Ever wondered how a simple video can revolutionize your real estate business?
Discover how to leverage simple tools like your smartphone and tripod to create compelling video content without breaking the bank with Chris Weiher.
Chris emphasizes the transformative impact of AI on video and provides practical tips on starting your video journey through trial and error. You’ll learn why video is crucial for personal branding and how it can set you apart in the competitive business landscape.
Want to reach out and learn more about Digital Journey? You can email us at kaylee@digital-journey.net or check out our website, www.digital-journey.net.
Ever wondered how a simple video can revolutionize your real estate business?
Discover how to leverage simple tools like your smartphone and tripod to create compelling video content without breaking the bank with Chris Weiher.
Chris emphasizes the transformative impact of AI on video and provides practical tips on starting your video journey through trial and error. You’ll learn why video is crucial for personal branding and how it can set you apart in the competitive business landscape.
Want to reach out and learn more about Digital Journey? You can email us at kaylee@digital-journey.net or check out our website, www.digital-journey.net.
What's up, guys? This is Kaylee Johnson here with Digital Journey. If you're a person that's wanting to learn social media, maybe that's just for you personally, maybe it's for your business. This is the right place for you. Hey guys, today we have Chris Weir with us on the show. Thank you so much for coming on.
Chris Weir:
My pleasure. I'm so happy to be here.
Kaylee Johnson:
So Chris Weir is a video producer with over 20 years of experience in the industry. Chris's company, Clever Creative, has created B2B animations, sales presentations and commercials seen by millions and now works with business owners to help them create their own videos, and he only cares about the results. He wants to see you go and you be driven. So go and tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you get to where you are today?
Chris Weir:
Sure, so I started my digital video journey after college, and that was a little while ago now, but basically I wanted to be a filmmaker. I wanted to make movies and stuff like that. My dad was a filmmaker. I wanted to make movies and stuff like that. My dad was a butcher, and so I wrote and directed a feature-length film, having never made any film before.
Kaylee Johnson:
Whoa.
Chris Weir:
And shot it in the 100-year-old butcher shop.
Kaylee Johnson:
How cool yeah.
Chris Weir:
So it was a massive undertaking. They say making a film is like going to war. It is basically so many logistics that you have to figure out and people to organize and all these different things. Everything goes wrong. You have to improvise and figure out a solution on the fly.
Chris Weir:
So that was my film school, basically, and in doing that this was like the early 2000s, so it was not the world we have have today. Uh, you know, you had to buy a very expensive camera, you had to buy a very expensive computer, basically invested in all this gear through the process of making it and by the time I was done and I started screening it, I was talking to people coming out of of film schools and realized like I had as much experience as they did, practically or more. So I was like, hmm, maybe I could work in this professionally. So I started making videos and working for freelancing and working for wedding company and then worked as an editor and then worked as a producer, and then I started my own company, like 11 years ago now, and and have just been enjoying the creative process, you know that's amazing.
Kaylee Johnson:
You go to college and sometimes you come out and you're like people know as much as I do without going to college. I'm big on unless your career needs college, don't go to college. You can learn so much without college.
Chris Weir:
I've heard, at any rate, that it's the next big bubble. There was the housing bubble and now there's the school bubble. It is valuable, but for the price that some people have to pay to do it the value is not always there.
Kaylee Johnson:
Well, speaking of value, what is the value of video for businesses? Today we talk specifically with realtors, and video can be really valuable in that aspect.
Chris Weir:
I would go as far as to say that video is now imperative to any business's success in many, many cases, and the reason for that is AI is going to disrupt a lot of things.
Chris Weir:
It's going to be much easier for companies to create and test ads, so ads are going to go like through the roof as far as like competition goes, because AI is going to be able to learn what ads perform better and automatically generate create more ads. So advertising in general is going to go crazy in the next few years. Everything's going to be affected by this.
Kaylee Johnson:
Yes.
Chris Weir:
The one thing that is going to be very, very hard to replicate is your personal touch, your personal brand. Who is the person behind your company? Having a good personal brand, nothing does it better than video, because people get to see and feel who you are. You don't have to tell them, you just are there and you're talking about what you know and you're talking about your expertise.
Kaylee Johnson:
People connect with that. You're using more of your senses in viewing a video than reading something.
Chris Weir:
Yeah, it draws you in Exactly In my perspective. I really say it's a must at this point and it's really not something that you can say I'd love to do it. You really should try doing it now, because it's only going to get harder as things get, as things continue to change.
Kaylee Johnson:
Absolutely, and so many people think, oh, videos have to be crazy hard, it has to take hours to do. If someone was wanting to get into doing videos, how do they get started? Is it going to cost an arm and a leg, or can you start out more basic?
Chris Weir:
That's the great part about it now is that it has become something that you can start to do for free, like I tell people, like if you just want to DIY it, you can totally do that and you can record your first 10 videos in an hour. Basically, what I say is get out your phone. If you have a selfie stick I just happen to have one here that, like, is also a tripod right.
Kaylee Johnson:
Nice.
Chris Weir:
And set it up and and set it on your desk and and start answering questions that you get all the time. Start answering FAQs, say here's what I tell people. You know, if it's a realtor, here's what I tell people. Um, if they're a first time home buyer, so yeah, you can do it for free, basically, and then post it if you like it and chances are people will respond to it and you'll get some reactions. And I found four years ago, when I started really getting into making content, like you really don't know what's going to work and you're really not going to get your best ideas until you actually put something out and then go. Okay, that felt right for me and it got a good reaction. So I'm going to maybe do more stuff like that.
Kaylee Johnson:
It is trial and error. The most frustrating thing is when you've worked really hard on a video and you put it out and you get nothing. But then you work on a video for 10 minutes and it goes viral and it's just like what is going on here. But I like to think of you know, even those videos that don't go well, like you're using those as practice for yourself, Because I feel like video is definitely an art, something you have to exercise and learn how to do well.
Chris Weir:
Yes, and I say it's a skill and it's a talent.
Chris Weir:
Some people are just naturally talented right, Like they can just get on, they can set up the phone and they can just talk and it's just perfect and they got it in one take and they're done For other people. It's a skill, but it is a skill that you can learn and you can practice and you can get better. And I've had clients that when they first started they felt uncomfortable, they didn't want to be doing it. They're like, oh, this is weird, and now they can just rattle them off. It's like like, oh, this is weird, and now they can just rattle them off. It's like let's think of a topic, just talk about this particular area of your business, and they just go. It's interesting seeing people at different levels and working with them to say, okay, try this, try this tactic, like try this kind of a thing.
Kaylee Johnson:
And it's crazy how much video can grow you as a person. You know doing video podcasts. I'll go back and watch it and realize in conversation I use the word like way too often, and you can start to tailor that so then when you're talking to customers, you sound more cohesive, it runs smoother, and so it's not just awesome to have a video, but it's honestly training for public speaking, which is necessary in most jobs for public speaking, which is necessary in most jobs.
Chris Weir:
Yes, I totally, 100% agree. Video on camera without an interviewer, I think, is the public speaking skill.
Kaylee Johnson:
What public speaking was 20 years ago?
Chris Weir:
It's like if you want to rise up in business, you must learn how to public speak. Now you really need to learn how to be able to talk on a video without having anyone there, so that you can send that to a client, you can send that to an employee, you can post it online. You know it's such a valuable skill and, to some extent, with the interaction of these AIs, I'm really fascinated with what's going on there. Like we're going to have AI going on, so you're going to have to be able to, like, talk to an AI chatbot. You know is going to be your next coworker, so you might as well get started with that.
Kaylee Johnson:
No, very, very true. And one thing I love about videos, especially when it comes to realtors, is realtors have a lot of dead time while they're waiting for a client to show up, and you can shoot such cool video in 10 minutes. If you have the house to yourself or the property yourself and it doesn't have to take long, you can shoot it. It looks great, put it together and you have a social media post right then. But it would have taken much more time if you're having to, in my opinion, when you go get the photos and have to write intense copy on it, versus, you can do a video and a short caption and you have content there that people are going to stop and look at, and they're much more likely to do that than reading a four paragraph social media post instead. We all know that social media can be overwhelming. You think it takes so much time. You look at all these amazing creators who are doing insane viral posts and think how can I ever measure up to them? The good thing is you don't have to.
Kaylee Johnson:
Your point for being on social media is probably to earn money. You want to increase your sales, you want to gain more clients so that you can have more free time to pour into your clients, to pour into your family. Digital Journey can help you with that. We have a group coaching program targeted specifically for people who are overwhelmed with social media. It's really not as complicated as you think. Who are overwhelmed with social media? It's really not as complicated as you think. We can teach you how to spend 15 minutes or less a day on social media so that you can gain more clients and you can up your sales. So if you want to learn more, you can go to digital-journeynet. We'd love to help you out. Now back to the episode.
Chris Weir:
The advantages of a realtor is that they're in different locations all the time. They're driving. I mean be careful driving in videotapes, but they're driving somewhere. You can do something from your car. Once you've parked, you can do it in front of the house.
Chris Weir:
You can shoot something in the house, you can do a tour of the house, you can do something by the pool. You have all these different things that you're doing. You're staging the house, you're doing repairs. There's so many things that you're out in the world that is interesting visually that you can kind of capitalize on from a video perspective.
Kaylee Johnson:
Very true, very true. You had one of my clients. They were going to a house showing and a log fell down in the middle of the road so they did a quick video while they were moving the log, saying you know, this is what we do for our clients. You know just small stuff like that and it didn't take them long, they put it together and it did great. You know, just showing that personal side, that day to day aspects of it, it's, it's great.
Chris Weir:
Yes, and that's really what people want is that they want it to come from you. They don't want this polished, professional, perfect thing. They want to know what's hard about your job, what's easy, what's fun, what's the challenges, all that stuff.
Kaylee Johnson:
Right, definitely that personal side there. So how much content does a business person need to put out to actually drive results?
Chris Weir:
I tend to see people go two ways in in creating content, especially with video. They either try it like once, put it out there, and it doesn't get views and they're like, well, that didn't work. Or they go crazy and they're like I'm gonna do a post a day, every day, for a year it's like that's way overkill as far as like what you need to do.
Chris Weir:
So everybody's recipe is different, but generally I really recommend doing one video a week. Okay, and oftentimes you can record all four in one setting, maybe if you have a different shirt just get it, put it on, or whatever.
Chris Weir:
Or you decide I'm going to do two in one setting, maybe, if you have a different shirt, just get it, put it on, whatever. Or you decide I'm going to do two in one setting and then when I'm out this week, you know, at this house, I'm going to do a video there and I'm going to do one at this networking event, uh, and then you've got all your videos for the month. I think once one a week is a really good recipe. Putting it out a regular schedule is a good thing for your network, because they always know when to expect yours it's going to show up, so they can kind of be ready, prep themselves to support you, and they're like I always know what.
Chris Weir:
Thursday is at 3 30, this is when his video gets posted. I'm going to keep an eye out for you know, comment or like, whatever. So that's my personal recipe for most people, um, but honestly, anything works and I do see people putting out two videos a week, five videos a week and whatever, but for most of my clients that's what we recommend and that's what I do.
Kaylee Johnson:
And I love it when you only put up maybe one or two, because then it leaves the audience wanting more and they're not overwhelmed. It's not like, oh my goodness, every time I go on to Instagram, this lady has posted a video and you can make sure your videos are better quality, because you're not having to produce things every day. That is eventually going to get redundant and people are going to be like I don't want to see this anymore. Yeah.
Chris Weir:
And they tune you out. I think the hard part for folks is that when they get started creating videos or creating content for their businesses, they get excited, right, because for the first couple people are like, oh my gosh, I saw you in a video and you were talking about this, and da, da, da, da, they get this huge boost and then there's going to be a dip, because we're so trained to be not satisfied. Like we're happy when we get something for the first time and then the second time, by the third time, like seeing it boring, exactly when we get something for the first time and the second time by the third time, like seen it boring. Like you have to constantly be energizing yourself to like think of, like new content, fun. But yeah, I think once a week is manageable for most people who are running a business, because you have a lot of other things to do right, and unless you're a content creator, which most of my audience is not, you don't want to be spending your whole time on that.
Kaylee Johnson:
You know, if you're like me, we like making videos, but there are some people that are just like no, no, and so one a week makes it much less stressful and overwhelming. I think so, yeah for sure.
Chris Weir:
That's awesome.
Kaylee Johnson:
Well, thank you so much for coming on today. I learned a lot. I know my listeners did too. We're all really honing in on video in this field, so it's exciting to get to know a little more, a little bit more. Where can we find you if we want to reach out to you or hear more about what you do?
Chris Weir:
Sure, I would say LinkedIn is probably the best place. That's where I post most of our content. So you can search for me by my personal last name, chris we-H-R-I-S Weir W-E-I-H-E-R on LinkedIn, and I'm always happy to connect with people and talk, chat all that good stuff.
Kaylee Johnson:
That's amazing, and we'll have all of that linked down below. Chris, thank you so much for coming on today. It was a pleasure having you.
Chris Weir:
Thanks, kaylee, it was awesome being on Appreciate it.