Marcus Sheridan - The Visual Sale: How to Use Video to Explode Sales, Drive Marketing, and Grow Your Business in a Virtual World

MARCUS SHERIDAN

TYLER LESSARD

Copyright 2020 by Marcus Sheridan and Tyler Lessard

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ideapress Publishing.

All trademarks are the property of their respective companies.

Cover Design by Pete Garceau

Interior Design by Jessica Angerstein

Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the Library of Congress.

ISBN: 978-1-646870-18-9

e-ISBN: 978-1-646870-40-0

Special Sales

Ideapress Books are available at a special discount for bulk purchases, for sales promotions and premiums, or for use in corporate training programs. Special editions, including personalized covers, a custom foreword, corporate imprints, and bonus content are also available.

To get the most out of this work, there are a few essential things you should know before reading.

You see, there is plenty of content online these days about how to do video as a company. There is very, very little, however, on how to truly grow your business, your brand, and your bottom line through this powerful medium.

As the authors of this work, Tyler Lessard and I (Marcus Sheridan) didnt want to produce another guide to vlogging, Instagram, or the like. Instead, we wanted to show you exactly what has been proven to get real results by real companies doing some incredible (and attainable) things with video.

Our first goal is that youre flooded with ideas as to what video could do for your organizationbe it sales, marketing, or the customer experience.

Our second goal is that, upon finishing this book, you will have all of the basic tools, foundational knowledge, and direction you need to take action.

Fact is, unless you take action on what you learn through reading this, we will have all failed. This is also why weve developed a robust series of further training videos and templates at www.thevisualsale.com. We invite you to explore them and, most of all, use them.

Its important to note that writing a book on video isnt easy. Words will not do nearly enough justice to fully show the many types of videos that are discussed within these pages. Nor would it ever make sense for us to do a deep-dive on technical things like equipment, video tools, or other tech due to an ever-evolving industry. So if youd like to learn about these things, and get our most recent recommendations on each, simply visit www.thevisualsale.com.

Finally, whether your company is business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C), services- or products-based, large or smallthe principles and practices you will learn about in the following pages will apply to your situation, as they have proven themselves to be universal.

After all, what were really talking about in this book is trust.

Thats it.

Trust is the building block for all businesses, no matter industry or size. In this case, were just discussing how to generate more trust with video. So please be open to the possibilities. Just because it has never been done before within your industry doesnt mean you cant be the first.

Finally, because were so serious as to your ongoing success, we want to welcome your feedback and questions.

You can reach Tyler at .

Heres to showing it better than anyone has ever shown it before...

A few years ago, as I sat contemplating the ever-evolving buyer of today and the general inability of businesses to adapt quickly to this movement, my mind became centered on this thought:

Video is a fundamental part of the buying process, and yet most businesses did not seem to know how to deal with the shift.

Its not that businesses didnt see the power of video. Rather the idea of video productionat least in-houseseemed completely unattainable to them. And, time and time again, I saw a pattern of businesses making the same mistakes.

They would spend thousands and thousands of dollars to hire a video production company, only to walk away with a couple of videos, a gaping hole in their marketing budget, and not much else to show for it.

Having the firm belief in the fact that the future of digital for businesses is the ability to produce the majority of their own content (without the need of outside help), I posed the following question to our team at IMPACT, my digital sales and marketing agency:

Can we teach companies how to create a culture of video in-house? One that starts with the sales team and can be done without them needing to outsource anything?

The reactions to my question were mixed:

Marcus, thats never been done before.

If were not producing videos for our clients, how could it be a viable business model for us as an agency?

Most companies will fail if they do this themselves.

I pushed back again:

Why not? Why couldnt we be the first firm to truly teach organizations how to embrace a culture of video in-house? And why couldnt more sales (and marketing) teams start catching the incredible power of this medium? This is obviously where the world is headed and so what if no one else is doing it? Its whats needed. And its the right thing to do.

With that, an incredible journey began. We threw ourselves into video and decided to teach it just as we had taught inbound sales and content marketing in my first book, They Ask, You Answerstart with sales in mind, and the rest will fall into place.

And fall into place it did.

Today, hundreds of clients around the globe have embraced a true culture of video within their organization.

It turns out that I wasnt alone in thinking that companies wanted to control their digital destinies, and there was a market for it. A lot of business owners and CEOs felt exactly as I didthat in-house ownership of video would be critical to their success in the years that lie ahead.

Even better, video is the ultimate expression of They Ask, You Answer. Buyers want it. And not only do they want it, but more and more they are demonstrating a clear preference to learn visually over simply reading a textual explanation.

In the following pages, were going to answer three major questions about video:

• What types of videos actually get results from a sales and marketing perspective?
• What are some B2B and B2C case studies of companies having exceptional success using video?
• What must a company do to create a culture of in-house video that is built to last?

Keep in mind, we wont be able to answer all of your questions here. We will, however, give you a clear sense as to what proven actions and steps you can take right now within your business to see quick, powerful, and even extraordinary results from video.

I havent always been the video-for-business guy.

In fact, I have no formal training in film or media, and when I joined Vidyard as vice president of marketing, I had no idea how to create or publish online videos. While Ive long been a big advocate for video in marketing, it wasnt until I started recording and editing my own personal content that I truly appreciated its full potential.