singh (32:48):
Yeah, I think there's a few, there's a few things to remember. I think number one is stay completely customer centric. The challenges, the goals, the worries of your, of your target persona right now, how absolutely changed like what they're going through today versus 90 days ago. It's completely different. So just realign that and make sure you're, you're customer centric. I think that's where it starts. And then

Jon Payne (33:17):
That was one of the ways you've been doing that with your clients. Or if I come to you and told you this is what we believe our clients are thinking or do you need to pull those threads for them?

Jon Payne (33:28):
I think, well, so the second bit I want to talk about it I think ties into this. So, okay. Just thinking about what to say. Sorry is double down on your values. So you stay in customer centric and then it's like, okay, so I need to help the customer, I need to provide value to the customer. How does, how do I do hide the Sunjay do that. Why does, you know we've got Christina and I and Claire. How did, how do you as an individual, you as a company, I do you do that. I'm not sure your values come into play. So for us it's like, you know, we're, we're huge on positivity and we understood that. A key example is when everyone was sending out those Corona updates, how dull and boring and they were and just how like it would just felt a bit negative. You get another email, here's the CEO and what we're doing in Cornona Virus. So you're doing the same stuff as everybody. Like don't worry about it, I don't care. Yeah, so we did it. We did a whole video and we just made some jokes in there and we had Dolly Parton singing in there like obviously we sampled her, didn't do it live and you know that video just was oozing with positivity and you know it, it's flying like it's still doing massively well and it's still promotes the brand and it's still helping our clients and helping prospects. So I think like stay customer centric, double down on your own values and your own or your own culture and use those things to guide you on how you approach this. This next stage, you know another example is what you guys are doing Jon on Instagram stories showcasing like you know what people are doing and the food they're making and stuff. You know, it's humanising the brand. It showcase in a friendly approach that you guys have as your values and you know you are helping prospects because you are providing a bit of entertainment and a bit of relief. I think, you know, we do need to market, but we don't need to sell every minute of the day right now. That's the other balance to it, you know? So yeah, for me it's staying customer centric and then doubling down on your values and that's going to lead you into how you're going to be able to help people. But be the hub of positivity and leadership right now, you know, we're all good at something. And what I mean by that is I, it would be ridiculous for me to jump on on a video right now and tell everybody you know how to run million pound businesses or how to, this is why. Cause I didn't know those things. I just know my thing. My is video, so I'm going to just help you in that way. Do you know what I mean? Or you know, if you're, if you're, I don't know, like a builder, you need to talk about DIY. That is how you help in like, you know, there's a saying...in a time of crisis, you've got to let the, you've got to let the poets write poetry, you've got to let the singers sing and you've got to let people do their thing. And I think, I didn't mean not to rhyme, but

Jon Payne (36:08):
That was fricking beautiful. As per, once per conversation you bring a lump to my throat. That was lovely. In a time of crisis, you've got to let the poets write poetry. You've got to let the singers sing, do their thing.

Sunjay Singh (36:22):
Yeah, that's [inaudible]

Jon Payne (36:24):
Shit up a rope. Sunjay, you are a work of art mate. Sorry, carry on.

Sunjay Singh (36:33):
The other thing I think is like client retention is that is marketing and that is probably the most important part of mine. You know, I've heard some scary figures. I'm sure there's lots of people, you know, hearing some scary stuff about a large, but not a large percentage. But you know, I've heard figures around 25 to 30% of small businesses just not existing by the time you get to December. And what can we do from now to December to ensure we have that brand loyalty? And I think customer retention has to be the number one thing on your agenda. So how do you do that? And you know, Jon, you talked quite a lot about the HubSpot flywheel and the delight phase, and I think people can often forget that phase and now it's probably more important than ever, right?

Jon Payne (37:19):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. The, that, the, yeah. The, and the thing that, again, this is, goes back to what we were talking about with Sarah on the first one of these and then with Alan last week. And it's really funny because we all approach it from different slightly different places and definitely different generations. And, but we're all, there's a, there's a commonality in what we think, which is, and I guess it's cause we're, we're all positive people, right? But there's a commonality in the, actually, if you can make sure that all of your activity isn't about selling, selling, selling, of course if you're selling face mask patterns that people can make at home, then okay, well maybe there's an argument that you can do that. Although obviously the science doesn't necessarily work in this country, but the, the thing about making sure that you're, when you're not selling, you're building brand in a way that builds trust. And whether that's for those of you who haven't seen it, I'll bring up the inbound flywheel. Whether that's, that is about developing developing content that enables people to trust you, which is over here in that kind of engaged thing. So this is our flywheel and this, you attract people to your business, you engage them probably on your website and then you delight them and that helps them. Like you were just saying, Sunjay, it helps them refer more business. No, you didn't say that, but actually that's the end of it, isn't it? When all of your customers trust you. It makes it so easy for them to refer on people. And one of the things we see when we're talking to clients is salespeople will say, Oh, my close rates are like 50%, and we're not that. Okay, you don't get many good leads then do you get loads of leads? It's all referral. Okay, but you don't get many. You're not getting a big volume of leads cause otherwise your close rate would be slightly lower. Those referrals already trust you. You don't have to prove how good you are because they've heard a customer testimonial while you weren't in the room and then they've come to see you. So building that trust with your existing customers is actually fabulous. And I have to say, I'm so delighted that we get so many of our existing customers on this call. Even some of those that are furloughed, it's just brilliant. So, okay, so let me just have a look at my notes there Sunj because I was too busy trying not to cry when we were talking about letting poets write poetry.

Sunjay Singh (39:52):
I don't always speak in rhymes, but it happens sometimes. It happened then! Damn it!The last thing I want to say now is actually there is a sh and this will lead us nicely to opportunity, but there is a huge opportunity to collaborate [inaudible] collaborate to reach new audiences because what we're seeing both within our own business or with clients is that there's loads of new business ready to be hard out there. It's different to the business you are doing right now. We look at like from the 16th of March to today, we've taken on 10 new projects, seven of them on brand new clients. If you can collaborate, if you can collaborate with, with with suppliers, can you collaborate with like other thought leaders? Can you collaborate with your customers, which is a great way to go to match that delight thing. You'll be able to leverage their audiences and reach new audiences and find where these pockets are of like, okay, you know, 80% of your clients are froze up, but there'll be a new market out there that suddenly have an influx of money that are ready to buy from you.

Sunjay Singh (40:52):
And it's just slightly different. So by collaborating with more and more people, you're providing huge amounts of value, but you also open yourself up to a lot of new audiences, which, you know, I think that's, I say, I was speaking to a signs company the other day and I said, I think what you need to do right now is kind of this similar format of find out, you know, what your target audience want and what they're struggling with. And then go interview the people and bring them the answers. You write signs, you're getting no business right now, but who are they going to remember it in six months time? The guy that was putting out incredible content or the other person that was just turning up on the deck and say, Oh, now you're back in business. Can I, can I sell you a sign? You know? Yeah. And we were talking about it. I'm going bring it over again.

Jon Payne (41:34):
It keeps coming up. Sorry. I've gone out of shot.

Sunjay Singh (41:37):
Oh, I'm reading that right now. We're like book besties.

Jon Payne (41:44):
Me, you an Alan Thorpe. You if you're going to join this book club Sunjay, you have to lose some of this mate.

Sunjay Singh (41:53):
Can I donate?

Jon Payne (41:54):
It's like you could donate. Although if I had hair of that thickness and colour, I think people would notice that. Wow. What happened to you? But yeah, thinking fast and slow, he talks about system one and two thinking and that thing that you're talking about there and can't recommend that enough guys on Kindle. So I've learned loads and I have only read up to there and I've done about three talks on this book. I have read it all once but I've forgotten most of it. But it's talking about system one thinking where you're saying who are people going to remember?

Jon Payne (42:25):
It's not simply who are they going to remember. Because that's thing one. But more than remember you. If you're putting out that kind of useful, helpful content, they'll already trust you. It's that thing about a referral, right? That a referral already trust you. They're much more likely to buy from me. System one thinking says trust is there. And I'm lazy, I can't be bothered to go and analyze all of the other people and or the other suppliers. And your point is, is, is the same and true again, which is that if they already trust you because they feel you, they know you. And I suspect there are people who feel they know me or they we've never met. Cause we've done a few of these and I've seen a couple of videos that I've done on our website and come to Digital Gaggle.

Jon Payne (43:08):
They kind of trust me, they shouldn't trust me. I am in sales. But they do already trust me a bit more. And I think I thought I would, yeah, I would encourage everybody to kind of think about how they could do either their version of this or exactly what you're describing. So the sign guy in going out and interviewing people about what they want. Love it. Okay. So which is bringing us to opportunity. Right? I've got very excited because we're getting towards the, the, opportunity. Although let's, let's be real again. We heard was it, we're hearing more and more that, that it's aU shaped economy. We've, we're, we're falling off the cliff, we're going to bump along the bottom and we're going to come up again in a bit. And you were saying, okay, so we need to trade out of this and all of that kind of stuff.

Jon Payne (43:54):
Well, let's assume that we're beginning to trade out of it and we're coming out the other side. And frankly the new normal is beginning to happen, right? Because we're not all going to pubs. We're not all going cinemas. And yes, that is a shame and tragic for the people who work in those industries. And they were losing their livelihoods and losing their businesses, possibly, probably. But something's going to change the way we'd start doing that stuff will change dramatically. So as we come out of that and the way businesses work changes, what's the opportunity and how do we take advantage of it? Sunjay, you gotta tell us.

Sunjay Singh (44:26):
For me the most exciting opportunity and if you're a marketer you're going to get excited by this.

Sunjay Singh (44:32):
Whatever your most off the wall creative. Just crazy idea is that is going to get signed off in the next 9 days because no one has any idea what's going to work. So when you've had something in your mind that you'd be wanting to do for ages, that has been a bit weird that you're like, Oh, I'm never going to get this past the FD or never get past the MD, or I'm never going to get past. Like, you know, no one's going to agree to this. Get all of your wildest, weirdest, wackiest ideas and put them all in a pot and do every single one of them, as long as they're on brand. But do it because I think this is the time period where you're going to get all of those crazy crap idea signed off because you can be super creative right now. And I'm a big believer in like, you know, creativity.

Sunjay Singh (45:17):
My opinion is, is hampered by complete freedom and complete on restrictions. I think people get extremely creative when they're really restricted because you know, it's not an easy thought process to do what's easy. So right now you can get really creative with your content, really creative for the videos where you really creative with your approach in a way that just, it just wouldn't have got signed off 90 days ago. Yeah, I, I want to set that there's no time to be boring and upsetting you because I am, that will be your argument because everyone is going to do the easy stuff. So do the weird stuff, do the fun stuff and you're, you're gonna, you're gonna break the mold and, and show up. So that's, that's a key part I think. Learning, I think. How can we not talk about learning? Read, thinking fast and slow.

Sunjay Singh (46:02):
Read every book you've been putting off. I'm also reading at the moment the accounting game. So accounting lessons from the lemonade stand because yeah, not because I'm training to be an accountant, but just cause I, I understand I need a good understanding of numbers and that is not something I'm looking forward to. So I'd never read it, but now I've got no choice or I'm reading it. So learn, everyone's putting out fantastic educational content right now. And I think take advantage of it because it won't be there forever. So you learn, humanise the brand, take the opportunity to convince your team, your colleagues, the senior management team to humanise the brand. That is what's going to forge those deeper connections and forge that brand loyalty later down the line when you're, you know, we talked a lot about authenticity, you know, being personable, showing faces that stuff is, is crucial to humanise the brand.

Sunjay Singh (46:59):
You know, this is a great time to build personal brands like personal brands are not just for life coaches and people trying to sell you like had to work one day a week and sell everything on Amazon. Personal problems should be, you know, even like if you, if you are, you know, a manufacturer like one of your engineers, they can have their own personal brand. Like why not like that? Super cool. If you're in B2B services then you know, people that are on the ground that are going to be interacting with clients, they need a personal brand to like personal brand. And LinkedIn right now is just so phenomenal why LinkedIn is for me, like where all the money is right now because we're all using LinkedIn. Like Facebook. Facebook is boring and filled with like horrendous crap right now where LinkedIn, sorry, I shouldn't say crap but yeah, but LinkedIn is like a bit, you know, it's not as bad and people are forced to kinda put interesting stuff on there. So it's just an interesting social media platform.

Jon Payne (48:01):
Amazing. Amazing that it took a pandemic for LinkedIn to really become something that we all really appreciate.

Sunjay Singh (48:08):
Yeah. and then the other thing is like if you're doing videos now, the opportunity in the future is to repurpose it. Repurpose the footage, get with the transcriptions and turn them into blogs, guides, toolkits. Put all the audio, turn them into podcasts create, you know, series and playlists. Just repurpose the videos as much as possible so you can, you can tighten them up and make them professional looking for when you're out of this and when, you know, we won't be as forgiving, you know, if you're, for instance, if your ticket price for your product or your service is around 40 K, 50 K, you know, do you have to realise... will people trust hundreds of videos of you just in your bedroom, like they will for now, but when they forget the Corona happened and stuff, they would so just be, just be mindful of being able to repurpose the footage in a way that's much more on brand and has that same professional look.

Jon Payne (49:03):
Brilliant. Brilliant. That's great. Anything else before I do a bit of a sum up?

Sunjay Singh (49:10):
Oh yeah. You know, and like I was saying about reaching new audiences, that's a huge opportunity. You know, you can reach new audiences right now and you can start breaking into parts of the market that you just weren't, you didn't, you didn't know existed or just didn't exist prior to this.

Jon Payne (49:25):
Fine. But why and how can we reach new audiences right now?

Jon Payne (49:28):
I think that collaboration piece is, is going to be key. I think the using, I think employee advocacy is going to be really key if you haven't furloughed staff. Is there something that you can do to add more personality into your marketing that's going to be really key. And you know, like I said, being customer centric, listening to what site they're listening to, what the, you know, if I started trying to sell like sky adverts, you know, where we're going to take out the red cameras and you know, fly to Fiji and shoot and it's like lovely beach. I'd bet like I'm not going to get very far. It's not realistic. It's not going to happen right now. So just, you know, just listen to the market and understand where those where the wants and needs are as you would as if you're starting from ground zero and take it from there.

Jon Payne (50:13):
Yeah. It's another thing that's come up repeatedly in these conversations is, you know what it's, it's kind of, it might be tied to what the, the what the slate clean and start doing something really excellent rather than churning out the same old, same old. So guys, if you've got any questions sling them in, in the chat. We don't have a great deal of time, but I am launching a poll if you like to carry on the conversation with Sunjay, myself or anybody. Not anybody that would be weird, but me or Sunjay let us know by clicking yes. But while we talk about that, let's out and before you go do you know what I'm gonna write some up blog cause I've got pages of notes in an email. I mean I'm going to have to email myself cause that's all I had open. Going, went back to we can find Sunjay on Twitter and we can find Sunjay on LinkedIn here. Go to his website, go to lifemediauk.com/go because there's some incredibly good resources there. We use Rev.com for caption services. We use the automated transcript version and then edit it ourselves. Is that still something you recommend? Sunjay

Sunjay Singh (51:33):
Yeah, rev, rev.com for for closed captions, which are the ones that you can toggle on and off. And then we use something called Kapwing, which is Kap w I N G and that will give you the subtitles, which are like burned onto the video cause Instagram and Twitter for now. Don't accept SRT files, which

Jon Payne (51:51):
Yeah, that's really annoying cause Twitter site. I do we will be able to share a recording, but we're going to put subtitles on it. Christina, so it won't be live today. It'll be live early next week. We'll email it out. Next week same time. And this link works. If it doesn't, we'll send you one. But try a mnky.bz/bau. We've got Carrie Rose, the founder of Rise at Seven. Do you remember that billboard? Do you ever see that billboard by Mark Rofe who he was sick and tired of dating sites. So he bought a billboard and he just laid on it and said, get in touch with ladies of Leeds. And he was in the Daily Mail and all of that kind of stuff. Loads and loads of PR around it.

Jon Payne (52:41):
Him and Carrie founded this business called Rise at Seven. Mark Rofe is an SEO and that was a link building exercise. Our excellence Carrie is the PR side of that as well as the SEO side. We haven't really figured out exactly what we're going to talk about, but she is incredible. She's a force of nature. Come along and see that next or be part of that next Thursday because we've really enjoyed some of the stuff we've got in the chat. And then the following Thursday we've got Katie Roberts, the client development manager from Noisy Little Monkey who's going to be talking to us about how to sell when nobody's buying, because a bit like Sunjay, she's also selling and closing deals right now. And I love her dearly for it. Right? I think that's it. We've got three minutes to go. I'm going to finish early because it's sunny outside and you should be outside, not sat inside. We're all working in a pandemic. Let's get outside, get some UV.