No Excuses! How Financial Advisors Can Get Started Creating Video in 2021

This article first appeared in Advisorpedia on January 29th, 2021, and can be found here.

Video marketing is one of the most useful content marketing strategies you can leverage - but we see tons of financial advisors reluctant to get started.

One of my best pieces of advice for business owners in 2021 is to get someone on camera, to find someone in your organization who can be the spokesperson and get them in front of the camera. Whenever I recommend this, though, I hear all sorts of reasons why people don't want to create video so today I'm going to share with you the top reasons business owners don't want to record video, and what I suggest as answers to each of those objections.

So I'm Samantha Russell from Twenty Over Ten, and as I said, it is so crucial- especially right now more than ever, when people are engaging online primarily over any other form of communication- to have someone be a spokesperson for your business. This person is going to be the face of the company. So you'll often see me here representing Twenty Over Ten, and now since our recent acquisition by FMG Suite, I am officially the Chief Evangelist for both Twenty Over Ten and FMG Suite. And this is important because people will look to one person to be the face of that company, they'll be much better able to forge relationships, to feel a personal connection with a human being than a brand, than a logo, right? And so getting someone on camera is so crucial.

But here are the types of objections that we hear: 

1. "I'm worried I will trip over my words."

Number one, "I'm worried I will trip over my words." That's okay! Tripping over your words makes you human, and we are trying to form human connection. So seeing somebody else make a mistake makes us feel like, "oh, that's a real human being."

2. "I can't memorize a script."

In fact, I really suggest that you don't script your words, which actually leads me to objection number two, which is "I can't memorize a script" or "I can't read a teleprompter." It's okay! Right now if you see what I'm doing, I am holding my computer screen, I have the list of items I want to talk about, and you'll see me glance down every couple of minutes and look at those main bullet points while I'm referencing what it is that I want to talk about with all of you. So don't use a script, speak extemporaneously.

3. "I'm going to look dumb."

And if you trip over a word, laugh at yourself, which leads me to objection number three, is people worrying they're going to look dumb. You're not gonna look dumb. In fact, if you make a mistake and you can laugh at yourself, people will like you more because you are not trying to be a perfectionist or a robot. It just, again, makes you more human.

4. "I don't want to look unprofessional."

And another thing people will say is "I don't want to look unprofessional." Here's the thing. So many of us are working from home, so many of us don't have an office space that we can record video in, and that, again, is okay. A ton of research has been done on what types of posts we are most likely to click on social media sites, and interestingly enough, you will see more and more companies in 2021 than ever before creating ads that don't look like ads. And that's because research has found that when it doesn't look like an ad when it looks like our friend posted a video of himself or someone else that had posted a photo and some copy about what they're doing that weekend, we are much more likely then to click on those ads, and share them, and read them, and interact with them because they look like organic things that would appear in our feed, not like an ad.

So hopefully this mindset chip- shift- see, I just did it! It will help get you in front of the camera in 2021. Remember, do not let perfect be the enemy of good and done. If you want some more tips about how to look good in front of a camera, find good lighting, have a good setup, we'll link to those tips below, as we have many other videos on how to get started with video marketing.

But just get started. Getting started is the hardest part, and once you do it, you will be well on your way to creating a consistent routine. I'm Samantha Russell from Twenty Over Ten and FMG Suite, and I look forward to seeing you all in next week's video. If you haven't already, make sure you subscribe to our channel and you'll be notified every time we drop a new video. Have a good one.