Mission Brief:

Hi folks, today we are

• Roasting a video made by Tom Slocum

• Sharing what’s good, what bad & what changes to make

Let’s begin…

The Roast

For context, here’s the video in question.

The Good:

• Speaking from experience: It’s always good when someone is talking about topics they have lived. Tom is super experienced in sales, so he has instant credibility.

• Clear core idea: “99% of cold emails are awful. Here’s some stuff I’ve found from experience that will make you less awful.” This will always be a winning format.

• Well formatted text post accompanying the video: Most people forget the text post aspect, but LinkedIn is STILL text dominant. Better text part → more time people will spend on your post → better performance.

The Bad:

• The video has 2 hooks: The initial hook takes 13 seconds. Then there’s a cheesy transition. Then it’s another near 30 seconds of “setting up” a core principle in the video. Which by itself, could’ve been a hook. Then another cheesy transition. Then he begins the video. We’re 45 seconds in by this point, a ton of people have scrolled away by then.

• Overly long packaging with poor pacing: Videos longer than a minute to 90 seconds can be fine if they are paced well. This one is not. Tom takes way too long to get to the meat of the content. This is usually a sign this 1 video should’ve been 2-3 separate videos.

  Tom opens with this interesting mental model that each word in a cold email is $1, and he sets a budget of $100 on each email…but then doesn’t expand on that. That’s a novel, unique idea that deserves more airtime.

• Mediocre audio: While not the worst audio I’ve heard, it’s somewhat fuzzy and captures room echo.

• Distracting background: The background feels sort of random and not intentional. Not a major point but I feel a simple camera angle shift, more align with the eyes, could unlock a more authoritative setting.

• Somewhat generic lessons: This one is a nuanced point. And biased.

  The dollar mental model is superb, differentiated and memorable. But much of the actionable tips Tom aren’t very unique. As a viewer, I’ve felt I’ve heard many of these before.

  I would like to see Tom pull examples & stories from real campaigns to color the tactical points and give them more heft.

Improvements to make:

• Shorten the hook. 3-5 seconds as a rule of thumb.

• Stay under 90 seconds. If your video is longer, and it’s not a story, it likely can be 2 videos.

• Pre-plan out 2-3 unique points to hit on with each video

• Bring the camera up to eye level. Get a tripod if needed.

• Get a mic. I’d get a mic like this to fix your audio.

Want me to roast your video next? DM it to me here.

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That’s a wrap

You should probably burn this, now.