Sharon Buck uses video to help her local area merchants in a unique way. Listen as Sharon spell out her business step by step. Would this work in YOUR market?

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Transcript:

Instant Video Biz - Sharon Buck

Perry: Hi, Perry Lawrence here from AskMrVideo.com, and I have someone on

the line who actually just blows me away. This is for anyone who is looking

to make some additional bucks. I think you're going to be blown away by

just how many additional bucks you can make with video.

What I really want you to pay attention to is while not an expert

videographer by any stretch, she's actually using video to her advantage

selling herself as a marketer but really leveraging the power of video in her

marketing pitch. Without further adieu I want to give a big welcome to

Sharon Buck.

Sharon, thanks for being on the call.

Sharon: Super. Thank you so much, Perry. I appreciate being here.

Perry: Before we get into what you're currently doing, give me a little bit of

background about where you are, who you are, and were you struggling?

Give us just a little bit about Sharon.

Sharon: Okay, a little bit about me real quick down and dirty…I am one of these

people who loves to learn. When you love to learn and do different things

as far as the job market goes, it's not necessarily the greatest because I'm

like every two years burned out on whatever it is that I'm doing. So I'm

constantly looking at new and different things.

Perry: A true entrepreneur if I've ever heard one.

Sharon: Oh, yeah, definitely. About ten years ago I was involved in a real serious

car accident and didn't work for two years. I taught myself how to do web

design. That's really kind of where a lot of this came about because once

the web design came about, then I started looking at different ways to

promote myself and various products online. I just never really made a

whole lot of money.

I spent thousands of dollars doing different seminars and programs…not

so much seminars but different programs with other so-called Internet

Gurus. It was one of those deals that you spend $27 a month here and

then it goes to $97 a month and then it would jump to like a thousand

dollars a month. I never made enough money online to justify doing that.

I kind of was doing it off and on for many years.

Perry: How much would you guess you spent altogether?

Sharon: On learning over the past ten years…probably somewhere in the

neighborhood of $8,000-10,000. It was one of those things that so many

people…and I'm not downplaying what they do- they have a model that

works for them. It just didn't work for me.

It was always constantly being bumped up and it was being these

quantum leaps. That would've been fine had I been making the money to

justify that but I never made the money.

I was like: Oh, my gosh. I'm as bright or brighter than a lot of people. I

know that sounds egotistical but I figured if these people could do it, why

couldn't I? There was always just a little something missing somewhere

along the line.

Perry: Let's just clarify that it wasn't for a lack of effort on your part. From what

I'm hearing it was just the simple return on investment wasn't working for

you.

The guys had a plan or product and it seemed like they always dangled

the carrot out in front of you…one step more…One step and a little more

money and you'll get the real secret.

I can hear it in your voice that you sound like a go-getter.

Sharon: Oh, yeah, very much. I have an incredible amount of energy and I was

spending anywhere from 20-30 hours a week outside of 'normal' working

hours.

Then about 5 years ago I went back to school and became a licensed

massage therapist and did that for awhile. I live in a small economically

depressed area and that really wasn't working for it all that well.

I kept thinking: What can I do because my passion is really to work online

and make money. I've been on the Internet since way back umpteen

million years ago.

I started looking at some more programs. I kept thinking that one next

program was going to be that magic key to unlock all the answers. I came

across a program that was very interesting but another one of those that

…To get the really good secret it's going to be $1,000 a month. I was like:

I need to make money now. I don't need to be making money 6 months

down the road or whatever.

I got to thinking around. I had seen the Flip video cameras and I wanted

one. But money was tight…blah, blah, blah. I thought: Okay, how can I

find a way to buy a Flip video, help other businesses (I love helping small

businesses out.), and generate income like right now?

Perry: What I'm hearing you say is that after $10,000 of learning - you had not

even had enough put away to buy a $200 Flip camera. You're starting

from zero in this endeavor that you're launching?

Sharon: Absolutely. You got it. It was just daily life and everything else. I just didn't

have $200 put away for it. So I thought: What can I do? I was doodling on

a yellow legal pad and I said: What are 10 ways for me to make money for

the Flip video?

About the 3rd one down it was like: Shoot commercials. I thought: I don't

know a whole lot about shooting commercials. I've done photography but I

don't know a whole lot about shooting commercials. I thought: You know

what? If you did photography, the principles are the exact same thing.

Perry: Wait a minute. As somebody who has worked at an ad agency, shooting

commercials would not be the first thing that I would come up to make

instant money.

Number 1 my brain just automatically goes to : You need all kinds of

equipment. Number 2 my brain goes: Oh, my gosh. I need a huge ad

agency's name behind me. Number 3 I think: Oh, I'm going to have to go

and talk to clients and present myself as a multi-million dollar agency.

Fortunately for you, you didn't have any of those hurdles to jump through.

Sharon: It was just one of those things and I went: Alright, fine. What can I do right

now to make some money… and that's what I came up with.

Here's what I did think: I don't have a company name. I don't have a

website name. I don't have anything set up and I thought I'd make up a

form and take it out there and see if I could sell something.

It was about Friday afternoon at 2:00 and I wrote down 16 names of

different businesses and went out. I said: Hey, I'm Sharon Buck with

SeePalatka.com. It's a brand new video website that's promoting our area

and we're only focused on small businesses.

We shoot a 1-3 minute video of your business and we promise you top

ranking on the top three pages of Google. You get a monthly ad in our

monthly email newsletter. It's only $250 a year or if you want to be the

only business in your category, it's only $500 a year.

I sold three ads that afternoon or $750. I didn't have anything to show for it

except a piece of paper.

Perry: That is awesome. You just gave us the script for your sales process.

Sharon: It was nothing hard - nothing simple - and just a lot of enthusiasm. Keep in

mind that even though I live in a small town the demographics in this area

is the Putnam County is the second poorest county in the entire state of

Florida. The town which is Palatka, Florida, which is the county seat, only

has 25,000 people in it.

You probably think I knew everybody in town. I know a lot of people, that's

true, but the three businesses I sold the videos to were three businesses I

didn't even know who they were. I just walked in.

Perry: So you closed out of 16 appointments you closed 3 on that day?

Sharon: I closed 3 on that day and 3 more the following week.

Perry: What I'm hearing is it doesn't have to be hard for you to launch your own

advertising company.

Sharon: No. You just have to have a little nerve. Did I have nerves? Yeah, but I

decided it's one of those things. I had to just get out there and push

through. I think the third call I sold the first video and I thought: Darn. This

is easy.

Perry: This first call you just made your money to buy all the gear you were ever

going to need.

Sharon: Yeah. That was it right there.

Perry: Did you think at that point that you should have asked for more money?

Sharon: The thought occurred to me. And then I thought: No, on the little form I

made up was just the first 20 businesses. Let me get those.

Keep in mind that my whole goal was to make instant cash money. I

wasn't that concerned about reoccurring revenue.

I knew after a week two things: #1- I wasn't charging enough money. #2- I

really should have set up something that had recurring revenue because

otherwise you're going out and slaying the dragon every day.

Perry: We'll get to that. Let's go walking through the process. Your first week you

went out you sold 3. The second week you sold another 3. You're all of a

sudden thinking you're rolling in cash.

Sharon: Oh, yeah. Life was good.

Perry: After you sold this what was your process? Talk a little bit about your

process. Let me remind folks that this website wasn't even up yet, correct?

Sharon: I had not even purchased the domain name yet.

Perry: For everybody who is curious about this money making gold mine that

wasn't even existing yet, it's called SeePalatka.com, and you can see

Sharon's site.

Sharon, not to be unkind or anything, but there's nothing really to it. The

key is that it's simple.

Sharon: It's very simple. In this particular case the whole function of it was to

promote small local businesses. Therefore, I don't need anything wildly

complicated or whatever.

They've got the videos on the front page. You click on one of the directory

categories on the left-hand side and it will take you right to a page with the

other videos on it with some text next to it.

Perry: We're getting a little ahead of ourselves. Walk me through the process of

once you got the business how did you fulfill it?

Sharon: Basically what I did was I said: Okay, when would you like for me to

shoot? People would go: Oh. Well, hmmmm. I'd say: What about

tomorrow? Is tomorrow afternoon good for you or is tomorrow morning

better?

I did the assumptive close which simply means I'm assuming they're going

to give me an answer. They just get to pick. I made it easy.

They would say that and then I would go in and …realistically could do the

whole thing 5 minutes of shooting but when they're spending $250 or

more, you need to take at least 10-15 minutes so they feel like they're

getting something for their money.

Perry: Wait….10-15 minutes? You're at their place and you're shooting for about

10-15 minutes and you're getting everything you need on your Flip

camera?

Sharon: Absolutely…on the Flip camera. I come back home and use the software

program called Animoto.com. I signed up for their professional version. It's

$249 for a year or they had a program where if you signed up initially for 3

months it was like $99 and after that you go by month or by annual

thing…It's $49 a month or $249 a year.

Perry: Alright, so after your first client you were able to buy your camera. After

your second client you were able to buy your Animoto license.

Sharon: You got it. That's all I did. When I sold the first 3 videos on that Friday

afternoon, I took the weekend and learned how to put together the videos.

Perry: So you didn't even know how to work Animoto up to this point?

Sharon: Well, I'd seen the 30 second thing and played with it once or twice, but

no…long story short. I didn't have a clue.

Perry: It's not hard, is it?

Sharon: No. It's easy. It's very easy and very professional.

Perry: The point is video is not expensive and it's easy. You basically set up your

own ad agency for your town and you're shooting video at 200-500 a pop

and you're more busy than you know what to do with? Okay. Awesome.

Now you've got their stuff. You've shot it for 10-15 minutes. The next

day…

Sharon: Your mind's boggled, isn't it? This woman went out here and took $150

Flip video and is making money just like that!

Perry: I know that people are doing it and it's exciting. That's why I wanted to

bring you to my audience because I want them to understand that you've

done it for yourself. You've got your Flip camera. You can make money.

Before we get too much further, since you've started this how much would

you say you've made altogether?

Sharon: I've made a little over $10,000 in just a couple of months time. Let me

point out that when I first started I did it for a couple of weeks and then I

got sick with the shingles, of all things. I was highly contagious for 3-4

weeks, so I've really just been working for about 4 weeks.

I picked right up where I left off and started selling again as soon as I got

healthy. Basically in 3 months times working part time I made a little over

$10,000.

Perry: Sharon, that's awesome. Do you have any kind of a sales background?

Sharon: A little bit but not massively in products or anything like that. Yeah. I just

enjoy getting out and talking to people because the thing for me is I love

working on the Internet and doing different things but after awhile you

realize you have to get out of the cave, i.e., the apartment or house or

condo.

I like talking to people. By getting out and talking to them it gave me the

break I needed form sitting behind the computer all day so I'm interfacing

with people. Then I come back home and do whatever it is that I'm doing.

Perry: How much time do you spend going out and cold calling?

Sharon: Realistically just maybe 2-3 hours a day.

Perry: Okay, how much time per video…You're spending 10 minutes shooting so

how long does it take you to edit one of these?

Sharon: Now that's a whole different ballgame. That can sometimes take…to put it

altogether takes 30-40 minutes and I put it up. It's a piece of cake. I add all

the text.

Perry: You're scaring me. I'm going: Oh, no. She's going to say it takes 30 hours

and she ends up making a dollar an hour. So really you're making …15

minutes to shoot, 30 minutes to edit this whole thing…maybe 15 minutes

to dilly dally around…Your total end for $250 is an hour's work.

Sharon: Yeah, that's about right.

Perry: Plus you're cold calling.

Sharon: Realistically I'm making as much as attorneys make per hour but again, I

don't work 40 hours doing it all the time. In essence I'm making $150-200

an hour.

Perry: Nice. The truth is that's a nice little side income to get income for

Christmas coming up. It's a nice bit of income. In this economy that's quite

amazing, wouldn't you say?

Sharon: I would say so. The thing that's really been amazing to me is the whole

thing comes down to going to talk to local small businesses and most of

them know that they desperately need to advertise. They know they need

to get the word out.

They don't have enough money for newspaper advertising on a regular

basis because it's very expensive. They don't have the money for radio

ads because it's very expensive, but yet with a Flip video where it is on the

Internet and going out on YouTube and 50 other plus websites and it pulls

it in there…I set up Facebook and Twitter pages. They know they need

that.

Now in this area do they really sit down and measure where their clients

are coming from or customers are coming from? Not really… but you go in

and say: Gee, Paula, have you heard anything from the videos? Yeah, as

a matter of fact, I had a lady who came in here the other day.

That's really what it takes. You're not talking tons of money here.

Perry: Right and when somebody shows up like a knight on a white horse saying:

I can drive traffic or I can get you business. You can advertise and it's not

going to break the bank and it's Internet based which to some of them is

'new fangled'. It's a much better spend than say your Yellow Pages spend.

I would imagine that their interest level peaks when you quote them such

a low price.

Sharon: Well, that and then what I do, too, is when I'm talking to them I go in and

say: We do this video and by the way…(lots of enthusiasm in my voice)

have you ever seen one of these? I hold up the video.

Well, it's a camera. No, it's better than that. This is a Flip video.

I click it on and say: Say something. (Giggle) Oh, no, no. You click it off

and show it to them. They go: Really? Let me show you a video that I did

for City Café…a little 1950's diner type place here because I've got the

kind of 50's style music that goes along with the video.

I start playing it and usually they don't get into it more than 30-45 seconds

and they close themselves. It's really a pretty sweet deal.

Perry: Really, businesses want to see themselves on video.

Sharon: They really do.

Perry: So you're in a small town --Palatka, Florida, population 20,000. Do you

see business drying up or do you see this as something that you're going

to be able to continue with?

Sharon: I think I'll be able to continue to do this fairly well for quite awhile. I'm

obviously working on other projects and things but this is something that I

can kind of keep going.

The neat thing is I also talked to the local Chamber of Commerce people

and at first they felt like I was in competition with them. Then they

discovered I was just a really inexpensive means of advertising so they've

actually referred some businesses to me. I don't even technically belong

to the Chamber at this point. That's kind of a really nice thing.

There's another guy here in town who starts out at $500 and does $500

and $1,000 deals. I will tell you that I've taken a little bit of his

business…just because my prices are cheaper and they like the effects

that come about from using the Animoto.

When people have said: How come there's no talking on it? What I do is

explain that we use a multimedia fusion of still photos, video, title pages,

and the music which engages all of the senses…seeing, hearing,

feeling…and people will pay more attention to.

They've listened to so many commercials on TV with the voiceovers… so

we designed this so people will deliberately pay more attention to their

commercials.

Perry: Beautiful. So you're taking what could've been perceived as a negative

and turning that into a positive?

Sharon: The way I came up with that was what I discovered with Animoto you can't

put voiceovers on it. I needed to figure a way out around that.

Perry: It's called spin.

Okay, so you've met with them and closed them. You've gone home and

edited using Animoto and now you've posted it on the website you've

created. It sounds like you're distributing that to other social media sites.

I'm guessing you have a See Palatka Facebook page and LinkedIn page

and that kind of thing?

Sharon: Not LinkedIn but we do have Facebook and Twitter.

Perry: Awesome. You are in a sense for anybody wanting to see Palatka and

driving them to the See Palatka website…I guess the question is: Has

anybody said: How's this going to work? Is it going to work? Is anybody

demanding demographics and statistics or are they just happy to have a

video done?

Sharon: No, they're pretty much happy to have the video done. I'm working now

with one of the largest car dealerships in this area. They were like: How

many hits are you getting? (Fortunately I had looked the other day.) I've

had 6,000 hits in 45 days on that website.

I don't have that many people signed up on the newsletter but I'm getting

hits like crazy.

Perry: Wow. And you're just getting hits based on just your natural SEO that's

built into the site?

Sharon: Yes. One of the things I do for the clients is I give them 2-3 weeks and

then I go: Oh, by the way, Paula, I totally forgot to give this to you. I give

them a sheet of paper that says: Go see our new video on

SeePalatka.com, and I give them a sheet they can run off later on and cut

into little squares.

I usually take them 50-75 copies that they can hand out to their

customers. That's driving traffic to the website right there.

Piece of cake. I'm not putting their name on it. I'm not doing anything

except: Go see our new video at…SeePalatka.com.

I did do a trade-out with one of the local radio stations here because they

were just beyond wowed with what I'm doing. I traded a video for three

months worth of commercials.

Perry: Oh, my goodness. So you are networking. You've got your agency rolling.

You're producing videos nonstop. You even got sick in the middle of all

this and still didn't miss a beat when you came back. You've also trumped

your competition and it sounds like you're just doing it all right.

Sharon: Yeah, that's it right there.

Perry: Let me ask you what you'd do different?

Sharon: Probably if I were going to do anything different I would maybe charge

$250 for the video and then say $10 a month for hosting or something like

that. I might actually try something like that because the recurring revenue

would be nice to have.

That's the only big drawback that I can see that I've not done as effectively

as I probably should have. Like I said, that didn't really come to me until

after about a week and I thought: Duh. How dumb.

You're having to slay the dragon every day. But the flip side is it's really

fun going out and talking to people every day.

I would've been smarter if I'd figured it out the other way but the big

reason I didn't set it up initially at $25 of $50 a month was because in this

area a lot of business people are notorious for getting things going and

then: Gee. I can't afford it next month. Then you have bounced checks

coming in and I wanted to go ahead and get the money up front.

That was the reason I decided not to do it on a monthly basis. This month

they can afford it and next month they can't.

I just didn't want to get into putting it up and taking it down. That type of

thing drives me up a wall.

Perry: You have to work with your strengths and your need, and it sounds like

you needed cash money up front...now money, as we call it. A lot of us get

all hung up on how we're going to set it up and hung up on the process

instead of just going out and selling something, getting some money, and

then figuring it out. It sounds like you did the latter.

I need some money. Here's what I'm going to do. Now you're figuring out

some other components as you grow your business. You're figuring out

some great continuity schemes and a different way to sell and how to

leverage with others and it sounds like you're having fun.

Tell me how much money are you in all total at this point?

Sharon: How much have I spent to do what I'm doing? I've spent $160 on the Flip

video and $249 on Animoto. Web hosting for a year was $60. Less than

$500 total…$470 and I've made $10,000.

That's a pretty nice return. Like I said, I cash- flowed it before I ever did

anything.

Perry: That's key…having cash flow before you ever spent a dime is super

critical in this economy and really is proof of concept. If you're able to go

out and sell this and you don't even have the website up, it tells me you're

smart and that folks out there are just craving to get online.

Your typical Mom and Pop/brick and mortar has no idea how to do that

effectively and you're the knight in shining armor showing up on the white

horse saying: You're spending too much money. I can help you. And

you're only putting an hour into this. Like you said, you're making an

attorney's salary doing work that you love.

Sharon: For me that's it. Can I have some fun doing what I'm doing and make

some money? Pure and simple. I know that sounds very narcissistic, I

guess, but I'm just a fun loving person and that's it for me. It's like: Can I

have fun? Can I help somebody else out and go and make some money?

Perry: Those are the 3 important questions I always like to ask: Number 1: What

do you want your day to look like? You're going out and meeting people

and getting to come home, work on your computer and that's a great day

for you.

Number 2 is: Who do I want to help? What kind of people do I want to

help? It sounds like you're helping business men and women to get their

message out.

The third question is: How much do I want to make? An attorney's salary

is nothing to sneeze at.

Sharon: No, it's not. It's great. The funny thing is I've gotten several emails from

different people around the country who asked if they could do it on their

own. I'm like: Sure. I'm actually doing a little bit of consulting for a couple

of people and guiding them through how to actually do something like this.

Perry: Awesome. We're going to just enjoy hearing the success you've had. You

really have spelled it out pretty easily for us. I appreciate you taking the

time to walk us through your process. Sharon, you're crushing it and doing

a great work in your town.

Would you say that other people can replicate this anywhere?

Sharon: Oh, yeah. It's amazing how this idea could work in a small or large town.

In a large town you could actually break it out into all doctors or all

physicians or all vets or all whatever and price yourself accordingly from

there.

Perry: That's genius. You could have different vertical. You could do like you

said…set up a site for that vertical and just go to town. You're not

spending a lot of time and consequently not charging a lot of money. We

could go out and say: Yeah, I'm going to produce this big video for you.

It's going to cost you $5,000.

Your sales cycle is going to be forever. Your shooting is going to be a full

two or three days. Editing is then going to be a week. At the end you're

making less money per hour than you are.

Sharon: The thing is, too, when I show people the Flip video they're like: Aw, come

on now. Then you show it to them and they go: Oh! Then I encourage

them if they have Internet access right there while I'm talking to them to

have them pull up the website. It boggles their mind. They're like: Wow.

You do all of that with that little thing?

Here's the kicker. They're not intimidated with all the stuff that comes in.

Would I compare it to something that you do with a full blown ad agency

and everything else? No. But do I have a market for what I'm doing?

Absolutely in a heartbeat.

Perry: Absolutely…all day long. You're going to give guys who do have all the

gear and all the agency oomph behind them a run for their money

because you already are. That's amazing.

Sharon: I have one guy here in town who no longer speaks to me because he

says: You're mean. You've taken my clients.

Here was my response: What do you mean I took your clients?

Yeah, they saw your work and decided to go with you.

I said: Well, not to be mean, but they weren't your clients if they hadn't

paid you money yet. It's not that I'm being snarky or hardnosed about it,

but to me, it's like if they paid you money they belong to you but if they

paid me money, they belong to me.

Perry: And if they pay us both money, we're both happy.

Sharon: Yeah, and I referred him business. I know where my strengths and my

limitations are. I've referred some other business to him so whatever…

Perry: I think that's important to know what you're good at and you've got to

know your limitations. A lot of us sometimes under reach and a great

many of us over reach but we've got to find that sweet spot. What do I

want to do? What am I good at? What can I accomplish?

Focus on that. Focus on doing that one thing extremely well. I'm talking to

myself right now. Be known for that. You'll have more business than you

know what to do with.

Thank you so much. Any other encouragement you want to leave us with?

What's the next step for See Palatka?

Sharon: I've now got a See Putnam one that I'm doing for the entire county so that

I can go out in different parts of the county and sell. If any of your listeners

would like a free form on what I did when I first set it up, just email me at

Sharon@SeePalatka.com, and I'll be happy to send a free form that I use

when I go out to talk to people. It couldn't be any easier.

Perry: Thank you again, Sharon. Thank you so much for the great work. You're

such an encouragement. I love the Flip camera. It has changed my life

and I know it's changed a lot of others out there. It's obviously changed

yours.

Sharon: Absolutely.

Perry: Thank you for being on the show. We'll keep looking at SeePalatka.com,

and the next time we're down there we'll swing by and check out some of

those businesses that you're promoting.

Sharon: Super. Thank you so much, Perry.

Perry: Thank you so much, Sharon.