No Studio, No Problem: How to Start Creating Videos That Sell with Jimi Gibson

If you’re still avoiding video because you think it’s complicated, expensive, or “not for you,” this conversation will change your mind. Jimi Gibson from Thrive Agency has been in marketing for over 20 years, and he’s watched video go from big-budget productions to a daily must-have for every local business owner.

We break down why video is no longer optional, what’s changed in consumer behavior, and how you can start creating high-impact content with nothing more than your phone. Jimi shares simple, tactical tips you can apply immediately—whether you’re a franchisor, franchisee, or running a single-location business.

Key Takeaways:

• 82% of all internet content is now video—ignore it at your own risk
  
  
• You already have the best video camera in your pocket—start there
  
  
• The four core stories every business owner should be able to tell on video
  
  
• Simple lighting and framing tips to instantly improve your videos
  
  
• Why personal branding matters just as much as your business brand
  
  
  

Time Stamps:

• 00:00 – Why video is now non-negotiable for business owners
  
  
• 06:30 – How consumer behavior has shifted toward video-first
  
  
• 12:45 – What to film when you have “nothing to post”
  
  
• 19:20 – Building your personal brand alongside your business brand
  
  
• 26:55 – The four business stories to tell on camera
  
  
• 35:10 – Technical tips for better DIY video content
  
  

If you’ve been on the fence about creating video, now is the time to start. Don’t wait until your competitors own the conversation in your market. Watch this episode, take one of Jimi’s tips, and put it into action today.

If you’re ready to take control of your local presence and brand visibility, start filming this week. Share your first “meet the owner” video and tag me—I’d love to see it. And if you’re serious about building a business people recognize and trust, connect with me directly and let’s talk about your next steps.

Connect with Guy Coffey:
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/guycoffey
Website: www.guycoffey.com
Instagram: @guycoffey
YouTube: @guycoffey

Transcript

0:04

Welcome to Conversations With Coffee With Me. Gee, coffee. I've owned independent businesses. I've been a franchisee of a global brand for over 17 years, and I co-founded and successfully exited our own franchise brand. This podcast is dedicated to growing the lives and businesses of entrepreneurs everywhere by sharing conversations with successful owners and some of my own experiences and insights. So please grab a cup of coffee and let's just dive right into today's episode. Hello and welcome back to the show. Today I have a very special guest, Jimmy Gibson. From the Thrive Agency, and he's gonna be telling us all about the importance of video, and more importantly, everybody's heard that. But more importantly, tactical questions and answers and recommendations on how to use it, whether you're a franchisor, franchisee, that, um, that you can make the most of this powerful tool. So with that, I'll just ask you to introduce yourself. Jimmy, tell us who you are and. Who you work with. Yeah. Great. Thanks guy. Glad to be on. So thanks for the intro. Yeah. Thrive Agency is a full service digital marketing agency. We've been around for 20 years, which is sort of a unicorn in the digital marketing space. We don't specialize in any particular industry or vertical. We have a number of franchise clients. We've also worked with franchisors and franchisees, and then also some brokers to introduce people to the world of franchising. So I would say we've seen it from all different angles and would love to have a conversation about how video can help with all of those audiences. Awesome, awesome. Well, it's, you know, when you're in this, you more than me, I'm sure even more, you know, you're, we're in LinkedIn and we're. Watching things that are in franchising and marketing and things like that. And everybody is saying the importance of video. I think I read somewhere today, like 80% of internet. Is it video now? Or something like that. Something big like that. And what I found with people, franchisees at the local level and things like that is like, yeah, I'm kind of busy running the, the business. I don't, uh, have a budget for a videographer. I don't have a studio. Um. You know, I've seen my kids messing around with video editing, but I'm not messing with it. I think it's. Over complicated. Um, and it's probably simpler than people think, and sometimes it's also just getting outta your, you know, your own way and just put something out there. It's not gonna hurt. So what's changed in consumer behavior that makes video so essential? Yeah, and so my background, I started in the world of marketing and advertising as a graphic designer and then worked my way up to creative director and then ran an agency and. I was part of many video shoots that were very professional. There was a crew, there were all sorts of craft services where you took a break and had meals and makeup and hair and you know, the whole thing. And it was like a big production. And yeah, those productions came with big budgets. What's happened over the last 10 years and. Five years. Um, more importantly is video is what people want to consume. And you're right, the figure that I've read is 82%, uh, this year of all content on the internet is video related. And so we can see that on the platforms that we go to. You have reels on Instagram, TikTok sort of drove the way for those short, uh, 30 to 62nd videos. LinkedIn has been pushing video. It's not. Um, the same as it was about eight to 10 months ago, but I think it'll rebound. And so they're actually dialing back impressions. I think they're sort of in their r and d phase and they're, they're gonna figure out how they're gonna relaunch'cause it's just the way people want. People don't wanna read on a website. They want to be entertained. I guess being behind the camera and understanding. What goes into a video production actually sort of was bad for me because right now it just needs to be simple. It doesn't have to be all the bells and whistles. You don't have to have an expensive camera. You've got probably the most technologically advanced camera in your pocket that you carry around with you all the time. And when, whether it be a franchisee, a franchisor, whether it be somebody working in the business who is trying to attract people to a franchise business, they wanna see a video. And in your daily work, you can pull out that camera and shoot a video and there's just a couple of principles that we can go over. So I'll just give you a couple of action steps and then we can kind of break it down. I would say the first thing you wanna do, and we'll talk about the owner stepping in front of the camera as well as we get into this, but I would say audit your video presence. Do you have any videos right now? If you don't, I would make a list and people go, well, what kind of list? Well, I would say, why did you decide to purchase this particular franchise? Why are you involved in this business? Why did you pick the market that you're in? Did you move to that market? Or were you, you know, born and bred in that market? Why do you care about your neighbors? That that's a great starting point and people can just sort of brainstorm and talk about that. The other thing is when people watch a video, they want to know the context of where you're sitting. And so don't sit in your office, go out, go to a park, walk down the street. People will recognize that you're actually in the community that you're talking about. We'll talk about some technical things related to how you position yourself and what makes a good shot and a bad shot. But I would say the first clip you should make. Is meet the owner. People wanna know who the owner is right now, more importantly than ever, owners have to have a personal brand. People wanna know who they are. They wanna know can they trust them, do they like them? And we can talk about the nuance between, you know, the corporate brand rules that we need to follow. But I would say in the simplest form, the way these large language models or AI results are coming, when people search for your business, they're actually mm-hmm. It's different. SEO has changed dramatically actually in the last few months. Google rolled out AI mode in early May. It's taking over most of the searches now and the ranking of keywords is gonna change a little bit, and it's actually more about brand mentions. And so if you can be present in your local market, and I would say video does show up. In searches. Instagram is now showing up in organic searches, which is amazing. TikTok is moving in that direction. YouTube has shown up in organic searches for quite some time, and so once you shoot that video, meet the owner, where do you put it? Well, I would say put'em on all the platforms. Start a YouTube channel. It's not that hard. You can look up on YouTube, how to start a YouTube channel. You pretty much just have to have a, uh, Google account. You know, YouTube is owned by Google, and there are some things that you need to do to make sure that YouTube understands what that video is about. Pick a nice title, those types of things. And then I would just plan to shoot a video once a month. At the end of the year, you've got 12 videos. That's more than you had. Now, if you're a little more aggressive, maybe you shoot one a week and I'll say one more thing and then we can break that apart. But I think the biggest thing is people think they're gonna look stupid. They think nobody cares. They think, I don't know what to say. You do know what to say. You're passionate about the business. You had just talk and record 10 videos and then throw those videos in the trash. Mm-hmm. There's no pressure. You're just gonna make the videos, you're gonna talk. I remember when I first started doing video, I made a commitment to post a video every day, Monday through Friday on LinkedIn, and I got my wife to look at 'em. I mean, she's brutal with her, you know? Bombs. And she's like, what are you doing with your eyebrows? That's kind of freaky. And I'm like, I don't know. What am I doing with my eyebrows? And so I had to go back and just look at it from that perspective and go, oh yeah, I was kind of, I don't know what I was doing. And so now just think about those things. So watch yourself. You're gonna hate it. It's okay. Be okay with hating it. Get some friends and family to look at it. Does that look like me? Does that sound like me? And yeah, I would say that's the starting point. But I would say it's a non-negotiable now in business that it's not too late. It's the prime time to jump in and just go for it. Never too late to, to do good things. That's, that's a key thing.'cause some people might be like, I've been at this for two years. I'm still starting out. Don't worry about it. Um, and one of the great recommendations I've heard from my own business coach is like, just document your life and there's gonna be stuff in there. You know, have a camera on your desk when you're talking to somebody or, or whatever. And you'll see things in there. You can edit those out or get some help or whatever, but like, if you document what you're doing, people love to see behind the scenes. Oh yeah. It's almost one of those things where they see that you make mistakes, you know, you fumble your words, you do something wrong. It's like, well, it's definitely not ai. Yeah, that's a real person. Yep. Yeah. And either they're gonna, I think it elicits either a like or a dislike, you know? And you definitely wanna be doing with people that like you and you like them, but they're, you're not gonna know if there's like some figure hidden behind the scenes. And, um, I think it's almost an imperative now that the founder or the owner of a local business has something out there, you know, at the risk of sounding mean, like, get over yourself. Like, we're all imperfect, you know? Just have people get to know you. But any tips you have for like the, the do it yourself content, you know, in terms of someone's got their iPhone or their Android or whatever. I love that idea.'cause as you said this, I realize I've, I'm making a mistake in, in one of our businesses, I have videos being done by our trainers and manager and everything. But it's all inside our Anytime Fitness brand. Compliance is a big thing. So all the anytime fitnesses look the exact same. So it could be in Missouri or it could be in Florida, or it could be at the base of Steamboat Mountain looking up at the ski hill like, like we are, you know, it's like we need to get outside. So thanks for that recommendation. Yeah. I was watching a video. I think we were chatting before we went on the air here about a video. I was watching you, you were riding your bike and I know obviously you, um, are very purposeful about. Fitness and staying healthy, and as you were riding down the street, you wave to a car. And so what goes in my head, guys in his neighborhood, he knows this person. Isn't that cool? He was aware enough while he was shooting this video to Wave. And so, you know, talking about Anytime Fitness, there's probably people waiting there before the door opens, you know, I don't know what time it opens, but maybe if you greet those people as they're coming in and you know their names, then people get that impression like. Oh my gosh. This owner knows the people's names who come in. He's excited by the commitment that these people have made, so forth and so on. Um, you know, if you like tacos, you could have a series where you're at your local taco and that's not even your business, right? You're just supporting Unity and you've got your phone propped. On the table or you have a little tripod to keep it steady and you're like, Hey, we're back for Taco Tuesday. I'm just gonna ask some frequently asked questions that we typically get and you sit there and eat your tacos. Like I think a lot of people love tacos and they're gonna go, I wonder what kind of tacos those are. Wow. He is. You know, in a local business that he's supporting, he knows that owner. Right, right. Yeah. And so these are types of things, and so I just mentioned frequently asked questions. Doesn't have to be boring. You don't have to sit at your desk and say, we get this question all along, da da da da da. Just film a different frequently asked question when somebody calls up, point 'em to your YouTube channel. Oh yeah. Well, interesting. We filmed that the other day and so forth and so on. We work with a lot of home service, uh, franchise businesses, which, you know, there are procedural things that need to happen before somebody shows up. Maybe it's important for the dogs to not be in the backyard if they're gonna be looking outside the home. Maybe there's something that needs to be uncovered. Just do a walkthrough, have a service tech shoot a video and say, Hey, we're looking forward to our appointment before we arrive. Here's the checklist of things that are gonna make our visit the most productive. Text 'em that video, right? Text 'em a link to that video. And then I think, you know, the other thing is people wanna see, do you care about your people, the community, your vendors? Do you have a staff birthday? Is there a training day? Is there a community event that you support? Take your phone out, say, Hey, we're at the local, you know, X, Y, ZK, and we've all got our shirts on and we're gonna run. And this is a support, something that we're proud of because our office manager, Suzy, has a relative with, you know, whatever this condition is, that type of thing. That just makes it human, that makes it great. You see that community involvement. So I, I would say those are a couple of. Quick things that probably will springboard 20 other ideas that come out of people's heads related to some things that I just went over. Right? Right. Out of those ideas for someone that's. Not big into this yet. They're not creating any content, video content or anything like that for themselves.'cause there's also a, per the personal branding aspect for owners, it's absolutely necessary now I think, whether you own a grill cleaning service in your area or you know, a Woodhouse Day spots, like they wanna know who, who owns this, right? Like, what's going on? Like, what do they like? Every business is interesting. I have a friend that owns a grill cleaning service, and they have really cool videos just showing like, this is what can happen to a grill over the winter. And they show like a raccoon nest or something in the bottom of fun or, you know, rodents or, you know, like just random things and it's, but where would you recommend that they start? I have an idea of what, what I think. Would, would work. And then the, and a more pointed question is if you pick a platform that you could have a personal account or a business account, what would you recommend as an owner of a single unit owner of a, a local franchise? Well, to answer the last question first, people follow people. I think it's important to have a corporate account 'cause people are gonna check up on that. But typically you're gonna see more followers and more engagement on a personal account, and so you have to think in your head, whether it be Facebook or Instagram or LinkedIn. I would say LinkedIn especially, you want to have your own personal profile as well as the corporate profile, but there are certain things that you can do on your corporate profile that you can't do on your personal profile if you wanna run ads, that type of thing. We're talking about organic coverage right now. Sure. But yeah, some people, let's just use Facebook for an example. Depending on your market, don't want to bleed over their business into their personal, you can set up another profile on Facebook that's a, a brand or a public figure. It looks very similar to a personal profile. And then just do all your activity on that. So I think there's some strategies that people can do. As far as where to start, there's four stories that I always recommend every brand to be able to tell. The first one is the founder story, and so obviously we're talking about franchise. The person who's the franchisee didn't start the business, but they do have a story about why they've. Picked that particular franchise, why they're passionate about that franchise, what is their business background that they bring to that franchise, right?'cause sometimes it's, uh, an add-on to a career or a second career for people. The next one is the purpose story. If it's not about the money, what is it about? And so you mentioned, uh, the person that does the grill can cleaning. I don't know what their background is, but perhaps a grill reminds them. Of family time and they learned how to grill from their dad or their grandfather, and this is every time they go out, they just love talking about that. And that becomes part of who they are. And it's a, it's a memory that is baked in to why they are involved in that business. And I see you shaking your head, so that might be something similar. Yeah. You nailed it. It it's about the timer around the grill. Yeah. Like families and friends and, you know, usually the guys will gather around the grill while someone's cooking the steaks or something like that. And like, those conversations are just different than a lot of other conversations, you know, so it's, it's usually around good times and things like that, so that's, that's what they call to, you know, it's like we're helping people experience those moments better. Yeah. Yeah. We just had some kitchen remodeling done. And you may think that it's a. Moving cabinets and putting in floor, but it's actually typically the heartbeat of the home. And again, conversations happen in the kitchen. And so it's an opportunity to be proud or to have an excuse to invite people over into this new environment. If it's grill cleaning, have people over for a cookout, you know, those types of things. The next story is the transformation story. And so what happens when somebody engages with your brand? Is there a before and after? If it's the grill is a mess and we keep going back to this, it's a great, you know, case study for what we're talking about. Yeah, you're not gonna grill, you're not gonna have those conversations. So instead of cleaning your grill. We are bringing fun and life memories to your backyard. Like that's what you're selling. You're, you're selling the way it makes people feel. If you have a plumbing franchise, you're not unclogging the drain. You are preventing stress because the in-laws are coming over this weekend and it's not gonna be pretty if, you know, the plumbing doesn't work the way it needs to work. Right. And so you have to think through what is that emotion or what is that feeling and what is that transformation that happens? And so with the grill cleaning, it's freedom, it's good taste, it's memories, it's, you know, all those types of things. And then the next one is the customer story. And the customer story is a little different than the transformation story. It's a testimonial and that's a perfect opportunity if you can, like at the gym, go up to somebody and say, Hey, how long have you been a member? What has been your results? Would you recommend this? If you were telling somebody that's scared about joining the gym, what would you tell them about this particular place? Same thing with any business or product or service. Those are gold, right? People believe other people more than they believe what you say about yourself. That's why reviews are vital. Putting some of their. Those reviews on your Google Business profile, having them on your website, having testimonials on your various platforms out in the public that you can point people to and they find them when they're searching for, uh, competitors. Those can be huge differentiators. So for that business owner that owns, uh, say they own a quick service restaurant in their town, they're a year into this. They haven't done any videos yet. And they're gonna start doing this, they've, they've taken it on. Would you recommend LinkedIn or Instagram or TikTok or YouTube from a simplicity standpoint? First, you know, just so that they can get in the hang of it. Yeah. I would say ask your customers what social media platforms they participate in or they consume. Sure. Figure out, you know, it doesn't have to be some scientific study. There are lots of, there's lots of sources online to tell you what the age brackets are. I would say in this day and age, if it's a visual medium and it's more of a social type of interaction you want to have with them, you're looking at TikTok or Instagram. I would say if it's an older demographic, you're looking at Facebook, I would say if you're trying to do a business deal, it's. LinkedIn, but you, you know what is very popular these days are those 30 to 62nd reels on Instagram or TikTok? And TikTok is not all about crazy dancing. Uh, it has changed and morphed quite a bit, but I would say the first place is talk to your regular customers. Talk to your client base and go, Hey, you know, and those are easy platforms because believe it or not, you can actually edit and post. While you're on that platform, so you can film yourself, it goes right up and you can make some edits. You can add text to the images. Yeah. Just ask a teenager how to help you and they'll be able, or a middle schooler, how to help you navigate the platform and they'll show you some tips and tricks and you'll just be amazed because that's the life they live. Yeah. Yeah. It's, um, I don't wanna make this about me, but it's, it's kind of funny that, um, it wasn't until a few years ago that I started doing this myself. And I have a 17-year-old and a 19-year-old. My son now. Um, but when I started doing this more frequently, they were like 15 and 17 and they, you know, I would post on Instagram and it was mostly like, personal stuff and they just saw my evolution. Like they, they knew when I discovered cat cut and I was like, terrible, terrible. And like all their friends would follow me, you know, and like it just to bug them. I just took it with a grain of salt. Like, it's like, it's kind of fun and like literally now I can go on a walk, have a thought, put my camera on, turn it around at 0.5 so I'm not missing myself on the camera. And um, I send it to cap cut. I could do it in Instagram and I've just played around with it. And I am not a tech guy at all. So if I swear, if I can do it, anybody can do it, and I'll post it by the, by the time I get back from my walk in the woods or whatever. And, um, and it's, and it's, it's kind of fun and like no one has really come out and made fun of me to my face anyway. Well, you're absolutely right. It is a muscle. You have to exercise and you have to be okay with being bad. I think people get this impression that as soon as they put this up, the whole world is gonna see it. But that's not the way the algorithm works. And then I think it opens up a lot of cool conversations because if people see you doing it, then they're gonna go, Hey, could you help me out? And you know, think about the referrals within your community of other business owners who are struggling with the same thing and y'all could all get together and film each other and help each other out and have a referral network. It's pretty cool. You know, I'll just give you a couple of basic technical things as you mentioned, cap cut.'cause there are tools that allow you to expedite the editing People say. Having the captions up appear on the screen is a must because a lot of people, especially in a business environment, don't want to turn the sound on, so you have to have the word show up on the screen. So Cap cut is a good example of that. Opus clip is another one that works as well. These are very low. Cost tools. You know one thing, if you're out, just make sure that there's no sunlight behind you, that the sun is either off to a side or in front of you so it illuminates your face. If you look like you're in a shadow, nobody's going to recognize who you are. If it's a cloudy day, that's actually great because it is very diffused and very nice lighting. Don't shoot a video outside at noon. The sun is at its highest point. It's really gonna flatten out your features early in the morning or later in the evening, is what they call that golden light, beauty light. That is the most gorgeous time to shoot. So I would look for times of day, if you're shooting indoors, you know, position yourself in front of a window, not right up against the window. If there's a sheer or a shade that can diffuse the light a little bit, that would be great. You know, people have, you know. Seen these fashion videos with ring lights. They're great, but don't have a ring light right in front of you because it's gonna make weird circles in your eyes. Yeah, put it off to one side so it does give you that more rounded feel. So yeah, I would say the best advice I can give is try something and then reposition yourself and is it better or worse? Like that's it. If it's better, keep it. If it's worse, try something else. A camera, a little bit above eye level gives you a nice feel, thins you out if you're worried about that. So I would say at eye level or a little bit above, not underneath. Underneath is kind of a weird superhero look. So yeah, I would say there's plenty of resources, but maybe some of those tips will stick and people can rewind the show and go, oh, okay. Let me just sort of play around with those. Yep. And it'll be broken down in the notes too. Thanks to AI for sure. Um. And one tip that I heard and that I've used to improve as a communicator in general, I think that's another, that's a byproduct of shooting videos. Yeah. And kinda looking is like, you see, I just said, like one of my, my issues is saying like all the time, but it will help you become a better communicator as well in person, off, off camera. And the recommendation was record yourself. Do a video, talk about something that you care about, and then watch it. Without the sound on. Mm-hmm. And then just listen to it without looking at the video, and you'll pick up things that you're doing too much or too little, or no inflection, or if you sound monotone or My, my two things are, I say like a lot and I say, you know a lot. Mm-hmm. So I've been working on that. I've been working on that for a long time. And I still have a challenge with it, but like, no one, see, I just said it again. No one's canceled me, no one's made fun of me. I'm still here living and breathing and trying to get better, and it's amazing the amount of people that will come up to someone that's not known at all. But I was at a recent franchise conference and there's people there from all over, and so many of 'em commented on the videos that I have on LinkedIn, and it's totally amateur. It's not planned out. It's on my iPhone and it's really, really effective for getting the word out there and having people, like I said, either like you or dislike you. Yeah. So I probably didn't talk to some people'cause maybe they disliked me, but I doubt that overall you get better for it. And thanks so much for sharing your expertise. I know you have a lot of expertise in that. I imagine when you're looking at things, you're, you're picking up technical things that are like, that's just terrible. But you know, it doesn't matter these days. It's what people wanna see. Like less perfect is fine right now and uh, just start doing it, right? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. One last point that you sort of alluded to. I think people get twisted up in their head that they have to remember all this stuff. Just pick one idea, one topic, and be able to talk for one minute. Like, don't try to say everything and be okay with pausing and thinking. You know, actors think when they're delivering a line because you, you kind of know what's going on in their head and there's some drama and emotion. Not that you are looking to win an Oscar or anything. Yeah. Natural, like a real person almost, right? Mm-hmm. That's what we wanna be and that's who we wanna do business with. Right. So thank you so much for sharing your expertise and your afternoon and um, I really appreciate you coming on the show, Jimmy, and I'm sure everybody else does good tips in here and they'll be summarized in the notes. And, um, once again, thanks so much. We appreciate you sharing and, and helping people get better. Yeah, thank you for having me. It was fun.