Do You Have a Successful Business That Needs to Pivot to Being Virtual to Survive?

The world's gone virtual! It's not business as usual and you need to figure out how to pivot so you can be online. And you know that video is a huge part of it.

But, how do you do it right?

How do you do it well?

And most importantly, how do you do it fast?

Maybe you've already thrown something together to "get by" or maybe you still don't know where to start.

Either way, it's "doing business virtually" as we move into video conferencing, video chats and pretty much doing everything we used to do in person online now. 

That means using video to communicate and sell our products and services. As a small or medium business owner, you used to have the choice to use video.  

Perhaps you'd planned to create an online course "someday." Or, get around to using video "someday" to automatically sell your product because you know it's the best way to scale your business without hiring a lot of staff.

Now, however, "someday" is here. There is no choice. You have to pivot to video to keep your business going.

And while you may think you can still hide behind slides to create video sales letters, you should think again.

That's because the competition now is fiercer than it's ever been. Because people have been forced to move "someday" to today's calendar, they're showing up on camera.

So, if you're still hiding behind slides, you're not going to be competitive.

And there's one simple reason for this: The best way to keep the human connection going virtually is by showing up on camera. Over and over again, people express the desire to "see" the person hiding behind the slides during a video sales presentation.

Of course, we all know this truth. But, knowing it and getting started are two different things.

When getting started with video, problems arise like what kind of equipment do I buy? What do I say? How do I sound authentic on camera? How do I keep people listening to me? And, really, how do I sell on video without sounding like an infomercial?

So, in this article, I've put together a list of seven things you need to consider when using video for your business so you can stand out from the rest of the crowd and know how to get set up fast while the rest of the world still fusses around trying to get things together.

1.First, of course, most people go straight to getting equipment. After all, you can't ride a bike without first buying the bicycle. And there are numerous options for that today. One question I often hear is "Can I use my phone?"

But there isn't a quick answer to that question because it depends on your end goal. If you want to be really efficient with video, I say no, the phone is not the most efficient choice. If you do a lot of remote work, then yes, that could work. But, a mobile phone is still not the most efficient choice in my opinion.

I have my equipment so streamlined that I can use video daily to save myself time. Which, yes, is opposite to what many people believe about video - which is that they don't have time to do videos.

So, the first thing to think about in equipment is how to set it up so it makes video effortless to use on a daily basis - while still making you look good. Because, I'll let you in on something... The equipment you choose and how you use it can make you look good or not-so-good on camera.

The thing you want to do is set up your equipment once and forget about it so you can move onto the more important parts of doing on-camera video. Next…

2. Second, to excel on-camera, you want to find the part of your "live" personality that has just the right energy for the camera. This is something I see so many people missing. Instead, they fabricate a false persona, or they withdraw and are dull. Or, they become robots from the anxiety they're feeling about being in front of the camera.

It's natural to have these feelings. Back in the '80s when I did my first TV commercial, I froze when I had to deliver my lines to the camera the first time. And I had already been a model for years and was used to being the center of attention. Yet, when it came to talking in front of the camera, I was intimidated. Like most of us.

But, we can't let this happen because then we lose our credibility. It's like the time when talking movies came out and the old "silent film stars" lost favor. Why? Because they couldn't adapt to the new medium where they had to talk.

The same goes for you. The medium of video has certain "rules" to it that can make you look and sound awesome when you leverage them, and not-so-awesome when you ignore them.

One of the main rules I'm sharing here is that you must find just the right energy from your real personality that makes the camera love you.

3. Next, even if you're interacting with a live audience, you need to know exactly what problems your audience is dealing with and what they want to hear to solve those problems. This is at the top of the list in importance because if they don't hear solutions to their problems, they're gone. And, obviously, that's because it's easy to click away anonymously versus walking out of a room where all eyes are on them as they leave. This is one of the main factors that makes video difficult to use successfully if you don't do this part correctly.

And if you're automating a sales video, you have to "think like a viewer" every minute so you keep your audience engaged. What are they thinking about? What questions are they silently asking? Are you answering those questions? When you know those questions they're asking and answer them, you can keep them listening.

4. Next, you need to put everything in a certain format that walks your prospect through building rapport with you to the sale itself. Of course, you will need a few basics like writing a speech - beginning, middle and ending. And you want to have an offer that's going to resonate with your audience.

But, in the copywriting world, there are proven formulas for walking your prospect through the emotional and logical process they need to go through and say "yes" to buying.

While there are many "formulas" out there, the best one to follow is one that keeps the process simple. It grabs attention, makes them listen, gives you credibility, gives them value, creates need awareness and offers an irresistible solution to the problems that they've become aware of during the video.

The most important part, however, as with any sale, is to get them emotionally engaged and you do that by injecting stories into your presentation at strategic points.

So, bottom line, you want to create a presentation that walks your prospect through an emotional process that keeps them listening so they get to the end of the journey with you.

5. In addition to having a presentation that is formatted, you also need to be persuasive and engaging on video to get them to take action.

The way you do that is by adding additional elements to your video to make it more influential and persuasive so people don't click away so easily. What you want to do is keep them so engaged, they don't even think about stopping and clicking away.

So, you have to craft your presentation in such a way that you put in persuasion techniques. You add things like patterns interrupts that keep them listening for their own benefit and no, this is not manipulation. This is to help them get to the point where they can solve their problem.

But, you have to be careful with the persuasion techniques you use for video. They have to be subtle. For example, a classic pattern interrupt in person is by clapping your hands or slapping the table. On video, however, using such a strong technique only looks like an infomercial and is too harsh.

It's about being subtly influential and persuasive, yet authentic, which brings us to number 6....

6. Delivery matters the most. You want to deliver your presentation in such a way that you are so authentic that your viewer feels connected to you through the lens. This is a step up from bringing your live personality to the camera. This is about being able to focus that personality into the lens and penetrating your viewer with your presence.

I have done this for over 35 years in the professional film and television industry where I literally had to reach through the camera lens and connect with the producers so I stood out in a sea of hundreds of other faces auditioning for a national commercial or a film. It's about focusing your presence to be captivating.

To do that it's not about pushing your personality into the camera as if you were on stage and speaking to the last row. That's overbearing. It's about focusing your presence into that small lens. Think funneling your energy.

Once you've found your exact energy that the camera loves, there are many different techniques for making your delivery authentic and focused. One way is your eye focus. Practicing focusing your eyes to penetrate deeply into the lens makes a big difference in how you are received on the other end.

It's a subtle technique, but one that pays dividends once you master it.

7. Lastly, you want to put it all together. Get your equipment streamlined, know how to present yourself in a professional manner with clothing and camera angles, and then have all the pieces in one place online so you are ready to sell.

And this part is one of the biggest parts of the puzzle that stops people. Having a strategy for using video efficiently and having a way to sell via video online so you can scale your business on autopilot.

To do this, there are a multitude of "all-in-one" platforms these days where everything is done for you - versus the "old" days when you had to string online puzzle pieces together.

In choosing a good online platform, the one thing to keep in mind is asking, "Will this house all my videos for one fee?" Because when you get into video storage and bandwidth limits, it can get costly to do video.

But, there are platforms that will do all of this for you, plus supply marketing tools and automation too.

So, the key is to keep it simple when you're selling online and keep as much as possible on one platform with, of course, a backup plan in case that platform goes away.

I hope these seven things have helped clarify what you need to do for video and that you really hone into making video work for your business in the new virtual world.

If you want help with this, you can schedule a strategy call with me. To schedule that call, please visit: https://www.suzanneglover.com/work-with-me