LinkedIn & Video - Nina Froriep - Smarter Business Podcast

Why are LinkedIn and video a good match? And how can you use them together? Find out on this episode of the Smarter Business Podcast featuring Nina Froriep of Clockwise Productions.

Find out more about Nina - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nina-froriep/
Find out more about Clockwise Productions - https://clockwiseproductions.com/

Smarter Business Podcast - https://smarterbusinesspodcast.com

vcn.vidwheel.com
vidwheel.com
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/vidwheel/
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Transcript:
Welcome to this episode of The Smarter Business Podcast, where we talk to professionals that are using video in interesting ways. And today we are talking to Nina Froriep of Clockwise Productions. Nina, it's great to have you on.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to talk about what I love talking about.

Yes, that's what we like to hear. So Nina, you own Clockwise Productions. Do you want to kind of start with an intro of that business and what you all do?

Yeah. So, Clockwise Productions has actually been around for 25 years. The last six years of which, we have have been working as video marketers, before that, we were just filmmaker, producer, director, that kind of stuff. So what we do now is we take people who want to grow their businesses with not just any client, but their ideal clients with video, and we show them how to create videos, but our focus really is not on the production end. Our focus is on the strategy and content part of it, because in the end, that is where you need to focus, if you are a small business owner or service provider, a business coach, which is a lot of our audience, are business coaches. You're in the business of disrupting something, you're in the business of helping people, so you need to be seen and heard. So strategy and content or content and strategy are sort of the focus of what we do.

Excellent. And that's what the business does. How about your own background? You said that the business has been around for a while. What kind of work were you doing 10 years ago and that type of thing?

Clockwise. So, yeah. So as I said, Clockwise has been in business for 25 years. I've been in the business for about 30 years. So Clockwise happened fairly quickly. We were a traditional production video or film back then, even production company.

Transcript

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- Welcome to this episode of The Smarter Business Podcast, where we talk to professionals that are using video in interesting ways. And today we are talking to Nina Froriep of Clockwise Productions. Nina, it's great to have you on. - Thank you so much for the opportunity to talk about what I love talking about. - Yes, that's what we like to hear. So Nina, you own Clockwise Productions. Do you want to kind of start with an intro of that business and what you all do? - Yeah. So, Clockwise Productions has actually been around for 25 years. The last six years of which, we have have been working as video marketers, before that, we were just filmmaker, producer, director, that kind of stuff. So what we do now is we take people who want to grow their businesses with not just any client, but their ideal clients with video, and we show them how to create videos, but our focus really is not on the production end. Our focus is on the strategy and content part of it, because in the end, that is where you need to focus, if you are a small business owner or service provider, a business coach, which is a lot of our audience, are business coaches. You're in the business of disrupting something, you're in the business of helping people, so you need to be seen and heard. So strategy and content or content and strategy are sort of the focus of what we do. - Excellent. And that's what the business does. How about your own background? You said that the business has been around for a while. What kind of work were you doing 10 years ago and that type of thing? - Clockwise. So, yeah. So as I said, Clockwise has been in business for 25 years. I've been in the business for about 30 years. So Clockwise happened fairly quickly. We were a traditional production video or film back then, even production company. I personally have gone from doing independent feature films, some of which never saw the day of light, to mega huge TV commercials and documentaries and a lot, a lot, a lot of corporate videos. So I come from a real true video and film background, and I have a feature film to my name that I produced in 2008 into 2010. And I've worked on some Emmy award winning and Emmy award nominated documentaries. So, I've been around the block a couple of times. - Excellent. And now, I usually, this can be a little bit of a challenge, but if you have to boil down what you're doing today to go back to the present day, can you boil it down to one sentence, if you were to say to somebody, this is what we do? - We enable business coaches and service based entrepreneurs to create fun and easy videos to attract their ideal clients on social media. - Awesome. That's very well done. Very well done. So, now I'm gonna kind of bend this conversation over to the vid wheel creator and network. When we first started talking, you actually spoke to the group a few months ago. And when we were having conversations about your presentation to the group, and I brought up that this month was LinkedIn month, you said, I want to be on that month. So tell me why you wanted this slot. Like what is it about LinkedIn? - So, LinkedIn is our bread and butter. So, the clients that we don't get through referrals, we get through organic marketing on LinkedIn, inbound as well as outbound. So LinkedIn has been really good to us. We basically do as we tell. So, we show our clients how to stand out with video on social media, but and I always tell my clients, if you are on LinkedIn and LinkedIn is your primary platform, and if your business coach that is a great platform to be on, then you just get that add on benefit of us breathing and doing and walking and talking the talk. I would never say that I'm a LinkedIn expert, but yes, we are experts by the nature of just that is the platform that we focus on, and we actually are starting to consult with our clients on LinkedIn strategies and overall marketing strategies, independent from just videos. So we're sort of taking it a step further and LinkedIn, what I love about it, and this is why I also wanted the spot and which is why we do so well on LinkedIn, is LinkedIn is sort of the only remaining or the only platform where you can get client traction, with organic content and you don't have to advertise, you don't have to buy ads and you can really just do it with thought leadership, with forward thinking, whatever you want to call it, being the authority in your niche. So that's why we love, or I love LinkedIn. - And I very much agree, right? Especially with the group of folks that you're serving that LinkedIn, like you can't beat it from a social platform. - I agree. - What are maybe some of the ways that you advise people to build up that thought leadership, that authority on LinkedIn? - I mean, I think step number one has nothing to do with video and has everything to do with... And you have to niche down, right? If you are not in a niche or niche and own that area of expertise, then you're not gonna be an authority in your field, right? So I think that's step number one. And then step number two is really, in order to move into that authoritative, I'm the person to talk to space, you need to be speaking, you need to be putting yourself out there, you need to show up on video, you need to show up in workshops or even online events or soon again in person events. So the speaking part and the visual showing up part is huge. Yes, a lot of the business coaches I worked with have a book to their name. How many people have actually bought that book? Often people don't want to give you their real numbers, but they're in the hundreds, not in the thousands. Right? If they're lucky and that's if their mom bought 20 of them. So, the book is a nice way to set yourself apart, but really, where I think the skin or the whatever hits the road, the tire hits the road is when you show up visually. - Yeah, I fully agree with that. That's advice I've often given myself is like when you are a consultant or a solopreneur coach, who you are primarily your business, then like people are buying you in the way you do business and your personality and stuff as much as the product. So, how you present-- - If not more so, right? - Sure. - I mean, it's the old saying, people buy from people, they don't buy products. And I think that is just, it's an old saying and it's so true. - Yeah, yeah, very true in the solopreneur space that coach consultant type trainer type space-- - Yeah, but not only there. I mean, look at all the influencers that we have. I mean, even big, big brands borrow that from our playbook and copy it by buying into influencers, because again, people buy from people. - Yeah, that's a great point. And you get the right influencers utilizing your product or something, if you are a more B2C and that's a great way to bridge that gap. - Yeah, yeah, for sure. - So, what do you think the... We've talked a lot about the kind of benefits in general here, building your authority and your thought leadership position within your market. Do you think there are challenges that come with utilizing video on LinkedIn? - I mean, the challenges are that you don't know what you're doing and your videos might look substandard, subpar. You and I know that it takes a couple of very simple rules to follow to make sure that your video looks good, looks professional. I think if anything, people are stuck on perfect and want them to look too good and too slick and are humming and hawing over it and then don't post because of it or spend way too much time and money on creating the videos to begin with. So, there's this whole little eco system around perfect, not perfect, good enough, not good enough. And all the fears and trepidations that come with that. - Yeah, it's a very interesting thing, right? Because you've got that balance. You need it to be good enough to come off as professional within your chosen space, but if you go too far with it, it never gets shipped or it's not sustainable, right? - It's not sustainable. I think that is a huge thing that you're bringing up, Neil, is just that if it's not... If you can't keep it up and be consistent with it, then I always say like, why bother, right? You have to be... And that's like, why I'd always tell my clients to batch produce everything. Sure, every once in a while we have a video where something is a burning topic or a burning thing that we need to get out into the world. But by and large, everything we create content wise is definitely batchable. So you only have to shoot once a month or every two months. I mean, I don't shoot that much anymore because I have such a massive library and we are planned out quite a bit in advance, and yes, every once in a while there is a video that is in the rush and then I'll shoot that, but I'm maybe every two months, I sit down and I shoot 10, 12 videos in one session and then I'm done for a while. - That's an excellent strategy to have is to batch, but that all ties back to something you said earlier. If you want to batch produce, you have to have that strategy nailed down. You have to know what's coming up, right? To be able to do those-- - Yeah, but you know, you can also like, my batch producing for instance is sometimes it's very whimsical, where like, oh, I have an idea for a new series. So we created a series called Love Letters To Video, which just talked about the benefits of video other than the obvious ones that we always hammer home of, you have to be seen to people to like you, et cetera, and work with you, et cetera. And that was just... We came up with seven to 10 different reasons and then I shot, I think nine of them and we just played the last one last month and I created those last September. So that's like, that's what? That's like seven or eight months later. So sometimes I just create videos for the bank, for my video bank, and then sometimes, yes, I do have a content planner. I also am now big enough that I have a small team that I work with and nobody's full-time, but there's like four different people touching stuff. So we have to be organized and we have to plan in advance a bit. So we don't drive each other nuts. So it actually was a good exercise for me because I kept changing everything all the time and having a content calendar actually forces me to stay with the plan more or less and when you have a content calendar, you are focusing on what you want to do and it also all of a sudden was like, it was like an epiphany, because now I'm like, okay, cool, I have my clear and confident bootcamp in two weeks, which means I needed to announce it three or four weeks ago, and then by knowing that, pieces just fall into place, right? Because I know, okay, I want to talk about the bootcamp, one's on a Tuesday, one's on a Wednesday, one's on a Thursday. I want to announce it. I want to talk about what it is all about and the three things we touch on in it and then I want to do it soon and then a last call. And now I have like a skeleton I'm building around that. And then I know that every once a month, I have my blog cast, so that's gonna be announcement, a reminder and the actual blog cast. So that's three pieces of content a month. And then when you start looking at it that way, all of a sudden you have a skeleton, which is your content calendar, and now you fill it in and now you make sure that you have some video in there, you have a healthy mix, right? Pros, video, images, graphics, whatever. And that's how you plan out your content calendar. - That's a great point. So having those processes tied to the individual events or content pieces that are coming out can take a lot of the stress out of what do I post today? Because it's already all set and done, right? Like it's ready and very often written. - Right. And the question never, never should be ever what am I posting today? The question should be what is my strategy for me? - Yes. Wow, that is a better way to look at it, yes, yes. - What am I selling? What am I selling in May? What is my focus in May, right? If you start with that, it just, for us at least, and believe me, we did the... When I started posting on LinkedIn regularly about three years ago, I mean, I would sit there at nine o'clock every morning in a complete panic because I had to post by 10, I was part of a group that posted together to support each other. And then I very quickly was like, okay, this is not how this works. I need to write this the night before, so I don't have a nervous breakdown. And then a couple of months in, I'm like, this is not working for me either. I need to like write the week's worth of posts the week prior and then start thinking about what kind of videos do I need, et cetera. And you know, the other thing is also when you start planning out like this, I can say, okay, although my clients all want video, but not everybody's a visual or an audio visual learner, so I'm gonna sell the same product by attaching a video to it, by attaching a graphic to it, by attaching a hand drawn doodle to it, by attaching a photo to it. It just sort of gives a nice mix and match of different... I mean, I will always favor video over everything else and we do video about at least three if not four times a week, but I will also mix in other medium because not everybody watches video. - Yeah. Something that comes up quite a bit within the creator network is that when we're looking at how to build out that strategy for LinkedIn, video is a great option, right? Like we obviously, we love it too. But like sometimes you get a look at like kind of the funnel within LinkedIn, right? So like you want what I always refer to as candy sometimes, like the super easy stuff to react to, it's a GIF and like a one liner or like a simple poll or something like that, and then you might have another level where it's people who maybe are now aware of you because they've consumed the candy and they might like something or whatever like that, and then it's the deeper stuff. And very often, the videos that draw comments and like a deeper level of involvement. So it's, yeah, it's good to mix it up. So I totally agree with that. And I'm glad you brought up your hand drawn doodles, because those are an incredible addition to your kind of LinkedIn repertoire there. They work really well. - Oh my God. Those performed so well for us. I mean, they're a pain in the ass to create, I must admit. I mean, I enjoy the process, because I also do artwork, but it's a different thing to do artwork because you're relaxed and doing something for yourself and, you know, having a space of white paper where it's like, okay, I have so many words I have to squeeze in here and make it look fun and entertaining. And with time you sort of, you work out a format and a look, right? But those actually, they speak to the same audience that likes the videos, because they're innately entertaining, fun, and for, I think also, people who are really fast in reading, which is probably sort of more like my generation also, you can grasp what is going on with one look. I can take one look and say, it says invitation, free, masterclass. Boom, right? Whereas if there's a video, I have to be willing to engage and that is one of the very few drawbacks, if you want to call it a drawback that video has, is you need to have an audience that is ready to consume your content. So I love the way how you put it with the candy. So, if you put the little hand drawns, we love doing hand raisers, just one question. Like the other day we asked the question, quite simply, what's holding you back from creating videos right now? Got massive engagement. Such good engagement that I shot a video for the next week, talking about the results and where people were landing on the answers. So, having those little pieces of fun, little extra pieces for engagement definitely helps, and this is again the beauty to bring it back to LinkedIn over any other social media platform. On Facebook if you did that, you would need a following of probably tens of thousands of people to notice that, otherwise you would just like drown in a sea of chatter because Facebook is personal, Facebook is business, Facebook is everything. It's political, et cetera. And LinkedIn is still sort of a (indistinct). It's also self curated a bit. So, I see people get too political or too this, that, and the other on LinkedIn, then there's a backlash that happens where it's like, this is not what this platform is about. So and I always have to smile because I'm like, okay, you know, we're all can be very self righteous about these things, but in a way it's also really, it is a business platform, we are on there to engage and network and sell to a certain degree our wares. - Yeah. And I would agree, it's not the worst thing in the world to have people kind of self regulating a little more in a way to kind of try to keep things on track. Say what you will, sometimes people take it too far or whatever in one direction or another, but that balance is somewhat maintained because you have people kind of playing on both sides of that line. So I think that's an excellent point, and that is part of the reason that I know I personally started doing a lot of work on LinkedIn and why it is such an effective platform for a lot of consultants and-- - Yeah, especially service providers. because you know, as a... And I think this is also where we get back to video is when you're B2C or you have a brick and mortar business where you have the bike shop, you have the dog grooming business, you have the flower shop, you have the bakery, whatever, those small businesses have innately built in visuals that they can work with, although I always think those business owners should show up as well, because again, people buy from people. But I think that as service providers, it's sort of, we have to go that extra step because we don't have... I mean, I have video, client videos to show, but still, in the end, people are buying a course for me. So I want to make sure that they actually like me before they even get on a call with me because what a waste of time in their calendar and my calendar for them to get on a Zoom with me and decide five minutes in that they absolutely hate my nose and can't stand my voice, right? - Yep. - So, having a video out, you know, not only does it sell for you while you're sleeping, eating, doing something else, it also is a self selecting tool to make sure that the people who get on a call with you actually have a basic understanding of what you look and sound like and that they don't find you annoying. - Yeah. There was a great Seinfeld way back when, right? Where George Costanza really wanted to... He had to read a book for some reason, I remember, and he got the books on tape because he wanted some really smooth voiced person reading those books and it came back and it sounded just like him and he didn't like it, right? So same kind of thing. He was hoping for something and he got his own voice and it's the same type of thing, where like, yeah. - It can be something as simple as that. My sister gave me as a Christmas gift a couple of years back a course that she thought I should do, and it was not an inexpensive course. And I remember I downloaded it on my... There was an app that went with it and I downloaded it on my phone. I put this person in my ear and I just went. It was this high pitched female voice and she just, she rubbed me, man oh man, not her fault, but she rubbed me the wrong way. Never made it through the course. And I'm sure it was a fabulous course. But yeah, just couldn't stand it. And again, I mean, truth be told, I should have said to my sister, let me watch a video first or you know, her intro landing page before I say yes to this fabulous gift, but didn't even occur to me. And I'm like, okay, this is an interesting experience, right? - Yeah, yeah. I mean, we're hitting on the voices, but it could be that style of teaching, it could be-- - Yeah, the mannerism, right? - It could be anything. But that is a great point, and that is getting right back to that benefit, right? Of people getting a chance to meet you and almost get to work with you type of situation. - (indistinct), yeah. I mean, that's why I love doing master classes, to get a bit off topic, because it gives people an hour of their time investment to find out whether they love the energy or they don't, and the way we interact and the way we teach and, you know, blah, blah, blah. So, yeah. - That's an excellent point. And that's a good use of an hour for folks who are going to invest, you know, in-- - And a couple thousand dollars, yeah. You want to make sure you're gonna like it. - So I am going to very clunkly go ahead and transition over to the next item on our list here. So, I think your LinkedIn information is incredible. Everybody, I would encourage you to go find Nina on LinkedIn. There'll be a link in the show notes for this episode. And we'll move on to the question that I ask everyone on this podcast. It's called the Smarter Business Podcast and the thread throughout all of them is I ask, what is one thing that you've done to make your business or a client's business smarter? - I mean, it's the dumbest advice ever and it holds up for everything, not just video production and social media, it's just consistency. - Ah, excellent. A very nice choice and we haven't heard that one yet. - Oh wow. I'm surprised, yeah. No, you've got to be consistent. You've got to be consistent. Even if it means sometimes putting out stuff that you are not that happy with because most likely someone will be happy with it. But no, you have to be consistent, otherwise you're not gonna get the clients you want to get. - And that actually, I'm gonna bend that back to, even if you're not happy with it, very often we're our own worst critics, right? When it comes to putting out content. So even if you're not happy with it, I agree with that. Someone is likely gonna find it useful, unless I guess you're just doing something crazy. But if you're putting out good info. - (indistinct) doing something crazy, you know? Just put it in front of a New York audience and you'll find something like this. - Somebody will like it, right? Excellent. And that's a great answer, I appreciate that. The last thing I always do with podcast interviews or any interviews I do, whether we're shooting testimonials or anything like that, is there anything we missed? Did I knock anything loose with that line of questioning that you want to talk about, either video, LinkedIn, your business, whatever? Floor is yours. - Thank you. No, I think we did a pretty solid job on the LinkedIn piece. Obviously video, we can go, you know, until the cows come home. But I also feel that you have that covered with your audience because that's what they work with you on. So I don't think I need to but in there too much myself. And my business, yeah, no, I think we're good. - All right. Well then I'm gonna ask one last question, because you jogged it loose over here. If you've got one video tip, that's not consistency, what would it be? Like, what do you think... You said a lot of people get hung up on the perfection and stuff. Is there one thing that you feel like gets people moving when they're not sure? - Yeah. And I know this doesn't speak to your philosophy, which is... So I'm gonna bring it up because just because I can. - That's alright. - Because I got the floor. It's like, don't get hung up on any of the equipment. Unless you're a gear head and you want to make this your hobby and most people don't, your phone and one or two little apps on your phone and that's all you need. - Yeah, absolutely. I very often, especially early on, I'll have conversations with people and then some consulting work. Like it is incredible, right? The phone in your pocket's a better video camera than when I got into the industry. - Yeah and all the prosumer cameras that we bought for $2,000, right? Mine is sitting in my closet. I haven't broken it out in two years. - Yeah, it's an interesting time, right? It's easy to capture some pretty high quality video. So that's a great thing. I think for all, video's a great tool for small business to utilize and be able to kind of grow their business with. And that is an excellent close. So Nina, I think you did a great job explaining LinkedIn and some of the benefits and challenges of it. I think we had some great conversation about video. Thank you very much for taking the time to chat with me. - Of course. - And to all of you listening and watching this episode, if you liked the content that you heard today and you want to grow your business with video, please consider subscribing to this podcast, rate, leave a review, share it with your friends and come check us out on the vidwheel creator network.