S1 Ep 17: How To 5x Your Video Confidence

Welcome back to the Marketing Muscle Up podcast show. I'm your host, Richard Deternji, and, uh, welcome if this is your first time listening. So excited that you're here. And hope you enjoy these episodes. It's all about ensuring that you can really take your fitness business to the next level, not just through the business, but also through your lifestyle as well. I think that's really important, especially to stay longevity in this industry. This these episodes got launched on my 40th birthday, and we're doing 40 episodes in 40 days. So if you are tuning in today, go back and watch episode one. You can hear some. early stories on how this— how I started and my journey as well. So if you haven't yet tuned to episode 1, tune in to episode 1. And I've got with me Ev Chapman. Ev Chapman is, for those who don't know Ev, she's a head of brand at ComMarketing and she's been in our team for over 7 years now. I remember the first time that Ev came, we got to know each other, was that you were renting out an office. I think we had an office for rent in our office in Alexandria. Kind of applied through, I think, my Gumtree ad. I'm always using Gumtree, so I'm assuming it was Gumtree. Is that right, Ev?

It was Gumtree.

It was

the place to find everything. Gumtree,

the place to find everything. And Ev, how did you get into your, um, your, your journey of digital marketing? And I, and I, I've called you a few times this name, a full-stack marketer. Yeah, a lot of different avenues of marketing that you can do. I think we should, we should open up a little bit. I don't think we've actually talked a little bit, Ev. So just give me your 2-minute rundown of your, your journey into the digital marketing space.

Yeah, I, I randomly quit my job one day and decided I wanted to become a freelancer, and I didn't have any skills in marketing at all. But I was more kind of on the IT side of things, I would say. So it was the glorious time of getting people into the cloud and there was all sorts of things going on like that. So I spent a lot of time in Google My Business and kind of setting people up in Google and that kind of thing. And then I had quite a few friends who then said, oh, you know, like, can you set up emails for me? And so that kind of, you know, it all kind of melded into one. Like when you're a freelancer, you just say yes to a whole lot of things. And I was lucky enough to have some good friends in business who let me kind of experiment on them. And so I ended up getting into really heavily into marketing automation with ActiveCampaign. And I learned a lot kind of through that. I built websites for people, you know, I just kind of faked it till I made it. And that's, I think, where I ended up meeting you is that I've, yeah, I felt like I needed it, you know, to have a proper office and Alexandria was the place to be. at the time, and it probably still is. And so yeah, I ended up kind of getting into marketing. And, you know, I was talking to somebody about this the other day that they have a similar— had a similar story. And I said to them, did you go to uni to learn this? They were like, no. Google University? Like, that's really how I learned. Like, you Google things, you work it out, you say yes. And somehow it all works together.

Yes, totally. And, um, yeah, putting Ev on the spot there, that wasn't planned, but I'd love to, um, yeah, delve into that full-stack marketer a little bit, uh, down the line. Um, but yeah, it's, uh, today's episode is how to 5x your confidence on camera. And the reason why I asked Ev about this, because I've seen Ev's early videos, and you've probably seen my early videos. And whenever we do something really early, like being an early adopter, Ev, with some of these platforms like emails and, um, you know, Google My Business, items that we take for granted now, um, yeah, you know, the, the adoption is, is key. And when we're talking about confidence on your camera, I— my brain automatically goes back about 10 years and I go, okay, 10 years ago, I, I went around Australia. We launched our directory at the time called Meet Your personal trainer, and I went around Australia to film all the trainers. And the reason why I did that is because I knew that if I said go and upload your video to a personal training directory, we would have nobody uploading videos because people don't like to be on camera.

No, they don't. I mean, some people do, um, but most people do not like being on camera. Everyone I say To— you're gonna— everyone in our program, when at the beginning I say you're gonna be on camera or you're gonna do a Facebook Live by the end of this program, they're like, no. And they always end up doing it.

Totally. It's always the way. And I was never one for camera and I'm still, you know, still on camera. Like, I think it's normal to get a little bit nervous, a little bit, what are you gonna talk about? How am I gonna— how's my voice gonna sound?

Yeah, most people hate the sound of their voice.

No, I— Such a weird thing.

I think you just get used to it.

Yeah, yeah, I sound like my brother on, on camera. I had no idea. And so for a long time, I didn't even listen to— I've watched myself back for many years, and I've heard sometimes actors don't, they don't watch their films back, so they haven't experienced it. So whatever it is for you, if you don't watch yourself back, if you Just, you know, I always say just got to get over yourself. It's really about just getting it done. And the reason why I want to get it done is because we know time and time again, um, you know, a picture says a thousand words, or video says a million words. And a video can be used for so many different attributes for marketing, and especially for fitness professionals when we are selling a service, we are selling ourselves to a degree, we are selling personality. there's nothing better than a video.

Yeah.

And a lot of the time, videos are about people. And so yes, we can put pictures together like the old school, you know, when you make a slideshow up for your parents' wedding anniversaries or birthdays or That kind of stuff and you put 50 photos together and you put music together on that. Have you done that before, Ev? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I've done that many times.

Usually, the technical people will always do that in the family, right? They'll always want to get some—

You go on a trip, you create your slideshow, show it to your family. Yeah. Done

that. So we've all been doing that, but videos with a person in makes it much more real and it gives a character to your videos. And I want to explain to you what I mean. Yeah. Around 10 years ago, me and Joey, we were on the first ever season of Amazing Race Australia. We were contestants and it was a really amazing time. I'll use amazing again. It was an amazing time. It was a really good experience. And so we went on there for the game and we forgot that we actually had to be on camera a little bit and do interviews and things like that. So I remember very clearly it was day one. I think we were in Bali and we were racing around. We went from Melbourne MCG. I climbed up the light tower of the MCG and then, and then climbed myself down. And we flew on a plane to Bali. We raced there that night. it was our first time we had to kind of sit there and talk about our day on camera to the production team. And this is the first time I've kind of— I mean, we did some— we, we did launch a book, so we had a bit of media training and experience from my agent. And I remember my agent said to me, Richard, um, you've just gotta— well, first of all, he said, Richard, you've just gotta don't have gaps. He said you can have gaps, but don't say um and stop the bridge word, and ensure that you always get in there fast with a response, and ensure that they ask a question, you expand the response. I said, okay, that's good advice. How does that work in practicality? And so going back to the race, when we're on the race at night, we sat down and asked a lot of questions. And the biggest tip that I want to talk about is how to ensure that you can just start having a conversation without having to come up with what you want to say. And so I want to give a few hooks first, but first of all, the easiest thing that we've found to do is answer your question and put the question in the answer. And that's what we always say to clients. Yeah. So when we set out Amazing Race, they'll say, Richard, who do you think is the team to beat? And they would put the question there. If you ever watched a cooking show or reality TV show, you'll see this time and time again. It's like a— it's a cookie-cutter framework. And so the contestant, that was me and Joey, would say, well, I believe the team to beat is— so we answered the question in our answer, and it meant that nobody was on— no, another voice was on there. Now, we were sitting in front of the producer. We were both sitting down. They were sitting there, the cameraman And then me and Joey. And they were just behind the camera, right behind the camera. So we'd look right down the camera and they would ask the question and respond back to it. And that's the second thing is always go straight to the lens. And you've got a, you call it a sticky face. You have a sticky face Post-it note. Is that correct? I've seen it.

I do. Yeah, I do. Because I think, well, okay, one, most people do not look into the lens of a camera, especially if they have a picture of themselves. So like a lot of like if you've got your phone or something, you're always looking at yourself, not the lens. So I think one, it reminds me to look into the lens. Yeah. But the other thing is that sometimes it's really awkward to just sit in a room and talk to yourself, especially if you're like recording on your own or maybe it's a Facebook Live or something like that. So I just have a little sticky note with a smiley face And I just pretend that is the person I'm talking to. Sometimes it doesn't work. Like up here, it's like I've got a wall straight behind me, so I could like stick that there. You know, if you've got a photo of someone, you could always stick a photo there or, you know, that kind of thing. So I try and—

Speak to a person, uh, speak. Yeah. And, um, it is because sometimes a lot of time we use Zoom, but before the Zoom days when you, when you are trying to get your information across, you are talking direct to camera. And so when you're doing that, you want to put your best foot forward because there's generally no conversation back and forth. So number one is, I always say, is have somebody asking the question to you. Now,

yep,

when we launched our directory, Meet Your Personal Trainer, going back to that story, what I did— and this is, this is proven to work, over 1,000 personal trainers did this before I traveled all around Australia to film these. trainers because I knew it wouldn't get done. And I had a camera and I sat, I was right behind the camera and I asked them the question and I said, just talk back to me. And I made sure my eyes were very really near the lens. So we wanted to, we wanted to take all the fear away from talking to a camera. So talk to a person. That is the biggest tip. If you're struggling to be on camera, talk to a person. So get anybody behind that camera and get them to ask the question to you and you can Respond back in your answer to that person. And that's the easiest way to break through content and get through. You're straight to the point, you know, you'll very rarely stuff up on that one. If you can get that done, you're doing a good job.

Yeah. I think most people are fairly comfortable with answering a question. And I think that's why it's so— it actually feels so easy to just sit and answer someone rather than trying, you know, like I think I think, yeah, like some videos are like, oh, I've got to come up with a script and I'm going to do this and that. But actually, it can be as easy as just like we're sitting here having a conversation. I'm going to answer a few questions.

Yeah. Scripts and just talking on scripts, scripts are very good if you're doing like a specific video for like a landing page or a product or a service, which is very good, especially for those who like to be super organized. Scripts will work well in your favor. However, when you are on camera, and I've seen this 99% of the time, is that your eyes are going to be looking at that. You can use a teleprompter and there's lots of teleprompter apps out there as well. And you can get glass teleprompter as well. However, when you are doing teleprompter, the script has to be exactly the right words.

Yeah.

You cannot have any word that's not perfect or You can't decide, I'm going to change my mind halfway through. That won't work. So you either got to go fully in making a perfect script, or you just want to have confidence to know that you can answer the question back in a very short, sharp, non-fluffed way. When I say fluffed, don't put too many things either side. It's a, it's a really short video, so you don't have that luxury of time answering big answers back.

I think you have to be really good to use a teleprompter, to be honest. It's actually harder than you think it is.

I failed every time.

Yeah, I know. I've been there. But even like, I'm the kind of person who needs to be a little prepared. But even trying to use a teleprompter is like, I feel my anxiety rising because I'm trying to like, I'm trying to keep up with it. It's like it keeps going. I'm just like, oh. And I think you, now you use an app. Actually, when especially when you do your like on the phone videos where you can like record a part, stop, record another part, stop. Are you willing to give away that your secret?

Oh yeah, secret hack. Yes. So my secret hack is I use, I mean, it's maybe old now because you've got Instagram Reels and that kind of stuff, but my personal favorite is a thing called Spark Camera and paid app. It's— I think it's maybe $40 to $60 paid app. People go, oh my gosh, it's an app. But yes, worth the money. And I find it really easy for me to create content using that app because it gives you like— you've got to hold the button down and it gives you 20 or 30 or 40. You can go as long as you want, but you keep things tight instead of long. Yeah. It's like there's an endpoint to the video. Like when you put normal camera on, It can just go for hours and I feel like you just want to keep talking and filling the spots. The biggest thing is you can't think you need to fill the gaps. You don't need to fill gaps. You need to stop and that generally sounds much better.

I think so. I think that's a good point. It's like just don't be afraid of silence. Silence can actually be really powerful in a video. Like you kind of, you know, pause. Like because a lot of the times, we say, we have filler words like um. Yeah, I listen to myself back and I'm like, oh my gosh. But like, you instead of— I know now I'm like really conscious of it. But just being okay with like having a little gap and gathering yourself again. And I think that's why I like Spark Camera as well because you can like record one part and then gather yourself, gather your thoughts again, record something else, that kind of thing.

And in talking about ums and that, when you are uncomfortable about a subject or you haven't talked about it before, Before, you generally will fill in ums. And even on this podcast show, I did listen back to me and Joey's episode of talking about how to work. Because I've never actually talked about that before, I did notice that I filled a lot of things with um, which is um, um, um, um, uh, not I'm good. So you do want to know what your, what your filler word is, if that's um or listen. Yes. Like, just understand what your Filler word is. We generally have 2 to 3, and if you can identify what they are and write them down, just stop yourself before you have to do a filler word. That is the key, to stop and don't fill. Simple as that.

Yeah. And I think that just takes— you got to listen to yourself back, as hard as it is. Not like in a critical way, but in a way that, you know, if you want to improve and you want to pick up on that stuff, like Your early videos, they're gonna be bad. They just are. Like, I mean, rarely people are like good on the first go. And I think, you know, even a lot of the times for me, I'll have— I'll do like a warm-up. Like I need to like get talking first before I actually like do the recording. So it might be like my second or third take where that's like the good one.

Hmm. And talking about warming up, I always say that when you are recording videos, record them, you know, we've done a lot of trainings around when to record videos, but if you are recording videos, try and record them in one hit, one setting.

Yeah.

So they're educational videos and record them at the— when you're really on a high. So I always recommend record after exercise or a training session because your confidence is already at a high point. If you try to record a video first thing in the morning, you're half asleep, you're dragging out of it, or you feel just like blah, you can't do it. And you've got to do it early generally, and you've got to hit the nail on the head straight away if that's your zone, or afternoon. But you've got to be in a zone, and if it's just not working, don't force it. Just stop it and, and do it later because the content will come out much, much, much better. But if you have to record it, just remember, silence is your friend. Remember to answer the question in your answer and then always have someone to answer the question. And we do it with our case study videos you may see on ComMarketing. We do them there. Every reality TV show does it because why? The contestants don't know how to start a conversation and it'll happen there as well. So don't think it's a bad thing. Just have somebody to do this, have someone to do this with. It's always easier to talk to somebody versus doing it by yourself. Hence, We're doing this podcast and I'm calling on you quite a lot, Ev, to open up the conversations, right?

Yeah. And I think it's interesting for other people as well to have, you know, just to have that, like have it more of a conversation rather than just like a monologue of talking and probably easier for you too.

Totally. Now, I've got some hooks that you can use to really improve fast. So these hooks are especially important for when you want to do some educational videos and you just want to get— you don't have anybody there by your side, you have nobody helping you, you're doing your Facebook Live, you're putting it straight up on your face, and you've got to hit the record button. Well, first of all, I would always recommend start these in a private members group so it doesn't go out to the world. Yeah. So it's overwhelming. That's number one. And when you do that, and I said it again, um, again, didn't I? Again, stop. And then you wait for the next sentence. All right. So we are talking about 5 hooks to talk about yourself. How to make it easy to talk when you do have to be straight on camera. So these are the 5. You want to start off sentences that are easy to complete. So what I'll do is write these 5 sentences down. When you write them down, you can start with any of these, and these will make you— this will make it— you'll be curious. Curiosity. It will be timely. It will be intriguing. And you hook people straight away just on opening up these 5 points I'm going to show you. So a lot of the successful ways of why I want to continue watching, it's already been done in the first line. And then whatever you say after is amazing. So it's just the first line that's important. So here goes. Number 1, Ev, is I was talking to a client the other day. I was talking to a client the other day. That's all it is. And then you carry on your story of what you were talking about. So you could be talking about how to lift, how to squat, how to lunge, what to eat, how to do it. And you just go on to your main points in regards to that. And what does that, you know, what was— what does it feel like when you say I was talking to a client? What does it give to you as listening?

Well, one, I do have curiosity, like, okay, like, and but also like a little bit of connection. Like, you know, if somebody is, is asking a certain question of, of the trainer or something like that. So it brings kind of that credibility piece that this isn't just some random, some random thing that you're talking about.

Well, the credibility is I was talking to a client. It means you've got a client, so you're totally credible.

Exactly.

That's an easy one. You should write that down. Always pull it out when you've got to start a conversation because that's the easiest one. Also, you can write that down if you do a, a written blog or article, or you can do in a video. Number 2 is I was in a training session the other day. So this is like behind the scenes, you're in the session. Oh, what's going on in the session there? So the same thing, curiosity. It's now, it's, it's at the moment. Remember, anything that's interesting is always happening now. That's why Facebook Live is so, is so powerful, is because Facebook Live was set up to have it actually now, actually in the moment. Like, you want to share something amazing is happening in your world on Facebook Live. That is what Facebook Live is about. You got to remember why.

Yeah.

Facebook Live is there, and you're gonna get best views is once it's in the now. Number 3 is the question I get asked the most is. This is cliffhanger stuff. This is like I'm on the edge of the seat. What question do you get asked the most?

I think this is a great one because everyone has that question that everybody asks. You know, like for me, everybody asks me when's the best time to send an email. And that's like, I could talk about that forever now because so many people ask me. So it might be, you know, like squats or lunges better? Is that the question everybody asks you? Should I do burpees? Do I have to do cardio? Like there's all sorts of— there's actually so many questions. And that's why I love these. These act as kind of prompts. Like they're easy for you to come up with an idea.

Yeah. It just prompts. That's all they are. Number 4 is that this came up in a coaching session today. This came up in a coaching session today. It's more of an intimate question. It's more of a, I wasn't sure what to do when it came up question. So it's, again, it's, it's getting people hooked, ready, and open-ended. When you use these opens, you realize that you'll get a longer playthrough on any video that you have when the open is strong. And the 5th one, and this is particularly important for if you are sort of pitching yourself out there, or it's more like a video just on you, I call the elevator, the elevator pitch. In our 21-day challenge video, we use this a lot. So my name is, and I help people to— my name is, and I help people to— my name is Richard, I help people to— Lose weight confidently, blah blah blah. And it it just positions it straight away. Well, you don't have to go. My name is just get get it done. Get it get it sorted. So they're the five. I'll repeat them again. I was with a client the other day. Number one. Number two. I was in a training session the other day. Number three. The question I get asked the most is. Number four. This came up in a coaching session today. Number five. My name is X and I help people to X. So that's a way that you'll get the confidence when you can just get the first part out of the way. And talking about the first part, if the old replay— if you are doing this on Facebook, the replay video gets watched a lot. Even on YouTube, they get watched a lot. So when you are on—

Yeah.

Facebook Live, really important to talk to the audience that's going to watch this on replay. So you've got to be prepared and ready with the initial conversation straight away before you sit there going, I'm going to wait for people to come on to my live. If you're not—

yeah,

a person that has a million fans, probably nobody's gonna be on straight away, and that's okay.

Yeah.

But you want to start off strong so when they do watch on replay, they don't hear the the mumbling and I'm going to wait around and things like that. You can do that initially directly after you talk about the headline. In today's Facebook Live, we are talking about how to get the best abs. And then you can go into welcome, welcome, welcome. But you really want to start off strong instead of starting off weak at the start.

I think so. Because otherwise, because I mean, I don't, yeah, like most people are watching the Facebook Lives on replay. And so you don't want, like, you don't want to annoy those people, stop them watching, because that is where most of your views are coming from.

Totally, totally. All right, team, I hope that helps with your video confidence. Remember, the video is one of the best game changers of your fitness business, and it's something that when you get the confidence doing it you won't be able to stop because it really is a way to get your message across to more people, even if it's just communicating with your members in a Facebook group or care communication or talking to potential new members, is that video is the best way to do that. So it's something to really go deep on, on this one. Again, if you want any more help than that, there's some extra training resources in a group called Crush Your Fitness Marketing on Facebook. Just request to join. And we go deep into some of these topics there. Otherwise, you can watch any of our blog content on our website, commarketing— that's 2 Ms— .com.au. Ev, that's it for today's episode.

That's great

and

really fun. And

just going back to your story from the start, you, you are full-stack marketer, we talked about. We'll get into that topic later, but isn't it interesting how the landscape is always changing in regards to digital? I mean, you're talking about doing emails and ActiveCampaign and all these things.

Yeah.

Very new, but some things just don't change. And videos, to me, you know, this is a conversation that seems to be I mean, talking about for 10 years and it's still going strong. Why do you think that is? Like, why do you think videos is still standing strong and it's still really powerful?

I think that video is the fastest way to connect with people. I'm predominant, you know, I'm predominantly, I love writing and I love writing blogs and stuff like that, but there is something very powerful when you turn up on camera and somebody hears your voice and they see your face and experience your personality, it, it really, it brings that connection like nothing else I've ever seen.

Very wise words from a full-stack marketer. Ev Chapman, good to have you here getting all this information out. And for those who do want to see the videos of this, go to YouTube, search Richard Toutounji or the Marketing Muscle Up Podcast, and you'll see us on camera. Em's in Sydney, I'm in Queensland doing the, doing the old Zoom, and I'm actually building a studio here. That's why there's a little bit of echo still in the microphone. It's an empty space, so do excuse the echo if you've got some on my microphone, but that is going to be changing shortly. So I know a few people said, hey, the echo. I know, I know, the echo.

Yeah, we're fixing it, we're fixing it, guys.

It's all part of the, um, I find it's all part of the journey and it's all part of the experience. It is. And like you said, go back to episode 1 and see what it's like. But, uh, you know, the basis of this is that it's definitely not the mics, it's the room I'm in. And the basis is that you look back on the journeys and you understand you just got to get it done. So just get it done and get it started. Get your video started. You don't have to have the best equipment. You don't have to have the right room. You've just got to get it done. Here is— we're looking for confidence. That's what this topic was about. We're not looking for the most well-polished video. We are looking for the confidence. So then people buy into confidence and people can hear you in confidence. And so that's the question here. We want to get you comfortable with that. And remember,

yep,

just practice, practice, practice, and you will be amazing at it. Thanks, team. I'll see you on YouTube and look forward to our next episode of the Marketing Muscle Up podcast show. Bye for now.