Trust the process. Time is the essential ingredient of success. Use it to your advantage. In this episode, we start with Kevin Kelly and Robert Greene, discuss the value of enduring the slow process of mastery, and emphasize why having the right focus in a hyperlocal market is crucial.
We also share our personal struggles with content creation (despite running a video marketing agency), the paradox of choice, and the importance of transformation in storytelling and business.
00:00 Introduction and Quotes
00:54 Exploring Daily Meditations
01:54 Patience and Process
03:51 Social Media and Attention Span
07:34 Hyperlocal Platform Strategy
18:19 Link Trees and Online Presence
23:36 Client Collaboration and Decision Fatigue
24:24 Hyperlocal Platform Explained
25:15 Personal Content Challenges
26:35 Content Creation Strategies
28:04 Paradox of Choice in Content Creation
30:47 Exploring Video Concepts
37:11 Importance of Storytelling and Transformation
41:27 Sales and Transformation in Business
42:53 Conclusion and Upcoming Plans
Amara Andrew: Trust the process. Time is the essential ingredient of mastery. Use it to your advantage.
Jeff Sarris: Bad things can happen fast, but almost all good things happen slowly.
Amara Andrew: Welcome back, Explorers. This is Useful Not Famous. The show where we explore the topics we find most interesting and strive to be the most useful people, you know.
I’m Amara Andrew.
Jeff Sarris: I’m Jeff Sarris. Let’s, and today we have two quotes. Yes. This is so, because we both, this is
Amara Andrew: a first.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah. We both had quotes that were related to each other that we wanted to talk about. Mine’s from Kevin Kelly
Amara Andrew: and mine is from Robert Greene.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah. And Robert Greene is the author of 48 Laws of Power.
Kevin Kelly is, uh, the founder of Wired Magazine and just sort of a. Technologist and futurists since the nineties, he’s been on the forefront of everything.
Amara Andrew: Yeah. And this is actually from the daily laws mm-hmm. From Robert Green.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah.
Amara Andrew: Um, which I find it’s a very nice little read every morning. Explain what it’s, they’re super, so, yeah.
Well, you got me onto it. It’s 366 little daily. Excerpts to read.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah, they call ’em like meditations. I,
Amara Andrew: it’s not meditation, I also said devotionals, but I was like, that’s not, it’s non-religious. It is just a pure, uh, sort of just investigating the human condition. I’ll say. I know that sounds very grandiose, but each month is seemed to a different topic.
So the month of February is all about, uh, like apprenticeships and mastery and things like that. I just read that a couple days ago and I was like, that is really good. And they’re just like very quick little passages that you can read every single day. Um, and we have been since the beginning of the new year.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah. And it’s more of reminders. It’s like all these things that we’re always reading and learning and thinking about.
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: But then it’s like,
Amara Andrew: and such a bite-sized little packet. Yeah. Which
Jeff Sarris: is
Amara Andrew: nice.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah. And we’ve talked about it on here a lot that like, it’s really time sort of in market that like matters, like the laundry, you’re doing something.
The more inevitable, the more inevitable it is. You’ll be successful at it.
Amara Andrew: Yeah. But it’s so hard when you’re in it. ’cause I find myself doing the same thing when I tell people like, no, it will work out. Like everything always works out no matter what, but depending on what they want the perceived outcome to be, I’m always trying to be like, well no, like it will work.
Just, it takes a lot of time. So that’s why we coupled both quotes together because mine is all about the process. And then yours is sort of about maybe the feelings within the process, which is interesting.
Jeff Sarris: Well, yeah. ’cause we can zoom out and not think about business and just be like, bad things can happen fast.
Which we, we can all think of many bad things that happen just in a blink of an eye.
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: But almost all good things happen. Slowly because when is it, let’s take us for example, like. We met and hit it off quickly.
Amara Andrew: Mm-hmm.
Jeff Sarris: But in the scope of really being, like speaking about fast, we didn’t hit it off and then the next day become a couple.
Amara Andrew: No,
Jeff Sarris: like we hit it off over some time and then as a few months progressed, we just got closer and closer and closer really quickly. But still, we’re talking on a scale of months, not a scale of. Instant, which again is patience. Like people don’t have, we find a lot of people don’t have months of patience for things, let alone years of patience to build something great.
Amara Andrew: Well, yeah, patience, especially today. Like I hate the, the trite sort of, uh, well, nobody has attention spans nowadays or nobody has this because it’s not true. It’s just. It’s such a different landscape, like specifically talking for social media. I’ll watch a 10 minute vertical video and not even realize it was 10 minutes, and then just be like, whoa, where did I go?
But I’ll see maybe something else that sucks. And it’s like 45 seconds. And then I’m like, oh, okay. And then just swipe away. So the more saturated the market is, because you can make anything and everything all day, every day.
Jeff Sarris: I don’t wanna leave what you just said though.
Amara Andrew: No, go ahead.
Jeff Sarris: The, um, attention span thing, we, it’s, uh, verifiably inaccurate because how many people binge television shows, like television being like a series, not a movie on Netflix.
Mm-hmm. Like that is a thing.
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: That’s attention span. That is. Maybe eight episodes, eight, eight
Amara Andrew: hour long
Jeff Sarris: episodes.
Amara Andrew: People be like, I spent all Sunday watching this show. And it’s like, oh, how? Like what episode? And it’s like all of it. And it’s like, what?
Jeff Sarris: Yeah. So that’s a thing. So to say that we don’t have attention spans anymore is just verifiably false, but we don’t have attention.
We don’t give our attention to things that aren’t worth our time in our estimation.
Amara Andrew: Exactly, yeah. It’s almost like we have a daily credit limit of how much we can spend with our attention or not. Which is true. Is like It is true. Uh, ’cause that’s like with another platform you work on. Kidney stone, diet kidney stone, diet.com.
How Jill talks about, you have like your debit card each day of oxalate and you can have X amount of grams. Milligrams, not grams, probably milligrams.
Jeff Sarris: Milligrams.
Amara Andrew: I know I, I
Jeff Sarris: always mix it up, but like it’s
Amara Andrew: a
Jeff Sarris: hundred.
Amara Andrew: I’ve been thinking of grams this whole time because I just found out something absolutely mind blowing about my diet.
Jeff Sarris: About your grams. I know
Amara Andrew: it’s
Jeff Sarris: even the grams and your grams,
Amara Andrew: it’s even remotely interesting for the, we talk about it in a minute, but. Uh, but you have this bank account of attention that you can draw upon each day. You only have so many hours, like literally only so many hours.
Jeff Sarris: Our personal, our personal attention meaning focus.
Amara Andrew: Yes.
Jeff Sarris: Not others’. Attention.
Amara Andrew: Correct. Yeah. How much attention we wanna give to something. So if something maybe isn’t the best, we’re not gonna watch it. Um, so I just find that endlessly fascinating. Like, I guess going back to trusting the process. It’s very difficult.
Jeff Sarris: You’re like,
Amara Andrew: oh no, I had a thought. It’s hard before, and I totally forgot what it was.
Um, ’cause mentally I already went, went down eight different rabbit holes in my mind.
Jeff Sarris: No, but it is hard. It’s difficult. We can like talk about it, but also we, we might be some of the most patient people that a lot of people know. But that doesn’t mean that it’s easy. Like we struggle with patients because we want everything to happen faster, but we’re also very patient in relation to the average.
Amara Andrew: Well, it’s very ironic ’cause like we’ve talked about in other episodes, I’ve started posting my own personal content, uh, again, only two videos a week, just because I’m trying to at least get back in the flow of it. And I know, and this
Jeff Sarris: is personal, not the hyperlocal platform that is for a week.
Amara Andrew: Uh, yeah, four or five.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah. So this is in
Amara Andrew: addition to that personal, yeah. Home energy is over there. Uh, in addition to then all of our clients. So my personal is definitely suffering, but I’m trying to at least just. Be visible because it’s so easy for me to just be like, oh, well I’ll get to that when I get to that. And everyone else I put above, ’cause like the hyperlocal platform, which I said the name twice last week and we bleeped it out.
I almost said it again. I was like, uh,
Jeff Sarris: and again. So we have a hyperlocal platform. The only reason we don’t share it is because we are very, very deliberate. Building the audience locally. Yes. So we don’t want anyone to follow who isn’t local because algorithmically, if say we were using that platform to look at stuff all over the country mm-hmm.
Then the algorithms like, oh, well, they’re interested in things in all different places. And then algorithmically, if people viewing the the content are all over the country, then it’s like, oh, people all over the country want it.
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: But if we have only people in our hyper-local market. Then the algorithm knows it’s only for people there.
I’m not gonna show it to anyone else because why would I do that?
Amara Andrew: Yeah. As much as we can control. ’cause like I do have people that have told me where they’re from, like across the planet. So like things will just happen. But as much as we can control, I don’t wanna be broadcasting it like
Jeff Sarris: Exactly.
Amara Andrew: Find this.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah. We are nurturing our algorithm. It’s very
Amara Andrew: specific,
Jeff Sarris: our follower base, but we’re also letting that organically happen. We’re not booting people. We’re not, we’re, we’re not gonna go on here on a thing that. Has people that aren’t in our area listening and say it’s this, check it out, and then suddenly just change our, uh, just the milieu of people and data points that it, uh, pulls from.
Amara Andrew: Right. Um, but yeah, so it’s funny thinking about growing that platform versus my personal, because I’ve been spending all my time growing the hyperlocal platform and it’s grown like well. I’m frustrated with my personal, because I’m like, grow already, but like for what purpose? I don’t know. It’s just a vanity thing because I’m like, okay, well I’m, I’m trying to put myself out there, but I’m getting in my head about it a lot, which then it’s like, okay, well, is this the right content?
Blah, blah, blah. We can, it’s like a whole other topic, but I feel that patience for it wearing thin where I’m like. Maybe I’ll just stop again and just, and I know I fucking do this all the time.
Jeff Sarris: How many videos have you posted since you restarted it?
Amara Andrew: 10 maybe.
Jeff Sarris: I don’t even think, I feel like it was six or seven.
Amara Andrew: No, it’s, it’s at least double whole ditches. I know. Doubt actually.
Jeff Sarris: But the patience I wanna see like this, and this isn’t meant to be a dig towards you. It’s that patience is difficult.
Amara Andrew: That’s what I mean.
Jeff Sarris: Like if don’t get’s very hard, if instant feedback. It’s like, what am I doing this for?
Amara Andrew: Exactly. ’cause you get the little dopamine hit uhhuh from it.
Okay. 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 11. I just crossed six double digit
Jeff Sarris: and now you’re like, maybe I should throw it away, I think, which you said you’re never going to again.
Amara Andrew: Exactly.
Jeff Sarris: But it’s difficult.
Amara Andrew: It’s patience’s so hard because also if you’re not getting that dopamine hit all the time of like. I love you. This is great.
Blah, blah, blah. I like this. I like that.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah. Even minus the I love you. This is great. Just merely someone doing something.
Amara Andrew: Like anything which, like, there are a couple people, but it’s really not that many and that’s fine, but like it’s hard to get out of that. Uh, it’s almost like a comparison thing, like people who have been posting consistently for X amount of years.
Which again, going back to our clients, like I completely understand where they’re coming from when we start, because it’ll be a couple months or a couple weeks, maybe a month, maybe two months, and it’s like, Hey, what the fuck? Why isn’t, why am I not getting a bajillion views?
Jeff Sarris: Yeah. No one says that specifically.
No, I know, but no, but I wanted to, if we just, you rewind to before they become clients, the question is how many leads can I expect?
Amara Andrew: I know,
Jeff Sarris: which is. The answer is,
Amara Andrew: well, how good is your business?
Jeff Sarris: But yeah, the, the true answer, which is basically what we say without being like negative is none.
Amara Andrew: Mm-hmm.
Jeff Sarris: Because this isn’t going to get you direct leads, but it, this is marketing, this is hyperlocal marketing, it’s brand marketing that when you have your systems in place, the machine of your business in place, it’s going to. Feed that and elevate how a well-functioning machine works
Amara Andrew: Exactly.
Jeff Sarris: But it’s not in place of the work and the sales and the con converting leads.
This is merely attention. And that sounds antithetical to Useful Not Famous maybe. But again, think about our hyperlocal platform
Amara Andrew: we’re saying, but I think that’s why we’re even better qualified to understand the difference between useful not famous.
Jeff Sarris: Exactly. And that’s what I mean is it might sound. On its face antithetical like, well, no, you’re saying you’re getting attention.
And it’s like, no, we’re saying you’re getting the right attention from the right people who are most qualified to become a customer, to become a whatever you’re after, like customer, client, partner, whatever you’re looking for, that’s what we’re going for. So that’s not being famous, that’s being known by the right people and that it’s, it might seem like, uh.
Sort of a really fine distinction, but it is very important. Very important. Like if we had a million people on our hyperlocal platform, that’d be a huge failure. Oh yeah. Because our addressable hyperlocal market is not even remotely close to a million people.
Amara Andrew: Mm-hmm.
Jeff Sarris: So that would mean we’re reaching way too many of the wrong people.
That’s
Amara Andrew: even half a million.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah. Well that’s what I mean. And I don’t wanna give up the numbers ’cause it, I know it starts to stew. Well, where could it be? Um, but. That’s important and then it’s very important for us.
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: And like we had a conversation with someone that we’ve worked with now who he’s really, it’s all clicking in a really good way for him.
Yeah. But again, hyper locally, like there’s a great number of followers, like it’s a strong number to be proud of.
Amara Andrew: Mm-hmm.
Jeff Sarris: But what happens in person is what is so different. He’s turned into a, a little. Uh. Again, not a, a celebrity like influencer. We think of big, but like a micro influencer in that I turn to you for this here.
Amara Andrew: Exactly.
Jeff Sarris: That is a different thing than being like a Kardashian where it’s just like, this is just a, a celebrity influencer. Very different things and really what we’re going for. And it’s exciting ’cause it is clicked.
Amara Andrew: Yes. Which is, and it feels like it just keeps clicking in, which is really amazing and exciting.
Um. When you were talking about the social media mm-hmm. It just clicked for me. You were talking to another person that we work with mostly. You, uh, who has a pretty big platform. They, you said something, uh, which was so interesting this morning ’cause we literally just talk about this stuff all day, every day, how websites.
Those are not necessarily the go-to anymore. So when you are curious about something or someone, a product, a business, whatever, or you’re looking for something, the top search engines now. Besides AI are Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
Jeff Sarris: And not in that order,
Amara Andrew: just they
are.
Amara Andrew: No, just in general and like still people use Google for search, but specifically looking at the new Frontier social media.
Jeff Sarris: And I wonder if Instagram’s actually on that list, but that’s a different conversation. It’s okay.
Amara Andrew: It actually is. Uh, when you’re looking for things, people are now going to tho those platforms, so having a website is still important for right now. But viewing your social media profile sort of as your new webpage, as your new place for your brand is 100% important.
And this sounds like so antiquated now because like Yeah. Duh. But I feel like some people still still aren’t quite capturing that how important that actually is.
Jeff Sarris: And I wanna, I wanna put a finer, uh, detail on that. The website is as important as ev as ever. However, it’s not the first touch point anymore.
Yes. It used to be. That was the thing. Like there was a book. What was I. Save the chat about screenwriting.
Amara Andrew: Oh yeah.
Jeff Sarris: And at the end of the
Amara Andrew: book, I read that and I was like, he, he, he,
Jeff Sarris: yeah. He wrote it in like 2004 and at the end of the book he’s like, yeah, I haven’t tried this yet, but you could probably have a, he called it a you.com.
That’s all about you and your screenwriting, and I was mean YouTube, and you’re, yeah. All these, your screenwriting and the things you’ve done, and you could probably do that and do pretty well and reach new people. I have not tried that yet, but I should. And it’s like, wow. Yeah, this is. You forget how new everything, everything is.
And it
Amara Andrew: was just like 20 years ago.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah.
Amara Andrew: Like that’s not that long.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah. Well, even for like someone like me, I’ve done this for so long, like. 1997 is when I made, you’ve
Amara Andrew: done this for like more than half my life.
Jeff Sarris: 1997 is when I made my first client website.
Amara Andrew: Okay. So my whole life.
Jeff Sarris: But I didn’t have my own website until like 2007 maybe.
Yeah. But I did it for other people and I built things, but I didn’t actually like buy my, like jeff sarahs.com Until then, even though it was my other, like, that’s so cute. Original agency name. But, um, JS nine Design. Woo. I was good branding. Started really strong at Brandon, but look at
Amara Andrew: you.
Jeff Sarris: Um, but all that to say that you find someone on social media, that is still only step, it’s step one.
Yes. Which is so important, but if I then go and I’m like, oh, let me click on their link in their bio and see their website and. The domain name expired. Oh. Or it says this person hasn’t set this up yet.
Amara Andrew: That happens so often.
Jeff Sarris: Or it’s all sample content or the same exact thing everyone else has. It’s like, wait a minute, is this actually a real person?
Yeah. Are they just playing who they wanna be on social media but don’t actually have a business? Don’t Exactly. They aren’t the in real estate. Say they aren’t the successful realtor. They pretend because clearly their domain name wouldn’t be expired and canceled with like a. A for sale page. Like if you, if you don’t renew your domain name, it’ll usually go right to a for sale.
So it’ll be like, this domain may be for sale. So someone could go to your site and then be like, oh, they don’t even exist anymore. What am I doing? Exactly. So all these little markers matter, and every marker matters more than ever because there’s so much noise. But no one marker. Matters completely.
Amara Andrew: Right?
Yeah. And that’s, thank you for the clarity on that. Yeah. But yeah, I’m, I’m purely just thinking in an awareness phase.
Jeff Sarris: Exactly. Yeah. Because we think websites are so important, but again, hundred percent. Again, that’s the machine after the
Amara Andrew: attention. We have every domain possible for us.
Jeff Sarris: Well, yeah. And we build all of these things like, this is what we do.
Amara Andrew: No, that is exceptionally important. Um. When, oh, the other thing too, besides having an expired domain in your profile is having, which I’ve shit on this so much time, but a link tree, and I literally experienced this the other day. It feels so desperate when you have 400th links and let’s say more than half of them are affiliate links.
It’s fine. Like we completely believe in affiliate links. I’m still earning money from my Etsy sticker shop videos on YouTube.
Jeff Sarris: It makes no sense. And affiliate link means you link to another product and they give you a small transmission. Yes. When someone buys that product.
Amara Andrew: Yeah, because you’re promoting it that it exists and that’s completely fine.
Like go for the gold, whatever. I don’t give a shit. But when it’s like a hundred of these things and it’s like, okay, well I don’t know what this is. I don’t know where I’m supposed to go. I’m go here to know
Jeff Sarris: who you are.
Amara Andrew: Exactly.
Jeff Sarris: I’m here to to buy garbage.
Amara Andrew: Like I need to just know. Like, we work with a lot of realtors, so it’s a realtor.
I have seen this on people’s fucking profiles. They have a link tree. They don’t even have their website at the top. It’s all this shit that you can buy from them. And it’s like, well, are you still in production? Like, I want to give you my money. How does this work Exactly. It’s so incredibly misleading and you’re, you’re fucking yourself out of money.
Jeff Sarris: Well, and let’s make a really simple. It a mental sort of model for a simple link tree. I’m a realtor. You click on my link tree, it says buy a house with me. It says, sell a house with me. It says, buy my course to learn how to make more sales. Yes, it says, buy my course to learn how to become a realtor. It says buy.
It’s like, wait a minute. Are you a realtor or are you selling realtors? Shop my
Amara Andrew: storefront.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah, like. Even without the Amazon part, what are you, are you a buyer and seller of, are you an an operating realtor or are you trying to sell to realtors because you think you can make money there and you’re not making money here?
Like, think about all these questions that you create for the consumer
Amara Andrew: or what I’ve seen verbatim on somebody’s, it was buy or sell in area. Um, yeah, a Amazon storefront. What was the one that you just said?
Jeff Sarris: Um, courses for
Realtors.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah,
Amara Andrew: course. Ask me about my brokerage.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah.
Amara Andrew: Who are you appealing to?
Everyone on this fucking planet. No, you can’t do that. You need to have the one thing that you’re going after,
Jeff Sarris: and that is the thing too. Like it’s a sort of a cliche now, but I think it’s worth saying like when you appeal to everyone, you appeal to no one. Which sounds antithetical again, because we wanna get as much attention and as big of a market as possible.
But no, because you have nothing that. Actually explains what you do and what you’re capable of doing for me, like I’m the consumer, so you tell me what you have
Amara Andrew: exactly
Jeff Sarris: and make it abundantly clear that this is a ridiculous value and you are ridiculously qualified to do this thing that I need right now and then take my money.
Mm-hmm.
Amara Andrew: Well, again, it goes to having too many options. And then you have the paradox of choice where it’s like, okay, well I could do any of these things, I guess. But now I’m not gonna do any of ’em. And not even if it’s a good or a bad choice for me, but just I literally didn’t click on a single thing because it’s like, okay, there are a lot of options.
I’m just gonna go back because it’s so much easier to just be like, okay, I don’t need any of this.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah. The path of least resistance when we’re given a lot of options is no choice. That’s the easiest thing for us to do is take no choice. Make no choice. Because every option we give someone, there are pros and cons.
There is the I do it or I don’t, and here’s why. So when there are multiple options, it’s like, okay, so of this one, should I, should I not? If I don’t, well okay, lemme should I, should I not like, and the more we have these decisions we have to make the less positively we feel about the decision we made.
Yeah. Because there are a myriad other. There are myriad other options we could have chosen that might have made it better. So now we’re critiquing our choice to do the thing.
Amara Andrew: Exactly. It’s uh, just human nature where it’s just like, okay, is this actually gonna be as good as I think it is? Maybe it won’t be, maybe I should just scrap this whole thing.
Maybe I should go over here instead and do this thing. Okay. Maybe I’ll do that because that feels like it’s safer, right? Well maybe Uncle Bobby would like that better. Like you could just go anywhere and everywhere. ’cause I do that for sure
Jeff Sarris: every
Amara Andrew: day.
Jeff Sarris: And this is, this is us talking about consumers, but again, rolling all the way back to patients.
This is what we do as like creative people, business owners and things. We’re just like, we weigh all these options and we’re like, oh, I should have done that. Actually. I’ll do this now. Maybe I should do that. Lemme go over here and try this. Oh, affiliate links and courses. And then it’s like, we need patience with the things we’re doing and confidence that I am doing this and taking stepping stones to then understand how the fog clears in front of me.
And I’m like, Ooh, now I could go this way.
Amara Andrew: Mm-hmm.
Jeff Sarris: And, and be confident and. Have the belief that what I have done so far got me to where I am and I can always take another step in a slightly different direction every single time. And that’s how we build something great.
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: But that takes time.
Amara Andrew: This might so sound a little self-aggrandizing, but that is why people work with us specifically because like you don’t see all of the hours of that, which is the beauty of it.
Like as clients work with us. We weigh all of these options and all of these decisions so you don’t get in your own way. Because I’m literally doing that right now with my content. Not to bring it back to me, but just what I was saying is, uh. I’m struggling with that because I’m like, I’m not getting this.
What should I create? Like you hear this all fucking day from me where I’m like, what should I do? We take away all of those decisions for people, and we have consistently since we started, because that is so draining and exhausting. And by the time you hit record, you’re like, what the hell was I even doing?
I don’t remember. And that is exactly what is happening to me right now. So I need to hire us,
Jeff Sarris: but I wanna explain just one thing. Why? Why is that happening? If this is what we do. Why is it happening to you? It’s because the hyper I
Amara Andrew: analyze.
Jeff Sarris: No, the hyperlocal platform, we have that on lock. Mm-hmm. Because that’s what we do for everyone.
So now you’re injecting your personal side and now working on cracking that code. So this is an, it might sound like, oh, it’s just the same thing now just do it for your personal stuff. But it’s actually a completely different vertical.
Amara Andrew: Very different.
Jeff Sarris: So like this is, this is why the Hyperlocal platform works so well and why it’s.
I’m gonna say in terms of. Growth and progress on autopilot. You’re still adjusting constantly, but you’re not whole cloth inventing it. We’ve been doing it for five years for people for thousands and thousands, like 20,000 videos.
Amara Andrew: Yeah. It’s systematized and refined.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah.
Amara Andrew: It’s very clear what it is.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah.
And what works and why. Yeah. Like we have no question on that. So it’s merely doing it in patients and doing it. Yeah. So now your personal though, introduces this new variable. Which it’s, which then the question is, are you just running down? Which is something I think we should talk about right now. Okay.
Is this you running down a new path when you shouldn’t and we should do more of what works?
Amara Andrew: Yeah, like in terms of, ’cause you brought up a good point yesterday when I brought this up, which was sort of taking what we do for the hyper-local platforms and somehow turning it into. For me. So we do scoops and out and abouts.
Those are like the two big things that we do for short form content. Scoops are for
Jeff Sarris: hyperlocal, for our clients and for our platform.
Amara Andrew: Yeah, for the hyperlocal. Uh, we work with a bunch of different people, so we have various different strategies for people, but this is for the hyperlocal people, like people who need people in their immediate vicinity.
Scoops are green screen style news videos. So it’s you have images or videos behind you, and then you have little, little, you green screened out of your video and you’re just presenting the news. Whatever it is, you can make anything the news, so it’s not just, here’s what happened today, it’s are you looking for this thing and you don’t know where to go?
Here’s where you should go. It could be anything out and abouts. For me specifically, it’s history content, because that’s what I find fascinating. And also highlighting local businesses and places to go. So it’s those two main types of content. So you brought up a really good point yesterday, Mr. Jeff, about doing that.
Just about me. Like how can I make my own news about myself or do some sort of out and about about me, and I struggle with my content more than anybody else. I can have it. I am actually a very creative person, and again, it just sounds so weird and self-aggrandizing to say that, but like I know I can be very creative.
I can’t figure my shit out to save my life, and that is the weirdest thing. Like I figured out your content even though you don’t wanna post right now, and that’s totally fine. I could figure it out for. Anybody and I can’t figure it out for me.
Jeff Sarris: Well, because,
Amara Andrew: and it’s so weird ’cause I’m too close to it and I’m like, well, who am I?
Jeff Sarris: Well
Amara Andrew: we fall and it’s okay. Well let’s not go down that fucking rabbit
Jeff Sarris: hole. We fall on the trap of what’s the right thing to do. Yeah. And spoiler alert, because I know what
Amara Andrew: to do.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah. Spoiler alert. There is no right thing to do. I know. So that’s the challenge, like the hyperlocal, we know what works, we know how to make it work.
You could do it in infinite number of ways. So if you’re watching, Amara has a drinking problem, meaning when she drinks it dribbles down her face, like probably five times outta nine. I don’t even
Amara Andrew: have
Jeff Sarris: Botox. Five times outta nine. Does that sound about right? A little more than 50%.
Amara Andrew: I was gonna say
Jeff Sarris: probably
Amara Andrew: seven.
Outta
Jeff Sarris: nine. I chose five and then I was like, what do I go from here?
Amara Andrew: Five out of six?
Jeff Sarris: I didn’t wanna make five out of 10. They’re like one out of two. It’s like 23 out of 46. It’s like, okay, whatever.
Amara Andrew: Like not much.
Jeff Sarris: Um, but yeah, so. Again, the paradox of choice. We can do anything you have. Um, this is okay. This is the answer.
We already said it. Your optionality for your personal content is endless, so you’re weighing the pros and cons of every single thing forever, and that’s why it’s debilitating. The paradox of choice. Again, if you don’t know the paradox of choice, it is written a book by Barry Schwartz, all based on science and psychology of giving too many options when.
And innately like a, A lot of business owners, especially brand new ones, will want to give a lot of options because we’re like, no, I want it to be as grand and as great as possible. When you look like, I just used this example this week, look at a three star Michelin restaurant, 11 Madison or a Linea, or all of these as.
Think 14 total, three star Michelin restaurants in the world. Look at them. They’re the best restaurants in the world. And what do they do? You go to the Alinea website. It’s like size of party date. That’s it. You have no que, you have no other decisions because they’re like, we are giving you the experience of a lifetime.
They don’t wanna know what you want for your appetizer. They don’t want, there is no choice. They give you a like 14 part tasting menu or some
Amara Andrew: mm-hmm.
Jeff Sarris: Crazy thing. But that’s what you’re paying for. That’s the thing that makes it great and phenomenal because they have crafted every single thing. And now I’m not comparing us to a three star Michelin restaurant, but this is why if you go to what is maven.com, scroll down to our like.
Let’s get started. Section. You’ll see there’s one option. It tells you what we do, and it’s let’s do, this is the button. All you do is pay. There is you. There’s no choices because we don’t offer any choices. We have created your tasting menu for you. This is perfect and precise and the best experience you’ll ever have making hyperlocal content.
Yeah. So why would we give you choices? So that’s an elevated experience versus the optionality, which we innately sort of, we might turn towards not realizing that that diminishes the experience. So all of that to say paradox of choice is what you were running into with your own content because you can do anything.
Like physically, like you could create anything you wanna do, any, a documentary or whatever, a fictional thing. Like you can, you’re capable to do that and you could choose from anything to do so. The, it is completely limitless. You just need to decide, but now you can decide from everything.
Amara Andrew: That is very true.
Holy shit. Because the easiest thing to do is nothing I am posting right now, but. I do weigh out what’s gonna be the most beneficial for me in the long term. I’m trying to not think short term anymore because my history content has always, and will always outperform anything I’ve ever done by far, because it’s inherently very interesting.
But I struggle with making really boring stuff interesting. Or maybe things I’m not as passionate about. That is very difficult. But I know. Focusing on certain things will have more long-term return possibly. But I, I struggle with the,
Jeff Sarris: you gotta explore though. We talked about this.
Amara Andrew: I know. Well, but you saying like, well, yeah, you could do a fiction thing, you can do a documentary.
We talked about possibly doing a documentary and then I’ve wanted to do fictional. Really weird videos because I like those. Like there’s a TV show I really love called The Mighty Bouch. Do not watch it. It is the weirdest thing on this planet. I love it. I wanna make stuff like that because I just find it so bizarre, but like funny.
So, but it takes time to make that stuff because it would be like a whole production and it’s something so different. So the easiest thing to do right now is just.
Jeff Sarris: Uh, yeah. You have to decide what you want, and that’s the hardest thing to decide. You don’t
Amara Andrew: know. I know. I wanna be. Famous. Yeah, not useful.
Jeff Sarris: Okay, perfect. So welcome back to the new show. Famous. Not useful.
Amara Andrew: No, I just, I realized this morning too, the things that I really like are the why. Why did Elvis wear this one watch in this one movie? There’s literally a video that I’m working on right now. I’m trying to find what the story is for it, because there kind of isn’t one.
So how do I make the story about it?
Jeff Sarris: So again, let’s go back to last week or the week before, whatever it was. It’s you. The story is you
Amara Andrew: because it’s
Jeff Sarris: my favorite
Amara Andrew: Elvis movie.
Jeff Sarris: Look. So right here, explain
Amara Andrew: my new favorite watch. So the movie is Blue Hawaii?
Jeff Sarris: No. Explain what you were just saying. Oh. ’cause now you’re, you’re disassociating you, you’re telling your story right now, so let’s tell it.
Amara Andrew: But yeah, it’s like I stumbled upon this movie randomly one night when I was Purdue Dipsy, and it’s the worst Elvis movie possible. And I love it. It’s like so stupid, but it’s like, it’s from a bygone era, like it’s this time capsule and I love Elvis. In the movie, and I didn’t realize this until I was looking at specific watches, he is wearing a Ventura from Hamilton.
That is like one of my new favorite watches because it’s so unique. Like you don’t see this style of watch ever. It’s
Jeff Sarris: you have to look it up because
Amara Andrew: it’s like a hearing. And
Jeff Sarris: her say That doesn’t make sense.
Amara Andrew: Like, yeah, it’s a triangle dial. So instead of like a watch where it typically has a round dial, this is a triangle on its side.
So the pointy side is facing, I forget which side to the right, but I think so.
Jeff Sarris: Or actually, I don’t know, maybe the left.
Amara Andrew: Private left. I don’t know. Yeah, I think to the left, it is such a unique watch and it’s very much of its time. It came out in 1957 and it is the first ever digital watch in the world, so.
Out of all of the watches in Elvis’ collection. That’s probably one of the most visually unique ones besides his, uh, king Midas watch that he had, which was just solid gold. It’s like hideous, but I love it. So anyway, I was just thinking of that as a video concept ’cause I was like, that’s so fascinating. So its like these two things that I love.
Jeff Sarris: So you said you’re struggling to find the story, but that’s the story. It’s you, again, this is meta, but it’s you. Learning about the thing that you love and why you love it and what makes it special. See, I don’t
Amara Andrew: feel like that’s interesting,
Jeff Sarris: but see that is, that’s all we care about. Like we don’t, it’s no teaching.
It’s exploring. Like we wanna follow you as you explore like Casey and I’s stat videos, especially his early ones. Like his first really viral video was like 2008 or something. Yeah. And it was bike lanes and it was him. Oh yeah.
Amara Andrew: I do like that video.
Jeff Sarris: Him riding his bike around town. Plowing into police cars and things and flying off his bike because he’s, he’s trying to make a point that this is my experience every day, and if I ride my bike in the street, they will try to give me a ticket because it’s illegal.
Yeah. But they block my path and like, he made this, it’s about me, but it’s a, he’s sharing. He’s showing his experience through example. He’s not telling
and
Amara Andrew: he just did that too, uh, this past
Jeff Sarris: week. With other one? Yeah, with another one. Yeah. So like 20 years later he did a new video, not about bike lanes, but about New York City and things that it’s like, I love New York, but let me show you what I get to see and experience every single day.
Amara Andrew: Yeah, that is a good point. ’cause now I’m actually storyboarding it in my head and I’m like, well, yeah, if I did it almost like a, a docu sort of YouTube video. Where I’m like, I can see how it would work where it’s sort of a voiceover, but then it’s also still me talking to camera. ’cause then I get wrapped up in like, well, what’s this gonna look like?
And I’m like, okay, well yeah, if it’s. It starts with me watching Blue Hawaii and being like, what the hell is that on his wrist? And then I can see myself sitting on the couch and just being like this, I can, I can see the, the what it looks like already. Like I know Exactly. Beat for beat what it would look like.
Mm-hmm. Which is very helpful from editing over 15,000 videos. Um hmm. I might need to try that today.
Jeff Sarris: But see, this is the thing also, I think you’re making it even more difficult. You’re like, I’ll be watching the movie and go, Hmm. Where I think it’s like, I love this watch. I don’t even know why. Let’s figure out why.
And you’re like, first I found it here. You know what I mean? Like you can just, oh
Amara Andrew: fuck. That’s so good.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah. Like
Amara Andrew: it’s too simple
Jeff Sarris: though. I know. I need it
Amara Andrew: to be
Jeff Sarris: endlessly
Amara Andrew: complicated
Jeff Sarris: and make me hate my life. Make it, we make it simple for everyone else, but for you,
Amara Andrew: I want to feel something.
Why do you make everything so simple? I want to cry. Frustration,
Jeff Sarris: Uhhuh and then never post it or edit it because the pain in the ass.
Amara Andrew: I know I, those videos that I just recorded the other day, I was like, I can’t put these out.
Jeff Sarris: Alright.
Amara Andrew: They didn’t come across as I had hoped and I missed a very key part of one of ’em.
No,
Jeff Sarris: that’s fine. But so story like injecting you, talking about you. Yeah. Taking people on the journey and having you be transformed from beginning to the end. That was the big thing that it’s just stuck with me now. And now I understand so much more. About story and movies and fiction and nonfiction. It’s like if there’s two documentaries about the same topic, one of ’em you love and it’s so good and the other you just can’t relate to, and it’s the same exact content just done in a different way.
I could almost guarantee that it’s because, because the main character and supporting characters aren’t transformed. If they’re not transformed. In the end all it was was data.
Amara Andrew: Mm-hmm.
Jeff Sarris: They need to be transformed. Any way, like any way they could
Amara Andrew: have a new
Jeff Sarris: pair of shoes. It’s my hair could be different by the end, but it’s a transformation because my hair mattered to me at the beginning.
That’s something.
Amara Andrew: Mm-hmm.
Jeff Sarris: But when you’re like, this just felt like nothing. I bet you can’t find a single transformation. It was. This hero, it’s a struggle with Superman. Superman is an infallible hero, so they’ve struggled for a long time to make something feel like something like the Marvel stuff works.
They’re all. They all have their own voice, metaphorically and literally, they all have their own style and how they do things. So there’s so much to work with. Superman is, I’m perfect and no one can stop me. That’s whole thing. I think’s
Amara Andrew: artistic,
Jeff Sarris: but you know what I mean, like, and literally no one could stop him.
So they had to create ways to be, to make him fallible. So that’s why Yeah, like one of the recent, what was the recent one? There was a recent Superman movie that was really good. Like,
Amara Andrew: was it the one that we watched?
Jeff Sarris: I, I definitely watched it. I don’t know if you did, but it was like, after watching Peacemaker, I watched it.
’cause it’s the same guy who did Peacemaker.
Amara Andrew: I think we watched it together.
Jeff Sarris: Okay. And it was so good, like in a way that I’ve never liked Superman movies and they finally like cracked the color.
Amara Andrew: Yeah. ’cause he had his little ice
Jeff Sarris: Yeah.
Amara Andrew: Fortress. Mm-hmm. Yeah. We watched that together. Yeah. That was really good.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah. And because the guy. James John, I think maybe he figured out how to make Superman. Interesting.
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: And that changed everything.
Amara Andrew: Yeah. ’cause he wasn’t, he was fallible in that. Like
Jeff Sarris: he very much so he, he had a lot of weaknesses, a lot, which was
Amara Andrew: good
Jeff Sarris: even though it didn’t take away from him being super like in every way.
But there were cracks. There were little ways that he could be. Made weaker.
Amara Andrew: Mm-hmm.
Jeff Sarris: And not just like kryptonite. Like that’s, that’s the one thing that they ever had in Superman was kryptonite.
Amara Andrew: Yeah. That was just one of the things. Mm-hmm.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah. It’s much more nuanced and it’s so much more so then by the end, he can be transformed in a way.
He can’t just be perfect, defeat the villains and still be perfect. It doesn’t work that way. So, yeah. Anyway, that’s the thing. Just, uh, I find that really interesting. Now
Amara Andrew: it is. Just
Jeff Sarris: thinking about things through that lens. Yeah.
Amara Andrew: Thinking about one of the TV shows that we just watched, ’cause we watch one TV show, uh, at night.
One episode before we episode Go to bed. Episode. Yeah. One episode. We don’t binge eight
Jeff Sarris: hours.
Amara Andrew: No. Just one episode before bed. The TV show that we just watched, which we, we liked and we love the person that was in it, but the characters didn’t change at all. Like at least two of them didn’t. Only two did.
The two grownups did, but the kids didn’t at all.
Jeff Sarris: Are we talking about yesterday?
Amara Andrew: No.
Jeff Sarris: Or a different show?
Amara Andrew: A different show. The show before. I don’t wanna shit on it.
Jeff Sarris: No, I know. I’m trying to think now what the show was. So Grownups Kids,
Amara Andrew: it was, uh, multiple episodes.
Jeff Sarris: Oh, a series.
Amara Andrew: Yes. It was someone that we like.
Jeff Sarris: Oh, oh, oh, yeah,
Amara Andrew: yeah,
Jeff Sarris: yeah, yeah, yeah.
Amara Andrew: And like the adults changed kind of.
Jeff Sarris: The main character changed. The supporting cast did not.
Amara Andrew: None of them.
Jeff Sarris: So then that becomes an issue. You’re the only one who can’t have a transformation is the villain. Or they could, but they They don’t need one. Yeah, because they’re the villain.
They’re bad. They’re gonna be bad.
Amara Andrew: But then also the villain was sort of nebulous because they weren’t the villain, but they were, but then different people were villains. It was very like everywhere.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah. It’s just missing the, the transformation. But to bring it back to business just for a second, that’s how we sell.
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: What is the.
Amara Andrew: Who’s the villain?
Jeff Sarris: What I have for you. So this is how I think about a sales page. What I have for you. Really simple. So when we were doing, when we were focusing more on realtors, now it’s hyperlocal, but Maven was video for realtors made Simple what I have for you. Okay, cool. I need video.
I’m a realtor. Simple. Right now it’s hyperlocal video or hyperlocal Marketing Made simple. Yeah, so it’s just a little different. But that’s what I have for you. Now, what it’ll do for you, this is transformation. You are. A local business, you struggle because nobody knows you’re there. They just don’t come in the door.
I need people in town to know I’m here with Hyperlocal video marketing you. Your business is. Now known people come from all around because they love you and your story and they want to be a part of this. Like, I’m not giving a great transformation story here, but that is a transformation of what we’re like.
We’re selling that transformation. I’m poor, I wanna be rich. Like we always talk about get paid, get laid, lose weight. There’s three ways to make money. Sell any of those as the transformation. You’re not getting that now you are. That’s. How you make that’s sales. That’s just how you do sales.
Amara Andrew: Yeah.
Jeff Sarris: But yeah, this transformation is so important.
Amara Andrew: It is like a hundred percent for anything you do.
Jeff Sarris: Yeah. But yeah, I think we should probably wrap here. We’re at 42 minutes. I don’t get it.
Amara Andrew: Work up worker. Bye.
Jeff Sarris: I think it’s just bye. I think the next episodes will be, uh, on the road because we are away.
Amara Andrew: Oh
Jeff Sarris: yeah. All,
Amara Andrew: all month.
Jeff Sarris: We’re we’re away a lot. My body
Amara Andrew: hurts.
What? My body hurts.
Jeff Sarris: Your body hurts from being away.
Amara Andrew: Yes, now,
Jeff Sarris: but yet from working out. But yeah, I think we’ll be on the road next week. So see you then
Amara Andrew: later.