Why Video Builds Trust With Customers and Clients

The phone rang.

Would you like to go to prison? 

( I’ve been into prisons in five countries. Day visits only!) 

I was being assigned to do a story on a corporate motivational/bonding workshop with a difference: it was for hardcore prisoners. 

The workshop itself was surprising in that the inmates were taking it very seriously and opening up and being very touchy-feely. 

It seemed incongruous when a meaty hand with hate and kill home-tattooed across the knuckles would offer some comfort to a teary-eyed hard man confessing this or that to the group. 

Throughout the day we would take an inmate to one side and do short interviews with them. 

We'd start by asking, “what are you in for?” 

The answers came back - Murder …rape …rape… murder… rape …. 

I made a mental note to make sure I payed my parking tickets.

By the second day we were on first name terms with everyone. 

This was the day for the physical bonding exercises that helped build trust in their fellow man. 

The room was awash with positive energy and much goodwill towards us. 

Hmmm. My antennae went up. 

They were in the last moments of a group exercise where one person stands on the edge of a table, closes their eyes and falls backwards to be caught in the arms of those you trust. 

Then it came. 

I knew it. 

“Everyone in the group hasn’t had a turn,” announced the saccharine workshop convener. 

All eyes turned to us and the tattooed and scarred faces softened and beamed an angelic invitation to us.

These guys had been drugged with positive thoughts. 

I tried every excuse in the book – can’t leave the camera unattended, bad cameraman’s back – but they weren’t having any of it. 

Like the condemned walking to the gallows I slowly climbed the chair to the table top, turned my back to the crowd, folded my arms to my chest, closed my eyes and fell into the arms of murderers and rapists.

It's not strange that I trusted them.

I wouldn't have done this on the first morning but by the end of the second day I had one on one time with them. I'd heard them. I had looked them in the eye.

Do your potential customers trust you?

Have you had one on one time with them? Have they heard you? Have you let them look you in the eye?

One of video's superpowers is that it lets you build trust... while you sleep.

If you're not showing up on video you have to ask yourself why?

Send me a PM if you want to talk it through.

#video #trust marketing