From Clips to Cash. Profit-Driven LinkedIn Video Tips with Tanya Smith

TRANSCRIPT

Michelle J Raymond: [00:00:00] Welcome everybody to the LinkedIn for B2B Growth Show. I'm your host, Michelle J Raymond, and I am joined by someone who has graciously colour-coordinated their background. Tanya Smith, welcome to the show.

Tanya Smith: Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here.

Michelle J Raymond: We are going to be talking about how do we take video clips and turn them into cash? Because a few episodes ago, I was talking to a friend, Gillian Whitney, about All Things LinkedIn Live, which you are a superstar at. I just have to throw that out there straight away.

But I want to connect the dots between how does video actually help us grow our business? And there was no one else that I wanted to talk to besides you because you do this perfectly. So do you mind if I spend the next 30 minutes picking your brain and, letting the listeners see a little piece of what you've created over time?

Tanya Smith: Yeah, let's do it.

Michelle J Raymond: I think there's an important piece of this puzzle before we're going to go into all your tips and [00:01:00] amazing stuff. I want to start with how can someone, if they're considering videos, set themselves up for success to do this thing consistently, because I find that when I start working with clients, they've got grand intentions and they go hard and then they fall over.

Tanya Smith: Yeah.

Michelle J Raymond: Or they're stuck at the starting line and they just can't get out of the gate. So what are your tips for people in either of these situations?

Tanya Smith: I really think that it looks a little different for each and every one of us. And, we were talking before the show about just life and the way that our lives are configured will be different across the board.

So if I were to give just a broad brush answer about consistency. There's a couple of things that I do and I've adopted this mantra, gosh, for years. But if I were to give just a formula for success for business, whether it's content and you're trying to clip it or create something else.

Act, assign and automate. [00:02:00] So as much as you can put anything you're going to do, and that includes video creation, into 1 of those 3 buckets, you can get more done. But we have to figure out with intention and purpose.

What are the parts that I'm going to do? What are the parts that I may be able to assign to someone else? And how can I automate this process of content creation? And with apps like ChatGPT and other different types of tools that are out there, we have it so good compared to years ago. So act, assign, and automate.

Michelle J Raymond: Absolutely brilliant. And I may, borrow that from time to time because it's so important because I've got to say, as a business owner and a creator, cause I do both now. Discovering three years in that creating a piece of content that disappears down a feed.

It doesn't matter which social platform you're on, but I choose LinkedIn. And disappears after 48 hours, 72 hours, it's such a waste of my skills and [00:03:00] time. And I have not really got to the point, I got it set up and I haven't used it, but having systems to help me do these things. And I think there's a lot to be said.

Chris Bogue was on the show a while back and he does so much of his work via a spreadsheet of what's going to happen, when it's going to happen, how it's going to happen. And you saying this has just brought me back. I think there's a message coming to me through all of you amazing guests.

Tanya Smith: Yes. Yes. It's for me, everything is systems. The way you do and adopt systems is the way you do and adopt everything. So if you want things to be more simplified, or if you want them to be more complicated, like whichever you choose, whatever is your happy place, you can create that environment for yourself with systems.

So to your point about the spreadsheet, yeah, I have checklists for before I go live, the during the live, and then after the live, what am I doing with that content? And I love what you said about the repurposing aspect of it, because it is a [00:04:00] waste if you put all that effort and energy into creating this amazing piece of content and you do nothing with it and no one ever sees it again.

So having those things in place, having systems, having a run of show, So you know what you're going to be talking about. And even if it's not super scripted, we talked about that too. Being able to have an outline so that you don't miss the most important message points that you wanted to get across to your audience.

You can, again, keep it simple or you can make it complicated, but whatever you create, make it work for you. And that may look different for each and every one of us, but I'm just really in that zone of trying to simplify as much as possible.

Michelle J Raymond: I have been quoting many times in my posts recently, simplification leads to mastery.

And that is my mantra right now, because what I realised is that I was trying to make my business, my content, everything I did, really complicated to make me look like I was smarter. And realistically what it was doing was [00:05:00] throttling my business. I had no interest in shout out to Twitter and X and Instagram.

They weren't my places that I wanted to hang out, but I had it in my head, I've got to be everywhere. I've got to do everything. And no good came out of that, which I think leads me into the next thing that I want to ask you about. And it comes from a recent post of yours, which I was like, yes, when it comes to video and creating video content, you were talking about the content sweet spot where passion and subject matter expertise comes together.

Can you just expand on that for the listeners today?

Tanya Smith: Yeah, absolutely. I'm a big supporter of following your passion and being enthusiastic about whatever it is you choose to do. Life is so short and we don't, we should not be putting energy into creating something that we don't enjoy and love. Now, on the other side of that, when it comes to content, You want it to be something that's [00:06:00] going to be relevant to the audience that, you're gifted to serve.

So that being a subject matter expert and understanding that these parts of what you love to talk about will reach this audience in a certain way and doing due diligence to do research. Like you can love what you talk about all day long, but if you haven't done your homework to figure out if it's going to make a connection, that can be a communication breaker.

It can be a barrier to you being able to achieve what you want to achieve. So to me, it is equal parts. I love this thing and I could talk about it all day long or, every day for the rest of my life, but I also have done my homework. I've researched and I've figured out who I need to reach with this content, how to format it in a way that it's going to reach them, and also just ensuring that it's something that's going to be relevant to the audience.

So yeah, I think there is that sweet spot and we get caught up sometimes in listening to what other people are saying we should do, but I truly believe you got to start first with what you love.

Michelle J Raymond: My [00:07:00] head is like nodding, just going yes, yes, yes. Because I've been through this journey in my own business. It was easy for me when I was an employee and creating content when I was, owning my space in the beauty industry.

And that's how I fell in love with LinkedIn. But when I came to doing it for my business, I got myself in such a knot trying to do things that I I should be a certain kind of LinkedIn trainer or my YouTube videos have to have certain thumbnails, or I need to talk in a certain way, or I need to have a certain layout in everything.

And the more I tried to be like everybody else, Tanya, I've got to tell you, I was going crazy. It wasn't until I was like, okay, just relax, Michelle, let's wind this back. How do I want to do it? And I was listening to Jay Clouse's Creator Science podcast recently, which I don't listen to podcasts. I'm on the record many places.

Thank you to all my listeners that join, but I personally, it's not my form of content that I enjoy consuming. I [00:08:00] happened to land on an episode. I don't know how I ended up there. And it was with a TikTok creator called Miss Excel. Now I don't use Tik Tok, so I have no connection to Miss Excel.

But this whole episode was about being responsible for the energy that you put out there with your content. So how you feel, the mindset that you're in, all these kinds of things. When you create content, people feel that, it comes across and I think showing your passion for a topic is such a winning combo when it comes to content and especially video.

You can see somebody light up, they get bigger, probably like I am now. And I was like, Yes, we have a responsibility too, to share that passion, not, be held back trying to squish it, which I think is where people come unstuck.

How does that resonate with you? Is that something that you are mindful of when you're creating content too?

Tanya Smith: Oh totally. And I started just like you, with a mindset that I [00:09:00] had to look like and be like other people. I'm a big introvert. So I'm not somebody who's going to be on a channel with a big booming voice and with like just over the top energy. I'm going to be kind of chill with my shows. I'm going to be really more studious and probably informative.

I like to have fun too, but the way that my style was coming across initially was very fake and inauthentic because I was trying to mirror and model other people that I saw that were successful on YouTube and on Facebook because I started on Facebook live.

But after, once I finally figured out that, you know what, I just need to be myself and just embrace anything that I think, whoever I know that I am, I need to embrace that fully.

And those people who are the right people, because here's another mantra for me, the right people, the right message, the right time. Because I would get on these shows, Michelle, I would get on my live stream and it would be crickets when I first started. And I had to remind myself and tell [00:10:00] myself, you need to keep going.

You need to stay consistent because the minute you stop, you could be giving up on that person who needed you. And there would be times I would be missing, like I wouldn't show up for a live and people would be in my inbox saying, what happened? Why are you not live tonight? So now it's about being accountable to my audience, but also still accountable to myself and knowing that I have a responsibility to show up fully as the person who I am, not somebody else.

Michelle J Raymond: Oh, just again, I'm just like nodding and nodding. And I have nothing further to add to that because it just resonates with me so much, especially, like I've shared me creating LinkedIn, how to videos, but for a YouTube audience. They would take me hours to do.

I was never happy with them. They weren't particularly reflective of who I am. So you would see a Michelle on YouTube and a Michelle on LinkedIn and think, what is going on here? When I talk [00:11:00] all the time about creating your digital twin, which is, there shouldn't be a difference no matter where I show up.

So I had to take my own medicine and go back and say, I can't keep doing this. And so even, little things just being me is the secret to this because there is no other me, and I was just having this conversation this morning on LinkedIn with someone that had fallen into the trap of comparisonitis, that it feels like everyone else has already said everything.

And she was like, why me? Why? And I was like, but there is no one else like you. You're passionate about those kinds of things. Look I'm just going to wind this back. Cause I'm going to end up on a soap box. Just, You know, I just want people to unleash their passion because I feel like everybody's put themselves into these nice, neat little boxes when it comes to social posts that have become formulaic.

That ChatGPT influencers have made us think like we can't write for ourselves or think for ourselves. [00:12:00] I'm just trying to stamp it out a little piece at a time. So I'm going to move on to something else, which I think is really important as well. And that's when you're creating videos that you want to use to grow your business.

How do you come up with the list of topics for your videos?

Tanya Smith: So this is interesting. And my process has transformed over time. Where I am right now, I think is in a really good place with coming up with that list. And I do, I leverage the power of ChatGPT and Claude AI and other tools like that.

But I start with what I know, what I'm passionate about, like we've been talking about, and I start with what is at the centre of what I want people to know about me and about what I do, the solution that I provide. Meaning you're going to have to look at your library of offers. What is it that you want to sell?

We talked about video for profit and that's what the topic is, so I want to bring it to that. Before I used to just get on [00:13:00] camera and not have some ideas about what I wanted to talk about. And I put those ideas in play and do the live streams. Eventually I recognised, no, wait a minute.

Live streaming and video marketing should be a part of my overall business strategy. That means I need to leverage this content to be able to lead people to the sell. So what am I offering? What are the problems that I'm solving? And what are the paid solutions that I want to gift to people to help them to be able to be better and improve in whatever it is I'm saying I want them to improve in.

So for me, I had to get really crystal clear about who I wanted to talk to and what I wanted to talk about. Now, from there, taking that core for me, it is video marketing and specifically I love live stream marketing. Then I branched that out and said, okay, under video marketing, what would I talk about?

I talk about content strategy. I talk about building confidence. I talk [00:14:00] about making sure that you're consistent and that you have the right systems and workflows in place. So I won't go through all five of them, but I created these pillars based on that core thing I wanted to talk about.

Then under those pillars, now you have something where you can go and do research and homework and find out, okay, what are the questions that people are asking under each of those pillars, those content buckets or pillars as people call them. What are the things that people are asking so that I can answer those questions in my videos?

What are those things that people really need to know so that they can get to the next level? And what are those things that I just want to talk about because it's fun? Each of those categories, because again, the fun factor too.

Michelle J Raymond: You've got to have some fun. Like you really have got to have some fun. Because if you don't enjoy it let's go back to point one. You're not going to be consistent. You are literally going to hate it, which is neither of us would encourage anyone to do something that they hated.

Tanya Smith: Never. [00:15:00] Never.

Michelle J Raymond: The things that I think about when it comes to making lists, I'm not a planner, okay. I'm just throwing that out there. Typical extrovert that loves all of these great ideas and let's go here, let's go there. And then what I realised that was fine as an employee, while I would still get paid every week without having to worry about it. But as a business owner, I need to connect those dots for people.

And the scariest post that I saw on my LinkedIn feed this morning was something that said, basically don't sell in the feed or in front of people do it all behind closed doors. And I was really scared for that person. I was like you have to connect the dots. And I think video is such a powerful way. You can't fake video.

You literally can't. You have to show up whether you are scripted or not. You still have had to have done that research, like you said. But yeah, when he said don't sell, like basically out in the open. I was like, what is going on here? I'm a bit confused. Does that confuse you?

Tanya Smith: It's confusing. [00:16:00] And I guess I would have to see the post and get the context of what the person was saying, but I'm a firm believer that if you open your mouth, you have an open store. If you close your mouth, you have a closed store. I've always learned that. And so even as an introvert, who would prefer not to have to be open mouth all the time.

I realised that as a business owner, that is how you create a sustainable business. And that's how you feed your family and your loved ones. That's how you take care of business. So I don't know what the person was saying, but it's confusing to me.

Michelle J Raymond: The other two points that they raised were about getting out there and commenting and supporting other people's posts. And there was something else that did make sense, but the first one was don't sell out in front. And I was like, will I just take the bait or will I just keep on scrolling? So I chose to keep on scrolling, but it's something that I come up with clients too often that what happens is they're busily creating content.

And in this case, let's say it's video content, but that video content doesn't have a goal. [00:17:00] And like you said, doesn't have an audience in mind. It's just creating video for the sake of doing video. And when you've got no goal for your content, you achieve that, and so for me, it's always about how do you grow a business and creating content that either answers a question, like you said, of what my audience is always asking me.

Or something where I can show off what I know and what I've learned or maybe some of the new strategies I've been playing around with. I think there's an element of who I am and what I care about, my values as well, that kind of content has a place, but yeah, please do not hide content that connects what you do, what your passionate about, what your business exists for from the greater audience on LinkedIn.

That's why we're here. If you run a business and that's where your leads are, that's where your ideal clients are, then not talking about what you do and not connecting those dots is how people go broke. And that is certainly something that I don't want to wish upon my worst enemy is to be stuck in a situation, where [00:18:00] people like you, people probably trust you, but they have no idea what you do. So they go and buy from someone else.

I've seen it happen so many times. I've been there myself. I've learned the lesson. So hopefully this inspires some people to mix things up and not be afraid to connect the dots between here's what I do and here's how I can give you the same results, which is the important part.

If someone's considering starting out with video, cause I'm always trying to inspire people to get off the sidelines and have a go at video. Is there a particular kind of format that you recommend or yeah, where do we start?

Tanya Smith: I think it has to be the format that's comfortable for you because being on camera, it requires that you become more confident, which can happen over time. The more confident you are, the more competent you become.

And so if you can choose a particular format that you feel like, hey, maybe I want to put my toe in the water and try for instance, Reels. I want to just try something that's a [00:19:00] minute or less. So Reels, Shorts, TikToks. You can try starting there. And you just use your phone, so you don't have to necessarily go out and buy a busload of equipment and gear.

You can try live streaming and I'll tell you in a second why live streaming was my video content format of choice. But you can also try video on demand. So pre produced video content where you're just doing maybe like a 10 minute or less video. It's maybe it's a how to video or maybe it's a motivational video or it could be any of those things.

But I highly encourage you not to be in the trap that I was in initially, and I mentioned this to you too, Michelle. I started with slides. I was like, no, I don't want my face on camera. So I would put PowerPoint slides up and I would just talk over those slides.

And honestly, it helped me to get a little bit more comfortable, but people weren't getting to know me. They didn't know I was behind the scenes. And what you want right now in this moment is for people to make a relational connection with [00:20:00] you as a human being, especially with all this AI and other types of things that are out there.

They want to know, like, and trust you. So live streaming for me became my video of choice, because to me, it was easier to get on camera, to be fully transparent, let the doorbell ring, let the dogs bark, let the kids, yell and do whatever they were doing. It was easier for me to do that than to take a bunch of hours trying to perfect and produce video.

So I started with live streaming because I thought, okay. I'm going to just, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to go all in and see how it goes. And I wanted to create conversations with people through the camera.

Michelle J Raymond: That's exactly why I did it. And I know this podcast probably sounds like I've just sat there and gone. Yes, Tanya. Yes, Tanya. Yes, Tanya. The whole way through. But it literally, even though I'm an extrovert and completely on the other end of the scale, I chose live stream as well, because for me, it wasn't planned. You know, whatever came up, [00:21:00] came up.

Now I record the podcast using LinkedIn live, but I do this a little bit differently because I have my goals in mind about how I want to re-use things. But LinkedIn live shows, and I'm going to make sure that any listener, I want you to go to Tanya's profile. The link will be in the show notes and you're going to ring the bell on her profile, which is up in the top right hand corner underneath the banner.

And so that when she does her next live stream, you're going to see the types of live streams that Tanya puts together, which are just brilliant. There are all kinds of live streams. There are crazy fun ones. There are super serious ones. There are ones where I've seen serious people do it in the backyard, having a chat.

I love that you can find whatever it is. And if you make mistakes, you say anything, like you said, the doorbell rings, the dog barks, no one cares. That's what I think is so brilliant about it. No one cares.

Tanya Smith: No judgment. And even if there are, let me backtrack because sometimes there are people who are judgy, they're [00:22:00] trolls. You can run into that with any type of content. Whenever you put yourself out on social or online, you're going to run into that potentially.

When you do, the more you do this, the more consistent you are showing up on camera and the more you're clear on your why and your goals, I think that you develop a thicker skin.

So don't give up just because of a few negative comments.

Michelle J Raymond: Absolutely. And what I've also found is the power of live streams. When you have them at a consistent time, when you have people coming in and they visit. They almost become the security guards and the bouncers and if someone acts out of line, they're first in line, shout out to Dan Roth.

I know if we're having this conversation and someone's in the comments and they are going at you or I, he's going to jump in there and he is going to put them in their place. That's the kind of thing that I love, is that the community starts to answer and support the community's questions.

And that takes some time to build. I'm not going to tell people [00:23:00] you go out, you do your first live. It's going to be amazing, but you go out there and you do your first one. And then a couple of years later, you end up You know, in a place where I can't even tell you, you had your reasons for starting live.

I was petrified about doing a five minute recorded video for a course I was meant to be studying and I couldn't do it. I couldn't talk for five minutes and no one believes that because I'm everywhere these days, YouTube videos, these kinds of live streams, but the fact is I couldn't find it in me to make a five minute recorded video that didn't even have an audience.

So the progress is something that is mind blowing, but you just have to get really uncomfortable on that first one. Cause it's bad. It doesn't feel nice. I'm not going to lie. The first one was terrifying in a funny kind of way.

Tanya Smith: Yeah.

Michelle J Raymond: It's only the pressure I put on myself more, not anyone else. And yeah, there's all kinds of funny stories along the way, but if we're going to talk about videos [00:24:00] that can help us sell our services and I, it doesn't matter really what kind of business you have, what kind of formats do you think help, like we both love LinkedIn lives or live streaming in general.

Is there anything else that you think can help people with this side of things?

Tanya Smith: To the question, let's see what kind of videos will help sell services. I think that I'm going to answer broadly first, and I'm going to say consistent. Don't ever expect that you're going to create any type of video, put it out there once and now it's just sold you $100,000.

 The thing is the key to video marketing, which is my area of focus is video marketing is that you sell because you're able to show up and connect with people consistently. They rely on you to come at the same time, same day, every week. This is why I do the live stream. They know that they're going to get value from your content.

They know that it's going to be something that's relevant to them and for them. And they know that you [00:25:00] have a stash of other services that can help them to even move further. So you're able to let people know that to me, mostly through the power of live streaming, but I'm also hearing from a lot of folks that you still need to start.

Okay. There's four things. I'll say this really quickly, Michelle. There's four parts of the video sales cycle, and these are the same parts that any of you knowing what a customer journey is. It's the same thing. Attract, bond, convert, delight. ABCD. Okay.

So your attraction phase might look like short videos because people don't know who you are. So they're not going to buy from you at that level. They're just going to be aware of you because of your shorts, your reels, your TikToks, your really short videos that are giving them just a dose, right?

The bonding phase is where you're actually starting to see them come back and watch more, consume more of your content. So maybe now they're showing up on your live [00:26:00] streams. They're regularly in your audience. They're regularly watching and commenting on your different social posts.

The convert phase is where you are, and this is where the gentleman who made the comment earlier, I think you mentioned in the post. This is where I think, I don't want to say it's wrong, but I don't understand why he would say do it in the dark, sell in the dark.

Because I feel like you have to say, Hey, I have this thing. I have this course, this program for sale. It's not going to be all the time. That's not all you're putting out there because you're putting out the content with the relevance and the value and all of that, but at some point you get to insert the idea that if you want more, come work with me here. So that's the conversion.

The delight phase videos. That's where I love to use video behind the scenes and do personalised greetings and videos that are welcoming people into my membership and videos that are giving my members updates. And so you can use videos at every point of the sales cycle, but the consistency is the answer.[00:27:00]

The only way you really, truly make money. I know a lot of people will tell you the myth of, Hey, I'm just gonna go on YouTube and I'm gonna go viral and now bam, I'm rich.

Michelle J Raymond: Yeah, sure.

Tanya Smith: You need to think through what am I doing at every point of that cycle and how am I creating video content that's gonna reach people at every point? That's how you sell.

Michelle J Raymond: Look, that is just brilliant. Again, there are things that I think as I was listening to you talk that I think when I've been making videos, they're particularly aimed at certain phases of the ABCD and maybe ignoring some of those others. So for me, I'm going to take away some homework myself from this episode, which I always love learning from experts like yourself about things that I can take back.

The joke is that I have these shows, so I get to talk to amazing people and everyone else can just listen in. But ultimately I was just listening to that thinking. If you make too much of any one kind of video, then you miss out on some of the other opportunities that might come from different styles and [00:28:00] different formats.

And, whilst I encourage people to play around and experiment, I think if we come back to consistency. For me, it probably comes back to planning, not spur of the moment. Oh, I'm going to make a video today. What will I make that video on? And deciding in that moment, rather than having a strategy, which I'm sure you help lots of clients with.

Now, I love to wrap up the show, Tanya, with one last opportunity for you to give our listeners an actionable tip that they could take away from this conversation. Now, I know that's a broad question and you could go anywhere. But if someone is looking to use video to grow their business, is there one last actionable tip you'd love to leave us with?

Tanya Smith: Gosh, you're right. I can say so many things. If I had to leave you and the audience with one thing, I think it would be not to give up on yourself, to stay encouraged. Look, when I first started doing live streaming, I made a personal commitment to do a weekly live for an [00:29:00] entire year.

So don't give yourself too short of a runway to work with video marketing. Cause if you do, you're not going to see the results immediately. You just typically I'll say most people won't see the results that quickly. It is about staying with it. It is about experimenting and changing paths when you need to and adjusting and tweaking, but stay with it and give yourself a long enough runway to see if it really can work for you.

Michelle J Raymond: I think that is kind of where I'm at going through with myself is I would say, give yourself the time. And I always spend a bit of time watching back these kinds of videos to see how I can improve things and you will be surprised that by spending a little bit of time watching replays of yourself, how quickly you can improve things just as much.

So I really love the give ourselves grace, I think is how I would sum up what you've said. It's so important. We can be so self critical when it comes to video. And [00:30:00] I don't think there's any need for it. No one's judging us as harsh as what we judge ourselves. So Tanya, I appreciate everything that you've shared today.

I want to go back and rewatch this one and grab a pen and paper so that I can take notes of all of the cool stuff that you shared. So I appreciate you sharing so generously and joining the show.

Tanya Smith: Thank you so much for having me. It was so much fun and I'm glad to be able to share.

Michelle J Raymond: Cheers.