Find out what on-camera expert, Cam Houser, can teach you about propelling your business with video content.
Of his move to Austin, Texas, Cam Houser jokes that “it was mandatory to play in bands. You couldn’t enter the city limits if you didn’t play something.” And Houser did. In fact, he played so much in bands that he developed a repetitive stress injury in his strumming hand that never resolved itself.
This injury inhibited his typing ability, so he began experimenting with other modes of communication. Since talking to a camera was something he could do without pain, he began to incorporate video creation into his business efforts.
The power of facial expression and voice
“There is a richness to video with facial expressions and the sound of the voice. It can get across nuances that sometimes email can't capture,” Houser explains.
He found video as a business communications tool to be a game-changer for himself. Since then, through his Actionworks[1] consultancy and its flagship offering, the cohort-based Minimum Viable Video course, he’s made video a game-changer for others as well.
“There is something powerful about being able to see faces and hear voice tones. I think video surpasses email in terms of its ability to connect with others. As entrepreneurs and others building businesses, sometimes we underestimate the value of relationships because we think it's about tools and tech.”
Cam Houser
Founder, educator and consultant
When the world got turned on its head by the COVID-19 pandemic, Houser was able to build business relationships through video conferencing in a way that he couldn't through email and other channels. He also discovered that decent production quality and good on-camera delivery played a key role in building and maintaining those relationships.
Therein lay the seeds for the creation of Minimum Viable Video.[2] “It’s a course that teaches people how to navigate video and the basics of lighting and audio and backgrounds,” Houser explains.
“It’s more than feeling comfortable on camera. How does one tell a story while that camera is on you? How does one strategically think about using video as a medium to grow a business?”
Improving personal connections is just one part of the picture. Video can be a powerful marketing tool to build businesses, and it doesn’t take nearly as much effort to make it return dividends as you might think.
You don’t need to be a star to make video shine
The name Minimum Viable Video is a play on the term “minimum viable prototype,” a business concept in the startup world that, according to Houser, basically says we tend to overbuild a product or service as we’re building it.
Translated to the idea of tapping into video content creation, it becomes an exercise in thinking about how much effort you want to expand and how good you want the content to be.
“Most entrepreneurs and other people in business don’t have the charisma of Brad Pitt, and luckily we don’t need it for making good video content. With that idea in mind, we only want to reach a certain bar and a certain level of production where we are able to tell a good story and talk to the camera—and that’s good enough.”
Cam Houser
Houser sees a big window of opportunity.
While it may be daunting to think about delving into video, Houser maintains that the power of “personal connection” in video provides a huge upside in terms of getting the message out about the work you do and getting people excited about it.
For now, Houser says video is at an inflection point, but will ultimately become a normal aspect of business.
The three enemies of good video content creation
The three main enemies to good video content creation, according to Houser, are perfectionism, imposter syndrome, and ALF (audio-lighting-framing).
Perfectionism goes back to his earlier points about how most successful entrepreneurship is about just getting started and getting good at it along the way.
Perfectionism
“Perfectionism takes a lot of effort, and a lot of times it's not even noticed."
Cam Houser
Houser continues, “There's that famous Reid Hoffman quote that goes something like, ‘If you're satisfied with the first version of your product, you took too long.’ You almost have to be embarrassed about the first version of your product so you can move on and continue to develop more.”
When your product is out in the world, you start getting the feedback that you need to make it as close to perfect as you can over time.
“Our personal notion of what’s a good video is sometimes often not the best criterion,” Houser says.
“What’s important is whether it's resonating. Do people like it? Are we getting comments? Are we getting engagement? More importantly, are people buying what we’re telling them—and what we’re selling?”
Imposter syndrome
As for imposter syndrome, getting over that means realizing that you don’t need to be the all-knowing authority about a particular topic to talk about it. As Houser notes, if you wanted to learn how to play basketball well, an NBA star like LeBron James is probably not the best teacher for you because you cannot relate to him and vice-versa—the gap is too large. You need only be giving something significantly new or useful to your audience to be “worthy” of video.
“Sometimes if you're just a few steps ahead of the people that you're trying to help or the people you're trying to support on the topics that you're talking about, that's actually more relevant and more useful for those people than your being the absolute expert,” Houser says.
Audio, lighting, framing
Thinking about ALF, the acronym itself helps because it doesn’t just give you the three main foundations of good video content but also the order of importance.
Why is audio the first thing to focus on? People will often watch a video where the picture quality is not so great, but the audio is good. The reverse is rarely the case.
“There’s also some very interesting research that shows that if you have high-quality audio, people think that the person speaking is smarter, that they are more likable, and the topics they're talking about are actually more important,” Houser notes. “Audio has a huge effect on how your videos are experienced by the people watching them.”
Really good lighting can be complicated, Houser admits, but a good rule of thumb to start is to make sure your face can be seen well.
“The face is the window to the soul, right? It is the thing that lets us get a sense of what's being said,” he notes. “It's very hard to communicate sarcasm in an email, but in video we can do that quite well because we can see the face. If the face is poorly lit, we may not get the nuances of what's being communicated.”
Lighting the rest of the space can be valuable but it’s not the focus.
In terms of framing, one of the big issues is making sure there isn’t too much empty space between the top of your head and the top of the frame as well as making sure you are centered in the frame.
“As far as your clothing and attire, there are a few rules. Don't wear complicated patterns. Solid colors and good and bright colors are good. If you want to go a step beyond that, one good move is to have some contrast. For example, the color of your shirt contrasts nicely with the color of your background. That helps you stand out from your background.”
Learn by doing, and start with small steps
As an entrepreneur and someone who teaches entrepreneurship, Houser has observed that how universities teach the subject is heavy on theory and light on practicality.
“The best way to make video is to start creating video. Don’t overthink it; don’t research it endlessly—just get started,” he says, “The way we teach, instead of giving people lots of information, we get them to do real-world activities.”
One of the exercises Houser conducts is to have participants create a “hello video,” in which you simply pick up your phone and record a 30-second video to a colleague, relative, or friend.
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“You just say stuff like, ‘Hey, hope you're well. I was thinking of you. Anyway, talk to you later.’ You're not saying anything substantial,” Houser notes, “but what's interesting about that exercise is it's giving you a little bit of practice and ability to get more comfortable. It’s like getting some reps in at the gym.”
More than that, though, what people find with this exercise is that the person who receives the video often finds their day brightened by this level of communication effort.
“The exercise gives people a nice understanding of how powerful it can be to receive a video as well as getting into some hands-on work,” Houser says.
“That understanding and that repetition are the keys to success. Start with low-key, low-stress videos and improvement will happen quickly.”
Houser realizes that internal barriers still exist, though, and they can be hard to overcome without help and support, which is one of the reasons he framed Minimum Viable Video as a cohort-style course.
“People make the mistake of saying ‘Let’s come up with a big plan.’ They look to hire some external media agency right away or try to build some complicated, orchestrated, heavily architected system. And that just sidetracks them from gaining mastery.”
To his mind, the best approach is to start small and gradually improve before undertaking some huge video media plan. Post video snippets on social media, for example, or include a short video with your sales proposal that talks about the vision of how you could work together.
Work video into your business gradually and with purpose to grow your comfort, confidence, and skills.
Choose your own path to video success
As Houser mentioned, the best approach is to start slowly. Take steady steps to gain confidence, and try different methods.
For those who feel comfortable on camera but still aren’t quite sure how to make more quality videos, there are video production services out there to help. Without insisting on perfection, and giving yourself a little wiggle room, you can make video a game-changer for your business.