Benton Crane | The CEO and Founder of the Viral Video Marketing Company Harmon Brothers (Why You Must WOW to Sell NOW)

Show Notes

The marketing expert (Benton Crane), whose internet video campaigns like Poo-Pourri have racked up 1.5 billion views and $350 million in sales shares why you have less than 5 seconds to WOW your ideal and likely buyers with your marketing NOW if you want to sell them something.

Benton Crane’s Favorite Commercials: 

FiberFixhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haPvuhznuyI 

The Purple Mattress – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BvwpjaGZCQ

Visit – HarmonBrothers.com today to learn more.

BENTON CRANE Harmon Brothers—a company out of Provo, UT whose internet video campaigns like Poo-Pourri have racked up 1.5 billion views and $350 million in sales. 

  1. Yes, yes, yes and yes! Thrivetime Nation on today’s show we are interviewing Benton Crane who is the CEO of Harmon Brothers…the Provo Utah-based marketing company that has created viral internet videos that have created 1.5 billion views and over $350 million in sales. Benton, welcome onto the Thrivetime Show how are you sir!?
  2. Who is Harmon Brothers and what do you do?
    1. We are the agency behind many famous internet campaigns.
  3. I know that you’ve had a ton of success at this point in your career, but I would love to start off at the bottom and the very beginning of your career. What was your life like growing up and where did you grow up?
    1. My background is in data analytics.
    2. I started out as an analyst in Washington D.C.
  4. When did you first figure out what you wanted to do professionally?
  5. How did you start your first company? 
  6. What kind of equipment did you use to make your early videos?
  7. How did you go about funding your first company?
  8. What gear would you recommend that all of listeners should have to make professional marketing videos?
    1. It doesn’t matter if you are just using an iPhone or DSLR camera if your messaging is right starting out
    2. It will be a waste of money for a startup to go buy cinematic quality equipment
    3. As your resources grow, your equipment will get more sophisticated and the quality will get better.
  9. What are the ingredients of a bad and non-compelling advertisement?
    1. Make something that is surprising, but not fitting the message of the advertisement
      1. The confused customer never buys
      2. AMPLE EXAMPLE – Outpost.com Super Bowl Commercial – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cmT8M_67ow 
  10. Where do people get the call to action wrong in advertisements?
    1. Direct response vs. Emotional advertising
  11. How did you go about getting your first 10 customers?
  12. When did you first feel like you were truly beginning to gain traction with your career?
  13. What is your process for making these viral videos…where do you even start?
    1. The first thing we look at is, “Can we get passionate about this product or service?”
    2. If I have to make you watch an advertisement, I want you to want to watch it and share it, and capture your attention.
    3. When you marry creativity with data-driven analytics, you can create really powerful videos
    4. We know that if we can capture your attention within the first 5 seconds, we can get you to watch more.
    5. We create 3-5 intros for each of our videos and take it to market to test it.
  14. What is the favorite video you have created?
    1. Redneck drives duct tape car off a cliff – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haPvuhznuyI 
  15. How do you go about crafting a script for your videos?
  16. In the first 5 seconds of a video, what would you recommend to hook customers
    1. Have the spokesperson for the brand connecting with your audience on 2 levels
      1. Empathy – I’ve been there, I’ve felt that pain, etc.
      2. Authority – I’ve come out successful
  17. Where do most people get it wrong when it comes to making marketing videos?
  18. Today, I’d love for you to share with the listeners about the kinds of projects that you are up to?
  19. How, you come across as a very proactive person…so how do you typically organize the first four hours of your and what time do you typically wake up?
  20. What are a few of your daily habits that you believe have allowed you to achieve success?
  21. What mentor has made the biggest impact on your career thus far?
  22. We find that most successful entrepreneurs tend to have idiosyncrasies that are actually their super powers…what idiosyncrasy do you have?
  23. What message or principle that you wish you could teach everyone?
  24. What is the action step you have for our listeners?
    1. For business owners – HarmonBrothers.com
    2. For videographers – HarmonBrothersUniversity.com
Business Coach | Ask Clay & Z Anything

Audio Transcription


Facebook Benton Crane Thrivetime Show

Dr. Z:
We always want our episodes to be classy.

Speaker 2:
Classy.

Dr. Z:
So, on today’s show…

Speaker 2:
Very classy.

Dr. Z:
We’re interviewing a guy who is a marketing wizard. And so, I wanted to use megaphone technology to introduce today’s guest…

Speaker 2:
Well, that is cutting edge technology, right there.

Dr. Z:
Cutting edge, it’s cutting edge technology. Benton Crane. Welcome onto the Thrivetime Show. How are you sir?

Benton Crane:
Fantastic. Thanks for having me on.

Speaker 2:
Oh brother, I am fired up about you. Can you share with the listeners out there who are not familiar with Harmon Brothers, what is Harmon Brothers and what do you do as the CEO of Harmon Brothers?

Benton Crane:
So we are the agency behind many famous campaigns that you’ve likely seen on the internet, starting with Poo-Pourri and Chatbooks, Purple Mattress, Squatty Potty, Lume Deodorant, FiberFix, and the list goes on and on. So, our clients have enjoyed… Well I don’t know, it’s over something like 1.5 billion views on those videos in over, I don’t know what we’re up to, something like $400 million in sales to go along with those campaigns. So, that’s what we do. That’s who we are. So, most people probably aren’t familiar with the name Harmon Brothers, but they’re likely familiar with many of the companies that we’ve done work for.

Speaker 2:
I have a person who’s a client of mine who walked into the meeting and they said, you have to watch this video.

Speaker 5:
What’s a Super easy way to tell that …

Speaker 2:
And this is the video.

Speaker 5:
Your bed is awful. The raw egg test. Let me prove it.

Speaker 2:
This is a video that you guys produced for the Purple Mattress and they were watching it over and over and over and I said, “Have you bought a Purple Mattress yet?” And they go, “No, not yet. But I keep watching this video”. Now, they shared that video with I don’t know how many people. I mean, they made me watch the video in the meeting and then they had my staff watch it and then they shared it because they shared me a link to it. I mean, they were obsessed with it. Can you talk about this for a second? Like, how do you go about making a commercial like this Purple Mattress commercial? How do you do it?

Benton Crane:
Yeah. It’s all based on this idea that the old concept of advertising where I’m going to force advertisements in front of your face because I know that you’re a captive audience and I can show you whatever I want to show you. That’s an old notion that is dying. And the new notion is that if I make an advertisement, I have to make it so good that you want to watch it. That you’re excited to watch it, you’re excited to talk about it, you’re excited to comment on it, you’re excited to share it. And so every campaign we ever work on, we always come from that mindset of how do we make this so good that people want to watch it. They’re doing it out of their own free will because there’s no captive audience anymore. If you see something in your feed and it doesn’t catch your attention, you can keep scrolling.

Dr. Z:
Right. So, Benton, what you’re saying is, just okay, is not okay?

Benton Crane:
Yeah. To quote some other famous advertisers.

Dr. Z:
Yeah, no. I mean, it’s fun. I mean, I really… The day now has, when I’m watching TV, which I don’t do very much, but it amazes me. I love to watch the advertisements because as a business owner, that’s something I’ve always been interested in and fascinated by. What has moved me in an ad, what has made me want to do business with the company. And I find myself now rewinding the TV to re-watch an ad. I mean, it’s crazy when they’re getting so clever and so fun out there. And you’re right. When you have DVR shows, you’re busy, you’re multitasking, which is crazy anyway while you’re trying to watch TV or something and they have to capture you and that’s awesome that you understand that, you know that, and you’re excelling in that. So, hoo-rah.

Speaker 2:
I want to, I want to-

Benton Crane:
We… Go ahead.

Speaker 2:
… I want to get into your wisdom on this because you make videos that are viral, but you do it in a mathematically, almost scientifically, as close to as guaranteed way as possible. You produce videos that touch the amygdala, the almond size part of the brain that processes emotions in such a way that people are wowed and they feel like they cathartically have to share it now. What is the science behind this? What’s the process? Because you are at a next level, my man.

Benton Crane:
Yeah, my background is actually in data analytics. I spent the first part of my career as a statistician at the U.S. Census Bureau and then I spent some years working in the intelligence community out in Washington D.C. as an analyst. And so when I joined up with my partners, the Harmon Brothers, the piece that I brought to the table was this data piece, these analytics that you’re referring to. And when you marry the world of creativity with the world of data-driven decisions, it becomes a really, really powerful combination.

Benton Crane:
So, let me give you a quick example. That Purple commercial that you just played the opening clip of that. What people don’t understand is that we also wrote, we scripted, and we shot, and we edited, I can’t remember for certain, but I want to say it was four or five different intros to that same commercial because we know that we have less than five seconds to grab your attention. And if we successfully grab your attention, we’re going to be able to hold it and we’re going to not just entertain you, but we’re also going to convince you that, in the case of purple mattress, that it’s an awesome mattress and that it can solve some of your problems.

Benton Crane:
But if we fail to capture your attention, then we’re not going to get the opportunity to transmit that message to you. And so, when a lot of people who go into video, they just take their best guess and then hope it works out, whereas we say, “Okay, let’s take our best guess, but then let’s make some contingency plans” and say, “Okay, we think it’s going to be like this, but let’s also try plan B, plan C, and plan D, and plan E” so that we can actually take those different intros, we can take them to market and test them and find out which intro actually has the highest view-through rate so that we know we can drive a high percentage of people from that intro into the rest of the ad.

Benton Crane:
And so I don’t remember the exact numbers on that Purple ad, but oftentimes, we’ll see the difference between a winning intro and a non-winning intro can sometimes be to the tune of 70% difference between-

Speaker 2:
One hundred and eighty three million.

Benton Crane:
Go ahead.

Speaker 2:
You said the number’s 183 million people so far have seen this Purple Mattress video that I played. I mean, it is impressive what you’re doing. I mean this is-

Benton Crane:
Oh, that’s just that one variation of it. That ad actually has several hundred million views behind it now. It’s one of the most successful campaigns in the history of mattresses if not the history of advertising. It’s pretty incredible.

Dr. Z:
Benton, I’m on YouTube right now and just as a personal sidebar, of all the ads, of all the campaigns, of all the stuff you’ve done, do you have a personal favorite?

Benton Crane:
You know, there’s one that does kind of have a soft spot in my heart. And that’s the ad that we did for FiberFix, which is-

Dr. Z:
CyberFix. Okay, I’m going to look that up-

Benton Crane:
… A fiberglass repair wrap that is 100 times stronger than duct tape. And in that ad we threw cars off of cliffs to demonstrate-

Dr. Z:
That’s cool.

Benton Crane:
… The strength of the fiberglass repair wrap. And, oh my goodness. I think I’m a little bit redneck at heart because throwing cars off a cliff is like… It just touched me in a deep way.

Dr. Z:
I like it.

Speaker 2:
I want to give some of the audio of this real quick and all the listeners, if you do a Google search or if you do a YouTube search for, redneck drives a duct-taped car off of a cliff, redneck drives a duct-taped car off of a cliff. Here we go, let me keep the audio on.

Speaker 6:
What happens when you flip a car with the roll cage held together by duct tape?

Speaker 2:
Oh wow. This is actually happening. Wow.

Dr. Z:
Is that the ad he’s talking about?

Speaker 2:
I believe so.

Speaker 6:
That was a dummy.

Benton Crane:
That’s the one.

Speaker 6:
I’d never get in that car. It’s held together by duct tape. But what if you use tape that’s strong as steel? Manliness.

Dr. Z:
That’s super awesome.

Speaker 2:
Real quick, I’m going to… Z, what I’m going to do is I’m going to try to sell you something real quick. I’m going to try to sell you something.

Dr. Z:
All right.

Speaker 2:
Benton, Dr. Z currently owns the highest grossing optometry clinic in Oklahoma, or one of the most. I think it’s the most.

Benton Crane:
Oh, wow. Congratulations.

Dr. Z:
Thank you.

Speaker 2:
Also, he is a partner with a bank where he gets unlimited suckers and auto auction, the largest auto auction in the state. And I’m going to give you an opportunity right now to make a pitch to a guy who has the capacity to pay you. And he loves crazy commercials. I’m not kidding.

Dr. Z:
Oh yeah. I love them.

Speaker 2:
This is the guy who’s had the most aggressive billboards I’ve ever seen. Z, I think you’re going to become a customer of this guy. What does it cost to hire your services and what kind of a market value creation could he maybe expect to create if he makes an internet ad that is hot.

Dr. Z:
Hot.

Speaker 2:
Tell us more.

Benton Crane:
Sure. So let me start with the second part of that question, then I’ll go back to the first part of it. So, I think the best thing I can do is give you a few examples. So, Poo-Pourri, for instance, they were doing about $7 million per year prior to our partnership with them. And the very next year, I believe they hit somewhere in the mid $20 million range.

Benton Crane:
Squatty Potty was about $4 million per year. We jumped them up to $20 the first year and then I think they hit $30 the second year if I’m not mistaken. Purple, we took them from $0, they hadn’t launched yet. So we launched the brand and the campaign and I think it was about 14 months is what it took to hit $100 million, somewhere in that neighborhood. Lume is a more recent one. They jumped from about $1.5 million per year up to $15 and now they’re on track for $30 million.

Dr. Z:
Dude, that’s hot.

Benton Crane:
Yeah, those are kind of some examples of the power of when you combine great marketing with great products, the results are just remarkable. I mean, you pretty much become unstoppable.

Speaker 2:
When you were… Let’s say Z wanted to hire you for the auto auction. What’s the process look like? If he were to engage with you, what does that process look like? And how much money he is looking at spending?

Benton Crane:
Yeah, great question. So kind of the first thing that we look at is, can we get passionate behind this product or service? Do we use it? Do we love it? Do we tell our friends about it? Do we tell our families about it? Because that’s usually an indicator that one, it’s a really awesome product and two, it’s an indicator that because we’re so passionate about it, that passion is going to come out in our ads.

Benton Crane:
And so speaking right off the bat about an auto auction, I don’t have any experience with auto auctions and so I don’t know what level of passion I would get behind it, but that’s the first question I would ask myself. “Okay, let me use it. Let me experience it. Let me see what the benefits are of it so that I can get excited about it”. And once I get excited about it, then I know I have a really high probability of success when I go into making campaigns for it.

Speaker 2:
I’m-

Benton Crane:
Go ahead.

Speaker 2:
I’m going to assume that you… I’m just trying to really make this sale happens. See, I’m like a power broker here.

Dr. Z:
Yeah.

Speaker 2:
I’m assuming that you’re going to be passionate, and I’m going to assume, Z, you’re passionate about his passion.

Dr. Z:
I’m passionate about my passion right now, I’m passionate about.

Speaker 2:
What happens next, Benton?

Benton Crane:
So next, assuming that we’re able to put together the right package that the business needs at the right time and it’s within your price range, and that can start… We have entry level packages that start around the $30k range and obviously that won’t buy you ads where you’re throwing cars off of cliffs or anything close to it-

Dr. Z:
Oh, man.

Benton Crane:
… But it acts as a starting point for a business who is young, they’re a startup, but they need those sales so that they can kind of grow to the next level. And then our packages run from there all the way up into some of our better known stuff where we get really crazy like the cars flying off the cliff, that type of thing. Sometimes those can run in the neighborhood of like $500,000 and then there’s a range of offerings in between there as well.

Dr. Z:
Think about this though. Come buy your car at Z66 Auto Auction and then use super power tape so if you drive off a cliff, your car will still be in great shape. I mean, think about it. I think we’ve got something here, Benton. I think-

Speaker 2:
It’s a hot new idea.

Dr. Z:
… There’s a little traction here. Maybe a slight to moderate baby traction. I mean, think about that.

Speaker 2:
Z, you love advertising. This guy loves-

Dr. Z:
I love it. I love it.

Speaker 2:
You love it.

Dr. Z:
I love it and I love people that love it and do it well. I really do. There’s nothing worse than watching TV and seeing a bad ad. There’s nothing in my mind, but that’s just the way I think. I look at it and I go, not only was that a waste of money, but now I don’t want to do business with your company because that ad was so bad. I mean, you see that, right, Benton? I mean, it’s crazy.

Benton Crane:
Yeah. It kind of leaves you feeling disrespected, right?

Dr. Z:
Right. Like, really? Really?

Benton Crane:
You value my time that little that you would put that crappy ad in front of me.

Dr. Z:
Hey, by the way, have you guys done a Super Bowl ad?

Benton Crane:
You know, we haven’t done a Super Bowl ad yet, but that’s something-

Dr. Z:
So that’s kind of your next-

Benton Crane:
… That we would love the opportunity to do.

Dr. Z:
That’s got to be a bucket list item, right? I mean, come on. That’s got to be…

Benton Crane:
Yeah. We would love that. I feel like our team is a world class team and we could really knock people’s socks off and it would be fun to get an audience the size of the Super Bowl. That’d be a neat experience.

Dr. Z:
Yeah, that’s always fun. I like watching the… I love Super Bowls. Usually the blowouts of the games aren’t always that great, but the ads are the best of the best of the best. And I love that being a businessman and an advertiser and respecting that process. You see them and you go… But your stuff, with the way you’re going, I mean, you’ll… You’re kind of like the Patriots. I mean, you’ll get there one of these days, right?

Benton Crane:
Well, we’re banking on it.

Dr. Z:
Yeah. There you go.

Speaker 2:
Now, Benton, I want to ask you, how did you first start your company and what kind of camera gear were you using when you first started? For the listeners out there who maybe are startup, maybe they’re videographers listening. There’s people out there that own a video company and they’re wanting to know, what kind of gear do I need in terms of video and audio to really get in a professional conversation? Maybe not to be the quality you guys have, but what kind of gear did you start with?

Benton Crane:
So, that’s a really interesting question. I think it’s important to acknowledge that there’s a spectrum of, or maybe we should think of it as a timeline from… Everyone starts out as an obscure startup that nobody’s heard of. Cash is scarce and we have to be ultra, ultra scrappy. And then there’s this spectrum all the way from that obscure startup all the way until, let’s say, Nike or Apple, where you now have like a billion dollar marketing budget each year and so you can always go with the best of the best. Right?

Speaker 2:
Right.

Benton Crane:
And even for newer companies, there still is a spectrum between that brand new startup and Purple Mattress who can afford to hire us to make a $500,000 commercial. And the range between there totally dictates what kind of equipment you’re going to use.

Benton Crane:
And I think it’s really important to acknowledge that even for a startup, it doesn’t matter if you’re limited to just an iPhone or just a DSLR camera or something like that. As long as you get your messaging right, if you’re combining a compelling message with a with a compelling product or service, you’re going to be able to drive those initial results so that then you can graduate up to a cinematic camera and cinematic lenses and cinematic lighting so that you can really start to get beautiful and professional.

Benton Crane:
But nobody has to start there. And quite frankly, no one should start there. It’s likely going to be a waste of money if your company is still young and scrapping to keep the lights on and to keep payroll paid and that sort of thing.

Benton Crane:
So, to answer your question, messaging and product are both way more important than the actual gear behind it.

Speaker 2:
Got it.

Benton Crane:
So use whatever you have access to and then as your resources grow, your equipment will get more sophisticated and stuff will become prettier and more professional and higher budget. And that’s the natural progression that everyone goes through and that’s okay.

Speaker 2:
Now, one of our longtime listener, Charles Colaw, he owns a gym called colawfitness.com. Colawfitness.com that he and his wife Amber started. Again, colawfitness.com. I know he has a question for you in just a minute, but before I let Charles ask you a question, I want to know if you’re going to make a disaster soup, if you’re going to make a chaos casserole, if you’re going to make a absolutely… If you’re going to make an abomination of an advertisement, what are the keys? What are the core ingredients to making an ad that costs a lot of money and that doesn’t work? An ad that nobody clicks on, an ad that is not compelling. It’s like, I don’t believe that people set out, Z, and they say, “You know what we’re going to do?”

Dr. Z:
What?

Speaker 2:
“We’re going to make an ad that is terrible”-

Dr. Z:
Yeah, no. That’s going to piss people off.

Speaker 2:
… So what are the core ingredients of making a bad advertisement that compels nobody to take action?

Benton Crane:
So I think one major piece of that disaster casserole would be to make something that is surprising but not fitting. What I mean by that is so oftentimes, people see our ads like, “Whoa, this is hilarious”. Or, “They’re throwing cars off the cliff. They’re doing these things to capture my attention and suck me in”. But the very next thing that happens after we capture your attention is we deliver a message that’s very appropriate to whatever we use to capture your attention so it feels very cohesive.

Benton Crane:
And the opposite of that, and you can find lots of examples of this, where people will use shock and awe to try to grab your attention but then once they have your attention, then all of a sudden they shift gears in a major way and they’re like, “Okay, we got your attention now. Now let’s talk about this other thing”.

Benton Crane:
And it leaves the viewer not only feeling disjointed, like they’re confused about what they’re watching, but the confused customer never buys. That’s just a core tenant of advertising and marketing. The confused customer will never purchase. And so when you create that confusion, it just doesn’t work.

Benton Crane:
So, an example of that, I remember there was a Super Bowl commercial in the early two thousands. What was the company? I think the company is now defunct. It was like outpost.com or something.

Speaker 2:
Yeah.

Benton Crane:
And the commercial is basically, there’s this marching band out on the football field and they’re marching and playing and then the narrator says something like, “To capture your attention, we released a pack of ravenous wolves” and all of a sudden all these wolves run out and they’re attacking this band. And, as you’re watching it, you’re like, “What is going on?” Your attention is captured-

Dr. Z:
I remember that commercial, I really do.

Benton Crane:
… But then the commercial ends and you’re like, “What did I just see? I have no idea what outpost.com is”.

Dr. Z:
Yeah. Exactly.

Benton Crane:
And it’s disjointed. So it’s an expensive way to not drive results.

Dr. Z:
Amen to that.

Speaker 2:
Now talk about the call to action. Some people have a commercial at the end you go, “What am I supposed to do?”

Dr. Z:
What? What just happened?

Speaker 2:
Just, okay. I’m wowed. It’s like-

Dr. Z:
I saw wolves attack band members, yes.

Speaker 2:
Well, what do you even do?

Dr. Z:
Yeah.

Speaker 2:
I see these commercials all the time and they’re always aired by nonprofits where it’s a commercial and at the end of it, it goes, “A message brought to you by the good folks at the”… And you’re like, “What was this for? What am I supposed to do as a result of this? Why did you have that sappy man with the sappy voice talk to me about that?” Talk to me about the call to action. Where do people get that wrong by default?

Benton Crane:
Okay, so historically you have two camps. You have your direct response world, which is like your infomercials. And in that camp, people love calls to action. They’re all about it, right?

Dr. Z:
Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Benton Crane:
It drives the results. But then you have this other camp, which historically, has been kind of your traditional branding camps. Think of your Nike, Apple, Coca-Cola. It’s this higher-end type stuff. And that world hates calls to action. They’re like, “Oh, that’s so gross. I’m not going to be pushy. I’m not going to…”

Speaker 2:
Right.

Benton Crane:
“I don’t want my customers to feel like they have to go take a shower after they watch my commercial”. Which, in that world, that’s how they look at infomercials. They’re like, “Ew, gross”. And those two worlds hate each other. They’ll both trash on each other and criticize each other to no end.

Benton Crane:
But we believe that both have value. And if you take the best of both worlds, you end up with this really amazing combination where you’re driving the immediate results that the direct response guys want to see but you’re also making it memorable and fun and emotional and you’re building a brand and you’re lodging yourself in your customer’s memories in such a positive way. And that’s what the traditional branders are all about.

Benton Crane:
And so we try to sandwich that all together. And that’s why we’re bringing in things like humor and brand character and brand universe.

Speaker 2:
Yeah.

Benton Crane:
But then to your point, we’re combining it with, “Yeah, we’re going to do a call to action. We’re going to invite you to click to learn more, or we’re going to invite you to click to make a purchase, and we’re going to take the time to overcome your concerns and build credibility” so that we can really drive those business results and create a long-lasting brand at the same time. Because let’s face it, not many companies have the luxury of a Nike or a Coca-Cola where they can just shower the world with brand messages and have it work. Most companies would just run out of time and run out of budget and go out of business. And so most companies-

Dr. Z:
Like outpost…

Benton Crane:
… Have to drive those immediate results. And that’s what the call to action is all about.

Dr. Z:
Right. I want a commercial that I hate how much I love it.

Speaker 2:
Oh, wow.

Dr. Z:
That’s what I want.

Speaker 2:
That’s a new kind of-

Dr. Z:
That’s a new… I want a commercial that I’m watching TV in hopes that I get to see it.

Speaker 2:
Because it’s going to sear in your neural pathways, a memory that you can never get rid of.

Dr. Z:
I want to put it on a YouTube loop. I want to not only see it on the TV-

Speaker 2:
You want an ear worm of a video.

Dr. Z:
I want to play it as I’m sleeping and just have it just waft over me and hate how much I love it. That’s what I want.

Speaker 2:
Oh, my gosh. It sounds like you want to have a passionate relationship that ends badly.

Dr. Z:
Well, or a great relationship that ends passionately. No, wait. I don’t. I’m confused. I’m confused. I’m actually confused right now.

Speaker 2:
Let’s go to Charles Colaw on the booth. Charles Colaw, founder of Colaw Fitness. Sir, what question do you have here for Mr. Benton Crane, the viral marketing expert who has racked up $1.5 billion views with his videos and $50 million in sales?

Charles Colaw:
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2:
What question do you have?

Charles Colaw:
Super Benton. Hey, I’ve got a question. We have fitness centers in three different states and soon to be four. And we’ve currently just shot a video and everything you’re saying is connecting with my brain a ton because I’ve just went through some of that process and, of course, you’re doing it at next level.

Charles Colaw:
But you talked about that first five seconds connecting and then making sure that you have a great shift where you actually talk about your product and service so that they don’t have a bad taste in their mouth. But the big thing that you said was, the biggest thing was, “We’ve played with certain ads and trying to change that first five seconds”. We’re a low-cost gym, which is kind of like a planet fitness. If they’re like McDonald’s, we’re like the Chick-fil-A. Just a different culture and a great, clean value, but for a great dollar amount. So it’s a lower cost model.

Charles Colaw:
And what I was going to say, in the first five seconds of our videos, we’ve got some of those actually on our landing page you might look at at some point, but what kind of thing in the first five seconds for a consumer that’s twenties, thirties, and forties, our ideal and likely buyer, what would you recommend for that group that’s interested in fitness? What’s a great thing that you could pop in your mind that would be great to click on or something like that?

Dr. Z:
Pictures of me. Probably pictures of me.

Benton Crane:
Yeah, great question. As far as those immediate attention grabs or hooks, those are things that you develop over a lot of time and brainstorming and experimentation and so it’d be tricky for me to give you one right off the top of my head, but one thing I could tell you that would really resonate with your advertising efforts and with your audience is that whoever you have in those ads, I don’t know if it’s yourself or-

Dr. Z:
It should be me.

Benton Crane:
… Your wife, but whoever it is, is kind of the spokesperson for the brand, whoever is doing the talking.

Dr. Z:
Me [inaudible 00:27:57].

Benton Crane:
You want to really make sure that that person is connecting on two different levels. And the two different levels that you’re looking for are, one is empathy. Meaning, “Hey, I’ve been where you’re at, I understand what you’re going through, I get it. I’ve felt the pain that you’re feeling”. And if you can really connect on that empathetic level, that’s challenge number one.

Benton Crane:
And then challenge number two, is you take them from that place of empathy to now you go into this place of authority of, “Yes, I’ve been where you’re at, but guess what? I’ve come out successful. Let me show you how so that I can be your guide”.

Dr. Z:
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah.

Benton Crane:
And man, if you can focus in on empathy and authority, then you’ll end up really resonating with your audience in a way that really connects them to you and the brand.

Dr. Z:
I love that.

Charles Colaw:
Sweet. Hot take, hot take.

Speaker 2:
Benton, I appreciate your time so much and I want to make sure we give you an opportunity. If you have the mic time, so before you drop the mic here, what is the ask that you want our listeners to do? Do you want me to check out your website or do you want them to check out a specific kind of video? What is the action step that you would ask of our listeners?

Benton Crane:
You know, it depends the position that the listener finds themselves in. If you’re looking for world-class video marketing to take your business to the next level, then just come check out HarmonBrothers.com and you can see our portfolio of work and just drop us a line there on the website if you want chat and we can explore it.

Benton Crane:
Or, if you find yourself in a position where you’re more of a DIY, where you want to do it yourself or maybe you’re looking to do video marketing for clients, then check out HarmonBrothersUniversity.com and that’s where we train our students to market in the way that we market.

Benton Crane:
It starts first with the script because every script has to sell. It has to do a fantastic job of selling and once you achieve that, then you can start to add on additional layers like humor, like branding, like brand character, brand universe. That can all come later but it all starts with that script. So we offer a 14 day script writing challenge where you can go through with our writers and experience what it’s like to write a script that sells and that drives business for you no matter what stage your business is at.

Speaker 2:
You’ve got great, great materials up there by the way. I mean, people can hear interviews where you guys have actually down with the founder of FUBU, Daymond John, and other household names people are going to know. I mean, it’s world-class stuff. Apparently you’ve been investing some time in these interviews. I mean, these are great.

Benton Crane:
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. That’s our podcast, From Poop to Gold. You can check it out anywhere you listen to podcasts and that’s where we dive into these great stories of entrepreneurs and businesses who have overcome enormous things to come out successful and we get a chance to dive into those stories of challenge and success that comes after.

Speaker 2:
Well, thank you for overcoming the adversity of being stuck with us on the show today. I appreciate you overcoming that and for agreeing to be on the show. And I really do hope that all the listeners out there check out HarmonBrothers.com. That’s Harmon Brothers, H-A-R-M-O-N brothers.com. HarmonBrothers.com. Check out the website, learn more there. And again, we appreciate your time and hope you have a great rest of your evening.

Benton Crane:
Thank you. Pleasure being here.

Feedback

Let us know what's going on.

Have a Business Question?

Ask our mentors anything.