How to Get More Comfortable on Camera

[00:00:00] Jen McFarland: The Women Conquer Business show is an educational, how to, women in business podcast that features stories, marketing news and real life experiences from fun and friendly hosts, Jen McFarland and Shelley Carney. Join us as we dive into the details so you can slay marketing overwhelm, streamline processes and amplify your impact.

You'll learn strategies and tactics, leadership skills and practical advice from successful women entrepreneurs to help you grow, nurture, and sustain your business.

Hello and welcome to Women Conquer Business. I'm your host, Jen McFarland joined by Shelley Carney as always. And today we are going to talk about how to get more comfortable on camera. This is a question that I get all the time, because I'm on camera a fair amount. And I think it's really important to talk through some of these things, because this is a big part of content marketing. It's a big part of getting your message out and really talking to people. If you're doing events, attending conferences, or want to build your brand and video content, part of it is you have to be able to engage with the camera and be engaging.

But that all starts with comfort. Before we begin, we wanted to just touch base with each other. Talk about some things that are going on in the world. So, hi Shelley.

[00:01:28] Shelley Carney: Hi, Jen, I'm doing super. Everything's going according to plan in my life, we're going to go visit my mom starting tomorrow. Toby and I are driving over to Arizona to go to her house, set up a in-home studio so that I can do my work from there.

My brother has been working on getting internet into their home, which is a process because they live in a retirement community. He had to call some of their neighbors and find out what they use and what works best. He's nearby, but the one he uses does not cover their area.

He's been working on getting that done and of course Memorial day is coming, so he had to put it off by day because they're going to be closed for Memorial day. I'm hoping to have internet for next week's show. If I don't, I may be on my phone. We don't know yet, so we're going to play it by ear. But I'm happy to be going to visit my mom. Toby and are going to visit her Saturday morning.

He's been wanting to see her and see how she's doing and just get a feel for what her life is going to be like and anything that we can do in her home to help make things easier for them. We'll take care of that this weekend.

[00:02:34] Jen McFarland: It's just so great to have people in your life like Toby, that is going to help and take care of things with you and do things.

I started giggling because when you were saying you could be on your phone right before we got started, Shelley was teaching me how to use Streamyard. I haven't really used it before we started doing the show together and we did a test show and it was called test. Toby is awesome. And they accidentally published it and sent it.

So that is not next week's show. And it could be that I'm by myself, which is fine because last week you were with Toby and how did that go?

[00:03:12] Shelley Carney: It went very well, of course we're used to doing this. The biggest problem was after the fact when YouTube made some random robot decision to make both our videos private on YouTube.

[00:03:27] Jen McFarland: I had to fix that when I got back from my yurt.

[00:03:29] Shelley Carney: How did you fix it?

[00:03:33] Jen McFarland: I edited the video and then it said it so that it was public again. But yeah,

[00:03:38] Shelley Carney: I edited mine too. So that must have been what happened.

[00:03:41] Jen McFarland: So it came back online and then I was able to share it and get it out into the world.

That's the thing getting comfortable on camera, doing all this content marketing, it's all about rolling with it. That's what you have to do because a lot of this stuff happens. Before we start, one of the things about marketing is you can't be tone deaf to what's going on in the world.

And I really felt compelled talk about we've had so many mass shootings lately. We've had so much going on in the world. And I feel like if we just blast through and talk about everything, like nothing is happening, there's a chance that we become tone deaf marketers. We have to really acknowledge that a lot of people are struggling right now.

There's a lot going on in the world. It's difficult and tragic to see the pictures of these babies who were murdered in Texas. They're just small kids and it's so traumatic and difficult and seeing posts from people who are parents who are very concerned about sending their kids to school and all of these things.

I think it's important to talk about it a little bit and process through it a little bit. Also how it relates to your marketing, because it actually does. What are you? You said that you talked about, whoa, there's an alert going on in New Mexico. Everybody's taking cover in New Mexico.

[00:05:05] Shelley Carney: Yeah. There's a fire in the Bosque trail. Letting everybody know, stay away and Bosque trail is the trail right along the Rio Grande River and goes right through Albuquerque. Oh, wow. Yeah. Fires in that area. Sorry.

[00:05:17] Jen McFarland: So you said that you talked about the shootings and everything last week or yesterday.

Last night. Okay.

[00:05:22] Shelley Carney: We have a show called news and views and we talk about news. And we started off our news coverage with the shooting and basically how people in positions of government and so on are handling it and how people are feeling and what can be done. In the chat there, it gave everybody an opportunity to express their feelings.

What they thought was an underlying theme that they were seeing of why these things are happening and how we've moved into this. Toby talked about in the sixties, there was a school shooting and that was a huge deal. And now there's been 27 school shootings this year.

So what has happened to us to get us to there? Why are we living through this? And it gets to be so many times, so often, that you can't even finish crying about the last one before the next one happens. It's tragic and it's sad and it is stressful.

We're scared. W e have a very scared population of parents who are crying out for relief, some answers. What can be done to improve our schools and make things safe? We didn't like the shutdown during the pandemic. We didn't like that our kids had to do online learning, but they were a lot safer.

There were a lot fewer school shootings when the pandemic was going on because schools were closed. So

[00:07:03] Jen McFarland: I think that for me, it's we don't want to become blase about it. Like it's just the world we live in. And I think that you have a lot of really good resources that you wanted to share about if you're really struggling it is important to talk to somebody about how you're feeling. Reach out. There's the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. There are a lot of resources out there if you're struggling with this. Do you want to share any of those? Yeah,

[00:07:31] Shelley Carney: we'll talk about that. So it's important to look after your mental health, after tragic events. And this is definitely one of those times. Here are a few recommendations for self care in the coming days.

[00:07:44] Shelley: Talk about what you're thinking with someone you trust. If you want to write something in our chat, if you want to reach out to us, we're fine with that. We're here for you. Express Those feelings, so they don't stay bottled up. Keep to normal routine as much as you can with getting up and eating and going to work.

[00:08:02] Shelley Carney: And all of the routines can help keep us grounded and feeling like we're still okay. Avoid unhealthy coping mechanisms like drinking or drugs. They just prolong the problems and they don't help you to process your feelings. Take a break from social media if you feel like that's something you need to do.

And a lot of us need to be reminded of that. Get off social media for a while and get out in nature and talk to people and get into the 3d world again. Help other people, if you can. Do what we're doing, reach out, say we're here. Talk to me. Share your feelings and then reach out if you need extra support.

Here is the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1 800 2 7 3 8 2 5 5. Or you can text H O M E the word home to 7 4 1 7 4 1 for free 24 hour support from the crisis text line. Reach out and get that help. Now more than ever, we need to come together as a country, as a community to support each other and to support parents who are afraid, of what's possible for their children.

We're here and we feel the way you feel, the pain that you feel as well.

[00:09:22] Jen McFarland: Yeah. The pictures are just heartbreaking. And the posts that I see from my friends with children are also heartbreaking. I want to also transition a little into what this means for your marketing. I saw something on Twitter this morning that is exactly what not to do. One of the things that you want to look at after tragedy is what are you sharing on social media? Are you publishing a lot of posts that are going to be interpreted as tone deaf? One of the reasons we're talking about it now is we want to acknowledge there are things going on in the world much bigger than whether or not you feel comfortable on camera.

And we want to acknowledge that there is a lot happening, so we don't sound like business as usual all the time. That's one of the reasons why we take time out when there are so many tragedies and we've had tragedies in Buffalo. We've had tragedies in Texas. We've had tragedies in California all in a week.

I think, just a lot of people have died. So one of the things about your marketing and especially heading into a Memorial Day weekend, where you maybe have a lot of things set up, you just don't want to appear tone deaf. And this is an example of what not to do. At the top is somebody's commentary on it.

The commentary is in light of recent events, we've canceled all of our Memorial day sales promotions. Instead use promo code profit from tragedy for 30% off all purchases. This is what the company wrote that does sound tone deaf, in my opinion. Since we are in the business of helping handle stress and creating space for our mental health, I will share a code here for our newsletter subscribers. You use code hugs 30 and get 30% off your purchase through Tuesday. And it's doing things like that sounds tone deaf, as the commentary on Twitter says it's profiting from tragedy.

You absolutely don't want to do this. Some people say pause all of your scheduled content. I think it depends on what you're sharing. You definitely don't want to change your promotion so that it appears that you are trying to capitalize on so many tragedies that we've had, and you want to find ways that you can talk about things.

That's why we are talking about everything that's going on in the world now. And if it means you need to pause your campaigns or rethink what it is that you were sharing in your marketing in light of tragedy. You do need to review that and look at it so that you are ensuring that you're not putting things through a lens that makes you look like it's business as usual and I'm profiting from so much death. So it is a time that a lot of people want to talk about a lot of what's going on in the world, whether it's Ukraine or other things that are going on, it's a time for communication. It's not a time for pushy sales necessarily. It's not to say you can't sell anything, but this is definitely not an approach that you want to go with.

And I think that is why it's important that we talk about tragedy. And then we also talk about it in light of how you go out and engage in the world, knowing that there's a lot of pain in the world and then acknowledging it and navigating it with a little bit more grace than a coupon code that capitalizes on it.

[00:12:40] Shelley Carney: This week the news came out that there was a billionaire created every 30 hours during the pandemic, and a lot of them were from drug companies. And it makes you think about people who profit from other people's tragedy and it makes you kinda wonder is that right? Is that a good thing? I suppose it depends on if you've become a billionaire because of everybody needing to buy a particular drug and now you've benefited from that. Is there a way that you can then share that benefit with the world? Can you give money to fight world hunger or whatever?

How can you stay on the right side of things, right? How can you be compassionate and lead with love? And I think we should ask ourselves that no matter what we're doing if we're just doing a regular show or if we are trying to address a tragedy, how can I lead with love? How can I be compassionate to people?

And if you keep that in mind, I think the money will actually just come anyways, because it's just the rule of the universe that when you're doing really good things that are helpful for people, then money just comes to you anyway.

[00:13:58] Jen McFarland: Absolutely. And we've talked about this a lot, and I think that one of the things I haven't shared on the show, but I've shared with you, Shelley is how I've been showing up and doing the same thing now for a long time. And now all of a sudden, people are just sending me clients. I'm not having to do a lot of active marketing to get people because when you show up, then people are like, Hey, I think that you have something to share that's really important.

I think you can help people. So I get a lot more client referrals. And then I just talk about the issues and talk about, do my thing. And people come and the money comes. Fundamentally, I know the gurus tell you all kinds of things. That's fundamentally how all of this stuff works. You show up, you do your thing, you share your knowledge. People want to be a part of that. And that is how this works. So I don't care what other people say, because I know that my experience has been, you show up, you do your thing. And yes, the money comes, the clients come all of it. With all of that in mind let's do shift into what we came here to discuss.

I think it is part of sharing your love and sharing your compassion is also being able to be engaging in all the different ways that you're sharing your expertise. And part of that compassion comes from feeling very comfortable when you are on camera, when you are engaging with other people, whether it's a podcast or through a blog or anything like that.

And Shelley, I feel like this is way more your... Like, oh, when I talk about how to be comfortable on camera, a lot of times I'm talking about it based on my own personal experience, but I know that you talk through this with your clients and you really. Can you talk a little bit about your background because you have been in television and worked in this for a long time.

And I think that, a lot of what you have to share on this is based on a lot of experience and expertise.

[00:15:51] Shelley Carney: It was 2011 and I signed up for a film tech program. And within that, I became a producer of a video series. That was my first experience with putting together a team, creating videos, putting them on YouTube and that included, all the way through pre-production through post-production; all of it. So I learned a lot and then I took acting classes after that, because I worked with actors. I was a producer working with actors. I had done auditions and we chose the actors and I worked with them during every shoot.

So I got a real good excitement and feeling for what they were doing. And I went through acting classes myself, and a lot of it is just about, don't worry so much about the words. Worry more about conveying the feeling to people that you need to get across because people will remember how you made them feel more than they remember anything else.

And I also took improv classes and I took a public speaking class and I learned that you don't have to know everything. There are times on our show, Toby and I, and he'll be talking and talking and all of a sudden he can't think of a person's name like he couldn't remember one of the prime ministers of China or something. I can't remember his name. Three people wrote in the chat, the name, that he wanted. It gives them a chance to participate and to feel smart because they provided that for you. So don't ever worry that you're not going to know an answer.

Just do what you can with what you know, and what you have, and then let other people who are in your audience feel smart by also helping you out and providing those answers. I think that's a huge weight off your shoulders when you realize I don't have to know everything. I just have to show up.

[00:17:37] Jen McFarland: When I first started my business, I thought I should take an acting class. I should take improv. I've actually never talked to anybody who went and did all that. No wonder you're so comfortable on camera because you have

[00:17:48] Shelley Carney: failed so many times on stage. This is nothing.

[00:17:52] Jen McFarland: That's one of the things that I tell people just based on experientially, without having the background that you do is the best way to get over your fear or, the best way to feel comfortable on camera is to practice.

[00:18:02] Shelley Carney: That's right. Absolutely. Be prepared, practice, and don't give up.

[00:18:08] Jen McFarland: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:18:09] Shelley Carney: Those are your three steps. Go.

[00:18:10] Jen McFarland: I like this first point that you have here, which is, is there fear here?

[00:18:15] Shelley Carney: There's always fear of getting up in front of people. It's just ingrained in our brain. But it's something that we can learn through practice and preparation to quiet that down. To, I've done this before. I've been here before, I can do this. I don't have to know everything. Give yourself that little pep talk and then do it. And then the more you do it the easier it is.

[00:18:38] Jen McFarland: One of my friends and colleagues, Bridget, was giving a presentation and she took a selfie, it's this great selfie right before she goes to talk to a Chamber of Commerce. And she's like I feel like I'm going to barf. I was like, you got this! We were chatting online and stuff, which is why I don't feel bad talking about it. What I said was, I get really red and I always feel freaked out and I have so much fear and I do it anyway. And she was like, yeah, I do it anyway. And one of the things that we talked about a few months ago was how, I was in a documentary for an article I wrote about ClickFunnels. The thing I didn't tell people is in the interview I'm wearing a turtleneck that goes up to my jaw, basically, because when I get really anxious about things I get super red, everywhere. And afterwards I talked to the camera man, and I was like, so did I turn really red? And he's no, not really. And I said, what about here? And I pulled down my turtleneck and he was like, oh my gosh. He's it's like crazy. And it's all the anxiety that comes up and the fear and what's going to happen next.

You know that as a public speaker or someone to be interviewed, those things can really mess with you. What I want to share is it's always going to be there and you just do it anyway. That's right.

[00:19:52] Shelley Carney: That's right. I still remember standing at the side of the stage wearing a bikini and they call my name and I'm like, I have to walk out there now I have to go.

And I had to go stand out there by myself and do these poses on a stage in a bikini. It doesn't get any worse. Doing the rest of this is easy-peasy. Right?

[00:20:12] Jen McFarland: One of the things that when I was prepping for the show today, that I thought was really great and it's something that I actually do but it would never have occurred to me, I was researching it is, to develop a relaxation routine, which is what I do or dance it out. And I sometimes have done both actually, and it just depends. So if you are like me and have all that anxious energy or you get really uncomfortable with the idea of being on camera, develop some way that you can help yourself. Guide yourself through this process, whether it is relaxation through, I do a lot of meditation, I've done visualizations around expected outcomes about things. All of that kind of stuff that really grounds you or just dance it out. And I've done that too.

The lights I have in my office and stuff, they actually coordinate to music, which is the funniest thing. And so I'll crank up the music on my phone and have a little disco party in here and it releases some of that anxiety. And then after you've either grounded and relaxed or let the energy out, then the camera just seems to be less of an issue.

[00:21:19] Shelley Carney: And that's one of the reasons we have that fun, little dancing music at the beginning of our shows. So we can like, let's get into it. Let's get ready. But yeah, absolutely great to have those routines, they get you into that head space and after you've done them long enough, it's an automatic thing. Instead of it taking five minutes of meditation to get you there, it's, you've done it so many times you're just there.

[00:21:47] Jen McFarland: Absolutely. Yeah. I love this next bullet point and I have to say that it's also funny because I'm really a fly by the seat of your pants kind of person.

I don't always know what's going to come out of this mouth. But I feel like since we've done this show together, it's been a lot easier to feel grounded. And what the bullet point says is what to say and who to say it to. You wrote this, so what would you like to say to that?

[00:22:08] Shelley Carney: That's part of your preparation, right?

If somebody asks you to be in a summit or to speak to an audience, you are prepared. You know who the audience is, you know what your topic is, you have it outlined, you might have visual aids to keep you on track. And all of those things are a comfort because you have, okay, then I'm going to say this and show this slide. And then I'm going to say this as I show this slide and it keeps you focused. I know what I'm going to talk about. I know who I'm speaking to. So I have an idea of what their issues are, what kind of information they're looking for and how to best connect with that person. All that information is going to help you put on a really good presentation.

[00:22:52] Jen McFarland: Absolutely. And that's one of the key components of content marketing, which being on video, writing blog posts, things like that. These are all content marketing strategies. They're all far more successful the more you know about your customers, because it's a lot easier to talk to them. It's a lot easier to look at the camera or even a couple inches above the camera and pretend that they're right there and talking to them.

But it is very helpful. The more you know, about who you're talking to, what their issues are, and then sharing with them, like a friend, how you can help them and what it is you're going to do. And you have to plan that.

[00:23:30] Shelley Carney: That's right. And it helps to picture somebody. I know that today I'm going to be talking to people like Jen.

So I'm going to picture talking to Jen when I look into the camera. And of course it's easier when there's two of us here to have that conversation, that back and forth and gives the other person a chance to think of a new thing to say while the other person's talking.

[00:23:53] Jen McFarland: Absolutely. But there's also the chance, the way that we do this stuff, it's live, there's a chance that something could go horribly wrong and our internet can fail. And, being prepared also helps you go through that on your own, if you had to.

And that's the thing, like when you think about what to say, who you're saying it to, and then, I like to do the, what if game. I really do. I'm a project manager at heart. What would happen if everything went horribly, terribly wrong? It doesn't freak me out because if you think about it and plan around it, then it helps you navigate it if something did happen. Planning things and thinking through it really can help you in times where it doesn't go as expected. But most of the time everything goes exactly how it's supposed to, unless you hit publish test show Toby is awesome, which we did right before we went live.

It was pretty awesome.

[00:24:43] Shelley Carney: We just put that out in the world, so.

[00:24:45] Jen McFarland: Out in the world. Next week, we're going to talk about this in way more depth. We're going to talk about show flow, scripting templates, things like that. But tagging on to what to say and who to say it to, you have to have some sort of notes or show flow or slides, something that will be your guide post, right?

[00:25:02] Shelley Carney: Yeah, absolutely. It keeps you on track and if you expect, okay, at this point, I'm going to make a joke and everybody's going to laugh and then we're going to do this and that doesn't happen. You can then go. Okay, that didn't work. Next. Moving on. Let's go on to the next thing. And that's what comedians do, right?

If a joke bombs, they just move through it. They just go onto the next joke okay. Yeah, that didn't work. I'm taking that out.

[00:25:29] Jen McFarland: And then there's the whole, looking good and sounding good. This kind of comes down to, you have to make good content. It has to be at least somewhat entertaining for people. And I talk with my hands. So I end up being at least entertaining for people who think that's hilarious.

And I have really worked on my environment, getting a good microphone, things that really help with that. I think that in the beginning it really is about showing up and doing it. And then as you evolve, like I have quite the collection of microphones over here from that evolution. And that might be what happens with some of you as well is you may improve your camera over time.

That was the conversation last week, which is how do you get started? And then what are your first upgrades after that? So if you didn't catch last week's show, then understand that looking good and sounding good is also an evolution. And in the beginning it might be wearing clothes. Do you know if there are certain clothes that work better on video?

[00:26:24] Shelley Carney: Sometimes stripey things like this can give off a weird pattern. So you just have to look at yourself on camera and say, does this give off a Moray pattern is what it's called when it goes, woo. Wavy looking because it's stripey. For some reason, it'll do that sometimes. Other than that, you just want to make sure that you're happy with the way you look, then you're going to feel more confident, right?

The best way to look good is to have good lighting. So start with your good lighting that lights you well and evenly, and gives you that well lit, happy glow. Yeah. And then do the best you can with your hair and makeup to look natural, but nice because these are going to be out there for a really long time.

You don't want to go back and look at it and go, oh my God, I'm so ugly. Take it off. Because the content is important. And if you can't get good with how you look and the way your voice sounds, then you're not going to be happy with the final product. So try to watch yourself a little bit in the beginning. As if, take a step back and say, okay, if this was a friend of mine, what would I say? Not oh my God, I'm so fat or my hair looks horrible or whatever, try to take a step back and go, okay, my friend you look nice. And you're modest, which is good because you don't want to be hanging out if you're trying to be marketing and talking serious topics. You don't want people tuning in just to see how pretty and busty you are, that sort of thing. So you want to make sure that you are, modest looking, professional looking and that you carry yourself well, and that you exude confidence. That's what's going to attract people.

As for your voice, try to be as relaxed as possible. That's what I do and I get a lot of compliments on my voice.

[00:28:14] Jen McFarland: I know. I feel like you listen to me and it's a meat cleaver, and then we have the sultry voice on the other side.

[00:28:21] Shelley Carney: That's what you don't want to do. Don't put yourself down.

[00:28:24] Jen McFarland: But that's the thing. We are all on a different place on the spectrum here, in terms of understanding what that means. For me personally, I just don't look back. Honestly, I don't spend a lot of time watching myself. I don't spend a lot of time listening to myself.

[00:28:37] Shelley Carney: I try to say nice things to myself. Oh, I look really good there. Oh, I like that shirt. That's a good color on me. Things like that. The lighting could be better.

[00:28:47] Jen McFarland: But for me, the best way to not be critical is to not look back.

But I will say this, if the people that you are looking to as your heroes in some of these areas are people who have huge staff or they've been doing live streaming for years and years. Like the Gary Vaynerchuks and Brendon Burchard's and people like that. You have to go back years and see where they started instead of looking at today. Because where you are today as someone beginning and trying to get comfortable with the camera, you can't be playing the comparison game all the time. Every show that you do is building on the previous experience. So when you look at it, as, do I look good and sound good? Like it's all about where you are. It's not about a comparison about where you are versus where somebody else is.

And I think that really helps with the grounding process and helping people understand what they need to do. Again, it comes down to practice and then also acceptance.

[00:29:47] Shelley Carney: Yes, my partner who is 73 and a lot of times he'll say I'm not some young, pretty person people aren't going to listen to me. That's an excuse. That is an excuse to keep you from doing it. So do not use those excuses. Nobody really cares what you look like. They care more about what you're talking about. Are you of offering value? As long as they can hear and understand you they're happy, right?

[00:30:16] Jen McFarland: Yeah. And then be authentically you. I have a problem in that I can't be fake. So if you talk to me, I'm just me. But I understand that we all have a veneer that we put on. I maybe haven't been sharing all of the times I fell down in Concussion therapy or the frustration of not being able to be on camera all the time, or like all the things that are going on behind the scenes. Because, everybody has their own life and their own privacy, but part of being authentic is saying I got stuff going on too. Everybody has stuff going on and then you just keep pushing through it and you keep working through it. And you be authentic about who you are, what you don't know, which I think is really important too. And then just keep sharing that and keep at it.

[00:31:06] Shelley Carney: It's true when you are vulnerable, it gives other people the permission to be vulnerable as well.

If you want information from somebody offer your own first, right? I am feeling this. I went through that. I had this happen. My mom had a stroke. How many people reached out to me and said I had a stroke. My dad had a stroke. People reached out to me after I shared what was going on in my life. It gave them that permission, that opening to share back.

So don't be afraid of being vulnerable about those types of things that are going on in your life that may be going on in other people's lives as well.

[00:31:47] Jen McFarland: Yeah. It was interesting. I shared about the concussion. I've been talking about it on the podcast for awhile, but I shared about it for the first time on Facebook, which is where I go for primarily friends and family. I don't go there for business stuff, but there are some people who follow me from the business world. And it was really fascinating, all of my friends and family just rallied around and they were all like, oh my gosh, I didn't know. And hope you're doing better and it's been very touching.

And then the people from the business world who are on there were like, oh, I can't believe your authenticity. I can't believe you're sharing this. And I'm like, I can't believe that you're saying that, it's important. It is important to let people know what's going on. It can't just be fake all the time.

You have to share little pieces of you because it's your humanity, especially if you're a small business or a solopreneur, like these things are really critical as part of,

[00:32:40] Shelley Carney: Because you are the brand, you are the face of your business and you need to be a real person.

[00:32:45] Jen McFarland: I think we've talked about how to be authentic authentically you on there. And then it's really about diving in and getting started. So I love that you have written down here, invite friends to watch and comment. I will say that I was so freaked out when I started on camera. I would do Facebook lives set to private and I didn't let anybody see it.

And it was to practice, just figure out how to turn it on and how to do it. But I love this idea of inviting friends to watch and comment.

[00:33:12] Shelley Carney: That's right. Because sometimes we do things that we don't even know we're doing. We might say a particular word oh, a hundred percent.

And we might say it so much that everybody else is super annoyed by it, but we don't even know we do it. So that is an excellent way to have people comment and say, maybe tone that down, on that a hundred percent thing, because that's annoying. Or maybe you do a thing that's very distracting and people are like, why are you doing that?

Stop it.

[00:33:40] Jen McFarland: I try not to I and the filler words in the beginning, there's going to be a lot of yeah, like you knows, that happens. Those tend to go away, but not all of them. I still do it.

[00:33:54] Shelley Carney: That is leading into the next one, by the way. That is why I believe you need to edit either edit your own videos or your own transcript of your videos. Because then you say, oh my gosh, I say the word just so often.

Or I start every sentence with, and, or so. I need to cut that out because that's just annoying. And I have to take it out every time, so you begin to see,

[00:34:19] Jen McFarland: I say so a lot.

[00:34:21] Shelley Carney: We all do.

[00:34:24] Jen McFarland: But it has been a great experience. I want to say that I fully agree with that. It has been a great experience for me to go through my own videos and transcripts. I use Descript. I know that there are other programs like Otter and things like that. That's the power of that, because then you begin to see the ticks that you have.

Cause everybody has things that they do. And the way to improve I think is to really go through and see that and then make adjustments accordingly.

[00:34:50] Shelley Carney: And I wish Toby would do it because he'll use a hundred words when three would do. I'm always cutting. Okay. Just got to get this chunk out because it's just a bunch of words that don't mean anything. And let's just get to the meat of it. Yeah. So when you edit things like that, you can go, oh, here's the meat. Why did I say all this junk? Why did I repeat it five times?

[00:35:11] Jen McFarland: Oh, but we did have the Toby is awesome event. So we know we're not busting on Toby a hundred percent.

And then the last point we're gonna wrap up training. Oh my gosh. We're going to come in under an hour for sure today. Look at this. Is the only failure is giving up.

I don't really have a lot else to say than that. I think that's it, that's the thing.

[00:35:29] Shelley Carney: Don't take down all your videos. Unless for some reason you totally change what you do for a living or whatever. Don't take down your old videos just because they're not perfect and don't give up. Keep trying, keep getting better.

The only way to keep getting better is to keep doing it. If you're, like I said, some really horrible things on this and I don't want that to be what people think of me, then go ahead and take that down. But other than that if you're just sharing content and you're sharing your vulnerability and that sort of thing, don't take that down.

Keep going, keep building on that. You're going to get better and better, and you're going to get more and more people showing up each week when you're consistent like that.

[00:36:08] Jen McFarland: A hundred percent. And I think that a lot of it too is. Yeah. You have to practice, you have to keep going and it I've lost my entire train of thought. I have to admit I have lost it. It'll probably come up later.

[00:36:23] Shelley Carney: Perfection is a process.

[00:36:25] Jen McFarland: There's a process. Yeah, no, it's important to not get rid of old things, unless they really aren't relevant and it's important to keep going. It's easy to give up, it's easy to, and then at the same time, you have to acknowledge that sometimes you do need to take a pause.

I had a pause on this show for a long time, and now I feel like it's back and stronger in a lot of ways, because it has a lot more focus. It's nice to have somebody else to talk to. It's really important to refocus and re-energize everything that you're going to do. Oh, I remember now what I was going to say.

I'm in these creator programs right now. And one of the things that was super discouraging was reading in the Ghost creator platform, creator group that I'm in, they said the first hundred blog posts are practice. And I was like, are you kidding me? Cause I went back and looked and I have a hundred blog posts.

I'm like, this is all practice? I've been writing my whole life, how can this only be practice? But then at the same time, the flip side of that was oh, okay. Yeah. If I go all the way back to my original blog posts, they were crummy. If I go back to my original videos, they were crummy.

And the point of that is that it's all a process. We're all learning. We're all growing. We're all continuing. You can reflect on the way things were and instead of deleting it, you just go, oh wow. I have really developed as a presenter. I have really developed my ideas around certain topics in ways that I hadn't imagined.

And I will tell you, sometimes I go back and I'm like, why haven't I talked about that? It was still really important and now I have more experience and another way to talk about it that's different. Having that history, understanding that in the beginning it is practice and you're just going to get better and you're just going to naturally get more comfortable is really critical to this process. As a creator, as someone being creative in your business,

[00:38:21] Shelley Carney: I have two things to add to that. When I started my LinkedIn newsletter in January of this year, I wasn't quite sure where I was going with it, but I was just trying to, bring people together on LinkedIn and let them know who I am and what I do.

I had done articles on LinkedIn in the past, but this was going to be a newsletter and LinkedIn gets behind you with that and helps you to promote it. But it's grown more than my email list has grown, so I'm happy with it. But every week I start off with here's what's going on in my life and here's how that relates to me as a marketer. I've really done well with the way I shaped my writing and I wouldn't have been able to do that two or three years ago when I was writing blog posts. I had to practice to get there.

And the other thing I wanted to say was my friend, he is a social media content entrepreneur, and he said his Instagram account has gained over 15,000 Instagram followers in less than 24 hours. And I was like, wow, how did you do that? Just posting a reel every day. And one got featured. Wow. Yeah, this guy has worked at his craft.

I know he's been podcasting since podcasting started in like 2004. He's done YouTube ever since YouTube came out, he's been working and working at it and people don't know that about him. They just suddenly find him. And they're like, oh, you've got, 3 million followers on Tik TOK, and you've got a million followers on Instagram. You're really famous. That must've been wonderful, that happened for you. And he would be like, I've been working on this every day and putting out reels and doing the work and being there, showing up and that is what gets you to success. And that is all you have control over is how much you put into it.

[00:40:10] Jen McFarland: And to do it. And yeah, I think it's really important. I have an earlier episode about this. There's no such thing as overnight success. That's right. That's a myth. And it's funny when you hear people talk about it and they're like, yeah, everybody says I'm an overnight success. Boy. I wish they'd been here five years ago, seven years ago, 10 years ago.

[00:40:28] Shelley Carney: That was one long night.

[00:40:31] Jen McFarland: And so that's, what's really important here is working your way through that. But the only way to start is to start. And the only way to get there is to keep going. And that's the encouraging piece about it is that we're all on this journey together. We're all figuring it out. We're all doing things and Yeah.

I think that hopefully we've done a good job. If you have more questions or comments about how to get more comfortable on camera, if you have something that has really worked for you or a tip that maybe we didn't see, or if this helped you. Anything. Please do let us know. Comment on any of the live streams, send us an email.

Anything like

[00:41:10] Shelley Carney: If there's something that you have, that we didn't address. We don't know your fears. We know our fears. Tell us so that we can address that.

[00:41:18] Jen McFarland: Yeah. Yeah, feel free. You can email me at jen@womenconquerbiz.com and we'd be happy to hear from you and learn from you. I also wanted to invite you to subscribe to the women conquer business newsletter.

If you go to women's conquer biz.com/newsletter you can get it there. It's all the previous issues of the newly released newsletter are there. And then it does come out weekly and there's usually some sort of training in there. Some articles, things like that, that are helpful. And yeah.

What else would you like to share Shelley?

[00:41:50] Shelley Carney: Oh check out Livecast Life book on Amazon. There are a couple of chapters in there about confidence and feeling good about being on camera and how to prepare yourself to do that. So that is at book.Livecast.life. Awesome. Check that out. Great.

[00:42:10] Jen McFarland: And so tweaks of the week?

[00:42:11] Shelley Carney: Tweaks of the week. I don't have my soundboard. I am at home today. Cause we're getting ready to travel, but tweaks the week. Okay. So this happened to me. The friend, I was just mentioning that just got his big bump on Instagram, he has a YouTube channel. On every Sunday he does a live stream because his livestream coach told him to a couple of years ago.

[00:42:33] Jen McFarland: Is that you?

[00:42:34] Shelley Carney: I take full credit for it. That was me. I watch his show on Sundays and it's a fun little comedy puppet show. And he's got a wide range of viewers from kids all the way to adults, and it's kind of like Pixar and that he'll do humor. The kids sometimes maybe don't get the full understanding, but the adults are like, oh, It's a great show.

I was watching it on Sunday and I'm not a member of his channel. But there are many members who show up every week. Suddenly I was gifted a membership and I was like, what the what? So I got a free membership through a gift and it was just like, tada!, You are being gifted a membership. Do you accept?

And I'm like, yeah, sure. And then I got an email that said you were gifted a membership to this channel by another member and it's good for a month. And then you're at this level. So you can, take advantage of all these perks and go visit there now. And so I got to check it all out. Really great idea.

It's in beta version right now. It's not available to every creator. But if you are watching a channel and somebody says, do you want a free membership? Just yeah, enable. And then that can give you a free membership. And it's a great way to check it out. So if you have a YouTube channel and you're putting together a membership, think about doing that, because you can give a free membership for a month, they can check it out. And if they like it, then maybe they'll continue to pay for that membership in the future.

[00:44:01] Jen McFarland: That's cool. And I'm learning through Ghost that I have a way of doing that too. I can get gift memberships. I have a membership related to Women Conquer Biz. We're also getting ready to reload our re-imagined epiphany courses also on Ghost.

And we'll be able to do that as well. And what I have been just jamming on and I love is it's called heartbeat. It's a community platform that's very similar to circle or mighty networks. Some of these different platforms that's offered right now on AppSumo starting at $69. I would actually recommend getting the tier two, which is, I believe 159 dollars or 156, something like that. And again, through AppSumo it's lifetime this is a company that has some bigger clients. It's much more established than some of the other lifetime offers that I find on AppSumo. I have been testing it, using it, working with it. You can put courses in there.

That's what makes it like mighty networks is that you can do courses in there and community, or you could just do community and take comments and stuff. It takes you out of having a Facebook group, for example, or a LinkedIn group. Gets you off of social media and into a different platform for engagement, discussing things like courses or podcasts, things like that.

It's been wonderful. It's one that I think could potentially take off. So it is a good tool to consider if you are really looking at having or building a community.

[00:45:29] Shelley Carney: That's right. And Jen and I have been talking about that as well, to build our own joint community for content creators and create a membership and heartbeat would be the underlying container.

[00:45:41] Jen McFarland: Yeah.

Yeah. The community

[00:45:44] Shelley Carney: With me traveling and stuff, we're still in talks and putting it together and trying to make it happen. We're not going to give up on it.

[00:45:52] Jen McFarland: But we're busy, and launching companies and helping family. And there's just a lot.

You know that. Everybody who's listening and watching because you are in the same position as we are.

[00:46:02] Shelley Carney: But we want to provide support to other people who are going through the same thing. And of course we have the experience of going through it now, so we can share that.

[00:46:10] Jen McFarland: So do you want to close us out with the inspirational nuggets?

[00:46:13] Shelley Carney: Inspirational nugget. This is from my Daily Stoic and I felt it was very fitting today. What if I stopped caring what others thought? Don't spend much time thinking about what other people think about what you think. Think instead about the results, about the impact, about whether it is the right thing to do. Earlier this week, Toby called me and he said there's these people on YouTube who are talking about me and saying how wrong I am and they're just being mean to me.

And I want to make a video and I want to say something about it. And I was like, no. I said, why are you even watching that? What other people think about you is none of your business. That is their thing. What I want you to do instead is look at all the nice people that say nice things about us and what they're asking for.

What kind of content do they want? Let's focus on that. Let's not respond to that negativity and expand on that. Let's think about ways to be more positive and let those people go.

[00:47:12] Jen McFarland: Yeah, I truly believe that you get more of what you focus on.

[00:47:16] Shelley Carney: That's true.

[00:47:16] Jen McFarland: Focus on the good focus on the people that you're helping. Focus on the people. It's so hard to do. I understand. But yeah focus on what you want more of and you will see it. You see what you're looking for. You find what you're looking for. I think I've mentioned before, I've got a YouTube hater. I don't even have that many followers on YouTube, but there's one person that every time, no matter what video it is, it's immediately disliked. I just have to let that go because I don't know who it is. And I am in a way crazily honored that they take the time to come hate on it.

[00:47:50] Shelley Carney: It's engagement and all those people who are talking bad about Toby, all the people who were listening were like huh, I better go check that out.

So they come over to our channel and watch Toby. So really it's a good thing. So let it go. Let it go.

[00:48:05] Jen McFarland: That feels pretty good.

[00:48:07] Shelley Carney: Yeah. Just let it go.

[00:48:09] Jen McFarland: Yeah. Well have fun this weekend. Yeah. If that's possible with traveling and getting everything set up and everybody out there. Thank you for being here. Thank you for listening. Let us know if there's something that you would like us to cover.

Next week we are going to talk about scripting and getting your show flow template together so that you can be more it's again, one of the things we talked about for being more comfortable but it is also a great way to plan things out and get your content aligned with your mission and goals.

[00:48:41] Shelley Carney: And we look forward to seeing you again next week.

[00:48:43] Jen McFarland: That's right. Thank you.

[00:48:45] Shelley Carney: Thank you for joining the Women Conquer Business podcast hosted by Shelley Carney and Jen McFarland. Please subscribe and leave a comment or question regarding your most challenging content creation or business problem. Then share this podcast with family and friends so they can find the support they need to expand their brand and share their message with the world.

Check the show notes for links to valuable resources and come back again next week.