Evan Carmichael, who has made over 2,000 videos, says authenticity beats polished perfection. He hires videographers through trial shoots with multiple candidates, prioritizing cultural fit over portfolio. Coaching and studying speakers like Les Brown taught him to focus on message impact and storytelling.
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Hello, Believe Nation. I'm coming to you from Hollywood, California. I'm here on a personal vacation as well as interviewing Christopher Gavigan from The Honest Company for my book. And it's Monday, and so it's time to answer a question from somebody in my mastermind group. This one comes from Rich, who wants to know what are people's concerns around photography and video, being in front of the camera like solo entrepreneurs, and as clients. Clients seeking to hire photo and video companies. So I've had a lot of experience in, in video more than photo, and being in the place, Hollywood, here where so much video is done, I thought what I would do is break this down and share both what I've learned and also how I'd like to get better. So in terms of being in front of the camera, the biggest things that I've learned are: one, to be myself. It's hard. Being yourself is hard, but I think most people when they first go on YouTube or first try to make videos, they try to be a perfect version, they try to be the polished version, and usually that's the person that's hardest to connect with. Where when you can be vulnerable, when you can be human, when you can show, you know, mistakes, or when you feel like— when you can be genuine, feel like the message that you're speaking is coming from the heart, then it's much easier to connect with people and you're going to get a much better response. The second thing I found is it's great to inject passion, and I found the videos that have done the best for me, the ones that move me, are the ones where I'm more passionate than the other ones where if I'm just talking like this and I'm memorizing a script, then it's not so much the words you're saying but how you're saying it. The delivery is really important. I think both of those things have gotten better for me in terms of being human and using passion with practice. I've done 2,000 videos on my channel, and so that takes a lot of work. Also, getting coached, working with Janie Moon, who is a media coach who helped me a lot in getting me to be better and be more myself. Rich, if you're making these videos, I think teaching people how to be human, how to be comfortable in front of the camera, how to bring their passion would really help. In terms of what I still want to get better at, I think the biggest thing is not so much the video and the technology, it's the message. There's some great videos that are shot just off of an iPhone, but the message is so powerful that it goes viral and gets shared and has an impact. My goal is always impact. My goal is I want to learn to be a better storyteller. I want to learn to use analogies better. I want to— you know, I look up to guys like Les Brown and see how they command an audience and how they speak and how they bring passion to everything that they do. And I want to learn from them to not be like them, but be the best version of myself. And so those are the kind of resources I'm looking for at this stage in my video career, I guess. The second question was around hiring a video production company. For me, so I've hired somebody, I have somebody who works for me, comes Wednesdays for 4 hours a week to film my videos, and we usually are in and out in about 2.5, but I still pay him for the 4. I think the biggest thing in terms of hiring somebody is finding somebody who can work with you, finding somebody who understands what you're trying to do has the skills but then also loves what you're doing. So what I do, my usual hiring process is I'll hire multiple people on trials. I make people go through this process to see who can kind of be filtered through, and I've talked about that a lot on the channel. If you go back, you can watch my hiring videos. But for my videos, there are a bunch of people that I was going to hire on 1-day trials, and the guy that I like the most from his email responses. I just posted on Craigslist to find my guy. The guy I like the most, he— I lined up him as my third guy. So I tried two other people first just to get a sense of working with them. I think that's the easiest way. I didn't want to look at their portfolio, I didn't want to look at their past videos. The easiest way to work with somebody, see if it's going to be a fit, is like start working together and see if it works. And so the first 2 people were just okay. The first 2 people were okay. They used my gear. It was okay. We just didn't necessarily have the vibe together. And then the 3rd guy, Jason, came and just blew me away. He brought his own gear and he loved everything I was doing on my channel. He loves personal development and just— we clicked. And that's what you want with your your videographer. So yes, you want somebody to save you time and to take that burden off of you and to increase the quality of your videos, but most importantly, I find for anybody you hire, you want somebody who loves what you do and clicks well with who you are. In terms of what I'd still like to develop and get better at, I think for me it's more an issue of I don't know what I don't know. You know, I rely on my team to now help me with the videos and to create a quality product. I'm the on-camera product and they do all the off-camera stuff. But it's a great question and one I think, you know, maybe getting external reviews, maybe getting you, Rich, to look at my videos and get some suggestions that they might be able to get better on. I'm a big believer in always having my team and myself continue to improve, and so getting outside feedback as to how the videos could be better I think is a good logical next step, and thank you for making me think about that. And I'd like now to turn it over to you guys, the audience. What do you think about photography and video? What are the questions that you have? What do you want to learn? Rich has some contacts who want to create a series on YouTube. He's a photographer. He's done photo shoots with Lady Gaga and big celebrities. And wants to know what kind of questions he should be answering on his channel about how to do things yourself, as well as what to do when you're hiring somebody to help you out. So I'm curious to know. Leave it in the comments below, and it would also really help Rich. So thank you guys for watching. Continue to believe. I will be on my way home when? On Thursday, I believe? And until then, I'm going to enjoy California. So thank you guys, take care, have a great day, I'll see you soon.
