Succeed Through Videos
Maximize your personal brand’s success with video content. Learn how to create engaging, authentic videos to enhance visibility and credibility online. From defining your story to effectively publishing across platforms, leverage videos to elevate your brand and boost career opportunities.
Succeed Through Videos: Key Strategies for Personal Branding
In today’s digital landscape, video content has become a powerful tool for building a personal brand. Whether you are aiming for career growth, leadership roles, or increased income, video offers a unique avenue for visibility and credibility. The session “Succeed Through Videos” dives deep into how you can use video to strengthen your personal brand and achieve professional success. Below are the key takeaways to help you succeed through videos.
1. Personal Branding Starts with You
Building a successful personal brand begins with defining who you are. Your personal brand is your story, and the content you create should reflect your values, expertise, and unique qualities. A key part of personal branding is establishing a personal hub—your own website. This hub serves as the central place where your audience can discover your work, learn about you, and engage with your content. By positioning yourself as a thought leader through your personal brand, you can gain credibility and create career opportunities.
2. Why Video? The Power of the Three A’s
Videos provide an unmatched way to connect with your audience because they deliver authenticity, amiability, and accessibility.
• Authenticity: Videos allow people to see the real you, which helps build trust and connection. Through video, your audience can get a deeper understanding of who you are compared to text or static images.
• Amiability: Videos enable people to like you and relate to you on a personal level, even if they haven’t met you in person. This can strengthen your professional relationships and help build a loyal following.
• Accessibility: In the digital age, videos are easier to distribute across various platforms, making it simpler for people to discover you and your message.
3. Visibility and Credibility Go Hand in Hand
It’s not enough to just be visible; you also need to be credible. Having thousands of likes on a video may get you noticed, but it doesn’t guarantee professional respect or promotion. A successful personal brand balances both visibility and credibility. Videos provide the perfect medium to showcase your expertise while engaging your audience. When done right, your content not only draws attention but also demonstrates your authority in your field.
4. From Idea to Outcome: Hook, Story, Offer
Creating an effective video requires a well-thought-out strategy. Start by defining the outcome you want to achieve. Each video should have a clear purpose and follow a structure, such as the “Hook, Story, Offer” model:
• Hook: Grab attention in the first few seconds to keep viewers engaged.
• Story: Share a compelling narrative that resonates with your audience.
• Offer: Present a clear call to action or outcome that aligns with your video’s purpose.
By starting with the end in mind, you can craft videos that are not only engaging but also purposeful.
5. The Importance of Publishing on the Right Platforms
Publishing your videos is where you truly start to build your personal brand’s reach. Different platforms support various video formats, so it’s important to optimize your content for the specific channels you use. For instance, vertical videos work well on platforms like Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and LinkedIn, which now supports this format. Always consider the platform’s audience and features to maximize your video’s performance.
6. Leverage Your Personal Hub
Your personal website is your most valuable digital asset. By hosting your videos on your site, you control how your content is presented, and it is also indexed by search engines, increasing the likelihood that people will discover you over time. While social media platforms are great for initial outreach, your personal hub provides long-term ownership and visibility of your content.
Conclusion
Video content is an essential tool for personal branding success. Through authenticity, strategic storytelling, and thoughtful platform use, you can enhance your visibility and credibility online. By defining your outcomes, publishing wisely, and leveraging your personal website, you can create a strong personal brand that boosts your career and opens new opportunities.
Highlights:
00:00 Introduction to Personal Branding Through Videos
00:45 Understanding the Personal Branding System
02:20 The Importance of Visibility and Credibility
03:24 Why Video? The Three A's
04:50 From Idea to Outcome: Crafting Your Video Strategy
06:09 The Five Pillars of Content Creation
07:44 Scripting and Recording Your Videos
11:29 Editing and Publishing Your Videos
13:21 Leveraging Your Personal Website
16:04 Q&A and Practical Tips
24:39 Starting the Journey: Posting Regularly
24:47 Overcoming Initial Challenges
25:38 Finding Your Voice and Topics
26:17 The Power of Video Content
26:34 First Experiences with Video Creation
27:23 Improving Video Authenticity
28:38 Learning and Adapting
31:28 Tools and Techniques for Video Editing
38:12 Practical Tips for LinkedIn Videos
43:36 Final Thoughts and Community Support
Transcript:
[00:00:00] Succeed through videos. Today we're going deeper into videos and of course that's part of the personal branding. So we will cover a little bit of the background and then we go into why videos what I have learned over the last at least plus five years and then we go from idea to outcome.
Um, how. I use videos for myself and I speak always about my experiences because that's the easiest to show things and the easiest to, um, explain things. And of course, if any one of you has questions, we have a Q and a in the end, but we can go into details. I can show you live things from my website, from my social media, whatever we come up with questions.
So background. We go back to the personal branding system. The personal branding systems for those that are new is a system that I am operating [00:01:00] for myself over the last years and I fine tuned and it all starts with you as a personal brand. That's the start point. And then. We are creating a personal hub, which is your personal website.
And this is kind of the, your, your, your platform in the center. And today we talk a little bit more about the content, which is video, but. Because video is not just the content in itself, we're touching all of the things. So we touch content, we touch the hub, we touch the distribution, and we touch obviously your brand because it's part of the total.
We touch less, uh, the career or the business, which is the outcome and not the community today. But the whole part of videos is, and personal branding is why are we doing this? So one thing is. We want to get promoted or we want to increase our income. And that's just the results of why we are doing this.
There are [00:02:00] of course a lot of other levels of why do we do videos, but that's kind of from a result driven perspective is people want to get a promotion. They want to raise up inside of their organization or they want to create more income, generate more income or both even, which is possible. And one of the things I have learned over the last years that success when it comes to personal branding comes through visibility and credibility at the same time, you can be the best dancer on TikTok, and you have a lot of likes and a lot of visibility.
But that doesn't mean that you have the credibility. Let's say if you want to get promoted, maybe dancing on TikTok is not the Um, secure strategy to get you promoted. So that's this two levers we have. And as more visible, including credible, you are as better it is for you. And video is one of the great ways of making that happen.
And then of course, you as [00:03:00] a person, you're the differentiator. Personal branding for me is one of the biggest changes I have had in my career. And that made me successful and still is growing for me. I'm still. I would say I'm still in the childhood of personal branding and it's incredible what happens when you build a personal brand.
So that's one of the things connected to videos, obviously. And then we dive into why video. Video is, I call it the three A's. Authenticity, so people get connected to you. People understand who you are through videos way better than you writing or you're, um, sending a posting something on social media with a picture because people can feel you better.
And that's the amiable part. So they can like you, they can feel you, they can get connected to you without even meeting you in person. I was just [00:04:00] chatting with, with Sarah, who is also here in the, in on the call today about this, that people are getting to know you way better just because you're posting videos and you're using videos.
So you feel like you, you, you get to know the other person already without getting to even have ever met the person. And then one part, that's why I keep it in the middle, is authority. As more you do videos and as more fluent you get into your video flow, as more authority you're building to about what you're talking about.
And we, we, we see that when people start with video and maybe later on in the Q& A, Christian can share a little bit about that, because you have started the video part over the last couple of months and just your experiences. Let's go into that later. Then we go into the flow from idea to outcome. I'm now sharing exact my flow, do that high [00:05:00] level happy to go inside of the Q& A.
We can go deeper and I can show it to you like in real life, how the Excel tables look like we did in the other master classes. One part is really starting with the end in mind. And that's what I did wrong in the beginning. I was just recording videos for the sake of recording videos. But if you know exactly what you want to have as an outcome from your video, from every single video that you're creating, it helps you to create the video in the right way with the right story, with the right hooks and with the right content.
As an example, if I want to generate more clients for my business, I need to do the video in a certain way that I'm attracting the other person to contact me. If I want to get a new job, if I want to increase the chances that I'm getting a new role, then I use the video in a different way. And it all starts with that as a [00:06:00] starting point.
Because then you know to whom you're speaking, you know exactly whom you want to reach with your videos. So that's the starting point. Then I always talk about five content Five, because we have five weekdays. That's the starting point of it. So I always divide when I work with someone on personal branding.
We always divide their topic, their umbrella topic in five pillars. And that's also the reason why we have five pillars in this community. In this community, we have the pillar mindset and goal setting. Then we have networking. Then we have personal branding. Then we have leadership. And then we have strategies and tactics that help you to succeed.
And if you now know this five pillars and you see my social media content, then you will hear, and you will always connect to this five pillars. So last time I have shown the Excel table of how I do that to, to some people here on the call, it's, it's really easy. If you have five pillars [00:07:00] and five topics, you can use them to get to the next level.
So you start ideating. And that's, for me, it's as easy as having my phone with me day in, day out. And when I'm getting an idea to one of the five pillars, I'm just writing down this idea. I've created a Google sheet for myself that I'm keeping track of, but in the end, it's as easy as getting just an idea trigger of, Hey, I could do a video about leadership in this way.
I could do a video in mindset in that way. And just writing down this idea will help you for the next step. As more ideas you have, as better it is, because then you can batch video recording. And then it goes into the script. So when you have a video, you start scripting your videos. That's the easiest way and the most successful way I have used in the past.
And I needed to learn this first. Let's say a couple of [00:08:00] years I just did videos, uh, me talking and figuring out what I'm going to say while I'm recording. What I have seen is that scripted videos where you think about how you're building your video beforehand will be more successful on social media. So there's a very simple script that I always use.
And they're, they're of course different ones, but this is the one we, we take for today. It's called Hook Story Offer. Hook Story Offer is, um, starting with a hook, which is the first couple of seconds you use in, in, in social media, um, or in your video, sorry, which you use in, in, in your video to drag people into your content so that people are interested in what is this video about?
If you do this. Very, very short, especially when we use short form videos, it needs to be the first three to five seconds to drag people in. Then you offer content around this, which is called story. You can tell stories in a storytelling format, but you can as well explain things in a [00:09:00] way. Like, these are the three things, how I do this.
And then you go into the story and explaining the three things. And the offer, Uh, it's the last point where you give them a learning. It's not an offer, you selling something, but you like them, the, the, the listener or the person that is watching the video, you would like them to take something away from this video.
And that can be something that's just a learning or you ask them to take action based on what you have explained. So when you have scripted this video and that I do this word for word. Then you can go into the production mode, which is recording the videos. So while recording the videos, what I have is I have the trigger, which is what I thought about, like my idea, and then I have the script in front of me.
I'm never reading the script. So it doesn't work. I do the work in writing the script, but I don't follow it, because what I have learned for myself is I have the main [00:10:00] idea written down in the flow of the video in front of me, but if I'm starting reading it, then the video sucks. in my experience. So I just use that as an educational piece before as a preparation for the video.
And then I follow it to 80 percent because I try to use my own word. I bring different, um, voices, different tonalities into the videos. I would not do this if I'm reading. Um, I have heard from people that are using kind of like really the, the word for a word version. Um, I'm not professional enough that I can do that.
I'm not, Like Taylor Prompter and so on. I, I just use my, my own voice and experiment with how I'm doing that. In the end, it's something you need to learn as more you do that. One thing I recommend everyone to do that is not doing so many videos, just do a video per day. One video per day gives you a lot of training and you can do [00:11:00] that just with your phone.
Like you speak to your phone 60 seconds and you just think about hook story offer, hook story offer. Thanks. And you can do this on random things. You don't need to post it anywhere, though, that I recommend you to post it. Um, I always have used TikTok as a test ground. So all the crappy videos I have posted definitely on TikTok over the last years.
Now, it, it doesn't look that anymore, but I'm trying still to do that on my phone every day. And then comes the editing. There are a gazillion ways of how you're editing videos. One of the tools that I have been using quite a lot in the past before I fed the whole team set up and supporting me with this is called Descript, which is a tool where let's say People that are not professional video editors can learn fairly quickly how to edit videos because it's, it's AI based and it's AI supported so you can cut a video [00:12:00] based on the text.
So you have the transcript of a video if you have a talking head video and then you can delete and, and, and edit the text and then the video is edited automatically with that. Editing Um, I will not go too much into editing because that's a whole science in itself. We can cover that in the Q& A if you're interested.
The next part obviously is publishing. Publishing it. If we talk about short form videos that are, um, horizontal, no vertical, that are vertical, you can post them everywhere. Horizontal videos don't work everywhere in the same way. Okay? So. And that's really platform dependent. You have, for example, YouTube shorts, you have Instagram reels, you have now LinkedIn that is using this, this format as well, and is supporting it since a couple of months or earlier this year.
So there are different versions, different possibilities. The most important is publishing your videos. Because if you don't publish, nobody will see them. [00:13:00] And even if they're not perfect, it's better to post and better to get into your rhythm in posting videos. I always recommend daily because I have seen the biggest impact.
when I started daily videos. Since January, we have not missed a day until today to post a daily video. And that's really huge. The next part is that goes back into the system, embed the video into your personal website. I can't say this often enough, because a lot of people are producing videos that go into the internet, and then they on social media.
And let's say, even if you have a really good video, that's gone after a week, except maybe it's in YouTube and it's a real long form video, but short form videos are gone after a couple of days. So if you create a blog post inside of your personal website or business website, it doesn't matter. And you add this video into your website, it stays [00:14:00] alive.
And if you then add the transcript and add the, blog post to it inside of your personal website or inside of your professional website, more and more people can discover it. So people come to your personal website and then can find the videos, though that they're not anymore. Let's say if you post them on TikTok, they're there, but they're maybe like a year ago.
If you have them on your personal website, they're indexed and the internet helps people to discover them over time. Very important one. And that's why I show you, I think that's the last slide, this again. So it's all about creating a possibility for people to discover you and that's you using your content and distribute the content into the internet.
But what you want to, to get to is people getting onto your hub, your personal website. I was posting it last week and we have discussed it on Monday a little bit. It's the most powerful thing you can create [00:15:00] because you own the relationships on your, on your personal website and relationships is maybe the wrong word, but you own what is seen, what people experience on your personal website or business website.
It doesn't matter. It works in both ways. Because then you can curate the flow where you want to get people. Let's say you have your, your 60 seconds short from video on site in on your blog page. And then you say, Hey, check out this blog post next. So you can say if someone is on your website, that is the next video you would like to, to check out or the next thing they would like, should like to do.
It's super powerful and I have done this over years and that's why I'm getting like I have shared 25 or now close to 30, 000 people on my website. Super powerful and very, very helpful. Doesn't matter what you want to, what your goal is. If you want to get people buying something from [00:16:00] you or if you want to get a job, it's always helpful to have a lot of people.
On your personal or business website questions too fast. Does it make sense? You can use the chat as well. For those that are not on camera or we don't want to speak. I can see the chat.
Um, I have an app and say appreciation. So for me now, what is really working really well is interest. That's. Amazing because with posting, um, uh, because I discovered how to link my Instagram with the Pinterest. And over there I can see how the visibility is increasing every month. That's a recommendation I just want to do to you as well.
Link your personal um, uh, [00:17:00] Facebook, Instagram with your Pinterest and you're gonna see how the visibility is gonna increase. Well, yeah, I've not, not, not checked. I've never used Pinterest, but you, you don't need to be really active, but if you link your personal or your Instagram or Facebook, that's going to work for you.
I'll, I'll, I'll check it. Santago, you have a question. Hey, chance, uh, thank you so much for that. Uh, uh, that was very good. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. Uh, I am thinking how to apply what you just, uh, described to my, let's say, my use case or my problem to solve. So just very briefly, let me describe, so right now. I am doing some freelancing, building a portfolio career, but I'm looking for a new full time permanent role.
I'm based in London, United Kingdom, and so I'm using LinkedIn a [00:18:00] lot to post text and articles and so on in the past, but I have not used video on LinkedIn. I use video on my personal Instagram, and Instagram talks about, it's for my Uh, families and friends, and it's about sports and hobbies where LinkedIn is professional and it's about looking for new, new work, new new work in digital transformation, business transformation, data analytics, artificial intelligence, uh, program management, et cetera.
That's what I do. So I'm trying to think about how to do this for example. Post at the same time every day at 8 a. m. Post something short, one or two, three minutes. Post looking at the camera, smiling, trying to build rapport, credibility and tell a little bit of a story and follow, follow this, this [00:19:00] template or, or way that you suggested, right?
I'm thinking about how to To do this. Of course, the target audience is my connections and people that follow me on LinkedIn. Um, and whoever has access to my LinkedIn profile, which is public, right? This is where I am at the moment. Um, do you have, do you have, I guess, question, I'm curious how to do the this and do, do you have people that are job hunting or people that are looking for new projects?
Maybe you, somebody that is a freelancer looking for a project and that is posting three or four times a week, uh, little videos. I, I'm, I'm good at looking at some examples and, and, and understanding it. Just, just so I can. Compare or gauge or have some example of people posting doesn't make sense. Sorry.
That's what I am in the journey. I guess. [00:20:00] Um, um, it's what I'm thinking. Thank you. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Definitely. I mean, you can. The easiest is using me as an example, because what you. So you want to get towards thought leadership when you, when you are looking for a new role and want to attract new employers or managers that are working in that companies, you want to get towards thought leadership.
That means you need to show your expertise, which is different. For example, like you said, doing sports stuff, um, on Instagram. So it's, it's, it's similar to what, um, Christian is doing, I would say, Christian is doing thought leadership topics where he explains certain things from his perspective. And of course he has his own business and that's, that's slightly different target.
But in the end, it's all about thought leadership and that's what I'm doing as well. That's why I mentioned these five pillars. I'm Using these five [00:21:00] pillars to attract people around this topics into my ecosystem. And as more you do this and more fluent you get with that, as easier it gets. Um, it might not help you directly to get the job, but I think it helps you to be more visible on social media and, and get connections in other spheres that you might have not been connected to in the end.
So, so the interesting for me is just because. I'm, I'm still hiring in, in large corporate as well. Um, and doing that next week, if I would go, because that's what I always do is I look at the people's, um, applications and then I look at their social media profiles and mainly LinkedIn, obviously, because that's the business world.
If I can see the video of someone, I can feel who the other person is compared to, I just see a written post, but that's just me. So I'm, I'm very much about the human aspect of everything. So. [00:22:00] I mean, have a look at Christian's profile. Maybe Christian, you can drop a link to your LinkedIn profile into the chat as well.
It's in German, but, but at least Santiago, you get a feel for it. And of course, like you can see mine and Frank is posting sometimes videos as well. I have heard that Sarah is posting videos soon as well, who is on the call. Um, so more and more people doing it. And I, I mean, I can as well look into a couple of more public versions, like public examples.
To be honest, I was, I was, uh, really a big fan of posting, uh, pictures, but you know what I was, I was doubting about the quality of the video. And now I jumped. To do what I have, and at the end of the day, it's better done than perfect. If it's not, you can improve. If not, you need to do that from the beginning.
Now, learning by doing, I'm trying a lot. Maybe [00:23:00] give an example from the video you did when you were in Spain. And, um, did promote the event in Berlin. You remember where you stand on that? Oh, yes. So I was, well, even, um, I was promoting, uh, our fashion show, uh, in July at the university where we did, uh, our incubation program.
And I just wanted to attract new people, uh, stakeholders. And models and we were in a hurry two days before the event and then I used the social media to say Hey guys, this is an open call. We are looking for female models male models We have this amazing event the 2nd of july, please go to this link and let me know if you are interested.
And really, really important to say it is a collaboration. We don't have, uh, funds to pay you, but it's related to the Berlin Fashion Week and the people came boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And at the end of the event, we got 20 models, 15 [00:24:00] female and five, no seven males. It was. Amazing. Only an open call, easy going, being natural and showing that the people who are humans and sometimes we get some troubles.
Yeah. So that's maybe one example, Sarah.
I feel you Santiago, I'm about to start as well. So I guess you will see my videos as of next week. So you will see, uh, hopefully progress, but yeah, uh, I'll just say, let's get started and see how it goes. Maybe share a bit from like the things we discussed today, like how is it like starting to post more regularly?
Um, yeah, at the beginning when Jens told me about this system and I saw his Excel file so organized and mine like chaos, everything around all the ideas, I was like, Oh my God, I'm not going [00:25:00] to manage to get it done. And the truth is that After a couple of weeks, you start to get into the system and it gets less overwhelming because you know what to post when the five topics are pretty key.
Um, even if at the beginning you don't know exactly what are your five topics, you will find out. as you post. So that was interesting. And, uh, for, so now I don't feel like posting is like a big thing. Now I have it there. It's something I do, but it doesn't take me that much time. So the videos is the next step.
And the idea is to start next week. But just keeping in mind that thinking about Which things can I talk about taking into account those five topics? What can I say from an eye perspective? Because I'm not, I'm not a PhD or something what I'm talking about. So I'm not a reference. So I need to say from my experience, what I've learned, what I see.[00:26:00]
So nobody can say this is not like this because for me it works. So that's what Jens says. So I follow that. And, uh, yeah, I'm going to do that. And I think we just have to, to give it a try. And I'm curious to see if actually it gets more, more traction or not. Because as Frank was saying, a picture is a picture, but a video in the end, we, everybody watches video.
Audiovisual has it all, so I think it's worth a try.
Cristian. Yes. You have started videos. When did you start with videos? I even don't know. Three weeks ago, basically after our call, um, you were quite, let's, let's call it convincing. And the next day I decided to do it. Uh, and I hated it. It's so bad, honestly, doing a video, seeing yourself, hearing yourself.
It's bad. [00:27:00] Um, but just post it, right? Because. Like, like you said, Frank, you can always improve. And if you do not post it immediately afterwards, you never will. Uh, and you will postpone it every day. Ah, I need to do it again. Let's wait until tomorrow. And then you will just push it and push it and not do it at all.
And it gets better. Um, and I also figured out what you mentioned, Jens, that The video is not authentic, at least not for me, if I read it. Um, and when I was young and still doing presentations, uh, at university and also at some conferences, um, I had to read everything I was saying in order to not get lost.
Um, and I thought, well, it worked in the past, so it will work again. And it doesn't, at least not for me and not for video. So I started exactly the same. I make, [00:28:00] I create the video in my head. I write down what I want to say, even it's just keywords. It's not even a whole sentence. Um, and then I start speaking and usually I stick to the general.
like schedule and stuff. Sometimes I don't. Um, and the good thing is it's a video. You can, you can kind of cut things out and you can say, sorry, I need to repeat that, make a small break and then start again. Uh, do it as often as you need until you kind of feel it's, it's good. And then just cut it. publish it and it's getting better.
You get used to it. Um, right now, I actually, I'm not, it's not angry, but I'm not afraid of hearing me speak, um, which I guess is, uh, is an improvement. Um, and honestly, I already have some quite good engagements out of the video. I actually have some kind of business lead [00:29:00] from one of the videos. Um, so. It's not that I have huge impressions and likes, but at least you get something out of it just because people hear you speak.
Um, so I will keep doing it. And actually last week I learned how to make proper portrait videos and not landscape. Um, so getting there, right? Just do it. That's, I guess, all I can say. That is great because we are sorry, Jens, it is really nice because we are discovering new skills that we never thought we have in my case.
So from the beginning, I was really curious about how to do videos. And then I just started to do to, to practice in front of the mirror. And we have a common friend with Jens. She is Ashley. And she post some day, Hey man, you need to try the stuff in front of the mirror. [00:30:00] No cell phone, no nothing, and then you get the confidence to go ahead.
A very, very important point, Christian, you mentioned it's the goal that why you are doing this video, you're doing the video, not for likes, you're doing the video. You want to get clients in your case. And that's, that's, uh, that's the most important thing because a lot of people just looking into how many likes do I get?
How many engagement do I get? We are professionals, like we're not going on TikTok and dancing, because if you would be dancing, you might get more likes. That doesn't mean that you get a client. If you do comedy, you have definitely more likes, but that doesn't mean that you get a client. So it's, it's, it's more about what is your goal with that.
And what, what I have seen over the last years is not [00:31:00] everyone, clicks the like button, example on LinkedIn, if they watch your video, you see that you have a lot of people like watching it or at least noticing it, but they might not like it. They might not comment. That doesn't mean that they don't get it.
Santiago. Hey, thank you so much, everybody for, for all that input. Great ideas. Great suggestions. Thank you. Hey, let me ask a little bit of more, more detail or nuance. Uh, what kind of editing tools can, can you elaborate a little bit more? I, I work on windows on my laptop and my mobile is, it's, uh, uh, it's not Apple.
It's not, not an iPhone. It's, it's, uh, um, Samsung. So Android, Android. Yeah. Yes. I'm using Android. No problem. Me too. Yeah. So the phone should [00:32:00] be good enough, especially for internet videos, like no problem at all. You don't need to have fancy stuff. I can, let me just show you what, what, what we're using. Where is it?
So this is Descript and Descript is, it's, it's subscription based. And that's in the internet. Like I use it on the browser. So this is the browser version. And this, for example, are my daily videos. Quite a lot, as you see, um, when I did, still did them myself. So I just open now one video where you see. I mean, this is the, the video cutting and the details, but in the end, like you almost don't need this.
You can just use the text here and delete the text. Uh, LinkedIn. You can't see my screen? Uh uh. It's [00:33:00] LinkedIn now. Not this crap. Okay. It was the first one. Let me show my old screen. I'm explaining. Thank you that someone is reacting. No, this one. My LinkedIn is also nice.
Can you wait? No, I can't see. Can you see the script now? Yeah, now we can say it. Thank you. Yes. Sorry. Yeah. So it looks like this in, in the end, it's like boring folder structures. If you go into a video, you of course need to upload the file into it. What it is doing is directly transcribing it. This is the raw video.
So it's directly transcribing it. I'm now, so we are now looking at the beginning. I can just. Take this out, delete it. And now it's gone. Just bringing it back. [00:34:00] So it's as easy as cutting the video like this. And this is like PowerPoint. You can just zoom in if you want to have it framed properly. It gives you even the, the lines in the middle, and then you have, let's say it's not a perfect video, but it gives you already like a good video.
And then of course you, you need to use, you need to learn to use the tool. But for example, I can just say at the layer and do captions and now I have captions. I can just drag and drop and say, give me the caption in this size. As you see here, I'm just doing now 50 and it's way smaller, and then you can just edit.
And now, if I'm now playing it, you see that the word is moving. So as simple as that. And that's, that's a game changer when we started with that. Because what you automatically have is the [00:35:00] transcript. Um, and here, that's, that's the, the, the real video. Which, which we have now with music in the background and cut in a proper way.
All right. And then you can copy and paste different sections. Sorry for interrupting. If you have like one or two or three sections, write introduction and middle of the story and then you close. That's what you, you want to do. Okay. Get it. I got it. I got it. This is one of the easiest to use tool. Of course it has a learning curve.
If you really get into that, but you're getting quite fast with cutting videos, I have used that quite a lot as well for my podcasts and everything, because you can even, um, automatically cut certain things over time. So that's definitely a tool I recommend. Okay. [00:36:00] Okay. It just helps like, because if you use other editing tools, then you really need to learn how to edit and how to do that.
And this is literally just deleting text. and moving things around.
Okay, very good. I'm trying to absorb all these things and make sure that I create two, three or four videos per week and then post them at some, some time between eight and 9am when there is a higher audience. And then, and then maybe close the videos with a call to auction or some little bit of text that accompanies the video and see if there I can create a little bit of engagement over time and maybe continue that routine over a few weeks or a couple of months and see if if what traction I get in in I'm targeting as I said To, to perhaps what I should try to do is get, you know, job hunting, a lot of jobs are in [00:37:00] the unadvertised job market, right?
So it's, it's, you get them through weak links through, through people that you don't know, but might be listening to you. You're the solution for the business problem that they are working on. And if you present yourself really well and, and they see you. as amicable, you build credibility, rapport, trust, maybe they want to talk with you, or you want to get a coffee with them, virtual coffee or whatever, and then go from there.
So, so that, that's what I'm thinking, how I could use videos in addition to what I'm currently doing, which is text and articles, and so on. But articles and posts, I only obtain, or elsewhere, are, are giving me so much result, not, not, not so much. I want to move, jump onto video. So thank you for your session.
Thank you so much. I'll, I'll, I'll do my best to see, see how [00:38:00] it goes. Thank you, gents and everybody else. Thank you. Thank you so much. You're welcome. More questions?
Anything you want to dive deeper into?
Nothing. Um, I was Start, start doing Go ahead Oh, please, go, go Sara, go No, I was just thinking about, uh, for LinkedIn, which format do you, you, you also record it on your phone? No, you have a camera now, but if you would use your phone, uh, you do, which format do you do? So, what I do is I always record in horizontal.
So everything I do is recording this way because then I can use it in all different formats. I want to have the flexibility longterm to still use like the video, which is 16 by nine. But you could literally just use your, your, your phone like this. And then you have it recorded like that. That's [00:39:00] no problem as well.
If you use G script, You can just use a different format and then you zoom in in the in the exact format like the phone is. Um, on LinkedIn, what I have seen performing better because they have a newer version of this. So LinkedIn has started to promote videos that are like TikTok videos, like real Instagram real videos.
So they are promoting them a little bit more because their feature is still new. That's the only reason. Um, what I definitely have seen on LinkedIn is videos with text layover, like captions, videos, Perform better than if you don't, they have an internal feature. If we talk about LinkedIn to, to add captions, but they, they look awkward.
If you use your own captions, it's always better because then you can play like I, I just did for my videos, especially if you use a tool like Descript, I guess there are a couple of more out there that do similar things, [00:40:00] then you can animate the pictures, um, or the, the text, sorry. And really. use that. I mean, of course, if you have a professional video editor, that's the next level.
This is like, like do it yourself version still. Even the videos that I have shown you now in Descript are the older videos. This week we are posting a couple of them, but we have now professional video editing team internally that helps us producing really good videos. So that's the next level. But of course that's then an investment you, you that need to pay back for you.
I always recommend start. Cutting yourself. As a starting point, because then you learn it and while you cut, you learn as well what you change on your videos. And then if you, if you see the benefit of it, then of course you can hire video people helping you and you tell them what you want to do. There is one thing to add.
Jens, um, at least for LinkedIn, [00:41:00] it's good if you use their, um, their sizes and that's 1080 to 1920. Um, because otherwise, um, if it's like, if the resolution is a bit smaller, it will scale down and it will not kind of look as good as it could. That's what I found out last week. Um, The hard way, because I had to delete the video and redo it.
Um, yeah, that's true. Also, because I'm recording usually in landscape, but my resolution is not good enough of my camera to kind of get the full 1920 in height. So I started switching, um, at least for, um, for LinkedIn. If you have a high enough resolution on your, on your landscape, um, it's perfectly fine.
Or you kind of have it, um, calculated to, to get that, um, that resolution, but that's a loss of. like video quality. [00:42:00] So yeah, that's the thing with starting new stuff. If you, if you, if you have a phone that's, I would say like from the last two, three years, it should be super quality. And then if you use a tool like Descript, you have, you can directly say which formats and then you get the formats that are appropriate, but I agree.
It's super important to understand which platforms are using which format and That will help you to get as well more success. For example, you can re, like, I have an eight K camera. If I would be posting eight K, it's not going to work. And even YouTube is saying that 108, what is it, 180 or 180 TP or something?
Mm, not 4K. Um, is, is best for YouTube. But that's, if you use your phone and if you use a software like Descript, then you should have [00:43:00] the right resolution or you can use in your phone as well. If you look into like the settings, you can just use the right settings from the beginning. I always try to record in the highest resolution possible with my cameras.
Because I use software or the video team is using a pro like they have professional tools to then make the right out of it. I just want to have the highest quality in as a starting point for myself.
Any more questions?
No? Good. Then happy to close it. Thank you very much for everyone for joining what's awesome today. If you have questions, we are all in the community, use the community, um, post things, let us know, ask things. If anyone has more questions and more details, you're always welcome as well to reach out to me. I have a whole [00:44:00] video team that I can ask for proper answers if I don't know it, which is always helpful.
So if anyone has questions. Let me know.
Ready to Accelerate Your Career with Personal Branding?
Book a free 15-minute discovery call today to explore how we can help you unlock new opportunities and achieve your professional goals.
Let’s get started— book your session now.
Book here.
Transcript:
Personal development masterclass. One of the topics that's dear to my heart, because of what I have seen over the last 15 years is that personal development is quite seldom in organizations. It's not really taken, uh, in a proper way, at least in my eyes. So that's why I'm really keen on sharing this today.
So we have two. main perspectives. One or two topics for today. One is personal development talk versus performance evaluation. And then we do a deep dive into how I'm doing personal development talks. And then we do questions in the end. Personal development. So we have one part, which is the personal development talk, and then we have the performance evaluation.
And a lot of organizations, focus on performance evaluation. And the difference between those two is that the performance evaluation, the main part they are focusing on, or the main source of that is the company. So the company is on the top. And from there, it goes into, the individuals and the different tasks that need to be done to accomplish what's happening in the company, what is required to do to be done in the company.
And the individual that is doing the task is the last point. And then inside of the performance evaluation, you're looking backward. So you look, how did this person perform in the past? The development talk is the opposite. So the most important part of the. Development talk is the future. Where does the person want to be in the future?
And it has nothing to do with the outcome of the company or where the company wants to be. The goal of this is, and why, why do this personal development talk? I believe that if we are developing people in organizations beyond what the organization needs, they will contribute more to the company. They will contribute better.
So the goal of what I'm doing with development talks is finding out what the people desire and going deeper into that. And we will have a look at that in the next couple of slides. And then look, what are the different tasks of the organizations that fit the person and what the person wants to be. And then you marry these two things.
And then it works as well from a performance evaluation perspective. So that's my perspective on development talk and performance evaluation. Let's go into personal development talk a couple of, I think it's almost two years ago or something. I've developed this in as, as a worksheet. So if anyone is interested in getting this worksheet as a PDF.
Happy to share that. So, the starting point of a development talk is really a setup of the atmosphere and the place. So you are going to do a development talk with another person. So you are the manager and the, the other person is like reporting to you and then you're meeting up. So what you need to make sure of is that you have, an appropriate place.
The best case is always doing this outside of the office environment in a. In a place where people feel well, the atmosphere is super important. The time of the day is important, not doing it on Friday afternoon, for example, when people want to go on the weekend, of course, you need to be aware of your relationship with the other person, depending on how deep your relationship is.
You of course have then a perspective on how deep you can go. And how much that is. And then what is important as well is that you put the note-taking responsibility to the person that is inside the room or is working with you. So me as a leader, I always give the note taking responsibility for the other person because then you see what they understand and what they get out of that.
And then I always do as well. A version in front of us so that people understand this. So printing out this worksheet as an example, if you do that in a physical space, then you print it out and then you go into the development talk. And the starting point of the development talk goes really wide.
Looking into what's the personal vision like. I always ask these as open questions without showing them the worksheet in the beginning. Who do you want to be? And that's very, very, very wide. Like, who do you want to be? What does it mean? Some people who have never had a conversation like this, struggle with this.
So they start with, yeah, I want to be a manager. I want to be something specific. So they go very, very, very specific and they don't really look into the future. So the first round of this, I just, Help them to find out who they want to be and they write down, they write down a manager. I want to be a good father.
I want to be whatever they come up with. And then I go to the next question and I show them the next question, not before. So why do you want to be that person? So then they're reflecting on the answers they have given and then they go back and refine who they want to go to be. And that's an interesting process because what.
You as the manager that is holding this development talk are doing, you're literally shutting up and just asking open questions to tell me more. How, how does that feel? What does that look like? What would that look like in the future? So you only ask open ended question when that gets the person talking and reflecting.
So if you're saying this, what does it mean? So, and then they're explaining, explaining, and they go in a loop between who am I going to be? And why do I want to be that person? So until they have clarity, and the first loop is always. The starting point where they don't know what's going to come, then who am I going to be?
They come up with high-level topics and then they go, Why do I want to be that person? Then they go back to Who am I going to be? And then they go deeper. And I always then give them a perspective. Okay, think about five years, 10 years from now, who do you want to be? And then they go more particular in all of these things.
And then we go, we don't close this, we keep it, we put it aside. And then we go to the next sheet, which is a personal development map. So I want them again to reflect on certain questions. And it doesn't matter in the order, I just take them clockwise right now. But it's really going and answering the specific questions.
What do I want to learn? So you're asking this, the person that is in front of you. So what do you want to learn to be that person? So linking it back to that person of the future. And then you're asking, what do you want to improve? And then they come up with things. So it's, it's like writing down the, all the different topics and then what do I want to leave behind?
And then they come back with topics that they want to leave behind. Another question is what excites you? Yeah. And then going deeper into this, who is important to them? And then what is important to them? And when you have done this circle, you go around it and they were deeper in this topic.
What quite often happens then if you ask them, so how, if we go back to the other one, is that still the same thing you want to be? Because they have now clarified what they want to be. and answer the question, they go back to this one and then clarify, no, no, no, I want to be this, I want to be this. What I always ask them, in this part is to paint a picture.
So when, when we have finished with this one, I go back to this one. And say, from a personal vision perspective, imagine a picture and describe the picture that you see on the wall. And then they describe to me who they want to be and who they are going to strive to be inside of a picture and explain everything that is around them.
I've had, for example, a person that told me where they are going to live, what, how it feels, um, in this picture, where the kids in this picture, where the wife or husband and, and going really into details and then linking this to. A job perspective as well, because in the end, we are at least this part is in a job environment.
So they are linking that to the job environment of who they're going to be working with as well. So these two are super powerful. And then you go into the next step, which is a goal perspective. So it starts with the staircase. So in the top right corner, we have what is the goal. And the starting point is really, um, defining that goal.
So if you want to be this person in five years, what is the goal for the next year for you to be very specific? And of course, you can do smart goal setting and all of that, but it's in the end, What does feel right for that person? What is the development goal they want to reach in one year from now?
And then they formulate that goal. And then you go to the bottom of this page where you look into where do you stand today on a scale from one to 10. So they're rating themselves on how close are they to that goal. If they're close, then they're at 10 or 9. If they're far away, then they're at 1. And what always happens is they're somewhere in between, obviously.
So when they have rated that, then you look into what are the things that get you closer to that goal, meaning moving your scale from 5 to 10. And that's what they are writing down above the stairs. So, above the stairs are the things that are getting them closer to their goal. And then they're defining this in bullet points and formulating that out.
And [you do that obviously all in a conversation. You ask the person who is doing the development talk, you are asking them questions to get them moving. You're asking them clarifying questions about the topics that are put, into the sheet. And then the next part is, what are the things that getting you further away from that goal?
So downstairs, if you think at it from a staircase perspective, and then they're writing these things down and then they have a clear picture of a goal staircase where they, they know they want, where they want to be linking that to the vision that's five years from now and the goal picture, and then they rate themselves.
And have then clear understanding of that are the things I need to do to get to my goal and that are the things I should not be doing. And then the last step of the development talk is getting specific. So now we zoom into one year and actionable goals that help them or tasks that get them towards the one-year perspective.
So what are the things they're going to do? When are they going to do this? What do they need to make happen to be able to do this? What are the things they need help with and how I'm, how they going to measure them? So it's a very, very simple setup where they write down literally the different steps that help them to get there.
And they're putting measurable goals towards the goal. And this is roughly. I would say one and a half hours, even if we go through this right now in a theoretical setting in, let's say 15 minutes in a real conversation, in a coaching style, where you ask the manager or coach the other person to find out what they are desiring and where they want to be.
It takes roughly one and a half hours if you do that well, sometimes it's faster depending on the relationship as well. The fascinating thing with this is it has zero to do with the company you work in and one hundred percent to do with who they want to be. And as well as zero to do with you as their manager, if you're their manager, like your perspective, your opinion on anything of that.
Um, just to give you a couple of examples, I've had people that told me that they want to be. building their own company in the next five years and they worked in the company and I was their manager they told me because they trusted me that they wanted to build their own company and we built a plan for how they were going to build their own company and I've had situations where people told me that they want to get married in the next five years and then we built a plan to get them towards marriage getting married and looked into how that does that work with the career perspective same with kids and all the other things so this is a development tool you That I use with everyone that is working with me over time because I believe that as further we as managers and organizations help people to develop as better it is.