706 – The Simple Guide to Video Scripts That Convert With Patrick Kenney

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Patrick Kenney

In the podcast:

00:55 – An event to remember
04:26 – Meeting James in person
07:37 – When a membership is like a supermarket
09:58 – A calming methodicalness
14:11 – Just what it is Patrick does
16:44 – Videos are the way to go
21:00 – Brain filing and Copy Chief
24:37 – A walk through the script-writing process
27:18 – Interest-based versus desire-based
30:20 – The 5.3 video-building method
33:38 – Some simple script formulas to go by
40:12 – The edge that video gives
46:03 – What’s got Patrick most excited

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Transcription:

James: James Schramko here. Welcome back to SuperFastBusiness. This is Episode 706. We’ll be talking about a few things in particular – writing, script-writing, and maybe running some ads. And for that I brought along Patrick Kenney from GetYouBooked.com. Hello, Patrick.

Patrick: Well, good evening. How are you, James?

James: I’m good.

Patrick: Or good morning.

An event to remember

James: Well, yes, it is. In both cases. Morning for me, evening for you. We caught up at Kevin Rogers’ Copy Chief Live, number three. I’ve got the T-shirt to prove it. This was a great event. What do you think of the event?

Patrick: I thought it was fantastic. I’ve been to several events, as I know you have, and it’s funny – I’m wearing my Nobody Writes Alone shirt as well. And I was talking with some of the other attendees afterwards, and it was kind of serendipitous how the whole tone – it was not orchestrated this way, but the tone of everything was being authentic, be yourself, be simple, if I were to sum up the whole event. And I just think, business in general, the stuff that we do, just needs a lot of simplicity, a lot of authenticity. You know, the launches and the crazy, perfect webinars and stuff just don’t work like they used to. I mean, I don’t want to stroke any egos, but I want to be authentic in saying it was the best event I’ve ever been to. And I’ve been to quite a few.

James: I thought it was a terrific event. I was especially intrigued about this event, because I’ve been working with Kevin for quite some time, like half a decade. And the event was modeled from SuperFastBusiness Live, which is the event I run in Sydney each year. And to see how it took on its own personality…. So, some of the structure was familiar to me, some of the concepts. I’m definitely involved in the lead up to it and post-event analysis.

But Kevin is authentic, and that’s the thing I remember. He asked me once, you know, what do I do about the fact that I’m funny? You know, the comedy stuff – do I have to put that in a box? Do I treat it separately? Do I mention it, even to my copywriter? I said, Kevin, just be Kevin. Be Kevin. Kevin is funny.

Patrick: Yeah.

James: Kevin likes music. We had Kevin’s whole family up there performing for us. It was extremely good. And I enjoyed catching up with some fantastic friends that I see in the United States when I visit, like John Carlton, in particular, and Dean Jackson, and just continuing the conversation I’ve been having for many years. It was a really great event. Kevin’s great. I would recommend anyone interested in copy would definitely go, because it’s most definitely the foremost event in that industry.

I really enjoyed being in an event with copywriters. It was a different crowd than what you’ll see at other events. There was a few people quite well-dressed, because I think they were kind of in job interview mode. They’re generally creative and often a little reserved in terms of their demeanor. So there’s a lot of intelligent conversations happening quietly, all around. And, of course, the characters that come in – I’ve bumped into so many people there, such as you, Patrick, who say, Hey, I’m in SuperFastBusiness. It’s great to meet you. Like, I do try and travel, and it’s quite a long way to go for me, but it was worth it. And to see the contact, and to have those connections face to face, you can’t do that over Skype. In fact, we had trouble even connecting on Skype today.

Patrick: We did.

Yeah, it’s so important. I mean, It’s funny, I was just writing down some notes from what you were saying before. And Kevin likes leather pants. That’s what comes to mind.

James: He loves leather pants, so he gets to wear them. And somehow past that offers performance. But I say, heck, just wear leather pants. I don’t know if they go with his little cap thing that he wears. But why not? Who’s to say he even wears pants on his live shows, etc.? I guess that’s for us to – he’s probably in leather, when you think about it.

Patrick: Well, thankfully, he’s only from, like, the torso up when we see him on video. So now I won’t be able to unthink about that.

Meeting James in person

It’s funny you mentioned being at the event and just meeting people. And you were actually, you were instrumental in me deciding to go. I was kind of on the fence with, like, Well, you know, I’m more of a tech guy than I am a copywriter. I really enjoy the copywriting. But when I saw that you were going to speak, and let me back this up real quick – the best event I’ve ever been to see, I have not yet been to SuperFastBusiness, so you have an opportunity to dethrone Kevin on the conference side of that, but it is a long way, so I could take a two-hour flight south and meet you and all this stuff, or, you know, 20 hours. So I hedged my bets on that. But it was a great event. It was nice meeting you in person for the first time ever. And it was funny, I was sitting there in the lounge and you came down and I didn’t want to jump and be like, Hey dude, remember me? I’ve been on your SuperFastBusiness two years. And you were like, I said, “Hey, James!” You were like, “I’m going to get a little brekkie.” I’m like, Okay, man, I’ll see you when you’re out of your jet lag.

James: Well, you know, I hope I wasn’t rude, but I definitely, you got to plan your travel when you take that sort of distance. So I’d actually gone from Sydney to the Philippines. And then from the Philippines, after a week, I left there, I went from Manila to San Francisco. And that’s 14 hours. And then from San Francisco, I had a little bit of a wait and then I went and did the red eye special overnight to Florida, and I arrived first thing in the morning. And I went straight out to Dean Jackson’s house. And then I tried to stay awake until about six, and then I slept for about 14 hours. And then woke up, felt pretty good the next day, and went to the conference. And I was in a really good timezone for the whole week, and then I managed my trip back. But I have to manage the sleep and the food to get things working so that I can maximize the event.

I’m glad we did get to catch up. And we thought it’d be a terrific idea to podcast, because you told me there were some things along your journey that were useful and might be instructive for other SuperFastBusiness members or people in our community. Because the way you’ve used the resource there, asking me some questions, some of the answers I gave you might also be helpful for other people. And I can see you’ve really found your groove, and I love it. I even like the privacy policy on your site, says it’s a lot like Rick Astley – I’ll never give you up, never let you down. Very good. That made me smile, which, you know, it’s hard to do from a privacy policy.

Patrick: Well, I appreciate that. Hopefully Dan Kennedy’s proud of that. I got that from him talking about taking the mundane and trying to have it do things in fun. So with that, it’s like, well, if somebody needs to read my privacy policy, I want them to smile like you did. And I’ll tell you, James, if you actually click on the link, there’s the link to the privacy policy, but the other easter egg will take you to a rickroll video on YouTube. So that’s for your enjoyment, as well.

But yeah, the SuperFastBusiness bit, I mean it’s, we were talking about this before, and I just wanted to thank you at the conference for all that you’ve done in this. And it’s taken me a while, admittedly, because I’m very, I come from a computer science background, and so I’m naturally analytical. I want to look at things and I’m going to go in and fix things, but I have to look at how that’s going to affect systems, you know, four or five, six, 10, 12 circuits or systems down the road. And admittedly, I got into, you know, and Kevin talks about this as well, paralysis by analysis.

When a membership is like a supermarket

But by just staying in it and just engaging you in the conversation, I mean, I remember putting these huge paragraphs and this is where I am, this is what I’m going to do, and I’d get a one-sentence response. And that’s all I needed. Like, Okay, I’m going to go do that. And then I would do that. And then I was like, Okay, I didn’t like that. What should I do now? And then you say, Okay, here are two things to do. Go do that. Okay. What was the result of that? I kind of liked that; I didn’t like this. Great. Do more of the thing you liked. So it was very binary, but for anybody that’s listening to this, that’s kind of going into SuperFastBusiness and maybe looking at, and I think you mentioned to me it’s like the Netflix of what you should be doing in business marketing in life. Or maybe I said that. Maybe you said Netflix on one of your podcasts.

James: I definitely don’t say it, so I’ll let someone else take credit for that. I definitely would say it’s like a supermarket.

Patrick: There you go.

James: That’s the easy way for me to think of it. And that comes up because, you know, I’m so involved with membership owners. I mean, we built Copy Chief, for example. And a membership gets to a point where you have quite a lot of content. And you have to make a decision, whether you’re selling courses, or a membership, or both, as John Warrillow calls that being half pregnant.

And I’m in the situation where I’ve got a lot of content. I’ve created 72 trainings in a row over the last 72 months. Not to mention, I’ve put in the event recordings from all of my events, and there’s a couple of hundred thousand posts from members. So there’s a lot of stuff. But then when I go down to the local supermarket, which I do on a weekly basis, there’s a lot of stuff in a supermarket. Far more than I’m going to take home in the trunk (said that for your benefit) of my vehicle. Because we’d say “boot” here. I’m only going to take a few shopping bags, right? I get in, I get what I need, and I get out. And that’s what people should do with SuperFastBusiness. But the thing is, you know, there’s nothing worse than going to the store and you want something, they don’t have it.

Patrick: Right.

James: So I’ve got most things now. I’ve collected most things people need, everything from how to sell your membership on autopilot, through to how to recruit your next team member, and so on. So like, how to make little daily social videos that can make 30 grand a month, which is what’s been happening to me. Like, all these classic trainings have been stacking up. So yes, I would have said it’s like a supermarket. Get your shopping cart, tell me what you need. Or even if you don’t know what you need, you might say, I’m hungry. I’ll say, what do you like? Italian? Mexican? Soup? You tell me something, I say, right. We need this, this, this and this. Now check out.

A calming methodicalness

And I know it’s counterintuitive to have short responses to long form answers, but gosh, it’s so common. I get big, long paragraphs or short stories as the first post, very common. Because people are just unloading. They are sitting there in an utter state of chaos and overwhelm. So what I do is provide clarity. And they are tense and wound up, so I make them calm. They’re struggling for time and money and scrapping for authority in the market, so I’ll fix those things as well. But it’s usually just a logical process of diagnostic fixing, probably much like the mechanics there in the workshop where someone brings a car and it’s not right. They don’t always know the problem. So they have to diagnostically test – do this, do that, do this, do that. And eventually, you can find the faulty part and replace it.

Patrick: It’s very methodical, and that’s exactly how you are.

James: I am methodical.

Patrick: When I look back at the two years of conversation, you’ve been very methodical and you know, to circle back to what would I say to anyone in SuperFastBusiness or looking at joining, how to get the most out of it. And you’re going to look at the buffet or you’re going to go in the grocery store and go, Wow, look at all these options, but to engage you, and you give, Okay, what do you want to do? Great, try this. So it’s kind of like you go into a restaurant, you ask the maitre d, what’s great on the menu? You’re going to take their recommendation. And that’s what you are.

You know, I took some time writing down why I’m in the position that I’m in now where I’m having success where I wasn’t two years ago, and you distill things down into very binary, get customers, take care of customers, create content. But for me, I had to go Okay, well, why do I want that? Like, how do I associate the content and how I’m going to go in? Why am I looking at this content? Why am I applying this? And it came down to, you know, three things, kind of like you gave us in the conference. Get customers, take care of customers, create content. What I needed, not wanted, but what I needed, was someone or some people to keep pace with. So peers that I keep accountable with that are kind of at my level. I need someone to look up to, which that would be you and Kevin, because you’re further down the road than I am. Like, you’re where I want to be. So it would make sense for me to look up to where you all are. And then I need something or someone to chase, who’s where I am, who’s keeping pace faster than I can, that motivates me to run after that.

James: Yeah, that’s really interesting.

Patrick: Does it make sense?

James: It does. And as you say that, I reflect on, isn’t it interesting that someone who surfs every day is someone that could be looked up to versus if you went back five or 10 years. Most people are seeking out a workaholic as their role model. The workaholic’s got the role model space, but I think that is changing.

Patrick: It is.

James: There is a shift. I saw the foreword Ezra wrote for Molly’s new book, Molly Pittman‘s new book, and he was talking about less hustle and less grind, that not being the goal. It’s great to see that from, you know, one of my most enduring students. And I think people are recognizing there’s more to it than just working every second of your life. And it’s much easier to work a lot when you feel like you have no choice, right? Which is a lot of us and I’ll put myself in that bucket, if you go back to 2005 or six. I really felt like I didn’t have much of a choice but to grind it out, day job plus doing my online business at night, until I realized I didn’t need to do it because I got a better business model, I got better at the things I was doing. I really did the 80/20 on the 80/20, that’s 64/4, and really started to get deep in the leverage. I’ve got the leverage.

Now what I do when people come to me is I try and find out where they’re at, and I move them as quickly as possible to what they want. And I have found a strong association between what people want to them being able to get it, if they really, really want it. That applies to kids and animals as well.

Patrick: I agree.

James: If they want something, they’re going to get it. If they don’t want it, you have a really tough time helping them get it. You know, everything could be lined up and they won’t do it because they just don’t want it.

Patrick: Or they say they do, but they don’t really want it.

James: Yeah. And I think they say they want to make $10 million a year. They say they want a fast car and a big house, but don’t really deep down. They’re not prepared to roll up the sleeves and do what it takes to get it.

Just what it is Patrick does

Now just for the sake of the benefit of you, Patrick, it probably is worth explaining what you actually do, who you’re helping, what you’re doing these days, because that would be a nice thing to share with people, because they’re probably very curious by this stage, 15 minutes in.

Patrick: Well, I can talk all day about the stuff you’ve helped me with.

James: I don’t do the whole, you know, start with when you were on the park bench.

Patrick, Well, no, I was going to say I could talk all day about the stuff you’ve helped me with.

James: I could listen to that all day long. But it’s good to know, like, what you’re actually doing. Just a snapshot of Patrick Kenney moving through space time continuum. Like, where are you at at this point?

Patrick: So my official title is YouTube ads specialist and direct response video script writer. And I say that because it feels really surreal after going through, you know, years of trying to figure out what I’m meant for. I wake up in the morning excited about what I do, and I’m really happy to say that I’m a YouTube ads specialist and direct response video script writer.

And what I do for business is, I come in and I show them the power of the YouTube ads platform related to what their offer is. And you’d be proud to hear that a lot of times they have weak offers. So I will go into about an eight-week engagement with a business right now. And I charge a set fee for that, thanks to yours and Kevin’s guidance. And I’ll go in and I’ll evaluate their offers, help them actually create their customer journey before we even write a single word of their video script. And sometimes this can take five or six weeks. And when we go to create the video, it’s already a powerful offer that we’re testing $100 at a time. That’s a little tactical, I can tell you a bit about that. But I go and create this journey for them. We do some tests with their existing list, because I don’t work with new businesses, so everyone has a list. And we get their customer feedback, which is another simple thing that businesses don’t do. And then we take that feedback and then we test offers, and the one that hits or the ones we think are hitting, I’ll write a video script for them on YouTube, and then we’ll test that and then we’ll just iterate and iterate until we have this juggernaut of a YouTube ads campaign for them.

James: That sounds amazing.

Patrick: And that, in a nutshell, is what I do.

James: You know, I actually, of all the presentations at Copy Chief Live, they were stellar. We had, like, heavy hitters Todd Herman, Laura Belgray. They were amazing. Laura’s so funny as well, and she writes great emails. Todd’s story is great as well. The one I found the most interesting for me was Johnny Vance. Did you see that presentation?

Patrick: I did. Yeah. I talked to him for a bit after that.

Videos are the way to go

James: Vance. What a cool name, too. Like, not just because he had a cool name. But because they were talking about successful videos, and I imagine that would have really lit you up, that stuff where they are talking about prototyping, the massive differences they got based on who they were targeting, whether it was men or everyone. And sometimes specialization doesn’t pay, which is really the outcome we got from that test. And they prototype it with a laugh track and they video people, and they score them points for a laugh or like, a belly laugh versus a smile versus no reaction. And then they edit the video until it’s all points, and it was reflected accurately across the scaled ad spend. I thought it was an absolutely fascinating presentation.

And I can see Kevin uses lots of good, funny videos in his advertising. And I think it’s a part of my future. I’m not funny, but I can probably get help from people like you and others. And I actually had some help already from Tom Breeze wrote a script for me for my book, which I then filmed and gave to his team and they produced and and I gave it to Ilana Wechsler, who’s my friend with TeachTraffic.com, and she’s running the ad on YouTube for me. So I’ve already started in that path, but I think it’s the future. Because one thing I’ve learned from Tom Breeze, so I speak to him every few weeks, is that is where the people go after they’ve maxed out Facebook, where they really want to get into town, it’s the YouTube stuff.

Patrick: Oh, the data backs it up, too. I mean, I’ve been following Tom. And I’ve also, you know, I followed Ilana’s presentations in SuperFastBusiness, and to put praise on both of them, it’s funny when you watch someone else present on content that you know. It’s like, you’re reminded that you knew that. Like, Oh, yeah, I knew that. I need to apply that. So again, that’s another plug for SuperFastBusiness, just being reminded what you already know.

But the data backs up on video, and Kevin and I were talking about this in a podcast a couple of weeks ago. And it’s Cisco routers run all the internet across the world. So this is the computer science geek in me coming out. They do all the switching of internet where you go when you type in a web address. So they measure all the different protocols, all the traffic that are coming around the web; that’s just a general statement. Eighty-three percent – their last stat from them was 83 percent of internet traffic by 2022, about two years from now, is going to be video content. So regardless of YouTube or whatever video delivery mechanism that people are going for video consumption, you need to be doing video in your business. Otherwise, you’re not going to be in business very long, because that’s how people are consuming content.

James: Full stop. End of story.

I’m like, surrounded by tripods here. I got my tripod with the light on and I’ve got my Pat Flynn SwitchPod. It’s the only Kickstarter I’ve ever backed, because I speak to Pat pretty much every week, and I like what they’ve done with that.

But video, yeah. I say to people now, when they’re doing coaching and they go, Oh, I’m thinking of starting a podcast, or whatever – mate, well, before you do that, just pull out your iPhone and make a video every single day. Just do that. I have had an endless parade of success stories from my own client base. Every single person who’s making videos and putting them up on social media is getting a result. Within weeks, but definitely months, and over years, it snowballs. I’ve been doing it now for a year and a half since I redid it. I did it like six, seven years ago and 10 years ago, and I made a training about the evolution of this. It was much harder before, and it wasn’t as interesting. But most people watch, I think it’s six hours of video a day.

Patrick: It’s so powerful.

James: Six hours.

Patrick: That’s insane. I mean, TikTok…

James: We use 10 gigabytes of bandwidth at home here, between three of us. Per day.

Patrick: I mean, it’s everything. Per day.

James: Per day. Ten gigs a day.

Patrick: That’s probably in the low end. You’re probably in the low end. In the States, it’s probably two times that.

James: Like, if I could get faster internet I bet I’d beat it. This is a never ending battle in my life. There’s good news, I’m making changes. How’s this for a stat, you like the stats? My internet in the Philippines is seven times faster than my internet in Sydney.

Patrick: Wow.

James: That just blows my mind.

Patrick: That’s government subsidy at its finest.

James: We just got problems here with infrastructure.

So all right, we now know what Patrick does. And you’re also delightful to speak with. You’ve got such a nice personality.

Patrick: Well, thank you.

James: And I’m glad you came up to me and introduced yourself.

Patrick: I appreciate that.

Brain filing and Copy Chief

James: And of course, I mean of the 468 members in SuperFastBusiness, it’s probably like the Zeigarnik effect. I don’t know how to correctly pronounce it. When people ask me a question, I can remember everything about what’s happening in their backstory because of the way the threads work. I can see them. And then once I’ve answered the question, I’m on to the next one. So I’ve got these little micro partitions happening in my brain. It’s the weirdest thing. I was speaking to a SilverCircle member last night, and I went through the eight things that they’re working on in their life right now without any prompt or notes. I just know everything. Like when I’m speaking to them, I can access that filing cabinet. And then when I hang up, I can move on. And it’s just, I’ve been developing that skill for a decade now. And I wouldn’t recommend it to people to start out – don’t take so many clients if you’re starting out. But over time you can build up to it. It’s a fascinating thing.

But when you talk about your stuff in the thread, I’m like, locked in. And it’s good to see you went from not knowing what you want to be when you grow up to getting a very clear niche and then driving deeper into it and improving your profitability, your prices, the value add to clients. You’ve got an alliance of strong people around you – Kevin, myself. In fact, I will state this on public record: because I attended Copy Chief Live because I got to spend days with Kevin and his crowd and see what he’s done with the things we talked about, I’m going to immerse myself deeper into his community; I will be involved in his upper level programs to help out. So I really support what Kevin does. I want to partner with him on taking that to the next stage because he’s got such a good community. And they all praise him because he’s doing good work. Gosh, I bet he won’t fit into his hat if he listens to this episode.

Patrick: You’ll have to send him a new one. Well, I wondered if that was, if you sent him that hat.

James: I didn’t send him that hat. I always joke with him about it. I only have a few jobs – like, each two weeks these days we speak. I try and make him laugh. That’s the first thing I try and do, which is hard with a comedian, to make them laugh. I usually give him a copywriting tip, which is hilarious because he’s the copywriter and I’m not, which usually makes him laugh. So I achieve two things with one go. And then we talk about what he’s going to focus on next. Like, he usually presents me a challenge that we can solve together. And that format’s worked really well for us.

Patrick: Well, to give you both praise, because I know he’s a student of yours, I mean, just about any program that’s out there, and I’m speaking anecdotally, I’ve been through several different programs, you know, marketers that you know, that I won’t name here that are – you take the nuggets of wisdom that you can out of these, you know, if something doesn’t go go, well, it’s your perspective. Okay. I learned something, either what I planned to or what I did not plan to. And, again, I wish I had an affiliate link, because I speak about SuperFastBusiness, like, anytime somebody is having issues getting simplicity, it’s immediate, like, Hey, you need to check this guy out. He helped me simplify my business. And now with Kevin, it’s, he helped me really get to sync my copy, etc. So you guys have both, I mean, you were one of the founding, I guess the foundation for Copy Chief, so you both get my praises. Just been so influential in my success and my happiness, being the most important thing. I enjoy what I do and I don’t have to spend a hundred hours a week doing it.

James: Well, you know, you can’t go wrong just giving and giving and giving, because look, here you are on this podcast, which gets great distribution. I’m more than certain a few people are going to pop along to GetYouBooked.com and suss out what Patrick Kenney’s up to, even if they want to see the Rick Astley privacy. I mean that alone, that’s a stand-out.

Patrick: I appreciate that.

A walk through the script-writing process

James: So when it comes to script writing, I think it would be pertinent to ask, what are you looking at when someone comes to you, that you’ve already described the type of scenario? You’re saying that someone has a database, they’ve got an offer that converts, they want to tap into video and they want to take it next level, they commission you. What are you doing from the time you start to when you have the campaign in full swing, and it’s kicking butt? Like, what can we learn about this process, and how can we help ourselves a little bit? I’m putting myself in that bracket. I’ve got a list, I’ve got a book, I want to be on YouTube more. I already know I need to give something away for free. And I’ve already had a script from Tom for my first campaign. What insights can you have for us when it comes to screenwriting for videos?

Patrick: Well, you know, off the cuff I think one of the first things that I do that would be pertinent to your audience, especially since you’ve been so key in simplifying so many complexities, I mean, we naturally make things overly overly complex. So a lot of times now I’ll get clients, you know, we have the studio in our pocket, so the first question I get is like,, what camera do I need to get? It’s just, Pull your iPhone out. Let’s just see how you are on camera. Let’s just test it and see what we come up with.

Once I get them using, Oh, yeah, the studio in my pocket, we’ll do bullet points, rather than a full script. Because I, one of my first clients, I wrote this fantastic script. It’s, you know, long form sales letter, I’ve got this great hook, and he’s reading it on camera and he’s a robot. It’s like, Okay, well, we need to fix that. So I went with that bullet point strategy where we put a really good hook. And then we take the bullet point of the script, like they can read it, and they can memorize it if they want to. But we do this thing in copy called dual readership path. And that’s just a fancy way of saying you have an opening headline, and then you have subheads every few paragraphs.

So if you take a long form sales letter, it’s printed up, and you look at it from a distance and you just read the sub-headlines, you get the gist of what’s being sold or what they want you to do. And that works perfectly in video. So simplifying the process, we say, focus on the subheads and see if you can naturally hit those. Because most people, when they’re speaking intelligently about their product or service, they know it inside and out. So you give them some markers to hit, they’re naturally going to fill that in because they know the topic.

And I found that to be the best way to start, was do about a two-minute or less video and get a really good hook in there and get comfortable looking at the camera, and then we refine from bullet points. And what you end up with is a really, really good, what we’d call a short form sales video that you can use YouTube, you can use it on Instagram, Facebook, it just ends up being a really great asset. And that is the starting point for most people.

James: Nice.

Patrick: We can get complex from there, but that’s the starting point.

Interest-based versus desire-based

James: Well, why not get a little complex. You know, we have an above average audience for this show, borne out by any kind of research or survey I do. We have quite a lot of heavy hitters and intermediate to advanced in here. It might be interesting to cover some of the difference between offers versus products or desire-based offers versus interest-based offers, etc.

Patrick: Yeah. So interesting, you know, the videos on YouTube, if you want a high click-through rate. So the gauge that I have is when a campaign starts, is my view rate in like, the mid 20s. If it’s in the mid to high 20s, and that is just the number of people who’ve watched it beyond the skip, it’s divided by the impressions. So a number of people that could have watched it versus the number of people that actually watched it beyond the ability to skip past it. So the gauge, the lead indicator is around the mid 20s. And then I know that the audience and the message are synced up.

So with interest versus desire, desire-based videos always get the intrigue, because you hook them with the thing that they want. I’ve tested interesting versus desired, and this difference would be, right now I’m consulting with some franchise gems – I won’t give the franchise away, but corporately they have a free workout. And okay, well that’s interesting, kind of, but I had this conversation over and over again that no one wakes up at three o’clock in the morning going, Wow, if only this gym would give away a free workout, I would be able to have more energy or look better, right? It’s, I want to look better naked. I want to have more energy. I want to be able to move when I’m 80. So what we’ll do on a gym, we’ll say, the opening hook that works really, really well is straight out of the book, exactly what to say. It’s you know, if you haven’t bought that book or read it or downloaded it, it’s on Kindle, it’s exactly what to say. And it’s just openers for conversations. And the one that works really, really well across any industry, product or service is, would you be open-minded about…? Everyone wants to consider themselves open-minded. So, would you be open-minded about learning three ways to boost your energy in 14 days or less, without having to go on crazy fasts or, you know, powders or whatever?

James: I found when I was doing the Cialdini change campaign for my feedback and pivot strategy, I opened up with, Do you consider yourself a helpful person? And then I asked them for advice. And that got a great response.

Patrick: Well, I guess people, that’s the similar open-minded bit.

James: That’s labeling, isn’t it?

Patrick: Well, it’s, I’m open-minded. Are you a positive person? I’m a positive person. You know, it’s like, the open-minded one I found to be the best one. Yeah, I tested with some other ones, which you know, are in the book, but it’s like, do you have this problem? You know, or do you have this desire? as just a simple opening. Or, you know, I’m going to show you three ways to boost your energy and whatever. The open-minded one, hands down won across the board, so anyone that’s just starting out for the first time, that’s your opener. I wouldn’t say anything else. Like, would you be open-minded about trying a whole grain bagel that’s, you know, made with sourdough imported from San Francisco, that’s been a hundred years in lineage? Right? It works with anything.

The 5.3 video-building method

Now as far as getting deeper into the actual building of the YouTube video, so you want to go from simple to complex, I’ve got this thing called the 5.3 method. And I can make it available to your list if you want. It’s a PDF download. But it’s just taking the mechanics of different nuances of where someone is in their journey. So the way I break this out is I say, okay, when somebody is coming into this video that’s your ideal customer, where are they now? And at the end of using your product or service, where will they be? Is that something that they desire, number one? And then we draw the line between where they are now and where they want to be, and what are those three main milestones that they need to hit. And those become your main checkpoints for that video.

James: And I notice you have segmented out the introductions as well, depending on what channel they’re on, or topic, keyword, situation-specific. Very nuanced.

Patrick: Oh, on the PDF?

James: Oh, I must have the old one. I got the 5.1 version.

Patrick: So the 5.3 is actually, we do different hooks. So the 5.3 one is just the latest permutation of this. And actually, you do have the other one, I’ll update the other one. So what that is, basically, is we take three different ad groups inside of YouTube. So it’s getting a little tactical on this. So when you have the script, whether you’re simple or you have a complex script, whatever your message is going to be, we need to make sure that that message resonates with your target audience. And so what I’m doing now with great success, and my first client that I did this with did not get great results, because not everything can be great, but we had good data to validate that the system works. So in YouTube, and in Google ads, you can do affinity, in market and keywords, also known as topics. And I break that down into three ad groups. So we know who our target is, that’s affinity. So, you know, 35-year-old male, lives in Kentucky, whatever. That’s affinity. In market would be the events in their lives. Are they moving soon? Did they just get married? Did they get engaged? And then the keywords, which would be topically relevant.

So in the example of this client, we used, the 5.3 is just five segments of how to create the video. And the point three is now the actual audience segments. So we take that one video, and we split test it across three ad groups. That video goes to the affinity group, so it’s just who they are; it goes to the events going on their lives; and then the topic. Now with this client, we got a great view rate and click-through on the affinity and in market, so we knew we had the right person, we knew we had the right events going on their lives, but nothing on the keywords. So they would click, and no conversions on the landing page, no clicks on the topic. So out of that, we found out that they didn’t really know about webinars, in this case. They didn’t know, like, that they can work from home and create a webinar and actually stay home with their kid. So we had to change the offer, change the wording, or change the vehicle so that they understood that this actually is going to help them get to their end result they want.

James: It does make sense.

Patrick: Does that make sense? Okay.

James: I like those little tie-downs. It always makes me smile.

Patrick: I have the tendency to go into technical stuff, because that’s my background. And I’ve gotten glazed eyes before, so I want to make sure I’m not going off…

James: Oh, no. It’s good. I go into sales observation mode. And that’s a nice little testing understanding technique. Right?

Patrick: Oh, absolutely.

James: I just did it then, see? Whoops, I did it again. What’s going on?

Some simple script formulas to go by

Would you be prepared to talk about the simple script formulas you offer up? Because I think that’s super valuable. Because we sit there, we go, Okay, yes, I’ve got a phone. Yes, I’ve got an offer. Yes, I got an idea on the lead in. But what framework can we use to make it easy? I talk about one called TEA, when I was doing the social media videos. It’s different to a video ad, right? T is topic, introduce the topic. E is explain what you’re talking about, and then A is answer it. So it’s just a simple way that I could help people get things out of their head and into the camera. Those little videos work really, really well. They’re not super pushy, they’re not massively salesy. It’s just very helpful. You’ve got a couple of simple script formulas, it’d be great to share. And just by the way, if you listen to this and you want to access or review what we’re talking about, we do fully transcribe these episodes. Episode 706 on SuperFastBusiness.com.

So, most of us know AIDA. Anyone in direct response has attention, interest, desire, action. But maybe not everyone knows POSER.

Patrick: So POSER and 3H are my favorites. So you can actually make a POSER video that’s simple, and you can make one that’s complex. And for most people starting out, just going back, you asked about the more complex videos. Maybe we can save that for another podcast and I can put some examples and we can break those down and kind of do a review of those?

James: Look at you, stacking on. You’d join the ranks of the repeat guests on SuperFastBusiness.

Patrick: I’d be happy to do that. And I’d have to do my homework and bring some really good examples.

James: Well, hope we get lots of good comments on this episode, and they’ll be a good indicator for me.

Patrick: Oh, great. Well, I know there will be, I’m confident it’s a good topic. See what I did? So anyway, joking aside, so POSER, this is something, and I give full credit to Kevin on this one, it’s such a brilliant strategy, and I actually did a POSER video before this. You know, you could just be in the gym, you know, it’s a talking head video. It’s just where you’re talking into your camera.

James: Like, so far it sounds terrible, right? Sounds like we’re a showboat. Like, just, look at me, look at me.

Patrick: Yeah. That’s for the posers out there.

James: But it actually is an acronym right? So just settle down there.

Patrick: It is. So it’s promise, obstacle, solution, example, and reach or reaction, which is, that’s just what you want them to do.

So an example would be, you know, Hey, this is Patrick Kenney, and I’m going to show you how you can use a simple script to get in front of your market and present your offer without being scammy or salesy.

And then you go into obstacle. So the problem is, a lot of people say you need to do this perfect webinar script or you need $3,000 worth of equipment when the reality is you don’t. You have a studio in your pocket. So that’s the O. So P and O.

So the S would be the solution, where you would just do a transition saying, the solution is, take out your iPhone, follow a simple bullet strategy. You can use three H or POSER. These are acronyms where you just kind of hit on different topics that you can naturally talk about, and you’ll get great results with that.

And then from there, you transition to example. In a lot of cases, I’ll talk about a client result. To give you an example of how this works. I had a client who has a bagel shop in Utica, New York, and she used this and we put out a Black Friday offer, which was just a talking head, and she had thousands of views in the first hour, she was getting phone calls and orders, and she was really happy about the results.

And then you go into reach or result. So if you’d like to learn how to do this in a very simple way, you can download my cheat sheet, visit my site. You can give the URL, the call to action, and that’s the POSER framework.

James: Nice.

Patrick: Very natural.

James: I should have a crack at that.

So promise would be, if you are a service professional selling contracts to individuals or small businesses, then I’m going to help you make a lot more profit and work way less hours.

You see, when you’re a service professional, one of the challenges you continually have is that you’re pretty much often selling your time for money, and all your available hours in your calendar are blocked up with clients.

A great solution to that is to actually score your clients and eliminate the ones who are taking up way too much bandwidth, far more than they deserve, and find the very best clients and then optimize your client profile for only the good clients.

And an example of that is with my own client base, I actually reduced the number of clients that I had from 35 down to 27. And because there were now only really good clients, I didn’t have all the bad ones, I was able to work half the hours that I worked before.

So if you want to learn about that and several of the other techniques, then grab a copy of Work Less Make More on Amazon or Audible. You can find out how to do that and so many other things.

Something like that. So, POSER.

Patrick: There you go. Well done. POSER.

James: You like 3H, you said.

Patrick: Yeah, 3H is great. So there’s this little-used process in YouTube ads, or a little-used feature called bumper ads. And these are just little, you know, seven-second ads that are not skippable. And without getting too tactical, we’ll put these in between cold, warm and hot videos to push people along to fully engage. And there’s a lot of data on recall, and they just work, right? It’s one of those things. It’s hard to do a direct correlation to the clicks and things like that, but you can see a bump, hence the name, in video engagement for the next level down the funnel. But 3H is great for a bumper video when you have something that’s ecom-based, or if you have a physical product. Let’s say you’re selling a YETI cooler or an iPhone. It’s like, here’s what I’ve got, here’s what it does, and here’s how to get it. So here’s what I’ve got, it’s really cool. It’s a little YETI cooler thing. You can put water in it, stays cool for 27 hours. It’s great for camping trips, great for taking out to the ball field or soccer games. If you want to grab it now, we’ve got a coupon for first-time people when they opt-in. Grab it now.

James: Nice.

Patrick: Now that’s not seven seconds, but it’s very clear. It’s really cool. This is the thing, I’m showing you in video, this is how you would use it, this is how it would benefit you. Go grab it here. That works wonders for ecom.

James: Yeah. So that’s a three-part formula; the other one’s a five-part formula. Gosh, one of my favorite ever is SPIN Selling. I’ve used it for decades, and it’s just so simple. It’s similar to these. That’s situation, problem, implication, need, solution. It really should be SPIS, but that’s not very catchy, right?

Patrick: Doesn’t make for grades.

James: I can use it to teach, I can use it to sell, you can use it with your kids. It’s just such a great format. But it works especially well with high-ticket items. That’s probably worth saying. So some of these formulas you’re talking about here work really well for small-ticket items, low-ticket items, which is good.

The edge that video gives

Patrick: Well, they work great for the introduction, too, getting somebody into the conversation, which is, you know, again, you have the Johnny Vances of the world, where you have these big brands, these huge budgets that’ll come in. When I did a lot of research on why people would not come in and do video or they just weren’t, you know, the excuses, I don’t have time or whatever, which I’m hearing is, I don’t know how to do it, an easy way that I can afford. So the majority of the market that needs to be using YouTube needs to be using video marketing, this just lowers the barrier to entry for them to where they take out the iPhone, you know, get some great results, and then they start the conversation. And then they can justify going into longer tail strategies, better selling, longer, hour-long. You know, there’s a whole strategy on doing webinars directly to YouTube ads without even registering. There’s a whole strategy on that that’s doing really well right now. But this is the entry point for people just to get that conversation started, in my experience.

James: What is the best thing to offer on YouTube in an ad?

Patrick: Value.

James: Right. So it’s like, just enriching the experience of the person watching.

Patrick: Well, you’re hitting the audio, visual and kinesthetic absorber. So you have the people that like to hear things, podcast being perfect example; the people that will read this transcript; and then when you do your video segments, you know, you’ve got the, I love what you do on Instagram with this, where you’ve got, like, the little audio file, your team puts it out. It gives the visual.

James: You know, just a few episodes back, Charley was saying those things don’t work very well. I mean, fascinating. I get people actually saying, Oh thanks. That was an awesome episode on Facebook. Because I don’t do the video for my podcast. I can tell you one thing for sure – I wouldn’t be up to Episode 706 if I had to do video, because the production requirements and the tech and my lack of internet would all restrict that possibility. Audio has worked well for me. But those little daily videos smash it out of the park for my audience. It’s small, small bite-sized chunks. And I think taking a little snippet of audio and putting it with a visual gives people a teaser to know if they want to go and listen to the podcast. And I’m finding them in different places than iTunes.

Patrick: Well, I mean, you’re repurposing your content all over the place. You internet may evolve to where you can actually do that. And maybe I’ll be able to nudge you in that way. Because that’s where everything’s going.

James: Yep.

Patrick: Everything’s going video. And, you know, back to your question about what should people have in their YouTube ad, again, it goes down to, I think, POSER. So I’ve been doing POSER myself, because I have to get better at practicing what I preach, you know? You’ve nudged me on that several times. And I’m like, you’ve said you hate the way that you sound when you hear yourself on a recording; I’m the same way – I hate hearing myself talk on a podcast. I hate seeing video.

James: You’ve got a great voice, and also you’re handsome.

Patrick: Oh, thanks.

James: So you’ve got no valid reason why you couldn’t be making lots of videos.

Patrick: Oh, I appreciate that.

James: And you say the face-to-camera videos do perform quite well, because people can see you.

Patrick: Yes.

James: And that’s going to help people who want to trust. I’ve noticed this with my own student base, especially in SilverCircle. There’s a few people who just really want to be on video. And then there’s some other people who are just happy to do audio. But I will tell you, I always default to audio unless they need to do video.

Patrick: Well, I’m going to disagree with you on that, my friend. Do video first.

James: You can’t can’t disagree with me on my own opinion about what I prefer, on a coaching call.

Patrick: Well, you’re right. I can’t disagree with your opinion.

James: My opinion reserves the right to be mine.

Patrick: I think I misheard you then.

James: Yes, I think so.

Patrick: Okay, sorry. Apologies.

James: But it was fun to argue about it. I love a good argument, don’t you?

Patrick: You know what? I do love a good discussion, especially when it has opposing views. But some people can’t handle that. I’m one that can, so if you have a certain viewpoint and you disagree with me, we can still be friends at the end of the day.

James: That’s because you’re open-minded. You said that before.

Patrick: Yeah. Well, hey, you know, that’s how I open everything. Are you open-minded? Nope. Then you can click my ad and go away, because I don’t need to talk to you. That’s how you need to do every ad, basically, is be, it’s kind of like nice polarizing. You know, it’s like, telling people that you can skip the video. It’s something that some people do, and you can experiment with it. I haven’t really seen that be any, you know, plus or minus for me to go one way or the other. But, you know, are you open-minded? And they close the video? Well, nobody’s going to get mad at you because you asked a question. They said no.

James: Nice.

Patrick: Yeah, it’s not a big deal.

But being on video is key. Like, I have to do it. People need to do it. Anyone that’s going, like, I hate being on video, just do it. You’re not as bad as you think.

James: I do it. I mean, I publish a video every single day. I’m on video every day.

Patrick: Like I said, I’ve got to have something to chase and you’re one of them.

James: It’s not that hard to do. It only takes about 10 to 15 minutes a week.

Patrick: I’m writing that down.

James: Yeah, that’d be a good outcome for anyone watching.

Patrick: Good goal to have.

James: If you listen to this and you’re not making a video every day, give it a shot. No matter how hard it seems. Pick the simplest framework you possibly can. Do it on a single topic, share one tip and just put it up there. Over time, people just see so much of you and you’re just delivering value on a constant basis. I can generate notes from even a podcast like this. We’ve already got a number of things we could make single topic videos about. In fact, Patrick, if you listen back to this podcast, because it’s primarily your content, there’ll be around about 20 to 30 videos there. And they took one to two minutes each, let’s call it an hour. Twenty videos will last you a month. That’s four weeks of five videos a week, weekdays. Twenty videos, so one month’s content in 30 to 60 minutes.

Patrick: You can’t beat it. So when are we going to do this again?

James: Audience, if you enjoyed this episode, 706, let us know. Put a comment.

Patrick: Please do.

James: Thank you for giving some tips for members of SuperFastBusiness.

Patrick: My pleasure.

James: If you’ve got the private coaching feature, use it.

Patrick: Use it, yeah.

James: Still don’t understand why not everyone uses it, but the people who do use it get results. I’m here to help.

What’s got Patrick most excited

Patrick, thank you for sharing your copywriting and technology expertise. It’s a really interesting combo, but I can see how combining copy with a platform that is technical is getting you results. So what are you most excited about? Let’s wrap up with that. What’s the future hold for you?

Patrick: What am I most excited about? People are waking up to just the possibilities of other platforms and video. I see this turn away from just, people are kind of drunk on social media ads. Not that there’s anything bad about it, but people that have been single-source dependent on that are waking up to, I need to diversify. So I’m pretty excited about that. I’m having a lot of conversations with people saying, I’m on this, but I know I need to be diversifying. So that’s pretty cool to see.

And then the other interesting thing is kind of this rebellion against the hard-pressure selling that you see with the, you know, The window’s closing in 60 minutes. And then it’s not really closing, to where people are saying, Oh, you can have a conversation and just let people take you up on that offer. Other than that, there’s not a sense of urgency, but just being really authentic. This is what I do. This is how I can help. And you actually grow your business to where you want it. That’s pretty exciting to me, to actually have those conversations and see people waking up to that.

James: You’re a nice person. I like that. You know, I was the most happy when I turned my membership to always open. There’s no screaming deadline. It’s like, I can help you now or later. It’s really up to you.

Patrick: Yeah.

James: And I probably make a few less sales, using less pressure, but I don’t want a pressured customer. I want someone who wants to be there. I want someone who’s ready. Ready for it.

Patrick: You were, you know, the teacher shows up when the student is ready. And that’s how I see SuperFastBusiness has been for me. Because two years ago, I would not have come up to you in a conference and said, Hey, thanks. I’m like, I would express gratitude, but it would probably just have been an email, rather than going like, hey, I need to go up and talk to him. And that’s from some of the stuff that you teach. So again, you don’t have, there’s no bad reputation out there for you and for, you know, people who learn from you, like Kevin, because of the way that you approach that is not high pressure. And I know, being a member, I appreciate that. And if I appreciate it, I know others do as well. So thank you.

James: Well, I think the main thing to know is it’s a long, long game, and another good reason to do those little videos, because it might be after a year or two of videos, someone might think, well, this is the right person to help me. They’re ready.

Thanks so much, Patrick.

Patrick: Thank you.

James: There we go. Patrick Kenney. GetYouBooked.com. Really excited to see what happens in the next chapter. And of course, I’ll be behind the scenes there to help you every step of the way.

Patrick: I appreciate it James. Thanks so much.

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