What if before you went on the first meeting with a potential client, they had watched a video that helped them understand the budget, the timeline, frequently asked questions, all of these things in the form of a video before they even met with you and it saved 30 to 45 minutes from every meeting? That's possible with a sales indoctrination video. And today, I'm going to share with you how you can make one on your smartphone. In this video, I'm going to share with you my top three do it yourself smartphone tips. I've been producing a weekly video blog for about 10 years and video's extremely powerful. If you run a landscaping company, you can use video for recruiting, you can interview your top employees and get video content on your website and social media and job postings. You can interview your clients, share some of their stories, get video testimonials.
You can use it for training, to produce content that when you hire somebody in the middle of the season, they go through a video training that you've already made one time. That's the ultimate leverage of videos, you make it once and you can use it over and over and over again. But there are three key things that you need to do when you're making video on your smartphone that I'm going to share with you in today's video. My name's Jack Jostes and welcome to The Landscaper's Guide to Modern Sales and Marketing Podcast. This show is all about helping lawn and landscapers increase their profit and enjoy a better lifestyle as a result of their sales and marketing. And video, again, is one of the most leveraged ways that you can produce sales and marketing content. So, let's dive into how you can use your existing smartphone and a couple accessories to make better video content.
What Video Equipment Should I Use?
Over the last 11 years, I've literally produced thousands of videos. I make several of them every week and one of my favorite ways to do that is through my iPhone. I happen to be using a Panasonic GH5 for the recording of this video and I'm using a Lavalier microphone recorded into a Zoom H1n because I'm going to be using my iPhone to demonstrate how to make smartphone video. So, this video is not made with a smartphone but most of mine are.
Tip #1: Use a Tripod To Keep The Camera Still
And my first tip for you is to use a tripod. So, I'm going to share with you, this is my do it yourself video kit. It fits right in here, which is amazing because you can put this in your backpack, your work bag, keep it in your truck, keep it accessible so that way you can make videos quickly. And I want to show you just how quickly you can actually set this up.
Oh and by the way, we will be sending these out to our guests of our Landscaper's Modern Sales and Marketing Summit, it's coming up. Grab your ticket at landscapersummit.com, we'll actually be mailing these out. So, it includes a Lavalier microphone from DeWise, fits in your front pocket. It includes a Manfrotto tripod and a tripod adapter.
What I love about this, again, is it's small, it's lightweight. I even bring this on family vacations to get family portraits, you can use it for all different kinds of things. So again, the goal here is to make a good enough video, meaning you make it quickly, inexpensively and it's done, it's working for you. This isn't about cinematography or the world's most beautiful photos or videos but check it out, boom, my tripod's already set up, I've got my tripod mount. And if you haven't done this before, if you've never put your smartphone on a tripod, it's life-changing because when you put one of these on here, I happen to use an iPhone 11 pro but it doesn't really matter.
The phones these days have incredible cameras. And when you put it on a tripod, it holds it perfectly still and it makes the photo and video quality 10 times better. It also allows you to move around or maybe you're doing something. So, this is my first tip, is to use a tripod because look, you can put this over here, angle it at yourself and now solo, you're producing a video without anyone else even there with you. It's really great to bring on the job site, get photos with your client, get videos of them, all that different stuff.
Tip #2: Try Using an External Microphone for Your Videos To Increase Audio Quality
My second tip is to use an external microphone. If you're recording a video that's going to be more than selfie distance away from you, meaning if you're recording about this close, holding your phone to your face, it's going to sound pretty good. You could probably get away without using a mic, in fact, I do it all the time.
But as soon as you get more than 18 inches or two feet away, if you get about this far away, it's not going to sound very good and people will just simply not watch bad sounding video. You can get away with a decent looking video with good audio but even great looking video with bad sounding audio is bad. So, I recommend using a Lavalier microphone, I've tested a lot of them. I'm personally recording right now into the Rode SmartLav+ but I have tested the PowerDeWise and I ended up getting these for my clients because one of the things that I like is, it's a slightly lower price point but it also has a six foot cable. So, you can clip this onto your shirt and get your smartphone set up.
I'm not going to run it through my shirt right now in the example but I would recommend that you... I always clip them upside down because that helps mitigate the volume so it's not too loud. But you can get a decent distance away and now you'll have a great sounding video. And when you record it like this, you could be in front of a landscape, you could be in front of your truck, you could be wherever you want and again, it's going to sound really great. So, that's my second tip, is to use an external microphone. And again, while I'm recording this video, I am recording the audio into a separate audio recorder and in post-production we will sync it. But 90% of the time, I'm just recording it directly into my iPhone and it's done, boom. And now I can either trim it up or whatever I want.
Tip #3: Avoid Backlighting! Make Sure Light Hits Your Face
The third tip I have for you is regarding the lighting. And this is a really basic and obvious tip but it is to not have any backlighting. So, for this example, I'm actually going to record some footage that we'll edit in from my iPhone. I'm going to use the selfie mode on my camera and this is so amazing because... Here we go. I actually use blackout curtains in my office to prevent the light from coming, my ceiling has LED lights. So, when I go back here, you can see that because I'm backlit, I have all these shadows on my face and it gets even worse. If I open this, I'm like a shadow and I look terrible. Where is, if you simply have lighting 101, you have light on your face, you can see that it looks a lot better, right? So, follow the light, have light on your face and those are my three tips.
But What Do I Talk About In These Videos…?
As far as what to say on your video, we're going to send you the Hell Yes customer brand book, which helps you figure out your hell yes customer, their pains and problems. I have a copywriting formula that I've created over the last 11 years to make videos that work and this video will help you overcome some of the challenges of, what do I say? How do I make a video that actually impacts people? And how do I get the best results from it? So, I hope you enjoyed these three tips and I'd love to send you one of these kits, I've personally tested all of this gear. I've honestly, I've bought so many of these little mics and tested them, this is really quality stuff and I'd love to see you at the summit. So, grab your ticket at landscapersummit.com and we'll literally ship you this stuff in the mail and help you make some cool videos that massively decrease the length of your sales, right?
What If You Close Deals Faster and With Less Friction?
Then you could train other people to do that for you, that's all possible. And in this COVID world, right? In the way things have changed, people are really craving more content online and you might have fewer in person interactions. You're still going to go out and bid jobs in person and things like that but using video along the way can help make up for the areas of your sales process that you use to rely on your in person skills, right? So anyways, grab your kit at landscapersummit.com and hey, send me a video, tag me in a video, I want to see you making these videos on social media. And thanks so much for checking out today's show, I will see you guys next Friday.