Jeremy Finlay is an international documentarian and successful entrepreneur on a mission to change the course of business marketing. As a young media employee, Jeremy recognized the power of video and storytelling very early on. When an industry leader asked him to help create a documentary to tell the story of his team, Jeremy jumped at the chance. He researched every part of a successful video and marketing documentary and worked to create his first, revolutionary blend of sales marketing and informative documentary. The result? His Salesumentary, a pioneering marketing tool that continues to drive revenue and sales off the charts seven years after its invention.
How did Jeremy find such success in his work? The celebrated entrepreneur and video maker sit down with us to discuss the secret to his brand and how he was able to innovate a popular new sales technique that has transformed the world of video media. From start to finish, Jeremy was motivated to create his own versions of sales success and the motivation that drives him even today.
Before pioneering the Salesumentary method, Jeremy was just another video guy who had some marketing knowledge he could bring to the table. His first experience with documentaries was actually when a client requested one personally.
Knowing the power of video media, Jeremy agreed, but the issue was that he’d never worked with documentary video before. He had no idea how to make one, but he wanted to try. He did what many people do in a moment like that and hopped on Google. He googled video documentary guides, found some old guiding documents lurking in a quiet corner on the internet, and figured it out on his own. After two months of hard work, he’d created a documentary that generated millions of dollars in sales and catapulted a movement from obscurity to global, legendary status. Today, that same Salesumentary is still bringing in business, 7 years later.
He realized after that first successful documentary that the standard industry tactics in video marketing were starting to fade out of relevance. Automated webinars were all the rage and then stopped pulling the weight they used to. Ugly VSLs have bit the dust. Long sales letters by world-class copywriters are few and far between and have been replaced by 15-second TikToks that only work on people who don’t have the capital to hire you.
Best-selling book funnels lost their bite when customers realized that the books were nothing but glorified transcripts or a hodge-podge of blog posts that just pitched products and added no real value. Facebook and Instagram Lives were only targeting small sectors of the sales economy that don’t have the bandwidth or capital to support long-term marketing services. Only one form of video media was outlasting all of these industry changes: the Salesumentary, a tireless champion of lead generation, brand positioning, and sales multiplication.
Jeremy’s goal is to shine a light on the hidden parts of a company or industry to help expose the incredible work they’re doing behind the scenes. Lots of companies do incredible work, but the outside world would never know it. What his team does is show the world what these leaders have built in a way that’s undeniable and inspiring. They call it world-building, and they do it through video in a way that no one else can.
Jeremy’s background is in music composition, so he took the same formulas for composing a score or soundtrack and applied it to video. The results speak for themselves, as each video is a rich and diverse message that creates its own world of media and marketing management.
The trick to a great Salesumentary in Jeremy’s mind is to combine key messaging from marketing material with the rich experience of film. The result is an entertaining and inspiring documentary that builds trust, establishes rapport, converts viewers into customers, and turns customers into raving fans.
Pricing was a big obstacle for the team early on. Many small businesses have the tendency to underprice their work and undervalue their time. It took Jeremy a few clients to realize he was charging far too little for his services. Jeremy actually had an old mentor who insisted that he raise his prices. So he did. And then he raised them again. The demand is there, and you deserve to only work with people who properly appreciate your work.
As Jeremy says, “We don’t work with folks who are brand-new anymore. We work with those who are the best at what they do.” Making his services exclusive to top-tier companies helped him focus their intentions and work on only producing top-quality work for top-quality clients he trusts to provide good services.
Today, Jeremy is content to keep his Salesumentary team small, bespoke, and focused on serving the best of the best. There are plenty of other areas of his life where he can scale –– with his software company, Quantum, with his music –– and those areas are best for large, grandiose visions of business success. Salesumentaries are a small and personal vehicle to work with awesome people, produce some serious funding power, and get to learn from world-changers as he helps them build a world for their brand.