The Amy Porterfield Show

I know it’s only October, but I’m already thinking about how to boost my business in 2016. And one of my biggest goals is to do more video.

Video is a complex issue for a lot of entrepreneurs. You know that it could help you make an amazing connection with your audience. But all the tinkering that goes into it--the lighting, the camera setup, the script--is a surefire way to fry your brain.

Now, you actually may be killing it with video right now. Maybe you have a natural eye for what looks good on camera, you’re a master of improvising quick, witty nuggets of wisdom on the fly, and talking into a lens brings out all the warmth and sparkle of your personality (instead of turning you into a cardboard cutout like…um…some people I know).

If that’s you, my hat is off to you. But if not, maybe you're more like me —you’ve made some videos, it went okay, you know you can do better…but it's easier to just save it for another day. (Or year.)

My good friend James Wedmore dropped by the other day, and we started chatting about video, and before long I had to ask him if we could turn the conversation into a podcast interview. He has so much great stuff to share about why video is important, and how to make it really practical for your business.

Our interview was OUTSTANDING video tips and tricks. I want you to listen to the whole thing so you don't miss any of it. I also want you to make sure to access the three-part FREE series he put together just for you on how to make great videos for your business.

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Here’s just a tease of what we covered:

Five Video Marketing Mistakes

Shoddy camera work 

You don’t have to be Martin Scorsese or anything, but you do have to avoid those black bars on either side of your video—they’re a huge turnoff to your audience. (Easy fix: record video with your camera or phone held lengthwise, not up-and-down.) Other no-no’s include shaky camera action, bad framing, and fuzzy focus.

(If these no-no’s are already breaking you out in hives, relax. All of these are easy, one-step fixes that James spells out.)

Lighting

Newer cameras and phones can correct for this, but it’s worth it for everyone to learn how to set up quality lighting. The bedroom lamp is just not going to cut it. Nothing makes your video (and your brand) look instantly amateurish like bad DIY lighting. James gives the name of his favorite lighting kit that's cheap and reliable. Click to listen.

Audio

James says stop using your in-camera microphone. Doesn’t matter if you have the fanciest phone or DSLR out there…the onboard microphones will not pick up quality audio and your beautifully shot video will either sound like it’s coming from the bottom of a well OR sound like your grandmother shouting over a long-distance call.

Again, just a little bit of cash outlay will get you a great-quality lapel microphone that connects into your camera or phone. Your audio will get instantly synched, and you’ll be able to talk in your normal tone of voice without worrying that the mic isn’t picking you up.

Don’t Be Boring

A lot of people protest that they can’t do video because they aren’t funny, they aren’t loud, they can’t talk fast, they aren’t an extrovert.

Well, guess what? You don’t have to be any of those things to have an engaging video. As James puts it,

"The opposite of boring doesn’t mean funny."

What you do have to be, James says, is passionate. And…well, just listen to what else he says. You’ll have no reason to doubt your “interestingness” ever again.

Not Doing Video

It’s not a rule that “he or she who has the most video wins.” (In fact, it’s definitely possible to do too much video, especially if you have no strategy.) That said, there are five types of video everyone should be doing in their business.

Learn more about what each of these videos accomplishes, and how you can pull them off seamlessly by signing up to get the free three-part video series James created on how to do videos.

My guest today is a New York Times bestselling author, as well as a speaker, blogger, and recognized expert on the topic of happiness.

A happiness expert? Oh yes, there is such a thing. Gretchen Rubin takes the topic very, very seriously. She put her Yale education to work with the goal of finding out systematic ways that people can cultivate, achieve and maintain happiness in any facet of their lives.

The book that came out of her study, The Happiness Project, took the world by storm. Book clubs adopted it, college professors assigned it, psychiatrists recommended it to their clients. This topic really resonated with everyone who read it. It’s an amazing title and I strongly recommend you give it a read.

Not surprisingly, my talk with Gretchen turned out to be one of my favorite interviews ever. It went in some surprising directions, offered tremendous food for thought, and really hit home for me in terms of how to define success.

Honestly, this interview is so rich that I don’t want to summarize it too much here. You really should listen to the whole thing.

In the meantime, you can download our free giveaway for this week, which Gretchen herself designed. It’s a PDF guide called “Working Better Than Before,” and it’s meant to help you understand your work habits and gain insight into how you can maximize your creativity and productivity. (You can also use it to help your clients!)

As soon as you can, click here to listen to the full episode. Gretchen’s insights will help you set a foundation that makes every aspect of your business stronger…and makes you a lot happier in it!

And don’t forget to download the freebie for this week, “Working Better Than Before". It helped me a ton (which I talk more about in the podcast) and I know it will do the same for you.

EPISODE FREEBIE Get Gretchen's PDF "Working Better Than Before"

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If you’ve been listening for a while, you've heard me mention the word Scrum. When you hear this word, you do one of two things:

Listeners in both these camps are going to love today’s episode, because I’m going to talk about this amazing project management method and how it has revolutionized the way I get my business done.

To start off, Scrum is not my own made-up word—I got it from a book called Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time. (Sounds pretty good, right?)

And basically, the concept of Scrum is just that: managing a team of employees and contractors in the smartest way possible.

I used Scrum throughout the process of creating my newest product, “Webinars That Convert.” Basically, I set up a checklist of every single thing that needed to get done on this product—from creation to promotion to sales to management—and my team and I “Scrummed” our way through it!

Not coincidentally, it’s the same checklist I used for promoting the Profit Lab last spring. That’s why I’m offering the same giveaway this week—the step-by-step project plan checklist that puts all the chaos of a new product launch into sanity-saving order.

This checklist goes hand-in-hand with today’s topic—download it and you’ll be well on your way to Scrumming your first project.

Why Scrum? 

There are the four main ways that Scrum really helps my business reach its productive sweet spot:

It increases your team’s speed to completion.

How Scrum Works

#1: The Project Backlog

#2: The Sprint

#3: The Sprint Review

The bottom line is, if you don’t take the time to communicate well with your team, it will cost you money because they will do it wrong. And Scrum is an amazing way to keep that communication alive.

Best of all, the Scrum method gets easier and more efficient every time you use it! It’s kind of intense, it’s all-consuming, but when it’s over, it’s completely done and you’ve got a completed project.

Grab the free PDF project backlog (if you haven’t already) and start warming up to Scrum in your business. And let me know how it works for you!

EPISODE FREEBIE Get The Project Plan Checklist

FREE DOWNLOAD

I know I have talked about copy many times. But can you blame me? It’s a hot topic!

Many of you that are growing your business online or have been growing your business for a while now still struggle with copy.

Believe me, I get it. I have definitely struggled for years with writing good copy for my business. And when I finally felt like I got that "copy mojo," things started to become easier in every aspect of my business.

That's why I'm so excited to bring you my guest today -- Nikki Elledge Brown. Along with being a proud military spouse, a mom, and a former park ranger, she's an amazing communicator and businesswoman. Nikki went from teaching communications at college-level to running a business that broke multiple six figures in under 18 months. (Wow, right?)

And the heart of her business is teaching entrepreneurs (like you and me) how to write their own copy, better than ever!

Nikki's approach to copy is putting it into "recipes." Sales pages, blog posts, video scripts, About pages...she breaks them all down into specific, doable steps that make copywriting easier than a "just add water" cake mix!

Today's show is packed with ridiculously simple recipes for every piece of copy you'll ever have to write, along with a few to help with your mindset around copywriting.

Stuff like...

Nikki also put together our freebie today, which is--you guessed it--a "recipe book" of copywriting formulas. Click here to get it now!

EPISODE FREEBIE Get Nikki's "A Course About Copy Class Notes"

FREE DOWNLOAD

As I mentioned, Nikki has built a hugely successful business in an amazingly short amount of time on her way with words. She had over 90 new clients sign up with her in her first two months of business!

And in her words, the key to this kind of growth is not just being good at helping others communicate, but being able to communicate her own brand clearly to potential clients.

"You are losing money if you aren’t communicating effectively."

Find out Nikki's recipes for maximizing your revenue potential with easier-than-ever techniques for communicating with your audience. Her free PDF is about to become your copywriting "Joy of Cooking"--an indispensable guide to everything you'll ever need to write for your business. Click here to get it now!

What a difference a tweak makes!

If you've spent any time on this blog (or podcast) in recent weeks, you know how firmly I stake my belief in webinars. Webinars offer a platform that lets you connect with people on an entirely new, personal level you just don’t get with most marketing strategies.

And what other marketing strategy can offer the opportunity for consistent on-the-spot revenue?

If you’ve done successful webinars in the past and are looking to make even bigger revenue, OR if you’ve never done webinars before or maybe have just dabbled with them in the past, today is going to be quite a pleasant surprise.

Starting with this number: $62,000

As the title says, just three little webinar-related tweaks made a $62,000 difference in my bottom line. I knew they'd have an impact, but the size of that number surprised even me.

See, I knew there were aspects of my webinar strategy that could use a shot in the arm.

Whenever you want to reach a new goal, you know some parts of your strategy are going to have to change.

So I set to work making adjustments, starting with:

Tweak #1: The Sales Page

This might surprise you, but I always do a sales page for any promotion I put together. Where some people might drive webinar attendees right to their product order form, my style is to give people extra information, especially if they are on the fence.

In the past we used to send people directly from the webinar to the sales page to read all about the product and then buy. But over time, we realized I wasn’t getting as many sales on the webinar as I had thought I should.

And that's how this simple tweak came about. I still use the sales page, but I'm using it smarter. That single change resulted in instant sales from the very next webinar, as well as a bigger boost of those instant sales.

(Click here to listen to the full episode and find out the simple tweak that boosted instant webinar sales!)

Tweak #2: More Webinars During Promotion

I want to give a shout-out to a member of the mastermind I used to be in. He's the one who suggested this tweak to me.

He said if webinars work really well for me, I should be capitalizing on that.

This idea--do more of what's already working for you--was so simple, it was revolutionary.

In the past, I'd do one webinar for each promotion. But at his suggestion, I stepped up my game.

It took a while for this tweak to hit its stride. But once it did, I saw amazing results.

Tweak #3: Facebook Ads

This is one I learned from my amazing coach, Todd Herman.

I found that when I'm running Facebook ads for a webinar promo to a cold audience that probably doesn’t know much about me, that ad needs to look a whole lot different than an ad to a warm audience (my fan base, my own email list, or a retargeting list).

Here are some examples:

The warm-audience ad

The warm-audience ad is more "talky" and personable. It has a lot more of my branding in it, in terms of colors and design. These people already know me and like me, so it plays on that familiarity we have.

Compare that to...

The cold-audience ad

The cold-audience doesn't have a lot of branding to it. The text is short, punchy and blatant: "This is what we have going on, sign up here." Because this audience doesn't know me, I keep it much more generic.

Find out more about how to tailor your Facebook ads to different audiences. Click here to listen to the whole episode.