Get More Views on YouTube Channel (Small Business Edition) [YouTube Marketing with JC Polk, Part 2]

Transcript

Introduction to YouTube Content Strategy
[00:00:35] JC Polk: YouTube has an easy gate to entry. You have to be able to rely on the one thing that you can, and that is
[00:00:41] John Bertino: break that apart and repurpose it. Get so much content out of that. Pull out the transcript. Take an hour long video and turn it into a 32nd clip, a three minute clip, a five minute clip. Take the videos together and get some type of curated bundled piece of content.
[00:00:55] You also have to
[00:00:55] JC Polk: have a great grounding in what the trends are. If you just want to be here for a little while. [00:01:00] No problem. Come in like Snapchat, disappear. We'll never see you again.

Meet JC Polk: Journey to Media
[00:01:04] John Bertino: And we're back with another episode of the Niche Marketing Podcast. As always, I'm your host, John Bertino. Today I'm in sunny San Diego with my new friend, JC Polk.
[00:01:14] JC what's your title? Uh, here I'm an executive producer and co-founder of OLAS Media. Let's start off by having you tell the audience a little bit about yourself, how you got into this, how long you've been doing this, and what we should know about your background. Before starting, no loss media,
[00:01:28] JC Polk: once I finished high school, I took it upon myself to go over to HBCU Elizabeth City, state, uh, university, which is in the.
[00:01:35] Uh, about 30 minutes from Nags Head. Part of what has happened there is that we've been able to learn about the stories and the plight of people of color, uh, at institutions of HBCUs, and it provides us with the confidence to be able to go and explore. And so from there, I went on to actually go teach marketing.
[00:01:51] Um, at an alternative high school and while I was there, I was a marketing instructor and got bit by the bug of video. The students helped me to learn how to actually start editing [00:02:00] video. Really looking at what the students helped you. Mm-hmm. Students helped me. Yep. I knew how to do a work of video camera, but to go in and start editing, I didn't know anything about it and so they, we learned together.
[00:02:10] Um, and so it helped me really understand and value, even to this day, the teaching and learning experience loaded up the wagon headed west. The goal originally was to, uh, actually go to Australia. Um, I was gonna take a pit stop in California. Yeah. Uh, country boy coming further west, but I didn't wanna do LA and so I decided to do San Diego and next best thing to Australia.
[00:02:30] Right. There you go. There you go. It was in a, you know, precarious area as you know here.

The Importance of Multimedia in Marketing
[00:02:35] JC Polk: In Mission Valley, ironically, where we are now, you have a lot of companies that question their marketing mix and what they need to add to it, to anything that you do. I argue to say that a hundred percent, anyone that's, you know, worth their salt now has at least the three components.
[00:02:47] They have, um, a website, um, a hardy email campaign, and they have some other new form of media that they're experimenting with.
[00:02:55] John Bertino: Right, because it's always content, content, content, content is king. But if you're just [00:03:00] relying on written content, you are, you're already behind. Yeah. This is true. And it's ironic because there's a direct intersection here between, you know, certainly what I do on a day-to-day basis.
[00:03:10] When you're doing, I. And I couldn't agree with you more. The multimedia is critical, right? It's gonna give you a leg up. My background's in SEO, so I always think in terms of SEO, but among other things, it's gonna give you a leg up in rankings to have something that's more engaging in the written content that supplements it, the links to YouTube and a number of other factors I could, I could touch on.
[00:03:31] There's all this, Hey, you gotta get on social. Everybody's gotta get on social. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But if you're just doing still graphics and clever captions, not that you shouldn't be doing. Clever captions and the occasional still graphics, but you're at a major disadvantage to everybody's using media. Even LinkedIn as you see today, is, is, is video after video, after video.
[00:03:50] And most of the posts that are just written, I tend to pass those. Mm-hmm. We could both give another 20 examples of why you gotta be doing media right now. Actually, I'm gonna give one more, which is the ability to take a [00:04:00] video, a piece of video content, and break that apart and repurpose it, pull out the transcript, take an hour long video and turn it into a.
[00:04:07] Three second, a three, three second, 32nd clip, a three minute clip, a five minute clip, take the videos together and get some type of curated bundled piece of content, like on and on and on and on. So, so video is where it's at and I guess that was the realization that IVC had a long time ago. They were way ahead.

Crafting a Realistic Marketing Strategy
[00:04:25] JC Polk: Well, I think, uh, it really goes back, you know, when we talk to a lot of people who, you know, either ser in or just, you know, cold call us and say, Hey, we wanna know what you guys are doing. A lot of things we always try to point out to them is, is really about being honest and upfront about who you are, your capacity, and what it is that you want to do.
[00:04:42] Mm-hmm. Right. If you can identify that each of the things that you just mentioned are absolute options for you, the question you have to ask yourself is whether or not you, whether or not you really believe that you can be the best at all of those, or is there something that is germane to your success that allows you to specialize in one of those?
[00:04:59] Right. Because [00:05:00] the question that we all have to ask, we can. Be very familiar with all the different elements of a great marketing mix, but we also have to be realistic about the budget that we have too. Right. It's so true. Go ahead and, and so, you know, the first thing that we try to sit down when we talk to talk to them is to say, okay, what resources do you have?
[00:05:17] I. Right. What is it that you really want to accomplish and allow us to do the heavy lifting to make that connection and come up with a solution for you that fits both of those categories. Otherwise you risk, uh, bastardizing your own brand. Right? And then even for those who come to us without a brand, right?
[00:05:32] They just know, Hey, we want to tell somebody about this. Right? Mm-hmm. Question is, okay, let's really talk about what are you doing? Are you telling a story? Are you promoting something? Are you trying to impact someone? Are you trying to inspire somebody? We, we ask some of those tough questions and I think a lot of times, you know, what we've seen in our experience is by starting there, you would do two things.
[00:05:52] You remove them of the overwhelming capacity that, that it could be to hear all the team, 'cause the list that you just ran down is absolutely correct. We could [00:06:00] talk about an infinite number of products. So many, so many options. But we get, then we get run into this paralysis where it's like, well, I have so many options.
[00:06:06] Where do I begin? And I, and then it turns into, well, I'm just gonna try to do this and I'm gonna try to add that to it. But what if you took the time. What you are realistic about what it is that you want to accomplish, and realistic, put together a plan. And I think that's what we, we try to allow ourselves to do.
[00:06:21] John Bertino: I love what you just said. I truly think it's brilliant. And yet I think that a lot of listeners would just go, you know, JC basically just said you should have a strategy and you should prioritize spend before you do things. But, but it's more, it is more than that. And it's a very familiar conversation for me, right, because.
[00:06:36] If you're a sizable brand with a sizable budget, okay, fine. I mean, you're doing a little bit of everything and you still need to have a strategy. You still have a plan. You still need to be efficient, but you got, you got, you got money to blow, you got margin for error is a lot easier. But for your typical, small, emerging mid-size business, call it sub.
[00:06:54] Sub 10 million a year sub even 5 million a year. And there's, that's most businesses, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You [00:07:00] don't have a lot of margin forever. You don't have a lot of time to waste. You need to do, take the most efficient path and means to an end to get the most outta your marketing dollars. You gotta see it fast before you give up, go broke, pivot, run your company to the ground, whatever it is.
[00:07:13] Mm-hmm. And so you really need to be very thoughtful in where am I gonna put. Resources, time, effort, energy, money. Absolutely. And the fact that you guys immediately, first things first, look at it through that lens and dissect it is powerful, incredibly important. And a sign of somebody that knows what the hell they're doing.
[00:07:30] And last things last, again, I think that's kind of the power of YouTube, or excuse me, video, I should say in general. In, as I had referenced earlier, the ability to take one, uh, output. Mm-hmm. And turn it into many Absolutely. Which a simple blogging strategy doesn't afford you that same luxury, but one video.
[00:07:49] Again, you can get so much content outta that. You extract a lot more value outta one
[00:07:54] JC Polk: investment. What we also deal with are those clients who come and say, okay, yes. I don't have a large [00:08:00] runway like you were talking about, and I need to, I have this campaign that I need to, whether the political or a municipal initiative, I need to get this.
[00:08:06] We vote on this come march, right? We need to get the word out. We need to get engagement to the community. We're equipped to be able to help people do that as well. And so that is. The naming, the initiative that is putting together an email campaign that feeds into a live streaming event to educate people about it, to get them to come out to an actual party so that they can go and be prepared as a voter to either say yay or nay on that proposition in the course of six months.
[00:08:31] Right. But the part of that question that we ask about being realistic about who you are is what is that timeline for you? Right. If you're talking about right now I'm coming with minimal resources. But I really don't have a, a deadline by end of the year allow us to put together a holistic, sustainable strategy because it's better to allow you to come in and be methodical and purposeful about, and authentic to come in and design this so that by the time we wanna look two years from now, we can honestly say [00:09:00] we can get you there.
[00:09:00] Here's how we're gonna do it. Because one thing we do know about that media is that what it looks like today is not what it's gonna look like tomorrow or the next year. And in on, on top of that. Yesterday's price is not tomorrow's price, right? And so by putting together this sustainable strategy, we take all of that in consideration, all the years of experience that we have, working with different types of mediums, depending on what platform do you want to, do you want to go to?
[00:09:23] Sure. What age group, what's your demographic? All of those questions that become very overwhelming for a lot of people or questions that we handle. At an expert level. So that's, I I wanted to make sure I add some context to that. Love it. So that it's not just JC said that all I have to do is have a strategy.
[00:09:36] So Yeah.
[00:09:37] John Bertino: JC did not say that you're putting words in your own damn mouth. Jc, it's gold. Jerry Seinfeld fan. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Who, who isn't. All right. Uh, perfect segue, and I knew you teamed me up with that. You're a veteran. You know what you're doing. Perfect segue.

Defining and Building Your Brand Identity
[00:09:50] John Bertino: We do wanna drill down a little bit on like YouTube shows.
[00:09:54] Mm-hmm. In particular, one of the first steps. Is solidifying that brand. Mm-hmm. Defining that brand [00:10:00] identity and then, um, you know, everything kind of stems from there. So let's just talk about that a little bit. What is the process that you typically go through specifically for a YouTuber to help them define a brand identity?
[00:10:11] What does that process look like?
[00:10:12] JC Polk: Well, normally we, we wanna look at what you have existing, right? We wanna look at what has been the experience of this brand. Um, oftentimes you'll see, um, even to the, the layman eye, you can see when a brand tries to jump from A to B with no bridge in between and it just doesn't work.
[00:10:29] Um, and so we try to create that, that I guess that, um, launching pad to get you to that next step. And so we're gonna ask that question, what did it used to look like? And again, where do you want to go? How aggressive do you want to be? Are we really talking about that? You're gonna be able to post four and five different times plus with the shorts, and to be able to make sure you got your descriptions right.
[00:10:47] We need to know what your capacity is to, to operate on this level, because otherwise that's, we can't put you together a strategy, but specifically what we say is authenticity.

The Power of Authenticity in Branding
[00:10:56] JC Polk: Let's build off of that because one, what we all [00:11:00] realize now is that YouTube has an easy gate to entry and for participation. So when it comes to differentiating your brand itself.
[00:11:09] You have to be able to rely on the one thing that you can, and that is your authenticity. Mm. Because if you're true to thyself and the service that you provide to the people or the product that you provide, the people will see it. I, I think a lot of times, and, and I talk to this, um, when I'm talking to my son and stuff, I don't even believe that people that are.
[00:11:26] Have not seen as many moons as you and I realize the gift that they've been given by being able to differentiate between good co good quality content and just content that somebody never gave any thought about, and content that's just for the sake of just faking you out, right? They go through so much content and have gone through so much content that their ability and their radar.
[00:11:47] Is almost inherent. Mm-hmm. Versus those of us who have had to see the iterations of what YouTube looks like. So we try to stand on authenticity. Right? Yeah. But you also have to have a great grounding in what the trends are and accept the fact [00:12:00] that these trends are gonna change daily. Mm-hmm. Right?
[00:12:02] Mm-hmm. Almost as often as the algorithm, right? Mm-hmm. And so if you understand that, now we can really talk about how aggressive are you prepared to actually be and, and we just try to teach that this is going to change and you have to be in a solid situation. To be able to, to be malleable enough, athletic enough to be able to change just as quick, just as fast and pivot and, and what we do today may not hit, knock it out of the park, but what we can do is put you in the best situation possible that whatever you make an attempt to swing at, that you can get on base right there.
[00:12:33] There's some fundamental things that you can do to do that. Noted.
[00:12:36] John Bertino: I think that's great feedback.
Establishing a New Brand from Scratch
[00:12:37] John Bertino: But what about those guys that are just getting started? They don't have an existing brand. Mm-hmm. And, but they know they wanna put out content and they need your help in establishing both the, uh, brand aesthetic or brand identity as well as the brand messaging.
[00:12:50] Uh, do you have a typical process you might run folks through for that type of thing?
[00:12:54] JC Polk: I. I mean, we, we have an extent. Well, um, by comparison, I would say we have an extensive type of, uh, [00:13:00] brand roadmap. We sit down and we do an initial interview. We see you sit down with us, and over the course of about 30 to 45 minutes, we go through and, and ask you, who are you?
[00:13:08] What is your product? What is your service? What is it that you want to. BI think the, you know, I, I got from a webinar just this week they were talking about, we spend a lot of time thinking that it's just to do, right? If we start talking about nine, nine outta 10 people, you would sit there and say, okay, you wanna do this?
[00:13:25] The first thing you do, I'm gonna Google how do I Right? Instead of. What do you want to be? Because if we take that being of your product or service and pour that into your actual brand and can make that manifest into a visual representation of that we've already scored major points with whoever sees that, it becomes attractive.
[00:13:42] It now looks at something that I want to do or, or something that I want to be a part of or that I'm even curious about. And so once we establish that, now let's talk about. How are we going to refer to that? We're just talking about the visual, when we're talking about the logo or the, when we start talking about the brand and the brand identity, we're talking about who are [00:14:00] you and what are, what's the culture that your business is in, and how do we convey that to the end user?
[00:14:05] Right? And so part of that roadmap is sitting down and for us, it, it may sound very laborious, but it is just asking the question that, that has been the strength that we've stood on, right? And our success is being able to make sure that we can, I can make that representative. In your end product, and again, 'cause it comes back.
[00:14:22] I, I, I personally believe, let me put on my JC hat, is that the authenticity is what will give you the actual niche over anything else, right? You can have a piss poor product, but if someone sees that, well, you didn't try to do me, you're gonna be in a better place than if someone says. Oh, well you told me that this was the moon in the stars and it's not.
[00:14:42] This is just, yeah, right. So I, I just personally stand on authentic authenticity and sometimes I think we were talking before it conflicts with, with, you know, being in that, in that path of I just wanna get paid, I just wanna get paid. But I, uh, true to thyself, kind of like a pun, but truth thyself, I try to make [00:15:00] sure that when we're talking to clients, that that's what we let them know that it's the authenticity that needs to be represented in their brand in order for them to.
[00:15:06] Got garner the attention of those who they wanna serve or provide for.

The Value of Authenticity in Entrepreneurship
[00:15:09] John Bertino: Again, I think there's something so deep and special in what you're saying. And so I'm gonna riff here for a minute. Um, and I'm noticing it's becoming, I. Common in the lexicon of entrepreneur best practices, and those that have been there and done it are starting to hone in on this idea of the most valuable gift you have to offer is your most authentic self.
[00:15:36] Mm-hmm. Which sounds like perhaps smokey bullshit. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But when you really take a look at that and try to. Embrace that concept. It is extremely powerful, and again, it's starting to become common, speak from the most successful people, uh, at least in Entrepr, arguably on the planet, right? The one guy that comes to mind is a gentleman, [00:16:00] Naval Han I've been listening to a lot.
[00:16:01] This guy is, this guy is a genius and he's, uh, among other startups. He did Angels List and he's the type of guy when you just hear him talk, you go, whoa, that guy is serious. And he did, uh, what is essentially a. Famous tweetstorm, which I know sounds funny, but it's a famous tweet storm about essentially how to get rich, an actual playbook on if you, if you needed a playbook on how to get rich.
[00:16:24] This guy takes three hours. He, he did a tweetstorm and then did a three hour podcast summarizing the tweetstorm. Mm-hmm. And one of the key steps is understanding.

Understanding Your Unique Strengths
[00:16:33] John Bertino: There's only one you. And if you really, um, can get to the heart of what you're about, what your strengths are, and you find the best way to deliver, and now here's where I'm gonna butcher it.
[00:16:42] 'cause I'm not naval raan, I can't convey it back like him. But you get to the heart of who you are, what you're about, what your unique strengths are, and you find a way to turn that into something that you can monetize. That is one of the keys to getting rich. I would reference just checking out his.
[00:16:58] Tweet Storm and his podcast, you get a better [00:17:00] version of that.

The Go-Giver and Value-Based Sales
[00:17:00] John Bertino: But it's also the key takeaway from a famous book called The Go-Giver, which is at this point, probably like a decade old, the Go-Giver was a, a big smash hit about ultimately sales, but it was like unselling, if you will, getting away from. Uh, classics approach to sales and instead finding, you know, a more value-based approach.
[00:17:21] And one of the hidden takeaways to almost like give you one of the keys to the book was, again, if you, the most powerful thing you have to offer is yourself. The example in the book is actually, uh, a realtor or a real estate agent. Uh, and this is based on a true story, and she was incredibly successful when they really drilled down, like, what is it that makes you so successful?
[00:17:40] She said, she knows how to be her most authentic self in interactions, and that's really the key to her success.
[00:17:45] JC Polk: Hmm.
[00:17:46] John Bertino: And I think ultimately in a lot of ways, that's kind of what you just said. When you get down to the heart of it, whether you're an individual or you're a business and you can kind of ex help extract that from someone mm-hmm.
[00:17:56] And give them the guidelines to stay on course, it is so incredibly [00:18:00] powerful in producing great content.

Challenges of Authenticity in Content Creation
[00:18:02] John Bertino: Now last things last on this. It's way easier said than done. Um, and I generally, uh, don't struggle to be, um, like I'm relatively extroverted by nature and I'm relatively good at speaking by nature, and I'm a comfortable kind of giving my expertise on topics by nature.
[00:18:20] But putting myself in front of the camera over and over and over again and being authentic is surprisingly hard. It's hard not to give like hokey bullshit. Uh, like intros and come off as mm-hmm. Whatever it is, it takes practice. And if I wasn't a marketer by trade, uh, I would desperately need that experienced marketer to provide me that blueprint to help me do it better.
[00:18:42] Because again, it's, it's so, it's so
[00:18:45] JC Polk: mission critical.

Reverse Engineering Authenticity
[00:18:46] JC Polk: You know, I don't know that I have involved to, but one of the things that I would, would think about, as you said, there were two quick things, is one. I think it's almost the reverse engineering, because what happens, we, we, you just said it yourself, that.[00:19:00]
[00:19:00] I am this, I am this, I am this. I just am. This is who I be. Right? Mm-hmm. But as soon as I turn the camera on, it becomes difficult. Oh, totally Right. Andre 3000, he, he talks about one of the reasons why he enjoys putting on an actual uniform every day is because it, it affords him the opportunity not to concentrate about which pants, what shirt, what hat, what pair of eyeglasses.
[00:19:24] Uniform says, I'm gonna put that on. If you are truly being yourself, it's the easiest thing that you could do because you're gonna be that anyway. We spend far more time trying to be what we are not, or try to mask what we really are than anything else. And so I think when you start talking about the mentality of being able to look at it from the standpoint of.
[00:19:43] Oh, it's hard to be authentic. No, it is hard not to dress up and hide who we really are. And so I think the same thing happens when we start looking at our brands, right? We sit there and let's say if I'm in the business of making mugs right, and let's say Stanley next year decides they want to go in and make mugs, the first [00:20:00] thing that I do is I look to a standard to say, oh, well Stanley is the most successful company that put out mugs last year.
[00:20:05] That must be who I have to be. Not true. You need to find, it's the fastest way to failure. There you go. Or an
[00:20:12] John Bertino: undifferentiated product
[00:20:13] JC Polk: possibly. Now, you, you possibly could say, that's my, that is my goal and that's where I want to go. And in that same scenario, maybe you do accomplish that. But in terms of difficulty and ease, I'm saying it's far easier and thereby possibly being more cost effective.
[00:20:27] If you are who you are, are. Versus trying to be something that you are not. And so it, I I totally get your point. I step out. I'm not a master of any stretch of imagination. I get up every day. We're all, I'm not wearing a uniform. We're all practice. Right? We're all learning. Right. But I, I think those are the type of conversation.
[00:20:42] This is why I can, I, I value what you're doing is because these are the conversations that I think offer great opportunity to not only. Enlighten people, but to really start changing the landscape in which we're all functioning in, because we all feel like, the reason why I keep bringing up authenticity too, is because we seem to be more and more approaching a place [00:21:00] where everything is now, the more artificially intelligent, right?
[00:21:04] Yeah. And so what will stand out then is when you actually have something that is actually genuine and pure, right? Like organic food versus all of those GMOs, right? If we put all that together in the course of what we do on an everyday basis. I am willing to bet the things that I've learned and experienced, what will rise to the top over a period of time, and to those who I actually want to be consumers, curators and aficionados or appreciators of what it is that I do.
[00:21:28] If you're wooed and odd by whatever quick. Wham. Bam, thank you ma'am. Type of thing, flies by. That may be, you're not my audience, right? And so tying it back in, when we go back into, uh, what we advise, uh, customers to do when it comes to YouTube and things like that, yes, there are tools by which can help you to get things fast, quick, in a hurry.
[00:21:49] Faster to market cheaper. But the thing about it, we all know what those tools, tools are and those tools do a unique advantage there, right? Even, even today. That's as much as I embrace. And I, [00:22:00] and I, you know, as I said, I talked to my son and my daughter about, yes, embrace chat. You need, like, you need to know artificial intelligence and know how to leverage it to accomplish what you need to do, but you need not to be dependent on it.
[00:22:11] And I think that's the, that's the most important thing that we can teach about it because it is a tool and a means to an end, but it is not the one-to-one. Solution that everyone may think it is. And once you look at it that way, the fear can be eradicated. And so now that's what we've always done, right?
[00:22:27] Any new medium that we found, we found a way to make it work for what it is that we wanted to do. The hammer came and we then, we wanted a drill. We had a drill, and then we wanted to find something else. And so it's just an iteration. And so these are the type, and I don't mean to, you know, go down this wormhole, but these are the type of conversations too late.
[00:22:42] That, that we sit down and we enjoy having, not only with our clients, but in the, in the, in the content that we produce in a lot of our shows. And because it transcends not just in marketing, but now what if we open up that conversation, apply the same logic to, okay, law enforcement, what if we apply that to, [00:23:00] uh, public relations and that we have a podcast that that's about, that we have.
[00:23:04] Uh, podcast is about true crime, even our True crime podcast that we now dovetail into bringing legislators into a conversation to talk about who were you as your authentic self and what do you really believe about what happened in this episode? I mean, in this episode or in this case,
[00:23:18] John Bertino: that's a really good, uh, you gave a couple really good, um, uh, examples, I suppose, of how to elevate above mediocre content, putting your unique spin.
[00:23:30] Uh, I love that. Let's get a little bit tactical, right? So I think authenticity is certainly one of the most important keys, but we've covered that. Mm-hmm. Going beyond that, to the degree that is possible, let's just talk about other things you can do to make your video content more engaging, more sticky, uh, even if it's nuanced and tactical.

Consistency in Branding
[00:23:50] JC Polk: I think part of it is making sure that however you go about creating it, is that something that you're going to be committed to? Right. You don't [00:24:00] want to come with one-offs, right? Because if it's talking about being a brand, you want it to be adjacent to what it is that you're doing, right? Mm-hmm.
[00:24:06] Consistency and Yep. And you want that through, you want that common thread to go through so that even if they don't see that logo at the end, they can have within one out of three guesses to say, that was John. I know that's John, or I want to know what that is. Right. And so I, I think that's, uh, it's very important to make sure that there's a level of consistency there in everything that you do.
[00:24:25] I mean, and across platforms, right? We, how many times have we seen that client that comes in and they've got this logo here, but it doesn't transition here and you know. Right. And, and to try to get them to understand that this is why we use these colors, this is why we use that font, and, and really understanding the science behind it.
[00:24:41] Again, I think a lot of times we find people who just wanna rush to get it done versus doing the due diligence to make it happen. And so to me those are the tactical things, like the, a couple of the details that, that we actually look at.
[00:24:52] John Bertino: Yeah. It's the old Abraham Lincoln. Gimme six hours to chop down a tree.
[00:24:56] I'll spend the first four of 'em sharpening the Axe. Mm-hmm. Right. [00:25:00] Planning, planning, planning, and more planning. It also has other side benefits as well, such as, well, uh, less squandered time, effort, energy, and budget on mistakes. Because you took the time to plan another one of our guests on one of our other series, like rooted in video production, coincidentally, mm-hmm.
[00:25:16] Made the point that if you plan and you can efficiently start to act or execute on that plan when you're in actual production. It gives you more time for mistakes, which is, which is kind of an I ironic, contrarian, noxy, moronic statement, but like if you've planned, that lowers the amount of mistakes. But mistakes will inevitably happen anyway.
[00:25:38] But when they happen and you need to pivot, it's less painful because you've got room to work with. Right? Because you did so much planning. Otherwise, if you didn't plan those. Mistakes are gonna come up even more. And is it gonna squander your budget, your time, your resources, your energy, all those things.
[00:25:52] So
[00:25:52] JC Polk: yeah, and I think it's, it was worth noting that, yeah, beware of the paralysis, right? The planning paralysis. [00:26:00] There's a fine line between, okay, let's sit down, do the outline. Okay, now let's do the strategic plan. Now let's sit down and see what are KPIs,
[00:26:08] John Bertino: 30 hours of market
[00:26:09] JC Polk: research, right? Right. So yeah, I, I think, I don't wanna be caught that I was up here and I didn't say Yeah, that, that happens.
[00:26:14] So try not to let that happen. And we
[00:26:16] John Bertino: are, uh, I'm a line man because it's like, it's like, and this is coming from the guy that represents, you know, like almost 300 agencies. Yeah. You got branding, you got brand strategy, but then you got just. Branding rip off. Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. And, and we can, we can debate till we're blue in the face.
[00:26:32] What exactly that is when a small business is getting hit a hundred to $300,000 for brand planning. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Something might be wrong. Yep. Yep. Something something. They used to say something
[00:26:45] JC Polk: in the milk ain't white.
[00:26:46] John Bertino: Yeah. All right.

The Importance of Storytelling
[00:26:49] John Bertino: Uh, one thing we didn't really get into. And we'd be remiss not to on the path of creating the most engaging content.
[00:26:58] Just riff on storytelling a little bit for [00:27:00] me, would you? TD Jakes has
[00:27:01] JC Polk: something that he talks about that's similar to this, and he says, you know, regardless of gospel singer. No, no, no. Pastor. Pastor, yeah. Outta Houston. He's a singer or no? No, pastor. I mean, he can, I mean, he's a gospel preacher, so yes, he can sing, but not, that's not his number one.
[00:27:16] I know the name. I worked at a record store for years. Okay.
[00:27:18] John Bertino: And I think that's how I know the namely.
[00:27:20] JC Polk: Maybe they would just record him. And possibly, I mean, it's, it is known. I mean, you have, I mean, I can go down the list, but even, uh, Aretha Franklin's there, Reverend Franklin, Cleveland Franklin was actually, he put out albums, but he was a preacher and then his daughter wound up being Aretha Franklin.
[00:27:33] You know, like, so yeah. Gotcha. Gospel preacher, a lot of music. Um, but yes. He has the church out of Houston, um, mass Church, uh, mega church, um, as they refer to it. But what he talks about, um, is that whenever you stand in front of someone or anytime you have a presentation, all you're doing is in, you're wrestling with a group of people and trying to get them to see a common thought and a common point.
[00:27:55] And I think that that comes into play when it's about storytelling. I [00:28:00] have a soft spot in my heart. From when I was in elementary school and we would sit in Miss Lucas's class and I looked forward to story to story time crisscross applesauce, and we would sit down and there are two things that would happen.
[00:28:12] I would hear her voice and I would wait for, I would, with anticipation, wait for her to turn the book around and show me what the picture looked like. Because in between those two moments. It allowed my imagination to work and it was a muscle in which that I love to flex. So I always tell people, if you can recreate that to an audience, to a mass audience, and then in that, not with shall we turn the page, but a call to action, you have now created a successful storytelling situation and we can do it every day.
[00:28:39] Part of it is, what have I heard about you? What do I know about you before I actually see you as a brand that goes directly into. What your email marketing looks like. How does it coincide with the blogs that you were talking about? What did you look like in social media when I didn't have the opportunity to actually put that jpeg, that gif, that video plug or anything in there?
[00:28:57] What were you look like before you got on LinkedIn? [00:29:00] Being able to go back to that fundamental feeling. A filling in that gap of what did it look like between what they thought you were and what you actually reveal yourself to be is the act of storytelling to me.
[00:29:11] John Bertino: Remind me a little bit of that Jeff Bezos quote, which is, your brand is who you are, is what people say about you when you're not in the room.
[00:29:19] Any other tactical takeaways or recommendations for the audience about just creating the most engaging YouTube content?
[00:29:25] JC Polk: Yeah. Uh, you know, I had, I had tried to, when I do take the opportunity to actually be in front of camera, I try to give an homage to my dad because, you know, um. He will tell you that he's the best storyteller that ever lived.
[00:29:37] And he'd tell you that's a true story that he made up. Right? And and one of the things that I love about that is that we all yearned to hear a story. I led off our conversation talking about the stories that HBCUs were able to tell. The story that I garnered there in Elizabeth City, Elizabeth City, North Carolina, is the story that inspired me, that impacted me, [00:30:00] and basically influenced me.
[00:30:01] To do things and go above and beyond what I understood the, the, um, status quo was. And what I mean by that is that as we sit here in Black History Month, to be able to have the privilege and honor to tell a story, the last thing I wanna do is tell the story wrong. And I wanna make sure that that story does I.
[00:30:18] Impact, inspire, influence and make sure that it moves someone to do something greater than what already exists. Then.

Sustainability and Long-Term Branding
[00:30:25] JC Polk: Now it may sound very esoteric and may sound very lofty, but I truly believe that if we approach anything that we do related to our brand with that same level of authenticity than we thought, we wage a far better chance of actually getting to that sustainable path that stands the test of time that can transcend.
[00:30:42] The all the different trends and all the different types of mediums that actually happen. There's a reason why when we sit there and look at a Ford truck that people can talk about Henry Ford. There's a story that goes along there. That story didn't happen 50 years ago. It didn't happen two years ago.
[00:30:55] That story has been told over and over again and again has transcendent minty [00:31:00] platforms, and there are brands that we can talk about all the time. So from a tactical standpoint, and again, forgive me for so for try to sounding so academic, but I think part of it starts here because I said you have to figure out who you want to be.
[00:31:13] If you just wanna be here for a little while. Right. No problem, come in like Snapchat, disappear. We'll never see you again. It's not going so well over. Right? But if you really want to talk about it, and here's, maybe we'll lose to another conversation. I know we're about out of time, but then you look at the newspaper for as much as everyone wants to talk about newspapers not being here and not having the same presence.
[00:31:33] The fact of the matter is that they're still here and they still exist amongst all this medium. Now, I'm not saying one is against the other. I'm not saying one is best, but what I am saying is that. There is something to sustainability and you have to make the idea and the decision on how you're gonna sustain yourself, your brand, your service, your product, and your audience.
[00:31:51] And if you can't tell the story or don't have a story to get you there. You'll just be fly by night.

Conclusion and Future Conversations
[00:31:56] John Bertino: A great note to end on. Don't forget to sharpen the [00:32:00] ax. And, uh, JC it was so great having you on the show. I mean, I, I get the impression we got a lot more to talk about, so we'll consider this part one and we'll pick up part two maybe next time I see you.
[00:32:10] JC Polk: Well, it sounds good. Sounds good. If you, uh, you know, wondered, learn more about what it is. 'cause I probably didn't do the best job in telling our story 'cause I was so, uh, en engaged in talking to you. You know, ivc.media is a great place to start that research and olasmedia.com -- it's a great place to kind of see some of the podcasts we that we put together.

[00:32:27] John Bertino: Thanks for letting the audience know. Jc, thanks so much. Thanks for having me. See you next time. This was fun.