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#16 Media Creation For Marketing With Rex Williams
616 Plays4 years ago
Rex Williams is the Media Mastermind behind Whiskey Vault and Whiskey Tribe. Rex has been in the media production for over 20 years and has built up a wealth of skill and experience when it comes to using video production to promote a business. This podcast focuses on how to use video and media production to promote a business, specifically a distillery.
Whiskey Vault: https://www.youtube.com/whiskeyvault Whiskey Tribe: https://www.youtube.com/whiskeytribe CTC Support Page: https://chasethecraft.com/support
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction and Support
00:00:00
Speaker
Hells ago and chases, I hope you're having a kickass week. This podcast is brought to you by Gladfield Malt. Thank you so much Gladfield Malt for making this stuff possible. I totally appreciate it, and I really appreciate your products too.
00:00:15
Speaker
This podcast is also brought to you by Adventures in Home Brewing, a sweet online and brick and mortar stores in America for the home winemaker, beer maker and distiller. You can find them at homebrewing.org slash CTC for all your equipment and ingredient requirements.
00:00:32
Speaker
And last but definitely not least, this podcast is brought to you by the Patreons. Thank you so much guys, I appreciate everything you do for me. Our little community over on Patreon is pretty cool and I really appreciate the support. If you're finding value in the podcast or the still-up videos, you can head on over to chasethecraft.com slash support to find all the different ways you can help out, including if it's right for you, Patreon.
Meet Rex Williams
00:00:58
Speaker
Today's guest is just an awesome human being. If you enjoy online-based whiskey content at all, that's probably what you know him for, but less people probably know that this guy has been in media creation for 20 plus years. He knows his stuff when it comes to creating videos to support brands and companies.
00:01:19
Speaker
Rex Williams is the media mastermind behind the Whiskey Vault and the Whiskey Tribe. If you are into whiskey, and a little bit of asshattery, and you by some chance have not checked out their YouTube channels, I suggest you go and do that right now. But without further a delay, here's Rex Williams dropping the knowledge on content creation.
00:01:46
Speaker
Rex, we're live. How on earth are you, man? I'm super good, Jesse Wilson. How you doing, you filthy animal? I am absolutely amazing. As we see that there's 5 a
Media Creation for Distilleries
00:01:56
Speaker
.m. here, I am slightly not awake. I did just finish my tea, though. So I think I'm almost in the zone. We're getting really close. You're doing the morning coma. I'm doing just the post-lunch coma.
00:02:07
Speaker
So this will muster up enough energy for maybe one good human being on a podcast. I think so. Yeah. If you had barbecue or Mexican, I'm going to hurt you right now. No, I had chick-fil-a.
00:02:25
Speaker
Yeah, fair enough All right, man. So the the plan is that we're here to talk about media creation for the purpose of of marketing for a distillery sure and
00:02:43
Speaker
I can't imagine anyone who is possibly listening to this podcast that isn't sure who you are and what you do for the Whiskey Tribe. Let's be real here in terms of talking about a niche within a niche within a niche. I mean, there's like 11 or 12 people that this is relevant to.
00:03:03
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. The good news is if we're talking about content creation, media creation in terms of marketing and distillery, it's not that far off from using content to market just businesses in general. There's so many different parallels that aren't only limited to the distillery scene, but we'll focus on that just to keep it super relevant for people watching, but a lot of the stuff we'll talk about, it's applicable to pretty much
00:03:33
Speaker
Not just every business, but most businesses where you have a component of potential customers, of potential viewers. It's an ongoing chronic interest. It's something that is potentially a hobby. It's something that they like to do recreationally in their off hours. It's the thing that if given the opportunity to go visit a brewery or a distillery or a winery or
00:04:02
Speaker
even places where they make cigars or places like a bicycle factory or how they built kayaks, all of these different things. Businesses that have a foot in those types of industries, it's a huge advantage because I think there's one thing that a lot of businesses make whenever they get into the content game.
Content Strategy and Audience Engagement
00:04:21
Speaker
One of the things that they miss is nobody actually gives a rat's ass about your business.
00:04:27
Speaker
There's this idea that what we're making, it's kind of the build it and they will come idea that not being able to remove yourself from, I'm excited about this because I'm about to make money out of it. So everyone else must love it too. If you make conditioner, sure, there's people that are into beauty and fashion and that sort of stuff, but it's not like you can make content about
00:04:55
Speaker
Look at my amazing conditioner every day of the week. And people are going to watch it, aren't they? Well, and here's the trick. Here's the sleight of hand that most businesses can do. Even if they're not in an industry where there's just a ton of built-in interest where people are actively searching for more information across like YouTube or Google, then you touched on it. Is there a parallel interest that your specific product or services related to?
00:05:23
Speaker
then yeah, you can absolutely make content about that. For example, if you were a shampoo and conditioner company, no one's going to care about whatever shampoo and conditioners thing you're coming out with, but what do they do care about?
00:05:36
Speaker
freaking all of these channels that are talking about like fashion and style and makeup and there's literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars moving around just through people who specialize in that, who have an interest in that, who can gather an audience and hold an audience's attention around that stuff.
00:05:58
Speaker
It's like, yeah, you don't necessarily have to only be doing, only aiming the camera at, well, here's what my distillery did this week. Nobody cares. And if you're not an iconic brand in a space, if nobody knows who you are, just, you know, because you're just such an ever-present entity,
00:06:19
Speaker
then you don't need to be focusing on your own stuff. You got to basically figure out what is the pre-existing interest? Where is the train tracks that I can step in front of? I don't want to be alone in the woods yelling through the tree line trying to convince people to, you know, just follow the sound of my voice and come over here and look what I'm working on my little campsite. That's not how it works.
00:06:42
Speaker
Yeah, actually, that's a good point. Maybe we should back up a little bit. I think we've both jumped into this with the assumption that people are on board with this being a beneficial thing and kind of the advantages of it. And I don't necessarily think that's the case. I think
00:07:03
Speaker
people will understand that it's a good thing and that it's the thing you do. If you do, absolutely. I mean, in any industry who's thinking about getting into creating content, creating media and getting on YouTube and Instagram and all this stuff,
00:07:21
Speaker
There's one very practical thing that they need to wrap their head around and get comfortable with. And that is the self-discipline that goes into getting on a schedule and creating content. Because if you have any hope at all of building any kind of audience and any kind of momentum,
00:07:41
Speaker
If you're fortunate enough to grab some eyes and ears, then that is one opportunity for them to go, oh, this is kind of cool. Maybe I check back in. I know these are releasing weekly, or these are releasing daily, whatever it is, and then mental click, they know, all right, next time I have a thought in this direction, this is where I can go to get more information. Most businesses, but also just most people in general, even if they're doing a channel for fun, even if they're making content for fun, they see it as an exercise in
00:08:11
Speaker
my creative expression. And I want to reveal, you know, creatively, artistically, philosophically, kind of what I have to offer to the world, so you can't, that can't happen, but you can't start from that place. You have to start from a place of, I need to be making a product, and there are people with expectations of me delivering this product at a reasonable time, of a reasonable quality, that's talking about things that are gonna be relevant to them. And if you don't go into it with already, before you've made like piece of content number one,
00:08:41
Speaker
From that mindset of this is a professional endeavor, and I need to be disciplined enough to manage my schedule and make sure that people are getting knowledge whenever they are generous enough at their time to watch something and comment on something. You have to do that if you have any hope of getting momentum. Practically speaking, that probably is the biggest thing that's going to separate them in from the boys, quite frankly. Or the winner from the girls is 2020.
00:09:10
Speaker
Beyond just that practical self-discipline of just doing it, just shutting the hell up. I don't care about your excuses. Everybody's busy. Everybody's overly busy. But if you're serious about this, then stick to a schedule that you can publicly put out there and people can rely on. The philosophical one, the one that's a little bit trickier.
00:09:29
Speaker
The one that I think most businesses struggle with, assuming they're willing to be disciplined enough to have that consistency, that ongoing stream of fresh content, it's the personality, man. It really is. And figuring out what is the culture,
00:09:52
Speaker
the sensibility of the style of the content, that voice of the content, figuring out what that is, nobody's gonna have a perfect, accurate read on that right out of the gate. It's not something you can theory craft in a Google Doc and then start making videos. You do have to put yourself out there, but after about 20 or 30 videos, you very clearly start to see what's working, what's clicking.
00:10:19
Speaker
What are the things that people are responding to? But also, what are the things that are just fun for me as a creator? Because I don't want to pretend to be something I'm not. But what is the caffeinated version of me that happened? Where are the cameras going? It's still you, but it's you with some focus and with some energy, because you don't have a lot of time before you lose people's attention span. Most businesses struggle with that, especially if they've come from this background of,
Creating Attention-Worthy Content
00:10:50
Speaker
paying to interrupt people with traditional advertising. They've never had to earn somebody's attention. They just said, hey, here's an ad buy. Put my 15 second, 30 second, whatever blurb out in front of all of these people across these various channels. That is basically you
00:11:09
Speaker
paying to interrupt people, and hopefully they don't have ad lacquers on, and hopefully they don't have the TV on mute, and hopefully they don't have Spotify they're actually listening to traditional radio. That's a lot of hopefullys. The long game, and quite frankly, I think the healthier game in the long term, is to figure out how can I create content that earns that attention. I don't want to interrupt anybody. I don't want to interrupt the thing that people actually want to see.
00:11:37
Speaker
I want to be the thing that people actually want to see. So right out of the gate is coming from this place of
00:11:45
Speaker
How do I step onto the train tracks of the pre-existing interest? How do I, you know, this is where all of the attention is, I want to stand right in the middle of this. And then how can I do that on a consistent basis? And how can I do that in such a way that's going to be sustainable, right? Like emotionally sustainable, like there's the practical sustainability and then there's like the fact that, oh my God, I'm hundreds and hundreds of episodes into this thing.
00:12:11
Speaker
the novelty of likes and subscribes and positive comments, that wears off. So you have to have a crystal clear idea of the reason why you're even making content in the first place. I think you can have any number of people writing articles and giving you good advice. It's like, yeah, make some content and put yourself out there. And if you're not talking about you, then you're not part of the conversation. It's just a bunch of bullshit. If you're not mentally prepared,
00:12:43
Speaker
If you're not mentally prepared to go down that path, you shouldn't do it. The one thing that I can confidently tell anybody, the one thing that you need to prepare yourself mentally long-term is to really get a clear idea of what you're trying to accomplish.
00:13:00
Speaker
Like you're going to make videos, but what are you trying to do? What's the goal? What's the specific thing that you're trying to make happen? And so the entire effort becomes this ongoing exercises balancing act between professional goals,
00:13:17
Speaker
but personal realistic expectations. I was like, well, I know this would be something that would be nice for the business, but I know this is how much energy and bandwidth I have to even emotionally create something and put it out there. And these are like the expectations that I think would be reasonable whenever we're growing our channel. Is it 100 subscribers in the next quarter? Is it 1,000 in the next quarter? And you know, the,
00:13:44
Speaker
The destination, it can be as big or as small as you want it to be, but it has to be very clear. And without that clarity, it's just, okay, you're spending a lot of time making content that takes, you know, this isn't easy. I mean, you've been making videos for a long time.
00:14:01
Speaker
The the setup and the shooting and the editing and the planning and the uploading and hell like the titles and thumbnails The number of things that just suck up and with suck up energy suck up suck up time If you don't go into if you go into that without both eyes very wide open then you're gonna stop in a few months they go I tried in the dealer didn't really work saying no, you just you didn't have clarity you didn't have the discipline and the
00:14:26
Speaker
the amount of patience that required to start sending results, I think most businesses aren't really ready. They'll tell you, it's like, oh yeah, if it takes a year and a half, two years, cool.
00:14:37
Speaker
Yeah. I've seen that firsthand multiple times. Yeah. That's not the nature of what most businesses do. What they'll say they're going to do is very different than what actually usually happens in real life. But the ones that stick to it and the ones that have a very, very clear eye on what are the professional goals and then what is the most self-aware I can be with this very flawed creature that I'm putting in front of a camera.
Consistency in Content Creation
00:15:05
Speaker
They're the things that I know I need to have the energy and the focus from just the day-to-day business of life. What are those things so that I know every day we're chipping away and making one more one more foothold towards that ultimate in me and that goal that we want to have as a content creator and also as a business. 100% I there's a weird
00:15:32
Speaker
Vulnerable miss that comes along with it, especially for people that I think have been in in business and This happens one of two ways, right? It's either a small business and you own it and it's something that you think you should do and then there's the flip side of it where you're part of a business and you sort of step into that role or you know, you're doing it for someone else and
00:15:57
Speaker
And I think each of those two situations offer very different problems for the person we're talking to. But I've seen over and over again this issue where
00:16:08
Speaker
Going back to the personality that you talked about, people don't know how to bring the walls down enough to be a fucking human, to not be like a walking, talking suit and tie. And no one wants to see that, right? But to have enough structure to still represent the brand professionally. Exactly. I think a large chunk of that structure,
00:16:36
Speaker
It is as simple as a content calendar, right? If you have clarity on your goals of what you're trying to make happen within the next year, the next 15 months, next two years, this is what we would like to see in the growth of the channel, but also in our business objectives, how that translates into business success.
00:16:53
Speaker
If you have that in place, then that's most of the ball game. Everything else is like, you know, there's some nipping around the edges, but I think a lot of times people like to overthink it.
00:17:07
Speaker
And it really is as simple as just, hey, have fun with it, like relax and get on camera and read the, I always say the caffeinated version of yourself, because if you tell people, yeah, just relax and have fun, you know, people that identify with you and that authenticity, they'll come and hang out and say, ah,
00:17:28
Speaker
With me, in my default level, I will sit in a dimly lit room in the corner in front of a screen for 15 hours at a time and not say another word to another person. But whenever I do hang around people that I like, I can either bring that same energy. And sometimes I do. Sometimes Daniel and I will just sit in the same room for hours on end and we won't say a single word.
00:17:51
Speaker
But the job part of it comes into, when the cameras are on, it's like, okay, let's actually say words with our face. And we're intentional about making sure that we're having conversations, we're in it, we're focused, we oftentimes talk over each other, because he's focused on his thing and I'm focused on my thing.
00:18:10
Speaker
But yeah, it is a very intentional type of process. And I think one of the things that businesses need to learn in those first several videos is what does that switch look like for them? What does that moment look like for you? Because whatever you were dealing with earlier in the day,
00:18:26
Speaker
That needs to be a different part of the day. You need to check that out the door because now we're doing something different. We're talking about a very, very specific topic because there's the topics, there's the thumbnail and the title. There's a very, very specific thing that people are expecting whenever they watch this piece of content. And we need to deliver that very, very specific thing.
00:18:48
Speaker
So that focus, that intentionality, that energy, yeah, that goes into it. And the balancing act there is making sure that it doesn't ever get into a place of artificiality.
00:18:58
Speaker
Because people get in sales mode and they'll be like way too artificially energetic and just, Hey, everybody, so glad to see you. This is going to be great. I'm so excited about like, yeah, that's not how you know, human beings are. So a business being willing to put out there a representation of a real human being.
00:19:20
Speaker
Man, I've been working with businesses and content creation specifically with only videos for over 20 years now. And it is a really difficult shift for them to wrap their head around. It's pretty simple, but it's very difficult. Whenever they have come from a world, a career path, their bottom line is basically every time I interact with a customer, how professional and positive and clear can I be?
00:19:46
Speaker
And making content in 2020, that's a different thing. This isn't customer service. This isn't you giving experience with the product or deliverables that's going to get you a five-star rating on Yelp. This is you being a fun, cool place to come and hang out because they identify with your actual personality. And they like the dynamic. They like the vibe of the other people there.
00:20:13
Speaker
And whenever a business comes from a place of spending money to interrupt people and the content they really want to see, and, you know, the buttoned up shirt and the consummate professional, and I'm, no matter what happens, I'm just going to be a smile on the face and I'm not going to flinch. It's just going to, by golly, going to be a grand old time for you. That doesn't translate to content.
00:20:38
Speaker
And for decision makers, especially at this point, they need to get comfortable with the fact that human beings sometimes are messy, sometimes they're flawed. They're not perfectly articulate in the things that they're trying to say. But as long as whatever they're saying and doing comes from a good place,
00:21:01
Speaker
then it's not an issue 99.99% of the time and the people that do have an issue with it, they're not a good fit for the channel and the community anyways. 100% man. I think maybe let's cover this idea of the difference between traditional media and traditional marketing versus the opportunities here and
00:21:23
Speaker
I've also realized too that we're very much focused on everything we've said right now has been fairly pointed towards YouTube, I guess, or the same person on camera talking on YouTube or whatever. Sorry, Facebook or Instagram or whatever it happens to be. But I think all of these principles apply to anything where you're putting
00:21:47
Speaker
personality, interest, and content into a product that you're putting out there. It could be photos that you're doing. Everything we're talking about says the same thing to the business. I just figured we'd flag that there if people are getting a bit caught up on it. But yeah, let's talk a little bit about your opinion on the actual advantages, the opportunity.
Opportunities in Modern Media
00:22:15
Speaker
Right now in 2020,
00:22:17
Speaker
to be able to market your business without the traditional channels, without the interruption. Yeah, well, it's interesting. I was thinking about this yesterday. It's a similar position that entertainers and comedians are in now with the podcast world. Because traditionally, if you're like in LA and you're trying to get your big break,
00:22:44
Speaker
and you're going on these, what's it called? It's not rehearsals. Whenever you're doing a script read and you're trying to get hired for an acting gig, I'm so far removed from this scene, I even forget what it's called. You're going on, it's not, say words, Jesse, help me out here, what is it? I don't know either, dude, you got me. Five o'clock in the morning, you dude. As an actor, as a comedian, you're trying to land a gig in a TV show or a movie or a pilot or what have you.
00:23:11
Speaker
And the decision makers were very, very few and far between. And very often, their decision making was arbitrary. So it was really hard to find success based on your own merit. You had these very few select individuals, corporations that would determine, no matter how hard you worked, that would determine whether or not you're going to have an opportunity to make it in this business.
00:23:35
Speaker
And with businesses, it's very similar to what comedians are finding with podcasts because comedians are like, hey, I don't have to go through agents and networks and get approval and like the production costs have never been lower. And I can put my content and build an audience just right on YouTube. And the next time I go to freaking Cincinnati and I need to sell some tickets, well, I've had like 700,000 people that listen to my podcast.
00:24:03
Speaker
And there is damn sure enough of those people in Cincinnati to sell out the room. So with businesses, it's a situation where you used to only be able to access potential customers through traditional media.
00:24:18
Speaker
traditional media and traditional media would give you an opportunity for you to impress that customer whenever they use their product or service. That's all it did. It wasn't a guarantee that you're going to grow, it's just a guarantee that you're going to have some people coming into the store to give you a chance. And if that firsthand experience
00:24:38
Speaker
was crap, you can spend all the money in the world, you're actually just going to drive yourself out of business faster because you were just giving more and more people that opportunity to have a bad impression, then word of mouth kicks in. After enough people have had that first impression, there's enough people talking about, yeah, that place is dog shit, don't go there. But now with the
00:24:59
Speaker
the ability for businesses to put content online. Yes, the democratization of opportunity. You don't have to pay networks, cable, TV stations. You don't have to do any of that stuff to the extent that you have something good to offer.
00:25:15
Speaker
you can put it out there. Now you just need to learn the skills of how to tell that story well. How do you tell the stories that are going to be focused on a niche of the built-in interest? Again, it's not going to be about, this is how we make our Cezanne beer. It's like, you know, I'm not having nobody's beers. But I mean, very practically, the reason is obvious why the Whiskey Tribe channel
00:25:43
Speaker
That's not a channel that's propping up the crowded barrel whiskey company. That's not a channel that's talking about our distillery. Very rarely will we ever have an idea that's like, hey, this idea fits in perfectly with a small startup crowdsourced distillery here in Austin, Texas. Most of the ideas are talking about the industry as a whole, whiskey as a whole. We talk about other brands constantly, way more than we talk about our brands. The reason is very simple.
00:26:08
Speaker
There's just more interesting things to talk about over there right now. They got bigger budgets. They got more people. They have more experience. And whenever there's something that we can talk about that's relevant to us, yeah, we'll do it. But that's not the purpose of the content that we're putting out there. And I think for businesses, that's another interesting shift, the difficult shift that needs to happen in their head, is if they are going to be making content that's stepping on the train tracks of existing interest,
00:26:33
Speaker
you have to be comfortable talking about other players in the industry. And for the longest time, that was a cardinal sin. Because I couldn't possibly even say the name of that company that sells something very similar to what I sell, because that's giving them free promotion. I'm never, I'm going to pretend like they don't exist. It's like, we're trying to build a community and have conversations and create an environment where we can talk about this existing interest
00:26:59
Speaker
in a way that is similar to everybody else. We consider ourselves enthusiasts too. We are very much shoulder to shoulder with the people that watch our content and we see our responsibility not as to promote our business, that'll happen anyways, that'll happen organically. We see our responsibility as how do we aim this camera in areas that we think people are gonna find the most interesting that they get the most out of.
00:27:24
Speaker
And then from there, yeah, you're going to get the goodwill, which is a big deal, but you're going to get that community that you can't buy. I think you see a lot of people and like, you know, the Facebook and the Instagram and they'll try to buy their way towards communities, especially in the world of like product launches.
00:27:44
Speaker
but he will have an information product, right? And they'll be like, you share this and hashtag this and affiliate marketing that, and they'll try and build this community, and it's just a really short-term time horizon. It's like, okay, well, here's the launch of the product, and for the next week, we'll be in here, and we'll talk about all this cool stuff, maybe for a couple of days.
00:28:07
Speaker
You have some people in there, but it wasn't built on any foundational culture or identity or values. It's just, you know, you spent enough money to grab enough attention for a short window of time and maybe you sold some products, but there's nothing long-term there that you can hang your hat on. And any business that's going to be in the content game, it's like, man,
00:28:30
Speaker
With the amount of time and energy it goes into creating good content, I can only imagine if you're doing it short-term, why? It's so much of a pain in the ass to do this well, to begin with. It really is. Do it for the long-term benefit. Don't do it for the short-term burst of attention. Yeah, totally. It's funny because in some ways I can totally see
Local vs Global Content Focus
00:28:52
Speaker
why that sort of model is carried over from the old school ideas of advertising in that you're spending money to get attention now. But at the same time, the old school, it's a bad lead. What is that lead going to generate for you in the future?
00:29:11
Speaker
If, yeah, if you're essentially bribing people to come to where you are, it's not like they come with goodwill. It's not like they come with intent. It's not like, I mean, half of those people probably don't even know who you are or what you do. They just saw something for you on Facebook, you know, and now here they are. So yeah, it's, it's a tricky one, man. Uh, I also wanted to touch on the idea of, uh, of scale and, and goals. So,
00:29:39
Speaker
Obviously for you, for the Whiskey Tribe, you're an international focused thing simply because that's just what's happened, right? And people give a shit about what it is that you're talking about. It doesn't matter where they are, because let's face it.
00:29:59
Speaker
But I do think because of the idea that you mentioned earlier, the democratization of, I guess it's really attention, isn't it? The democratization of attention. You have the ability to aim small and miss small if you want to. So your entire content focus could be all of the cool stuff that's happening in Austin for you.
00:30:29
Speaker
And it's not like you're going to get millions of subscribers. It's not like you're going to get millions of people following you. But you damn sure might turn into the people that are the go to for, oh, what's cool and happening in Austin tonight, right? Yep. Like I have a buddy that they have a website that does that exact thing. Yeah, it's all the things happening in Austin, everything from venues to restaurants to, you know, I guess the COVID situation kind of put a damper on that whole thing. Yeah, nothing.
00:30:58
Speaker
You don't have to be aiming at a giant exposure. You're going to be building a community across countries, especially if your business is such that you can only provide a product or service locally.
00:31:15
Speaker
that's kind of where I was driving at with this. And let's face it, our government and TTB and all of those sort of things tend to have a bad view of people selling alcohol.
00:31:35
Speaker
I will say this, though. As much as, you know, aiming locally can be great. And I think if a lot of the content is focused on, like, the local scene, one, does the local scene have enough cool, interesting things going on? You've got us boiled in Austin, because there's a lot of stuff here.
00:31:52
Speaker
But if you're limited to a product or service that can only be sold locally, and there's not a lot of local stuff happening because you're always going to be behind the eight ball for the next piece of content that doesn't go away, then I would strongly look at, don't limit yourself to going local.
Evolving Business Models
00:32:10
Speaker
to only going local if there's not a tremendous amount of abundance of things to focus on locally. If you can tap into a pre-existing interest, if you can step onto train tracks, and it has the potential, the opportunity to have international appeal,
00:32:27
Speaker
It's like, well, it's the internet. It is not harder to make that content. It's not. You're increasing the scale, the scope, the possible attention that you're going to be gathering. And if you can make it work local, great. But it's not like there's going to be, well, I'm going to be focusing small and local. And it doesn't get that much easier in terms of the production crap you have to go through.
00:32:50
Speaker
It's just, in a lot of ways, if you're limiting yourself to the local scene, then there's a finite pool of talent that you have to draw from in terms of the collaborations and guest interviews and all that stuff. So yes, focusing local can work really, really well if there's a lot happening in the local scene. But if you have the potential to offer something internationally,
00:33:19
Speaker
If there is an element that can be shipped, like this thing about this, let's say that we, I'm trying to think of something that we couldn't put in the mail. Oh, what if we built custom motorcycles, right? And we built a YouTube channel, they decided about custom motorcycles and here's the builds and all that stuff. When we built an international following,
00:33:39
Speaker
It's like, well, I'm not going to be able to get you a custom motorcycle, but some pretty badass helmet designs and t-shirts and badges and all of this stuff because they're just a fan of what we're doing, what we're building. It's like, oh, those are amazing designs. And I really like the enthusiasm. And they talk about really interesting stuff. And I would love to have a motorcycle like that someday. Probably never going to be able to get my hands on a motorcycle. But I can absolutely participate in that community with them.
00:34:07
Speaker
by representing some merch. And, you know, maybe there are things that they can put in the mail, you know, the leathers. I'm not a bike guy. Yeah. So once you start getting serious about creating a larger online footprint for yourself with your content.
00:34:25
Speaker
I think it's a mistake if businesses continue to only look at the scale, the scope of what they're doing within the context of what they've done before. Say, hey, guys, if this works, we're only servicing the small little local area. But if this works well, we don't have to only limit ourselves to that.
00:34:45
Speaker
between Shopify and product fulfillment warehouses. And even putting stuff on Amazon these days, there's so many different opportunities for people to expand that footprint beyond just the small scale thing they started with. And I think a lot of businesses, if they're fortunate enough to find success as a business, because
00:35:07
Speaker
the vast majority of businesses go out of business within the first five years. So let's say that's assumed, they found success after five years, they're not bankrupt. Congratulations, you already achieved something pretty amazing. Then it's okay, well, this is the model that got us here. And this is the model that's working. There's often a tendency to the moment you finally have something that's working, let's circle the wagons and let's protect this at all costs.
00:35:34
Speaker
And if you're going to be growing and not just reaching a plateau, a flat line and maintaining, you have to be always considering
00:35:44
Speaker
What are the things, the handful of things that are worth protecting? What are the handful of things that do not change our core values, our mission, our place in this universe, in this niche? And then everything else, if it doesn't fall within this handful of things that are absolutely unconditionally cornerstones of us, everything else needs to be up for grabs. Everything else is like, okay, what's the opportunities? What's the evolution? What are the next stages that we can grow into?
00:36:11
Speaker
And a lot of times businesses, they circle the wagons for everything and they'll just flatline and just maintain this kind of small mom and pop vibe until eventually they retire. Yeah. And it's tricky too because small
00:36:28
Speaker
businesses are the ones that have the flexibility and the agility to be able to change their model based on the success they have, right? So if you are a small three company operation or you've just started the distillery and you do find success in hand sanitizer or something for example, it's not a huge thing for you to be able to switch but
00:36:53
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. Let's focus specifically on distilleries then.
Production and Content Quality in Distilleries
00:36:59
Speaker
I would suggest that the actual content creation, the business owner, the principals in a business are in charge of manning that camera and running the audio and doing the lighting. I'm feeling budgets on the small scale. They're very, very thin, very, very tight. But distilleries, I mean, this is already, there's many,
00:37:22
Speaker
As many restrictions as we have in this industry, we also have a tremendous amount of opportunity, things that we have going for us that most other industries don't have going for us. Like at any given moment, if we wanted to do a bottling and we wanted to get a whole bunch of volunteers.
00:37:40
Speaker
that they're just wanna volunteer just so they can show up in a hot barrel house and put whiskey in bottles, they will absolutely do that. And it's not necessarily something limited to crowded barrel. This is across so many different distilleries, large and small. They're just like, oh, whiskey is cool and I've never been in a barrel house. And that sounds like fun. Yeah, let's go do that and get a couple of your friends and you go fill bottles. So the same way that you can get volunteers and you can get very low cost assistance to do a lot of the grant manual labor,
00:38:07
Speaker
in distilleries, there's also a lot of crossover for production talent. Now you're not gonna get top tier guys with tons of experience, but somebody that has, they've used a camera, maybe they grew up making stuff on YouTube, they're looking for an opportunity to get into something, and they do a respectable enough job. If one of your volunteers or one of your entry level positions was the guy who's in charge of setting up the cameras,
00:38:32
Speaker
the lights and the microphones on these very specific days, on these very specific times, so you can shoot your videos. Yeah, do that. Do that thing. I'm not suggesting at all that business owners and the principals and the decision makers learn how to do production stuff. That is a full-time job. There's a lot of things that, like between the codecs and the aspect ratios and shutter speeds and the ISOs and all of those things. They need to learn that.
00:39:01
Speaker
You do need to find people who have an interest in the industry that you feel that they're capable enough to deliver quality, they're dependable enough to show up on time so you can have a consistent schedule. Yeah, find people that are going to be a low cost investment for you to make content. And I would honestly, if there is an opportunity and there's no revenue coming in, right, one of the things that is,
00:39:31
Speaker
the cardinal sin to say to anybody, any content creator is, well, this would be good exposure for you. Good exposure. I'm going to pay him an exposure bucks crap. So they need to be compensated, but I think, um, already video production, it's such a saturated talent pool. There's so many capable people that are wanting to do that for a living that you can get them at very, very good rates.
00:39:56
Speaker
very, very capable talent in terms of production quality, production values there. And to the extent that you have those milestones, those goals set out for you in your content, you can tie those goals
00:40:10
Speaker
to different ways to compensate the production talent. Hey guys, if we can get 10,000 subscribers in the next 12 months, then this is the raise I want to give you. If we can get 1,000 subscribers in the next quarter, this is the camera I want to buy for you to use. If we can do this, so you can tie their compensation to the performance of the channel to get them even more invested into the success of that content.
00:40:35
Speaker
But yeah, I think distilleries are uniquely positioned to have a tremendous amount of help from people that just want to be around it. They just want to experience it. Yeah, it's just cool. Like you said, they want to hang out. They want to be there. And let's face it, it's a cool thing to be able to say to your friends on the weekend that you're working at the local distillery or whatever it happens to be.
00:40:59
Speaker
I'm about to say something and I'm cautious of saying it for one big reason, but the idea that like you said, there is a large saturation of people out there with these skills now, and that's not going away, it's just getting more and more so. There is the ability for you to pick up a warehouse apprentice,
00:41:26
Speaker
Oh, by the way, this guy really knows how to operate a camera and edit video. The reason I'm cautious of that is time and time again, I see the priorities get stepped on. Going back to what you said at the very, very, very beginning, right?
00:41:43
Speaker
you need to see the schedule and you need to stick to the schedule. Oh, but we're behind on our bottling. That video, that's not, just this once, just don't get that video out, stop the editing. We need you over here to clean this mess up or put this shit in a bottle or bottles on a truck or whatever it happens to be. So I'm cautious, I'm really cautious to say,
00:42:04
Speaker
the the
00:42:16
Speaker
primary job hadn't been a content creator, producer, and editor for 20 years. If I was just all of a sudden thrown into this distillery thing, it absolutely would have been spotty releases of episodes. And yeah, maybe we'll try and shoehorn in a shoot, and it'll be way too compact and a timeline to shoot anything. And even with this being my role in the entire venture,
00:42:42
Speaker
the pressure to conform to the production of whiskey and to put on the back burner the production of content, that is so real. It is so intense. And I've been doing this for 20 freaking years. Yeah. Yes. And you understand it inside out and... Yeah. Yeah.
00:43:04
Speaker
The more I see it, the more I experience it, the more I'm involved in it. And I get it, man. I totally get it. You could make this video that's going to get whatever metric you want to put on it at the person who's in their business, at their stage in business. You could do that, but we've got this container of stuff that needs to go out that's worth
00:43:26
Speaker
$200,000 in that we're late. It's a very different things to compare to each other. One is very tangible. One is directly related to physical products, physical things, and money. And the other is kind of intangible. It's an angel obfuscation of what is urgent and what's truly important.
00:43:51
Speaker
I'm like, well, this stuff is urgent, but that doesn't mean that the content is any less important. I mean, I probably shouldn't be saying this. What we're talking about right now, that's the reason why I have intentionally not learned a lot of the things that are happening at the discovery in the barrel house and the production room and all that stuff, because I need them to think of me as the last, last, last person to go to whenever they need help there.
00:44:19
Speaker
And to the extent that, oh, Rex knows how to do this, Rex is capable and Rex can throw in and he can do all that stuff. No, I need to be so hard down on the list so we can focus on the content. And I think with Whiskey Tribe and Crowded Barrel, the one thing that we have going for us, which has made that whole scenario a lot easier.
00:44:39
Speaker
and it's still very difficult. It's still something you have to wrestle with from week to week. But it's a lot easier because this is the world's first crowdsourced whiskey distillery and it only exists because people have experienced it through the content. It's not, we made a distillery and started doing some videos and they started catching on. It's like, no, this only exists because we've aimed cameras and microphones at things and talked about stuff. Like if this is a camera,
00:45:07
Speaker
the business goes through this little hole, right? Everything that you're putting in the bottle, that's not really the nature of the business right now, at least right now. Maybe someday a crowded barrel will blow up and be huge and we got the production pipelines and the barrel storage and all that figured out. But for right now, this is a video content business. That's the only way that 99% of the people can consume anything we have to offer.
00:45:32
Speaker
Like, the whiskey is just incredibly small batches in Austin, Texas. And for people to get any kind of value out of this relationship, we need to ink cameras at it. We need to explain it. We need to dive deep. We need to always be mindful of what's going to be the most fun and informative for them and not sacrifice the creation of that content. So from that perspective, we're fortunate, but
00:45:57
Speaker
It absolutely is something that a business needs to go in, eyes wide open and understand. If I'm gonna be making content, the people that I put in charge of content, I can't tap them on the shoulders. Like, hey, put down the camera and pick up this forklift. It reminds me a lot of like journalists, they'll go to war zones. And every once in a while, they'll be like a cameraman or a photographer who,
00:46:24
Speaker
they'll capture an image or they'll capture a moment of like something horrific happening, right? And you'll inevitably have these people pop up and say, well, why didn't you put down the camera and go help? Why didn't you do this? And why didn't you do that? And from a journalist perspective, from a cameraman's perspective, they understand most of the time, sometimes it's just so overwhelming, they have to put it down and they lose the shot because they have to help.
00:46:48
Speaker
the situation but most of the time they understand the most value I can bring to this situation is to not just put my eyes on it and jump in and help it's to put the world's eyes on it so they understand because there's only so much I can do running in there and throwing elbows but if I get planet freaking earth to see what I see that's how real change happens so yeah it's hard but I think from a content perspective if that's
Facing Vulnerability and Feedback
00:47:16
Speaker
If it's something that you consider to be very, very important, yeah, it's discipline. And a lot of times there's urgent things that are going to feel like they're getting neglected just so you can maintain that truly long-term important thing of capturing the moment, capturing somebody moving that forklift as it rushes across the warehouse to get that delivery out in time.
00:47:34
Speaker
It's like, oh, that's kind of compelling content. This was a huge $100,000 deal. And we are scrambling because they're about to, you know, trucks about to drive away. And this is, you know, a fifth of the profit for the entire quarter. That's our story. And if they told the camera guy to put that hand, to put the camera down and help load the truck, then the opportunity for that story, that shared experience with your viewers, that's gone forever.
00:47:58
Speaker
100%. And that's a great example, actually, of what we were talking about earlier in terms of the vulnerability and transparency required to be able to play in that game. If you want your business to be the focus of this, right? So that's something, actually, that's worth talking about. Because there's a whole lot of people that do this successfully where they literally don't mention their business, that the content has
00:48:26
Speaker
nothing to do with their business like you know that okay so the the motorbike example that you gave earlier they don't even it's not like a series of videos on this is how we made this bike and this is the bike that we made for this famous person and all that sort of stuff it's got nothing to do with that they show up at whatever at races or rallies or whatever it happens to be and they talk with other people and
00:48:53
Speaker
the only way you find out that it's even tied to the business is you turn into a super fan and you go down the railroads, Warren. I think it all comes back to this idea of, oh man, how do you put it? It's almost like the content has to have legs without the business.
00:49:13
Speaker
No, it does. And that's obvious from a creator's point of view, but from a business person's point of view, when you're trying to come up with an idea for this, if you say, okay, so I get what you're saying and I love the concept of the channel you want to make, but if the business shut down and went out of business, would that channel still be there and still be interesting? And if the answer to that is yes, then I think maybe you
00:49:37
Speaker
on something. I would get it from the perspective of if you're going to create content and the business didn't exist, what is the kind of content that you would want to watch as an enthusiast, as somebody who has a deep vested interest in this niche, in this topic, in this area, in this, yeah, in this hobby, make the content that you would really, really enjoy watching if you were just surfing around on YouTube and everybody else who has that similar bent
00:50:07
Speaker
they're going to enjoy watching that content too. It's not a big, complicated, strategic thing. It's how do you put the viewer and their interests first, and to the extent that you take care of them, then you're gonna have a relationship where someday you can say, oh, by the way, I got this thing over here, it's pretty cool, if you wanna check it out.
00:50:27
Speaker
I think it's coming from this place of buying 30 seconds, 60 second moments of advertising where you're talking about nothing but your business. You've got to maximize every second. It's got to be used to talk about every feature must be. Yeah.
00:50:43
Speaker
Yeah. I will say this is somewhat related. When it comes to transparency and vulnerability, this is another thing that's difficult for I think a lot of businesses across industries, but distilleries too, is if they're going to start putting themselves out there, and it's actually them and their personality, and they're caffeinated, and they're energetic, and they're talking about things that they're genuinely excited about.
00:51:08
Speaker
then whenever you're no longer hiding behind a logo or a mission statement or a script, any kind of negative feedback you get, it's like, oh, that becomes so much more real. Fair or not fair, it doesn't matter. It's just this moment where, yeah, I put myself out there, and the overwhelmingly positive response you get
00:51:31
Speaker
I don't, it's something, I mean, I have theories why the human brain works this way, but that stuff you become, you're thankful, you appreciate it, you love it when people do that, but that does not take up near the amount of head space as somebody that said something really ignorant and shitty and groundless. I was like, how could they say that? I mean, I've never, I'm not doing that at all, and I don't know what you're talking about. We've had all these examples of that not being, that's completely based on nothing.
00:51:58
Speaker
That's the thing that you're thinking about. And it hurts even more whenever you're putting yourself out there from an honest place and not, well, here's the corporate board approved script that I'm talking about for this new product or this new service in our business. So yeah, there's, it talked about, you know, the,
00:52:14
Speaker
the emotional preparation, like you need to have a personality that's willing to have fun with it and goof around and be yourself and crank up the caffeination level. Never forget what people are actually looking for, but at the same time also understand that when you do get crapped on, which will inevitably happen,
00:52:37
Speaker
They don't really know you, so it's fine. And it's easy to say that, but it's actually hard to remember in the moment where it's like, gosh, I just can't believe they say that shitty thing. That's not true at all. It's so funny, man, because everyone talks about it, but no, it's almost like.
00:52:57
Speaker
As you're in the middle of saying those words, it's almost like you don't believe them yourself. But then you go back and think about what happened. I had one yesterday and it was just literally the equivalent of you suck. The thought that went into it. They could have copied and pasted it off anything and pasted it on any video and it would have had the same amount of relevance. And that sits in amongst
00:53:24
Speaker
400 other comments of people, you know, pulling apart little things that I've done and adding really cool solutions and giving me awesome encouragement. And yet this morning when I woke up at four 30 in the morning and got out of the shower,
00:53:41
Speaker
I was thinking about it. Like literally I was thinking about it, you know, it's crazy, man. It's just a, it's an energy suck. It's a time. So at the risk of getting, you know, a little tangential, I'm going to explain my theory behind it, which doesn't, it does actually help. So, um,
00:53:59
Speaker
As a species, I think our brains are hardwired to perceive danger and negativity. That's going to grab our attention. We had to become very quickly aware and very quickly focused on the very large cat hiding in the bushes sneaking up on us. So whatever berries we're picking and whatever we're doing over here, the moment that we heard a twig snap, everything, every fiber of our being is aimed at that potentially bad thing.
00:54:28
Speaker
And I think it's very, very similar with negative comments in, you know,
00:54:34
Speaker
creators' channels, also we see it in news, man. There is a reason why you go through any news website, any cable news station, and just count up the number of headlines that have bad, negative, toxic, horrific words. It's things like crisis, and it's things like horrific, and it's things like killing spree, one after another after another. It'd be like one out of 50.
00:55:01
Speaker
we'll have something positive, because news, journalists understand if it bleeds, it leads. That's gonna get the attention, that's gonna get the clicks, and even whenever that news doesn't represent what we're going to experience in our day-to-day lives, and we'll convince ourselves, well, I need to be aware of what's happening. You're now aware of just a lot of horrible things that are happening. You've been drip-fed, bad, toxic, horrendous stuff, and none of the positive things that have happened, because that's not what sells.
00:55:31
Speaker
Same thing. If it's bad, it's going to grab human attention. If it's a negative comment, it's going to grab human attention. And it's our lizard brain that is programmed to say, Oh, bad thing. I must focus completely on that thing. That is, it doesn't make sense. It's irrational, but human beings are absolutely hardwired that way. And I think whatever you can just take a step back and realize
00:55:53
Speaker
You know what, this is out of hundreds of comments, one or two kind of shitty comments, and this thing that's happening, this fixation, this is a primal instinct that is there, but there's not a big cat in the bushes. There's just that guy on his couch.
00:56:14
Speaker
Yeah, man, a false positive doesn't hurt you when there's a cat, you know, if you go, Oh my God, is it? Oh, no, there's not, but a false negative. If you just a blase about that cat sneaking up on you.
00:56:28
Speaker
A false negative has bad connotations for the evolutionary wise. I think it's true for business too. But anyway, I know you've got to go and get some of your own content together.
Conclusion and Future Plans
00:56:42
Speaker
Thank you so much, dude. Thank you for having me. I enjoyed it. Yeah, me too, man. This was a long, rambly, beautiful mess, which is exactly how I like it. I will, baby.
00:56:56
Speaker
When the pandemic settles down, I fully expect you to show back up in Austin because I enjoy hanging out with you. Yeah, man, I'll be back.
00:57:06
Speaker
I think I have a long future of showing up in Austin at random times. Texas feels comfortable for me. I like Texas. I never thought I would say that, dude. Hollywood told me that Texas was going to suck, and Hollywood fucking lied. No, dude. Look, Hollywood tells you that, and then do you know how many Californians are moving to Texas? Yeah, you guys are going to have to find a new Austin.
00:57:35
Speaker
Alright man, I appreciate it. It's always, always a pleasure to hang out with Rex. Whether you're kind of digitally hanging out with him watching his videos, talking to him online, or in person, the guy is just quality from start to finish. So thank you so much Rex. I know this is a little bit different. It's not exactly distilling specific content.
00:57:59
Speaker
But I really like the idea of exploring the edges of what is possible with this podcast in terms of just being able to talk to cool people about tangentially related topics to running a distillery. So if you're into this sort of thing maybe drop me a line let me know you're into it and we'll see if we can get more people on like this in the future.
00:58:21
Speaker
Speaking of which, if you have a connection or you just happen to know someone in the industry or you're in the industry yourself and you have a suggestion on someone that you think that should absolutely be a guest on the podcast, feel free to reach out at jesseatchasethecraft.com and drop a suggestion for my next guest.
00:58:39
Speaker
Don't worry guys, the next podcast coming up is going to be very much based on product distilling and a weird mix-up of rum and gin. That's the plan anyway, so keep listening for next week's podcast. Thanks again to Gladfield Malt, and to Adventures in Home Brewing, and of course, of course, so many thank yous to the Patreons. Keep on chasing the craft, guys. See ya.