Return on Investment.

And if you’re more of a creative type like I am, you may have grumbled a time or two (or sixteen) about the difficulty of quantifying the ROI on an artistic venture. My go-to for those arguments is a quote by author Kurt Vonnegut:

“The arts… are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward.”

Unfortunately the people holding the purse strings usually want a more monetary return on their investment. So these days I point them to the ubiquitousness of Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime, etc. – the services that got us through the pandemic shutdown without losing our sanity or murdering someone – all filled with creative endeavors. Pieces of art that the platforms have (and continue to) pay a pretty penny for.

But that’s not what we’re looking at today. While we’ve all considered ROI, for the money lenders and our retirement accounts, I’m betting most small business owners haven’t considered the corollary: the Cost of Inaction.

What Are You Waiting For?

I can tell you, from my time educating people about retirement options, that bankers and investment specialists also focus on the flipside of ROI – COI. The most poignant example is the one where you take a look at how compound interest works. A dollar properly invested at age 20, even if it’s never touched again, after 10 years is worth nearly 100 times what investing $10 is at age 30. Even during the recent recession.

Stock Brokers and Mutual Fund salesmen are fond of pointing out that when the stock market crashed in 1929, the people who survived and thrived in the Great Depression were those who didn’t panic. While the average consumer was pulling their money out of investments and savings and loans, the Rockefellers and Carnegies “let it ride.”

Opportunity Cost is defined as “the cost of an alternative that must be forgone in order to pursue a certain action. Put another way, the benefits you could have received by taking an alternative action.”

Opportunity cost can be positive or negative. Cost of Inaction is the negative side. In Tim Ferris’ “Fear Setting” exercise, he calls the Cost of Inaction possibly the most important consideration you can take. For him, understanding the emotional, physical and financial costs for you and the people in your life is what truly drives us to take the uncomfortable action that moves us out of the status quo.

Put simply, every choice is in fact two choices. Every time you say yes to one thing, you are saying no to something else. And every no is really the choice to prioritize another yes.

Investing Your Time

In many ways, building credibility and visibility online is like investing for retirement. We don’t have an exact formula with marketing like they use in calculating compound interest, but it’s a similar mindset. The more you do now, the more your results will build on each other. The longer you wait, the smaller your potential returns could be.

Brokers will also tell you, the more consistent you are at putting away a few dollars every week, the more your investment will increase, not just compounding, but growing exponentially.

And just like investing for the future, consistently producing valuable, actionable content blog posts will exponentially grow your search engine visibility – regardless of how often Google changes their algorithm. Consistently providing extra worth to customers and searchers boosts organic search traffic. Adding value will always yield a profitable return.

Trust Doesn’t Rust

I’ve written extensively on the fact that 99% of the time, you won’t make a sale from a first visit to your website. In nine out of ten cases, searchers will never return to your site after the initial visit. I wrote those articles a few years ago, and I think if someone studied it, those numbers may have adjusted slightly since the pandemic began, but for the point I’m making they’re still valid.

You exchange valuable information like Lead Magnets for the potential customer’s contact information. That way you can keep in contact with them on a regular basis and when they’re ready to make a decision, hopefully you’re top of mind.

Online, there are seldom opportunities to do the old Tom Hopkins sales presentation to build company credibility. Even if you tried, people don’t have the patience for it, and often distrust the presenter, even if they appear interested. But every time someone visits your site and finds the answers they’re looking for, it adds to your trustworthiness in their minds.

The more often, and more consistently you provide value to the people who find you on search engines, the more you build credibility. And it’s an even stronger, more emotional connection, because they’re making the decision to trust you – not just taking your word for it. And as ol’ Tom has often told us, emotions make sales.

Investing in Emotional Impact

Psychologists tell us that as human beings we are more emotionally affected by losing something than by gaining something. We like to win, but we hate losing even more. To the point that if we worry that upsetting the status quo will cost us, we’ll sometimes ignore the fact that it can also greatly benefit us. Even with a track record of knowing change has been beneficial, we can still be stymied by the fear of loss.

The doctors call this “Escalation of Commitment.” But you might know it better by the economic take on it – the sunk-cost fallacy. Fear of losing, especially after we’ve invested so much time, money, resources, causes us to justify throwing good money after bad. To remix a couple of metaphors.

But as small business owners, we must resist this urge. Or better yet, counter it with emotional regulation. Emotional regulation strategies employ cognitive skills to redefine the meaning of a stimulus or situation. For example, both therapists and Weight Watchers employ and teach a technique called  “reframing.”

In therapy, the counselor helps you see things from a different perspective, presumably allowing you to put yourself in another’s shoes and see the behaviors you experienced as negative in a positive light. Weight Watchers, its own form of therapy, you look at why you overeat. In many people’s cases, the root cause is stress. So the program teaches you to look for alternative ways to relieve stress and try one of them.

The end result is the same – changed behavior due to a redefined emotional state.

Sacrifices Must Be Made

I know I got a bit technical with the last section, so let me bring it back around. Our topic last week was delegation and outsourcing.

There are only so many hours in the day. Even if you try to drive yourself 24/7, you’ll discover, as I did in college, that after about 72 hours of being awake, your brain starts sleeping for you, whether you want it or not. The phenomenon of microsleeps (mentally sleeping while awake) can occur in some subjects after just 48 hours without sleep. And after you pass 96 hours – awake for four days straight – your perception of reality is severely distorted.

Not the best situation for running a business.

Even if you’re the type of person who only needs four to five hours of sleep per night, you’ve still only got 19-20 hours to work and live life. Something sometime has to give. No one, no matter how talented, can do it all, not all the time.

One of the things we encourage our clients to do is to focus their attention and efforts on the things they do well. The places they succeed and get energized and do better than anyone else. It just doesn’t make sense to sacrifice your best time and effort – in areas where you are mediocre at best. I’m not saying that to be insulting, just asking you to face facts.

Spending time on one thing means less time for other things. Trying to do everything is not only untenable, it’s costing you the success your business could have. You’re wasting resources to save a few bucks – when it’s really costing you much more in the long run.

I can’t tell you how to run your business, but I can tell when you’re stretched too thin.

Faith Without Works is Dead

About halfway through this article, I repeated a phrase I’ve used often in the past five years of writing this weekly blog. You need to be “consistently producing valuable, actionable content blog posts.”

Valuable. Actionable.

I work very hard to research and write interesting, valuable content that will help your business succeed, even if you never once consider hiring Grow the Dream in any capacity. I do it for a variety of reasons. The most important being that I believe we should operate our business the way we recommend others operate theirs. So giving added value to every article is important to me.

But I would be remiss if I didn’t offer a call to action. In most instances, I try to be somewhat subtle. I encourage you to reach out, if you need help or want to learn more. I remind you that we built our business helping small businesses and entrepreneurs scale up their businesses.

But today, I want to, at the risk of coming off as “salesy,” be very direct. You could read every word we’ve written in these blog posts, going back nearly 20 years. You could memorize them. Tell them to others. But unless you take action – it’s all pointless. You get nothing out of it.

So I’m going to tell you very bluntly. We can help. Grow the Dream has taught and executed small business marketing strategies for more than 20 years. We get results. Our work is successful and we are very talented at what we do.

On June 5, 2021, we are hosting a LIVE, face-to-face Strategic Marketing Workshop.

This workshop will provide you with the tools you need to succeed in the digital marketplace – and how to manage your time and reduce your stress. It’s an amazing morning, breakfast and coffee provided, worth at least five or six times the amount we are asking from each business owner.

And we only have 30 slots.

We have to limit attendance due to COVID Safety Parameters, but also because we want to give you very detailed, hands-on attention. You’ll walk away with the top strategies and most up to date information. No question will be left unasked – and you’ll know exactly what steps to take next.

This is a program you cannot afford to miss.

This is your opportunity.  Don’t miss out. It’s time to take action.

Sign up here.

Granted, I have some mild symptoms of Adult ADHD, but I’m far from alone. In my case, since I know I have this tendency, I usually try to have something in my hand – a slinky or my Fidget Cube. Something I can do. It distracts my physical body from the fact I’m not accomplishing anything without taking my brain and eyes away from what I’m supposed to be focused on.

It was hard before COVID. Because of the nature of my remote job, I spent at least an hour a week, usually closer to 3-4, in a virtual meeting. And, in all fairness, one of them was at my request. Once the pandemic hit and everything shifted – I was still doing those meetings. But I was also trying to take advantage of “free time” and free classes, etc., that were offered. And so, things built up.

Most folks weren’t meant to stare at screens all day. But when work is there, school is there, what little social interaction is there… Yeah, we spend a LOT more time on them than even the most socially addicted teenagers do on their phones.

And eventually, it’s too much. Both sides of the equation get tired. The teachers, the students. The managers, the employees. The influencers and assisters, the people looking for something to do. We’re ALL tired. Distractions derail us easier. We find ourselves yawning all the time. No matter our best intentions, our focus drifts.

When Everything Equals Nothing

People have limited attention spans. This has always been true, but it seems to have definitely accelerated in recent years, definitely since the introduction of the smart phone. But we can’t blame everything on Apple and Android. Even before we had the constant pervasiveness of digital screens, we were bombarding ourselves with input.

Marketing studies show that we get bombarded with some 4-10,000 advertisements every day. Those numbers haven’t decreased since the turn of the millennium. Studies now show the average human can only focus on something for 8-10 seconds. And our microwave culture has affected our recall as well. Scientists say 40% of Americans forget essential information or lose one everyday item every week. They’re not talking about socks disappearing from dryers – but keys, cell phones or wallets.

Our brains are so used to it, we even confuse ourselves sometimes. Who hasn’t lost their glasses on the heads or complained to a friend on the phone that you can’t find your phone! We can barely focus on a few things – let alone ALL the things. What’s worse, trying to focus on everything directly leads to distraction – which makes us less happy and healthy.

How does this relate to virtual work and those ever-ongoing Zoom meetings?

Our brains are created to process a METRIC TON of visual information – more than most realize. In an experiment, researchers discovered that we process millions of bits of visual data in less than a blink of an eye. And faces are the things neurotypicals remember easiest and most of all.

When we’re face to face, most of us tune out the other people in the room, focused on our conversation. But in a virtual meeting – everyone is there all the time – up to 49 faces at once! The filtering process is literally shattered.

When Not Enough is Too Much

In April 2020 alone, Zoom saw 300 million daily meeting participants. 

According to Dr. Sabine Kastner, a neuroscientist at Princeton, “We are now basically confronted constantly with this sea of salient stimuli, completely overloaded, and that filter function is just not very effective.”

That overstimulation drains our energy. Not only do you have all those faces looking back at you – including your own – but there are added distractions, like pets, kids, or the stress that they might interrupt the meeting.

On top of that, if you’re a responsible person, you’re trying to stay “on” all the time. You’re scanning for visual clues and often non-visible body language. And worried that at any moment, the “teacher” might call on you.

Even on screen, distractions multiply. It’s not just your kids and your pets and your neighbor’s landscape company running the leaf blower. It’s dozens, sometimes hundreds of other people having the same issues. While everyone watches. You suddenly have a window into all your coworkers houses, and can find yourself trying to read the title off the spine on that book behind them.

Why did they paint that room green? Are they wearing pants below the camera’s sight? Or you can find yourself unusually bothered by the weird way part of their heads or hands disappear cause they’re using a virtual backdrop.

There’s even some evidence that interacting with people in tiny on-screen windows as opposed to interacting with their life-size person can cause added stress.

Days Are Longer, Even When They’re Shorter

I talked about my friend who works at Netflix in the last article. Chatting with her, she is more tired and feels overworked even though she’s not spending an hour to 90 minutes in traffic, or running up and down stairs to her office. In her old normal work days, if she had a question or issue, she could just pop into someone’s office – even two or three floors above or below her. Now to accomplish the same thing, she has to schedule a Zoom or Google Hangout Meeting – just for a few things. She literally spends 10 hours a day staring at screens, with little respite.

While face-to-face meetings are important, for many reasons, video meetings, for whatever reason, are more associated with stress and fatigue. Our brain chemistry is affected by constantly staring at screens. Microsoft Teams did a study last July and learned that remote work – even for introverts – can be more challenging than working in person. And for some reason, video calls are more stressful for remote workers than interacting through Slack, Basecamp or email.

On top of that, now that you’re home – where do you rest? The old adage about a home being a man’s castle goes out the window when you’re always stuck in that castle. Work goes longer, chores don’t get done. It’s hard to unwind when the place your brain associates with peace and relaxation is now also the greatest source of stress. And you can’t even pop over to Starbucks, or go shopping without being constantly reminded of exactly how this new world works.

Manufacturing Me Time

Thankfully, I live in a house now. For the first six months of the pandemic, I was trapped in a studio apartment. My big trip for each day was walking the 100 steps to the mailboxes and back. Now I try to find time to sit on the back patio and read at least a chapter of a book. We all need to be creative to find ways to release the tension of being at home 24/7.

Moving around is also a good idea. Even if you only have 5 minutes between virtual meeting calls, get up, walk around. Don’t just refill your coffee and sit back down. If you have 10-15 minutes, do a brisk walk around the block to get your blood pumping. You’ll be amazed how much better you’ll feel.

If you were at the office, you’d have breaks every couple of hours. Where I am in California, they’re mandatory. But sitting at home, we’re less likely to stick to that, just hopping up to grab a snack or hit the bathroom. As much as you can, schedule in breaks between your meetings. Again, even that 5 minute stroll around the house can lessen your daily fatigue of staring at screens.

What NOT to do in a Virtual Meeting

We’ve all heard the stories of the folks who thought they were muted or their cameras were off, standing up in pajamas – or less – or loudly complaining about other people on the call. The first rule of virtual meetings is not to be “that guy.” Don’t forget that while you’re home, you’re still technically in a professional setting of some sort.

At the same time, be aware of your technology. If you don’t need to be heard, mute yourself. Invariably on large group calls, there’s that one person or three people who are banging around, driving in traffic, or yelling at their kids, unmuted. It ruins the meeting and possibly other people’s days. It’s also ridiculously rude and disrespectful to the person speaking and/or running the meeting. Again, professional setting. Comport yourself appropriately.

Try to avoid eating, drinking and smoking. A quick bite or sip is fine. But if you need to eat your whole lunch, maybe turn off your camera or skip the meeting. When everyone is staring at you all the time, it gets distracting easily.

Be aware of the camera – what it’s pointed at, what it sees, and try to be mindful of actions that might look weird on your co-workers screens. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen people laying in bed, sprawled out on camera. Or stretching so their joints seem to pop right into the camera. The same goes for getting up during the meeting. If you can, hold up a finger to indicate 1 minute, and/or turn your camera off, rather than rising right up. Think about it – even if you’re wearing pants or a skirt, you’re essentially putting your crotch right into people’s eyelines. Not cool.

That’s NOT Multitasking

I gave this its own separate section, cause it’s really that important. And trust me, I am just as guilty as everyone else out there of this virtual meeting “sin.”

Put your phone and/or tablet down. And by down, I mean, FACE DOWN. Mute the alerts, put it on airplane mode if you want, and turn it over so you aren’t even tempted to glance down and see what just came in.

The other people in your meeting are not stupid. They can see the phone in your hand, or your eyes casting down to it on the side of your laptop. Even if you’re answering an important business text, it just looks like you’re scrolling through Facebook or Twitter.

I hate to admit it, but I’ve actually listened to one call or audio chat on my phone, while I’m on the laptop for another presentation. Neither one got the attention it deserved.

Oh, and, especially if it’s a business meeting you’re being held accountable for attending, make it full screen. Don’t be clicking around to other tabs, checking email, or God forbid, playing a game.

Don’t be like the 8-year old who figured out how to force Zoom to lock her out of class. And I even hesitate to mention this, but some adults connived a way to loop their video to appear on when they were not paying attention. That’s NOT how you take a break.

Test your picture, sound, etc., before you get into the meeting. Don’t try to change your name or your backdrop or reposition your laptop on the call. If you get booted out for whatever reason, just log back in. Knowing you’re prepared from a technical standpoint relieves your stress as well as others on the call.

Keeping the Mental Trains Running on Time

So what can you do to keep more mentally alert while facing an onslaught of video calls daily?

Start by grounding yourself. I’m personally not a huge proponent of meditation and such, but it can be effective, even in small doses. Take a deep breath, close your eyes, and just take a minute or two before the meeting to center yourself. You’ll be more in the moment and find it easier to focus during the call.

As I mentioned before, if you have the time, work it out physically. Get up and walk, even if it’s just a couple laps around the room you’re in. It will help.

If you’re the leader or moderator for a meeting, you can use a modified form of the mindful meeting approach known as a “Minute to Arrive” at the start of your call. It was developed for in-person meetings, but can be invaluable for virtual meetings as well. Invite everyone to take a deep breath and let go of all the day’s activities, stresses and irritations, and give themselves permission to be fully present in the call. It’s a quick shortcut to being focused in the moment of the current call, and not drag baggage from a past call or experience in with you.

Go ahead and get dressed. I do my calls from my bedroom, so I always get up, get dressed and make my bed, so things are uncluttered behind me. But the repeated ritual also gives me a certain peace and puts me in the right mindset to work. I can’t separate work from my room, so I make my room as professional as possible when I need to be professional.

Environmentally Sound

I’ve already talked about silencing and setting aside your phone, as well as putting the Zoom call in full screen. But it’s still easy to Alt-Tab to another window when you get bored. And if you’re like me (or my boss), you have WAY too many open tabs in your browser. And/or too many open documents. As I type this, I have 24 other Word documents open, in various stages of writing, reading and note-taking. Use OneTab to make your browser succinct without losing your place or spending too much time bookmarking open tabs (let’s be honest, you forget to go back to many of those bookmarks anyway).

Grab a pen and some paper. This eliminates the need to have so many computer windows open. You take analog notes the old fashioned way and it grounds you in the meeting moment. It also lets your eyes rest from staring at a screen. Plus, if/when you transcribe those notes later, it helps reinforce what was discussed, agreed upon and tasks that need to be finished.

Declutter your desk/workspace. The more physical distractions you have, the easier it is to ignore what’s on screen or get sidetracked. Heck, cleaning is one of the great procrastination devices – so declutter your area, so that’s not “in your way” anymore, and you’ll have more time and attention for work things. Ideally, you want a dedicated space for virtual meetings and work.

I know some folks who literally put their desk in a closet, so they can shut the door and just be there. Doing multiple jobs, I can’t isolate or compartmentalize as much as I’d like, but I have a section that is for work and I can even drop a blue screen behind it to “wall” myself off.

Eye of the Beholder

Here’s something you might not have considered. Did you know seeing yourself is stressful? Yes, we all know those folks who love to stare into the mirror and preen. I live and work with actors who are often self-conscious, if not narcissistic. They LOVE being “on.” But even those people are stressed in a virtual meeting.

It’s one thing to perform, present, shining as the center of attention. It’s another to be tracking everyone’s faces, and suddenly distracted by your own. You may realize you have RBF (Google it), or that you look weird when you smile. Things you spot that no one else cares about or notices.

Studies also show that viewing your own negative facial reactions can lead to more intense emotions. It’s not just that you’ve been cooped up at home too long. Your brain chemistry reacts to seeing your face screwed up and heightens your natural emotions. You can get angrier or sadder. Hopefully, it works for smiles too, but I didn’t see any research on that.

So shut off the self-view of your camera on screen, once you’ve checked it and made sure your surroundings look good. Just don’t forget that others can still see you!

In most of the popular virtual meeting spaces like Zoom and Discord, you can use “Speaker View.” This way, you’re not scrolling through faces – or pages in really big meetings – for who’s talking. They’re right there, dominating the screen. You can also use the three dots at top to “Pin” one or more people to the upper right of your gallery view, so you can easily find the people who need to be your focus.

Curiosity Saved the Engagement

Development coach Armada Markarova suggests an more active listening approach. She remains curious and attentive by committing to asking two relevant questions during every meeting. It helps focus on what others say and ask. And it can turn a boring meeting into an interactive conversation. Not only is the meeting more engaging for you – everyone gets more involved.

Asking questions can also help combat the Ringelmann Effect. The Ringelmann Effect posits that the more people you have working on something, the less each one has to pull his or her weight. Of course, we know inherently that isn’t true. Even going back to middle school group projects, there are always one or two classmates who did the lion’s share.

On a Zoom call, people who aren’t engaged or actively participating can zone out even without meaning to do so. Which is a good reason to limit the number of people in your meeting, and I’ll talk about that in a moment. Knowing your purpose in a meeting is also key. Even if your boss hasn’t assigned you anything, know for yourself why you’re there.

Cross- and overtalk can quickly become issues. Pause before jumping in. Beginning to speak, acknowledge the previous statement – right before yours and if you’re building off someone else’s statement. On the audio-based Clubhouse app, moderators often ask speakers to verbally acknowledge, “I’m done speaking,” both to avoid confusion and facilitate those using assistive devices.

Some meetings will let you record, or the host will record the session. Some companies use an add-on that displays and even records captions of what people are saying. And the technology has gotten really good. While some accents and phrasing might throw the system a curve ball, most of the time, the on screen text matches the dialogue.

But I’m the Leader!

If you’re running or facilitating the virtual meeting, it’s easier to pay attention (I hope!), but it also allows you to set the tone and the level of engagement. You can utilize the “Minute to Arrive” approach I outlined earlier. Or you can let people interact naturally for a few minutes before the “real meeting” starts, just like you’d do in real life. I personally struggle with this, because small talk isn’t my forte and I’m usually eager to get down to business. But most folks need a moment or two to connect with fellow participants, especially if this is the only “place” they’re encountering them.

Allowing a healthy gap warms up the room, builds camaraderie and trust, and allows everyone to take a mental break, even if they have back to back meetings. It also causes less stress and interruption if someone pops in late. See, they’re still on time!

Dress the part. Yes, we’re all stuck at home. Again, you set the tone. Be a good example. When you present as professional and presentable, everyone else feels the urge to get to work and get work done.

Don’t be a dictator. Remember, engagement increases when meetings are interactive. Let others take ownership. Encourage other opinions, brainstorming, and questions. The more you open things up to ideas and people feeling confident that they have a purpose and role to play, the better the work will ultimately be.

Not everyone needs to be in every meeting. You value your time. Let your people know you value theirs by not asking or expecting them to appear at a meeting they don’t need to be involved with.  Successful, productive calls require engagement, and too many people on a video call can make this challenging.

Speaking of Value Assurance

In August of 2020, Seth Godin published a simple post that proposed an agreement for virtual workspaces. I’m linking to it here, but also posting in its entirety here, because it’s just so good:

Another point to add to this – you’re in charge. You’ve got no excuse for not being engaged. Focus, pay attention when others are speaking. Don’t ramble on and on, needlessly extending a meeting. Make sure you understand and address any concerns or questions. And be passionate. Your passion tells your people it’s important to you – it’ll be important to them too.

Not Seeing is Believing

A quick side note – not every meeting needs to be on video. Face to face is nice and helpful, but again, so many of us are doing these meetings back to back to back that sometimes a phone call is fine. Of course, if you have a visual presentation or need to show things, video is essential. But if it’s just a couple of questions, or an update on progress, use the phone.

As the boss, you can also institute a weekly Zoom free day. We forget now that we can so easily connect, that meetings, in many situations, are an interruption of the actual work that needs to be done. Some meetings are important and necessary, but many are non-essential. And like my friend at Netflix, now even the briefest conversations need to be scheduled.

Think of it as a casual Friday of sorts. Allow your people’s eyes and minds to take a full 24-hour break from virtually connecting without feeling guilty. Like many imposed limitations, you’ll probably find that everyone is more strategic about the meetings they do schedule.

Advanced User Tips

In a normal situation, you lose 90% of your audience within the first 5 minutes of a presentation. Hook them early with something that engages their emotions. Emotion adds clarity and in client minds, triggers the brain to activate buyer decisions. Help the people you’re with see what you see – not necessarily with visual aids, but by painting a picture in their minds.

Story is a powerful tool to do just that.

You see it in movies all the time. Characters are having a disagreement or argument (or sometimes just a discussion), and one of them will pause, thinking about what the other has said. Then they launch into a story about something in the past.

It seems like a non sequitur, but by the end of the story, you realize why they told that story. It’s a screenwriting trick we actually stole from Jesus, of all people. Parables, stories that help people see our point of view or the reason for our actions, beliefs, etc., are powerful communication devices.

Don’t shy away from using story to connect with your audience or team. In fact, good storytelling covers a multitude of other sins and quite often cuts right through miscommunication and into the heart of your listener.

Finally, remember to light as well as you can – preferably with the light source BEHIND the camera. And look up into the camera, not down at it. This way, people are looking at your eyes, not up your nose. It also gives a more pleasant feel, as opposed to an inadvertently judgmental look.

Last Looks

Being a part of a small business can be challenging as well as very rewarding. Just because your team or clients are no longer coming into a physical room with you doesn’t mean that changes. There are just more challenges to address.

Hopefully, this article offers some significant, actionable tips to making the situation more pleasant and productive for everyone involved. Being remote doesn’t have to be a struggle – we’ve done it here at Grow the Dream for nearly 10 years and we’re still going strong. Your business can too.

If there’s anything we can do for you, or any service we can offer, please reach out. We hope to resume our #StrategyStreams soon, but in the meantime, we’re here to help you and your business.

Let’s Grow The Dream together!

But one day, tragedy struck. While racing through the forest, the sea cow tripped over a hidden stump. She crashed into the leafy floor in desperate pain. Afraid to move her, the pig raced to find a doctor who could help. But when the doctor arrived, he told the sea cow that she would never walk or run again. Her legs weren’t just broken, they were shattered and useless.

Every day, the wild pig would sit with the sea cow and read to her, but every time he walked away, even for a moment, the sea cow would become despondent about her tiny shattered legs.

“Go away”, she would plead with the wild pig. “Leave me to die out here alone. I know you want to race and so do I, but it’s impossible. So just go.”

The wild pig tried to leave, but he missed his friend terribly. So he would walk all around the area, while he thought and thought. One day, he found himself at the beach, watching the tide come in and go out. Suddenly, he had an idea.

He raced as fast as he could back to the sea cow in the forest. She was so sad, it made him hurt, but she tried to smile as he came up to her.

“Hop on my back”, he said. She didn’t understand, and told him so, but he just kept insisting, “hop on my back.” Finally, the sea cow managed to climb up onto the wild pig’s back and he carefully jogged back to the beach.

The wild pig ran down close to the water, hunched down and flipped the sea cow off his back into the water. At first, the sea cow didn’t know what to do. But as the tide pulled her out into the ocean, she found she could wiggle her legs.

Race me, the wild pig shouted! He began jogging on the wet sand. The sea cow struggled, but found she could swim in the water. She squealed with delight and began catching up to the wild pig. That day, they raced 10 times before tiredness overtook them. Every day after that, the sea cow and the wild pig would race, side by side, one in the water and one on land. And we know the sea cow as the manatee to this day.

Once Upon A Time…

Stories have an interesting effect on our human minds. Despite our rational brains and our ability to make critical decisions with careful thought based on facts, all that can be thrown out the window by a good story.

In fact, researchers tell us that there are chemical changes in our brain that cause us to feel as if the story we are hearing – or better yet, seeing – is happening to ourselves. This is why some movies are more compelling than others. So when Adonis Johnson wins the boxing match at the end of Creed, it isn’t just him proving that he wasn’t a mistake – all of us feel that emotional impact.

As far as our brains are concerned,
seeing a story and imagining ourselves in the character’s
shoes is just as authentic as reality.

Now, I’m a pretty good storyteller so you could probably see a little bit of what was happening in your mind as you read the story of the sea cow and the wild pig. And you probably won’t forget it anytime soon. But imagine how much more meaningful and even memorable the story would be if you saw it animated.

In fact, adding visuals to your story has been proven to actually increase memory retention from 10-65%.

Are you familiar with the old car-salesman tactic where they ask you “now do you see yourself more in the blue car or the red car?” If you’ve studied sales at all, you know that it’s a way of selling the car by causing the customer to cast their minds into the future – as if they’ve already made that car purchase.

But it’s much more powerful than that.

By stimulating the visual cortex – the part of the brain that is responsible for seeing – generating a picture in our mind’s eye actually causes your mind to make a choice. To make an emotional choice that will then force your higher level brain to justify that choice … and suddenly you’ve bought a car without even giving a thought to safety features, price or reliability. Which is probably why you need to do that research first.

90% of the information sent to the brain is visual,
& visuals are processed 60K times faster than text.

Our brains store words in our short-term memory, which can handle about 7 to 9 bits of information at a time. But images go straight into the long-term memory, where they are etched into the folds of our gray matter forever. In fact, I could probably just mention certain visuals and you’d instantly know what movie or TV show I was talking about.

So you can probably guess how a tweet or a text-only Facebook post compares to the power of Pinterest or Instagram, especially in our oversaturated media world.

As of last year,

• 27,000,000 pieces of content are shared each day.
• The average human attention span has dropped from 12 seconds in 2000 to only 8 seconds!
• We check our phones 150 times per day. We check our email 30 times an hour.
• The amount of information in the world continues to double every 18 months.

How do you stand out in the crowd? Visual Storytelling.

A Picture = 1000 Words

Visual Storytelling seems pretty simple – it’s the art of communicating a series of messages using visual multimedia. It can be in the form of graphics, images, pictures, infograms, and videos. But as we’ll see, there’s a popular misconception about using storytelling in business, visual or otherwise that you’ll need to be aware of.

First, let’s look at what your visuals should accomplish.

Every 60 seconds –

• 208,300 photos post to Facebook
• 510,000 photos get likes on Instagram
• 278,000 tweets are sent
• 100 hours of video upload to YouTube

That’s an awful lot to compete with. So how do you stand out?

Getty Images, no stranger to visual media, lists 4 primary principles of visual storytelling:

1. Be Authentic

With the rise in popularity of images and the Internet, audiences have become far more sophisticated in their ability to quickly spot fakes, advertisements/sponsored content and insincerity.

Meanwhile, authenticity builds a connection between a brand and a consumer. If you want to forge a real emotional connection between your small business and your prospective customer , a connection which you’ll need to transform them into a buyer or follower, you need to be authentic.

I already mentioned how visuals help reinforce memory and emotional connection to a story. Working backwards, adding text to visuals can work similarly. Scientists call this dual coding. In order to make authenticity even more important, your text and your visuals should complement each other.

Keep the text limited though – let the visual tell the story and the use words to just reinforce it.

2. Use Your Senses

If you want to build an even stronger emotional connection to your potential customers, you’ll need to use visuals that evoke a visceral feeling. The old Barnum maxim of ‘no bad press’ can become a temptation here, but be careful. If the visceral feeling you evoke is nausea or disgust, that’s not going to help your brand profile.

But if the story you’re telling is more adventurous or exploratory, using images that bring it not only to the customer’s mind, but deep down into their gut. Make them tingle – the right way – and you’re likely to make a sale.

The more senses a piece of visual content is able to engage, the more memorable it becomes. This is one of the reasons lifestyle photos are 170 times more engaging than product photos.

As I mentioned earlier, cognitive science calls reinforcing pictures with text dual coding.  It is the link of two compatible messages. Our brain’s ability to retain information significantly increases when visual information is paired with verbal information.

3. Create a Hero

There’s a reason that the original Star Wars movie was and still is so successful. While Lucas didn’t come up with the idea using psychology, he rewrote his master script using a Jungian series of archetypes that Joseph Campbell called ‘The Hero’s Journey.’

Telling your story through the use of character archetypes can help it immediately resonate with your audience. The hero, the rebel, the mentor – all of these have a memorable place and create an immediate connection in most people’s minds.

Reinforcing again that lifestyle photos – and those without faces, so the considerably more effective than other visuals.

4. Be Relevant!

This can be as easy as making sure your story has some seasonal changes that coincide with holidays, cultural events, and emerging trends.

More specifically, your visual content should match your existing brand story in other mediums, and should reflect things that are relevant to your target audience, the problems they have and how you can successfully solve those problems for the client.

Which brings me to the error that most businesses, regardless of their size, make when first attempting to add storytelling, and visual storytelling to their marketing repertoire.

Because it’s your small business, it’s easy to think of yourself or your company as the story that needs to be told to connect with your potential customers. But there’s some old novel-writing advice you can take to heart when developing your story. Everyone in a story, even the villain, thinks of themselves as the hero of the story. Sure, Indiana Jones might be the name in the title, but for his pal Sallah, Indy’s just an interruption to the grand tale of his life.

So when you’re developing the story of your business that you’ll tell to prospective clients – it’s not your story.

Make them the hero of your story.

Now that doesn’t mean that the fact that you lead your industry by providing minimum-risk pest control solutions shouldn’t be part of that story. But everything needs to be filtered through the lens of your strategic work. Do your ideal customers care about ‘going green’? Then it should absolutely be a part of your story.

Testimonials from your existing customers, sharing their positive feedback about your company are a great visual element you can employ. You can record them on video, sharing their story, or simply share a photo of them – maybe even using your product. If you want to really double down, get their permission to take screen shots of the video and you can post them as well, with limited text.

Some numbers to consider if I still haven’t convinced you:

• Posts with an album or photo drive up to 180% more engagement than those without.
• Viewers spend 100% more time on web pages with videos.
• Viewers are 85% more likely to purchase a product after watching a product video.

Back to the Beginning

So, once upon a time, there was a person who wanted to make an impact on his world. So they started a business, and made things and offered services that would improve the lives of the customers that they knew needed their help.

But it wasn’t enough. They knew there must be something more.

So they went on a virtual world wide tour. They visited far off lands with strange names like Pinterest and Facebook and Instagram and discovered they could help more people and make a bigger difference if only they could find more time.

Then, on the way back home, they stumbled into a dark cave. They were scared, but just kept going, following a small light up ahead. They emerged into a new, exciting realm called Infusionsoft that promised if they worked hard for a little while, they would be granted the elixir of time.

So they brought the magical knowledge back to their business, and even though it did take a lot of work at first, they helped more and more people, both as customers and employees. And after a while they did discover that they suddenly had more time and freedom to spend with their family and friends, and everyone’s life was better.

And they all lived happily ever after.

I discussed in a previous article about how YouTube began simply as a site for large file sharing, much like what we now call Photoshop was once merely a program to exchange graphics between PC and Mac.

Just 15 years ago, no one could imagine that people would be watching 5-Billion videos a day, with another 300 hours added to the pot every minute of every day, around the world.

When YouTube launched in 2005, as Internet speeds were rapidly increasing to accommodate the bandwidth the company would require, it radically changed the ability to effectively market and utilize video for businesses of all sizes.

Luckily, a few technology makers saw the potential early on and scrambled to invent or recreate assets to allow people to take advantage of the new horizons.

Although DSLR cameras were first experimented with in the 70’s, they didn’t take on the prominence – or the underlying video recording capabilities – until the early 2000’s, about the same time YouTube & Google were developing. And in 2008, camera makers took things to the next level with High Definition (HD) recording options.

And while your iPhone X can record HD, 4K video, it’s only been since 2010 that smart phones of any kind could record video at all. The original iPhone that launched the smart phone craze could barely take a grainy, mostly in focus, 2-megapixel picture.

Coming Out of the Dark

With improved, easily accessible, not too expensive cameras available to everyone, one of the best ways to stand out is to have your video be properly lit.

Now I’m not talking about the bright lights on a product, brushed with oil or glue that is still the norm for advertising photos (trust me, you don’t want to bite that Big Mac).

This also won’t be a full-on, detailed explanation of ISO and F-Stops, etc. There are good resources for that, if you want to dive deep.

I’m just going to focus on a few easier techniques and tips I can offer to help improve the look of the video you’ll be shooting for your marketing campaign.

I’ll start small and we’ll work our way up.

Natural Lighting

Obviously, the cheapest and easiest way to get light from your video is from what they call in the film business practical lighting. That’s everything from the lamp on your desk to the overhead fluorescents to the big ball of hot gas in the sky that rises in the east.

Because of the high quantity of readily available light, a vast majority of the videos we shoot here at Grow The Dream are staged outside. The sun is a wonderful light source that makes everything clearer, and it also gives a warm feeling to the videos we do, reinforcing our agriculturally-themed brand name.

Shooting indoors with practical lighting can be a bit more difficult. Old-school fluorescent lighting tends to give everything a very yellow or blue cast, especially in areas that are darker. If you use a lamp or torchiere light, just make sure the camera isn’t pointed directly at the camera, as you’ll get s sharp lens flare. Nobody likes seeing that – even JJ Abrams adds his trademark effect in editing.

One big thing to watch for, indoors or out, is too much lighting. If you’re outdoors, try to find a contrasting background to shoot against, and indoors just make sure everything’s not too radiant, or everything will be so bright that you’ll lose definition – the subject will be hard to distinguish from the background.

Pro-Tip: Golden Hour

If you can, plan to shoot your outdoor videos during the hour right before sunset or after sunrise. That’s what film crews call the “Golden Hour.” The sun’s natural light is dimmer and less vibrant because it’s on its way ‘up or down,’ but still bright enough to shoot with natural light. When the sky is a factor, they love the poorly named Blue Hour – the 15-30 minutes following sunset where the sky is colorful and not too bright.

The Whole Kit & Kaboodle

If you’ll be shooting mostly indoors, or even if you plan to make videos a strong, central part of your marketing focus, it would behoove you to invest in a lighting kit. Now, back in the day, lighting was difficult and expensive. Luckily, just like camera and internet technology have both rapidly improved, so has lighting.

LED-ing by Example

In the past, LED lighting was great for lighting parts of rooms, but didn’t work as well for studio or pinpoint camera lighting. It also wasn’t dimmable. That all changed about 10 years ago, and now even the major broadcasters have shifted to LED studio lighting.

While you likely won’t be setting up your own studio, the advances in LED’s benefit you as well. First, a majority of LED lights can be run off both AC electrical current and DC battery. That means you can just grab and go, if you need to. Not to mention, they weigh about ¼ of what they used to.

The Basic Set-up

You can pick up a decent kit on Amazon with 2-3 lights for anywhere from $150-$1000. There are several options out there – it can easily get overwhelming. You’ll want something with 2-3 LED panels that are dimmable and have at least dual color temperature settings (3200K/5600K). The good LED panels come with their own masking boxes, but double check before buying. You’ll also have an easier time if you get at least 1 tripod, preferably 1 for each light.

If you’re looking for a shortcut, my friends over at No Film School have done the research and suggest this $250 kit for folks on a budget.

If you’re a little handy, and you have more time than money, you can put together a DIY light kit for around $100, shopping at Home Depot or Lowes. Luke Leonard, from Full Sail Film School in Winter Park, FL, explains how in this video.

Wait. Go Back. Color Temperature?

Most people don’t notice it, or only notice it when they change bulbs, but different types of lights give off different colors. Remember the yellow cast I mentioned for fluorescents? These color differences are referred to as color temperatures.

Soft light, which is used in most homes, especially in bedrooms and dining rooms, is 2700 Kelvins. It has a yellowish white tone to it. The brighter Cool light that you’ll find in most bathrooms and kitchens is 4100 Kelvins. It appears mostly white. And Daylight, which comes off as a bluish white, is 5-6500 Kelvins.

So the lighting you use to ADD brightness and hue to the subject of your camera needs to exceed the naturally available standard light – hence the warmer 3200K indoors and cooler toned 5600K outside. So you need that switch or dial on the LED panel that allows you to use it properly, and make sure its set to the correct setting.

Let’s Talk About 3-Point Lighting

While 3-point lighting was originally developed for shooting theater, then adapted for film, it’s good to get at least a basic understanding of how it works, so you can utilize it in your video shoots.

In Shakespeare’s day, of course, theater performances were almost entirely outdoors and so whatever was on stage was what you saw. As electrical lighting started being more widely used, stage managers found they could control where the audience’s attention was drawn by how they placed the lights. This, of course, led to the cliché, ‘you’re standing in my light.’

The simplest way to control light is with three specific sources: key, fill, and back.

The Key Light

The key light serves as the main source of light for your subject (product, interview, you, etc.). When you’re outside, the sun is the obvious key light, and you should position the person or object with the sun shining directly on it – not behind, as that will obscure it.

Inside, you would use your largest LED as your key light, making sure its center is aimed at the center of your subject.

The Fill Light

The fill light also shines on the subject, but from the side. As the name implies, it ‘fills in’ extra light on the side of your face or product, to make it stand out and be clearer. Typically, a fill light is also set at a slightly lower angle than the key light. Its main purpose is to banish unwanted shadows.

If you’re going for a fancy lighting effect, the fill light is usually the one you change to add shadows, make an interesting light cut across a subject, or other stylish touches. In truth, most marketing videos won’t need this, but I’m mentioning it just in case.

The Back Light

You may hear this light source also referred to as a hair light, a rim light, or a shoulder light. If you only have two lights, the back light is the one you skip. The main purpose of the back light is to add depth to your scene. Back lights shine on the back of the subject, adding an extra “rim” or highlight of light that makes your eye see a separation between the subject and the background. It can also add some additional contour.

Pro-Tip: Reflectors

If you’re budget is too tight to add a third light, an easy substitute is to get a reflector. You can get a professional one for $10-20 on Amazon (or even a white foam board will work). A reflector can be used to, well, reflect light from one direction, into your back light, or even your fill light. It’s also useful if you want a softer, subtler feel to your back light. Properly placed, you can even get spill over from the key light reflected back as the back light. For more extensive uses of a reflector, check this article out.

For more information on getting started with video, sound, framing and more, check out the whole Grow The Dream collection of Best Practices for Marketing Video here.

 “Sound is fifty percent of the movie-going experience” ~ George Lucas

Being Prepared is Half the Battle

First, take a breath. The military has an old tactical rule – take the time you are assigned for a task and spend 1/3rd of it in preparation. That leaves 2/3rds for execution, whether by yourself or by others. When you plunge right in with no preparation, generally things take longer to accomplish, and lead to more errors.

It’s the Script, Stupid

Alfred Hitchcock is quoted as saying ““To make a great film you need three things – the script, the script and the script.” It’s fine for highly trained professionals like Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise to start shooting a Mission Impossible movie without a complete script. However, it doesn’t always work for them, and almost certainly it won’t for you.

Take the time to figure out what you want to say before you turn the camera on. I know this sounds like a detour from best practices for sound. But having a great audio recording doesn’t help if you’re just babbling on, never quite getting to your own point. This is especially true of many entrepreneurs who might suffer from a touch of ADHD. Write it down and you’ll be sure it’s right.

Cue Me!

When I said write it down, I meant literally, and twice. You should type up what you want to say, and how. Then take that script and put it on cue cards. Not everyone needs to do this, but it’ll definitely help, especially your first few recordings. If it worked for Marlon Brando, it’s good enough for you too.

Practice reading the cards so it sounds natural.

Yes, Out Loud

This is also an opportunity to test your equipment and get used to hearing how your voice sounds on tape. Unless you’re James Earl Jones or Don LaFontaine (the famous ‘In a World…’ trailer voice), you’re going to be thrown off a little the first time you hear yourself outside of your head. Test it, play with it, get used to it.

Make sure you’re using good diction. You don’t need to sound like Miss Manners, but if you’re used to mumbling or have other speech tics, lose them now. The same applies if you are generally soft spoken. In person, I tend to be quieter, but when I’m acting, I have a theater voice that projects. You don’t need to sell the video to the cheap seats, but make sure you can be heard.

Pro-Tip: Make sure the microphone is turned on. It sounds simple, I know. But back in the day, I worked with FOX News’ Shepherd Smith and he was notorious for going on camera during a live broadcast with his mic turned off.

And, again, make sure the microphone you’ve chosen – more on that later – is recording sound the way you want it to. Not too tinny or bassy, or not picking up your refrigerator or ceiling fan too loudly. Utilize speakers or preferably headphones to test your recorded audio levels.

 Location, Location, Location

Just as with the Best Practices for Lighting post, you’ll want to select your location carefully. If you’re shooting in public, you don’t want too much background noise,  like recording next to a freeway or too near the airport.

Also, if you’re shooting outdoors, invest in a wind sock. Even the lightest breeze rumbles on a good mic and muffles the audio you want to hear. There are foam windscreens, softies and blimp systems. Foam is the most basic, and is generally best indoors. Softies look like a grey fluffy dog on your mic, and are the best budget-conscious option. Blimps are typically used by professionals on film shoots. They offer maximum wind protection, but at a considerably higher price.

If you’re recording indoors, you still have a few things to worry about. Sounds still penetrate your home or office. Noises you’ve grown accustomed to, like a ticking clock or the hum from your air conditioner, are multiplied when you’re recording quality sound. Many of my friends that do Voice-Overs utilize their closet, but that isn’t really an option when you’re on camera.

Isolate the desired sound, minimize undesired sound

Don’t forget to mute your phone or laptop, and, if you can, shoot when everyone’s out, or at least aware you’re recording.

Get as close to the Mic as you can, but not too close. This can be a challenge when you’re on camera. Unless you’re doing a live broadcast of a podcast or radio show, it looks weird to be wearing headphones and holding a giant microphone. If you can afford to invest in a lavalier mic, I’d encourage it. In a pinch, you can even record decent audio on your smart phone – using the voice note feature.

Plug and Play

Generally, you will want to avoid recording audio with your camera. I know it sounds easier, but mic inputs on cameras are tuned to raise and amplify the sound coming in, including the silences between sound. That means your sound, especially if it’s just your voice, is going to sound either muffled or scratchy. And you’ll hear EVERYTHING else when you’re not talking. When recorded together, the camera can causes audio issues if the image is too bright or dark. And sometimes internal mics on cameras record the camera’s mechanical act of recording.

I almost always use an external mic, plugged into a digital recorder. I’ve found that Tascam and Zoom offer some of the best high quality digital recording ability. There are a lot of more expensive options out there, but you should be able to find options in the $100-300 range.

Pro-Tip: these digital recorders may also sport their own mics. In most cases, it’s still better to plug in a separate mic.

Microphones vary in price and quality, depending on what you need. You might be tempted to skimp on the mic, especially if you’ve paid a bit for the camera. But don’t. In the audio world, with minor exceptions, you do get what you pay for. Test the mic, but generally invest in the best mic you can.

In an ideal world, you can repurpose the microphone you buy for your podcast, but often that’s not possible. Most podcasts tend to use an Omnidirectional Mic, so that everyone and everything can be heard.

For a video recording, you’ll want to use an Unidirectional Mic – or one that only records what it’s pointed at. The USB Blue Yeti mic I use for recording voice overs can be switched to unidirectional, but it’s too bulky and unwieldy to use on camera.

As I mentioned, in a perfect world, a lavalier mic is going to be your best bet. Even though they’re omnidirectional, they’re small and can clip easily to your shirt collar or tie – or can even be hidden behind them. You can use wireless lavs (the slang term) or wired, if you’re close enough to the recorder. Wired are going to be cheaper overall.

Pro-Tip: If you’re getting some static or interference off a lavalier mic, loop about 1½ inches of the cable, then gently clip it behind the mic. I don’t know why it works, but it does.

Remember, good audio isn’t a choice. It’s a necessity when producing professional looking videos for your business. Spend a little time and money now, and you’ll see a better return on investment pretty quickly.