Latest / The ROI Online Podcast / [Feature Friday] Ali Hammoud on How to Up Your Sales and Marketing Game with Videos using Vidyard - The ROI Online Podcast Ep. 34

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[Feature Friday] Ali Hammoud on How to Up Your Sales and Marketing Game with Videos using Vidyard - The ROI Online Podcast Ep. 34 · The ROI Online Podcast

• 0:00
  Ali Hammoud: I think there's four main categories to making a good, scrappy, authentic video with high impact, and it's having good lighting. So for yourself, you've got amazing lighting. For me, I'm sitting in my bedroom, not the best lighting could probably be better, but recognizing good lighting, so the person can see you. Number two is camera angle. Now you could easily start doing this, or vice versa, which kind of creates this weird effect, you want to definitely be sitting at a good angle, your background, and your environment plays a major role because it can be really distracting. Or On the flip side, it can be used to your advantage. So for instance, when we were back in the office, it was a group of 1015 of us on the business development team. And sometimes I would catch an eraser to the head. Sometimes I catch a football to the head. But at the end of the day, people love that and I'd make that my thumbnail you can change your thumbnail to like a giffy thumbnail or a static one. And people would be like, Ah, that sucks. You got hit in the head. But yeah, let's be authentic, scrappy. Then the last one is your mic.
• 1:01
  Steve Brown: Hi, everybody. Welcome to the ROI online podcast where we believe you, the courageous entrepreneurs of our day are the invisible heroes of our economy. You not only improve our world with your ideas, your grit and your passion, but you make our world better. I'm Steve Brown. And this is a place where we have great conversations with winners just like you while we laugh and learn together. Welcome back, everybody to the ROI online podcast and today, I'm proud to introduce you to Ali hammoud. Ali is with a company called Vidyard. Ali, welcome to the ROI online podcast.
• 1:48
  Ali Hammoud: It's a pleasure and a long time coming, that's for sure. Yes, following up and seeing how you have such such amazing guests coming on the show is it's great. It's amazing to be a part of it. So I'm happy to be here. I guess as a means of introduction, yes, Allie hammoud here, I am a Partner Manager over at Vidyard started off on the team as a business development representative in the trenches talking about video, making videos, and showing businesses what types of impact this could make on their business as a whole. And you had mentioned that you didn't want to, you know, butcher what we do as an organization. But, you know, as much as I know, you have the expertise in this stuff and use it yourself. It is a scalable, complex solution with organizations that ties into both sales and marketing. So I totally understand it's sometimes even hard for myself to really, you know, nail it on the head as to you know, what type of impact especially for a wide array of an audience and you know, talking to your audience, I know we've got lots of business owners that tap in and are trying to learn best practices and trying to find ways to optimize your business to be in today's day and age and make some great business outcomes. So Yeah, that's awesome.
• 3:01
  Steve Brown: So Ali, you live in New York. Is that right?
• 3:04
  Ali Hammoud: No, you got a completely wrong.
• 3:07
  Steve Brown: California, LA?
• 3:08
  Ali Hammoud: I'm not in California you know where I'm at. I'm at in snowy Canada, just on the outskirts of Toronto, in a small town called Kitchener. But it is the tech hub in Canada. But I appreciate the jokes. That's hilarious. I would love to move to California and the big city in New York is absolutely a dream of mine. But yet out in Canada and proud of it. We don't ride polar bears and maple syrup doesn't come a part of a complete breakfast every morning. But nonetheless, it's Yeah, it's the place to be. You were to Yeah, yeah. Yeah. When it's cold out when it's cold out for sure. It's on all yours, all your thing. So,
• 3:48
  Steve Brown: so here, Ali, you know, as a business owner, there's all these crazy tools out there and here's the thing, email is not going away anytime soon. But when you think about all the emails that come in your inbox every day, you're sitting there and you're quickly scanning those and deciding which ones am I going to do now? And which ones Am I going to push off till later? And the beautiful thing about the tool that you guys have is that we can kind of make the shortlist on that email, scan in the morning or whenever by utilizing video in our emails. Talk to us a little bit about how that works. What are the stats? What are you seeing? What are some great examples?
• 4:38
  Ali Hammoud: Yeah, absolutely. That's um, I love I love how you put that in like a in the sense of like an actual daily interaction that happens with everybody, especially for decision makers that are getting scalped on LinkedIn or getting scalped off of you know, telemarketers and cold calls or even when it comes down to filling up their inbox. Tap into the the sales tool and what that means For a salesperson reaching out to those busy inboxes if you were to look, you know, at a bird's eye view, an inbox you're looking at, I think, from our statistics shows around 120 emails a day to this decision makers inbox. And as salespeople, we keep doing more of the same and, and I want to make this super clear email critical in business, telephones critical in business, but video also critical in business. And so when you look at an inbox when you'd mentioned you know, making that shortlist, the first thing that popped in my hand is too much noise. There's too much noise in my inbox. You know, I got a newsletter coming from this. I subscribed to this and I don't care about it that much. I don't feel like going to unsubscribe. That happens. Also with with emails, I don't know if you've ever received one of these ones, but it'll be like a paragraph long. And you look at it for about seven seconds and then you go, yeah, done. Yeah, doesn't get to the point. It's cold, it's impersonal. And then obviously, you know you're looking for something different, you're looking something eye catching, you're looking for something that's worth your time. Because you know, that isn't the most critical resource on a day to day basis, especially as a decision maker. As me as a salesperson, what I do is I disrupt the pattern. It's like instead of me typing out this five to 10 sentence email that talks to you about who I am, my company, my service offerings and hopes that you're going to really care that day. And what I do is I end up easily in my workflow, simply clicking on a Google Chrome extension that shows little alien logo, the video logo, and then be able to quickly record a 32nd video where you get to see my face, you get to hear my voice, you can feel my personality. And all that information I want to say inside of a text text block can be portrayed within 30 seconds, which still really taps onto the attention span that we have on a day to day basis and then be able to use that in my workflow and send it off Just as quick as it would be for me to pick up a phone and ring somebody just as quick as it would be for me, if not faster to create an email. Well, wait a minute. So yeah,
• 7:08
  Steve Brown: writing that email. Yep. If you're me, first of all, you're concerned about your spelling. You're concerned about your grammar. And then it doesn't take me 3030 seconds to write a six 710 sentence email, it may take me 30 minutes to look at it, review it catch something I overlooked before I send it. And but but I also want to point out on the other end, when the if the person does open it up, and they start to read it, they're deciding whether they want to read that now or later and so all the investment of time that you put in it, and then you send it and then it's happened to me so many times and probably use like Hey, did you get my email? And they go Yeah, but I haven't read it yet. You You're like thinking in your back your head. Do you know how much effort and thought I put into that.
• 8:03
  Ali Hammoud: Yep. Yeah, yeah, you got you got it right on the diet. And that's why I remember when it was crunch time in my past sales roles. Remember the gig, send out more emails, talk to more people. And it wasn't personalized. sending off templates was pretty much a crapshoot at that point. It's like, you know, maybe somebody will reach out to me if they catch on to this. But with this, it's like more effective disrupts a pattern, you got fifth, let's say out of 15 emails I get sent in the beginning of the day, the one pops up and has two sentences that are impactful, that catches a person's attention, that maybe talks about problems that their personas feeling, or taps into something that you know that you know, they thought you saw on their LinkedIn with a thumbnail. And for those who can't see it, I'm holding up a a whiteboard right now with Steve's name on it to create a personalized approach. And the person goes, What is this like, who's sending me this and who are you once they click on it? The best part of this is being able to run friction. So instead of like, for instance, the email coming back in a meet by any grasp saying, Hey, I'm interested in having a meeting, and then going back and forth trying to find a meeting date, you put your calendar right at the end of the video, which is easily a setting inside a video, boom, I have now created a motion where the person received my message in the best possible manner by tapping into the visual and the audio, being able to know who the person is on the other side, created some authenticity, but then also is able to book the meeting faster, which increases your book meetings, which your business outcome is then revenue, you're having more talk more talking time with clients, you're in front of more demonstrations, so on so forth, without getting too in the weeds. My favorite part Steve, and I sorry to cut you off, I love this stuff, but buying intent. It's like, here's here's my favorite thing. So you send it off. The person watches it. How do you know they watched it? Oh, well, we got a solution for you there. As soon as somebody watches it in real time you get them notification That comes to your inbox that says, ABC from ABC Company watched your video to the percent. So somebody can watch 1% somebody can watch 100% somebody can watch it multiple times, so you can figure out buying intent. And just one more funny story. I remember this one guy I sent the video off to and it was an amazing video, I tapped into personalized stuff. I believe he was a part of the same fraternity that I was in. So I reached out to him and I thought maybe that would tap in like I was super excited about this video. 30 seconds long. Did you watch like 20% or less? So I called him right off the bat. And I said to him, like, Do I have the face for radio or something you just know. And he loved it. He thought it was hilarious. And I actually got a meeting out of it. I was a human I was authentic. But nonetheless, I knew what was happening on the back end. So yeah, huge benefit as a salesperson.
• 10:50
  Steve Brown: So you know, even though this is a we're discussing your company Vidyard there are many, many services. That helps you produce videos on the fly. To be very, it's a way to produce interactive content for all sorts of applications. So, you know, the first thing the value I saw was in the email. This quickly resolved me having to take time in write emails, try to get in a quiet place or focus, but I quickly do several videos, then I know if they watched it or not. Most of them do get watched. It's interesting that it's amazing. If you do one of these videos, it's like 90% for me that people watch them.
• 11:41
  Ali Hammoud: Mm hmm.
• 11:42
  Steve Brown: The last one I sent this is funny. The last one I sent. I spent a lot of time on and he didn't watch it. But he sent a reply. And he goes, Hey, Larry, don't worry about it. And I just laughed because Larry's not my name, and I knew I knew he did. Watch it. So as like, you know, it's totally, it my intent was real clear. And there was no buying intent involved there. But it's like now I know not to worry about it. But that was funny, Larry, don't worry about it. And he didn't even watch my video. And it was a great video too.
• 12:17
  Ali Hammoud: Because that's, that's hilarious in this you wouldn't you probably wouldn't spend like an extra, you know, a couple of days or keep them in your cadence and like worry about, oh, I need to make sure I touch you know, get my touch on this individual, you know that maybe it's not the right time for that person. And that's what we're trying to identify. When is timing right for somebody? When does something make more sense for somebody for them to engage with you and potentially make an impact on the business?
• 12:42
  Steve Brown: So if I'm a business person, there are times that we've taken step maybe we've taken stabs at making some YouTube videos or had someone come in and do a real polished video interview about your products or stuff. How can we take advantage have old inventory and utilize it and repurpose it.
• 13:06
  Ali Hammoud: Love that question, what a great question. So the cool thing, and this kind of ties back into our first conversation right at the beginning of the podcast is a full scalable solution. And, and making impacts on multiple facets of the business, including marketing and sales. Now, as a sales individual, you have somebody, you might have a wide array of videos that you don't even have access to, they might be sitting inside of the company's YouTube channel, marketing might have them on their desktop and mp4 format. And you don't even know who the guy in marketing is because you've never had to meet him so you're not going to go and ask them for it. It's become a critical part in the purchasing decision in the purchasing process for buyers. So you got to find a way to utilize them. So Vidyard what we enable salespeople to do and marketing individuals to help sales people with is to consolidate these videos into the platform that resides within our menus. integrations like Gmail, like outlook. So it's very simple for you to access through just one click of a button, those marketing videos to start using them and distributing them in your sales cycle. Now, being able to organize these into a folder from polished videos to account based marketing videos, to about us videos, demo videos, being able to easily access them has created workflows and efficiencies for sales people that haven't been identified before. Neither have they even been uncovered. People didn't understand that video used to be on an island of its own people were like, yo, let's spend $100,000 to make these funny great, amazing videos or well polished explained videos. Let's throw them on YouTube and let's hope for the best but you know, we're trying to take the guesswork out of that. We're trying to put these videos to action so you can justify return of investment on
• 14:53
  Steve Brown: So, you know, let's let's talk about there probably several stages that you But what would be like the first maybe five steps that I would take to just corral all these videos and start to look at these, these things that we've already invested in and spent some time with and starting to figure out how to quickly get a win, and just a matter of 10 or 15 days.
• 15:20
  Ali Hammoud: Personally, if I was a business owner, and I was just starting, I probably reach out to you To be honest, just because I swear I swear, just with the Quickstart program that we were discussing, you know, weeks ago, and just how you guys are developing a way to you know, audit and take a look at videos as a whole to get the ball rolling. I think like that's the best way if you know nothing about video. If you know lots about video, if you know the usages. You know the best lengths, you know the best practices and you've been using it as actively as let's say you have then what I would suggest the first thing to do would be is to say where does video fit in my grand scheme of things. Now when it comes down to my sales process, all the way from prospecting down to Post sale? Where does video fit? And where does it make sense in my marketing schematics? Like, if I have these videos on my websites, and they're critical, impactful pieces of content, am I driving people to the next step of the customer journey in my hosting it in something that's built for business? Am I identifying who these people are? So I think really questioning your status quo, taking a look at what you're currently doing, and looking at video as not something that's completely irregular but more so as a critical means of communicating in business today. And seeing where it could fit and seeking advice. Reach out to me reach out to Steve will tell you exactly what to do.
• 16:37
  Steve Brown: You know when you think back in the day when I would say video or when here video I pictured having to sit down in front of a couple of cameras, someone holding a mic boon over these lights and having this polished script and and all this stuff. But the video really that is impactful in a quick When for business is not that is it?
• 17:04
  Ali Hammoud: It's not. And this is so this is a little of an embarrassing story for me, but I'm gonna say it nonetheless. When I first started, I knew what I was getting into. It's a video company. I know what we do. You know, it's a software that's made for creating these scrappy, authentic videos and being able to just be yourself and use them as a means of communicating. I'll tell you my first videos that I made the first week. My old boss Her name was Ellen, amazing, amazing woman, she, she helped me out and gave me provide me feedback. But this is what my first video looked like. And for those that can't see, I'm completely slouched in my chair. You can see the top of my head. I had my pen up like this. And my voice was low. my mic was all crappy, it wasn't centered. And I was moving my chair. I'm like, I'm like Ellen Allen. I made the best video like you should hear what I said. Like I'm surprised as the first time and and she like, she gave me the ground rules. She's like, Listen, there are best practices. I love the fact that Like you were excited and like you were you were talking and you had something to say. But all we really had to do was just stiffen up my back a bit in front of my laptop, and put the stuff down in my hand and just be clear and concise. And you'd be surprised. I think there's four main categories to making a good, scrappy, authentic video with high impact, and it's having good lighting. So for yourself, you got amazing lighting. For me sitting in my bedroom, not the best lighting could probably be better, but recognizing good lighting, so the person can see you. Number two is camera angle, you know, you could easily start doing this, or vice versa, which kind of creates this weird effect, you want to definitely be sitting at a good angle, your background and your environment plays a major role because it can be either really distracting, or On the flip side, it can be used to your advantage. So for instance, when we were back in the office, there's a group of 1015 of us on the business development team. And sometimes I would catch an eraser to the head. Sometimes I catch a football to the head But at the end of the day, people love that. And I'd make that my thumbnail, you can change your thumbnail to like a giffy thumbnail or a static one. And people would be like, Ah, that sucks. You got hit in the head. But yeah, let's meet authentic, scrappy. And then the last one is your mic. You have an amazing mic. my mic is pretty decent. And really all it takes is those in your headphones, like maybe maybe the apple ones or something like that, just so someone can hear your voice. And you can enunciate and it's recognizable. That's all you need. That's it.
• 19:29
  Steve Brown: I want to pause here just for a moment and talk to you about a program that we have just released called the ROI quickstart Academy for authors. Every day. I talk to business owners just like you who struggle with quickly getting their fundamentals in place. We want to create a great foundation and we want to grow our business but the things that are in our way, our lack of knowledge about the specifics we should put in place, what kind of technology what kind of messaging and what Have campaigns. And that problem exists for authors as well. And we just chill so good with authors because, well, I'm an author, and I understand everything that you struggle with. You have a great idea you have a great book. But what do you want to do? You want to get your book in front of more people, you want to make it easy for them to find you learn how they can schedule a time to talk with you hire you for a conference, or maybe sign up for the services that your book promotes. So what is the Quickstart Academy for authors? Imagine working with a small group of like minded authors, and the experts from the ROI quickstart team. It's a great way to get your messaging clear to be confident with the technology in your marketing automation, and how to run a strategic campaign to get you more of what you want from the investment of your book. To learn more about the Quickstart Academy for authors, you can visit ROI online. dot com or click in the link in the show notes below. And now, back to this episode. So are there I remember, a couple years back, we decided to go what we call video first. And so we used to all be in the same office and then some of us started to work remotely. And that was that but we'd get on a conference call. But when no video you could hear the voice but you couldn't see the person. And there was I remember there's this point we decided look, let's just you'll always have to have your video on when you get on the zoom call, or it was Google meat back then whatever. And that was like this big hurdle we had to get over it was this change and it seemed like there was this resistance. Oh, I gotta comb my hair and put on some makeup and I didn't need much makeup but but just getting the to adopt that was huge. But now, it doing this just like you talked about you illustrated how it takes a little bit of a learning curve to get used to this and actually do it first. And your language right now you're talking video first, just totally. You were recording a podcast, but we do have a video layer going on that will be on YouTube and on on our Vidyard account in our website as well. But that's cool. But there is this change that your team has to adopt and someone has to lead and who do you think is the best person to lead the change in an organization?
• 22:40
  Ali Hammoud: Wow, that's a great question. I think with every question has key people on their team that are willing to drive new change in new initiatives. Like for instance, you know, I've seen from the top down, this be introduced where the top is, you know, a sales manager and the sales manager says They're salespeople videos all day, and saying reply back reply back until they get used to it. And they're like, this is actually kind of fun. Why wouldn't my customers want to do this? Or sometimes you can read idea
• 24:42
  Steve Brown: So what are some of like the worst Excuses, excuses you've heard on why they shouldn't do it? Why why they shouldn't do this the worst lame excuses you've heard.
• 24:58
  Ali Hammoud: the worst one and I felt really Bad after I heard it was my reps are too ugly. And I'm just like, come on, you got to be joking here, your reps can't be that bad. Another one I had as well, which I never sees an excuse. And I always see this as is like, I see more of as an opportunity. But I had one person say, hey, all my salespeople, they're 3030 years old. Plus, they're 40 years old. Plus, they've been calling an email, they're doing just fine. They're too old to use video. Or they said they're too shy to use video. And in my head, I'm just like, so you're telling me these people that have been in sales for years and years on end, that can walk up to a like a million dollar deal and sit down on a table in front of a CEO and pitch something, can't sit behind their desk and record themselves doing the exact same thing without the pressures of having the other person in front of you. And when you say that they you put it into perspective that it's, you know, it's something that you battle internally, but I think it takes about a week, I think a week and then you're like, well, this is habit now. And We, we really simply put this in your workflow with all of our integration. So this isn't like out of the box or doing a detour. This is as simple as writing an email. The same place where you write an email is the same place where you're going to click a button to create a video. We have we couldn't be easier is easier than email totally.
• 26:21
  Steve Brown: Yeah, what? We've made templated videos. So you have a text aspect of that email that everyone knows you can do premade templates. When you go click the person's name, then you go click the template, it puts dear Sally, and then that text Everyone knows that. Yep, but then then like, Oh my gosh, we're able to put in colorized PDFs in there. That's cool. And a nice little unique signature on there. But now we have this video. That's not just a static video. It's you waving at them. You know, it's got motion in it on top of that, and it's just really creative. And what's cool is I don't if I get 150 emails a day, that's a light day and guess how many of those are video emails? Maybe your own
• 27:16
  Ali Hammoud: does maybe mine me sending you an email?
• 27:19
  Steve Brown: Yeah,
• 27:46
  Ali Hammoud: yeah, this You got me You got me inspired on like another purpose of using of using video because we've been talking a lot about prospecting and sales. And you know in sales, it doesn't end after you have your first conversation when it ends is when the money's in the bank. And you know, the deals closed and the customers happy, they got what they needed. Now, in order to get to that point, you know, what I've noticed is nowadays there are so many decision makers and the determining factor of you know, approving a deal, or approving something new within the organization. And usually, let's say you have two stakeholders, you have a business development rep and let's say an account executive who do all the back end closing and everything when they have that initial meeting, or let's say, it's like the third step, and you've spoken to multiple stakeholders, and it's decision time, after those videos, or after those video calls or meetings in person, what happens is there's a lot of information that just sits within your head, there's a lot of information that you try to basically send them off in a summary or a follow up so that they can transfer that information within their organization to make a solid decision. Now, imagine being able to summarize the meeting you just had To the key functionalities and points that you want it to that they found important for their business. And say, feel free to send this to everybody in your organization needs to make the decision. Now, not only does that become a more effective means of communicating where the person retains up to 72% more of that information compared to the 20th percentile for text, but also you're able to track who's watched it. So a week from now, instead of you just checking in and saying, Hey, have you sent those out yet? You can say, Hey, I noticed you're the only person who re watched it. Do you want me to reach out to them personally? Like, are you busy? Like, or maybe it didn't make sense? Did you want me to reword that video. So now you're adding value and you're shortening your deal cycles. But yeah, sorry, I had to go off on that tangent.
• 29:46
  Steve Brown: So I was thinking, where I was going next was we have onboarding emails. Were Welcome to the family. Here's what to expect. Next. Here's how we're going to go to the next steps. Are proposals. They have video components and the proposals as well. There's, there's just all these other great uses. Like for my book on our resources page now we've got a video of me talking through our growth stack. There's this is just stuff you can sit down and just knock out in just minutes. And you're not needing to like go to a studio or planet through our it's just, it's just capturing the thoughts in your head on what to expect next for what it's a great tool.
• 30:39
  Ali Hammoud: For sure. Um, yeah, it's it's interesting stuff and even for for those who have already invested heavily into video, I feel like on the marketing end of things, to be able to host the videos that you've created and invested all your money into, but now starting to be able to see the impact Have those videos such as identifying somebody who comes to you So, let's say you have a video, okay? And it's just as wonderful explainer video, and it sits within YouTube, YouTube's a wonderful free hosting tool. But the amount of times that I've clicked on a video and ended up on cat fail videos, or, you know, watching random music videos or something is uncanny. So to have those sitting inside of a player on your website, that enables you to identify who the person is, in turn those views into actual names is a huge, huge incentive for marketers to say, hey, sales, guess what I got, you know, let's say out of those 500 people, I got you 50 people who watch this video 100% or multiple times, you got to reach out to these people and you got to talk to them about ABC. That's just like, it's just such a like uncovering the power of utilizing your videos is so far off from being mainstream, and I just can't wait till everybody's using it to its full extent
• 31:59
  Steve Brown: true. So what's the most creative application that you've ever seen someone do with just a simple Vidyard video?
• 32:07
  Ali Hammoud: Oh, I love this one. I always use this example. Anyone who knows me though, will say, Oh, he was going to talk about the Buffalo Wild Wings story again. So we had this, we had this one individual who worked for a tech company. And so he was doing account based marketing, I believe it was for Buffalo Wild Wings. And he was trying to get a hold of them and nothing was working. So he's like, you know what, I'm going to Buffalo Wild Wings at lunch, I'm gonna go have lunch. So he went there. And he bought the hottest wing possible. And he brought one back to the office, and you click the Record button, and he pitched his software and introduced himself while eating the hottest wing. And he noticed that that was circulated across the entire company. And it's just like, just that one thing gotten recognized and inherently that meeting. He's been trying forever but all it took was that sacrifice of eating this basest wing and being entertaining that really pushed them across the line. So I love that. For me also being using your environment is super underrated. A lot of people think it's like as simple as personalizing, let's say a whiteboard, or you know, going hovering over their LinkedIn with our screenshare capabilities. But sometimes using your environment captivates people because it's like the curiosity of what's what's happening in the background. Remember, there was one video Jacob Fernandez is our video coach. And it actually I saw like the thumbnail, like what is happening in this video, he was eating a doughnut, and I forgot what the person behind him was doing. But they're either breaking something or they're, and it was just so irregular, that if I got that on my email, I'm not it's a tipping point of me not clicking because I'm like, What is this? But again, curiosity killed the cat. I clicked on it and it was a prospecting Video Example. So it's, yeah, it's it's really up to your imagination. You got to tap into either entertainment. empathy, or you know, anything that's realistically going to make someone feel something beyond just your voice on a call, or just reading a text where you probably won't really care that much.
• 34:12
  Steve Brown: So do you think that someone from Texas can use this?
• 34:17
  Ali Hammoud: from Texas?
• 34:18
  Steve Brown: Yeah. Do you? Are someone from Florida you have to be from like Canada, you have to be.
• 34:28
  Ali Hammoud: Yeah, you know what, honestly, there is no discrimination. This is for everybody. Even Canadian folks like me, we love our video.
• 34:36
  Steve Brown: So as far as international application, yep. So is this more of a North American type product, or do you see it used internationally? How does that work?
• 34:51
  Ali Hammoud: Yeah, it's, it's interesting because we have a free tool on our website. And it's also it's in your Google Chrome if you want to go to the App Store and We have over 2 million for users. And it can be a student creating a video for his teacher as to why he didn't do his homework and sending it off, you know, to his teacher. So weird off use cases where one person downloads it, because they have this one use case. Yeah. Or it could be somebody who is a avid user that lives in Timbuktu that, you know, again, use cases are endless, and usage is endless, because, and this brings me back to my point, this is a means of communicating. This is nothing more than communication. So just like some, and that's, that's where this is going. It's going to, there's phone, there's email, there's video. And that's just how we communicate as humans, especially with a globalized world where you know, your customers might be in. Like for myself, I have tons of partners that live in the UK, and Australia and New Zealand, and you know, our times are off. So for me, like if I want to meet with them, and I have a lot of important things to tell them. I'll make an asynchronous video 15 minutes long and I'll send it to them. And whenever they wake up and they're ready to watch it, they watch it. We don't have to make a zoom call. And you know, find a time at 9pm for me and ADM for them, whatever it is. So it's yes for everybody everywhere.
• 36:17
  Steve Brown: Is there one country that use it more than any other country like for example, in in podcast stats, obviously in North America is like really high on podcast, but other countries are low?
• 36:27
  Ali Hammoud: That's a great question. I'd say mass majority of our clients or customers and our users reside within North America. So yeah, I'm in those regions. Canada, US biggest.
• 36:43
  Steve Brown: So when, when you were getting to learn this tool, you started working for Vidyard? What was the one stat that was unexpected, but very convincing to you that this was a very important tool to look at not not in the world. I'm just Vidyard. But in video, utilizing video for communication,
• 37:06
  Ali Hammoud: for sure the I feel like the most, like mind blowing stat for me which at first I was critical about but then I'll tell you exactly why I changed my mind. So it's that 90% of buyers engaged with at least one video before they make a purchasing decision. Because I told myself I'm like, Well, if you're gonna determine purchasing decision going to McDonald's, I don't watch a video before I go to McDonald's, or you know what I mean? So I start getting skeptical, but then I had this epiphany the other day, so I never, I never indulged in like in buying myself really, really nice things. I'm happy. I'm a simple guy. I told myself this summer I'm buying a beautiful bike. And, and I did, and after I purchased it, especially through COVID, and everything that's happening right now where you can't just walk into a store and try on a bike. I actually watched a ton of videos about that bike, and I didn't I didn't read much about the specs and maybe looked at like the size of it and stuff, but I wanted to see someone writing it. I want to see somebody talking about it. I want to see someone pressing on the shocks, and all of that influenced by purchasing decision. So I was thinking I'm like, the same people who buy bikes, the same people who buy shoes, the same people who buy McDonald's are the same people that are buying high level enterprise software's or buying bulldozers are everything. buyer is a buyer. So it made lots of sense to me.
• 38:30
  Steve Brown: So right, so this has been a really good conversation. I mean, join it, Ollie. So well, I have one more good question for you. I think it's a good question. But tell everyone how they can get a hold of you or connect with you first.
• 38:46
  Ali Hammoud: Send me a video. That's it. Boom. Honestly, it's, you know what, and reach out to Steve, or reach out to me. You can add me on LinkedIn if you'd like Ali Hammoud have vidyard or talk Steve, if you want an introduction as well, I'm more than happy to have conversation. But I do urge you, if you send me a video, I will be all over you. And I'll give you all the information you need. And and I'll spend some time giving you best practices. If you send me an email or to call great, I'm happy but if you send me a video, boom, you got my heart.
• 39:18
  Steve Brown: That's ali.hammoud@vidyard.com.
• 39:21
  Ali Hammoud: That's my email. You got it on LinkedIn. It's on my LinkedIn. It's just a l i h a m m o u d or search up Vidyard and search up for Ali like Muhammad Ali and done. And that's it.
• 39:37
  Steve Brown: Alright, perfect. So what's the one question that I should have asked you about all of this, but then
• 39:47
  Ali Hammoud: that's a good question. putting me on the spot here with this last one. I thought I thought you would have caught me with a really good question before but this is a hard one. I've To be honest, Steve, I think you tapped into all the critical foundational theories. And questions as to why video and how to do it easily. So I think I think you asked me all the right all the right questions, man, that's but if you ever want me to send you my first embarrassing video from video that I'd mentioned to you, I'll do that in private and also I'll show you that.
• 40:17
  Steve Brown: So let's do that as a bonus if you guys reach out to ollie via email with a video, he'll send you his first embarrassing video I love that I love as a, an incentive.
• 40:29
  Ali Hammoud: I love that that sounds amazing. I'm you know, I'm all for that. Let's do it.
• 40:35
  Steve Brown: While he thanks for being on the ROI online podcast and helping us understand more about video and why it's a big advantage.
• 40:44
  Ali Hammoud: Anytime, Steve, you know, you're a friend of ours and we'll take care of you whenever we can. I want to encourage everyone to go and buy the golden toilet awesome book and take a look at the Simon Cowell effect inside that book and try to put it in terms of video makes a lot of Got a good sense? Yeah, thank you so much for having me on the podcast Steve.
• 41:04
  Steve Brown: Thanks, Ali, thanks for being on the ROI online podcast and that wraps for listening to another fun episode of the ROI online podcast. For more, be sure to check out the show notes of this episode. And feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn where we can chat, and I can help direct you to the resources you're searching for. To learn more about how you can grow your business better, be sure to pick up your copy of my book, The Golden toilet at surprise, that golden toilet.com I'm Steve Brown, and we'll see you next week on another fun episode of the ROI online podcast.