Do LIVES with Confidence & Ease in 3 Straight Forward Steps
How to make going Live easy and fun
How to go Live with confidence and ease in 3 straightforward steps.
And as I promised in my other Live the other day, I promise to keep the Live short, because the wonderful people in my free Deeply Aligned + Thriving Business Group have been telling me: make it short & snappy!
By the end of the Live or article, you're going to know how to overcome any 'going Live jitters', how to set the scene so that you look right and that everything looks good, and most importantly, how to structure your Live so that it engages your audience and provides them value.
Please comment to let me know if you’ve got any questions, ideas or aha moments.
Who am I?
I'm Carola Moon, I'm a Business Coach and Personal Brand Photographer, and I help my clients create a deeply aligned & thriving business. I help them create their business on their terms, and not the cookie-cutter way.
Let's dive right in...
How to overcome the going Live jitters
Everyone has them: What will people think? How will I come across? Will anyone actually gain anything from me going live? Who am I to do all this?
There is something up-front about confidence. We often believe that it's something we look for and want, but it's actually something that we decide. It's something we have to make a commitment and a decision that yes, we may not yet feel confident enough, but we're going to do this anyway. There is this decision that we need to make ahead of time, it doesn't matter what we feel about it, that the commitment for our message and our business is more important than feeling unsure or uncertain and maybe we feel we're going to stutter through it.
It doesn't matter, go live anyway.
Because that leads me to the second part, which is confidence grows by doing the thing.
Let me ask you: when you leave the house, do you worry about tripping when walking? This walking thing, is all a little uncertain, do you worry whether you’ll succeed, whether you’ll actually make it to the shop? It comes as now we've been walking so much if you're older than 3 you're probably quite confident in your walking skills. Yes, you may still trip at times, but mostly, you just do it.
That's the same with going Live as with anything. Once you make the decision that you will be doing it no matter how uncomfortable it feels at first, how uncertain, how arrgh, all the feels, you decide that this is more important and you just go through the motion of doing it to learn it.
The second thing is, know and trust that by doing it, the longer you do it, the more you do it, the more you will actually succeed in doing it really well.
What is it? One needs 10.000 hours to master any skill? It's a ridiculous number. And you're never going to get to mastery if you're not going to start.
Decide, and start!
Once you have decided, and you're getting ready to get started, get yourself into the right positive, upbeat and high-vibe energy. My ritual is to take my shoes off because I like to feel the ground under my feet and I also rub my hands together a lot before going Live. It gives me energy, it helps me to reconnect to myself and it psychs me up.
Do what works for you! You may find something else, maybe you need to meditate before you go Live or shake your bootie to your favourite tune. Do what works for you.
Don't focus on the fear of doing it, instead, feel into the excitement of it!
You just do it, and look forward to sharing your message that your audience needs to hear.
And then, dive in!
Setting the scene to look great
Your Background
In my Live I chose to be in front of our fireplace and you see some pictures on the wall behind me. I picked this spot because we've just hung the pictures, and I like them. Some of the colours in the pictures are even my brand colours, so think about it how you're setting the scene and what's behind you.
Ask yourself: How am I in front of my background coming across to my audience? It doesn't have to be a picture wall, you could choose to be on your sofa, or at your desk, in front of a plain wall or you could choose to find a shady spot in your garden, it doesn't really matter. It matters that you have a little think what your audience is going to see and how they may perceive you.
One big no-no is too much clutter in your background.
Your Lighting
Secondly, make sure to face your light source. I don't know if you see this in the video, but I use a ring light that's right in front of me. Not only have I got two windows to my left, but I've also opted to add more light with the ring light to light my face evenly. Because if I turn away from the light source, half my face will be in the shadow. Facing the light directly gives your face a more flattering look.
If you do get a ring light, I find the bigger ones give more even lighting. They do make a difference.
It works best if you have a tripod to put your phone on, or if you use a laptop, have it just above eye level. It does look better than when the camera looks up your nose.
To recap, face towards the light source e.g. windows, set the scene behind you so that it looks pleasing and nice and put your mobile or computer camera above eye level in front of you.
This is your opportunity to create a little set for yourself that just looks nice.
How to best structure your Live and engage your audience
The Structure
The first thing I start every Live with is the topic.
Next, I suggest introducing what the end result is going to be. What is the learning you’re aiming to enable for your audience by the end of the Live. Highlight these as desirable end results that your audience won’t want to miss.
After the topic introduction and the desired end results, introduce yourself. Not everyone will know you necessarily, it's good to remind your audience who you are and how you help your clients.
And then I dive into the topic.
I suggest structuring your topic into of 3, 5 or 7 points – uneven numbers work really well. Then just go through each of your points. My tip here is not to be afraid to go back and re-iterate what you have gone over and what is the next point. Wrap it up into neat little parcels of insights.
One other thing with your structure is, have your timeline in mind. I planned for 15 minutes of my total of 20 minutes to be used on the core points, with the remaining minutes reserved for the intro and outro, topping and tailing the main points. This way it becomes a neat, whole story with an intro, the message and the outro.
Don’t forget that the outro could include a call to action. I personally like to re-iterate how I help my clients and invite them to reach out to me.
Everything we're doing in our business we're doing with a purpose. We're doing it to increase our audience reach, or we're doing it to get more clients, which is often the main goal anyway. With that in mind, I recommend choosing a call to action that is an invitation to get to know you better or one to work with you.
How to keep your audience engaged
It’s important to keep reminding your audience to stay active and contribute to the conversation. You could ask: “Give me a love heart shower!”, or “Let me know in the comments where you’re from”, or “Share in the comments what you struggle with around [this topic]!”, or “If there's anything that I've said that you resonate with, please let me know in the comments!”
You can also ask your audience to write key learning points into the comments. Invite people regularly to share what they're learning and what they understood, and what they want to learn still.
You will find a lot of lurkers, a lot of people who will not be engaging, and be ok with that. Not everyone is in the right frame of mind or in the right situation to engage. More people than you think will be tuning in on replay, they still want and need to hear your message. Don't be disappointed by non-engagement and also don't be discouraged by lower viewing numbers.
If you consistently find you’ve got low engagement, check whether the time & day is right for your audience, whether you’ve got enough or the right people who see your content, or whether the content is right.
Over to you
What did you learn? Please add a comment to let me know what was most useful for you, or what else you need to know to go Live with confidence and ease. Also, I invite you to get in touch if I can help you in any way!
I'm Carola Moon, I'm a Business Coach and a Personal Brand Photographer. I help my clients create deeply aligned and thriving businesses in their own way, and not the cookie-cutter way! If I can help you with Business Coaching, or Personal Brand Photography, please get in touch. I would love to support you.
And also, please let me know what challenges are you facing in your business so that I can address that in my next Monday Morning Live at 11 am UK time. The more I know what you’re struggling with, the more I can be of value to you.
Wishing you a wonderful day!
