How to Position Yourself as a Video Influencer People Will Love

Speak like you are setting across from one of your best friends who trusts you. Because if it feels human, it is good marketing. And we all want that human relationship. And especially more so now that AI's coming out because a lot of people are getting away from that. They're going straight to a script that there's no thought behind it, there's no stories behind it. If I'm telling somebody how to do something and they're like, well, I'm afraid I'm gonna break this, it's like, oh my god. Lemme tell you about the time I broke mine Today. I'm very excited to be joined by Roger Wakefield. If you don't know who Roger is, he is known online as the expert plumber. He took decades of experience owning a plumbing business in Texas and built it into a massive online following across YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. His podcast is The Trade Talks Live. His forthcoming book is Blue Clarity. He's also the founder of Sponsor Kit Pro. Roger, welcome to the show for the first time. Michael, thank you for having me. I am so excited about this. I'm excited about it as well. Roger and I have known each other for years. Uh, today Roger and I are gonna explore how to position yourself as a video influencer that people love and that grows your business. So before we get into that, Roger, I would love to hear your story. How in the world did you get into video? Start wherever you wanna start. Well, I didn't get into video to be famous. I got in to make a difference. I wanted people to see that tradespeople care as much about people as they do about pipes or whatever it is they're working on. And video. Let me tell that story. I walked into your conference in 2018 at the age of 54. So I walk in to learn more about Facebook. 'cause when you're 54 years old, that's what social media is. And at the time, and I look back and I tell people, I literally found out about your conference two weeks beforehand because I had marketing companies that I, I felt like they've been ripping me off for years. And I explain it to people like driving down the road, open your window and throw $47,000 cash out the window and know that when you get to your office, your phones are not gonna be ringing. And that's exactly what it felt like because I had spent that much money and we had it all documented. And literally the last person that we had hired, they made our phone quit ringing. I was at a trades conference and my phone went off and I answered, and it was my CSR and she said, Roger's just gonna let you know, look, the phones aren't ringing. I said, I know. Thank you. I appreciate you turning mine off. 'cause we had it where it would ring to multiple people. And she says, no, the phones at the office are not ringing. Now, I reached out to the marketing company that had done the latest thing for me. And the guy goes to me. He wouldn't answer my calls, texts nothing. So I called one of the guys that had done it before and asked him to please put my old site back up. But I knew then that I needed to do something on my own. I needed to learn how to do social media and doing research. I came across an interview with you on Founder Magazine, Nathan Chan. And I'm watching this podcast while I'm on the treadmill one morning. And it's not like it's a video podcast, it's just the album cover or magazine cover. And you see the little scrollers go by. But I'm watching er and listening to you. And whenever I turn heard you talk about your conference and how people can come in and learn to do social media, I'm literally, I'm just, I'm telling myself this is where I need to be now, a couple of weeks before the conference, there's no cheap tickets. It's, they're, they're not discounted at that point. And I'm like, you know what? I have to be there. So that's exactly what I did. And I'll tell you how broke I was at the time, Michael. I stayed at like, uh, a days in way down the road and did the shared Uber 'cause it's a little bit cheaper. Yeah. And ended up in the car with somebody who's headed to TNC, which was right next door. And then it's funny because one of the first people that I heard speak at your event, they were doing a workshop and it was Pete Vargas and he had ran from TNC 'cause he had just finished on stage over there. And he comes running in over here. And I'm one of these front row learners. I'm, I'm sitting right down front and he looks around and he is like, how long am I talking in here today? It's like, well, I think you've got 90 minutes. So he is like, okay, we're good. And it was fantastic. Well then the next day I was walking down the corridor. I'm looking out over, over San Diego, the ocean, the water and all that to my right. And I looked over to Placard that said something like, get in front of your customers using video. And I know that wasn't exactly it 'cause I've looked it up many times. And I go in and I sat on the front row and you had a speaker named Darrell Leaves. And Darrell walks out and he starts talking for a second. And then he says something that just, it was like, it hit me in the head with a two by four.

And he said, YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. And I literally at, I thought at the time, I said, this guy doesn't know anything. YouTube is just where I store my videos and I shut my notebook and I put my hand on the chair next to me. I'm fixing to raise up. And I look around behind me and people are standing along the back wall. And I looked back up just in time to hear him say, and it's owned by Google, the largest search engine in the world. And I thought, why aren't we sending money to YouTube like we are Google? Little did I know that just a few years later, Google would be sending me money because of what I do on YouTube. And I learned all this real quick. So I had to leave that conference Friday because I had a radio show in Dallas on Saturday morning. And I climb on a plane and there's nobody next to me. So I've got both trade tables folded down and I'm trying to come up with an implementation plan. What do I do? And I had to decide, do I, do I check out Pete Vargas and learn more about speaking? Do I check out Darrell Eves and learn more about YouTube? And by the time Saturday and Sunday were gone, which I was at the office all weekend going through every note that I had. I decided we were gonna start YouTube Monday morning. And what happened? And we started doing research, figuring it out. And that's exactly what we did. One month later we started posting three videos a week on YouTube. And it's been crazy. Fast forward to, where are you now with YouTube? I tell people I own YouTube. I, I literally, anybody in the world can go to YouTube and search the word plumbing and scroll down, look for the mustache. But keep scrolling. Don't just click on that first video. I am almost always the very first channel recommended. And most of the time, like everybody says, look, Google's got 10 listings on the first page. That's where you wanna be. YouTube shows 20 videos. Normally I've got six to 12 of the first 20 videos that are listed. And it's just, it's amazing. I love what I have learned and what I've grown into. Okay. So you flying home from social media marketing world, you're taking lots of copious notes. You decide to go back and you decide to take this YouTube thing very seriously. You're ranking on YouTube. But tell us a little bit of the rest of the story. Like what did it unlock for your business? Um, 'cause obviously you've had a lot, I don't know, I'm guessing millions of views, probably tens of millions of views Right on by this point. Uh, we're a, we're almost at 150 million views. And It's, so what do it do for your business? That's fascinating. I love it. Because, Because Michael, I go to conferences. I go to social media conferences. Every time I walk in sessions about YouTube, I always look up who's speaking? What are they talking about? Most of them have 40 million views, 50 million views. Very seldom do I find anybody with over a hundred million. And we're approaching 150 million views right now. So what did it do for your business? My, my business blew up, which was great. That's what we got into it for. But at the same time, I started blowing up on social media, particularly YouTube, but we had also started doing TikTok and Instagram and, and everything else. My business grew so big that my wife at the time was running it. My CSR was helping her manage it. I had a good service manager and I kept focusing on social media and we just kept growing. And it got to the point I had to make a decision, do I want to get more into the plumbing company and help it grow? Or do I want to get bigger on social media and keep doing what I'm doing? And I realized that on social media, I was able to help so many more people. And to me, at the end of the day, that's what a good residential service company does. You learn to take care of the people. And if you do that, everything else is gonna come along naturally. But it helped me grow that business, scaled that business, and then eventually sold that business. And, and believe it or not, I sold that business three times. So it wasn't too bad. Awesome. And you've gone on to, um, speak at different trade organizations representing trades people, right? I mean, this is what's cool about your story is this is an extremely niche. I mean, everybody needs plumbers and everybody needs plumbing. But this is a very niche category. Um, and like what kind of other doors have, has it opened for you in the last year or so? Oh, well, I've been on Dr. Phil, I've been on the Today Show. I've been on, uh, what is it, news Nation with Chris Cuomo. I get, and, and this is me getting invited. I mean, literally, I remember getting an email one day that says, Hey, love to see if you'd like to be on the Dr. Phil show. And I'm like, yeah, yeah.

And you look at the email address, it's like, wait, this is real. So you reply back, it's like, well, what do y'all want me on the Dr. Phil show? For us? It's like, well, we have an attorney and some talkers that say, don't get into the trades. It's not a good decision. Hmm. And I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm all over that. So it was, it, it was, it was a great show to be on. It was great to meet Dr. Phil and his wife. But the neat thing about it is, I've had so many people recognize me from being on Dr. Phil or being on YouTube, that it, it's kinda wild. Very cool. Okay. So for anybody who is listening right now, um, maybe they're a business owner like yourself, or maybe they are, um, uh, you know, they've got something that they're an expert in, you know, like they're influential in their, in their practice or their trade, but they have not gone to the point where they, um, want to or, or maybe felt like they could, um, create video. Um, what's the upside? Like, let's now speak to anyone listening right now, because obviously they have a choice. Just like you have a choice, they're probably exploring all sorts of options. Just like you were when you were at Social Media Marketing world. Do I do this? Do I do that? You know, do I do Facebook ads? Do I, do I start my own video content? Like what, what's the big upside, um, to creating online video? Well, look, marketing isn't about selling. It's about serving. And there's no better way to show your heart your value and your purpose than with video. I talk all the time about people raising their children. You wouldn't take your child and just give it to somebody and say, here, raise it. I'll come back when you're done. Instead, take that into your own hands. Okay? Take your business I was literally giving my business to marketing companies hoping they're gonna do the right thing and not knowing enough about it to know if they really are. I talk a lot about no, like, and trust. And, and that's a big phrase in it. And it's always isn't. Every speaker uses it, but I see it different. It's no love, trust, and connected to. And what YouTube does is YouTube connects you with people. I've had people come up to me at trades conferences, at social media conferences, at entrepreneurship conferences. I speak at all kinds of different conferences, but I have people come up to me and they don't just come up and say, oh, hi, you're Roger. They come up and hug you. They're like, oh my God, I love you. And it's like, well, what do you mean? It's like, man, I watch your videos. You, you helped me do this. And if we look at video as an introduction to people, after people watched three or four year videos, four or five or 10 or 20, they're connected to you. They know you. It's just like watching a TV show. You build relationships with these characters. But the great thing about social media and social media video is we have the ability to communicate with those people. When people come in and leave comments in your videos, you go back to them. And one thing you don't do is you don't just say, oh, gee, thank you. I'm glad you like my video. Keep the conversation open. If they tell you they love your video, say, oh my gosh, thank you so much. I had so much fun making this. What was your favorite part about this video? Now you're engaging with them and now you're having a conversation. A lot of people that wanna make videos treat it like tv. I'm just gonna make a show and people can watch it. We have the ability to connect with these people and build relationships. And to me, that's what video has done. And using it through social media, it really does. It lets you connect to a whole new group of people. And, and to me, it's just been phenomenal. Awesome. Uh, love that. Okay, so we're gonna dig into some of the practical tactical stuff now, because I'm sure there's plenty of people that are interested in possibly doing what you've done. Um, let's explore the kinds of video you create, because you've been doing this for a while now. How many videos do you feel like you've done just on YouTube alone? Hundreds, obviously, right? 2000. 2000, okay. Yes, ma'am. So you've done a lot. I have. So, um, let's talk about the different kinds of video, um, that you create so that we can kind of give people like, um, an understanding in their mind of the possibilities. Okay. The great thing is, is every video I make is built to serve how tos to solve problems, reviews, to guide decisions, business tips to help people grow. But they all come from one place. Authenticity and caring. I love people. I love helping people. And when I'm making videos like that, I always think of

who is this video for? Is it for the plumber? homeowner? Is it for the di wire? We create content for our audience, not for us. And when I learned about that, know who your audience is. Know the psychographic of your audience. Learn to get in and communicate with them. And when I'm doing something, say I'm teaching somebody this laughter, I look up and say, Hey, if you're a plumber and you do this different than me, do me a favor. Leave me a comment down here below and let me know what you think you do different. That may be better for somebody to help them learn a completely different way. And in the beginning it was great because I knew that I wanted to serve customers and I thought of 'em as plumbing customers. So I started out making videos for homeowners. They watch, they learn, but then they leave. Now most homeowners aren't gonna subscribe to a channel where they just got on to watch a video to learn how to fix. They're plumbing. And don't get me wrong, that's probably where the majority of my views come from. And we got very good in the beginning. One of my first YouTube coaches was Jeremy Vest, and he taught me about virality. How do you make videos that man, it's, it's gonna explode. People are gonna watch 'em. You have fun doing it, you do crazy stuff. And that was great. But I noticed Jeremy we're not growing that much. And we started looking at it and we realized that if we would make more evergreen content, that was the game changer. And now we do a little bit of both. In the beginning, I made my videos to help homeowners fix their plumbing. One of the first videos that we did is how to fix a running toilet guaranteed. And I've got on an orange shirt, I've got on my green gloves, and I'm standing next to a toilet where we've cut the back out of the tank. And it was wonderful. But Will came in and, and you've met Will before my stepson, he was my first videographer. He came into the studio or came into my office that, that day that we had posted it, we shot it that morning. And he walked in and he said, look, I gotta tell you, he said this video was not good. I said, oh no, why not? He said, well, he said, Roger, you just, you just got in there and you went through step by step how to fix the problem no matter which problem it is. And I said, okay. I said, well, I got a question. Do we have any other videos shot that we could post? Instead of that? He said, no, we, we didn't have any. That's why we had to shoot this one this morning, but it's already up. And I'm like, okay, look, let's make sure now that we've always got extra video shot and let's always have videos in the vault. And if you, you ever think we do a bad video like this again, let's don't post it. And he said, okay, Michael, that was about seven years ago. That video's probably at about five and a half million views. It's my number one watch video. So what is it about that video that he didn't think was good? But in hindsight, you realize is very good. It, it's, it's what I did. I went step by step how to fix it, turn off the water, disconnect this, drain this down. And I didn't stop and tell a lot of stories. Mm. But what makes it work is think about this, Michael. If you've got a toilet running, you don't want to hear my stories, right? You want to hear step by step, how do I fix it? Right? We used to have a saying that all our videos would be eight or 10 minutes long, uh, depending on when they changed the midroll ads. This one was like 10 or 15 seconds under eight minutes. And he said, I don't have anything else to put in there. I'm like, will, you're fine. Just put it up. It being the most popular video, I wish it had been over eight minutes, but it is direct and to the point. And I've had people jump in and say, oh my gosh, you told me how to fix my toilet. You just saved me, you know, $300, $500, what? Whatever the plumber was gonna charge 'em. And we started out with content like that and it was great. But now we're teaching content for tradespeople. But also I tied into the homeowners and DIYers when I talk like tools or product knowledge or something like that. And the reason being is the plumbers and a lot of tradespeople will subscribe to the channel. They'll leave comments, they'll like the videos, the DIYers and homeowners, they're still, Hey, just show me how to do this. Which is fine. So now in the beginning of the video, I explained to the plumbers, look, this video's for you. But oh, by the way, if you're a DIYer or a homeowner, this is why you should pay particular attention to this part because this may be something that you don't even know. So now we've got multiple buckets where we literally, we know who we're making videos for. We know what the purpose of the video is for. Is it to get people to subscribe? comment?

And is it to get people to share? A lot of times we'll say, look, if you know somebody you're, that's thinking about getting into the trades, please share this video with them. It could change their future. But we do real plumber reacts, which is amazing. That is one. I think we could probably make a video like that every week and it would do really, really good because there's a lot of crazy things out there that people are doing. And the more that I do videos like that, the more fun I have. Explain what that, explain what that is for people that don't know what that means. Well Say that you fixed a toilet and you videoed yourself. You're like, look man, I fixed this toilet by myself and I watched a video. I'm like, yeah, but Michael, you installed it backwards. The front of the toilet's not supposed to be facing the wall. Oh, So you're taking someone else's video and then you're commenting over the top of it. Yes, indeed. Huh. So how does that Work? It works out great. I mean, you see so many people that make mistakes doing plumbing, but then there's a lot of really good people out there doing things. And I'll, I'll review their channels too. Hmm. Uh, there's a guy outta Canada, he's got almost 4 million subscribers. And he made a video about, look, plumbers don't want me to tell you this, but I'm gonna show you how to install a toilet. And I went through and watched it and I said, I'd have done this different and this different, but man, Jeff did a great job and he did it right. And at the end of the day, that's what it's all about. So the real plumber reacts. That's what people, anybody loves seeing that. 'cause they're like, okay, somebody's gonna do something stupid and this guy's gonna laugh and this is gonna be funny Else. Okay. So, so real quick, lemme just summarize. 'cause you've covered a lot of, you've got covered a lot of ground here. Um, first of all, you definitely do these how to videos where it's very structured. Here's how to do this thing, right? And then you also do reviews, uh, which I believe you mentioned, right? Where you'll take a product and you'll explain, it may be up against another product. For example, PEX versus Copper. Yep. Uh, piping, which is something I recently saw on your channel. Product, Product reviews are great 'cause we talk cheapest versus most expensive. Or, Hey, I bought the cheapest tool on TikTok. Right. And then you've also got, um, reaction videos, which you just talked about. Yeah. Which is like, here's a video, here's me playing a portion of it and reacting to it. And then you also mentioned business tips. I'm assuming that's for, um, tradespeople. Is that right? Because you, did I hear you say that right or no? I, I Wanna say yes, I make the video for tradespeople, but whenever I read my comments and I'll have a chiropractor saying, oh my gosh, I love this video. You helped me so much. I'm like, what'd you do? Did you fix something? He say, oh, no, but I take out the word plumber and put in a chiropractor and you make me think about running a better business. I See. So you talk about the craft of just running a business. Absolutely. But you tell it through the lens that of the plumbing lens, right? Is that of a plumber? Yeah. So, um, okay. Uh, how do you decide how to mix all these together? Like, do you have like a, you said you publish, how many videos are you publishing a week now? Uh, right now we're doing two long form videos. We'll cut shorts out of those. Or sometimes I'll just come in and we'll shoot a bunch of shorts. Do you have a formula as far as like the every week you're gonna do, like one how to and one reaction, or does it vary or how does that, how does it work for You? We've got a 13 week formula with 26 different videos, and we, we have spent a lot of time building it out and putting it together. And it's good because in the last probably, I'm gonna say six months, our video views have gone to about one and a half million a month to two month. That's crazy. Now, how do you decide, you know, a lot of people listening, especially in evergreen industry, like plumbing, um, a lot of people are like, you're gonna run out of topics, but you don't, so you have any tips on how you decide to come up with new things to talk about? Absolutely. Well, first of all, AI rocks for this because you can get in, you can talk to Google, chat, you can talk to a closed AI if you don't want anybody to know what you're talking about. But the great thing is we know our buckets. And anytime that we look at our buckets, we look at where are we at, what is it that we, we've done that we've done well, we, we don't just look at our buckets, but we go in, we analyze and we adjust. Every 13 weeks, we'll pull this formula up again and we'll start plugging and playing. So we know if we're doing, you know, cheap versus expensive, good versus bad, I bought the most expensive toilet on Amazon, whatever it is, we look at 'em, we look at how they do well, then during the next 13 weeks, it may be, okay, what if I bought the cheapest toilet on Amazon? We bought an Amazon recommended kitchen faucet the other day. I think we paid $49 for it. And I installed it in my kitchen here in my office. And it's not a bad faucet. Me as a professional plumber, it felt a little light. There's not enough brass in it, too much plastic. But for $49, it's a very good kitchen faucet.

So I'm like, Hey guys, at the end of the day, I couldn't find anything wrong with this. But if that video would've tanked, would've been like, okay, what could we do instead of this? Maybe it's not buying the cheapest one. Maybe it's buying the most expensive one. There's all kinds of different ideas that can come from ai. And I mean, think about it, Michael, you, you know more about AI than most anybody. You can tell ai, this is the formula we want. This is, these are the buckets that we use and here's the videos that we did this 13 weeks, which would be 26 videos. Give me videos for the next 13 weeks. This video did good. This one did bad, this one did good, this one did great. And whatever it is, you can plug that in. Use AI to communicate with. I don't like AI to, to write every single word that I say. A lot of times I'll have it script something out, then I'll go and tweak it, modify it, add to it. But what I like about AI is AI can say, well, look, there was another video made by another person and it was really good, but they didn't mention this point, and this point. And if you did that, that could be amazing. Awesome. Okay. Now I wanna talk about the actual craft of recording video. For those that are not watching this, Roger is in kind of what looks like a studio that he built. Mm-hmm. He's got a big display behind him. He's got a couple of footballs and he's got his, uh, a hundred thousand, uh, YouTube plaque behind him. And he is got what looks like, um, almost like a radio setup. He's got a big microphone coming up and he's standing. So, um, Roger, I would imagine in the beginning, I know for a fact, in the beginning it was completely different. So, uh, what I, I remember you had like a vinyl thing behind you that just had the name of your business, right? Yes, sir. So just give us some tips on actually creating a video that is engaging for people to watch. Because you can know your stuff, but it doesn't mean people are gonna watch it, right? Mm-hmm. And you, you worded it right? You can know everything about what you do. I could be the greatest plumber in the world, but if I didn't communicate well, if I didn't do certain things. And, and there's three big things that, that I love to teach people about. And if anybody's listening right now or watching right now, they're like, you know what? I wish I could make video, but I can't. Guys remember, I'm Roger Wakefield, I'm just a plumber and I learned how to do this. And one thing that I talk about a lot is you can learn your way up out of any situation. If your business isn't going good, learn social media. You can make your business do good. But the three big tips, Michael, that I love to talk to people about are, number one, always look at the camera. If you look dead center of the camera, it's like you're looking someone in their eye when you're talking to 'em. Mm-hmm. And I said someone, because to be honest, you're only talking to one person. These people that get up in here and say, oh, y'all, everybody can use this. Somebody's gonna be like, man, I'm not a tech person. He doesn't know me. I can't use that. You're giving them a way out. So look dead center of the camera lens, when somebody's watching you, you're looking them right in the eye. It's like you're there talking to them. Say the word you. Because if I say, look, you can do this. You're like, wow, maybe I can, he's just a plumber. If he can do it, I can do it. And then the last one is, talk to people like they're your best friend. The one, one of the my favorite comments that I get so often is, Roger, you taught me how to do this and you didn't make me feel stupid. And it's really funny because I shot a podcast earlier and I had a young man come in that worked with me 22 years ago, 20 years ago when he was a third year apprentice. He'd have been 21 years ago now. And I made him a foreman as an as a third year apprentice. Now an apprentice is a helper. He's not a licensed plumber, he's learning to be one. But he was good with people and he was a go-getter. He was a perfectionist. He wanted to get things done right. And I got to interview him while ago and, and he says, Roger, he said, when I was young, you took time to educate me, took time to talk to me, and you made it personable. You let me know that you care. And he said, there's a lot of other superintendents I work for that they just wanna scream at you, yell at you on all this. He said, but you literally took the time to teach, to communicate, to show me how, What was that guy's name? First name? Andrew. Okay. So what I'm hearing you say is we all need

to find our Andrew and act like we're talking to Andrew when we're talking to the camera. Is that kind of what I'm hearing you say? That's a great way to look at it. I, I literally, when I bring people in to do in the studio here, and we're shooting a video, I've got a little Mario up on top of my camera, Like Super Mario guy. You bet. It's a little bitty Mario attached to the very top of the lens. And I always tell 'em, guys, remember, look up there and we're talking to Mario. Ah, Okay. See you. And I mean, Michael, when everybody was locked down at home, I'm watching these news people on tv and of course that they've got the camera this way. And instead of looking at the lens, they're looking at themselves. Right. So imagine the whole time that I'm talking to you, I'm looking over here like this. Yeah. Eventually it's like, and, and I, I do this to people in person and Folks, it's hard. Okay. Because like, it's, it's hard, especially if you have notes because you're gonna, you know, they're generally not gonna be right where the lens is. Like, uh, if you're watching, when I read these openings, I'm looking at, at something that's a couple inches below the lens. But you get to a point where Roger, he does have notes, but they're down on his desk, he trusts himself, he's looking at the camera, right? I mean, you just have to, at a certain point just trust yourself and go for it. Right. You've got to be able to do that. And me, I don't, like I said, I don't always like a full script about, the only time I'll do certain scripting is if, if I'm doing a sponsored video and they're like, Roger, you have to say this word for word like this or else we're gonna get in trouble. Compliance says you have to. Okay, I'm good with that. I can put it in a teleprompter. I can memorize the notes. It depends on how long it's, but it's like, okay, we can make that work. I wanna make sure I give them exactly what they want. Okay. What about stories? Because sometimes, I don't know if you use stories in your videos as much as in the interview, 'cause we have a lot longer or runway here. Do you use stories in your interview if you do any tips on like where to use them and how to use them? You always wanna tell stories that are relevant. Okay. And how does that story tie to what you're trying to teach or do? Right. So when I look at this, number one, I don't think camera, I think conversation. Mm-hmm. Speak like you are setting across from one of your best friends who trusts you. Because if it feels human, it is good marketing and we all want that human relationship. And especially more so now that AI's coming out because a lot of people are getting away from that. They're going straight to a script that there's no thought behind it. There's no stories behind it. If I'm telling somebody how to do something and they're like, well, I'm afraid I'm gonna break this, it's like, oh my god, lemme tell you about the time I broke mine. Uh, you know, I was working on a hospital and we're in a hurry. And man, I grabbed my wrench and I'm like, I'm gonna hurry up, get up and get this last one done. And then you hear that pop, it's like, oh no, I just broke a $300 toilet. And then they look at you and it's like, but that's okay. I'm gonna teach you how it feels and teach you how not to overtighten it. And when you can talk to people like that, when you can tell those stories, it works because numbers, people don't connect with those. You can tell numbers and, and you're gonna bore people to death. When you go take your kids in at night, do you sit down and tell 'em, you know, these are the numbers of all of profit and losses that we had today. And boom, they're gonna fall asleep quick because they're gonna be bored to tears. But you tell 'em stories because you want it to be something that they can relate to, that they can learn from. And when I tell stories about me making mistakes, people love it because they're like, dude, you're the expert plumber. It's like, wait, you think I hadn't broke a whole lot of stuff? It happens. How long are your video? Are your video still in that eight to 10 minute mark or are they variable? Like what's just, I'm just curious the length, because I'm thinking structurally, like I would imagine you've got it down to a mad science and you probably don't even need to go in with a story. But if it happens organically, you in inject them is what I'm guessing. Right? Stories are something that they're straight from the heart. Yeah. I, I don't, I would never let AI make up stories for me to tell. Right. 'cause I'd be like, Ooh, that doesn't even sound like me. But how long are you talking for typically on your videos? Eight minutes. I try to go at eight minute minimum. The reason being, that's where midroll ads kick in now so you can make more money. And guys, at the end of the day, we've all gotta make money in order to do what we do. And look, I think YouTube is phenomenal. It used to be 10 minutes. So used to, we'd make 10 minute videos. And I heard a speaker one time say, your video needs to be as long as it needs to be to tell the point you're trying to tell. No longer Are you, are you finding that you are, uh, editing them down to eight minutes or you actually got 'em to the point where you don't need

to do very much editing because I'm, you know, some people end up doing retakes and all that kind of fun stuff. Just curious how that works for you. Uh, They call me a one hit wonder. Okay. I don't, I don't do retakes. I'm like, here we go. Has it always been that way? You know, it, it really has because I it's Probably from your radio experience, right? It's from my Heart. Yeah. I mean it is, I'm talking about stuff I know. Yeah. If, if I'm doing a video, sometimes I'll go in and put bullet points in. Okay. That where I can just say, okay, you know, first I need to talk about mounting the tank to the bowl. Now bowl on the floor. seat on the floor and then hooking up the water line. And that may be it four bullet points. Okay guys, here we go. And I can just start talking. I've probably set 10,000 toilets in 45 years. Do you have a short little bullet list of things that you know you're gonna address in that eight minutes? Or do you have it all in your brain? I'm just curious. Most of the time it's in my brain, but I do like the bullet points. That way I don't forget anything. Yeah. Remember I told you sometimes chat GPT will tell me, Hey, this video was made by someone else, but they didn't mention this point, this point. Yeah. I'm like, Hmm, I wanna make sure I mention everything. I've, I've never been more upset than when I've got home at night and all of a sudden I'm like, oh my gosh, I didn't mention that in this video today. And that breaks my heart 'cause I'm not going in and reshooting it or anything. But I'm like, okay, next time I've gotta remember to do that. How do you, how do you do that? Do you, do you literally tape it up to the camera so you got that bullet list in front of you? Or do you have a little monitor? Or do you just look at it before you hit record? Uh, I may have a teleprompter in front of me that I can just, you know, press the button. Okay. And it'll go from one point to the next. But, but I'll do that because if there's a particular That's Smart story. That's smart. That way you keep your eyes on the camera too, right? Absolutely. Love it. Okay. Um, short form. So you started as a long form guy. Mm-hmm. Um, obviously before that you had a radio show, so you were really long form you understand how to talk. Um, you, you made a lot of YouTube videos that were like in that 10 to 12 minute mark. Yep. And now you're tightening 'em down a little bit because you can into that eight minute markish so that you can insert the midroll. And just so everybody understands, a midroll is when an ad is dynamically inserted in the middle of the video and the creator gets paid, uh, whether they want to or not. Uh, for all the ads that happen at the beginning and the middle of the video. Uh, and I think after the video too, I'm not a hundred percent sure. Do you know if it's after the video as well? There's both. They employ 'em in everywhere. Yeah. So now let's talk about short, uh, video, because you've already mentioned that you're on TikTok and Instagram. I would imagine you're creating YouTube shorts. Um, it's pretty obvious to me you're creating long form content. So what are you doing on the short side of things? Well, shorts are like emotional snapshots. They don't need to say everything. Just something that connects Think less, pitch more purpose. Now believe it or not, what I just said there to you, that's a soundbite and you learn to answer questions in sound bites. 'cause now that gives people great content that could be cut into a short, that could say, Hey, if you like this, go listen to the whole video. Now, I love starting with the long form content because that lets me think about who I wanna make this video for. What is the purpose of this video? How long is it gonna be? When is it gonna be posted? A lot of people don't even think about that. I've seen plumbers release video at the beginning of summer that's like, hey, if you've got a frozen pipe, here's how you fix it. And it's like, dude, that's a few months off or a few months behind. I don't know which way you're looking, but I always think about what is going on and how to do it. So we will start with the long form. Now if I, if I am making bullet points for something, I could go through and say, okay, what would be a good soundbite to talk about a frozen pipe? And if it's the beginning of the winter, it's like, Hey guys, wintertime's coming. You know, pipes are gonna freeze. You know, water's gonna cause damage. Don't let it happen to you. If you don't want it to happen to you. Make sure you watch this video to see how to avoid it. Is that, that's literally the entire short form video. That's it. That would be it. Wow. Okay. So are it's, it's Just mental awareness. So let me ask you this. Are, you have thousands of videos. So is your team going back through the old videos and pulling little stuff from it? Or are they just doing it in production when, like, let's say this week you recorded some videos, two videos or whatever. Right. Are are, is your team like actively thinking, all right, I'm gonna try to grab a couple of, um, shorts outta this thing? Or how does that work? Yeah, yeah. My, my team was at Social Media Marketing World one year. This ever heard of Opus Clip? Oh, yep. But that, but that's the best way to do it. 'cause they tell every, Tell everybody what it is for those that don't know. Okay. Opus Clip is, is a software, it's an app that literally can go watch every video you've ever made

and it'll pull shorts out of 'em and say, here, here, here. Do you still have to tweak it and modify it? Yeah, I've, I've had videographers that they just run open clips and opus clip and they post shorts. It's like, dude, that made no sense. Did you go back and listen to it? They're like, uh, yeah. It's like, no, you didn't, but start with the long form. You can pull shorts from it. Opus Clip is, is a great software. And, and look, I don't do anything with them other than use them. Yeah. But Well they've been a sponsor of our event too, so. Oh, absolutely. No, they're, they're phenomenal. Yeah. Uh, I, I think that's where I actually first met 'em. But that's a great thing to do. And if you do bullet point stuff, always think of soundbites. What is a good soundbite that you could put right there? Because the soundbite to me, Michael, is also like a rehook. If you go through and you know, Hey, I'm gonna go from here and I'm gonna go to here. And you think, what is a soundbite that I could put at this point? It's gonna make people think, oh, I need to watch this part. 'cause if you get 'em to watch that part, and then that next soundbite gets 'em to watch the next part, now your a VD, your average view duration goes up and you're getting people to watch a bigger percentage of your video. And to be honest, that's part of the YouTube algorithm that they look at to say, Hey, we need to send more people to Roger because people watch over half of his video. And that's a beautiful thing. Now, when you get to a point where you are the largest or one of the largest, and I'm speaking generically for anyone who's listening in your niche, in your industry, I would imagine a lot of opportunities come your way and you start rethinking some of your business models, right? Because like in the beginning, you were advertising your, um, I mean, I'm sure your, your plumbing business had the banner behind you in Texas. And it was at a certain point you realized, okay, this is reaching way beyond Texas. So now what's happened that has allowed you to evolve your business models? Have you had businesses come to you that make some of this stuff and say, Hey, we'd like to enter into a partnership with you. Has that kind of stuff happened? You know, Michael, I, I love sponsorships now in the beginning, and, and I, I've told you this before, I didn't know everything. Matter of fact, I didn't know much. We were, we made videos and I, and I tell people, you don't have to have a lot of fancy equipment to start. I literally started with my iPhone at the time. I started with iPads. I started with a laptop and I remember some of my first videos. I'd be sitting in my office and I'd back up away from my laptop because that was the camera I was using. And I'm yelling at it because I'm far enough away. I know that I'm not close enough to just talk to it. And I didn't even know what a call to action was. I didn't know, Hey man, I'm just trying to help people fix their plumbing. But what I had done is I had a banner made and stuck on the wall right behind me that had my website, that had my phone number, that had things like that. It had the name of my company. 'cause I didn't even say, Hey, call Texas Green Plumbing. I just sat there and taught people how to fix their plumbing problems or explained to 'em what plumbing in their house really consisted of. And we started doing that and we were doing it three times a week from the very beginning. And the neat thing about it is now I try to tell everybody, look, know what the purpose of this video's for, what are you trying to get people to do and where them to go because you are conversing with people and having a great relationship start right there. Because when people sit and listen to you, people take you on a jog. People take you to the weight room with them. People take you on a drive with them. Michael, I was on a ride with, with you and Nathan Chan on my treadmill and I listened and learned from y'all. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. But video list, people feel like they know me before we ever shake hands. It builds relationships at scale and in the trades. That kind of trust is everything. And when people come in and watch you do stuff and they, they're like, oh my gosh, he taught me how to fix this, but I can't do it. Well guess what? If I'm in their area, they're gonna call me. But the neat thing is when I started, I knew nothing about CTAs call to actions. And this helped my domain authority. And what I mean by that is people would see me and hear me and they'd hear me talk about Texas Green Plumbing sometimes. Or they'd see the banner over my shoulder and they'd go to my domain. Well, I was a $1 million a year company competing against 80 and $90 million a year companies. And I was getting ranked higher than them on Google because our domain authority went through the roof.

'cause people started looking us up and it was amazing. Awesome. Roger. Um, I know there's gonna be people that wanna connect with you online. First of all, where do they find their, your, their, the YouTube channel for you? And then if they want to, I know you've got a couple things that you wanted to mention, so feel free to mention, uh, whatever you've got going on. Really, The only thing is if, if you wanna find me, it's roger wakefield. com. me on YouTube, do, like I said, just go to YouTube and search plumbing and scroll down till you see the big silver mustache. But the, the neatest thing that I think that I'm working on is every time I go to conferences, whether it's social media trades, whatever it is, people ask me, how do I make so much money? And it's through sponsorships. So what I've done is I've taken the way that I, I got sponsorships myself and Michael, it blew Owen Video's mind because I took a formula he had and when I went back to Social Media Marketing World the next year we were talking and he says, so how's it going? I said, good. I said, I'm working on my first sponsorship. He said, yeah, let me hear about it. Michael. At the time I had 10,000 subscribers and I'm talking to one of the biggest plumbing supply companies in the United States and I was asking for $720,000 a year. Now we didn't settle on that, but we settled on 400,000 and that was after I had about 40,000 subscribers. And I kept telling 'em if it ever hits the 50 we're the number's going up. I love that. But, But imagine that I've got 10,000 subscribers and I'm asking for $750,000 a year. I made software to do everything that I'm telling you about. It does research on the influencers, then it finds companies that would be good to work for them or work with them. It creates a pitch deck. It finds out who at that company to send it to, writes three emails for you and helps you make money. And you can find out about it@sponsorkit. pro. And I love it. It's been really fun. I got a chance to see it when I was in Texas, uh, having some really nice barbecue with you, uh, recently. Okay. Wait, Wait, wait. We didn't have barbecue that time. We had chicken. You had chicken but it wasn't barbecued. You had smoked. Oh, okay. Ah, okay. Leslie had fried. Okay. No, Leslie did like me the chicken fried steak. Yeah. But then the owner sauce and brought out fried chicken. Remember that? That's Right. Well I call it a barbecue. I don't know what else to, it was good. Let's just put it that way. Was oh my gosh. It was really Good. And the class were amazing. I don't even know what the name, what's the name of the place? Babes Babe's Chicken House. Okay. Babe's Chicken House in Antioch, Texas. I believe you know, You were in Roanoke. Oh, Roanoke, okay. They're In Roanoke. They're in Garland. They're in Carrollton. Yeah. I don't even know what the name of the city was 'cause it was like, IIII obviously didn't know, but it was really good. Well, folks, um, first of all, Roger, thank you for coming on the show. Um, thank you for, um, really just publicly, um, doing something. You know, there's so many people that come to our conference and so few people who actually like actually put it to work and, and get great results out of it. And it's just been a joy to see the journey that you've been on and see you at all these other events. And it's just really exciting to see where you're going. And folks, you know, Roger is now no longer in his fifties. Okay, so this is the thing. You gotta understand, you're not too late, right? What do you wanna say to those folks? I mean, you nailed it, but you know, first of all, go back and, and I wanna thank you because, and I've told you this before, but Michael, what you put together changes people's lives. And I think that that's where I got the idea that you can learn your way up out of anything. I walked in social media marketing world as a plumber, just a plumber. I'm trying to grow my business and I'm trying to do everything I can to grow it because I realize the marketing companies I'm hiring aren't doing the things the right way. But what you've put together, you introduce people like me, a plumber to people like Darrell or Pete or Jeremy or somebody to where it's like I can learn from you. And just walking into your conference and seeing what is possible completely changed my life. So my things go out to you, number one, thank you for having me here, but thank you for what you do. I have been at every social media marketing world since then because I come learn and I have people on stages and people in the audience say, Roger, you could have taught this session. It's like, I know. And they're like, so why do you come and why do you sit on the front row still? Because if I can learn one thing to make me better, it was worth it. And you keep putting people like that on your stages. So thank you. Thank Phil, thank the entire social media marketing world team. Jen, I love you. Y'all are amazing. So thank you. And all your staff, you put together the greatest event.

Thank you Roger Wakefield everybody check out sponsor Kit Pro and uh, hopefully we'll see you all at Social Media Marketing World. I'll be there.