My Best Kept Secret That Feeds My Content, Testimonials, and $500k Launches

  Sam Vander Wielen: You’re watching everyone around you automate everything, and part of you knows that you need systems because you can’t personally respond to every email, every dm, every question that comes in, but the other part of you started this business because you want to feel connected to the people you’re helping.

And right now it’s starting to feel like those two things can’t coexist. You want a business that runs efficiently and makes people feel seen without you being available 24/7 to make that happen.

Today I’m going to show you the tool I’ve been quietly using behind the scenes that does both, that runs automatically in the background, while also making my audience feel more personally connected to me than ever. It even contributed to a $500,000 launch that I had recently in a big way.

First, I wanna welcome you to the podcast. If you’re new to On Your Terms®, welcome. If not, welcome back. On Your Terms® is a podcast for online business owners who want to be as present in their lives as profitable in their businesses. And one of the ways we can do that is through automation. But I have a feeling that you’re kind of like me, where you’re like, I’m cool with using automation, but I also don’t wanna come off like a chat AI robot of some sort. It’s kind of hard to find a balance, isn’t it? Like you don’t hear very many people talking about the balance, so I’m hoping that that’s what today’s episode is for you.

Now speaking of this is very meta of you, but I’m gonna ask you to go down below and click the link in the show notes to submit a question for me using the very tool that we’re talking about today.

So you, this is actually a great idea guys, ’cause you can go down below, you can click it and then you can go through the whole little process and you can see how I’m using it. And all I ask for in exchange is submit a question. So you can send me a video, you can send me an audio note like as if we were like voice noting each other.

You can even send me a text message, whatever you want, and I will get back to you there. But you also might see your question if you give me permission, of course, answered in a future episode. So click the link in the show notes to submit a question now.

So I got this question from a listener named Debbie, actually, through the very tool that we’re talking about today. And that’s what led me to wanting to do this episode in the first place. So let’s hear from Debbie.

Debbie: Hey, Sam. So I actually love VideoAsk, but lately I haven’t been using it as much. I don’t know why. You know, you pay almost like, what is it? Over $400 for this a year. So I’m curious, because I saw in one of your newsletters that you plan on using this more often, and I would love to hear how you’re using it and how it’s helping you kind of touch other people’s lives. Um, I’d be interested to know how it’s working.

Sam Vander Wielen: So this is such a great question from Debbie, and I’m gonna break down exactly how I’m using it and why I am using VideoAsk and, and I’m gonna even tell you what VideoAsk is of course. But first I wanna kind of frame this conversation as to like, here’s why I think this is even going on, why people find it so surprising, even that I’m like using a tool like this, why the people I’m using the tool with find it so surprising.

I think that automation has killed the vibe, right? So like I think that automation has come in and automation is so helpful. Don’t get me wrong. There’s like probably literally thousands of things happening in my business every day automatically without me even knowing it because we use tools like Kit and Zapier, or is it Zapier?

I just like, wish somebody would tell me, ’cause I never freaking know. But Zapier, zapier, we use them. Like I know that we max that out all the time and have to keep paying more. I use, um, Facebook ads that happen automatically, email replies that happen. So many things automatically.

Automatic stuff is great right here for the automatic stuff, great. However, it does lead to less human interaction, and I think when it comes to business, that can be a problem because first of all, people start to see you as a business and not a person. I think that people feel sometimes treated like a number. People don’t feel seen. They feel like you just wanna take money from them, but you don’t really care who they are and they’re kind of tired of the shtick online, right?

I see this a lot when I get really mean emails sometimes, and it’s one of my favorite things. It depends on like the level, there’s like level zero to five of mean emails. Sometimes, I can tell I have like a PhD in mean emails at this point, and I can tell that sometimes people are just taking their stuff out on me in an email because they think it’s like going into the internet abyss, right?

And a lot of times I will write back and be like, Hey Sam here, ’cause literally they will actually write in the email like, you don’t even read this and I bet you never even see this. And they will like say that all the time. Literally. They will say that. So I will then take it upon myself. I’m not supposed to do this by the way.

The team gets probably frustrated, but that’s fine. It’s the perks and perks of being the boss. And so I will, I will go in, I will respond to this email and be like, Hey, Sam here. Sam reads her emails. I don’t talk in the third person, and I tell them like it’s me and just so you know, for the future, like I actually do read this and write back and blah, blah, blah.

Do you know what people do sometimes more than ever. Well, either they do nothing or they respond back and go like, oh my God, I can’t believe you actually read that. Like you can tell that they really thought. Now, it’s neither here nor there. This is not a vent sesh about people writing me mean emails. The point is, what I find very interesting about the psychology of getting emails like that is that people have come to expect that you are not human.

So people, people act differently online. We know, we all know the keyboard warriors and this is why. I think that you have a huge opportunity sitting in front of you.

You have an opportunity to turn this into a gold mine for your business and to stand out from the crowd because you can be a human and you can let people know that you are human and that there is a real person, no matter how big your business gets eventually, right? You can prioritize customer service, you can create and cultivate personal connections with people.

If you’ve read my book, When I Start My Business, I’ll Be Happy, you know that I have an entire chapter dedicated to the, what I call the Olive Garden Effect. It’s treating people like once you’re here, your family, whether they’re on your email list, listening to your podcast once they’re a customer.

It’s really about the little ways that I have cultivated a connection no matter how big my business has gotten over the years. And yes, it has gotten to the point now where people stop me and they say, oh, I’m in the Ultimate Bundle®. You know, like when I’m at a conference or something and I’m like, oh, cool, I don’t know who they are. Right?

And that’s very, very different than what it was like when I started. However, I have also gotten to know a lot of people who are in the bundle. I have met people real life, face to face, and now I’m using this tool to get to know future people in a really cool way. I think this is where the tool that I’m using called VideoAsk can come in.

So by the way, I’ll mention off the bat VideoAsk is not sponsoring this. This is not sponsored. This is purely coming from Debbie’s question.

So VideoAsk is a tool that allows you to have video, audio, or text message conversations back and forth with people in an automated way. It’s kind of like FaceTiming your customers or listeners or followers.

It’s really, really cool. Like somebody, I sent a video reply back to someone who sent me a video and they were like, oh my God, is this really cool? I feel like we’re FaceTiming right now. It’s actually pretty fun. I’m really glad they didn’t have this when I was in middle school ’cause I would’ve been doing this all the time.

So the cool thing about it is that people can send you, like I said, that video, that audio or text message, and you can reply back to them individually. So like Debbie sent me this question, I then sent Debbie a video back giving her an answer ’cause I didn’t want her to wait for like two months for this episode.

So I gave her an answer back and she can respond back again if she’d like. She can send me another video, she could send me a audio message. She could just text me back. And you can even reply to people by email. So sometimes when it kind of gets to the end of a conversation, I will just hit reply by email and we send a quick, you know, just kind of text in an email.

The other thing is that you can bulk reply. So there have been times when I have bitten off a bit more than I can chew, and I’ve gotten like a thousand responses and I knocked out hundreds of responses individually to people as the best I could, but it can get to a point where it’s not doable.

And in that case, or depending on like maybe the type of video response you’re getting from people or like what you’re asking ’em to do. It’s really cool ’cause you can bulk reply, meaning you can check off multiple people, as many people as you want, and send them one video that’s, that goes to all of them.

Or you can send one voice note that goes to all of them. So that’s really cool too.

I’m gonna leave a link down below to VideoAsk in the show notes, and that is an affiliate link. I do affiliate for them, but this is not sponsored in any other way. So if you use that link, I would really appreciate it if you’re gonna check, VideoAsk out. VideoAsk, by the way, is owned and operated by the same company who does Typeform.

So if you’re familiar with Typeform for different forms in your business, it’s the same company and you’ll notice it looks very similar on the backend.

We’re gonna go over three categories of the ways I’m using VideoAsk. Those categories are content, sales and social proof.

i’m using VideoAsk to create content by asking my audience to submit questions. So just like Debbie in this episode, right? So I asked people to submit questions saying, what’s a question that you have for me that you’d like to see in an episode of my podcast or in my newsletter? And then they send me videos or audio notes, and I’ve gotten a couple of text messages so far too.

It not only gives me some really awesome content ideas, like honestly this was not on my radar. Something just kind of clicked for me when I saw this, um, from Debbie. ’cause I was like, you know what? My friends all freak out about this too.

When I talk about it probably means people are interested in it, it probably means I should do an episode on it. So it gives me ideas, obviously, and you know, for anybody. Who’s listening, who like me has never been their client. Like, has never been like they’re in their client’s position before, right?

So I always say like I think I’m in a bit of a unique situation where I was never like a confused, early starting entrepreneur who didn’t understand the legal steps because I’ve been a lawyer since I was 23. Anytime I started a business, I was already a lawyer and so I was very fortunate that I knew what to do. Right? And the whole point was that I was like, well, I know what to do, so I’ll teach you guys what to do.

But sometimes it’s hard from my perspective to understand what you don’t understand or what’s confusing or how you put it, right? And like where you’re getting tripped up. So it’s really helpful to not only give me customer content ideas, but also to hear those questions in your own words, right?

So I hear the way that you ask me about LLCs or I hear the way you ask me about VideoAsk. It’s not even the way that I would maybe phrase it. So even that itself could be very helpful to you if you are somebody who sometimes feels like more removed from your customer’s pain point, from their problem, even.

Even for me, when I’m answering questions about business, I mean, tools like VideoAsk didn’t exist. AI didn’t exist when I started my business, thank God. Um, but all these other things, they just didn’t even exist. So like, I, I’ve never been like a beginner with a lot of them because my business was further in line by the time they started. So you can understand that this is like a gold mine for voice of customer research too.

Now I also wanted to mention, ’cause I wouldn’t be a very good lawyer if I didn’t, that we have automated the process using VideoAsk of asking for consent and also where they want to see this content answered or posted, which is giving me more data on where people wanna hear from me.

So basically you go and submit a question. I then say, do I have your permission to use this question or your audio, or your video? Only using your first name. Um, if so, like click here and VideoAsk has that built in so we can do that. And then I say, and where would you like to see this? Would you like to see this on my podcast, On Your Terms®? Would you like to see this in my weekly newsletter, Sam’s Sidebar, or would you like to see this on my Substack? I added that in because I have a substack called Beyond Business and I wanted to see like, is anybody putting that, right?

I just did this because this was not that. I’m, to be honest with you, I can’t always necessarily honor it. Right? Because there might be something that’s like, I can’t do that on my, uh, newsletter. Like, it just doesn’t make sense. Or yeah, it’ll be a newsletter, but it’s also going to be a podcast episode. So I, it’s more for me to understand in the long run, once we’ve gotten enough responses to be like, oh, it’s really interesting. Everybody just wants to hear from me on my newsletter or something like that.

That’s the first category of the way I’m using VideoAsk is to generate content ideas and get some voice of customer research. The second way I’m using it, like I said, is for sales to make more sales in my business, and I’m doing that through building it into my funnel.

The way that I’m building it into my funnel is that when somebody signs up for my free legal workshop, after they’ve signed up, they get an automated email automation.

This is where automation is good, but they get an automated email asking, what would you like to hear from me in this free legal workshop? What’s one question that you want me to answer? So we send this email to the signer uppers, and there’s this link and that link asking them to submit their question goes over to VideoAsk.

One thing that’s really cool about VideoAsk is that each category of what we’re talking about today, like creating the content questions, the sales stuff, , it’s like VideoAsk gives you the ability to have like different little funnels or like folders. So like we have a specific VideoAsk funnel that’s just about the sales thing, right?

So when they click the link in that email, they’re going to land on a page that has a very quick video from me being like, Hey, thanks so much for signing up for my workshop. What’s the one question you want me to answer in the workshop? Leave it here.

You can send me a video, a voice note, whatever, and then they can basically just hit reply and do the same back to me. So it’s kind of cool. It’s not that they’re not just like landing on some random page. You do have to put up some sort of video that it kind of looks like a reel. Like I said, when you click on mine to submit a question, you get to see it.

Um, you know what you really get to see when you click on mine. Is that you get to see where I filmed the video for you to submit audio questions, audience questions because this is what’s funny about me. I just do things on the fly and I was out and I had this idea and I was like, I’m gonna do this video.

And it’s really funny where I’m at. It’s also funny ’cause it’s a place that I’m never, I am never there. So it’s just like of all the places for me to be, I was there. So I can’t wait for you to see it. But that’s your little, that’s your little enticing moment to go check it out.

So they see this video on the page of me asking them, what question they wanna hear. They send me the reply, and I then, first of all, I mean, boy, how, how many ways can I tell you that how valuable this is for me in so many different ways? First of all, it allows me to make my webinar better because I see all the questions that are coming in and I have literally changed things in real time.

To accommodate the, like hundreds or thousands of questions and cumulative number of questions that we’ve gotten at this point to be like, everyone’s signing up for this workshop hoping I talk about X, but I don’t talk about X in it, so I’m gonna talk about X. So I make sure that they feel that that was really valuable right?

So that’s super helpful. I get tons of voice of customer research through doing this. I’m learning how they’re phrasing the problems that they’re having. ’cause again, they are not the way that I would think about them. They’re not even concerned about the problems that I personally think they should be concerned about, which is super helpful for me to hear as a marketer.

I need to know what they’re worried about, not what I want them to be worried about. That’s my job later, when I, if and when they purchase from me, I will teach them what they actually need to know, right now. My job as a marketer is to understand what they’re concerned about, speak to that pain, and show how my product fulfills that, uh, gap.

It’ll be the thing that gets them from Pain Island to Pleasure Island, as I always say. So. That’s really what I’m doing is I’m, I’m paying attention to like, oh, that’s interesting. Everyone’s asking about this topic. That’s something I should add to the webinar. It also gives me future content ideas.

It’s giving me the voice of customer, , research that I need. It also now presents me with a beautiful opportunity to create a personal connection with this person. So oftentimes what I do is that when I get this question in, I read the question and then I hit reply on VideoAsk. I send them a personalized video back.

And so in the personalized video back, I am very sure to use their name because I first of all wanna honor the fact that they’ve taken this time. But I also want them to know it’s a personal video. So I’m using their name, I’m acknowledging their question. I might even be acknowledging something about like, yeah, that is a really confusing thing.

Or a lot of people get tripped up about that part so you’re not alone in it. So it’s really the purpose of this reply is not to literally answer their question. And I’m not telling people that that’s what I’m doing in this. I’m, I am telling them upfront, I wanna know what you want me to talk about in the webinar.

So this is not like I’m like baiting and switching people. I, I wouldn’t do that, but I am saying like, I, I am acknowledging that they’ve even asked this thing. I acknowledge whether that’s something I’m going to talk about in the workshop and I’m honest with people. There were, there were a lot of questions I got in the last one where I was like, that’s actually not something I’m, I’m gonna cover.

And by the way, that’s not something I ever teach about. Um, or like, that’s not something I’m gonna talk about in the workshop, but that is something I talk about in the bundle. So I’m very honest with people about whether or not I’m gonna get to their thing.

If their topic is something that I teach on in the workshop or just teach on in general, I’ll close it out by saying, this is why it’s really important that you come to the workshop that you signed up for on, you know, and then I remind them of the date and the time.

Um, this is now serving as yet another benefit, which is reminding people about the date and time, right? Now we have this personal connection. I’ve got voice of customer going for me. I’ve got content ideas. I can tailor my workshop to make it more helpful, and I now got to act as a big, giant reminder sign.

I also take this opportunity to tell people, did you add it to your calendar yet? I know if it was me and it wasn’t on my calendar, I wouldn’t show up for it. So this is a good time for you to do that. So there’s another touch point, right? Where I’m getting people to add it to their calendar, and then I’m asking them if they have any followup questions. Of course, let me know. Otherwise, I’ll see you at the training.

The other thing I do when these are live when the workshop that they’ve signed up for is live, I will tell them it’s really important that you actually come live, because that’s where I’ll get to answer your questions during the Q and a if you have follow up questions.

Um, and this has greatly improved our show up rate. The show up rate is the percentage of people who have signed up for a webinar who actually show up for it. If you’re relatively new or unfamiliar with webinar land, um, it is one thing to get 11,000 people to sign up for a webinar. It is another thing to get those people to actually show up for it.

It is very hard. I would actually argue maybe harder because people are so used to, uh, signing up for things and like forgetting about it. It’s really, really hard to, and like everybody is excited when they sign up for something, but then they don’t go, right? Using VideoAsk has greatly improved our show up rate. So I’ve used it for my last two live launches and we’ve had the highest show up rate we’ve ever had.

I have to tell you that it’s so funny from these, uh, responses, from sending people all of these videos back, the personalized videos back. I got so many responses from people being like, holy, I can’t believe you actually responded. Like it was kind of another one of these, like, you’re a human. Like there’s somebody there.

Right? And again, I, I can’t say it enough. I, I think it’s really sad actually, that that’s the reaction because it’s like people have just gotten so used to being like, everything’s fake. You know? People even come to my live webinar and they ask me to prove that I’m really there. This happens all the time.

Michelle, our producer is here, and she’s always on the webinar. She’s nodding because she knows this literally had people be like, say this, like if it’s really you, and I’m like. Are you kidding me? But the reason they’re saying that is because there are people who do that. People have webinars and they say it’s live.

And they even pretend to engage with the chat. It’s disgusting. I don’t do these things. Right? I’ve never done this. And so we have a little bit of an uphill battle ahead of us. Right. And that’s something you have to remember. As you’re trying to take in new customers is that these people have been like battered and abused in online business culture.

They have seen people make promises that never panned out. They’ve gone to webinars with people pretending that it’s live, and it’s not like they’ve done all the things. And so by the time they get to you, they’re just super jaded and skeptical. And so I think that using something like this can act as a beautiful example of surprise and delight, which I like to think about a lot.

It’s another reason why we send handwritten thank you notes to all of our customers. It’s just not something we advertise. It’s just something we do because I try to build in a little surprise and delight along the way for nearly every step of the customer journey. That’s also, you know, the best I can do with like responding to my weekly emails.

Like people always think I don’t respond, I respond to the emails. So like just hearing these like little touches along the way, I think it really helps.

Last but not least, I’m using my VideoAsk platform for social proof. So we’ve already talked about content. We’ve talked about how I’m using it to increase sales and my show up rate, but I’m also using it for social proof, which is that I’m sending it to my customers. So I’m, I created a separate little VideoAsk funnel with a short little video saying thanks so much for getting the Ultimate Bundle®, if you have something to share about your experience, I would love to hear it here. Um, again, built in that, that same like consent, that automated consent, and sharing thing. Um, but it’s a really, I would say, a more fun and less clunky way to collect testimonials than the way that I’ve gone about it before.

I have an automated funnel, a little, uh, series of emails that goes out to new customers, over a period of time asking them to leave a review. And in the past I always just had a link to like a form that they would submit. And it’s been really funny. I think we’ve already seen more like testimonials coming in through VideoAsk than we used to see using that form.

I’m not sure if people just find this like format kind of fun. This is the newest area where I’m using it, but we’re already seeing really positive results with it. I think it’s really cool too to get videos from your customers because there’s so much that you can do with that. I mean, we can use the text if we need like, the transcript of what they said.

We can use just the audio if we need, like we could, I’ve thought about putting it into a commercial, for example, in the podcast. Um, so that’s possible and we can use it in ads. I can create social media content out of it. There’s like, the possibilities are endless. You could create, um, little video montages and put them on your website, on your sales page as additional social proof.

And again, I just found this to be a really fun way and like customers have already filled this out, who I don’t know, and I was able to send them a video, reply back and thank them. So that’s, I think, yet another cool touch point.

I think that using VideoAsk so far has just led to a lot of these little like surprise and delight moments for, for both of us. By the way, this is a two-way street, so I have had so many moments where I’ve watched these people’s videos and I’ve been like you guys are so cool. Like, you’re doing such cool things.

And like I heard from a farmer the other day, one guy sent me a VideoAsk while he was on a flight. Like he was literally in the air 30,000 feet. And he sent me a VideoAsk and I, I read, I got right back to him and I was like, where are you going? Like, what kind of trip? And it was really fun ’cause we were just like going back and forth.

I would never get to have these conversations with people, right? And so., I remember somebody sent me in the last live lunch somebody sent me a video from Nigeria and she was walking around outside, uh, where she lived, and I, as a travel nut who just like wants to see every little last corner of the entire earth.

I was like, this is amazing. Can you just keep walking around? Like, show me everything. I wanna see everything. And I, I got back to her. I just thought it’s been so cool for me. I, I personally have felt like more connected, I think in that way. Um, especially when it comes to something like a launch where you’re like, I’m just talking about myself. I’m talking about my product. I’m asking for your money. And it’s like now we get to actually go back and forth and I really do feel like I’m understanding better. In real time what people want to know. So it’s giving me a lot of clarity, what they’re confused about, how they’re phrasing it, and I’m literally turning around and using their exact language, the things that they’re saying to influence my webinar and make my webinar better, to, um, the way that I like write something on Instagram or Instagram stories.

So I think it’s been really helpful and obviously yes, it has led to increased sales and that’s all great. Um, but I think that for me, like this. Personal connection and feeling like I have more of like an ear to the ground has been probably the biggest impact for me. Like I mentioned earlier, I talk a lot in my book When I Start My Business, I’ll Be Happy about about taking really good care of your customers and nurturing your customers while also recognizing that for one, you’re not responsible for their happiness and two, that you know it’s true, that the bigger that your business gets, the harder these things can become.

That’s why I dedicated so much of my book to really teaching you how to take really good care of your customers, how to integrate this nurture and like surprise and delight thing without going too far overboard to the point that you’re actually not being as profitable ’cause you’re taking too good of care of customers without finding new customers.

And I talk a lot in my book about how if you treat your customers this way, it’s going to be the best investment and return on investment for your marketing dollars because these people are going to become happy customers. Happy customers go out and tell other people about you. So if you wanna learn more about this strategy as well as how to grow your email list, and even how to build your first $1 million digital product using my evergreen strategies, definitely go check out my book When I Start My Business, I’ll Be Happy anywhere books are sold.

I’ll also leave a link down in the show notes below where you can get it, but it’s available available at every bookstore. It’s available on bookshop, Amazon, Barnes and Noble. Target, everywhere that you can get books, so grab a copy now.

All right. With that, I really appreciate you listening and I can’t wait to chat with you next week. See you then.

Thanks so much for listening to the On Your Terms® podcast. Make sure to follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. You can also check out all of our podcast episodes, show notes, links, and more at samvanderwielen.com/podcast. You can learn more about legally protecting your business and take my free legal workshop, Five Steps To Legally Protect and Grow Your Online Business at Samvanderwielen.com and to stay connected and follow along, follow me on Instagram at samvanderwielen and send me a DM to say hi.