For anyone who has spent more than 30 seconds interacting with The Social Adviser, you would be well aware of the fact that we have a massive crush on video. Not only for its incredible story telling power or its ability to explain complex concepts in a simple fashion, but for its awesomeness in building relationships. Other than physically visiting dozens of people and talking with them, no other medium in the world can help you build relationships like video can (nor can it do so at the same scale!)
Having used video on an almost daily basis in a work sense, I recently decided to run a bit of an experiment. As a newbie to Brisbane and looking for a share house to call home, I decided to play with the system a bit. Instead of emailing paragraphs of text about myself to prospective housemates, I decided to simplify my message in the form of a two minute YouTube video.
I spoke about who I was, why I had moved to Brisbane, what type of person I was to live with and what I loved doing. Whilst I admit it felt like recording a video for a dating website, I was focussed on short-cutting the process for my potential future roommates in deciding whether they wanted to share a kitchen and lounge room with me for the next 6-12 months.
But forget what message I delivered in the video, the real power of video lies in not only delivering a message, but also letting the person on the other end see how you deliver it.
We all have to make decisions about others quickly as we simply don’t have the mental resources or time to assess every situation on its complete merits. Hundreds of thousands of years of evolution have made humans shortcut decision making by ‘reading between the lines’ when it comes to deciding whether they like someone or not, and this is where our ‘emotional brain’ plays a part by helping us make a decision.
This part of our brain assesses hundreds of visual cues about how someone delivers a message and makes an assessment of whether you should build a relationship with them or not. By being able to look someone in the eyes, subconsciously notice their body language and the ways they construct language, we receive enough information to throw into our mental cauldron.
What does this mean for the deliverer of a message? Well without even realising we are creating a highly complex potion which someone else’s emotional brain decides whether it wants to drink or not. This is why video is so much more powerful than a written message when it comes to influencing someone’s decision-making process.
So back to my house hunt, you’re probably interested in the result…
I sent emails to 6 prospective sets of housemates. 3 of them didn’t get back to me. Whether they had filled the room, my email went to spam or they just didn’t like the look / sound of me I’ll never be sure. But assuming it is the latter, I have no doubt we did each other a favour. They would most likely have made the same decision to reject me after I had made the effort to meet with them and check out their room. In a simplistic sense, I most likely saved myself time and petrol.
But what about the other 3?
This is where my experiment got interesting.
House #1 – Within two minutes of meeting the two prospective tenants in this house, they both had mentioned that I would fit in well in their place with my sense of humour. I hadn’t made a joke in either my video message or really made them laugh during our two minutes of interaction. They had simply inferred from our two points of contact that I was someone who liked a laugh. 20 minutes after leaving their place, they offered me the room.
House #2 – Within five minutes of meeting my future landlord (yes, I ended up moving into this place), he mentioned that I would fit in perfectly and that whilst there were other people inspecting the place that afternoon, he wanted to offer it to me. Bear in mind too that they were looking for a female to fill this room (now that I think about, I’m not sure what that says about me…)
House #3 – By the time I left their place (after a 10 minute visit) and jumped into my car, I had received an SMS with the offer of a room. But this wasn’t the crazy bit. After rejecting the room a few days later, I received the following SMS from one of the housemates;
“If you want to get to know people in Brissy, would you like to have drinks with us one time? Weird I know, but we thought you seemed like a great guy!”
Now I know what you’re thinking, ‘stop blowing your trumpet Backy’, but that’s not what I’m trying to do here.
In a total of 19 minutes, I had convinced 8 people that I would be a suitable person to live with (and three of them that I would be a suitable person to become buddies with). All from a two minute video (not to mention the time I saved by not meeting people who I probably couldn’t have lived with anyway). If truth be told, I think most of them had made their mind up before I even set foot in their house. In many ways, I believe the video was my job interview and the visit to their house was just a ‘reference check’ after the decision had been made.
So what’s my point?
Well, the power of video gave me a significant competitive advantage over other people who were vying for the same rooms as I was.
As an Adviser, Accountant or Client-Facing Professional in the world who is trying to influence the decision of prospective clients – how are you standing out from the crowd?
Some people are going to like you, and some people are going to dislike you – that’s just a fact of life. Your competitive advantage in business has always been and will always be who you are, and video is the most efficient way of showcasing that to clients.
You’ll probably be surprised to discover that your clients will care less about what furniture you own, and more about your motivations for entering their house.
– Michael Back