Who's Using Sales Videos?

What niche works best with sales videos? Any ingredients that are a must to make a video that will show the most quality results.

Yes, I did. Usually, the teleprompter is over in my studio (small apartment I rent across the road), but I lugged it over to my office for this one:


BTW, it's better if you see it in larger scale at You Tube (just click on the video to go there).

Sorry. I had photos and I can't find them now. Somewhere on one of my computers, or in my camera. But, basically, you place the laptop flat under the plexiglas, which is angled. The camera goes behind the plexiglas and shoots through it. Place a dark cloth over the back to keep out light, and you'll see the text, but the camera doesn't.

if you go for Guinness, make sure it's the Irish *bottled* stuff. The draft stuff simply does NOT compare! (married to an Irish girl, so I know what I'm talking about ... honey, what's for dinner ... ahh, good, Guinness...)

quick note regarding "putting yourself out there".

there's a great story in Jack Black's "You can't win" (story of his life, how he drifted into becoming a criminal and then drifting out of it again): when they did some heist (often confidence tricks), they practiced until they were "in the zone", they were the "character".

the one particular story is where they rob a jewellers by pretending to be one of the people who work behind the counter and show customers the jewels.

"just" get dressed up, walk in with full confidence and "be" an employee of that store.

I'm not saying you should choose an 'alternative' life-style, but the key here is this: if you've got a product that really helps people, and you know that you're the expert who can help them, but they don't get it because you're camera-shy, then you're not helping them nor yourself.

Solution? Get in the zone! Either tell yourself often enough that you are the expert until you believe it (yes, I'm not a great fan of positive self-talk myself...) or get others to tell you how great you are. Seriously, everytime you get positive feedback, stick in a text-file and when you're facing the camera and you're not sure if you can do it, open that text-file, read through it and you're off.

alternative, if you are serious, join Toastmasters.
Pretty frightening the first time you go, but you get to practice every time you go and before you know it, you love standing in front of that camera.

I keep hearing "yeah, but you've got the natural confidence" blah blah blah. Let me tell you, as a teenager I had such crippling shyness, it wasn't funny. There's absolutely no way I would ever have considered standing in front of a camera and talk straight to it.

and then I started doing all the things I mentioned above: go to Toastmasters, collect positive feedback and "bask in the glow";-) and tell myself regularly that a) I'm an absolute expert in what I'm doing (I am!) and b) that the world will lose out if I don't get my word out.

Result: I now make my living giving seminars in front of live audiences. And it doesn't bother me one bit (well, ok, there are pre-race nerves from time to time;-)

Here's another thing: when I started speaking into the camera, it was AWFUL!: "hello, my name is...", er, no, "heeeeelloo, my name is..." ah, sh**, "hellllllOO!, my name is ", aahhhhhhh, "Hi, my name is", bu**er, "...."

it takes practice, but not as much as you may think.

which brings me to a great quote (I'm paraphrasing) I think by Rich Schefren and it goes something like this:

"the most private is the most public/common"

the thing YOU think is the most embarassing to you and YOU are the only one suffering from it, man, let me tell you, the vast majority of the rest of us are suffering from exactly the same s**t.

(I do meditation seminars, and after a few weeks, when everybody loosens up, guess what, the same ol' stories come bubbling up over and over again: "oh, you feel you can't love yourself, you need to love others first? No kidding, you're the first one EVER to say that...")

and the same goes for standing in front of the camera: almost everybody hates the thought of it before they do it (and for the first few days whilst doing it).

so, go for it, and post your results here for us to give you some feedback for your "basking in the glow" collection.

Veit

ahh, that's my quota for words in WF for today, off to do some real work...

As an Irish fella who's living in the UK I know exactly what you're talking about when it comes to the good stuff.