Rehumanize Your Business: How Personal Videos Accelerate Sales and Improve Customer Experience

Accelerate sales and improve customer experience Every day, most working professionals entrust their most important messages to a form of communication that doesn't build trust, provide differentiation, or communicate clearly enough. It's easy to point to the sheer volume of emails, text messages, voicemails, and even social messaging as the problem that reduces our reply rates and diminishes our effectiveness. But the faceless nature of that communication is also to blame. Rehumanize Your Business explains how to dramatically improve relationships and results with your customers, prospects, employees, and recruits by adding personal videos to emails, text messages, and social messages. It explains the what, why, and how behind this new movement toward simple, authentic videos—and when to replace some of your plain, typed-out communication with webcam and smartphone recordings.  •   Restore face-to-face communication for clarity and connection •    Add a personal, human touch to your emails and other messages •    Meet people who’ve sent thousands of videos •    Learn to implement your own video habit in an easy, time-saving way •    Boost your replies, appointments, conversion, referrals, and results dramatically If you’re ready to influence, teach, sell, or serve in a more personal way, Rehumanize Your Business is your guide.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments xiii About the Authors xv Introduction xvii Part 1 Why It’s Time to Rehumanize Your Business Chapter 1 The New Way to Communicate, Connect, and Convert 3 A Simple Video Makes a Big Difference 6 Video for Relationships, Not Just for Marketing 11 It’s Like We’ve Already Met 13 Video Makes You More Familiar and Approachable 14 The Numbers: Video Email versus Traditional Email 15 The Stats, Claims, and Hype to Ignore 20 The One Question to Ask Yourself 22 Chapter 2 Email: The Indispensable, Broken Tool 23 “You’ve Got Mail” 23 Alternatives to Email 25 The Indispensable Tool 27 The Problem of (Over)crafting Your Emails 28 So, Emojis? 30 Repairing Email 31 Chapter 3 Video: The Personal, Rehumanizing Tool 32 Relationships Are the Whole Point 32 Millennia of Human Brain Training 34 Our Faces Speak the Same Language 36 The Eyes Have It 38 Talking with Your Hands 39 The Warmth of Your Smile 41 Outsmarting Our Mental Shortcuts 42 Chapter 4 Six Signs This New Approach Is for You and Your Business 46 Sign 1: You Teach, Train, Sell, or Serve 47 Sign 2: You Drive Opportunities Toward Face-to-Face Meetings 48 Sign 3: You Want to Improve Customer Experience 49 Sign 4: You Risk Disintermediation by Web Apps, Tools, and Automations 51 Sign 5: You Benefit from Word of Mouth 52 Sign 6: You Win More Opportunities Face to Face 54 Six Signs That You Need Personal Video 55 Part 2 When to Rehumanize with Video Chapter 5 Nine Stories of Sales Acceleration and Better Customer Experience 59 Author Dan Pink and Professor Dan Smith 61 The Most Important Sound in Any Language 62 Leadership, Video, and the Handwritten Note 65 Appreciation You Can Feel 66 More Sales Replies and Fewer Support Replies 68 Even More Success in Customer Success 70 The First Salesperson to Send 10,000 Videos 73 A Sales Team That’s Sent 10,000 Videos 74 Personal Touch, Faster Conversion, and More Referrals 76 It’s Not About the Video 77 Chapter 6 Ten Times to Use Video Instead of Plain, Typed-Out Text 78 Top 10 Times Video Says It Better 78 When Not to Send Video 95 Part 3 How to Record and Send Videos Chapter 7 Sending Video in Emails, Text Messages, and Social Messages 99 Three Ways to Send Video in Email 99 Screen Recording 107 Sending Videos by Text Messages 108 Sending Videos in Social Messages 110 Delivery, Filters, and Firewalls 112 The Video Viewing Experience 114 Face to Face in Any Channel 115 Chapter 8 Why You’re Not Sending Video and How to Get Comfortable on Camera 116 Why We Stop “Doing Video” Before We Even Start 117 You Look (and Sound) Great 118 You Know What to Say 121 Your Process Results From Execution 126 Seven Tips for Better Videos 128 You’re Not Alone 130 Chapter 9 The Salesperson’s Guide to Video Cameras 132 Video Camera Tips 133 Video Setup Tips 140 The Right Tool for the Right Job 144 Part 4 Improving Video Results Chapter 10 How to Get More Opens, Plays, and Replies 147 Top Reasons for Video Email Underperformance 147 How to Get More Email Opens 150 How to Get More Video Plays 153 How to Keep People Engaged in Your Videos 154 How to Increase Your Reply Rate 155 Tips for Prospecting with Video 158 Chapter 11 So, You Sent a Video . . . Now What? 163 How Tracking Helps You Follow Up More Effectively 164 What to Do If Your Video Email Didn’t Get Opened 164 What to Do If Your Video Didn’t Get Played 166 What to Do If You Didn’t Get a Reply 169 Multiple Views, Latent Demand, and Long-Term Follow-Up 171 Now What? That’s What! 174 Chapter 12 Where Rehumanization Is Now and Where It’s Headed 175 More Effective and More Satisfying Work 176 The Soft Edge 178 The State of the Movement 179 Measuring More Than Opens, Plays, and Replies 182 Your Next Steps 183 Rehumanize Your Communication and Your Business 185 Notes 186 Index 193

About the Author :
ETHAN BEUTE is VP of Marketing at BombBomb. He's collected and told personal video success stories in hundreds of blog posts, in dozens of webinars, podcasts, and stage presentations, and in countless conversations. He led marketing inside local television stations in Chicago, Grand Rapids, and Colorado Springs. STEPHEN PACINELLI is the CMO at BombBomb. For nearly a decade, he's implemented personal video within multiple sales teams. Pacinelli was a National Sales Manager, Vice President of Events, and National Speaker for Realtor.com. He's delivered presentations to more than 1,000 audiences.