Video marketing is the new way of business today. Back then, only a few had a television. Now, everyone has a screen in the palm of their hands. In this episode, Victoria Wieck brings in Suzanne Glover to talk about the importance of video as a medium for putting out your expertise into the world. Suzanne is an award-winning professional actress for over 35 years. Discover her journey into the entertainment industry and the many things she learned from it. Learn what makes a video influencer and how to properly market it. Plus, learn about her new book, Be A Video Influencer: Reinvent Your Life & Business As A Midlife Movie Star! Join in the conversation and be a video influencer today.

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Embracing The New Way Of Business: Video Marketing And Being A Video Influencer With Suzanne Glover

I don’t know if you’ve noticed but the whole world is changing. As I get older, the world is changing more and more rapidly. No matter what age you’re at now, and I’m talking to a lot of you who are my age group, and I’m not going to give up my age but somewhere between 45 and 65, you feel like sometimes you’re lost, because the whole world has gone to video. You go on a website, its video, click on a dress and some model is demonstrating how great she looks on video.

Video marketing has become very important if you’re a small business owner, and yet, it is something that we don’t really understand because we didn’t grow up in that environment. We grew up in a, “Hello, how are you?” Shaking hands. We barely had cell phones back then. If you are one of those people, don’t worry because I’ve got a video expert, and I’m telling you she’s not just the sales video expert in everything you do in the video.

She can unlock the code and make it super simple for you, everything from how to look great on TV, to what to say to not be nervous, all those things that happen to you when a camera is standing in front of you. Without further ado, I’m going to invite and because I’m going to have her tell you her story, and what she does and all that. Her name is Suzanne Glover, she’s not related to Danny Glover.

I’m going to put that out there because it’s the same last name but anyways, Suzanne Glover has been a professional actress for many years, and she didn’t stop there. She basically used the techniques and skills that you learned in-camera to professional sales. Nowadays, of course, she kept on evolving. She is an internet marketer for the last several years. Welcome, Suzanne, to the show.

Thank you, Victoria. It’s wonderful to be here and thank you for inviting me.

Every single small business owner should have a video brand message on their website.

The world is changing and it’s a good thing in many ways for people like you and me because we have been forced to be on camera, and for many years, that’s what we did for a living. For a lot of people, I even know podcasters who are not on video, and they freeze over a microphone. They don’t freeze over meeting a person like a real-life person but they freeze over this little piece of equipment, so it’s interesting.

Give me a quick background about how you grew up because I want to really deep dive into your background but I believe that everybody’s early years shaped what they do for the rest of their lives. Give our audience a few sentences about who you are, how you were raised, and then how you got into acting, and how did you end up doing what you’re doing now.

When I was about ten years old, I was tall. People said, “You look like Cheryl Tiegs.” Remember her? She was the top model. It then went into Paulina. I evolved but Cheryl Tiegs was the first one. They said, “You should be a model. You’re this gazelle.” I did, but it was a short-lived thing because modeling is tough. You got to be young and whatever. I had to pivot to being a TV actress, and it was the same thing that’s going on with video nowadays for business people. They have this business, that’s good. All of a sudden, the world goes virtual, “What happened?” That’s what happened to me.

I marketed myself, I got my first little commercial. It was a local cable TV commercial. I resisted it at first because I thought, “I don’t want to be a model. I’m too old. I don’t like it.” In the TV world, you get residuals when you get a good commercial. This was a small commercial. It wasn’t any residuals but it was my first commercial. The action was to lean down in the stream, scoop up water, turn to the camera, and say something, and what happened? Nothing.

Fast forward, I got through that, the commercial went on to be award-winning and I thought, “I can do this. No, I can’t.” Back and forth, it was very competitive. Remember back then, they would watch the tapes on VHS, and they would fast-forward them if you’re in an audition. You have to catch their attention, just like scrolling nowadays in the newsfeed. I was up against a lot of competition, so what I did was I got a mentor, learned it, and work together. Every time I was in an audition, ideas were dropped from the sky, and I would discover things.

Over 35 years, I ended up getting my first national commercial, got residuals for three years, taught for Screen Actors Guild, their conservatory. I ended up in the top percentage of the Screen Actors Guild, and I even was elected to their Executive Council. I got successful in the industry but then I had to pivot into my own business because I opened my own school. I had to start all over again because when you’re a talent, you show up, you do your thing, you learn. I’ve had to do the camera, the tech.

It’s a lot of work, and its many different disciplines too that has come together at the same time.

Video Marketing: You need to take the video medium seriously. Back in the day, not everyone could afford video. But today, you have to get your mind around it and accept it.

That’s what they’re facing now, so I help them with that. It’s because I’m a salesperson, I also bring my sales into the video realm, and I started winning my auditions when I started using my persuasive skills. I’ve been on the internet now for many years video marketing, and it should be very strategic but a lot of people do way too much video. I hone it into what they need to do.

I know that you teach the video marketing, you’ve written a book. In fact, that book is called how to Be A Video Influencer, which is we’re going to give you all information on that but it’s at SuzanneGlover.com. What I love about what you’ve done so far in your background is that, if you were learning how to be a video influencer and that you went to school to be a video influencer, you wouldn’t have the impact that you would actually have now. Having gone through those vulnerable moments in auditions are scary time is when people fast forward and act like you don’t even exist.

All those things, the emotions, the ups and downs that you’ve gone through when somebody comes to you looking for help and they say, “I’m scared of the microphone or how do I look?” Even the most confident people in the world, if they get in from a camera and they seem to completely lose a sense of who they are, you have a lot of empathy for them because you went through that for years.

I don’t know if you have the same feelings I do or not, and I have been on TV for many years every month. Usually, when I’m on with 3 or 4 different hosts for the day, the people that actually work in the station. I’ve asked the same question to each of those people as well. Some of them they’re like, “It’s like breathing, I go on TV. I don’t even see the microphone, a TV or the screen anymore.”

Others will say, “I still get butterflies every single time.” It’s a combination of both, because as experienced people on camera, there are still moments in times, a certain script or whatever it is that you do that actually does scare you. When you have clients, and you teach them how to overcome those fears, how to look good or how to say something when you feel uncomfortable, you have experienced all those moments, and not just once, twice or three times, you’ve done this for many years. That’s a long time.

What’s interesting Suzanne is that this whole area of video marketing is exploding, every company is looking for ambassadors. It’s my belief that every single small business owner should have a video brand message on their website, and yet so many people who teach this, they’ve never been on TV. They couldn’t pitch themselves to go on TV or do an audition. They’d be scared to death, so how are they teaching this stuff?

It’s so aggravating that people don’t have any experience and they’re all, “Makeup artists. I can teach you how to be on camera.”

A lot of people who think that their internet marketing is video marketing, it’s not. To be completely honest with you, I have not read Be A Video Influencer, partly because I feel like that’s not the book that I’m going to need now to get my life going. If you are somebody who understands you need the videos. Facebook, Google, Apple, even Amazon, everybody’s going video. They’ve all got some live streaming thing. The more video skills you understand, the better it is.

You can’t just post videos online. You need a strategy to have success.

The other thing I love about what Suzanne has been doing to her work is that she’s not telling you, there are a lot of people out there teaching you how to look great on camera, how to get great makeup on, how to work on lighting or how to talk to the mic, all the different technical skills. Let me tell you something. I was on a channel, HSN had 180 million homes reached, the people that go on it, 90% of them fail. They get great lighting, makeup, a lot of stuff, they look good.

I’ve seen that over and over again. They don’t have any essence.

They don’t have the authenticity. They don’t know what to do.

They don’t know what to say to sell.

When you combine all of this, that becomes very powerful. Let’s go back to what you do now. What really impressed me about your background more than anything, all the stuff that is on your bio. It is quite impressive that many years, getting a national commercial, and you’re teaching people on Screen Actors Guild. Even just the one thing, it’s a lot but everything you’ve done is very impressive.

The thing that impressed me the most about this whole thing is how you sold timeshares. Let me tell you something, whenever somebody comes in or they want to say like, “We’ll give you $200 gift or whatever,” I run the other way. I don’t even want to listen to it because it’s so boring and high pressure. I wouldn’t listen to it. The fact that you were able to sell it is impressive, so we’re going to get back to that.

I did it with integrity. I didn’t have cancels, and I didn’t push people into it. It was very authentic.

This show is a lot about actionable tips. If you had to give somebody three major steps, that could be baby steps, to become a video influencer, what are the steps 1, 2, and 3 that you would share?

I have a formula, that’s 7 steps but it’s got 3 sections in it, so that’s perfect. The first section, the way you begin is obviously mindset because even when I had to do this for my own business, I had to start directing myself. I had to become the camera person. I had to become all those things. The most important thing was this is a thing for my business, and that means the pressure is on, rather than show up and let everyone else do everything. I had to do it for myself. I talk about mind and body. That’s the most important thing to realize. I’m talking NLP, I’m a hypnotherapist.

It’s more important to realize that you need to take the video medium seriously and get your mind around it to accept that this is what’s happening nowadays. When you and I were way back when, it was a small group of people, it was this us and them thing, it was us on TV and their mouths there. That stigma is still around particularly for you. I’m in my 60s, so I remember us and them. People our age from about 40 to 60 are still feeling that, “I’m not good enough. I have to get my hair done. I have to do all this stuff.”

If they accept that it’s the new way of doing business and that they can embrace it and understand that it’s not their fault, they can’t do it. All of a sudden, the world is asking them to be a TV spokesperson. You and I got training. We were trained. They’re not getting the training these days, so that’s one. Number two, once you start becoming more authentic, and you start feeling better about being on camera, then you want to start learning what to say, and what to say means, “I want to use my people’s words.”

Video Marketing: You need to embrace the new way of doing business while having compassion for yourself.

I was doing radio and podcasts before. I had a positive thinking course. The word that I found was a personal development junkie. That was the phrase that people would reiterate back to me. I would never have used that word but as soon as I started using personal development junkie in my podcast and in my radio appearances, people would respond because they could relate to it.

You were saying that use the language that they understand or they relate to.

There’s a certain way to find it. Once you embrace video and you understand that it’s not your fault, that you’re not good at it, you have some compassion for yourself, and you start getting over that mindset. I’m not talking positive thinking but I’m talking about using your mind and body together. You then start going into knowing what to say to engage people.

Number three, delivery. I’m going to tell you a little story here where I was in a Mastermind before, and there was a girl in there that she was doing her little thing. It was a Mastermind where we were filming in a professional studio. She was a young girl and she didn’t know what she was doing, and she stood up, she did a commercial, and everyone was like, “You need to smile more. You need more energy.” I thought, “That is not advice. I’m sorry. That is superficial. Why don’t you give her some tools?”

They said, “Why don’t you go out in the hallway to practice?” I happened to go to the bathroom at that point, I came out and said, “You want some coaching?” Less than five minutes. I taught her how to smile on camera. There’s a whole acting technique, a whole method of acting that I gave her in two minutes. I had her do it, I drilled her for about two minutes. I had her eye contact, body language, and her essence. We came back in and they were startled. She did her thing and it was like, “What happened?” It’s about a delivery, so that you can connect with this thing.

Those are the three things. Of course, there’s looking good, technology, and you can’t go and do this stuff without knowing how to market it. That’s important because you can do all this stuff, but then you do all these videos online and nobody, either too many or too few, and you don’t have a strategy, so I would add another fourth thing in there that you need a strategy to have video success online.

If you are interested, many of you are reading, and I know this is a new thing for you if you want to experience what Suzanne described this young lady being frozen and stuck in the middle of Mastermind, to unlocking that code inside of two minutes, I checked her out and she does offer a free consultation. You can experience that and get a real diagnosis of what you need to do or what you can do. Many of you might be able to get it done right there and then, so I encourage you to do that. Check out our website. I love those steps, and what I love about what you said too, it’s probably very similar for you.

When we were starting out in video acting in that arena, we were chasing the dream at that time. We didn’t know 35 years would go by. I’ve been in my business since 1989, so I’m very close in that regard but we’ve accumulated all this knowledge over time. When we try to unpack this now, that 35 years of experience, those painful moments, the great joys, and the a-ha moments that we’ve all experienced, it’s difficult to teach unless you have a system and a framework that works so that a lot of people who have similar issues can plug in some of that.

You only get the system, we haven’t gone through it like 16,000 pieces of something, the same thing. I love that because I’ve been on TV for many years live. I don’t say that to be braggadocious. What I will say is this, I don’t care who you are, how pretty you are, how thin you are, who your father is or whoever your producer is. If you don’t tell the truth, you don’t last for many years. It’s simple. I always tell the truth, and I was floored, I’ve been so busy, I still do my shows on ShopHQ, and that keeps me very busy.

You cannot teach emotions.

In fact, even before I went on this live show, I was still editing and designing my pieces for the 2021 collection. It’s a lot of work. I didn’t realize how many people are out there making a fortune, coaching video, teaching video, going about camera video influencer, video marketing, online, marketing, all of those things.

I found three people that actually made a living doing what they’re coaching. They’re professors, they’ve never actually pitched to a real-life station. If you’re going to get this experience from anybody, you might even get somebody who had been through all that because people like us, when we see something, “I got that.” I know you feel that way.

I worked for the Academy of Art University, where they only have people who are in the business because you can’t teach something that you’ve never experienced. When I see makeup artists or other people teaching this, it’s like, “I’m sorry.” It’s very offensive to me actually.

When it comes to teaching, this particular thing that we call video marketing, it’s something that I feel like it can’t be taught by a textbook because when we talk about video influencer, we’re only talking about one thing. That one thing is moving people’s emotions. You cannot teach emotions.

You can, as an actor.

You can learn to pretend to be somebody but what I’m saying is if you’re on video influencer and you’re trying to move somebody to absorb what you’re saying in a six-second video or whatever that you’ve got. That’s a very tough art to do consistently, especially over product, if you’re going through a midlife crisis and you’re getting through a divorce in the middle of cancer or something, those emotions are different than you’re trying to sell products. This is a very difficult piece to package and unpack but as I said, there are tools that you can use.

The one thing that Million Dollar Hobbies is about other than giving actual tools to chase their dreams, is transformation stories. You have transformed and evolved many times over. That takes a lot of discipline, curiosity, persistence, and willingness to do what it takes to do that. All those types of traits that you’ve had to acquire over time, sometimes it’s an acquired trait, it doesn’t come naturally.

It’s very valuable when you’re taking any mentorship or courses from someone. I thank you for coming in and sharing your knowledge on this. I know you wrote the book, Be A Video Influencer: Reinvent Your Life & Business As A Midlife Movie Star. If you can tell me two things about the book that’s in it, why should people buy it?

It is geared to a midlife person who’s busy. A lot of people, when they’re talking about video, “I have a successful business. I am starting to take care of grandma. I’m starting to take care of my mother. I’ve got teens.” They’re busy, so what I focus on and have a heart for are the midlife people because part of my story was, in my 40s, I started dropping away. I had to take care of mom, and that can have a zap effect on your business.

The book is understanding where you are, and it helps you say, “I need to do this. I understand I need to embrace this. This is a new way of doing business but have compassion for yourself.” This is why you can do this, even though you’re busy. That’s one angle. The other angle is my seven-step formula where I walked them through the actual formula to go for a system that I have, A, B, C, D, so that it’s not just, you’re looking at an elephant and you might be looking at the trunk, leg or the tail. That’s how people approach video now, “I need to get good on camera.” No, you need a synergistic, comprehensive, holistic approach.

Video Marketing: Be A Video Influencer: Reinvent Your Life & Business As A Midlife Movie Star! By Suzanne Glover

I blurted out that you do one-on-one consultation for free. If you’re reading now, video is where the world is going. I’m sure even if you’re a very young person, you remember when all the taxi drivers in every city said, “Uber? Who cares?” In many cities I go through, they can’t even get a taxi anymore. Don’t be the taxi driver waiting for the Uber to show up. Basically, Millennials are going to be here. They’re already the largest consumer of consumer goods, and they only buy the video. They don’t want to be at anything. I have a house full of Millennials.

When Suzanne talked about the mid-life people, I am in that group. As I speak to you now, I have my phone on because my mother is 100 years old, she’s in a 24-hour nursing care. My mother was in her 80s, and you’re right. When they both ended up having some health problems, my daughter was literally expecting, she went into labor. Between those things, we talk about busy. We’re very busy. However busy you are, and it’s great if you own your own business, then you can take the time to tend to your mother, to everybody in times of their need. That’s really important.

What I love about video, if you get trained correctly, is that it will save your time. It will create legions. If you were to read a three-page story about a brand, for example, if I were to tell you three-page story about my brand, how I immigrated from Korea, what life was like over there, all the things that shaped me and I had to describe them in words, versus a two-minute video with me smiling and wearing my jewelry. Think about that. It’ll save you time, money, and eventually, you’re going to be able to build a very loyal following.

I have done that over many years, so I highly suggest that if it’s not Suzanne, it’s somebody else, go ahead and do it because video is not going away. Basically, they’re not going to go back all of a sudden to the old ways of face-to-face or VHS. It’s going to get faster and faster. Get real, let’s embrace the new world together. I want to thank you Suzanne for being gracious enough with your time. How do people reach you if they want to connect with you?

SuzanneGlover.com, that’s where you can get the book but also the free consultation where I diagnose where you are, where you’re going, what you need, and coach you a little bit, which is your name at SuzanneGlover.com/victoria.

Thank you so much for doing that. Even if you aren’t even sure if the video is for you, maybe you don’t even have a business, you just want to take selfies or do videos for your Instagram, call her. What do you get to lose?

I want to do that special for your audience.

Thank you so much. All of you, if you haven’t subscribed to the YouTube channel or this show, go ahead and hit the subscribe button as soon as you can. I would greatly appreciate that. The other thing too is I don’t ask anybody to give me a great review. I ask you to give me an honest review because those reviews helped me improve the show.

If you tell me, “Your shows are too long or whatever.” We take all that into consideration and keep on improving. If you can go ahead and do that too, we would appreciate that very much. Lastly, I always sign off with my favorite saying, until next time, stay healthy, stay well, and remember, happiness is a choice, and I hope you make great choices.
 

Important links

• Suzanne Glover
• Be A Video Influencer
• ShopHQ
• SuzanneGlover.com/victoria
• YouTube – Victoria Wieck

About Suzanne Glover

As a professional actress for over 35 years, Suzanne has learned camera strategies that have gained her recognition in the field with award winning work. She has been in the top percentage of earners in the Screen Actors Guild, taught for the Guild, and successfully taught these strategies to entrepreneurs like you so they know how to connect through the camera and sell successfully in the new virtual world.