SHOTCALLERS 1st Anniversary

This month is the one-year anniversary of SHOTCALLERS magazine! To celebrate a year’s worth of amazing Meet & Greet interviews, I wanted to recap all the conversations we’ve shared from our first issue to last month’s.

Our first interview, back in July 2019, was with Meredith Allan, an awardwinning public speaker who has worked with Barbara Walters on The View and hosted The Meredith Show on NBC. We talked about her journey to becoming an award-winning speaker, how in the search for success, it’s important to “create magic” in other people’s lives, and how to move from adversity to success. During the interview, Meredith made this important statement about kindness, humility and vulnerability: “Kindness is universal, and it’s the most important thing. And being humble feels good. It feels good to recognize that we all have our limitations, we all have struggles, but we can overcome them. Honestly, I don’t enjoy watching people who aren’t willing to be vulnerable and true. I design my whole series, The It Factor, around people who can talk about really hard things that they’ve overcome. I think that makes you more relatable and more likable because when people only see the finished product, they only see the success and none of what went into it.”

To find out more about Meredith, visit her website: https://themeredithshow.com/. In August I talked to David Essel, the number one bestselling author of ten books. David’s also a counselor, master life coach, international speaker and radio host. Our topics ranged from how he broke from the pack and developed his own voice within the motivational speaking and coaching industries. We also talked about why he challenges the Law of Attraction and his secrets to help struggling business owners resuscitate their businesses.

One of my favorite quotes from the interview was what David had to say about the difference between leaders and those who want to be the best in their field:

“First, leaders are willing to do the uncomfortable. They don’t bitch, whine and complain. They’re not victims. They’re not martyrs. If things don’t work the way they want them to, they pick it up and move on. But they’re willing to challenge themselves daily. “Second, they surround themselves with

people who are better than they are. When you look at a list of people that you communicate with the most, 90% of the list is people who are equal to or below you, and only 10% are surpassing you. Why? Well, we feel a little threatened. We feel embarrassed. It’s all about the ego. So, surround yourself with people who have what you want is the second tip. “Third, you’ve got to have a professional in your corner. Right now, I have a business coach. I have a counselor that I work with. The counselor is more for my emotional support and relationship support. My business coach is rocking my world, holding my feet to the fire.”

For more wisdom, watch David’s Daily Video Boost on talkdavid.com. In September, King of Sales Jeffrey Gitomer was our guest. Author of fifteen bestselling books, Jeffrey was recently given exclusive access to the archives of Napoleon Hill Foundation, and the first book in that partnership, “Truthful Living,” is available now. During our conversation, Jeffrey shared tips for entrepreneurs who need help improving their sales teams. He also talked about ways you and your sales staff can get more creative. When talking about investing your time, Jeffrey had this to say: “I wake up in the morning, and I do at least one, if not all five, of these things: I write, I read, I prepare, and that causes me to think and create. But most salespeople piss their time away. They go home at night, and they have a choice: social media reputation or Netflix. Those are the two choices. The salesperson who’s not making it has to realize that it’s time to change the way they invest their time rather than simply SPENDING their time. You spend your time, you make nothing. You invest your time, you make something. So, if you’re watching Netflix three hours a night, only watch it for an hour and a half and then devote an hour and a half to you.” You can catch Jeffrey every week on his Sell or Die podcast: https://www.sellordiepodcast.com/. October brought us Real Housewife alum Vicki Gunvalson, who happens to be my coauthor on Let’s Talk Money: Women’s Guide to a Lifetime of Wealth. Vicki is the owner and founder of COTO Insurance and Financial Services. She is a retirement specialist, an Orange County five-star wealth manager, a master elite IRA advisor and an international bestselling author. When we spoke, she shared tips on getting through public adversity in business and gave us a lesson in adapting our companies to technological and social changes.

I love the advice she gave for dealing with adversity in business. Here’s part of what she said:

“Surround yourself with good people because the bad people can drain you. They can smother you, and they can leach from you. They can hurt you. If you’re with good people that want you to be successful, then you’ve got this. But if you have so many dragging you down under the water wanting to, like, smush you, you have to tell them to go somewhere else and leave you alone. But that’s the hard part. Our minds can play tricks on us. Right?”

Find out more about what Vicki’s up to by visiting her website: https://vickigunvalson.com/. In March Brett Wagner, the owner and founder of Wagner Metal Supply in Ohio, stopped by our offices. Brett started in the roofing business when he was a teenager and over the decades has gained expertise in roofing, entrepreneurship and leadership. He shared what it’s like to go from a 15-yearold on the cleanup crew to roofing company owner. He also relived some of his worst mistakes and talked about the one thing he wishes he knew when he got started. One thing that really stood out to me during the conversation was his philosophy on sales:

“When you have confidence in your product, you already know the sale is going to happen. Sales to me is a transfer of emotion. And that part of it has always been easy for me because I believe in what we’re doing. I believe that we’re the best out there, and I never second-guess that. Realistically, I am sales, but it’s something I believe in, something I can control. So it’s easy.”

To learn more about Brett’s company, visit https:// wagnermetal.com/. April brought us an interview with leadership consultant, professional speaker and bestselling author Mark Crowley. We talked about a new way to lead employees, how to hire with heart, and how to avoid ruinous empathy. My favorite part of the interview was his take on why kindness is a more valuable motivator than intimidation. “No matter what your job is, work is hard. You’ve got to get up in the morning, get yourself dressed, get in the car or a train or a bus. Then when you get into work, there are meetings, expectations, difficult people, customers and obligations. Overlay all that with fear and intimidation, and we make that environment even worse. “So, heart, and kindness, support and encouragement—these might sound soft to some, but they’re a necessary offset. They make such a difference to people, and because we’re hardwired to reciprocate, if you’re generous with them, their inclination is to be generous with you.” You can get Mark’s book, “Lead From the Heart: Transformational Leadership for the 21st Century,” on Amazon.

In May bestselling author, speaker and teacher of leadership and cultural development Todd Gongwer shared his wisdom with us. Todd has spent the last decade working with some of the most successful coaches, teams, business leaders and educators in America. During the interview, he shared some ways people can learn to deal with social media madness and his methods for walking in peace and joy even during the midst of our current troubling situation.

One interesting technique he shared was his sixmonth filter for time priorities:

“Some people will say we should live like we’re going to die tomorrow, and I always think, ‘That’s impossible.’ If I’m going to die tomorrow, I’m not going to be doing this interview. I’m not going to be doing any speeches. I’m going to be home with my family. But if I had six months to live, I would go do this event, I would go spend time with this team. And how much richer would that experience be if I could walk that way, because I think, ‘Hey, I might not ever see these people again. This may be the last opportunity that they get exposed to the light that’s in me and what I feel I’m supposed to share with them.’ And that became my filter for priorities.”

You can pick up his book, “Lead … for God’s Sake!” on Amazon. Finally, we wrapped up our first year in June with Jeanna Gabellini. Jeanna is a master business coach and chief rabblerouser of Masterpiece Coaching. After 20 years of liberating business owners from the curse of “not enough” and the myth of “hard work pays off,” she knows without question that you can make massive amounts of money and influence millions, even if you’ve been struggling for years. Jeanna shared some critical tips for entrepreneurs about decision making and five-star clients. Here’s some of what she said about mindset:

“I think that mindset is everything. Mindset fuels every decision we make. It determines whether something is easy and we find the resources we need. When your mindset is focused and you allow it to be easy, it can be. It’s like, people serve things up to you and you don’t have to go looking for stuff. The stuff comes to you. “I think if you don’t make mindset the number one priority in your business, you can still make a lot of money, but you will not enjoy yourself along the way. You’ll make things complicated. You’ll have to push harder. You’ll have to get things done through sheer force.”

To find out more about Jeanna and her coaching business, visit https://masterpeacecoaching.com/.

It’s been an amazing year, and I want to thank you for coming along for the ride! Now, let’s see what SHOTCALLER’s second year has in store!

Top SEO Tips for Optimizing Video Content

Video is king in digital marketing today. Video content is being consumed at a rate much higher than other forms of content, with 78 percent of people watching videos online every week and 55 percent watching videos every day. Video content is expected to take up more than 82 percent of all online consumer traffic by 2022.

Due to the spread of the coronavirus and ensuing lockdown in countries across the world, video consumption has skyrocketed even more. Now, more than ever, content marketers should include video content in their campaigns. It takes a lot to make an effective video that pulls in exposure to your brand. You cannot simply create a video, post it, and wait for the views to come rolling in. Videos, like all other content, must be optimized for search engines. In this article, you will find the seven top tips for optimizing video content.

It sounds obvious, but you would be surprised how many people miss the mark on this first tip. Search engines today, especially Google, are designed to help users find quality content. Useful, informative content has become a cornerstone of ranking on search engine results pages.

High-quality content is especially important for videos. With so much competition out there, your video will not be noticed if you have poor production value or stuff it full of unhelpful, irrelevant information. While there are several SEO (Search Engine Optimization) factors to keep in mind when posting videos, do not get so bogged down in optimization that you produce bad content. Make sure your video is in line with your overall marketing strategy, a piece of content that people will want to like and share.

Incorporate Your Keywords

Just as you would incorporate your keywords into an article or blog post, you should also do so in your video. If you have not already done your keyword research, then you need to figure out which keywords you want your video to rank for.

You can use tools like Google Adwords to help you pinpoint your keywords. You must also put yourself in the mind of your audience - what questions are they asking that your video can answer? The most engaging and highly ranked videos do one of three things:

• Entertain • Answer a direct question (“how to” or instructional) • Inform on a buzzworthy issue

Your video content should fall into one of these three categories. Finding keywords also involves competitor research. What kind of content is the competition posting? Which keywords are their videos ranking for? You can quickly conduct competitor research with free tools like Ubersuggest.

Once you have your keywords, you should include them in your video’s title, description, and metadata. Do not use them too much, though, as your content will appear “spammy”. But your keyword should appear at least once, and you should add related words and phrases as well.

Do not Forget About Mobile

Half of all digital videos are viewed on mobile. When users search for something, 69 percent reach for the smartphones first. If you have not optimized your video content for mobile search, your ranking potential will decrease.

Ensure that your video can play on mobile devices and that your website will load on mobile as well. Some video types, like those with Flash, cannot run on mobile at all. If you are hosting a video on your website, you do not want it to slow your load time - or not load at all. This frustrates users, who will quickly navigate away from your site, hurting your overall SEO. One way to make sure your videos load properly on both desktop and mobile is to use a hosting platform like YouTube or Vimeo. These sites are already optimized for mobile viewing, so you can save yourself some hassle.

If you are creating highquality video content to post on your website, you are off to a great start for improving your site’s rankings. Keep in mind, however, that self-hosting will only help boost conversions if your video is optimized properly. Instead of hosting the video on your site, post it to platforms like YouTube, Dailymotion, or Vimeo. You will take a small hit by directing users away from your website to a video streaming platform, but you will reap more benefits in the long run. If you have included your keywords in your title and description, you stand better chances for your video to rank in Google searches if you post on YouTube. Since Google owns YouTube, many global search results are pulled from the video platform.

If you post a video to YouTube instead of your own site, always include a call to action with a link to your website in the video description. If viewers like your content, they will be more inclined to visit your website after viewing. Although Google’s algorithms for ranking videos have grown more sophisticated, the search engine is still better at crawling text. Consequently, you should include as much text as possible along with your video. Keywords and phrases in the title and description are a good start but consider adding a video transcript as well.

You will have to put in extra work to create a transcript but doing so gives Google even more content to crawl. It also

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helps usability, as some people might prefer to read the transcript than watch the video.

Getting into the habit of posting transcripts along with your video might also motivate you to write your scripts ahead of time!

Make an Eye-catching Thumbnail

One of the most important contributing factors to your video’s “clickability” is your thumbnail. This is the image that appears alongside your title, date, and description in search results. Treat the thumbnail like a preview of your video. It should be appealing and enticing, catching a viewer’s attention so that they want to watch your video to see more. Keep in mind that thumbnails featuring people, rather than some text or an icon, have much higher chances of being clicked on. You will have the option to make the thumbnail as a still shot from your video, but you should avoid this if possible. To make the highest-quality thumbnail, take some photos before or after the video is shot and upload one of these images as the thumbnail instead.

Optimize the Webpage You Host the Video On

If you host a video on one of your webpages, make sure the page is also optimized for search engines. You may have incorporated keywords and written an optimized description for your video, but if it appears on a webpage that is not SEOfriendly, your page (and video) will not appear in search results.

If you want to put more than one video on a webpage, try to limit the number to as few as possible. Too many can slow down your website. Also, put the video you want to rank for first on the page, since search engines will not crawl your other videos after they find the first one.

In today’s content marketing landscape, video content has become more important than ever. By incorporating these seven top tips, you will have an SEO-friendly video that is ready to boost your rankings.