“People get to know you, that’s good for business”
In today’s episode, Jim and Tyson tell us about their web videos and the advantages of explaining your practice and teaching people about what you do through video.
Use content as a way to teach them about their issues, about the questions that they have. Videos educate your clients and work as a filtering process and an easy way to answering questions. Once you have your video system set up, you can do it for multiple things; training modules for employees, for example. Besides, they work 24hrs. People get to know you. That’s good for business.
Basic set up (You can learn a lot watching youtube):
- Video Camera (1080p, microphone input jack)
- Tripod
- Microphone (to the camera)
- Set of lights (You can learn how to in Youtube)
- Green Screen (Optional; If you want to overlay a firm logo digitally)
Tyson’s Tip:
Great book. It guides you through all the video production process; what to do and not to do. And it makes it easy.
Hacking’s Hack:
Owen Hemsath.
https://www.youtube.com/user/videographybyowen
He teaches you to use Youtube through Youtube. Lot of practical tips.
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Transcript: Lawyer Web Videos
Tyson Mutrux
I’m excited about today’s topic, actually, it’s gonna be pretty cool. And I think it’s pretty practical for people to use
Jim Hacking
a topic today is lawyer video and using video web video and how you can explain your practice and teach people about what you do and sort of inform people through video. And so that’s what we’re talking about today.
Tyson Mutrux
Right? And I think at least my plan is I’m going to tell people my process and how I do things, you do things a little bit differently. You do your own videos, you edit them, Emily, she used to, I’ll talk a little bit of mine, you want to go through just your process and how you do your videos.
Jim Hacking
Sure. I think I’ll even start with sort of how I got started in video. So
Tyson Mutrux
that’s probably a better starting point is how and why yeah, there’s an attorney
Jim Hacking
named Gerry Oginski, out of New York, and he’s one of the most successful medical malpractice lawyers in New York now, you probably can’t come up with a more competitive set of search terms than New York City Medical Malpractice Attorney. We know that, you know, a lot of the personal injury. Keywords are much more competitive when it comes to Google AdWords or for Google itself. And so Jerry has shot I know it’s over 1000 videos by now it’s probably 13 or 1400 videos. And he’s a real master. He offers a teaching course on how to do your own videos about why videos important. He’s really good at editing. And he uses multiple cameras. And it’s a pretty complex scenario. But I came across him a couple years ago. And I thought, well, I could do this, but probably on a much smaller scale, I wasn’t about to go out and buy a bunch of cameras and heavy equipment, and he shoots some of his in his backyard and sort of on location. And actually I was at a conference and I saw him, he was on the roof of the building shooting, it was actually pretty cool to watch him up there while you’re shooting anyway. So he taught me that what you need to do with video is to educate your clients and to use content as a way to teach clients about their issues about the questions that they have. And so what I started doing is I just started shooting videos to answer questions. And I’ll get into a sort of logistics of how I answer questions on video. But I let you share a little bit.
Tyson Mutrux
Yes, so I actually started getting into video, I’d been wanting to get into video for a while everyone was talking about it. And really everyone talks about still don’t do them. But then you started to talk about them to me and saying saying that you were doing them. And you showed me how easy it was. I remember the time when I was sitting in an office and we’re talking about your videos and you just stood up, walked in your room, shot it took out the card, put in your computer, and you edit it and had it up it was probably less than eight minutes that you did it was very quick. That was from recording to thank you even uploaded it I was recorded upload in less than eight minutes. I was very impressed and how quickly you did it.
Jim Hacking
We got it down fast. I don’t think it’s eight minutes. But it’s about a half hour I can shoot the video and get it on the web and a half an hour. Well, the
Tyson Mutrux
day you did it, you did it in less than eight minutes. Because it was super quick, because I remember you doing it. It doesn’t matter either way. It’s very, very fast and how you do it. And you even had you said, Oh, I got a topic I wanted to talk about today. It took I think two takes to do it. It was really quick. And they will use to answer the question that someone had you had a question someone and you answered it. And that’s how I do it. I actually write down questions throughout the week. If I get a phone call, I’ll write down the question. And that’ll be a video topic idea. And kind of why I do it, it generates very good results for both you and me. There’s a filtering process for clients. You didn’t really talk about this. But you can tell in your videos, what a bad cases were good cases. And it filters out bad phone calls. It tells you what good phone calls are. I’ll give you a prime example. I think I talked about this in another podcast that we had. But I had this video on the pay to play statute. And other attorneys have been turning down valuable cases because they don’t understand the pay to play statute. And I explain that statute in a video and I’ve gotten multiple clients from that now, just because the I’m educating the clients on what a good case is. And so it’s a very, very valuable thing, not just from a marketing standpoint, from a filtering standpoint when it comes to them actually calling your office.
Jim Hacking
I think that’s a good point along with a filtering also is the repetition so you know if, you know some of my early videos were things I got, frankly tired of answering for people. So what I did was I would just create a hyperlink and if they asked me like one thing One kind of immigration issue that comes up for a lot of people that is never going to result in me hiring these people as clients or, you know, making revenue off of them is, you know, I’m overseas and I want to come to the United States. How do I do it? Well, I was answering that question at least once a week. And I don’t know if you remember our friend, Monica Brewer, but she has Yeah, she would have these contacts from overseas. And they would always want to know, Miss Monica, how do I stay in the United States, so she would email them to me, and then I would have to, you know, write out this long explanation as to how you can come and stay in the United States, I shot one video. And now whenever anyone does that, I just send them that link. And I and I’m off the hook as far as answering. And so I think that you can also do a lot of witness or client preparation, you know, getting people ready for meeting with you. I think there’s definitely some self selection that goes along with that. But I also just as an advocate, want to say that, you know, you get to, you really streamline the process and not have to repeat yourself over and over, that’s actually
Tyson Mutrux
a good point, I’m actually going to add on to that. Because once you have your video system set up, you can do it for multiple things, I use the videos. And it’s funny, because I always steal things from you, and then I ramp it up a little bit is what I tried to do. So I use the videos now where in the first, like they had video sequences, and each each phase of a case. So whenever you first sign up a personal injury case with me, you get the first seven days, you get a video each day explaining the process. And so it reduces those questions throughout. It also increases those touches with the client. So they feel like you’re doing work, you’re explaining things to them, they’re getting these constant touches from you. So they feel very, very, like they’re involved in the case. It’s great. But another thing that I’ve done is I created training modules for employees. So whenever I onboard them with my firm, they go through a series of videos, answering the phone, filling out our requesting medical records, whatever it is, there’s a sequence of videos. And so once you had your system up, you can do it for a variety of things.
Jim Hacking
Yeah, and I think, you know, using video internally is a good thing. And probably another topic that we can cover our friend Gary Burger, he’s really good about I know, he has a series of videos that he has his clients watch before they sit for their deposition. So I know that, you know, again, that’s not Gary sitting across to them at a table telling them all the things they need to know about going into a deposition. So I think that’s also a practical way that you can use the video.
Tyson Mutrux
Yeah, when you when you talk about your process for doing videos. And and I’ll talk about my process, that way we can kind of juxtapose other a little bit different. Sure.
Jim Hacking
So one thing to keep in mind is sort of how do you get set up. And you know, you could spend 1000s and 1000s of dollars, but basically what I did is I went on Amazon, and I bought a green screen with a big green cloth with a thing to hold it. I bought a tripod, I bought a not a flip camera, but a a Kodak Zi eight, which is you know, 150 bucks, 200 bucks, I could probably get something a little bit nicer. But it’s easy because it has a USB and I can just plug it right into my computer. And then I have the tripod and the microphone. So the microphone is just a wired mic that plugs into this pretty basic camera, it shoots in 1080 P. So that makes it nice, it looks good on the on the web. So I have this separate room in our office, it was an old closet that I turned into my quote unquote, studio. And I can just go down there when the topic interests me and I have something I want to shoot. And I can do it all myself, Oh, I have a set of three lights. And my buddy Alan Davidson came and helped me set up the lights and sort of angle things the right way. He’s in the production business. And he was able to help me get all set up. So my lighting is right, because you don’t want to use the natural light from a room because it’ll make heat green, or some other weird color
Tyson Mutrux
Jericho Genesis book, he tells you about how the setup is. So if you want to buy his book, I mean they can gives you a better idea on how to set things up. There’s also a bunch of free YouTube videos on how to actually set up your lighting and everything. So I just want to point that part out.
Jim Hacking
Yeah. And so now when I want to shoot a topic, I’ll just put on my coat and tie. So I have my lawyer costume on. And I check myself in the mirror and I go in, I shoot my video. And then I grab it. I usually don’t do edits, I do a one take shot. And what I do is I just basically answer questions and like you said, I keep I keep notes on things that people ask me things that keep coming up. Because obviously if people want to know about something, there’s probably someone else who has the same question. So I go, I shoot it. And if I make a mistake, I usually just stop and start over again. And I can usually get it in two or three takes. And it’s funny, the more often I do it, the less takes it takes if I’m doing video every day or every other day I get into a better rhythm than if I do it once a week. And so after I shoot the video, then I plug my camera into my PC. I edited it on Adobe Premiere Pro. I have sort of some templates set up with the firm logo which overlays on the green screen, and I have a little runner bar on the bottom with my website and phone number. I tell them I saw how to use Premiere Pro to edit it by watching YouTube videos how to work the green screen and edit things. And then once I’m done, I export it. And then I upload it to YouTube. And then there’s a service called rev.com that I have set up. So once I upload it to YouTube, then rev pushes out a transcript in about 20 minutes. And then I, I copy the transcript into the my WordPress site to my hacking law practice site, I linked the video to it. And like I said, I get the whole thing done in about a half an hour, I think
Tyson Mutrux
that you do a little more evil a more hands on when it comes to editing. And I do I don’t do any editing myself. So I guess I’ll go through my process. But first, you touched on the price cost of setup is less than 500 bucks, right? I mean, I think that you could do cheaper than that. I think my setup is probably around $800. Do you know what you’re selling? I think around $600. I don’t even use some of the equipment I originally bought. I bought the green screen like you now I just use the brick wall in my office. But I have four lights. Do you have a shadow light that goes behind you. It’s on the side on an angle. Okay, so I’ve got the three lights in front of me and that one’s a boom light. And then I’ve got the shadow light that’s behind me. Yeah, make sure you get a microphone, because don’t just rely on the camera microphone. Those are crap. I got my I went to Microcenter got my camera, I looked forever. And I tried to get one like yours. I looked at so many cameras. And I think I’ve wasted so much time looking for cameras. But I think just go somewhere just buy one, just make sure it’s got a microphone jack and you’ll be just fine. And patients get the 10 ADP because you want to have that good quality, you can get some pretty cheap, cheap cameras these days. But now I just got on one of my walls, I’ve got a painted green for the green screen, which I rarely use anymore. And then I use the brick background. And it’s it’s it’s very easy to cheap to set up, you don’t need a green screen. The green screen is not that much anyways, I think people will be pretty surprised with if they go to Amazon to see how cheap the equipment is. The most expensive part is the microphone and the camera. By far. The reason why I don’t use the green screen in my office that much is because for some reason it throws off the whenever I try to focus it. So if I don’t stand in front of it, that throws the focus off of it. So I need someone there to focus it for me. And I don’t know why it does that. But it’s I just use the brick as the background now.
Jim Hacking
I mean, it’s just your face breaking cameras. Yeah, I
Tyson Mutrux
think that’s one of those, I think it’s one of those is so I just have an idea. And I usually do them in bulk. I usually do four or five at a time. I’ll try to do more if I’ve got a list of them. But and I don’t do too many because you don’t want to have the exact suit matchup on every single video so you don’t have the Suit Tie shirt combo. So I stayed up, I shoot a question. I then take the SD card out. So you you actually pull your computer or your camera up to the computer. I take the SD card out second my Mac, I upload it to Google Drive. I have someone named in the dish, he pulls it off a Google Drive, he edits it, he then hands it off to my virtual assistant Gino Gino transcribes it. Gino then lets Katie, my other virtual assistant know that those are both done. And it sounds very complicated. It’s actually very easy. It’s very streamlined. So Katie then will take it and upload it to Facebook or YouTube or my website and put the content the reason why we both have them transcribed is because we have that content below the video for SEO purposes. And then it’s done. It’s very easy. It’s very streamlined process and that that whole process for one video cost me five bucks, maybe it’s really, really cheap. Because I use Upwork quite a bit for a lot of my stuff I use Upwork a lot more than you do given us up work sometimes. I mean, I use it consistently I use it a lot more. So it’s an easy process. So whether you do it your way or my way, it’s
Jim Hacking
it’s easy and cheap. What kind of results have you seen from your videos? What, what anecdotal or statistical evidence Have you come up with off your videos?
Tyson Mutrux
Well, I was actually while you’re talking, I was gonna pull up my YouTube page and tell you my views and my statistics. Do you have yours in front of you?
Jim Hacking
Oh, no. But you know, one of the things that I was gonna say it’s funny that you know, with your YouTube videos, you never know what’s going to strike a chord with people you never know what’s going to be popular or often viewed
Tyson Mutrux
that is very, very true. It’s It’s shocking sometimes. I know it’s really early on once i Whenever I did the videos we were doing we were launching a video a day where it was like, it was on Facebook and everyone was seeing it. But I went from people you know when you go to the courthouse, I love telling the story. So you go this courthouse and everyone seems to know each other, but you don’t really know their name. I went from like saying like people say hey, how’s it going? People say hey Tyson, how’s it going people that I know didn’t know my name before. They knew my name. I had judges say my name I knew didn’t know my name. I know that seems like such a small thing. But it’s a really big thing. Because people then knew I was I was getting these free commercials they’re basically just free commercials on Facebook where everyone was knowing me but from that’s just from people knowing me standpoint, but From a business standpoint, I can tell you my business has exploded. And it’s the primary reason is from video by far video. And I’ve also seen a huge uptick in attorney referrals since this. And I think that’s just from people getting to know me. And that’s it. It’s it’s been pretty incredible. My statistics, just in the last week, I’ve had 412 minutes watched, which is, I don’t know what it is compared to yours. It’s quite a bit. Do you have your minutes watch for the
Jim Hacking
last week? 6651
Tyson Mutrux
see your way higher than mine? Oh, my gosh, you’re killing me. What pisses me off?
Jim Hacking
How many subscribers do you have?
Tyson Mutrux
I have 18. Oh, what do you have?
Jim Hacking
553
Tyson Mutrux
Oh, my gosh, how do you have so many subscribers?
Jim Hacking
You know, that’s interesting. One of the things I started doing is encouraging people to subscribe. Video. I don’t know if you do that. That’s been helpful.
Tyson Mutrux
I don’t. Okay. I think you’re one of the videos you have. I mean, total videos,
Jim Hacking
I think about 140.
Tyson Mutrux
I have 177. Yeah, see, man that pisses me off. Your videos have been going for longer, though. Yeah, I use that excuse on the use that excuse that takes me off. Now I’ve got some of the motivated, but
Jim Hacking
he raised a good point. And it’s something that you just said. And I think that the great thing about video and where its true value comes from is that people getting to know you, they can tell by your voice by the tone of your voice, they can tell what kind of person you are, they can see you. Like someone Someone commented on my one of my YouTube videos the other day, they just said I can really see that you’re passionate about it. And you know, so I think when people really get to know you, you know, certainly when you meet with clients, I think there’s a little bit of a star factor where those who’ve watched a lot of your videos really sort of get into it. And and I think it really gives them the chance to connect with you in a way that just doesn’t happen with a written word.
Tyson Mutrux
Absolutely. And here’s the thing, even though your numbers are substantially higher than mine, which really aggravates me. So I’ve had people that consumed 412 minutes of my content and just one week, I mean, while you’re while you’re sleeping while I’m sleeping, right? You’ve had 6000 something, which is incredible to me. That’s it. That’s yeah, that’s fantastic that that’s in one week, while we’re sleeping. People are watching our stuff. And it’s great. And I’m actually looking at my top, my top questions. And number one, what’s your number one?
Jim Hacking
I know it is for sure. Because it’s visit visas to the United States, like what do I need to do to get a visit visa that just said that foreign 65 views this week, and it’s my it’s it’s probably 35% of my content on or 35% of my views.
Tyson Mutrux
So mine is 36% of my views 45% of my minutes watch. It’s what to do if you have a warrant for your arrest, which is it’s very, very well watched. Unfortunately, personal injury is my main practice areas. So that’s, that’s a problem for me from that standpoint. But I do. My third one is personal injury. So I do have quite a lot of minor personal injury related so it’s, we have so many though it kind of definitely splits the percentages. But what does the for both of us our number one video, that’s a really high percentage for the number of videos that we have out there. That’s quite incredible. That’s 8020 8020 8020
Jim Hacking
Yep,
Tyson Mutrux
absolutely. I’m glad to catch up with you. Now. I’m gonna start launching a whole bunch more fine, dude, you can try try to keep up how much time we got. What are we on?
Jim Hacking
I think we’re good. I think we’re ready for our hack. And our tip. Well, you sort
Tyson Mutrux
of teased my tip the Tyson’s Tip of the Week. And it’s you don’t know that you teased it but you did. It’s the secrets of lawyer Video Marketing by Gerry Oginski. And actually, the full name of the video or a book is secrets of lawyer video marketing in the age of YouTube. If you don’t know how to do video, he tells you how to do everything. And as a sidenote, honestly, I’ve shot videos with my phone. And it’s just fine. So I do both. And you can if you’ve got an iPhone or some sort of Samsung phone with a nice camera, you can do you can do it with what you have on hand. You really don’t need all this equipment. But it’s worth equipment. I definitely think so. But Jerry a jetski walks you through everything lighting, what to do, what not to do and everything. So that’s my mindset.
Jim Hacking
Yeah. And that reminds me that one of the things you were saying earlier about how you spent way, way, way too much time looking for a camera, I think that we can make this really complicated and really hard and wanting to be Hollywood quality level. But I think that’s really just a way of procrastination and keeping us from taking the risk of putting our videos out there. And along that line. What you just said is I did shoot my first video ever with my phone this week or last week I did a testimonial I had a client in front of me who was so freakin happy about me helping bring his wife to Japan. I said, I gotta shoot this so I shot it and edited it real quick and put it on YouTube and it’s gotten a lot of good views and good feedback. So, you know, do you use video for testimonials?
Tyson Mutrux
You know, I’ve wanted to I always hear this is really sad in that but I always chickened out the last second, asking them for a video testimonial and they’re more than happy if people are more than happy To get me reviews, I get plenty of reviews online. And I don’t know why I always chicken out but I always do. I was a rarely forget to do it. I just chickened out to do it. So you should try. No, you should try.
Jim Hacking
Yeah, but I mean it probably your DUI clients and child molester. Clients don’t want to be on video, but
Tyson Mutrux
Right. And I wouldn’t do it’s funny, I would never ask them to do it. And if they if I did, I would and I’ve never done a child molestation case. For the record. That was a joke. I know it was. But if I did ask them to do a review, they wouldn’t mention the type of case was, but I think part of it is with personal injury clients. It’s a very intimate settings. A lot of times whenever we’re doing the settlement checks inside the releases and stuff, it’s an uncomfortable feeling. That’s why don’t do it. I don’t want to feel like that ambulance chaser type of lawyer. So then maybe that’s part of it. But I’m just coming up with excuses at this point. I just need to do it. And I don’t
Jim Hacking
I think they’re helpful. And I think it’s another way that people can sort of say, well, that person is sort of like me, and, you know, they have similar situations to me. And they, you know, I think whenever you have a testimonial that sort of addresses the concerns that the people have, I think that really helps.
Tyson Mutrux
Well, I’ve got a settlement conference or a wrongful death settlement next Wednesday. And I will do it after that case, because the client really does love me, so I’ll do it. Okay. That’s my commitment over the next next podcast. I’ll make sure that confirm that met my goal for next week.
Jim Hacking
Cool. So I also have a video related hack. And that’s YouTube guy that I really like and follow. He has a lot of free content. That’s really instructive. His name’s Owen hem Seth, and he’s at Video spot.com. And so he has a little mini course that you can watch. Interestingly, he teaches you how to use YouTube through YouTube. So I think he’s really on top of things, a lot of good practical tips. So check that out at video spot.com i Brother. All right. We’ll talk to you next week. Sounds good.
