Episode Transcript
Adam O'Leary (00:01.523)
If you're business owner struggling to market and grow your business, but you feel like you're paralyzed by overthinking or lack of clarity, then our guest, Justin Vasco is about to give you a simple win you can implement today. Justin and his agency, Dialogue Video Marketing, helps entrepreneurs get out of their own heads and share their expertise on video the easy way. No prep, no scripts, just a simple conversation with an expert producer.
and your phone. Justin, so excited to have you here. This is gonna be such a great episode.
Justin Vajko (00:33.294)
Thanks Adam, excited to be here.
Adam O'Leary (00:35.477)
Absolutely, so I know we were just talking about this behind the scenes, but why is LinkedIn so critical for business owners looking to drum up business?
Justin Vajko (00:43.244)
Yeah, the biggest thing is because we trust people that we don't trust businesses. Right. If I see a poster or a billboard or a bus about something, I might notice it. I'm probably won't, especially if I've seen it 500 times. But if I see, you know, someone, a friend of a friend talk about this topic that I have a pain point about, I'm going to pay way more attention because it's a talking head. It's somebody it's a person, basically. And that's what LinkedIn buys us.
Adam O'Leary (01:10.985)
Absolutely. And can you walk us through the LinkedIn profile really quick? what kind of makes that LinkedIn profile a winner versus maybe something that gets passed up and overlooked?
Justin Vajko (01:22.21)
Yeah, the biggest thing I see, biggest mistake I see a lot of entrepreneurs make right off the bat is that you don't have anything in your header. So it's like having to use the bus analogy again. It's like having a bus or a billboard and then just buying it and then saying, I'm not going to put anything on it. It's huge wasted opportunity. So making sure you have a customer facing outcome statement of some kind on your LinkedIn banner. There's a lot of different ways to do that. What would life look like if, fill in the blank outcome for your life or.
grow faster or whatever, whatever you're out there. There's so many ways to do it. The point is having something on there and that's just a pretty looking picture or worse yet, just a great default banner. And then have an interesting headline of some kind. You want to have your title on there for sure, but the way I like to say it is, you know, put your headline, put kind of your outcome as well in your headline. So for example, me, I have ignore, what is it? Forget AI clients want you. That's where I help. So kind of curiosity inducing, like somebody's senior.
profile in the feed from one of your posts or comment you make does your headline, the start of it, the first part they see, make them want to through your profile and they're like, what's this guy all about? And that takes a little bit of testing, that looks like, but definitely put your founder, your, your founder, your title in there, whether it's founder or CEO. And then I like to say, put a couple of different interesting facts about you that have nothing to do with business, just to build that, build that, the ice faster. I, for example, I put dad of five and pure bull golfer in mine and that I get more.
DMs about that than anything else, which allows conversations to happen. And then from there, the biggest underrated thing, I could keep going, but I'll keep it short. The biggest underrated thing after that is making sure you a featured section flushed out, which with a call to action, whether it's join your newsletter or get on a call or something like that, that's really a miss, not misused, but underused section of each LinkedIn personal profile.
Adam O'Leary (03:17.109)
Amazing. I feel like you're just talking smack about my profile because I have a pretty picture.
Justin Vajko (03:19.854)
I haven't looked at your profile. I saw your posts. didn't see your profile. Maybe I did, but I don't know if I looked at it closely. there you go. got three bits of homework for yourself.
Adam O'Leary (03:27.329)
Justin's just making fun of me on this podcast. No, it's super fun. so, okay, so once we have kind of that profile, the next thing is obviously creating those posts that'll draw people into our profile. So how do you go ahead creating these valuable posts that actually resonate with the audience that you're trying to attract?
Justin Vajko (03:48.302)
I mean, I feel like I should be asking you this, Adam, after one week, 41, what was it? 41,000 views on your, on your post after nine years. So for reference, Adam just posted it. And it's just like getting this huge traction. Um, it was just a funny conversation we're having before the show started. So essentially I think you're doing this well. And this is what I said before the show. I think you, you get to be, first of all, it's as a principle, be a good listener of what your clients are saying. So what are your.
best client saying not all your clients you know for example we have clients in our business some are ideal fit some are less than ideal fits what are your ideal fit clients saying and you know this from talking to them in sales calls but also engaging them on if you know if you for example our clients are month-to-month talking them asking them what's what's going on and understanding your clients so if you're a good listener that'll inform the kind of content you write for your ideal clients
And if you want to fit it in some kind of framework, the way I talk about it in my business is you want to have a good hook, meaty middle, and succinct summary. So as long as you're being a good listener, I mean, that'll inform that's 90 % of the battle. 80, 90 % of the battles like knowing what your clients are experiencing and writing to that. So using, know, you can speak to your own experience, but also drawing them and this is your experience. If this is your experience, you know, that kind of language, especially in your about section, which isn't even a post, but it's, it's not formulaic. I'll put it that way.
So if you have a good, you if you're good at listening, you know the pain points you're solving. Weave those into your content. If it is formulaic, it's what I described earlier. It's, you know, the hook, the meaty middle and succinct summary. The hook being the most important part of any post. The hook is what's going to make someone click read more to drop down the rest of the text post. What's going to make someone continue watching after after the first set first five seconds if they're watching a video of you and so on and so forth. So it's basically what's the interesting what's the most interesting thing you have to say in this post?
put it right at the front and then go from there.
Adam O'Leary (05:43.361)
And I want to talk about that a little bit. one of the things when it comes to knowing what your audience is looking for, right? Like what type of content they're trying to digest. I think the problem that happens, especially for a lot of founders is that they write about what they think that their customers have the problem with. And the reality of the situation is almost most of the people in your market don't even recognize that they have that problem. Like let's say if you're a SaaS
or a B2B company of any sort, they might not even have you on the radar, right? So what type of content should we be putting out that's not like, hey, come buy my cool thing. Look at this new feature that we had. What does that content typically look like?
Justin Vajko (06:25.933)
Right.
Justin Vajko (06:29.462)
Yeah, so if you're familiar with the marketing and if your listeners are familiar with the marketing framework called top of funnel, middle funnel, bottom of funnel, tofu, mofu, both who basically you want to create a mix of content that yes, you can put those those posts in there that are more you could say promotional, maybe more. We'll just say use the word more direct. Like this is what we do. This is how we help. Here's how to work with us. Right. Straightforward. You know, you might call it pitchy. I don't call it pitchy. It's just this is what we do. Here's how we can help. That would be bottom of the funnel. When you're ready to buy.
because you know the problems you have and you know where the solution to that. is bottom. The top of funnel is more like big picture problems to your point. If somebody doesn't know they don't have, they have a, someone has a problem, but they don't have a problem. How are they going to learn unless you educate them? And that's what top of funnel content does is it teaches them, Hey, if you've been experiencing this, it's not this problem. It's actually this problem. Let me teach you about what this problem actually looks like in your business. So that could be top of funnel. Middle funnel is more about things like, okay, now that you know, you have this problem.
Here's some nuance to it, right? And you're going a little bit deeper. And so if you look at your content as those three stages of awareness and, now I'm aware, now I'm interested, and now I'm interested, now I need to make a decision, it'll really help you in developing kind of a healthy mix of content versus just all top of funnel, all middle, all bottom, which is kind of one of the buckets we tend to fall into depending on who we are. I probably tend to fall into the...
the middle of funnel. I, by default, I just, I go very deep and nerdy about, you know, the psychology of video and the fears of being on video. And I do a little bit of, I'm really bad at the bottom of funnel. I need to make more direct offers more often. Like, this is how we can help you. This is so and so's testimonial, right? That's an example of bottom of funnel content. So that's, that's my two cents there.
Adam O'Leary (08:13.392)
No, I love that. And how does video tie into this? So I haven't gone ahead and put any sort of video on my LinkedIn as we just discussed. But I am so, so curious on how video really can tie into LinkedIn just because I know how big video is on pretty much every other social media channel. And as I've been scrolling through the LinkedIn feed, I've seen a lot of video at play. So walk me through this. Why video?
Justin Vajko (08:39.542)
Yeah, it's great question. So the reason you want to do videos because nobody does business with a company. They do business with people instead of waiting to have a conversation with somebody in a sales call, which they may never have with you because 70 % of B2B buyers do the research before ever talking to a salesperson. Why are you waiting for the sales call for them to build that? like trust factor in you. Why not just add it into your content? So you build that preference ahead of time. That's what we talked about earlier. So there's a way to build preference for your brand, for your company, by being in the content yourself.
a.k.a with video versus waiting for a sales call for like, oh, now I know what Adam sounds like. Oh, because this whole time been reading it in my voice. Oh, now I feel like I get an idea what like it's worked out. No, you can give people that impression that we all want people to have from that first call before the first call, which actually builds, you know, that, like I said, the no like trust factor ahead of the call. And that actually gives you better quality leads and things like that, because people are showing up to the call. They have way more.
healthy expectations about who they're working with. It also helps you avoid working with poor fit clients. That's branding 101. Good branding helps you attract great fit and repel poor fit clients. And this isn't quite exactly branding exercise. It's a showing up on video exercise.
Adam O'Leary (09:56.481)
Absolutely. And so what is a typical video look like for LinkedIn? Are we talking like product demos? Are we talking more talking head videos? What do they typically look like?
Justin Vajko (10:07.308)
Yeah, so the kind of stuff we do for clients is talking heads, what I do for myself. But by no means is it the only kind. There's all sorts of there's sketch videos, which are more top of funnel, typically middle, middle of funnel, going back to that analogy, that framework we're talking about. But yeah, talking head videos will do the trick. The thing is, they have to be succinct and they have to be valuable. So the mistake I commonly see with video on LinkedIn is that it's it's talking head, but it takes two minutes to get to the point.
And so if you can do a talking head video, but get 30 seconds to get to the point, that would be much better. In fact, if you start with a good hook, which we talked about earlier, that'll be even better. One of these factors I see in a lot of folks content and video content specifically, they're special, if they're new to it, is that you build up to your point before you deliver your point, kind of like a speech, right? If we do a speech, we think I'm going to build up to the point and then make the point. It's a very Greek, you know, ancient way of learning that we have as humans that would argue comes from Greek times to 3000 years ago. But
we have to learn to communicate in video a different way. We have to do it a different way than we do when we present. And that is start with the best part, the hook, bam, and then build up to your point. So the way you do that is you think of what is the real interesting thing I want to say. Like nobody actually thinks about video like this on LinkedIn. Hook. And then you cut to the context and then you deliver your point again with the context and you're done in 30 to 60 seconds. So you want to keep it short. You want to start with a good hook and you want to make sure that you're
Doing some pretty decent editing with the cuts and the audio is really important actually a lot of people forget about that So you don't want to sound like you're in a tin tin can when you're recording Which is the default when we're using phones is to have that poor audio quality So if you run it through a good editor with sound enhancement you can get that these days It's one of the beautiful things about AI that we've found we're using is using for audio enhancement So you don't even need a fancy mic anymore. You can actually do 99 % of you can achieve the same
same effect of that nice mic with AI audio enhancements. So a few tips there for how to do video in a way that's not boring and will actually get you views.
Adam O'Leary (12:12.007)
I love that. And so once somebody watches the video, so of course people are going to like the video, they're going to comment on the video, but how are we turning this into money? Right? How are we going ahead? Somebody watches the video. Are we just like assuming that there's just going to be a flood of customers coming in the door or is there steps that need to be taken? I hope it's the first one.
Justin Vajko (12:35.37)
Yeah, it doesn't work quite like it's Matt. It's not a magic bullet. I do have to continually dispel that myth because I think video has been talked about for over a decade now and everybody knows they should be doing it. Nobody wants to do it. So by the time they do it, they feel like there should be this pent up demand just waiting to come through the doors. Nope. Just because you haven't been doing it in 10 years and you've been told to do it and now you're doing it doesn't mean it's just going to like unlock the floodgates of business for you. Doesn't work like that. What you should expect from doing video. Let's assume you're doing all the things right. You keeping it.
short and succinct, you're giving value, you're not just updating people about, you know, the event you had or whatever. It's it has tips in it. It has something interesting. You're doing all that well. What you should expect is within a few months, people in sales calls will start referencing your content, specifically your video content. This is the interesting thing I've learned about video content. If you do a mix of content, let's say you do text posts, image post videos. Odds are when you get on a sales call with somebody or let's say you catch a call with a partner, you're going to hear something like
man, I love your videos. And you're gonna be like, wait, I do other content too. Why are you just referencing the videos? Because videos stick in the brain because it activates different parts of our brain versus just a still image or just a text post, right? There's all these studies that have been done about how moving pictures actually enhance memorability. It doesn't even have to be like a whiz bam, like video animation. It's just video. Like you on video enhances memorability. And I don't know what business owner doesn't wanna be remembered by their prospects, by their partners.
So that's the like the if you want to call it a soft ROI is you're sticking in your clients prospects, partners brains better. And I get that feedback all the time. And when I talk to people who do video, including our clients, they give me that that similar feedback. So you're going to be remembered and people reference your video over the other content. Typically, the second thing is you're going to have clients show up to calls and say things like, feel like I already know you. Now, you can get that from doing any kind of content. I've talked to I work in the content marketing space, right? And video is part of content marketing. But.
There's something about video that enhances that much more because again, when you talk reference to earlier, they're hearing your cadence, they're hearing your thoughts and they're hearing your expertise. You can spend five hours on a post just to get it right. And somebody reads it for 20 seconds or you can talk to a friend or, know, like when or whatever clients do with us and you can deliver the same ideas. Yeah, they're not perfect, but it's 30 seconds. And all of sudden somebody goes, this person really knows what they're talking about.
Justin Vajko (14:59.982)
You know, it's one thing hearing what somebody reads about something or wrote about something. It's another thing hearing them talk about it. And all of a sudden your brain goes, that person knows what they're talking about, right? And so it helps you grow that expertise and authority in your customers' eyes. So you get higher quality leads, essentially is what I'm saying.
Adam O'Leary (15:18.793)
That's amazing. And what sort of results have you seen your clients achieve from this?
Justin Vajko (15:22.126)
Yeah, so it's all across the board. really depends on I tell people the biggest factor of success for video is your your stage of business and the network you've been building over the years. So you will experience faster and higher success. And it kind of makes sense when you think about it. Like if someone who's famous does video, they have to do a 10 second video and they'll get leads. Doesn't matter what the video is, right? If someone who's not famous at all does a video on the way on the opposite side spectrum like me, when I started out, you won't get leads. You just you'll build trust faster, right?
So it depends on your stage of business. Let's assume you're at the stage, which is our ideal client, right? Five to 10 years in business, you've accumulated this knowledge about your clients and the industry and the problems that you solve for them and common mistakes they make and all the nuance of that. If you've been building your network for five, 10 years, you can expect to have events filled. You can expect to have leads booking through your website. You can expect people to reference your content, leaving comments on your content who are happy to see you there. And we'll say, yes, this is a great point.
Just like if you were to show up to a networking event or you went to a conference and you had a network of people there that know about you and then are willing to make introductions for you, that same factor shows up when you do video content. It's kind of like being at a conference and getting introductions from people. Hey, this is so-and-so, you should meet so-and-so. It facilitates the online version of that. So it really just depends on your stage of business. But we've had clients, yeah, book events, get leads. We had one attorney, he...
He had a partner mentioned, hey, I've been seeing your videos. I want to bring into this big project. You know, it's a six figure project just because he was posting. I don't know what that is. A hundred times a return on spend just from one video, a couple of videos here and there. So yeah, it's very subjective to your stage of business, but it can work. It's just trusting the process and making sure you have a good baseline for how you deliver the content in a way that makes sense for where your where your viewer is at that day in the feed on LinkedIn.
Adam O'Leary (17:10.345)
That's amazing. And for anybody looking to grow their LinkedIn and be able to generate leads or get their customers to know who they are, where can they go to learn more about you?
Justin Vajko (17:18.83)
So for us, it's dialoguewith.us or me on LinkedIn, Justin, V-A-J-K-O. And I will say dialogue is spelled D-I-A-L-O-G-W-I-T-H.U-S.
Adam O'Leary (17:32.159)
Thank you so much, Justin. This was an awesome episode.
Justin Vajko (17:34.936)
Good, I'm so glad. Thanks, Adam.
Adam O'Leary (17:37.096)
Awesome, thank you everyone for listening and I will see you on the next episode of Simple Wins.
