Media Trainer, Public Speaking and Video Presentation Coach, Consultant, Speaker Claimed

Kerry Barrett  kerry@kerrybarrettconsulting.com       https://kerrybarrettconsulting.com/ . phone 973-210-4952
Imagine if you needed just 2 minutes to make a 2-minute marketing video?  That you liked?  That got results? Or had an expert to craft, produce and
tell your video brand story?  That’s what KBC does.  And so much more.  I would love to talk with you!

Video Transcription:

Elizabeth Gearhart here with Kerry Barrett, Emmy award-winning TV news anchor.  She did it for 20 years, decided to make a switch, and brought all the skills that she learned being an Emmy award-winning TV news anchor to her consulting firm, where she’s willing to help you get to a really high level with what you’re doing. so welcome Kerry!

Thank you so much, can you say Emmy one more time? Because I like the way that sounds!  I’m just teasing, thank you, I don’t normally talk about the award but I appreciate your bringing that up and yes, I like to say that I’m using my skills in broadcast news for good now.  And by that I mean to help people hone their abilities on video to figure out exactly how to tell their story, what their message is, and then the delivery.  The camera is a weird thing, we think of it as talking to another person and that is what I advise, you’re talking to a camera lens and you may be talking to millions of people, but really you have an audience of one and you’re talking to that person.  But there are some nuances that come with talking into a lens versus talking to a face and they make your delivery in your performance a little bit different, and you have to prepare for that.

I think we’ve all experienced that with the downward eye look and the messy background and feeling uncomfortable on these zoom videos.  You have techniques for video, I saw somebody in your LinkedIn post, she did a testimonial for you and she looked like a natural.

I think you’re talking about Rosie who is a graphic artist and a marketer, and I did a brand story for her and her business called Shattered Pencil Studios.  It’s the most recent brand story that I did, and she is a natural on camera honestly.  She has a charming personality, she’s very warm, she’s very welcoming, and those are things that come across when she speaks on camera.

But there are nuances to how you frame your messaging, how you speak in sound bites, and then how you deliver that.  So for example, the camera has a way of muting everything that you do, right? Except for the things that you don’t want it to, so things that you want to minimize it amplifies.  Okay we love that about it, it’s an evil mistress that camera is, but there are things you can do with your delivery that help mitigate that.  So I always advise people, and this is something I learned from my time on camera as a news anchor, I would think that I was being super animated and I was really connecting with the words that I was saying and I was getting that message across.  And then I would go back and look and I would feel like I looked half asleep or I look tired or I don’t know what was going on, and I realized that that’s just how the camera works.  It kind of mutes everything, it puts another filter between you and your audience.  So I always say: sit yourself in front of your camera, do a recording on Zoom or whatever video platform it is that you use, and go back and look and see if your energy level matches A) what you’re saying and B) what you thought it would be.  And very often it’s a little bit less than and you really have to go over the top to look over the top on camera, so I always advise people to get comfortable with feeling really uncomfortable with their energy level in the beginning.  And then you start to calibrate and figure out where that sweet spot is but it’s always more animated than it would be for you talking to someone face to face.

Well you do a good job obviously because this woman looked perfect, and I’m I can’t imagine that any of us would start out that way. I mean you had 20 years to hone this craft.

Well you know it’s interesting because it really is trial and error.  Because what works for some people and the messaging in the delivery is slightly different if you’re speaking to a group of lawyers or you’re speaking to an engineering association, right?  Their delivery and their clientele is going to be slightly different than if you’re working in perhaps a super creative field, if you’re in advertising or marketing, the energy is a little bit different. But there are things that go across all industries and across all verticals and that is using emotion to tell stories, and making sure that the way that those stories come out of your mouth is congruent with what your body language and your facial expression and your cadence and your pitch and your tone are.  So you calibrate your message and the way it’s delivered for the audience in terms of how, I don’t know it’s perhaps extreme, is the word that you would use, but you can calibrate that message for whomever is going to be on the other side of the camera. And again it’s always an audience of one, whether you’re speaking to a group of engineers and there’s 20 of them or whether you’re speaking to a National Association.  You always imagine one person on the other side of the lens and that’s the way that you’re able to connect with everybody as an individual speaking to them that way rather than speaking to them as a group.

So would you say that most business owners probably need this and need the training from someone like you or from you?

Yes, it’s interesting because when I started my business about a year ago and I was in the process of networking and figuring out what the heck it was that I was going to do, because I’d never done anything other than TV news, and I know what PR does but what is the day in the life of a PR executive look like?  Or a day in the life of a marketer?  What does the actual process look like and their day to day?  And I was talking to a woman who says you know what, you have this skill set that you’ve created over 20 years that most people don’t have.  You can go in and help them fix the issues they have, then continue with them whether they need additional training or they just need a bootcamp or they need some consulting as their project continues.  But you can go in and fix it and send them on their merry way, if you will, being able to produce the content on their own.  You don’t need to go back into corporate. I thought oh yeah that’s exactly what I’m going to do, start my own business and I’m going to teach people, use my camera skills for good, right, not in the news but to help broadcast their brand in their business. And their personal brand as well.  And video is exploding we know that, but YouTube and Google are inextricably linked and if you don’t have video content out there you’re missing out on a huge portion of your potential clients.  It doesn’t mean that you always have to have a slickly produced brand video that is on your landing page or on your LinkedIn page, although I do recommend that, that is helpful, but what it means is that you can produce videos on your phone, right?  It’s a great way to stretch your marketing budget.  You can produce two minute long videos or three minute long videos on 4k. I mean this is good quality stuff that we all have in the palm of our hand, and push that out across your social platforms.  You can use video to onboard clients, you can use video to create value or education or tutorials or thought leadership pieces, and so the opportunities for video use are exploding and if you’re not on that train, that video train, it’s going to run you down at some point.  So you best hop on and figure out how to make it work for you.  And I think people are finally beginning to understand because we’re in this day of virtual events and Zoom calls etc. etc.  Even if they didn’t see themselves as being somebody who needs camera skills or video training they now recognize that there is a benefit in being able to deliver your message clearly, crisply, succinctly, and with some professional expertise.  Because we’re all on these platforms now and there’s some ability that we have to grow our business on them but we have to be able to do it correctly.  If we don’t know what we’re doing on camera our clients are going to assume we don’t know what we’re doing off camera either and that’s not a good thing.

I agree and I think the other thing about working with someone like you or you, I mean you’re very good so you would be my choice, you feel more comfortable with yourself then on camera so you’re not as deer-in-the-headlights and not as uncomfortable.  Because the awkwardness comes through if you feel like you’re really awkward it comes out.

Right.  It’s one of those things that we don’t want to amplify that the camera amplifies.  I know it’s like I said that evil mistress, but you’re absolutely right.  Once you get comfortable on camera you begin to see opportunities for value and marketing anywhere. And it and you don’t have to necessarily sit down and plot out exactly what it is that you’re going to say and memorize it in fact I recommend never doing that.  But you’re comfortable enough to sit down hit record and start talking and know that what comes out is probably going to be usable.  If it’s not then you hit stop and you re-record and it’s that simple. There’s not a lot that has to go into it. it doesn’t need to be a big long process of editing and production, but once you’re comfortable with it you start to see the ability to do it everywhere.  You can push out marketing videos from your kitchen if you need to right now. I like to say actually, I hated looking at myself on camera especially when I first started in the news business.  And 20 years in I still don’t like it.  I still find it cringe-inducing but one of the things  that I teach people is to get comfortable with your own self-loathing.  And once you get comfortable with your own self-loathing, you’re okay with almost anything you put on here.  And that’s the key.  It’s practice and then publish, practice publish, practice publish, once you get that pattern going you start to feel comfortable with your content and you don’t really care that people aren’t watching it at the beginning where there’s trolls that jump out of the woodwork. Which happens when you’re doing big things and you get comfortable with all that or at least you are willing to overlook it.

Anytime you own a business, any time you put yourself out there in any way, there’s always going to be people that want to tear you down or say things.   And I think the fact is most people are probably 3/4 of the way there, they look pretty good on video, but you help them get that polish and that confidence, right?   And tell the story,  that’s a huge marketing thing to be able to tell your story, and I think that’s really important because people do want to know what the story is, like for you 20 years as a news anchor, Emmy award-winning that’s a story.

One of the things that’s interesting is that I used to be terrified of public speaking. I mean I when I tell you terrified, I mean back of the room curled up in the fetal position.  Not a rational fear of public speaking, a crazed extreme phobia of public speaking.  If you were to talk to any of my high school friends they would tell you that newscaster was the last thing they would have ever pictured me doing as a profession, let alone for two decades.  Once you figure out that story, data and statistics are important, and they can backup stories and they can provide ROI, they can provide information, but it’s the stories, it’s the emotion, that sits with people.  And it’s the stories that compel them to act or do what it is that you’d like them to do, or perhaps at least respond to your call to action. So figuring out how to package those stories and then how to calibrate them for the length of the video, and the audience, does this need to be a 30-second story, can this be a five-minute story?  And what are the different elements that I include in that story. Because what you think is your best story is not necessarily the best story for every audience.  It’s figuring out what your story is that’s appropriate for the audience in front of you.  And that takes a little bit of practice and a little bit of finesse and refinements as well.

And that is so important because you might get away with a few jokes if you’re talking to a group of moms that have little kids and you know da da da but if you’re talking to Bill Gates you’re probably not going to tell the same story.

Probably not going to regale him with stories of my college partying, yeah, you’ve got to figure out who your audience is and what kind of story is going to resonate with them. And then the next step is figuring out what kind of holes they’re going to want to punch in your story and then how it is that you follow up, and what it is that you need to tell them as it relates to the story, and whatever it is that you’re trying to do, whether it’s sell them something or get them to download a PDF or click over to your website or whatever it is whatever.  You have to do to follow up with those arguments that they’re going to create whether they’re internal or whether they’re actually throwing them out at you.  How do you get them to take the next step despite that.  And that’s part of the story as well .

That sounds really interesting and like a lot of work.  It sounds like it really takes a creative mind and somebody who’s been doing this for a long time to recognize those facets and put them all together.

There’s definitely some strategy involved.  And I would say one of the things that’s helped me figure out what those pushback points are going to be is from my time in news, and my time spent interviewing people and figuring out what are the elements that that people will push back against, and how do they do that and what is kind of at the core of those, right?  Sometimes the question, the pushback, is pointing to something that’s a little bit deeper.  So are they afraid of what coaching means?  Are they afraid that they’re going to step into this new area of discomfort and people are going to mock them ?  I mean there’s something very personal that comes with public speaking and especially with being on video.  You are putting yourself out there in a way that may feel more uncomfortable than text.  Text and writing is very personal as well but one of the things about video is that it lives forever and it doesn’t matter where you delete it, it is somewhere.  And so people think about that and they could be perfectly fine until that red light goes on, and then all of a sudden it’s like that moment where you know you stopped short a car.  I use this analogy, a car stops quickly in front of you and you have to slam on your brakes, you know that feeling of adrenaline that kind of jolts through your body.  It’s like that when the camera goes on and all of the personality and all of the characteristics that made that person unique they sometimes they seem to shrivel up or evaporate when that red light goes on and part of that is the anxiety.  At least in a lot of people, knowing that if they screw up and this goes out no matter where they pull it down from somebody is going to have it somewhere. And it will live on in perpetuity forever and that’s scary for a lot of people,  I get that, I can go back 20 years and find my mistakes on air online somewhere and it’s never pleasant.

For a lot of us some of our first home videos that we saw on TV were America’s Funniest Home Videos where people are embarrassing the heck out of themselves.

And then they made a lot of money.  So I just remember what the thing is, is that even if you make a mistake on a live video, that’s unfortunate, but most of what we have going on right now is things that we can tape and we can edit and we can re-record if we need to.  But the truth is if you make a mistake on a live video and I know this, because after six hours of live TV for 20 years each day you make mistakes and you say stupid stuff, if you handle it well it actually endears you to your audience.  Don’t stumble all over yourself apologizing, don’t draw more attention to it than is necessary ,depending on what the topic is and who your audience is. Dealing with it with a little self-deprecating humor is usually, not always, but usually, appropriate, and if you can handle it well your audience will find that you are a human and they’re drawn to that humanity and they will like you for it.  That’s what people are drawn to, they’re drawn to your humanity. They’re not drawn to your perfection, that never sold anybody anything.  So maybe I’m like ‘thank goodness for that. I don’t care what kind of filter Zoom has on it, it’s not going to cover up everything.’

So people come to you to learn how to present. So it’s not just video though, I mean people come to you to learn how to present in front of groups and CEOs, come to you to learn how to be more comfortable in front of groups and smooth and polished,

Absolutely.  So there’s a number of different things that I offer.  One is video brand story development, and now there is sizzle reel production, so if people have video content or they want to shoot video content and put together a sizzle reel which they will then use to pitch themselves, let’s say as a contributor to CNN or Fox business or an MSNBC, so on, and within that scope of work I have media training that applies for people who are looking to become contributors.  So handling the live studio situation, learning to pitch yourself to media, how to handle hostile questions, how to answer in sound bites, how to make sure that your message comes across so that you do set yourself up to be a person who has credibility, visibility, and you will be invited back to contribute again when CNN has something that would lend itself to your area of expertise or MSNBC has a story that needs a little bit of analysis by, let’s say a tech guru, and that happens to be where you are.  It also means, as you mentioned, public speaking.  I don’t do that as much right now because everything is virtual and keynote speaking and large group seminars for the most part have dried up or have been put on hold.  But I am also hired to not only train keynote speakers but to be a keynote speaker myself, whether it involves motivational keynotes, keynote that involves professional development or executive training or leadership training, and in those bodies or within those parameters it has to do with public speaking, presentations and messaging delivery.  And while part of what I do is performance-based, how do you make sure that you are using best practices, a lot of what my belief about public speaking is, is that it comes down to being able to be authentic.  And I know that sounds a little nebulous but the truth is. if you’re a great speaker it’s not going to matter whether you have your hand in your pocket or whether you don’t look at the room and in a perfect four quadrants. Those things are good to know and if you’re uncomfortable being on stage or talking in front of a group knowing what those practices are, are important because they do help build your confidence and that’s really what it’s all about.  It’s building that confidence.  But once you get past those basics it’s the ability to just talk and be yourself and not sound scripted, not sounding rehearsed, but not sounding rehearsed takes some rehearsal.  And so it’s maybe not intuitive but those things are important.

So anybody looking to just really develop their business personal brand and presence can work with you?

Absolutely right . Whether it’s you want to sell from the stage, you want to be paid for speaking gigs, you are looking to up your personal brand within your corporation and so you want to increase your opportunity for speaking, your expertise at speaking, anything really where you need to make sure that your delivery and your message resonate in front of your target audience.  Whether that’s with potential clients, whether that’s within your corporation, whether that’s on a live stage or whether it’s through a camera lens.

Great.  So how do we find you?

You can find me any number of ways. You can always email me, it’s Kerry@KerrryBarrettConsulting.com,  You can find me on my website, again KerryBarrettConsulting.com, LinkedIn, on all the social media platforms, but for business LinkedIn is the most prevalent, and then you can always call me 973-210-4952.

Perfect, thanks.