This post is for anyone who wants to know more about my background and why I am so passionate about using video marketing to help businesses reach their goals!
“It’s not what you do, it’s why you do it”
Simon Sinek’s famous TED Talk has been watched over 6 million times on YouTube, and for good reason.
If you’re not familiar with Simon and his work, in this famous talk he explains that people aren’t really interested in what you do as much as why you do it. It’s what helps people get to the core of what you do and see if they resonate with you.
I truly believe in the power of sharing why you do what you do, so I decided to write my own “why”.
I decided to write this post to explain to anyone who’s interested in why I am so deeply passionate about using video marketing to help businesses and how I got here today.
It all started when I was 15 years old…
I would sit there for hours, anxiously awaiting my turn to get on the computer.
You see, my oldest brother used to throw parties in my hometown, Providence, RI. I come from a very entrepreneurial “get it done” family, so this contributed to my brother not wanting to pay anyone to make the flyers to promote his parties. He bought Photoshop and taught himself how to use.
Enter 13 year old me.
I would sit and wait for hours, wait for my turn to get on that computer and play around with this cool program that is Adobe Photoshop. To this day, my brother talks about how I would just watch and observe, sometimes not saying anything for hours. I was anxiously awaiting my turn to use the program that I was watching him use for hours, Adobe Photoshop.
When I used Photoshop, I felt free in a weird way. It gave me the ability to make stuff and control how I make it, which is what really drew me in. Move things where you want, make them the color you want, erase and place things again, it all seemed so freeing.
Hell, if I got really good, I could even put my face on other people’s bodies. Idris Elba suddenly had nothing on me!
Eventually, I would get my turn on the computer.
This was before people were really making video tutorials, so I basically taught myself Adobe Photoshop through following image tutorials through a dial-up connection (wow).
Developing this design sensibility made me look at the world differently. Seeing things and knowing how to recreate them technically made me realize I can create nearly anything I want to at an early age, shaping my entire world-view.
I started creating Myspace layouts for my friends, music/mixtape covers, I even had a brief stint designing and selling iron-on t-shirts in high school. One thing led to the next, and as I began to play within the online space more, I realized there might be more to this stuff that I like…
So I eventually stumbled upon digital marketing
Knowing that my father graduated with a degree in marketing always made me some level of interested in the field.
He would ask me a ton of questions about marketing that made me think critically about marketing decisions. I didn’t know it at the time, but these early considerations helped me get a huge jump in my marketing career.
But if I’m being honest, I didn’t really take marketing seriously until my older brother started working at an agency. He started to tell me about the amazing things he was working on, like a campaign for Barack Obama, which piqued my interest. He was doing “digital marketing”
“Digital marketing? Wtf is that?” I thought.
By 2010, it came to my attention that all this stuff I was doing could actually be used for real business and to reach business goals. This excited me because I knew that I inherently enjoyed many things that come with marketing like design, copy, messaging, etc.
To make a long story short, this interest eventually led me to a career at both large & small marketing agencies throughout New York City. I graduated in May of 2013 & was living in NYC by the end of June.
I am writing this piece in 2019, and I have now worked for agencies like Ogilvy & Mather, Havas Worldwide, Y&R, Carrot Creative (Virtue Worldwide) & a prestigious advertising awards show called The One Show.
I have worked on brands like IBM, Nationwide, American Express, Wilson Sports & Rolex during my time at these agencies and have learned a TON about how marketing, branding & advertising are done the right way.
To say I have had a great start to my career would be an understatement.
However, around 2015, I started getting tired of just living the agency life. I realized I needed more things to do with my time outside of work in order to feed that raw creative side of me.
So that’s when I picked up a DSLR camera
Well, I didn’t pick one up right away…
I wanted to start a video food blog called Beyond The Eats. I called it Beyond The Eats because I realized how hard people in food & hospitality work with little to no recognition. I wanted to put a spotlight on these people so I could “share stories & experiences through food!”
I scheduled the first interview, was excited for the day and had to get on the train to get to my first interview! Unfortunately for me, my videographer canceled the day of.
This made me vow to learn how to shoot and capture these stories & experiences for myself. Since I had designed before, I had no hesitation in approaching a new creative endeavor.
After shooting about 50 episodes, I was ready for something more
I was walking in the park one day when I had a huge realization.
Although I had worked at marketing agencies and created videos for fun, I wondered why I wasn’t using my skills on a larger scale and how I could. I reached out to friends & family to see what they had going on and quickly realized I could help them with almost anything they were up to in video form!
That’s when I started branching out.
I created a video for my cousin’s t-shirt business, another for my friend’s real estate business, another for a local burger joint & continued to see how I could use my unique set of skills to help push whatever they were trying to achieve forward.
After doing a few of these projects, I realized there was a need. Not only did I have skills that many businesses need, but that there were also many businesses looking for my specific skill-set.
Most importantly, I loved every second of doing this. Even though every business is different, finding what makes each business special is always fun.
Understanding and sharing the goals, traits & personality of a business isn’t always easy, but it’s always fun!
When I work with a business, I like to get to know the business intimately to see how I can really help.
Having a wide range of skills helps me come up with many solutions. I’ve worked with clients who weren’t showing their logo in the right places, some don’t properly deliver their real message, and some don’t even know where to start!
Understanding & sharing the unique personality traits of different businesses is a skill. One that takes a high level of curiosity and wanting to help the business grow.
Why my skills are unique is that you are talking to the person making a plan for the video based on your marketing goals. This means your videos have much more direction when it comes to what to say, how you say it and why you’re even making videos in the first place.
Video marketing is a unique combination of my creative skills, marketing background & general ability to truly make a positive change in people’s business, which is why I love it so much.
P.S. –
I have some resources that might help you with your video marketing!
- I have a video marketing newsletter for businesses. It’s filled with actionable advice & helpful topics for the business owner/video marketer. If you would like to sign-up, click here.
- Do you want to learn how to shoot videos using just your iPhone? Click here to take my FREE 5-day video course, Shoot With Your Smartphone
- Want to learn the basics of video marketing for businesses? Including video marketing strategies, what video marketing is, how much you can expect to pay for video marketing & more? Sign-up for my FREE 5-day email course, Video Marketing Insider Secrets
- I also have a range of video marketing services for businesses! If you’d like to learn more about how I can help you, click here!
Written,
by ‘rouk