Ep 434- How You Can Use A Brand Video to Build Trust Faster And Sell More Quickly with Mariana Henninger

[00:00:02] spk_0: You are an entrepreneur, a professional, a speaker or a coach. And although you've come a long way, it's time for you to take it to the next level. We've got you. This is the author to Authority Podcast. We'll help you use authority and influencer marketing to build your business stronger and faster. By publishing a book. You'll hear from guests that are thought leaders in sales, marketing, networking, communication, social media promotion, and business leadership. Let's do it. This is the author to Authority podcast. Now, your host, the extraordinary word Ninja Kim Thompson at Pender, welcome to the office to Authority Podcast. And if you've ever wondered about videos, the effective videos, can you use videos for your business? Can they really reflect your brand? Can videos make people know like and trust you? Well, you wanna stay tuned for today's episode of the author to Authority podcast. I would love to invite Marianna to the show. She's from brand magnetic dot com and I'll read her bio in a few minutes. But first welcome Marianna. Thank

[00:01:25] spk_1: you so much, Kim. Great to be here.

[00:01:27] spk_0: So Marianna, I know that you worked for brand magnetic dot com. And I just, I want you to just start with a few minutes because when I saw the word brand video, I was like, OK, it's a brand video.

[00:01:41] spk_1: I love it. It's the first question I ever. So I'm actually the founder of brand Magnetic as well. Brand video. What is it? So it's a 2 to 4 minute video that encapsulates your story, the parts of your story that resonate with your audience. So it's ne it's not just your origin story, it's not how you, you know, if you're an author or whatever you did to write your book, it's not just that or it's not, sometimes it's not even about that. It is understanding your audience and taking the parts of your story that you resonate with your audience and creating a video around that. The most important question to ask is how do you want your audience to feel after watching this brand video? And if we're looking at it like a conversion tool, which it is, we're thinking about how does my audience need to feel right before buying my book right before you know, purchasing my offer. If I have, you know, an online course around my book or whatever the case may be, whatever I'm ultimately selling and serving them with, how do I need them to feel in order to have to get just way closer to that trust that needs to happen before we buy from somebody? Oh,

[00:02:46] spk_0: we are going to have a good conversation today. So Marianna Hen Henninger, hopefully, I pronounced it correctly but you can fix it afterwards. Is an entrepreneurial prodigy whose first business was a makeshift school. She started inside her neighbor's garden shed when she was only six years old. She's a National Emmy Award women winning two time nominated documentary filmmaker who speaks five languages. Wow, I could barely handle one and has traveled and worked in four continents. Her body of award-winning work focuses on truly powerful, intimate and emotion driven storytelling. And her business brand magnetic focuses on creating brand videos as a conversion tool for online businesses. So I'm fascinated with this because I, I felt the same way. Like I didn't realize that as a kid that I had this entrepreneurial bent to me, but I was always trying to think of different ways to make money.

[00:03:49] spk_1: We are the fortunate kids of parents who didn't give us a ton of allowance. I'm guessing that was your case as well or never enough. And I was the third kid. I don't know if that has to do with it, but probably a little bit just kind of got away with sort of figuring things out on my own. And yes, that was definitely the drive. I was like, I want my own money cause I wanna buy my own. The I even re remember like buying a sweater, like didn't have to be candy. You know, I, I don't think I ever bought candy. My dad was a dentist so, you know, it's just this drive of like, I wanna own my own things. I wanna be able to make those decisions without having to kind of depend on anybody else to finance them for me.

[00:04:30] spk_0: Yeah, I remember, I think it was 10 years old and in Toronto, Canada they had opened Candice Wonderland, which is a massive amusement park. And so we'd gone the first year for free cause my aunt got tickets, you know, pre opening tickets from her company. But the next year we wanted to go and like I grew up in a single father home, my mother had died when I was four. So we always celebrated. My dad always got both Mother's Day and Father's Day. Oh, nice. So one year we decided we were gonna treat dad to Candace Wonderland for Mother's Day. I love it. And we saved and we saved and we earned little bits of money here and there and we earned enough money to buy three tickets. And I mean, my dad didn't want to go to Canada Horn land. That's not the thing that he would have wanted, right? But he uh he so appreciated us saving up this money. And I remember going to the bank with them because you know this is the seventies, there's no bank machines, there's no online banking, there's nothing you go to the bank, you take out cash Right. And I remember my dad going to the bank and he took out about 3 to 4 times what we had saved for the tickets to cover everything else that day. And I just, I remember thinking, you know, when I look back on it, it's like, wow, how much my dad loved us. Right.

[00:05:56] spk_1: That's awesome. And how much you loved him apparently too. Yeah. That's amazing story.

[00:06:02] spk_0: So, tell me a little bit more, Marianna, how did you, you know, become this documentary filmmaker? Like that's fascinating.

[00:06:10] spk_1: Yeah. Didn't know I was gonna be a filmmaker when I was a little kid. I wanted to be an archaeologist and then I actually like tried to get into med school because I was interested in genetics for some reason that I studied in chemistry in high school, I guess, and their biology probably. And then it was kind of my dad that sort of instilled in me. He's like, I think you would be an amazing journalist. And then obviously when you look back, you kind of connect the dots. When I was like 1314 years old, we went to Israel and I don't know why I was carrying around a mini tape recorder and recording everything I saw and collecting all these brochures for the different archaeological sites, thinking I was going to be an archaeologist one day. But in fact, like I was just documenting the journey, right? And, and so I went into journalism school thinking like, I don't really know what to do, but I think magazines are cool and stumbled upon photography. Thanks to like my first mentor who was, who was an incredible photographer now doing video and commercials for like Coca Cola mcdonald's in Brazil, which is where I'm from. And he mentored me in my very first photos. And I started realizing that the visual sort of medium was my, was how I loved expressing what I saw just to insert yet another kind of early childhood story. I created a, I had a lemonade stand at age. I want to say 11. And I remember designing the logo for it and I didn't know any better. I just thought that's what you did when you had a business. But it stuck with me that my grandma looked at that logo and she's like, wow, this is really good, you know, and it was nice that she kind of put the seed in me that like, oh I, I did something that was like noteworthy. And so it's the thing I remember from all the early childhood that had to do with visuals and had to do with like creating something visually but fast forward. You know, I started my career as a photographer and then realized that, wow, there's so much of the story that's left behind. I love photography. Don't get me wrong. I think photos are incredibly impactful and sometimes what they cause you to do is just kind of sit and reflect and in your own thoughts, which obviously videos kind of feeding you with information and visuals and audio the whole time. It's kind of stimulating you the whole time. Whereas, you know, in the photograph and I'm sure authors understand this because they think about their book covers a lot. You know, it's the thing that it has to like, make you reflect and, and sort of go inside of yourself and feel, interact with something that's not, you know, stimulating like video does. But the thing that kind of uh essentially led me to video was just feeling like the stories of the people that I was telling, I was in particular, I was following these bedouins and I was back in Israel and following these bedouins for like a whole week sleeping in their tents and eating their food and just kind of understanding life through their eyes as a photographer. And I was like, at the end of that project, like, there's so much that's missing here, you know, their voices, like their own story. And I sat for a second and thought, I wonder if I could just like, combine that audio with these. I was like, oh my gosh, that's video. It's already been created, you know, and that's how I started my journey into, into essentially like very short documentaries, like mini documentaries as we call them just, you know, anything around the, like the 345 minute mark. And then eventually, you know, 15 years into it, I was producing like longer length documentaries and just, it's been my passion ever since.

[00:09:41] spk_0: That is awesome. So what led you to start brand magnetic?

[00:09:46] spk_1: Yeah. So I had been working as a documentary filmmaker for a long time and doing just that and loving it. I was at NBC for about five years as a senior producer there and there are a couple of things that happened. One of them was that I had sort of hit the ceiling of what I could make, uh still being in the field. Essentially, my bosses were telling me, well, if you wanna make more, you sort of have to start managing a team. And I'm like, I don't, I don't wanna manage the team. I wanna be out there meeting people and filming them, which I thought was a little bit unfair because correspondents don't manage teams and they make a lot of money, but it's fine. It is what it is with the industry. I tried, but I did get to sort of the ceiling that anyone would pay me to do this. And so there was that and there was also this idea, you know, I had always been passionate about business and sales and I just wasn't using that for years. So I would like, keep my ear kind of open to, to anything that was like business or maybe a webinar or a course or something. But I wasn't, you know, I didn't have time. I was just fully focused on filmmaking and there was a part of me that was like, you know, what if not now, when, you know, if I don't, if I don't make a clean break and invest in starting my own business, you know, I turned 40 this year and I was like, I think this is really the time I'm gonna dive in and, oh my gosh, have I not looked back ever since it's been such an incredible joy and journey to build my own business. So essentially, let's take my two passions and be able to combine them. Like, how lucky am I? Right? Like when you get to really do what you love? Yes, I, I can talk about like how documentary filmmaking and business kind of come together in a brand video.

[00:11:24] spk_0: Well, le yeah, let's, let's shift gears here into that because, you know, I was going to ask you about, you know, what are these elements of a brand video that, you know, make it so attractive and, and you know, promote that like trust factor? Yeah,

[00:11:41] spk_1: absolutely. So, you know, at the core of it is really understanding what your audience needs to feel as I said before. Like, what is the feeling that we want to elicit from them? What do we, what, what's the journey that we want to take them on and then understanding how to align our story or how to really identify the parts of our story that we know are going to create those feelings and a brand video. You're really also thinking about the visuals, right? It's not just the written word, it's not just a podcast or you know, just what I mean is like, it's not singularly, you're not singularly telling your story, you're, you're kind of creating this journey, right? And, and a lot of that's visual. And so it's thinking about the compelling visuals that are going to evoke those emotions as well. You know, if you think about most authors, I would bet that for the most part, they're in front of their laptop writing all day or researching or, or kind of doing things that are a little bit less motion involved. Um And then thinking about how do I illustrate the other parts of the story that may have happened in the past with emotion. So it's really thinking about non literal visuals. So metaphoric visuals, we can use visuals in nature, we can use a hobby of yours that, that sort of highlights your personality, your values, those are things that we want to bring to the forefront of the brand video. Ultimately, it's, you know, it's still is your story, although it's about how your audience feels. So it's still about them, it's still about, you know, getting them to that place and that feeling. But we're using your story as the vehicle when we think about your story. So what are the things that you do that highlight who you are that will build those emotional connections, those what I call emotional touch points of your story just as an example. So one of my students in brand video academy is a podcast teacher. That's her sort of brand name, which I love the podcast teacher dot com, I think. And uh and so she was telling me, I was like, Mariana, I don't have a story that relates that much to my audience. Like, I don't even have my own podcast. She's a wonderful podcast teacher because she's like, produced a lot of podcasts, but she doesn't even have her own. So like, I can't connect with my audience with an exact podcast that I have and they can have all those things. And one of the things that sort of came out of our work together was just her. I asked her what her hobbies were. I like jigsaw puzzles. I was like, ok, jigsaw puzzles. You are great at taking chaos and creating something that makes sense and is beautiful and is orderly. And so that is going to be one of her vigils in her brand video is just like, put, you know, the chaos of the puzzles on, on a table and then putting them together and then just the sort of satisfaction of going through that journey of putting, that's just like part of her brand video but that's an, you know, an illustration of something that you wouldn't have thought connected but actually does connect, you know,

[00:14:32] spk_0: love it. I love it and you know, I wanna shift it a little bit too because not only do we have authors who listen, but a lot of our audience are actually consultants, speakers, thought leaders, you know, these are people who are writing books to gain authority. So you know, when you're looking at those kind of, of people, cause you know one of them too. But most of us we have a company but we're the face of the brands. So how, how do you combine those two together? Because you know, yeah, it's RT I publishing but I, I have a small team behind me but basically I'm the face, I run it, you know, all of those kinds of things. So you know, when you're in that type of situation, what are you looking at in terms of creating a brand video? Yeah, I

[00:15:18] spk_1: mean this is kind of what I help people with in my course and it's, it's very much step by step. So if I were to walk you through the five steps, you're starting with crafting your story, understanding what the story you're gonna tell. Uh out of all the stories you can tell. If there isn't kind of an obvious one, I'll give you a quick example. Most if you're a coach, most coaches are coaching people on something that they have been through some of the best fitness coaches, they struggled with weight or they struggled with motivating themselves to work out and then they overcame that struggle, they figured it out and now they're teaching people how to do that. You know, a lot of mindset coaches are kind of in that sort of same realm. They have the personal sort of overcome story, which is what I call it. So if you don't have a sort of obvious story, you're looking at all of these different stories. In the case of Julia, the podcast teacher, she didn't have an obvious overcome story. So we looked at what else can we share about you that, that pinpoints that connection that your audience needs to have with you. In her case, we wanted her audience to feel like they were in good hands and they could let go of that tech overwhelm and the confusion and the exhausting sort of, you know, this mountain that they needed to climb in creating a podcast and they could just trust her and enjoy the ride and she was their mama bear a lot of coaches, you know, or a lot of folks of authority and, and thought leaders that might be the feeling that they want to create in their audience. Uh And so again, just identifying that that core story and then really pinpointing. So what are the parts of that story that we know resonate with your audience? So the second most important question, the first one is what do you want your audience to feel at the end of the brand video? The second one is uh I just lost it. I try to remember how do you want them to feel? And I have to, oh my gosh, it's so embarrassing. I'll have to come back to that one. But again, identifying the parts of your story. Here we go. Knowing what resonates with your audience is the second most important question. Really knowing your audience in and out, right? Which is super crucial for business. You also apply that to the brand video because the brand video at the end of the day is a marketing conversion tool. It's not portrayed as such when you're watching it, you don't feel like you're watching something that's marketing related or that's meant to make you buy something that's the superpower of the brand video is it's really just about that connection with that person, knowing that you're gonna watch that brand video and never see them in the same way. Again, you know, if I were to watch your brand video, Kim, not only would you be completely unforgettable to me or to your audience, but they would never confuse you, Ken with any other expert out there with anyone who is maybe doing something similar to what you're doing. Your story is what differentiates you from everyone else. So that one video, that 12 to 4 minute video is the thing through which everything else that comes afterwards is seen through the lens of that brand video. It's seen, you know, that they placed you from just an expert that I follow. Or this, this lady who's awesome podcast I listen to every once in a while and now it's like, Kim, this person that I've gotten to know who's probably feeling more like a friend now and who happens to be an expert. Like how much do we wanna work with our friends who are experts versus just the experts? Anyway. So we've identified your core story. We've identified the parts of your story that resonate with your audience that second most important question. And then we go into thinking about what compelling visuals we talked about that just now, which is what are the sort of really interesting, visually engaging things that we can show to illustrate that story? They do not have to be literal. I talk a lot about non literal visuals. None. You know, you don't have to say monkey, see monkey. And I think it's a term that we use in the bid of a phrase that we use in, in filmmaking. And then uh after that, so you write your script, this is a script that we practice over and over in front of the mirror. We want to make it conversational. But really at the end of the year, kind of grafting each and every sentence it does take a lot more work on the back end if you were just to sort of do it interview style, which is how most mock obviously documentaries are done that way. They're not, somebody's not handed a script to say in front of the camera, but for the purposes of kind of making sure you're nailing your message and uh and also sort of facilitating the backend edit of it. We, we work off of the script that we practice. So it's conversational and then we move on to filming and editing. So when I work with my clients, this is where a cinematographer that is from my network is somebody vetted that is prepared and knows exactly what to do and that I trust is coming to you and filming you for a day according to like a schedule that we've prepared together. And then my team goes and edits your video. But I also teach folks how to do it all on their own with a phone. I say iphone, but Android works as well.

[00:20:08] spk_0: Thank you from all of us Android users. Oh, there we go. I

[00:20:12] spk_1: found one. Can I get your autograph?

[00:20:18] spk_0: Oh, there's more of us than you think, you know, to,

[00:20:21] spk_1: to I get told by Android users that I should switch all the time. So

[00:20:26] spk_0: I just think that, you know, you use the one that works best for you, right? It just frustrates me that everybody thinks that the world revolves around iphone. Well,

[00:20:37] spk_1: I'm not judgmental about that at all.

[00:20:42] spk_0: Oh, so I wanna, I wanna go back to that beginning part about the feelings cause I think sometimes we don't understand what feelings like we want to provoke. Like I've done some, a bit of research and I'm working through a process now where I'm putting out a whole new product line. So I've been working with specialists. So we've been diving into this, this topic and I, I realized that one of the things that, you know, I have to provide this hope because writing and publishing a book is so mon monumental. Like it's huge. It's not a, you know, it's not a one to this, you know, sometimes it's a month, years process, right? And so, you know, we looked at is, is the hope factor is the fact that you can get people to believe that they can do it. You know, one of the, the stories I like to tell, I've got a few, but one of the ones I love to tell, I call it the power of words. And it's how I went from being told at seven years old that I shouldn't write by a teacher to owning a publishing company, right? And, and the hope and the struggle and, you know, all the things I went through just to start writing again, then to start writing books, you know, and then how publishing fell into my lap. Like, and I think when you can identify that, that feeling, I think it makes it so can we, can we dig into that part? Just a little bit more about how, how do we determine, you know, what feeling we want that person to feel when they, when they watch the video?

[00:22:20] spk_1: I think I would reverse that question, Kim. And I would say, what is your audience feeling right before they buy from you? I think, you know, we could, we could sit here all day and talk about how to figure this out on our own. And I think the best way to do it is just talk to your audience and understand them and, and have phone conversations with them or zoom calls with them and really know them like the back of your hand. They are, your business doesn't exist without your customers, without people buying your offer, right? Because otherwise it's a hobby and maybe your mom will hit the like button, you know. So really understanding what it is that the journey that they're going through. I think a lot of self reflection if you've been on that journey yourself is important, but still there still might be parts of your journey that are different than the people you're serving. And so I would just encourage people to talk to as many people as possible. I was actually, I convinced a really, really good friend of mine to create her own digital course around documentary cinematography because she's a brilliant cinematographer has had an amazing career and she could share that knowledge. She's actually, you know, starting a family now and can't go on as many shooting trips and was kind of thinking about this next next chapter of her life. It was like you should be teaching other folks how to film like you do. And the reason I'm saying all this, let me see if I lost my thread again was that she called 50 people. She went on 50 calls in the span of two weeks. That's all she did. They were like hour and a half calls and the insight that she gained the wording, the exact words that people were using, those are ways to connect with people. So when I talk about in your brand video, how to write your script, not just with those emotional touch points of your story, those things that resonate from a feeling perspective, but we know as business owners that copy is very important as well. The actual words that we use are incredibly powerful, incredibly impactful. If you run an online business, for instance, you're not always selling with a spoken word, you're not always selling on video. Like your sales page, copy is incredibly important. We pay thousands of dollars to copywriters so that they can nail it for us. And our product sells itself online, right? And so the idea that you're using the exact words of your audience because you've gotten to know them to me, I think is most important. And I'll just also add because you talked about hope. And I think that's really fascinating that you were able to discover that about the people that you're helping. And I think a lot of it is also confidence as well. So I'd probably add that for most coaches, I think hope, confidence, feeling like they're in good hands. One of the feelings that most people need to feel at the end of brand videos, I'll, I'll give you that one because it applies to most folks is to feel seen and heard, feel like, oh my gosh, this person gets me, they're inside my head when you use the same persons that the same words that the person uses, people will feel like you're inside their head. And how much trust can you like, how can you get more trust than that when you feel like somebody is literally inside your head, obviously, they know you like you can trust them, you know. And so the idea that a brand video builds trust faster is from elements like that that are at play. And the other thing I was going to say was that I kind of my thoughts are kind of going everywhere. Was one other thing which I think is uh uh I think we talked about copy and about uh so resonating emotionally, the exact words that you can use, obviously don't use words that you wouldn't use that feel like foreign to you. But if, if there's alignment there, which comes from knowing your audience, if there's an alignment in how you would express something with how your audience is expressing that thing, like by Golly use those words.

[00:25:58] spk_0: Yeah. And you know, it's funny that you talk about that cause you know, one of the things that we work that RT A publishing works with their clients on is you know, creating these books so that when people read it, they felt understood, you know, the book, the books, books that you know, like we do for our clients solve problems. But one of the biggest things they do is create relationship because the person feels known and and you were so right. If you can get your potential clients to feel like man, you know Marianne is inside my brain like then, then the no trust factor is just like this like it's a snap. It's so easy when you feel that way. Now, like you said, trying to get to that sometimes takes a lot of work and you know, when you talked about talking to your clients, that's, you know, with this new product line, I'm putting out one of the specialists, I'm working with gonna be connecting with some of my clients so that he can get the words that they use. I know some of them because I talk a lot to my clients, right? But he's going to do in depth interviews with them to uh to really understand, to dig deep into, you know, who they are, how they feel the words that they're using. So that when we create this, this one particular product, it's going to have, it's not gonna be a transaction, it's gonna be transformational. They're gonna come out of this process changed for the

[00:27:33] spk_1: better. Those are the best, aren't they? When we're buying something that we feel is really gonna have an impact on our lives, whether it makes our day better or our entire lives better or some part of our lives better or our kids' lives better. You know, those are the things that we not only love to buy but also tell other people about and do the marketing for them and we want other people's lives to be as impacted as ours. And so I think when you're, if you're working on something that, that's, I honestly sometimes I think that every single thing that's sold could have this angle to it. So if the person who is creating even the silliest toy or the silliest gadget is really thinking about how this is going to make the other person life more joyful or easier. Or if that's what's driving you in business, definitely capitalize on that by sharing your values through a brand video or, or whatever other medium you're using right now, if you don't have one, you know, I think that connection as you said, relationship, I love that word. Like, really seeing our customers as people that we are building relationships with, I think just to me that's what I love about business honestly. And, and the kickers that you're making money, great. But, you know, at the end of the day you're connecting with people and, and having a real impact on their lives. Yeah. Couldn't

[00:28:54] spk_0: agree more. Well, Marianna, we are out of time. So I'd love to give you a moment to share one final thought. And if people have enjoyed this video, how can they connect with you?

[00:29:07] spk_1: I think the final thought would be, you know, I get a lot of people who either don't know what story they would tell or they're camera shy. The way to kind of think about that is not only that selling is a service that you're doing, you're really in service of your customers. One kind of straightforward way that I like to think about it sometimes when I don't want to get on camera, although that's been a while now because I've gotten used to it. But the idea that your body is just a vehicle for your message. It's a vehicle, it's a tool for your business and it's a vehicle for your message. And when you're thinking about the service that you're doing other folks, like by not sharing your values by not helping them. But if you know that your product is gonna really impact somebody's life in a positive way. What you're not doing to help accelerate that process is a disservice to your audience. And so if you kind of reverse the thought and just think that like by not having a brand video, by not showing up, by not sharing my story, by not sharing my values, it's going to take longer for my customer, my audience to buy this thing that I know will help them. And so that's my final word of kind of encouragement thinking about this. Don't let being camera shy get in front of, you know, get in your way. Don't let thinking you don't have a story. Everyone has a story like Julia, the podcast teacher who doesn't have a podcast has an amazing story, you know, we found it and it's OK. Sometimes it's not staring at you in the face if you need, I have a quick guide for how to get started on your brand video, how to start thinking about your story and those compelling visuals. It's just on the website brand magnetic dot com and it's the brand video starter guide. It's free and I'm happy to, to answer any questions if you, if folks, folks email me sometimes with a few questions, I'm happy to get back to them. And so that's, that's a great place to start. I'm also on Instagram as brand Magnetic.

[00:31:02] spk_0: That is awesome. Thank you so much Marianna for being on the show today. An audience if you have enjoyed the show, two things. First of all, share it, share it with someone else, you know, that could use this teaching and training today. Second, if you've liked this video and you wanna see more or the, you're listening to the audio. So if you were on youtube right now, watching this video in one of the corners still figuring out which one it's gonna take me a while, but you'll see episode 369 branding for high dollar sales. And if you're listening on your podcast app, you're out to scan back a bit, but it is there episode 369 and you will have another uh view on branding and how to use it to build your business. So this has been Marianna and Kim on the author to Authority podcast. Thank you so much for listening and we'll see you on the very next episode. Bye now. You've been listening to the author to Authority podcast, Extraordinary Kim Thompson and Tinder has helped over 200 entrepreneurs, professionals, speakers and coaches write and publish their books that have become incredible marketing tools for their business. And many of those have gone on to become Amazon best selling authors and have used their books to land high level clients and get on big stages. We hope you've enjoyed the show, make sure to like rate and review and we'll be back soon. But in the meantime, hit the website at www dot author to authority podcast dot com. See you next time.