Demonstrate Your Credibility

Demonstrate Your Credibility

Be emotional when you speak; people watching you will connect with that.

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17 Be Emotional TW rev 02When you are talking to the camera, the more you can relax and let ideas flow from your heart to your mouth without taking an extra journey through your mind, the better you will connect with viewers. You should think about what you are going to say before you start and then just talk, without getting hung up mentally. Even if the words you say are not perfect or they don’t roll elegantly off your tongue, as long as your ideas are clear, people will follow along with you.

A heart connection covers a lot of misspoken words

Sometimes when obsessing over saying the exact right words, we sacrifice emotional content for intellectual accuracy. This is harmful to building the type of relationships that linger with some people because it comes off as being sterile and distant. When you are warm and inviting even if the syntax of what you say is flawed, the essence of what you mean will come through. It is better to address a person’s heart first; you can give them enough evidence to support their understanding on an analytical level later.

Keep it real and you won’t have to apologize

Always be honest and keep from exaggerating. When you lose people’s trust because you misrepresent something, it is almost impossible to rebuild their belief in what you say. Always be enthusiastic about what things really are or what actually happened and you will never have to embellish reality beyond the truth.

Get worked up or change the subject

If you aren’t feeling excited about what you are telling people either talk about something else or use a technique like transferring the enthusiasm you have for something else you really care deeply about to build your energy level. One way to do this is to remember a time that something really amazing happened and use that emotional high as a reference for feeling deeply involved in what you are talking about. If you are unsure that you are putting too much or too little into your presentation do it three times: once very dry, a second time really big and over-the-top and then a third time somewhere in the middle. That way you can choose which works best when you watch them back.

Consistency produces results

This will come easier the more you practice it so keep making videos and you will get better at letting your true heart show through as you speak. You are going to find that there is an audience for you because certain people will be able to relate to your way of communicating more than others will. It is simply a matter of enough people (who are interested in what you have to offer) seeing and hearing you present it to the best of your ability.

Who I am:

I’m Philip Quintas and I make it easier for customers to trust you before and after they buy from you by creating simple videos that help you help more people.

If you want one-to-one help with making better videos, I can answer your questions and even write, shoot, edit, upload and promote videos for you or any combination of these services.  Sign up using the Email Address* and First Name* form on this website to get direct access to me, my experience and offerings.

Record Sound In A Quiet Place

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01 Quiet spot TW rev 02Find a quiet spot to shoot your talking head videos in. If it is very quiet you may not need an external microphone.

Two reasons why your audio is usually awful

One of the most common problems that you might have when first starting out making videos is poor sound quality. The microphone being too far from the source of sound you are recording or the environment being too noisy often causes the trouble. Sometimes the solutions that you attempt to use can make the situation even worse. For instance, when you plug in an external microphone and the connection is bad, you might get no audio or intermittent audio recorded. No sound is definitely much more of a challenge to overcome than poor audio quality.

The best way to get good sound starts with one basic idea

You should always try to record audio in as quiet a place as possible. This is because all sound recording equipment produces a better result when noise is kept to a minimum. That is why when musicians make records they usually go to a recording studio that has a sound insulated room for them to perform in.

The problem is as old as the sound recording and motion picture industry

When filmmakers are about to shoot a scene with actors delivering their lines it is a common practice to say “quiet on the set” before they start the cameras and audio record equipment. Even professionals with decades of experience need to be reminded of the value of being quiet when recording audio.

Record wherever you are, it’s better than nothing

I fully realize that this may be a lot easier said than done and often you just have to shoot where you are, even if it is more than a little bit noisy there.

Two tips for better sounding audio recordings:

Microphones do NOT have a “zoom in” feature

One thing that will make your videos sound better in any environment is getting the microphone close to the sound you are recording.  If you are filming someone speaking, get the camera as close as possible to their face (within reason that is). If you have to back away from the speaker, you should consider using an external microphone. That will allow you to keep the microphone close to the person’s mouth and move the camera farther away. WARNING: this can open up a whole other set of audio related problems, so always test your set ups before recording your actual video.

Test your set up so you can tweak it if necessary

Testing means shooting in as close to the final set up as possible and critically listening back to the recording. I highly recommend you listen back with big headphones on so that you can concentrate on hearing exactly what you have captured. If your test doesn’t sound good, there is a really good chance your final video will not. There is no acceptable “fix” for bad sound; no filter, no magic sauce and no fancy technique can ever make a poor recording sound great.

Who I am:

I’m Philip Quintas and I make it easier for customers to trust you before and after they buy from you by creating simple videos that help you help more people.

If you want one-to-one help with making better videos, I can answer your questions and even write, shoot, edit, upload and promote videos for you or any combination of these services.  Sign up using the Email Address* and First Name* form on this website to get direct access to me, my experience and offerings.

Merry Christmas 2015!

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Christmas 2015 blog post graphicI decided to take Christmas day off and test the schedule a post to publish later function on my WordPress site. If this shows up then it was a success.

I wrote a lot more this year than I have in years past.  At last count I was averaging over 1850 words per day, 7 days per week since the first of the year.  Here is a sample from my writing today (12/24/2015):

Testing

I am testing a strategy to find the people that are most interested in what I have to offer. Here is what I am doing: I write and post to my blog daily (Monday – Friday.) Before I hit the “Publish” button, I find and share four pieces of content created by other people that are related to the theme that I am writing about.

Early Results

Before I started to do this, I was getting one or two new followers on Twitter a day. That number has at least tripled since I started this campaign and I expect it to continue to rise. What I have decided to do with those new followers is follow back the ones that interest me and use their profiles to find the content I am going to share, daily, before publishing my post. I have been assembling a spreadsheet that tracks the posts I share so that I can reuse them and increase the number of posts I share (especially on Twitter, which seems to have the heartiest appetite for content out of all the social media site that I post to.)

Thinking ahead can be dangerous!

I am also aware that I could use a facelift on my site. It is not converting…at all. I have one other thing to consider and that is whether or not to continue with this business idea. I’ve pretty much made up my mind not to. I really should stop the madness and develop a better idea. I’m not making any money and that is not in alignment with my plans or goals for the coming year (or any other year, for that matter.) I have another idea that I think is better and it involves creating a podcast that features local business owners, artists and musicians. The idea is to promote local businesses and give the performing and fine art community a larger platform to increase their reach.

The Fort Worth Small Business Show

The idea is to produce a show regularly. My current thoughts are toward a podcast format that will feature segments of business discussion contrasted with local performing artist bits ranging from singer-songwriters to comedy and dramatic skits. I have no idea where this is going to go, however, I do know the next step and that is contacting people in the community to see who is going to be open to participating in this venture.

I will have to feel out what the business owners want to talk about and use that feedback to develop a show that has interest and is viable. As far as the artsy part is concerned I have a vision for painters to create the backgrounds and musicians to record the music. We could have featured performers that appear multiple times and invite new people to be on as well and test to see what kind of reaction we get.

Time to change

What I know now is that what I have been doing has not been working and that means that it is time for a change. It is log past due in my opinion, however, I can only do stuff now that will affect the future.

The show is called The Fort Worth Small Business Show. Who in Fort Who would I like to be a guest on the inaugural episode? What is in it for them? They get an interview taped for them to use in their marketing efforts, I get content for my blog and my YouTube Channel as well as material for my show.

What I intend on doing

The plan call local business owners and ask if they would like to talk about what hurdles they have overcome or are currently experiencing in their business. The purpose is to build community by sharing commonalities in struggle. When is this going to be shot? I am going to start filming in January for an April Launch. I plan on shooting and editing as many episodes in January and February as I can because the launch will involve a major marketing push in March. The idea is that from April on the marketing and production will be ongoing as long as the response is positive we will continue to create shows.

Who I am:

I’m Philip Quintas and I make it easier for customers to trust you before and after they buy from you by creating simple videos that help you help more people.

If you want one-to-one help with making better videos, I can answer your questions and even write, shoot, edit, upload and promote videos for you or any combination of these services.  Sign up using the Email Address* and First Name* form on this website to get direct access to me, my experience and offerings.