I met Les Fultz in a business networking group. In this episode we discuss his company, Valere Studios, how he began this company by learning to work with video editing technology. We also discuss the ROI with video marketing for businesses and look at the future uses for video marketing.
Sam Schutte 0:00
On today’s show, we have Les Fultz. He is the founder of Valere Studios in Cincinnati, Ohio. I met less than a business networking group here in Cincinnati, and we’re going to talk about video and multi channel marketing. Les, welcome to the show.
Les Fultz 0:12
Hey, Sam, thanks for having me.
Sam Schutte 0:14
Just to start off here. How did you get started in your career here in the field?
Les Fultz 0:18
Well it was totally by mistake, I really had no plan of operating a camera. And it’s kind of funny when I tell that story. You know, I, I had sold a cleaning business, that’s where you and I met we, I own since a maintenance at the time I founded that company in 2010. And I sold that business to my employee and I, I was more passionate about the marketing. So I got into digital, and I was, you know, attracting some clients and growing my business and I just bought $150 point and shoot camera and started sharing the content. And I said, aha, as soon as I started producing the content The gravity and the impact of the content and the reach and the impact dramatically changed. So I just kind of shifted my mindset and, and that’s where we’re kind of all started with a inexpensive point and shoot camera. So
Sam Schutte 1:15
Gotcha. And then, and you’ve kind of evolved now quite a bit from there. So kind of what’s your setup today?
Les Fultz 1:20
Well, I’d say so he’s gone from the point and shoot to a full on live streaming studio with some incredible technology to help broadcast local companies. I mean,
Sam Schutte 1:32
I guess Tell me a little bit about what you focus on with that studio, because your real well, your real focus is live video streaming do a lot of out there.
Well,I mean, that is our home base, you know, that is our place to operate from and, you know, I see great opportunity for folks to grow in this space. Right now. We’re doing a podcast. And of course, many people have podcasts, but I wanted to bring the opportunity for folks to have a video To podcast as well, I wanted people to have that opportunity. So we acquired a client, local publisher here, venue and lead Tribune media. And we began shooting CEO, so C suite folks all over the region. And of course, this is a multi camera option. So our business kind of just grew in, in that area into that space. And we needed a place to really better accommodate the content.
Turn about multi camera a little bit. I mean, obviously, you’re saying more than one camera, but what does that how does that work in actuality?
Les Fultz 2:35
Yeah, so you know, everybody’s live streaming right now. Right? You see a lot of people live streaming on their phones. But we’ve got a full on mobile studio. So what that is, is there’s multiple cameras. So you have three cameras. Typically, if you’d see like, let’s say it was Oprah Winfrey, or, or the news when you watch fox news or MSNBC, or whatever you You’ve got either an interview or a panel, you’re seeing these cameras switch. And and so that’s what we have is we have a product that is focused on either on stage events, multi camera on stage events all the way down to an interview style piece of content, where we are live editing the material, we can live broadcast it, we can live stream it, but we can also do a live to tape or live editing the content. So that’s what I mean by multi camera. It’s a multi camera,
Sam Schutte 3:31
You’re switching, you’re switching between cameras remotely.
Exactly.We’ve got some really cool they’re called pan tilt zoom cameras. They’re, they’re the hottest piece of technology out of China, that that’s where all cameras come from basically. But they’re the hottest piece of technology that allow you to do this multi multi, multi camera streaming or live recording
And so what was your first customer when you started you know, having these studio space and kind of getting more of this equipment was kind of first class customer going down that path.
Les Fultz 4:05
We kind of have a wide variety of clients. But you know, we work with some enterprise with an enterprise level company, but we also work with the small mom and pops but so we have a couple clients that really steer that studio space. We do some cosmetic instructional videos for a company based in Australia, Jurlique Cosmetics. So this is a an amazing company just absolutely phenomenal product. And I got really lucky because the national trainer for the aestheticians is here in Cincinnati. So we really kind of connected and so we produce instructional videos in our studio. So that that if I would say that that’s a motivator for us to continue the investment into the space in addition to the editorial style work that we do for ComSpark, which is a major technical Publication
Sam Schutte 5:02
So and with those product demos because our product training videos I guess there are so those going out on their website then are they distributing those to their, like their salespeople I guess
Those are internal, so they’re internal to train the aestheticians how to perform the facial. So it’s kind of funny, Sam. Yeah, I got I’m picking up on terms that I never got.
Yeah, not having a background in
Les Fultz 5:25
massaging the deck latte. And, you know, I’ve learned a lot about Cold Stone massages and everything like that. Yeah, it’s pretty cool. But as soon as so we just launched this studio this year. You know, we’ve been in a couple smaller spaces over the past couple years. But we just, you know, went all in on this larger space. And immediately as soon as we opened the door, we had shoots to monetize the space immediately. So it’s kind of cool.
Sam Schutte 5:54
That’s right in Reading, Ohio.
Les Fultz 5:56
Yep, Reading. Yep, it’s 1000 square foot. Um, sound treated multi streaming studio. So it’s a black box studio.
Sam Schutte 6:06
Yeah. And I was there just this week and I mean, it’s very much like a, you know, black box studio theater like you’d go see a play on almost.
Les Fultz 6:13
Exactly.
Sam Schutte 6:14
Cool. So what are what are some key trends? Do you think that are working really well for your customers around, you know, this multi channel video marketing?
Les Fultz 6:25
Well, and that’s maybe perhaps some your listeners may not know exactly what that is. And so multi channel marketing is when you take a piece of content or your advertisement, and you’d distribute that content among many channels, so that could be on radio, and print on your website, and social media. You know, our product is more of a multi channel approach with video content. So that could be on you know, we take that same piece of content and we format it accordingly to each platform. Whether that’s Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, and is on fire right now. And that could be for broadcast. We’ve a client garage kings, and the content that we produce for them can be used anywhere. So we, when we get out and shoot the material, we prepare the content so that it can be easily distributed across multiple channels. So hopefully for your listeners that helps better understand where we fit into that segment.
Sam Schutte 7:25
Gotcha. And I think what’s really innovative to about when you’re looking at multi channel marketing and kind of repurposing content, right, because you can, you know, from one single video you make, you could make all kinds of teaser videos, promo videos, full length, short length, you could take just the audio video turned into a podcast. Do you find a lot of clients wanting to do that?
Les Fultz 7:47
Well, we live in a time that that that should be part of the package. I mean, there is no, you know, the old school approach is no longer relevant. So you have to in order for us to provide that value, it’s already included, you know, so when we onboard a new client, that approach is already the expected level. So, you know, in terms of our delivery, typically the client will receive many, many assets. So they can easily distribute that stuff. And that includes stills, you know, so yeah, even when we’re out shooting, we can produce the stills from the shoot. So I think garage kings has been a great example of that offering, because we’re so versatile in the in our in our offering,
Sam Schutte 8:35
yeah, but I’ve seen a lot of people even, you know, take a podcast or a video and create infographics from it, right? Because you’ve got these people saying, look, here’s the top five things you should do for landscaping, and we’ll take it turn it into an infographic right? It’s all the information is already there.
Les Fultz 8:50
Yeah
Sam Schutte 8:50
you know, and as we said, you have a big focus or at least a lot of your marketing you talked about the live video and that been a you know, a game changer. A new opportunity for a lot of clients.
Les Fultz 9:01
I’m going to say, Sam, that it’s still an evolving space, you know that, that doesn’t make up the majority of our work, you know, even though, you know, we promote it heavily.It’s just an evolving space. I think people in the marketing world and in the marketplace in general are, they’re evolving into it. It’s been kind of the shiny object per se for several years. But it’s becoming more and more important. And in fact, we’ve seen an opportunity create what I call these brand experiences, where we’re using the multi camera and the live streaming to create a unique experience, even if it’s an internal broadcast, you know, we’re we’re showing something that would otherwise, to the lay person being impossible to do, we’re able to create this unique video experience. For for our clients. So it’s, it’s kind of a fun space to explore in. And you don’t have all the answers there yet. Yeah. So it’s a very difficult thing because you have to educate people on what it is, you know, like to tell people I can produce literally a TV show on social media. It shocks people often. So
Sam Schutte 10:21
yeah, when you think about it, though, I imagine that, you know, if you add up the channels, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, certainly if you were able to restream this video content to other platforms, you add those up together, they have a lot more exposure than maybe your typical, you know, just a local TV channel might that would have a normal people would expect the TV show to be alright. And the fact that you can restream to all of them at once. You know, it can be pretty powerful.
Les Fultz 10:44
Yeah, we did the coolest project probably to date and we’ve been invited to come back. And we did a live celebrity chef cook off at Our Daily Bread, a downtown soup kitchen downtown. And there is a whole big Audience down at Rhinegeist having beers and having fun. And we broadcast the celebrity chef Cook Off to the big audience that wouldn’t otherwise fit into that kitchen to see all the action. So we had four cameras on that shoot one camera on the food, one camera on the chef’s a camera on the panel. And I had a wireless camera operator, following Bob Herzog around while he emcee the whole thing. I mean, it was just, it’s just so wacky to think about what we pulled off, but pretty cool. So I love exploring that space. But 90% of our business is more corporate related content, interviews, videos for website and social media.
Sam Schutte 11:41
I’m curious so with that, you know, when you talk about live experience with Our Daily Bread there, you know, what about that? Do you think you know made it better to have it live as opposed if it had been recorded, I mean, what was really gained, those kind of gained there the additional
Les Fultz 11:55
Well, the experiences that the other people are part of the action you They couldn’t all fit into that location. And so they were able to have a larger audience captivated in real time, then they would having it recorded. So it was just creating the experience the feeling of knowing that these people are down the street and then Bob could turn to the camera and say, Hey, folks, thanks for watching the show. I’m gonna catch you down there in just a few minutes and then everybody show up. I mean, how cool is that? Very cool. And to see, you know, live reaction, you can’t you can’t that most of that stuff would be cut on the editing block. Yeah, you know, like so. If something happens live, it’s normally spontaneous and it normally makes it that much more entertaining to watch, you know, especially in that format. Now, we did another project with Eggar and Barking Squirrel Media, and they’re great strategic partners of ours in the same industry, but you know, like I said, we’re kind of strategic partners and and we did a campaign for UC, so at UC, we have a panel discussion, a half circle panel. And we were live streaming that. Now. the live feed wasn’t going out to the public, it was going to the executives at UC health. So they were down the hall. And we had this elaborate multi camera switching on a whole panel. I mean the technology so wild, I can pre program the shot. So as soon as the other person starts talking, I hit a button, and it zooms in on Mary Beth and Mary Beth is giving a heartfelt testimony about the the amount of service or the quality of care that she received at UC. I mean, this stuff was absolutely phenomenal. The image was beautiful and but the executives down the hall were, their jaws were open because they were getting live testimony in what look to appear to be a Hollywood television show. From their from their clients. So just amazing. That is what I would call it brand experience because they you walk out of that event, feeling like you experience something special, and where you got feedback in real time. So I’m into the new year, I’m focusing more on what those brand experiences are.
Sam Schutte 14:17
Yeah. And that’s key, I think, and, and when you kind of started doing some of those live brand experiences, I know you’ve had a number of, you know, like you said, it’s an emerging technology, it’s an emerging space. So, you know, there’s some challenges there in terms of like Internet connectivity and bandwidth and stuff that you’ve had to battle. I guess what have you kind of learned, you know, what works from a sort of,you know, what you can pull off standpoint or how do you how do you solve that,
Les Fultz 14:44
That UC, job came down to seconds, there was a firewall issue. I couldn’t connect to the internet. We tried to hardwire the feed over to a television the cables weren’t working. I mean, Sam, it was just crazy. I kept my composure even the guys putting the show on said hey, last saw you did a great job, you know because I they knew I was faced with some adversity yeah and and it was either pass or fail. So it literally came down to me calling Verizon activate a new modem to work because there they had some that it’s a medical thing. So the firewalls and stuff like it just wouldn’t allow the systems to communicate because it’s locked down like for Fort Knox, you know. And so it literally came down to seconds, I saved a feed with seconds. So you know, there’s many scenarios that that Yeah, it’s a lot of planning upfront, you know, if we’re going to do something out of studio, I have to do all that pre planning the site evaluation test the internet and all that jazz. So yeah, you know, that’s one advantage I have in the studio, you have more control over the environment.
Sam Schutte 15:58
Well, that’s an advantage if you’re if you’re going to do a recorded statement? As long as you have electricity and everything, all the equipment that you brought work you probably okay.
Les Fultz 16:07
Yeah, right. Yeah.
Sam Schutte 16:07
But I mean, it definitely is much more complex to try to pull off something really live. Right, just because of that. I’m curious too, though. You talked about switching cameras. You know, we always I always watch like on the Joe Rogan podcast and he has those on YouTube as well as videos, you know, and as they talk, they switch between speaker is that automatic or you think if someone’s switching,
Les Fultz 16:29
It can there is an auto switch. There’s also switches that have a foot control, so he can be hitting the foot pedal under the table. And, you know, I use some advanced stuff from data video. But the there is a rolling switch that was made for musicians that allows a two camera switch, and you got a foot pedal, a b a b,
so Joe Rogan’s hittin the pedal every time
I don’t know but there is some voice activated stuff for on other switchers little Things that there could be an auto device or something
Sam Schutte 17:04
you mentioned data video, and I think something that’s very cool, you know, you pull it off as sort of a exposure strategy for your, your company and services as you went, you know, you’ve, you’re buying this, this equipment that, again, is pretty bleeding edge for some of the stuff in terms of cutting edge cutting edge, you know, live video stuff. He reached out to those manufacturers and said, Hey, I’m using your stuff, and I want to talk about it. Yeah. And so I’ve gotten a number of,
Les Fultz 17:27
well, it’s kind of funny thing is when I started this pitch on live streaming in 2017, I caught the eye of the at the time, a guy that worked at Roland, and you know, and so I got their attention and they wrote me up and put me on their website and you know, great product use case and I got the exposure I got some of the, you know, recognition as someone in the industry that knows what they’re doing. And, and so I connected with Rob at and he’s now the business development manager. Data video. And so we’ve had, you know, been in contact in relationship ever since the Roland thing and Rob transition to data video. And so we’ve been in touch and when I saw all the technology that data video offers, like these people like invented Dolby Surround in the 80s. Like, they don’t mess around. But I saw all the levels of technology that they provide. I was drawn in by that because I’m just a geek at heart, you know, until anything video, live production, small scale, large scale, I mean, all the way to a full on broadcast van. Like you can get the whole show put into a van and you can do like you can drive around. And you know, looking forward to the day when you have a local van. Well, they’re global. They’re global. It’s a global company. They’re based in Taiwan, and I’ve got the attention of Taiwan. I’m friends with the global marketing director. So they they appreciate my adventurous outlook on how to use data video technology and multi streaming, multi camera streaming technology and the way that we’re putting it into the marketplace. Because they are very, you know, most of their businesses more traditional, like houses of worship, casinos, you know, big things that need the cameras permanently mounted. And I’m using it in a different way to get out and do these creative shoots. So there is a mutual beneficial relationship there because I’m putting the product into high use.
Sam Schutte 19:42
Yeah, but I think there’s probably a lot of …
Les Fultz 19:44
and I’m getting new cameras, getting new cameras. Yeah, a video. Yeah,and I think pay attention for Open Box Video. And there’s another little device that will help you in right here during this podcast. The database is rolling out which is capture card, so you can use any DSLR any camera and use it as a device on your laptop to write to so cool little device they’re gonna disrupt the market with this USB capture device or Thunderbolt captured.
Sam Schutte 20:14
Cool.So there are there any applications you know these various live recording technologies like things you want to do with them you haven’t yet like some concept for a type of media or spot or recording you want to do they haven’t tried yet or been able to
Les Fultz 20:28
I think, for me the the smart thing to do is continue pursue what we’re already good at, which is, you know, this multi camera interview where you you know, you have a thought leader you want to interview so I want to kind of stay grounded in that space, but I love these, quote unquote, experiences that I’m talking about. And that’s where you can totally get rid of any of the limitations and try to create, you know, something that’s unique, and that’s not been done before. I mean, Who’s heard of a live celebrity Jeff cook off on Facebook and say, yes, you we can do that, you know, there’s not Oh, I remember entering the meeting, they said, We have this vision, and we need this and we want this. And they were shocked when I said yes. You know, like, the ability to say, yes, it’s powerful. You know, somebody has an idea. And they don’t think it’s possible. And you can say yes, and then stand behind it and actually do it. That’s pretty fun feeling.
Sam Schutte 21:28
Yeah. Very cool. So your background originally is not in video.You know, you know, you didn’t, you know, come up throughwhatever, some art school training that so so what did you do? I guess, how did you overcome that challenge to learn all that stuff quickly, to get to where you’re at now or you can produce things?
Les Fultz 21:49
Well, I had a couple folks and well, first of all, I had a friend of mine. I’ve known since basically grade school. He’s in LA and he’s a film producer, he’s now more heavily into content development management, but he was kind of coaching me from LA. So every time I put out a horrible video, he was, you know, sending me messages saying no, don’t do that. What are you doing? You got to fix the audio, you got to fix the color just yesterday. He’s like, Hey, man, that video has way too much magenta in it from that light, you know, I mean, so he still participates in my success. And I’m grateful for that, john, if you’re watching, or have watched, so that’s one area. And then the other space is, you know, just being self taught and motivating myself, you know, to get through all those challenging elements, you know, to learn Adobe from scratch with no formal I mean, to just jump in and start. I mean, it’s a pretty daunting task, but I think that’s what makes us so unique is that we weren’t influenced by the industry. You We weren’t influenced by this is how it’s supposed to be done less,
Sam Schutte 23:04
Your own way of doing things
Les Fultz 23:05
Yeah, I took more of an entrepreneurial path, then, hey, this is the this is the cookie cutter approach to this industry. This is the, you know, and some of that is a blessing. And some of that is curse because, you know, there’s a lot of things in this business that I didn’t anticipate, which the biggest issue that faces Video Creators today is the fact that anyone with a cell phone thinks that they can make a video, you know, so it’s, it’s a wide all the way up to Hollywood production. You know, there’s nothing, there’s any level in between a cell phone and a $20,000 shoot, there’s no common ground anywhere. You know, so that poses a challenge from a business side is growing the business that way.
Sam Schutte 23:49
But I think also, you know, when you’re sort of like, with this podcast, I mean, this I think you’re you’ll be Episode 26. Right. And you know, when I saw when I started out, it’s like, Buy this, buy that and of course, because you don’t necessarily know what you’re buying, then you end up having to rebuy it upgrade very quickly. Right. And then, you know, you have thousands of dollars of stuff lying around that you don’t even use anymore.
Oh, my gosh,I tell you a story, you know?
Yeah. And you know, of course, you can resell a lot of that. But um, you know, takes a while to get ton of kind of the right gear in place, right. So if we look at let’s talk about sort of paid video promotion, a little bit meaning on the social media channels. You know, if you look at the recorded videos you’ve done, obviously, everybody knows you can boost videos on Facebook. Maybe they know that. Mm hmm. What’s the sort of some of the return that your clients have seen in that area? If they hire you to like, say, produce a couple spots? And then you’re gonna boost and promote them on Facebook? I mean, what does that typically cost? for, you know, how many views they get? What does that look like?
Les Fultz 24:54
Well, there’s no there’s no two clients that are the same and the staff And that content that we produce is also not the same. So each case is treated differently. And each client is going to have different indicators of success, you know, so, you know, more of our b2b customers, and it’s more about brand awareness. And it’s more about the long term, you know, value of the piece versus the short term. You know, so that, you know, like I said, it’s a, it’s a case by case basis, you know, most of the b to c clients that we work with, that’s more of an that would categorize more of a as an impulse buy, you know, we can create an ad that’s more specific to an impulse buy, you know, so I look at it like that, like, hey, what, what can this video do for you in the short term? What is it going to do for you in the long term wisdom long term? You know, what are you going to receive out of this overall, you know, most of our business clients, it’s more of a conversion. tool that sits on their website to help convert or a blog or post that they, you know, promote to their ideal client and then it educates the client and then converts that that web visitor into a customer so we often look at most of the video in that way is that it’s not an immediate it’s not going to change the path of your business tomorrow, but it’s going to have an evergreen or a long impact for your for your clients help educate your ideal customers.
Sam Schutte 26:31
Yeah, so I mean there’s there’s kind of a brand exposure and nurturing type angle and then there’s also the third media called no call to action call now by this get this coupon.
Les Fultz 26:40
Yeah.Or it’s just, you know, we’re using the creative piece to capture the attention and capture leads, you know, we can use that in a way that’s unique on Facebook, you know, where we create a visual piece that just gets the interest in the newsfeed and so there is a That element. And then you know, LinkedIn is blazing hot right now, it is on fire, if you see it follow any of the social media, marketing, blogs or whatever. And for me, you know, I would probably say that I’ve been sharing our work on LinkedIn for the past 14 months, this little, you know, I’ll upload a personal video, one of our client videos or whatever on on LinkedIn. And I kind of attribute that to how we’re getting attention, or we’re getting recognized as Video Creators, is because that professional, you know, I’m b2b, so that professional audience is seeing us on LinkedIn. So, you know, it really depends on the client, you know, we start with the strategy and approach that, you know, what is the content, how are we producing it? We just now I believe it’s publicized already, but we did work for the Giler company, which is local HVC company, and they’ve been around since 18, you know, 135 years, and their fourth generation What a cool story. Yeah. And so You know, the sales and marketing manager comes to me with unique challenge and the challenges he wants a two minute video that talks about their history, their training and their relationship with their customers. That’s an immense challenge, right?
Sam Schutte 28:14
For each of those, right,
Les Fultz 28:15
yeah, but it’s hard to glue all those pieces together. But we, you know, in that particular client, we, you know, we really excelled in meeting their expectations in terms of staying on schedule, getting the vision and the in the product that they wanted. And now that product is on their website, and then we deliver just like I said earlier in the, in the podcast, that we delivered additional sizzle reels, so that their marketing team can use that to grab attention online. There’s not necessarily a message with those sizzle reels, but we maximize the material to create a visual piece of art or piece of video that can help attract some leads. So those are some of the things that you can do can Just boost your attention, get some in grab some info.
Sam Schutte 29:04
Yeah, the other thing I’ve noticed you doing on Facebook, which is similar to, you know, there’s all these sort of big internet celebrities like guys like Gary Vaynerchuk and stuff that they’ve, you know, they’ve gone out and guess basically decided to record their life, you know, so everywhere they go they
Les Fultz 29:19
Yeah, it’s like D ROC okay with D ROC. And so when I hired when I hired Chris, I said, Hey, man, you can be my D ROC, and I never really, I never really got to that looks like he might be watching. Yeah, but I never got, you know, to that.
Sam Schutte 29:33
But I think but I think you you have and I’ve seen a lot of your videos on Facebook where you know, you you record yourself with a dog park, record yourself, you know, having lunch at some Cincinnati spot so you do kind of you definitely are tied to your brand new you personally are out there on your social channel, produce creating videos to promote your brand of just your everyday life, you know, that people watch and they think and of course, they start thinking well, maybe I could do this For my business, maybe I could, you know,
Les Fultz 30:01
yeah. And so you know, there’s a lot of things that you can do on your own that doesn’t require, you know, the budget and dealing with a video company. There’s lots of like, I’m live streaming right now on my mobile device on Facebook, like it’s probably gonna be not the fanciest video and audio is probably not going to be all that great, but it’s just another piece of content out there that someone may or may not watch. That could you know, tell them more about my business just like we’re kind of doing this podcast but you can do video like that. And it’s perfectly normal for even brands and companies to have imperfect, you know, raw video, look at the guy T Mobile the, you know, he would do this ridiculous live stream from his house, or he would like cook in his kitchen with a big pink T Mobile apron is the CEO. You know, I can’t remember his name, but I would chuckled seeing his broadcast because the big brand was doing this hokey pokey video. But it what it does is he created the relationship between t mobile, the CEO of T Mobile and all of their followers, you know, it was like a personal thing that created that one on one touch that relationship with their, with their customers. And so I thought, you know, and that can be applied to anybody. Don’t be afraid to share the raw moments, you know, the, the parts of your business that makes it awesome. Even if you’re like the biggest dork on Earth. Share your Excel spreadsheet on how you save someone like, you know, 10 hours because you just shaved off the last column, like, go ahead and share it and tell people what makes you so awesome. Don’t be afraid to share the raw, the off moments, you know, because it does, you know, how people relate to what you do.
Sam Schutte 31:51
Yeah, but it’s funny because there’s businesses out there that have like everybody knows who the founders are and the leaders are right and as leaders we revere you know, you know, And, you know, Elon and Steve Jobs and all these guys, right? And then there’s all these businesses that I have no idea who the CEO is, doesn’t like because they’ve never put themselves on a public facing anywhere. And you look at that T Mobile thing, and it’s like, well, people, you know, saw his house or whatever. And obviously, it was kind of staged, I’m sure yet.
Les Fultz 32:20
Now, I was editing video on Facebook before people thought it was acceptable to release a video on Facebook. And this was like, 2016. This was recent, you know, before the brands really got ahold of it. This was just three and four years ago. Well, I busted in I’m going to keep this guy nameless. But I busted into his office and I said, I was just excited. I didn’t come there to pitch anything. I was just excited to share the news. Like, Hey, I found this great tactic to shoot content and use Facebook, to talk to your people and it’s having crazy ridiculous impact, he turned to me and he said, Les, I will never do this. I will never number one, he shut me up because he thought I was in a sales pitch. But I was just excited to share. He misunderstood the approach. Now, this is nonprofit, I was friends with the founder for years before I even met this guy, you know. And so, but the funny and ironic thing is today, there isn’t a single week, that doesn’t go by that he grabs his phone and talks to the followers. And so it’s an amazing transition from just three or four years ago, say and I will never do this, to they can’t get enough of it because they saw the value in sharing what they do, how they do and the passion behind it in those raw, unscripted, awesome moments.
Sam Schutte 33:52
And for those most successful videos, in terms of in terms of views or exposure, I mean, how many views Do you think your clients have been getting from the On Facebook say like, you know, 10s of thousands
Les Fultz 34:03
well, See, I got away from focusing on one specific platform, because that’s like the kiss of death. Because, you know, like I said, that multi channel I’m drilling this multi channel approach because the the space is no longer measured specifically in the views, you know, it’s it’s, it’s the impact and who you’re reaching versus Hey, how far did it go, you know, so I don’t measure the success by views anymore. I measure the success by the cash register, or the leads coming in, or the real time feedback that the client receives. So I don’t necessarily focus on that. But there has been videos that we’ve sent out that have reached 70 70,000 people in one day, and where you know, someone’s you know, restaurant and businesses received thousands of dollars worth of income. And so those are great successful moments, but those are Very hard to reproduce. So I lowered the expectation down, and I provide more value through what we’re delivering. And then when we have a big success, like a video reached, you know, took off, then those are just the fun moments, because I’ve already met the expectation before the launch.
Sam Schutte 35:20
Well, it is true, certainly that, you know, like, I have a friend that produce puts videos on Facebook, and it’ll say that he’s getting hundreds and hundreds of views, but it’s because somebody is watching her for two seconds or one second, right? When you really drill into it. It’s a much smaller number of people that watch it all the way through. Right. So yeah, so, you know, focusing on Raw total views does not necessarily mean anything.
Les Fultz 35:41
Yeah, but one tip I have for your listeners, if you’re venturing in and you’re publishing videos on multiple platforms, and you’re uploading content on YouTube and, and Vimeo and LinkedIn and Facebook, they compete with each other right now. Hmm. So do not share YouTube on LinkedIn, Do not share on YouTube on Facebook. It look if you’re Nicki Minaj go ahead and share whatever you want wherever you can, you know, your viral hit anyways. Right? But if you’re on our level, upload each platform you upload each video to each platform because each platform yes natively because they treat video differently. Yeah. And so your SEO, your search engine optimization power players are Vimeo and YouTube and, and embedding, so if you’re putting it on your website, you know, YouTube is this place for that. You may have 5 million subscribers on YouTube, you know, obviously you’re gonna put your videos on YouTube, but LinkedIn specifically go ahead and upload your content there. There’s a max of 10 minutes on LinkedIn are up and they just rolled out LinkedIn live so you’re on my more with Western I’m trying to get that thing going but upload to each platform. And I’m excited. LinkedIn is still sending me support tickets, drag me up and running. But hopefully you’ll be seeing me live on LinkedIn.
Sam Schutte 37:11
And that’s definitely one of those cutting edge things. Like, you know, they’ve not figured that all out yet on their side.
Les Fultz 37:16
Yeah,yeah, it’s beta.
Sam Schutte 37:18
Yeah, exactly. What do you think I I also think it’s interesting with these with all these different channels that you know, there because like you said, they’re all competing with each other for the most users and exposure and growth and new users per month and all this sort of stuff. And obviously, because that’s where they get their value from, like I was reading, you know, Whatsapp when it was bought messaging app. What’s that WhatsApp? It was bought for $6 billion ridiculous because they had a million new members per day joining right. So their revenue was nowhere anywhere to justify that but everybody just thought wow, a million per day, you know, it’s crazy. And you look at you know, I’ve been hearing a lot about and, you know, one of the newest platform is exploding out. There’s TikTok, right, which, you know, is owned by this Chinese company, which makes it a little different than some of the sort of American tech companies over here. But I mean, it’s just having absolute explosive growth. And of course, it’s it has a little bit more like a target, you know, high school and millennials. You know, do you think it’s, is? Do brands need to be everywhere? Like that, you know, is it worthwhile for all businesses to be everywhere?
Les Fultz 38:27
Well, I’m not on Snapchat, and I don’t do TikTok. I should, but I don’t. Maybe I will, you know, I just my current audience is, you know, on LinkedIn and Facebook, so I don’t necessarily need right now. This TikTok exposure. You know, it’s good for a younger audience, but my client is not young. You know, they’re they’re middle aged and older. Their executives. Their marketing buyers are Advertising buyers, you know, their their founders and CEOs. They’re not 13 year old kids,
Sam Schutte 39:07
But your customers, clients might be like it. You’ve worked with Morgan’s Canoe. So they might perhaps I could go on there something you know.
Les Fultz 39:16
Yeah, potentially, but that’s something that they’re going to do on their own. without my help, you know, that’s more of the raw cellphone video stuff. Now we can produce the heavy, heavier branded style content for that, but that’s, you know, again, client specific.
Sam Schutte 39:31
Yeah. Because you can upload, like recorded videos to that as well.
Les Fultz 39:35
Oh, yeah. Yeah, people are doing some wicked cool edits on their videos.
Sam Schutte 39:42
So when you’re working with these, these customers, what are some of your core values? They’re important to your business,
Les Fultz 39:49
Honesty, you know, being upfront and realistic about the expectations, you know, and, and getting that out in the open right away. You know, I always share what the process is, you know, I think that that’s really important, you know, just the transparency from start to finish. Well, here’s the product, here’s our approach, here’s our method, here’s how we’re going to shoot it. Here’s the content, you know, like, being just completely wide open and transparent is really important for us. You know, that has a couple of benefits, because, obviously, we want to stay on budget, you know, and so, being clear and concise and honest with the client about what the process is, is really core to us. And then a portion of our time is, you know, we typically try to give back in some capacity. So, if I have typically a couple passion projects a year where I’m taping someone, give them the added exposure. And so, you know, for me, that’s part of our value as a company that, hey, a portion of our time is to be given back to a cause a person, an entity that we have some mutual respect for. And it could be a faith based group could be it could be a for profit, you know, it could be an entrepreneur just getting started, you know, and so that that’s important to me, it always has been no matter what business I’ve been in is just, you know, providing a some source using my tools for good using the equipment and the purpose and you know, everything for something of value to the community. And so, that’s those are two big things for me
Sam Schutte 41:40
Of those sort of give back type projects meaning what is there one is there one recently you did that was really rewarding for you.
Les Fultz 41:46
Well, I mean, it’s it’s pretty regular that we’re doing something of value for someone and so it’s hard to pin down very specific that we’re going the extra mile, you know, so it’s pretty just kind of part ingrained in who we are We’ve done some work for a couple of the nonprofit’s here locally, we’ve done some work for a company called Tikkun farm. And they help rehabilitate and people that have been through trauma. And whether they’re children or they’re adults, they have kind of a retreat and a farm where you can get out and, you know, see visit with the animals and have some time by the fire and stuff like that. So that was a couple years ago, then we’ve done work for a local nonprofit that serves the homeless and, and the convicted and the addicted. So they literally grabbed them right out of the Justice Center and introduced Christ in their life for the first time.
Sam Schutte 42:47
And you talked to we talked a little bit earlier about, you know, new technologies and new stuff we wanted to get into. I think we touched on this, you know, TV shows for the internet kind of idea. So tell me a little bit more about that. What that what does that look like?
Les Fultz 43:01
Well, kind of exploring into that. That’s kind of my like, the fun part of my business. It takes away like all the pressure of the business as a whole. We just try to imagine, you know, like, Disney has their imagine yours. I like to think of myself as an Imagineer. But with video content, you know, and what can we explore and create and create some type of impact or visibility. So, you know, the technology that we use is literally a mobile television studio. So in no time, we can be up and running and create something that that can shock the world, you know, something that’s pretty, pretty wild. Whether that’s an interview or whether it’s, you know, a celebrity chef cook off, we have an opportunity to create this epic piece of content
Sam Schutte 43:49
Gotcha, you’ve lived here and since now, your whole life, went to Lasalle and your Cincinnati boy
Les Fultz 43:53
Born and bred
Sam Schutte 43:55
You know what do you think of running a business in Cincinnati as your home base here. What are the upsides and the downsides to it?
Les Fultz 44:03
Okay, so it’s my hometown. I love it. I love Cincinnati. There’s a good vibe here in Cincinnati for the startup in tech. And there’s lots of energy being pumped into this ecosystem here locally, and that’s great. But there’s also a lot of big business here in Cincinnati, large companies. And there’s a lot of old school old business in Cincinnati, you know, and, and so for me, I have always been, you know, kind of this disrupter, you know, in this video space in this, you know, as an entrepreneur when I started my cleaning business, nobody ever heard of green cleaning, carpet cleaning company in Cincinnati. No, but now they’re everywhere. So, you know, I’ve always been this kind of, disrupter in no matter what I’m doing. And so Cincinnati is very conservative, you know, and their decision making, you know, I even got a great friend, great guy. You know, he, he’s a marketing advisor here locally. And he you know, he always puts out a little thing that says don’t chase the shiny object. It’s I chuckle because I am the shiny object, you know. And so it’s challenging marketplace. So if I was in LA, Seattle, New York or Chicago, I’d probably be doing double or triple the business, okay, because I have to do much more educating here locally, on what it is that I’m doing. You know, that makes the market unique for what I do. So that makes it a challenge for us to promote our business. Even though if I was in LA, I’d probably have, you know, jobs ringing in every day. And so there’s a big difference if I was in like Menlo Park or in California or, you know, Silicon Valley or wherever, I probably have much more opportunity than I do here in town. Interesting. I imagine the same is probably true for any kind of technology company really anything Technology Services service company production in general. You know, I mean, I’ve we’ve actually got jobs from LA and New York and Chicago based production companies, you know, they just even the companies here locally, the P and G’s, though, you know, the large enterprise level companies, they’re sending the work to LA are not doing the work here. You know, they’re working with LA agencies. That’s why I was lucky to come make the connection with Jurlique’s national trainer, otherwise they’d be doing the work in LA. You know, LA is our first stop from Australia, I believe isn’t people flying to LA from Australia? Does that the first is that the fastest way to get to? I think so. So, you know, it makes senseto do it.
Sam Schutte 46:51
Cincinnati is very out of the way.
Les Fultz 46:52
Yeah, yeah. So I kind of got lucky in that in that regard. But if that was the only thing I wish there was more adventurous risk taking in this space.
Sam Schutte 47:04
Yeah. You mentioned earlier, you know, your cleaning business that was your very first kind of entrepreneurial endeavor. And a big focus of that was sort of the environmental benefit and the sort of green solutions with with this business being that it’s video and digital and all this, you know, have you have you had any opportunity? Or have you been able to sort of weave in that sort of green environmental aspect to what you’re doing?
Les Fultz 47:30
I’m really don’t create any waste unless you want to critique one of my earlier videos.I don’t really create any waste, you know, it’s kind of funny, I have the cleaning business to completely blame for where I’m at and where I’m going. Because, you know, 10 years ago, I started with another video producer, and we were doing green tips. So I was going out and interviewing, you know, folks, and so that’s kind of where the bug came in. And I was doing In these green tips, interviews and kind of like the more with less show, I was doing that, for the cleaning business. So I was representing since a maintenance getting out and selling, or no, I was interviewing other people that had green initiatives. So, I mean, in that way, I could probably use the tools to help grow more green focused initiatives here locally, but, you know, may have hit a plateau. I don’t know, you know, the green initiative here locally, you know, I know they want to go this 20 by 30, or something like that. You know, they got a lot of LEED buildings and stuff like that, you know, who knows, maybe I can find a little niche in in, in producing green style content. So who knows, and maybe I get back to that, but maybe that’s why I could serve the sustainable audience here locally.
Sam Schutte 48:51
Well, it’s definitely a value you have just like I said, I imagine it’s hard to figure out how to apply it just very hard, like saving electricity or something. I suppose
Les Fultz 49:00
I’m like, I just had someone in my studio today, brilliant man. He’s been all over the globe entrepreneur. And it’s like he wants to start a show. And like the thing is, I said, Look, this is great. We have to monetize it. There’s a cost studio. And there’s, I said, you have no shortage of amazing content. But we just have to find the finances to be able to produce the material, you know. And so, in certain cases, I’m willing to bend the rules a little bit, because if someone has really awesome content, or they have the reach, obviously, it’s mutually beneficial for the business to grow, you know, so, in certain cases, I’d make some exceptions
Sam Schutte 49:41
Gotcha, so for folks out there listening and thinking that, you know, trying to decide what you can help them with or, you know, what should they reach? What are the three big problems or three big things you can help them solve that they should reach out? For?
Les Fultz 49:55
Sure, sure. They’re suffering from not educating their customers, you know, and so they have an area where they’re trying to educate what the product or service that they offer, how values, what the value is to their customer. So that’s a great reason. The client may have a thought leader that they need to capture someone that they want to interview. And they want to kind of capture a moment. We just did some work with OCEAN programs. And they put on their big threshold conference this year at Crossroads Church. And their thing was, hey, we’ve got the keynote and we want to capture these little pieces. So if they have if a client has someone that they will need to capture we’re great source for that. And and you know, if they have something special, a special event or something they want to promote, that’s a good chance to work together.
Sam Schutte 50:50
Great. So what’s the easiest way for people to get in touch with you?
Les Fultz 50:52
Well, it’s at Valere Studios everywhere, Sam, I’m all I’m plastered all over the internet. And how do you spell Valere? Just in case v a l e r e studios with an S? Yeah, so they Google that they’ll find it on 50 different Oh, I’m above the fold. Sam, I’ve got the Google My Business. I’ve got, you know, all the different properties than I’m Google-FIDE. So we’re good.
Sam Schutte 51:16
Awesome. Well, less it’s been great having you on and it’s been really cool seeing you evolve this business and kind of grow it out of creating out of whole cloth, you know, in the beer beginning there. And and now, you know, building your studio and, and deploying all this awesome technology.
Les Fultz 51:33
Crazy ride, man. That’s a crazy ride. And thank you for having me.
Sam Schutte 51:37
Absolutely. Thanks.
