Video - Not Just for Marketing: How to use Video to Effectively Grow Your Business | Interview with Raymond Tuquero

Video can be used to communicate with your customers, your staff, and even improve your sales processes. 

This week I sat down with Raymond Tuquero - filmmaker, videographer and the owner of Creative Crunch Productions to discuss how to effectively use video to grow your business.

We had a wide ranging conversation that included Raymond sharing insights on:

• Why an effective strategy is critical to successfully using video
• Common mistakes people make when using video in their business
• How to pick the best video production company for your unique business need

We had a lot of fun, and I learned a lot from Raymond. I hope you will get as much out this conversation as I did!

We’re always looking to bring you great content - please leave us a comment if this has been a valuable interview for you.


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Transcript

Dan  00:00
Hi everybody, Dan Holstein here, helping your business take flight.  And today, I'm going to be interviewing Raymond Tuquero, from Creative Crunch Productions.

And Raymond is a videographer and cinematographer, and I'm really excited to be talking with Raymond today, because we're going to be learning about how to use videos strategically for your business, things to avoid when you're using video, and also, how to pick the best production company for your unique business situation, so stick around. 

Dan  00:29
Raymond, awesome to see you, welcome. 

Raymond  00:32
Hey Dan, thanks for having me on here.  It's a lot of fun to chit chat this way.

Dan 00:36
Absolutely, well, I'm really looking forward to our chat because I know we're going to learn a lot from you.

So why don't you just tell us a little bit about what you do and who you serve?

Raymond  00:46
I run a video production company, Creative Crunch Productions, and I basically serve a lot of businesses who are, I like to be B2B, work with businesses to create content that can be more engaging to their target audience, and enhancing that communication through video, with their audience.

Dan  01:03
Fantastic.  And now, something interesting that I think separates you from a lot of videographers is that you're also a filmmaker.  You're a cinematographer.  So tell us a little bit about that.  I think that's really interesting.

Raymond  01:12
Yeah, for sure.  Yeah, so there's a lot of people who do video, and cinematography is another side of that video.  It's another angle that people do.  And you probably see a lot of people who film different things.  So the really big difference between a videographer and a cinematographer, there is a difference there for people to understand.

So let me help you guys figure this out.  On the video side, when you're a videographer, you basically walk into a location.  Let's say if you're doing a big meeting conference and if you'd have the conference going on and you're talking to a bunch of people at the conference, it's going to happen regardless if you have a video person there.  And so the videographer would come and just capture the conference, capture anything that's happening, capture the people talking, getting engagement, and of course records the person up front.

The cinematographer person, if you were to do the same kind of conference, but you were engaging people beyond the room and really talking about a product and showcasing it, and you talk with somebody like myself, a professional video person, who can talk about, "What are ways that we can create content that people will be engaged even after they've either not been to the conference or whatever, or even in the conference where you watch it and reconnect with it? 

So the conference wouldn't happen without the videographer person, who's a cinema person, cinematographer to help make sure that that all makes that connection.

Dan  02:20
So that's cool.  What I'm hearing is that the difference is a videographer is going to show up and capture what's going to happen anyway, but a cinematographer has a part to play strategically in the process of what's going to be captured, how things are all set up.

Raymond  02:33
Exactly, exactly.  The cinematographer will be there, be with you at the beginning stages, prior to even doing your filming part.  

So they sit down and strategize a preplan idea of what exactly you're going to be talking about.   So that way you can make sure that you really convey all of that stuff through video.

Dan  02:48
It makes a lot of sense.  So the videography side a little bit more tactical, cinematography side a little bit more strategic.  And I imagine you bring that together when you're taking some of that cinematic skillset and attribute to the video that you do.

Raymond  03:00
Yeah.  It's fun to take the information I get from the film industry side.  When you watch a film, it looks very different than if you are watching, let's say the news, the two different variable sides of video.  

When you're watching the news it's very clean, it's very cut, and it's very, very simple.  And when you watch the news when someone's outside and you interview whoever, that's basically just capturing what's going on around you.

When you're on a cinematic side, that you can see how pretty the lighting is, everything looks very smooth, it has a very different view to it.  And if you want your films that are going to be engaging even more to whatever service or clients you're going after with your products, it just kind of helps to really highlight that service or product that you actually have through a cinematic view.

Dan  03:41
That's interesting.  So it's creating an environment or that feeling, that experience that the business owner wants to convey about their product or their service as well.

Raymond  03:51
Exactly.

Dan  03:52
That is cool.  So how did you get into video in the first place and filmmaking as well?

Raymond  03:57
You know, a funny note, I actually, I went to school first to be an engineer, so that didn't go as far, I did three and a half years, which is a long time to go through in any kind of university.

Raymond  04:06
It's a lot of math.

Raymond  04:07
It is a lot of math.  But I enjoyed it.  But at the very end, I didn't enjoy it as much, obviously.  Later on fast forward, I actually ran into some friends who were in the video industry and they introduced it to me, and I fell into it from there.

I enjoyed it.  I was like, "Well, this is a lot of fun."  Did it for a couple of sports events and sports networks and pieces like that.   

And then I wanted to get my degree, parents talking in the back of your head.  Went back and actually got my degree in video production to do more of the side that I thought was only the way you can get into video and actually make money as a career.

And then fast forward from there, I started the company because there was a company - that I ran into a client who said that they don't hire individuals.  The difference again, between individual person and a person who does it for business.  And doing it from a business perspective, they wanted someone who can come in and showcase it in a business way of more strategy through video. 

So myself and a business partner at the time we started the company years ago, a start up company that wound up as Creative Crunch now in Canada, and got me into that mindset.

 So I started really flipping my mind from the pretty images, and the capturing of whatever's in front of me, to someone who actually strategizes for a business years ago, because of that one company.

Dan  05:11
That's awesome.  So that's the entrepreneurial moment.  I find so many business owners, they didn't wake up and say, "I'm going to be..."  Whatever their role is, where their business is, something happened that they got, they trip into it, almost, right?  

Your example is similar to mine, where I got into business because I was going to do, I was in IT, and I want to get a co-op when I was in school and the guy that I went for the co-op with said, "Well, tell you what, if you just go register a company, I'll contract you."  I'm like, "Okay."  And that was 1995.  So I got into business by accident too.

There's so many people that that happens to.  So that's pretty cool.

So as an entrepreneur yourself, I imagine you've got a pretty unique perspective on what business owners are looking for when they're engaging video, or wanting to use video to promote their business. 

Raymond  05:52
Yeah.  It's definitely been coming from the entrepreneur's side of things.  I was able to really capture an understanding of what they go through.  Because myself am going through the same thing.

As many entrepreneurs, I am geared towards my skills a lot more than I am through the business side, honestly.  And I'm always learning on the business side.  I'm never going to be perfect.  And I don't think anyone, I've read there's always a point of learning in your business to keep growing.

And then, taking it from my video perspective, I'm able to actually sit down with the business owner and help them feel more comfortable in front of the camera, make their business really standout better through the camera, because I feel their pain.  I fully understand what they're going through.

So I can relate and kind of help them connect, stay connected with their service and the product they're trying to showcase.

Dan  06:42
And that's cool.  So yeah, that bit of empathy there, an understanding.  On that level of maybe discomfort that people have in front of the camera is, let's talk about that.

Some of the reasons people, while they recognize video could be helpful but they don't do it, or they want to, but they just procrastinate.  What do you see?  Why do people typically, where they know video can be really helpful for them, but they're just like, "I don't think I want to do that."  What are some of the things you see where people are nervous about that?

Raymond  07:07
To be nervous in front of the camera, everyone's nervous. Even all the professionals you see on TV doing the news, they're nervous.  They're nervous all the time.

So for a business person to actually get in front of camera, that's obviously not your main goal.  And the one thing that I've seen a lot of people why they're nervous, is because they have so much information they want to share. 

And they know that that video is just going to help them share it in a small amount of time.  But how do we cram all that in there?  And that sort of strategy comes in, talking about how, okay, well, let's find two or three points that's really strong about your service and your product and just get that engagement going.  And then it helps shave it down and make it, and simplify that moment. 

So take a professional like myself helps simplify, all of the great things that your product and service does, and make it really honed towards a certain group to get them to hear what you have to say.   

So it's making you a lot more comfortable in front of your camera, like, "Oh, I can talk about those two or three things real easily."  And then bam it's in and out and you're ready to go, really.

Dan  08:01
That makes a lot of sense.  You just distill it down to the bones, like the important stuff and just make it easy.  

So in addition to, with being strategic in terms of the cinematics for your videography, making things look right, all that kind of stuff, you're actually making it easier for the business owner because you're coaching them on what and how to say things and just to keep it simple and reduce some of those nerves that they might have in front of the camera.

Raymond  08:24
That’s exactly right.  The nerves are brought up because of the fact that you are thinking so hard, and you  should, obviously think about all of that strong strengths of what your business is.

But sometimes you need to take a "fresh eyes" approach as we call it, "fresh eyes", being me being a "fresh eyes", I'm freshly outside of your company, I have no idea who you are, but I'm learning about your company, just like any other person.

But I'm going to be capturing it in a way that takes those learnings and presents it in a way that everyone can relate to, and connect with, so they can jump into your service or product.

Dan  08:52
Awesome.  Yeah, make it relatable.

What are some of the mistakes that people make with video when they're getting started, or things that they might not consider?  What are some of the, and maybe even things that we've never thought of that are important?  What are some of the things that people make mistakes with when it comes to video?

Raymond  09:08
There's a lot of things that - I have to say the world of technology has made videos so much easier for people to understand how important it is, because even your phones do it these days. (laughter)

Yeah, so when you're doing it with your phone, let's make it easy.  Let's simplify this connection here.  So everyone likes to go on to all the different social media platforms and use their phone to capture who they are.

One of the mistakes a lot of people run into is lighting is one of the big ones.  Sometimes you want to be careful about where you stand.  Let's say you choose a window.  You don't have to have professional lighting.  Just find a nice, good window, find nice sun coming in, and take a spot that you like, really like this spot with all this lighting to your eyes.  Because your eyes are going to see it differently than the camera will, and then hold up your phone or whatever camera you're using, and spin and find this point where you see, the camera's going to adjust automatically, because all of them do that.  And this gives you a point to be like, "Oh look, this is where the camera's going to adjust to where the background lighting and my face is clearly seen." 

Because you want the people to see who you are, but then you also want to share your background.  So if you're in front of a nice pretty pond, or if you have a really beautiful mountain view, you definitely want to showcase that.

But you also don't want to hide away yourself and become this like Alfred Hitchcock silhouette

(laughter)

Dan  10:18
That's a good one.

Raymond  10:21
So you want to be careful with that.  That's definitely a topic normally, tip number one, spin around and find that good spot with the lighting.

The next one is really the audio.  You really want people to hear who you are, right?  They don't want to hear the squawking goose in the background that's passing by, or any of the trains or cars. 

They want to be able to hear you and hear what your message is, that you're trying to convey.

Even if it's a 20 second, social media platform post you want to just be able to be clearly heard so that way no one gets distracted and that's very important.

Dan  10:48
I've watched some videos where there's some background noise and I have trouble even focusing on what they're saying.  And I have to rewind.  It's like, what was that you heard that background?  It just gets me wondering what the background noise is, and then not listening anymore.  So yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Any other things that we want to avoid when doing video?

Raymond  11:07
I guess some smaller things is really just being mindful of what you're wearing.

(laughing)

That's a big one.  Clothing, I'll do clothing as a pretty bad one, because you've got to think about how cameras will see what you're wearing.  If you have a lot of lines, for instance, on your clothing, it kind of gets distracting, people looking at your clothing, how much it moves and that changes a bit.

Also you want to think about the material that your clothing is.  If you're wearing a track suit, they have a very waterproof tracksuit, but they're having some wispy noise that can get a little distracting as well, because then you're like "Oh, what is that noise coming from?"  People start thinking, "Is that me, is that my phone, is that my connection?"

You don't want people to start thinking of those.  You want people to start thinking about what you're trying to convey through the message.

Those are small things you want to definitely think about it, think about some solid colors or solid designs, if you have a solid design. Or if you have your logo, a solid color with the logo like Dan has on his shirts, right there.  The logo stands out for sure.  But it looks good.  It's clean, it's a nice setup.  

And then of course watching out for the kind of clothing.  Understanding synthetics and cotton and that kind of thing is important to also make sure that you don't hear all that stuff in the camera.

Dan  12:13
Yeah, I love it.  Those are awesome little tips.  I would never have considered just the actual fabric, lots of little things.

So in terms of an effective video or a series, if you think back on some of your favorite projects, what have been some of the outcomes that your clients have had?

I remember you telling me one about a client that you did some work for, it ended up shortening their sales process, which I was quite surprised.  I thought that was awesome.  So can you speak to that a little bit?

Raymond  12:39
There was a company that reached out to me and they wanted to create videos that it will shorten how long it takes for the sales person to get to the point, (laughing) to tell you the truth.  In layman's terms, that's really what they wanted to do.

So they created this video series with us and we strategize with their marketing team.  It took us a few weeks to kind of figure out what truly to say, and they wanted to shorten that speech, that sales pitch in a sense of their products, within a minute, to tell you the truth.

And they wanted to send that off to clients, to potential clients before they actually sat their live person in front of them.

Dan  13:12
Set the client up for answering some pre questions and get them primed for the conversation with the salesperson? 

Raymond  13:17
Exactly.  And inside the video we had a little bit of product descriptions, what it does, and then of course putting questions in there.  Like planting extra questions in there to get people to be like, "Oh, when you were looking at this product, think about this, this and this."

And then that made the clients have their own personal questions ready to be able to jump into.  And the salespeople were ready to answer those questions that opened up to more conversation to hopefully bring up more sales, which did help them quite a bit.

It raised their sales generational, and they got their sales people to move a lot more and get a lot more connection a lot faster.

Dan  13:49
That's cool.  So it's promotional, but that's really strategic in terms of setting up the sales process, like the video getting integrated right into that sales process strategically, as opposed to just selling us a little bit more broadly as like a commercial or a promotional video kind of thing.

Raymond  14:03
Exactly.

Dan  14:04
That is cool.  So as a business owner who is thinking about getting into video, what are some of the more strategic things that they can do?  Like your example just now, about improving the sales process, what are some of the other reasons you see business owners engaging you for videography. 

Raymond  14:22
You're talking about ways that they can utilize a video in their own company strategy?  Is that what you're trying to--

Dan  14:26
Yeah.  Internal or external.

Raymond  14:30
So internally, it's really great to have a video to be able to talk to a large, let's say if you have a large company, let's say you have a thousand employees, let's go with that.  With a thousand employees, it's really hard to pull everyone off of their line of work to have a large conference meeting.  Because when you have the big (indistinct) meeting, you take away from that moment.  And as we all know, when it comes to business, when your workers are slowing down and pausing, that's money coming out of your own personal pocket, right?

So if you were to do a video that actually engaged the workforce, we'll put it that way.  When you engage the workforce through video, then the workforce can watch it at the time that they're available to do it. Whether the manager is like, "Hey, this group is going to take 10 minutes, watch this quick video, hear what the CEO has to say about, X, Y, and Z.  "Whether it be safety, whether it be workforce engagement, or whether it'd be accomplishments that the team has been doing to keep the morale going with your team.

That's really strong for a lot of businesses because it keeps your team moving and it keeps your, the morale of your whole industry under you, keeping them going so that your business keeps offering those high quality products in terms of what you offer.

Externally, if you start to do it externally, it'll engage more people without you having to send more salespeople out.  The salespeople that you have currently can send off a product and really sift through all of the different people that do want to hear about it and sift it to people who've never heard of it, who want to hear about it then.  And with video that really makes that engagement a lot larger.

So that's two different ways that you can really make video work for your business.

Dan  15:56
Cool.  That's awesome.  So, when a business owner is thinking about engaging a video production company, what are some of the things what are some of the tick boxes that they want to get checked?  What are they looking for in a production company that's going to be the best fit for them?

Raymond  16:10
For sure.  There's a lot of people that do this business, or a lot of people in this business who I work with and run into, and a lot of times we all have different niches, that we actually gear towards.

Some of us are really strong at making really great meetings look beautiful.  Some of us are really great at making commercials and making your product and brand really shine through a commercial-ess kind of style.  And for yourself, you have to decide with your team, what is it that you're trying to convey?  What are you trying to do with it?  Are you just engaging the workforce?  Are you trying to showcase to new clientele?  What are you trying to do?  Are you trying to get new clients through this product, or are you trying to just sell your product to people that are going to buy your product, so as to sell to other consumers, or are you trying to reach out to regular consumers?

Those kinds of questions for yourself does change who you're going to use, and then once you actually sit down with the different people that you work with, that you want to talk to, any video production company you talk to, just engage and see what is it that their work, works with you.  

Make sure that the work that you see from them really connects with you in terms of , "Oh, I love how this works for you, I like how this looks." Because it's going to be your image.  Whatever we make, anything that we make, it is your image.  It's your company image.  You know, if your company image logo is green and then the video people started changing it to purple, then be like, "Why did you do that?" You know, and then they have to have a reason for it.

And if they don't, then that's probably not someone you want to be able to engage with, you want to connect with.  So those are the kinds of things you want to keep forward as you move forward talking to different video experts deciding who works best for you.

Dan  17:40
That makes a lot of sense, what you said about, it's about fit.  Because you could have someone that's maybe, they do more industrial shoots and they've got that expertise, and then people that might do more, retail. So it's got to definitely fit in with what you've got as a business owner.

I think you're really just cracking this open just a tiny little bit.  There's so much more we could get into, but we haven't got all day, so we're going to have to wrap up. But if someone is thinking about getting into video for their business, is not sure how to get started and then they want to connect with you to learn more, what's the best way for them to reach you?

Raymond  18:11
I love having discovery calls to help people at least understand what they're trying to go for and give them guidance of where they want to go.

 And you can always visit my website.  It's www.creativecrunch.ca and in there there's an email, there's a phone number, and I'm always again, open to just having the discovery call to figure out what works for them.  Because not perfect for everybody, honestly, but I'm always happy to share information.

I can help them, guide them in the right direction, if I'm not the perfect fit for them, to find a fit for them, that makes it easy for them to get their product going.

Dan  18:43
That's awesome, man.  Adding value even if you can't serve them directly.  That's fantastic.

Cool, well, look, Raymond, this has been awesome. I've learned a bunch and I can't wait to talk with you again. I'll probably learn even more, I know I will.  So thanks so much for hanging out today and I really appreciate it.  Great to see you.

Raymond  18:57
Yeah, thanks for having me, it's a lot of fun.

Dan  18:59
All right man, we'll see you soon.