Fax machines will never catch on, especially since the person at the other end needs one as well.

Social media is a waste of time! Nobody is going to increase their sales with a bookmark or a Tweet.

Facebook … that is just a site for college kids who should be studying.

This is why I have dedicated the posts over the last couple of months almost exclusively to explaining the value proposition of video email.

Posts from the Past Couple of Months

Video Email: It Is a Matter of Trust

When it comes to business, trust is the most valuable currency in the world. Video email is a quick and easy way to put a face to the name, which creates trust and builds rapport. In this post, we cover the basis of why video email creates trust and how it differs from web video (e.g. a video on YouTube).

The 5 Keys to Success with Video Email

I have worked with hundreds of people from many different walks of life, who work in a surprising variety of industries. These five keys are the product of hundreds of hours of research and personal testing. By mastering the keys, you will put yourself on the fast track to success with video email.

3 Types of Video Email Message: Personalized, Evergreen, and Automated

Learn about the three different types of video email message that you can use in your marketing and daily communications: personalized, evergreen and automated. Evergreen and automated video emails can save a great deal of time, while still maintaining the personal touch. A great example of an evergreen video email is a response to a FAQ.

Choosing the Right Equipment for Your Video Emails

With so many video options on the market, it is difficult and time-consuming to know which video equipment to choose. So I have created a six-minute screencast to make things really easy for you. I deal with webcams, camcorders, lights and more. In addition, I cover from the bare essentials all the way up to a mini-studio.

Software Updates & New Features

Video Email Templates: A Fresh New Look and Feel

We have updated three of our video email templates. The new design has a larger background image, so the video email templates display well on both low and high-resolution screens (small and large monitors). We have also improved the way exit links work, to drive more focus to your calls-to-action.

“Hotspots” Launched: Perfect for Qualifying Leads and Interest Level

This is the data you need, to focus on your most qualified leads. Video analytics isn’t just about number of views. Frankly, numbers alone can be very misleading. What you need to know is how many people watched your video and where people started to x-out (lose interest in the content). This is why we created ”Hotspots”: a heatmap view of how people watch your videos.

P.S.

The larger our audience becomes, the more time we can invest in creating content. So feel free to make liberal use of the floating share buttons to the left of each post.

The video is from inside the jiveSYSTEMS member success portal. It is one of many videos that I have created to compress the learning curve with video email (and web video in general).

Here is what you will learn about:

• Logitech C910 Webcam
• Q3HD Flipstyle Camcorder
• Manfrotto MKC3-H01 Tripod
• xShot Camera Extender
• More Light = Better Picture
• Natural Daylight Lamps
• Fluorescent Softbox Kit
• LED Lights Kit by Fancier

P.S.

Do you know anyone who is interested in video? Do us all a favor and share this post with them. Please help spread the good word. I sure would appreciate it. – Will Franco aka Flywheel

Imagine the possibilities… being able to track how your people watch your videos!

How To Use Hotspots:

Send your video email to an individual or a group, and then look at the Hotspots data to qualify your prospects for follow-up. Hotspots also work with the Post Link feature, for those of you who are using a mass email marketing systems (e.g. iContact, aWeber, ConstantContact, and Infusionsoft) with your jiveSYSTEMS video email account.

We are still ironing out some kinks with the accuracy of the data. Sometimes when someone watches the entire video, it will only show as 98%. The jiveSYSTEMS techs are working around the clock the get this fixed. Also, it is currently not possible to track mobile device views, at least most mobile devices. We will be implementing an icon that will indicate the viewing device, so you can easily interpret the data.

The Road Ahead:

These features are part of a slew of updates and improvements we will be making to the system in the new few months. We have the second round of usability testing scheduled for early next year, ready for our national and global launch.

Even though we have done no mainstream marketing (print ads, commercials, national press), we still have members signing up from all over the world. We are coming to the end of our 3rd and final beta period and only have 193 lifetime discounted memberships left. So if you are curious about our system, take a moment to watch the new video on our homepage.

jiveSYSTEMS was launch in May 2008. From that time, I have worked with hundreds of people from many different walks of life who are working in a surprising variety of industries. These 5 Keys are the product of hundreds of hours of research and personal testing.

1) Overcoming Camera Anxiety

• Sending a video email needs to feel the same as a text-based email. If you have any hang-ups, you are not going to succeed, unless you find a way to overcome them. You can practice by sending video emails to friends and family. After all, life is not just about making money and everyone loves to receive video email messages, especially ones where you have the training wheels on.
• Once you have broken the ice, it is critical that you don’t let it freeze over. Make a commitment to send at least one video email per day, even if that video email is to yourself (e.g. a video log of each day, or better yet at the beginning and the end of each day).
• Find comfort in the fact that you don’t walk around the world with a paper bag on your head… you talk to people all day… video email is no different, apart from the fact you can hit delete and do another  take!  Life doesn’t have a rewind button, video email does.
• Don’t become a perfectionist and fall into the zone of diminishing returns. In most cases, good is good enough. This is especially true with video email because it is designed to supplement text-based email. It is not supposed to be a professional brochure, that is what web video is for (videos that are produced, edited and published to a web page).
• Don’t try to become Steven Spielberg. Video email is supposed to be quick and easy, it is best leveraged as a  follow-up to a first phone call with a new prospect or lead, to help put a face to the name–thus establishing trust in the sales process.  When you have trust you have sales!

Related Blog Posts: On-Camera Training
You may also like this post, Video Email Comparison: Putting Myself on the Chopping Block.

2) Location to Film

• If you don’t have a studio and feel you need one, think again. When we first started, I would sit on the back of my sofa with a flip style camera held at arms length. Sure my videos were a little shaky, and they certainly didn’t have the best lighting, but the content was sound. The members that have been with us since the beginning still remember those videos, and many have stated they signed up, at least in part, because of them. They got to know me by watching my video emails and started to trust me, and in turn took a free 30 day test drive of our video email marketing software and training. Imagine what a free, well placed video email, in a marketing sequence, can do for your business.
• That being said,  don’t just record video emails anywhere. Note that I recorded my video emails on the back of my sofa in my living room, I did this because I have a painted wall and a nice ? piece as the backdrop there. You want to work towards having a dedicated location to film, a room in your house if you work from home most of the time like me, or a suitable location at work. You can even use this as an excuse to decorate a little and make your office look a little nicer, which I can assure you will boost your energy levels while you are working.
• Surround yourself with the things that define you and will represent you to your clients. If you can’t create a dedicated location, pay close attention to the noise in the room where you are going to film. Aim to pick a quiet place, and if that is not possible know the rhythm of the room (e.g. the best time to film is 1100hrs to 1400hrs while the kids are at school).

3) Recording Devices

• Not all webcams are created equal. I have tried many of them  and the best by far are Logitech. I am currently using the Logitech C910 which costs around $80 on Amazon. Before that I was using the Logitech 9000 which you can get for around $50. The difference between the cameras is barely noticeable for video email. However, the C910 can record in HD which means it can double-up as an exceptionally economical web video recording device. I often use my C910, instead of my expensive Sony Prosumer camcorder, for really high quality videos that I edit in Sony Vegas and then publish the landing pages. It really is that awesome. The sound quality is also superb… more than capable for most screencast or podcast type recordings.
• To get a really good picture, you need lots of light in the room. Webcams have small image sensors–the more money you pay for a picture capturing device, the larger the image sensor and the better quality picture you will get in lower light conditions, is the general rule of thumb. Since we don’t want or need to spend thousands of dollars, switch on all the lights in the room. If your room is still not bright, you can buy some natural daylight lamps for around $30 a piece to brighten things up while being kind to your face.
• If you are using a laptop, put it on top of a box, to bring it up to eye level. You don’t want people looking up your nose now do you? You should also turn the webcam mic level down and speak loudly instead, this will, in most cases, eliminate the background noise (e.g. computer fans, air conditioners, noisy neighbors).

Related Blog Posts: Video Equipment

4) Camera Readiness

• Be ready to record when you re working. This trips a lot of people up, especially  for those who work from home like me. In fact, it still trips me up on occasion. If you are not camera ready, you are not going to record video emails. It is that simple, if you have to do your hair, shave or makeup or whatever it is that you need to do to feel good on camera, just quit now. ALWAYS REMEMBER, video email isn’t supposed to be polished, it is meant to be REAL.
• Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying you should record videos with bedhead. What I am getting at is this: you need to find a happy medium between looking good and feeling like a rock star, a look you can achieve everyday right when you wake-up for work, so you are camera ready.
• If you have been following me for a while, you will note my outfit of choice is blue jeans and a black T-Shirt. I have 2 pairs of blue jeans and 9 of the same black T-Shirt. For those of you who monitor stats closely and have read my previous posts, I used to have more black T-Shirts but some wore out and I am yet to replace them, lol. For those of you who don’t feel one outfit is enough, I hear you, but that is just my style. The key is to have your wardrobe ready and defined, so you are camera ready when you are working. The goal is to be able to switch on your webcam with the least preparation possible when you are working.

5) Understanding the Technology

• Video email isn’t a common place piece of software like MSWord, it is a living breathing cutting-edge marketing tool. The online streaming video space has few standards and therefore is a complex environment that is flux. This means it is a constant challenge for the software developers like us to keep up with the changes and to cater to the new and growing numbers of applications for video email as they arise. Part of this process involves making frequent changes and updates to the software, which needs to be done in frequent iterations and then explained to the users.
• Video email has barely entered into the early adopters stage of the technology adoption lifecycle. I would say that less than 1% of the entire business population is using video email, way less. So you need to have a really good relationship with your video email provider, so you can grow with them as the applications for the technology expand.
• Choose a company that provides not just support but training, which of course we offer. Make sure your videos will stream on all the popular devices PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, and Android; not many companies can say that, but of course we can. These are the facts, you can take them or leave them. I am not trying to market to you, merely putting it all out there. The fact that there are no other video email companies that I am aware of that offer these things is not a marketing pitch, it is simply the truth.

Conclusion

Success and failure are largely based on how you master these 5 Keys. If you are using or intend to use video email, don’t try and break the mold. Focus on these 5 Keys until you have mastered them.

To find out more, watch the following short video:

Over the coming weeks, we will be updating all of the video email templates to the new and improved version.

FAQ – Why are the video email templates so basic?

Answer – Video emails are not supposed to be flashy. If the templates looked like a million dollars, the person viewing the video email would feel as though they were about to spend a million dollars! For most businesses, our clean and low-key style works very well. However, if you are running a branding agency or selling high-ticket items, you will likely need something with more polish. This is why we created the option for you to purchase custom templates that can be branded with a logo and website theme.

The world isn’t going to slow down. In fact, the rate at which information is currently expanding is exponential. Some futurists predict that in a few years we will no longer be able to keep up. However, if you think of yourself a gyroscope, and you become truly centered, the faster the world moves around you and the more stable you will become. ¹

The Newsletter

We’ve been climbing up Google’s results for our search terms this month, and also made some significant changes to our video email software and website. Plus, I have found some more awesome and thought provoking TED Talks.

This Month’s Posts

Video Email Software: Systems Updates and New Features for July 2011

Since we launched in mid 2008, our video email software has come a long way. This latest batch of improvements is focused on usability (we streamlined the use of a couple of key features), but we have also implemented the foundation for some major changes in the near future. To find out what we have got brewing, read this post.

The Most Important Piece of Software That We Use

In the modern world, the tools may not make the person, but they do play a major role in how far they can go and how quickly they can get there. In this post, you can learn about the most powerful tool in our toolbox. This one tool alone enables us to run jiveSYSTEMS with small team at a very high output.

Seth Priebatsch – The Game Layer On Top of The World

The game layer is an integral part of the rapidly approaching future. In this talk, Seth Prebatsch shows us how different aspects of games take hold of our attention and can influence massive amounts of people; we just have to lay the framework first. What game will you build to support the growth of your business?

Dan Pink – The Surprising Science of Motivation

This is one of my favorite TED Talks. Career analyst Dan Pink examines the puzzle of motivation, starting with a fact that social scientists know but most managers don’t: Traditional rewards aren’t always as effective as we think. Listen for illuminating stories — and maybe, a way forward.

Up 15 Positions in the Search Results for “Video Email”

There have been many opinions circulating about the benefits of SEO post-Panda. Some internet marketers have even been saying Panda is the death of SEO. From my perspective, the people that have been hit the hardest are Black Hat SEOs. Google is giving less precedent to low quality backlinks and more weight has been given to Traffic and Social Media.

The Google Panda Update: What Does it Mean?

Rand of SEOMoz is a world authority on white hat search engine marketing (SEO). In this video, he gives you a bird’s eye view of the recent changes that Google has made to their search algorithm. If you want to rank high in the organic search results, you need to watch this video. This is the most informative video on SEO that I have ever come across!

The Recent Changes to Our Blog Navigation and Setup

In this post, I talk about the changes I have made to our blog and how they will improve our rank in the search engines and the overall user experience. Blogs are the new newspapers and magazines. In my opinion, a blog is an one of the essential parts of building a successful business.

Compilation of Our Free Resources

This post is a compilation of information and links to the free resources that we have put together to benefit the internet marketing community (small business owners and entrepreneurs). Our free resources are packed full of insight that will enable you to take your business to the next level.
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Footnotes

Quick Recap

• Tri-Transcode: As many of you already know, video emails sent through our system play on Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, and Android devices thanks to our automatic tri-transcode and universal player. This was the major breakthrough that set us apart from other video email providers.

To learn about our core features, read 7 Core Features of jiveSYSTEMS.

New Features

• Auto-Update for Desktop Software: Once you update to the latest version of our software, v7.2.3, you will not have to update it again. We have added a mechanism that will automatically update the software for you.
• Batch Upload: You can now upload 5 videos at once through the back office, which will be a big time saver for power users, who like to record videos on flip-style cameras.

System Updates

• Simple(r) SMTP Setup: A step-by-step setup assistant has been implemented for common email accounts (Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, and AOL) to help you configure your video email account to send from your native address.
• Upgraded Video Player: We have updated our video player, which is now primed for bitrate switching technology¹ (the same tech that Hulu and Netflix use to switch the bitrate of the video file based on your internet connection speed).
• Preview Video Templates: When selecting a video template in the back office, you can can now see a live preview as opposed to a static image.

If you have any feedback, comments, or questions, please feel free to leave them below.

Footnotes

What Does the Panda Update REALLY Mean?

• Crappy sites with low quality backlinks and no traffic have been significantly devalued.
• Professional sites with high quality backlinks and real visitors have been pushed up the search results.

Take a Look at Our Results in Search Engines Post Panda

It may interest you to know that in the past 45 days (June 1st to July 15th), I have actually moved jiveSYSTEMS up the search results. Not just a little but, but a lot; a total of 15 positions for 3 competitive keywords: “video email“, “video email marketing“, and “video email software“. You don’t have to take my word for it, you can go to Google yourself and verify the results!⁴

Now I have already discovered that our competition has been reading this blog, and are quite frankly copying many of the strategies that I reveal. So for those of you who like more details, please know that I do best to share as much as possible, openly and with full transparency. However, I must keep some information private, hence the above image only including 3 of our keywords. I am working with about 20 keywords, and we are moving up the rankings quickly for all of them!

How To Rank Higher in the Search Results

Ranking high in the search results isn’t a mysterious art form. All you need to create is high quality relevant content that people what to read and share. You then put that content on your website(s) and distribute it around the internet, after which it is just a case of rinse and repeat⁵.

Step-by-Step Plan

1. Keyword Research - Keyword selection is critical; some keywords are very competitive, whereas others are not. Look for hidden gems – longtail keywords that have lots of traffic and no competition. To do keyword research, you basically type in words related to your products into a keyword research tool and it spits out keyword ideas, gives you an idea of the competition you are up against, and how much traffic you will get from a given ranking in the search engines.  You can use Google AdWords Keyword Tool for free and get pretty good results. I use a paid tool called SECockpit for my keyword research because it goes deeper and searches faster; another thing I like is that it gives me a detailed breakdown of traffic estimates based on placement, which no other tool on the market that I have tested can do (e.g. a placement of 1-3, 4-7, 8-10).
2. Content Creation - You need an archive full of A+ content weaved around your chosen keywords (articles, video, webinars, ebooks, and more). I would lean more towards video content because it is more engaging. Plus, you can create 1 video and upload it to multiple video sharing sites (YouTube, MetaCafe, etc.).
3. Setting Up or Optimizing Your Site – The more sites the merrier! However, they all have to be on different servers or blocks, otherwise Google will devalue the sites. The key is creating a structure that converts visitors into revenue, content into opt-ins, and opt-ins into sales. You also want to add floating social buttons to make your content easy to share. We are using a WordPress plugin called Sharebar on the left side of this blog. WordPress is my platform of choice for building websites. A insider tip is to only use WordPress themes that are built on Frameworks. Most of the themes on the market are not built on a Framework. This means they do not get updated as frequently if at all. The best development houses have a framework and then create several themes based on it. This means they can update the framework cost effectively, as it will update across all of their themes. StartBox is a brand new framework that looks fantastic for building a website and a blog, although I have yet to use it. I have built several websites using WooThemes, they have a lots of themes to choose from. If you are looking to build landing pages, launch funnels, and membership sites, check out our “Stuff We Recommend” page.
4. Distributing Content to the Internet – Article sharing sites, web 2.0 properties, video sharing sites, forums, and more. One trick is to leverage sites like Posterous⁶, where you can setup a blog that will automatically syndicate your content to other sites. If you are savvy, you will create multiple identities and mimic the behavior of real people as closely as possible. When syndicating content, after using tools like TrafficGeyser and TubeMogul, I have switched back to manual video submissions, as I feel they are more natural and I am certain Google is smarter than these tools. This is why I recommend that 80% of your content distribution be manual. I feel you get more SEO Juice when you manually submit your content and mix up the subject lines and keywords, as it looks more natural.

Never Stray From My TCA Formula

If what you are doing doesn’t fall into one of these 3 buckets, STOP DOING IT. Also, make sure to create balance between each area. I like to focus on generating traffic for a few days, and then improving conversions, and then customer support.

Conclusion

SEO is not for everyone, it is a long and laborious process. 95% of business owners would be better investing their time in building relationships and their referral/JV network. For my clients (the few that I do consult with still), I only recommend SEO if they get a capital infusion or have a stable and profitable revenue stream. This is because SEO efforts take about 3-9 months to mature, so they need to be in for the long haul; on the flipside, the results become exponential once you reach the tipping point.

Footnotes

We’ve been pushing really hard for search engine rankings, and it’s been paying off. We’re currently result 2 in Google for “video email marketing“, result 5 for “video email software“, and result 10 for “video email“, and we are rapidly approaching number 1 for all these results.

Updates Made

• Removed Banner Ads – I removed all the banner ads from our pages because they create a leak in pagerank and therefore our position in the search engines. I moved our banner ads to a page that is called “Stuff We Recommend“, which has a very different impact on both perception and the way page rank flows. Banner ads show globally (on EVERY page) on most themes. Each banner you have on your blog is basically one outbound link for each page they’re on. That’s a lot of outbound links, folks. The Google Panda update also adds fuel to the fire when it comes to banner ads, as it is believed the new algorithm doesn’t take fondly to sites with lots of banner ads, potentially because it is an indicator of an affiliate site.
• Relocated Categories – I moved our categories from horizontal (across the top) to vertical (on the right sidebar). I read an article that talked about how we sort information better when it’s vertically laid out, as opposed to horizontally.
• Added a Tag Cloud – I added a tag cloud underneath the new vertical category display that shows the most used tags. In the past, I’d tag our posts appropriately, but they didn’t really do anything for anyone because no one saw them. Now, with the visual tag cloud, we hope that it will aid in the navigation of the blog.
• Re-categorized Posts – I filed all our content differently, reducing the amount of categories and making posts easier to find.

Webinars

Four 1hr on-demand webinar presentations that are pure content and packed full of awesome information. These webinars are a must see for anyone doing business online. I could easily charge for this content, but I am offering it at no cost to benefit the community.

Concept2Profit 6.0: Harness the Power of Video Email in your Marketing

DNA of a Successful Online Business

Online Marketing from 50,000ft

VideoEmailWebinar

eBook

Rocket2Profit: Supporting the Theory and Growth of your Business

51-pages of pure content. Easily on of the most comprehensive resources put together to date in the internet marketing industry. I was told that I could sell this for a tidy profit, however I choose to offer it to our community under a Creative Commons license, so share it freely (just credit us, don’t modify our work, and don’t sell it).

Summary

The quality of the content is excellent, and there is no pitch contained within the content or followup sequences. This is because we believe that education is the key to the modern marketing engine.

Lastly, we are down to only 217 beta memberships. We are in the 3rd and final beta period now, being just over 3 years since we launched. These are the last few spots that will lock in the discounted price point of $97 per month and include all new features to our system, plus unlimited use of EVERYTHING.

We have started to launch a massive SEO effort; we are now teetering around page 1 of Google for our primary search terms as well. We expect these spots will be gone in a few months, and then we will be launching in the national and global markets. Even now, we have members signing up from all over the world (Australia, England, New Zealand, China, and more). So things are only going to get bigger and better.

One of the major advantages we have is the velocity at which we can go from idea to actuality. While the corporations are still waiting for their next board meeting to put forward a proposal, we can pump out informative and timely content.

The Newsletter

We have been making some major upgrades here at jiveSYSTEMS, as usual. This month we launched some new features in our video email software, made some tweaks to our website, and published 6 new blog posts.

This Month’s Posts

Simon Sinek – How Great Leaders and Organizations Inspire Action

I regularly sift through the lectures on TED because the speakers are always inspiring. In this TED Talk, Simon Sinek reveals his astounding discovery: he has codified why companies succeed when others with even greater resources fail. I have watched this video over 7 times already. The information is gold, so I grabbed the video and published it here for you.

Video Email Software: System Updates and New Features for June 2011

We’re always working diligently to improve our video email software and training: system updates, new features, new training videos, and more. This post includes a 5 minute video walkthrough of our recent system updates and new features from our resident propellerhead, Reed.

How to Use Video in Emails: Overview

In this post, I reveal the underlying mechanics of what makes video emails so powerful. The post includes a visual graph from the Weiss-McGrath retention study that we use in our Concept2Profit webinar. If you want to know why video email is the fastest way to generate more sales, read this post.

4 Reasons You Shouldn’t Compress Video for Email

After updating our keyword research this month, I was surprised to see how many people are Googling “compress video for email”. In this post I explain the 4 main reasons that you shouldn’t compress video for email. This post is not a sales pitch, I promise, it’s just the facts laid out so you can make an informed decision about how to leverage video email in your marketing.

Gamestorming: Free Ways to Generate 100 New Members

I believe that visual communication is an essential skill in the age we’re in. There’s simply too much information due to the exponential growth of technology to capture in plain text alone. This post is a window into how we’re leveraging visual thinking to generate and prioritize ideas. This exercise comes right out of the book “Gamestorming” by Dave Gray, the founder of XPLANE.

TheVideoBoss 2.0 is Live! (Ramblings About High Ticket Courses)

I don’t promote very many high ticket courses from the “Frank Kern Internet Marketing Mafia” (FKIMM, as I call them), mainly because I feel they are overpriced, promising you the world and only giving you a small piece of it. In this post, you can find out my opinion on TheVideoBoss course and discover some lower cost alternatives.

New Features

• Video Snapshots: Automatically take a still from the first second of your video email and place it in your email with a play button on it.
• Broadcast Recording: You can now record a jiveMEETING (a Broadcast).
• Customizable Video Email Notification Templates: You can have us customize the area around your video snapshot.

System Updates

• Video Email Icons: We removed the size limit for email icons (they used to be 200×400, and now you can upload any size image).
• Profile Improvements: Titles, phone numbers, and names can now include periods, hyphens, and plus signs.
• Video Email Exit Links: UI improvements to the exit link manager.

5 Minute Video

If you have any feedback, comments, or questions, please feel free to leave them below.

Backstory

Since we started our first major paid marketing campaign, we thought it was fitting to make the topic of today’s Post-Up game “Free Ways to Generate 100 New Members,” a modest target for new members that will keep us focused on ideas that are quick and easy to execute. We decided not to make the goal time-bound because this is the first stage of brainstorming.

We’ve been in business for almost 3 years. Up until now, we have generated all of our members from referrals and a few JV webinars. We have kept our marketing activities to a minimum because we almost imploded after our first co-sponsored webinar about 2 years ago that generated over 300 new members 60 minutes. Since then, we have been building out our internal knowledge base and the infrastructure of the company to ensure we can handle surges of new customers when we switch on the spigot again. I can’t say that we have it all figured out yet, but we do have a solid piece of software and a training program that enables business owners to build trust into their sales process by leveraging video email, and when you have trust you have sales!

For those of you who do not know what we do here at jiveSYSTEMS, here is a snapshot:

We can teach you how to shorten your sales cycle and increase conversions by supplementing text-based emails and autoresponder sequences with video email messages. The jiveSYSTEMS video email software has a rapid-authoring workflow that allows you to record straight from a webcam or flip style camcorder, and also creates mini landing pages with customizable exit links to make the videos actionable. Plus, video emails sent through jiveSYSTEMS can be viewed on PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, and Android devices.

The Exercise

Step 1 – Sit in silence for 10 minutes and write our ideas down on a bunch of sticky notes.
Step 2 – Present our sticky notes to each other and stick them on the board.

Will Franco aka Flywheel posing for his mug shot

Step 3 – Organize the ideas into the categories.

Reed “Propellerhead” LaFerriere giving you the big cheese

Step 4 – Prioritize the ideas.

The final product in less than 30 minutes

Conclusion

Ideas can be generated, organized, and prioritized more efficiently and effectively by leveraging sticky notes, a big whiteboard, and creating a simple game around the process. The result greatly exceed that of a conversation alone. We identified 5 key areas that will have a positive impact on our goal of generating 100 new members. You will notice none involve selling or sales – we don’t believe in that approach. Our goal is to educate business owners about the value proposition of our service so they can make an informed decision, resulting in a low churn rate and a high level of member satisfaction.

P.S.

We use a special Ceramicsteel whiteboard that doesn’t ghost. You can learn more about our whiteboard in the post The Ultimate Whiteboard: Melamine, Porcelain, or Ceramicsteel?