Video content as a tool, how is this relevant to Partnership conversations?

In my last blog post, I talked pretty openly about how to get value from partnership managers you may be interacting with in your industry. If you havent read it, I essentially talk about how there is lots of noise in the partnership space and that really the number one thing you want from them is qualified leads you can sell to. Now, in part of that post I mention that you may have to equip yourself with a tool that helps you to build trust with partners or even offer to ‘colder’ prospects as kind of a ‘bait’ and switch.

When do you use this tool?

Broadly speaking there are a couple of scenarios that you would want to use this tool, I’ve detailed the scenarios below with the related persona

Persona 1:  "The uptight partnership manager that wont give you leads until you do something"

• What are they like? We’ve all met them, usually the mid sizes companies have them. They can be super helfpul but want to be seen to be doing activities before they can flick you an intro.
• How to break down the wall? If you have a templated approach to video content, use it now! The pitch is pretty straight forward, it goes like this:

“So why dont you come onto our podcast, I’ll interview you and you can talk about your business and we post it to our network, I’ll send you a booking link”

They book a time, you do the video, it gets posted, job done!

Persona 2: "The lead that is an ICP that has their guard up"

• What are they like? So these are the referrals you get that are colder than you like, but in my experience some of the best deals I have done have been grown from these situations. Typically you run into these folks when you get a referral and the person who connected you hasnt explicitly said “Hey you should use this product” or you got a quick response from the other party that says “hey, I’m open to chatting but I’ve got competitor X already”  so it means you are left with a vague intro to a prospect that fits your ICP that is potentially not interested. Enter, Video podcast session.
• How to break down the wall? Well, you hit reply and say:

“Hey - great to connect, would love to get you onto our video podcast, it’s where we interview < insert industry acceptable expert name > about their experience with < industry activity >. You don’t need to prep, just book a time here, we hit record and off we go!”

9 times out of 10 this gets them onto a call and then you have your chance to implement your talk track to ultimately sell them something.

Now in these scenarios where the interviewee is actually a prospect, this also doubles as a GREAT time to do discovery on their business to find out how your product fits them even more, to implement this subtle twist ensure you frame the content as a way openly talking about your industry, eg. Engineering Masters, Automotive Aces etc etc (Obviously pick a better name than those)

The content: What tools do you need?

To get this working with the least amount of effort as possible, it is critical that you have the right tools, now from memory I was running this on less than $50 a month! See my list below:

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• What I used: Calendly

• Cost: $8 per month

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Tool 2: A streaming and recording platform: You will need a tool that allows you to setup a beautiful template (that you only have to build once) and the ability to stream to multiple platforms at once.

• What I used: StreamYard

• Cost: $20 per month

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Tool 3: LinkedIn

Extra notes: You will need to have LinkedIn creator mode on your account (this is how to get it)

Cost: $0

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Tool 4: YouTube

Cost: $0

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Tool 5: Facebook

Cost: $0

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Tool 6: A templated set of questions that fit the content name

Cost: $0

Note: Whilst this isnt a tool as such, it is critical to the efficiency of this endeavor that you have this template so you never have to think about it again! 

The content: How does it all hang together?

Beginning with the end in mind, this is what it will look like.

Step 1: You send the templated email to the interviewee.

“Hey John

Great to connect mate, would love to invite you onto our video series where we we interview < insert industry acceptable expert name > about their experience with < industry activity >. 

You don’t need to prep, just book a time here, we hit record and off we go!

Talk soon

Ray”

Step 2: They book a time via the calendly page 

First you get more information on them via some questions you have put in the booking page, eg:

• Name of your business
• Your job title
• Your area of expertise
• What are you using for < insert area that your product serves well >:
• < insert question that gets you a  data point relevant for you to do a solid pitch>:

Secondly, they get this from calendly:

Hey John thanks for booking a recording, here are your questions:

• Tell us about yourself and how you got into XYZ
• So where do you think industry XYZ is going
• How do you feel about < insert your competing product here >
• How are you addressing < insert problem your product solves here> in your business
• Where do you think industry XYZ is going in 2023

At this point, you haven't done anything other than successfully opened up a conversation with someone you can get value from.

So what now?

You turn up to the call hit record and execute the interview and it gets broadcasted to wherever it needs to be. Now it’s important to remember that the goal here isnt about getting millions of views and comments, it’s more about building rapport and trust with someone that you can get vaue from or sell to directly. It just means that when the time comes and you simply want to say “hey mate, can I pitch you this” they will say yes 100% of the time!