99 – Video has exploded: Tom interviews Lou Bortone

Episode 099 – Lou Bortone
[00:00:25] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:25] Hey Everybody it's Tom here with episode 99 of Screw the commute podcast we've got Lou Bortone here and he's been a video expert for a heck of a long time and now I mean I've made millions of dollars with video and I'm all over this so I can't wait to hear what he has to say and I'm going to be taking notes. That's for sure. Now the last episode was 98 Corbin ball. He's one of the top 25 most influential people in the meetings industry he's billed himself the perfect lifestyle business. He gets to travel all over the world. I think 97 countries all paid for by clients. He's the travel bug. I'm happy to sit home on my fat rear but he built a beautiful lifestyle business that was episode 98. Now our podcast app is in the iTunes store. You can go to screwthecommute.com/app and see all the cool things that'll do for you. And download it there and take us with you on the road. Now this is the first announcement of our on demand Roku TV channel the public speaking channel and we have other channels coming up on Amazon Fire. And for brutal self-defense and protection dogs elite and Internet marketing and all kinds of stuff. So you do have Roku now. It's a really good deal you can get the 40 dollar box and get thousands of channels of stuff and just look up the public speaking channel and it's probably a hundred grand worth of training on there for you totally free. So check it out. Now our youth program is in full swing now. We'd like to highlight a entrepreneurial youth once a month. And when I say youth I'm talking about up to the early 20s. You know a person older than that they might be a candidate for a regular show but really want to highlight the kids that are doing great things at a young age. And so you can have them email me at orders@antion.com and they can see how they can apply to be featured on an episode of screw the commute.

[00:02:29] All right our sponsor is the kickstart guide to viral marketing how to get thousands of people to share your content and send you money. This extremely inexpensive 80 page e-book training blueprint thoroughly covers the three main techniques we use to go viral and I'll say go viral at will. There's nothing hocus pocus about this. These mechanisms are proven and they work and you don't have to have millions of views to make a lot of money by going viral. So keep that in mind. The e-book has lots of screen captures showing the examples of all the techniques you can use to build and you can build exactly the same as us. Just change the information. It's got all the little details you need to know without buying overly priced and overly hyped expensive courses. So check it out in the show notes at screwthecommute.com. This is episode ninety nine or you can go direct to screwthecomputer.com/viral.

[00:03:28] All right. Let's get to the main event Lou Bortone has been a pioneer and thought leader in the video space since the launch of YouTube in 2005. He's helped thousands of entrepreneurs create and leverage online video to build their businesses. He's also the author of video marketing rules how to win in a world gone video. Lou, Are you ready to screw. The commute.

[00:03:56] Yes Tom. Let's do it.

[00:03:57] All right. Hey man. So it's been a long time. I met you years ago right. That's some event somewhere. You wowed the people I mean the video was taken off then but it's exploded like a nuclear bomb since then. And you were right there helping it along. So tell everybody what you're doing now and then we'll do flashback into your past and see what your entrepreneurial journey looked like. So what what are you doing now.

[00:04:26] I hope mostly small business owners and work at home folks build businesses and you know get more clients get more business using online video marketing so that's everything from YouTube to Facebook Live to whatever they may need.

[00:04:41] Yeah. I think what LinkedIn live came out I think and Amazon Live's coming out so everything's live nowadays. But there's still a lot of room for a recorded video. But you know people say oh I got it. I got a cell phone so I can grab some video. Yeah it's absolutely true. But there's more to it than that right.

[00:05:02] There is. But I mean the nice part is that you know especially with live video it's a couple of clicks on your phone and you're good to go. So but you know I've worked more on strategy in the big picture and saying like OK now that we now that we're all our own TV stations what do we do with that and how do we create content that resonates with your target market.

[00:05:20] Yeah. So what are some of the things you would do if somebody came to you and said Hey I'd love to shoot video and or I hate to shoot video and but I don't know what to do to promote my business. What are some of the things you're working with them on.

[00:05:33] I I help them find what I call the video sweet spot. I mean some people are great on camera some people are more introverted like myself. So really it's a matter of finding what type of video do you want to create. How and when do you want to create it. And how is that going to help move your business forward. So for some folks that's doing a series of expert videos on YouTube for other folks it might be doing you know Facebook Live once a week or once a day. So it really varies depending on the business. But I kind of look at the what's the end result. What do you want to accomplish and how can video get you there faster.

[00:06:09] Now do you do anything with screen capture video. We've we've had great success for that for I mean 19 years now.

[00:06:15] Oh yeah absolutely. I mean I use Zoom almost every day Camtasia and things like that because it's just a great way especially for visual learners for people to see you know here's what the press here's where to go. Here's where it click and you show them exactly what to do.

[00:06:30] Yeah. We've used that for training employees. So I'm not saying the same stuff over and over again. We used it for customer service. Yeah I used to do like a three and a half hour consultation when somebody got my shopping cart system. So I just broke it down into 45 mini videos and they watch those first and then I can in 10 or 15 minutes answer any questions they have. So we used it for that. We used it a lot for affiliate stuff too. So I might show a piece of software that I didn't create but I like it. And then you click Camtasia when it ends we'll go right to your affiliate link to the where they can buy it. So we we love that made a lot of money with that.

[00:07:11] It's amazing what you can do with video. I mean I do a lot of courses and basically I'll create a powerpoint and then go on Zoom and narrate the PowerPoint. And I've got of course.

[00:07:21] Exactly right. It's all digital. Ninety seven percent profit. So this is really the way to go. So I noticed you had like three different ways people work with you. It got pretty cool on your Web site. Tell everybody about that.

[00:07:36] I really love doing courses and teaching. That's one of the things I enjoy most so I do courses on Facebook and YouTube and things like that. I also do one on one coaching for folks to kind of you know help them through the process of getting started with video and I do a little bit of corporate consulting as well but it's mostly small businesses one or two person businesses.

[00:07:58] I saw there was something like Lou on demand and is that a video on demand. What's that.

[00:08:04] I do that so that people can basically buy and bank hours because video is one of those things that like OK maybe you don't think about it every day. But when you're stuck you're really stuck. So I'm sort of on call for those folks who are part of Lou on demand and when they get stuck they can give me a call and I'll jump on zoom or jump on a screen share with them and help them through it. So that's nice because they've sort of got this number of hours banked and they can use them whenever and however they want.

[00:08:29] Yeah that's that's a great idea now. Now for a long time Lou I I've been discouraging people from getting into deep editing. I want them to be able to do simple stuff. But I mean figure out some of the editing software. I mean you got to have a PhD almost. What's your opinion on whether they should edit or not.

[00:08:51] I usually divide it into like I say there are quick videos and there are keeper videos a quick video is like a Facebook Live. You just want to bang it out. You don't want to do any editing you just want to get your message out there and a keeper video is maybe it's something like a welcome video on your home page where you you do want to edit or you do want to bring in a professional to do it right. So it really just depends whether you're trying to do a quick video or sort of a keeper video that's going to have some shelf life.

[00:09:16] Yeah. And you know I'm I'm a big do it yourselfer and I always want to get my hands dirty of this stuff. But but on that other than simple editing I mean just because you can figure out the software doesn't mean. I mean there's an art to it too. I mean like when the cut when they're not cut when the dissolve and this is artistic thing to it. So you might be figure the software out perfectly in the video still sucks.

[00:09:40] Exactly. It's like when page maker and all those online things first came out people would use like 17 different fonts in an ad because they could.

[00:09:51] Yes. So what are some tips that you would give people if they haven't done this and they want to get started.

[00:09:58] The biggest thing is just to you know really just start and put yourself out there. You know I was sort of a little camera shy at first. I got over that fairly quickly. So a lot of it is really just you know getting started and then understanding rather than you know don't do video just because everybody's doing video or everybody tells you to do video do it because you're trying to fulfill a certain business objective. One of the great things about video is it builds know like and trust and really helps you you know especially folks like me who are more introverted. I'd much rather do a video than go to a networking event.

[00:10:33] Right. And you make the video and it lasts for sometimes years. I mean I've got stuff that's been around for you know before they had standard definition. So you do it once and then it works for you 24/7 right.

[00:10:52] Yeah. That's the beauty of it and even videos that I've done years ago. I'm like Oh my God I can't believe people are still watching that video from 6 years ago.

[00:10:59] Well six years ago you have to see some of the stuff I'm putting up on this Roku channel. I mean it's from 1998 but the training was really really good. Now it's got black bars on the sides so we have put Tom Antion TV network there to make it look like it was supposed to be there and the cameras were pretty good at that point and it doesn't look too bad. But the training is just excellent. I just can't stand throwing it away or redo it.

[00:11:28] It's really more about the content than the quality. I mean people you know if the content is compelling enough people will sort of put up with the fact that you know no big deal it's got a couple bars on the side because the video's older wasn't widescreen.

[00:11:40] Yeah. The only the only exception to that is that the audio is no good. Got to have good audio and you know we're having so much trouble finding consistent external microphones to plug into iPhones since they changed all the crazy you know plugins have you had any dealings with that.

[00:12:00] A little bit. I mean I what I try to do is I do most of my video right at my desktop. But yeah people ask me oh you know I'm at an event and how do I do the video and it does get complicated because just when you figure out how to do an external mic for iPhone they change.

[00:12:20] Yeah yeah. That's really terrible so. So let's take take you back because this is an entrepreneurial podcast. So yeah those are great video tips now. But tell us what was your entrepreneurial journey. Did you have jobs as a young man or how did you come up through the ranks.

[00:12:37] I did. I worked in the television industry behind the scenes for many years and on the marketing and branding side and work for cable networks like E Entertainment Television. So it was fun but at the time you know the TV business was really shrinking while the Internet boom was going on. So I eventually sort of got romanced by the dot com boom and took a dot com job that didn't last very long. So I you know I sort of accidentally fell into entrepreneurship because I realized well I can do what I was doing in the TV business and I don't need a network to do it.

[00:13:14] Did you plan your exit that you had save up money to do it or how did you start actually start your business and transition out of getting a paycheck.

[00:13:24] And some of it was you know sort of an accidental entrepreneur. But part of it was like OK I realized that I can do better than than what I was doing with the TV business. And one of the main things for me was like once my wife got a job with benefits I'm like OK. That's the big secret. So you know that I drove into it and there were times when I had to sort of you know figure things out. And I didn't exactly know what I was doing when I came along and I thought Oh well I work for you know I work for E Entertainment television and I know everything. Nope You don't know anything.

[00:13:58] Now you have to do everything and be everything right.

[00:14:01] Yeah exactly. So you know I think my my big thing was having a plan B and a plan C and Plan D. I even did that ghostwriting for a while just to sort of help out while I was while the video thing was starting to come together.

[00:14:14] What were you pushing as the video thing were you doing production or strategy at that point.

[00:14:19] Yeah. Initially I was doing production and you know doing a lot of stuff for non-profits. And now one day my partner who was the sort of videographer came in and said You know I just sold my 15 thousand dollar camera and I got this thing called the iPhone instead and that's when I thought all right. This is the way to go. So yeah well we kind of moved over to the marketing and editing and stuff like that I don't do a lot of actual production anymore but I used to do it.

[00:14:46] Well you know I used to have three quarter inch AB machines these giant things they're like tanks. And then you know it was a digital you had to copy A to B Oh my God it was. It was crazy. But what was it was what's interesting and I'll fast forward. I actually put an ad in Craigslist for a video editor and I got this response from this guy his reel had all these big celebrities on it. I said Oh come on. Somebody's pulling my leg. I refused to answer he kept calling me up and I thought somebody put him up to it. Turns out he was the retired promo director from Hollywood and just moved to Virginia Beach. He wanted and he wanted me to teach him how to do speaking engagements. And then I kept blowing him off because I thought they were pulling my leg. And then eventually said And I'll I'll make you look better than you ever did in your crappy videos. I said Okay come on you're on. And he showed me all these lighting tricks. Amazing stuff. He would do. But the reason I brought it up is because he said Tom you know I had 50 people would run get me a cup of coffee. I had a million dollars bank of cameras a million dollar plus bank of lights. And he said you know what. He held his hand out in front of them like like he's holding a selfie phone or something. He said today this is an acceptable video shot.

[00:16:09] Absolutely. I mean I always tell folks you know you have a TV studio in your hands now with a smartphone.

[00:16:14] Well in fact they are shooting TV shows on iPhones and iPads now. So you know it's it's never been a better time technology wise. So. So you say it was rough there for the beginning. You know your wife kind of helped through the transition. How were you marketing at that time.

[00:16:33] Through email marketing. And then I had to kind of practice what I preach and do a lot of video and a lot of video and YouTube and how to videos. And I got kind of you know having been pretty camera shy. My work around was like OK well I'll just put my kids my pets my dogs my cats my costumes. I did. I did a video as Moses once and did the Ten Commandments of videos. You know the goofy I got the more successful the videos.

[00:17:01] Oh that's pretty cool. Is that still around the Moses thing.

[00:17:05] I think it is the Ten Commandments of online video.

[00:17:07] What's your YouTube channel.

[00:17:09] It's just YouTube.com/loubortone

[00:17:18] Yeah. Boy there's been a lot of changes in YouTube over the years right.

[00:17:23] Absolutely. It's really kind of tough to keep up with. I did do a lot of courses on youtube but I find that they're you know they don't have a lot of shelf life because things change so quickly I have to keep changing the courses.

[00:17:33] Yeah. As soon as they have a video creator. All right. Scrap that. Let's do this other thing. Then the transcriptions and stuff the cards and annotations are going away.

[00:17:49] Yeah there's a lot of new stuff going on and I always tell folks you know I love YouTube and YouTube is an awesome platform. But you know you don't control that real estate so you definitely want to have some videos someplace like on your own site where where you know you control the real estate and you're not at the mercy of the whims of YouTube.

[00:18:07] Yeah. In fact that's what we tell people we love. I mean we love youtube for driving traffic. And I think as the marketer free roll ads or in stream ads are some of the best bargains that are out there today because you could get a video view for four or five cents now you know what you're doing. But I tell a Hey that's beautiful. Once they get to your site though I try to get them to get a nice video player and host the video on Amazon S3 or something. So it doesn't bog your site down because I don't want them the easy click back the video and watch some cat video.

[00:18:43] Right. There's so many distractions. You get caught in the black hole. And you know once they're on YouTube you sort of you don't have a whole lot of control of where they go next.

[00:18:52] Yes. So. So my whole thing is get him off of the use it to get him off of there onto something you control your e-mail list or get them to your Web site. Don't let him out. So you ever get screwed over in business.

[00:19:11] Well having been married for almost 25 years my my theory is the same It's pick your battles carefully. So you know you really get to decide what's worth going after and what's worth kind of letting it go. And then the funny thing was I don't know if it's because I'm Italian I've been doing this for so long but there were some folks who were calling me the godfather of video and once that happened nobody screwed me over. I don't know why.

[00:19:38] Yeah I tell people you know people say well you know your mentor program. Didn't you have anybody cheat you. I said you know what. All these years I only had the break two set of knees to get my money.

[00:19:51] Yeah I think the old Italian expression is punish one teach one hundred.

[00:19:55] That is good. That is a good one.

[00:19:57] We're going to make him a little quote on a graphic for and give it to you. Larry you hear that that's the guy does the show notes. So anything crazy bizarre happen in your travels as the business person.

[00:20:09] Oh yeah. I remember one time you know working at home has always been sort of an adventure especially when my children were younger. Oh they're in college now but at the time I had to do a webinar and they were home at home from school and I said Look don't you know just behave yourself don't burn the house down. So I went on the webinar a few minutes later my son comes running up and says Dad the kitchen's on fire. So I didn't think it was serious but I ran downstairs and lo and behold the toaster is on fire and the flaming up and and I'm like OK well I told you not to burn the house down and you almost did. But the one thing I can say about that is I didn't I didn't come off the call. I stayed on the webinar. I got out the fire extinguisher and put out the fire. Hold on a second I got to put out a fire. So we did that and survived that that's I thought well if I can do a webinar well while my kitchen is burning down I can pretty much do anything.

[00:21:02] That's hysterical because people say oh hold on I got to put a fire up. You really did a literal fire. Oh that's great. So what do you like best about working for yourself and what's the worst part.

[00:21:15] The best part is really the flexibility and you know I like being able to be. Doesn't happen too often but being able to fire bad clients to kind of decide who you want to work for I mean if you if you're in a real job and you have a bad boss you're kind of stuck you know until you are then leave. What working for myself I can kind of decide who I want to work for. So that love that the best part. The only downside really is that you know there's not really much of a safety net so you really have to you know sort of I say BYO safety net as far as working for yourself because you don't necessarily have that you know workers comp insurance and that steady paycheck.

[00:21:53] Yeah. And that's why your online courses and things that can make money for you if you're sick or tired or hurt or injured I've gotten a hunting accident last January and I was in ICU for a week. That would have been a better story if I got shot. But I just fell on a log. Perforated my intestines but my business was still run and bringing in money. And then by the time I got out ICU I got on my laptop and run the business like nothing was happening. So pursuing these types of intellectual property can and you can pass some of it on to your kids. Long as that doesn't change. I mean some of them public speaking stuff I have. Like I said I'm still used in it and I shot it in 1998 and still using that but the Internet stuff of course changes so rapidly. It won't be passed on but yeah. That's when they're creating these videos that's a form of insurance policy really. Yeah I guess so. So tell them how how they work with you and the things that you have. You've got books and you've got courses. Tell them all about it.

[00:22:58] The books probably a good place to start a book on Amazon called video marketing rules or you can go to loubortone.com/book to get a free chapter. So I've got that I think courses all kinds of fun stuff. I have my most recent one is one I'm really proud of. That was a course on video content creation and the many many different ways you can create video content right. You know there are dozens and dozens of tools and software out there that make it really simple so it's kind of a matter of finding which one works for your business and your personality and not trying to chase every single bright shiny object that shows up.

[00:23:39] Talk about shiny objects. There's tons of videos that come out every day. Yeah I mean everything we've got this one little thing right now it appears like you're looking in on somebody texting. Two different texts. Hey did you join Tommy Jones mentor program. Is that Yeah but I'm unhappy and the other guy says What's wrong. That's why I didn't make 30000 thousand dollars a day like everybody else does. And he says he did tell you who's supposed to work a little bit right. Yeah yeah. So it was the you're looking in on text that it's a little generator that makes it. You can't use it every day but it's for once in a while there's all kinds of stuff coming out now.

[00:24:17] So that's what keeps it interesting and fun it's just that there's so much new stuff and you know it really does make things easier and more creative to do video marketing stuff.

[00:24:27] So tell me more about the on demand thing you got.

[00:24:31] Yeah my Lou on demand program is kind of fun because it is really flexible it's almost like having a video expert on call and for the folks who are part of that you know when they get stuck and they run into a problem they can just reach out to me and I get back to them fairly quickly I rarely sleep. I'm an insomniac and I can use that to my advantage. Yeah well you know it may be midnight but if you're stuck I may be able to help you.

[00:24:58] Is there's something where you might review a video they shot and make recommendations or what.

[00:25:05] Pretty much anything video related but the nice thing about Lou on demand is it's most folks use some of their hours for coaching and then some of them are done for you so I'll actually do video editing or they'll send me raw and I'll clean it up for them and I don't I don't do video editing on it's own I only do it for my Lou on demand or my VIP clients. Otherwise I don't want to be like fiverr. Somebody can do that for five bucks. I'm like OK good luck with that.

[00:25:37] All right. So I'm going to take a brief sponsor message then we come back we're gonna ask you what a typical day looks like for him and how he stays motivated.

[00:25:48] So folks the Kickstart guide to viral marketing is how to get thousands of people to share your content and send you money. It's a laser focused 80 page e-book and you're going to learn how to use three viral techniques to build massive email lists to create tremendous buzz and sell tons of your products and services. It's going to be in the show notes at screwthecommute.com/99. This is episode ninety nine. Or you could go directly to screwthecommute.com/viral. We use these techniques all the time and they're inexpensive but extremely powerful.

[00:26:27] All right. So we're back with Lou Bortone. He's a long time video expert. I've never heard a bad word about this guy. And I I would if I if anything was wrong I'm the guy that got the scam brigade. I don't know if you ever heard of that but I've got a production and development Hollywood to go after scammers so you can see the trailer at scambrigade.com. But anyway so what's a typical day look like for you.

[00:26:54] Well like a lot of entrepreneurs I work at home. I don't think any two days are really the same but I pretty much divide my days up between chasing my dogs around the house.

[00:27:06] They were all you know make a noise before we started recording and I said no problem and then now they're quiet as mice. They must be good introverts too.

[00:27:16] So I do a lot of you know obviously client work and then content creation and I usually save my video editing and creative pursuits for at night. You know I stay up late and find new tools and do a lot of video editing and and have fun with that kind of stuff. So it's you know like I say no two days are really the same but it's usually a combination of client work and content creation.

[00:27:39] Now the kids are grown up now and out of the house.

[00:27:41] Yep that that my twins are 20. They're in college one of them is actually in Barcelona this semester. So that kind of leads to the how do I stay motivated just like well I have two kids in college. I have a lot of motivation.

[00:27:55] So now is your wife a part of the business at all.

[00:27:59] No. She has quote unquote real job. She works for retirement community so she's got the you know sort of stable day to day job. And I get to do all this fun stuff and pretty much do whatever I want.

[00:28:13] That's cool. So. So is it still where her job keeps the benefits in the family or that you have to buy your own health insurance and things.

[00:28:22] No fortunately she has. She has the benefits. That was really one of the scarier things out of having to work for yourself. Yeah but the nice thing too is you know people say well you know if you have a job you have usually a set salary and when you're an entrepreneur you know there's really no limit to what you can do if you can scale.

[00:28:45] Yeah. And the other thing is this when you get old and feeble she'll get you a discount at the retirement home.

[00:28:50] I hope so in that particular place. Yeah exactly. So as my kids say it's like you know Hey Dad can I have 50 bucks I'll put you in a good nursing home.

[00:29:02] Yeah I saw a cartoon of a little kid was talking to his dad and says dad if you increase my allowance I'll give you unlimited in-house tech support. So it's been great catching up with you man and I want everybody to go to LouBortone.com and check out all the offerings and this guy's been in it for a long time. Very reputable. Really take care of you and definitely get his book and check out one of his deeper programs because you cannot get away from this video folks if you're ignoring it for any reason you're getting behind your competitors. Would you agree with that Lou.

[00:29:45] Absolutely. It's easier than you imagine and it's really kind of must have marketing at this point.

[00:29:51] That's for sure. So next episode folks is the hundredth episode of screw the commute we're gonna have a little special episode where I'm going to recap the the leadership principles I did in my dad's eulogy back in the year 2000 that people just went nuts over they just kind of poured out of me during. I was really upset with his passing but he's pretty much here sitting talking to you because of what he is. He instilled in me and the success principles of how I know the things that I do on a regular basis that have helped me be successful. So that's going to be our special one hundredth episode. Coming up next and that's our Monday episodes on Mondays we do in-depth trainings on things that have either made me a lot of money or saved me a lot of money. And on Wednesdays and Fridays we interview great entrepreneurs like Lou. So don't miss episode 100. Listen to this one over and over again for video tips and to check out Lou and we'll catch you all on the hundredth episode. See ya later.

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