THRIVE Show featuring Joe Camarlinghi - Sharing Your Brand Story Through Media - JCamm Productions

Hey guys, welcome to the Thrive Show where we are talking all about creating a healthy lifestyle. a thriving business and a life of intention, even amidst the COVID-19 crisis. My name is Val Nichols. I am your host. And we have today a very special guest. Because for those of you out there, you know, yesterday we talked about the 3 stages of business. You're either starting your business, you're either maintaining your business, or you are in the part where you are scaling your business. And as you guys know, Long are the days that we used the little brochures and the pamphlets, or we did cold calling to reach our ideal client. Today it is all about the media. So we have a very special guest here who's going to answer all of your questions. Hopefully, if not, you can catch us later. But we have today a someone who is called the CSO. That is the chief Storytelling Officer. He has a background in media, journalism, was a sports broadcaster. So he knows all the tips and tricks that we need to really stand out in the crowd and convert our people into clients. We have Joe Camerlini. Welcome, Joe.

Thank you for having me, Val. It's exciting. I know it's a difficult time for businesses, but I think the essence of media and being able to reach people has never been stronger and more in need. So I think people are really excited about learning about that and growing their presence on not just social media, but the web and using video. So it is an exciting time from that standpoint.

Yeah, it's huge. You know, so much that I'm hearing, like I'm hearing people message me every day, like a lot of people aren't even used to going on Zoom. And here they are pretty much essentially living 80% of their working day now on Zoom.

Yeah, it's crazy how many Zoom calls I did. I kind of knew about it before, over the last year or so, and used it. But now when you look at your day, the amount of time you spent video chatting on Zoom or other things, it's just gone up astronomically. And that, and everything that you have to do online, you're no longer— even a business that before was brick and mortar, now they have to create a way to where people can apply for loans or search for products all via the website. And so if you didn't have it before, now it's just even more so trying to connect with people online and even buy goods and services online.

Speaking of connection, you know, it's so important during this time where we are, you know, we have people from all over the world watching this, so I don't know what their specific situation is, but I do know that some people are on like curfews In Florida, they're in curfews. Here in Oregon, we're in shutdown orders. Why is it so important right now as a business owner or a social media marketer to be out there and connecting on video?

Well, first off, everyone's there. I mean, they were there before. Your customer was there before. They were on social media. But now even more so, everyone's on there and they're on there at different times where they normally wouldn't be. Before, you had these like hotspot windows where if you were posting or doing something where you were doing actual advertising on social media, you would kinda wanna hit that hotspot window where people were online. Now they're on all day because they're either doing business and taking breaks at home or they've been laid off work or whatever it might be, but they're online 24 hours almost a day. If you're going worldwide, you're gonna have an audience online. And so if you're not there, you're not where your customers are. And that's your chance to interact with them. And there's so many different platforms, right? It can be overwhelming. I know that for a lot of businesses to try to jump in But the good news is, is if you kind of start with one and stick with learning and growing there, you can kind of get the others down and learn how to kind of share your story. And so many of them are actually very forgiving too.

Mm-hmm.

If you just start with Facebook, okay, that's kind of a little bit of an older crowd 'cause that was the first that defeated MySpace in the first beginnings of social media, right, was Facebook. And I know there's Instagram and people have moved on. TikTok and all these other platforms where people can share, but if you just start with Facebook, right? Right now, people are watching and you have the ability to share what's going on in your industry and create a positive light and connect with people. And all you're doing is updating people on what's the new things that are going on in your area and showcasing yourself as an expert on social media and people are following and listening and wanna be informed on all those different areas and so you have that audience kinda glued In, in like never before. And so yeah, it is from that standpoint, jumping on there and just, just trying things is now's the time to do that.

I love that because, you know, our messages are so in sync. That's what I love about you specifically. And you know what I hear so much is people saying like, I know I have a great brand. I know that my business is amazing. I know that I can really help people with whatever it is. But there the confusion comes with how do I get my message out there? So yeah, yeah, what advice do you have for that?

The key is if you have a website, then you need a video on that website. Because if people are going to the website, they're not going to take time to read things, the About Me section. And it's great if you have a blog, I'm not against having a blog or even a vlog, right, the video version of it. But if you don't have a video on the top of your website, explaining who you are, why you do what you do, and connecting to the customer so they can understand before they get involved with you or purchase from you or do whatever, they know about you, they get to know you through video, then they're most likely gonna leave. People stay on websites 80% or even higher now longer when you have video. So that's your opportunity when it comes to having a website and having video presence on there. But on Facebook, the beauty of it is, is you don't have to spend a lot of time effort or money crafting all of this vision and talking points and all of these things. With Facebook Live now, it's just an opportunity, as we're saying, to be timely. Talk about something that's going on in your mind, whatever it may be. Say you're part of a mortgage business, say something like that. Hey, here's the latest trends. I saw someone who did it in a written version, that would have been better video, talking about the crazy trends of the day-to-day of home mortgages, of like where rates were going in one day and one afternoon, all the things that you would see over a 20-year period, and kind of broke it down in layman's terms. And I thought if she would have been able to do that on a video sharing with people, how much more powerful. It was still good that she shared on social media, but in just a quick video giving people layman's terms again, kind of just sharing what's been going on in your mind, in your area of business, with people. That's all you need. You don't need this whole big production to be on social media, and especially on Facebook. It's just sharing things that are going on already in your life, taking 5 minutes and just kind of going, hey everyone, this is, this is the latest in, in my field, and this is what the new norm is when it comes to my area of business. And you're an expert, just know that right away. You are. Trust in it. Whatever you're doing, People don't normally know about it. And if you think, well, someone's thinking this, or someone's thinking that, or another expert in my field, block all that out. Just share, share what's going on in your daily life and in your area of business, and people will be interested in it if that's where they're connecting on Facebook.

Oh my gosh, I could not agree more. I agree. Because, you know, I think that a lot of people get stuck on the fact that if they're on video, or they're sharing a message, even if it's a Facebook Live, They do, like, I've seen people get like little teleprompters on their phones and, you know, the whole setup, like they're reading a script and all of that. And what I'm hearing in your message is like, just do you on, on social media, be who you are. And that's going to attract the people who are going to follow you and are going to like you and trust you and know you and buy from you ultimately.

Yeah. Let me tell you about teleprompters. They're harder than they look. Having done live anchoring both news and sports, I once had I remember one time, a young intern, a kid who was just kind of this hotshot, and he was like, oh, it's so easy, you're just reading from the prompter. And then he did his little sportscast for his high school and he about froze like a deer in headlights when that teleprompter started rolling. So I always laugh when clients will go, no, I really, I see this prompter app or I can do this on my tablet. And I go, okay, let's talk about this first because yes, I want you to be able to feel comfortable and know the material, but— It can be a bigger hindrance than a tool that you can use in your favor. Most often, just sharing the thoughts that you have in your heart. And here's the other thing you gotta let go. It's not going to be exactly how you want it to be. Just know that right away. Even if you have a prompter, even if you have the perfect message crafted and you deliver it the way you wanna deliver it, 2 weeks later you're gonna go, I should've said this, I should've had this in there, and that's just human nature. It happens even in stories that I did a long time ago that I think are the greatest story ever. And then 5 years later, or sometimes even longer, I go, really? I liked that at the time. And then other ones where I kind of was like, I don't know, I didn't think that went too well. You're kind of like, hey, wait a minute, that wasn't so bad. I think that story worked. And so just being out there knowing, hey, this is gonna happen, it's not gonna be exactly how I want it to be, but I'm just gonna roll with it. And as the more I do it, the more I communicate with people, the more comfortable I become, then the more people are following me, seeing me as an expert, seeing that I have something to offer, and therefore it drives up business. Once they see you in this area, when they then have a need for it and/or wanna connect on it, gee, who am I gonna go to? The person I've never seen and I just pulled up their website? Or, hey, I've been seeing this person share on Instagram or social media or some sort of social media feed. And I've kind of connected with them. I'm going to look them up because I need X, Y, and Z product, loan advice, whatever it might be. And boom, now all of a sudden they've already gotten to know you.

Yeah, that's so true. And it goes back to that whole consistency piece. And what I heard you say is that something I say a lot is that done is better than perfect. business owners, as people in the public eye, we have to let go of that perfectionism because people don't want to buy from perfect. They want to buy from a human being on the other side of that screen, right?

Yeah, yeah, that's, that's so true. It is. And the journalism and live TV business will get you out of the perfectionism game in a hurry because it's— I have to almost go the opposite way of spending a little more time thinking about it when I work on video projects for my own business because I was so used to turning it over the same day that it was just kind of like you don't have time to usually mull over everything. You got to get it, you got to make sure it's accurate, you want it good, but you got to learn to do that without like mulling over every single shot. And I think that's what people think of in video, right? They have this image of like the old-school commercials or like films where you're like, oh, this perfect shot, or no, I need this lighting in here. So Maybe some of the things they've seen on TV or a movie or something like that. And so that image is in their head of, well, that's what media or video is about. And I've seen some of the wackiest Facebook Lives or ones that are— yes, we want professional, don't be moving your camera around, okay? So you're not— But even ones that are just simple and straightforward work and they grab people and they get people In without having to be crazy about the production and/or crafting of the message.

Yeah, I think that's true. I think when I go— when I do a live on those moments where I'm just like inspired and there's nothing planned, like all of a sudden just boom, those are like the greatest content I ever have. You know, like that's what's great about it. So something that you talk about is Capturing the essence of who you are and then using video to tell the story. I love that. And can you just like unpack that a little bit more and what that means to people who are viewing right now, who maybe they know their why, maybe they know their story, maybe they don't, maybe they don't, maybe they're like, well, I sell doTERRA. A lot of people sell doTERRA, or I'm just another health coach. So how would you tell my story?

Well, see, we've just run into— now see, but we're rolling with it right now. So yeah, the essence of telling their story, who they are, when you share that with someone and I sit down and do it in an interview way, I try to make them comfortable. We're just having a conversation. That's what it's about. You're not having to do a sales pitch on camera. That's the last thing I want. That's why I saw a need for the skills I had in a business arena as a journalist was telling something in a story format connects with an audience so much more than just having this video and crazy shots and/or like a movie. It's just telling a simple, straightforward story and sitting down with someone like myself and just doing an interview helps you unlock why you do what you do, which separates How you do it is kind of the bigger bubble, and then what you do, right, is the biggest. So it goes what, how, and then why is that smallest one in the marketing circles that separates you from the other competition, if you want. I don't believe in competition. I believe I do what I do and others do similar things and they're awesome, but I concentrate on what I do and my skills, and that's the storytelling aspect of it. And so when you sit down and you just start talking about some of the things you did, some of the history that brought you to this place. I have a client that owns a winery and it's called Danson Vineyards, and it's about, you know, they're Dan and they're Cindy, so you got Danson. They also love dancing, they have ballet artists on their labels, and they also do ballet nights for things. And so when we just sit down, he's also Italian, I'm Italian, you notice I talk with hands here. But when we just share it, we share it together, when he shares that stuff, that's kind of the passion of it. He's not trying to sell people on these notes of the wine. We do talk about that, we talk about what his wine flavors are and some of that, but it's the other parts of it that really grab people, that bring people in, they relate to this person and his wife, this husband and wife, and how they started it and what they've built together. And so that is The essence. When you start talking about that, you start discovering it yourself and/or you know it, but you share it in a way that you wouldn't be able to if someone just said, okay, sit in front of this camera and tell people about your business.

Hmm.

And it's just not gonna, not gonna work. And my job as the person who's putting the video together, as the storyteller, is to do it in an innovative fashion, just like we're doing right now. And so that you can share it and people will relate to it. And it just, it happens. That's, that's the way stories work. And it's as far back as time. Right now, video is the medium, but it used to be a guy in a town square, or it used to be a guy going village to village talking about what was going on. It's the same idea. It's just new ways in which you're able to share it. And if you can think of it in that terms too, and you eliminate the video aspect and hand it over to a professional, if you're going to do your storytelling on a website, we talked about social media, you can be Just live in person, you can roll with it yourself. But if you're gonna do that, let someone who can kind of bring all that together on your web. And it's just the same thing, yeah, that was going on, it's been going on for thousands of years, people sharing their stories and sharing what's going on.

So with handing it over, I know because there's a lot of, you know, people who think that they can just Google or YouTube something and figure it out, which yes, you can do that with some things, However, what is the benefit for someone that's watching and they're thinking, well, this sounds great, but can I just do it on my iPhone with like iMovies? What's the benefit of having a— I'd love for you to go a little bit deeper into that. Like, what's the benefit of having a professional capture your story and tell the parts of it that are really the most impactful as opposed to like someone like me just going on my iPhone and figuring it out?

I gotcha. That's that, because when you sit down with someone who is a professional, they should be able to draw things out that you wouldn't think of, and then also edit things that you think are so important that have to be out there. Giving up some of that control allows you to get the eye of a customer almost. That's the goal of the person. As I'm telling their story, I'm looking at it from an outsider. Does it make sense? Does it have a beginning, a middle, and an end? Does it tie together and is it a complete story? When you hand that over to someone, it's powerful. It can be scary for a lot of customers or clients. They kind of go, okay, I don't know how I'm gonna say it and then I don't know if you tell the story if it's gonna sound right. And it's like, no, when you give that up to someone who can do it right, it's very empowering because you kind of see another side of things. You start sharing things and then someone tells your story, you can kind of see see it from an outside perspective and letting go and saying, okay, I don't actually need to include that. That's not important. It may be important to me, but it's not important to tell in this little window, this little story I have with people. It's an extra thing. And/or there's something that I might feel or not value very highly, but someone else who's professional, who sees that, hears that, goes, no, that does separate you. That is important to your story, to your business, and it'll make you a aware of things that you weren't before and it opens up new doors. I've had that several times where I was kind of sitting down with a client, we're doing the interview and they're kind of like, well, I don't know. And I go, no, give me more on this because I think it's highly valuable. I think it's really important and it may not seem like it is. And then the other beauty of it is that sometimes you're gonna shoot stuff and you think it's the greatest thing in the world, a shot or an idea. But a professional leaves some of the best stuff on an editing room floor. And I talk about it because I just moved to Bend not too long ago, and I still have clients over in the Medford area. And the thing I noticed about every person who did— not every person, but a lot of the people who did video here— it's like everyone had to have a drone shot of the Deschutes River somewhere around Old Mill. And I was like, and you're talking a wide range of businesses, and I'm like, What is the point? I was like, gorgeous shot, but what is the point? Does that help tell the story? And so when you have someone professional, they can go, yes, the shot looks great. Yes, we planned it, we executed it, but we're not going to use it because it doesn't help tell the story. It doesn't fit in. And so when you have someone who can see that and can sense that, it makes all the difference. Because then otherwise, I have another friend who's a realtor and done some simple video for him, but then I had left town. He let someone convince him to do this kind of bigger budget video for the movie theaters. It's like explosions and him driving, and he's kind of like the crazy realtor of Medford. He's got everything, he's awesome, high energy. And he even said, he's like, yeah, afterwards I got some good traction and some good views, but I didn't get a lot of business. And even someone told me they almost didn't go with And I said, because there was the wrong kind of person who did it. It was like, yeah, these great shots of you spinning out, like you're coming to this couple to sell their house, but I was like, it doesn't tell the story. And so if you— that's where the professional comes in and can kind of hopefully have those editing points of bringing in again things that you didn't think of and then cutting things away that you maybe think overvalue about your story, about your business, about who you are and what you do.

And that's so interesting because I'm hearing like with you specifically, as opposed to— I mean, there's a lot of video editors out there, videographers, that— but like with you specifically, you have such a unique frame of reference coming from journalism, right? I feel like that would really give you This, this eye to see things that people are going to want to see. Like, what is that important part to pull out and pull on that string to really tell the story? I mean, you're a storyteller, right? That's amazing.

Yeah, it took me a while to convince myself of that because when I got into it, there's— and there's other people who are talented and for what they do, it's different. When I talked about know your audience, know your platform, I realized through people were taking my news stories and putting them on YouTube and getting clicks for bed and breakfasts when I was doing travel segments or wineries or events, whatever it was. I was like, wait a minute, there can be a business there. And then seeing the value of taking that versus what other people are doing. I'm not trying to compete with someone that's doing— that has a film background or that's doing 30-second spots in commercials. What I was seeing was that journalistic style videos on the internet, if they draw people in, have business value. And it took a while to convince myself on that when I started. I was like, no, no, because I hadn't done it professionally. I'd seen it taking some of the stuff I had done on TV, but it took a while. I went, no, that is. And the more that time has gone along, the data has backed it up that if you do something on social media and it's salesy, they don't promote it, A, and B, it doesn't usually— even if it gets clicks, it doesn't have its desired effect. And the more it sounds like a news piece and the more it informs people, the more likely people are not just going to watch it but engage and then eventually become a customer or a client or whatever it may be and visit you, come see what you do. your store, whatever it is. And so I found that. I even remember one quick one story was a guy had it— the, what was it called? Every Bee, Busy Bee, some sort of like— it was like a collection store, those consignment stores, but it was like at the beginning of one. And he had the most random things, like a Darth Vader doll and like this sign that said, eat here, get gas. It was one of those old-school ones. I was like, that doesn't sound too good. I said that in front My story. I was like, no, I know that this is an old-school sign. And then they had an old Nintendo, right? And I was like, okay, I have hours of fun right here. And I did this whole thing, and he was just so amazed. He's like, yeah, we're just a new kind of consignment store, and I didn't know how you were gonna make that into a story. And I said, what you have in here is a, like, whole world of fun, and adults can become kids coming in here, nostalgic and all those things. And it was kind of, it was just fun. It was fun to do. And I don't know why that one just popped in my head, but it was kind of like that idea again of something that doesn't seem like you could do an actual journalistic story. And now I was a feature reporter, so that's kind of what I did is fun and unique places and stores and things like that that people visit. But anything can be turned into a story and show value and connect with viewers when it's done right. I love that.

So true. So I know that there's a lot of people on here that are going to want to connect with you and get to know more about what you do. I know that you do like remote editing and you offer services like that. So where can people find you?

So my website is jcamproductions.com. So that's my name, Cameron. My last name is Cameron Lingy. I was not going to put that on the website, make people spell that. And so the video name came to me. So J Cam, so that's J C A M, and then productions dot com. I'm on the web there. You can my email's on there. You can find me on Facebook at Jane Cam Productions. My phone number is five four one two one zero zero five eight three. You'll find that on my website as well. On Instagram, I'm at S O Backroads at S O Backroads, and the reason I did that is because I started my own show when I. stopped doing the feature reporting on the news station, I took my own show and I did about 5 or 6 episodes of Southern Oregon Backroads.

Ooh.

Then the news station brought me back in for Tank of Gas Getaway. That was the one through the news station. And so that was why my Instagram handle is @sobackroads. But JCAM Productions is the easiest way. You can find me on the website and have all the contact information there and give me a call. But yeah, remote editing. I know right now people are kind of worried What can I do? And we can find ways to get a good quality audio interview perhaps, or find a way for you to record it yourself, or we could probably still do kind of a one-on-one and be in the social distancing realm, if you will, but then also add in pictures. There's so many great libraries now that we don't have to shoot a ton of video. There's lots of professional photographers out there that fits different businesses. So even if you wanted to get something going right away, we can find a way. I have a lot of stock footage as well that might fit. And so there's, yeah, there's lots of different ways that we can get a video going right now, even with our shelter-in-place orders throughout the West Coast.

That's so awesome, because right now is like the best time to do that, to be repositioning your businesses so that whenever we come out of this, Because we don't know. But whenever we come out of this, we can choose to either be the same, we can be mediocre, or we can be in excellence. So we get to make that choice, right? So it's beautiful.

It is. It is. And if you sit and go, okay, I'll just try to gear myself up to hit the ground running when this is all over, and you, you get stuck in that mindset, A, you're going to be starting from where life used to be, not where life is.

Mm-hmm.

And if you probably thought you should have had a video presence before, then now's the time to do it and have that so that when things, whatever normal is going to be, that you're already there. So we have both. It's not something where like all of a sudden if they start opening things back up again, video's not gonna matter and web and social media. No, they mattered. 3 or 4 weeks ago, I think businesses are now seeing how much more they matter during this time. And when things open up again, you will be ahead of the game, or at least caught up to the game, if you will. Like you said, you'll start to grow and thrive versus, versus kind of like playing catch-up on a life that now is going to be very different. And even if they open things up, right, you're talking to customers all the time, I'm sure, that have brick-and-mortar that It's like once it opens up, it's not like everyone's gonna come running back to the beach, if you will, after it's been closed. I use that analogy because I've been seeing all those shots of people on the beach, but it's, it's gonna take time. It's gonna take time. And the more customers that you build up and interact with now, they're, they're not gonna go away because you've all of a sudden opened up and have your doors open. It's just gonna grow.

I love it. Thank you. So much, Joe. And a bonus offer for those of you who don't know, Joe and I and our friend Cooper are going to be putting on a webinar called Business Media Method. So it's the business and media method. If you want to learn more about how do you create great videos, how do you get into your deeper why, how do you get that story that— to tell that story that you want to tell, How do you create these things that we're talking about? Because, you know, as we've been talking about this entire series, like, we have the choice of who we get to be during this time and what we create. And we can come out being like so much stronger and bigger and bolder. And again, like Joe just said, there are some of us that are taking the step back. We're pulling back in our business. And what's going to happen is you have to start back from ground one. Whereas, you know, the leaders, the influencers, those people who are choosing to thrive in this time are taking this opportunity to refine skills, get better, serve in a big way. And so when all this is over, it's going to be like even better. It's going to be even better. And I have clients and I have people all around me, you know, I have a great network of people that are doing this in this time. They're stepping up their game. They're stepping up their giving. So if you want to learn more about business and media, join us on the Business and Media Method. I'll put the link below. Make sure you sign up. It is going to be incredible.

And a quick little teaser. Oh, sorry, it's a quick little teaser. I'm going to share some of the things that you might not think about when you do a video, like what you wear, colors. I know this is big. I have— I'll share some clients where I was trying to share this, that I know sometimes something looks great in a presentation, but all I'll kind of share what is the camera like, what colors does it like, and a few other things about storytelling 101 that I will share with people. So if you join for that, you'll get kind of dive deeper into that. So I just want to tease that for people.

Awesome. I can't wait. I can't wait for this webinar. It's gonna be amazing, you guys. It's gonna be— you guys all know me. I am very generous. I give a ton. We're gonna overdeliver and we're gonna give you everything you need because we're seeing the shift. Joe and I are both a part of a team where, because we had these skills and we had things previously in place, we were able to just jump right into the online space and thrive in a way that we're seeing. Like, you know, we've been having conversations throughout the week that other people just aren't there yet. So we want to show up and we want to serve. We want to give you. And it's going to be a beautiful time where you guys can ask questions. Jump on, get some Q&A, get some very specific for your business questions answered. So it's gonna be amazing.

Awesome. I'm looking forward to it.

Me too. So jump on, get in, guys. So thank you guys so much for joining this Thrive Series. It has been absolutely amazing. I hope that you will jump into our webinar as well so that we can keep this conversation going. And we will see you guys next time. Bye.