12-Minute Baller Chunks Tops

There's many a stipulation over max timeslots before our buyers' (or colleagues') attention evaporates.

Durations beyond which you must not stray when performing certain tasks.

Showing a particular slide. Speaking on video without letting other participants do something themselves. Snappy video call lengths.

Each shorter than you'd imagine.

With a new top man appointed to one of the world's biggest football clubs I learn another slant on these.

Manchester United has slipped off their perch. Plummeted, almost. With fading glory this whole past decade now.

Their latest anointed hope, Ruben Amorim, appears to have discovered that his new squad of footballers, young pampered multi-millionaires who want for nothing with money-no-object support structures, don't respond well to video instruction.

Specifically, finding that their limit for video watching sits at a mere twelve minutes. At which time, concentration crashes.

Barely a week in-post, he has instead switched at present to physically, slowly walk-through players his fresh expectations of how to best shape up on the field of play.

Admittedly as predominantly Gen Zeders, with a smattering of Millennials, the ability to sustain focus over a period of time is widely said to be dropping a fair bit as we cascade through those younger generations that are now rising in the workplace, including our athletic pursuits.

We likely aren't sending video tutorials through to our prospects. If you are sending long(ish)-form videos of other kinds though, someone watching any video over this 12-min barrier - and then feeding back on it to us - may prove a significant buying signal. A tactic that has its place.

Yet might this anecdotal cut-off point also apply to live video experience?

I've long hailed the energy of the '8-minute call' [touching on this among other tricks in a post from 2023]. Always a winner to schedule. With several different use-cases. Chief among them, to replace an otherwise lag-heavy, unnecessarily async, email chain.

What may well prove a goal-scoring move over the next few months, is using the experience of the above Portuguese super-manager to our advantage. Especially, but not exclusively, with anyone holding more than a passing interest in the beautiful game.

If it's good enough for his team, you could cite him to let us also try a 12-minute video meeting.

What new move would you want to walk-through in collab with your prospect that'd fit in 720 valuable seconds?