Leading Matters #20 features Chris Savage, the CEO of Wistia.  Wistia offers video hosting with fantastic lead generation and analytics, but more importantly Wistia is a case study for how to develop content ahead of your market’s buy decision.  They do it by paying attention to their values and culture.

Stick with me for a minute I want to tell you a story about how I first discovered Wistia.  In late 2012 I wanted my team to invest more time and effort in video.  We had a small budget, no video production people on staff, and no equipment at all with the exception of our iPhone’s.   So to get an idea of whether or not I could pull off decent looking video just using our iPhones I searched on ‘shooting good video on an iPhone.  The first link on the resulting list was this video in the Wistia’s learning library: Shooting Video with an iPhone.   It was exactly what I needed, and we were on our way.  But when I found Wistia I found so much more than an answer to my immediate question.  I found a company that seemed to really love what they did, that invested a good deal of time educating for the sake of the education itself, a team of professionals with an infectious passion that made me want to get better about what we were doing in our company.

Keep the story in mind as you listen to Chris Savage discuss the decisions that they have made over the course of their ten-year history to invest more in education and take seriously the development of the right culture.  Any company of any size can learn from their approach, and gain insight into how to take on new content ideas.

HIGHLIGHTS

Educating Ahead of the Buy

Chris shares a very candid look at how Wistia came to the conclusion that educating the marketplace would be good for their business.  It didn’t happen overnight but evolved over time.  What they realized is their marketplace is seemingly simple but in reality very complex.  They learned that helping people navigate that complexity, especially beginners, gained them a much broader audience.

Curating Your Own Content

Curate the best stuff and put it in order; it is as simple as that according to Chris.  And this is exactly how the Wistia Library section has evolved.  You will hear how Wistia goes about curating their own content, and why nearly all of their content begins life on the Wistia Blog.

Why Telling a Human Story is the Best Sales Tool

For the better part of the last decade and a half, sales has been forced to rely on screen sharing technology to illustrate to prospects specific elements of a tool that the prospect has more questions about.  Wistia figured out early that video is a perfect alternative here, and began using video in their sales cycles to address any and all questions that their prospects and customers had.  This realization matured to the point where Wistia is developing content for specific stages of the typical sales life cycle.  The result is more authentic and intimate engagement during the sales process.

Culture is how the work is done

Wistia has a palpable culture that comes through loud and clear when you watch the videos that they produce.  Chris shares the insight into how the culture was identified, the importance of having a culture, and what motivated them to adjust their cultural definition at the beginning of 2015.  Culture and values are not about personality they are the essence of how a company goes about doing its work.  A strong culture translates into a powerful customer relationship.