Below is an AI-generated transcript and therefore it may contain errors.
Francisco Mahfuz 0:00
Hi everyone, Francisco here. Just before we get started, I wanted to share something I'm really excited about. I recently launched the story powers bootcamp, a course that teaches you everything you need to know about how to find craft and tell stories that work. But it's not just an online course, because you get personalised feedback from me for all the practical activities in three hours of life coaching to work through any challenges, or focus on specific projects. So it's like if you bought a cookbook, but the chef came along with it. So go to story powers.com and click on Course, all the information you need will be there. So please check it out. And if you love the show, and would like to support us, you can go to buy me a coffee.com forward slash story powers. I drink about five coffees a day, so any support would be much appreciated. All right on with the show.
Welcome to the story powers podcast, the show about the power of stories, the people who tell them and why you should be doing it too. I'm your host, keynote speaker and storytelling coach Francisco mahfuz. My guest today is Alex B. Sheridan. Alex is the founder of impacts LinkedIn marketing agents, it transforms founders and executives into revenue generating LinkedIn content creators, I want to have Alex on because he makes these incredible videos full of different characters, music and stories, which are just completely unique on social media. And it's a social media that I see. He's also the only person I know who managed to post a video of himself half naked. It not only did he not get booted from the platform, but also he got massive compliments on his biceps. But that last one might have been just from me. If you liked the show, please subscribe and leave us a rating on Apple podcasts. It really helps other people find us. If you're still not tired of me by the end of it. You can find me on LinkedIn or at story powers.com. Ladies and gentlemen, Alex B. Sheridan. Alex, welcome to the show.
Alex B Sheridan 1:59
What's up, brother? I'm so happy to be here. cracking me up already, man as to be expected?
Francisco Mahfuz 2:04
Well, you and I are under massive pressure, aren't we? Because we've made such a habit of winding each other up in each other's posts that on LinkedIn, that if this episode is anything less than hilarious, then we will disappoint our fans, or at least our one true fan. High defence.
Alex B Sheridan 2:23
We basically have a show that well, we call it the LinkedIn comments and each other's posts just created a hilarious get jail from that. So I love it. I'm happy to be here. Thank you.
Francisco Mahfuz 2:32
So one of the things I said that was going to do once we agreed to do this is I went back on the time machine. And I started scrolling back through every single post you've ever put out in social media. It is very interesting how the how some of the video editing or just the looks of the things have have evolved over time. So I just want to run through a very brief list. I think I missed something. But it's a brief list of some of the stuff you've you've put out there since the beginning. So it was the brand Father, The Wolf of LinkedIn, sales cops LinkedIn division, then there was my think of LinkedIn strategy with a guy called Poll, which I really liked there was do you sell on LinkedIn with do more than the LinkedIn people choose? The LinkedIn Terminator, LinkedIn anonymous, and recently, you did a couple of the rap battles, which was the sales versus marketing, and founder versus employees. And for anyone who's has not seen your stuff on LinkedIn, which I very much suggest that they should, and I'll link some of that in the show notes. Let's just pick one and then just sort of describe so we will have some idea of what we're talking about. So the The Wolf of LinkedIn, I think was one of the first ones you did that quite a bit of traction. That what was that about? Can you remember? Yeah, no.
Alex B Sheridan 3:46
And I remember that one. Exactly. Um, and that was my first like, hater comment on too, because they were like, What is this? What is this on LinkedIn? But yeah, remember that when I was talking about LinkedIn strategy and how to be effective on your, I think I was talking about the seven C's cover, connect, content creation, that kind of stuff, things just to be successful on LinkedIn, but I wanted to do it in a way that it was that Wolf of Wallstreet kind of, you know spoof to it, and there was some humour in it, and there were some characters in it. So just to kind of bring a little bit of the story for life.
Francisco Mahfuz 4:16
Yeah, and the the, the rap battles, one, I think in those are very recent. So they've benefited from, you haven't gotten a lot more of a platform at the moment and a lot more engagement. But but those are a lot more. I think there's a lot more production value in those than a lot of stuff that people put out on social media. And those are so you are the three characters and a times there's two or three of them at the same time, the same video, and it's you rapping or singing throughout. So what I wanted to ask is, and again, I do realise that stuff you put out now might get a different engagement and perhaps if you had put it out six months ago, but what have you found that that works well, in what doesn't? When this type of video that you're putting out. I mean, when it comes to engagement or result from the videos, there's two different things that right. So what seems to work better let's let's go for engagement first. So what seems to generate more engagement, we want to tackle the results in a second.
Alex B Sheridan 5:13
Well, typically the high entertainment entertainment type ones generate the most views the most engagement and most reactions, just because it's something so different. Like when you get on LinkedIn, you see, there's all the people doing videos or people doing text posts. But when you put out something that's just so uniquely different than everyone else, it stands out, people are gonna watch it. And so obviously, you know, it has to do with catchy headlines and the titles and that kind of stuff. But it's also just what you're talking about. So when someone sees a founder versus an employee rap battle on LinkedIn, or a salesperson marketing rap battle, you know, there's there's, it's specifically targeted towards a target audience towards my target audience. In the founder versus employee case, you're either a founder, or you're an employee. And so it's going to hit it's going to hit you, you're going to feel it, you're going to take aside naturally, you're just going to want to watch to see what happens. Who wins, how does this play out? And they both, you know, kick each other's butts a little bit. But yeah, that the high entertainment ones typically bring the most attention and engagement, and that kind of stuff.
Francisco Mahfuz 6:08
Do you find that that's different? So what generates results for you? So what generates people coming up to you and saying, Hi, Alex, I think I could, you know, we shouldn't we should talk is that different than the ones that generate a lot of engagement?
Alex B Sheridan 6:20
Sometimes, and sometimes it's not, but usually the ones that are me more of the, like, coming from a point of credibility, you know, teaching somebody tips on how to create a content strategy, or how to get more engagement, or how to send the video at the end, I think there's got to be a definitely a balance between if you're going to go in the entertainment route, or try to be funny and humorous, and that kind of stuff, you got to balance that with also showing up as an authoritative figure in your space, someone that is credible, that knows their stuff that actually can help people. So in the beginning, I know there was times when I was like tearing the line of like, okay, I'm eating too much entertainment here, people are getting to see the real me and they're not getting, you know, enough of the sort of the credibility factor. And so I had to dial it back a little bit. And there's times when I'm like, alright, well do too much of this. Now, I need to step it up and create something that's higher entertainment. So I've done it over the over the last seven, eight to nine months, I found a good balance between, I'm very strategic with how I lay out my posts, which is some will be higher entertainment type, value, and others are going to be educational, others are going to be motivational. And then how do you kind of fuse some of those things together?
Francisco Mahfuz 7:23
It's interesting, because there's some other people that are amazing, at videos on LinkedIn. And again, we might be talking about, you know, handful of people. But there was one guy who, you know, we both know, well, you know, him better than I do, Justin, who has incredible, incredibly entertaining videos. But I'm gonna say he's, he went to foreign direction, he never went in the other direction. He was just doing entertainment videos. And he would openly admit that he didn't quite know what he wanted to do with them. So he was generating this massive audience. And I think at some point, he said, Hold on, maybe I need to figure out what I'm doing here. And I think he hasn't posted for a few weeks. Because if there was, you wanted to give you money, because your life is stuff so much. It's like, what was it? What did what does it do? Exactly.
Alex B Sheridan 8:05
And that's a balance of like, you know, people talk about, well, I posted the video, that guy, you know, let's say you posted a video of like a cat doing something funny, or like you dancing or something, it can be cool, like people can like it and react to it can give us but it's not going to translate to the result that you want. And the result that I help my clients with, and that I want is obviously to build a following and build a community. But it really, it's to gain customers to build your brand. It's to make sure that you stand out in your marketplace. And so you can post things that you get funny, you know, a lot of reactions of attention. But is that really getting you the result that you want? Are they going to think of you when they think of oh, you know, Alex does this and I should reach out to him? Because he's an expert in this space. So I think people get confused with the random, let's see how good it performs with okay, it's it's gonna result into zoom meetings, is this going to result into new customers that I book? And that's where you really got to think about it. When you put together a content strategy. It's got to be specific, it's got to be okay, what type of value am I going to deliver? And is it going to what form is it going to come in? And is it going to lead to people reaching out to me and wanting to do business with me. And the cool thing about LinkedIn is you can do both. I mean, that's what I do. I mean, every week, I've got some entertaining funny skit type videos that come out rap aisles every now and then. But they're also there's a very strategic element of it to where I'm making sure that I'm putting myself in a place where I'm credible. And people understand that I'm an industry leader in my space.
Francisco Mahfuz 9:26
I guess with the with the random video. I've seen a social media expert talking about the the value or the perceived value of things going viral. And what she said was when Twitter had just started, she tweeted her you know, the birth of her first child live, and she says, You know, I mean the thing exploded on Twitter and she got millions and millions and millions of you know what I forgot to call them follows views wherever and you said it did nothing for me professionally, because it it said nothing about the type of thing they could expect from me? And he said nothing about Okay, so if I start following this person, is this what I'm going to see all the time, you will hope it wouldn't be. And so I guess it's, it's whatever you do if it's not giving even a little window into what you normally do, I mean, doesn't really matter how many views or likes or whatever you get is not going to help. Because unless the people expect that you're going to be that entertaining and random all the time, and then they, they might even be turned off, because all of a sudden, you're putting out things that are not random cat videos, or Oh, governess Talk Talk business, oh, no, I don't, I don't want to follow this guy.
Alex B Sheridan 10:36
Right, you got to think about why people are reacting and following it. And if it's, they just want to be entertained when something crazy that no one else does, which is, you know, posting your birth live. This kind of crazy, or it is some cat video, like they're watching it purely for the entertainment value. So if you start building your brand around that, and then all of a sudden you switch and you start talking about something that's business related or something that is trying to bring you credibility, people are going to be thrown off. They're not watching you for that reason. I mean, that to where I would create these hydrocone videos, and then all of a sudden I post the more serious one people are like, whoa, wait a second, like we're I was expecting, like, where's the skit? Where's the humour? Where's the rat, you know? And I'm like, alright, well, I gotta I, you know, there's other sides of me that I have to show, you know, and so you definitely, I think you start creating content, you just go through this period of who am I as a content creator? And what do I want to show? And how am I going to bring people value in a unique way, but still in a way that gets results? At the same time?
Francisco Mahfuz 11:31
I think you described a phenomenon that seems to happen very commonly in relationships, where I'm seeing one thing, and now hooked into it a bit more and Hold on. Who is this person? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, there are certain surprises that you definitely don't like getting. So, okay, so that's what works. You know, recently, I think more has been working than not, but did you get any, you know, super important lessons from the early time in posting stuff out of what doesn't work?
Alex B Sheridan 12:06
I mean, I just like for me, I just had no clue. In the beginning, I had no clue what I was doing. So I didn't have a good strategy. I didn't have, hey, how am I gonna take this piece of content, turn it into a couple book meetings? Or a couple customers? Or, you know, I didn't have the, the branding type of things that I have now. Right? Make sure at the end of my videos, everyone knows exactly what I do and how I help people. So yeah, I mean, you have to be very intentional. I talk about that a lot. Like you have to be really, really intentional. If the thing about what you want out of this platform, like I would say, Be selfish for a second while you determine what you actually want. And then take a selfless approach to go and get it. Like that's the key. So so be selfish and sit down and write down. Hey, what do I want to get out of this? How much time am I going to spend on LinkedIn? What are my goals? What am I trying to accomplish on here? Be selfish for a little bit? That's okay, we all need to do that from time to time, and then take a selfless approach. So then think, okay, and how can I go get this by giving so much to other people that I actually receive back because that's the Canvas platform, you have to give give given that you receive?
Francisco Mahfuz 13:02
I think you touched on something that I wanted to ask, which is, what exactly does the Create creation process look like? So let's say something like, you know, maybe the rap app or the LinkedIn Terminator, it was a one I really liked. So do you get this idea? Okay, I'm going to do something with a terminator. And then you figured out the message, or do you have Okay, I want to get this message out? How do I? Yeah, what's kids? Could I do that it's across?
Alex B Sheridan 13:25
That's a great No, they're asked me that's great question. No. So it's both it's actually both There's certain times where I'll see something or I'll just be in a certain environment and I'm like, Man, this would be cool to turn in some type of LinkedIn skit to this or some type of you no story into this and so the the inspiration comes there there's other times what I do write out my content strategy and what I want to talk about in the message and what I want to share with people the value that I want to bring and then I think okay, now how can I take a subject like the LinkedIn Terminator was profile right was talking about your profile your about me how it wasn't written, right? So this guy, his business owner, lost out on this massive deal that is going to change the entire trajectory of business as we know the industry as we know it. And so there's terminators, LinkedIn Terminator comes back in time, and is going to stop this from happening is going to say, Hey, you're gonna miss out on this huge deal. Unless I interject right now, if we change your profile, because a customer potential customer is going to land on your profile, and they're not going to take action because your profile is not optimised. It doesn't speak to your target customer. And so I thought about okay, profile is to consider a little bit boring, just to say, Okay, everyone optimise your profile, you know, make some changes, you know, here's how it should read. I could do that. But I thought, how interesting would it be to, I thought about what happens when you don't have a good profile? This is actually interesting. I've never like played this out in my head. But now that you're asking me, I'm thinking about it. I really thought about this one like this, a profile. What happens when you don't have a good profile? Well, a potential customer lands on it. And if it's not optimised, they bounce off just like a good website, right? Like if it's not jumping out at them and speaking to them about what results they can get them and it's, it's attracting them, they're gonna bounce off the profile and go do something else, whether it's find a competitor or whether it's just, you know, moving on their buying process, whatever they do, and if it's really good, they're gonna stay on it and potentially take action, which could be an email to you can mean the MTU. And so I thought about what would be like a worst case scenario, start playing this out in my head. And I'm like, Well, I mean, what you just lost this like, massive deal. Like, it was just like a game changing, life changing business changing type of deal, because your profiles sucked. And I'm like, That would be interesting, then I'm like, okay, and then I thought of a whole Terminator thing. And I was like, Well, what if someone came back in time and prevented that from happening? And so that's really how that one started. So it's actually both sometimes I do think of the message. And I think, How can I make this entertaining and fun for people to watch in into a story is really what I'm doing. Or other times, I will think of something that hits me that could be highly entertaining, and then fit the message within that.
Francisco Mahfuz 15:47
Yeah, I can see how it could go both ways. I think with you were just talking about the profile. And what happens if, if people just bounce off. And I just had this image of like, some guy looking very sad looking out the window, and the rain is coming, and he's lonely. And then some children are looking for their family or whatever. It's like a whole bunch of like, people that needed something and can't get it. Yes. This is what you've caused with your
Alex B Sheridan 16:10
depression state. Hello.
Francisco Mahfuz 16:14
And yeah, at the same time, I do both things with with stories, I tend to find that when I put out a story like the one I do on Mondays, normally, I have stories so I could just think about funny stuff that happened in my life and go, Okay, well, someone's saying that they're going to firebomb the house of this old lady. Because, you know, she doesn't like the sales pitch. Okay, well, I got to get a message out of this. So I just put a plate in my head and go welcome. I could be this you could be that okay. But this actually makes sense. But when I try to teach something about storytelling, then I might just try and find an angle to introduce the subject. And then so yeah, I can see how it works both ways. We talked about this before, I think but are you keeping track of the characters? Um,
Alex B Sheridan 16:51
some I do. You know, there's certain if there were, like the Dale Moran or Dale moron, you know, certain characters that just kind of come and go that apart like the video I'm going to post today, you'll see a couple different characters that will come and go. But there's certain characters that do kind of stick around, you know, that you want to bring back like the brand fathers and one that I brought back to sales cops, one I had a couple times, although staying away from that right now with all political stuff. And so there's the ones that really stand out. I try and bring back every now and then. Exactly. There's some value to the audience. If they caught one, and they've caught two, they want to see a little bit more. But some of them come and go to Oh, you
Francisco Mahfuz 17:24
could if you wanted to risk risk, the wrath of the crowds, you could just do one about defund the victim sales cops. Yeah,
Alex B Sheridan 17:35
I mean, that's a little bit of a sore subject right now. So I thought about their day, and I was like, I would like a LinkedIn cops marketing cost or something like that. I can. I can switch it up a little bit. Still keep that character in there, though. And I'm like, at a time.
Francisco Mahfuz 17:48
Well, I mean, you clearly don't you know, in spite of the nakedness you don't want to call it controversy when you took out that that video because it said what was it that one? Yeah, great closet. Yeah, I read that. I was like, onyx, just drop the creative. Just say why you should come out of the closet.
Alex B Sheridan 18:06
That would have got attention, I'm sure.
Francisco Mahfuz 18:08
I mean, that wouldn't be to get attention. I think it did. Okay.
Alex B Sheridan 18:11
Well, I'm all about like, you know, I think you have to like LinkedIn and think about social media in general. And just the world in general, there's a lot of noise, right? There's a lot of like, just people talking people posting content out there. And you have to find a way to break through that brick wall. And you're not going to break through the brick wall, throw in a pillow at it, you know, so you got to kind of come out and you got it. You got it, you got to make some noise, you got to hit it pretty hard. So that's why sometimes you'll see videos from me where I'm like, I'm ruffling the feathers cool. But I'd be like, Hey, your, your videos are too long, too boring. And that's all started video out, you know, but then I follow it up with like, hey, but I'm here to help you. And I love you guys. And I'm trying to do some good here and I want your videos to be well. That's why I'm saying this and I'm teaching you how to do a little bit better. But I think you have to come out with some noise. But what I don't want to do is get political or I don't want to I really don't want to offend people.
Francisco Mahfuz 18:56
What you're going to be doing necessarily is having a rant about how people should wear masks.
Alex B Sheridan 19:03
Or Well hey, man, you're saving lives.
Francisco Mahfuz 19:08
Yeah, no, no not getting things for it. When I'm I know if people on the bus. Let me just step back from or step away from from social media for a second. So this whole sort of writing skits and neck thing and and rapping. Where does that come from?
Alex B Sheridan 19:24
Yeah, you know, the the rapping came from. So when I was like probably 13 or 14, I remember exactly where I was when I wrote my first graph. And this is really weird. I actually know exactly what I wrote, as far as I can remember, and it was quite like lie and never stop trying. And it went on from there. But you know, 1314 I remember exactly where I was of my high school before we switched high schools. My sophomore year, my sophomore year, my freshman year we are in the old high school and it was getting so overcrowded that we had to go in this like the side wasn't like a build like a trailer almost. And we're Then there, and I can't remember the actual class. But I remember I used to write raps in school. So like, I was a terrible student. There's one semester in high school, I got straight F's, I went to three different high schools, I was somebody, I would share any of this, but I was super bad high schoolers, I just ran rampant in high school, getting in all kinds of trouble. And what I would do is like in math class, or whatever class I was in, I would sit and write raps the entire time. And I always thought for a longest time, I was gonna be some famous rapper or entertainer or something like that. And it's so funny mix, I think back and I'm, like, you know, wasn't super far off, you know, from where I'm going now. And the type of content created, I just didn't know how to take what I had what I love to do, I want to add a decent skill, Eric Hellena. And take that and turn that into something that I can actually do for a career or business or make an impact. And so that's really how it started the acting stuff, you know, I never did act it or anything, I just, this just kind of came about, because I think it's just who I am. And I like to, I like to think inside, I'm very creative. And I like to tell stories and make things up, I love to create scenarios, you know, even if we were having a drink together or something, you may bring something up. And then if you're hanging out with me enough, long enough to know me, you know that I would take one little thing you said, and I'll create a whole story about, you know, I be like, oh, yeah, and then you went to the ER, they did this. And that would create characters. And so I've always kind of been that way, in my mind, I just didn't know how to bring it to actual like, like, put some substance behind it and actually use it to generate something, you know. And so it's been a cool experience. For me creating videos and creating content. And I talk about this in my LinkedIn boot camp, that I run it, it's a life changer. I mean, it really could change your life. For me, it's changed my life, it's made a huge impact in my confidence in my the way I tell my story in the way I express myself, the way I can use my creativity that I just never thought I was going to be able to do even a couple years ago, I just didn't think I was going to be able to ever use my rapping ability to to impact people and to share a cool message to generate customers. So a lot of the stuff that people you'd be surprised with what comes out when you actually just put yourself out of your comfort zone. And you go for it and you make an attempt.
Francisco Mahfuz 22:02
It's very interesting. I just said because it's social media or I'm not sure it's all social media cuz I know nothing about other social media but but LinkedIn, at least, it does seem to be this weird stage where, okay, you want to talk about business fine, but there is essentially no an acceptable way to talk about business as long as you're not, you know, offending people and being completely inappropriate. So this people are seeing this people that act as people, you know, tell stories, but every, everything seems to be okay. And if you giving people value, then you will be rewarded with engagement and then eventually business. If you're not giving people value, then again, you're just wasting your time as everyone else's. But the fact that it's there's nothing inappropriate by you know, of rapping while trying to get a message across the people. I mean, I'm sure some people go with how are we doing? This is a professional platform. But then again, there's well there's no escaping the douchebags.
Alex B Sheridan 22:56
Exactly. So So last year, when I was praying, I started creating content was this
Francisco Mahfuz 23:02
you were saying that you're trying to find some way to like,
Alex B Sheridan 23:06
entertainment. So last year, I was thinking about how
Francisco Mahfuz 23:09
edutainment
Alex B Sheridan 23:10
well that's but that's a different words. All right, if the train went down, like that sounds now but I thought I thought was super cool. And I thought of it, you know. And so I was like, last year, I was like, man, it's got to be some way. First of all, the school systems are broken, at least where I'm at the United States, there's so much opportunity to college just like there's so much opportunity to perform. And I was like, what if there's a way to train people, marketers, salespeople leaders, in a way that was educated them, but also entertaining them. And I didn't realise at the time that this was going to be the blueprint for my content, you know, I didn't even I just didn't really think of it that much at the time. So I'm gonna start creating courses and stuff that teach people how to do things, but that are entertaining at the same time, it had these characters and skits. But what ended up turning into was my content sort of formed into that. And that became sort of the platform of my brand. But that's how I thought of it. I'm like, do people want to be entertained, but they also want to be educated. And I think about, you know, content creation on LinkedIn is up 60%, than it was this time last year. So 60% More people are posting content obviously has something to do with COVID, or you know, the virtual age that we live in now. But the reality is, is going to get more competitive, is going to keep getting more competitive. So you've got to find ways to stand out, you've got to find ways to actually build a brand to where people are excited to consume your content, where you build a following up where you care enough about people you build enough relationships that people want to tune in to what you have to say, this stuff just matters, you know.
Francisco Mahfuz 24:29
So when you when you think of which story to tell, or a skit to do, or whatever, it hasn't been deliberate, that you never really getting personal with the details, because you do touch on personal stuff, but the details almost never personal. You drop something here and there, particularly the older videos, but now you know, you might say Oh, I struggle as well or things like that, but you never go into any of those things. How deliberate is that?
Alex B Sheridan 24:57
It's intentional, you know, and I think for me like there There's a couple things. One, there's a certain element of like, a little bit of mystery behind the character, you know that it's like at some point it'll be revealed. But it's like, there's a little bit of mystery behind it that it does cost entry. But for me, to be honest, the main reason I've been so focused on just bringing value when it comes to how do you build your brand on LinkedIn? How do you win customers on LinkedIn? How do you create content that engages with people on LinkedIn? That I haven't really, I haven't really, I would love to talk about some of the personal stuff that I've went through. I would love to if it was up to me in my business was going to build whatever I wanted, like it was going to build the exact same way no matter what all I'm all you hear you talk about is the motivational type stuff, my journey going through stuff that went through life, because that's really what I'm most passionate about is helping people like helping people just become a better version of them, helping people grow helping people that are depressed, get out of that depressed state into a better state into a happier state. That's actually what my real passion is, to be honest. But what you'll notice if you look at anybody in the history time, in business least probably all elements, they start off in a niche, right, they start off in a niche and then they get to a certain place where they reached this you know this following where they've got this community now they've got these fans now and then they can kind of open the gates on fire. Let me start talking about some more stuff. So if you look at like Grant Cardone or Gary Vee, anyone come out of the gates and say, Hey, man, here's how you you know, be happier. Here's what you need to do with your life. No, they didn't do that at all. They started off talking about very specific, you know, like Gary was wine, or it was marketing at first, or Grant Cardone was strictly sales for 10 years, you know, dealerships. And so all these people start off talking about these niche things, they build a brand up, they get really good at it, they find success, and then they kind of open the gates to talk about some other things. Does that mean that I could interject more personal stuff in my content? Now, of course I could. But I choose to, it's just the route that I choose to go for now. I'm excited when I feel like I don't I think I'll know when that time is right. Like I can share a little bit more, even if you look at Shea stuff, like in the beginning, very LinkedIn focused and video content focus. Now she's talking about just about everything that she cares about, which is cool, she's in a good position where she can do that. But I think you got to prove yourself your niche and build that on first. So that you can have that pedestal
Francisco Mahfuz 27:10
sort of speak, my thinking behind this is that it's, it's worth talking about your personal struggles or things that people would perhaps think is not as appropriate. If it serves your customers or your audience overcome the objection, objection that they are feeling. If they you know, someone is going through a rough personal time, you know, say they're going through a divorce, they know they're struggling with the children at home or whatever, if you are struggling with those things, right, if you have struggled with those things and overcome them, then I think there is perhaps a place to say, you know, this is what my life looked like six months ago. And then they go, Oh, crap, that's my life now. So you know, we are, you know, coming from the same place or whatever, I think when it's that, then I think it has a value that is that that can help build a business. That is
Alex B Sheridan 28:01
totally and then but that's all you got to think about your brand cohesion, like like, what do you want your like, what is your brand going to be? And I don't for me, personally, I just right now, man,
Francisco Mahfuz 28:09
your brand cohesion?
Alex B Sheridan 28:10
Alex. You gotta you gotta you gotta think about that, you know, was the famous line? Just a couple lines of, you
Francisco Mahfuz 28:23
know, I think I think the really good one is he says, Oh, thank you enough for you cannot refuse. And then he said, but but if I cannot refuse not read it's a demand.
Alex B Sheridan 28:33
That's right. It's true. Right? You know, I can't refute. But anyways, man, I think there's definitely a place for that. But I do think this all content creators, we got to think about what is our brand cohesion? And what do we want our brand to stand for? What do we want to be recognised for? And me at this place, I just want to be recognised for the absolute best content creation, video content creation on LinkedIn and helping other people do the same. So I'm very, very focused on that. I do I have dabbled in the personal stuff, where I'll dive back and say, Hey, I started creating videos, I did a video a while back where I said, I start creating videos five years ago, and I did nothing with them. I posted five or 10 videos on YouTube. I didn't get any, you know, any traction, of course, because they're only five or 10 I had no clue what I was doing. And I gave up and then years later, I tried it again job again. And then you know, last year was the pivotal moment where I stuck with it. And anytime you put in work and stay consistent, you have a good strategy, or the results are going to follow these gotta give it some time. So I'll talk about you know, my first videos, I did a video a while back on my first few videos and how they got no traction and no likes, no comments. I like opening up this still has to do with more of the content creation, the marketing, that kind of stuff, just not in a place where I want to talk about some of this other stuff and go out on left field yet but there will be a time when I do that. You'll see that and I'm excited for
Francisco Mahfuz 29:43
this is a challenge everyone trying to teach anyone else has which is this, you know that your creativity is not everybody else's creativity. I think in your case this is particularly true. So I know you know your your hashtag is unleash the creative, but my question is when When you're helping other people, you know that obviously you're teaching them the technical sides of video and what works for LinkedIn marketing and things like that. But how? How much do you find that you can genuinely teach someone or really help them? You know, unleash the creative search? And how much is like this? And I've given you the platform. Now your personality needs to come through however it comes through.
Alex B Sheridan 30:22
Yes, yeah, that's a great question. And that's why the hashtag and really the branding has been unleashed the creative unleash your potential, because that's my job. I've obviously yes, it's technical stuff is the marketing stuff. There's How do you post? How do you engage? How do you edit, but But I try to bring that out, bring that creativity unleash that creativity within you, because a lot of people like look at myself, three years, two years ago, when you're like, I wasn't even creating content. Like it. Now I'm creating all these videos. So where was that a couple years ago, it was inside, it still was here. I just hadn't unleashed it yet. And so I think about a lot of people, everyone has something amazing to offer multiple things that are amazing to offer, with the world with social media, with their loved ones, everything. The problem is a lot of people sometimes due to insecurities, or what people will say, or they'll fear of failure, they don't bring it out, and they don't show it. And so when I teach people answer a question is, is what is unique about you? What is different about you? What are you good at? What are your strengths, leverage those strengths, so maybe you're maybe you are funny, maybe you're a great storyteller, maybe you can act, maybe you can do a little singing, or dance, or rapping or whatever it is. Maybe you're a really great interviewer. And you're just like, you're great at digging in and asking good questions and responding the timing of it. So I think people really have to figure out where am I naturally good at? And then how do I really build in a leash that full potential on that, and not be afraid to try new things, not be afraid to get out of the box. But that's the key, you've got to look, you've got to look inside and figure out what is inside me? What do I think I can do? And then you got to be able to not be afraid to push the envelope a little bit.
Francisco Mahfuz 31:53
I think the last one is more of a curiosity for me, because I saw a video from Jonathan Palmer the other day, and he was talking about how long it actually takes him for one video. So I was just curious about you know, but I think maybe the right path was an extreme example, because my guess is probably takes a lot longer. But if you're doing like a couple of characters, right, like their grandfather, The Wolf of Wall Street of LinkedIn, how long does it take from sort of beginning to end to get one of those done?
Alex B Sheridan 32:21
Yeah, so I would say writing the script is maybe like, let's say the minute and a half long video should probably an average video, maybe two minutes max, bringing the script can take maybe 1520 minutes, nothing super crazy. If I've got the idea what it's gonna be about, I've got sort of characters writing out the actual line by line that may be 1520 minutes, and then recording it's probably 20 minutes
Francisco Mahfuz 32:43
to do I assume you tell you the most of it in the first or second take isn't is not taking 10 takes to get it out to get
Alex B Sheridan 32:49
around. And otherwise, it's gonna take you way too long. So apart from like, take, you know, five or six takes, but most of them I'm trying to a couple takes, but you figure if it's a minute and half, two minutes, you can knock it out and 1520 minutes recording time. And then you switch between characters do storyboarding. And then the longest part is the final touches on the editing where you're putting in, you know, the scenery, the backgrounds that you know, and depending on how often you switch backgrounds and how integrated it is, I mean, different things are going to pop up It could range from, you know, a simple edit might be for me personally might be maybe an hour hour and a half more than that on a complex one. It could be five six hours.
Francisco Mahfuz 33:27
Yeah, so So there's it was your longest ones, I bought the rap battles. So a little bit
Alex B Sheridan 33:32
long because the music because, you know, if I had a studio that was going to go into which I have in the past, like just write music and stuff, I went into a studio and probably a lot easier I used to bust out songs and one tape and stuff. But when you don't have a studio, you can't stop it's just really hard to mix it in the sound quality and stuff you have to take so long to get it just right and even that doesn't sound that great. But so writing the song first of all just to get the beat and then write the song takes you know, an hour to write there. And then you've got to actually record it make sure it sounds as good as you possibly can get it and then you've got to add in the video which is the two characters three characters all in there together the green screen which takes a little bit longer and then you've got the editing and you know it's layered obviously there's a lot of layers to it. So yeah, I would guess that went 567 hours total.
Francisco Mahfuz 34:17
Well, they from the outside they look like they've done very well. So it seems to be time well spent to be a beach if you do one of those and it's like 50 likes to events. Excuse onyx,
Alex B Sheridan 34:30
I would cry I would go into quarters ball up and cry
Francisco Mahfuz 34:37
Okay, so I think you know, usually ask people where can people find you but if someone has listened to this whole thing and doesn't know that they can find you on LinkedIn, then that high the moment that that is the place for people to find your rights.
Alex B Sheridan 34:51
Yeah, please connect with me. Follow me. I'll engage with your content. Say hi. Send me a video DM you know, let's let's talk
Francisco Mahfuz 34:58
perfect. Thanks very much for the time right? Now get on, get on with what you're doing. And I look forward to the second Terminator video because, you know, you told us it was coming. I think you're I think you're just bullshitting us Alright everybody, thanks for tuning in, take care of yourselves. And until next time
Unknown Speaker 35:23
you have to stay to the top and you never get to stop for status and a bonus. Not the present with a conference room and a couple of chairs. I'm actually building my dream and you're just helping someone else build theirs to the weekend because that bonus creeping me while I'm making million bucks, but to get in touch with your wife, she said I made an impact on the life I'm changing lives every day and every night. For the purpose minimum for the fight.
Unknown Speaker 35:46
To say it all comes down to happiness. Worlds is a different way to see the different laws and not respect you are not going to do it alone. And maybe the founder, but I'm really here to get you where you want to go. You guys, I love you guys.
Comments