Filming Tips for Endurance Coaches to Engage More Customers

For triathlon, running and endurance coaches, video on social media is the best way to engage with your potential customers to become known, liked and trusted and in the long term help to grow your business.

Are you doing at least weekly videos? If not why not?

A video is exponentially more effective than images and text and a million times more effective than posting silly motivational quotes and memes.

Memes and quotes just get cheap likes, they won't get you new customers and they won't build trust.

We aren't after likes and shares with video, we are after a deeper engagement so we can actually help our potential and current customers in a meaningful way.

Video helps you;

1. Prove your knowledge and experience
2. Become an authority
3. Become known, liked and trusted by a bigger audience
4. Help lots and lots of people with their problems
5. Grow your coaching business

The reason you may not be doing regular videos is that you probably don't want to put a video out there that you don't feel is of high enough "quality"

The trouble is we can't all have Talbot Cox follow us around, then spend hours producing amazing videos. It's just not going to happen.

You should just get out there and do them anyway and focus more on the valuable content within the video rather than the video itself

However in saying that, there are some things any coach with a smartphone and a few extra dollars can do to make their videos just feel a little bit more professional than a shaky handheld video.

In this video I cover four cheap and easy options to make your videos a little more pro without needing Quentin Tarantino to direct and edit them afterwards.

Video Version

Text Version

Here are 4 different options in order of simplicity. Whatever you have available is good enough to create an engaging video but make sure you make the most of your resources.

Smart Phone Only

This is just an iPhone 5s, doing a selfie video. My hands are pretty shaky so if you are anything like me try to do your best to keep steady. A small tip, the worst thing you want to do is to have it down too low looking up your nostrils, hold it out in front of you but make sure you can stay relaxed while holding it. Noone wants to watch 3 minutes of video looking up your nose. If you have someone else around get them to hold it for you.

Mini Tripod

A better option than hand held video is a mini tripod. It's very small and easy to carry around with you. It keeps the camera nice and steady and I like to use my hands especially when I'm nervous so using the tripod frees me up to do that and helps me be relaxed. With the mini tripod you can feel more comfortable, and you don’t always have to look at the camera. That helps to make the video feel more natural. You can get one of these mini tripods for $15-$20.

Tall Tripod

The next option is a tall tripod. You just need the tripod and a smartphone mount. It’s great if you want to video more than one person – like a conversation or interview. You can place the tripod a little further away and avoid the rounded faces you can get when using a phone too close to your face. A tripod like this you can get for about $25 and maybe $10-$15 for the smartphone mount.

Gimbal

A more advanced and flexible option is a gimbal. This stabilizes and removes any shaking and keeps the shots nice and smooth even while walking around. It has an electric motor that stabilizes and rotates as you turn your wrist. You can even lock it on to an object. You can lock it on to your face and walk around with it without worrying if the shot has centered on you.

It’s great for action shots as well, you can run along side someone running and you won’t get any bouncing or jumps up and down. You just flick your wrist and it moves around with you.

So this Gimbal is about $99 - $150 US dollars depending on whether it's on sale. It’s called a DJI Osmo 2. Well worth the investment and you can get some cool videos out of it. It also mounts on a tripod so you can use a combination of all these options. If you mount it on a tripod and use the face lock feature you can walk around and it'll follow your face. No need for Talbot Cox.

Conclusion

Hopefully, that helps out a little bit in terms of getting out there and creating videos. Don’t be scared to post a video that’s not super high quality. The content of the video is most important. But, whatever you have available to you at the time, make the best use of. If you want to spend a little extra money -- $50 or $100 if you can stretch to the gimbal option, then it’s definitely worth it. 

Without doubt video is the best way to engage more of your potential and existing customers and help to grow your business.