Multimedia Storytelling with Bailey Barnard of Media Stone Creative

Hey, Shannon. I love it when somebody proves me right.

I think we all do. I know.

I feel like I might love it a little bit more, but maybe not. Maybe not. And the guest that we have today, Baylor Barnard, trying to make sure I say this right, has a moment in the interview where he proves me right and about something that I just spent a lot of money on, which makes me feel even better. So I love this interview, if only for that. So I just gotta say that.

Well, yeah, I think and you made a good point as we were talking with Bailey kind of after the interview that we just went through is about having guests on that add value to our listeners. And I really think this one has that aspect of it, especially with as it revolves around storytelling and getting your story out there, finding your story and ways to get it out and ways to maximize, you know, your voice. And I'm looking forward to having everybody hear it.

Absolutely, Absolutely. I. I don't have anything more to add. I mean, he proves me right. How could I. Like, I'm not going to mess with this.

Winner.

Winner.

There you go. Well, he is Shannon Jean. I'm Dave Hamilton. We are small businessing and this is small business show episode 320.

One of the things that we talk about on the small business show is this what I like to think of as an opportunity as business owners to create our own story. Kind of mold this powerful narrative around whether it's your business, your brand, your products, and even yourself. It can be one of the most rewarding and powerful aspects of being a small business owner.

And it's fun because you get to tell your own story.

Why wouldn't you do it?

Right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think it's awesome. But, you know, there's a lot to it and it can be. And what if you're not sure how to get started creating a narrative around the story or you have a good story, but you don't quite know how to get it out there. So I'm real excited. Joining us today is Bailey Bernard, founder and creative director of MediaStone Creative. MSC is a storytelling content creative agency that helps create and promote stories that can make your business stand out. Bailey, thank you so much for joining us today.

Happy to be here. Thanks for having me, guys.

Yeah, this is good. It's one of my favorite topics, you know, and you can we talk about all the time. Why is it. Why is storytelling so important for businesses?

Yeah, I mean, it's. That's how. What a business is. I mean, if you don't have a story Then you don't have a business, you don't have a product. I mean, you know, if you look at infomercials or I mean really any company, and this is something we really, we really try to hit home in Mediastone is that every business has a story, every person has a story, every product has a story. It's not just like, hey, I created something because I wanted to make money. At the end of the day, people create things and they go into business for themselves because they're passionate about something, because they see some shortcoming in the market, or they see an opportunity and they see a way to help people with an innovative product or a service. And that right there, what I just went through, that is a story. And I think so many business owners don't realize that what they have is a story with their business as a story. They're not, you know, you're not just selling products, you're selling the reason behind it, the craftspeople who came up with the idea or the service and who work with you on a day to day basis. So I think story is fundamental to any business, no matter what you're selling.

Yeah, I definitely agree wholeheartedly. Has it gotten more important to kind of build the story around your business as we move kind of into more and more digital and everything else? Is it is more important now or is it always been this way?

Yeah, well, I mean, I think the obvious answer is yes, of course, it's much more important now, all these different channels and all that. But I really, I think the story has always been crucial to business. I mean, you know, back in the 1950s or even before that, like if you wanted to sell a product, you had to explain to consumers why they needed this product, why it was going to enhance their lives or make their lives easier or better, or if you're, you know, running a service or something, it's. You always had to be able to articulate what it is you're offering and why the people you're offering it to need it. And so that is a story that is old as time from the earliest trading hecklers in a marketplace thousands of years ago. But of course now you could say it's more important. I would just say there's more access to it from a consumer perspective. There are so many more channels available, so many more different ways to digest content. It's not just TV advertising anymore, which, you know, frankly I've never liked. Like I always thought to myself, it's like, well, I see something on a billboard or like you know, a TV commercial or, you know, back in the day, the Budweiser frogs. Like, why do three chirping frogs make me want to. Yeah, right. I mean, it's an iconic commercial, and you remember what it is. But I was always. I never liked advertising. I kind of came up in my career on the editorial side and, you know, even before that, I'm a creative writer and stuff like that. We get into that. But I've never really felt that I was duped by advertising, if you will, that someone can. Can use, you know, marketing research or, you know, a funny jingle or something like that. And I would hear that or see that and be like, oh, I want to buy that product. What is so funny? Now, someone who's never thought that I was susceptible to advertising, I find so many things that I like from Instagram and Facebook now. Like, I have, you know, a pair of shoes and these. These pants that I wear all the time, I love. I saw them on Face or on Instagram ad, and I'm like, oh, those are cool. And I click on it. And it's. It's. I don't know if. If maybe I'm just getting older and, you know, paying more attention to those things, but if I see something I like or see something with a story behind it and I, you know, those are the channels, you know, mostly on my phone, that I. That I access the world at large through the Internet, I find myself much more susceptible to digital advertising than I ever was before.

Well, I think digital advertising gives us a better opportunity to tell a story in the way that that particular audience to whom we're telling it wants to hear it. Right. It's not just, well, we're all stuck on tv, so that's where we're going to get our story. Whether that's more relevant. Yeah, well, whether that's where you or I would want to learn about a story. Right. We probably don't. But on Instagram, where you're sort of just scrolling and everything is an interruption in that ads aren't really an interruption, especially if they're well targeted. You know, you're more receptive to hearing a story or experiencing a story there. And I think that part of it is important. I think it makes a big difference. And that's why we all. You're not alone, Bailey. Like, I buy stuff that I see on Instagram, too. And it's. Those are some of the best things because they resonate, and then you buy them. And of course, you want to support this idea that you're smart and you bought stuff that's, that's smart. And so you tell other people and on onward it goes.

Yeah. And what, you know, it's so funny with Instagram and like there's so much bad press that targeting gets and privacy and everyone collecting our data and yes, there is a big breach of privacy going on. You know, that's not.

Everyone gives warrant.

Yeah, everyone gives consent to it. Whether you know that you want to use the Internet, you want to use Google, you want to use Facebook, want to use Instagram, tell you you are, you are offering in exchange for their free service, you are giving them your information. I don't mind it. I understand what the concern is for it. But what we as consumer do benefit out of it is that Facebook and Google, they have a very good idea of who we are, what we like and the types of products and services that are going to resonate with us. And I think that stuff is always improving. You know, there's one thing that I don't know how much you guys get into this, but it's the technology side of advertising is it's always changing for sure. But especially now, the thing things called cookies, which you guys may be familiar with, probably some of your readers are, basically any website that you go to now, a little thing will pop up that says, hey, we're collecting information. Click Accept. If you want this thing to go out, get out of the way so you can get in your present site. Everybody just clicks on that because they don't think twice about it. That is changing. Apple is changing the way that they're approaching some of that. And Google recently announced that they're changing their approach to cookies. So I'm curious to see how that is going to change. I mean, I think there's benefits and there's shortcomings and drawbacks to that type of hyper, hyper target of advertising. It's funny, you go on Amazon. Go ahead.

The issue with that is not so much. You visit my website, you visit macobserver.com, you give us the right to collect data about you and use that data. That in and of itself is okay. It's when you get the Facebook pixel that lives not just on Facebook, but on literally, almost literally every website. And now, without you really knowing, Facebook is collecting this data of you traveling around the web. It's not just them collecting the data of you on Facebook, it's this whole profile. And that is what Apple's technology already, even before the next release of iOS, that started with Safari back in the fall, they are stopping that. Like that does not exist anymore. The way those cookies work, they don't let you. And I think that's the. To me, that's a good place to draw that line. You gave this website permission to track you, but you didn't give another website permission to track you here, there and everywhere.

To quote needles. Right, right. And that's one of Facebook's biggest issues right now. But they do, they are a mass, massive, massive advertiser advertising entity and you know, say what we about the product or the business, they make a ton of money because absolutely everybody now relies on on Facebook for reaching their consumer base. Yeah, yeah.

So, so let's talk. We're talking about platforms and I want to stick with this topic for a minute. So as a business owner and I'm trying to get out there, okay. I want to get my story out and everything, there's so many places that I'm supposed to be. You know, I got, I'm going to be on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, this, that and the other. What kind of, I mean, how do you manage that? The expectation when you're working with a client, you know where to focus their energy and their budget to have the biggest impact. What kinds of things play a role in those decisions?

Yeah, I mean that's such a great question and unfortunately the answer really is everything. I mean there's no one stop shop for reaching consumers anymore. And I think that's the nature of the beast that we live in right now. But I think what's interesting is that with the magic of editing, we do a lot of video based storytelling, but we also do a lot of writing, web design and stuff like that. What is great about all these different channels is that you don't have to do a full scale production. Okay, here's the thing we're producing that's going on Instagram and then we'll schedule another shoot, we'll do something and that one's going to be just for TikTok. And then we'll do this other thing. We'll make it on Facebook and YouTube and our website and add to our newsletters and all this different stuff. What I think we do really well and I don't think a lot of agencies are great at this, is starting your content with a core thing that you're going to base it around. We like to do branded documentaries we call them. I mean it's really gives business owners and craftspeople and people offering a service an opportunity to tell their Story. We pair that with compelling visuals, very much like a documentary format, but you're doing it optimally for a phone. But what's great about that is that you can you take that production, going into the production, you know, you gotta check all these boxes. You've got to get TikTok, you gotta get Instagram, Snapchat, if that's a place where the clients are YouTube and all these different applications for it. But it's also not just, okay, let's tell your one core brand story. Let's do that. Boom, here's your, here's your one video and let's splice and dice that four or five different ways. We're on the different channels and we're done. While you're shooting, we offer what I call a content suite where we're not just producing one core asset and then we'll cut that a few different ways for the different channels. There you go. Have a nice day. We pride ourselves in giving clients a ton of different assets. So we will take photos, we will do a bunch of shortcuts for Instagram Stories and for TikTok and for Snapchat. And at the end of the day it's my ideal client when I go in them. We'd say let's start with a core branded documentary, but then let's have a whole stratosphere of content around that to tell the minutia of the stories about this product or that product or that new model line or this craftsperson, all that. So when we go in over, over the course of a weekend or if it's a week long shoot, we can capture all of that stuff as long as we anticipate in advance knowing here all the assets we're going to create, then let's back into that during production. And while we're there in that few day shooting, because that's, that's where the biggest cost is getting cameras out and getting, you know, organizing a whole group of people there. But if you can do all of those things and gather all of those assets in a single shoot, you are being very, very efficient. And so where, where I would encourage business owners, while you do have to be channels or it's best practices to be on all these channels, be as efficient as you can so that when you're creating content, don't just create one piece of content that's going to be on the homepage of your website and then run the same thing on the different channels. When you create that one main thing, get as many different pieces of assets as you can out of it needs.

To be part of your plan.

Right, exactly.

From the beginning.

Right, right.

Figure that out. That, that makes a lot of. That makes a lot of sense. Okay, so. So let's take a step back here and I want to learn about your story. How did you get into this? Which, and I do like this phrase, that's from your website. This multimedia storytelling business as you talk about it online, how did that start?

Yeah, well, so I've always fancied myself kind of a storyteller. So I actually, I've long been a creative writer. I went to the University of Iowa, you know, very prestigious writing program there. And I went there because I wanted to study writing. I've always had a passion for that, for telling stories, both nonfiction and I love to make up stories, short stories and novel form. And so that's the core of who I am. I love telling stories. I think that's the most empathetic way to connect with other people. If you describe who you are, if you tell a story of somebody else, people can relate to that. And doing that just in the very simplest form, through language, through words on paper. When I was at Iowa, I got into student run on campus creative magazine called Content Magazine. I won their fiction contest. I went on to sell some ads for them and also soon became their editor in chief because I was writing a bunch of stories. And then that kind of got my start in the magazine business. From there, you know, I graduated and got a low level job at Rappaport magazine. Luxury lifestyle been around since the 70s and they're based in LA. They're based in Malibu. At the time I was also looking at maybe a job at an internship at the Boston Herald. And it was very easy decision to work for a luxury lifestyle magazine in Malibu or. Or to go to freezing cold Boston and write obituaries and fact check for a living. So I got into Robert Port, got into the media business that way. Great brand. It was kind of a family run company. Bill Curtis of Kurt Co was running it at the time. And it was kind of a great place to come up. And I sort of found myself in the right place at the right time. I started In August of 2007, fairly low on the totem pole. But shortly after I started, the economy totally took a huge dump and everything changed. And simultaneous to that, print was going through this whole thing with the iPad coming out and everything going digital and print going out of style. And so I was able to, not just by being younger, but by being versatile enough and able to Kind of jump into new roles as things developed and figure things out where several different hats there. So while I started as an assistant editor doing fact checking and writing some low level stories as the company thinned out, you know, a lot of high profile editors got let go and I was able to fill in a bunch of those roles. And pretty soon I found myself, you know, the, you know, contributing significantly if not being the staff editor for aviation, boating, technology. I did a lot with automotive, did a lot with spirits and dining and travel. It was a really fun magazine to work for because it covers all these different verticals. And so through that, you know, I got to do some amazing travels and we can talk about some of that luxury stuff. It's a whole different world. But then kind of at the same time, Facebook was coming into major prominence as a tool for businesses. Instagram came onto the scene in 2012 and so I was able to kind of pick up the torch where we weren't really doing anything with social media and start kind of take over those platforms. And before long I became editor of the website. After a few years of doing that, we had gotten some investment growth. We were then acquired by Roberport, was then acquired by Penske Media, which owns Variety and now Rolling Stone, kind of the biggest publisher on the west coast. They bought Rob Report and we got some fun resources. We were able to get a suite of photography and video equipment and me and a buddy, kind of, he was our photo research at the time, had got done a little bit of film, had a little bit of film background. I didn't really have any, but we found ourselves with cameras and access to some of the world's highest end brands. And so we just started filming, figured out how to use these cameras, you know, a couple little handheld DSLRs and just got out in the field and started creating video for Roberport in a major way where we hadn't really had the resources to do that in the right way. And then, you know, so it's through that I was with roberport for about 10 years. Through that I got to really hone my writing and editorial and journalistic skills. Doing that got a very good understanding of the digital media landscape, especially for social media. And then running the website and having a keen understanding of how the advertising and marketing side of that worked in addition to the content production side and getting into Google Analytics and all that detailed stuff. And then again, right place, right time and good position. Launched Job Report Studio when we got the influx of investment from Metzky Media and was filming all this stuff and found that I love doing it while I'm still a writer and a storyteller at heart. I think video is such an awesome medium for telling these stories because it gives you kind of the best of all. You get the compelling visuals and the artistic photographic eye to compose a shot. You get to pairing kind of the story writing, especially when you're doing a documentary format. You script these organic narratives that people say together. You pair them with cool visuals. You get some great stock music in there. I've even worked with, I've got a great buddy who's a classical composer and writes some amazing scores for some of the pieces we've done. And you put that all together and you have this like film, like even on a short form, like a two to five minute thing, you can tell the story of a brand in this very film like format that is just interesting and engaging and especially now the way people are, you know, digest content. When you're just scrolling past stuff, if you see a few words on your screen, you might stop to read it. But if you see a compelling visual, hear a cool soundtrack and someone passionately talking about their story, that's going to stop you in your tracks. And so you are.

Our listeners have got to be laughing. I just, I spent an episode, I think two episodes ago, but it might have been last week, talking about how we're hiring somebody internally to do exactly this routinely for our podcasts. Yeah, so yeah, yeah, you're, you're, you're justifying this expense I just made, which is.

Oh, so you just made the expense. I was, I was going to use the opportunity to pitch Media Stone creative in case you weren't already sold on the business. We do all those services, it's all good.

And this stuff is, I mean, and I get it, working with like high end luxury brands and products and lifestyle type things. Can those, or maybe not the same, but similar tactics, you know, can small businesses do this same kind of thing without a huge outflow of capital but have some kind of impact, you know, similar to get their story out there?

Yeah, for sure. I mean I think, you know, one, one thing that high ends brands have, you know, is obviously budget to hire, you know, big, big LA studios, dozens of people on set to get this really masterfully creative video and all that. I think the industry in general is shifting away from that. Because I was at Robert Horton, lived in LA for so long, I kind of had a peripheral view of sort of the industry and I always thought productions were so overblown that you'd go film a car commercial or have something on set and there's like you got dozens of different people and assistants, and assistants to assistants and a cinematographer and a director of photography director and a second director. And it's like, give me a break. Like, yeah, the footage is beautiful and the results you get are very, very clean. But with, you know, DSLR cameras and you know, frickin iPhone and Samsung phone cameras, Google cameras, they're awesome. And with a little bit of training or tutorial, I mean a lot of what I learned was online. There's so many great videos on YouTube or other channels to figure out how to use some of this equipment, how to do it. You can do a fairly high level of production for much, much cheaper than a Hollywood budget. I mean, sure, absolutely. And I think a lot of people don't realize that. They think, oh well, we want to produce a video like Four Seasons or a Rolls Royce or something like that, we're gonna have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars. And the reality is that is what those companies do spend on that. But again, one thing I push for Mediastone is that we are a boutique agency. We're always a scrappy crew. I usually go in there with just a few people on done as efficiently as possible. And I think again, applying that efficiency to doing it, taking that, you know, high end approach and making sure that you've got story and you've got some compelling visuals but you can definitely do it cheap. Yeah.

And so keeping that smaller medium sized business owner in mind, are there common, you know, mistakes or things that maybe they miss when that you could offer up some advice on, oh, don't do this or if you do this, you know, make sure you include that if they're trying to get their story out there.

Yeah. I mean one thing I will say is that I think small business owners or really any business owners, they, they put way too much emphasis on like scripting something or having their message written out and they're either reading from a cue card or they have their pr, their branding and their communications person saying, hey, say it like this, this is the brand we are. You have to say it this way. And I find that that comes across as so inorganic and viewers today see through that, like to be more authentic, be more authentic, be more organic. And again, that's why I love the documentary format is because we, we get business owners and craftspeople just talking like, like we're having a conversation now. And with my editorial and journalistic background, you ask Them questions to, to get people going at what they're excited about. And if someone has made this product that they're proud of and happy about, if they're reading from a spec sheet or they're, you know, reading from talking points from their branding person, it's dry and it's. No, nobody is good at reading a script except trained actors. And even then it comes across as kind of phony. I think what readers are really responsive to when they, when they hear the passion in someone's voice and they, you know, they see what they're. That's something that people can really connect with. And what I love doing is capturing that recording, getting someone kind of just going, going, going. I'm sure, you know, a lot of small business owners could talk for, for hours and upon hours about their business, but then taking that, that broader conversation that they've had and finding the pertinent moments and then being able to cut and splice and dice that and weave that, that's great.

So getting that, that, yeah, that authenticity and excitement and passion, you know, maybe more important than having something perfectly scripted and laid out and you know, so it sounds like.

Yeah, yeah, I just, I just don't like that. Yeah, yeah, the scripted. And we're working with some, some high end brands. We did some videos where like some, some executives would come in there, their PR person would be basically sitting there holding their hand, being like, oh, say it like this, say it like that. Or they'd have things memorized. And every time it was like, you know, can we put that paper away? You know, I'm going to have you sit in the other room actually, you and me, we're just going to talk.

Well that's, I mean that's an old school way of doing things. Right. The very control the message idea of letting PR sort of run that and there's, I mean it worked, but it comes across as inauthentic at times.

So yeah, I just think with social, with everyone, people see through that. I mean they know, they know what's going on.

People know how to see through that now.

Yeah, I mean especially with all the content on your phones. Like people, people can tell when you're being organic or when you're being authentic or when you're not.

Totally.

How are you going to get them to stop. Stop scrolling? So one of the things I liked when doing some research on your business is this concept of revenue driven audience engagement because I always, you know, would even. And I know now it's easier to measure effectiveness and a B testing and all this kind of stuff. But talk about how, if you can, how businesses can measure this, the type of impact that this storytelling, marketing has, because it sounds great, but you've got to drive customers, it's got to drive revenue, right? Ultimately, yeah, yeah.

And that's kind of what you touched on, is a big thing. I mean, I think in the olden days when you ran a magazine ad or a billboard or even something on tv, it was very limited metrics about. It was very difficult to tell how many direct sales you actually got out of that. The reality is now you can tell very directly if your advertising is working or not. When someone runs an ad on Instagram and says shopeer, someone clicks on that and buy something, that's very, very easy to see the ROI on your business there. But I think more importantly than that is looking at the long lead of this stuff. And it's never just, okay, we'll tell an organic story, we'll make a great video, we'll put it on Instagram, boom, the money will start pouring in. You have to look at these things from a bit of a longer story arc and you got to try some things and throw some things at the wall and see what sticks. And so again, getting back to, that's why I like the approach of creating a bunch of different assets, not just having one video. And there you go. Thank you, ma'. Am. We're done coming up with a bunch of different assets, coming at it from a few different angles, and then you can see what works, see what resonates. Look at the metrics for your post, look at the metrics for a photo, a photo based post or a video based post, see how those perform, see who those resonate with. And then when you find something that does work, then you can start to replicate that and push more of your content in that direction. So I'm a very big fan of trying a bunch of different things, seeing what works. And then when you find what works, do more things like that and luckily.

Put more revenue behind it. Your advertising dollar.

Yeah, right. I mean, you know, because if you're spending money and that you see the audience isn't, it's not resonating with the audience, but you can tell directly from metrics. Then you don't put your revenue and your, you know, your investment into that moving forward. And so, but you got to try a few different things. When you find.

We'Re big fans of mistakes here and so much so that we lean into them, it's like, okay, well, let's go, let's go make a bunch of mistakes and figure out the one thing that we did that wasn't a mistake and then go further on that and forget about the rest. But it's, you know, we called mistakes our tuition here because that way we can justify the money we've spent on them. But, you know, but it works out like it's not so bad.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'm a big fan of trying things and getting them wrong. You got to get things wrong a bunch of times before you can get.

A bunch of times. Yeah, that's what I keep telling myself. That's how I sleep in.

And we always talk about action on the show and things you have to take action. And it sounds like the answer you just gave me about this revenue driven engagement, that that might be an action item you could recommend or would recommend to, like our small business listeners of just getting out there and trying things in a small scale and finding what works and then putting some more, more muscle behind that. Would you agree with that?

Yeah, I mean, I mean, action is my recommendation. Like just get out there and do it and try it and see what works and see what doesn't. You know, I have a kind of associate I've been working with up here and talking to them. He runs the small business lending up here. And you know, he's a bit, not an older guy, but older than me of a generation previous to mine. And he found a good audience just posting cell phone videos to LinkedIn. He would just go and talk to his clients and kind of had, he may have had a selfie stick or just been doing his hand. He'd go in and he'd walk through business factories or one was a brewery. And he would just kind of talk to his audience and talk to, talk to people. And it was sort of scattered, but it was personal, it was organic and it worked. And he gave his clients, the people he'd been helping get small business loans, tell their story, and he could show potential clients of him what clients of his, who he's lending money to, what they're doing. And I came across it, I said, hey man, these are actually pretty good. And he would get a lot of likes and a lot of shares. And LinkedIn isn't always the first platform that comes to mind when you think of business content, creative content, but you just got to get out there and do it and try some stuff. And when you figure out what works, just doing something on a small scale on your own, then you can decide, hey, we think this works. Let's maybe talk to an agency like MediaStone or find one in your area and then you know where to invest your dollars. But just get out there and do it and just start posting. It's a lot of work. And it's, you know, one thing that I would recommend from people that I think a lot of people think that, oh, I can do social media. I get it's not that hard. You just post. It may not be that hard, but it takes a lot of time. And I think too many, too many brands don't realize they need a dedicated person on social media. And social media is not just Instagram and Facebook. It's Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok. Engaging across all these platforms all the time. You can't just post to social media and then hope that people engage with it. All the algorithms, especially for Facebook and Instagram, they want you to be part of their communities. They really want you to engage. The more you go talk to people, the more you talk, you like other posts, you have conversations with people, the more that the algorithm is going to recognize you. And then your content and your posts and your account will get exposed to more people.

Yeah, that's awesome. I love the, you know, my two takeaway things here today are, you know, planning for this suite of content that you can create from the beginning and then parse it up and use it on different platforms. I think that's just tremendously great advice and also just that action, just getting out there, starting with something. Don't be paralyzed, worried about maybe how great something looks at the beginning, especially if it's authentic. It's really great advice and I think our listeners will definitely benefit from that. I love having on the show tell us the best way for our listeners that have more questions to connect with you and to learn more about MediaStone Creative.

So website MediaStoneCreative.com we are on all the social channels, but yeah, just send me an email through the website. You know, happy to get in touch with you. And we're doing a lot more, you know, through Covid as production has slowed, we're starting to get back into it and get back out there in the field. But I'm doing a lot more consulting than we used to be. Just people calling up and talking through some business strategies and some content strategies. And so I think that's a really helpful thing to have someone who's just sort of a professional sounding board. So you're not just saying, I'm thinking about doing this or thinking about doing that. Doing a lot more consulting these days and I've been finding that the people are really responsive to that. So you know, send me a note. I'll always happy to talk with, with potential clients and make new contacts.

That's cool. The time flew. I love talking about this stuff and yeah, it's fantastic. But thanks again for coming on the show, Bailey. And we'll put the links into our show notes as well up at BusinessShow Co and keep in touch and let us know how things are going and stop by from time to time.

Awesome. Thanks so much guys. It's been great talking to you. Really fun.

Thank you, man.

I love a person who is excited about the business business that they are in.

Yeah, very, very much so. He, he obviously, you know, being a storyteller and wanting to get out there and, and, and be passionate about your own story and also how other people can succeed. That, that's part of the secret sauce, I imagine, right?

It is. He said, he said two things early on that, that made me realize why this interview was going to be so valuable for all of you. Listening and hopefully you're still listening. But those are, well, three things. But he phrased the first one two different ways. One was sort of the pessimistic way and then the optimistic way. He said if you don't have a story, you don't have a business.

Or that was really good.

Right, like that. That's an interesting thing because if you think you have a business, hopefully you have a story because otherwise you don't have a business. But the way he reversed that was every business has a story. Which is a nice way to say it but, but it's not quite as motivating as if you don't have a story, you don't have a business.

Well, and, and I've, I've had this problem but in the past too where you get so focused on the day to day like revenue and numbers because you're, you know, you're pressure, you got to pay the bills and everything. That thinking this story thing, it's just, oh, it sounds so good and everything but it's, it's a longer term process. But once you get this concept and also the, the assets that if you develop those. I've used things for years and years that we recorded and video we had done graphics we had created that we can cut up. Like whenever I had someone create graphics, I'm like, hey you. I don't want just the final product. I need the Photoshop files with all the layers.

I need Everything.

Because then I can, you know, adjust things over time. And it was. Was, you know, so when he. It really hit me when he said that about creating this content that then you can use over and over, not just on different platforms, but throughout times.

That's really important. Yeah. No, I mean, and. And like I said during the episode, that soup, that resonated very much with me because, like, literally while we are recording this episode, I've got Sadie, who's the. The person that we hired, doing exactly that for some content that we're going to push out on World Backup Day. But it's like. Like creating the longer one for the YouTube or Facebook, the shorter one for Instagram. Like, it's all coming from the same source and all sending the same message, but in a way that is native to the platforms that people are on when they see it. And that's.

And that's another way of also kind of justifying maybe a larger budget, because you're going to be able to reuse these assets over time. And if you, if you stage it right at the beginning with that mindset and say, look, okay, whatever we get, I want all the original assets as well, not just the finished product.

Yeah.

Then you or one of your employees may sit down a year later and say, oh, you know, we could take that clip or I could take that graphic and this content. Content that we created and mix it up and match it. So you. You invested a little bit more at the beginning, but you've got this really long run time of how to use that data.

Absolutely.

Really valuable.

Absolutely. Yeah. No, it's great. It's great. Good stuff. Well, thanks so much for listening. Oh, I. I did something that I never, ever want to do, so I am going to finish that. Thought I said there were two things and I only talked about one. The second one was articulate what you're doing, offering and why your audience needs it. Super important way to make sure you frame the story that you're telling. And I thought that was very valuable, so I wanted to share it. And I didn't want to leave you all hanging with number two.

I was hanging.

I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm sorry.

But yeah, we'd love to hear from you what you thought of the episode. If there's any, you know, areas you would like us to find people to come on and talk. Feedback, Business show.

Show.

We've got some really interesting topics coming up and we always appreciate hearing from you. If you're so inclined, go up and leave us a review at Businessshow co Reviews it really helps us. And while we're trying to help you out here, we appreciate it.

Absolutely. Folks, thanks so much for listening. And. And hey, keep living that charmed life, will you?