EE073 – Joel Ong

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Tony Winyard 0:00
Exceeding expectations Episode 73- Do you do much in the way of video promotion, video creation, video marketing. We have a specialist this week Joel Ong who specialises in those areas and we even touch upon a little bit of psychology and philosophy. That’s this week’s episode with Joel Ong. Exceeding expectations is the podcast where we aim to give you more ideas on how you can give your customers a better experience which results in you getting more referrals, testimonials and so you end up spending less money on marketing and advertising but you also enjoy your work more you enjoy the clients you’re working with. do leave a review for us on iTunes, maybe subscribe and why not share the episode with someone who you think will get some good benefit from it. Here’s this week’s episode

Exceeded expectations My guest today is Joel Ong now you Joel, how are you doing?

Joel Ong 1:10
I’m great. I’m great.

Tony Winyard 1:12
And your based in Singapore.

Joel Ong 1:14
Yeah, that’s right.

Tony Winyard 1:17
We just were talking about weather. And yeah, the weather there is far, far better than what we’re experiencing here in London.

Joel Ong 1:26
Yeah, I mean, the weather for people to know and haven’t visited Singapore is based in Southeast Asia. Essentially, we are tiny.on the world map. So it’s not like a very big island by any means. You could get from one end to the other in about an hour. So that’s why it’s really convenient. It’s always summer all year round. There’s tonnes of rain. And I think the biggest downside will be the humidity. So that’s something that you might not get used to. When you come here, but it’s like a bustling metropolis city. There’s tonnes of stuff, tonnes of food, like it’s a melting pot of everything really. So I can’t quite pinpoint exactly what the culture is. But it’s a it’s an amalgamation of every single thing together. So that’s what makes it like, special. Yeah.

Tony Winyard 2:21
When you mentioned, maybe the biggest problem is the humidity. For me personally, it wasn’t the humidity that was the biggest problem. It was in the shopping centres the air conditioning was so cold, that you’d be outside and it’s really hot. And then you go inside, and it’s really cold.

Joel Ong 2:40
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It still happens today. And even especially in the corporate buildings, so people who are working in the corporate banking sector, especially, you know, they often have to wear a jacket and then when they leave the exit, they have to take it off, and you can often catch a cold quite easily that way.

Tony Winyard 2:59
Yeah. Absolutely, yeah. Well, Joe, so tell us about what it is that you do?

Joel Ong 3:07
So essentially, I help business owners to understand the language and the power of video. So one of the big reasons is because everybody nowadays can shoot and film a view on our mobile phones very easily. So and you can go on to YouTube and anywhere else, there’s widely free open resources, guys, you can, you know, pay for causes to learn pretty quickly on know how to shoot and edit a video. So the main difference here is really understanding the psychology behind it and how to leverage it as a medium as a tool. Not just for YouTube, where creators are doing it for entertainment purposes, but really how can you put it into a business format, where it improves the experience between you and your customer, or between you and your team and it helps you to be better with relationships with them so that you can unlock more potential in your current process or your business model.

Tony Winyard 4:08
And so how did you get into doing that?

Joel Ong 4:11
Oh, I stumbled into it actually. So I started out in the fashion photography space, particularly doing portraiture about five years ago. And I was doing it as a freelancer because I wanted to travel and I was very young. I was 17. I’m like, 23 now. And back then, you know, I wasn’t able to afford being able to travel on my own. So I wanted to figure out is there a way for me to find my own expenses while I was able to travel and meet new people, new experiences, cultures, learn different languages. So that’s that way into that and then eventually I found that hey, video videography or videos is a series of majors combined together. And I was able to marry my love for speaking to people and understanding what makes them tick, what makes them special, the essence of each person, and then be able to capture that on some platform or medium that you can preserve forever. And people all around the world can see at their own pace at the same time. And so that’s where I really started to understand like, Hey, you know, I wanted to find a bigger impact beyond just making pretty photos making videos and you know, getting other likes and followings on Instagram. And I asked myself, What is the biggest vehicles on the planet today that has brought about the biggest change? Like if you look at Apple, you look at Google, you look at Samsung, or even you know, Huawei. They changed the world because they are fundamentally the business because they are their corporations. So I really started to see businesses in a different life. Previously, I was extremely sceptical. I was like You know, businesses out there for profit, you know, mean grabbing machines, money grabbing machines, you know, and and I didn’t quite take a liking to them. But when I started to speak to more business owners and really understand why they started what they do, especially founders, and why they love their jobs, a lot of times they started out being wanting to make a difference make a change the the source of the problem there that they can solve, and the solid group of people that they can help. So and I see this a big problem because you know, 97% of businesses failing the next 10 years and it is sad this statistic because it’s not just a business that fails, and the team that relies on the business for income as the employees, but also all the customers that depend on that business to solve a problem that they have. So I was like, thinking to myself, how can I help businesses to to be able to Better survive and also allow their customers to better understand that because people need you with people they trust. So, and oftentimes when a business gets too big, or the business owner gets too busy running the show, you lose that sense of personal touch, you lose the sense of the storytelling element of it, which really makes a customer sticky or really makes a business sticky. You have that what we call like taste there where people buy a feeling that they associate, when they purchase a product or service. They’re not actually really buying the thing itself anymore. There’s a certain association or connotation there. So I really started to dive into you know, what makes that what makes up that thing for different businesses, and how can I better bring that out from each business owner, each founder, each entrepreneur

Tony Winyard 7:57
And so where did that take you?

Joel Ong 8:01
it took me around the world actually. So is fascinating. I mean, I love hotels, I love the hospitality industry. So I was helping, you know, a bunch of resorts as well as places that I was travelling to, to be able to better highlight the experience that I had as a visitor to their place beyond just your cookie cutter stuff you see online where, oh, yeah, it looks pretty it looks fancy is a nice speech. You know, I wanted to showcase the staff, the experiences, you know, the small bits and my new shade of detail that would allow someone to remember the place and then be such a raving fan that they will share it with their friends. So that became a tool that people could take, and then share it around so that people can understand what they were talking about. Because oftentimes when you hear stories, you tend to try and imagine What it’s like, you don’t actually get to see it. So there was one of the problems that a lot of them have. And and you lose it forever if you don’t capture it down. So is a is entirely different way of thinking about these videos. But it’s not just videos, videos, just the best medium to communicate and experience really is it’s more about the experience. And the way I think about experience has taken me to this insight. experience comes from various things. It comes from the five senses. And this is something I learned when I took up method acting and here from my acting teacher who studied in the LA School, which you know, trained a lot of actors and actresses from Hollywood. And he came to Asia to teach. He said that you know, everything you remember all your memories is encapsulated in your five senses. So you can Tell a very good story a very good memory you have, if you explain to somebody in terms of the five senses, what you see what you smell, what you touch, taste, and here. So that’s what makes up our memory, but then allows myself like, okay, imagine if you have two people who walk into an art exhibition. And they see the same painting. Suppose this is abstract, is an abstract painting. One person feels that that painting is amazing is the most beautiful thing ever, and decides that he The painting is worldwide, his price point is 5%, for example, a million bucks and the person decides to buy, the other person who comes in at the exact same time sees the exact same thing has the exact same memory, the exact same location painting, everything’s a constant, but doesn’t see the value in that painting. So I asked myself like, okay, so if the five senses is one of the building blocks of an experience, why is it that one person has a bad experience and the other person doesn’t? And the Next part of the answer comes from the interpretation of that experience. It comes from the perception of it. And that’s where you know, stuff that you learn about in psychology stuff you learn about in storytelling comes from because that forms the interpretation. like Tony Robbins talks about how you know, we interpret what we what happens in our life events in a certain manner that creates a certain feeling or emotion in us, that force causes us to either remember them as traumatic memories, or as empowering ones that you know, serve us. They propel us forward, and empowering vision. So that really forms the core tenets of what I’ve experienced. And you know what I share around with people today, which is if you want to create a very good experience, you need to remember the two building blocks, you need to remember what story are you trying to tell them the interpretation, and you need to communicate that memory in terms of the five senses. So this will be the two things that make up experience for me.

Tony Winyard 11:58
So the clients that you work with… So there’s two things here. One, do they come to you because they hear that you have a very different approach to things. Or if you’re speaking with a potential client, and then you explain what you can do for them, do they understand it straight away? Does it take quite a bit of explanation?

Joel Ong 12:19
It takes quite a bit of explanation. I mean, they frequently misunderstand it, primarily because there are a lot of people doing videos out there. There are a lot of creatives out there. So it’s extremely competitive industry. And it’s gotten pretty ingrained in my opinion, where it’s funny, like sometimes I will say, I’ll tell you asked me, you know, the first conversation starter question also, what do you do? Right, you know, the really plain Jane kind of cookie kind of question, right? What do you do? Oh, you know, I do videos, and don’t elaborate further. And the common responses idea, like, Oh, so you’re a YouTuber. You know, So there is there is a common misperception there where, you know, videos equals to YouTube, but not necessarily in a business context. So, because the problem with using thinking about videos is just YouTube, all you want to do is to run ads on Facebook is that that form of thinking isn’t necessarily bad. It just limits the scope in which you can use this tool. And how you think about it. It limits the ability for you to use that in various ways in your business. Because you start seeing as a tool for entertainment, or mainstream media, rather than a two that you can use for its core tenants is called elements like what is actually what what his strengths are, in fact, so the economist profession is YouTube because the video and the next thing is of course, it takes a while to allow them Of course guide them in understanding, okay, this is the value of how I can use this in my business where I’m currently at. And of course, every business is very different, which is why you know, you can’t have a one size fits all go to Walmart and pick something off the shelf kind of thing. If you’re running like an e commerce kind of business where you have a low cost, low price product, that doesn’t need a lot of believability, it doesn’t need a lot of persuasion for someone to buy because it’s a it’s a very small investment for their buying decision. Like say, for example is $5. You don’t really need a very advanced knowledge of videos to be able to communicate that kind of experience that will compel them to buy. But say for example, if you are selling an intangible product, you’re trying to sell insurance, for example, something in the future you can imagine. Say even I had a prospect who was doing a patent for one of the motorbike parts. He wanted to use images for the motorbike path and asked him like, how would the image as a static image, communicate how much easier it would be like for bike rider? Using your solution, when you’re riding on the road for long periods of time? You know, how would a single image communicate that? Because even you just tell him he verbally I can’t quite imagine what your what your product is. Because it’s so sophisticated. He’s gotten to a point where he’s so deep in the technical details, that he can’t bridge the gap with someone who doesn’t understand his product at all, is knowing him for the first time. So those are some of the common things that observe between people. And this is where you know, you if you start to think about all I could create a video that, you know, allow someone to put themselves in draws them in, into the perspective of a bike rider. I see exactly how this See folks like, I see how I sit in it, I see how more much more effortless I can be when I’m writing because of your solution, then is it bridges the gap a lot better. So those are some of the things that I have to walk them through.

Tony Winyard 16:16
So typically what sort of clients are you working with?

Joel Ong 16:20
Typically, I’m a big fan of personal brands, because personal brands, a lot of times people what we view as a person. So story, their personal story, their personal brand is very important. So they need a lot more help and tools that they can keep in their tool belt to use for that purpose. I also work with a lot of businesses that have higher price or higher value, product or service, because it’s a lot more difficult to convince a customer or prospect to purchase from you. So I work with those people. A lot more Those who include you know, for example, your consulting companies, your software IP companies that sell like a, you know, some form of like CRM solution for example, work with like real estate as well, that is a lot easier because real estate, you you have a physical home that you can show is lot more the features of the place. And every buyer is different. So they will see different benefits for that video. So there are a lot of different things there. But primarily is really is that it’s a video based solution, combined with some form of marketing strategy behind it going to contribute to the business model of the business. So one of the main problems if you think about videos as YouTube or advertisements or branding is that it doesn’t add to your bottom line. Because you can have branding, but it doesn’t bring in the cash flow or the marketing So I like to marry the two, which is, you know, of course, there’s no guarantee that you know, you’re going to increase your bottom line. But how does this fit into your business process and model in such a way that you can see how, okay, as an executive, this makes a, you know, a sound decision that I can use to further optimise my system or process. So that’s the way I think about it.

Tony Winyard 18:25
I know you’ve got a few stories to illustrate some of the things you do. So let’s talk about the the world’s first Oil Paintography…

Joel Ong 18:33
yeah. So the world’s first up in the graph. he’s a he’s a client of mine. His name is Charlie. And what he he does is he spent, I think, close to about 40 years or even half his life. I mean, he’s, he’s pretty all right now in you know, as a as a photographer, and he spent the year the bulk of his life, learning about photography, art and design. So These are the three main tenants of his area. You know, one international was like such a long list that I can’t remember everything off the cards. You know, he’s been like, asked to, you know, open up schools in like, in the Middle East as well as your China, India, stuff like that. And he used to be based in the states as well. Where he first came up with an invention. Essentially what he does is he merges oil paintings with photography. So an oil painting the problem with it is it takes forever to create a producer painting to see the end result. And so you know, when you want to purchase your own painting for yourself or your family, there is a problem there because of the time. So he managed to combine this this art form where he would sit someone in the dark and you paint them with a torch light instead of an oil paint brush. And he can do a live demonstration of it and in less than 30 seconds You would see an exec opening image that appears in the camera from him continue with a toddler, which is just incredible. So that kind of experience I experienced it life when I sat with him and worked with him. But uh, he’s, he’s online, the way he was communicating online or even in person didn’t quite explain that level of experience, what it’s like to get into a dark room, almost like, you know, the old school days of producing a photograph, you know, you sit in a dark room, right. And then, you know, just being seated in a simple chair, he sets up everything, and then he just holds the torch light and then you see, you see him just like brushing your face, right? And then instantly at the end of it, he just points towards the camera that has always been there on the tripod since the beginning. And on the screen, it just appears an exact oil painting of yourself. But in the camera, and then what you can do is later on, you can print it or print it out to us keep it digitally, or you could have him to paint the painting later on. So you get to see the end result before you even buy the thing. And that kind of experiencing something so unique, so bizarre, that people don’t quite understand. But he’s very good at being able to communicate experience on stage live in front of thousands. So what makes up that kind of experience, right? The kind of experience that makes it so special is really because it’s real time. There’s no gimmick about it. It’s not photoshopped or anything is pure craftsmanship, from his technique of using and his understanding of life and how he bends and how is captured on a camera. So being able to communicate that kind of craft, especially, you know, we’ve crossed men of all sorts of types. You know, you have to luxury watches, right like Patek Philippe or whatever. But when I watch those craftsmen the way they work, it takes years of skill to be able to do it. Just like how a sushi master takes years before when the apprentice before they finally graduate as the Master Chief chef, you know, but people, you know, me as an outsider looking in, we don’t quite understand and appreciate the, the value in and the time that it takes for craftsmen like them. So that was one of the ways that I’ve managed to help him to improve the experience. And then he was able to use that video that we made for him, show you around, he didn’t really do much with it. But there were people from like people from the Prime Minister’s office in Jakarta, Indonesia, who call him up to ask him about it, because the guy was a lover. There was a couple of people from the States as well. We even called him up instead For there was like one of the ministers of state that also call in as a result of that. So really is like, hey, if your business three doing well how can we reach out to more people and be able to have a better experience for them so they remember you and share it around with your peers or friends. So that was the story of the authentic self.

Tony Winyard 23:20
So if the people who are trying to imagine what it is that you’re describing, is there any way they can see that see the video that you mentioned? Or is it online anywhere?

Joel Ong 23:29
Yeah, yeah. It’s on my website as well. Actually. It’s it will be the very first video you see if you go to www.TapeYourTime.com

Yeah. It’s a pun on the word taking your time. But yeah, so if you click the big play button there you’ll be able to see and then understand, you know, the years of hard work that he has put in And one of the big reasons why the video works is because he was tearing up at the end, he was nearly tearing up at the end, because it represents his life’s work. And he wanted to find a way to pass it on. Because he didn’t want me to die, his hands literally not have his craft passed on. So that was really one of the emotional touching moments of the video, that I think that if anybody was listening to this, if you’re running a business, if it’s a product, you know, how someone used the product and impacted their lives in some very special memorable ways. You know, it could be however small, however insignificant, but to that person, it means the world to them. Find a way to best be able to feature that. So in terms of tactical advice, it will be as simple as because like I said, it’s easy to film video on your mobile phone, right? So if the customer truly loves you, and you know text you and say hey, you know you’ve changed my life. impacted me is as simple as instead of asking them, hey, and settling with just a text message, you could just take opportunity, seize the moment when the iron is hot, and just text them and say, Hey, would you mind just explaining what you’ve just written to me and record a quick 32nd video to me. And that kind of experience can be replicated. Because people are very sceptical and cynical online. You could manufacture or fabricate a testimonial or an experience. But when people see for themselves, and you don’t see anything else, just like hate CDs, and come to your own interpretations or conclusions about it is much better because people change, that experience goes away. But when you capture it, it stays there forever. And then it becomes a tool that you can use in your business. So especially if it’s a service as well. So I think often times when, when we have the whole business process running, there are many small moments in time where a business touches and impact someone’s life, a customer, a team member, whoever they may be, even he may not be a customer, it may be someone who just visits or touches the place, you know, interacts with you. Try your best to capture that because you, you don’t have a second chance to do it. And it makes your business special, it makes it stand out. So it makes it sticky. And that forms your case over time.

Tony Winyard 26:35
And you touched upon something a few minutes ago, you mentioned about, businesses offering something that’s intangible and I would think that for most businesses that do have an intangible service, I think where they really do get stuck is how are we able to convey what it is we do to our customers in a way that people can see the value. And so if someone contacts you and they want a video and they are offering an intangible service; How easy or difficult is it for you to maybe help them create some kind of a video that really does show the value of what they do?

Joel Ong 27:18
Yep. So the first, the first thing that I usually walk them through is what’s the purpose and objective of the video? Right? So we go very back to the fundamentals and the beginnings and the basics. So, essentially, they’re essentially several purposes to videos. And one of the mistakes common mistakes I can see offhand that people make with it is they try to do too many things at one time in a single video. So a few of those ways I can remember. First of all the video is to inform. So it’s purely for information sake. So you know, if you look at your news broadcasts, right, those are videos are meant to inform and that you have videos that are educational, and So these are videos that are on YouTube, you know how to things like that. Right? And you have videos that are meant to storytelling in brand. These are views that are meant to create an emotional response in them nothing more and to grab their attention. So you’re not asking for any kind of commitment, you’re not asking for anything else you just saying, Hey, this is attention grabbing and worth your time watching stay to the end. And then he compels them to want to do something. So you use some other video or some other thing like on the website or button or you know, someone for your team to call them or take action. So try not to confuse a couple of those. You also have videos that are meant to sell. So these are your like sales videos, right? So because a lot of times you have videos that are disguised as sales pitches, sorry sales pitches that are disguised as videos that are meant to educate them. So that can come across in the wrong way, and rub a few shoulders. So it’s a lot clearer to separate the few purposes out into every single video. So that’s in terms of how I think about videos, in terms of, you know, selling an intangible, and understanding how to break down the process and service. I like to think of it in three ways, which has a call tree, what we call like the nervous systems of every business, whether your product or service, how big and small your sizes, is treating time, money and relationships. So it’s these three things. So if you’re selling an intangible service like insurance, right, you need to ask yourselves like in the in the point of view of the Divine customer, your your target customer. What is the investment that they need in time, money and relationships? And also what’s the benefit and value of it to them industry things. Once you get clear on those three things, then you start to really dive deep into in simple terms. So if you can explain an intangible product, in simple terms to a five year old kid, then you can make a very convincing video. Even if you don’t have any background. You can make an convincing pitch or narrative because the simpler is, the clearer it is and the more people can understand it. So in simple terms, what insurance does is it prevents you from suffering, the consequences are too big for you to handle later on. Right? So just you’re actually buying risk. So in terms of like, what are the emotional needs that people get from buying insurance, they get security, they get a sense of safety. They get reassurance you know, stuff like these. So they’re not so much buying them for a piece of policy paper with a tonne of words, or the numerical financial savings that they get. What does this financial savings represent for them. So I had a previous podcast guest, she walks through this process of the five Why’s she calls it the five letters, she uses it for, you know, understanding your passion or your purpose and stuff like that. But you can apply it to in terms of the service or product that you’re trying to sell as well. So if you asked like, Okay, I’m selling insurance, why do they buy? You get one answer, you ask deeper questions. So why do they actually buy? And then why, why, why. And then, once you get to the heart and root of it, then you find the purpose of what you’re trying to convey from there and you can hire creative, you can hire someone or you can think on your own. If you’re more of a creative individual, you know, what kind of stories or what kind of narratives do I want to create around that purpose, to be able to communicate that purpose. So a lot of the work is done in the front end of getting the purpose right and clear first, and then the creative ideas will come easily because is clear. So, but the mistake that most people make is they start off with a creative ideas. And then the video or whatever they’re trying to create is not purposeful. So that’s how I would think about it. Yeah.

Tony Winyard 32:14
And it was another story you you mentioned about the Croatian wedding photographer.

Joel Ong 32:18
Yeah. So I was, I was travelling in Europe last year, meet last year. And essentially, I started out in Germany for I was there to feel like a skateboarding competition in Germany that was actually competing by rebou. I didn’t know that at the time. And then I took the rest of the period of time for just my own personal travel alone. So I travelled down south to Croatia, and I was in the capital of Zagreb. And what happened was, I was there and this is the first time that I saw I’m seeing Slavic wedding, you know about the wedding. So the way they do it is like football in in London, right? They like smoke flares, the party they they have all sorts of fun tears. And they were they were having smoke flares that the light in the capital. There was no police around nothing. It’s like a normal thing for them there. And the bride and groom are dressed in white. Everybody was dressed in white and you have great smoker up. So there was tending their dresses and stuff like they didn’t care. So I found it interesting. I was taking some photos. And what happened was, as they walked by me, the best man, the best men of the groom, he just grabbed my arm and he pulled me along. He said, Come, come come along. You’re our new guest now. So I was shocked, right because I was alone and me being Asian. There. Around Europeans. It was bizarre for people to see me in a wedding. So they’re already highlighted a very different experience. So the takeaway from that would be, you want to, you know, throw someone off, what they typically are conventionally would think is the experience, and then paint it in a positive light. So someone could interpret that experience as completely bizarre, like, why is this person being so weird? But I took it in the form of, oh, hey, you know, this is an opportunity for me to be a part of a wedding that I wouldn’t otherwise be a part of. So I got invited into the wedding. So he touched me on the first hand, as the as the best man for the wedding. The next thing that happened was, you know, the photographer of the wedding is a Croatian local photographer. He started to teach me some creation lives, you know, like, follow the Virginia Caicos atanas and, and started to teach me the wedding songs equation. And then that allowed me to fit in better with the group. And then eventually, more and more people saw that I could speak Croatian or Sounded correct. And it was enjoying myself, and then decided to welcome into the group, right. So it became like almost like a tribe, which is a concept that I love a lot is not just customers, but a tribe of people that support you, they inspire you, they want to learn from you that will follow you, right. And then you are a leader of a movement rather than just being a businesses offering a product or service. So to tie this back, the whole narrative after that was that essentially, you know, I got invited to the wedding wedding banquet, and then they became sort of like my semi got family. So which is, which is really bizarre in that open up a door of business opportunities in Croatia, like all the way in Croatia, when I’m in Singapore, with with the with the wedding stuff that was going on with it as a result of just this experience. So to tie this back into something that we value the listeners as a recipient of an experience that I would remember for the rest of my life. It would be that. there is this thing called Talk Triggers. There is a book called Talk triggers. I forgot who the author is…

Tony Winyard 36:11
Jay Baers, I interviewed him on this podcast.

Joel Ong 36:14
Oh, cool. Cool. Yeah. So you know, he talks about like how you want to map out your, your whole process of business, right? And then to find the most boring part and just flip it on its head. So it was kind of what happened with that experience, because I was not expecting, witnessing a wedding as an outsider, to be an experience like that. I was really nice, not not expecting that at all. And nowadays, when I meet other creations, and I show them that footage of me enjoying myself with them, suddenly, you know, they become much warmer to me, even though I’m an outsider, because they would never imagined in their lives that a corporation would do this and welcome an outsider like that. into their wedding. So it’s a it’s almost like breaking norms if you can and and challenging what people normally assume as a conventional thing.

Tony Winyard 37:16
I’m assuming had you done a wedding before that?

Joel Ong 37:20
Yeah, a couple of weddings in in Singapore. I used to do back a couple years back where as a freelancer right but of course I didn’t quite enjoy it because it’s very taxing is stressful as a freelancer because you know, people’s memories I stake. But if if I were to set up a wedding again like that, and try to replicate an experience like what I had in Croatia, I would you know, how weddings like the bride and groom, we have certain activities that will do our Trisha you know, if the culture allows for if you know the relatives of the families is cool with and stuff. And, you know, give them a surprise that they wouldn’t expect. So it just like how in the in the top triggers book or not shave is in the book. The thing about, you know, Hughton and their their cookies ready to give to the guests. That became a talking point, you know, it’s something that is unexpected, because normally they wouldn’t do it. So if you could find a way to do that, and allow people to experience as memorable, and then invite them to go and take action by sharing around, then I think that you have a very good chance of, of making sure that you have a better experience for them. That’s memorable.

Tony Winyard 38:43
And so in the weddings that you’ve done, in using video, how have you been able to do that?

Joel Ong 38:49
No, I have not done much wedding videos, actually. So so back then when I was doing readings was just photos. Yeah, but uh, if I do have friends who you know are based in the States or around the world who are currently also doing wedding videos. The main important thing is to capture the intimacy between the the bride and the groom. Because that’s something that, you know, like how often you know, marriages and divorce rates are going up, right, the passion dies in relationship. Often, oftentimes, because people stop being appreciative of one another, is not spending the time to listen to their father or, you know, showing and expressing their care and concern. And a lot of times is because of life gets in the way or you know, shame or your ego or certain insecurities. And if you have a wedding view that encapsulates the essence of what you felt like when they first started the relationship or you know, where they were tight or not, it can serve as a very useful and powerful reminder to rekindle some passionate relationship later on. So there’s something that I think that is something that would be preserved forever. That would be special to the bride and the groom for the wedding videos, yeah.

Tony Winyard 40:09
Near the start of the recording, you were talking about YouTube and the way people think of video and YouTube. What do you think are the frequently misunderstood issues by the customers you work with?

Joel Ong 40:23
They think they have to pose all the time. Because on YouTube, you normally follow creators, right? You follow people who post pretty frequently regularly, and they do what is called maintenance videos. So videos that are there to keep the existing subscribers engaged. Now, it depends on what context and trajectory and approach of business you take as well and where you’re at, if you have a team to do maintenance videos for you, and that’s great, right? But that wouldn’t be the first thing I start off with. So it’d be too too soon of jumping the gun because maintenance views are more And and the common Miss misunderstanding is that you have to create maintenance videos for for your business to survive and thrive is going to get you more subscribers yours is going to get you more followers and more likes. But it doesn’t really help you to grow your business, not at the initial stage. So you need to have videos that fundamentally improves the relationship you have with your customers. Maintenance use doesn’t really do that. As directly, as something else would say, for example, a video that encapsulates why you do what you do, you know, what’s the essence of why you do something else, even a sales video that just explains your pitch and what benefits you can bring from your solution and what you can offer to your customers, right? mentors views are really there to maintain a YouTube channel or social channel. So that’s the column resource section that I get most frequently all the time. So you If you’re listening to this, and you don’t really have an advance, you know, video strategy or video solution out there that you’re already implementing, then don’t think about maintenance videos yet. And don’t think about YouTube yet. start with the basics, which is your story.

Tony Winyard 42:18
I know you there’s a book that you particularly like?

Joel Ong 42:21
Yeah. So there’s a there’s a book that I like called Pre-suasion by Robert Cialdini. And this is Cialdini’s most recent tome, and you know, is the sequel to his previous book called Influence. In my opinion, I think it is just as good and even more important than Influence. And the biggest takeaway I got from the book is, you know, the best time to work on any relationship is before you have one. And I borrowed this quote from a mentor of mine as well, but is applied to your personal life right and relationships, but what you do in anything is how you do everything. How you do anything is how you do everything. So the same principle can be applied in business. If you’re trying to maintain relationships with customer, yes, we can get carried away with numbers and metrics. They’re just another figure, another person, I have to call on my list my calling list, you know, another person I have to close a sale from, and sometimes we forget at our people. So so so the best time to work on that is before you even have them as a customer. So, so that’s really a very good book because it also explains, you know, some of the research and studies and also a lot of very valuable insights on how people are pre framed and primed on something before they walk in. So if you look at if you go to Aramis solstar. Or if you go to, you know, a Lamborghini dealership or something You’ll notice that you know, just for example, you know, if you’re flying an aeroplane, the first class service and going into the first class Lounge is or even in a private jet Lounge is going to be very, very different from an economy class one, or a budget one, right? So, and a lot of times, the city isn’t really that much better to justify the price or the perceived value of that experience of the ticket. But it’s because of all these things they do beforehand, that they set it up. So the prime new to enjoy yourselves. And a lot of times I think that the experience comes from our perception of what the thing we’re going to get is and we can do a lot in terms of priming them, getting them really anticipating that thing. And of course, then on the flip side, you got to manage those expectations and know exactly what you’re setting people up to as well because you don’t want it to lead to disappointment where you can’t fulfil and deliver and under deliver so That is of course a balance.

Tony Winyard 45:04
What does the phrase exceeding expectations mean to you?

Joel Ong 45:08
doing just one thing better than what everyone else will do? It will mean going a step further than what anybody else would do. And what I mean by a step. It doesn’t have to be a very big step. It could be a small step, but just the fact that you do it a little bit better or a little bit more than everybody else would also, of course, differentiate yourself in terms of exceeding expectations of myself or yourself. How can you on a more personal and personal development note, how can you exceed your own expectations of yourself of what you think is possible? There are a lot of times in my life where I didn’t think that I would be doing what I would do today. I didn’t think that would be speaking on a podcast. It didn’t occur to me five years ago that I will be doing it didn’t occur to me that I would have the opportunity to interact and meet with these different businesses and really understand an inside look on what they do, how they impact people’s lives, right. And a lot of times, it comes from peers, it comes from people who have walked into my life who challenged my perspective or expectations of myself. So sometimes, you know, we often forget, we try to work on the business too much. And we forget that we are also the core drivers of the business. So if we don’t grow, the business doesn’t grow. So and also, of course, as the business grows, we have to grow along with it. So we always have to remember that and how can we constantly elevate our thinking because I think that, you know, people who are more successful than our people. There’s not much difference between them beyond their thinking. There’s really not much difference and also the identity, what they associate themselves with, what they expect on themselves. And, and so I think that actually ceiling, the expectation will, will be good. There’s also a word of caution though, which is that if you are achiever like myself, you can be very hard on yourself as well. So you may put yourself an expectation that you cannot ever fulfil is an unrealistic expectation to expect of any human being to be perfect all the time, or to not make mistakes or, you know, to try to control everything. So exceeding that expectation can also mean removing it and not having expectation at all. So it’s going a little bit into the like, philosophical, my philosophical perspective on the turn the corner. So, yeah, hope that helps.

Tony Winyard 47:41
And if people want to find out more about you, Joel; you mentioned about your website before, if you repeat your website again, what would be the best ways for them to find out more about what you do?

Joel Ong 47:52
Yeah, sure. So my website is www.TapeYourTime.com and on the website you can speak to me further, you can fill up a form apply to if you if you think you need some help or you just need some clarity on how you think that, you can use a video to help you to grow your business. And of course, on another site, which is called www.VideoThatSell.com I have PDF guide of eight different ways you can use videos. So some of the things I mentioned previously in the episode, I’m actually have a guide. And you can use that guide along with what I just explained. To get a clear idea of the context behind why I write the things I write inside. And it comes along with a whole series of video master classes as well. You know, that goes into some of the strategies the five essential videos you know, remember I talked about How you need to start off with the basic videos first, before you go to the advanced ones. So inside the guide and the master classes, I run you through like the five core ones that every business needs, stuff like that, the experience and the story and interpretation, those are also part of the master class. So if you want that then you can head over to that website www.videothatsell.com to get it. And last but not least, I also created a new Facebook and LinkedIn group that will be in the show notes as well. Where you can interact with me more directly and also of course, you know, some of the other cool peers around and people that have interacted with so that you know, you can you can get some more value from them, connect with them, network with them, and also some of my other guests for for my for my podcast as well.

Tony Winyard 49:56
What is your podcast?

Joel Ong 49:58
My podcast is called the Entrepreneurs Tribe podcast. So if you search entrepreneurs tribe podcast, you should will find it on the all 10 of the podcast platforms.

Tony Winyard 50:10
Okay. And just before we finish, Joe will say I know you’ve got a quotation that you quite like.

Joel Ong 50:15
Yeah. Is a quotation is a newfound love for this quotation. So one of the other podcasts if you’re not a fan of reading books, right. One of the other podcasts that was a was a gentleman that I found. This is called the Bruce Lee podcast. So the quote is: “Don’t think, feel” by Bruce Lee. And I first saw this quote from the Bruce Lee podcast is a podcast that is run by his daughter, Shannon Lee, and also her best friend. And it’s a very different kind of podcast because it’s really just the two of them having a conversation as best friends. And they run through, you know, some of the father’s writings and stuff that are that you confined publicly online. So one of these is don’t think and feel and how he applies to customer service, how he applies to expectations and experiences that, you know, when Bruce Lee says, Don’t think he means get off your head. So when he says few, he really means you want to really feel into the situation and sense what’s happening there. So for example, in martial arts, when you’re kicking, you’re kicking a person who is present, you’re not trying to perform the perfect kick that you have practised. So this is something that he said when he was instructing his student to not think, but few. So what I noticed is that oftentimes in in service, when we’re interacting with people, we are not fully present in the situation, because we’re trying to categorise, we’re trying to plan calculate, or should I say, what should I say next? You know, what’s this person trying to trying to do? You know, stuff like that. And again, you’re hit sometimes too often. So we mentally check out and then we don’t resist Stop thinking and getting in our heads, we turn our body into a sensing organism. And this segues, I’m just going to briefly mention into neuroscience and a bit of psychology as well of the unconscious brain. So we have our prefrontal cortex that is our conscious brain that you know we can control is a performs all speaking functions, stuff like that. But you know, like also hot continues to be, how does our digestive system continue to function. These are all controlled by the unconscious, which takes up you know, the majority of the brain, and it’s many times smarter faster than the prefrontal cortex. So when we tap into our emotions of how we feel, it’s interesting because our unconscious doesn’t have a verbal function to it. It doesn’t have a verbal function. So how he communicates to us what he thinks or feels, is two senses is true. Our emotion You know, do we feel goose bumps on our, on our hands? When we sense that something’s not right? When we talk about we have a gut feeling that something’s not right. Or we have a gut feeling that, you know, something good is about to happen is oftentimes our unconscious part of our brains that’s doing all the calculations and telling us, hey, I think this is a good idea. So we should learn to, you know, trust that instinct more. And it comes from the de cartes error, right? In the ultimate period where we kind of hit off from our the rest of our bodies, and we lose touch with our feelings or emotions, to be convinced, like thinking robots, and that that may work but there’s only a limit to your willpower is only a limit to you know how far you can think rationally before you lose it. So, to be able to train the other paths, so that you’re always constantly embodied, where we feel an experience instead of Simply thinking, then, you know, we start to have a better understanding an idea of what experiences

Tony Winyard 54:07
well love it. Fantastic. Well, Joel, it’s been been a pleasure speaking with you. And thank you for sharing your your time and your and your knowledge as well.

Joel Ong 54:15
Thank you very much for inviting me on the show.

Tony Winyard 54:21
Next week is Episode 74. with Susan Bose, she helps companies where they have issues such as lost invoices, overdue payments, clients slipping through the cracks, all these things tend to happen. As businesses are getting bigger and the growth is getting more and more small things start to get quite big. She has a company called Scale Spark, and she gives some quite interesting stories. That’s next week with Susan Bose. Hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s show. Please do share it with someone who would get some benefit from it and why not subscribe and leave a review for us and have a great week.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai