I sprang out of bed in a hurry because I was about to miss the train.
It was an early morning in January and I needed to catch a train going from New York, NY to Providence, RI (my hometown). It was just cold enough that I knew I needed my heavy winter coat, the WINTER coat, you know what I mean because almost all of us have that coat.
I was dealing with a tedious train ride for 4 hours but was excited to get to my destination and shoot another great video with a great person. Often times, it’s the people who I am serving that I get all of my energy from, and today this was definitely the case.
I was scheduled to shoot with Justin
On this day, I was scheduled to shoot with Justin Russillo, a hard-working Real Estate Agent who helps people buy and sell homes within the Rhode Island area.
Every video shoot is different. While some clients prefer to be clear about everything that will happen during a shoot a month in advance, others like to figure it out as we go along. Since I have worked with Justin before, we were on more informal terms as we worked together for this shoot.
But now it was the day of and I needed to direct the video. A big part of my job and how I help my clients is I help them develop exactly what to say based on their specific goals. It’s something I love doing thanks to my extensive background in marketing, but the big question remained…
Who is Justin? If I wanted the video to be good, I had to dig deeper
I don’t create videos before I ask key sets of questions.
After I know your goal for the video, I go through questions so that we’re both confident that the video you receive satisfies your needs.
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On this day, I sat with Justin and his fiancee Laura at Sydney, a nice cafe in the downtown area of Providence, RI (that secretly has a broccoli sandwich that is A1). I started asking about his life, his work and other general questions around becoming a real estate agent.
About halfway into the process, I asked Justin “why did you become a real estate agent?”, little did I know that this question was about to frame the entire video and bring the story I wanted to share to the forefront.
This question helped us get to a crucial point…
Justin began talking about a car accident that he was involved in 2015.
Sadly, this accident caused him brain damage that sidelined him for almost an entire year. Although it’s often hard to find the bright side of things in this situation, Justin did.
He began to think about his life experiences up to this point and how they could apply to whatever he decided to do next. He knew he had a deep background in hospitality, has lived through many different situations and always had a high level of charisma.
All of these traits together are the reason why Justin felt real estate was the path for him.
Justin didn’t get into the business because of his own self-interests, he truly looked inside himself to find the best and most honest way to serve people.
I knew this side of Justin is what I wanted to convey so that it would connect
The video had the exact impact that I thought it would as it received not only comments of Justin’s past buyers & Sellers commenting, but also reaching thousands of potential buyers in the Rhode Island Area. My goal was to draw people in at the beginning so they were ready to receive Justin’s message.
If you watch Justin’s video after reading this, it’s easy to work backward and see how it came to life, but every video has its own story, its own “life”.
Let’s find yours together…
Oh, one last thing…
My name is Farouk and I help small to mid-sized businesses grow through a combination of video marketing, video advertising & social media.
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