World of Speakers E.14: Dorien Morin-van Dam | Getting on camera

We had a great conversation. I can't wait for you to listen to it and get over that fear and have fun with video.

Ryan Foland: We are back, this is Ryan Foland, and today I have got Dorien Morin-van Dam here at the World of Speakers. Dorien, how are you how?

DM: Good, how are you, Ryan?

RF: I'm good. I'd just like to jump right into it, just like a swift jump-flying-backside-flip-kick, like Jean Claude Van Damme. My first question— are you related to Mr. Jean Claude Van Damme?

DM: I am not, but I am from his part of the world.

I'm not from Belgium, but the country to the north of that, I'm from the Netherlands.

RF: That is amazing. I grew up watching Chuck Norris, Van Damme, Steven Seagal and if their feet and hands were words, they were spreading their message over the world, solving damsels in distress and different plots by evil people through over the world.

DM: Yeah, that's really cool.

It's definitely a cool name to have, and even though it's my maiden name, I've included it in my speaker name. I do think that it's a great conversation starter.

RF: This is just randomly your speaker name. Do you go by a different name outside of speaking?

DM: My legal name is Dorien Morin.

When I got married, twenty-eight years ago, I was very new to this country and not a single person had pronounced Van Dam right. I got upset and I said, “I'll just take my husband's name,” and I didn't keep that Van Dam part.

As a speaker, that's what I've branded myself as Morin-van Dam. I also wear a pair of orange glasses as a link to my Dutch heritage.

If you've watched the Olympics, or if you've watched soccer, of course, they didn't make it to the world's cup for next year, you'll see the orange fans everywhere.

Dutch is the adopted national color of the Netherlands.

Those are two pieces in my branding that help me stand out when people meet me. If they've met me online, in person they usually go, "I feel like I already know you", and those are the two things.

RF: Orange is definitely my color too, since I am a ginger.

I claim that with my red beard, my orange freckles, and my fair skin. I am the self-dubbed Ginger MC, so that's a fun way of including the brand, so that you stand out a little bit more.

I've got an orange pen with a redheaded head on the top, but I like the orange glasses, that's pretty sweet.

DM: It is part of my brand, it's part of my logo and over the years, probably I am at my eighth or ninth pair of orange glasses.

Whenever I need a pair, they have to be orange. It's actually hard to find them sometimes when I need them.

I actually have two of the same pair right now, because I lost one, and I got into a panic, so I ordered a second pair. That's how people recognize me, it works.

RF: You are recognized as the person who is helping people overcome the fear not of “the big bad wolf”, but “the big bad camera”?

DM: Yes, correct.

RF: Alright, tell us about how that started?  We always like to get to know our guests here.

Were you always in front of the camera, or were you behind the camera?

Tell us your story, where did this all begin?

DM: I wasn't anywhere near a camera.

I was a stay-at-home mom for quite a few years, I was a nanny and a stay-at-home mom.

I was a leader, I did a lot of volunteer work and was on the board of directors and president of a lot of local groups, so I have no problem speaking.

When my youngest of four children started kindergarten— he's in seventh grade right now, I was looking for a second career.

I certainly wasn't going to go back to nannying, after having raised a bunch of kids and having them be in elementary school.

I was looking for a new career. I started out as a social media manager and I found a great niche, locally local location-based businesses.

I've been doing their management going on seven years now, and as video became more popular, the need to have videos for social media became apparent.

Well, that's when the issue of, "Hey Dorien, the video is great, we see that it works really well, we see that we reach a lot more people, but can you be on the camera for us?" 

That's basically what I got from almost every business owner, and I would tell them, "No, it needs to be authentic, it needs to be you." 

I developed a program on how to get them in front of the camera, get them comfortable, little things, there's lots of tips of course.

One of the things that I use for a lot of my clients is the interview style.

I'll go on camera with them, and I'll interview them. We'll have them interview me, or we do jumping back and forth, but that really helps them.

Now with Live video, I still do that for a client any time she goes Live, I go to her office and I share that with her and it makes her feel more comfortable.

RF: You said jumping, and I just thought in my vision, like you up on a cliff overlooking the ocean with your client there and you're like, "Here, let me see your hands for a second." And then they grab it and then you just jump, bring them with you.

DM: Yes, if they don't know what to say anymore, I'm right there. I never am at a loss for words, and they know that about me.

That works out really well. We've expanded on getting some of their employees on video, and doing some "how-to” videos.

Some of my clients now send me a video, so I have to get into video editing to help them out.

They would send me raw smartphone video files, and I would create videos for them.

The reach is just so much better than posting pictures. That's how I got into it.

As things grew, more and more people got into social media.

I live in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, the local college started churning out a lot of students from the marketing department that had a social media internships.

The need for me to be a social media manager locally diminished a little bit.

This happened about two, three years ago, so I had to pivot in my business and go, "Where am I going to go?"

There's a couple of different things that I did; I started speaking more, which I love, I started doing some training.

I do coaching, I have several coaching clients, I do some consulting, that's where I had to pivot, not just doing management, but also doing some of the other things.

Last October, a year ago, I made a plan, I made a decision and I wrote it down that I was going to speak twelve times in 2017, get on some bigger stages, travel more.

I'm flying out Thursday, it will be my twelfth time, I'm super excited to have fulfilled that and my next step is to work with a speakers bureau.

I'm not quite sure I'm ready but I'm hopeful, so I'm going to talk to somebody and see if I am ready.

Now I have lots of speaking experience, I did my first keynote, I did international engagement in Canada.

I really feel like I have really grown, but it was really intentional, if I want to grow my speaking business this is what I have to do.

RF: You are joining the elite club of the World of Speakers.

DM: Yes, and it's super exciting, and I love it.

RF: What I love about your story is just how it is really a victim of your circumstance.

You seem to have taken all these cues from the outside environment, and you're pivoting, and you're moving with the flow.

It seems like there's very much an organic path to it, as opposed to maybe some people that are more rigid in their views of what success looks like.

It sounds like you just really are good at taking the opportunity as they flow your way. I love that.

DM: Yes, that's what I'm looking at now, where can I go.

I actually had my first corporate training opportunity this summer, which wasn't something that I necessarily was looking at, but I so enjoyed it, I loved it.

I would like to do some more of that. Now I'm looking at that, and that just landed in my lap through contacts that I had made.

I'm definitely willing and able to go with what comes my way, but I really do love the stage.

RF: I'm now thinking of the teleprompter, you're there in front of the camera and life is just feeding you the teleprompter and you're just confidently reading it like it was written for you.

And then all of a sudden it's created your own reality of behind the camera, in front of the camera editing all that good stuff.

DM: Yeah, and there is something else that's really been a fun little thing that came my way, that I also didn't plan.

I am the pro bono social media consultant for one of the local news stations. It just came about by accident, I was working for a charity, they came and did a piece.

I was videotaping the video guy, the journalist, the interviewer and he's like, "What are you doing", I go, "I am doing social media, so I'm documenting that you're doing a documentary about them." 

This was five, six years ago, and he got me in as a consultant on a piece he was doing.

He needed some background information, I did some research for him, he was very appreciative, he introduced me to some other people.

Now I've been on the local news about every 2 to 3 months. One of the news anchors calls me, they use me as a resource when a story breaks, often about social media kids, social media teenagers, and I go on Live TV.

The segments have been as long as 10 to 12-minutes Live TV, some are shorter, 3 to 5 minutes. Locally, that's really helped me establish myself as a speaker as well.

I have all the wheels of me being on TV. And that's really been a great social proof.

RF: Yeah, it's powerful, especially when you're teaching people— I guess it's essentially media training, it only makes sense that you are practicing what you're preaching on Live TV.

DM: Yes.

RF: Let's dig a little bit into some of the tips and coaching and training that you give people.

I know that a lot of speakers aspire to be on TV, or they want to leverage the video component more, but it is intimidating.

There's a lot of technical challenges, it's a whole different world when you have 300 eyeballs looking at you, versus three hundred thousand on a Livestream or something like that.

If we were to go, let's say beginner, and then medium, and then advanced— what are some of the pieces of advice that you could give speakers who want to make that gap to getting in front of the camera?

DM: I use an acronym FEAR and those are the four main fears that people come to me with.

And I can go over those, and that's the beginner. I try usually to find out what is stopping people from getting on the camera, in front of the camera.

The first one is “Fear of ¨Failure”. People tell me all the time, "I think I'm going to fail."

I tell them, "There's a lot of different things you can do, but as long as you can fail to post, you can fail to turn on the camera, but once you're on camera you really can't fail." 

Then I turn it around and tell them, "Look at it as an opportunity to have a one on one conversation with thousands of people. Just don't look at the camera, look at your friends and talk to them, and have that conversation with them. It's an opportunity to have your elevator speech be heard by thousands of people, if you get yourself on camera."

The second fear is “Fear of Expense”, you just mentioned that. Technology and expense, those go hand in hand.

I always ask people, "Are you aware that you already own your most expensive pieces of equipment? It's your smartphone, start with your smartphone; get a $10 little tripod that you can order off of Amazon, and start recording videos with your smartphone, they are very smart right now and the cameras are great.”

”Get a little remote if you need to, or use your headset as a remote and start creating videos that way. It doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg, sure if you want to get a microphone and you want to get a green screen and lights, those are all things you can add.”

”But the most important step is to get yourself on video, and you do that with your smartphone."

The third one is an "A", which is a “fear of Appearance”.  It's not just women that are afraid to be on camera and feel like they don't look right, men have that same feeling.

I always tell people, "Look at it as an opportunity to tell people how much you love your brand." 

I use my example, I’m a runner, I'll go out on a run early in the morning, and I might have this brilliant idea.

When I come back for my run, I have all these children at home that I wake up, I make lunches and give them breakfast, I don't have time to take a shower usually until an hour later.

If I have this brilliant idea, and I want to show it or give it to my audience, I'll put on a hat, I'll get in front of the camera and I'll say something like this, "Hey guys this is Dorien, I just went on a run, I had this brilliant idea and I wasn't going to wait, because I feel like you need this today." Then I'll give them the idea.

It doesn't matter because, I'm going to tell you, people are not going to remember what you look like, they are going to remember what you said in your message, if it's authentic.

Of course, if you go into a studio, it would be great to put your makeup and do your hair right.

If you're afraid of your appearance just think about how much you love your brand, and how much you want to share that with a person that you feel like you can really help, either with your product or your service.

Then that fear should disappear, it's an opportunity.

RF: I like that, “the appearance doesn't matter, make the fear disappear”.

DM: Yes.

The last “R” is, and this I think is a really big one, and I get it, I totally get it— it's a fear that people think are going to lose Reputation, especially family and friends.

This is a lot of time with Live video, "Well, if I am going to go Live on Facebook, people might think that I'm getting “too big for my britches”, or they might think I'm this expert and I might not be." 

They are really worried what other people think about them.

You just have to think again, turn it into a positive, you have become an influencer.

If you go on Facebook and you go Live or you have a recorded video and people watch it and comment, and respond, you have now become an influencer within your industry, it's a positive thing.

Those are really the four things that I start with trying to identify what the fear is, and then work on that part.

RF: Okay, remind me, the first “F” stood for—

DM: Failure.

RF: Okay, so you have “Failure” and then “Expense”, and then “Appearance”, and then “Reputation”. What do you think of those four is the biggest one that holds people back?

Is it the “fear of failure”, is it that they think there's too much cost to get involved?

Or is it their “fear of appearance”?

Or, the fact that they are scared of appearing to be “bigger than their britches”?

DM: Yeah, I think that last one.

From what I have seen, that's the one that holds them back the most.

With appearance, I can always get people past that pretty quickly, and this is a trick that I tell women, and this is what I do.

For example, tomorrow I have a hair appointment early in the morning, I'm going to make a bunch of videos tomorrow afternoon, because my hair is going to look great and that gives me confidence. I already have my video scripted and ready to go tomorrow.

I tell women, "If you have a closet in your home office or in your studio or wherever in your home, I just change out the top, put some other earrings in, and I just record a bunch of videos all in the same day when my hair looks great, when I have confidence."

You can get past that appearance part.

It seems the hardest part is to convince people that their voice matters, that what they have to say matters, that there's an audience out there for everybody.

If you love your product, if you love your brand, if you are convinced that your service can help somebody to make a difference in somebody's life, then you should be posting a video.

That to me seems that's the hardest one, to convince people.

RF: I would agree.

I think the challenge too to make the transition from being a speaker to someone who's on video is, that you somewhat control your environment when you're on stage, you are ultimately in control.

I think that when you're in that live experience as an audience member, it's really just the person is on the stage and they are edified, and they are that expert.

If you're just randomly searching the internet and you see a talking head, I know personally sometimes your instinct is like, "Who is this guy or who is this girl, who gave them the right to be talking and preaching." 

Especially the very close self-facing face-y selfie in your face, it's like, "I see up your nostrils, at least give me a shot that is not aggressive," and I guess that's the appearance.

Yeah, of those four I agree, I think that the fear of being looked at as that guy who is always on Facebook.

There's a social proof component too, what happens when you go Live and you have two viewers and they jump on and then jump off; it's like sort of that resilience.

DM: Yeah, and you've got to get past that.

I have had other speakers tell me what they do: they put a posted note on that number, when you see the count on Live video there's one person, five people, ten people, they put in a sticky note on it.

They don't want to see how many people are there, because even if it's one or a hundred, the value you give should be the same.

RF: It lives beyond that, there might be one person whose Live, but millions of people could see the replay.

The Chewbacca Mom didn't necessarily feed off the fact that millions of people were watching, because at that point there weren't millions, but they've ended up being what 50 plus million that have seen it.

DM: Exactly. I think that's something to remember.

I have a friend who made a video last October when she was going through breast cancer treatment. She just gave makeup tips because she was bald and she just thought it would be great, she'd asked my advice.

I told her what to do, she went Live for 15 minutes, five people were there. Now 20,000 people have seen and shared, and I think there was like 550 shares on Facebook of that one video.

You don't know who's going to be there, so keep up your confidence and just keep talking, and that goes into the medium part of what people are afraid.

Actually, you have to script your videos a little bit, you have to know what you're going to talk about, you have to have at least some bullet points.

You have to have a beginning, a middle and an end, because otherwise, you're going to create a video that's just going to keep going and going and going, and then that doesn't really serve anybody.

The biggest complaint that I hear of people they say they see their influencers go Live, they wait too long, they wait for an audience to build, anywhere between 1 and 5 minutes, it's boring, they're sitting there.

They are saying, "If you have something to say go ahead and say it, people can always watch the replay."

The other thing they say is that they just keep talking, there's never an end to it.

I was going to say don't be that person, if you are going to be going on video, have a purpose, know what you're trying to tell somebody, have a point to the video, and put that in a description.

Then when you start your video say, "Hey this is Dorien, today I'm going to give you three tips on x, y, z." And then say, "Welcome, here is tip one, here is tip two, tip three."

Give them what you're telling them you're going to give them, and don't keep them hanging for long.

There's a lot of people out there and there's a lot of content out there, and you want to reach them and you want to give them value.

RF: I have a question for you.

One of my favorite pieces of advice for structuring content on stage is, "Tell them what you're going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you told them." 

It sounds like that might be a similar structure here. Do you think that is translatable to the video component?

DM: Absolutely.

You want to do that in a title, tell them what you're going to tell them, but also when you start your video.

When people watch the replay and they see it’s a 15-minute video, you want to tell them what you are going to say and that it has value.

Otherwise, they are never going to watch that 15 minutes.

RF: Let's get into some of these brass tacks, the questions that I have maybe everybody else has.

Is there an ideal video length when it comes to production? And the same question for Live.

I know it's dynamic, but I'm curious to see your thoughts on that.

DM: It really depends on a platform.

RF: Okay, fair enough.

DM: On Facebook, if it's a short video, like an animation, or a funny video, or something, I don't think people watch much more than 2.5 to 3 minutes.

It would be great if it had subtitles, because then people are going to understand what the video is about.

A Live video, when it first came on last year, the recommendation was to go Live for a minimum of 5 minutes, because it would take Facebook a little bit of time to alert your followers that you were Live.

That's why people were waiting and some people are still doing that, they haven't caught up, but it takes 1 to 5 minutes for people to get the notification, “Dorien is Live”, then they come, then you go Live.

The recommendation used to be “Go Live for 15 minutes.” I don't think that's really true anymore.

So many people now go Live, if you go Live for 15 minutes, unless you have a weekly show, you might not reach the right people, because they are just not going to sit there and watch it.

If you're not a big name, if you're just starting out, I would really recommend doing a Live video and sticking with 3 to 5 minutes, giving them value in those 3 to 5 minutes.

Maybe three tips or five ideas, or two things to work on, or even just one thing, and then move on, give that information and then be done.

Going to Instagram, you can do a minute there, but you can go Live for an hour. Again, are people going to sit on Instagram Live for an hour— I don't know anybody that goes that long on Instagram, it's “insta.”

I'm not watching any Live videos on Instagram, it doesn't hold my attention, I'm not on my phone as much, I'm on my laptop more.

Then it depends on who your audience is, if you are targeting millennials, maybe they will watch Live video on Instagram.

There's really not a right answer, but if somebody is starting out with video and wants to know an answer to that, I would work with them and say, "Well let's try this for two weeks, look at the analytics, let's see who was there, let's see what worked and maybe try something a little longer or something a little shorter."

And just everybody's going to find that sweet spot eventually.

RF: I think you hit it there on the head, which is the answer is that it depends. I like this concept of: try it, test it, measure it, try it again, test it, measure it.  

There is a science to it, where you're just not going to automatically jump into the success and gather the following and all of that.

This is a great acronym of FEAR— not being fearful of the failure, the expenses, your appearance, your reputation.

What are some of the actual tips that you're giving people when you are coaching them on these Live videos?

Let's get a nice potpourri of maybe some of the most frequent advice that you give, some of the most difficult advice that you give.

You don't have to name clients, but maybe we can touch on some different situations? I guess the question as an overarching is— do they all apply to speaking on stage and Live, and the difference between the two where those worlds collide? I think it would be really interesting.

DM: I think where the worlds collide is that in order to be good on video, and in order to be a good speaker, you have to be willing to practice what you are going to say. 

If you're not willing to do that, if you think you're going to get up on stage and you have a slide deck and you're just going to wing it—

It's never going to be so good as what it could be if you woke up every morning for two weeks prior to your speech, and you would go over your speech.

I did my first keynote, I woke up early in the morning and the four days prior I did it twice a day. It was a 45-minute keynote, I did it first thing in the morning and I did it after dinner.

I went through my whole keynote eight times leading up to my keynote. I wanted to know it forwards and backwards, I wanted to know which slide was next.

Of course, I could change some of the words but I wanted to know it like I know my material, I can talk to you for the next five hours of video, because I know my stuff.

I wanted that keynote, that speech to be like that, I didn't want it that I was just grasping for ideas, I wanted to be so solid.

When you compare that to video, one of the things that I had my clients whether they are my social media management clients or my coaching clients do, is if they're afraid to be on video I tell them that they need to go in a room for an hour, they need to block an hour, lock the door, have their smartphone with them and have one scripted video that they're going to practice either 30 times or one hour, whichever comes first.

It could be their elevator speech or something else. What I want them to do is turn on the video on their smartphone, record themselves, if they say something wrong or they feel it's going wrong, stop it.

Then I want them to watch it back, and then delete it, and then do take number two. And then do it again, and then when you make a mistake you stop it, you watch it back, you delete it and then you do take number three.

It is either going to take an hour or you can do 30 takes.

Three things will happen when you do that. First of all, you're going to understand how your smartphone works, you're going to get the lighting right, you're going to look at your background, you might have forgotten to lock your dog out of the room, so they're walking the background.

You might realize you have the window behind you instead of in front of you, the lighting is wrong, maybe your phone was ringing while you were doing it, you forgot to put it on “do not disturb”, there are all these things.

You're going to get comfortable with recording yourself on video, and comfortable with your smartphone using it for video. That's the first thing that happens in that hour.

RF: Trial by fire.

DM: Yes.

The second thing that happens is that you're going to completely get over yourself.

You know how you watch yourself on video and you cringe? Well if you watch yourself 30 times on video, you're over it, that's it.

RF: You are creating your own immunity to yourself and your face.

DM: Yes.

The third thing that happens in that hour is you will come to the conclusion that getting it done and getting a video finished is better than getting it perfect.

There's no such thing as a perfect video. When my clients get to that point, they're ready to record videos. If they don't go through that process, they're just not ready, because they're going to be anxious.

If they go through this on their own with a door locked and they practice this, then they're ready for more videos and then you're ready for having somebody else be your camera person.

The other thing that I find is that if I hold the camera, a lot of my clients initially are worried about what they're going to look and what I'm recording, but if they're by themselves they get over that, and they get over that fear.

Then, after that, they're more comfortable if I do the recording, or if somebody else is in the room, or they have to interview somebody. Being alone is important.

Now to do that on Live video, there's a really great tip and some people know this, but a lot of people don't know this— when you are getting ready to go Live on Facebook, you can set your audience to "public", to "friends", to "specific friends".

You can also set your audience to "only me", and when you set your audience to "only me", you can go Live on Facebook and nobody can see it.

You get to practice the tools, you get to play with all the filters that are out there, you get to see how long it takes you, how many times you say "uhm", whatever you want to do, and you can then delete it or save that recording afterwards, and nobody can see it.

That's a really good power tip before somebody goes Live, I tell them “Go try that,” because going Live for 3 minutes and basically you're talking for 3 minutes, and you don't see your audience is super intimidating, so going Live to only you is a great tip for people to practice.

RF: That's great.

I didn't even know that was available. Here's the magic question when it comes to all this.

What I think is so exciting about the advice you just gave, the power tip, this is #powertip— what would you think people's perception is about how long it takes them to get comfortable doing video?

Just in a general sense, have you talked to somebody you hadn't met with them, and you ask them, "How long will it take you to get comfortable with video?"

What do you think an answer would be that someone would give you?

DM: They might tell me never.

RF: Okay, perfect.

What I love about your power tip here, not just the Facebook power tip, but this general power tip about locking yourself in a room for an hour, and doing a recorded script over and over and over. It's an hour.

You're basically helping people get comfortable on camera in 60 minutes, and I would assume most people think it's going to take them weeks or months or even never.

That's really crazy if you stop and think about it for a second, people waste more than an hour, seven or eight times a day.

To be able to lock yourself in a room and have three clear tangible outcomes— that's something that is very empowering, and it's something that somebody can do before they even hire a professional like you, just to jumpstart the process.

DM: Absolutely.

I think that when people try this, it's fun, because I did have somebody said that they did it, and then I had them send me a video and I could tell they had not done it. I was like "You didn't do this for an hour." I can tell.

That's another interesting part that goes with that, that I can tell that you watch yourself 30 times on video, I can tell that you know where the camera lens is, and you're looking in the camera lens.

I could tell that you figured out your lighting, I could tell that you figured out after the fourth take that you needed to put down your video camera, your smartphone and have it stabilized against a stack of books or something, that when you hold it and you talk, it moves around.

All those little things that happen, you figure that out by doing it 30 times.

RF: This is great, you should come up with a name for this, or let's build a hashtag or on, like "the 60 minute challenge", "60 minute video challenge" or "the 30 by 30 test" or something like that.

DM: I'm writing a book, so it's going to be in the book.

RF: Better than that, better than a hashtag is a book.

DM: That's awesome, but I like it because that could be my intro to the book, I really like that idea that you just said too.

I should totally do that and ask people, "Go through this hour challenge and then give me feedback." That's awesome, I definitely could do that.

RF: And all these little things that you know people did or didn't do, you could sort of create almost a dialogue within that book, because you know the outcome that they'll experience, and you call it on it.

People will realize that it's something to do or not, it makes the book a very functional kind of concept.

And even better yet, here's a crazy idea— you provide them with maybe one or two scripts, just as a test, but you make the scripts talk about something that serves you.

Imagine a 30-second script about the 60-minute challenge, so that they send you, or you challenge them to share their first video and their last video like before and after, but somehow it serves you and brings awareness of the contest.

How about this— in the 60-minute challenge, there's two parameters, you've got all your stuff, but you have to record and save the first take and you have to record and save the last take.

Don't have them delete the first one, it would be a fun way to look at one versus the other, that would be pretty cool, right?

DM: I think that would be really cool. I have them delete them all, because a lot of people also don't understand their storage availability.

The other power tip is when you delete these videos, they're still going to be in your deleted files for 30 days, so then I have to go tell people, "Now go to your trash, and then go delete the deleted files."

That is the other question that comes up, it says, "I don't have enough storage," that's because those deleted files are still sitting there.

RF: Which is all good to figure out in the comfort of your own closet as you locked yourself in there wherever it is, right?

DM: Yes, exactly. Your closet, your office.

RF: If they recorded the first one and gave that you, that would be a really good testimonial, you can even have fun in the editing room and you could take that almost do a screen side by side, or it just could become more clear for you.

Anyways, let's stop with the crazy ideas, keep with the power ideas. Let's move to a combination of how being online video can be an algorithm breaker.

How it can help you stand out, and how it can actually help you to monetize?

Is it part of a monetization process as a speaker?

I'm sure that you're dealing with companies that want to leverage video, to get more revenue, more customers; you're dealing with speakers who want to expand their audience to maybe get larger gigs through that.

Let's talk about the business behind getting comfortable with video as a speaker.

DM: One of the things that I have done is that when I am getting ready to speak somewhere, and I've not done this every time but I've done this several times.

I have made a little, unsolicited cameo of myself saying, "Hey I'm getting ready to speak at this event, if you're interested in video, you should really come to my session." I text that to the event organizer.

I did it last week for an event I spoke on Friday and the reaction was a bunch of love emojis, and it was within 10 minutes my video was on Instagram, it went to Facebook later that day and it was everywhere.

It just builds up excitement to the people, the conference attendees that were coming.

This was a breakout session, but I had the bulk of the people of the conference in my room, and part of that I think might have been that they recognized me, who I was from that video.

Then when they were looking at their schedule, it was like, "Oh, I think I saw her on video, let me go see her, because I don't know who the other two people are." 

As the speaker, I would highly recommend that you get comfortable with video and use that to connect with the attendees ahead of time.

I can tell you, my friend who was that organizer for that event, she was so appreciative and I've done this at several other events and sometimes they ask for a video, but very few people make it.

If I have time I will go ahead, tomorrow after my haircut I am making one for where I am speaking this Friday, and I am just going to send it to the event organizer. They love to get that, that's great content for them to put out.

RF: What is nice about this, this is when you are already speaking at an event.

I don't think everybody is thinking that far forward. Brian Fanzo is really good at this too, whenever he goes to conference, he'll use Facebook Live and announce that he's there, and he'll talk about what he's going to talk about, when his session is.

When you're in a session that's competing against other sessions, and you want the standing room only, you're saying you can use Live video even sharing with the organizers who then edify what you're doing and help direct people to it.

DM: Absolutely.

And if you want to promote or if you want to be speaking at a conference, you need to have a good speaker reel in order to get that contract to speak.

You need to have a good speaker reel, and that's where having a lot of videos comes in, all those little things that you do.

I'm thinking ahead, but the talk I did last Friday was “10 Ways To Repurpose Video”, and I showed my speaker reel as an example.

There were pieces in my speaker reel of speaking engagement I had done in 2013 and 2015, and a little promo that I had done for an event.

All this video is in my video library, and when I went to put my speaker reel together, I was able to pick and choose from all those videos, all that content that I had done and created, that speaker reel to promote myself to see if I can get hired for the next gig.

So that's also very important to get yourself on video if you're a speaker. As you start to monetize it, what I'm finding now it was utmost important that I have a video.

That's why I just created a new speaker reel, because the one I had was a very exciting, but it was super important they want to see you speak, they want that social proof that you are not just saying, “I've been on stage”, but they can watch you.

Having a lot of different places where you speak is very important, so you have a wide variety of different ways that you are on stage.

I had a joke, I had some news, because I've been on the news, a couple of newsreels on there, and a couple of different places that I spoke at in my speaker reel.

As a speaker, it is super important to be on video.

RF: Now this is a question, here's a hot pocket question for you— I don't know what a hot pocket question is, but that's what I just decided to call it.

For your speaker real are you also encouraging people to share clips of them on Facebook Live, or clips of them live?

It would be obvious if it's a television show right, when you probably have you on the news, but are we at a point now where your speaker reel should include you on Live platforms?

DM: Yes, even if it's just a little, 30-second or 10-second clip.

RF: Blurb or something.

DM: Yes, that you do especially if you're hosting a show, I think that would be really good.

One way to repurpose your video is after your Live is done, to download that video and put it in your video library, which is what I tell people to do.

Then you can upload it, you should upload it to YouTube, put an intro and outro, maybe editing the uh's and the ah's out or if, or if you had technical difficulties, edit that part out of it.

Now it lives on YouTube. You can do all the good stuff, get the SEO juice and then embed it in your website, so now you're repurposing that video everywhere.

If you have that video file of all those lives in your video library, then when you go to make a speaker reel, absolutely that's part of what you do and part of how you are an expert.

If you have a show, if you interview people, absolutely put that in now speaker reel.

RF: That's very cool.

You're not only leveraging video within conferences that you're at to get more exposure, but what are some of the advantages to playing around with video from a monetization standpoint?

It's not really where you monetize your Facebook Live, right? Is it more that you're pushing people to your products and programs or things like that?

How do you advise your clients to use these video and get over the fear of the big bad camera?

How does it turn into money for people?

DM: I work with a lot of local location-based small businesses, so they want to get people in the door.

For example, one of my clients and she sold her business since then, but had a tea room, they were geared toward women 55 and over to come have tea.

She utilized video by when she would go in in the morning, she would open up her tea room, and start baking and cooking, and the tea room would open at 10, and she would serve lunch between 11 and one, and then high tea until four.

I told her, “When you go in the kitchen, and you start baking and you start making apple cake or lemon curd, or a quiche, make a video and tell people what you are baking, and tell people what you're cooking.”

And so she started doing that, and she would go today and she'd rub her hands, she goes, "I wish you could smell it," and she got very good at these videos.

If she had a special cauliflower crab bisque soup or something, people would come in and say, "I want that special I saw you video this morning! I want to come have that special. I want that quiche that you were talking about." The power of video.

And her audience was only on Facebook, because they were an older audience, they weren't on Twitter, they weren't anywhere else, that was her main marketing platform and it had worked really well.

They would see that video early in the morning, called their friend, make plans to have lunch and come to the tea room and have lunch.

So that's one way to drive traffic straight into the business, that worked out really well.

Another client of mine is doing Live videos to get people to come to a self-defense class. That's an event, we drop the link to sign up, we make a Facebook event underneath and people can find out what they're going to learn, where it's going to be, why you need self-defense classes.

Then you drop the link to the event, people can join the event and then they can sign up. There are very tangible ways you can use a Facebook Live to do business.

For myself, I'm doing it for branding, up-leveling that people see me who I am. I just went to a live event and people were telling me, "Oh my gosh, you've been traveling so much, you're all over, you have been to Canada and Europe, and you've been here and there, my gosh, your speaking businesses are doing great."

I am like, "Yeah, it is," I am all over, but I'm posting that, and I'm on Facebook and doing Facebook Lives and telling people about the experiences I'm having.

Then when they might need somebody or they want to tell their friend about this great speaker— they are going to talk about me.

I'm not necessarily monetizing every Live, but it's really helping my brand and brand awareness.

RF: The more exposure the people see of you as an expert traveling around the world, you're going to become top of mind when it comes to the person who is helping people get over their fear of failure, of expense, of appearance and of— what was the last one?

DM: Reputation.

RF: Reputation right, that's a good analogy.

For everyone out there who is a speaker and you are fearful of testing out your wares online, guess what— get over it, be like Jean Claude Van Damme in a fight against a bad guy.

If you need help, you've got Dorien who can help you with the kicking in the crowded chops, and getting comfortable in front of the camera.

Well, I know I've learned a lot, I'm going to check out the Facebook Live only for me to do some testing, 1...2...3…. as well as adding in some of the Live streams to my speaker reel, I think that's a great tip.

And then just the general power hitting tips of this 60-minute challenge to lock yourself in a room with a script that you've written or somebody's written for you, record the first one and the last one whether the last one is the 30th take or at the end of the hour, you will discover everything you need to know, everything that will go wrong as an accelerator. And you will there's always something.

DM: It's funny, because years ago I did a really cool video, I was in my office and I thought it was a cool video, it was just a tip, and I walked away from my computer.

I came back and I had all these comments on this video, and I thought, "I was better than I thought I was."

But what happened was my dog was in the background which I didn't realize, and she had snuck in into a sunny spot and lay down on the carpet behind me.

Everybody's going, "Oh cute dog, cute dog", ….nevermind what I said.  

So sometimes having a pop, is a really good thing, but if you have an unexpected little cameo like that having your dog or cat on your lap can also help you get more eyeballs on your video and then maybe they'll also listen to what you have to say.

RF: And at the end of the day, that the one thing I hear, throughout all of your message, is a sense of excitement, and the fact that this can be fun— it doesn't have to be stressful.

I think that's probably the biggest take away that I leave with, and that people should leave with, is that it doesn't have to be a frightening scary evil big bad wolf.

It's just a camera and it's one more way for you to spread your message that eventually you can monetize as you travel around the world.

Or the easiest way to travel around the world is through the internet, right, so you can establish yourself as a World of Speakers all over the world through a Live stream, through broadcast, through technology right?

DM: Yes, absolutely, that's correct.

RF: If someone wants to learn more, and we'll have all this in the show notes, but where would they find you and then what is your favorite social media platform to be found on?

DM: Okay, right now it is Facebook, just because I'm there live, I'm doing my live show, although it's been on a hiatus because I've been speaking so much.

Facebook messenger, I really find almost that it's a separate platform, I connect with a lot of people on Facebook through Messenger app, a lot of my speaker friends, having one on one conversations.

I have been hanging out more on LinkedIn so I would say Facebook and LinkedIn are the two places where I'm several times a day, where is a great place for me to connect.

Of course, like I said before, I am on Instagram, bud I just try not to have that phone in my hand too much, I do have teenagers that watch me.

Of course they are at school during the day, but I just don't want to be that person that is constantly connected and has their phone in their hand, I'm trying to be a little more conscientious of that.

I do like to separate those two things, and I can do Facebook and LinkedIn during the day when I'm at work, and it's a great way to catch me.

RF: Well, I think that's a great final message too, make sure to keep your family first, make sure to connect and be present in the real world.

Don't forget about leveraging these platforms in a way that can help you out as opposed to being scared of them.

DM: Yes exactly.

And now that LinkedIn is allowing you to upload videos natively, I think LinkedIn is people are getting very excited.

I heard a rumor LinkedIn is coming out with LinkedIn Live maybe by the end of the year. It's already October so that could be in the next two months, we could be able to go Live on LinkedIn.

Of course, it is going to be lots of spammers, but it is a great way to get your message out. LinkedIn is very active right now so if you were looking to connect with event organizers, with other speakers, I do recommend LinkedIn.

RF: Awesome.

Alright, you have heard it here with Dorien, get online, get your face in front of the camera, lock yourself in a room until you're comfortable and continue to spread your message however you can to change the world; and if you do it well, then you can get paid for it.

Dorien, it has been a pleasure super fun, I'm excited to see you online, and we'll see you around the world.

DM: Thank you, Ryan.

 

A bit about World of Speakers

World of Speakers is a weekly podcast that helps people find their own voice, and teaches them how to use their voice to develop a speaking business.

We cover topics like what works versus what doesn't, ideas on how to give memorable presentations, speaking tips, and ideas on how to build a speaking business.

Connect with Dorien Morin-van Dam:

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