Consistency > Perfection with Video

I think it’s a common desire, the elusive “Being Discovered”.

The thought goes, “If I put forth this ONE. PERFECT. THING. someone will see it and notice me. I will be whisked away into stardom and fame befitting my awesomeness.”

I’m not here to crush all your dreams.

There is always that CHANCE.

And, there is always a chance that you will score a winning lottery ticket.

Or get found as a face fit for a magazine.

Maybe you’ll go viral and get featured on “Ellen”.

Or something!

I’m not saying being discovered is bad or wrong or undesirable. Heck, many big names are big BECAUSE they were “discovered” and launched into fame at one time or another.

Many brands experience success after going viral.

But.

Don’t get bogged down trying to create that ONE perfect piece of content that you think is going to launch you into stardom.

I’m going to grab a story that really hit me hard from the book, “Art & Fear” by David Bayles and Ted Orland:

On Quantity and Quality

The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality.

His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pounds of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot -albeit a perfect one – to get an “A”.

Well, come grading time a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

Did you get that? The BEST work came from quantity over quality.

The BEST work comes when you do. And do again. And do again. AGAIN.

There is a place for you to make one awesome video and feature it on your website, in your “about me” or run it for a long time as an ad.

But if you are a solopreneur or running on a tight-budget and are using video to promote your brand, your video doesn’t need to be perfect, it just needs to be PLURAL.

VideoS.

This accomplishes 3 things.

1. The more you create and post, the better you’re going to get at video production.
2. The more you do, the better you are going to get at highlighting your values, your message and your branding.
3. When you do more, more people are going to see you, think of you, follow you and become invested in you. If no other reason, simply because when you add MORE out there, there are more avenues for people to come in and “discover” you.

This may or may not be the big-time discovering. What I want, and what I think the rest of you want, is for your ideal customer to find you, identify themselves as being someone who would LOVE working with you, and contact you.

Ask the Pool Guy and Legendary Escapes give us the perfect example. Remember back when I posted this blog?

The video I referenced at the time had 17 views (18 if you count mine). It now has 32.

That video WAS purchased by Stalkr. And you can check them and that video out HERE.

There was no way to know WHO would find a video.

There was no way to know WHAT someone would be exactly searching for.

But Ask The Pool Guy doesn’t focus on the end result.

They focus on the doing.

Check this out.

They are not posting so some big name will find them.

They have posted nearly three THOUSAND videos, because each one of them highlights something that they believe their ideal customer is looking for. Each video gives just another opportunity for a potential client to find them and hear exactly what they want. Sometimes even before they know it’s what they want.

Or not. Or someone could see your stuff and decide it’s not for them. But all of those videos are a gateway. And we do want certain people to opt out. ATPG’s consistency gives the RIGHT people a chance to opt IN.

Success is in the consistency instead of the perfection. It’s in the repetition and the grind.

It’s in the DOING of the thing.

And as a result, sometimes an agency looking to put together a video for Google will find you.

You can visit Ask The Pool Guy’s Youtube HERE and their website HERE.

Nike got it right.

Just do it.

(Good job. Now do it again)