Standout Business Show — Video Marketing, Personal Branding & Content Marketing Strategy for Your Expert Business · Brad Powell

201. The One Strategy Every Video-First Brand Is Using Now

·30 min·2 clips

The influencer says, 'hey, look at me'; the key person of influence says, 'hey, look at this.'

The tension is simple. Expert businesses want to stand out, but Marcus Sheridan says the harder job is earning trust before the sales conversation ever starts. A brand does not carry much weight if people cannot see who is behind it. He separates an influencer from a key person of influence, then pulls the idea back into everyday business: prospects need a reason to believe the humans behind the company. Video is the tool he keeps coming back to. Marcus uses his swimming pool company as the proof point, where answering customer questions and getting on camera helped it become one of the fastest growing swimming pool companies in America. The uncomfortable part is the point. The conversation keeps circling the questions prospects already have, especially the ones businesses would rather dodge in public. Marcus frames the work around four pillars: talk about what prospects want to know, show what others will not, sell in ways others avoid, and become more human than the category expects. Easy to nod at. Harder to do. The host presses on the resistance business owners feel around personal branding, especially once the company gets bigger and wants the spotlight on the business instead of the people. Marcus pushes back. People want to know who is behind the company, what the culture feels like, and whether the people seem believable. Faces and voices do real work here. He says prospects should feel like they know the people before they reach out. Consistency is where most brands get exposed. Marcus says 99% of the audiences he polls admit they are not doing this better than competitors. That gap is the opening. For expert brands, personal branding comes off less like vanity and more like sales trust with a camera on.

As heard by us

A direct case for trust-building video, personal branding, and more human selling.

Marcus Sheridan presents expert businesses as winning by showing up differently: people tend to trust people, and trust sits at the center of the work.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Use this when you want a sharper, more human way to build trust on video.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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