April 6, 2025 • 14 mins
Are you stuck in the daily grind of "What should I post today?" In this solo episode, I share why I believe a short-form video series—not just random content—is the next big thing in building audience and authority.
Drawing inspiration from movie theater serials, Nas Daily, Pat Flynn’s latest YouTube experiment, and even the classic Will It Blend? videos, I break down how series-based content creates consistency, curiosity, and binge-worthy value for your audience.
You'll hear:
- Why most content creation burns people out—and how to fix it
- The storytelling formula I'm borrowing from Nas Daily (with a twist)
- My personal 60-day challenge to launch a series called Standout Business Shorts
- How you can adapt this model for your own brand—without reinventing the wheel
Plus, I share a behind-the-scenes preview of one of the first episodes featuring a self-serve, 24-hour bakery in rural Australia that’s gone viral on TikTok. Yes, it’s as awesome as it sounds.
This is more than a strategy—it's a challenge to stand out or blend in.
If you want to build trust at scale and have fun doing it, this one’s for you.
🎧 Listen in—and follow along as I take the leap into daily short-form serial storytelling.
If you're the best-kept secret in your industry, it's time to change that.
Because when you start showing up with clarity, confidence, and the right content—your ideal clients won't just notice you. They'll choose you.
Don’t miss your chance to get a free video brand assessment to start creating videos that actually work for your business.
Schedule your video brand assessment here >
Thanks for tuning in. If you found this episode helpful, share it with another expert entrepreneur who’s ready to stop blending in.
And I’ll see you next time—on The Standout Business Show.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brad Powell (00:06):
When it comes to making content, especially when
it comes to making short-formvideo, there's this kind of trap
that you can fall into, whereit's seemingly posting just
random bits of content and everyday you're thinking, well, what
am I going to post today?
What's the new topic, what'sthe new idea?
But when you take the contentcreation that you're doing and
well, what am I going to posttoday?
What's the new topic, what'sthe new idea?
But when you take the contentcreation that you're doing and
(00:29):
you turn into a series thatfollows a very specific format
from one day to the next, itbecomes a much easier thing to
replicate and you don'tnecessarily have to come up with
lots of new ideas or whereyou're going to go.
You're basically following theformat with a new subject.
(00:50):
In this case, I can be doingall kinds of research and
looking for people in the worldwho are doing kind of remarkable
things with their business andbringing them into the light of
day.
Business and bringing them intothe light of day.
Welcome to the StandoutBusiness Show, where it's all
(01:10):
about making a bigger differenceby doing business differently.
I'm your host, brad Powell, andtoday I am asking the question
(01:30):
could a short-form video seriesbe the future of audience
building.
And you know, when I wasgrowing up, there was one movie
theater in the town where Ilived and each week there would
be one movie that played, and soa movie would come to town,
would run for the week and thenit would go away and a new movie
would arrive, and that was it.
Each week you had thepossibility of watching one film
, but in addition to the film,always before the feature played
(01:52):
, they always showed a short,some kind of short featurette,
and usually these shorts weredone in a series and it could be
something like the Lone Ranger,and the Lone Ranger was always
rescuing someone or catching badguys, and every single short
(02:12):
episode would end on acliffhanger, so that you would
want to know how's he going toget out of this trouble, how's
he going to rescue whoever he'strying to rescue.
You would want to come back thenext week to see what happened
in the serial, and this workedreally, really well for the
theater, because it almostdidn't matter what the movie
(02:34):
would be next week.
You wanted to come back justsimply to see the short.
It created a lot of desire andwanted to come again and again
and again.
This past week I was listeningto an interview with Pat Flynn
on the Social Media MarketingPodcast.
Pat has just done an experimentin the last year and it's not
(02:57):
even a year old where he's beendoing a short form video series
on YouTube.
It's worked out incredibly well.
I was really amazed at howquickly he has grown an audience
.
He basically started a brandnew YouTube channel and the only
thing on that channel are theseshort videos that he's created.
(03:18):
Now, in his case, he's got thisside thing going where he's way
into Pokemon cards and all he'sdoing in these videos is that he
goes into a shop and he buys apack of cards these collectible
cards and then he opens the packand he flips through and sees
if he got anything particularlyvaluable in the package.
(03:38):
That's the format, and thequestion he's always asking is
should I open it or should Ikeep it sealed?
People are staying through thevideo to see whether or not he
gets anything valuable from thepack or if he wasted all his
money, and that's it.
It's that simple, and his pointin this interview was saying,
(04:01):
if you develop a format that isrepeatable and it has some kind
of challenge or curiosity aboutit that people want to see the
result.
They'll not only watch thatvideo, but they'll come back
next time for more, and thereason is because they know what
they're getting next.
(04:21):
This is the magic of a seriesor a serial is that it's done in
a format where you know whatyou're getting and you want more
of it.
Another big example of somebodywho did this really well is Nas
Daily, and this is several yearsago.
(04:41):
Probably seven or eight yearsago, this guy, nazir, started
doing on Facebook short videosand this is well before short
form video was even a thing andhe would find somebody who had
an interesting story aboutsomething they've done that's
super cool, and he would telltheir story in just one minute,
(05:02):
and at the end of each video hewould say that's one minute, see
you tomorrow.
The format was always the same,and so you knew exactly what
you were getting one day to thenext, and he did extremely well
over time.
It took a while, but suddenlypeople discovered his videos and
(05:24):
now, when they found one, theywould go and start binging and
watch several of them at a time.
And this is the part of themagic of doing a series like
this is that if people find oneof your videos and they like it
and it has something about itthat they want more of.
They will start binging allyour content.
(05:44):
So I thought to myself well, Iwould like to see if there's a
way to do this as an adjunct tothis show, the Standout Business
Show.
What if I created a wholeseries on businesses that are
doing something reallyoutstanding and turn it into a
short form video series?
So it could be the StandoutBusiness Shorts, and I'm going
(06:08):
to take a page out of what PatFlynn did.
He started by saying I'm goingto take a page out of what Pat
Flynn did.
He started by saying I'm goingto commit to doing this for 60
days.
So this is my promise to youI'm going to commit to starting
a short form video series for 60days and you can follow along
with me to see how it goes.
And I'm going to take the formatfrom Naz Daily.
(06:31):
His format, as he describes it,is that there's four parts of
every one of his videos.
It starts with a hook, which islike an introduction, that
always has some kind ofprovocative question or fact,
and then he lists a problem,which creates tension by simply
stating the issue at hand, andthe next step is providing a
(06:53):
solution like how did the issueget resolved?
And then there's always thisoutro, which is actually
expanding it and showing how thesolution relates to the
viewer's life and makes itpersonal and relatable, and this
is the formula that Nasdailyhas followed.
So I'm going to adapt that formy standout business shorts.
(07:16):
And so in my adaptation at leastthis is what I'm starting with
you're going to have a hookwhich is some kind of bold,
surprising, curiosity-peakingopening, and then we'll have a
backstory, which is why thisbusiness that I'm talking about
matters and kind of the beforepicture.
And then, third, I'm going toprovide the unique twist of what
(07:39):
they're doing differently.
And fourth, I'm going todescribe the impact of what
they've done and the results andhow it's working for them and
how it's working for them.
And then, ending the outro, isthe big question, which is does
it stand out or does it blend in?
And the blend in part is it's atake on the.
(08:02):
I don't know if you ever sawthis.
What were the Blendtec videoswhere this guy in a white lab
coat and safety goggles wouldstand there with a blender and
he would say will it blend?
And then he'd take somethinglike an iPhone, throw it at the
blender and turn the blender on,and these videos were super
(08:22):
popular.
So I'm going to be asking thequestion does it stand out or
will it blend in?
And then you guys the audience,can respond to that and give
your own opinion of whether ornot this particular business is
doing a good job or not.
So I'll give you one example ofhow an episode like this would
(08:43):
break down.
One of the businesses that Iuncovered that sounded pretty
interesting to talk about thisway is something called Becca's
Bakes, which is a 24-hour bakerythat has no staff, and so I'm
just going to run through apotential narrative here.
So let's imagine that the sceneis opening and the hook says
(09:06):
would you buy cupcakes from aroadside box at two o'clock in
the morning?
And then we'd have a visual ofthis self-service bakery that's
lit up in the middle of thenight.
The explanation is there's nostaff, there's no cashier,
there's just trust and cupcakes.
And now the narrator comes inand says meet Becca.
(09:29):
She's a self-taught baker inrural Queensland, australia, who
turned a single oven and a lotof heart into a viral bakery.
And then a quote from Beccasaying things like people drive
hours just to stop by my littlebox on the highway.
Narrator comes in and says it'sopen 24-7, it runs on the honor
(09:51):
system and it's built entirelyon trust and short-form videos.
And then Becca says again Ipost what I bake and the
internet decides what sells outfirst.
And now we show some scenes ofthe TikTok feed, where there's
thousands of TikTok followersand there's tourists driving
(10:11):
from other towns and it's soldout every single day.
It's not just cupcakes, it'scommunity, it's honesty and it's
the smell of fresh brownies ona country road.
And then the question at theend is so what do you think?
Would you trust your businessto total strangers?
Does it stand out or will itblend in?
(10:32):
So that gives you some idea ofwhat I'm thinking and what I'm
up to.
And the main thing that gets meso jazzed about this is that
when it comes to making content,especially when it comes to
making short form video, there'sthis kind of trap that you can
fall into, where it's seeminglyposting just random bits of
content and every day you'rethinking well, what am I going
(10:55):
to post today?
What's the new?
You know what's the new topic,what's the new idea.
But when you take the contentcreation that you're doing and
you turn into a series thatfollows a very specific format
from one day to the next.
It becomes a much easier thingto replicate and you don't
necessarily have to come up withlots of new ideas or where are
(11:19):
you going to go.
You're basically following theformat with a new subject.
In this case, I can be doing allkinds of research and looking
for people in the world who aredoing kind of remarkable things
with their business and bringingthem into the light of day and
(11:39):
then asking the audience what doyou think Are they making it?
Does this kind of thing standout?
And, of course, what could yoube learning from their example?
This is what you can lookforward to coming from me over
the next little bit of time.
It's going to take me a while.
I'm going to start by making atleast two weeks worth of single
(12:02):
short form serial posts.
I'm going to make a two weeklong serial and then I'll start
publishing to give myself enoughof a buffer, but I'm going to
run it for 60 days as anexperiment and I will come back
here on Long Form Podcast andshare what I'm learning along
the way.
In addition, this short formseries is going to be a great
(12:25):
feeder for the content on theshow.
So if you do follow me on theshort form thing and I get a
whole bunch of thumbs up on aparticular person, then I'm
going to invite them back andwe'll have a longer interview on
the show so we can learn indepth more about what they're
doing and how they did it.
So stay tuned there's more tocome, so you don't just listen
(12:52):
to this and go away and notactually do anything.
It's time to take action.
If you're ready to elevate yourbusiness with video content
that will do the selling for you, I want to invite you to a free
video brand assessment wherewe'll walk through your current
strategy, see where you're atand help you identify the video
(13:13):
content that will drive moresales for your business.
All you need to do is click thelink in the show notes to
schedule your free assessmentand together we'll set you up
for success.
Don't miss out on this chanceto transform your business with
the right video strategy.
And that's it for today'sepisode of the Standout Business
(13:40):
Show.
Thanks for listening.
If you found this episodehelpful, don't forget to
subscribe and share it with afriend, because the number one
way that people find out about apodcast like this one is
because they heard about it fromone of their friends.
Remember keep making a biggerdifference by doing business
(14:01):
differently.
And until next time, so long.
When it comes to making content, especially when
it comes to making short-formvideo, there's this kind of trap
that you can fall into, whereit's seemingly posting just
random bits of content and everyday you're thinking, well, what
am I going to post today?
What's the new topic, what'sthe new idea?
But when you take the contentcreation that you're doing and
well, what am I going to posttoday?
What's the new topic, what'sthe new idea?
But when you take the contentcreation that you're doing and
(00:29):
you turn into a series thatfollows a very specific format
from one day to the next, itbecomes a much easier thing to
replicate and you don'tnecessarily have to come up with
lots of new ideas or whereyou're going to go.
You're basically following theformat with a new subject.
(00:50):
In this case, I can be doingall kinds of research and
looking for people in the worldwho are doing kind of remarkable
things with their business andbringing them into the light of
day.
Business and bringing them intothe light of day.
Welcome to the StandoutBusiness Show, where it's all
(01:10):
about making a bigger differenceby doing business differently.
I'm your host, brad Powell, andtoday I am asking the question
(01:30):
could a short-form video seriesbe the future of audience
building.
And you know, when I wasgrowing up, there was one movie
theater in the town where Ilived and each week there would
be one movie that played, and soa movie would come to town,
would run for the week and thenit would go away and a new movie
would arrive, and that was it.
Each week you had thepossibility of watching one film
, but in addition to the film,always before the feature played
(01:52):
, they always showed a short,some kind of short featurette,
and usually these shorts weredone in a series and it could be
something like the Lone Ranger,and the Lone Ranger was always
rescuing someone or catching badguys, and every single short
(02:12):
episode would end on acliffhanger, so that you would
want to know how's he going toget out of this trouble, how's
he going to rescue whoever he'strying to rescue.
You would want to come back thenext week to see what happened
in the serial, and this workedreally, really well for the
theater, because it almostdidn't matter what the movie
(02:34):
would be next week.
You wanted to come back justsimply to see the short.
It created a lot of desire andwanted to come again and again
and again.
This past week I was listeningto an interview with Pat Flynn
on the Social Media MarketingPodcast.
Pat has just done an experimentin the last year and it's not
(02:57):
even a year old where he's beendoing a short form video series
on YouTube.
It's worked out incredibly well.
I was really amazed at howquickly he has grown an audience
.
He basically started a brandnew YouTube channel and the only
thing on that channel are theseshort videos that he's created.
(03:18):
Now, in his case, he's got thisside thing going where he's way
into Pokemon cards and all he'sdoing in these videos is that he
goes into a shop and he buys apack of cards these collectible
cards and then he opens the packand he flips through and sees
if he got anything particularlyvaluable in the package.
(03:38):
That's the format, and thequestion he's always asking is
should I open it or should Ikeep it sealed?
People are staying through thevideo to see whether or not he
gets anything valuable from thepack or if he wasted all his
money, and that's it.
It's that simple, and his pointin this interview was saying,
(04:01):
if you develop a format that isrepeatable and it has some kind
of challenge or curiosity aboutit that people want to see the
result.
They'll not only watch thatvideo, but they'll come back
next time for more, and thereason is because they know what
they're getting next.
(04:21):
This is the magic of a seriesor a serial is that it's done in
a format where you know whatyou're getting and you want more
of it.
Another big example of somebodywho did this really well is Nas
Daily, and this is several yearsago.
(04:41):
Probably seven or eight yearsago, this guy, nazir, started
doing on Facebook short videosand this is well before short
form video was even a thing andhe would find somebody who had
an interesting story aboutsomething they've done that's
super cool, and he would telltheir story in just one minute,
(05:02):
and at the end of each video hewould say that's one minute, see
you tomorrow.
The format was always the same,and so you knew exactly what
you were getting one day to thenext, and he did extremely well
over time.
It took a while, but suddenlypeople discovered his videos and
(05:24):
now, when they found one, theywould go and start binging and
watch several of them at a time.
And this is the part of themagic of doing a series like
this is that if people find oneof your videos and they like it
and it has something about itthat they want more of.
They will start binging allyour content.
(05:44):
So I thought to myself well, Iwould like to see if there's a
way to do this as an adjunct tothis show, the Standout Business
Show.
What if I created a wholeseries on businesses that are
doing something reallyoutstanding and turn it into a
short form video series?
So it could be the StandoutBusiness Shorts, and I'm going
(06:08):
to take a page out of what PatFlynn did.
He started by saying I'm goingto take a page out of what Pat
Flynn did.
He started by saying I'm goingto commit to doing this for 60
days.
So this is my promise to youI'm going to commit to starting
a short form video series for 60days and you can follow along
with me to see how it goes.
And I'm going to take the formatfrom Naz Daily.
(06:31):
His format, as he describes it,is that there's four parts of
every one of his videos.
It starts with a hook, which islike an introduction, that
always has some kind ofprovocative question or fact,
and then he lists a problem,which creates tension by simply
stating the issue at hand, andthe next step is providing a
(06:53):
solution like how did the issueget resolved?
And then there's always thisoutro, which is actually
expanding it and showing how thesolution relates to the
viewer's life and makes itpersonal and relatable, and this
is the formula that Nasdailyhas followed.
So I'm going to adapt that formy standout business shorts.
(07:16):
And so in my adaptation at leastthis is what I'm starting with
you're going to have a hookwhich is some kind of bold,
surprising, curiosity-peakingopening, and then we'll have a
backstory, which is why thisbusiness that I'm talking about
matters and kind of the beforepicture.
And then, third, I'm going toprovide the unique twist of what
(07:39):
they're doing differently.
And fourth, I'm going todescribe the impact of what
they've done and the results andhow it's working for them and
how it's working for them.
And then, ending the outro, isthe big question, which is does
it stand out or does it blend in?
And the blend in part is it's atake on the.
(08:02):
I don't know if you ever sawthis.
What were the Blendtec videoswhere this guy in a white lab
coat and safety goggles wouldstand there with a blender and
he would say will it blend?
And then he'd take somethinglike an iPhone, throw it at the
blender and turn the blender on,and these videos were super
(08:22):
popular.
So I'm going to be asking thequestion does it stand out or
will it blend in?
And then you guys the audience,can respond to that and give
your own opinion of whether ornot this particular business is
doing a good job or not.
So I'll give you one example ofhow an episode like this would
(08:43):
break down.
One of the businesses that Iuncovered that sounded pretty
interesting to talk about thisway is something called Becca's
Bakes, which is a 24-hour bakerythat has no staff, and so I'm
just going to run through apotential narrative here.
So let's imagine that the sceneis opening and the hook says
(09:06):
would you buy cupcakes from aroadside box at two o'clock in
the morning?
And then we'd have a visual ofthis self-service bakery that's
lit up in the middle of thenight.
The explanation is there's nostaff, there's no cashier,
there's just trust and cupcakes.
And now the narrator comes inand says meet Becca.
(09:29):
She's a self-taught baker inrural Queensland, australia, who
turned a single oven and a lotof heart into a viral bakery.
And then a quote from Beccasaying things like people drive
hours just to stop by my littlebox on the highway.
Narrator comes in and says it'sopen 24-7, it runs on the honor
(09:51):
system and it's built entirelyon trust and short-form videos.
And then Becca says again Ipost what I bake and the
internet decides what sells outfirst.
And now we show some scenes ofthe TikTok feed, where there's
thousands of TikTok followersand there's tourists driving
(10:11):
from other towns and it's soldout every single day.
It's not just cupcakes, it'scommunity, it's honesty and it's
the smell of fresh brownies ona country road.
And then the question at theend is so what do you think?
Would you trust your businessto total strangers?
Does it stand out or will itblend in?
(10:32):
So that gives you some idea ofwhat I'm thinking and what I'm
up to.
And the main thing that gets meso jazzed about this is that
when it comes to making content,especially when it comes to
making short form video, there'sthis kind of trap that you can
fall into, where it's seeminglyposting just random bits of
content and every day you'rethinking well, what am I going
(10:55):
to post today?
What's the new?
You know what's the new topic,what's the new idea.
But when you take the contentcreation that you're doing and
you turn into a series thatfollows a very specific format
from one day to the next.
It becomes a much easier thingto replicate and you don't
necessarily have to come up withlots of new ideas or where are
(11:19):
you going to go.
You're basically following theformat with a new subject.
In this case, I can be doing allkinds of research and looking
for people in the world who aredoing kind of remarkable things
with their business and bringingthem into the light of day and
(11:39):
then asking the audience what doyou think Are they making it?
Does this kind of thing standout?
And, of course, what could yoube learning from their example?
This is what you can lookforward to coming from me over
the next little bit of time.
It's going to take me a while.
I'm going to start by making atleast two weeks worth of single
(12:02):
short form serial posts.
I'm going to make a two weeklong serial and then I'll start
publishing to give myself enoughof a buffer, but I'm going to
run it for 60 days as anexperiment and I will come back
here on Long Form Podcast andshare what I'm learning along
the way.
In addition, this short formseries is going to be a great
(12:25):
feeder for the content on theshow.
So if you do follow me on theshort form thing and I get a
whole bunch of thumbs up on aparticular person, then I'm
going to invite them back andwe'll have a longer interview on
the show so we can learn indepth more about what they're
doing and how they did it.
So stay tuned there's more tocome, so you don't just listen
(12:52):
to this and go away and notactually do anything.
It's time to take action.
If you're ready to elevate yourbusiness with video content
that will do the selling for you, I want to invite you to a free
video brand assessment wherewe'll walk through your current
strategy, see where you're atand help you identify the video
(13:13):
content that will drive moresales for your business.
All you need to do is click thelink in the show notes to
schedule your free assessmentand together we'll set you up
for success.
Don't miss out on this chanceto transform your business with
the right video strategy.
And that's it for today'sepisode of the Standout Business
(13:40):
Show.
Thanks for listening.
If you found this episodehelpful, don't forget to
subscribe and share it with afriend, because the number one
way that people find out about apodcast like this one is
because they heard about it fromone of their friends.
Remember keep making a biggerdifference by doing business
(14:01):
differently.
And until next time, so long.
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