The Edutainment Effect. From Laughter to Leads with Travis Tyler (Pandadoc)

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Michelle J Raymond: Welcome everybody to the LinkedIn for B2B Growth Show. I'm your host, Michelle J Raymond, and this week I'm joined by Travis Tyler, a k a Mr. Panda.

[00:00:09] Travis Tyler: What's up Michelle? It's so good to be here. Let's do this thing.

[00:00:13] Michelle J Raymond: I know. It is exciting because I've been watching along on your content and we got introduced by a mutual friend of ours, Chris Bogue, who I also had on the show because you know what?

[00:00:25] Michelle J Raymond: I've got a feeling that LinkedIn doesn't need to be boring. Do you have any thoughts on that?

[00:00:30] Travis Tyler: I think LinkedIn is the perfect place for the nerds in high school who never got the chance to be funny to give it a shot.

[00:00:40] Michelle J Raymond: This is your moment in the sun, but tell me something before we jump into all the formal questions.

[00:00:46] Michelle J Raymond: How did you get started on LinkedIn? What's your journey been like?

[00:00:50] Travis Tyler: I got started on LinkedIn about three years ago where I honestly just wanted people to watch my podcast and my audience was business people and my Instagram and Facebook were not cutting it because the people in those networks that I was connected to did not really have an interest in what I was talking about.

[00:01:10] Travis Tyler: So I leaned on people within my own company who already were tapping into the power of LinkedIn for a business professional social network.

[00:01:22] Michelle J Raymond: Love it. Now we're gonna be talking about the power of edutainment today. How would you define edutainment?

[00:01:29] Travis Tyler: Edutainment was actually something that's been around for a very long time, and I'm very passionate about it.

[00:01:36] Travis Tyler: So I'm gonna ramble here for a second. I apologize. But I think it will give your audience a great opportunity to learn about the history of where it comes from and that it's not something that I just made up or something I copied off of a TikToker from yesterday, but actually, if you go all the way back to colonial times, there was a pamphlet that Benjamin Franklin put together on how to be a good colonist here in the States.

[00:02:04] Travis Tyler: And he would put in games and riddles and puzzles, and he was trying to captivate his readers so they could learn about the boring stuff of how to be a good colonist, but at the same time, enjoy it and have fun. Now, if we bring it to a more recent era, one that we can actually relate to the first really coin the use of edutainment was Walt Disney.

[00:02:26] Travis Tyler: He created a video, you can look it up on YouTube. I'm brain farting on the name of it, but it has to do with Walt Disney put together a like 10 minute video on the importance of dental hygiene for children. And it was like a cartoon, and it was his first attempt at trying to, again, bridge the worlds of education and entertainment to captivate an audience and deliver a complex subject or a boring subject and deliver it to people and actually get their interest.

[00:02:57] Travis Tyler: We bring it even more to today's world. I grew up on Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers neighborhood. I grew up on Barney. We've got Teletubbies, we've got all sorts of shows now, but the idea is nothing new. It's bridging education and entertainment so that we can take complex ideas and we can make them approachable and fun to learn about.

[00:03:19] Michelle J Raymond: Look, I also grew up on Sesame Street and it's just one of those things that I was, having a chat to someone from LinkedIn recently from the B2B Institute and they were saying it's like having those characters actually we're drawn to one and that hooks us in week after week. We keep coming back for more and I think that's the thing that brands on LinkedIn, are going to start exploring, and you've done this amazingly, which we will talk about in some more detail.

[00:03:45] Michelle J Raymond: For those of you who may not have come across your content, tell us about PandaDoc. Tell us about the whole Panda thing. I've been sitting here thinking one day you're sitting at work and you've gotta come up with some content and you think it's a great idea to go buy a panda suit and you're gonna explain that to a boss somewhere higher up that no, stick with me, this is a good idea. Tell me about how that all played out.

[00:04:07] Travis Tyler: Absolutely. So I'm lucky to work for an organisation that understands the value of edutainment. Again, we are trying to differentiate our brand. When you look at disruptors in different industries. Our name is Panda Doc.

[00:04:22] Travis Tyler: It's not like it's, sign this doc or, something super like intense and corporatey. It's a fun, playful brand and one of our core values as an organisation literally is fun. And so I was like, I'm going to bring this into the content because I am trying to get people to stop their scroll and I want to have them stay for the lessons and the learnings that I'm trying to deliver them.

[00:04:46] Travis Tyler: So yeah, it was literally one day, Hey Travis, stop writing that boring e-book that no one's reading and let's get you in front of the camera. And so the way it really started was I had a VP of marketing who just had the foresight to say Hey man, have you ever done anything on camera before?

[00:05:01] Travis Tyler: I said no, but I do improv comedy at a local theater in Tampa Bay, Florida, and I've been doing it for a couple of years. So I do have some comedy training under my belt and let's give this thing a shot, right? And I bought a panda onesie off of Amazon for like 25 bucks, and I just started incorporating into our videos and the response was great.

[00:05:23] Travis Tyler: So I was like, you know what? When you find something that works, let's just double down on it.

[00:05:26] Michelle J Raymond: And it does work. Because whilst I came across you through someone else, yes, I kept watching because again, it's not the same as everything else that I see. Now, I have since even become a customer of PandaDoc and they're not sponsoring this episode.

[00:05:42] Michelle J Raymond: But it did work, right? What you did caught my attention. And so when I was Googling, I'm looking for a proposal software that I need, signing, paying, all those kind of things. All I kept thinking of was Travis and his panda suit. I couldn't get it outta my mind, so it had to be in the list.

[00:05:59] Michelle J Raymond: Now, as it turns out, it's great product, but, it would never have been top of mind for me if it wasn't for what you'd been doing. I've shared this with you previously, and even to the point where the salesperson that I was on the call with, she was like, Oh my God, I can't wait to tell him.

[00:06:14] Michelle J Raymond: And I was like, this is true. This is how I ended up having a sales call with someone buying a product. That all came from what on appearances looks like something silly, but in the reality, you caught my attention long enough to deliver how good this product was, which is what I love. And I'm all here for business growth.

[00:06:35] Michelle J Raymond: Everything I do on LinkedIn and every way I try and help other people is about business growth. So let's start with one thing, cause you mentioned scroll stopping and this feed moves at a million miles an hour and people are just mindlessly scrolling. Tell us, in all of your time, creating content, do you think that there's a formula to stop people from scrolling?

[00:06:57] Travis Tyler: Absolutely. It's been studied, it's been proven. All you have to do is step outside of the platforms that maybe you're not spending time on. And what I mean by that is TikTok. A lot of people in my demographic, in my age group, they don't go on TikTok. They still think even though it's been three and a half years since it's really taken off, that it's for teenagers who are dancing.

[00:07:18] Travis Tyler: Sorry, my content's gonna keep rocking on LinkedIn because you are not on there and it's because there is a formula for how to stop the scroll and it comes with a hook within the first three seconds of your video. You need to have something that is abrupt, emotional and creates curiosity. And one of the popular ones that might be played out, right?

[00:07:39] Travis Tyler: Like it's always about experimenting and maybe trying something to see does it work, does it have an impact? Is it effective for my videos? Is the knowledge gap hook. And I didn't create this, I borrowed it from other people who really started doing it effectively on, on TikTok. But the idea is that you are going to reveal a piece of knowledge that the audience or the viewer doesn't know right now, but they could know by the end of your video.

[00:08:05] Travis Tyler: And so I'll give you three quick examples of that. One is, here's an easy hack for, blank. Another one could be, I wish I knew this sooner. Or life changing tips for blank. And again, I know it's corny, but it works. And I know people might be like, oh, I don't wanna do that, that's too Click baity.

[00:08:24] Travis Tyler: Experiment. Try it. Try it your way. See what works, see what doesn't. There are also a couple of other tips I have for people, which is you can try a hook that is more visual, so maybe you start out with something that doesn't have a human in it. Or maybe it's just you, for example, shredding a document in a shredder and it's like says something like my wedding vows or something like, whoa, what, why is he shredding it? And all of a sudden you've hooked somebody in the first three seconds.

[00:08:52] Travis Tyler: You can also do this with audio. You can have some sort of maybe a trending audio clip playing. I like to play around with those. I don't like to have all of my videos be trending audio. It's the ones that truly bring me joy that I recreate.

[00:09:04] Travis Tyler: So that would be my other kind of scroll stopping formula is, If you have any comedic training, trust that gut instinct you've built up over the years. If you don't have any comedic training, that's okay too, but I do recommend you at least go take a drop in improv comedy course. They're usually really cheap and affordable.

[00:09:23] Travis Tyler: You can find 'em in most metropolitan areas. Just literally Google improv comedy class near me and you will not be disappointed in how this can help you with Edutainment, content and content on LinkedIn. Shout out Chris Bogue. I know he'll be proud of me for making people want to do that.

[00:09:38] Michelle J Raymond: He will absolutely be proud of you for that.

[00:09:41] Michelle J Raymond: And I think one of the things that people don't realise is that just how hard it is to get such a good message across in 30 seconds, maybe 60 seconds. It's really hard. And one of the things I took away from my conversation with Chris is how much he plans those videos whilst we talk about improv.

[00:10:00] Michelle J Raymond: It's not like he just shows up on camera. And just starts talking. He's got every scene planned. He's, got the shots planned. He runs it via a spreadsheet. So humour via a spreadsheet is what I learned from him. Now, as someone that doesn't like to plan things, I found that really challenging, but then I could see why his, content is like next level when it comes to his videos.

[00:10:23] Michelle J Raymond: And so yeah, it was one of those kind of things. I was like, what do you mean you're doing this by a spreadsheet? Like it was like, Oh no, the shiny, I can't just rock up and this thing will happen by magic. So I think there's a tip in there to plan these things out and have a look to other creators and just see what works for them. There's formulas, absolutely.

[00:10:43] Michelle J Raymond: Okay, so we've stopped the scroll. But why short form video? What is making short form video so powerful for business? I get it for the teenage dancers. I get that. I understand that. I have a niece that, showed me the ins and outs of TikTok back in the beginning, and I was like I don't think that's for me, but tell me why short form, why video, why now?

[00:11:05] Travis Tyler: It's pretty simple psychology. Short form video, especially in the business world, is a complete pattern disruption, and we're gonna ride that wave for as long as it is a pattern disruptor. And what I mean by a pattern disruptor is it's a commonly used technique in sales where sometimes to throw somebody off and disarm them, you will present them with something where when everyone goes left, You go, right?

[00:11:29] Travis Tyler: Or vice versa. So it's the idea that people are used to, when they pick up a telemarketing call or a sales call, they're used to hearing the same old thing. Hi, would you have some time to hear about my thing? And instead you throw something completely out of left field or right field or whatever field, and you say, Something that's so different from what they're seeing.

[00:11:48] Travis Tyler: And so if what you're scrolling through on your LinkedIn feed is some out of touch C-level executives spouting something that they generated from some sort of AI chat bot that's not relevant to this individual, when they see somebody dressed up in a panda suit dancing in their front yard. They might be like, okay, what is going on here?

[00:12:11] Travis Tyler: And so I'm not necessarily saying oh, everybody needs to go do something outlandish. But having something that is going to hook people in those first three seconds is great. But truly just having a vertical video or a square video on LinkedIn is a great place to start because you're not seeing it on every single post.

[00:12:31] Travis Tyler: Now this was easier maybe two years ago than it is today, but still, it is an undertapped and underserved form of content.

[00:12:38] Michelle J Raymond: In B2B especially, I don't think anybody's prepared to put themselves out there and take that risk. Now, I can't work out whether that sits with the individual fears. When we wrote the LinkedIn Branding Book, we did a whole chapter on mindset because we established that there's about 30 fears when it came to creating content that people were gonna be blocked by.

[00:12:59] Michelle J Raymond: Now, do you think it sits more with the individual fears? Or does the corporate culture also have a part to play in this? Because a lot of the concerns that I get when I work with clients when we are doing training is that's all well and good. Sure it's great for Travis, his boss lets him wear the panda suit and be funny, but insert my boss, my marketing manager, my sales manager. If I take that to them, they don't even know what this LinkedIn thing is.

[00:13:25] Michelle J Raymond: What's your message for those kind of managers out there?

[00:13:28] Travis Tyler: I would say that at the end of the day, you're trying to do two things. You are trying to create brand recognition and affinity. Just like we said before, you were looking for a solution and one kept recalling back into your brain, which was the one where the guy was dancing in a panda suit.

[00:13:45] Travis Tyler: So this is nothing new, right? So people and marketers have been doing this for years and years. So for the folks who are like we are a serious brand. Okay, that's fine. There are other ways to do disruptive short form content, and that can be on just being able to have a face and a name that you connect to a brand.

[00:14:06] Travis Tyler: So at the end of the day, that is great recognition and much easier to do than being silly or funny. You can be insightful, you can be helpful, you can be a lot of other forms of emotional content for people, and you can use that content as well for repurposed advertising or paid content. And that's exactly what a lot of brands are doing.

[00:14:30] Travis Tyler: The secret is Hey, just get somebody in your team who's well spoken, who can get good on camera, and then have them do a q and a with you, and turn those short, 30 second clips of gold nuggets into content that you can boost on LinkedIn. Get some impressions, drive it to a landing page with a free offer.

[00:14:49] Travis Tyler: Boom, you've got some cool scroll stopping entertainment content right there.

[00:14:54] Michelle J Raymond: I think as soon as you are able to connect an email address that you normally deal with, or possibly a name that you see on a screen to an actual physical person, I say it's like the Wizard of Oz. We wanna see who's behind the curtain, like who is that person?

[00:15:08] Michelle J Raymond: What do they sound like? If I had a dollar for every time somebody said to me, Michelle, I love listening to your voice. Now, if you'd asked me three years ago, and there's lots of content I've created around this, I hate my voice. The fact that I have two podcasts now is astounding, and the YouTube channel that people comment on that.

[00:15:28] Michelle J Raymond: And I think the thing that we think people are gonna judge us on sometimes turns out to be the thing that they love about us. So we're our own worst critics and I think get in the way of things.

[00:15:38] Michelle J Raymond: But no matter who I work with, and they always number one question, what's the best form of content on a Company Page? Number one question, hands down. And the answer is, grab your phone, take me a photo or do a video. I don't care what you're doing, I just wanna see your face. I wanna feel energy from you. I wanna get that vibe, and I think that's a word that probably gets a little overused around the place, but at the same time, it is that we're making those judgements in that instant. Who is this person?

[00:16:09] Michelle J Raymond: And I think I've been successful on LinkedIn just because I came from the beauty industry nine years ago. I was selling chemicals, raw materials and ingredients that go into haircare and skincare. The things you can't pronounce on the back of your shampoo bottle. And nine years ago they didn't even have websites. That's why I started on LinkedIn. It was literally just so I could share what we sold. Cause there was 80 customers, 10,000 ingredients and the maths didn't add up in Sydney traffic for me to go around and knock on people's doors and say, "Buy my stuff." And so LinkedIn just became a way for me to, at that time, promote what we did.

[00:16:45] Michelle J Raymond: But then I realised no one else is doing this. Now I don't have a chemistry background, so I could never compete on sales with the technical knowledge. Still can't. I spent six years being an amazing salesperson in that industry without knowing a thing about what was going on. But what I was offering was value, and insights and trends and everything I found on the internet I brought together.

[00:17:07] Michelle J Raymond: And then all of a sudden had this global attention and an amazing community, which brought so many other opportunities. And of course increased sales. Because I'm a salesperson at heart, forgive me for that. I come from the dark side, but it was one of those things when I unlocked the power of attention, I've never looked back.

[00:17:26] Michelle J Raymond: And some may say it's gone to the, I'm an attention whore yeah. Maybe that's what's going on here these days.

[00:17:32] Michelle J Raymond: I'm gonna go to, I always do my research, and one of the things I came across was one of your podcasts on YouTube. Now, On the record many times that I don't listen to podcasts. They put me to sleep. No offence to anybody that has podcasts or listens to mine, but it's just not the way I learn. So when I came across yours to do the research, I was expecting to watch it for about a minute or two, and then I ended up watching the whole lot because you just captured my attention.

[00:17:57] Michelle J Raymond: And I have shared this with you because I didn't wanna watch it all. I'm not gonna lie, I was like, I don't have, an hour to sit here and watch this, but I did because there was so much in it for me. But I'm gonna ask you one of the questions that you asked the guests that you were interviewing, why funny content as opposed to emotional content when it comes to getting attention?

[00:18:17] Michelle J Raymond: What we're trying to do for business growth now do you have a preference or is there a place for both or is it just, funny works?

[00:18:27] Travis Tyler: First of all, I just wanna say woo because that's my, I pour so much emotional energy and professional energy into my podcast, so thank you Michelle, for like sharing that with me.

[00:18:41] Travis Tyler: The nicest thing you can do for anybody who's a content creator, for anyone that's listening to this, is just a simple message. Could be five words. Of Hey, listen to this episode. Loved it. Like you have no idea how much that keeps us going, so thank you.

[00:18:59] Michelle J Raymond:

[00:18:59] Michelle J Raymond: I

[00:18:59] Michelle J Raymond: get it. People think that this comes together by magic. , it's just half an hour. I just get to have a chat with cool people and I mean,

[00:19:06] Michelle J Raymond: that's my premise for the show. I get to chat with cool people and let everybody else listen in. That's, how I like to do this, but I realized.

[00:19:14] Michelle J Raymond: How many different phases you have within that time slot? To keep my attention, get value, bring my attention back, give me more value. Keep me staying around for more, cause I know something else is coming. The production value alone, I was like sitting there, I was a bit jealous. I've gotta say I'm not gonna lie, I was just, I'm jealous.

[00:19:34] Michelle J Raymond: But I was like, no, I'll tell him it's great. But on the inside I'm like, one day when I grow up, I'm gonna have a podcast like Travis. That day's, not today,

[00:19:43] Travis Tyler: You have a much nicer voice than I do. Mine is like whiny and nasally and.

[00:19:47] Travis Tyler: Okay. So I win.

[00:19:48] Travis Tyler: Very ridiculous laugh. You have a lovely. Lovely voice.

[00:19:53] Michelle J Raymond: So the scoreboard is one all. I've got the nice voice, you've got the great production. Let's keep going. This is competition.

[00:20:01] Travis Tyler: But to get back to your question of is funny content more effective than emotional content for business growth? For me, yes. But that's not the case for everyone.

[00:20:11] Travis Tyler: I think the most important thing you can get from this is wherever you're best at telling a story, wherever you are most relatable, and you can help your audience either see a version of themselves that they can relate to or a version of themselves that they wish they could be. And if you can do that, whether it's funny, scary, sad, whatever, that's how you do it. It's through storytelling.

[00:20:35] Travis Tyler: It's going back to the, what I mentioned at the very top of this, which is with a knowledge gap hook, and so you create a story arc within your short form content. There are some incredible creators on TikTok um, who nail this every time. They, They can capture my attention on an app where it's so hard to get more than 15 seconds in. cause you just want that next serotonin boost or hit as you're scrolling. But yeah, for me, funny storytelling works and it's because it's part of my personality and that's that sounds like weird and icky, but it's also what I've trained in for the last five years of getting up on stage and performing and learning the rules of improv comedy. If you are a better storyteller, through mystery. Mystery is a fantastic opportunity again, to create and build tension and curiosities so that people will wait till the end and get to it.

[00:21:29] Travis Tyler: That's what we love in our content outside of the business world, so it should 100% make sense that it would also captivate us in the business world.

[00:21:38] Michelle J Raymond: I think there's a point that you raised there. When I'm working with some clients, one of the things that gets in their way, which I think you've just highlighted, is they try and be a LinkedIn version of themselves.

[00:21:51] Michelle J Raymond: Who they think they should be on the platform, or a TikTok version or a Instagram. It doesn't matter. Pick your platform does not matter. But as soon as they try and be something that they're not, then it becomes a chore. Falls down the priority list, they end up not actually wanting to do it cause it is just like this burden to create content.

[00:22:09] Michelle J Raymond: But the moment they embrace themselves, my words for that is your digital twin. I don't want a different version of you. Whether you are the most knowledgeable, whether you are the driest, whether you are gruff, I don't care what the thing is. But just be you and I, I love that you've embraced you and what your strengths are, cause I'm sure that there was probably a moment where you were trying to do the corporate version of you and didn't feel so great.

[00:22:33] Travis Tyler: Nailed it. Absolutely. And every once in a while I'm multifaceted, I'm not just a, I'm Mr. Funny man. Like I, I am a human being. Just like all of, hopefully everyone else listening, but I have many phases and characteristics to myself. I can be serious. I can be emotional, I can be mysterious.

[00:22:53] Travis Tyler: I can be gruff. But. I also can be funny and so I lean into what works, but I certainly do post content in a way that's not always crusty the clown out here, like honk honk. Like I am doing other stuff as well, so I try to keep it well rounded and I just try to write stuff that I think is interesting.

[00:23:13] Travis Tyler: And if it lands, not all my stuff lands and that's okay. It's constant iterations and experiments and that's the mindset you need to go in. Uh, Going back to like, if you've got a manager, it's listen, Marketing is just as much of a science as it is in art. And so we're going to experiment and put on our little, you know, lab coats and, and goggles and experiment here and see what works.

[00:23:34] Travis Tyler: And then as soon as we find something that works, let's iterate on it. Let's just change just a little bit of something and test it again. And that's, that's what I would recommend for people.

[00:23:44] Michelle J Raymond: So there'll be some marketers that are listening in that come from a product marketing background similar to yourself. What's the difference between the content you're creating for your product versus your content that you're creating for social?

[00:23:57] Travis Tyler: That is a really awesome differentiation that I think a lot of people get lost on is they're like I want to do, you know, the funny stuff. I actually don't necessarily think that your product videos should always be super like user generated content or low production. I think actually product videos are where it does deserve some budget. It does deserve a little bit of higher production in terms of let's get like a professional agency to help us film in 4K from multiple camera angles.

[00:24:26] Travis Tyler: Product videos are going to live in the world, in my opinion, of searchable content. Now, yes, you can create product focused videos in an attempt to be scroll stopping. I do that occasionally, but I think where the real money maker is for somebody to get the budget to do this is to say Hey. We already have a blog, right?

[00:24:52] Travis Tyler: Yes, we do. We've had a blog for a number of years. We've had a number of, thousands of dollars poured into SEO to make sure that we're, sh, you know, ranking for these key terms. Great. Let's take a look through Google Data Studio, Google Analytics, whatever you're using, and figure out what are our highest converting blog articles.

[00:25:08] Travis Tyler: What are the highest visited, you know, in terms of just pure traffic uh, search organic. Let's create those into product style videos and let's show the product and answer the question that these people are, querying in their search. So an example of that would be our number one ranked blog article is how to write a business proposal.

[00:25:32] Travis Tyler: It's not sexy. It's the most boring topic

[00:25:35] Michelle J Raymond: ever until you don't know how to do it like me when I was setting out on my business. And then it is the most important topic in the world.

[00:25:44] Travis Tyler: Exactly. So when it comes to creating product videos, a great tool that you can use is called VidIQ. It's what I use and there is a free version.

[00:25:52] Travis Tyler: You don't have to necessarily pay for it. But you're basically using a tool to tap into the world's second largest search engine, which is YouTube, and this is where that specialty comes in. And it's just as important as to how you lay out the video and how you show the product to what you put in your thumbnail.

[00:26:09] Travis Tyler: People often do the video and then do the thumbnail. Second, I'm gonna steal this idea from my good friend, Will Aiken over at Lavender build your thumbnail in mind first? Because 50% of our most visited videos on the Pandadoc YouTube channel. 50% of the traffic is from a YouTube recommendation.

[00:26:29] Travis Tyler: And it all has to do with okay, people are clicking this. Why? Because of the thumbnail, because of the title and there's other factors that go into it, how you keyword it, how you tag, what tags you put in your video. What, how you break out your chapters uh, with like the number signs in your description.

[00:26:45] Travis Tyler: There's a whole checklist that VidIQ gives you, but product videos, Is where you can drive traffic from YouTube to your website and build that trust and do a walkthrough. That doesn't mean to be that funny. Guys, the walkthroughs that I write sometimes of a demonstration of how to use Pandadoc they're not silly because I'm trying to teach somebody something.

[00:27:06] Travis Tyler: Yeah, maybe we snap into a panda suit, we snap back out of it. Okay, that's great. But when it comes to product videos, you have to think about your searchers. When you're creating your social content, I'm gonna steal this one from my good friend Justin Simon, if you're not following Justin Simon on LinkedIn, give him a give him a follow.

[00:27:23] Travis Tyler: You're creating your content for your scrollers, exactly what we've just been talking about. They're two different audiences. And when you sit down to write a script or come up with a concept or a key word title, think about those two categories, which one's this for, because your best performing scrolling content is not gonna be your best performing searching content and vice versa.

[00:27:43] Michelle J Raymond: For me, they sit in one's about me knowing you exist and one's, how the heck do I use this? It really is that simple. And I don't need to be entertained while I'm trying to concentrate on, click here, do this, click on that. Oh, not that I don't need any distractions while I'm trying to learn something.

[00:28:00] Michelle J Raymond: Correct. So I think there's a time and a place for everything, like you said. And I love the idea of. Mixing up things, trying different things, experimenting. These are all things that I think creators are scared of doing and I'm on a mission to try and change that on the platform that if someone will create their first video, I don't care what it is.

[00:28:21] Michelle J Raymond: I shared my first one that I did recently with people cause they see how I am now. They think it magically, I'm genetically blessed that I turned up and I started talking on camera and without an issue, they forget that there's a course sitting in my cupboard just here, and I've shared it a million times that I threw the whole course away because I had to do a five minute intro video.

[00:28:42] Michelle J Raymond: I didn't get here because I didn't start somewhere. Oh. And it's just a consequence of doing weekly shows, often, many more times watching them back, trying to get better. But tell me about one other thing when it comes to creating content, which I found really interesting that you recently shared about, how do you go around getting information from other teams, building relationships with other teams to make your marketing better because. Does it just belong with marketing anymore? Can we get over that? Can we just like scrub that content is just not marketing's wheelhouse anymore.

[00:29:20] Travis Tyler: Absolutely. I'm all for that. I will start a petition on change.org and we will get that going. Michelle? Yes.

[00:29:27] Michelle J Raymond: Okay. We're even now it's it's two all.

[00:29:30] Travis Tyler: Don't worry, when you come back towards the end, you'll come out the winner on this. I guarantee you.

[00:29:35] Michelle J Raymond: It's my show. Of course.

[00:29:36] Travis Tyler: And yep, it is. You can like, this guy's done.

[00:29:39] Michelle J Raymond: Wow. Cut that bit out. He's gone.

[00:29:42] Travis Tyler: So my process for making better content is in terms of like when I want to build relationships or like how do I get other people involved in the content creation process? It's twofold.

[00:29:55] Travis Tyler: I'm gonna take it back to what we were just talking about, which is when I create product content, there are people within my organization who know the product better than me. And I'm gonna lean on them, and I'm gonna lean naturally towards the people who I get along with or who are just nicer.

[00:30:11] Travis Tyler: But I'm also gonna lean on the people who have some sway within the organization, right? They've proven themselves to be directly, attributing to revenue. And so they've got a little bit more pull in the organization. So when I'm creating a funny video or I'm creating a video with them, it's got a little more legitimacy than just some guy going rogue. And I'll get together with product marketing and I'll get together with Demand Gen.

[00:30:33] Travis Tyler: I'll also get together with sales enablement or training and get all these heads together and we'll do a Zoom call and I'll say, here's the idea. Any other ideas? And I do this quarterly and I say, here's what we're focused on. Here's what we're thinking about. Here are the videos that we think will drive money and revenue for us.

[00:30:51] Travis Tyler: And then any other ideas. We just do a brainstorming session. There's no bad ideas. On the zoom call, I'm sharing the doc and people can see what I'm typing. And then we just let it sit, we let it marinade, and then I come back to it with my team on the content team and we discern, okay, what are our priorities for this quarter?

[00:31:08] Travis Tyler: What are we focusing on for this year? And which ideas do we like the most? And we go back and forth to it. But ultimately for when it comes to product videos, we're looking for video content that's going to drive incremental value for existing customers. That's a great way to get a win is, for example, in Pandadoc, there's a number of ways where people might start out with a personal, individual plan, but then maybe they won't. They're like thinking about what could I get if I upgrade to the next tier? What am I missing? What are they gatekeeping, from me? And so we'll create a series of videos of Hey, if automated, reminders or renewal reminders is an absolute must have for you when it comes to your proposals and contracts.

[00:31:52] Travis Tyler: We're gonna create a thirty second video that goes inside the Pandadoc app where when someone clicks on that thing, they're gonna see a video pop up that's Hey, if you're interested in checking out automated reminders, you should do this. And here's how it works, and blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's a real slick.

[00:32:07] Travis Tyler: And then, and it's it's available on this tiered plan. If you'd like to upgrade, let us know. So that's one great way to tie yourself to revenue with a product video and be able to track that video content. And work with other teams on the product team, on the enablement team. And there's that. There's another side of the house when it comes to social content where this is an area that's a little bit more nuanced.

[00:32:31] Travis Tyler: You can't necessarily force peop, I mean, you can, but it's not good. You can't force people to post content on social. Just, it's never gonna work. It's gross. Doesn't feel good for the people who are asking you to post and for the people who are giving like, begrudgingly posting. So what I did is I just started befriending a lot of people across the org on Instagram, and I would just see who's already making fun videos.

[00:32:57] Travis Tyler: And we have 850 employees at Pandadoc. I know everyone listening is like, it's just me. Or it's like me and six people. That's fine. But if you can find people on where on like native applications and social media platforms where they're already like engaging naturally and they're posting photos or posting videos, and then you find those people who are already like good at it and be like, Hey, do you wanna come be part of like my Creator's club? It's totally voluntarily volunteer. I just need one video a month from you. I'll script it out, I'll help you record it. I'll do all the editing. I just want other faces besides my own. And that's how we've done it.

[00:33:34] Travis Tyler: And we've built in a vertical video creator Slack channel where it's me and about eight other people at Pandadoc. And I just found them posting funny stuff on Pandadoc uh, like through videos they were doing for work or on their own personal Instagram.

[00:33:48] Michelle J Raymond: It's amazing when I've done training with corporate clients and everyone's sitting there, no one's posting on LinkedIn, and then eventually you uncover that somebody's got a YouTube channel that is absolutely thriving or they're really great at creating reels and all these other platforms, but LinkedIn seems like it's the scary platform out of all of them. I'm not going out there because I'm gonna get judged professionally and what if I lose my job? And whole bunch of other things coming into play. So I love that you found a way to nudge them across, to create some content with you as well.

[00:34:18] Michelle J Raymond: I wanna wrap this up because I want to talk to you all day and I won't, and I'll lose a point. And I don't wanna lose this competition that we are unofficially having in this episode. And I'm fiercely competitive, right? So I'm prepared to give you one point, what is the best tip that you could give someone out there that is thinking to themselves, yeah, funny's good for Travis, but not me. What would you say to encourage them to get them to just give it a go.

[00:34:44] Travis Tyler: Find your zone of genius. And the way you do that is pick four or five people that are very close to you, and go and ask them, what do you come to me for advice for? And you will very quickly find what it is people think you are very smart at.

[00:35:03] Travis Tyler: And there that perception is gold. That is so valuable. And use that to then create your content because if the people in your life that are closest to you are like, yeah, I look to Michelle because she knows skincare. Which by the way, you have great skin um, point for Travis.

[00:35:23] Michelle J Raymond: I don't look a day over 70. Do I right?

[00:35:26] Travis Tyler: No, but you really do have great skin and great hair anyway.

[00:35:30] Michelle J Raymond: Thank you.

[00:35:31] Travis Tyler: Find your zone of genius by tapping the people around you. And it doesn't necessarily need to be funny. When I asked my wife what is it that she's like, what? I was like, what do you come to me for?

[00:35:41] Travis Tyler: And she was like, you know a lot about meditation and I'm like, what? She's like, yeah, you do a lot of meditation, you do a lot of, you read a lot of self-help. You've studied a lot of Eastern philosophy and Buddhism, and so if I have a question about that kind of stuff, I go to you and I'm like, I had no idea.

[00:35:57] Travis Tyler: So you'll be really surprised and you can use that to fuel your content creation. I'm not saying oh, go create videos on exactly that thing, but you might get that subject of skincare or beauty care. And what does that make you think of? And then what does that make you think of and how does that format of delivery bring you back to that expertise?

[00:36:18] Travis Tyler: And it's a, it's an improv technique. If I get an, if I get a suggestion from an audience member and say, all gimme a, a location for this next scene audience, then an improv scene right now. And somebody says, elevator, I'm not gonna just do a scene in an elevator. That's boring. That's too easy.

[00:36:33] Travis Tyler: What does an elevator make me think of? An elevator makes me think of. Bo makes me think of deodorant. Now I'm doing a scene on deodorant, and so you can take that same concept with your zone of genius and you can create content that you are really good at, that your perspective is where people come for your insights from.

[00:36:53] Michelle J Raymond: I love it. And I'd only add to that, for those of you who sit there, listen to that and go, I don't have a zone of genius. Cut it out. Enough is enough. It's 2023. You do have a zone of genius and we want to hear your voice and Travis has given us so many great tips throughout this. If you are not following him on LinkedIn, I'm gonna put his LinkedIn profile details in the show and you are gonna go across and you're gonna ring the bell into top right hand corner underneath the banner and stay up to date because this guy is not just funny, he is smart as well and you will always learn.

[00:37:25] Michelle J Raymond: So Travis, I'm gonna just do, you know, okay, it's even, it's a tie because I want you to maybe come back again in the future like, is that how this thing works out?

[00:37:35] Travis Tyler: Don't make me fly. I'll come find you, Michelle.

[00:37:39] Michelle J Raymond: Exactly. I know where you are. I will hunt you down to the other side of the world. So Florida's on my my next step if I don't go to Florida and see Michelle Griffin, she will hunt me down too. So there'll be two of you coming up.

[00:37:52] Travis Tyler: Florida's a mess right now, but anyway.

[00:37:54] Michelle J Raymond: Yeah, I think you should come visit me. I think Sydney's, that's better. I think you should come this way. Much safer. But Travis I, I appreciate everything that you've shared today. I have learnt I've enjoyed this more importantly and yeah I think I just appreciate you for giving people other ideas on how they can go around something that, maybe they're thinking about trying and maybe it just nudges them across that line and gets them out there.

[00:38:18] Michelle J Raymond: That's what I'm all about. I think that's how you help people grow their businesses. So I appreciate everything that you've shared today.

[00:38:25] Travis Tyler: It was so phenomenal being on here. I love talking about edutainment. I am studying research papers from published journals, articles on entertainment pedagogy on the weekly.

[00:38:37] Travis Tyler: I'm such nerd about it. So if any of your listeners are wanting to dive deeper or you want to do a follow up episode Maybe where we're doing hand puppets like Mr. Rogers style. Let's do it, Michelle.

[00:38:47] Michelle J Raymond: I think we need to, I've gotta bring some of my funny side out. It is in there. I do appreciate having fun.

[00:38:54] Michelle J Raymond: I think myself, I have a lesson in this. To have a go, put it out there. Because yeah I think there's just another way to connect with people and, that's my favorite part about LinkedIn. So for everybody that's listened in, we hope that you now understand the power of edutainment. I certainly do.

[00:39:11] Michelle J Raymond: And I can't wait for everybody to reach out and connect with us. Let us know that you listened and that you enjoyed, keep our batteries charged because it does make a difference. So on that note, I'm gonna wrap things up, but thank you everybody. Cheers. Thanks Michelle. Bye.