Listen Up!

Reality TV is booming.  What began as a concept that most people believed would be a passing fad has grown into a national viewing pastime.   From singing and dancing to finding love and racing across the world to relationships among strangers thrust together in one house, reality TV has hit the big time.  Why?  Because reality TV feeds our hunger for a reflection of ourselves; its core purpose is to show real people in real situations. Watching and building relationships with real people like themselves. By the millions, Americans have replaced actors with real people.

Enter YouTube: new technology that gives the general public the ability to not only watch, but to participate. This became the fastest growing online community in history. 20 Million users in 16 months! In 2007 it was estimated that on any given day, 13 hours of videos are uploaded onto YouTube every minute.  There is clearly an intense and global interest in regular people and their unique personalities. People are interested in other real people like themselves.

So what do reality TV and YouTube have to do with successful sales? Perhaps the most significant factor influencing sales is the human factor.  Bob Burg said it best, “All things being equal, people will do business with — and refer business to— those people they know, like and trust.”  Reality TV and YouTube’s success is based on people being able to relate. Relating is the first step in getting to know, like and trust.  See where this is going?

Enter BlendTec. Can you believe a small blender company is a video marketing pioneer?
You can go to YouTube and check out their amazing “Will It Blend” series. And so it begins: YouTube becomes the center of the Video Marketing universe (and it still is).
From loan officers and REALTORS to blender companies and hair salons, every small business you can think of has jumped on the video marketing opportunity.

Not only did YouTube provide a free video hosting platform that was also easy to use, it opened up local small businesses to 100 million potential customers! Ok, so what is the bad news? Well, there is some, as it turns out.  While you are out there being introduced to new potential customers, so is your competition.  When a salesperson uploads a video to YouTube and then sends the link to their database they have also introduced their database to their potential competitors. How?  YouTube includes a valuable, albeit problematic, feature for salespeople called “Related Videos” under which videos with similar content are displayed for people to peruse. Try it yourself. Type in your title like “California Loan Officer” and see how many loan officers are using Video Marketing.

Enter Think Big Work Small (http://www.ThinkBigWorkSmall.com). The light bulb was burning brightly when co-founders Tim Kearns and Frank Garay of Think Big Work Small figured out how to maximize the power of Video Marketing while eliminating all of the problems of working with free public systems like YouTube.

Both Tim and Frank were seasoned mortgage loan professionals and decided to create the first version of their Video Marketing Engine (VME) for the mortgage industry professional. Now released as VME 2.0 Mortgage Edition, the platform is a complete sales system including a database driven sales CRM (customer relationship manager) integrated with a loan officer specific dashboard. Tim Kearns wanted to create a system where “loan officers can live their sales life” by having all the tools they need to generate consistent new referral partners, prospects and clients at their fingertips.

The proof is in the pudding. Just out of BETA, the company is already boasting testimonials from users experiencing immediate success using video marketing, including one loan officer who explains he generated almost $40,000 in commissions in one month thanks to Think Big Work Small’s video marketing system.

You can do more than learn about video marketing, you can get involved! Check out how to try it for yourself at www.ThinkBigWorkSmall.com