Emmy-winning TV producer Paula Rizzo breaks down a six-step system for launching a weekly live-stream show: planning your audience and intent, prepping with repeatable systems, handling pre-production graphics and tech, promoting through social media and guest networks, producing the live broadcast, and repurposing the recording into blog posts and other formats.
Chapters
Hey there, I'm Paula Rizzo. I'm so glad you could jump on with me live because we're talking all about live streams and the 6 steps that you need to know to create your own live stream show. Since starting my own live stream show, which is called Inside Scoop that I do every Thursday, I have gotten quite a few inquiries about how do I do it week after week? What is the technology that goes into it? How do I plan it? All of those things. So I'm going through my 6 steps today and I have an invitation for you as well if you're interested in learning more, because there's only so much I can give you in this short amount of time. But if you're interested in joining me to learn how to do this, uh, in a, in a group environment, I am teaching a masterclass on this and I'd love to invite you. I'll tell you more about that in just a bit, but I want to dive into the 6 steps that you need to know to create your own livestream show. Why do you want to create a live stream show? Well, listen, part of it is building authority, being able to show people who you are and what you do. And, um, you know, really being able to showcase your expertise. Also, it's a really great way to network. I'll talk about that a little bit later, but it's a nice way to be able to get people in your, you know, in your circle to be able to talk to them, maybe, uh, you know, open up doors that you didn't have before. And, um, it's a really good way to get some exposure for, your clients, your potential, you know, people that you might do partnerships with and things like that. It really works for that as well. Now let's dive into the 6 steps that you need to know to create your own live stream. So I'm going to share some slides with you. How exciting. Uh, and we'll go through those together. All right. So as many of you may know, I'm an Emmy Award television producer and I'm the author of 2 books about productivity, Listful Thinking and Listful Living. And as a television producer, I am, you know, no novice to live video. Live video is how I basically have, you know, um, created my career, putting things up on TV live. This is no different. This is an amazing opportunity that we have now to be able to do this anywhere in the world, really. You don't have to be in a TV studio to do it. So I am thrilled that I've been able to have that, um, you know, experience both in front of the camera and behind the camera. So as an author, I've done a lot of live television where I'm the one being interviewed, which is great. There I am with Ernie Anastas. Any of you New Yorkers definitely know him. He is a legend in New York TV. And, uh, yeah, so I, I've, I've been able to do this from both sides. I'm also a LinkedIn Learning instructor. If you're joining me on LinkedIn, I am thrilled to have several courses with LinkedIn Learning that I'm able to talk all about productivity, list making and all those things that I love, like remote working and hybrid work and all that. And I'm the host of a show that is a livestream show every Thursday called Inside Scoop. And this is what we're going to dive into today is, is this livestream show and what I've been able to accomplish by doing it every week and how you can do one, too, because I think it'd be great for you to start this livestream show. Soon. I've worked with lots of companies on media training and, um, you know, getting people ready to be better on camera. I've worked with CEOs and experts and authors, uh, you know, big companies like Dow Jones, the New York Times, Toyota, uh, you know, all that kind of stuff. And so I'm happy to bring to you the skills that I know as a media trainer, as someone who both, you know, does it for myself and also helps other people do it as well. This is Joe Duran. He's the managing director of Goldman Sachs. I interviewed him for my first book, Listful Thinking, because he's a big list maker. And one of the things that he actually said unrelated to lists but related to video is that a potential client does not know or remember if they met you in person or saw a video of you after 2 weeks. Isn't that incredible? It's pretty true though. Think about it. You know, if you, you've watched, you know, TV news probably for years, you feel like you know those anchors and reporters. They wouldn't know you if you went up to them. That'd be a little weird, right? But the same thing. So for those of you who are sort of interested maybe in doing a live stream or more videos, this idea that people won't even remember if they met you in person or not, or they saw you through a video, is really powerful. And it's a great way to reach many more people that could be your potential clients. So here are laid out those 6 steps to creating a live stream, and I'm going to go through each one of them: planning your show, prepping your episodes, pre-production, promos, producing your live show, and then post-production. I will go through each one of those with you, and I'm gonna take some questions at the end as well. Now, if you have questions, like I just said, I will take them at the end, but make sure you, you stick them in the chat box now. And if you're watching the replay, stick them in there too, because I'll be able to go back to this and answer your questions as we go. So please make sure that you ask those questions as I go I'm sure there will be a bunch of those. Okay. So step 1 is planning your show. This is the most important part of all of this, because before you go live, before you say, okay, I'm going to put this show together, you need to set the stage. You need to make sure that you have your audience in mind. So understanding who is your audience, who are you talking to? What is your intention with doing this show? Why are you doing it? What are you hoping that they get out of it? What is the promise that you're giving to them? Will they be, you know, more productive? Will they be healthier? Will they be, you know, inspired? What is that? But having that clear picture around intention is super, super important for anything that you're doing— this show, writing a book, creating one video, creating a blog post, whatever content you're putting out into the world. This is very, very important. And this is what I looked towards every time I created any— anything in, in television, you know, when I worked in the TV world, to think through, okay, what is my intention with this? What is it that I'm hoping that the audience will get out of it. Not what do I hope I get out of it. It's about the audience. So what do they need to learn that I can best teach them? What's the intention for this? So that's number one, planning out your show with intention and knowing why am I doing this and who am I serving? Okay. That's super, super important. So that's number one. Step number two, prep your episodes. All right. Now think about creating something repeatable. I'm big on systems. I love lists. As you know, I love spreadsheets. So I've created a very, very repeatable show every single week. I do it exactly the same way. They're all different, but the system that I use is exactly the same. And that's what I'll dive into in my masterclass, but create a repeatable show with guests worth talking to and show episodes that will get people talking to you live. So this is the fun part. This is the content, right? This is the who would be the best guest to bring on or what topics do I want to talk about? Make a list of those topics or those experts that you're like, hey, this person just wrote a book about that. I'd love to talk to them about it. When I first started doing this for my livestream show, Inside Scoop, you know, I thought through what are all of the topics first. I thought topics first, right? I have a class coming, or episode coming up soon about sleep. Sleep is very important for productivity, right? And without it, you're not as productive. I know that for myself. The days when I don't sleep enough, I'm like, you know, dragging through. And I thought it'd be really great to have an episode just about sleep. And then I went and found the expert, but sometimes it's the opposite, right? Sometimes you see somebody and you think, oh my gosh, that person's such a great speaker. They're so wonderful. I would love to somehow take something that they're doing and relate it to my audience. Okay. That's very important too, to be able to take the episodes and make sure that you're still building on that promise that we created, that intention from step 1. So that intention will lead you through as you're creating and prepping all of these episodes. It's important to note when you do have this episode guide, you know, um, just have it as a brain dump at first. Just have a whole bunch of people, you know, on that list. And then from there you can start to put them in order, right? Are you going to do this as a weekly show, as a biweekly show, as a monthly show? What does that look like for you? What feels fun and also doable? You don't want to create something that then you dread doing. So you want it to be fun. I do my show once a week. Every Thursday at 2:00 PM because I like to have a set time that I do it every week. Uh, and also 2:00 is good for me afternoons. I feel a little bit better to be in front of the camera, be talking to people, lead conversations and things like that. I'm not a morning person, so I don't want to do my show in the morning. Think about that for you as well. What is, what is it that's going to make you consistently create this show? How are you going to be able to do that? Set yourself up for success. It's your show. You can create it however you'd like. Also think through how long are your episodes going to be. I shoot for about 20 to 30 minutes tops. Okay. You really don't need, if you're talking to somebody else, you don't really need that long. They could be 10 minutes, um, because you don't want to lose people. But at the same time, don't forget, we'll talk about this in one of the next steps, but don't forget, you're going to have some interaction, right? You're going to have some people hopefully asking questions live, people who are there. The audience is part of the show. That's an element that you have to include in the timing of your show. Step number 3 is the pre-production. Okay, by this I mean the graphics, the animations, the technology, all that cool stuff that makes a show look really, really great. And if you've seen Inside Scoop, you know I have an open that I run. You know, it's an animation with music, and then I have graphics and all of that. What is it that you want to do with your show? And know that you don't have to do that the first week if you don't want to. I didn't. Because I wasn't quite there yet. I wasn't quite ready. Even as someone who has been producing live video for years and has done thousands of hours of live television, I wasn't quite ready to have all the bells and whistles on it the first episode. So if you go back and you watch the first episode about breaking the overwhelm of email, you'll see there is no open, you know, there's no introduction, you know, video and things like that. I added that afterwards and that's totally fine. One of the things that you want to make sure that doesn't keep you back is that you're not waiting for it to be perfect, because if you wait for it to be perfect, you'll never launch it. So just get it out there, do the first show, the second show, and then you can add the graphics. Then you can add things in here and, you know, switch things up and say, oh, you know what? That didn't look as good as I thought it was going to look. Let's switch it up. No one will notice. No one will really care except for you. So give yourself that kind of permission, but it does make it look more polished and more professional. I use, um, StreamYard. To go live and I love it. It's a great platform to be able to broadcast live to every platform that you want to go to at once, whether it be LinkedIn Live, YouTube, Facebook, and Periscope, which is Twitter. So I enjoy that very much. I, they make it really, really easy. And in my masterclass, I'll walk you through step by step how to use it, how I use it, exactly how I set it up so that week after week I can just come in, sit down, and do my show. Number 4, the promos. Okay, so the promotion. There is a saying in television that what is the point of doing the whatever it is, the show, the episode, the story, if no one sees it? And the way that you get someone to see it is by teasing it. It's called a tease in television, to be able to tease and say, hey, this is what's coming up, this is what we're really excited about, and we want you to join us. You know, you've seen this before. They say, you know, coming up at 10, and then they tell you, you know, whatever interesting juicy thing you might want to know about to get you to watch the show. You have to do this too, right? So you have all of your episodes lined up. You have to tell people that it's happening because it is possible to go viral with this, but it starts with a really great promotional plan to be able to use social media and your email list and your friends to be able to shout it out and be able to say, hey, this is going on. This is happening. This is a reason why it's a good practice to have guests because the guests will also promo for you. So that widens your reach. Okay. Sometimes people think, oh, you know what, I'll do a show, a solo show just for me, just, you know, just with me, which is good. And every once in a while I do a solo episode as well, but I think it's important to be able to leverage the network of other people. So definitely Think that through as you're creating your own livestream show. Step 5 is producing the livestream show. So the actual live show, okay? You want to create a comfortable and interactive environment for your live show. I don't want you to be in a panic every time you have to go live. And part of that comes from practice, practicing, writing a script, knowing what you're going to say, understanding, hey, if something goes wrong, this is how I'm going to handle it. All of that stuff happens before you hit go live, way before, and making sure that you look great, your background looks good, your hair, your makeup, all of that, your sound is good, your camera looks nice, you have the right microphone, all of that, the equipment that you're using, it's really important because it makes you look and sound super professional if you do it right. So to be able to have, um, that kind of, again, repeatable so that every single week that you go live or every day, whatever it is that you're doing, you have your formula. You sit down and you say, okay, this is how I'm going to do it. And off you go off to the races. It's really, really important to also remember that it'll be live, but you won't always get people on live with you, right? So you may have interaction with people who ask questions, you know, in the moment, But understand that this is also replay. Okay. So you're going to have this for a long time. Think about that. Think about what will this look like for someone who's coming and watching this, you know, an hour from now or 2 hours from now or 2 days from now or 2 years from now. Will it still be great content then? Here's a little tip. You know how in the beginning I said, hey, I'm going to take questions for this, which I still will take questions. I'm going to take them at the end. I think about, hey, if I'm watching the replay on this, I'm not going to want to watch the host saying hello to everybody and welcoming everybody and doing all of this high-fiving, virtual high-fiving in the beginning of this episode because I won't want to watch that. It's only fun if you're there live and the host says your name. Otherwise, for somebody else watching it on the replay, it is not fun. You just want to fast forward to the next part that's there for you. So think about that. Remember that the first thing that you're saying and doing on that live stream will be recorded and someone will likely be watching it after the fact. And that's great because that's part of the plan. That's the next piece of this that I'm going to get to in a second. So this is a media training client that I had. His name is Mo Gawdat. I've been on his podcast. He is an author of a book called Solve for Happy, and he says, two days after Paula's coaching, my interview with Channel 4 News in the UK went viral on social media with more than 100 million views. Whew, that's a lot. Within just 20 minutes, Paula's media training opened my eyes to ways I could be even more effective in spreading my message. Aha. So this is all about how you present yourself, how you put yourself out there, how you talk to the camera, how you talk to the audience, how you talk to your guest, because that's something too. A great host is someone who, even if you know the answer, you're gracious enough to let your expert answer. Okay, uh, so often I found people jumping in on their, on their guest and saying, oh well, I know it's this and I know it's that, instead of letting them shine as the expert. That all comes from practice, that comes from media training. That is what I do all day, every day, and I'm thrilled to be able to help you do it if you do join me in my masterclass. Now, number 6, step 6 is the post-production, the after the fact. So this is what I was alluding to just before, keeping the momentum going, right? You want to keep this train going every week, every month, however often you're doing it with new shows and then repurposing that content so it will continue to make an impact. Okay. What I do with every single show, every Inside Scoop episode after it's over, I have the episode transcribed. So it's written out word by word verbatim. Then it's turned into a blog post. From there, that blog post becomes an email that I send to my email list. The blog post, we put the video in it, right? We embed the video in there. So it's a multi, all different layers there of that one piece of content. We use it for social media, all of that. And the reason I do that, I mean, that's what I learned to do as a television producer. I worked for a long time in digital at a dot-com. And that's what we did. We created one video and then we pulled it apart and we used it for all different kinds of media, uh, you know, and, and to be able to share it in different ways. That's what you want to do. You want to repurpose it so that you're doing one thing and you get a whole lot of things out of it. And for me, it's the most efficient use of my time to be able to come on, do a video. And then after that, we're able to turn that into even more collateral. So keep that in mind that if you're kind of thinking about, oh, I think I'd like to do a live stream. I know podcasters do this. They use the podcast as their main piece of media that they produce, and then they use that for other pieces. Video is an even higher piece of media, I would say. So there you have it. There are the 6 steps to your live stream show. Step 1, plan the show. Step 2, prepping your episodes. Step 3, pre-production. Step 4, promos. Producing your live show is step 5, and then step 6, is the post-production. And this is exactly how I do it. And then I do it again and again and again, and I just keep repeating the same process. It's a different guest, there's different questions, but for the most part, it's pretty much, you know, a really nice cycle so that I know when I sit down and I'm gonna do that show every week, every, every Thursday at 2 o'clock, I already know what's gonna happen. And there's a lot of comfort in that. Um, if you have a team, you can set up time with your team to be able to help you to get all those moving pieces to work. That's what I do. I have a virtual assistant who helps me with many of the pieces of this, and that's very helpful to have someone there to be able to help you. But you don't have to, you know. And when I go live, I'm live on my own. I don't have a team with me to help me push the buttons and all of that, which I'll walk you through if you do sign up for my masterclass. Now, this is something that you can do. All of those steps are not, you know, so, so difficult. You can absolutely do it. But you might be thinking, OK, well, that's kind of a lot. It's a little daunting. It seems like there's A lot to get through. You might feel like you're on top of this mountain saying, huh, how am I going to get over there? How am I going to be able to get to the live show land? Well, this is how you do it with a systematic approach. Okay. So here's what you need to do. Identify the perfect show for you. We talked about that in the first couple of steps. What is it that you exactly want to do? Envision what every episode is going to look like and then be confident hosting it, bringing that person on and Introducing them to your, to your group, to your community. Consistently create engaging content. That's how you do it. That's how this is actually repeatable and easy and fun and hold you accountable. That's a system. So you need to create that system to be able to hold you accountable every week. You know, I have a virtual assistant, as I mentioned, and she does the work every week to get the next show ready. And I've already booked the guests. So it's like, I got to show up to do this. You know, you can't just, just bail. So you want to have that system. In place. And you could absolutely do it on your own. I mean, for sure, I did it, I figured it out, but I've also worked in TV news for almost 20 years, so I know how to put a show together. How long would it take you if you have no perception of how, you know, a good show is put together? How will you stay accountable? Will you actually do it? If you have a VA, if you have someone on your team, that's even better. You're, you're definitely on the right track. But then what will you know what to change? Are there things that you have questions about? So this is where your invitation comes in to join me in Go Live, my masterclass that is happening. And here's what you get in the class. There's going to be two classes that I'm teaching. The first one is a two-hour immersive masterclass on Live Streaming 101. So we are literally going to go through all six of those steps together to help you create your show with all of the technology, all of the stuff that you need to do. I will walk you through exactly how I do my show every week. Um, there'll be, an implementation Q&A. So that's going to be an additional hour where we're going to just come together, you know, about a week or so after the first class and say, okay, what'd you, what'd you do? What are you thinking? What are you scared of? What have you been able to do or not? And how can I help you along? Because I want you to do this. It's not enough to just say, hey, I'm interested in it and I'll show up to the class and whatever, but I really want you to do it. Whether you do it now or you do it later, I want it to be in your mind that it's something that you should be doing. And you will be doing it because I will give you all of my templates and all of my checklists. This is something that I— it's the only reason that I'm able to do it again and again and again because I have a system. Every week we go through this template and the checklist with every guest and it's just super, super simple and super easy. And if you're a student in the class, I'm happy to share all of those templates with you and walk you through how they work and how you can customize them for you. Plus you'll get recordings of the videos, so if you can't make it live, or you want to go back to it later on or say, hey, you know what, I want to do this livestream class and then I want to, you know, do this in a month or two months, you can always go back to see those videos again. So after taking the Go Live Masterclass with me, you'll be able to name your show with confidence, decide on your first 3 show topics, at least use the best tool to livestream, including exactly what buttons to push. I will walk you through step by step how to do it. What to say on camera, how to look your best. This is the media training piece, right? To be able to ask very, very thoughtful questions, to do an intro that's exciting, to look good on camera. And then you'll get all of my templates and checklists to make the whole thing really easy. And you'll have this production plan that you can just rinse and repeat and do it over and over and over again for as long as you'd like. The investment for the class is $297. The class is, I should say, uh, it's an early bird pricing. So if you're watching a replay on this, this might not be available, but if you're watching live, good news because this is a savings of $100 through May 5th, 2021 at 5:00 PM Eastern. Now, the way that you jump in here, I'll tell you in just a minute, but I also want to tell you who is it for. It's for entrepreneurs, it's for professionals, coaches, consultants. If you're an executive, if you're a speaker, a podcaster, or anybody who is looking to get their message out there, an author. Okay? I'm many of the things on this list I am. So you may be in multiple, multiple places on this, on these lists, but it can definitely— a livestream show can definitely be for anybody in this, in this realm or anyone who's just interested. Let's say you're like, you know what? I want to know more about video in general. I'll teach you. If you have questions for me, I'm thrilled to take those. So make sure to put those in the chat boxes below and I will grab those from you. And here's some of the top questions that I get. You know, what if I can't make it live? What if, you know, for some reason I'm not able to, to come? Totally fine. I'm going to record it. You will get the recordings whether you're there live or not. So you do not need to worry about it. You'll get all the templates. You'll get everything. Even if you can't be there live. Can I do this on my own for free? Totally. Absolutely. I just gave you the 6 steps to do it. So you just need to go through those 6 steps and create your live show and put it all together. This is for someone who wants to take it a step further and say, hey, I want to use a system that I know already works. That's already created for me and support from the person who created it to be able to say, hey, you know what, I love this part, but how would I get it to work for me? Oh, okay, let's look at it and let's see what would work for your show. What if I don't have time? You could make this excuse for anything. And also, I'm a productivity expert, so I can help you find time for sure. But this is all about priority. What is your priority? What will getting this mean? This this livestream show get you? I'm going to tell you in a minute what it's gotten me. And if any of those things are a priority, then you will make time for it because you want to be able to consistently create content that gets you noticed, that gets people to look at you and say, hey, how is she doing that? What is she doing? You're giving yourself the show, but you're getting tons of recognition from other people. How do I know this will work? I'm so glad you asked. Here is— oh, because I know, because I have launched this show, Inside Scoop, that I do every Thursday, and I have gotten tons and tons of things just from doing this. Yes, I love doing it. It's very fun. I get to interview a lot of people. But since launching Inside Scoop, I have booked speaking engagements, corporate workshops, private clients, increased leads to my email list, you know, increased people who are on my LinkedIn newsletter, which I have. If you know, if you're not a member of that, please sign up for it. But I've been able to get lots and lots of people and lots of attention networking with thought leaders, reaching out to someone saying, hey, I have this show, I'd love for you to come on. Then those are potential partnerships that, that you start to, you know, curate. It's a really exciting thing and consistent content production that's actually fun. It's very fun to be able to do this, to be able to put something together and put it out into the world and see it flourish and have people share it. So that's what you can get out of doing a livestream show. And again, the invitation to join me is here. It's $297 right now. If you're watching the replay, this time may have elapsed, but if not, grab the early bird pricing, which will be around until May 5th, 2001 at 5:00 PM Eastern. And the way to do it is if you go to paularizzo.com/go-live and you can sign up there. Now I'm going to take some questions and see if there are any other questions in the, in the comments there to be able to, you know, make sure that I answer all of your questions. But I'm gonna stick this also in the, in the chat box. See, I'm doing my own, my own pre-production and all that so that you can join me there. And if you have questions, absolutely make sure that you ask those. And please, you know, if there's anything that you want to ask, not only about, you know, the class, but also about, you know, live streams in general and what kind of things that you might be able to do. Maybe there's something out there that you've been thinking of and you're like, I don't know if it would work live. Maybe it will. And also, if you're scared to go live, I will help you with that. But understand that it doesn't have to be live. There are ways around that, and we can talk through that in the masterclass. But absolutely, Please make sure to join me, paularizzo.com/golive. If you have friends or anybody who you know who's like, "You know what? I think they would really benefit from this and I really hope that they would join," tag them. Tag them in the bottom here, in one of the chat boxes, and let's get them into the class. Well, I hope that you've enjoyed this. I hope it's been helpful for you to go through those 6 steps. I can't wait to see you live. It'd be great to see you.
