[00:00:57]
Arlen:  Welcome to the E-Commerce Marketing Podcast everyone. I am your host, Arlen Robinson, and today we have a very special. Kirk Nugent who is an expert live stream coach and accomplished content creator, Kirk Nugent, has reinvented how small businesses, entrepreneurs, and faith-based entities reach the world. Whether he is engaged in one-on-one training to help those who seek to grow their business or he’s captivating audiences through Amazon and CNN with his expertise as a product ambassador, Kirk’s goal is to help organizations leverage innovation. Welcome to the podcast, Kirk.

[00:01:46]
Kirk: Hi man. Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be. 

[00:01:49]
Arlen: Yes. And I’m excited to talk to you because, um, you’re definitely in a, in a hot area as far as the particular field that you’re in. Absolutely. With live video streaming, and that’s the topic of course, of today’s podcast, uh, you know, how do you effectively leverage live streaming?

[00:02:05]
Arlen: You know, if you’re an e-commerce business, and we’re gonna dive deep into that. Mm-hmm. and, um, you know, it’s really, uh, a lot going in your field. So I’m definitely gonna be feverously taking notes myself, , because that actually is one area that I haven’t done a whole lot of, any, any type of live streaming I’ve done.

[00:02:21]
Arlen: Of course, a ton 

[00:02:22]
Kirk: of these podcasts. Podcasts, right? A lot. 

[00:02:24]
Arlen: Webinars and video, joint webinars and things like that. I’ve even participated in virtual summits, but they were all prerecorded. I have never really done too many live things, so I’m, I’m definitely going to be, uh, you know, like I said, if furiously taking notes on my end

[00:02:40]
Arlen: But, uh, you know, before we do get into all that, why don’t you tell us a little bit more about your background and you know, specifically how you 

[00:02:46]
Kirk: got into what you’re doing. Yeah. Thanks a lot, man. Again, thanks for having me here. It’s good to be here with the podcast viewers and followers and subscribers.

[00:02:54]
Kirk: Kirk Nugent. He has read my bio on it. It’s always interesting to hear your bio red, right? So it’s amazing to be able to go through that. But yeah, I am a lover of technology, right? I self professor Jesus geek. I was an information technology professional by trade and training. That was my degree, that was my career path.

[00:03:13]
Kirk: Always wanted to get into leadership however, and so that kind of led me down a number of paths that were different from my. Because I was trying to figure out, you know, how you get into some of these leadership type positions, break into those spaces as a break fix tech, right? Level one, level two technicians, uh, how do you climb that ladder?

[00:03:30]
Kirk: And, and nobody really could show that to me. And, and, and that, that kind of peaks its head up later in my story, but, To keep it brief, I did work my way through different positions. Uh, got a chance to work for an NGO in Maryland, so the Seventh Adventist Church World headquarters is in Maryland, silver Spring, and got a chance to work there and to travel the globe, training people on how to set up the finance eerp that that denomination uses, which was a lot of fun.

[00:03:55]
Kirk: I mean, if you could ever travel, I always, always recommend that, but, In one of those places, got a chance to also really work extensively with the folks there and then ended up making that a permanent spot. So, uh, one that place was Pretoria, South Africa, got a chance to be the IT director for that ngo, that country office.

[00:04:11]
Kirk: So we covered 23 countries in the southern part of Africa and Indian Ocean and some of the Atlantic as well. But, uh, again, really getting into that leadership piece and recognizing the differences between what that language was in the tech shop and what the language was at the c. What were we talking about at the table and how were we talking about it?

[00:04:31]
Kirk: What were the intangibles? You know what I mean? The common vernacular, if you will, like the language of the people. And I recognized some key differences between the two, and that’s actually the thing that I believe propelled me towards leadership, being able to speak the language of both fluently and translates those, those requirements.

[00:04:49] Kirk: And a leader will tell you that’s the, the crux of the job. Is being able to translate those requirements and articulate them clearly so that the end result matches what the desired outcome from those stakeholders. So that’s kind of what led me into be CIO for H B C U here in Huntsville, Alabama, which is where I currently live.

[00:05:09]
Kirk: And then I decided, man, I’m at the quote unquote top of the ladder. But I still don’t have, in my opinion, the autonomy that I really want. I can’t set things up the way that I would like to because I’m a stranger in a foreign land. What I mean by that is none of the companies I’ve ever worked for have been a tech or media company.

[00:05:26]
Kirk: They use technology and media for their purposes, but their whole point and purpose. Was something totally different, whether it was religion, whether it was finance, T Row price, whether it was higher education, right? Educating young people. The point was never technology. So I got a chance to really think about what I would do if I was to do my own business, and it was gonna be.

[00:05:47]
Kirk: Straddling that fence. A lot of the underpinning of media is technology, so it really lend itself to a really great merging of all my skill sets. So came aside into my wife’s business. My wife had been doing web design for about 10 years. So we decided I would join her. This is a major decision for us.

[00:06:07]
Kirk: This is right at the beginning of the pandemic. Decided I would join her in the business. Well, we had been cultivating for years, but I was gonna join her full-time now to do broadcast engineering, remote production, but then live video strategy, marketing and coaching. So that’s kind of, you know, the 10,000 foot view of what it, what, how I come to be in the space that I am.

[00:06:28]
Kirk: Wow. That’s awesome. And 

[00:06:29]
Arlen: thank you so much for sharing that. You definitely have a very diverse background. You’ve been involved with a lot of different, uh, companies and organizations, and I’m sure the experiences that you have is really kind of set you up to, you know, the success that you’re having today.

[00:06:44]
Arlen: And so that’s, that’s really, uh, really awesome. It’s, uh, interesting how, like you said, right at the pandemic where your, your wife had been really kind of already up and running with the web. Yes. And then you kind of coming in there. Then of course adding your video component to it I know is really, uh, was probably very timely.

[00:07:01]
Arlen: It 

[00:07:01]
Kirk: seems like, oh man, we couldn’t have planned it better. You were so right. . Yeah. So I know that’s, uh, a great move. And, 

[00:07:08]
Arlen: uh, one thing I wanna point, um, ask you about, you’d mentioned that you were a CIO of, A historically black college university in the Alabama 

[00:07:16]
Kirk: area. Which college was that actually? Oakwood University.

[00:07:19]
Kirk: Oakwood. Okay. University. I’ve heard a little, little about Oakwood. I don’t know too 

[00:07:22]
Arlen: much about it. I am, as you know, we talked beforehand. I’m a graduate of Howard Universities Howard, so that’s 

[00:07:28]
Kirk: try to keep 

[00:07:29]
Arlen: track of all of the HBCUs, but there are some, some small ones that I, I 

[00:07:32]
Kirk: am not that familiar with.

[00:07:33]
Kirk: Yeah, yeah. Oakwood is, There’s also, of course, Alabama a and m is here as well. That’s the one. That’s probably what better known is just 10, 15 minutes from Oakwood, but Okay. Yeah. They’re both here in the city of Huntsville, Alabama. Yeah. Okay. 

[00:07:46]
Arlen: That’s good. That’s good stuff. Well, yeah, thank you again for sharing that.

[00:07:49]
Arlen: Today, like we said, where focus is really going to be on live video production. And since the majority of our listeners of course, are e-commerce businesses are either selling a product online or service online, or they’re thinking about doing it live video can be maybe a little bit of a daunting idea for these types of businesses because it can be, you know, it’s not necessarily their bread and butter.

[00:08:11]
Arlen: So how does a e-commerce business really. Really one of the, I think the biggest questions that I always get with people that are trying to do anything technology related is, is content. When it comes to content for the website or whether it’s some type of video content, I wanna kind of start there. If they’re thinking about, let’s say I wanna do a live video on my eCommerce business.

[00:08:31]
Arlen: Where do they even start when they thinking about what to put out there, what type of content to put out there in 

[00:08:38]
Kirk: a live video format? So the approach for live video and the approach, in my opinion, for content are slightly different. So a content creator who’s gonna put out either quote, memes or stories reels, videos on YouTube, they’re creating them to be consumed at a later time when you’re doing live.

[00:08:57]
Kirk: However, especially for businesses just as. Kind of framed up that target audience so perfectly in terms of e-commerce, in their vein, in their lane, I should say. They would really wanna more focus on what it is you’re selling and what that thing. Its impact is on the people who might be interested in buying it.

[00:09:17]
Kirk: You really want to show that I have a little phrase that I go by people in my community. I’m a YouTuber as well, so I have a growing channel on YouTube. But this is a phrase that we know we say regularly, and it is your livestream is your digital storefront. Cause there’s no greater way for people to experience your greatness than to for them to see you do it live.

[00:09:37]
Kirk: So for the person who has a product that they want to sell, I may be interested in the product. Of course, I can look at the product page, I can read the description. But when I see somebody live demonstrating what this product can do and then making the practical applications, let’s say it’s a knife, right?

[00:09:55]
Kirk: Okay. So yes, I, everybody needs a knife, but why would you want this one? Well, let me compare it to some of the other knife. Let me show you how it pans out. How it pairs up. Everybody has struggled to cut that thing. Or maybe you’re trying to carve the Turkey for Thanksgiving. You wanna make it practical.

[00:10:09]
Kirk: You want to put it right in people’s homes. So that’s the beauty of live video, cuz when people see that they can see themselves using the product in that same way. That solves a problem for me and I want to get that product. And if that’s on the side of it being a physical product, but if it’s a service, If it’s some other kind of solution, however you have that build, however you have it framed out, you wanna put it in terms that are practical.

[00:10:32]
Kirk: And because it’s live, you want to make sure that you are engaging the audience. This is a major difference between produced content and live content. Live content has that component of we’re talking live right now, and so there are going to be people in the comments. There are gonna be comments that come up, all kinds of things that you wanna make sure you have latitude in your timeline, in your schedule, in your program, and your outline to be able to take those and allow it to shift.

[00:10:58]
Kirk: Some people get a little thrown off. It’s like, oh man, they asked a question. They kind of took me off of my thing. But it’s okay because it’s a part of the conversation In a normal convers. As me and Arlin are having a conversation right now, if we were just sitting at a table at a, at a coffee shop somewhere, we wouldn’t necessarily have an agenda.

[00:11:19]
Kirk: We would just be talking and you would allow that conversation to go where it may. Now, do you have an agenda? Do you have a. An outline for your livestream. Absolutely. Because there are gonna, you have that because there are gonna be times when nobody shows up and you’re just gonna talk to the camera if there’s like 4,000 people watching.

[00:11:36]
Kirk: So that’s what that is for. I was coach people in saying, look, you want to have an agenda, you want to have an outline? Cuz that is how, that’s your safety net, right? That’s gonna be. You’re underpinning your crutch. You could look back to it and say, okay, if nobody’s asking questions, I have questions for myself.

[00:11:52]
Kirk: But when you are live, you want to prioritize the people who are watching. They are giving you their best commodity at that moment, which is their time and attention. Make sure you reward them for that and they in turn, especially if the conversation’s good, will pro most likely reward you by saying, I need that product,

[00:12:11]
Kirk: I need that service. I need that. Because this is gonna change something in my life. This is gonna meet a need, this is gonna fill a gap that I have, and I will have that solution in place for the foreseeable future. So that’s the thing I would recommend for e-commerce folks. Let me just add one other little thing on there for, especially for my Amazon Live folks, you don’t have to figure out, or, I mean, not Amazon Live, my Amazon sellers.

[00:12:34]
Kirk: You don’t have to figure out all the pieces yourself. I belong to at least three communities on Facebook. That are, the smallest of them is about 800 to a thousand people in there. All of them are Amazon influencers. What that means is we have the ability to go live on the platform, and so if your product is of a nature that you are looking for an influencer, you can tap into one of those groups.

[00:12:56]
Kirk: And simply say, Hey, here’s my product. I want somebody to do some live streams on this. I want somebody to do some shopable videos on this. So you have latitude to be able to pull in folks who already have that expertise under their belt. But I am a big proponent of people getting out there and doing some of it themselves.

[00:13:14]
Kirk: There’s no, you know, when people get a chance to see the. Then, I mean, even for the brands that I work with, I always say to the person, all right, you know, I will do this, but I’m gonna need you to jump on for a few minutes to talk about this cuz you are the owner, you know, this product, this service, this thing better than anybody else.

[00:13:30]
Kirk: So e-commerce folks definitely wanna look into live video. That’s great and 

[00:13:34]
Arlen: there’s a lot of pieces that you, you drop there a lot of great jewels. A couple things that I want to circle back on. One of the things that really is interesting that you mentioned that it just really kind of hits home is you mentioned that of course you gotta, these businesses have to think of the live.

[00:13:49]
Arlen: Video as really kind of opening up their storefront door and inviting the public in there, and then they’re having that dialogue or conversation Yes. With somebody that they almost have to kind of imagine that somebody is walking through the aisles. It’s if it’s a storefront and looking at the products, asking certain questions.

[00:14:07]
Arlen: So yes, that’s really kind of 

[00:14:09]
Kirk: the mindset. Yes, Absolut. And then also 

[00:14:13]
Arlen: the practical applications of things is, is I think, a key thing there, because a lot of times when people buy particular products, yeah, they may have a particular use case for it. They, they know they’re buying, you know, let’s say they’re buying wireless headphones.

[00:14:26]
Arlen: They know, of course you’re gonna be using these wireless headphones. Because I, I like to go out, I work out, I wanted to use them for that. But you know, they may, maybe your, your headphones have a noise canceling feature. They hadn’t really thought about using them on a, on a airplane or a allow train or whatever.

[00:14:43]
Arlen: And so that’s something else. Things like that can help really kind of spark ideas and people say and say, oh, I never thought about that. Or somebody that I’ve had maybe thinking about it for another particular applic. That kind of, kind of lines up with exactly what they were thinking as well. So that’s really great to be able to do that in a, you know, in a live stream format for sure.

[00:15:05]
Arlen: Yeah, absolutely. Now you also mentioned as far as a lot of business owners are like, yeah, I may not be comfortable getting out there, putting this live video myself. I’m not, I’m not comfortable on camera. I don’t know if I have the right technology. My background is terrible, what do I do? Mm-hmm. . And so they, they may be thinking, okay, I gotta, I need to get, pull somebody in to do this for me.

[00:15:24]
Arlen: And you, you mentioned a couple key. You can go to different Facebook groups and try to tap different influencers that are in your space and say, Hey, can we create some type of deal where you do a live stream, you pitch the product, and you know I give you the percentage of any sales that you bring in or whatever you give them.

[00:15:40]
Kirk: Maybe a unique, however. Yeah, something like that. Something critical that you just said there. It’s actually the topic of my show last night, and. Having organic partnerships or sponsorships, right, right. Meaning you use a phrase people or influencers that are in their space. This is the thing that I think is very critical because you wouldn’t come to me to sell nails.

[00:16:00]
Kirk: Not in that space. I’m, I’m not even known in that space. And even if I was a woman that does wear nails, unless I’m an influencer in the nail space, in the cosmetic space, Then you may not want to get with me. And this is the thing that’s so great about YouTube, is you can find these influencers who are, who may already be using your product or a rivals product, and you can reach out to them, say, Hey, wanna give you a free package of, of what we have?

[00:16:25]
Kirk: And I want you to talk about how it lines up. Maybe test them out in a, in a. What I call a produce video first on YouTube and then say, man, you guys killed it. You knocked it outta the park. We’d love for you to come over to Amazon and do a live stream for us. But those are some of the things, some of the partnerships that I see work, especially when they’re in the same space.

[00:16:43]
Kirk: So one of the brands that reached out to me is Sure. Right. The microphone I’m using right now. They reached out. They were like, Kirk, you’re, you’re constantly talking about making the sound investment, talking about audio and the different things. We would love to be able to partner with you. It was a organic partnership.

[00:16:58]
Kirk: We didn’t have to force fit it. And so that’s the only thing that I think you said that was really critical, and I wanna make sure that people walk away with that understanding. Don’t just find any influencer. You wanna find an influencer that’s in your specific space. And especially if they are already excited about your product.

[00:17:17]
Kirk: Oh, then that’s even better. That’s even better. Yeah. So in my case, I was already excited about. Sure. So when Sure came along, I was like, , I’m recommending them anyway. So it’s, it’s a match made in heaven. So, absolutely. It’s a great, great point right there. That makes 

[00:17:30]
Arlen: a lot of sense. And you’re right, you don’t wanna force anything.

[00:17:33]
Arlen: It’s better to have something organic. Cause otherwise, if you’re connect with somebody that has you may think would be a good fit, they may not necessarily even have the right audience for you. You’re gonna get the best return. That’s true. True. Very true. It comes down to, and you know, speaking of return, I know the bottom line that most businesses are thinking about, these e-commerce businesses are thinking about is.

[00:17:54]
Arlen: Bottom line is okay, it makes sense. Seems like I should do a live video. I can really kinda get into the details of the product, go through use cases, and get people to really visualize everything they can. They can actually do with it if it’s a physical product, but the bottom line is, How will me doing this translate to, you know, an increase of site traffic and an increase of sales from the promotional aspect of this live production?

[00:18:21]
Arlen: What are some things that you would recommend that can. Give a boost. Yeah. If somebody 

[00:18:27]
Kirk: were to put this together. Yeah. So there are different brands, different e-commerce shops or different people are gonna have different sets of metrics to be able to measure what a win looks like. Right. So you very eloquently articulated that.

[00:18:41]
Kirk: I think one of the things that we have to be mindful of, especially when you look at is it bringing in money, is what type of price do you put on a. What type of price do you put on having your brand in the same spaces as some of the bigger name brands? Here’s another one that I have found to be invaluable.

[00:18:59]
Kirk: In fact, one of my partners or sponsors, I should say, that’s all they’re looking for and that is feedback. I mean, we talked about, you know, the live. Component being one where you can have that two-way conversation. People can ask questions and I can answer, well, there’s brands that I’ve done work with.

[00:19:14]
Kirk: They just want me to do the livestream just for the feedback. Because the feedback was so critical that they were able to take that feedback, fine, tune the product, and actually come up with something even better. And again, that only happens when you have an audience or you find an influencer who has an audience that’s already excited about your product.

[00:19:33]
Kirk: They just want to tweak it a little bit. Man, you, I love this thing, but if they would just do this, oh, that would help me with this, this, this, this, this. And gives you all of the data, the background, quote unquote market research. And especially if as people are like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, what She said, oh yeah, yeah, what he said.

[00:19:50]
Kirk: That right there is. I’m always mindful that that bang for your buck comes in multiple ways. Yes, you may end up drastically increasing sales, and I know for a lot of sales folks, that’s what the bottom line is, but there are other ways I think just, I mean maybe even equally, if not more tangible and more.

[00:20:10]
Kirk: Lucrative is really the term I want to say, than even the dollars. Being able to have that feedback loop, to have a community who is completely sold out. And this, you know, when we talk about live video, regardless whether you’re a person, you’re a company, or a brand, a entity of any sort, there is a following that you’re cultivating and there are levels in that following in terms of, you know, the surface level folks and you have those intermediate who are some somewhat supportive.

[00:20:37]
Kirk: They’re still critical. Then you have the super fans who are like, you know, allow Apple Disciples, who, it doesn’t matter, the phone is trash. They’re still gonna buy the Apple because it’s, you know, they’re, they’re completely brainwashed, if you will. But you have those tiers and we all know what those tiers are.

[00:20:52]
Kirk: And I think live video is one of the ways that you can reward your following your. Audience by giving them that access. Uh, I’ll give you one example. The product that I use for a lot of client projects in terms of remote producing is Streamy Yard. So Streamy Yard instituted a live show where the two founders do a live show every Sunday night.

[00:21:13]
Kirk: And the feedback, uh, the audience that they’re able to grow, the stuff that they’re able to do because of that regular. Once a week live show, it’s about half hour has complete, like complete, like we’re talking, skyrocketed this brand into, I don’t even know if they ever thought it would get as big as it is currently.

[00:21:32]
Kirk: And so this is the kind of thing we’re talking about because after your live show, somebody who was there and experienced it is gonna now go and talk. These are the things I get. How do you put a price tag on that? Cause that’s word of mouth that that continues on. And here’s the, the last piece I’ll share.

[00:21:48]
Kirk: Whenever you do a video on YouTube or any of these platforms, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, doesn’t matter. There is a, you put the video up there and there is going to be a moment where it has zero views. Even for you. Arlen, with the podcast, you’re gonna put it up there. It’s gonna have zero views for a second or two, but there is gonna be a moment where you have zero views.

[00:22:04]
Kirk: Mm-hmm. with live video. It will be posted to the platform after the vi, after the live is finished, but it’s posted with social proof baked in. If you had an audience live, it could have been 15, 20, whatever that number is going to reflect on that video when it’s finally posted as a replay or as a on-demand content that people can watch.

[00:22:27]
Kirk: And that makes it evergreen, that gives the people social proof, like, oh, 50 people already watched this. I’m not the first, I can just let me go ahead and join them. You see the difference. So there is a lot to be said for this thing of live video and how it can be a massive, massive impact for businesses, for brands, for thought leaders.

[00:22:48]
Kirk: From all of our e-commerce folks that are out there looking to get a leg up in this marketing space. Live video really can be that thing, but finding the right person to be on that camera, um, making sure that it’s the right scenario, the right setup, it’s the right set of variables, is where the work is gonna be.

[00:23:03]
Kirk: And then making sure also that you have that ROI clearly defined. What, what is a win for us? And I know for several, they don’t have that defined and it becomes difficult, but I would e. Define what that return on. What is a success in this space look like for us? If it’s creating an audience, boom, then we know how to get across the finish line and we can have our touchdown dance.

[00:23:23]
Kirk: But if it’s, uh, increasing business, increasing sales, then we know what that end line is, and if we’re not meeting it, then we can cut it off. So those are the pieces I would share. Yeah, 

[00:23:32]
Arlen: great stuff you, you definitely enlighten me in a lot of different things and I know a lot of people listening because I’m thinking just from the outside looking in and being kind of a novice at live streaming that, you know, the bottom 

[00:23:44]
Kirk: line is of course, Sales and traffic to the website.

[00:23:48]
Kirk: And of course 

[00:23:48]
Arlen: those are the things you want. A business, of course wants, they need to, they need to get more business and more sales. But there are so many things that you mentioned there that may not be direct sales, but they are definitely of value to it. Absolutely. As you example, you know, with the company that said, they just wanted the feedback.

[00:24:05]
Arlen: That’s, I mean, Live feedback on your product. I mean that’s, I mean, you really, you know, if you were to use a focus group or you know, pay a product research company to do that type of stuff, it could be very costly. Yeah. So feedback is a great thing. And then also, like you said, just being able to. Create this piece of evergreen content content, if you will.

[00:24:28]
Arlen: And like you said with the audience, just the already pre watched views baked into it. People, like I said, have the social proof already there. So yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Cause I’ve, I’ve been online, I, I. I’m a huge YouTube fan. I’m, I’m constantly watching YouTube videos from, you know, so many different, not only marketing, but I get led down 

[00:24:47]
Kirk: so many different passes, so many, and 

[00:24:50]
Arlen: yeah, I, I’ve seen the trend where there’s a lot more of these live videos, and then when I’m looking at it, I’m like, okay, wow.

[00:24:55]
Arlen: Thousand people watch this. I’m like, oh, okay. You know, it kind of strikes my interest a little bit more as opposed to something that maybe I had maybe, okay. 10 or 20 views, something like that. 10. So that makes a, it makes a big differe. Now, I think at this point our listeners and myself included, are at the point where like, I’m sold my both.

[00:25:13]
Arlen: My hands are up. I wanna do live video. I gotta do it. You know, it makes total sense, you know, no matter how I do it, I want to do it. Now the question that comes up in my mind and people that are watching and listening’s mind is, okay, what do I use to put all this stuff together? What are some tools and resources that I need to get this show on the road with live production?

[00:25:33]
Arlen: What are some things that you recommend? 

[00:25:35]
Kirk: First thing I recommend is understanding what are we doing, what kind of content we want to put out. I phrase that by saying what is the question you want to answer? The largest search engine on the planet is Google, but the second largest is YouTube. And so when people come to the platform, Even Facebook, to be clear, they are searching for something and they usually end that search with a question mark.

[00:25:57]
Kirk: And so I always say to you know, people who are starting out, what’s the question that you want to answer? And you already may have gone through this work for most brands, most e-commerce, most companies have already gone through the work of understanding this is the question we’re answering. And so once you have that question, now you can begin to look at, okay, what’s the best medium for us to be able to provide this kind of content?

[00:26:17]
Kirk: And I would definitely recommend to start with something very easy, a browser brace, tier two streaming application. Which is, um, an example of that would be Stream Yard or Restream, or there’s many others, but I personally recommend Stream Yard because I do believe it is, it’s, the bar for entry is fairly low.

[00:26:34]
Kirk: It’s, if you’ve ever used Zoom, you can definitely use Stream Yard. It’s just that Stream Yard is for broadcast. Zoom is not, I’m not gonna go down that rabbit hole, but the whole point is using Stream Yard will get you onto the, these platforms and allow you to get your feet wet, get used to, okay. I’m live, people can see me, I can see the comments.

[00:26:52]
Kirk: Everything is on one pan of glass. I don’t need. Move too much. I can bring comments on screen. I can have an interactive discussion. Stream yard really gets you across that line. Now there are those out there who are media inclined and you’re like, stream yard is a little, I feel like I can feel the, the corners of the box.

[00:27:08]
Kirk: And so if you want some more freedom, I highly recommend a platform like eam. One of the other things I, I’ll say right here, and this is a shameless blog for me, but I have to say it anyway, regardless of whether you come. Anything that you want to do in life, doesn’t matter what it is, require getting into that space and immersing yourself.

[00:27:26]
Kirk: Understanding how the people who are doing it well are doing it. Listening to podcasts like this one, getting other content. YouTube. YouTube University is a thing y’all, so definitely dive into it. But those who wanna be elite in anything. Also have a coach. And that’s what I’ve also found and in in my finances, in my health journey, weight journey, all those things.

[00:27:46]
Kirk: I have a coach and I also provide those coaching services along with many others. I feel like there’s so many, so much you can learn. You can leapfrog a lot of mistakes by getting a coach. You can say, Hey, Avoid this, avoid this step here. Let’s get you launched quickly. So that’s one of the other thing I was saying.

[00:28:03]
Kirk: And the last thing is, there’s graphic packages that you can use for your live shows that really, again, it’s not anything too, too big, but it does stop the scroll. And once you stop the scroll, you have to have content that grasp the attention. So stopping the scroll is a. I don’t wanna belittle that. And that’s what your graphics package will enable you to do.

[00:28:23]
Kirk: That’s what your camera enables you to do, your lights, whatever. But now, once you’ve stopped them, you now have to answer the question. You have to deliver on that two-way contract that you’ve made with your audience. And that is, here’s the value I have to offer and here’s why it’s important to your life.

[00:28:37]
Kirk: And you wanna be laser focused on that. Make sure that that is a critical component, a consistent component of any of your live sheet, live streams, and live shows. So yeah, that’s what I would. Yeah. Yeah, and I’m, I’m 

[00:28:49]
Arlen: glad you ended on that as far as circling back to the content that really, at the end of the day, that is the most important thing.

[00:28:55]
Arlen: Yeah. I mean, you, you can have all of the bells and whistles that you, you know, you can have the highest quality video camera, the best mic ever. You know, all of the production whistles and bells, all of that stuff flying in and out. Yep. It doesn’t matter if, Nope, you know, you have all that, but if your content is, is trash and it’s not giving any value to people, then it’s no good.

[00:29:16]
Arlen: That’s really what it comes down to. So the focus really goes down to the content. And so at the end of the day, I mean, if you’ve got really some really powerful and impactful content and you deliver that to a particular, Just let’s say you’re even, you’re even just doing a Facebook Live street. Yeah.

[00:29:33]
Arlen: Just 

[00:29:33]
Kirk: from your phone. Phone, 

[00:29:35]
Arlen: yeah. If your value is enough, then you’re gonna, you’re gonna get some results. You’re gonna get people following, you’re gonna get people taking your advice. You’re gonna get a return on it, so really has to come down to that. I, so I’m glad you, you really did mention that. Now as we get ready to, to wrap things up, I know you mentioned one example of a business and they were using it to actually get feedback from their audience.

[00:29:58]
Arlen: Now, what are some other examples of businesses that you’re familiar with, you either worked with or that you just familiar with in general that have done live video and what type of results did they see and what specifically 

[00:30:08]
Kirk: did they do? Let me double back a little bit. I’m gonna, I’m gonna give you two, but I just wanna give a little more context on the first example I gave with Stream Yard.

[00:30:15]
Kirk: Their main purpose and point was definitely feedback, but I do have to mention that an additional benefit was massive and rapid growth as well. So they, they had a lot more people signing up because they saw a practical example of what was being, what could be done. And so one of the things that they do in.

[00:30:34]
Kirk: Weekly show is not only answer people’s questions cuz they want that feedback, but they always demo something. They always show, did you know we had this feature? And then people are like, oh, snap. And as every time they do that, people think to themselves, they can see themselves using that product for them, for, for their own brand, for their own purposes.

[00:30:52]
Kirk: But other example that I wanna give is myself composition. So as I mentioned, we stopped. We stopped, uh, I stopped full-time employment and came into the business. We had done some leg work. I had one or two little things that I, I knew I would be able to immediately move into, but I also. Very intentionally started a live show immediately and every one of my remote production clients, broadcast engineer clients, people that I’m doing shows for, people that I produce shows for, have all come out of my show.

[00:31:21]
Kirk: People will watch my show and say, Kirk, I want you to produce my show. So, because my show is about live streaming, That was the impact I want. I want people to get that point. So for your show, I’ll give you an example. I did a show for, this was a one day conference for a, a financial advisor and he really didn’t want to do too much.

[00:31:39]
Kirk: He, but anyway, he decided, oh, I gotta get out there. And there was a question that was asked in the midst of the live show. Where he with no notes, right? Literally just off the top of his head, from a very natural, comfortable place, he started to respond to this person and really got into it, was really passionate about his response.

[00:31:57]
Kirk: Before that, by he was done, by the time he was done, not even 10 minutes, five people in the comments were like, where do I sign up to work with him? I wanna work with him. Cuz that person with that answer, with no notes, they had no preparation for this person coming into the livestream and asking this question, and he was able to answer with that level of specificity and passion.

[00:32:14]
Kirk: I want that. I want that guy, and this is the thing I always say to folks is even though you may think, I don’t like the camera, but we all have conversations. And I would dare say that when you’re talking about your thing, you’re probably passionate. So it’s just a matter of figuring out the hack to allow people to see how you are in your natural state.

[00:32:33]
Kirk: Because when they see that, That is, they don’t need the ad campaign. They don’t need, you get what I’m saying? They don’t need the reveal. They don’t need the videos, they don’t need the prospectus or the proposal. They’re ready to work with you right then, and then sign me up. I can’t tell you how many clients that I’ve had that happen for, so I, I wanted to give that as from some practical examples for people.

[00:32:52]
Kirk: We have seen massive and, and explosive growth myself. Just because of what we are able to express and show to people live. I’ll end with this piece. You touched on it. You brought it out so well in terms of the livestream being the digital storefront. Back in the day you had Main Street, right, main Street America, and there were these shops.

[00:33:10]
Kirk: You had shops on one floor and people lived above. And in those windows, that was your window shopping. People would walk down there. That was your storefront, that was the old school storefront. And as people were walking, they would see things in the storefront that would interest them. They’d go in, they’d ask a question, they would engage for a bit, they may buy it.

[00:33:29]
Kirk: People even began to. Pay storefronts to put stuff in their storefront as well. This is a form of early advertising, but I really mean that your livestream is your digital storefront because as people are moving around, look, the web is where the marketplace is. So if you’re not, if you don’t have a storefront, On the web, then you’re missing that traffic.

[00:33:53]
Kirk: You’re missing the fact that people just might happen to surf by one person. Buying your product could be the gateway to an entire community of people. I mean, I, I met a lady recently who has a, a community on Facebook with over 4,000 women in there, and she just happened to come in my live stream and was like, Kirk, I want you to come and speak to my community, and now I’ve got.

[00:34:13]
Kirk: Captive audience of almost 6,000 people to talk about live video with, and that could be you. So definitely wanna make sure people have those tangible touchstones to walk away with live video and live video impact. Exponential. Absolutely exponential, for 

[00:34:30]
Arlen: sure. Yes. And thank you for. Highlighting those examples.

[00:34:34]
Arlen: There was some, some great pieces there. And it just really sounds like with this whole, you know, there’s so many aspects of it that can really be such a benefit to your business. And you know, like you said, a lot of people are thinking that, you know, I’m not comfortable in front of the camera, but the end of the day, what you have to look at it as if you’re a business owner, specifically e-commerce business owner, you just have to look at it like you’re having a direct conversation with your customers and.

[00:35:00]
Arlen: You gotta kind of get around the uneasiness of the camera being there and just think of it as just that medium of connecting you with the customer. That’s it. That’s it. And then, and then that’s really it. And then, uh, you know, from there the rest is 

[00:35:11]
Kirk: history for sure. Absolutely, man. Well, Kirk has been awesome 

[00:35:14]
Arlen: talking to you.

[00:35:15]
Arlen: I have definitely learned a lot and like I said, I’ve been previously taking notes. I’m gonna be rewatching this and, uh, sharing some things with our team here cuz it’s, like I said, this is definitely an area that we haven’t. Not much of at all, any type of live video. So definitely it’s helped me out. One of the things I always like to close with, just to kind of switch gears a little bit and let our audience get to know you just a little bit better.

[00:35:36]
Arlen: Sure, sure. If you don’t mind sharing one closing fun fact about yourself that you think we’d be interested to 

[00:35:41]
Kirk: know. I am a huge American Ninja Warrior fan, and my wife and I actually belong. We’re members of a local Ninja Warrior gym and Oh wow. We, while we have not been on the show, we have physically been at the recording of the show.

[00:35:57]
Kirk: We’re friends of ours from the Ninja Gym. We’re on the show, so . Okay. That’s always a fun fact. I love to share with people. Yeah. That’s awesome. 

[00:36:06]
Arlen: Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. You and your wife definitely sound like you guys are super fans. 

[00:36:12]
Kirk: Yeah. So 

[00:36:13]
Arlen: I’ll, I’ll keep an eye out. You never know. You may, you may make it on the show.

[00:36:17]
Arlen: You never know. I can 

[00:36:18]
Kirk: tell. That’s a good 

[00:36:20]
Arlen: stuff. Yeah. Thanks a lot for sharing that. I think, I don’t think I would’ve guessed that, but, uh, that’s good to know, . But uh, yeah. Lastly, before we let you go, Kirk, um, sure. You know, if any of our listeners, um, you know, Taken lead to what you’re saying or want to reach out to you and your brain more about live video production or, or anything, um, you know, e-commerce marketing related, what is the best way for them to connect 

[00:36:41]
Kirk: and reach you?

[00:36:42]
Kirk: I would tell them to hit my digital card. It is Kirk k i r k. Ten one zero K Live, Kirk 10 k live.com. If they hit my digital card, Kirk 10 k live.com. My website’s there, my YouTube channel’s there. You can book a 15 minute meeting with me. You can. My email address is there, my business number’s there. All of those things are in that one card and it’s just a real easy one stop shop.

[00:37:06]
Kirk: I would love to connect with you guys. I always do 15 minute interest meetings just to kind of hear what people are, are saying, what they. But if you hit my website, kirk r nein.com, there’s several resources there as well. Graphics packages for your live streams. Of course, my website stuff, playlist from YouTube is on there as well.

[00:37:22]
Kirk: And then coaching, remote production, all of those things. So I’ve got the masterclass on EAM and and Streamy yard. So Kirk 10 k live.com is my digital card. Everything is there, including the website, which is kirk our nugen.com, and you can find some of those other resources there as well. 

[00:37:39]
Arlen: All right, great.

[00:37:40]
Arlen: That’s awesome, Kirk. Thank you for sharing that. Definitely encourage our listeners and our viewers to, to reach out to you and, uh, you know, see how you can help them out. And thank you again, Kirk, for joining us today on the e-Commerce Marketing Podcast. Thank you. 

[00:37:55]
Kirk: Thank you for listening to the e-Commerce Marketing Podcast.

[00:37:58]
Kirk: If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to rate, review, subscribe, and share it with everyone you know. Are you looking to take your digital marketing to the next level, but are tired of weeding through countless YouTube videos with unproven and untrusted marketing strategies? Well, we have the answer for you the more sales every month online digital marketing.

[00:38:20]
Kirk: In this information packed course, you will learn effective keyword research, link building, content marketing, and much more to attract and convert your site visitors into paying customers. Just go to more sales every month.com and sign up today for a low one time fee. In addition to this power packed course, if you would like to, gets.

[00:38:39]
Kirk: This to a growing repository of digital marketing articles, PDFs, and eBooks. Check out get osi.com/resources and opt in to get full access to our library of priceless marketing information to help you take your digital marketing to the next level.

Kirk Nugent

Co-founder of Komposition