I have stories to share, and have been looking for a creative way to do it. I used to work in an advertising agency doing video so I figured video was the way to go. But I wanted to try something new, fun, accessible. Doodles it is!

I've decided to do multiple sets of videos in multiple styles. Philosophical and Life-Story videos will be done illustrated video doodles/videos.
01: What Entrepreneurs Can Learn From Employee of the Month.
02: The Wingman Theory and Other Social Proofs.

Tip videos will give single points of actionable advice.
01: Testimonials Overview
02: How To Get Quality Video Testimonials With No Camera and No Cash

In Ad Rant videos I will offer commentary on advertising done by other companies.
01: KFCs Offensive Television Ad
Give me feedback! Which style do you prefer? Do the different styles work for the different video categories?

I plan to keep creating these. I want to teach lessons learned from my time at the agency, my time working as a telemarketer, my time selling e-products, my time as a marketing consultant, and more.

Edit: I will continuously update this first post, to keep it updated with the most recent video. The most recent post will usually have specific questions or inquiries regarding that particular video.

Hey I liked the video, good points and fun drawings. However the title is a bit off-topic, maybe you should call it "What Entrepreneurs Can Learn by Being an Good Employee" or something. Otherwise great job.

I think this is pretty cool! I like the way it's drawn and its quite entertaining to watch, your voice fits really well too. So, please keep on making those! One thing that would make it even better, though I guess more timeconsuming for you, a little more animations. The camera eye was animated and I liked that a lot. Facial expressions would be more than enough, like when it says ".....I looked at the producer, the producer..." give everyone that confused look, eyes going from left to right etc. Apart from that: great job!

Thanks a lot.

@lgallion
I agree on the naming of this. I'll change it to something more relevant.

@Gsuz
I plan on developing my skills a little more over time in the animation department. It's hilarous that even within the context of this single video I can see improvements in my ability to draw. I'll be looking into learning how to animate within Flash or Toon Boom or something soon, which will make it a bit easier for me to change things on the fly. Right now my workflow's a little weird with recording the audio, editing it in premiere pro, drawing in photoshop, exporting pngs/jpegs into premiere, and then timing it out.

In the meanwhile I wanted to get something out there, as imperfect as it was. I think I'm going to re-upload this, add a call to action ("subscribe to this channel" or something) and add a title card.

My 2 cents:

Great:

- Loved your voice, tone, inflection, etc...
- Loved the little things that make these videos watchable ("produce, get it?" - awesome)
- Your animation/style was perfect. Simple yet gets the point across.

Not so great:

- Messing up words, going off-point. Self-fun / Cell Phone - this was stupid and detracted from the video.
- Ridiculous bits. The Napoleon Dynamite bit would have had me close the video if I wasn't watching it to give feedback on.
- A bit too long for what it was. Reduce the story to the barest possible form without compromising the point. In other words, make it as simple as possible, but no simpler.
- I thought the entrepreneur bit came out of nowhere. It wasn't mentioned at the onset and it wasn't in the title so when you go from over a minute of on-the-job story telling to "what I learned about being an entrepreneur" I was a little "wtf?"

LIKE:
- the visual part, totally
- the story, sounds interesting

DISLIKE:
- sound quality and volume too low
- narration is not engaging enough and too slow for my taste, couldn't watch through the whole video because of it

Second Video: The Wingman Theory, and other social proofs

I've just uploaded my second video! This one's called "The Wingman Theory and other social proofs." As the title suggests, it's about social proof.

The Wingman Theory and other social proofs - YouTube

In this video I took some feedback and incorporated it:
-Faster pacing.
-louder, more consistent audio
-lower BG noise

In the first video about being a good employee, I had a lot of white-space on the screen. I also had a lot more words. This was partially because I didn't know what to draw/didn't feel confident in my ability to draw. With this video it's a lot more visual. I noticed drawing is getting easier for me, although I'm still nowhere close to good, I can produce more crappy drawings/minute than before.

With this video, I really tried to do too much. I tried to cover a lot of ground, and as a result I feel I didn't go in-depth with HELPFUL information. Additionally, I spent way too much time producing this. Going forward I am going to create many short 'tips.' I will limit myself to one minute/video to force some focus.

I have a series of 5 tips about testimonials worked out (learned from my own personal experience releasing my own e-products). I'm not sure if I'll record/release them all back to back, but I will at least start on the first one and see what I learn from producing that one.

Any suggestions based on this video would be greatly appreciated! Once again, the URL for the video is:
http://youtu.be/l8n01pPr33M\

I will post links to all new videos in my first post as they're released.

Man, I thought that was good. You did an amazing job. To someone who has never heard of social proof in their life or even understands the concept, I think they would walk away from that knowing exactly what it is.

Do you plan on limiting the videos to 1 minute because you think the user doesn't want to watch a video that long or because you don't want to have to work on each video that much?

Thanks a lot!

I just have a lot to say on each subject, and I think the current structure of the videos is limiting. I cut out a LOT of stuff on testimonials to get this video down to 5 minutes... and even though it seems counter intuitive I think that smaller less complex videos are the way to go.

I'm thinking I want to structure the videos like blog posts. I'll create a few longer 'pillar videos' explaining concepts here and there. This would be one of those 'pillar' videos. Additionally I'll create smaller 'tips/tricks' videos. Each one small, short, and focused with one actionable tip/trick I learned through personal experience.

I feel doing things this way will:
1.) Give me the format I need to say everything I have to say. (if I forgot/had to cut something out of one video, no problem I can quickly create another video)
2.) Allow me to release content regularly. With a shorter video I can DEFINITELY put out at least one a week, all-the-while be working on a longer video in the background.
3.) Grab people's attention. Shorter videos (under 3 minutes) usually do pretty well on youtube and are easily passed around
4.) Give me more focus. When I worked in advertising, working on 30-second/1-minute spots gave us incredible focus. We only included the essentials, and I think as a result the storytelling was tighter, faster, and more enjoyable.

The video is educational and entertaining .... the cartoon/artistic side of things need some more work. 3/5 (there is some room for improvement).

Likes:
- Great drawings, great story
- Great presentation, video and site

Dislikes:
- "Self-proclaimed genius" title
- No ads! Monetize those blog posts yo! Monetize with video ads.
--->

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about DOING WHAT IT TAKES. Partially because I just purchased Think and Grow Rich, and the first chapter has a lot to do with being an unstoppable force. Sometimes I think that being an entrepreneur, for some people, is an escape/excuse.

Click to expand...

But the consulting is $100 to $250 per hour over the internet? Why are you the person they will want to listen to? Have you received any takers yet?

Nice work so far!

I like it very much. I think the length of the video is cool too, it feels longer than 5 minutes, and you walk away with feeling you got some real value out of it. Even though I know about social proof, nice examples and nice reminder.

I really enjoyed the video and didn't find anything distracting me. For a moment I wanted to suggest adding music or using more engaging voice - but in fact I like this very much, it's like an audio book with video - a video book - very cool.

alright, so I just created a third video. This one's an ENTIRELY different style and I'd like to hear what you all think.
This is around 2 minutes long, I couldn't get down to one minute without sacrificing timing but I think it's still good.

the information in this first video is pretty basic, but I have another 4 planned on testimonials with some good stuff in it. This particular video's I guess 'required viewing' for the others. I can't give specific tips on video testimonials until I say they rock.

Tips 001: Testimonials Overview - YouTube

I recorded the VO for that video yesterday, did the motion graphics today. I can probably churn out 1-2 videos like this a day now that I have a format figured out.

So my plan is to create STORYTELLING videos, TIPS videos, and PHILOSOPHICAL videos.
The storytelling and philosophical videos will be timeless and formatted like how you've already seen here. They will cover lessons learned from my personal experience.

The TIPS videos, will be a bit cleaner and will dish out actionable advice.

what do you all think? Should I continue on this path? Any videos/topics you'd like to see?

I thought the video on social proofs was good. I liked the concept of this one, but I didn't like it as much because by using text and no animation like you did in the social proofs video, it just reminded me of a slideshow.

In terms of whether you should keep going, I have a question. What is it you are trying to do with this idea? Are you trying to make a fastlane business out of it? Are you just doing it for fun? What is your plan?

dknise said:

Dislikes:
- "Self-proclaimed genius" title
- No ads! Monetize those blog posts yo! Monetize with video ads.

But the consulting is $100 to $250 per hour over the internet? Why are you the person they will want to listen to? Have you received any takers yet?

Nice work so far!

Click to expand...

-I've gotten similar feedback about the self-proclaimed genius title. I'll have to do something about that. Thanks
-I'm trying to avoid ads at this point. Takes the focus away from where I'm trying to do/how I'm trying to profit.

I haven't yet broken into internet consulting... but it's definitely the plan.

Why ME?
People have passions. Most people are passionate about their occupation/job. This is doubly so for entrepreneurs and people who selected their careers (rather than fell into it). If you make and sell natural soap, you probably know the chemistry. You probably spend hours every night perfecting new recipes, subscribe to SoapQueenTV, own dozens of books, and talk on forums all day about it. If I have a soap question, I'd go to you. Who are you going to go to when you have a marketing question?

You'd want somebody just as dedicated about marketing as you are about your passion. I'm that guy. I wake up and make breakfast while listening to marketing audiobooks. I shower while listening to marketing podcasts. I independently study marketing concepts, apply them to my own 'practice' businesses so I know what works and what doesn't.

If you're a business owner too small to have a marketing department... you're GOING to make more money by working with me.. bottom line.

This message isn't reflected on the website yet, but I thought it more important to keep moving forward with an imperfect website than to over-perfect and never get 'started'.

wade1mil said:

I thought the video on social proofs was good. I liked the concept of this one, but I didn't like it as much because by using text and no animation like you did in the social proofs video, it just reminded me of a slideshow.

In terms of whether you should keep going, I have a question. What is it you are trying to do with this idea? Are you trying to make a fastlane business out of it? Are you just doing it for fun? What is your plan?

Click to expand...

The 'plan' is full-time consulting. The videos are multipurpose:

1) Gain Customer Trust: Proof I know what I'm talking about and have the ability to teach/communicate in an easy-to-understand way.

2) Display Experience: I don't want to outright say "I've worked professionally as a marketing coordinator, video editor, magician, producer, telemarketer." I'd rather tell stories from these jobs as a passive way to inform without bragging.

3) Content Marketing: By giving information away for free, customers will be more likely to pay higher prices or work with me at all.

4) As leverage for my in-person meetings: If I talk locally to a business owner and hand them my card.. it strongly points to dennisduty.com. If they visit me and see the videos it adds 3 miles of trust to our otherwise cold relationship.


Another part of the puzzle: I'd eventually like to create some sort of infoproduct to make passive income while reducing the time I spend as a marketing consultant and free me up a bit more to partake in some of my other ideas. I've written and sold ebooks previously, I'd love to make these infoproducts in video format. I'm very good at organizing raw information into consumable nuggets (products.)

I've actually already figured out how to expand any single idea into an infoproduct based on interest and engagement. I just wrote out the script of 5 videos giving tips on testimonials. The videos have titles like "How to get quality video testimonials with no camera and no money." "Degrading video can lead to more sales" "one nearly illegal tip for obtaining testimonials" and "how to make bad testimonials good." I can take these videos, turn each one from a short tip into a full SYSTEM... and sell it as a video course, reformat it into a kindle book, etc.

I'd also enjoy partnering with other people to expand into areas I have no personal experience in. We recently had a fastlane call with JackEdwards where he detailed an amazing business strategy. What sort of thing I'd LOVE to do once I establish an audience is partner with brilliant minds like Jack, take some raw audio.. add animatics, add course outlines, add checklists and turn what once was a 1 hour talk into a 5 hour multimedia course and profitshare with them.

Of course the infoproducts would wait until I've built an audience that likes and enjoys my stuff.

HA! I just realized I could embed videos!.
My Latest:
"How to Get Quality Video Testimonials With No Camera and No Money"
[video=youtube_share;eMp8E21eYpc]http://youtu.be/eMp8E21eYpc[/video]

I'm really having trouble keeping a consistent style here. When working on other people's companies it seems a lot clearer. When working on my own it's a lot harder.. but I'll keep chugging along. This video took a bit longer because I created an intro that I'll keep for every video going forward! woot! A little bit of my personal brand is born. I also carried over some 'pop-in' noises and effects from the previous video.

This video contains my first real TIP. I have 3 or 4 more on video testimonials.. but I'm getting a little sick of testimonials... I'm going to mix it up a bit with my next video!

Please please please let me know if you like this video or hate it. Thanks!

My most recent video is an Ad Rant:

KFCs Offensive Television Ad:
[video=youtube_share;bvaxNvtrGes]http://youtu.be/bvaxNvtrGes[/video]

This one was primarily done to test the effectiveness of twitter ads on viral content: Here's the thread on that

Sound
I've been doing a long while, been doing motion graphics a long while, and it's always been fine. However, on the past few videos, I realize how AWKWARD they are. There's no audio except the sound of my voice. I haven't found any music I found suitable yet. Although I've tried having some produced, I also hated that.

So in this video, I've included more audio in the form of sound effects! I love the way it makes the videos feel and I'm a lot closer to my ideal style now that I've incorporated it.

Visuals
Most of the images here are ripped from the internet... but the one exception is the zombie behind the drum set which I drew myself. I actually dislike using images from other people... I feel like I'm not creating anything GOOD. But I've talked myself into it. It's my creative brain that took the buckethead zombies from Plants Vs. Zombies, replace the metal buckets with KFC buckets, and animate them walking in front of a KFC building.

Even though the building, the zombies, and the buckets were all 'ripped', I made them mine by placing them together in that way with the commentary I made. Additionally, each image was altered so they COULD fit together. The KFC building has a posterize and gausian blur on it, the bucket had to be altered to fit on the zombie head.

As for the title cards: I enjoy the LOOK of Helvetica a hell of a lot more than Impact which I've been using previously. I played around with throwing animated backgrounds but it just didn't LOOK right. I think they were too complex. I'll have to experiment with kinetic typography or a lightly animated background to make it look more expensive.

Writing
I've thrown a lot of 'jokes' into this video. It makes the whole process fun for me because I make stupid jokes like that all the time, and I feel this is becoming a more accurate representation of ME.

I'd like to continue to create these 'ad rant' videos in addition to the other videos.. I feel it establishes me a bit more as an authority on the subject. Speaking of which:

I blatantly called myself the world's leading expert on advertising. I thought it was fun/funny, and I'd like to see if I get 'called out' on it. I'm kinda testing here to see if I can position myself as an expert by creating funny and informative videos like this where I call myself an expert. I'd never 'experiment' with the reputation of a client in this way, I'm the only test subject I've got.

I also tried to incorporate something semi-useful into the video so it's not all fun-and-games..
1) the lesson not to do this
2) and the lesson that you can use clever ad placement vs context to get added bang for your buck.

The second point isn't stressed very much... but I'm glad I made it.

Let me know what you all think!

I loved the KFC video. It made me laugh because it seemed so common sense but you know some ad exec somewhere had to perform a face palm.

Hey, for someone that wants to shoot a couple of their own product videos to put on YouTube, can you suggest a decent video recording device or is an iPhone 5 acceptable?

CEBenz said:

I loved the KFC video. It made me laugh because it seemed so common sense but you know some ad exec somewhere had to perform a face palm.

Hey, for someone that wants to shoot a couple of their own product videos to put on YouTube, can you suggest a decent video recording device or is an iPhone 5 acceptable?

Click to expand...

Thanks. I plan to abandon the crappy cartoons (I'm no artist and it takes too long.) I think I'll continue doing the KFC style videos in the future.

The camera you use depends on what sort of feel you're aiming for. For an on the fly product review by a consumer, or for a blog or site that's supposed to be more personal it's fine.

When looking to become more of an authority or selling something more than $50 I'd invest in a slightly better camera. color depth of iphone video is off but it's not unusable. The higher the pricepoint of the item the more expensive the video should look.

Another main issue with iphones is audio quality. you can pick up a lot of background noise which detracts from the video. Even a flip cam's mic (which still really bad) is better at shooting distance than the iphone mic. (iphone's actually pretty good for recording a VO if you have a quiet environment).

All-in-all, the benefits of shooting a video TODAY outweigh the downside of a potentially crappy video. You can always replace your video if it's intended for a sales or product page if you get your hands on a better camera.

Cool, thanks for that Dennis.

That's a cool video, love it. At least when you are looking a video about business, you will not be bored, and although it is made of cartoons, still, you can learn a lot.

I just created a video about a social movement centered around a show.
Perfectly displays the power of video:

[video=youtube;RiggYCGPDCM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiggYCGPDCM&feature=youtu.be[/video]

I also REBRANDED the KFC Zombie commercial to fit with the current channel. (new intro/outro/animated backgrounds)

[video=youtube_share;guOc1GMdSoQ]http://youtu.be/guOc1GMdSoQ[/video]