Bradley Vinson - Practice What You Teach!

Chris Stone [00:00:00]:
I was first introduced to this gentleman, I don't know, a little over a year ago, and I don't know how I stumbled on this video. And just like anything, you're going to YouTube University, and you're trying to figure out how to create something. It's a transparent graphic overlay for this, that, or the other. And this guy's video just kept popping up. And so I hit play on the video, and the first thing I noticed was that he was in Keynote. Yeah, Keynote, which I thought at the time was like, Apple's version of PowerPoint, and he was actually creating graphics, transparent graphics, overlays all video, all kinds of stuff in Keynote, which comes with your Mac for nothing. And then I started going down the rabbit hole, and I started realizing, like, this guy does a ton of teaching for utilizing software that's free. Don't buy photoshop, get photope. It's a free software. Use this, use that that you already have. You don't have to invest all this money. I was like the other thing I noticed, Jim, was just how genuine this person was. And the wonderful thing about those of you who are into live streaming, one of the great things I love about it is you can just tell if someone is genuine. You can look them in the eye when they're talking. Are they a real person, or is this just some sort of persona that they're putting on? And it was just really a great thing to be able to kind of follow that guy's journey. And now we get to have him on our show. So, Jim, I'm just going to go ahead and introduce him because I know that there's a lot of people here that want to see this gentleman. So I would like to introduce to you welcome to Dealcaster's Live. Graphics guru, speaker, author, brand ambassador, also known as Bradley Teaches, mr. Bradley Vincent. Welcome to the show, sir.

Bradley Vinson [00:02:13]:
How's it going, guys?

Chris Stone [00:02:14]:
I know.

Bradley Vinson [00:02:15]:
Going awesome. Elevated today. I'm with my dude.

Jim Fuhs [00:02:24]:
Now. You're elevating us. Let's make that straight. I remember seeing you in the Ecamm FAM and learning about you there.

Bradley Vinson [00:02:37]:
Wow.

Jim Fuhs [00:02:38]:
It's like I told you the other day, bradley has been throwing out some fire on all the different tubes with things he's doing with Canva. I mean, you probably should just create your own graphic software, Bradley. And I think people would buy it, man.

Bradley Vinson [00:02:55]:
From your lips to my brain and ears. We'll see what's going to happen with that. But it's been fun so far. It's been fun so far.

Jim Fuhs [00:03:02]:
Very true.

Chris Stone [00:03:03]:
So, Bradley, let's get into this, because for those who are seeing this gentleman on your screen for the first time, you know, hold tight, because after you're done, you're gonna be you're gonna be Googling him. You're going to be going to YouTube, and you're basically going to be camping out for a couple of weeks, absorbing all of the great information. But pause before you go do that and hang out here? Because, Bradley, what I haven't found yet is a video that kind of walks through the story of where you got here. How did we get to Bradley Teaches? Because as I said in the introduction, there's just something about you that feels like when you fire up the camera, you don't have anything that you want to get. It feels to me like you're there to give, you're there to serve. And so I just am so curious as to how we got to this point.

Bradley Vinson [00:04:04]:
Yeah, I appreciate that you see Serve Man, because I really consider myself a servant that just happens to help people in different ways. And oddly enough, I'll start at the end and then swing back a little bit. Bradley Teaches is probably what I consider one of the first ever community created businesses. And Bradley Teaches happened in a small part due to COVID. I just at home, not doing much. Everybody's stuck in the house, and I'm hanging out at some of the live streaming forums, and people were asking questions about issues they had, making graphics or making overlays or making transitions. And I'm like, hey, let me try that. Now, I'm not brand new to graphics. I mean, I've been doing graphics since the mean. I grew up with the Internet as you know it, as you call it, Al Gore's Internet. Right. I was there building websites then, so I've been with it for a while. But part of that confinement that brought me into Bradley teachers is I'm a speaker and teacher and trainer by trade, along with being a multimedia designer. And at the time, I was really working with the Grieving community. We had gone through a tragedy in my family. And as I was trying to figure out ways to help my family heal through that process, I realized that other people didn't have resources to help them heal through bad things. Right? And in that moment, I became what I would consider myself a grief advocate. So I was out speaking at churches and organizations and just helping people through hard times. And when COVID happened and we all were confined to the house, I couldn't get out and touch these people. And I had Ecamm on the back burner from years before. I'm an app sumo junkie. And so I bought AppSumo. I mean, I bought Ecamm Lifetime Plan when they first brought it out years ago.

Jim Fuhs [00:06:04]:
Yes, me too.

Bradley Vinson [00:06:05]:
Never really use it. I was going to work every day, right? So I didn't have time to really mess with it and use it. But I'm an AppSumo junkie, so I just buy everything and COVID hit, and I'm stuck at the house. It's like, you know what? Let me dust off this Ecamm thing, and I dusted it off and I jumped in the group and people started asking questions. And then the next thing you know, it was like, oh, thanks brad for showing us how to do that. Can I just buy that from you? Said people want to buy this stuff, so I made a few more things, taught him a few more things, and as people asked, I kept creating. And so I stepped back a little bit and I bought the domain name Bradley Teaches. And funny thing enough, one of the pushbacks on the name was, well, that's kind of odd. What does Bradley teach? I'm like, Well, Bradley can teach anything.

Chris Stone [00:06:52]:
There you go.

Bradley Vinson [00:06:53]:
So that's kind of been fun too. Just kind of dabbling in other things other than graphics. But that's kind of the short long story of what Bradley teaches is and how it became what it is today, man. It was built by the community. So I know the people want what I do because they tell me what they want and I do it right. And it's built on people's questions and people's needs, people's hang ups trying to figure stuff out. And I'll jump in the lab, as I call it here at my desk and keynote another programs and I figure it out.

Jim Fuhs [00:07:25]:
Yeah, I think it's fascinating too, that you hit on something that's key and it's part of why Chris and I do what we do is we want to help others. And I love what you said there, how they tell you what they want and you help them.

Bradley Vinson [00:07:39]:
Right.

Jim Fuhs [00:07:39]:
It's not like I'm going to tell you what I think you should do. It's like, hey, let me help you figure it out. And I think it seems to be working really well for you. And I know we're excited that you're going to be joining us in Orlando at the end of May for an actual Amazon Day at Vid Fest.

Bradley Vinson [00:08:02]:
Yeah, it's going to be fun, man. That's going to be fun. I'm excited about that. It's just crazy, man. I mean, I tell people, it's like I feel like I've last sold a rocket because every day I just come here and I check emails and it gives me something else to do for my business, right? It's like, hey, I was wondering if you can do this. It's like, well, let's see. And I jump in and start doing stuff, man. So it's just fun, man, and there's no stress. It's just fun, man. And I just dig what I'm doing. And whenever I can't figure out what the next thing is I should do, I just hang out in the forums and people tell me what I should do. Right. I just go back to work again.

Chris Stone [00:08:47]:
God, yeah, there's so much to unpack there. But first and foremost, it's like when someone wants to put together a show and there's a lot of people out here. I know. Doc Rocks in the chat in it to win atina. Our new friend here is in the chat. We've got Gabe Leo. I'm chiming in on LinkedIn. If you're a content creator. If you're someone that's maybe starting a podcast, starting a live show, wanting to develop a business, I always start with in my consulting business with everyone, is once you know who your audience is, you find out what their problems are, and that's exactly what you're talking about is you're going to sit down. What do people need help with? Right? It's like, if people need help with graphics and you're pretty good at graphics, well, what specifically do they need help with? That's your content. There's your show. People want to give you money to do those things, and if you're not to serve people and make money doing it is really like it sounds simple, but for some reason, Bradley, for a lot of people, it's not simple. Why do you think it's not simple for some people?

Bradley Vinson [00:10:02]:
Well, I think it was funny because I used to go to this chiropractor that was a wellness doctor, and he told me, one day, the same thing works for everything. And if you want to lose weight, eat better and exercise, everybody knows that, but we just don't do it. Right? You don't want to be broke, spend less and save more. Everybody knows that. They just don't want to do it. And so to be successful in business, give people what they want and don't argue with them. So if you happen to be like it's like when I lived in Louisiana, I don't know if anybody remembers the blue dog guy, and he did all these paintings and was a blue dog. So it was a blue dog drinking coffee and a blue dog sitting on a bridge. Everything had a blue dog in it, and people would razz on him like, oh, that's Cheesy. That's just a blue dog. So this other guy made a business doing paintings of a red cat, and then he blew up, right? And it's like, just give people what they want. He didn't argue with nobody. He just kept making blue dogs, right. Because people were buying it. And it's the same thing with graphics, right. And I tell people this all the time. I'm not anything special. It's only so many ways you can cut a hole in a rectangle. That's what it overlay, is why overcomplicate it. Okay, you want one with square edges? I'll make you one. I'm not going to sit up on this perch and say, well, that's beneath me because I have 30 years of graphic design experience. Dude, if you need a rectangle cut out of a rectangle, I'm going to make you one. Now, I prefer to show you how to make one so you can make the next one yourself. But if you want me to cut a rectangle out of a rectangle, I'll make you one or show you how. And I'm going to keep it moving. I'm not going to care that you made yours purple, and my favorite color is blue.

Chris Stone [00:11:56]:
You're much too humble man, you're much too humble. I do agree with you on one point. When it comes to goods and services, right. There's a lot of people that do what you do. There's a lot of people that do what I do. There's a lot of people that do what Jim does, and there's a lot of people that are watching that do what everyone's doing. The only difference is you. The only difference between what you're selling and what that person is selling is you.

Bradley Vinson [00:12:22]:
Indeed.

Chris Stone [00:12:23]:
And so my voice is not for everyone. All of our voices is not for everyone. But the more we're out there talking and being, the more people are going to not be into it, but exponentially higher people will be into it. And one other thing, too, is Jim and I pride ourselves in, and it's mostly related to live streaming and podcasting and sort of some video and audio software is we always are testing stuff out. And lots of times when we're dealing with clients, they'll say, can you do this, this and this? And right away, my mind and Jim's mind say, Nope, we can't do that with this software. We can't do this with the software. But what do we say? We say yes. We say, yes, we can do it. And then we spend the time to put that thing together. We cobble this and we cobble this, and we cobble this and we put it together. And it feels to me like that's how you work with graphic software, because there's not just one size fits all, and you don't really necessarily use the software the way that company may have intended it to be. Right?

Bradley Vinson [00:13:39]:
Yeah, exactly. Especially with Keynote and other application. But what's fun, man, is that I have all the guru stuff, right, and the fancy, where I got all that stuff, right? I spend too much money every month on Adobe software. I got it all. But it's like the average person doesn't have that. So to me, that's my new challenge. How do I make something that's free look like Photoshop? How do I make something that's free look like Final Cut pro? And it doesn't always do it all the time, but it's close enough for that end user not to have to use Final Cut Pro, right? And to me, that's my challenge. But in that I can now get down to what the fundamentals of good design are. Because I tell people all the time, right? When you get intimidated by the software, like Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, if you're doing page layout, blah, blah, blah, you let the software spit something back out at you because you're intimidated by the software. To me, every software package is no different than a pen, a pencil, a screwdriver, or a hammer. It's a tool. So I go into it saying, this is what I want this thing to do. How do I make this thing do that? And so if I can give people the creative flow to say, hey, I want this to be in the top right corner and animate down to the right. How do I make Keynote do that versus, oh, let's just pick move, and whatever Keynote spits out is what I'm going to take. Right? And so there's a method to the madness, and I'm trying to make people be creative and do their own thing, but not let the software get in the way. So that's the fun in it, man, because I could just, quite frankly, just go buy a Final Cut Pro template, make it blue for you and export it. I can do that, but I would prefer to show you how to do that in Keynote. So maybe next month you might want it to be green. I don't want to sell you the blue one. I want to show you how to design or sell you that design that you can make your own. And so that's the challenge that I love with it, kind of pushing all that stuff to the side and getting to the core of what's good.

Jim Fuhs [00:15:58]:
Yeah, it seems like it's that whole, right? Teach a man to fish, right?

Bradley Vinson [00:16:01]:
Exactly.

Jim Fuhs [00:16:03]:
And I think we see it all the time because we're in all these different groups and these different live streaming platforms, and it's like everybody always wants the, hey, can you guys just provide this for me? Or it's not a part of the software, but it's like, you've figured it out. We figured it out. Like, look, you can do a lot of this stuff you people want if you just take a little time to learn. And it's fascinating because it does. It creates some business opportunities because people are like, well, I'd rather just buy the template than figure it out myself and save whatever amount of money. But I had never thought of using Keynote, and I haven't yet, but you definitely have me thinking about because I see the things you do with it and it's like, Got a Mac, why not?

Bradley Vinson [00:16:48]:
Yeah. And it's fun, man. And when you think about that, some people just would rather buy it at some level. It hadn't made me pull back on doing tutorials, but sometimes it's like, okay, the work I put into creating this thing, maybe I won't do a tutorial on that, right? Maybe I'll just say, here's a product that was derived from that research. And I'm kind of moving into that more now than because I don't see anyone as competition, quite frankly. And that's not an arrogance thing, but everybody has their thing, right? Because even right now, my YouTube channel has 3000 subscribers. I have more people than that in my neighborhood, right? For me to be as arrogant to think that because I have 3000 followers, it's not another guy out there doing exactly what I'm doing somewhere else, right? The pie is big enough for everyone. So I want to make room for everyone, but I want people that are trying to do what I do put in some work, right? Not just, oh, let me just buy this from Brad and make it green and resell it. And so I want you like, no, put in some work. And I'm all for giving away the cheat codes. It's right. This is what I figured out. Work it this way, right? This is what I figured out. Skip that part. Do this, do that. The software has a hiccup here. You want to think about this and think about that. So I'm all for giving out the cheap codes, man. It doesn't bother me at all because I have my audience, and whatever that's going to grow into is what it's going to grow into. But I think the way that my business was built keeps me at a level where I'm just not competitive with people, because my audience is waiting for me to create something for them to buy. And that's just crazy. They're like, well, when you're coming up with something else, I can't think of nothing else. What did you want? Oh, I love some of these things. So I just make some of those things, and sometimes I'll just give it to them because that person that gave me the idea, why not reward them? I never would have thought of doing that unless you would have asked me. So I just give it to them, right? And then if somebody else happens to buy it, cool pays me for my time, and I just keep it moving. So it just kind of keeps it going, man. And I don't stress over it. I would love for the business to be bigger at some point, and I believe it'll get there, but I'm still in that give it away mode. And whatever comes in as cash is all good.

Jim Fuhs [00:19:15]:
Yeah, I think it's the 80 20 rule, right? I mean, you still have all these people. 80% of them are never going to say, oh, I'm going to do what Bradley is doing. They're going to be those 80% is like, I'm going to keep paying Bradley. Because there's other things I would rather do with my time than learn graphic design. I know what I want it to look like. He can do it a lot quicker than I can. All those hours it would take, because I know Chris spends a lot of time with Final Cut Pro doing video stuff. I mean, I haven't even scratched the surface on that. You've done the same thing with graphics. One thing I did learn when I was in the Marines is it's better sometimes to delegate to the person that knows how to do it than try to do it all yourself.

Bradley Vinson [00:19:55]:
Indeed. Indeed.

Chris Stone [00:19:56]:
Well, yeah. And I think a lot of times what you see is there's a very popular piece of software out there. Starts with the C and ends with anva and they have some really wonderful designers, and they have some really great templates. And I use it, I'm in there every day, and it's great. But I think what happens a lot of times is people will pull up a template and they just change the words. They might even leave the colors. They don't really add much of anything. They try to put their own photo in there, but it might kind of looks like they just kind of bolted it on. And so there's some basic design skills that are involved there. But what happens is that because it's such a popular piece of software, you've got a lot of people that are using those templates, and you could just pop open YouTube and start scrolling through thumbnails and see exactly which ones were using it. And so I think it's important, and I'd love for you to expound on this, Bradley, is that it's important to take these things, and there's nothing wrong with starting with a template, but it's important to make these things your own for your own brand. Would you agree?

Bradley Vinson [00:21:07]:
Oh, yeah. I mean, exactly, man. Because there's tails, right, with any software package. But when you get to the point where people don't even take the time to change the colors, right, or move that little thing that's vibrating over here, just move it to the other corner so you and the other 800 people don't have the thing flash on the right hand side, right? So it's those kind of things that I've learned to stop looking at, because as a designer, that will irk you. But I tend to believe that my community are a little more savvy and want to be a little bit more creative than that, which also have them coming to me, right, to make templates and things like that. Because, quite frankly, I was never a Canva person. Back in the day, I was a graphic snob, right? And I remember when Publisher came out, desktop publishing, when that first came out as a graphic designer, that was the scourge of the industry. But then that has its place, right? It has a place for somebody's secretary or somebody's assistant to do an ad. There's a place for that, right? So when I matured, I was like, hey, I wouldn't be doing that because I don't have the time and I'd be too expensive. Why not do that in house, right? So can was that same kind of thing, but I'm always trying to maximize stuff. So just about a week and a half ago, I finally started using Canva. But then I started making my own templates and started developing new ways to do stuff. Even instead of like the regular Canva thumbnail template, I've created a whole new way to do it using canvas built in frames. But I make my own frames for Canva with this new method that I created. Because I'm a researcher, too. I'm kind of see how other people are doing stuff. It's like, that's not cool, that's not good, that's not stable. Let Bradley teachers get on it, right? So I jumped in and did that, man. So now the doors are flying open in front of me now as I speak on newer, cool things I'm going to be doing with that.

Chris Stone [00:23:22]:
Yeah, I was hoping you were going to get to that, because I'm ready to give you some money for that. Because you and I have had some side chats about that, because I know you've got a Facebook group. I'm not sure if you posted it there or you and I and I was like, I had that look when a dog hears a funny noise. I was like, Wait a minute, how did you see what? Then my mind goes like, well, if I had a frame like that that was customized for logos, what can that do for not only my graphics, but my videos as well? And I think a lot of people don't realize I do a lot of video, but a lot of what I do, I create graphics in Canva, Easel, Photoshop, Photo. I use all of those to kind of cobble together what I sort of envision for either our brand or for other brands that I'm working with. And I think when those that are watching and listening right now need to lean into this gentleman because if you just make that extra effort to think about what the vision of the brand that you are and set yourself apart and say, you know what? If this doesn't do this for me, find out how and take a little extra time. Because some people, they don't love to work with graphics. Bradley they're not as into it as us. And that's okay.

Bradley Vinson [00:24:59]:
It takes all kinds of make the world go around. But what's crazy with this is that, to me, sometimes it's surprising that the software doesn't automatically do some things, right? So I'm not a programmer, so I can't get into a programmer's mind, per se. But it's like, if you just did this, your software could be boom, right? But sometimes they just get laser focused. But to me, that's even a plus for me, right? Because I'm just out here on the outer edge of their focus, doing something with their software that they never thought they could do with it. And I'm carving my niche now, right? Especially, I mean, think about, like you were saying, the Keynote thing. Nobody's doing video, graphics or Keynote. They're making presentations. And so I'm not saying I'm the first person to ever do that because people were asking, how do you do it with Keynote? Right? So I wasn't the first guy to do it, but I think jumping in neck deep into it, I might have been one of those first guys, right? And so the same thing now with Canva. They have great templates and things like that, but my mind was thinking, okay, well, how do I help people not just put a blue rectangle in the corner and make it green? How about if they could put a picture in there? How about if they could put a video in there? And so when I started doing these themes instead that are fully made out of frames. And frames is like those that use canvas. Frames are like those little boxes or whatever else that you could put other stuff in, right, versus just a shape or an element. But you could put anything in a frame, right? So now it's like, okay, so now I'll do a thumbnail layout that's not element rectangle pieces. It's instead frames. So now I could put a picture in that circle or a video in that circle, or a color in that circle, or background in that circle. Whereas before all you could put in there is make it a color, right? And so those are the things I'm thinking about now. So square video overlays that are fully frame based, thumbnails that are fully frame based, instagram reel overlays, and frames that are completely frame based. Then you have the other little stuff, right? Oh, a pumpkin or a silhouette of a man dancing, the little cheesy stuff like that. But all those things I've figured out a better way, a better hamster wheel for that. And so it's been fun the last couple of days just making these things and seeing if they're going to work in Canva. And so far so good. And I've been giving people little samples here and there and they're digging them, man. So, yeah, I'm about to actually take a break next week because my family is going on vacation. But after that, it's fully into this Canva thing and we're going to blow the doors off this thing, man. It's going to be nice.

Chris Stone [00:27:54]:
Yeah, I just customized logos too. You see this logo that's above my head here, Bradley? I mean, that would look really sweet with one of those canva, those Canva things.

Bradley Vinson [00:28:08]:
Oh, yeah, we can do that, man. That's that's easy.

Chris Stone [00:28:10]:
Do like I'm I'm going to get the course. I'm going to jump or gum Road or wherever I need to go for that. We're excited because there is going to be an Amazon influencer day at VIDFEST in Orlando on May 27. It's a Friday. And Bradley, we're excited that you are going to be speaking there at VIDFEST. And I know that there was a number of things, a number of topics that you had submitted to speak on. Can you give us some sort of kind of what you may be? I mean, is this Canva thing, are you ready to unveil that or probably be unveiled before you even get down there? So what's going on at VIDFEST for you?

Bradley Vinson [00:28:59]:
Yeah, some different things, man. Most of them are going to be kind of how to hands on, working with podcasters and. Other video creators, like making the audio file kind of thing with the little jumping audio and stuff like that. How to make that in canva completely for free, right? How to do square video overlays or vertical video overlays and enhancing those and working those branding just in a general sense, right? Like what are the five graphics that everyone needs to brand their videos to their fullest extent, right? Just different things like that and then just general kind of like panelist type things, right? Like being successful on Amazon with something other than just a straight sales broadcast, right? Because I do art shows for my Amazon lives and we do Procreate and iPad and stuff like that. I'll do games, so things in my family and I like to do, I used to do camping and so I'm not really stuck on a particular thing with Amazon Live, but I love making videos, man. And kind of going all the way back to the grief content really quick. I tell people all the time when they're in this world, the longer you wait to put something out, the longer you wait to make content, somebody could be out there suffering because there's content that only you can provide that can meet a need for someone that you're not creating because of perfection procrastination. Or I can't get the blue gesture right, or I got to get another polo shirt with a look. No, just get it out there. So if anything, it's kind of encouraging people and helping them to know that everything is beta. Get it out and you can always redo it later, but get that content out and try to make that curve as straight as possible from I have some content to going live. I think if anything, that's one of the biggest things for me. I love all those topics, man. I'm there for it, man. I'm just there ready to hang out and serve people and get some more content out in the cinnamon waves, man.

Chris Stone [00:31:07]:
You see what I'm saying? Like total genuine human being right here, man. I can listen to this all day. And you talk about obviously the graphics that you have are some of the highest level type stuff that I've seen in terms of what you can use for your live stream. But I think your mindset is similar to ours and there's this acronym that Craig Rochelle uses and it's called GETMO and it stands for Good Enough to Move On. And Bradley Vincent didn't get to this point in his graphics journey like that. I mean, it took mistakes, it took failures and it took learning from those failures and it took another rep and another rep and another rep and another rep to get where we're at with that mindset of servitude, man. It's inspiring, man. And this is just killer stuff and hopefully this platform, whether it's Amazon or whether it's all the other platforms that you're on, I'm so glad you had your entire city subscribed to you on YouTube, by the way.

Bradley Vinson [00:32:23]:
Yeah.

Chris Stone [00:32:24]:
Jim and I haven't even gotten our street.

Bradley Vinson [00:32:30]:
It's been good, man. I have a small but very committed audience, and I never minimize that, man.

Jim Fuhs [00:32:41]:
Yeah. Well, that reminds me. That goes back to what Pat Flynn talks about, right? You want those superfans. It doesn't matter if you got 50,000 followers and they don't engage with you. I'd rather have 50 that care than 10,000 that don't. And I know you definitely got I mean, I know Chris and I are we're fanboys, right? Can we say that? Chris on Amazon?

Bradley Vinson [00:33:06]:
Yeah. I love you guys, man. I gravitate to people that serve no matter what they do. If you're trying to help improve someone else's life or trying to empower somebody because it's so funny, man, even when I do my speaking engagements, I will teach people how to do finances, and it's like, you know what? Everybody raise your right hand and I deputize the audience. And it's like, the stuff I have taught you today, you are now free and obligated to go teach somebody else because you're going to be touching somebody I will never see. So how hold this content and say, don't use it. Don't give your friend this overlay you bought. I don't care, man. All this stuff just you're going to be dealing with people in your life that I would never meet and just knowing that this little overlay you gave a friend that couldn't buy it, and it turned the whole world around because it was a rectangle cut out of a rectangle. How dare I say, don't help your friends with that stuff. It's like, those things don't matter, man. It's just how you impact people's lives. And I always lean into people that are doing similar. And so, yes, you guys are high on my list, man. I appreciate you guys for what you do.

Chris Stone [00:34:25]:
Yeah, man. Rectangle out of a rectangle. I think that needs to be, like, on your business card, right?

Jim Fuhs [00:34:30]:
Yeah. Do people have business cards now? But that's a whole nother story. Bradley, you talked about websites. So do you still do websites or you kind of like us at some point? You're like, you know what? I don't want to do this anymore.

Bradley Vinson [00:34:42]:
Yeah, I don't really do them anymore. It depends on the project, quite frankly, because I'm at that part of my life professionally and personally, where my time is very valuable and I don't do a lot of grind kind of work anymore, and websites can be a grind. And I think the person that I will be dealing with needs more than what I'm willing to put into that. It's just more so what kind of time is it going to take? What kind of client are you going to be?

Jim Fuhs [00:35:13]:
Right?

Bradley Vinson [00:35:13]:
Are you going to be like, I got to hold your hand and you want to call me at 10:00 at night. I'm not built for that anymore. Right. I'm just being honest with people. So I'll turn stuff down. But so and so has a battered women's shelter, right. And they can't find anybody. So even if I can't do it, maybe I can find them a designer or help them be educated enough when they find that person that they don't get hoodwinked or whatever else. And so I still do those kind of things, but just hands on. I'm going to do your website for you. That's way far between right now.

Jim Fuhs [00:35:48]:
Yeah, I know we have a few Amazon creators in the chat and I know we've got some people over on LinkedIn, and so I think some of it like maybe they're creating some thumbnails or doing shoppable videos, maybe some ideas there that can help them do something impactful.

Bradley Vinson [00:36:05]:
Yeah, even if it's not showing you how to make a graphic, I that I'm avoiding showing you how to make a graphic, but just kind of a static things that you can do for sure. The a number one thing you can do right off the bat is do some kind of simple branding for yourself, whether it's an icon or word or something that's always on the screen to identify yourself. Always. Because I do a lot of tutorial videos right now. Yeah. I don't put a lot of graphics on my screen right now other than what I call my Bradley bubble that pops up when I'm doing my tutorials. But as you see here behind me, I have permanent branding right. That's back there mounted on my wall. And you can't clip out any five second portion of my video and not see my branding. So you have to be at that level with your branding. And it can be simple. Don't take all day on it. The two easiest colors to use are black and white. Those are the two most high contrast colors you can use, period. So you have a dark background, use white, got a light background, use black. And just put something on the screen, a little icon, your web address, whatever else, use San Serif fonts, which means no feet. Sands. No serif feet. So don't use Times New Roman. Don't use Palatino. Use Heaven, use Couture, stuff like that. Because right now you go to any social media page. If you're on Amazon right now, if you're on LinkedIn, it don't matter where you are right now. Look at the fonts that that site uses. No feet. San serif. No feet. And there's a reason for that. Number one, you're not reading a page in a magazine, you're on screen. And because of the light and how it fluctuates, it's harder to read Serif based fonts. And everybody else has figured that out. For all these social media sites and video sites, we need to figure it out as the people putting stuff on the screen. Right. So stuff like that. Right. So that little simple kind of branding thing. A lot of people talk about lower thirds and can you make a lower third graphic? So I'll tell you this. A lower third graphic is not the title of that graphic. Lower third is a space on the screen. It's the lower third portion of the screen. So that's a misnomer that a lot of people have. So you could put anything down there. As you see right now, it's almost in the lower 8th of the screen, but it's that right. That's lower third. My name and title right now is a lower third. It's just in that area of the screen. Bold colors, simple fonts, icon, good to go. So if anything, I would tell anybody trying to make any kind of stuff simple, straightforward, one color, maybe two colors at the most. Bold bottom right hand corner. Keep it moving. Call to actions for your audience. Have things in that lower third like they have here. Stuff that you don't want to have to keep saying over and over and over. Put in the lower third, call attention to it, then keep moving, and then people will read it. Stuff like that, right? So it's all those kind of things, right? No matter what kind of graphics you make, and I'm a graphics guy, the graphics are never the most important thing on that screen. You are. Your graphics are only there to enhance your message. So a lot of people get stuck on the graphics and forget about this part. This is what all the action is, my eyes and mouth. So work that and let the graphics enhance what you're saying. I'd rather somebody have a blank screen with just them on it versus have a bunch of graphics that are meaningless. Right? So that's the thing. Content first. Let the graphics enhance your content, and everything will work itself out.

Jim Fuhs [00:40:19]:
Well, that's some great advice. Maybe what we could talk about is, what are some of the tools? Because I know we have some in the carousel that you use. Maybe we could talk about that since we maybe weren't I mean, I know you could adjust, but let's talk about some of those tools that you like to use that have helped you, because Chris is the same way. Chris got all kinds of crazy tools he started using.

Bradley Vinson [00:40:44]:
Right now, as far as Amazon is concerned. One of the tech tools, one of my favorites outside of the iPad, obviously, in the Apple Pencil, which are the main tools of my Procreate classes. One of the add ons, let me go to my overhead cameras. I think I have it. And actually, my overhead cam is one of my tech tools. But this little device right here, which is my I can't pronounce that. So don't ask me to have my little bubble on. But that's actually my Bradley bubble. Right? So that's the most built in Keynote. Yeah, I made that a Keynote look at that.

Chris Stone [00:41:27]:
So what type of file is that? And that's an ecamm.

Bradley Vinson [00:41:30]:
Well, actually, the graphic is a movie file with a transparent background. I export it as a video out of Keynote, so I made it on a Keynote animated in Keynote. Export it out with the transparent background, then add it to Ecamm. So this is really my basic overhead shot that I use, right? But love it. This is actually a Procreate keyboard that I use, and it has really good shortcuts on it. Now, I like to give the positives and negatives to everything that I use because I'm an interface guy. I like about 95% of the buttons. Some of the buttons, I wish they would have been something else, but I really like how they have it set up. It would be great if at some point they actually have software to go with this. So you can reprogram some of the buttons. But it is definitely an easy tool to use. And I usually have it next to my iPad. So I'm working my pencil here. Then I'll click on the wrench or the zoom in and out. And so it's a really good kind of keyboard tool. Some people put it like this with their iPad here, and they kind of work it this way. But I love it.

Chris Stone [00:42:38]:
Is it programmable just like a loop deck?

Bradley Vinson [00:42:41]:
No, it's not programmable at all. Built in. And the little symbols here are what they are. Right. So that's the color wheel undo, redo paintbrush eraser. So that's physically what that is for Procreate. So it's the iPad keyboard specifically to be used with Procreate so you have your white balance and stuff like that. I would have rather this had been the move tool versus the stuff inside of that control panel, but it's pretty good. I like it for the shortcuts that I'm using. It more and more now with my audit classes. And actually, the camera that you're looking at this thing with is my new Sony that I'm using. So I love that. The ZV one. And it's actually attached to an old mic arm, right? I make stuff work, man. It's like just like I use software for non intended purpose.

Chris Stone [00:43:40]:
Yeah, until you get like I got which is Yolonzi, which I have in the carousel, which is a nice little thing for your overhead. But you're using ZV One. This is how good your main camera is. You're using your ZV One as your overhead. My ZV one is my main camera. Thanks for giving me gas right now.

Jim Fuhs [00:44:01]:
Well, he just gave me a gift idea because both my daughter and my brother are learning Procreate, and I'm thinking, Well, I'm going to go get him. That little Jim.

Chris Stone [00:44:12]:
I know a place where you can get it right.

Bradley Vinson [00:44:14]:
I know the perfect spot where you could pick one of those up. But my main camera that I'm looking at right here is actually a Lumix G Seven. So that is my main camera. And I used to use something else as my overhead, but I won't poopoo products. I used to use something else, but it's what I would call foot focus. Right. So I never could get the thing right. And I also teach people how to do Bible journaling, and I paint on my canvas. And without the auto focus, I always have to readjust the arm up and down. But with the ZV One, wherever I'm at is in focus. And so that's why I switched that camera and I'm repurposing that other camera. Actually, my grandson will be using that for making his YouTube videos. So it's not all the way out, but I had to move it from this setup. What battery do? I'm actually starting to reconmot. No, I don't batteries at all. I am a hot wire plug everything in kind of guy. So I'm actually using a dummy battery. It's aftermarket for the ZV one. Oh, one thing I want to let people know about the ZV One because I give the pros and cons. You cannot close the battery door if you use a dummy battery. But I was also able to find a bracket that gave me a different connection point at the bottom of my ZV One. So now the door can actually be flapped open, like it's flapping open right now. And it still allows me to connect my mic arm and all that kind of stuff. And it doesn't squeeze the wire. And I can actually look that up in my I forgot I might even be mentioning that. I can probably look it up in my past purchases and let you know.

Chris Stone [00:46:06]:
Is it by you rig?

Bradley Vinson [00:46:08]:
It's the Ro 54. I see a serial number on it, but I can't think of who makes it. But I could probably look it up real quick.

Jim Fuhs [00:46:15]:
Now, Bradley with the Panasonic, do you have that plugged into a cam link or you have it done some other way?

Bradley Vinson [00:46:25]:
My Lumix? Yes. Yeah, the Lumix is through a cam link that I'm running into pluggable. I have a pluggable multitap. My ZV One is hotwired directly into my Imac USB to USBC. So that's how I'm using that one.

Jim Fuhs [00:46:48]:
You're not using a docking station that's straight into the computer.

Bradley Vinson [00:46:53]:
Into one of pluggable is a docking station.

Jim Fuhs [00:46:56]:
Oh, I got you.

Bradley Vinson [00:46:57]:
Okay. Yeah, I'm using Display Link and it has those connections on it. But my Sony is directly into my Mac. So one is in a dock one is not very cool.

Chris Stone [00:47:11]:
Yeah, I've got a shot here of the ZV One with the dummy battery. You see how you have to get this bracket? This is by Urig. That fits a ZV one. And then you get that's the exact one I have.

Bradley Vinson [00:47:25]:
That's it.

Chris Stone [00:47:27]:
And then the dummy battery goes in there. And the reason why for those that are it's one of the things that the ZV One, which is available, the E Ten is not, unfortunately, is that that's one of the things that they changed when they came out with the E Ten. But a dummy battery is relatively inexpensive and you could just plug it in, and you don't want to run down your battery and have it. I'm like you, Bradley. It's like, I don't want to you never know when the live stream is going to go down because a battery goes out or podcast or whatever that you're doing. You want to be in control of that as much as you have power. And I guess you can even do that.

Bradley Vinson [00:48:07]:
Right.

Chris Stone [00:48:08]:
Do you do like a backup generator or anything in your house?

Bradley Vinson [00:48:10]:
No, I don't do that. I use power strips that have surge protectors on them. But yeah, to me, man, if the power goes out, I'm not meant to be online that day. It's like I keep it simple, man, because right now, my power strip is at the end of my foot right here, right? So I have all my camera gear on one power strip. Then I have my computer and stuff on another power strip. So my computer, I run all day long no matter what. But when I decide to go live, I just click this switch on. Camera comes on, road comes on, ZV One comes on. I know that's my live power. And when I get done, I flip it off, my ring light goes off, cameras go off, and my field monitor goes off, and I'm back just working in my computer.

Chris Stone [00:49:05]:
Are you saying you're not going to control anything with voice activation? With the woman that starts with a we're here on Amazon?

Bradley Vinson [00:49:13]:
I'm simple, man. It's like, I don't do a bunch of wireless stuff. I want everything plugged in if I can. Yeah.

Chris Stone [00:49:21]:
What about your sound? What's your sound set up?

Bradley Vinson [00:49:24]:
How do you I'm using a Rogue Master Pro, and I'm using the Pure SM Seven B, because one thing I learned, even though I'm a visual guy and I'm doing a bunch of graphics, if you don't sound good, people ain't going to sit there and watch it. Okay. How good your video is.

Chris Stone [00:49:38]:
Amen.

Bradley Vinson [00:49:40]:
And that was where I was lacking, quite frankly, when I first started, because this wasn't my intent. Right. I had the little blue snowball, then I had the podcaster mic sound like I was inside of a tin can. Somebody that's a very good friend of mine, he said, hey, man, I love your videos. He said, but sound is where you need to be working on next. And I took it to home. I didn't take account to it. I was like, you know what? If I was sounding better, I could probably really then be eight out of ten, right? If I was sounding better, yeah. And so when I locked that sound in, man, I'm good to go now. That's awesome.

Jim Fuhs [00:50:16]:
Now do you think it's the absolute.

Chris Stone [00:50:18]:
Most important thing is sound.

Jim Fuhs [00:50:20]:
Without a doubt, when you switch those cameras, use a stream deck.

Bradley Vinson [00:50:24]:
No, I have a stream deck. I program for the stream deck. I make graphics for the stream deck. But my stream deck is basically a paperweight right now. I even have the screen saver. The custom Bradley teaches Logo screen saver on my stream deck. And I don't use it, but I'm getting better. I plan on kind of getting back into it, but I use my regular keyboard because I only really have three or four scenes because, like I said, I'm teaching. So it's me on screen, me with a shared screen of Keynote, or me and overhead. That's kind of my three looks in general. And sometimes I'll combine the overhead shot with the screen share shot.

Jim Fuhs [00:51:09]:
Right.

Bradley Vinson [00:51:10]:
But I have those what is that, four scenes, maybe?

Jim Fuhs [00:51:13]:
Yeah. So it's not that big a deal for you to just click the switch, right?

Bradley Vinson [00:51:17]:
Yeah, that makes sense. And I set up everything beforehand. Now, if it's anything, I'm an over setup or whatever you want to call that person, right. I get everything set up, make all my graphics two days ahead, run through the do a dry run of the show in my head before I do it. Even when I do recorded tutorials, I do dry run tutorials before I record my tutorial. I just prepare like that. And then when the show is on, I've already done it three times in my head. So the show is going to be smooth, right? So if Procreate breaks or I click the wrong button, typically the audience never knows because it's like, oh, I meant to do that. And I'll just click it anyway and be like, oh, yeah, my bad. Let's go with this one. So it's like, yeah, every show is a live show, man. I used to do church image magnification. That's what they used to call it, right? Because basically you're blowing up the picture on the screen, so you're magnifying the picture. That's where image magnification came from. So I was part of the image magnification ministry. And every church service is a live show and anything can happen, right? Slides break, microphones go off, light bulb pops during the sermon. Just keep it moving, man. And so I kind of bring that same mentality into this. If something breaks, it just broke. See you all tomorrow. I'll jump back online later. You all have a good night. This is the same work my wife forgot. I'm doing a video tonight and she says, I got it. I'm supposed to take her out to dinner. All right, Joe. Maybe I'll jump back on at 10:00 when my wife says I can get back on, but if not, we're done for the night. Maybe I'll see you tomorrow.

Chris Stone [00:52:56]:
Priorities.

Bradley Vinson [00:52:57]:
Life goes on, man. In the bigger scheme of things, this is 1 hour out of my day. Live video, man, and kind of keep it moving, have fun, man. And that's what's so great about this, man, not to keep being circular about it, is that Bradley teaches is a very low stress part of my life. And I'm a volunteer chaplain with the fire police departments here. So I see people at the worst moments of their life. Typically, I work in the grieving community, so you know what that entails. And so that's heavy stuff. But when I can do Bradley Teachers, man, it's all light. I mean, it's like no stress. I'm chilling out with some friends and hanging out and make some folks laugh and have a good time. And it's just a good kind of freeing time. And so how dare I let Bradley Teachers stress me out when it gets the graphics. And I'm doing other serious stuff in my life.

Jim Fuhs [00:53:57]:
Now. Bradley going to that. Do you actually have a show that you do on a routine basis that people wanted to tune in, or is it something that's more yeah, kind of depends.

Bradley Vinson [00:54:11]:
You mean with the Bradley teachers thing? Yeah, I'm usually pre recorded tutorials, and so I try to upload a new tutorial every week to the Bradley Teachers YouTube channel here on Amazon. I do a procreate for right now, I'm doing traditional art. I'll be adding it in a couple of months. But right now I'm doing procreate art classes on Tuesday night, 07:00 P.m. Central. And so, yeah, so we're doing different things with procreate, man. We did graffiti art one night, and then we did kind of what I call the event maps, like our first kiss, our favorite restaurant, those little maps. So I'll show people how to do those a couple of weeks ago. And last week, I forgot what we did last week. But tomorrow we're going to be doing kind of cut paper designs. Oh, yeah, last week we did Mandalas, right? And so we're just doing like different cool stuff for procreate, for non artists, non designers. I want everybody to have fun with it, right? And if you are a full legitimate artist, you can still have some fun with that too. But I'm not trying to show people how to do the right shape of an eyeball and put texture on a peach, whatever. Let's make a cool map about your favorite restaurant. So we're just kind of having a good time and letting people not have their iPad be a paperweight, right? Do some cool stuff with it. So I'm doing those on Tuesday nights at 07:00 P.m. Here on Amazon. And I'm going to start doing traditional art in a couple of months with watercolors. And I do Bible Journaling, showing people how to kind of dive into Scripture and do art around their Bible. So all kinds of just cool, crafty, creative stuff like that. And so, yeah, that is a weekly show now that I do on Amazon. So, yeah, I sell some stuff, but it's mostly helping people be creative. They're helping to buy some stuff. That's cool, too.

Jim Fuhs [00:56:12]:
Where does Bradley hang out when you're online, other than, like, when you do your YouTube?

Bradley Vinson [00:56:17]:
Wow. Probably in Ecamm Group, just kind of general live streamers groups because there's a lot of live streaming software companies, and I'm kind of in all of their groups, kind of just doing stuff. I'm kind of starting to hang out in the Canva groups now. I go to Clubhouse every now and then with another good friend of ours, Monty Weaver. So whenever he jumps into Clubhouse, I jump in with him. We talk about branding and graphics and stuff like that. I don't really hang out on social media without a purpose, but I jump in and I do some of my grief work. Not LinkedIn, but on Instagram, I do grief related reels on there those short videos. So I'm not really a social media just for social media's sake kind of person. Yeah, but if I'm in a group, it's more so a group of people that are doing something, and I try to hand my input where I can. So whatever. That group is awesome.

Jim Fuhs [00:57:18]:
Well, we've shared the shop page for Bradley here in the Chat and Amazon and also over on LinkedIn. I put it in there as well because you definitely want to follow that. If you're wanting to learn procreate, here's a great way to start to get into it. So I think that's awesome as well. And it's funny you mentioned Moni because Chris and I just happen to be having a conversation at 07:00 P.m. Tonight, I think, on Moni's YouTube channel. Is that right, Chris?

Chris Stone [00:57:47]:
That is correct, jim that is correct. This will be show number four for me today.

Bradley Vinson [00:57:53]:
I plan on being there. Razzing you guys from okay, well, we.

Chris Stone [00:57:58]:
Expect you to bradley, this has been awesome. Thank you so much for we knew that you would be here, and we knew that you would give, and you just exceeded even those expectations. And, yeah, I mean, Miss Eileen's here saying, bradley, you're a godsend to many, and I couldn't agree any more than what she has to say. Just to touch on the perspective angle that you talked about earlier, I think that's important for us because a lot of times you get caught up in your own self sometime and you're trying to get your shoppable videos together and your thumbnails and, oh, I got to get my courses together and all this stuff. But when you're dealing with stuff that's heavy or you get that perspective from someone like yourself. Bradley my wife is a nurse, and for a while she worked at the children's hospital in the emergency room. And I would have just a terrible day. This is when I was working at my former job at Sony. I would have just a terrible day, and I would come home and she would just say. Well, I had a baby die in my arms today, and that washes everything down with perspective. It's like, listen, this is fun. We get to do this. We get to jump on Amazon and give and help people. This isn't saving lives, necessarily, so we hope it would somehow in some way, shape or form, but let's try to lighten it up a little bit and have some fun with it. And I appreciate your perspective, sir, and I appreciate you being on board here.

Jim Fuhs [00:59:45]:
And you just brought up something. And before I forget, because I think there's several people that may be watching this show for the first time or watched it before, but a member of our community, Professor Toronto, recently passed away. We didn't know until just last week. And he was a great guy. I know he brought a lot of light to people with his show. And I just want to say wishing his family peace in this difficult time and we're sad that he's no longer with us.

Bradley Vinson [01:00:18]:
Yeah, I say a lot of people have never seen me from the chest down that have become important in my life. Right. And I think for us to have built the community that we have built in the virtual world, it shows that good things can happen on the interwebs, right? It shows that it's not all about eating soap and jumping off of buildings and doing crazy things. It's like, you can build real community here. And when one of us is lost, we feel it and we care. And it's like, how's this family doing? How are people that did videos, how are they doing? And you actually care. That goes a long way to humanity, right? Showing who we really are beyond all this stuff, because that's what's going to last, man. What you do for people and how you cared about people, that's what's going to last. If we could throw in some graphics and a couple of monitors and some gadgets along the way that people like, that's cool, too, but we all have the real perspective what the stuff is.

Jim Fuhs [01:01:37]:
That's right.

Chris Stone [01:01:39]:
That's great. I can't think of a better way to end it. Thank you. We appreciate you joining. I hope you have been fed like we have today. From Mr. Bradley, Vincent Bradley. Thank you again so much.

Bradley Vinson [01:01:49]:
Thank you so much.

Chris Stone [01:01:50]:
Thank you, brother to everyone, as always. Do not, do not don't fear the geek.

Jim Fuhs [01:01:56]:
Thanks for listening to Dealcasters. Congratulations. You've taken another step forward in your content creation journey. Please don't forget to hit the subscribe or Follow button here in your favorite podcast player so you can be reminded every time we drop an episode.

Chris Stone [01:02:13]:
We'd love hearing from our listeners and viewers. And if you're wanting to watch our shows live on Amazon, feel free to follow Dealcasters Live as well at Dealcasters live. Follow us on Twitter or subscribe to our YouTube channel, where we also included added content that you cannot find anywhere else.

Jim Fuhs [01:02:32]:
If you have questions about this episode or have something you want us to review, you can also email us at dealcasters at dealcasters live. Thanks again for listening. And you know the deal. Don't fear the gear.