 Okay, hello, I'm Jen Miller. Am I too loud? Okay, thanks. I'm not going to yell at you. How's this? Better? Great. Okay, great. Okay, so I'm Jen Miller. We're going to be talking today about humanizing storytelling. Drama and authenticity connects audiences to brands. And I'm sure some of you read that and said, what does that even mean? Where is she going with this topic? And what it means is getting real with yourself, with your brand, with your teammates, with your shareholders, with your audience, your clients and your customers. And peeling back the layer, one of my clients called it, opening the kimono. You know, so to speak, so that you're letting your humanity show through in your brand. And the man in this picture right here is my grandfather. He's no longer with us, but he was very instrumental in my life because he was very adventurous. And he helped me to get to know this area, actually. I was born in the Los Angeles area. I grew up in that area. I now live in Orange County. But we would come up to Lake Castake and have fantastic days there. And so I got to know your community a little bit through my grandfather. So I thought I'd share a little bit about me through the slides. Because humanizing yourself and your brand has to do with being vulnerable, opening yourself up to things that may seem a little unordinary sometimes. And you can do that with a concept, a brand, a product, a business, and yourself. And it means saying who you are, what you're about, and what you do. So like I said, my grandfather was an adventurer. That was his brand. We all knew that. He was not the person to go to for advice. He was not the person to go to if I wanted just a lovey-dovey hug. That was not my grandfather. But if I wanted to try something new, guess who I'd call. So every brand represents something. And it just depends on what you choose to do with yours and how you want to have yours be said through your website, through your social media, through your email marketing, through all the different assets that you pulled together to make this brand. How many people in the room are entrepreneurs? How many of you are business owners? People are saying what's the difference, right? An entrepreneur runs their own business. A business owner usually has a team that helps them run their business or helps them grow so they can step away a little bit. How many of you work for a corporation? Only two, okay. And how many of you are students? How many of you fit in none of those categories? All right. So any new to WordPress? Awesome. Guys, we have a big mix of people here. The people who are other categories. Can you tell me what you are? Retired and interested, that's the best thing to be, right? I teach elementary school. Teach elementary school? That's awesome. So you're a teacher. Fantastic. I actually am going to be working with one of my local elementary schools to help get their kids on the web and teach them how to build their own websites in May. So, near and dear. All right. Be afraid to let people see what's inside because that's where the connection is made. And go into detail as you try to spread your message on your website and show fun photos. So if you have photos of yourself doing something that is anyway related to your business or is on your lunch break, show those, show what's going on because people want to know a little more about you so that they can trust your brand. If you have teammates and you guys are having some kind of team building experience, you know, playing darts together or if you're going to lunch or you're attending a word camp, those are the kinds of things that help others to know that you are involved and that you are going to help them to forward themselves because they can see that you are very active in what you do with your messaging. Know what your brand stands for and align with stories that showcase it. So with my company, we work with about 60% real estate clients. That's a lot of real estate. Some of them are in the same markets but we're able to differentiate because we pay attention to their personalities, their brand, their voice. And every one of them is affiliated with a different national chain. So those chains are known for something. Sotheby's is known for luxury, okay? Redfin is known for that 1%, right? It's a discount listing service. Keller Williams, I don't know if you know this but they're known for connection and community. They are very involved in both their clients' lives and in their community doing charity work. So because of that, we would not use messaging for a $28 million home when we're talking about Redfin. Just as we, if we're presenting information on Sotheby's agent, we're not going to be talking about first time home buying because most first time home buyers are not millionaires, right? So you have to make that connection as you're establishing the brand because the stories we use must align to our brand, whether we're writing for our own companies or whether we're writing for other people. And it's important to recognize that you can't be all things to everyone. So choose one thing and have that be your messaging. Maybe you do everything the same as another competitor of yours but you excel at your second bullet point, whatever that might be. That's what you're going to want to use for your messaging, maybe for that month and just kind of let people know we excel at this because then someone could call you up to say, hey, I want to work with you because I know you're so good at whatever it was that you named. And awards and facts and numbers are really impressive but they don't tell the story. A lot of times we see people using those types of things in their messaging and it doesn't accomplish their goals because nobody really cares. You care. I mean, when I get an award, it's awesome, right? But nobody else really looks too hard. They're going to want to see basic qualifications maybe and you can have those in the footer of your website. And of course, if you're honored at an event or you're sponsoring an event as a company, you want to do a blog post on that. You want to have it all over social media. You want to invite people to your event, that type of thing. But typically, anything you're bragging about with yourself is probably not going to fly very well with your audience because they don't really tell your brand story. They just tell one little piece of it. Sometimes we have clients that come to us and say, we just want to use a fun voice. We want to... We're for hilarious people. Like, they self-identify. And they want to make sure that that's conveyed in their blog and their website content. And those are the clients we have the most fun with because what they think is funny and what we think is funny isn't always the same. But, you know, you try to get to that happy medium. And what's nice is that when you can nail it, when you can get there, then you can carry it through the social media. And it's so amazing to see how the audience recognizes the voice. And they can help that messaging because it's being used in all the different platforms. So they help to spread that and they tell people about you because you're doing something different. It doesn't mean you have to be funny, but you have to figure out what your differentiator is going to be because that's what makes your company you as an individual and, you know, as a teacher even. That's what makes you human. That's what makes the kids relate and want to stay awake while you're talking. And by the way, I recognize that it's 3.30. So thank you all for showing up to the last session and for staying awake. Like, I don't see anyone sleeping yet. I'm so impressed. Good job. Must have been all those fruit snacks. So humanizing the story is about sharing, like I said. And there are many ways that you can share. You can share through a blog post. And of course, that's something that I'm pretty well versed in. I can give you specific pointers on that either in other talks that I've done or if you come up and talk to me, go to my website. There's plenty of information. But videos are a great way to connect with your audience as well. And it's underutilized. If you do a Facebook Live just on the spot and share that with your audience, people may not watch it right that moment, but they will come back and you'll be surprised at how many views that video actually gets over time because it's not going to go anywhere. You can also pull that off, put it on your YouTube. You can do all kinds of things if you have that video content and you can edit it. Sometimes a team member might do something that you want to talk about or interview them about. That's a great thing to do as a video. If you are looking for things to talk about, think about what was the first sign when you first started your business because there are a lot of entrepreneurs and business owners in here. What was the first thing that signaled to you that your business was a success? What let you know that you are on the right path? Tell that story. That's something that people don't do but it's interesting, right? When we connect with new people, what's the first thing we ask? What do you do? How did you get started? Share that with your audience because they're curious about it too. It's ways to get your followers invested in what you do so that they'll maybe share your story. Now, I need three volunteers. Please come up. I have one, two, please come up. With a beard, please come up. Sorry, Amy. He was first. I can take four. Why don't I take both of you? Let's do this. Come here, Amy. No, we need you. We need you. We're inclusive at work camp. Anyone who raises their hand. Oh, wait. All right. So I'm going to ask each of you three questions and you're going to have a second to think about it. But as we're talking about messaging and what you're doing with your content, just think about these questions. You're going to say your name. What is the name of your business? What does it do? And can you tell us a story where you did that? Yes. Okay. Look, we have the speaker going first. What is this? Okay. Amy's the speaker. Oh, and your sponsor. Okay, good. This is perfect. Okay, so the first question is your name and the name of your business. Sumner Davenport. Sumner M. Davenport and Associates LLC. Awesome. And what does it do? We make the web accessible for all. Beautiful. Each client's why it's important. What they're going to gain from being accessible and how exciting and fun and profitable it is. Awesome. And can you tell us a short story of how you've done that for someone? Yes, I have a member of my family who is nearly blind. She can only see as far as a couple inches from her nose and with her three-inch spectacles she can see arms length. And for years she couldn't see a web and when we found out how to make a website accessible that she could actually use a screen reader and know what was on that website was a happy day. Oh, awesome. Everyone give her a round of applause. Do you know something more about Sumner now? Yes. Yes, right. And something that connected you to her. I feel connected to you. My daughter was born with congenital cataracts so I kind of get your story. That's awesome. You can sit down. Thank you. Okay, your name, your business. My name is Logan Alec. My business is a personal finance blog called moneydoneright.com. Nice. Probably something we should all jot down. Okay, so what does it do? It helps people live happier lives by giving them personal, actionable financial advice. Definitely something we should all write down. Who doesn't want to be happier? Right? Okay, and tell us a story where you made someone happy. Well, my reader sent me a lot of emails and one of the stuff I recently wrote an article on like 59 approval living tips for 2019. The reader reached out to me and said that she used 12 of them and it saved her 200 bucks, which she used to put towards her kids' college books. Oh, that's beautiful. Beautiful. Now have you showcased that on your website or blog? No. Okay, right. Do you see where I'm talking about now? Okay, you can sit down now. Thank you. Everyone clap. Yes. All right, can you tell us your name and your business? I'm Katie Emery and I have a personal beauty blog. It's not personal. I was going to say personal finance blog. I have a beauty blog for women who have chosen to go gray, so women of all ages. Awesome. Yeah. Okay, and so what does it do? You kind of told us, but you can tell us a little more. What it does is it tells the stories of all these women of different ages and backgrounds who've chosen to go gray and it makes them feel like it's not a crazy decision in our culture, which is difficult. Right. And it also gives them tips and advice on how to take care of their hair. Beautiful. Okay, and tell us a story of how you've made that happen or you've seen that. Well, I get emails every week from women who really were excited to find this information because there's not a lot about it on the web. And some of them even tell me they cried reading my blog because they needed somebody else to say it's okay to do this, which seems like a silly thing, but it does matter. Well, that's awesome. And do you showcase those testimonials at all? I haven't figured out how to do that yet. Okay, we should talk after. I'll say a little bit while I'm talking, but yeah, you need to get that on your website. Thank you. What is the name of your website again? Katie Goes Platinum. Katie Goes Platinum. That's kind of cool. All right. You're a name and business name, my dear. Amy Hall. Amy Hall. That's easy. Easy to remember. And what is it that you do? I am a MailTube expert and a WordPress design and build shop. And can you tell us the story of how you do what you do? So a couple of weeks ago, I had somebody come in that had just taken a course on the internet about building their WordPress site. And they were really excited to have a new WordPress site that they built themselves. And they did not know how to put up their free opt-in offer and build that out and mail it and send it out and send out an email with the link to the free opt-in offer and put it on their website with the free opt-in offer. So I taught them how to put the subscription form on their site and then taught them how to build it. Email templates and put a link into their free opt-in offer and send out the email. Fantastic. So you helped them with both problems. It's not that. It was super important to them. It was. Right? They got to start their business. Yeah. Okay. Let's give Amy a round of applause please. Thank you. Thank you for being willing to come up and be part of my presentation today. Okay. So all of those people showed up, right? They showed up here. They showed up for their clients. They showed up on the web. Pretty cool. And they're doing and saying the same thing repeatedly, consistently, so that their branding, their messaging is being funneled through to anyone who catches their name because they're explaining what they do. And they all did a really good job, didn't they? Yes. We all know a little bit more. We have some more friends now. So that's awesome. Okay. So does anyone recognize this lake? You guys are from around here. I hope you do. Nobody? It's, yes. Say it a little louder. Castague. Yes. That's Lake Castague. When it was full. Back when I was a kid. Anyway. Is it not anymore with all the rain? No? Okay. Good. All right. Well, it's located about 15 minutes from here, I think. I used to, my grandpa remember from the beginning. We used to visit it often because it was one of his favorite places to go. He was a wind surfer. And so when it got to be a breezy day, we would drive up to Lake Castague. And we'd spend the whole day on the water. It was a ton of fun. And I have so many great memories from it. But here's the thing. No one made me go. I chose to go. And that's why I have those good memories. And that's why I can talk about those good memories, right? So now you guys know a little more about me because I was able to share that. The same is true for business events. To build your brand, you need to gain that insight in the content. And you've got to be able to talk to the people who are either using your product or similar in similar industries or like companion industries or even your competition. And to do that, you have to show up places. Whether it's a word camp or a chamber or a beauty shop to overhear conversations. Whatever or a financial meeting, maybe a meet up where people are saying, I don't know how to budget. If you attend those kinds of things, you're going to be able to know what the questions are that are asked. Now, a couple of you that came up here actually said that people are already emailing you asking you questions on your website. That is fantastic. You just need to be able to turn those questions into content that you use. Whether as videos that you release or podcasts or blog posts. So that way people know that you're hearing them and answering them. Because that's the most powerful thing you can do on your website is engage with your readers because it builds your following. How many of you have seen a good deal somewhere and called up a friend and said, you've got to check this out? Okay? Most of us have at some point in our lives. That's how websites are shared. People come across something. That's how sitcoms are shared. Have you seen this Netflix series? You have to check it out. It's just the way we communicate as humans when we're not texting. So that's something that we need to give that content to people so they're able to use it and they're able to share it for us. I first started coming to WordPress events because of my friend Ben Mueller. Anyone know Ben? Didn't think so. Ben was from Riverside. I was from Huntington Beach. But we worked at the same company. And he was one of our coders and I was his project manager at the time and so we would talk back and forth and most of the time he didn't like what I had to say and we had to work through all that and we ended up being great friends. Well one day he called and said hey I'm heading out to the Huntington Beach WordPress Meetup. You want to go? And I said I can't go to nighttime events. That's just not going to happen with my current situation. But thanks, why don't you come for dinner? So he came over, had dinner with me and my family. It was great. We got to know each other even better because we were face to face. And then he went off to the Meetup. The next day he said you know they tape those. So for the next year I actually did tune in and watch the Meetup online so that I could figure out what was going on and what this whole WordPress thing was beyond my blogging interface knowledge. You know I knew how to put a post up and I knew how to do a little bit of CSS but I didn't know much more and through watching that Meetup I was able to learn a lot. So after about a year I decided it was time that I show up to the physical Meetup. So I actually went there and suddenly before I could even think about it I was involved in the community. Has that happened to anyone here? Really? Well you're all here. So obviously. So before I couldn't you know I found people who were like-minded who loved the websites who were fans of WordPress and who understood when I talked about blogging and SEO and content like they may not understand it on the same level that I did but they got it. They didn't shut me up within five minutes. And so that made me feel really comfortable and I started attending and speaking at events and sharing my same message that I had at the very beginning before I ever even came to WordPress about sharing your content message. And it was a message I believed in and it allowed me to help other people understand how they could do content in a way that it would build their brand and build their marketing. My focus in the beginning was on the blog hence the name Need Someone to Blog. We've grown, we do a lot more things. I actually have two companies now. So we've really expanded but the underlying message is still the same and I repeat it everywhere I go. My business name states my message and makes it easy for people to know who they can come to as a resource. And going to events is a way to be able to make those connections to those people whether you're a brand or an individual. So some people think of this a little differently. I tie my personal branding to my business branding and the reason why I do that is because I'm the one who's showing up to the events. If my team were coming to the events which we had one of our writers came yesterday and so because she was coming I would have talked about her if she were here today but she wasn't able to come both days and sharing who's behind the scene like that is important I think because it helps all of us to know the message and making sure that those people who are working with you can share the message as well so that they understand it clearly. Let's see, I'm not going to say that. Well, I will. So yesterday my grandmother died and it was pretty emotional and I considered not coming this weekend but I thought about it and I'm like I always say you have to show up so I decided I would show up and she lived a great life, she was 95, it's all good it just somehow was unexpected, you know and but coming here and seeing familiar faces people who I consider good friends comforted me and it made it a place where instead of feeling awkward and weird and I just want to be alone I suddenly was, yeah, I want to be a part of this I want to think about something else I want to have some good conversation with my friends and that's part of being human and coming out from behind the internet which I think is a place we all feel really safe to hide a lot so show up find those opportunities, look for them so that you can help your humanity as well because you're going to find solace when you attend these events and when you get more involved and don't just try to hide behind the screen okay, but don't forget that data brings conversions data matters, right? like we want to see the numbers behind things I told you before don't just focus on those numbers but we still want to see it as you show people the numbers you can elevate your message and you connect the dots for them so they understand how everything happens but we don't want them to get lost so data is something that you need to understand so that you know how to track what pages people are coming into what your traffic is like what keywords are working for you if you're a blogger, what videos are working for you if you're not and sharing facts and figures with your audience that relates to them that's all about how many of them are coming to your site they don't need to know that what they do need to know is what works and so it's better to talk in generalities I feel when it comes to numbers because nobody gets bogged down in them when I was 18, yes I did start young I was 14 when I was writing for my college paper or my high school paper but at 18 I was writing for my college paper but I also worked for a group of newspapers and they assigned me because I was the youngest one on the team to a story, I had to go to 30 different liquor stores bars and grocery stores and try to buy alcohol I had a chaperone she sat in my passenger seat but I was the driver and we went to these different establishments throughout our community because there had been a problem with teens and drunk driving and we wanted to figure out where was it coming from and so we had a spreadsheet and wrote down the name of the place what time we went there, what date we had all the information because we were going to blast this to the community once my story was ready once we found out that 30% of the establishments were selling to minors my boss the publisher of the newspaper got scared and he said I need to call our legal team and make sure we can publish this because we're going to be getting some agencies in trouble and so he called and they said do not publish those facts and figures speak in generalities tell what you did tell that you turned the booze all into the police station tell that an adult went with her you can say those things but don't say when, where, who and how and so we didn't, we published and the article talked about 30% one number and the communities that I went to and the feelings that we had going through it so it was more of a column versus a a newsy type article which is of course what we were trying for in the beginning and that kept me out of jail which was awesome but what it also did was it made the community very aware and we had a group of parents who got together and they went to individual businesses throughout we canvassed three communities so they went through all those communities and they asked the businesses to pledge not to sell alcohol to minors had them sign a paper and then they put a sign up in their window that said they cared and in fact it changed like how awesome is that right so the community became a watchdog for those businesses our work was done, all we did was say 30% and do the work but readers care more about the solution than the details then they want to know if there's a problem they can solve so as you, how many of you already have a list, an email list okay about 10% if you need a list, we know somebody who does MailChimp, just saying so as you build your lists and your lists are your people, your followers whether it's your lists for a newsletter, social media, video blog posts private groups on Facebook or private groups on membership sites like you can build lists in just about any way shape at this point you want to have a campaign that nurtures any new followers so that they can see value in what you're offering so you're going to send out emails, you're going to post about things that deliver value and every once in a while you'll ask for a sale but that's not going to be your primary focus because when we when we give of ourselves and give information that we think that our audience wants they listen to us a little more and they offer a little more to us and they come back more frequently with our clients, we try to keep dialogue very open we use email a lot and the more we use email, it seems the more they order and sometimes we get to a client saturation level where we're just like we can't do anything more or we're going to have to hire more and so we have to scale back those efforts for a little bit but because I have a business that's been running for almost six years we've learned to control that ebb and flow and to know when we're going to have a rush on something and to know when we need to speed things up a little and so we can control that and for us sending out an email so we watch carefully what we're doing to make sure that we can keep things at an even pace so we don't send out a lot of emails but we do use email when we need to we have lots of campaigns so I have a client who we did email for and we still do but she does a monthly newsletter and it has a calendar of events and it's unique to her local area and she's been doing it I think four years now we've been putting that one out and two years into it she always got emails back and people saying hey will you feature my event in your calendar and people knew that she did it she got phone calls off of it it was great so there was a return on investment for that email campaign we only sent it once a month but the biggest payoff was one day she was walking down her main street in her town and somebody bumped in and they saw her and they said I know you and she was like what because she didn't recognize them they knew her from her newsletter because her picture was at the top and they followed her event calendar so you never know what influence you're going to have I think she told me that they eventually ended up listing a property with her so like it formed a friendship because they already felt connected when they saw her that first time in person and I have another client who when we write blog posts for them she always says hey we have some custom requests can you write on this restaurant can you write on this new shop that just opened can you write on whatever it is she just calls us with all these different ideas and so we're happy to take we write up the posts we sometimes interview the client that she's talking about and then what they do is sort of a synergistic approach she'll post to her blog and then she'll post everything to her social media but she notifies that business my writers went ahead and did a bio on you you may want to check it out well of course they're going to check it out right the spa shop wants everyone to know they exist so they read it they love it and then they post it on all of their social media suddenly her sphere just got widened because now all of that person's clients have been to her website so that's another thing that we do that seems to work really well and it's a way that you can combine audiences you don't have to do it with clients it could be your friends and you want to share your friends product and they want to share yours but as you combine that you grow your audiences as well as collaborating together ok so start a brand gimmick whether it's top ten posts you've all heard of you know top ten or nine second videos you know people go on vine people go on instagram do just little video clips but it's something they become known for right calls to home I've seen people make calls to home and that's like a youtube thing weird but there's all kinds of options for what you want to do my daughter is in brand and web development she does design work and so she just got her degree and she called me and said hey mom I was looking at your instagram she said you're really active on it which is good but it has nothing to do with your brand you just post whatever you want I'm like well yeah I'm doing authenticity you know that's me and she said we need to talk she's actually coming down at the end of April and she's going to be speaking at word camp Orange County so if any of you are planning on attending that her name is Wrigley Ganaway and you should Wrigley Ganaway you should totally plan on seeing her because she's going to be talking all about how to make your brand better and she's using me as an example it sounds like okay so I'm going to take that coaching and I'm going to embrace it because she knows Instagram way better than I do she's in that generation we all think we know it no she knows it and there are people though who do things with videos and so I was reading a book called expert secrets have any of you heard of ClickFunnels okay ClickFunnels is kind of cool but the guy who started that is named Russell Brunson and he wrote a book called expert secrets and in that he tells about his friend Jacob anyone already know the story okay I guess I'm telling it okay so Jacob wanted to be able to he liked basketball but he couldn't dunk no matter what he tried he couldn't jump high enough to dunk so he decided that he was going to make a science out of it and he read everything he could find for free on the internet and he started videoing himself jumping and you know trying to do it and trying different techniques and seeing what worked and what didn't work and he would just upload him to his youtube channel not because he was trying to do anything more than learn himself it was just him and his crazy video but after time he started to realize that people were watching what he was doing and he started to gain followers and then he gained more and he learned how to do it but apparently there are a lot of people who want to know how to do that vertical jump and he made a business out of it has millions of followers makes tons of money using the videos and the instructional stuff that he put together because it was something he wanted to learn so it shows you you don't know what audiences out there you just need to do whatever it is that you do or want to do and people will come because someone is searching for whatever it is that you wanted to do the I loved your example I forgot your name but I loved your example of the hair because yes you get emails from women all the time who are searching for a way to go gray naturally you know without stigma and feeling comfortable I would never have thought to search that up online but now that you've said it I bet there are lots of people looking for that solution so we're all in our own we all have our own little world of what we are experts in and that is so start a brand gimmick about that one of the things Wrigley told me that we need to do for my brand is she's like mom in your logo you have sunglasses you should be using sunglasses in every one of your pictures if it's a picture of your desk sunglasses should be on it if you're taking a picture of you skiing sunglasses should be on it and I was like wow she's like if you get a dog put some sunglasses on it you know and I thought that's so smart she is my daughter right so anyway you're not being fake you're just embracing your branding with your authenticity and you're combining the two and that's really it doesn't have to start on a basketball court doesn't have to start with sunglasses whatever it is that you are is what it needs to be because it's the people behind the business and the day-to-day operations who maybe you maybe your team and the consistent actions that you take that make your brand great and I promised you we'd get to reviews so I think we're getting close on time but we're gonna just go through here okay this is a fire we're gonna go through the valley on fire okay because sometimes reviews you guys are not always the best right we help a lot of clients transform their yelp profiles so that they can have happy news at the top and so you need to listen to that feedback because a bad review isn't necessarily bad it just means you need to fine tune and so whenever you you get a review good or bad if it's good of course you want to promote it you want to show it in a blog post you want to have something on your website that shows it share it in social media it's great to get a good review if it's a bad review you want to step back and say why did I get this and undo those processes so that you can be true to what you want your branding to be I'm just gonna go over a few questions to make it easy for you to ask your clients things these are what we give to our clients when they say that they're going to do a video testimonial or a written review I asked them to ask their clients what issue prompted you to call us in the first place so that they remember what it was that brought them there how did you feel before you asked for help so they get that emotional thing going in that testimonial it's beautiful how was working with us different when did you realize the solution we suggested started working and then how did the solution change your business those 5 questions help people to be able to formulate a review that can really help you as you grow your content can you repeat those again yes and you know what I can release them on Twitter too why don't I just do that because I think we're running short on time okay I'm good I have 5 minutes let's go question 1 what issue prompted you to call us how did you feel before you asked for help you really want to know how they felt how was working with us different when did you realize that the solution we suggested started working and then how did that solution change your business and you'd be amazed at what people say and they stop for a minute and think you no longer get the oh Jen Miller she's so great I really like talking to her like no you get the Jen Miller went through all the content on my website and changed things up in a way I didn't know I could do myself I had been worried and then I went to her and she solved all my problems that's a way better review right okay so you're giving your clients what you want them to give back to you and it just makes everybody's life easier with video you can give them these questions ahead of time and then if you are bringing them in to do a video testimonial for you then keep it conversational throw the questions in if you don't get the words exactly right just get the message across they'll answer because they'll remember because they looked at your email beforehand and we have clients that will do video testimonials on their own that's a luxury most need you to pull them in if you want to get their video testimonial and you can do it on your iPhone nobody cares it's just be authentic with it the more like lofty you get with testimonials and the more use big words and things the more they're unrelatable so we don't want to do that allow real people to advise you so these people you're asking for reviews the people who are in the office next door to you your grandma your daughter ask them to give you their opinion because marketing is a science but it's not only about the experts opinion it's about real people and I'm sure I was going to give you all time to kind of like shout out but I think we're not going to have a chance but I'm sure you all have expert opinions that would build all of us because you've been in the world you see marketing on a daily basis you see brands coming at you and you know what content works and what doesn't so talk amongst yourselves in little groups at the after party and learn from each other that's why we're here okay we're not here just to hear me like drone on and on we're here to build community and to learn from that collective knowledge okay so make friends because you never know what's going to be a key influencer in your life in your business in your community I told you about my first wordpress meetup but I didn't share why I stayed once I got there I stayed because I made friends some of those friends have become huge influencers in the wordpress community on a global basis some of those friends attended me or encouraged me to attend another meetup called the social media masterminds of Orange County we also call it SMMOC they will have a slot at WordCamp Orange County sorry for pro-ing I am on the org team so if you guys want to learn about that great group but there I met even more good friends and one of my good friends was an expert at Twitter and her name is Bridget Willard how many of you know her okay we have two people who know her at Orange County she left her job after discovering wordpress she started coming to the wordpress meetup and after a year she left her job as a secretary and became a wordpress twitter guru she just started her twitter handle is at you two can be guru so you can ask me that later but she's a great person to follow because she knows things in and out and she has really just built herself up as an influencer to many she helps lots and lots of businesses and I count her as a friend well as my friend she's helped me build my business and it's what friends do I have this community but I'm not just talking about follower content like with Bridget she's got tons of followers that's not the reason why I'm using her as an influencer I'm using her as an influencer or talking about her as an influencer because she's had influence on me and on my community and I've become better because of the people like her that I've met and my company has become better because of those types of people whether you're involved in the community on or offline just get involved and make friends so that you can start to see your way through and you may be an influencer in someone else's life because you're attending okay thank you thank you for having me and I don't know do we have time for questions or we're done okay well thank you so much I'll be at the after party Jen Miller need someone to blog you can always reach me online too thank you