I chatted with Ayrton Sudholz who is otherwise known as the video marketing guy.
We discuss how important it was to his business that he picked a niche and why videos were his medium. He went from working in a fuel station to not only moving to the other side of the country but also starting a really successful business.
If videos aren’t part of your strategy, after listening to this episode they should be.
Follow Ayrton
https://www.instagram.com/ayrtonsudholz/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ayrton-sudholz/
Keep in touch and send me your questions.
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Today I’m speaking to Ayrton, we’re going to be talking about the importance of video, especially when you’re building up your personal brand, because it really gives people that three 60 of you. They can, they can see you. They can hear you. They can see. See all your movements, they can see your mannerisms and that is where you can build familiarity and trust really quickly and really effectively before we kick off.
I just want to thank you so much for joining me today. Cause it actually means so much. We’re only on episode 10. So I’ve kind of gone past that seven Mark, which is where a lot of people tend to give up because it’s all too hard. So I’m getting a bit of a yay moment for that. If you’re enjoying the episodes, please turn on the notifications on whatever platform you’re using so that you can get more episodes so they can pop up for you.
If you’re on Spotify, press the follow button. That’s generally where I am. Um, and if you could leave a review, I know on Spotify, you can’t, but an iTunes and lots of other platforms, you can leave a review that helps me so much. It just tells the platform that my stuff is good and you enjoyed it. And then it will get served up to other people that might.
And enjoy it too. So that’s helpful for me because I get more people listening to me and it’s helpful for other people who might actually enjoy it as well. Thank you so much. And let’s get started.
Good. Thank you for having me.
No worries. All right. We were just quickly chatting there about your name, air, and my, my accent normally gets most people’s name wrong, but this one is a difficult one.
It definitely is. It’s it’s something since, um, since my childhood, like in primary school, I remember. Uh, my year one, I think it was one of my teachers said to me, it’s like, and you’re going to have a difficult life with your name. That’s a really awesome name, but it’s just gonna be really hot. And they just get called Ethan all these different names of primary school.
And it’s just something like every time someone goes to 7:00 AM, it’s like, it’s all right, everyone else has it wrong. Or they very few people get arrived first, but you have eye on unusual surname as well. So where, where does your name originate from?
Well, my first name I’m named after a racing car driver called at and sinner who died the year I was born, which is 1994.
Um, some people know him like a lot of older, older generations would know him cause he was a former one driver, but younger generations have no idea who he is. Um, and the last name is German background. So. My family is originally from German, like Germany, like, uh, I say background, but I don’t really know any Germans, but it’s like a couple of ways of from announcing my last name is like and then there’s like settles depending on how you want to pronounce it, but there’s like a couple of ways to pronounce it as well.
Awesome. Okay. Well, I didn’t get you on the show to talk about your name, talk to you about how you’ve built a personal brand around videoing. So talk to me about that. How did you niche down into videoing?
Yeah. So it all started in 2016. I, um, I was working at a service section, actually. I used to be a store manager, uh, but now I’m in video, but I used to be a store manager and I realized very quickly that if I wanted to start the business that I needed to build a brand around. And I actually joined a network marketing company, people know unbelievable pyramid schemes and stuff like that. But anyway, I joined one of those network marketing companies. Cause I was looking for something different. I wanted to just get out of this service station job. I’ve been doing that for seven years.
And I realized very quickly at the starting point that even though like people who had the top income earners of the business of the company, um, they were, they had the same product and services me and I was just like, One day I’ll be able to get like that, but how do I, how do I get to wear that? What’s what’s different between me and them.
And I realized very quickly what the difference was, and that was, they had a brand and people knew him. I can trusted them. And I was a guy that worked at the service station. So I quickly realized that, uh, I needed to build a brand around me and to build credibility. And that’s when sort of video came around, I started.
Create a YouTube video. As I started going out, interviewing business owners in the community to really be able to put some brand. Cause I wanted to be known as the video guy, and this was three or four years ago that started creating videos, going, interviewing people and not really putting myself as the expert, but more of putting other people in front and interviewing them to position myself as a, as an authority, which worked really well because I ended up starting a video company off the back end.
A lot of clients came from that and like, Phosphate forwards. Now, a lot of people know me as the video marketing coach, when they see my content, they just understand, I guess, the video guy, but they probably don’t know that four years ago I was working at a service station. I didn’t even know how to use a camera properly, but I learned all that in the last four years pretty quickly.
That’s sort of how I got into niching down with video and building a brand, which is realizing very quickly that if you don’t have a brand, I personal brand of who you want to be, um, It’s very hard to position yourself as an authority in the space.
Oh, completely. And that’s the thing. Everyone has a personal brand, but if you don’t take control of the messaging, other people create it for you.
They just, they just will. So you’ll just be the service station guy. Whereas you, you possession yourself and you’re like, no, I’m the video guy. And that’s how I found you, which I thought was, um, cause I mean, I started following you because we’re, we’re local to each other here in Paris. Um, but you know, as a, as it goes, now we don’t meet in person and we met on the internet, which is how all great relationships start.
And I just was blown away with the messaging. You weren’t just doing videos. You were very much talking about what the messaging behind the video was for the individual and that’s. I think that’s the difference because you were talking to me, you were talking to your audience and I think that’s massive.
Where did you, where did you learn to do that? Where did that pop in?
So, uh, I S so good to get backtrack a little bit back in 2017, we saw, I started the video company, um, with a business Potter my back in my local town. Um, benefit Bendigo Victoria and S the messaging came from like, I’m not, uh, the best with camera, even though there’s like this video camera that would be watching, uh, watching this or listening to podcasts, we got official cameras set up.
It looks awesome. I’m not a professional video guy. Like I’m not like for taking, I don’t know, like all the aspects of the camera. I know how to make the shot look good. But one of my skills strengths was understanding they’re the outcome of a video and understanding what that is going to have an effect on the viewer.
And I got really obsessed with like, okay, what is the purpose of this video? Like, what is the message we’re trying to get across yet? Obviously we want to sell more products than services, but. What does that video means to the viewer? Like the reason why we haven’t compensations? Well, my video wasn’t selling anything in it.
It was explaining what I’m passionate about, but I know that’s the message I want to get across. Um, and even for example, that I ran a five day challenge recently, where I talked all about messaging. A lot of people came in like, Oh, I want to make videos. I want to make videos. I’m like, cool. We’re going to show you how to make videos.
And I’m going to show you how to get clients. But first of all, we’re gonna start to get clear in your messaging. And a lot of people have these aha moments for this challenge was like, ah, the reason why my videos aren’t converting is because I don’t know what I meant to say. And that’s because no, no, a lot of people spend time on their messaging.
And for me, like where I learned it from was just like trial and error. Like we had a, uh, one of, one of my clients that we worked in the last couple of years. Um, she was one of our first clients and she came from me starting my personal brand as well. I interviewed her and then she became a client of my business when I started it.
Um, I realized really quickly with her messaging. She was a, she’s a business coach and I’ll share what she does. She’s a business coach for tradies. And, um, she started her business wanting to work with the male in the business, but we realized very quickly that videos weren’t going to attract the male.
Right. And we quickly realized that her actual ideal client was. The women in the business who were working as the admin and that’s who she really wants to work with in the business. Um, and this is where, like I learned messaging was understanding that what type of concept mattered to the female was different to the male.
It’s not being sexist or anything. It’s just explaining that the concept was different. And that we had to change the messaging from, Hey, do you want to learn how to grow your trading business too? Do you want to keep your relationship together and your trading business and for her business, we ended up creating a couple of viral videos.
One got 3.6 million views, organically, no paid ads, really. And she grew a brand from zero to 10,000 followers in like six to six to eight months. Um, and generate a 240 K in her coaching business, just from messaging, just from understanding that. And also it’s like the light bulb hit. I was like, A lot of people don’t work on their messaging.
Like the videos were great. We obviously filmed them for her, but we started off with getting clear on the messaging. And then the only way we got clear and clear on it was like putting more content out there, really realizing what the problems were that their clients were having and this educating them.
And now she’s going to brand every time she goes live, do you go check out a page called laser tradies? She has like a fan base of people just love her lives. Um, And just watch a content because she worked on a messaging side of it. And that’s what I realized, um, which is the biggest downfall for a lot of people is I think that they need to have it professionally film video, and that’s going to be what makes them all the money.
It’s like, no, you need to understand what the problem is. Your client has. And be able to articulate that in a message for them to understand that. So when you put a viewer there in front of them, they feel like you’re talking in communicating to them.
Oh, completely. You mean, you’ve touched on two things for me there.
One that, you know, you’ve said I’m not the best videographer, but I know how to position myself. So it just shows you people don’t buy. A product or service they do by people. And you are, you are the person that they’re buying. And the second, how important it is. And I keep going on about this all the time of my clients is avatars.
Like, if you don’t know who your client is, how the hell do you speak to them? And you know, it, you just took some time with that lady to say to her that, you know, your client needs this, but this is what you need to tell them to get on there. And the more you understand about your client and the, the pain points that they have and the actual problem that you’re solving for them, like it’s just so much easier to communicate with them.
That’s fantastic. I love that.
Yeah. I think it was one of the, um, it’s the biggest problem that a lot of people face. Like I had a couple of conversations recently with, um, potential prospects and the whole problem they have is like, they want to like what they want. They want to make more money. They want to get more clients.
I want to grow their business, but they’re avoiding what they actually need to work on, which is getting clear on who they want to work with. And they have so many ideas like, Oh, I want to serve everyone. I want to help everyone. And I’m just like, that’s great. But right now, you’re not serving anyone. You need to pick someone for at least 90 days.
I use it as a period. Like, um, my Mo like I had, I had this, I had the same problem last year. Um, I just moved across the Perth. And even though I teach marketing Facebook ads funnels and teaching video, that’s my thing. I just saw my last video, like my video company to my business partner. I was starting fresh in the coaching space.
Um, and I was just like, I didn’t even have a clue in that. Like I was throwing out all these things. Nothing is working. Uh, I invested in a coach, spent five K in one day and he said, one thing, he’s just like, all right, you got to choose one target audience and just. Put content out to that person. And this was like, ah, like I’d been teaching that, but when I had fallen back into having to build my own brand again from scratch, um, It was literally a problem they had.
And as soon as I changed it, we started growing a business. Like we did over a hundred K in like, uh, eight to nine months in our coaching business, just from getting clear on our messaging. And I didn’t have a website, I didn’t even have a logo. It was just the videos that I was putting out the messaging for people to understand that what I did.
And that was it. Yeah. Oh, like there’s so much value in having a coach like you and I are marketers. And we both had the exact same stumbling block. Like we both can tell people they need to have these avatars. They have to be very clear in the messaging. But when it came to us internally, I mean, it’s the same story I think for everyone, you know, I think if you go to most professions, you know, it’s, it’s great what they do for their clients.
But home their house is a mess because they can’t, they can’t do it for themselves. We kind of leave ourselves out. So I think that that’s. So super important. So that’s exciting. Okay. I’ve got some questions I want to ask you just to find out a little bit more about you and your personal brand. So where did you hang out the most online?
Where’d you like hanging out for you personally?
For me personally, it’s Facebook. I’m in Facebook groups. Instagram. I like I post content on there. Uh, I actually deleted Instagram off my phone this week. So I’m just using the computer that’s for like more of just product management productivity. But yeah, Facebook’s my main place where I hang up.
I’m a bit young, the demographic for, for being a Facebook lover, which was interesting.
It was the first platform that I went on and that’s where I built my whole brand. So yeah. That’s funny. Cause my, my first business when I was 21 and it was Facebook that it grew from as well. And it was kind of when it was quite new for businesses getting on there and it just kind of boomed.
And then people started paying me to do theirs. Cause they seemed to think I had this magic tool when really all it was was. Tasting it and pushing it as far as I could, but now I can’t stand Facebook. I’m just like, no, I’m done Facebook. No. And I know how important as you and I were actually talking about this the other day.
So I will I’ll look at it again. When your recommendation so offline, where are we most likely see you hanging out? Where do you like going.
I’m a bit of an introvert, so I don’t really like social events, but, um, if there’s any like local networking events that’s related, so on, see marketing, business growth and stuff like that.
I always go to them, obviously right now we can’t, there’s no events, I’ve got a couple of clients who run events and it sucks for them right now because they can’t run of it. So we have to do everything online, but, um, usually I go hang out. . I’ve got a coffee shop, so people do coffee, but, um, I’ll usually go to like a networking event.
That’s business orientated. Anything else? If you’re talking about anything else, I’m just like, I’m not there. If it’s business it’s marketing. Um, I’ll be there.
Nice. So if you could only eat the same meal for the rest of your life, what would that be? First thing comes to mind is lasagna. Oh, nice. Garfield.
I think that’s probably where I remember feeling so much golf when I was younger. Yeah. Um, mom’s lasagna. I haven’t had it for probably a year and a half. Cause like I’ve moved over to DWI, but. Yeah, lasagna is the first thing possible. Why
is it with you boys? Because nearly everyone I interview, it’s always their mom’s signature meal that they’re, um, they’re yearning after that’s. Cause we haven’t so much when we’re younger and we’re just all actually, but I didn’t have it that much. It was more like a special meal because it takes a lot of work. Like the lasagna. It takes a little work to put together, especially homemade. Um, We used to have leftovers and stuff for a couple of days.
Yeah.
Nice. What’s one word that your family would use to describe your, your friends and family,
I’m the, I’m the youngest of five. So I was, I was, uh, I’ve got all the hand me downs. I was sort of like left out on my own as a young child. I had to look at it from the age of five. I was looking after my older brother.
Um, for other reasons he was actually disabled, but like, I, I had to grow up very quickly. My parents had already like, looked off to like the first five or four kids. Um, So I’ve always been different.
No difference. Good. I always say whatever makes you weird is what makes you different and makes you stand out.
And that is that’s special. So that’s good. Do you have a favorite book?
Yes. Starting with why from Simon Sinek? I don’t actually have it. I have, um, I have find your why as a, as one of them, but there’s starting with Y, which is a lot of the stuff that I talk about, which relates back to obviously what I teach.
Um, when it comes to messaging videos like studying with Y under saying what your purpose is, what is it you’re actually wanting to get your audience to communicate what you need, what they need to hear in a video for them to understand that they want to do business with you. As I shared before, I have another miss video auger for in the world, this content creator.
Um, but one of the things I want to be the best at is the messaging. And that starts with why. So answer the question. That’s why we’re talking a little bit about it. His favorite book, Sotheby’s starting with why by Simon Sinek.
Yeah, no. Awesome. I must check that one out. Um, and finally, what word do you overuse the most?
Uh, there’s a few, there’s a few, um, probably messaging or start with.
Starting with Y that’s probably the words that comes up in the mind that I’d use a fair bit, but I mean, that comes down to. I’m just sending you a message. If you can talk about it, more people understand what it is. So that’s why I would have said like messaging the selling of wildlife a couple of times today.
If you watched any of my videos on Facebook and Instagram, Oh, a lot of the stuff that I will talk about. Like I look back my videos. Um, those are like the two main words that obviously messaging is starting with. Why?
Yeah. No, you do say that quite a bit. I have noticed that. How about your videos are fantastic?
Um, so if, cause I mean, we’re, we’re a little bit stuck at the moment cause people can’t get out in a boat, but if people are thinking about building their personal brand, what’s some tips that you could maybe give them to get them started.
Yeah, it, it, it’s a good question. It comes down to like, if you’re, if you’re a service provider or you like your cartridge consultant, um, I can give some tips in that, not really product service, but, um, first step is to realize like where your customers are hanging out.
Like what platform? That’s the reason why I say I’m on Facebook. I know my audience is on face. There are no other app other platforms, but I know mainly they’re on Facebook and there are Facebook groups. So I spent a lot of my time and energy. And then they’re also on Instagram. Like I could make Instagram my main focus, but to give some tips on it is like, figure out where your audience is and then start.
Going and researching your competitors. Like a lot of people are like, Oh, I don’t want to compete with people. Like you’re going to have competitors. They’re actually good to have, because one of the things I do a lot is I go look at and look at other competitors, Facebook ads. I go and look at other people’s brands and see what type of content they’re creating, creating what type of content people are resonating with.
Because then if they’re in the same industry, like, why am I trying to reinvent the wheel? Why don’t I just like model that’s working model works. Obviously I have my own spin on it. Um, so like for tips wise is like really like starting out, like go look at some other brands and businesses like yours, see what they’re good at, see what they suck up.
And then just go start off even on whatever platform that your audiences and if your competitors are already on that platform, you know, you, you can, you can always slice half the half the cake. You always going to reach that competition.
Yeah, no, I think that’s really important because a lot of people don’t want to be seen as copying their competitors.
And I don’t think that you should ever copy your competitors. Cause that’s the whole point of our personal brand is that yes. You know, Tom and Marty are both putting out the exact same content, but it’s the way that they put it out. And the way that the, you understand it as their, their customer potential customer, I think is really important.
I was talking to staff in this morning about content being a bit like a party and how, you know, you, you’ve got the, the host of the party. And then you’ve got the entertainment, which is the actual content. And it’s the frills, you know, the things that are nice, a party like was the cake goods. Was there a photo booth? You know, the things you remember, um, you know, that’s how you then present your content. It’s the same content, but everyone’s putting different frills on it. And it’s not about gimmicks in it being a bit cheesy, but it is about having your. Then that’s what gets people coming back to your party continually or your content in this scenario?
So, yeah, I think it’s, it’s about the same information going out, but it being original and being understood by your, your clients.
yeah, I think like one of the biggest tips I can give to people, especially when it comes to video and building your personas is go and look at competitors and see what they’re doing, that’s more of just for marketing research.
So thing when it comes to content, don’t try and copy someone’s video. Just be, you just be like, be authentic. Like if you starting with, you know, why you’re actually doing what you’re doing and leading with. A purpose. Like a lot of people over-complicate video, it’s like, Oh, I’ve gotta be scripted. I’ve gotta be stepped, but it’s gotta be able to structure it.
Like if you just go live, will you just put some content out there and stop being you in front of camera? That’s what people are actually connected to. And that’s what actually really builds your personal brand. For me. I have conversations with people at time. And then when they watch my videos is the whole, whole reason why it works is like I’m just authentically being made.
Like some of my, like I posted a video yesterday on my Facebook page and like, my dog was in it. And it was like a, it was a sales video essentially, but my dog jumped up at me. I was just like, you know what, I’m going to put that in the video. Cause that was funny. To me. And it was real. Like, it wasn’t, it wasn’t scripted or anything like that.
Um, and I think that’s what really builds. Like a lot of people want to look professional and they like that. And I do believe you should have good quality content, but if you’re going too much over the top on creating all this professional videos, but you’re not being you and you’re just not, you’re missing the element, you’re gonna miss the ball.
So I think the biggest lesson, biggest tip I can give anyone is it’s like start off with being you. Yeah, that’s awesome.
I think that’s the hardest part. And that was my problem as well. Um, getting in front of the camera, it’s very daunting, but as your perfect opportunity, like you’re, you know, you’re face to face with someone at a networking event.
You’ve got no problem going up and saying, Hey, this is who I am. This is what I do. And you chat away and they see you, they see three 60 or views so they can decide whether they want it. Speak to you more or not, but yet getting in front of a video, it’s just so super hard. So I that’s, um, that’s a big barrier, but I’m a big blip.
My parent, my coach always tells me, Don is better than perfect. So that’s what I’ve been going with.
That’s why I said it, everyone, everyone, like people go from my online program. Um, they come there’s a lot of people come in as like, they want to make quality content. And like we do teach that. And that’s one album, but sort of like a little bit further down the course, the first bit is obviously messaging, but actually just getting out there with first couple of challenges, we set papers, like, just go live, just do a video because like, you’re going to suck really bad as a site.
Like I haven’t shared my video from four years ago. I was terrible. I shared it last year and it actually built more of my personal. I smell the hell of it, but like,
people love that story. They love it. You need to be documenting your journey because like right now, if you’re listening to the podcast, you can’t see this.
But when I stick this up on YouTube, if you’re watching this video, so we’ve got art has got these two cameras and he’s like, which one do you want me to use? And one was just the camera from the laptop and the other is this nice fancy one. And he just looks so healthy. Like it’s fun, but that’s it. Let’s just transition.
You’ve got to start a little bit green and a bit gray. Like my, my picture is here, but if I was to start with the fancy one right now, you wouldn’t know that story in the struggle and you wouldn’t be able to relate to the fact that I, when I first did my videos, I was going, Oh, hell no, this isn’t for me.
And then you get like art and you look nice and glowing as if you’ve been in the sun all day, which is awesome. So it’s, it’s that transition and that transition and the journey is what people actually. Relate to it. So I think that’s super
important and that’s, that’s a touching on another subject related to that.
A lot of people like using the example, if you’re watching the video view, listening to podcasts, we’ve got professional setup. This took me three years to sort of get through that. Like I, I taste video, um, and it’s something I teach people how to do, but it’s not a main focus. I think a lot of people compare themselves.
To others, especially on social media. This is a, and building a postal brand is like, Oh, I want to create content. Like Gary V Gary V has a team of 25 people. And I talk about this all the time. My videos, I had one to go out the other day. It was like, Gary, V’s be lying shoes because like, he has a team of people he’s like, yeah, put more content out.
And I’m like, This is the wrong information, should be telling people, we should be telling him this to like, you can slowly go into it. Like even right now, I’ve got a campaign that I’m running, which is more about, um, in last month we tested at one thing we use instead of creating HIPAA content, we just create a one video that had clean messaging, put an ad campaign.
And it worked really, really well. But Gary V is telling us to post 60 billion times on Facebook and Instagram. So I’m just really annoyed about it. I can tell you that, but a lot of people get stuck in that. And I compare this off as like, Oh, I need to have a better camera, but a quality of need this, this, this, this, this.
Instead of, they just like put content out of clear messaging. Yeah, it just, it works so much better.
I completely agree with that because I think that’s, you know, people aren’t actually buying into you because of all the bells and whistles they’re buying into you. And that is as a small business owner as an entrepreneur, or even if it’s, you know, you’re just in the career ladder and you want to get the next step up and you’re using social media for that.
It’s you, that’s going to land you that next opportunity, not the fancy camera and the fancy mic. Not as interesting. So stop comparing yourself.
Hot thing for me, that was like, cause I, uh, cause I teach for the, I do need to up my quality. That’s the thing. Whereas for me, I have to like, yeah, I have to make the videos look better because it’s perceived that as you could teach for you and you have good quality, but it’s hard to say that to other people it’s like, you don’t need it, but I’m doing it.
It’s like, well, this took me three years. Yeah. Yeah. I understand the journey. Yeah.
Yeah, no, definitely. And that’s the difference, I guess, with what, um, what’s what you and I are doing is we’re assisting people to be able to further that journey. If you were a corporate and you just wanted to throw money at it, then yeah.
You can get a really schmick video, someone like you or someone even better than you will come in and just make that video. But if you’re actually trying to do this on your own, you need that support. And that’s where, I guess, I guess you come in. And I’ve been learning loads from your videos. So I’m going to put all of your social media links down in the show notes for anyone else who wants to follow you.
But do you want to quickly just for people who don’t like to reach your notes, tell them where they can find you?
Yeah. So you can find me on obviously Facebook, which is I said my favorite platform. So if you search, my name is first and last name, uh, Facebook, Instagram it’s first and last name. Not on YouTube.
Surprisingly, I don’t do YouTube and LinkedIn. I probably don’t do too much on the area that says a shares like Facebook and Instagram is for me, my main things, um, as best place to reach me. If you need anything come to you about LinkedIn. Cause that’s my favorite place.
I will step on there. I just like I said before, like with with Gary V I try to shy away from doing all the platforms at once.
Cause I don’t have a. And like, this is something I teach my clients is I can be doing well. The ones you’ll do like a mediocre. It’s like watering like six plants you won’t get. But I do believe you should have a presence on that, especially if you are in the professional fight, uh, professional.
Yes, definitely.
Well, art and that was so awesome. I really enjoyed that. And I will chat to you hopefully in person soon, once all these bans are lifted and we can get moving about, but thanks so much for joining me today.
A problem. Thanks for having me.
That’s it for episode 10 or personal branding exposed. If this one was a good one for you, then leave a review because that’s helpful.
Not only for me, but it’s also helpful for other people looking to listen to awesome podcasts. And I’m really hoping that this goes into the awesome podcast category for you. If you got this far, I’m hoping it does. And as always get over to the social media channels. Send me a message. If you’ve got questions or you just want to tell me something, then head on over there.
I’m normally found on Instagram or LinkedIn the most, and obviously I’m checking my emails. So yeah, anything I told, jump on over there and I’ll have all the information in the show notes. So you can get in touch with Ayrton and myself about anything personal branding related. Look forward to speaking to you soon.
