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Made It In Thailand offers a firsthand look at the trials and triumphs of entrepreneurs and business leaders in Thailand. Learn what it takes to succeed in the dynamic Thai market, from overcoming cultural barriers to seizing exciting opportunities in the land of smiles.
Brought to you by Fractiond, a business consultancy for SMEs in Thailand.
Visit: fractiond.io
I do a workshop or a talk, where
I'll have different speakers come
in and people are like, oh, how much
business did you get from the event?
I said, absolutely none.
And they're like, oh, that's too bad.
I was like, nope, that was the plan.
And that comes down to
like calm marketing, right?
We've already figured out
why we do events, the cadence
in which we do those events.
And so it allows me to relax
if I don't get any clients.
It's a part of our overall
marketing strategy because
of everything else it brings.
It creates this opportunity to
network with people that maybe you
would not have networked before.
Alright.
So, I'm here today with Jake Mooney.
I'd love if you could just start
off by telling us who you are and
what you're doing here in Thailand.
Sure.
Thanks for having me on, Scott.
I've been in Thailand six years, I
run a marketing agency here, a small
marketing agency based in Chiang
Mai, but we also have remote team
members kind of all over the world.
We've been around a few years.
We kind of grew during the pandemic
and so we mostly help small to medium
sized multinational businesses extend
their marketing teams, help them
with their marketing strategy, and
we also do a lot of remote video
editing, quite bespoke video editing.
Very cool.
And again, video, we'll definitely be
touching on that a lot in the discussion
today because I've seen you everywhere.
And that's the reason that we got
connected was because you're so active
on LinkedIn with video, and I think
at one point I said, oh yeah, Jake, I
really agree with this point on LinkedIn.
And I think then you
said, oh, hey, let's, uh.
Let's meet up, and I think that's
just so cool how much video and
social when done right, really does
inspire these kind of connections.
it does.
And that's the marketing strategy at
work because for a few years we, we were
doing this kind of stuff for our clients.
And doing it well.
Right?
But you can't grow if other
people don't know you exist.
And so eventually me and the team sat
down, we're like, okay, the marketing
agency needs to get a marketing strategy.
So this connection and,
you know, us chatting now.
Basically comes from us enacting our own
advice we give to our clients of kind of
calm, sustainable, reasonable marketing
activities that just kind of build up
over time and are things that you can keep
doing without, you know, losing your head.
Losing your mind is the intention.
Absolutely.
The reason I reached out and
connected with you originally,
Jake, is because I trusted you,
And I think it's really important
that the people that you work with or
just that you meet, it's like people
that have similar values and people
that you can trust And so I wanna
get to know you a little bit better.
I want the audience to get to
know you a little bit better.
Um, so you had mentioned that
you're based in Chiang Mai.
So what made you decide on Chiang Mai?
Long story short, my, my wife
is an American citizen, born
and raised in Chiang Mai.
So we got married.
I took a job in Poland for several
years, running a marketing team
there for a manufacturing company.
And our kids were going to school there.
And yeah, I mean, we
always loved Chiang Mai.
We're always like, oh, that'd
be cool if we could, you
know, move there, live there.
But, you know, it wasn't practical.
Bit by bit.
Um, I kept pushing the company
that I was working for.
Hey, I mean, I'm already part-time
running the Asia marketing where,
and there's no one out there.
And I'm traveling to Asia and
supporting our dealers there.
Eventually you should just move me there.
'cause you know, we have family
who's still here in the region.
And I like it.
And eventually they
said, okay let's do it.
So we were about to move
here, had three kids.
This is 2019, so right before the
pandemic started, and, they asked me
to resign a few weeks before we moved.
So I came to Chiang Mai because we
were like, okay, well this is where
we've been heading for a long time.
We've been planning on coming here for a
long time, so we'll come to Chiang Mai.
W and and I had no backup plan.
There was no plan, no network.
My LinkedIn hadn't been updated.
I took a job with a local nonprofit at
Dutch, Thai NGO Philanthropy connections,
uh, which is a great local NGO.
And I worked for them
for close to three years.
And during the pandemic my
wife got her Thai citizenship.
And at that point we
had enough remote work.
Uh, that I had collected to start
our own business here in Thailand.
Wow.
That's incredible.
and you've made it, and
despite a very hard start.
'cause to your point, I can only imagine
with the plans of coming to Thailand,
You got that rug yanked out from
under you and you still made it work.
You didn't give up at that stage.
Well, I would say to people who are
interested coming and setting up a
business or exploring a life in Thailand
if you want to come and work or even
build an online business or something
like that, try to actually have that
online business working before you come.
Right.
Have some remote work and come on
the DTV visa or something like that.
I don't recommend doing what I did, which
was come and nothing, you know, like
you just have to build it from scratch.
We were able to be very, very
frugal, uh, rent very cheaply.
Um, and, um, it gave us a longer
runway to try to build that business.
But I mean, three years in, at the
three year mark, I, that's when things
started to kind of, get some momentum.
It was only in year, let's say the last
year and a half or so that me and the
team have made a concentrated effort to
then market ourselves more aggressively.
But even that hasn't been that aggressive.
It's just more of like creating
a brand, being there, showing up.
We're hoping to actually get more
proactive going after the kinds
of companies and clients that we'd
like in 2026, fingers crossed.
Well, I still, I love that advice.
I just had a call and sometimes I
do take calls with individuals that
are looking to come into Thailand.
And someone had brought up that
idea of this business they were
gonna start when they're here.
And it was unfortunately that kind
of cliche of, I think I'm gonna
start a restaurant or a massage
parlor or something like that.
And I was like, whoa.
You're the first man or a bar, right?
Yeah.
Or a cannabis shop at the moment.
Yeah.
Exactly.
So there's always, they
there's always that.
Thought that if you could just
bring your Western mentality into
Thailand, you can make something work.
But I think there's a lot of
things you don't know about what
happens on the ground, how it
works, how you hire people here.
There's all these challenges, but
I loved your advice because to your
point, the way that it can work is if
you build more of an online business
abroad and you make it work abroad
because then you're the location is
less central to your business itself.
If you're running a marketing agency
and it works in the US or it works in
the uk, then it's very possible that
you can transition it to operate it
in Thailand, and then you can figure
out how you're actually gonna set the
business up, whether or not it's a
remote office in Thailand or whatever.
But if you're expecting to start a
business on the ground in Thailand
and plan that all while you're
abroad, that's gonna be a tough one.
it can work for sure.
I mean, people have come and set
up businesses here or restaurants
or whatever and made it work, but.
I, we've been around long enough
to also know that most are quite,
find it quite challenging, right?
Whoa there.
Hold up for just one second.
I'm sorry to interrupt, but if you are
struggling with business operations,
cultural challenges, or growing your
business in Thailand, you are not alone.
This market is really tough to navigate.
I know because I've been here
since 2012 and I've experienced
a lot of these challenges myself.
That's why I founded Fractiond, a
Thailand-based consulting firm aimed at
helping businesses succeed in Thailand.
My Accenture experience from the US,
and our community of top consultants
from around the world, allow us
to deliver top tier strategy and
execution to businesses in Thailand.
If you wanna learn more, you can book
a free 15 minute discovery call to
see how we can help your business.
You can email us at podcast@fractiond.io.
Alright, back to the show.
there's a term that you used on your
website that really seemed interesting to
me and it was that term, calm marketing.
And this reminded me of just, I've
seen the opposite of this sometimes
with companies that I work with.
So how would you define calm marketing
and how do companies leverage this?
So I think how to define calm
marketing first is to define why
marketing normally isn't calm.
Marketing typically doesn't feel
calm to most business owners
and even most marketing teams.
Generally because we're off the
strategy or there's no strategy.
We're doing a lot of
things that keep us busy.
But in reality, you know, like
the business manager or the owner,
they forget what the strategy is.
and then we can typically get
further and further away from that
nice plan that we had started out
for good reasons and bad reasons.
And then eventually it doesn't
feel like that there is a cohesive
direction to what we're doing.
and so we're just kind of
like spinning our wheels.
And again, it doesn't feel calm.
It doesn't have to necessarily
always feel calm and relaxed.
When you're at a trade show trying to
get a, you know, a booth set up, not
calm and relaxed, you know, but you can
always, you know, as you're sweating
there, here in Thailand trying to get a
trade show booth set up in Bangkok, right?
You can always go, okay, this actually
doing this trade show fits into our
larger holistic marketing strategy
that we have implemented step by step
bit by bit over this entire year.
So even if the actual instance isn't
feeling calm, it gives you that foundation
that what we're doing is the right thing.
And we don't need, necessarily
need to be doing something else.
We don't need to be looking at someone
else and going oh, why aren't we
doing a bunch of tiktoks at our booth?
Well, we have determined that we
didn't, you know, TikTok is either
something outside of the constraints
or the our capabilities this year.
So we're not worrying about that.
We're worrying about this booth.
So that's kind of how I define call
marketing is helping make sure that
we kind of build a strategy that
is very much based in constraints.
And then, alright, based on those
constraints, what can we do to
get in front of them, right?
To promote our products and
services to them in a way that
they'll go, oh, I need that.
Maybe not today, but eventually.
When you're honest with all that, then
you can actually build a sustainable plan.
And we do that for then
15 months typically.
I don't like 12 months because
around nine months everybody's like
thinking about what's the next plan?
And three months is too short.
Like we do phase things, you know,
but I always like putting it in a
15 month you know, framework because
then it also forces leadership in
the company to think more long term.
So I say, can you afford to
keep doing this for 15 month?
It.
And when we think about it in that way, a
lot of times we start scaling things down.
We start, you know, pushing aside the
things that, you know, shiny object
syndrome, and we go, you know what?
This is working or these networking events
is where I get the best leads, because
most marketing for most businesses,
especially the businesses that we work
with, which are kind of more B2B or in
commercial or industrial industries,
they're very long sales cycles.
High trust.
A lot of the typical
marketing tactics don't work.
You know, like for, uh, they can't just
like do an ebook and have a newsletter
download or it's just different, right?
So I want them to be able to think
very long term because that's
generally how their clients buy.
So this really seems calm marketing
is the opposite of this reactive
marketing or shiny object syndrome.
I often see the biggest
mistake that companies make
is they don't think long term.
You have a budget, you have a limitation.
So you only have so many hours
and time and effort you can put.
If you have a very small team, the
idea of trying to do 16 things means
that they're gonna all be done badly.
Whereas if you say, you know what,
we're gonna focus on A, B, and C. A is
our primary, we're gonna do a little
bit of B and a teeny bit of C. Now
we're dealing with some constraints
and we have a clear strategy.
The last thing I'll say on this, Jake,
and I'll see if this resonates with
you or you agree with it or not, but
the term strategy is just so often
thrown out, oh, what's our strategy?
And I think oftentimes.
A lot of times owners, they
think strategy is tactics.
And so when they're saying,
what's our strategy?
It's our strategy is we're gonna
be on TikTok and we're gonna be
on Facebook and we're gonna be on
this, and we're gonna be on that.
It's like, that's not strategy.
In my opinion, my definition
of strategy is focus.
Because it's to say what are
we trying to achieve and what
are we gonna be focusing on?
And you can't have strategy
if you don't have focus.
I don't know if you
agree with that or not.
No, a hundred percent.
I try to a lot of times clients come to
us with a particular pain point, right?
The website's broken or you
know, whatever it might be.
We need a video or how much
is it to make a video, right?
So what I try to then ask
is what is your strategy?
Like, where does this fit into
the marketing strategy or is
this a one-off to-do list item?
if this is a to-do list item
that you want me to do, great.
But the deliverable, like the proof of
success is that I fixed your website.
Not that the website's doing you any good.
A more strategic approach is the
website should then, you know, convert,
you know, prospects into leads and
into sales or whatever it might be.
So we have that conversation.
And this really came from me.
I'm not university educated.
I am homeschooled.
I did six months of university.
I dropped out because I was
like, I can learn all this media
and marketing stuff on the job.
I was working in marketing and
you know, on YouTube and things.
Things.
But one of the things that I came
from is I was very task less oriented.
Hey boss, what do you want me to do?
You know, a marketing manager
comes to me and says, Hey,
we need to do this, and this.
I'm like, sweet, I got it.
You know, I'll get all those
videos shot and locations scouted.
And then I worked for eight years in a
manufacturing company that their marketing
was, they were the world leader already.
I was just improving and maintaining.
I think I did a good job of that.
But I never had to start from
scratch of questioning our
approach or a target market.
I was all laid out for me.
So when I was suddenly let go and then
started working with clients, I started
out kind of all action year to-do lists.
But then I started realizing I need
to really learn how to actually
build a marketing strategy.
I'm learning, reading this book right now,
slow Productivity, and it's a great book.
It basically just says, do fewer things.
Work at a natural pace and
then obsess over quality.
And so it's just been a really inspiring
read of making sure do less better instead
of more worse, like you were saying.
I couldn't agree more.
you have to work backwards
from what's working and what's
getting the most results.
And sometimes that's not the
thing that's the easiest.
You mentioned marketing for your
own business, and I saw that you're
hosting these workshops in Chiang
Mai, and I think events, in-person
workshops online workshops, you know,
things like this are very interesting.
So I'd love if you could share a
little bit more about the types of
workshops that you lead, why you do
them, and whether or not you think
some businesses could also leverage
workshops as a way to do some level
of marketing for their own businesses.
Well, this is interesting because I
do a workshop or a talk, a marketing
talk, or I'll do a group talk where
I'll have different speakers come
in and people are like, oh, how much
business did you get from the event?
I said, absolutely none.
And they're like, oh, that's too bad.
I was like, Nope, that was the plan.
And that comes down to
like calm marketing, right?
We've already figured out why we do events
the cadence in which we do those events.
And so it allows me to relax
if I don't get any clients.
It's a part of our overall
marketing strategy because
of everything else it brings.
So when we do an event for one, it's
great practice for me and my team.
So when we started these just over
a year ago it was like, we need the
practice, you know, sharing our knowledge,
presenting, put on events, showing
that we could actually get people to
show up and we know, well, you know,
how to attract people to an event.
That's great practice for our team.
It puts me on the line.
I tell my clients to do events and
then, you know, don't practice what I.
But the other thing is local networking
and it's just, it's interesting, you
know, the connections I've made just
from hosting these local events.
Some of my best friends now are
in auxiliary like, you know,
related businesses, which saw I
was having event and popped in.
You know, I may have met them another way.
And business friends as well.
The other thing is I recently hosted an
event because everyone kept asking how do
we get more Thai clients for our business?
I did a generic marketing business
strategy event like six months
ago, and everybody out of that
was like, this was great, but
how do we get more Thai clients?
'cause we are here in Thailand.
Some of us have restaurants, some of us.
So I was like, I don't know, I'm
not, I don't, that's not what I do.
So I decided, who cares?
I'm gonna host the event But we are
going to invite, we already had one
speaker and then we found two others.
But a young lady who runs a very
large business empire, you could
say with hospitality and restaurants
and entertainment venues throughout
Thailand, saw my ad basically in my
post saying, Hey, I'm looking for people
to talk at this event about how to,
you know, build your Thai client base.
And here I am socially in Thailand,
here she is socially in Thailand.
And she messages me and says,
can I be a speaker at your event?
And now we're friends, right?
Lovely person, but still it,
it creates this opportunity to
network with people that maybe you
would not have networked before.
With a lot of clients complained to
me that, oh, there, there isn't a good
trade show for our particular niche.
I was like, do your own then.
Yep.
And most of them won't because it's just.
It's outside of the norm.
The last thing on that is
the marketing collateral.
So when I do an event, I try to make
sure that the event is at a really
beautiful venue, you know, just
looks nice so that all my speakers,
including myself, always get amazing
photos, amazing video clips, et cetera.
So that when you then Scott see the
results of some event, I hold it.
It's always like, oh it says something
about Jake as opposed to just white wall.
You know, you see me in talking
in front of a crowd of 50 people.
It says something to you.
It starts to click over, not only with
potential clients, but potential partners,
potential employees, recruitment.
This is a great way for recruitment.
UI ux designer in Bangkok messaged me on
LinkedIn a few weeks ago and just says,
Hey, look, I want to work with you guys.
I love what you're doing.
I just want to work with you
guys a really good one too.
Just from what she saw on LinkedIn.
So that's kind of our event strategy.
It's great practice, it's great for
networking, and it's great for basically
your branding and your marketing.
Do events, like my advice to any
business is to do events, invite
other complimentary event businesses.
Always make sure that
your event solves a need.
Don't just say, Hey, we're gonna
be talking about marketing.
No.
How not to lose your
mind marketing in 2026.
Right?
Or always solve a problem
with your event theme.
And yeah, just start hosting them.
The first one might suck
the first one for us.
I've run events for big companies
before and I have so much work.
But now my team is like, oh yeah, cool.
Another event suite.
We, we know what to do.
We know how to attract people.
We know what we're gonna.
Do.
I think there are so many nuggets of
wisdom in that, and I think one of
the biggest takeaways that I have is
that you aren't, when someone asked
you how many leads did you get from
a workshop or from an event, and you
said none, and you said that was, you
know, that was what we had planned on.
And I think that's really key because
too often businesses are looking for that
direct ROI and they're looking, yeah,
they're looking like how many leads, how
many people signed up after the event.
And sometimes the reason that's
really bad, in my opinion, is to,
because then they see it as failure
and then they don't do it again.
And to me, you get that
momentum by, you're obviously
hosting a lot of workshops and
you're doing a lot of events.
And if it's once a year or if it's
once every blue moon, whenever you
say, oh, we have tried other things,
I guess we'll try events again, then
you're not gonna get that momentum.
And we charge for our events too.
So we did free ones last
year, and then this year we've
charged over a thousand baht.
For each event and for a serious
person, if you're providing good value
and a good networking opportunities
at your event, what's a thousand baht?
The next one that we're gonna do, I
think we're gonna do for 2000 baht,
because I have a big influencer
in Thailand who wants to do an
event with me here in Chiang Mai.
And to be able to sit with an influencer
who's built up a huge following in a very
short amount of time and learn how they
did it and get their, you know, ask them
questions and get that directly applied to
your business, 2000 baht is like nothing.
And it also then helps to maybe weed out
some of the people you don't want there.
You know, you want the more
serious people who understand
the value of what you've put on.
I don't make any of money at those
because all you know, we we do catering.
The venue always has a charge of some
sort, so we basically never make any
money from them, but I've very much
appreciated all the events we've done.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And you brought up too that a reason that
you have to charge for those events too is
to pay for a nice venue, as you mentioned.
I love the idea of getting
good photography and things
like that when you're there.
But again, the, my biggest
takeaway was just the fact
that it's not directly clients.
And I'll reinforce that.
The events that I've spoken at, the the
groups that I'm part of, the subcommittees
I'm part of and whatnot it's always a
couple steps removed where it's not that
I get the direct client, but it's more of
that I'm speaking with the right people
in the room, or I'm having conversation
with people where I'm able to learn from
them, or they eventually have a client.
One of the best things that I can find
that has happened to me is whether
it be through the podcast or for a
speaking engagement that I do, it's when
someone says, oh, you're everywhere.
I saw you there.
Oh, I want you to talk to this person.
And I do the same thing
for other people, right?
I wanna connect to other people.
That is what networking is.
I think networking has this, oh,
well, some people think of it as a
dirty word or as like, oh, networking.
And that's the thing where you
have to talk about small talk.
It's like, no, I hate small talk.
Right?
I mean, I'm basically day one,
I'm talking about politics and
religion now just joking, sort of.
But I talk about deep subjects.
go there too.
Yeah.
I have fun with those in a
non-confrontational way where
it's like, Hey, yeah, we can chat.
exactly.
Have a real conversation.
And sometimes that's what you do when
you are at an event, is that you meet
the people that are not necessarily
even like-minded, but people that are
different than you and you can learn from,
and you're just getting to know people.
But if you're thinking of it as
an ROI thing, you're gonna be
sorely disappointed, aren't you?
So,
how I treat LinkedIn as well.
I I'm not here for the hard quick sell.
I'm here to connect with people who would
want to connect with me, and then over
time they'll learn who I am and what I do.
And
exactly.
that's it.
Yeah.
I guess you could say if you think
of LinkedIn as, this is my prospect
database, I'm only gonna connect with
people that I'm gonna sell to, right?
And essentially say, here are my services.
That's, it's not it.
I mean, to me, everyone that I see on
LinkedIn is just, like you said, it's
your thing of connect with people,
follow people, understand people.
It's not necessarily
following that checklist.
You talked about checklist before.
It's not how many comments, generic
comments, did I leave on a whole
bunch of, you know, people's feeds?
It's like, no, it's actually
wanting to engage with people.
Right.
And actually wanting to leave
a comment because what they
posted is interesting to you.
Do you want to hear my quick
LinkedIn strategy right
Please do.
30 seconds?
So basically me and my assistant send
out connection requests to marketers.
Business owners, you know, managers,
and then people I think who might
eventually, might be good for my team.
So we think of it from a
recruitment tool as well.
So those are kind of like the criteria.
I don't give my assistant
crazy restrictions.
It's just like anything that
applies to that go nuts and
don't worry about it too much.
Then the other thing that he does
on a daily basis, he sends me five
posts from my network of where I can
actually, where he knows I can actually
have some thoughtful things to say.
So I'm running a business, so, sorry.
No I'm not gonna sit there for
30, 40 minutes a day and connect
with people on LinkedIn and then
find interesting conversations.
My assistant, no ai, my assistant
knows exactly what I'm looking for.
Cues those up for me.
And then no AI writes the
comments or anything like that.
It's me.
S that way I feel like I can actually
write and engage with the person
and support what they're doing.
So if anybody's looking for kind
of like a cheat sheet for how to
do LinkedIn you know, work with an
assistant who you give them clear
guidelines and they can help you with it.
They can be in your LinkedIn.
I think that's a great way to connect
with the right people in an authentic way.
And not like turn it all over to AI
automations and things like that,
while also not sitting there for an
hour and a half each day necessarily.
Yeah, what a great way to do it.
'cause to your point, I think
it's easy to dismiss it and get
right into the automation thing
and say, oh, I'm not doing that.
Therefore, you know, full automation.
And the full automation.
Guess what?
If a million other people are doing
full automation, all you end up
is with bots responding to bots.
Exactly.
Yeah.
it's losing everything.
Now speaking of that though obviously
when it comes to video, you know, AI
created video is a common thing now,
And I wanna know if you have an opinion
on that or how you deal with video, Jake,
for yourself and your clients, do you
do more of the AI generated videos at
scale or do you have a different method?
Well, I have a good friend who just,
we did an event together and he
talked about how he grew his YouTube
channel to about 800,000 subscribers,
sold it to some investors using ai.
So we did an event on that because
I think there's a time and a
place, and there's certain kinds of
content that AI can really help you.
It's more on the storytelling, you
know, like fictional side of things,
more entertainment side of things.
We're very careful.
I mean, we use AI tools
on a lot of things.
We use Descript for editing our
podcast because it does a, the air
AI does a great job of finding all
the bad takes and the mistakes that
you made and pulling those out.
It's so we look for things that help
enhance the, our team and the storytelling
that we're trying to do for our clients.
We, so far, we use 11 labs for
voiceovers and things like that, but
typically we end up using a real human
voiceover at the end instead of, but
we use 11 labs to have this natural
voiceover for us to edit around.
So, yeah, I think a client sent me
just the other night they're in the
manufacturing woodworking industry,
and they sent me an AI generated,
video where it's an avatar talking
about their product, and it was a
great, it actually really worked well.
The script is really good.
Like they understand like a Facebook
ad script, what it should be.
All AI generated and I just said what we
need to do is, this is a great example.
It's a template.
It's a storyboard for
us to create a real one.
So we're gonna have a real person
actually do a similar script, gonna make
sure we're using all your real footage.
Because your brand, whole brand is
built on authenticity and connection
with the customer, and you're a
great customer service, let's not
dilute that just because we've made
this video in 15 seconds and we
can throw it up as a Facebook ad.
We'll take a few hours, we'll
record very similar stuff.
We'll replicate this and improve upon it.
And ultimately I think that'll
be better for your brand.
And honestly, people would know it's
an AI ad one way or another, and
don't want you to go that route.
Oh, I love that of using it as a template.
'cause to your point it is, think
of it as a wire frame to a website
or a storyboard to a movie.
It's that you have something to go off of.
But then what really matters is
you're putting your best foot forward.
And that's gonna be a human being.
Because as you said, I mean, yeah,
AI is getting better and better,
but people can tell when it's
that AI avatar doing this Right.
And speaking.
And to be honest, to me it's just
so off-putting that I wouldn't wanna
work with a company that I see that,
I don't mind seeing it in entertainment.
for business use, I, yeah,
I'm, we're very careful.
I.
Well that brings to how
to do it correctly though.
So one thing I'm thinking about is
as soon as you get off AI and now
you're into actually recording a real
video with a real human, and you've
mentioned before that you've done this
with companies in different countries.
So maybe they have their own setup or
you're helping them set this thing up.
I'm curious about for a company that's
trying to get on video more, right.
They don't have a huge budget,
but they they realize they
have to put their face forward.
They have to actually show the
founder or show team members
or whatever in these videos.
Right.
I want to know from you, Jake,
do you think they need to pay
or rent a very expensive studio?
Do they need to get the best video
equipment, or what advice do you give
these individuals that are trying
to get started with video on site?
Good question.
It can be really hard, honestly,
because if you're not in video in video
marketing, you just see final results
from your competitors, or you see
tiktoks or you see YouTube, and it can
be a really hard to reverse engineer
what you need to do to get there.
Which ones actually make sense for you?
That, that can be really difficult to do.
So typically what we will often
do is help clients understand
what they need to do with video.
You know, what's the minimum viable thing?
We started a podcast, not video podcast.
Audio podcast for a a an NGO out of
Geneva, Switzerland that interviews
diplomats and high ranking government
officials all over the world.
And we started it with a phone, right?
Because they were like, ah, we need to
get noise, you know, good microphones
and two setups and record this
and, you know, and the right room.
And I was like, no, you don't.
We have AI tools that'll make what
you record in a quiet room with a
phone sound great and sound like it
was recorded in a podcast studio.
They didn't believe me, but I was
like, Hey, your budget's not that
big, so you better believe me.
They did it and it turned out
fantastic because of course
then we add music and we.
Add some we pull out like some interesting
clips and put those at the beginning,
you know, and then we add like a little
intro and then suddenly, and then
with some of the AI tools to clean
up the audio, it sounded fantastic.
It was able to then to get the buy-in
from leadership to actually do a full
professional podcast for their non-profit.
The most effective videos a lot
of times are very informal videos.
So, you know, you open your phone, you
hold it there, you record something,
you do, you present an idea in a nice
way, something that solves a problem for
someone, gives them advice that's useful.
That's a way to start.
You don't need a video agency
to start doing that today.
You have.
A better camera than we had 10 years ago
sitting on, you know, on, on your desk.
You might need a coach, you know, to
help you formulate your communication
strategy, what you're actually
getting across, and to help you
realize that is enough to get started.
As far as like creating a little
studio, we work with clients where we
shoot content for them from our studio.
So we will actually be, you
know, represent their brand.
In some cases, a lot of them will
help them set up a small studio and
I'm saying for hundreds of dollars,
not thousands of dollars, that
looks like a million bucks, right?
it looks perfectly acceptable and
nice and professional for what they
need to do because I want them to feel
like it was a lot easier to get going.
So that's calm marketing, right?
If it's easier to get going and to
start it up on a smaller scale, then
you can keep going with it longer.
So actually the, you know, video strategy
itself is a bit trickier because a
lot of people want to start up video
and they cannot last to three months.
They can't keep it up after three months.
So that's more of, that's
really the biggest challenge.
It's not the technology, it's
not the ability to create
scripts or, you know, work with
teleprompters or anything like that.
It's people's dedication to something
to longer than three to six months.
Yeah, I suppose it's just
like fitness or anything else.
It's easy to say I'm gonna go on a diet
on January 1st, but it's hard to continue
to go to the gym every day when stress
builds up, when family stuff builds up.
You have to still do it.
And to your point, when it comes to
video, it's a new neural pathway.
It's a new routine, it's a new process.
And so I suppose the higher you put that
barrier up and say it needs to have A,
B, C, D, E, F, G sort of qualifications,
it's like it's just making it less
likely that you'll ever get started
or that you're ever maintain it.
So what you've sort of described with this
minimal setup, it seems that you're trying
to reduce the friction to get started
so that you can test it out faster.
And it sounds like you're
making it easier to maintain, so
there's not excuses to not do it.
Which which kind of leads me to another
question, which is I can imagine some
companies thinking, okay, I've seen
these professional services firms
or whatever else create videos, but
it doesn't work for my business.
I have this boring business No
one's gonna care about that.
And I'm curious, do you have any
feelings over the types of businesses
that this type of marketing might
work for, and whether or not boring
businesses can actually follow
through and follow these steps.
I affectionately call
them boring businesses.
'cause I come from boring businesses.
I, my first jobs were in landscaping,
construction carpet and, you know,
cleaning and things like that.
And then manufacturing, right?
And a lot of our businesses are in
logistics, manufacturing, et cetera.
You see these flashy businesses and
things like that, selling stuff on TikTok
and funny videos and things like that.
And you're like, ah, I don't know how
I'm gonna relate that to my manufacturing
business or my parts business, or.
Video needs to basically solve
you know, have a different goal
in different kinds of businesses.
So, a video that shows a really detailed
process can be very, very effective.
So we, I did a lot of videos in 25
plus countries for a manufacturing
of sawm milling equipment, right
in the woodworking industry.
And, um, the most effective
videos that we shopped.
We put a lot of time and effort in these
fla nice product videos, you know, showing
all the little features and making, you
know, the lighting look beautiful and
the slow motion sawdust and the most
effective videos were sitting a camera
on a tripod, letting it look at the
machine wide shot and letting it run for
20 minutes, because when someone's gonna
drop half a million dollars on a new line,
or $3 million on a new line or more, they
just want to see how this thing works.
You know how it ticks.
They don't want the marketing
pizazz that we throw on everything.
They see right through that.
They want to just see this work.
I want to see 50 logs
go through that line.
I wanna see 50 logs that look like
my logs going through that line.
If I can see 50 logs that look
like my logs go through that line,
suddenly now the salesman is having
a completely different conversation
with that prospect, right?
They've seen it, they believe it.
They didn't have to fly all
the way to, you know, Malaysia
to visit an installation.
So that's a highly effective use
of video, The, the video guy never
wanted to shoot that kind of video.
It was like pulling teeth for
the marketing team to make things
look less sexy, but more suitable
to what that prospect was going
to be really effective for them.
I think there's, um, you know,
personal branding video comes
into nicely for personal branding.
So A CEO or a sales manager, you know,
showing up at a trade show in another
country and just making a couple short
little clips and throwing them on LinkedIn
or throwing them on their Instagram or
something like that is, uh, it takes work.
Like a lot of us don't want to do it.
I don't want to do it.
I personally don't wanna
do put myself on video.
I just don't, I I, I have other
things I want to do, I need to do.
Uh, but forcing yourself to start, uh,
not worrying about everything being
perfect getting over the cringe factor,
like, oh no, you know, like I said
something funny or, I'm gonna look funny
to that high school, uh, buddy of mine
from 20 years ago who sees this video.
Stop caring about all of that and just
start, you know, documenting what your
business is doing, what customers you're
seeing in some way, shape or form.
That can be really, really useful.
The thing that really resonated with
me, Jake, is I love that example of
the saw mill sort of video showing
them how it's actually working.
Because to your point of the
polish, I think sometimes.
We do those things for ourselves, right?
So we wanna put our best foot forward,
but I think oftentimes if you can
swallow your pride a little bit,
then you can actually create some
more authentic videos that are real.
I think for years and years, companies
have tried to look bigger than they are.
They try to look more polished We
sometimes forget that some of the
best videos, It's not always about
putting your best foot forward.
Sometimes it's about sharing your journey.
It's about sharing, like you've
shared in this, uh, video, during
this podcast recording, we've
talked about how you were fired.
Right?
You know, I, you know, I've been fired.
I've lost clients.
I've, you know, if you can
divulge that, guess what?
Everyone's experiencing
those tough things.
And so we have to
remember to be authentic.
I'm thinking about like Apple,
They put the polish on it.
There's a place and a time
to show for them to show the
polished product on their video.
However, we have to also
remember that some of the best
of viewed videos on YouTube are
people unboxing apple products.
Right?
And dropping them.
Right?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
How, how does it deal,
deal with the fall, right?
It's like, and so that
is the real life thing.
I mean, for the unboxing,
just to keep it simple, right?
In that case, it is literally what will,
like if I spend X amount of dollars or
baht or whatever, what will it look like?
What do I get in the box?
Like, is this the thing
that I want to buy?
So I tend to watch reviews of products
quite a bit because I want to know
if I'm spending my hard earned
money, what am I getting from it?
I don't want the polished view.
I want the real view.
And so I think that when we're thinking
about video, when we're thinking
about the other marketing topics that
you've shared, when you talk about the
workshops, we don't need perfection.
That's just a message that I'm getting
through this whole conversation, Jake,
is we're not seeking perfection, we're
seeking truth, honesty transparency.
Some people are scared to share
their pricing, whereas I'd argue
that if someone has the question
and you're the person that answers
the question, this is my prices.
This is why, this is how I do,
this is who I do work with.
This is who I don't work with.
You're gonna be able to filter out the
people better that are right for you,
A hundred percent.
versus just trying to show
how perfect you are, right?
None of us are perfect.
Yeah.
I interviewed a good friend of
mine Minnie from Thaid up with
Minnie Instagram and TikTok.
And that u that interview
is on our YouTube channel.
And I just asked her 'cause she got
120,000 subscribers between those
two platforms in less than a year.
And she didn't necessarily take
the shortcuts that some people
take in order to grow those.
She let them grow organically
and she was herself.
And it was really, I mean, her main
things were be yourself, but under
learn how to give the audience what
they, that what they're wanting,
learn what that is because they
were wanting to learn something.
They're wanting to be
entertained by something.
They're wanting insight into something.
Learn to package that 'cause
that packaging takes time.
Right.
It doesn't, you don't do that out of
the gate perfectly and then just be
consistent and for her be herself.
I think where we often can help is helping
coach people with video so that they're
focused on the video aspects that make
sense, and then we can edit that, right?
So that's a big step of the process
is like, okay, now we have this
footage, now what do we do with it?
Someone internally can do that.
You can hire someone on five to do that.
We work with quite a few clients now,
YouTube creators and then businesses
where just we, we have a video plan.
They're producing that
video in various ways.
And then we're editing for them, you
know, just sharing stuff back on Google
Drive, like it's not that complicated.
We have good editors who understand
the different styles and approaches.
Right.
And I'm very careful.
I've, man, I've edited and managed
editing editors for now close to 20 years.
I know how to set that up in order
to get the right results on budget.
And on a consistent basis, right?
So that can be a, another big
bottleneck is we have all this footage.
I have a lot of clients I've run into.
We have all this footage and nothing's
been done with it for three years.
So if you have a lot of footage
work with an editor to start getting
through it, but be intentional
about what you're actually doing.
And, you know, don't try to
get it all done at once either.
Yeah.
That's why I like your point of working
with a coach for that because I do think
that you could have all that footage
somewhere and then you go to Fiverr and
say, I've got all this footage somewhere.
But remember, a lot of the individuals
not, I'm not saying the individuals
that you find on are not skilled.
Right.
But if they're not directed if you're
not describing to them what you're using
it for, how you want to use it, what
you wanna get across, you have to be
in your briefs.
You have to be very clear in your
briefs what you're wanting to get
out of that with someone who doesn't,
who's new to your business or.
Is maybe a slightly inexperienced editor.
Yes.
Yes.
Now, to broaden things up a little bit
more again, if you were to just give a
broad overview of what you think marketing
tactics are working best this year and
maybe in the coming year Jake, if you
could kind of summarize that for us.
And of course we know that this
is gonna depend on the business
and things like that, but I'm
just looking for general trends.
Which way are things going?
What things are tending to work a
little bit better nowadays than before?
Sure.
I'm not gonna hit everything
perfectly, so for all you
nitpickers out there, I'm sorry.
But SEOI mean, I know there's some
major challenges with traditional
SEO theoretically based on a lot
of the changes that have been
made in the last couple of years.
But a friend of mine literally
just started a business and their
first client came from chat GPT.
Because their website was well optimized
in a niche, local niche here in
town that isn't very well populated
and chat GPT found that right away.
Um, so that's SEO of various kinds is con
gonna continue to be something that will
evolve, uh, change and you should not,
um, you know, discount it as, oh, we just
don't need to worry about that anymore.
You know, local listings, if you're a
local business, make sure you're, you
know, Google my business or whatever they
call it now, is optimized and updated and
you've got Google reviews coming in on a
regular basis and make sure that you have
processes to make sure that that happens.
on video figure that out for your
business if you haven't figured it out.
I would say that would
be something to work on.
Is figure out what kinds of videos
make sense for your business.
Don't waste time on videos that don't.
You know, Facebook ads still work
well in, in many cases, right?
Facebook corporate pages, no,
don't worry about those anymore.
Basically personal branding is
I think, much more important now
than a corporate Facebook page or a
LinkedIn page or anything like that.
Invest in personal branding
for you and your staff.
Understand in the company
what that means, right?
Like, we're advocates and we're
going to actually encourage our staff
to invest in their personal brand.
Because that's also a very
much a holistic approach.
Yeah, you're gonna have
turnover eventually, right?
But invest in the people who are,
you know, representatives of your.
Networking in-person events are,
I think, super, super valuable.
Not all of them, but ho
again, do your own events.
You know, stop whining about
the, oh, this event's so boring.
It's always the same people
host your own event then.
Yeah.
And that's basically my list at the moment
Yeah,
of off the top of my head.
I think the thing that ties that all
together is just, you know, when it
comes to SEO, it's like if you're
delivering good information in a way
that's useful to an individual, it's
gonna be useful to a search engine, it's
gonna be useful to chat GPT and other ai.
If you're creating content that's
resonating with people, it's gonna
resonate with other people that
wanna buy your product, right?
So it, to your point, it seems a little
bit less, it seems like everything's
trying to cut through the noise.
And so no one's really seeking out some
LinkedIn or Facebook company profile.
They're doing business with people.
They want to trust people.
And so the people that are out there
sharing good information, whether it be
on video, it'd be on podcast, it be on
their website, be on FAQ sections, share
good information, and people come to you.
I skipped AI when I gave that list.
Definitely in invest in
that and look into that.
But definitely don't just throw
everything into AI and do more.
Yeah, that would be the
opposite of way you want to go.
You want to implement it thoughtfully.
It changes so quickly as well.
So that's something to keep in mind is the
investment that you're gonna make in this
one AI tool or process worth it, even if
it becomes out of date in three months.
So we're pretty careful with what AI
steps and stuff that we implement.
We don't build like these massive
workflows where everything, oh,
when this happens, that happens.
Now, there are cases to be made for
that different business operations and
things, but just be conscientious that
AI is not the savior of the world yet.
As, and.
Maybe the less of you do of it.
A little bit is more, is okay.
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
That's a good point.
And so with that said, I'd love if
you could share the best way for
individuals to either follow you or
get to know you or connect with you.
Well, there's a few Jake Mooneys
running around, but if you search
Jake Mooney, Thailand on Google,
all the main things will come up in
our website, Greenlight studio.co.
And you can find us
between those two things.
You can find us different ways.
All right, Jake, it's
been an absolute pleasure.
I'm sure we will chat again soon.
And thanks again for joining us.
Thanks, Scott.