Oscar Jofre  00:51

Okay, we should be getting started here soon. We’ll just wait one second here. Where is Andrew? We are live though on YouTube. So we’re just going to you and I will get a little bit of kickstart here these while our colleague Andrew makes his way I know there have been some issues with the internet as of late. I think we’re all experiencing that. So let’s get started this morning. And hey, there he is. And it’s okay. All right. Welcome everybody once again to the KoreSummit webinar series 21. My name is Oscar Jofre, thank you so much. We’re running one minute behind. I do apologize for that. As you know, our webinars are well, they’re not meant to be structured. Right. So no presentations. We’re here to have great chit chat, fireside chat, coffee, tea, Coca Cola, whichever refreshment or get out of this are going to have today. And we’re going to have a great discussion. So before we get started on our discussion today, I would like to introduce you to our panelists. And we’ve obviously, we’re trying to mix it up a bit. And Dean, please take a moment Introduce yourself.

Dean DeLisle  02:10

Yeah, thanks, Oscar. I’m the co founder and CEO of a company called forward progress. We’re an agency based in Chicago. And we’ve been around for about 17 years, focused mostly in capital markets, banking, capital, raise all those fun areas, which is why I think we’re here today with you guys. And we also have a platform called social jack at social jack calm, and that focuses on education. So it’s high value based education for people that just want to learn. And as we as we develop things, we put them out so that others can learn and collaborate with us. So we’re very collaborative. But that’s the that’s the short version and let let you take it from there. Perfect. Agnew goes without saying.

Andrew Corn  03:04

Hello, everyone. Again, I’m Andrew corn. E5A is the company we are a systematic data driven investor acquisition firm. Our name is E5A Integrated Marketing. So marketing is a word in our name. But we are very, very goal oriented and all of our work and look for quantitative measures for success.

Oscar Jofre  03:31

All these fancy words, you guys can be passed. It’s 1130 in the morning,

Andrew Corn  03:36

I’ll try to dumb it down for you, Oscar.

Oscar Jofre  03:37

Yes, please. What’s one plus one equals three of us here in the Midwest? Oh, that’s good. I got a good mix here of everyone. All right. So today, we’re going to have a discussion Dino the regarding an impact a video can have on our funding. In particular, now with online investing is on the rise, how impactful a video can become. And I think it’s best to bring both of you because as you both indicated, you’re data driven. And because that, that becomes the hopefully the the, the the trigger for everybody to say, okay, it does matter. So um, so one of the things I want to kind of go over with you, each of you personally, because you should be provide different ways of looking at the the market from an investor acquisition. And so I’m going to go to you Diem first. And obviously, there are certain things that you guys do that are very unique to your firm. From the perspective that I’ve had, how does the video play out with, with what you’re working on and in relationship to the capital raising of a company

Dean DeLisle  04:59

well, You know, one of the one of the interesting things about this is, is I started off when social media was brand new if people remember back that far that I started off and I had a reputation management company at the time that I built and sold. In the early days I and whenever, when we were all trying to figure out what social media was, and it was about creating a positive digital footprint for professionals and for brands to activate and collaborate together. And I’m, you know, we are really big on what we call humanizing the brand. So activating the leaders in the organization and the networks around that organization. And I think video is just a natural way for people to meet you. I mean, look, we’re doing a webinar right now. So, so we’re creating video, right? So it’s a way for us to build trust, and really build what what we like to call digital thought leadership. So it’s one of those things where, you know, I think if people have a chance, or an opportunity to get to know, build a relationship with and trust the owners, or the leadership of an organization and collaborative connected, other parties that are connected to that organization, it then just helps accelerate it so much faster. Now, now, on our side, we do probably way more live broadcast like this, or live cast video webcast video. As you know, Oscar, we’ve done it, we’ve done over 5000 webcasts, and that turns into video content, but it’s all really, to educate folks to build trust and to, to really just get people to feel good about the investment. You know, and but I just want to I want to give Andrew some time at this too. But I think this is important for people to, to really take it and understand that doesn’t have to be perfect doesn’t have to be super expensive for people to to get to know you and trust you through video of some sort. So you’re I think you’re on mute. Oscar.

Oscar Jofre  07:16

I beg you like that. Thank you. While we were talking I did on my next move. And now that I know I have that power, right? Yeah, yeah. Well, you got the car. Right. I see what you’re doing from Chicago. I hear about you guys. I watched on touchable last night. So good to see, you know, how are you guys? Oh, yeah, I’m right there. Okay,

Andrew Corn  07:34

Andrew, where are you located? I’m in a much calmer city. I’m in Greenwich Village in the heart. Right now.

Dean DeLisle  07:44

I love it. Oh, I’ve usually spend at least half a dozen trips, they’re here. I love that.

Andrew Corn  07:50

And I traveled to Chicago quite a bit as well, it’s a great time, you

Oscar Jofre  07:53

definitely have to connect up for sure. Oh, you guys will. So one of the things that you brought up, which is interesting. You didn’t even emphasize that it has to be costly or anything like that. Because we’ve you know, we bring in different perspectives and video and what you said was, didn’t matter what you put in, but it has to come up with trust. And that thing to say that you you apply that video can create a level of trust between you and those looking to invest in your company, which I found very fascinating. That was I hadn’t heard that before. So I know obviously you’re working with a number of companies yourself. Obviously video plays a major role, given what Dean is indicating, how does that fit in with that the entire scope of everything else that you do?

Andrew Corn  08:41

Yes. So so I’m going to actually answer it a bunch of a bunch of different ways. And I do love the term trust, we talk a lot about authenticity, and what it can bring. And you know, videos, we view it two ways. If someone’s raising $50 million, or 75 through a RegA plus, then there is a, from my perspective, a different expectation of video than someone who’s raising a million to 5 million in a CF. And you know, if so and produces a extremely slick video in a million dollar CF, that might be considered inauthentic and maybe a little bit of overkill. You know, and then add COVID into the mix. And we’ve seen a lot of videos shot just like this, someone on their laptop, and then they’re giving it to someone to edit and maybe add some graphics. And I’ve seen them where they are hokey and horrible. But I’ve seen them where they’re hokey and authentic and fun and real. And it really comes down to no thought leadership is one perspective with input trust, I think is a common theme between us. For us. It’s all about getting that aha moment that storytelling of now I get with these guys are about I get it. And now they can look at a few numbers and make an investment decision as opposed to, they need to hear way more about the story. And Dean has already touched on some of the other ways that you can use video like in social, you know, we take that thumbnail of the video and we put it into outbound emails, we put it into advertising, we take video clips, and we put them on the corporate site. And we might even put them in a news release. But we’re definitely going to use them in social and Facebook advertising and things like that. So video, when done well has enormous legs and can turn into this component way beyond what that original piece was meant, you know, it was intended for when it’s well planned, and then I’m going to blabber on about one more thing is we rarely shoot where we’re shooting one, we’re doing a RegA plus, and the companies on the move, they may be raising their price part of the way through, well, you don’t want to go back and shoot. So you need to plan and make sure you’re shooting both parts of that. You may want a three minute version for the corporate site, but I would never do something so long on an offering page. So again, it’s about planning and shooting what you need to create the versions that you want.

Oscar Jofre  11:26

And here’s system question for this type of video impact. The because you’re now you’re talking about the length. So there are different lengths. And will daddy? Well, yeah, okay, so let’s talk about that. Because, you know, like everybody else videos, a video, but it’s not clearly there. There are types of videos just to get you in, and there are those who tell the story. So how do you strategize that, so nobody’s just looking at one video, they’re looking at several videos.

Andrew Corn  11:59

Are you trying to say that size matters here?

Oscar Jofre  12:02

I didn’t say that, you know, I work on conversations. So yeah,

Andrew Corn  12:06

we we recommend most videos be certainly under 90 seconds. That said, we recently produced a three minute video for a RegA plus client. And the entire thing is animation with a professional narrator. So the CEO and none of the team members are on that video, which is really unusual for us. But they are a multifaceted company and wrapped around an opportunity zone. So all these different components need to be touched upon, even if they’re not fully explained. And in these days of COVID, we decided that animation was the way to go. And to do it all at once we thought about breaking it into three one minute videos, and having them on the offering page, boom, boom, boom and letting people watch. We are prepared to switch to that as we test. So we’ll see what happens. But when I watch it, I’m not bored. And of course, I’ve seen the video 100 times. So you know, and was one of the editors on the script. So we’ll see what happens. But definitely, length is really important. Sometimes we’ll do something for 20 seconds. If we can get the story in, you know, a lot of great writers will say yeah, had you given me more time to write it, it would have been even shorter. And we can get that message across and get that emotional hook. That’s what we think works best.

Oscar Jofre  13:42

Don’t just think and Dean from your perspective, I mean, because you guys do the webinars, I mean, webinars like ours go for an hour.

Dean DeLisle  13:50

Now, you guys, so yeah, and I agree. I agree with a lot of stuff that Andrew just said too. So I think it depends it what i think i think there’s two factors it depends on the audience, like the type of audience that you have and the tolerance so some of our deals play really well into b2b scenarios and family offices etc. And some are more to the general public like on a you know, more of like a reg CF or, you know, a mass marketing where somebody somebody already knows the industry and they don’t have to maybe be educated as much. So, you know, we find that you know, we have the, you know, the 92nd ones, the two minute ones, but we really liked because we’re heavy on the education side, we like to get people to we like to get people to sit through two hours and we find that a huge success. So I know it sounds odd, but the one that that what the one that we’re doing with us to a modular, is a two hour plus video and we’ve had 140,000 People register and 70% of them have watched it, which blows me away. Like, if you were to ask me before we did that exercise a year and a half ago, that that, that that’s what we were going to do, I would have fought you tooth and nail, I wouldn’t go there’s no way because I’ve done webinars. And usually we chop them up into chapters, and a lot of people watch the replays and the chapters and things like that. But, but it’s just interesting that, that it fascinates me, you know, and I like what Andrew said, we’ll see what happens because marketing is testing all day. It’s like you don’t, you know, you don’t know, you can say that, that these length of videos are good, these length of videos are bad, but until you test and I think one thing that’s important, is is and it’s almost like, you know, the other thing is people are like, you know, can you predict? You know, we want a viral video? Well, you can’t just make a viral video. So with our two hour video,

Andrew Corn  15:59

you can’t just make a viral

Dean DeLisle  16:01

Oh, yeah, you can think you are, but you know, you better make a bunch of them, and test a bunch of them. But the you know, the funny thing is, if I, if you would have told me, hey, that two hour webinars gonna go, you know, gonna have a 20% virality factor, I’d go You’re crazy. And I’ve been in this since the 80s. You know, not to date myself, but I’ve been around marketing for a while. And I’m just like, when we started doing this and playing this and it caught and, you know, we chop it up. And you know, we call it snackable content, there’s other terms for it. But we’ll take and chop it up and use those pieces to tease people out with the 92nd or the two minute or we’ll do YouTube leader videos and things like that. And that helps draw people to the table. But it blows me away how many people stick in fact, when they get into the bigger investor meetings, in this case, the minimum to get in as is 150k. And they have to be accredited. So this is this is a reg D example I’m talking about. But the fact is, a lot of our reg A’s are wanting to get bigger checkbooks to the table, they don’t want to just get the $300 minimums, the $1,000 minimums, they want to get those minimums up. And I think if someone’s going to really invest and put a significant amount of money in, they need some meat on the bone, you know, so I think those videos upfront always have to lead to a bigger story. They always have to lead to a bigger piece. And I think if they can get enticed up front and get to that substance on the back, I think that’s something that that should be considered as part of the plan. So I don’t know if that helped you ask her but I’m really

Oscar Jofre  17:40

yeah. Again, guys, this is why it’s important. I mean, look, we all have perception of video, people go Oh, yeah, get those guys for 99 bucks, like we did a video tell the story. But that’s not the case. We’re already talking about different types of messages. You talked about trust, you’re talking about what if you’re doing a webinar? How does that fit in? And then Andrew wants to talk about sizing. What I liked, yeah, I updated a component of it. And I’m trying to use more words for Oscar though. Thank you mutagenesis in your company, Cornerstone baratos test. It’s so but I think it’s important for those listening in that the the way a video, the story or how what approach you’re going to take, it needs to fit into the overall scheme. And it needs to be multifaceted. I believe that any video that has been created for any offering reg D reg, a or reg CF shouldn’t just be used for capital raising. Because if that’s the case, that’s the wrong messaging. Am I right on that?

Dean DeLisle  18:45

Absolutely. In fact, I saw a similar message on Andrews website, but we say we don’t just raise capital, we generate revenue. And Andrew I think you guys are kind of the same cloth. It’s like why Why? Why waste all that effort and great storytelling and everything just to get people to invest when you could go that extra inch and collect 1000 10,000 20,000 customers along the way. So you know, not everyone’s going to invest not everyone’s going to be a customer but if you can align your audience to to be drawn into the storytelling and and gain some trust with you in the process. You’re you’re going to get both your referrals are going to go through the roof on both sides. So I say yeah, I say I say do both.

Andrew Corn  19:32

So we get we’re not going to have a major philosophical difference here. We will have different approaches though. So you know, we came out of I’m a former equity portfolio manager in ETF designer and have done a lot of education work, a lot of marketing to institutions and the consultants that support them family offices, where I managed a lot of money. Some endowments, and of course, financial advisors. And, you know, for us, we’ve noticed on video content people are crapping out earlier and earlier and earlier that advisors have a shorter attention span now than they did at the beginning of the pandemic, although still longer than pre pandemic, and we do a lot of primary research on advisors. But for us, you know, we also are looking for more than the minimum investment, the whole thing comes down to what’s the median? Because depending upon the product, service, and company, the issuer, who do you want, why I mean, the main reason to do a CF or RegA is to have a lot of investors, you know, people don’t do it to get six investors or 10 investors. But that said to us, that’s really more of a data play than it is a length of the video apply. If we’re only inviting like, we have a database of approaching a million accredited investors, and we bring them into reg A’s, we don’t say we’re expecting you to put in more money, we treat them like everyone else, they just have the ability to write a larger check. Right. So you know, we start off a lot with who we inviting in and why. And so, you know, that is a slightly different perspective on the video. And then, you know, we just think that people are impatient. And even if they have nothing else to do other than look at your offering at this moment in time, because they’re still trapped at home, they still will get distracted easily. And that’s one of the reasons we look for brevity in the videos, you know, can we say it faster, and still have the same effect. But keep in mind that qualifier and still have the same effect. You know, it all comes down to storytelling and videos, a great, great, great way to do it is wonderful as our designers are, they can’t replicate what happens in a video, you know, in still images on a website, or even with simple animations on a website.

Oscar Jofre  22:09

Can I ask you, guys, so you know, I, for me, I, for our company, I i’ve i’ve always struggled with which method is better the animation? Because then it It lives longer versus human being which then you have to keep changing the tone and all that. What What is your thoughts on that? I mean, trust with animation is kind of hard to do I get that. But you would you try to different styles, would you try an animated video along with that? Or is it just when you go with a theme? You flow with it? In this particular case? I just?

Dean DeLisle  22:48

Yeah, we don’t? Well, we don’t use as much animation, you know, so I know. You know, I don’t know, Andrew, you might be able to speak better that we’re more of the human element videos and a lot of animation.

Andrew Corn  23:02

Oh, so yeah, so we do straight, animated, we do hybrids, where it’s people and animation. And this actually is a really easy one for me to answer because it’s all about the issuer in the story, and what’s the best way to get it across. And I’m actually confident demons team would say the same thing. of, oh, the only way to show this future state of where the company is going to be is through animation. Because it doesn’t exist yet. So, you know, it’s all a matter of what is the story to be told what’s the way to get it. So people are going to I’m going to understand it. The harder part is saying, gee, I’m someone who’s never heard of this company before. What’s going to make it so that I get who they are? Not just what they do. So yeah, I can we can explain what they do pretty quickly. Do I get who they are and where they’re going and get that emotional tie that trust that authenticity, that understanding these are really smart people who were on a mission to accomplish something. So there’s definitely that ping that needs to happen and video is very good at that. We refer to it as that aha moment. And, you know, again, I think video is really really good at doing that. Now it’s a question of is a location shoot is a studio shoot? Is it animation? Is it B roll? We have put together entire videos for RegA plus made exclusively from broadcast news clips. say that’s the entire video. And yeah, the CEO is definitely interviewed in a few of those. But no narration whatsoever. We did add a little music track, but the entire story could be told just by putting those press clippings together. the right order, and at the right, staccato, or lengthy pace, to let that tell the story, you know, third person telling it. So it’s, you know, we didn’t have to shoot anything for that that was just three days in the editing room. And again, we did a six or seven minute version, why not let the whole company see it. We did the three minute version for those who would want to see it on the offering page. And we did about a 82nd version, which was our main video above the fold when you first got to the page. So you know, there’s all different ways of telling the story. The question is, who is the issuer? And what do we want to get across? And then figure out from there, there is no one size fits all. There is no Pat answer to that.

Dean DeLisle  25:50

Yeah, and to piggyback off that, I think one of the big things is I, I joked about it earlier, but you know, what you have to, you have to test and see what works with with that audience that you’re that you’re tapping into. I mean, like I said, I would have, I would have lost the bet, you know, and I’ve been doing videos since dial up, you know, broadcast since dial up. And I was like, if you would have told me that, that we would have raised, you know, close to $100 million off of a two hour video and, you know, webinar live webinar, I would have said You’re crazy. So, but it’s just funny how you just don’t know until you test, you know?

Oscar Jofre  26:30

So, but how many? Okay, so that’s a good point. We’re talking about different types of videos and all that. And then there’s no way of knowing which one will work? How do you test that quickly enough? Because producing a video isn’t always caught, you know, you can do one really cheap, but obviously, you want to put your best foot forward. How do you? You know, this is the question for any entrepreneur, probably scratching their head wondering which video is the right one for me? How do you? How do you quantify that answer for them under? Yeah,

Andrew Corn  27:03

so you know, what is expensive is shooting, what’s expensive is planning so that the shoot works for multiple scenarios. What’s not expensive is editing. So once you have all the right components, then you’re basically putting it together. You know, the mantra of my firm is test, measure, refine, optimize. So one of the things you do is you see how many visitors click play and watch the video. How many of them complete? How much more time do they spend on the page? after they complete? How much deeper are they going, we usually have something downloadable besides the video on the page, are they going to that which has a deeper story in it may have more numbers in it. So it depends upon the offering. So we have a little advantage, which actually, Dean has a similar advantage. We’ve been around the block. He Firebase started marketing investment products, and we still do about half of our businesses in retail ETFs mutual funds, hedge funds, real estate. So you know, we have an awful lot of data not only for targeting, but also what people consume, how they consume it and why the one thing is that changes. And that changes sometimes sees only it changes with mood of the country, there are a lot of things that make that change. So that one needs to be able to interpret that and then go and refine and optimize properly. But you know, from an expense standpoint, once you have all those components together, editing is not that expensive. Right? Yeah, I

Dean DeLisle  28:49

agree. I agree with that. I think there was another point earlier, I just want to bring back to the surface to that I think is super relevant as when companies especially are going from either reg D or reg CF, whatever their journey is, and they tap in or RegA plus. That’s an active story. You know, that’s an active, evolving story. There’s a whole evolution there. And I think some of the most important things you can do is take people with you on the ride. And I think video and the storytelling of the video, you know, we can tease some of those updates on the front end. And then especially if you have a decent audience built up by that point, and you can teach them on the front end to that inner circle to outer circle thing. I think you have a way to keep them engaged. And we’ve seen a lot of people come back around and maybe they didn’t invest the first time around, but they’ve brought people in and invested the second time around. So if you’re in it for the long haul, and if you’re driving, you know and you’re evolving. I think it’s important to not just shoot video and then go run the company. I think you should always have a plan. Continue to shoot video and use that as a method of communication along the way. So I heard Andrew, I just think that’s so important for people to hear.

Oscar Jofre  30:14

Sorry, guys, I felt that I was talking but none of you were listening to me now I know why cuz you guys read your lips? No, no, no, no, no, it’s okay. It’s okay. You guys were in your own little world the talking about the, the, the impact of the videos and all that. So it but if you guys had to make your you know, we’re we’re talking about 90 seconds, we’re talking about three different videos which again, this is, this is an interesting component to this discussion, because obviously, you know, a lot of people probably gone well, I got some videos already made up on what our company does, and our product does, we’re ready to go here, slap it on. It’s a pretty lipstick and boom. But that’s not what we’re saying here we’re we’re really talking about is a particular message that needs to come out. So, you know, and from your perspective, what are the key messages that you think need to be? You said 90 seconds, right? And 90 seconds doesn’t seem like a lot, but in a video, it is a lot. So what are the key messages now that need to be in that video, that if they’re there, it, it at least gives the company an opportunity to be successful. I mean, it can’t be just the visual. But messaging. Let’s talk about that now.

Andrew Corn  31:33

Well, so I can’t agree with you on that. Because sometimes the visuals are the entire story. It depends what it is, it depends who the issuer is, and what they’re trying to get across. And why I was on a call last night with an issuer who’s got some extremely high tech jewelry, and their people are gonna understand what it does, how good it looks, is really what they’re and how functional it is, is what they’re selling. So a lot of it is based on earrings and some other wearables. So to have an attractive person modeling that and showing how well it works, and the way they interact with it, that may be enough. We are doing one now where it’s a medical device. And we have really poorly shot testimonial videos, because they’re shot by the recovered patient themselves, who were so enthusiastic about doing this. And cutting those together. No narration, a little bit of music, a couple of titles that we put in. That’s all that’s needed. Because if you don’t get the story from those testimonials, I don’t get it. I actually have gone in and invested. So, which is really unusual, because usually there’s a different arrangement with us and an issuer. But after we finished that testimonial video, bam, I was ready to put money in because I know how this thing works, even though it’s in its earlier stages. We also didn’t cover there’s a whole industry out there doing these explainer videos where someone’s there with a pencil trying to explain the company. So what are the components, I have to come back and say, who’s the issuer? We already know who the audience is, if we’re doing a CF or an A plus, we’re talking about a primarily retail audience. But let’s get more specific. You know, we look at GE I posted before, we’ve got this huge database of known angel investors all accredited. Well, that’s good. But now this is a medical device I was just talking about. Now we have a database of everyone in that specialty, but not just the doctors, the nurses, the technicians, because you don’t have to be accredited to invest. Well, what about patients and caregivers? And what’s going to resonate with them, which may be very different than with that group of people who were used to investing in profit companies? So answer your question, unfortunately, there’s not a simple answer to that. Because again, what is the purpose and what do we want people to think, feel and do when that video is done? That’s the big question is, think feel and do

Dean DeLisle  34:33

yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s a big deal. So one of the one of the other things to piggyback off of that is, I think, and I and I’m sure you guys do this, but we do a pretty big assessment out front of you know, what they have in inventory what they have, even if it’s not video, you know, images, graphics, those testimonials, audio, you know, maybe they did a podcast or whatever. You know, there’s all kinds of things that can be, you know, with the right creativity that can be mashed up for, for proper use. So I think it’s important that whoever’s listening to this, that you’re you, you do some of the work up front yourself and go dig the best things that you’ve ever had that have created the company to this moment, and share those with the agency that’s helping you. I mean, it’s all what I, what drives me crazy is we do this whole assessment in this intake, and then you get halfway down the path. And there’s like, some really real gems that nobody spoke about, that were like, even have a proven track record. And I’m like, you know, come on, let’s share this, you know, we asked all these questions and thought we had all this, this, these items, you know, and then all of a sudden, it’s like, pay attention. This is your company, too. It’s not, you know, we’re in this together, it’s a partnership. So you have to take some personal responsibility as the entrepreneur for your own success in this too. So be active, participate and make sure that if you have somebody that’s guiding you, through the process, do the work that they’re asking you to do. So I don’t know if that sounds too strict. But Andrew, I can’t tell you.

Andrew Corn  36:11

I’m totally with you there, you know, we asked for one of the first things we do is we send Dropbox link, and we say make folders, we want all of your visual ingredients, because we can make a killer video out of cells with animation. And we did one where there was a stuffed bear involved. And we photograph the bear. And eventually we put the bear on an animation stand, and we twirled the bear. So that there’s a spinning there. There’s the spinning bear in anyway, we had lots of fun with this. And it really it comes down to what do you have to work with? And what can you work with. But that’s where again, animation may come into play, because there’s very little to work with. And frankly, it’s just stills and the three of us are three photographs here. We can work with that too. Because we can do animation that’s not of something drawn, but of actual photographs, and you see it all the time. You just don’t think of it as animation. So

Oscar Jofre  37:17

yeah, that’s good. So but but I said listen to the both of you. I’m I’m, I’m thinking out loud, like I it almost it be counted. I I’m not sure if I’m, if I if I know which video I want. I know I’m a little bit more confused than I was before. So the stick, you know, we say it doesn’t really matter. It could be something still in all that. But does the the amount of dollars you attach to the video, the budget you assign because you’re right, we see some advertising for $99 explainer video two all the way up to, you know, 58 does that does that make the difference? The Magic mark of the dollar amount you’re going to spend? It’s going to give you the the three points that you mentioned there, Andrew, where, you know, that emotional attachment that it’s going to get them to, you know, to do something which would be, you know, come to the site or click the investment field do? Yeah, thanks. We’ll do we’ll really do that it the dollar amount you spend on the video?

Andrew Corn  38:21

Do you know I’d love for you to handle that one?

Dean DeLisle  38:23

Hell no. It has nothing to do with it. No, don’t, don’t get hung up on the amount. You know what, uh, you know, just like I said, you know, we we’ve had, we’ve had, we’ve raised a ton of money off of we had this one instance, where the founder of that company wrote this amazing letter that we found that he wrote from the heart, why he started the company, the emotion that we captured in there. I said, I just want you to articulate this into a camera. I said, I want you to not read it. But I want you to articulate what you said in this letter to the camera. And they raised a ton of dough. We didn’t spend 10s of 1000s of dollars on that video. It was it was a few paragraphs from the heart. So again, did we know it was gonna work? No. But we felt good about it. And we felt like just you know, we had seen enough things where the story was purpose driven. And it really got to that that human part where they could connect from the outside in. And it didn’t cost 10s of 1000s of dollars to do that. So again, there’s no magic answer here. And you know, I know there’s a bunch of people that sell kits and processes and stuff like that, but I’m sorry, it doesn’t work like that. It might be a good start if you don’t have a budget and you need to spend 150 bucks to create three videos but I think you should go after it if you’re doing a RegA plus, that means you’re investing money yourself into the company to do a RegA plus, well part of that should be not just marketing, but video. Marketing?

Oscar Jofre  40:01

No, I agree I do. It is your right. I mean it when there’s something authentic. And within the company where when you dig it up and you can utilize it, it becomes invaluable. Right? Those are those. Not every company has that. Right? So we have to duplicate. You can’t duplicate that authentication. You can’t bring that history. Some SEO can’t go back on matters. We’ll start writing stuff now. One day, and I’ll backdate it. No, it’s not like backdating options. Yeah,

Andrew Corn  40:33

it’s you know, keep in mind, so things need to be totally scripted. Why? Because it’s got to go through compliance before you shoot, you want to go compliant and through compliance after you shoot? Well, that’s a way to spend an awful lot of money unnecessarily. So you know, the whole world wants to know what the lawyers think or what some series 24 guy thinks, before you go. So you can be really smart about scripting and storyboarding, and having a really good idea of what you’re doing. And running it by compliance, you’re still going to have to put the final video by compliance as well. And of course, no one ever wants to talk about money with me because you know, our reputation of being the most expensive. But we’re not necessarily the one thing we don’t put in a quote is video. Now, we talked about the video, we mentioned the video, but all we budget for is scripting, and a one day at why because until we know what we’re going to do, which is until after we’ve on boarded the client, can we put together a budget, and then I think we’re really good at being extremely prudent in spending our clients money. So we just did a shoot in LA, they paid the shooter directly, they paid the director directly. And of course, they had to suffer through myself and another one of my team, looking through the lens on zoom, because the technology is there to do it. And all the versions we need you to shoot. So, you know, there’s a lot of ways of doing things to make sure that you were being super efficient and getting the most for your body. But there is no correct budget for a CF or an A plus, they’re just, there can’t be one.

Oscar Jofre  42:25

Yeah. And

Dean DeLisle  42:28

yeah, and I’d say, Andrew, it’s, I think most of you know, I think the term expensive or whatever is relevant. You know, like I like I said, they’re spending a lot of money. It’s just a shift of funds that just shifted priorities of everybody believes that, that’s the right thing to do. And I mean that at the end of the day, you and I are data driven, we’re behind the results that it generates. So so in doing so if we’re raising 50 million, and we all agree that this is the best pathway to 59, and you have to shoot a $10,000 video or a $10,000 videos, that’s what you have to do. I mean, that’s what we all believe, is the right path. So So I want people to hear that, too. It’s like sometimes, you know, it just drives me crazy when people will spend silly money on silly things, but they won’t spend important money on important things.

Oscar Jofre  43:25

So just take that I think we all have that issue. But that’s it. No, look, I bring it up because you’re right, or what number do you put, you don’t know whether it’s this type of video that and some people say, Well, if I put a lot of money on it, definitely I’m going to, you know, I’m going to get the maximum out of it. Or it’s going to give me the results that I need. Some will swear up and down that the video, the the more money you put into it, the more exposure you will get. And so obviously for the audience, anybody who’s doing profiling, whether you’re raising 100,000 1,000,005 10 75 million, 100 million, whatever the dollar amount, is, the key element shouldn’t be a maybe when I’m recapping from you guys, it shouldn’t be about the dollar amount is as as, as you all say, it has to have those three points to it. And if it gets those three, if it costs you $1,000 to get to those three, based on your current story, then that’s what it is. But if it cost you 10 times that that’s what it is. That’s what you wanted to get out of it. I yeah.

Andrew Corn  44:34

And we’ve seen 5060 $70,000 videos for RegA plus and I every single time have said gee, we could have done the same communication, not the same job, but the same communication for way less than half that I think there are some numbers where and we hear them and I think it is since we’re Chicago, New York. I think it’s more of a West Coast phenomenon. Were the budgets are much bigger for things like video. You know, and I worked on Viacom’s IPO. So I’m dating myself. We’ve been involved with, you know, MTV, Nickelodeon, tons and tons of broadcast. You just need to spend the appropriate amount of money appropriate. I

Dean DeLisle  45:24

love that. Write that down Oscar appropriate amount.

Andrew Corn  45:28

Because it and when you hear someone spending 110 there’s something wrong with that is especially out of the gate. Yeah, it’s just not appropriate. If you’ve raised

Oscar Jofre  45:38

money,

Andrew Corn  45:40

and you need to raise another 20 and you’re running into a wall, I would test 20 other things before I spent another 50 grand on another video.

Oscar Jofre  45:49

So yeah, well, yeah, no, I in and it’s just, you know, I know what everybody’s going through right now. I mean, we like you, everybody’s asking question, you got all this cost, and all that to get the store down. The one thing that I do want to say that does happen with these videos is that it’s not just to sell investors, I think you said it best that they’re doing when you said it’s also to sell customers. So it’s a dual functioning, marketing that you would have spent any way to get new clients. So why it is interesting how people, when they think of the video, they’re thinking, well, I got to go out and sell it. So it’s, we’re raising money, and we’re doing this, no, that’s not what you want. That’s the TSX v version of the of all that, that’s, that’s not you. And that’s where, you know, we’ve been, you know, I often see people in in all of this is that there’s this convoluted so much information about video, and the role that it plays. And we all talk about, it’s got a priority, but then when people get into it, it gets so many different mixed messaging to it. And, and because of it that, you know, they may make a mistake the first time or it may not. So but it’s interesting to hear both you guys view, you both came to some, some very interesting conclusions together, which was interesting, the trust the authentication element. And those are, you know, if you can get that in a visual, while in a video storytelling that is a game changer when you’re trying to get your message across to the audience. So let me ask you both one, one question. I mean, forget your eight your firm’s for a moment. But obviously, as you get approached by intrapreneurs, what is the one thing so keep in mind, they don’t have a budget for this? So what are you going to advise them on to before they start? Because you know, if they they’re going to shop around, nothing, get shopped around, they’re going to start getting all the ads like all of us are getting? What are you going to tell them? How they should approach the the one video what to do for them? And then to what are the questions they should be asking of a provider who’s going to do that for them. So when they get the final product, they go, you know what, I got what I needed, it just didn’t work, but at least I got exactly what I needed. I’ll start with you, Dean.

Dean DeLisle  48:25

Yeah, I’d say, you know, and again, you said limited budget. And you know, I hate to start there, but I would say you know, if they if they had to start somewhere, get the get the founders story told. And remember that, you know, and I don’t like putting things into siloed boxes. And I think Andrew will agree with this. The video is one thing if you see something working in a video or something working in a blog post or something working in an interview or anywhere, that’s it, that’s a signal. So you should have that as an integrated part of your marketing, not just trap something good in a video it should be it should work across the board in many different ways. So not just, you know, I know this is a video segment but but don’t just like, throw all your chips in the video or throw all your chips into this or that. You need to be integrated and put this throughout because you might have a killer email list and all of a sudden you’ve siloed them away from something good that’s happening over here. So tell the founders story. And do integrated marketing manual everything work together, not not separately.

Oscar Jofre  49:37

Andrew, your point? Yeah. So

Andrew Corn  49:39

I’m going to agree with Dean on this. I mean, when people hire are from their hiring process. They’re not hiring an individual or a design attitude or creative team or a data driven approach. It’s an overall orchestration of the process. So, when a message works, we like to amplify that. And there’s a lot of ways of doing that we work really closely with the PR team. You know, sometimes they hate us for it, sometimes they love us for it. But we’re all over it. And you know, very frankly, we have three different clients now, where our entrepreneurs are all trained engineers, and none of them are prepared to be on camera and do a great job, there, awkwardness may come across as authentic and work like a charm, or it may blow up and not work at all. And we can give it a shot. But we need to have a plan B for that. We have a male CEO selling into a female market. Now, all the people around him are female. And it’s great. And he is more catalysts than he is driver in many respects. But is he the appropriate person to have on the video. So there are so many things that need to go into the decisions of what needs to be done, I would say my advice to entrepreneurs is to go in with an open mind. And again, look for what’s going to be effective. And to Dean’s point, I’m just going to reiterate one of the things the first things I said is, if the video is good, we’re going to use it in email, we’re going to use it in ads, we’re going to use a clip of it in Facebook, we’re going to do little clips for social media and force them on the PR firm, we’re going to you know, do all different things with it and truly integrated. So, you know, if you’re testing and measuring and refining what you’re doing, and optimizing video is one component, it can be an outsize component, especially if it’s working well. But it is one component that needs to be orchestrated with everything else.

Oscar Jofre  52:09

Okay, and that that’s, that’s a good closing for us today. I think that that kind of gives everybody an overview, I believe, you know, it’s like anything else this, this is just one of those discussion points, that it’s got so many variances, until we have more evidence and you started touching on that before both of you get a be testing or which one will work, which one won’t. I’m hoping that over time, we will have that information as to what works better for this type of company versus now there’s so people can make better decisions when they’re getting their videos done. I feel for a lot of companies they, when we hear from them, I bought a video that God thought he could do it. And then when I get nobody understood it, did you know what I mean? That didn’t resonate with anyone,

Andrew Corn  52:54

right? So I would say if you hire Dean’s company that you should listen to Dean and his team, because they are your advocates. And they’re trying to come up with the best solution for you. Just like if you hire my firm, you should listen to me and my team because we are digging in deep, it ends up being personal and emotional for the team working on it. And no one’s trying to give you bad advice. So when there’s an entrepreneur with a great idea, we love that and would love to run with it. If there’s an entrepreneur with a bad idea. We’re going to tell them so. So

Oscar Jofre  53:37

there you go, the Hard Knocks of honesty like that. I like that. Alright, everyone, thank you so much once again for coming out today. It was an interesting discussion. It took a little bit of a detour from where I thought it was going with it but you know, that’s the thing about a topic it doesn’t always flow because it’s it is based on opinion. I’m glad you guys aren’t doing your ritual PowerPoint slides, like more talking because I mean think about it, they’ll call you on telephone and ask you for your guidance and advice based on video. You’re basically doing it here. And for those who came out today all this information will be available at KoreSummit.io course and we look forward Hill Maximus is saying get a video that’s that was during the background. Alright everyone, have a great week. We’ll talk