Why Isn't My Video Content Working Yet? The Steven Bradbury Lesson
Oct 15, 2024
Steven Bradbury won Olympic gold in 2002 after every skater ahead of him crashed, which looked like pure luck. It was not. He had spent 14 years training, broken his neck and nearly bled to death on the ice. Video works the same way: the moment that lands is paid for by years of unremarkable ones.
Why do overnight video successes take years?
Chris met Bradbury at the Growth Potential seminar run by Greg Betty, and heard the backstory for the first time the night before. Fourteen years. Two near-fatal injuries. Doctors telling him he would never skate again. The one minute of footage everybody has seen carries none of that, which is exactly why it reads as a fluke.
The same edit happens to video content. You see a competitor with a slick channel and assume they cracked something. What you cannot see is the eighteen months of average videos that taught them how to talk to a camera. Nobody publishes those, so the runway stays invisible and everyone new assumes theirs is broken.
"It's not a case of if we build it, people will come." - Chris Schwager
That is the argument for treating video as a system rather than a campaign. Why a video system beats one-off posts for winning clients makes the same case with the numbers attached.
What do you do when your videos get no views?
Separate the two things you are actually measuring. Views measure whether a platform decided to distribute you this week. Usefulness measures whether the person who did watch got something they could act on. Those move independently, and only one of them pays your invoices.
Bradbury spent most of that final in last place. If he had been scoring himself on position at the halfway mark, he would have pulled up. Low view counts on week six of a video habit are the same reading: accurate about right now, useless as a forecast.
If you want the numbers video does move, the see the results video can generate pillar collects the client outcomes rather than the vanity metrics.
How do you keep going after a setback?
Bradbury took a skate blade to the leg and lost so much blood he nearly died on the rink. Eighteen months before he won gold, he hit a barrier and broke his neck, then spent two and a half months in a halo brace bolted into his skull. Both times he went back.
The video equivalents are smaller and they still stop people: a recording where you stumbled, a post nobody shared, a colleague who said you looked stiff. None of those are verdicts. They are the ordinary cost of learning a skill in public, and the only real failure available is deciding after three of them that you are not a video person.
The pattern of quitting and restarting is common enough to have its own fix. Build a video schedule that avoids burnout deals with the version of this that is workload rather than nerve.
What is visual equity, and why does your face matter?
The image everybody remembers from Salt Lake City is Bradbury with his arms in the air. Not a time, not a medal tally. One frame of a face doing something unmistakable. That is visual equity: the compounding recognition you build by being the same identifiable person in front of people, repeatedly, over years.
Your face is the asset your competitors cannot copy or outspend. A logo can be redesigned overnight. A decade of a market knowing how you talk cannot. Every video you publish, including the ones nobody watches, adds to that balance rather than spending it.
Which feedback should you actually listen to?
The people who tell you something useful are almost never the ones generating your metrics. A view is anonymous. A client saying "I watched your thing about pricing and it changed how we quoted" is signal, and it will never appear on a dashboard.
"Listen to the people, don't listen to the metrics." - Chris Schwager
That does not mean ignoring the analytics entirely, it means knowing which questions they can answer. Check the five video marketing mistakes to avoid covers the ones that are genuinely measurable.
Frequently asked questions
How long before video actually brings in leads?
Longer than a fortnight and shorter than you fear. Ridge clients who record weekly usually see conversations change before they see numbers change: a prospect arrives already knowing how you think. Byron Trzeciak attributes $300K in sales to video across three years, with prospects watching ten to fifteen videos before they ever book a call.
My videos get almost no views. Should I stop?
No. View counts measure distribution, not usefulness. The people who matter are the handful who tell you they took something away from watching you. One prospect who watched four of your videos and then booked is worth more than a thousand passive impressions, and only one of those two shows up in your analytics.
I keep starting and stopping. How do I keep a cadence?
Cut the setup cost, not the ambition. Nearly every stop-start cycle is logistics rather than willpower: if recording means moving furniture and finding a light, it will not happen on a busy week. A permanent setup you can switch on in one click is what turns recording from a project into a habit.
I do not think I have the right face or voice for video.
Chris hears this constantly, and it is the inner monologue talking rather than your audience. Recognition is what you are building, not beauty. People buy from a face they have seen before and a voice they can predict, which is why a consistent, ordinary-looking presence beats a polished one that appears twice a year.
Transcript
Read the full transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker: Welcome to the DIY video for professionals podcast for another week. Look, this episode is simply titled what I learned from Steven Bradbury. Now, who is Steven Bradbury? He is a gold medal winner from the 2002. Salt Lake Olympics. And the reason why his story stands out than most gold winners is because he was coming in last place until the last turn of a speed skating final.
[00:00:39] Speaker: When he crossed the line in first place, everybody in front of him crashed. Had made the mistake and here he was coming to the end of the line in first place and shocked and amazed that he'd won gold. It was such an inspiring story. I knew very little about the backstory of Steven Bradbury. He was, as far as I knew, a fairly ochre Australian.
[00:01:08] Speaker: Somebody that liked to beer. I don't know. I had very little information. I remember recently showing my kids The, one or two minute video that I was able to pull up on YouTube. If you haven't seen it, you've got to go check it out. Cause it adds so much relevance to what I'm talking about here.
[00:01:23] Speaker: Go and have a look. Steven Bradbury, Olympic gold. But yeah, I showed them and they were like, wow, that's just so amazing. Cause I think the joy of seeing somebody with their arms up in the air, just so razzed that they've actually won knowing that they were exhausted and tired and out of energy and.
[00:01:42] Speaker: Running on empty before they got there, no hope, and here he was crossing the line in first place. Steven, I met Steven at the Growth Potential seminar that I just recently went to. Thank you, Greg Betty and the Growth Potential team down there was listening to some amazing different.
[00:01:59] Speaker: Keynote presentations from people like Todd Sampson from the Gruen Transfer, who was widely known in the, on the Discovery Channel and whatnot, some amazing others. And it was the Steven Bradbury thing that just really caught my attention. It was just the thing that keeps coming up about overnight successes.
[00:02:18] Speaker: I did not know until the night before the journey that Steven Bradbury had been on. To achieve Olympic gold. So a 14 year career going through the trenches, doing the time, not only exercising himself physically, but also mentally to be able to achieve. That Olympic gold. But what was really interesting was, I don't think even the commentators actually believed that he'd won because they were checking the videotapes and adjudicators and making sure that he'd actually won the gold over there.
[00:02:57] Speaker: Somebody was somebody at fault that would disqualify the whole thing. But anyway, it came up and of course he he was up for the ceremony and getting the gold around his neck, but the time the He had between winning and being presented with the gold, he doubted his, I guess ability to take the gold.
[00:03:19] Speaker: He had this moment of feeling that he didn't deserve it because he had come in first place as a result of everybody else falling down. And then he went, you know what, I deserve this for the 14 years of grinding out, going through and all the aspiration and all the belief and all of the skill that he had to develop over those 14 years to finally get recognition for it.
[00:03:47] Speaker: What I didn't realize, and this came out through his presentation, was that he died. Almost twice, once from being knifed effectively or a blade from one of the competing skaters had kicked up and had sliced his leg open and to a point where he was almost bled out and bled to death on the ice rink.
[00:04:12] Speaker: Severe. Slice, like 140 stitches or something. It was unbelievable. I got to see all the graphic imagery. And that really affected me just based on my recent near death experience last year as well. I was like, Oh, really? I just sunk into that story and just, it really razzed me. The other story was only, I think 18 months before he ended up winning gold was that he hit a a barrier and broke his neck.
[00:04:39] Speaker: And so he spent two and a half months with his head in one of these braces that are effectively drilled into your skull in order to keep your head completely straight. Every doctor telling him that he would never skate again and that was, I think, 18 months before he ended up winning gold. So he had to overcome his fair share of challenges in his [00:05:00] 14 year career, all deserving of an Olympic medal.
[00:05:05] Speaker: Gold medal. And I think the reason why I'm telling you this is I just was so touched by it that my assumption was predicated on one minute of video that I'd seen over the years and understood his story to a certain degree that he was a fluke winner and then just through spending time at the Growth Potential seminar, I really got to understand how, even overnight success is not actually A real thing, it's still the energy, the years of dedication of believing of hurt, pain, suffering to doing it.
[00:05:43] Speaker: That is the reason that people succeed is the success factor, if you like. And the reason why I give you this story is perhaps you can relate to that, perhaps that's, Your journey in the world of video or in your business where going through the ups and downs needs to be part of your belief system of the dedication to getting better at what you're doing.
[00:06:13] Speaker: It's not a case of if we build it, people will come. It's a case of build it, create a lot of trouble, stir activity. Get people to listen, put your, get your foot in the door. Raz, the world up, this is your time to shake things up and to take action in your business, in your video marketing, your ability to sever what is already a highly attention depleted world with your new thing.
[00:06:46] Speaker: With that brand image, with that face that you have, and it's a wonderful asset to your business, that facial recognition, what we call visual equity that you have it. Don't let ups and downs or that fear or that inner monologue or that thing that's telling you that you should probably have a face for radio should be probably doing something else.
[00:07:08] Speaker: If you believe it, keep going, keep trying new things. And don't listen to everything that social media tells you about the lack of visibility, the lack of views, and the lack of people engaging with your content. Listen to the people that are actually going to tell you firsthand that they got a lot of information, important, useful things that they could take away from watching you on video.
[00:07:32] Speaker: That is where you'll get A really nice boost of confidence from people saying you did good. Listen to the people, don't listen to the metrics. That's it for now, that was what I learned from Steven Bradbury. Go for it, you earned it. And believe that with every quick win is the years of dedication that you've poured in to making that work.
[00:07:55] Speaker: Good luck, keep filming, and keep connecting.
Which of these sounds like you?
"Setting up takes so long I end up not recording." That is what the Desktop Studio removes. Installed for you, one click to record.
"I record, but I don't like how I come across." That is what Video Coaching is for: messaging, performance, tech and implementation, worked live every week.
"Honestly, both." Book a call and we will work out where to start.
