Hi, I'm Samantha Hartley at the Profitable Joyful Consulting podcast. This season, we're talking about business growth strategies and today I'm going to talk to you about an amazing one, which is using video to grow your business. Video marketing is so effective and efficient and powerful and yet so many consultants that I know hesitate to use video or to create as much video as they could be creating and there are many reasons for that and I'm going to be talking about some of those today. So first, I'm going to talk about why we need to be using video in our business, what are those hurdles and how you can get over them? And then five ways to use video.

So first, why is video so amazing and powerful? Because it's the closest thing that we have to being in person with you, next to a hologram right? So we feel when we see someone on video, you can have a deep, personal and intimate experience of them through this screen. Even though it's really them somewhere at a different place and time, if they're really connecting with the camera, then they're actually connecting with you. And when you make a video, you can do that, you can connect through that camera to your perfect client and really speak to them and when you do, you are building your brand, you're teaching them who you are and why they need to know you, you are helping them know what you want to be known for and when we take those videos, we put them out there, that's the strategic visibility that I've talked to you about, it's really teaching people who you are in these pieces, each video is a component in that puzzle making up your brand and putting it out there is the way that you communicate your brand to your audience.

So video is really particularly, specifically amazing at that and effective, it also helps you to therefore attract your perfect clients to you, because when they see that when they connect with that video, they will follow you through those videos to wherever you're going. you know back to your website, to you, wherever you're leading them, they'll want to know more, see more from you and learn more from you and sometimes get in touch with you so that is the power of video. And you can hear, as I'm describing it, that it is really more powerful than the written word up, at least on the internet. Sure, we can go and read a really in-depth blog post, but a lot of times hearing you communicate it on video is gonna be more powerful than reading it. There's still a place for text content, it's just that you want to augment whatever you're currently doing and support it with video.

Video really expedites the know, like, and trust factor and if someone comes to your website or sees a social media page about you, they can kind of mouse around and see certain things but the timeline for them feeling a trust of you usually is expedited by seeing a photograph of you in which really your energy is shining through and then if they see a video, it's the make or break thing but if you are for them, if you're the right choice for them, that video is going to do the work of text or the work of photographs that seem to do much better and faster.

And finally, there's this thing called organic reach, which is the kind of reach that posts can get on social media that are unpaid. And video very often gets amazing organic reach, alot of social platforms will elevate video, meaning they'll show it to more people because they want to have more video content and they want to encourage that and especially LinkedIn. So LinkedIn has millions of members and it has significantly fewer active members and then of the active members, there is still a small percentage of them only who is creating content. So if you're a content creator of any kind, you're already going to be seen much more than many other members and specifically, if you can create video content, you're going to be able to reach your audience and impact them faster and better on LinkedIn.

And if that's the case, then why aren't more consultants making and sharing videos? Well, I think we all know that video is hard, especially when you're trying to get started with it in the beginning there are a lot of hurdles and so my number 1 tip in this area is practice. If you want to get better at anything, whether it's speaking a foreign language or doing push-ups, practice is the thing that will get you there.

So what's a good way to practice with video? What I recommend and what I did is make a video every single day for a month. There's your practice: here's what you're going to learn, you're going to learn how you talk on video, what it's like to make a video, how to actually use whatever equipment you choose, whether it's your phone or your webcam or hiring somebody. You'll learn how easy it is for you to speak extemporaneously, whether you do better with a text or script, how much you can say in a minute, how much you can teach in two minutes.

You will learn a lot about yourself during this practice period, which is why I insist that you take 30 days and make a video every single day. This is a really important strategy for your business. It's a skill that is not optional but rather required I would say for the 2020s, being good on video. And so this is really something to dedicate yourself to,so practice is my first advice for how to get over video being hard. The second thing about video is that it is not convenient and it's especially inconvenient if you're someone who needs to get camera-ready in order to make videos. So if that's the case for you, then my number one tip for you is to batch your videos, make more than one video at a time when you are camera ready.

The other thing that you can do is batch when you are camera ready. Meaning if you're coming off a Zoom call where you were camera ready, then make a short video right then. You're already camera ready, you've already been on so take that opportunity to make a video.

The third thing that I hear is that there's never enough time to make videos, like, how do I fit this in my week? If making videos is a habit that you want to cultivate, then let's do this as we cultivate all habits. What I've learned from B.J. Fogg is if you want to cultivate a habit, then the first thing that you need to do is you need to my number one tip here is to make it easy, make it easy, so you set out your workout clothes the night before so that when you get up first thing in the morning and put them on and just go workout, if you want to form a habit, you want to make it easy for yourself and the easiest way to make making video easy for you is to remove the friction from doing it. So what I recommend is doing it at your work desk, just as I'm doing here. This is my actual work desk. This is where I do Zoom videos and so for me to do a new video, I'm still at my desk. I move a few things around and we're good.

So I would say if when you're camera ready at your desk, this is the time to be making videos. What I'm always looking for in this is something that's sustainable so I've had a lot of people talk to me about having a video shoot or a production team come or having equipment out. I can't have equipment out at my house because of my dogs. Maybe you have children or maybe it's just not convenient for you, I don't want to have anything that's not sustainable.

And the last thing that I hear that overwhelms people is the equipment and the technology and all of the editing and the production and all of that kind of stuff. So my number one advice here is get support, don't be the expert in this, you are going to be the one who's delivering the content. What you need to be great at is doing that, making the connection to the camera, you're going to practice that and get a team who can help you with the rest. What does a team mean? If you're going to be recording your videos on a webcam or on the phone, then find someone on Upwork who can edit your videos and add subtitles to them.

Most videos online are watched without sound, so having subtitles on them is really a minimum requirement. So have an editor who can do that, that can be the minimum of your team all the way up to the maximum you can have a whole production team who takes care of everything but you don't need that to start. You just need somebody who can help you with the basics and if you want to learn the basics yourself, because that's not hard for you, then do that, that's fine but what you want to do is get in the habit of creating these videos. And don't let technology stand in the way of you bringing the value that you have to your perfect clients. And so speaking of that, here are five kinds of videos that I recommend that you use in your business.

The first one is repurposed speaker videos, if you've had a speaking engagement where someone recorded you, then take that recording and rather than put up a whole 60-minute thing, which very few people will watch, chunk that down, pull out five to 10 snippets from it that you can share on social media, little chunks, one minute to three minutes. The shorter very often is the better but you know, choose a mic drop moment or a chunk where you've been teaching something that will stand alone outside of the presentation. It could be a quotable thing, whatever that is, reducing that huge video into chunks and sharing them is a great way to use video that you already have, just so you know, when my clients have speaking engagements, I'll have them work with either the organizers of the event or the hotel where it's being hosted to find a local videographer and to hire them to come in for the day. It's not expensive for them to produce that video make sure that the speaker, you and you are mic'd so that they get that speaker audio and you don't sound like you're echoing in a big room but it sounds like a really good quality recording, that's important you want to have a video of you speaking in front of an audience, it makes you look influential.

Similarly, you can take Zoom recordings of presentations you've done or if you had a podcast interview that was video, you can take that and chunk that down into anywhere from 30-second sound bites to three-minute teaching clips of you and share that throughout your social media. That is some of the easiest videos for you to make because it's not you having to sit down by yourself and talk to the camera.

So the second kind is sitting down and talking to the camera, teach us something in two minutes, take some area of your expertise. Something that happened today tell us a story or a case study and teach that to the camera for two minutes. As you're looking in that camera, I want you to imagine that you're telling this to your perfect client or to a potential client who has questions and wonders if you can help them. So these kinds of videos are super shareable on LinkedIn. They're interesting and engaging and compelling, and they teach people who you are and what topics you speak on. So that is the second kind that I highly recommend you make. They can be hard to do in the beginning, which is why I encourage that 30 day practice period. During 30 days, what are you practicing? Practice making short, concise, crisp videos.

The third kind of video that I recommend that you have to grow your business are testimonial videos where your perfect clients are talking about the experience of working with you. There's nothing more real than hearing it from your actual clients, what it was like to work with you and you know that you can use those videos on your website, on social media all over the place. So this is a really important kind of video to capture. Is testimonial videos where your clients are talking about the experience of working with you. What things were like before for them? Remember the case study format before, during, and after and the results that they got. So the people, when they see those videos say, hey, I'll have what she's having.

The fourth kind of video is a video that is really custom made for your website, because when people visit your website, maybe there's images of you and text of you, but rarely do I see on consultants' websites video of them. You might have the video of you speaking or other things like that, but you can also just make a video that is custom made for your audience. The audience who comes to visit the website where you welcome them and talk to them about what's on this website, who you are, the value you bring to them. Keep that short but that is a great way for you to give them a specific, clear experience of you and what it would be like to work with you. So communicate your personality through a video like that.

And last of all, how about doing a video podcast? Obviously, this is an advanced strategy. It's not something I would want you to begin with immediately but a video podcast is amazing in so many ways, and I've learned this over these past two seasons. What is really amazing about it? You create video content and that can be shared everywhere, chiefly on YouTube, which is an amazing place for your clients to find you. Remember, that's owned by Google, it's the second biggest search engine online. A lot of people will go to YouTube to search for things specifically. Sometimes it's how to repair and learn more and sometimes it's how to grow their business or how to resolve conflict in the workplace or how to have more efficient meetings so they can find you on YouTube. So that's a huge benefit of the video podcasts is having video content to share.

Second, we take the audio out of this and that goes out on all of the classic podcast channels. Then we have a text of all of this. So I'm generating content that can be used across multimedia by specifically just making a single video. So I make a single video, one kind of content, and that turns into all kinds of content that we can use throughout all of my marketing channels. So that's something that's doable for you, I highly recommend that you get a lot of support to do a video podcast, but it can be the central strategy for your marketing.

I hope today you have gotten ideas, inspiration and motivation for using video to grow your profitable, joyful consulting business.