I Need Video Content But I Don’t Know How To Start [Endless Customers Podcast S.1 Ep.22]

Note: This transcript was generated by AI and has not been edited for accuracy.

Alex
0:00:00
All right, Lindsay, I'm a business owner, and I want to start making videos, but I don't have a videographer.

Alex
0:00:05
What do I do?

Lindsey
0:00:05
Well, Alex, do you have a smartphone?

Alex
0:00:07
Yeah.

Lindsey
0:00:09
Do you have a place in your office or home where you can stand in front of a window?

Alex
0:00:14
Yes, I do.

Lindsey
0:00:15
You have no excuses.

Lindsey
0:00:16
You should start making video now.

Alex
0:00:18
No excuses.

Alex
0:00:19
Let's talk about it.

Alex
0:00:20
Welcome back to the show.

Lindsey
0:00:28
This is Endless Customers.

Alex
0:00:29
My name is Alex Winter and today I'm joined by Lindsey Otten, head trainer and coach here at IMPACT. Lindsey, what's good? Welcome back to the show. Great, great, great to be back, Alex.

Lindsey
0:00:40
I'm excited to be here and talk about this, our great topic with you today. Yeah, I know we're always excited to have you and we do have an interesting topic today,

Alex
0:00:47
I think a very relevant one for business owners and for a lot of people out there that are trying to get into the video game and to start on their video journey and creating content in a meaningful way. But we hear this all too often, I want to make videos but I don't have a videographer. I want to make videos but I don't know anything about video. Help, help me. So I think to kick the conversation off, let's first talk about as a coach, and you interface with a lot of companies,

Alex
0:01:16
a lot of clients, industries, things like that. How often do you hear this, and what's your typical recommendation for people that are in this state?

Lindsey
0:01:24
Yeah, I hear it often. People know that they need to do video. People have an understanding that if someone is, well, pull back the curtain a little bit. As many as 90% of people doing research online or consumers doing research online watching YouTube video before, you know, while they're trying to discover a new product.

Lindsey
0:01:48
So people understand and know that they need to, in this day and age, do video. And I think with the, obviously video AI is, I wouldn't even say up-and-coming technology, it's here. It can get better, which I'm sure we can get into in a later thing, but with the technology and developments that we have now that make editing a little bit faster,

Lindsey
0:02:12
that make shooting video a little bit easier, there's no excuse to not do video anymore. Like there's some editing tools out there where I'm like, dang, I wish I had that when I was in college because I would not have stayed up all night editing a like a Sitcom I shot with my friends for a class project and me both

Alex
0:02:35
Yeah, and I've been there. We know we were both film school film school kids and The technology has come so far in such a short time that even when I was in school We were still shooting on film my senior thesis film was on 35 millimeters. So to go from shooting on quarter million dollar cameras that shoot film that you have to spend tons of money on where it really was almost untouchable, unless you were a specialist, to where the technology is now,

Alex
0:03:01
like the power that's just in your pocket from your phone, there's no excuse, there's no more excuses. So what are some steps that people can take to start getting into this if they don't have a videographer or if they don't know about video?

Lindsey
0:03:13
Yeah, well, I think the first thing that needs to be true is there needs to be a shift in mindset. That is the first thing of saying, oh, we can't do this, we don't know how to do this, we're not gonna be able to do this. The reality is, is you totally can. If you have a smartphone, latest iPhone, latest Android, you have a good enough camera to make quality video.

Lindsey
0:03:37
So that's not an excuse. What's going to be crucial about your mindset though is you have to recognize that even though you're not a video professional, you can still shoot something that looks and sounds good, but it's not going to be perfect. It is not going to be the level of quality that a trained videographer would be able to accomplish in a faster period of time.

Alex
0:04:05
Right.

Lindsey
0:04:05
So you have to give yourself grace to say, all right, we're going to do this. These videos may not be, they're definitely not going to be perfect. They're not even going to be perfect if you have a videographer. There's always going to be something that you can give feedback on for that videographer to improve. But you're basically, and if you've never done video before, think of this as your baseline. This is the baseline of quality that you are creating

Lindsey
0:04:28
for your company that's never done video before, that sets the standard of, all right, this is where we started, we know we can improve from here. So once you get past the mindset of I can't do this, and once you get past the mindset of I'm not gonna make, I'm gonna make something that looks perfect, or I'm gonna spend a lot of time

Lindsey
0:04:45
to make sure it looks perfect, and you just start making videos, that is the first step into actually being able to take on making video content for your company when you don't have a videographer.

Alex
0:04:58
That's a huge point, and it can be scary at times. It can be scary when you're, it doesn't just have to necessarily be video. It's anything that you're doing for the first time, if you've never done it in the past, it's always a little intimidating. You want it to be right, you want to do a good job, all the stuff and things where

Alex
0:05:13
you can almost get in your own way. And sometimes you just have to do the thing and try it and know that it's not going to be perfect and know that you're going to make mistakes and that those are good mistakes because it's going to help you get better and it's going to help you learn. And eventually the more you do it, the more comfortable you'll get with it, right? Do you have examples of this? Have you worked with some clients that maybe knew they needed to do video content, wanted it so badly, but they didn't have the budget

Alex
0:05:38
to hire a videographer yet, and so they had to take this on on their own.

Lindsey
0:05:43
Yeah, I have actually a few that I'm working with right now that are in that position. And it's a full team effort. One, you know, and every company kind of tackles it differently. For one of my examples, I'm working with a COO who is doing all the video work himself. He's shooting it from his phone, he's editing it,

Lindsey
0:06:04
he's posting it using HubSpot Video on the website once he gets everything uploaded, or once he gets everything finished, his content manager's making his thumbnails for him for the website, but he's doing all of it on his own. And then I have another company where it's CEO and content manager tag teaming to make the videos. And one thing I think is really cool about what Elena

Lindsey
0:06:29
and Integra, shout out to Elena, content manager at Integra, is doing with her with her subject matter expert interviews is she's taking, because she records them via Zoom, so she's taking the Zoom recordings from her subject matter expert interviews that she's using for articles and running it through video, I think it's.ai, video.ai, and coming up with short clips for social. And that's a form of video that is right in your back pocket that you can pull out. You're already filming content for your content managers, filming content for their article writing interview process. Could you repurpose that content and make it into a video.

Alex
0:07:15
That's really cool. That's something that I think a lot of people overlook is that Zoom is a great tool. Microsoft Teams is a great tool and these are things that you're using every day for meetings and for business. So why not leverage them to your main? You're on Zoom with us right now here in studio. So anyone can take advantage of these tools.

Alex
0:07:32
We also use video here at IMPACT as well and it's a great artificial intelligence tool that people can use to crank out content, great social media content, all sorts of videos, all sorts of things, so you don't have to be a master editor, you don't have to be this this crazy videographer with all this experience anymore, you really don't.

Alex
0:07:51
Now, let's talk a little bit too about how important it is that like, yes, you can do it yourself, yes, it's better than not doing it, so if you're on the fence of like, should we do video or not, because we don't have a videographer, the answer is yes. It's better to have video content than not. But then longer term for business owners,

Alex
0:08:09
what's the importance or what do you tell them about how do you get to a place where you eventually do a videographer? Why is it important to have such a critical team member on your team as part of your content and marketing efforts?

Lindsey
0:08:22
It really comes down to ownership. If you think about the barrier to entry for someone owning written content, for example, you could have someone in your company who does a couple of roles write articles. They're not gonna be able to get three articles a week like a content manager would, but the barrier to entry is less because everyone can easily open a Word doc or a Google doc and start writing. Video, the barrier to entry is higher,

Lindsey
0:08:54
I would say, because there are a lot more variables involved. You need to have something to film with. You need to have at least an aptitude for technology to be able to open an editing software and not get intimidated by it. See the example that I used earlier where the COO is the one shooting, editing, scripting all of his videos, showed up on a meeting one day and was like, I spent 10 hours editing a pricing video.

Lindsey
0:09:24
Do they need that video? Yeah, they do. And it's a great addition to the pricing page, but is it really valuable for a COO to be spending 10 hours editing a video, that Alex, if you or I were to open an edit software and edit that same video, it's between like a seven, eight minute video, it wouldn't take us 10 hours.

Alex
0:09:49
Definitely not.

Lindsey
0:09:50
But we know our way around an editing software. Right. So, it's, video can't, the idea of taking on video sounds great, but you have to be realistic and say like, how much can I actually commit to it, and how much am I going to procrastinate? Trying to get all this done because even as a video professional, I know my least favorite parts of the video production process

Lindsey
0:10:10
I'm procrastinating like I have to edit something. I'll say to myself. All right, I can take care of this at the end of the day I'm gonna get all of my other work done first and then five o'clock rolls around and I haven't opened the dang project, right?

Alex
0:10:23
so

Lindsey
0:10:25
even Right. So even so if you're juggling multiple things more often than not, I see video fall to the waste side. So you have to be really honest with yourself and say, like, all right, if I'm committing to video, I know at some point I'm probably going to have to hire a videographer. I can take this on for now, but I have to be really disciplined with how much time I dedicate to it, because video does require a certain amount of time that honestly someone who's already doing one full-time job can't take on long-term.

Alex
0:10:56
Yeah, yeah, so you got me thinking, right? Because for business owners and for leaders out there, you have specialists for a reason. If you're the CEO of a company, to your story, to your point, right? If you're the COO, I'm sure you have a lot of other really important stuff that you have to worry about and get done in operations for the company

Alex
0:11:11
and P&Ls and the rest of the team and all sorts of things, right? So adding video to the mix is just another thing you're gonna have to worry about. Something else is gonna fall off because of it. So where do you, or like how do you approach that conversation of like, there's ROI and there's value in hiring a video specialist,

Alex
0:11:28
even though you may not be there yet? Like how do you start those conversations and set people up long-term to know like, this is where we're going, like the trajectory is to get to this place, because it's an ideal state versus trying to do the balancing act that you're currently doing.

Lindsey
0:11:40
Yeah, it's, it depends. If we have a content manager, we're writing really great content and we're doing everything we should be doing and we're driving traffic, we're generating leads, we're closing sales faster, it's not unheard of to say, all right, you know this is working with content, you know you need video, maybe you've seen some success

Lindsey
0:12:01
using one-to-one video in your sales process.

Alex
0:12:04
It's time to take this to the next level.

Lindsey
0:12:05
What can we realistically spend on a videographer this year? Or at what point this year or next year can we hire a videographer? Or how do we plan to do that? Once you see the value of a video. And so it's not necessarily a question of if it's going to happen, it's when is this realistically going to happen?

Lindsey
0:12:27
And it's always a reminder of, hey, you spent 10 hours editing this cost video. At what point is that not sustainable for you? And you have to pull the trigger and hire a videographer because what else could you have been doing in those 10 hours that you didn't get to do?

Alex
0:12:43
Right.

Alex
0:12:43
Is that the best use of your time? Yeah, totally. Exactly.

Lindsey
0:12:45
Or if it bleeds into your personal life, if you spent 10 hours editing a video and that 10 hours was at home when I should have been spending time with my husband and kids or wife and kids.

Alex
0:12:57
Right, right.

Lindsey
0:12:59
The question comes down to how much do you value your time? If you value your time, what could you be doing with your time to make the company more productive? And having a videographer on board will significantly contribute to your productivity and gaining that back in your day.

Alex
0:13:16
Yeah, yeah, so long term we're clearly focused on trying to get that dedicated person in. Short term it sounds like, don't be afraid, there aren't any barriers anymore with technology where you can get right into it. But there also seems to be like common mistakes around like, oh, the excuse train comes in and it's like, oh, we don't have the tools,

Alex
0:13:37
we don't have the budget to hire this person, so then businesses end up doing nothing. What do you say to people that are doing nothing and that are basically just floating in the ether, and maybe they have a good content person, they're still putting blogs out, they still have a nice website, but what do you say to those people

Alex
0:13:51
that aren't contributing with video and that aren't creating video content?

Lindsey
0:13:55
I thought they were crazy in that, they really should just start doing it. No, it's more of like, hey, do you actually want to capitalize on your market with your marketing strategy? The answer's always yes. Like, yeah, we wanna be the best. We wanna be the one that stands out amongst our competition. We wanna be the most trusted voice.

Lindsey
0:14:14
All right, well, you need video. Hate to break it to your friends, you need video to do that. So, it's again, it's a hard, not necessarily a hard sell, just a conversation to look someone in the face and say, all right, if this is your goal, this is what you need to do to get there, what are you willing to put in right now

Lindsey
0:14:33
to get closer to that goal?

Alex
0:14:34
Yeah, that's a really good point. And then also, so when the pendulum swings, so we have the maybe, the people that aren't bought into it, the people that don't have budget for it, right? But then on the other side of the equation, when the pendulum swings the other way, what happens when somebody's like, I'm just gonna hire a production company

Alex
0:14:50
and spend a huge amount of money and just have them come up with the creative and tell me what to do and I'm just gonna throw money at it and have these really shiny, pretty videos. Like, what do you say to those people, right? Because I'm sure you've experienced both sides of the fence here.

Lindsey
0:15:04
Yeah, and I don't want to throw shade on all freelancers or all production companies, because there are some that I've worked with, even with companies where like, we can't hire a full-time videographer yet, but our production company that we've done in the past is great, they're really bought in, and they produce great work.

Lindsey
0:15:22
So, that's more of an anomaly, honestly. Like, most of the time when you hire a production company, what you're going to get is, you're gonna get stuff that doesn't feel as personal to your brands, you're not gonna get something that feels authentic to the written content you've created, it's not necessarily going to have the same voice and tone, and ultimately you're going to end up spending maybe more than you would have if you just hired an in-house

Lindsey
0:15:50
videographer. And you can't keep up with the cadence of videos that you need to like run a successful YouTube channel or to have videos successfully posted on your website. If I'm asking someone to publish two to three videos a week on a YouTube channel or website, and you turn to a production company and think, all right, minimum two videos a week on my YouTube channel, there is four weeks in a month. So that is eight videos that I would need to post in a month.

Lindsey
0:16:23
That product, and continuous over time. That's a lot.

Alex
0:16:26
Yeah, that's a lot.

Lindsey
0:16:27
That's a lot.

Alex
0:16:28
Mm-hmm.

Lindsey
0:16:29
Yeah, it really is a lot.

Alex
0:16:30
And those bills can add up with a production company, and you're paying for quality. So when you have multiple people, crews, gear, everything coming out, that you're gonna be spending top dollar. And if you have the budget to do that, that's great. But just based off of what you said, it sounds like if you have the budget to do that,

Alex
0:16:46
then you also have the budget to hire somebody in-house and probably save you some money. And then you also have somebody that's part of your brand, part of your company, part of that culture that can really speak, I think, a lot better than somebody coming in from the outside. Sure, they can do their research and they can understand, but having somebody that's part of the team

Alex
0:17:04
is gonna ultimately be a much stronger voice, in my opinion.

Lindsey
0:17:08
Agreed, and you never know, too, like what the turnover's like in a production company. Like, you could show up to a shoot one month and have a great experience as a videographer, but if that person leaves and takes another opportunity, then you have to start getting to know another videographer again. And you don't have any control over that

Lindsey
0:17:26
when you're working with a production company. Or, like, they got an editor, or they have an intern, and they have clients that are paying more money than you are to make their videos. Well, you could potentially get stuck with someone who is no shade on them. They're learning, they're growing, they're honing their craft,

Lindsey
0:17:45
but if you're gonna be spending a lot of money on videos, why would you not bring that person in-house, teach them what you want them to accomplish and allow them to grow and refine their skills and your brand voice while developing a repository of really awesome videos that actually answer customers' questions. Totally.

Alex
0:18:05
It's almost a no-brainer for me, and this is not throwing shade at production companies or freelancers, because we love them, we need them, they're super important to the world at large. But if you're a business owner, and you're spending five to 10K a month on those eight to however many videos per month that you need, five to 10K a month,

Alex
0:18:22
I mean, that adds up over the year, where that could easily be somebody's salary that's a dedicated person on your team So that's that to me isn't a hard conversation to have because it really just it makes sense when you talk about it And you put it in that in that perspective, right? So I think one of the biggest pieces to is education or understanding, right? So if you don't know about anything, you know about something you have to learn about it You have to read books. You have to watch videos consume content. However, however, you get a better understanding for these things

Alex
0:18:50
So there's a lot of tools out there. You can go on YouTube. There's a lot of ways you can learn about video. But we also have a lot of tools here. So what would you recommend for somebody if they can't hire a videographer right away to get them started so that they can make better decisions and they can make informed decisions?

Lindsey
0:19:04
Yeah, well if you're in IMPACT+, there is a session that Zach Bassner did, gosh, it was maybe 2019, 2020, 2020. It was the year I was hired at IMPACT. All about setting up a camera, specifically a DSLR camera to shoot videos. And I think it's even called, you can be a great videographer too,

Lindsey
0:19:29
in the name of the session. But a video like that, that breaks down the basics of, if you have a DSLR, breaks down the basics of what the camera is, what the settings are, should be, what, if you're filming like in your home or in office, where the best setup is for you to film, something like that to help you say,

Lindsey
0:19:52
okay, I can get a grasp on filming these videos. From an editing standpoint, I love Premiere Gal. Yes. At YouTube, she's really fun. She does a great job talking through different things that you can do in Premiere Pro. But if Premiere Pro's overwhelming to you, then start testing out different editing softwares

Lindsey
0:20:16
that are AI-based, like Descript. Calling back to my COO friend who spent a lot of time editing his Koss video, he did it all in Descript. And he had used Premiere before, got sick of it. He was like, I don't want to use Premiere, what should I use? And I said, you should try Descript. And he loves it.

Lindsey
0:20:37
He loves the fact that in any of the features, he can get like an educational video pop-up that teaches him how to use it like on the spot. So shout out to the team at Descript. They're doing a great job.

Alex
0:20:49
Yes, they are.

Lindsey
0:20:50
Yes, they are. With that product. I know CapCut is another example. We talked about video. So, I would start looking at things like those tools to help you swallow the pill of, all right, I have to edit this video, and I know people don't like editing

Lindsey
0:21:07
and have heard it takes forever, how can I get started? Those tools make it really easy for someone who's not a natural video editor, who hasn't been trained in editing, to begin editing. Absolutely, and some of

Alex
0:21:23
those are free tools, so you don't have to spend money on these tools. They're free. They're obviously certain levels if you want certain features you pay for, but like you can, the cost to enter is free. Like I know CapCut is free. I know DaVinci Resolve is a free tool. There's also, to your point, AI is huge. And the more I see it, the more impressed I am by it with what it can do so quickly with editing and spitting out shorts and different pieces of content

Alex
0:21:50
in long form, it's really impressive. So it's important to leverage those tools. I also think, and this is something that I was talking with Austin about earlier, Austin here in studio with us today, we were talking about the shift in perception when it comes to video. Things used to be, when we were coming up, it was like the more highly produced, the more polished, the more cinematic, you can make it feel, the music, that's what people

Alex
0:22:13
really wanted. It was almost like the Hollywood effect, right? And because of social media and the way things have shifted just over the last, let's call it five years, I feel like the perception of quality has shifted too, where the over-polished stuff isn't really as effective anymore, and people are more focused on the actual quality of the content, the human being, the person, the conversation,

Alex
0:22:35
and less about, wow, they have this gorgeous background and they spent all this money. Do you think that's true? And if so, how does that play into, for business owners, as they think about embarking on this journey, that, hey, you don't have to overthink this. It really comes down to building trust, being genuine,

Alex
0:22:51
and creating quality content.

Alex
0:22:53
Yeah, I agree with it to an extent.

Lindsey
0:22:55
Like, I agree that it doesn't have to be Oscar-winning cinematography, Oscar-winning editing, Oscar-winning lighting to be a good video. Like, you can get away with a minimal setup with not a lot of high-tech tools to create a compelling video. Like, I am a video person, but we are shooting this on my laptop camera, and I don't have any lights on around me.

Lindsey
0:23:26
I'm just standing in front of a window. Is the lighting perfect? No, but is it, it's pretty good considering. I think so, yeah.

Alex
0:23:34
Standing in front of the window,

Lindsey
0:23:35
like it could be, like, I could probably have a little bit more light on this side of my face, but that's a nitpicking a little bit here. But the like moral of the story is, it doesn't have to be perfect. Now you still have to be able to see the person that you're talking to.

Lindsey
0:23:55
Like I still get some video submissions where the angle of the camera is here and people are looking up or people are looking down. It's like people are smart to that stuff now. Like they do, the layman will recognize when something is not positioned correctly or framed correctly.

Alex
0:24:13
Or if the audio is off.

Lindsey
0:24:14
Yeah.

Lindsey
0:24:14
If the audio is off, people will recognize that. So what I tell people is get the basics down, get your framing down, get good enough lighting, and then get good enough audio and see what you can do to enhance it with tools from there. I have a company that I'm working with right now who uses, typically I would tell people to shoot, if you're using a DSLR camera, shoot your audio on a separate recorder with a lavalier mic. They were struggling with that, but they took their audio recording that they got from the DSLR and ran it through Adobe Podcasts and I couldn't honestly like I couldn't tell the difference. So what are

Lindsey
0:24:58
the little like tips and tricks that you can come up with to enhance the good enough that you've already created to make it better? So I agree that it doesn't have to be the best production quality but you should try to put in an effort to make it look and sound as best you can with the skill set that you have because even the people who are like user generated content, they're putting an effort to make it look and sound good.

Alex
0:25:26
Yeah, no totally. And there's certain things too, like you said right out of the gate, you're like I'm facing a window, so the lighting actually looks good. But if you 180ed and you're facing away from the window where you're backlit, it would look not so great. So those are things that, as a video professional, are

Alex
0:25:42
second nature to you. But maybe not everybody knows these things about framing and about audio and about lighting. So there are best practices. And to your point earlier, there's great resources. YouTube is a great resource. IMPACT+ is a great resource. There's a lot of ways that you can learn some of these

Alex
0:25:56
fundamentals pretty quickly that are almost common sense. And once you get it, you can start to instantly make better video content. So Lindsay, this has been a great talk, right? It's been a great talk and I think video is a critical piece to any business' success when it comes to creating content and driving traffic leads and sales. Any final thoughts that we wanna share

Alex
0:26:14
before we wrap up here?

Lindsey
0:26:16
Yeah, don't be scared of video. Take the bull by the horns, go for it. I think you'll surprise yourself with what you come up with, honestly.

Alex
0:26:23
I think so, too. Lindsey, it's always great talking with you. Thanks for your insights. If people have follow-up questions or they wanna pick your brain about video so that they can also start on their video journey, how can they get in touch with you?

Lindsey
0:26:32
Yeah, so you can email me, lauten@impactplus.com, connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm always happy to answer any DMs on LinkedIn, but those are the two main places where you can connect with me. Or if you're in Chicago, at IMPACT Live, I'll also be there. We can talk in person, so.

Alex
0:26:51
Excellent. Lindsay, thanks again. You're welcome on the show anytime. For everybody out there that's watching and listening, this is Endless Customers. I'm Alex Winter. I'm Alex Winter. We'll see you on the next episode.

Transcribed with Cockatoo