Yesterday, we unveiled our 106-second video about our SQL Critical Care® service. Today, let’s talk about why we did it.

Our web site explains who we are. It’s our storefront. The vast majority of our clients find us in Google, get to know us by reading our blogs, start to trust us by using our scripts, and then finally contact us for personalized help and training.

For that to work well, our web site needs to say, “Brent Ozar Unlimited is a boutique database consulting firm who helps you make SQL Server faster and more reliable. They’re brilliant, fun, and relatable.”

That sounds really simple now, but a few years ago, we had no idea what we wanted the web site to say. To figure it out, we hired Pixelspoke to build our brand identity, logo, and web site. They interviewed us, talked to our clients, and checked at our competitors. They painted a really clear picture of who we were, what we do, and what makes us different. The end result is the web site you see today. They did a magical job, and I think it says a lot that we love their work just as much today as we did two years ago. I still grin when I see our logo.

Last year, we upped our game by having Eric Larsen draw more funny portraits of the team, and rotating those on the site’s home page. We loved the results – the guy is crazy talented. He drew us teaching various SQL Server concepts, and his illustrations managed to capture exactly what we wanted the site to say.

Leveling Up: Explaining Our Process in 106 Seconds

Some customers don’t have time to do the long courtship of gradually getting to know us. Their SQL Server is desperately sick right now, and they don’t have the luxury of getting to know all the possible health providers out there. They’re Googling and judging people by what they see in the first minute.

So this year, we wanted to take our web game up another notch by hiring a partner to build us an amazing 2-minute video. Eric pointed us to his friends at Epipheo. Like us, they’re a company that focuses on exactly one thing – but theirs is making short videos. After examining their portfolio (my personal favorite is Projetech’s) and talking to them, we were hooked.

Epipheo’s mission was to distill who we are, what we do, and what makes us different down into a single video. I’m absolutely convinced they did it.

The video tells the viewer:

• Your SQL Server is sick, and you don’t know how to get relief.
• You could throw money at it, but that doesn’t usually work. (Many of our clients even tell us that they’ve already tried this by the time they contact us.)
• You could hire The Specialist, but he won’t explain what he’s doing, and you have no idea if it’s good or bad
• You could bring in The Large IT Firm, but it costs a fortune, and they’ll overwhelm you with irrelevant data

Or you could hire us:

• We focus on the pain that’s bothering you, not a gazillion unrelated “best practices”
• We work side by side with you, explaining your SQL Server’s symptoms as we go
• We teach you our techniques so you can repeat the process on your other SQL Servers
• And then we leave you alone, because we’re not here to drain you dry.

Yep. That’s exactly what our SQL Critical Care® is, and why it’s unique. Next up, we’ll talk about our favorite parts of the video where Epipheo really captured our personalities.