Hi I'm Steve Washer with BrainyVideo.com
Around here we talk a lot about reaching your ideal clients by being authentic in
your videos, but what do we mean when we say that?
you know when you have all this technology between you and your audience
cameras and lights and computers and stuff
and why should we even care about it?
Well, the simple
answer is because in business
authenticity gives us
certain advantages.
It makes us unduplicatable.
It makes it way easier to use the concept of "know like trust"
to gain clients.
This is one of the main reasons why authenticity is a better model. It helps
the right people bond to the real you,
which helps them more easily become your better clients.
But there's a big problem in pulling this off,
because even though it's really attractive,
the prospect of being authentic on camera
is frightening
for a lot of people. For a lot of people being authentic, which means
taking themselves into account
as well as the people they're trying to please all day long is not so easy.
This is why I spend most of my time working with people who have awakened
to this fact and they're
eager now to let their authenticity shine. They know it's better
for them,
it's better for their clients,
it's better for the world.
But for a lot of people,
maybe even you,
there's still a few problems.
Even if you desperately want to be authentic.
Let's solve those problems for you right now;
peeling away layers like an onion.
The first layer
uh... the problem of
perfection versus authenticity
take apple computer
do you think for one minute that steve jobs
had a focus group that told him to
create an ipod create an iphone, create an ipad
probably not
it was his drive for perfect design
a drive that made him kind of a tough boss but
there's no way anyone could say his passion wasn't authentic.
and I chose Steve Jobs deliberately because there's a bonus lesson here
See, his very quest for perfection proves that authenticity doesn't also mean
being perfect. Jobs wasn't perfect,
but we all know this right? I mean that's not the hard part
that's just the first layer of the onion
everybody says be authentic, be yourself,
don't worry about it, don't stress about it
and that's what scares people the most
they wonder if that's completely true it can bring up a lot of anxiety that if they
were to suddenly become authentic
their imperfections would drive away those clients that they most want to
attract
but remember
we also believe at the same time
that authenticity beats perfection
we already know that people respond to you because of who you are really and
not who you're pretending to be so what's the problem?
Well, the answer is now obvious.
You're holding two opposing beliefs at the same time with no way of resolving them.
authenticity beats perfection
but perfection is necessary to attract your ideal clients
when that happens
you can't take action.
to resolve this dilemma we have to dig a little deeper into the contradiction and
when we do we find there's a core truth that dissolves the dilemma.
Well maybe it's just a theory, but it's certainly proven to be true for me
my theory is that
people somehow
know that communication in video is a little different
it's not exactly like you're talking to a friend
and they're afraid of wasting time in effort they don't fully understand
people sense somehow that
there are things that have to happen for the communication to be perceived as
authentically as it is in person.
in fact they're right.
but there are only
two of them
and those two things are technical authenticity
and personal authenticity.
let's take the technical side first. for communication to be authentic in a
technical way you need a clear channel.
in this case
the video channel itself. if your viewer can't
see or hear you properly the perception of authenticity is lost. A perception is
formed alright, but it isn't the one you think it'll be. In this case
your distorted image and painful audio either attract the wrong client
or no client at all.
in addition to
the technical there's your own, you know, performance on camera
the big red button makes a lot of people nervous.
at the very least it can give you butterflies and and if you can't get the
butterflies
flying in formation
that authenticity that...that best you that you can be is lost
and then maybe you have wasted your time.
Well, there are simple ways to clear these channels you know. I have dozens of them
right here on this site,
and more ways than you can think of to expand your authentic
technical and personal channels to make them very very powerful.
would you like to be able to do it?
let's find out.
there's a simple test you can take
to see if you can do authentic video marketing.
all you have to do
is ask yourself
one question
who do you identify with?
This guy
Or this guy?
you don't need perfection you know.
just a little passion and a clear channel
Get off me!
So if you'd like to get some helpful how-to advice on
clearing out your channel just
click below for my free video series on developing your powerful persona
Till next time,
I'm Steve Washer
with BrainyVideo.com