Using Video Testimonials To Win New Business With Adam O'Leary

In today's episode of the Agency Accelerator Podcast, I'm joined by Adam o' Leary from trustscale. Now we are talking about both his entrepreneurial journey and also the value of getting video testimonials from existing customers to help you win new customers. We talk about some of the experiences that he's had as he's grown his agencies and some of those key learnings, including what he believes every entrepreneur should focus on and how to get rid of all that other stuff that can be just a distraction. And then we talk about video testimonials and and how to get those video testimonials from your customer when you should ask your customer for that testimonial and why video testimonials can be such a powerful way to build trust and credibility really quickly with that prospect. So another action packed episode and let's get on with today's show.

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Before we jump into today's episode of the podcast, I want to really quickly tell you about some free value packed training I'm going to be delivering in September. This training is entitled how to easily fill your sales pipeline with high quality leads in the next 90 days. Now this is a 60 minute training where I'll be talking about why referral based clients are actually setting your agency up to fail, the importance of niching your agency and how to go about niching that to discover your zone of genius, how to create compelling marketing messages that instantly build credibility with your target audience. I'll be talking about the importance of building your mailing list and making sure that your agency is aligned across the market, product, service and price. So this is a real action packed 60 minute training with some exclusive bonuses and all you need to do is head over to training da costacoaching.co.uk salespipeline webinar that's training.da costacoaching.co.uk Salespipeline webinar and you can save your seat. I'll put a link to this in the show notes, but let's get on with today's show. So welcome to today's episode of the Agency Accelerator podcast. I'm really excited to have with me today Adam Leary who is the co founder of software company trustscout that helps agencies capture video testimonials and we're going to talk a little bit more about that later on. He's also the founder of his own agency, Upside Builders, helping SAS Companies convert more leads. And it was interesting when I was preparing for this, that I saw that you said that SAS companies typically only convert 5% of their leads. So Adam's company is helping convert more of those 95% that are, I guess, just being left by the wayside. So thanks so much for joining us today, and is there anything else you wanted to add to my garbled introduction?

No, that's perfect. I'm really excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me on.

Fantastic. So today we're going to talk about two areas. I was really interested to explore Adam's journey as an entrepreneur and talk about what that roadmap has looked like and some of the kind of tips that you can share with our listeners and some of the good, bad, and the ugly of how you have grown over the years. And we're also going to spend some time talking about how important it is to get. Get really good video testimonials for you to help you win and convert more clients. So why don't you just kick off by telling us a bit about your journey in the entrepreneurial world?

Yeah, sure thing. So I've ran an agency for multiple years, and I was going ahead and working with different types of software clients and working even with local businesses as well, really just trying to go out and figure out where my niche was in the world. And the more that we started working with different clients, we started to realize that as we were writing copy for those clients, that a lot of the time that you had to have some sort of proof to go along with it in order for us to convert more of that traffic. And unfortunately, most of our clients didn't have a lot of proof, or they would have customers coming in, but they would never actually get any. Anybody to say good things about them in public. So once we started kind of understanding that, we started diving really deeply into getting video testimonials and proof for our clients right off the bat. Like the first time that. The first chance that we could. And once we started doing that, we started saying, okay, is there a way to actually automate this process for our clients so we're not manually going out and chasing down each of these video testimonials one by one? Once we went ahead and we made the kind of that. That reach into the video world, we created a software that allowed us to do it and completely manage the entire process for our clients on Autopilot, which was a fun little experience.

Fantastic. So while we're talking about the video testimonials, Tell why do you think that's so important in the kind of like the buyer's journey for Agen when they're looking at growing their customer base?

Yeah, absolutely. For agencies, I mean, it's really mission critical because I think the, the easiest way to put it is there's 10,000 SEO agencies out there. There's 10,000 design studios or agencies and stuff like that. There's 10,000 of every possible agency that's out there. And when a potential client's coming to you and looking and saying, is this actually a good fit for me? They're going to compare you normally with 10, 20 other agencies to try to figure out who's the best. And it's really creating that trust factor right up front that's really critical for agencies to grow and scale.

Yeah, sure. How do you compare, say like a written case study or written testimonial versus a video testimonial?

That's a good question. When it comes to written, I think one thing that we've seen a lot of in the news and stuff like this is, for example, in Amazon, there was tons of cases of fake written testimonials. You see people throw stuff up on websites and you look next to it, it looks like a stock image almost of a person. So there's really that lack of trust or that lack of understanding when it comes for written. And then with video, it's almost impossible to fake, you know, because you're truly seeing the person there. You're seeing if they're being honest. You see where they're at, their location. Are they in a, even a pizza restaurant, for example? You know, like, what's their background like? And that right there is, is one of the cool parts when it comes to video.

Yeah, it's amazing when I see.

Like.

Quotes on people's websites that say, you know, you're fantastic. Says leading a CEO of a large finance institution, you think to yourself, there's absolutely no value in that whatsoever. And it's. It's worse almost than not having it there at all.

Yep.

And tell me, what part of the journey in the relationship with a customer would you ask for video? Because I think sometimes people are too afraid of asking too soon. So when would you advise clients to actually go to their customers and ask for this testimony?

That's a great question. I always recommend the first. Aha. Moment. So the first moment that somebody has experienced your product or your service. Okay. For your agency. So the first time, if you're going out and you're doing social media posts, for example, your social media agency, then the first time that you want to ask that person to give you like a video testimonial or any testimonial whatsoever is like, literally that first time that they see the social media post and they see the first result. And I always recommend to people in your agency or in any business, really, you need to try to get a customer a quick win within that first, like, literally as fast as you can. So for an agency, is there a way that you can get an aha moment down to 24 hours? You know, is there a way to do it so quickly that the person's excited? Okay. Because you're starting off that relationship, that's one of the most likely to. To. To give you a good video testimonial or any testimonial, because they're the most excited at that moment. And then from there you're able to keep that relationship and. And help it scale and grow.

Yeah. So such good advice. I think a lot of the time I see my clients too afraid to ask that early on. They need to think, they need to feel like they need to wait to the end of the project, and that's often too late. Then if the client's kind of starting to disengage from the agency and think about their next priority, it might be too difficult. Tell me about the kind of questions that you should ask when you're doing a video testimonial, because I guess that's another thing people aren't really sure what to ask and therefore they avoid doing it.

Yeah, absolutely. I guess the favorite. The. The best way that I like to explain it is like a hero's journey. So if you can visualize even like a. In the US they have like the medical commercials, like for pills and things like that. And there's always, at the very beginning, there's like this sad person who's struggling, and then all of a sudden they found the magic pill, which is, of course, your service. And then after that, it's happiness, sunshine and rainbows and things like that. So I like to follow that pattern in when we ask any sort of. For the questions. So we'll usually start off by what was or what is your business about? For example, like, are you a pizza shop? What are you. What was the struggle that you were facing initially? And then bringing them in and then saying, how were you able to find such and such agency? Was it by referral? Where was it from? How was the experience working with this? And then would you recommend other people working?

Yeah, brilliant. Good advice. The Hero's journey is a great one to use in all aspects of marketing, isn't it? So, okay, so we've done that. We've now got this video testimony, this 30 minute, 30 second or two minute, whatever it is, video testimony. How can we use it? I mean the obvious place is to stick it on your website, but how else could we be using that to help maximize our marketing?

Yeah, I, my favorite way to use it is to put it into VSLs or to create like clip montages at the very beginning of something. So even in like the beginning of your, your VSL or a sales video that you're making for, for your agency, you can even stitch in at the very beginning like, oh, John's the best, like this was the best experience that we've ever had. Clip that in the beginning. And then you can start that mood off right when that person's watching. Because now they're, it's not, they're now in their mind they're more engaged because now they're going to see they kind of already have some understanding of, of how good you do. So they're watching videos even further and things like this. And then also I love to use it in follow up situations. So if you're trying to land say a $2,000 a month deal, a perfect place to stick that in and be able to send it over to a potential client is to follow up with them, send over, say, hey, here's all of the happy customers that we've had before. And that gives you that trust and that credibility for that person to make that decision.

Yeah, I'm glad you said that because I have a page with about 12 video testimonials on and I always use that page with my prospects when I'm following up. So I'm doing exactly that, which is good to know. So I guess one of the other things that puts people off doing this is that they worry that the client might not have the equipment or you know, they don't know how to set it all up. So I guess your software is helping sort of automate some of this process. Is that, is that right? Yep.

Yeah, absolutely. And one other thing too is that we personally, for me, when I see video testimonials I never liked, I guess one great example is like this, like when speakers are on stage and they, afterwards they go and they pull people aside and like everybody's in like the same, the same situation, the same background. It looks very staged, you know. And one of my, one of my favorite things when it comes to video testimonials, that authenticity of people actually being in a different setting, people clearly being at the place that they're giving the review, seeing all the moving parts in the background, to me is one of the most important parts. So when somebody actually does pull out their phone or if they pull out their computer, it gives you that like, okay, clearly they didn't script this testimonial out.

Yeah, that's such good advice. And I think, again, that sort of puts people off because they think they have to have this highly produced video. But you're absolutely right. Sometimes the more raw it looks, the more real it looks. And therefore, people are, like, more likely to believe it. So just talk us through how they would use your software in this process.

Yeah, sure. So when it comes to TrustCout, we designed it to be as easy as humanly possible for any sort of business to go out and collect these video testimonials. So when a user, or when a business owner such as yourself, when you go out and you use Trust Goat, what will happen is once you send it over, the link to a person, or you could put it on a QR code or whatever it is that you want to send it over, or link in an email. Once they click on that, it'll prompt up and ask them like, it'll tell them, like, oh, these are the guidance questions that we have. So if you can tell us about this situation. This situation, this situation. And then once they start recording, they record it. The video testimonial comes right into the dashboard after they leave their name and their review. And then from there you access it inside of your dashboard where you're able to download it and upload it to YouTube or anywhere else that you would need.

Fantastic. I'm going to go and check this out afterwards, tell a lot of my clients that they should start using it. I think the easier we make this for ourselves and our clients, the more likely we are to do it. To do it. And it's such an important part of, like you say, building trust and credibility with your potential clients that it's something we should all be doing. So let's just take a few steps back here and talk about your journey as an entrepreneur and how you. What you were doing before you started Trust Scout, what led you to do that and what your aspirations are sort of moving into the future. Lots of questions in one there.

Absolutely. Yeah. When it came, yeah, when it came to trustcoat, I mean, for us, it was just so important. We were initially using it for ourselves. Just to be able to help out our clients. It was literally just to save time because we were spending, I mean, hours to go out and get video testimonials because half the times we would need to go and call up somebody and then be able to say, oh, okay, this is how to set it up. This is how to like actually go out and record. And then this is how to send the video testimonials to us. And it was, it was not fun because half the time it would get stuck in the email or the file was too big or they just couldn't even figure out how to send it. So we were like, okay, this, this isn't really a efficient way to do. So we had people like trying to drag and drop it into files and stuff like this. And it's just, we just kept it just. We had no control over any of the situation. So when we actually designed trust code, it was completely for ourselves to be able to help us and systematize the process. And one of my friends, they actually asked if we could, or if we could share the software with them and go out and even use it for themselves. And from there, that's actually when it started going into a larger scale situation where we had a lot more people than we were initially expecting.

Yeah. So how long ago was that that you started Trust?

Yeah, we started TrustCode up last June. So A little over a year. Yeah, a little over a year now.

Okay. And then just talk us through your journey of like when you started out in business and you know, how you got to this and what your aspirations are beyond that.

Yeah, absolutely. So I, when I first started off, I. I knew I wanted to get into sales or if I wanted to get into business. I wanted something that I had control over, how much I made. And I remember this was back when I was young. It was with Pokemon cards. I. I loved Pokemon cards. And I. Once I found out that people desired one card more than other cards and that you could trade one card for two cards or one card for four cards or whatever it may have been. I fell in love with that idea of being able to have something of value and being able to. That to help people in whichever way it was. So I started really trying to do a lot of projects. When I was, when I was probably 15, 16 years old, I was trying to start up like food stands. I was trying to start up all. Everything I could possibly try to do. And some days I would make some money and then other projects I would make absolutely no money and a lot of the time in a lot of my projects, very early on, they were not profitable. We would have all these ideas. We had all this type of like, I guess, passions to try to go out and follow, but we didn't know how to go ahead and make any money. We just didn't know what to do. From there I went and I just said, you know what? I think the best way for me to be able to learn how to do something, whether it's online or if it's just in a local area, is to tack on to what somebody is already doing and kind of see what somebody else is doing. So I ended up working with a person who ran an online company and I started working with him and I started seeing the way that he was generating, like sales and the way that he was being able to bring clients and bring customers. And from there I was able to tack on to very specific areas that I found that I was good at inside of his business and it allowed me to learn. And once I was able to learn those skill sets, then from there I was able to go out and I was able to help other businesses be able to do the same thing. And I created up an agency for myself, but I wouldn't have been able to do that unless I actually was able, unless I actually worked with that person from that initial stages.

I think a lot of people will relate to that story of having worked in an agency, having seen the good and the bad of running that agency, and then deciding that they can do it better themselves in probably that's only my story. I was, I used to be a million years ago. I was the marketing manager for a software company. And we really struggled to hire a good agency that understood what we did. So I thought at the age of 23, 24, I thought, I know I can go and start my own agency. And, you know, that naive, kind of arrogant youth was. Stood me in good stead because I don't think I do that now, but exactly. So how do you juggle running these two businesses? That's always interesting question to ask people who've got multiple balls in the air.

Yeah, absolutely. It was definitely challenging at first because when you start something, you put everything that you have into it, you know. So when I. When I first was kind of making the switch and working with trustco, what happened is I started focusing all of my attention on that other business, which then of course my agency started going down, which was not fun. And it took me a couple months to start realizing like, oh, okay, I need to kind of Figure out a balance. So what we ended up doing is, was actually, I guess, good because it started to change my perspective of running a business in the first place. Because you kind of think that you're supposed to put all your attention on the business. You're supposed to work eight hours a day on the business at least. Or if you listen to some motivational people out there, they tell you to work 18 hours a day. But what happens is a lot of the time you're just working for the sake of work, you know, and that right there, it was, that's, that's what you start to realize is because you have to start finding time and kind of start figuring out, okay, where is my time best valued in a specific area? So what we ended up doing is we kind of said, okay, you know what, I kind of structured the time where it was like, okay, half the day I'll work on this project and then the next day I'll work 100% on this one. And I kind of had to think of it as I had to get the maximum of time for the least amount of.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, No, I agree with you. I mean, you know, I run this program, the self running agency and.

You.

Know, wrote my book of the same name for all those reasons. It's like, you know, we want to grow our businesses, but we don't want to be, excuse me, we don't want to be completely tied into that business working for a really difficult boss ourselves. So how do we grow it without losing control, but get that flexibility and freedom? And I always talk to people about the concept of working out what their notional hourly rate is. It's like what is an hour of their time worth? And if they are doing tasks that are worth less than that, why are they doing them? Why can't they need to delegate them, automate them or do something to stop doing them and focus on tasks that are worth their alley rate or more. And those are the, usually the things that move your agency forward. Those are the strategy things that, you know, the things that only you can do. And what's your sort of future aspirations? You're, you're not gray and like I am. You're young. So what's your, what is your, so future aspirations for your businesses?

Yeah, absolutely. For me, I guess the biggest goal in the next four to five year, that kind of an outlook is to be able to fully automate most of the business processes that are there. I almost kind of want to view myself as the chairman as opposed to physically going into the business and working on it. So a lot of what I'm even doing now is I'm constantly out looking at, okay, what did somebody just do twice? You know, somebody on my team, what does somebody just do twice? And how can I systematize that? I actually, even last year I hired somebody to come in and basically just follow me around, you know, and be able to document everything that I was doing. And you start to realize how much of that stuff is something that you don't even remotely have to do. You kind of think that you have to do, but then you realize if you can just document processes, then you can have somebody else go out and do it for $5 an hour. And then you're able to focus on the money. How going out and getting new clients, like focusing on the things that actually increase that hourly net worth that you have. That would be my biggest thing, is like trying to focus on setting all the systems up, all the processes, and then being able to have both businesses running on autopilot.

Such good advice. Personally, I've failed quite a few times in the last few years of hiring a really good VA and hiring a social media person, a content person. And this time around, I got it right because I did exactly what you just said. I spent. It was a very tedious process, but I spent a good few days documenting all of my standard operating procedures on how to do everything that I have been doing. And then when I hired the new team that I have now, they can follow the standard, the SOPs, and, you know, they can deliver it to the sort of level that I would hope with my minimum about my input. Any other. Any other tips that you could share about running your business? I'm putting you on the spot here a bit, but any tips on running your business that you can share with anybody else? Any things that you seen, good or bad, you know, when you've been running your business or when you've seen other people running theirs?

Yeah, absolutely. I would say this was probably one of the better advices I. Or that somebody told me. And it was that there's really only two things in your business that you can ever focus on, and it's traffic or it's sales. Those are really the only two things that happen in your business. And I asked, I said, okay, like, why is that? You know, and if you start thinking about it, if you're doing the delivery, if you personally are going out and doing the delivery, then. Then what ends up happening is you're basically just working a job at that point, because you're just doing the service that somebody else who actually has benefits, who gets dental, you know, like, that they could be paying you if you were just working, like, for them in the company. So if you're doing the delivery, especially as an agency owner, you really have to check yourself and say, okay, wait a minute. How can I step out of the delivery 100% and only focus on traffic and sales? Because those are the two things that will actually put money in your pocket. Yeah.

Such good advice. I've not sort of heard it like that before. I think my experience with a lot of the. A lot of entrepreneurial business owners is that they have to change their mindset as well, because they so believe that they, you know, the clients want them. And if. If I don't work on the client account, the client will hate us and leave us. And of course, that's not true. And they. They get stuck on what I call the client service hamster wheel of doom. So they're just constantly servicing clients. They've got no time to focus on traffic or sales. They've got no time to focus on the future direction of their agency. And there's a big iceberg up ahead that they aren't seeing because they're so entrenched in client delivery. So I. Sometimes you've got to change your mindset first of all, to think, no, there are other people that can deliver as well or better than me, and I need to hire those people, and I need to train my clients so that they don't want expect me on the account because I need to do the thing that only I can do. And the thing that a lot of business owners do very well is traffic or sales.

Yeah.

It's also interesting that I see some agencies trying to outsource that problem. So trying to outsource that, like hiring a new business agency or hiring a business development manager. And almost nine times out of ten, that fails. Correct. Because we don't. Sometimes people see it as a difficult problem, but they don't realize that they're the best person to solve it.

100%. 100%.

So if people wanted to find out more about you, Adam, and more about Trust Scout, where would they go?

Yep, they could go to Trust Scout IO Agency, and then they'll be able to really see how you can collect video testimonials for your agency, or if you want, even doing it for your clients as well. We can walk you through all that.

Fantastic. Okay, so I'll put a link to that in the show notes. And if people Wanted to reach you directly. Should they do it over LinkedIn or via that website or your email?

Yeah, you could reach me on LinkedIn, definitely.

Okay.

If you just reach out to Adam.

O', Leary, we'll put you link on LinkedIn as well. So, as you know, the one question I ask all my guests before I let them go is if you could go back in time and give your younger self just starting out in business one piece of advice, what would it be?

Yeah, what I would definitely say is try fast and fail fast. For me, that, that has become one of the, I guess, main building blocks of my business is because if I go ahead and when I first started off in business, I would work on projects for six months at a time or nine months even if it wasn't profitable, thinking that like, oh, it takes so much effort to go out and start a business that it makes sense to kind of work for free for six months or 12 months. And the, the reality behind it is that if you can just get it in front of enough people and then see what the conversion rates are and, and how much you're making from it in 24 hours, I mean, you're going to be way better off because you're going to have all those misses and then you'll be able to find those couple winners that will allow you to scale at that kind of exponential rate.

Yeah, great advice. Of course, the danger of sitting there working on something for six months that you think your market wants is that you might find out that no one's actually interested in it.

Exactly.

I always talk about companies that sell vitamin pills instead of painkillers. You know, a customer's in pain and they want their pain solving and what they want is a painkiller. But if we're, if we're producing a product that's a vitamin pill that we know would be really good for our clients, but they've got a splitting headache, they don't want the vitamin pill. So, you know, I really like that. I haven't heard that term try fast, fail fast. But that is a good, a good piece of advice. And as I always say to my guests, we haven't had anybody say anything like that before. So that is, we're at nearly 100 episodes now. And with. No one's ever said that before. So I'm, I'm. One day I, maybe for episode 100, I'm going to go back and collect all of the, these bits of advice and put them into one one episode. I think that would be a really good one. Adam, I really appreciate your time, especially since it's really early in the morning for you in the US But I really appreciate your time and sharing your experience and your wisdom with our with our listeners. And thanks so much for joining me today.

Absolutely. Thank you so much. It was awesome being on.