309 Strategic Video Marketing for Home Builders - Jon Sherman Mar 4 2026

Greg Bray: [00:00:00] Hello everybody, and welcome to today's episode of the Builder Marketing Podcast. I'm Greg Bray with Blue Tangerine.

Kevin Weitzel: And I'm Kevin Weitzel with OutHouse.

Greg Bray: We are excited to have joining us today, Jon Sherman. Jon is the founder at VC Productions. Welcome, Jon. Thanks for being with us today.

Jon Sherman: Hey, thanks for having me, guys.

Greg Bray: Well, Jon, let's just start off with that quick background. Tell us a little bit about yourself for those who haven't met you yet.

Jon Sherman: Sure. So, it's always fun to present as a founder. I don't know, it just sounds very like, [00:01:00] I just like it. It was like a warm bath and you hear somebody else saying it. Anyway. VC Productions, we're a video production company based out of Philadelphia. We work nationally, corporate, commercial event video. Video podcasting has become a big new area for us within the last few years.

We work really across industries. We work in automotive with companies as big as Subaru and retail companies as big as Five Below. We do training video content for UL Solutions. UL is that little logo that you have on pretty much every electronic in your entire life, that makes sure that it's safe. And then we have a whole slew of nonprofits. We get to tell their stories, which are always amazing and meaningful. And we have been fortunate to work with a lot of builders in the industry.

Kevin Weitzel: All right, before we get started in all this video stuff in the world of tape, you guys still use tape? No, I don't think you do. No.

Jon Sherman: But I lived through the transition.

Kevin Weitzel: Yes. You did. Now beta or VHS.

Jon Sherman: So, okay. We'll go a little further back. You've opened a door here. So, Video City started as a video rental store that my dad started in 1982. Mom and [00:02:00] pop shop VHS, back when you had to pick beta, VHS. Right. And then, we were doing video transfer. So, as a 10, 11, 12, 13-year-old, a lot of times my summers, how I'd make money, my dad would be like, Hey, you do some transfers. So, I would take VHS and convert them. We did eight millimeter film back in the day.

So, I've had a real hands-on technical background in all of these different mediums as they've transitioned. I've also closed down a video rental store because of Netflix and on-demand streaming. We closed down video transfers because we were doing a lot better in video production, but also there's a horizon for when all of this media is going to dissipate. As we were just joking about, my first camera was the Panasonic DVX, and then I got the HVX. The HVX at the time, all of your listeners are going to cancel this podcast. This is the last podcast they ever going to listen to after hearing this.

But the Panasonic had a tape slot so you could record to mini DVD and it had P2 cards so you could record HD. Which, by the way, fun fact, on that camera, one gig per minute, and the cards [00:03:00] were like $800 for 32 gigs. So we were literally recording content like 32 minutes at a time and then dumping it on a laptop and then trying to keep up. That was the transitionary period. So, yeah, I've seen it all.

Kevin Weitzel: Wow. So, that is interesting to me just because I'm kind of a weirdo when it comes to fading technology. But what we need to hear from you is an interesting factoid about you yourself that has nothing to do with the home building, industry work, or family.

Jon Sherman: Oh, an interesting fact about me or myself, and it can't be about work or family.

Kevin Weitzel: Nope.

Jon Sherman: My interesting fact is going to be that after college, I did not touch a snowboard for 16 years. During COVID, started taking my kid. I know you said it was no family, but this technically it's about snowboarding and me. I took my kid snowboarding, he skis, I snowboard. It is like my favorite thing to do in the world now.

It's a fun story. I was on set in 2019 with a client and they go, do you just work all the time or do you have any hobbies? Like, we were just making conversation. I was like, I don't have a [00:04:00] single hobby I can think of other than just like work and family. And so, I would say snowboarding, like the second the board touches the powder, if you're lucky enough to get powder, it is just like everything erases for me and I love it.

Kevin Weitzel: You're talking to somebody in Arizona and we get like snow only in two small, itty bitty specks of area on our map.

Jon Sherman: We could shut you down, your whole city down with just like dropping some ice on the ground.

Kevin Weitzel: Oh, rain destroys traffic in Phoenix. So, yeah, I totally get it. All right, so what's your board of choice before we get started?

Jon Sherman: My board of choice. Well, right now I am riding on a Burton Custom. I was actually about to leave snowboarding to go to skiing because in your forties you don't want to be hunching over and like, buckling in. Like if you ski with somebody who's skiing, they can just like go off the lift and I'm sitting there ratcheting. So, I got Burton clip-in customs and a Burton custom board. It's called Burton Custom. It's not like a custom board made for me. I'm not that good, but I just enjoy it.

Kevin Weitzel: I think that's one my son uses. I was a skier back in the day. Three spine surgeries. I'll never touch another set of Rossignols in my life, even though that's my brand.

Jon Sherman: [00:05:00] Whoa. Should we make this about the three spine surgeries or do I have to just move on from that?

Kevin Weitzel: Nah, we got to move on from that. We'll save that for another episode.

Greg Bray: Well, Jon, obviously you've been in this industry for a long time. What is it that specifically to home building that video fits in? Is it something everybody does already? Is it something that only a few industry visionaries are playing with still? What's your experience there?

Jon Sherman: So, I have to give a shout out to my friend, Mollie Elkman from Group Two Advertising. I did their brand video for her starting out in a much smaller team at the time, and I remember being at her first office doing that. And then she dragged me to the International Builder Show and I got this opportunity to meet all these builders. And not to offend any builders or anyone that's listening to this, I think when you go to the builders show, you hear a lot of information about home builders a lot of times are behind in some of these digital marketing areas. They're not doing as much as they need to be doing on the SEO front, on the website front. They're not making enough video content. They're not, they're not. They're not. They're not. They're not.

But the builders we've had the opportunity to work with have been really forward [00:06:00] thinking. They've been open to new ideas and we've worked in a variety of ways. We worked with modular home builders that we did a really cool installation. They installed a home in the middle of Juneau, Alaska, delivered it from Seattle. We've worked with on-your-lot builders, and we've worked with builders on East coast. We work nationally, and everybody has their own brand, their own way that they want to tell their story and the things that they focus on that they think are going to work for their brand.

But yeah, I think that a lot of times what I see is that the marketing agencies that they're working with are advising this, right? And they're going, Hey, we need content in order to tell your story or we need this to meet the needs of the campaign. That's where a lot of times they're coming to us and going, how do you translate these campaign pieces into effective video content that's going to drive leads and ultimately have a return on investment?

Greg Bray: Okay. Well, you said a very interesting phrase there. You said effective video content. W hat makes video content effective? What's an example?

Jon Sherman: Oh, I think that if it evokes an emotion and a call to action. [00:07:00] Obviously, it's effective if you mobilize something or motivates someone to do something, right? So, I think jumping back before that. How do you get them to do that? I think that it's where you get an emotional response from them, you get a connection. You have to bring up emotion and that usually comes from storytelling.

Kevin Weitzel: Well, it's no secret that home builders are slow to adapt technology. It's also no secret that video content is king when it comes to getting your content noticed in the different social media platforms that are out there. However, how do you get a home builder to go past, I've got a nephew, Herschel, and he's got a phone and he can do videos on his phone, it's amazing? How do you get past that mentality to have them invest into something that is a high quality professional outfit, that actually does produce quantifiable and quality content?

Jon Sherman: A lot of times we lean on the experts in marketing agencies and website digital marketers that go, you got to go do this. Right. But I think what you were sort of implying there, maybe Kevin is this concept [00:08:00] of quality. And I think probably 10 years ago for sure, in the last few years since, quality would be the main thing that we would talk about, right? If you create something on your phone, you create something that's not done well, it reflects your brand, it doesn't look good, it's going to turn off customers. Right.

But I think if we're being honest, and this has been yet another transition, and we haven't even mentioned AI, right, but like another transition that I've seen in my lifetime in the video content side, right? We talked at the beginning of the call about analog media and film and transitioning from tape to digital and then from digital to wide screen. And by the way, from widescreen then to vertical, and then now it's gotta be both and it's all these different pieces, right?

If we take an honest look, there is a market and a value where some of the content that's being created and being very effective is done on a phone, right? So, I'm not going to be the person, even though we do this amazing content with the best cinema cameras and some of the best creatives I've ever had the pleasure to work with. I don't think it's reasonable to sit anymore on our high horse and go, it's got to be 8K. It's got to [00:09:00] be effective. And so, there's different areas where that will be effective. Right.

I think that if you are hopping on someone's website and seeing their brand film and the whole thing is like a poorly shoddy done video on an iPhone or as a slideshow, that's probably going to turn people off. On the flip side, if you're getting a testimonial and you have a homeowner do one of those like influencer style selfie videos, walking through their amazing home that they just bought from you, and telling the story of why they're so glad and the experience that they had and the floor plans that you provided and the guidance you provide, right? Who am I to say that that's not going to be effective? I think that in some cases it's more effective.

So, I think that a lot of people go to quality, right? Where I think we focus on, to answer your question, having given you that very long background. Where I think we focus on is strategy. We focus on creative. We want to think about where these things are going and how they're being used. Once you have that overall picture, then you can make the right choices, right?

Like, I just gave you an example. On your homepage, you don't necessarily want to have that low [00:10:00] quality selfie video. Right? But maybe if you have a testimonial page that is effective to have there, right? And so, it's who's guiding you on how to do those things and who's guiding you on what that process is. And then the last thing I'll say, and I didn't warn you guys, Greg and Kevin, that I'm a talker. But the last thing that I'll say to that to play off of process is what is that creative process? You know, why are you outsourcing anything that a business is doing? Because you're bringing in an expert that's going to create a great experience in the content creation process. Bringing this back to us.

It's that if you're the lead marketer for a builder, you have all of these different things that you are managing and thinking about. Are you going to be able to completely construct that video, script it, storyboard it, plan it, plot it, either hire talent or source homegrown talent, and then go through the editing process? Or could you hand that off to a team that's going to package that all up for you as part of a big campaign so that you're delivering it more effectively? I would say in conclusion, it's not just high-quality content, it's about having an effective strategy and a great [00:11:00] process that's going to ultimately create a great experience.

Kevin Weitzel: So, I'm with you. Let's ignore the fact that phone technology has increased and it's gotten better, and it will continue to get better. Let's eliminate that one factor. I truly believe that, yes, the phone is better, but it still comes down to the person behind the phone. I don't have the ability. I've got a fancy phone that's got one of the better cameras out there. I take pictures with my phone and it doesn't look anything like what I saw through the lens. It's horrible. It looks like a kindergartner drew it with a crayon. I have no talent when it comes to that.

So, I think the fact that a lot of home builders miss out on is not just that Susie has a camera, but does she have the creative? Does she have the genuine content? You know, when you have those testimonials, the reason why those are effective is that they're genuine. Sometimes they're not but, you know, for the most part they're typically a happy home buyer that is genuinely happy with their home.

But here's my next question on that same type of surrounding theme. And I'm going to tie in AI when it comes to the genuine aspect of it. I can spot those AI videos 10 miles away. I hate them. I can't stand them. I think that they're lazy. I don't [00:12:00] like them. I don't like the robotic communication style they come across with. I think that turns people off. But maybe I'm the outlier, maybe I'm wrong. Am I wrong in that regard?

Jon Sherman: I don't think there's a right or wrong. And we actually just had a whole conversation separately with my team. We're producing a piece of content in our video podcast studio and talking about subjective versus objective comments. Right? And how do you talk to a video production team or any creative. You make a website landing page or you have a video and it's like, it doesn't punch enough. You can't go into Adobe Premiere and go like, punch it up. Right.

And by the way, to your point, our job as creatives and as storytellers, and in creating a great process and experience and content creation, is to translate that from people who, that's not what they do every day. You know, a lot of times in our industry, we like to laugh about this things, Oh, you know. Everybody has their expertise, right? So, our specialty is this. So, our job is to be the translator and the communicator. What do you mean by punch? And either understand that off the bat and deliver it, or provide a pathway and ask the right question so we get to the right answer of what punch means to them. Right.

So, I would say, first off the bat, that's a subjective thing. I don't think you're right or wrong. I [00:13:00] do think that authenticity, you know it when you feel it. There's that famous Supreme Court thing, I won't fully quote, but you know it, when you see it, you know when you feel it. Right? We're having the same conversation. It's funny, we just had this whole debate internally as a team recently, and we have produced our first full AI video for a builder.

So, I'll give you a little bit of background on it. It hasn't fully dropped yet. The concept that they came to us was don't settle for someone else's dream home. So, we approached them with a concept of Goldilocks. Don't settle. And then the whole dream word plays up into this like fantasy realm, the whole fable and all of that. So we created a poem. We had it delivered by an actual voiceover artist because the AI delivery was really just robotic, as you mentioned. But the entire video, aside from the reveal, which is this builder's homes and their beautiful end product that they provide to their buyers. All of it's in AI. We generated Goldilocks. We generated the home she's walking in.

Now in the script, she walks into a home with a wine fridge the size of a [00:14:00] washing machine was one of the key things. She also has the closets were too tight, and we generated this long hallway that could never exist in a real home with all different shapes and size closet doors. The wine fridge is literally a washing machine, like circular, with wine bottles in it. None of these things would be possible to do without either extensive animation or building this stuff from scratch for an unreasonable budget were it not for AI, right?

We're not pretending that it's not AI. We're leaning into it being AI. It's clearly AI throughout, right? And so, I think that when you say authenticity, I think this is a great example of how we matched everything together. We picked a tool that made sense for the concept, that made sense for the campaign, and we used it in a way that was authentic to the story we were telling to the buyers. Now, if you separately just like don't like AI, and there's like this sort of Luddite sort of thing, then we're going to turn off some buyers with that for sure.

But I do [00:15:00] find that like a lot of people are intrigued by AI. They're getting decent ranking and views. I think that when used appropriately, and I would tout this as a situation where it was appropriate, it works. If you gave me a testimonial with a fake person that doesn't actually exist, Bye. If you can't find somebody who actually is going to say something nice about you, I'm not buying a house. So, I do think it goes either way, Kevin.

Kevin Weitzel: As a listener note, I am not against AI. I want to make sure that that is plainly and blatantly clear. I'm not against AI, I'm against lazy use of AI. There's far too many people out there that are just leaning on it and they're like, oh, I can do this instead. That's where I think the fault comes in, so.

Jon Sherman: And Kevin, I think that we're in complete alignment there. And I think that word lazy is probably the operative word of what we're actually getting to, which is probably aggressive to say. But like when you mentioned earlier about, Hey, I've got someone on my team that owns a cell phone, and they're just going to shoot. There isn't strategy, there isn't creative. It's not even tactical. That's lazy. And if you're going to put in a [00:16:00] lazy approach to that, you're going to get lazy results. If you go and you try to use an AI tool, lazily, and by the way, I just want to put some context around that. I love this lazy concept. I might do a whole separate video about this. I love it.

There's a whole separate thing to think about too, when you think about laziness is that there's this impression that people think that just because I shot it on a cell phone, it was easier. Yes, you don't maybe need to bring in a full video crew or whatever, but a lot of times the videos that you're seeing even shot on a cell phone, are properly lit. They've prepped the space, at the very least. They've written a script, they have a concept. They've done multiple takes. That's all work. That's effort. It's not lazy.

When you think about AI, there's also a lot of leaders are going, oh, this is just going to save us costs. Those videos were not any less expensive than the other videos that we're making. And the things you have to recognize that or is new in shifting how we do things is with AI, you don't have control over the outcome. You're asking the robot to generate things for you based on prompts, and it costs you money. There's credits, right?

So, that Goldilocks video took so many hours [00:17:00] of our team collaborating internally. The character didn't look the same throughout the whole video so we had to keep regenerating the Goldilocks character. The creative needed to match. And then you're building this out and you're not getting the result you want, and now you're re-prompting and re-prompting and re-prompting and re-prompting. So, there's also a misnomer around like, oh, it's going to be cheaper, faster, easier, and it will be. It is. There's certain things you could never do that you can, but I think that leaders need to recognize that. If you're a builder and you're Hey, we will do this in AI, you got to recognize those two pieces. Is it authentic to your goals? And it's not necessarily going to be less work. And anything we're trying to do that's lazy, you're going to get lazy results.

Greg Bray: Jon, I think you've really hit on something. I was curious and I did a webinar about Google's VO tool. I don't know if you've played with that one at all.

Jon Sherman: Yeah.

Greg Bray: You know, these folks are using it for some pretty impressive videos and things like that. And I'm sitting here watching some of the inputs they're putting in and I'm like, okay. In order to use this tool, you actually have to know a whole lot about video production [00:18:00] to get these kind of prompts. Because these prompts are like, pan left this angle and up here. And I was like, wow, okay. Yes, you can do some scenes that you could never create in real life without building amazing sets or doing other types of computer work.

But what I took away was you still need somebody who's putting together a good story that understands how that's gonna flow together. You've got all of those connection points and why is this go the shot? Why do we want to have this next or before? Where do we zoom in? What is the focus point of the message and the feeling we're going for? AI doesn't tell you that. You have to figure all that out and then feed that in to get the video result. Is that a fair assessment?

Jon Sherman: Oh, a hundred percent. And by the way, it may have shifted. This stuff is changing literally daily. I feel like every time I log into ChatGPT, it's like, this is version 5.7 dash three four and it's like we were just on five. At the time that we were creating this piece in eight second increments. [00:19:00] Now most of the shots, you're cutting pretty quick. But if you needed to have an elongated shot that matched the voiceover eight seconds. That's it.

And so, now, you have to think creatively. Okay, well, if I need the shot to be 11 seconds long, how do I stitch that last three seconds knowing that AI may not generate the next logical piece of that sequence. And all of this was finalized in an editing software by a human being. Absolutely everything you just said, Greg, is true.

So, I just interviewed an attorney on my podcast about how he uses AI. And you're just like, where the heck is Jon going right now? But one of the things that he was really talking about is like all the mistakes that he was catching, in terms of the advice he was given, the case law that it was making up. So, what's the value at this point? He, as the attorney, has the expertise to know what correct looks like. And in our universe, as a video production team, we know how to get to the right outcome, the right terminology, but also what that end product needs to look like. [00:20:00] To your point, that expertise comes in, and you're not just going to get that from prompting.

Greg Bray: Let's flip the AI discussion and stay with it here. So, we've been talking about creating original. What about the opportunities to take long form content that you've already got and now find ways to reuse it and slice it and dice it, so to speak? Where does AI fit into that conversation?

Jon Sherman: There's a bunch of tools out there that can do this for you. None of it has been super effective from our perspective. I'll take a step back. They are effective if you reset your expectations. So, Kevin, kind of what you were talking about earlier about like lazy content and like, well it's fine, it's on a cell phone. You know, we're not even going to speak to like the actual effectiveness of it from a metrics perspective, but like if you're okay with that and it's not going to offend you to see on your social platforms and on your website, I guess to some degree it'll be fine to use that.

So, I'll give the example of like Opus Clip or Riverside, which is a great tool that we use to record podcasts remotely and things like that. They have tools now that you can literally click a button and say, Hey, split all the contact up into [00:21:00] 30-second bits with a thumbnail and a cool graphic, whatever. And half the time, if you listen back to the clips, it's starting in the middle of a sentence, the context isn't there, there isn't a great hook necessarily. It's clearly done thoughtlessly. It's done lazily, right? And so, to do it correctly and create curated short-form content, somebody needs to go in and either keep re-prompting that AI tool or just do it manually. And so, that's the benefit with the video production companies. Like, we can choose what's going to be the most effective tool.

So, there are tools that can do it. Greg, just to go more high-level. It is something that I'm super passionate about, and you'll hear me talk about, you know, whether it's pitching a client or working with someone that we were working with for a long time, is how are we going to use this to scale content? Because one of the areas that we're not in control of as a video production company is distribution. I can make recommendations in those types of things, but unless they have a digital marketing partner or a strategy, you know, a tree falls in the woods, no one's there to see it, does it make a sound? Like, if it doesn't go anywhere, or it's not being distributed properly, we don't have control over that.

But when we think about ROI, where I do have [00:22:00] control is if I could take your one shoot that was going to yield one video and it was going to be, you know, $12,000 for all of the work in the production to yield that one video, or I could charge you 16 and we could give you three more shorts. Your price per video just dropped down. That means your price per impression just dropped down. And now I can definitively say if you distribute these properly, you've got a better ROI.

And so, I really love that you said that, Greg, because it's something that has literally kept me up at night in terms of how we reform our processes, and there's a lot to think about with that. It really depends on what you're recording, how you're recording it. I don't know if we should go down that path. I can share some things about it, if you'd like to hear. Shortform is huge, and repurposing content is immensely important.

Greg Bray: Let's maybe take it Jon, to a couple more specific examples. What are some exact examples of like a long form content that a builder should think about doing, and then how do you break that up? What do the shorter forms look like? Can you give us some more specifics?

Yeah.

Jon Sherman: It runs the gamut. I'll start with one of the things that I really love. I think that builders [00:23:00] really need to show off their product and the lifestyle, the experience that they create for people. I think that that's really important. One of the things I really love is video podcasting. We've recently invested in a studio in our headquarters in Philadelphia for turnkey creation. We do a lot of remote video podcasting. Why I like it so much is I don't know that it's the most effective from a converting leads perspective. I'm not going to speak to that.

What I will say is, from a workflow perspective for subject matter experts, it's unbelievable. The amount of time it would take you to write a blog or write an email on any topic for any expert out there is going to be hours. Just to think about it, whatever, and yeah, you could give the outline points to ChatGPT and have it churn something out for you, but you're still reading it, you're reviewing it, et cetera.

With video podcasting, it flips the script on content creation. So, that scripting storyboarding process in the pre-production phase that you need in order to know what you're going to shoot and talk about, and then edit it, you flip it. You take the subject matter expert, you give them a couple questions, you sit them down in front of a podcast mic and [00:24:00] camera, and they just talk. Now I have my video. This is great for digital marketers, by the way. Then I extract the transcript from that, and now I have all my written copy for all the other initiatives that I want to do. So, that's not necessarily the most effective lead gen video, but it is a workflow game changer. And if we know the importance of frequency in terms of posting and being on social, just being consistently in front of your audience, this is a great way to do that, that's very effective and lower cost.

 As far as the other methodologies of how I would do this for a builder, lifestyle testimonial. I would 100% go to buyers, happy buyers that have recently just moved in. I would buy them dinner. Figure out what the best way is to do it. Get a crew in there to film them. Get B-roll content of them living in the home, cooking, enjoying their outdoor fireplace, enjoying the space, their messy kitchen, right, all those different things that you've included in your floor plans that are so great. Interview them to [00:25:00] talk about it. And now, as a videographer, in post-production, I can mix and match that content.

I could create a three-minute overall story that could tie to the floor plan. I could create short form bits that are just about the messy kitchen, and how I just love my messy kitchen. I love how everything's hidden away in the back. It's gotten everything off my counters and I just love the way it looks. And I've got the B-roll, the visual detail shots, which your buyers really need to see and I've got the storytelling. And so, I think that those testimonial videos are a great way to slice and dice content in a lot of different ways.

Kevin Weitzel: Speaking of those types of videos and getting that ROI on it and hitting the mark and missing the mark all at the same time. There's a builder down in Florida called Lifestyle Home Builders. This is not a slam on them in any way. They did this bit in one of their kitchens, and it had all Wolf appliances, and you know, Sub-Zero fridge and everything. I mean, it was just beautiful. The kitchen was like to die for, and they were basically, you know, showing how to make cookies and how to mix these drinks.

It was practically a Lucy and Ethel, from I [00:26:00] Love Lucy moment, where they just kept messing up the recipes and stuff, and I'm like, how'd you miss the mark? It was so funny and so entertaining that you never mentioned anything about the appliances and stuff in one of your homes. We're doing this on this countertop. I dropped a pitcher of cocktail sauce on this counter. Luckily, it won't stain because it's X, Y, Z brand. You get the gist. Totally could have said that, you know, we're in our model home, we're in this home doing this, but they didn't.

Jon Sherman: Well, part of that's having a good moderator that's MCing that moment, and a good director. You know, one of the things we didn't talk about, about bringing out an outside video production company to work with your team, is I'm like a jack of all trades. I've done medical videos. I've done clinical trial films. I've done retail films. I've done retail engagement training videos. We've done home builder videos, drone. And I'm not going to pretend I'm an expert in any of these spaces, but we know a lot about the way builders communicate, the terminology, the way they talk to their buyers, the things that their buyers are looking for and need. By coming in with that [00:27:00] outside perspective and asking the right questions, we're going to see things that you can't see about yourself.

Kevin, to your point, you're busy having fun and maybe that was the goal. I haven't seen this Lifestyle Home Builders bit. Maybe the whole thing was about having fun and whatever, but if somebody from outside the organization was just there to go, Hey, let's take that one more time, or just mention it. You know, if we're doing a funny blooper-style video, like it doesn't matter, just mention it, and that can be part of the storytelling. Mention the countertops, mention the appliances. I love that you said that, because that's another key benefit of having that sort of additional perspective.

Greg Bray: Well, Jon, this has been a great conversation. Couple more questions though if you're okay.

Jon Sherman: Yeah, hit me.

Greg Bray: Beyond what Kevin pointed out. Are there any, like, huge mistakes you've seen others do when you're looking at their videos, going, oh man, who was not in charge here? One or two, just big ones that watch out for, to warn people about.

Jon Sherman: This ties into a general theme of we'll just fix it in post, post being editing. We'll just fix it in editing. Just fix it in editing. One of the biggest [00:28:00] ones I've seen recently, very recently actually, there's a national camp that we're working with. Actually, this is a great story altogether for everything we've been talking about. They have an internal marketing person that goes, I'm going to make the new video. They went around and they filmed a bunch of B-roll of the camp in session, and they interviewed a bunch of people, whatever.

Besides the fact that all of this looks like it was shot on Hi8, and I'm going back to Kevin. For those who don't know, Hi8, that was probably for most of the millennials, or early millennials or whatever that other generation is after millennials, all of your family videos are on them. That's Hi8. Just handheld terrible. It looks like somebody's, you know, grandfather shot it, whatever. No offense to grandfathers.

But the biggest issue was we went in, and they asked us, could you salvage this footage? Right? Could you clean this up and, and tell the story? And the biggest issue was they didn't interview the right talent. Instead of interviewing a slew of different counselors that showed age and range. You know, if you're sending your kids to a camp, you want to know that the adults that are there are like legit supervisors and adults. They had all these super young counselors, that [00:29:00] isn't reflective of the camp. It just happened to be easy for the person to interview. And so, all of the content is useless because none of those people, we don't have enough of the people that actually reflect the brand.

So, I think that it ties back into what we've been talking about. One of the biggest issues is it's not just that the quality of the shots wasn't good, it's that no one thought enough to think about what is important for the brand to get in front of the camera. If you're going to do that testimonial video where you bring in a family, let's say you're in a senior living, right? And you bring in somebody that's super young, that's not going to fit for the message that you want to share, right? That's one of the biggest mistakes I see that's unfixable.

Kevin Weitzel: So are you saying that they should be interviewing Laverne and Shirley's of the world, not the Lennys and Squiggy's?

Jon Sherman: Yes. It's really funny because we're actually working on a Laverne and Shirley parody video. I swear I'm not making this up at all right now, Kevin. We are making a Laverne and Shirley, and so like, for you to bring that up twice in the call.

Kevin Weitzel: I speak to grandpas man. It's what I do. It's my thing.

Greg Bray: And for those listeners who need to Google that, we'll pause for a moment while you go look that up.

Jon Sherman: Yep. A moment of silence for [00:30:00] Google.

Greg Bray: Well, Jon, before we wrap up, do you have any last thoughts or words of advice that you want to leave with our audience today?

Jon Sherman: I'll probably do like shameless plug for us, and it ties into everything we've talked about, and I've sort of implied with process. I built this brand around what we call the elevated experience, and it comes from the idea that early on in this industry I saw that like video creatives and the people that are attracted to video production in the creative space are generally either very artistic, they love the creative and pie in the sky ideas, or they're super technical, they like buttons and cameras and gear, and neither of those personas are generally easy to work with. Right.

Those are generally, you know, not the most collaborative. If you're artistic, maybe you're really strong to my creative and the thing that I can. If you're technical, you may not have the soft skills. One of the things that I think we really focus on is just being easy to work with. It's being collaborative, it's a process of listening, providing guidance. It doesn't mean you're a doormat and you just do whatever the client says. I think that providing guidance and expertise is part of your responsibility, but it has to be baked in listening, and it has to be [00:31:00] baked in a collaborative experience so clients feel heard, and that's when we create our best work.

I'll add in just to Kevin's point of like, what's the biggest mistake you've ever made? I would say ongoing, because it's always this ongoing process. The most important thing we do, and I'm sure in the website space, this is the same for you guys, is as you're iterating, as you're creating content and videos and examples, if you're creating pages, et cetera, is setting expectations along the way. I think that in general, in whatever you do in life, and I'm sure for builders. Every builder listening to this knows the times that they didn't properly set expectations for a buyer on the timeline, on an issue, or whatever, and you just lose trust, and it's all you'll hear about.

The things that keep me up at night is if we ever feel like we didn't do a good enough job of that. And so, that's what really our forte is. It's an important thing for everybody to be doing is just setting expectations so that people build trust, they know what's coming. It just keeps people's guard down and allows people to be more open and collaborative.

Greg Bray: For the builder who wants to improve their video, what's one thing they should do tomorrow?

Jon Sherman: Well, I was going to say start. Just [00:32:00] whatever it is, get started. But I think that if they're trying to improve their video, have somebody you trust take a look, outside looking in, and give you that honest perspective on what they're seeing, and be open to it because it may shock you.

Kevin Weitzel: Can I add to that, Jon? Above and beyond what you just suggested, which was a good suggestion, but pales in comparison to this one. You ready for this whopper? This whopper right here. They should dial 215-735-8880 and get in touch with the team at VC Productions. That's what they should do.

Jon Sherman: Let's go.

Kevin Weitzel: There's some advice. Look at that. A plug without you even have to do your own plug. I love it.

Jon Sherman: Uh, that was awesome, and I love that you like one upped me. It was good on both sides. That was great.

Greg Bray: Well, Jon, for those who do want to get in touch, is that the best way? Or how would you like people to get in touch?

Jon Sherman: Yeah, I'd say visit our website, videocityinc.com, video city I-N-C dot com. Call us, carrier pigeon. We accept all communications. We'd be excited to connect with you.

Greg Bray: Well, Jon, thanks so much for sharing your thoughts and experience with us today. And thank you, everybody, for listening to the Builder Marketing Podcast. I'm Greg Bray with Blue Tangerine.

Kevin Weitzel: And I'm Kevin [00:33:00] Weitzel with OutHouse. Thank you.