The Soundtrack of Your Life - Music and Moments

Many popular songs are designated as “the soundtrack to people’s lives.” Songs evoke a certain age or period in your life, from “Baby Beluga” to “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” to “Uptown Funk.” When you hear a certain song, memories play across the movie screen of your mind and the song is the soundtrack - the music takes you back to those moments. Sometimes you can even catch the scent of the air and its temperature.

I wonder how this worked before film was created? In the 19th century, did memories flash like a movie across the mind’s eye when a childhood lullaby was heard? Was film invented to capture memories like this?

Paintings were historical records in the old days - renaissance portraits captured both the features and spirit of its subject (if the painting was good). Then, as society progressed and people had more wealth and leisure time, landscapes became more common. Then expressionism, modernism, post-modernism, etc. pushed creative boundaries further, moving images beyond historical documentation (since photography began to fill that role). Each artistic style built on the foundations that existing work had already laid. 

Photography was a more democratic way to capture what portrait paintings had always done - it was cheaper, and increasingly more accessible. When photographers started pointing their lenses at things other than posed subjects, they were capturing moments rather than subjects, which could be shared for posterity. These images too became part of the fabric of people’s lives, separate from their own reality, and photography stretched technical and creative limits to express even broader ideas.

When “moving pictures” finally arrived, they were entertainment at first, but entertainment is still significant in the arc of an individual’s life. The potential of still and motion photography evolved into documentary, historical, journalistic, and artistic use. Moments were not just captured, but increasingly created and shared. The individual taste of the person behind the camera could be presented for the consideration of others, threading its way into their lives and experiences too. Individual taste, I would argue, is the core of artistry, and at its peak, there are few artistic mediums that are as compelling as the tasteful framing of human moments through a camera lens.

Of course, music accompanied moving pictures before even speech entered the picture - the earliest cinemas at least had piano players, and the larger theatres even had pipe organs. Even in these earlier moving-picture moments, music established tones and moods - the soundtrack of the moment.

The “soundtrack of your life” is always evolving. Songs appear, and reappear in a present context as a gauzy memory, a song on the radio, or a melody hummed by a stranger. Memories, images, human touches, dreams - they all come rushing in again when that tune enters your brain. Music draws out emotions that make the memories even stronger, and more real. The power of music to set tones and context is somehow fundamental to human experience. Music, like a movie or a memory, is time-based - songs have a beginning, an end, and an internal rhythm that can map themselves to sequential moments. Songs tie everything together.

The lesson for filmmakers is to be careful with song selection. Music matters. It can be an essential storytelling tool. And at its worst, it can be horribly distracting. For advertisers, things can get even dicier. It’s tempting to appropriate a person’s pleasant musical memories for the product’s benefit, but then you get a woman cleaning her house to a bastardized version of a beloved Devo song, and nobody wins.

There are thousands of examples of bad stock music that ruin an otherwise straightforward business video - bad drum machines and 80s synthesizers may have been appropriate in 1983, but dropping those sounds today will murder any sense of modernity and relevance for a brand that is trying to exist in the present.

While we’re on the topic of synthesis, one of my favourite words is synesthesia. This refers to the stimulation of one cognitive pathway that leads to automatic, involuntary experience in a second cognitive pathway (thanks Wikipedia!). If I say “Let it Be,” you can see certain colours. If I say “Let’s Get it On,” you may feel physical warmth. If I hum a jingle for a cleaning spray, you may recall the scent of the product. If I say “Enter Sandman,” your shoulders may set in a little more tightly. If I say “bagpipes,” you’ll anticipate a certain set of expectations - maybe nostalgia, maybe rage. Even before recording technology existed, a mother’s lullaby would stick with people forever, and elderly sailors will hum “Nearer My God to Thee” in their fading years, and won’t even question why. These “soundtracks to your life” are like colour palettes or words on a page, and they are fundamental to being human, Music sparks all sorts of emotional and physical responses that have nothing to do with hearing.

Music is not throwaway - for filmmakers and advertisers, it demands as much attention as your script, your setting, and your on-screen talent. For music-makers, your key job is to be emotionally engaging and as truthful as possible. Your work doesn’t always have to be “high art,” but it’s at its best when it connects on a personal level as the soundtrack to someone else’s experience. There’s a lot going on in people’s brains, and the soundtrack is the foundation for the moment, marking the time.

Understand Who You Are

I work a number of careers concurrently. At any given moment I’m a brand consultant, a business coach, a parent, a writer, and a folk-punk singer-songwriter and recording musician. The latter one seems like the wild card in this deck, but it’s actually closest to the core of my training for doing everything else. On top of the skills developed as a public performer, songwriting is the act of telling short, concise stories that are easy to remember. Great songs eliminate embellishment to share raw, compelling human emotions without adornment (that’s what novels are for). Great marketing messages need to be similarly straightforward – they must be truthful, unambiguous, and clear.

It takes a tonne of confidence to be a singer-songwriter. It requires unflinching belief in the value you are providing in your music - the belief that your song is absolutely worth listening to, that it is entertaining, life-changing, and/or indisputably beneficial for the listener. It’s a level of confidence that borders on arrogance - because how can one four-minute sequence of words and chords be that epic? A song can certainly become so, as every epic song out there proves, but those songs only became so once the impressions of their listeners are brought to bear upon them.

A big part of what makes a Beatles song monumental is the weight of the thousands of lives that have been enriched by that tune. “Hey Jude” is threaded into the soundtrack of thousands (if not millions) of lives, and those millions of experiences add weight and gravitas to the song itself. The song was born in the mind of one man as he was driving his car. It existed inside that car alone for a brief period before it was shared with a collective group of colleagues that were then known as “Beatles.” The team cultivated the inherent greatness within the song. They cemented its greatness onto a recording, and the rocket-fuel of their brand launched the song into the ears (and lives) of millions of people. Once shared broadly, it took on a life of its own within the context of those millions of personal experiences - but the song started its life alone, sung quietly to a steering wheel.

The initial brilliance of the core idea within every Beatles song was greatly enhanced by the circumstances they were launched into. Those conditions primed each song for success, and those conditions have grown over the years as the band’s influence has grown. Nobody would have expected the guys who recorded “Love Me Do” to produce The White Album, but their growing success fostered their inherent talents. The individuals grew into that level of skill, and the greatness of those songs also grew through the years as they threaded their way into more lives and more personal experiences.

So, back to confidence. It takes a mountain of belief for anyone to think that an original musical creation could become the soundtrack to a million lives, and it takes a truckload of vision to work through the rejection and effort required to simply present a song to new people. It takes talent for the song to be good, of course, but without hard work, talent is rarely rewarded - and it takes buckets of passion and determination to do that work without initial reward, or any guarantee of reward.

Most coaches will tell you that success is the result of hard work, and that there are no shortcuts to success - and coaches who tell you otherwise are lying. To be successful in anything, you have to be talented, you have to provide value, and you have to be confident in the value you provide. That’s why self-assessment if so essential - so you can acknowledge what’s working with your approach, while discarding what isn’t working. Arrogance is rarely appealing, but confidence is a more alluring asset - and it is best-gained by understanding who you are.

I never had the depth of confidence required to establish enduring “success” as a songwriter - if I had, you’d be listening to me rather than reading me. Perhaps if I had more confidence, I could have been as good as any other songwriter out there (unlikely), but without the added special sauce of arrogance and belief, talent will rarely come to light, let alone elevate itself into collective experiences. That’s why I don’t lose any sleep over my “lack of success” in this regard, because I recognized early on that I did not own that focus, and I understood that it would fundamentally limit widespread success. I therefore set my expectations accordingly. It’s still hard for me to conceive of any musical performance that is worthy of two hours of rapt attention in the absence of any context or a pre-existing relationship between the audience and the songs. Concerts by well-loved bands are often akin to religious ceremonies, and like churchgoers, concert-goers arrive with great expectations, pre-conceptions, and well-established beliefs that this concert “will be truly awesome.” Cover bands exist because audiences have a pre-existing relationship with those songs, and audiences approach the band’s performance with that baggage of expectations. Unknown original songwriters, by contrast, are propelling their music into a performance that is devoid of context or recognition, and the odds of connecting with an audience are significantly more unlikely in those circumstances. Recognizing this core belief allowed me to set attainable expectations, and songwriting has therefore remained a fulfilling avocation for me. My benchmarks for “success” were achievable - and have been achieved. 

Finding an audience for written words can be equally difficult, but if a writer presents non-fiction work that’s supported by evidence of its value, confidence is easier to maintain. If my ideas have proven to be repeatedly successful, it’s a lot easier to share them with conviction. I suppose the same could be said for a songwriter (if one song works for somebody, shouldn’t it work for everybody?) but it rarely works that way. The fact is that business principles are reasonably linear - the patterns are pretty consistent, as are the paths to engage with them. Songs speak to an individual on a different level, one that is usually personal and emotional. Each person’s emotions are different, and are engaged in unique ways. Nobody has cracked a universal access code to the entirety of human emotion - even The Beatles aren’t universally loved - but non-fiction writing, like the words you are reading now, are supported by those linear principles. It’s easier to know they will connect. These words are just one person’s opinion, and like assholes, everybody has an opinion, but I know from experience that the shit I’m producing is effective - which helps me to be confident in my output (sorry for the analogy, but my point is sound). 

In the absence of arrogance, confidence is essential for success in whatever you do. To be confident in your work, you must have a clear understanding of who you are. You need to understand what’s in your toolbox - which tools are available to you, and how to use them. If there are gaps in your toolset, acknowledge the gaps, assess your priorities, and fill those gaps if necessary. Understand your assets - the things that make you who you are - and use them often, and well. This is the point of “understanding your brand” - self-awareness is the key to success.

Meet the New Name - Why I Launched a New Identity for an Existing Business

I re-named my company in late-2015. A new name was not essential - the “new” company is basically an evolution of “Sociable Communications,” a business that I ran successfully for six years. However, I felt the name “Kazolu” provided a clearer articulation of the core services that I had been providing. It’s a clean-slate designation, with no meanings attributed to it other than the business itself. Oddly, the word “communications” in my earlier moniker’s often caused misunderstandings (“so, do you sell cellphones?”), and I must admit that it’s now a lot easier to type kazolu.com into a database than sociablecommunications.com, so there’s that. Still, I hesitate to call this name-change a “rebrand” because many of my company’s assets remain fundamentally the same.

If we agree that a “brand” is the sum-total of all assets that an organization has, then the forward-facing elements (like name, logo, graphic design) can shift - and should shift - if they are not aligning well with the core promise of the brand, the expectations it communicates, and the long-term goals of the business.

The key to my change is that my core service is consulting, and while I offered “virtual marketing agency” services for years, people didn’t understand the “virtual” part very well. If I have no full-time employees, then it means I am fundamentally a consultancy. I strongly advocate truth and simplicity in communications, so presenting the illusion of being a larger company - even if it was not intentionally misleading - was violating my own rules of simplicity and authenticity. When I launched “Sociable Communications,” it was with the hope that I would require staff some day, but working with a variety of third-party people’s talents proved to be a better business model than keeping a few people in-house. As the business evolved, the assets and impressions of the brand evolved, and the original name wasn’t as resonant. 

Brands evolve, and you can’t be afraid of making front-end changes - even big ones - if your brand assets have evolved away from your brand’s representation. As I was preparing an updated strategic plan, it became apparent that the timing was appropriate to consider a name-change that would better-clarify my services and the expectations that may come with it. Choosing the name was the easy part (it relates to my three children), and I developed the collateral required to support the change. This included a logo, letterhead, various templates, establishing URLs, new social media handles, and I revised the old website prior to the launch of the new name.

A consultancy’s business development will frequently be built with online tools. Even if your business is primarily referral-based (which mine is), online representation provides powerful reassurance to potential clients that you are “real” and that you can be trusted as an authority in your field. A lot of expectations are developed or reaffirmed with websites and online tools, and brands are nothing if not bundles of expectations - so I wanted to be sure that my new website, blog, and social media platforms were clear reflections of my existing brand assets, and supportive of my goals.

When I launched the new business name, its website was intentionally plain - a stripped-down evolution of the old website rather than a completely new direction. I determined that my website is a tactical device, not a strategic imperative, so I felt no rush to build a new one prior to the launch. Knowing that it would take a few months to come up with a website design that I liked - and one that made sense as I balanced how my new brand assets were falling into place - it made sense to be patient, and start with a placeholder. The site’s content was newly-written, but it was otherwise sparse in its design.

When your website is your storefront, and your most public-facing brand representation, there can be some logic in taking time to get it right. A simplified placeholder allows you to proceed with your business, as long as the site does not hinder your brand and its attributes in any measurable way. It is a delicate balance to achieve, but if you wait for everything to be “perfect,” you may be waiting a long time. More to the point, a brand launch will often reveal brand strengths and weaknesses that you didn’t anticipate - elements that may fundamentally influence how your primary tactical tools should be used. A good strategy requires excellent field research, and sometimes you can’t learn much until you get your feet wet - so sometimes you need to build flexibility into your early tactics.

Three months have now passed since I launched my new business name, and with clearer confidence in how my new brand’s assets are aligning, I launched a shiny new responsive website this week at www.kazolu.com. Responsiveness is important - I increasingly consume web content on mobile devices, and I notice the difference in my viewing and interaction experience when responsive web design has been applied. I also wanted a more modern interface, and I needed its navigation to be intuitive and simple. I think the new design provides both. Finally, my services have really grown in the direction of providing creative content (video in particular), so I wanted the site to focus on visuals as much as on written content.

My core business is consulting on brand development, so it felt like a stressful thing to flip my business identity - but when core truths work better, and are resonating, things don’t stay stressful for long. Change for the sake of change isn’t always a good thing, but if your core purpose is made stronger by embracing your brand’s evolution through a shift in identity, then it is a worthwhile thing to do.

I am fortunate enough to have a business that aligns nicely with my personal life. So, as my personal life evolves - kids getting older, and time constraints shifting - I need to acknowledge how those elements will shape the kind of business that I can build over the coming years.

My guiding professional principle is articulating a brand’s foundational clarity, so articulating a more personal, straightforward representation of my own services makes sense as I plan for the future. There’s no textbook that accurately says when it’s time to “re-brand” - you have to do your research, but you also need to listen to your gut. If the timing makes sense, if your reasoning is sound, and if your core attributes support a new direction, then it may be time to take the leap. I’ll let you know in a year or so how it all worked out for me.

The Beatles vs. The Rolling Stones - Rushdie & Rock & Roll & Russians

Salman Rushdie once wrote that a person will primarily be either a Beatles fan or a Rolling Stones fan, just as one will prefer either Tolstoy or Dostoevsky. This analogy isn’t terribly clear if you’re not a fan of Russian literature, but if you are, you’ll get that the analogy works because like The Beatles vs. The Stones, one author’s work tends to be carefully crafted and elaborate, while the other tends to be sharp and hard.

The Beatles and the Rolling Stones were the perfect yin-yang halves of mid-60s rock culture, and while it wasn’t necessarily by design, I believe their successes were rooted in effective marketing principles - each band presents a very straightforward brand promise that was based in these respective tendencies.

Smiles vs. Surly

Generally speaking, the Beatles were the fun, safe version of British rock ‘n’ roll. Their brand promised fun, high-energy, escapist pop music (especially in their early recordings), and was later supported by “artistic” leanings that were still more cerebral than visceral.

The Rolling Stones were the harder edge of British rock. From their earliest club dates, their music was earthy, physical, and sensual - rooted in (and lifted from) American Blues. They were somehow dirty and dangerous – and certainly more sexual. That was their brand promise: the darker, dirtier side of music with a sensual edge that early-60s America represented to England.

These brand promises were not entirely accidental. The Beatles chose a band name with an obvious pun built into the word’s misspelling, hinting at a sense of humour and fun. The name was inspired by Buddy Holly’s “Crickets” - a pop band. The band’s members were (relatively) clean-cut, and (publicly) innocent and fun-loving. The band even established consistent iconography – the trustworthy brand recognition that carried from the logo on Ringo’s kick drum through to every product with the Beatles name on it.

The iconic Ringo kick drum vs. Charlie Watts not giving a damn

On the other side, the Stones presented a dark, smoky impression from their very first recording, and a consistent non-smiling attitude. Their name was inspired by the title of a Muddy Waters song. The band members sported big ears, big lips, bad haircuts and acne scars - there wasn’t a “cute” one in the bunch. And again, their name supports the brand promise unambiguously: a rolling stone = rolling rock = rock’n’roll. The Beatles wanted to hold your hand. The Stones wanted to take you out in the alley behind the bar.

The marketing of each band’s brand promise is more evident when viewed through the lens of their pre-recording years: the Beatles first dressed in leather, while the Stones wore suits and crooked-toothed smiles. In hindsight, both images look put-on, and they probably were - which is why their later images worked so well once they swapped personas for the ones we now recognize. Their later personas were more genuine, and by all accounts pretty authentic.

Forced frown (Paul) vs. forced smile (Keith)

Once they settled into being the bands we know today, the clear brand promise of each band was supported by (and delivered with) great products - the music - and the rest is history.

The Tolstoy vs. Dostoevsky comparison holds true through their later work as The Beatles became increasingly acknowledged for masterful songwriting and studio work, while The Rolling Stones were acknowledged for capturing sparks of genius amid their chaos and debauchery. Crafted and elaborate, vs. sharp and hard.

The musical culture of the 60s was unique because everything was new - it supported the kind of brand clarity we see with both the Beatles and the Stones. Because of the culture’s newness, it’s difficult to imagine this kind of clarity ever happening again.

Regardless, the lessons for brand marketing remain clear because of their purity and simplicity. 

You have a few moments to establish a first impression, and a lifetime to develop repeat customers, which will happen best if you get everything right in the first place. You have to understand who you are, and where your authority lies. You must be genuine and truthful. You need a clearly-articulated and well-understood brand promise, and a carefully-considered brand strategy that reflects your clarity and authenticity. Well-communicated clarity and authenticity will still win the day, and it will win the test of time.

* Note: This story is a re-edit from a post I made to my “Sociable Blog” back in 2010. While I streamlined this article a little bit from the original version, I like how it captured my evolving views on the importance of clear, core messages - and it incorporates music, which is is the Dostoevsky side to my Tolstoy side of writing about brand understanding. Rushdie was right, at least about me - I also prefer both Dostoevsky and The Beatles.

It's Morning Again in.... Canada? Using Stock Video Footage? Details Matter.

Video editors increasingly have a good variety of stock video footage options at their fingertips - istockvideo, VideoBlocks, and lots of others. By-and-large these tools are fantastic. Stock footage can set a scene, provide transitional footage over rough edit points, and they can even be pivotal to telling a better story. They can save time, and can save thousands of dollars that you’d need to acquire original footage in potentially distant locations (to say nothing of offering summer footage when it's winter where you live, etc.).

There’s one big caveat to using stock footage though, and it’s unfortunately overlooked with mind-numbing frequency: as a video editor, you have to pay attention to ensure that any stock video is adding to your narrative, not ripping it to pieces.

Stock footage has to be consistent with your content, and it must be accurate. If you are appealing to an audience of prairie-based farmers, don’t use mountain footage. If you are targeting urban Canadians, don’t show palm trees swaying in the foreground of your skyscraper footage. If you are targeting German automobile enthusiasts, don’t use highway footage with American road signs (or signs written in English, for that matter).

And, if you are a politician running to be President of the United States, DO NOT USE FOOTAGE OF A CANADIAN CITY. You see the harbour in this video's opening scene? It's Vancouver, British Columbia.  

Oops. The introductory voiceover narration even says “It’s morning in America.” Too bad the sun is rising on this morning over the Great White North... and that's how this video begins.

If you think I'm being hard on the video editor, please note that the tugboat in the opening scene is flying a Maple Leaf - just in case the cityscape wasn't apparent enough.

This is basic stuff - a rookie mistake - and it is easily avoided with a bit of care, attention and foresight. How did this video editor get their job, you may ask? Do you think they'll get to keep it? And more to the point - do you think they’ll ever work in video production again? Chances are the producer was working pro bono, but that's never an excuse to deliver shoddy work.

The fact is that there’s always a market for cut-rate producers who don’t pay close attention, and who don’t really care about the story they tell. Please, just don’t be one of them.

A Planning Guide for Communications Managers for the Production and Shooting of a Business Video

My epiphany with video production came when I needed to share a complicated proposal with a potential client, and I knew they were not likely to read an eight-page proposal document. I did however suspect they would take five minutes to watch a video. So, I flipped my proposal into a timed PowerPoint presentation, flipped that into a flash video, and I recorded a voiceover narration. I uploaded the final product to a password-protected Vimeo link, and emailed the link to the client. It was my first attempt at what I now call “enhanced PowerPoint presentations,” and they have become much more sophisticated since then (like, I don’t actually use PowerPoint). These productions have all the attributes of a PowerPoint presentation, but instead of being performed in real-time (which can be a major pain for everyone), the video link can be replayed and shared at the convenience of your audience, as often as they’d like. These are affordable videos to create, and as long as you follow-up in person, they totally work.

Anyway, when I sent this potential client the link, he replied only ten minutes later. He watched it, and he awarded me the business, just like that. He was “blown away” with my “cutting-edge technology” and “attention to detail.” It seems almost quaint now, but the fact is that video remains a quick, information-dense, and highly credible means of sharing your message. There’s an element of creativity and “magic” to a well-planned video, even if it’s just a collection of voiceover, text, and images - and it’s almost always better than a PDF attachment.

Video is better still when you plan to do it right, of course, with original footage and narration. Many video production companies (like Kazolu) will take care of all elements of production - from direction and script development, to shooting original footage, lighting, sound recording, and editing. Or, you may only need a videographer and editor if you can manage the project’s script, messages, general direction, and even art direction. You can’t necessarily expect a videographer to be a business consultant too, just as you can’t expect most copywriters to craft great images - and some videographers simply don’t understand the nuances of crafting a good message  - so if you are managing the overall project, it’s important for you to do your homework in order to get the best results.

Feel free to get involved as much (or as little) as you’d like in the production - this is your story, and it’s yours to tell. If you’d prefer to outsource everything to the pros, go for it (but hire carefully, of course). If you want to be involved in directing the overall production, make that clear when you are soliciting quotes. And, if you are directing the project, here are some tips to keep the production (and your story) on track.

Pre-production Planning:

• Determine what is important to feature and say - what is your overall vision and message?
• Determine how long you’d like the video to be, what you’d like to say, and how much information you’d like to share - is this a feature-length documentary or a 30-second commercial?
• You don’t need to script every word said by a narrator or on-camera subject, but you should at least write down key messages - specific points you’d like to make
• Plan, print and share scripts and/or key messages among everyone involved 
• Plan specific shot lists that you’d like to capture, and share this list with the videographer prior to the shoot date (or even prior to asking for a quote), along with locations of where they can capture the shots (e.g. your building’s exterior on a sunny day; your delivery truck pulling up in front of a client’s building)
• Set the shoot dates, confirm locations and timing for each location, and plan for travel time between locations if required
• Have destination information, addresses, travel itineraries, meeting room details, etc. in writing, printed and shared among all participants
• Obtain permits and/or permissions if required (you may need a municipal permit if you’re shooting on Main Street, or a property-owner permit if you’re shooting in a mall)
• Ensure your videographer provides and brings all necessary equipment
• If you have an in-house videographer, ensure all their equipment and batteries are working, charged, and packed
• Have all participant information ready on the shoot date - names, titles, phone numbers, email addresses - and share printed copies with the videographer so they can get spellings correct when they insert superimposed text at the editing stage
• If specific photos and logos are required, have high-resolution or vector file versions saved on a USB stick, and bring it on the shoot day to share with the video editor

Plan and Practice:

Scripted dialogue can sound pretty fake if you’re not a professional actor, but a series of key ideas can sound pretty natural when they’re spoken in your own words. Share the written key messages with your videographer - they will be editing many minutes of footage down into only a minute or two of screen time, so you need to be crystal-clear about which messages must be on-screen to ensure they capture the right takes in their edit. 

• If you have a script, make sure that you and everyone else who will be on-camera has read it beforehand, and that you and they feel comfortable with the “part” they will play 
• Ensure everyone reviews and understands your key themes and speaking points in advance, and are comfortable with them
• Don’t memorize lines, or overthink anything - just be comfortable with your words, themes, and be yourself

Prepare the Location:

• If you are filming at your office, make sure the space is clean in advance of the film crew’s arrival
• Keep anything confidential out of sight
• Pick a location in your office that will support the story you’re trying to tell - if you want to look folksy and family-run, you may not want to shoot in your mammoth shipping warehouse - but if you want to look bigger than you are, a 10’ x 10’ office may not be the best location either
• Let your staff know that videographers are coming, and at what time
• Be ready - filming will usually start about 30 minutes after the videographers arrive and begin their setup

Plan, Relax, and Repeat:

It’s a great idea to include team members (or yourself) in the on-screen narration (rather than a voiceover on top of visuals of your building or office), because there are few tools that show the personal side of your business better than - well, appearing in person. Appearing on camera can be exciting or terrifying, depending on your fear of public speaking - but it’s best for you or your speaker to appear as natural as possible. 

• Unlike the days of physical film, the only cost with video production is time, and the videographers have already planned for multiple “takes”, so don’t worry - they will keep shooting until they get what they need - relax, and repeat as many times as it takes to say what you need to say
• Consider providing your videographer with a list of your key messages in the form of questions that they can ask you - your responses to the questions will come across as personable, factual, on-message, and hopefully fairly natural
• It won’t hurt to bring a bit of face powder along - if you are perspiring a little bit, your face will look like a shiny mess - and men with “high foreheads” (OK, bald guys) are particularly susceptible to facial-sweat-shine

Plan for enough time:

• Even a 60-second video may require a few hours of shooting for the videographers to get everything they need - allow them the time to get the best-possible take
• Expect even a basic interview-style video shoot to last a minimum of two hours - and planning for four hours is even better - better to have too much time, than not enough
• On the shoot day, give the videographer your full attention, be at ease, turn off your phone, and have fun!

And finally, if you decide to hire a company that can manage the video production process from start to finish, most of these tips still fully apply. Remember, it is your story to tell, so don’t be afraid to be involved as much or as little as you like with the process. It’s a really fun and creative way to tell your story, so enjoy it, and learn as much as you can along the way. If you are engaged with the production, the chances are pretty good that the final product will be engaging, and will earn the results that you want it to.

Consultants, Seth Godin, Tony Robbins, and the Value of Advice

What is the value of common-sense advice? I recently commented on a Facebook friend’s post who wrote “I've finally reached the point where seeing Seth Godin quotes actually makes me not want to read the quote at all. The smartest guy who never sold a thing.” I’m not going to defend Seth Godin, nor attack the comment itself - but it did get me thinking about the value of informed advice.

Although Godin has built and sold a company (or two) successfully, the “product” for which he is most known is his personal brand, and his insights on marketing. I have been a fan of his ideas since I learned that he titled one of his books “All Marketers are Liars.” That’s some truth - many marketers are liars, and the title challenged marketers to prove themselves otherwise. I love a good shot across the bow of an entire industry. 

Common sense it is not always commonly used. I have taken some heat over the years for admiring the work of Tony Robbins: my peer group is old enough to remember when Robbins sold his “Personal Power” series via late-night informercials, and while that approach may have undermined his credibility, he sold a tonne of product that way. I was one of those buyers of Robbins’ CDs in the mid-90s, a classic example of someone who was frustrated with my opportunities in life, and looking to make a radical change (I was trying to make a living as a creative writer and musician, and it was predictably kicking my ass). Robbins’ products, by-and-large, were valuable - they inspired many people (and me) to take some actions that would move them towards achieving better goals. I have said that Robbins’ skill is in packaging common sense, and selling it back to people - because common sense is in fact a scarce commodity. His ideas didn’t change who I was - I just shifted my approach to doing some things, and found a better way to support myself (and my future family) while still working in a varied, creative career, which I still do.

So what is the value of repackaged common sense? What is the value of Godin’s marketing ideas? Does the value cease when these writers have taken our money for their books, seminars, and audio recordings? No, of course it doesn’t - if that were the case, then all education would be fundamentally valueless. The product they are “selling” is not their written words, nor the medium, but the ideas that their words convey. The final, actual value is determined by the end-user’s ability to fit those words into their own context, and put those ideas into actions that support their own circumstance. 

Robbins has repeated the statistic that 90% of people who buy a self-help book (including business books) never actually read it to completion. This means that 90% of a writer’s potential market will only exchange value for the physical product - they will generate no added value after the purchase. The same statistic likely applies to the “products” of management and marketing consultants - strategic plans and documents also often end up unread in filing cabinets after the contract has been paid. This ineffectiveness, if anything, is what gives business writers and consultants a bad name - but this could arguably be the fault of the reader, not the writer.

So, should writers focus on the 10% who will read their ideas and take some action on them? Perhaps, but I would suggest that that writers and consultants should make their work more well-written, engaging, and inspiring - the challenge to all writers is to break through to more than 10%. If Seth Godin or Tony Robbins are successful (and they are), it’s because their work is resonating. It’s getting results, which means that it gets referrals, begetting more “sales,” which means even greater value provided to more and more people who are using the ideas they have learned. In this sense, outside of selling a lot of books, it means that successful writers have sold a lot more than just their own physical products.

Even if a reader disregards almost all of an author’s ideas, if one idea inspires a reader to do something differently towards a positive change, then that is value provided though an informed tool of guidance. The true value of any educator’s counsel can be incalculable: if anyone has taken something they learned and put it into action for positive change, then the educator contributed meaningfully to that change. It seems odd that people will begrudge the success of someone who shares good ideas and counsel in exchange for a share of the value they facilitate. That is the value of consulting - it is outsourced expertise that takes you to places you haven’t been able to go to on your own. You just need to pay attention - and respectfully pay your invoice when it arrives - before putting new ideas and perspectives into action.