Trevor Rappleye: Improve Your Hiring With One Simple Video

Looking for creative ways to improve your hiring? This episode has the answers you need! Trevor Rappleye is the CEO of CorporateFilming.com and FranchiseFilming.com. He helps brands create inspiring monthly videos that drive sales, franchise development, and recruitment. Trevor joins host Ryan Englin to debunk myths owners have about creating marketing videos for their company. No, you don’t need a $100k budget or a professional film crew to get started. Tune in as he shares tips for creating recruitment videos to attract top talent.

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Trevor Rappleye: Improve Your Hiring With One Simple Video

Our guest has an interesting story on how he got to where he’s at. While we love hearing people’s stories, he has learned so much along the way that this is going to be an action-packed episode. I can’t wait to have him share some of his tips for what he does. When he was fifteen, he started converting VHS to DVD. He realized that he loves storytelling so much that he got into filming.

He got into creating videos for businesses. He now owns Franchise Filming and creates some amazing videos for his clients. Particularly, those that are in the trades, looking to recruit better employees. We are going to get to talk a lot about recruiting videos. I want to welcome to the show, Trevor Rappleye. Trevor, thanks for being here.

Ryan, thank you for having me on.

You’ve got a great journey and how you’ve got to where you are at and you have learned a ton. What would you say is the biggest myth about your industry? The thing that you want to shatter for everybody else and let them know it’s not true.

The biggest myth in what we do is that you have to hire a professional film crew and pay $100,000 for a video every single time. The biggest myth is that you have to wait, ponder, and think about how to highlight your team. Get them on video on your iPhone. Show them in front of an iPhone camera waving, highlight your happy people, and the answer is right in front of you with your iPhone.

It doesn’t cost a lot of money or doesn’t need to cost a lot of money and you don’t have to have this big production to where everybody is putting in their $0.02, and it takes six months to figure out what’s going to be on a video, that’s not true?

No, it’s not. Tomorrow, someone at your office, sit them down with your iPhone or on Zoom, and ask them, “Why do you love to work here?” Post it. I guarantee you it will be your most-watched video of the entire year.

That’s great advice and something that’s easy but the first thing that goes through my mind, my employees are shy. They are going to freak out in front of a camera. This is why people do actors and stuff. How do you get them to talk through that?

One of my favorite things to say is, “The people that you think are going to do the worst, they do the best.” It’s your frontline workers. It’s your most passionate workers. It’s the ones that have been with you for 4 or 5 years that are going to rave about you. Everyone is a toss-up to be very honest.

Find the people that are passionate, sit them down, pop out an iPhone and say, “Let’s make a selfie video together.”

It’s as simple as during your next happy hour at the office or on Zoom. I can’t say it enough, just ask them, “Why do you love to work here? Why should someone else work here? I realized that you have been with us for five years. How has it been going from here to there?” Post it. Authenticity plays well. Sometimes an overdone professional video can sometimes work against a brand if you also don’t have authentic iPhone videos, too.

There’s so much truth in that. We were working with a client and one of their new GMs was on the call. He said, “How long ago did you start?” I go, “Seven years. How much were you making?” He goes,”$11 an hour.” I go, “How much are you going to clear this year?” He goes, “$190.” That could be the whole video.

That is the whole video because then someone watching that is going to be like, “That could be me. I’m making $11 an hour now.”

There are a whole bunch of reasons but what do you think is the biggest reason holding business owners back from doing this? It doesn’t just sound simple. It sounds easy. Why do you think they don’t do it?

Being a business owner myself, we all rushed the wrong things. I went on my website. I’m like, “That doesn’t load that well. That link is broken.” We forget to sit in the seat of the person that we want to hire and go on someone else’s iPhone or laptop to see how is this going to load. Half the time your website doesn’t load as well as you think it does.

The biggest thing that holds business owners back is that they overthink it, so then they end up doing nothing. That’s what holds them back. The one thing I could tell people reading this is if you put on your list to do, sit down one person on Zoom or in real life, and ask them, “Do you love what you do?” Post it. We will elevate you. People can see, “That person loves what they do.”

What are some actions they can take so they can break through this wall that they are not overthinking or stuck? Especially if they don’t do videos that can be a scary thing posting your first video. If they are not doing it, what are some things that they could do to make this happen?

The one thing I want people to ask themselves is, “If you are not doing video now, then when? 2024 or 2025?” You’ve got to put a date to it. The number one action item that I believe that they could do is while they are reading now, send an email to five people on your team. “Are you free for a five-minute Zoom tomorrow?” 1) Will say no. 2) Will say yes. 3) Will say maybe. Do a five-minute Zoom and post it. Don’t overthink it. That’s an action item someone can do now.

I picture one of the guys in the field, whether he’s in construction, service or whatever. Zoom runs on their phone or tablet that you give them. Them being in the field, that backdrop already, you leveled up the production value. You don’t even need to get them in the office.

Half the time offices are dull and the lights are orangey. Going to where your employees are is a win-win, whether they are outside. As the owner, you could take your iPhone, flip the iPhone around, head over to where someone is onsite, and ask them, “Do you love working for me?” Now, the boss and the brand are humanized. It doesn’t matter if it’s shaky. It’s authentic.

Don’t be afraid if they say no because you might have dodged a bullet. Now, you get to have that conversation or they don’t surprise you when they leave next week.

“What if I mess up?” If you mess up, we are not going to post it. I always tell people, “I will make sure to run this by you before I do the posting.” It’s the person that you think is shy and nervous is going to be the one that warms your heart as the owner because they are going to rave about you, the love you have for them, and how you took them from here to there. Not just iPhone videos but even photos. Go take a group selfie. Some of our most engaged LinkedIn posts have been a selfie. Not our expensive video we made but a selfie on my iPhone because it’s humanizing.

You make it sound so simple but I love it because it’s authentic. That’s something big that we push over here. It’s about authenticity. I tell people all the time, it’s the quiet ones that they think about what they are going to say before they say it because they want to make sure it adds value to the conversation. Those shy ones, when they open their mouth are words that are going to make the conversation better. It’s the loud obnoxious ones that you don’t want to record that you think you are going to be the most comfortable because who knows what it’s going to come out of their mouth.

I have never had a boss. I don’t know how bosses should act and things like that. I say that because I post me messing up. I post me falling on set. It makes me humanized as a leader and people want to work with people that are fun. If you have fake photos that you have found online of people around a table at office space and you put it on your page, it doesn’t work. The best thing you could do is post a selfie on your website. Some people might say, “We need higher res.” “Sure, but until I have that use this.”

I have to remind myself all the time. “Done is better than perfect.” Another thing that I have seen and you have seen this, too. There is somebody on your team that loves taking selfies and doing videos, that is obsessed with social media. If you are reading this and you don’t know how to do this stuff, I promise you, grab a Millennial or a Gen Z, there’s someone on your team that is an expert at this, and they are waiting for you to ask them for help.

How do you get the team bought into this? I think about this and I love the idea. This is going to feel weird. They have never done this before. I never asked for this before. Do we need to schedule this regularly? Is there something that we should do a little bit of dialoguing about this beforehand? What’s the right way to get them bought in?

You would be shocked at how many people want to be in a video. It’s not that much buy-in. I have had some people on the team in the past years where that person was not excited to be on the video, and that person is no longer with us. Not saying that somebody not wanting to be in a video means they don’t like you but you would be shocked at how many people want to help. Most owners are, “Go, go, go.” We failed. We won. Most employees need time to think about things. You don’t want to say, “Let’s film tomorrow.” You are going to freak them out and they are going to stay up all night, wondering what’s going on.

Ask them, “I want to do a video. I want to use ten minutes of your time. How about two weeks from now?” Let them make the time and choose the day, so they feel bought in. You would be surprised how many people say yes to that. If you are talking about posting a raw, “Do you love what you do,” from your iPhone, you can schedule that.

If you want to do something bigger like hiring a film crew or doing multiple in one spot, you should try and schedule it. I always tell people, if you have ten people that are going to talk on film, count on a third of them not showing up or saying, “I’m good.” You are left with seven. From that, I guarantee you, only one will be bad. You will get six amazing soundbites and you will realize how great people think of you.

You talked about sitting in their seat. I always talk about, “Do you see your business the way your employees or job seekers do?” I love the idea of getting these soundbites from them because you can use the words that your team uses in your marketing, job ads, and future videos. You are using their language now. You are saying it the way they say it, not the way you think it should be said.

The minute that I realized truly no one cares what I think about my team and what we do. It was humbling, some of the quotes that we’ve got. Some people said, “I wake up every day loving what I do.” Seeing that as the owner, I was amazed. A) That makes me feel good. B) You better bet that’s on the website with her photo. That’s on the Careers tab and my Team page. People want to work with a brand that wants to help them get better. If you don’t show that, they are going to think you are another brand that wants to not pay them a lot or something like that. Show that you took someone from here to there.

There’s so much truth in this but, “People don’t leave jobs. They leave bosses. They leave people.” It’s a cliché for a reason. It’s so popular. We all know that that’s what people leave is people. Why don’t we put people in our recruiting ads? Why don’t we let people know, “I’m not the same Yahoo you work for now? It’s going to be better here. Look at our team and how happy they are. Look at who I am.” Be authentic with it. It will be so powerful for you.

I have been very humbled a lot. When people leave, they leave because of me. When people stay, I have had someone with us for six years, another 1 for 5 years, I highlight them so much. They love seeing themselves on the website. I gave them their own website. It’s like FranchiseFilming.com/autumn. She feels a part of the bigger picture. If you don’t show how much your team loves working for you, why would anybody apply to work for you? That’s the biggest thing is people aren’t talking about us as owners, as much as we think they are. We are not as cool as we think we are. That was humbling.

We need to get our employees talking about us. One more thing, I always hear a lot, “What if someone leaves? What if we do all this and they leave?” My flip side is, “What if you do all this and they stay?” When people do leave, we take them off the website. It’s not even a big deal. Sometimes we forget for five months. I’m like, “We’ve got to take them off.” No one is going to come after you. If you accidentally left one on your website for a long time. It’s not going to happen.

The one thing that we are starting to see a lot in the trades and I want to throw this in here because people are thinking about, “If I invest in them, they level up their skills, they help me manage my processes, they are doing a great job, and they leave, I lose a lot of that tribal knowledge.” You’ve got guys that have been here 25 to 30 years and it’s backbreaking work sometimes, their bodies don’t work. They are retiring early and getting out now. We are seeing the trades age out. If you build the people up so that they love being here, not the work they do but they love being here.

When they leave, they are not going to put you in a bind. They are going to say, “I’m retiring in six months. You’ve got six months to download everything out of my brain and get it into the new kid. There needs to be that emphasis, too. It’s one thing to have a fancy video or a nice raw authentic video but you’ve still got to walk the walk. You’ve still got to be there and create this culture where people are like, “I feel like I belong here. I’m willing to take time away from my friends, family, and hobbies so that I can spend time helping you achieve what you want to achieve at your business.”

Being able to show someone the success of someone that is with you or being able to show that you have happy hours or you have monthly team virtual lunches, which we do and we post about it. The first thing my new hire said was, “That’s so cool that you have a monthly virtual lunch. That’s one of the reasons why I went on to work for you.” I’m like, “That’s it?” It’s because they are part of something bigger. Show your culture and fun moments. Don’t just show them hard at work and sweating all day. That’s not the reason why they are going to stay with you for five years. It’s because you made them better and they are a part of something bigger.

One of my favorite things I teach my clients is what we call the bench-building process. All of these companies have email marketing lists for customers. No one has ever thought of an email marketing list for employees or job seekers. They are like, “What do I send them?” I’m like, “I don’t know. When is the last time you had a company event, a party or you filmed one of these things?” Take a picture of your team having fun at the park and send them an email that says, “We missed you. Wish you were here.” Put the picture. Done.

You nailed it. People don’t do that because again, they rushed the wrong things. The best thing you could do is say, “Sorry, you weren’t here.” On another note, to think that people that are applying to work for you aren’t researching the boss or the leadership, it’s just wrong. If they go onto your LinkedIn and it’s all about stats and revenue, “Look at our office space,” and there’s nothing about the team, what do you think they are going to think about you? Start posting about your team and how much you love them and their successes.

2 out of 3 seekers say the number one thing missing from a job ad or the posting you put on Indeed is information about the person they are going to work for. We know people leave bosses, which means when they are looking for greener grass, they are looking for a better boss. If we know that, why aren’t we putting that stuff out there?

You talked a lot about these raw videos. These videos that we can create, not on the spur of the moment, but it doesn’t require a lot of production value. You and I also share a passion for recruitment videos, which I don’t want to discount the videos that you did. They are recruiting for you. At least for me, when I hear the word recruitment video, I think of something a little bit more produced, maybe scripted, maybe we are hearing from multiple employees and the owner.

I have even had clients create recruitment videos, where they bring customers in and say, “This is what it’s like to have these people providing the service.” Talk to me a little bit about these recruitment videos. What are some things to think about? You seem to be the guy that’s got all the answers on how to get these done easily. What are some tips we can use for that?

With raw videos, you don’t have a chance to hook somebody. It’s usually it’s raw and longer. It’s still good but when you hire a professional film crew to act, create this. They can make it, so there’s a hook at the front. You have three seconds to hook somebody or else they are going to move on. With a recruitment video, the best thing you could do is begin a video with, “I’m Autumn and I have been working here for six years and I love what I do.” End it, start the logo, and start the video. Recruitment videos are going to have a higher engagement rate and you are going to convert people more because they are more engaged in that.

You grabbed that soundbite from one of the raw videos you did because that’s where the best sound bites come from. You do a quick little logo intro. When you are doing a recruiting video, does the owner or the management team speak or is it just the team?

The thing that owners need to realize is people want to know who their future bosses are, whether you are a team of 1,000 or a team of 10. How much can you be different from the other ten places they applied to work? Let’s be honest. People don’t just do it once. How can you stand out so much? It’s including leadership and owners in these videos as well. “My boss looks cool.” It’s humanizing the leadership.

For those reading, don’t script any of this. It’s going to be hard not to. What you think is correct as the owner is not what people want to hear. You want to ask questions such as, “Do you love what you do? and would you recommend this as a spot to work? Where were you years ago? How does that make you feel that you are running operations?” That’s the power of the correct recruitment videos. Brands aren’t doing it, whether it’s raw video or a video made by a film crew. You will get left in the dust if you are not using a video.

We had a new client start with us. He goes, “Ryan, I’m going through some of your training.” You were into the touchy, feely, squishy stuff. He’s like, “I have never been into that before,” but he goes, “Your clients are getting results and I’m not, so maybe that’s what I’m doing wrong.” I love what you said these videos are not head videos. They are not logically drawn out, figure out the metrics, and all that stuff that we so naturally gravitate towards because it’s hard sometimes to get into the heart-centered stuff. That’s what it is. I tell people all the time, “Your employees want to feel like they belong here. Belonging is an emotion. It’s a heart thing. It’s not a head thing.”

How you can make someone feel a part of your family or team, whether you are a team of 10 or 1,000 is by posting that group picture from your iPhone. Posting that waiving video of people saying, “We love what we do.” It’s corny, authentic, and it’s fun.

We have a client. One of their most popular videos is a six-second clip of there are like 50 of them and they are shouting, “We give a damn.” That’s all it is. That’s one of their core values and it resonates so well. People see that. “I saw that video. That’s why I applied.”

Every single year, people know every year we redo our video for ourselves and we dance in the hallway. We literally dance in the street and it’s on our website. What that does is two things, people that think that’s weird and stupid are not going to want to work for us. That’s a win. Secondly, the people that want to feel a part of something, want friendships are going to be like, “I want to work there.” If I don’t dance, then my team won’t dance. I dance first, and then everyone else dances and we use that content over and over, and it took us an hour to do the filming.

We could probably keep talking about this, especially when we are getting into the other types of videos besides recruitment, there are so many ways to use video. People forget this but the second largest search engine in the world is YouTube. There is no text or pictures on YouTube. It is a video. Videos are consumed at such a higher rate than text.

For us, our target markets are busy and driving in between jobs. If it’s not on video or audio, it’s not going to work. Job seekers are the same way. We have all met the modern workforce. We are distracted. There are so many things that are going on. What gets their attention? The audio-visual combination. Video is so important.

I love these tips here. The raw videos, and then that recruitment heart-centered video for helping our readers out there connect with job seekers, so that they don’t struggle to hire anymore. We were talking before the show, you’ve got an offer for our readers, something that they are going to get to download, that’s going to help them with this process. Tell us about that.

We are going to give away the nine best questions to ask for your next video, whether it’s an iPhone video, it’s a film crew or it’s your webcam, it doesn’t matter. The nine best things to ask and you can find that FranchiseFilming.com/bluecollarculture.

Trevor is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to video and how to make videos simple. That’s what I love about it. Thank you for being on the show. I have enjoyed our conversation.

Thank you, Ryan. I appreciate it.

Important Links:

• Franchise Filming
• Careers
• Team
• FranchiseFilming.com/autumn
• FranchiseFilming.com/bluecollarculture
• CorporateFilming.com

About Trevor Rappleye

Trevor Rappleye got started as an entrepreneur when he was just 15 – converting VHS to DVD in 2015 for $11 a DVD. He started filming weddings shortly after and fell in love with story, emotion and capturing happiness.