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Why Nonverbal Communication Matters

So as we're talking about, it's not about you, and we're talking about making a good video, and thinking about how to make your videos really great and serve your audience, the important thing to remember is on video especially, the nonverbal communication is so important. Nonverbal communication being everything that you guys are seeing right now other than just my words. You're getting a different feeling than if you were just listening to the words, cause you're seeing all these other cues going on. So only seven percent of the communication we receive is verbal. This is just my lazy dog being nonverbal. But you can tell from his body language he's had an exhausted day, right? You know that without him using any words at all. It's how we communicate with our pets. But only seven percent is verbal. So the other 93 percent is all of the other nonverbal cues you have going on in your videos and those are what engages with your audience, builds that loyalty, that trust, makes you seem l...

ike a real person, keeps them coming back again and again, because of everything else that they're seeing. This is why videos are so powerful, and we're seeing YouTube grow so much. It's why so many people are spending so much time on YouTube watching just normal people instead of watching their soaps on TV, they're just watching normal people on YouTube. Because they get the whole thing, the whole package, not just what you hear on the radio but everything else. So I've got some tips for how you can make your nonverbal communication, make your video pop. And this is especially important if you're like, you know all those myths we talked about this morning that you just feel like you're not the right kind of person for video, and maybe you're not gonna be super alive on video, I've got some tips for you. The first thing to remember is that your energy, the energy that you bring, is important on screen, and you always come across more somber in your videos than you actually are. This is a bummer. One of the first videos I was recording my husband had helped me set up the camera. This is before our smart phones. So we were just using a video camera we had. And he helped me set it up, and so then he was there and he went back and he watched it, and he was like, oh you look so droopy. You're not that droopy in person, but you just seem like hi I'm Tara welcome. He's like you need to really amp it up. And when I go back and I watch videos of when I have the flu or I'm all tired from travel, I can tell. When your energy is a little low it's extra low on video. So you have to perk up even more than you think to seem just like a normal person. Which I'm sure when my neighbors see me recording my video that they think I'm crazy, cause I'm like, much bigger energy than I would ever be in person just to make a video that looks normal. So just to come across as normal human being you have to perk up more than you think. So before you hit record you wanna do whatever you can to get your energy up. Now for those people in the live audience, you guys saw that I put on some cheesy music and had a little dance party, right? Because that gets your energy up, and especially after lunch or if you're tired or if you're annoyed, you gotta do something so that you're perked up for your video. Because if you're just like your super relaxed self, even if you're relaxed in a great mood, you just need to be a little more upbeat in your videos to make your videos great. So your energy totally matters. My secret is a dance party before each recording. And you wanna just do whatever it takes. Yours might not be a dance party, yours might be something else. Whatever it is, whether it's like you roll around on the floor with your dogs, or you read something great, or you go mow the lawn, whatever you have to do to get your energy up. I've found the dance parties do it for me, you might find something else does it for you, but that's the main thing you just wanna get in that good space before you do it. Now the other thing that is gonna make your videos much better is if you picture one viewer, and you picture that viewer on the other side of the camera, and you look at the camera like you're looking in their eyes. So a lot of times when you watch a video on YouTube and you think it looks like eh it's okay, it's cause their either not looking directly at the camera, or they're staring at it too intensely, or they're looking all over the place, the viewer wants to feel like you're looking at them. So you need to look them in the eye, and their eye is the camera eye. So when you look at them, so that you're not creep, you wanna just picture one person. Don't picture 500 people, picture one person, which is why I had you list your ideal buyer, cause I want you to really picture her face. What some people even do is take a little picture and they put it up next to their camera eye, or they pull it up on their phone before they record so they can see her face and talk directly to them. This will really help your energy, your words will flow, you will sound like a normal human being because you're talking to one person. The reason why they have a live audience here is because it's way easier for me to be normal when I can see your cute little faces than if it was just the cameras. So, picture one viewer, picture your best buyer, and picture somebody who loves your work. Don't picture your judgey aunt, don't picture somebody who isn't interested in what you do, picture the person who either had amazing experience with your service or came up to you at the show and was like I love your product so much, it's so great, it's so amazing. Picture that person and talk directly to that person, and your videos are gonna be much better. You're gonna be much more casual, you're gonna sound like a normal human being. Cause a lot of what gets in the way of our energy is we get robotic because we're like ah it's a camera. Yeah. I was just wondering if you have any tips for when you're using your phone as the camera or your laptop, and you're there and the instinct is to look at yourself, but if you look at yourself you're not making eye contact with the viewer. Is it just practice or how do you force yourself to not look at the screen? Force yourself to look at the camera. So everybody heard that question, when you're doing a live video your face is right there, all filling the screen so you're looking at you, and it's really easy to be like, is my hair okay, what's happening, do I have something in my teeth? No, so look at the camera. And what I'll do if you're doing an Instagram Live or a Facebook Live, people's comments will be coming up, so I don't let myself look at them until I finish my sentence I keep staring at the camera. Then I look down read what they say, look back at the camera to answer, because yeah, it's gonna be a much better video when the viewer is seeing you eye to eye. Because if you look down, I'm just looking at your forehead. It's just weird and it cuts off that connection, and for videos to be really connecty and relationship building you need eye contact. So yeah, that's a good question though. And obviously, you see tons of videos where the person isn't. They're looking the whole time, just under the camera. It's gonna be a lot better if you can look into it. All I can say is self-discipline I guess. Just stare at it, and make yourself stare at it, and also it will help the voice in your head not be like my hair is messed up, why is my hair doing that weird thing, do I have something in my teeth? Cause if you are looking at yourself you're gonna constantly be thinking about what your face looks like instead of just what it is you most wanna say into the camera. Have you ever tried covering the screen? Especially if it's your laptop and stationary or have you used a camera mount? So what I do on my laptop when I'm recording my podcast episode, cause I use my laptop for my podcast episodes so they're a little higher quality, is I actually pull up my notes. So I hit record and it's my face, and then I pull up my notes in a Google document on top of it, so I'm not even seeing myself. So you could just open a new tab, as long as it doesn't distract you. You could put a Post-It on your phone if you just keep getting distracted by your beautiful self. You're like I can't stop, then you can absolutely do that. But yeah, it's definitely worth the discipline to make yourself do it over and over, and to picture one viewer. Another thing to do, and this is gonna seem really basic, but drink a glass of water. So like your throat, which I actually need to do more of right now. So drink a glass of water. Avoid dairy, cause it makes you phlegmy. So if you are unhappy with your energy or how you seem on camera, drink more water, perk up, do a dance party. And then a couple other tips for you. For starters, sit up straighter. Sit up way straighter than you would sit up in normal life. Always I notice, I'm way slouchier than I think, because just like the camera sucks off your energy and makes you seem lower energy, the camera also makes you seem slouchier for some reason. So sit up straighter, smile as you're talking, and remember to breathe deep. So, breathe deeper even than you think you would naturally do, because mostly if you're nervous you'll go a little fast. And then look into the camera like a friend. So like I said, the picture of that one person. So, when you look at a friend you aren't staring them down intensely, that makes for a creepy video, and you also don't wanna be all over the place. So just like if you're having a conversation with a friend, make eye contact, relax your eyes, don't stare really intensely, and just keep being aware of it over and over. So, when you watch back your videos, you're gonna be like oh I'm slouching, I'm going too fast. So just keep practicing, shoulders back, breathing deeply, smiling as you're talking, and this is true if you're doing an audio podcast as well. Your smile comes through as you're talking, you just have a different tone of voice if you stay smiley. And then a secret thing I do, which I've never talked about publicly before, but I heard someone else say she does this before she gets on the phone with a difficult client. Before she gets on the phone she says I love you, and then she starts talking. She's not even necessarily saying to them, but saying the sentence I love you just puts you in a slightly different place. I do that all the time with my podcast. I will actually picture the person, so I write my episodes for one specific student I have. It's not always the same student, but whoever asked me that question, or whoever I know is dealing with this thing, I write it with that person in mind. I have her mind, I'm like okay I love you, and then I look at the camera and I start recording. And people feel that. The most common email I get is I just feel like you're talking to me, and like a comfortable friend, and then they tell me all of their life story, and all of the struggles they've gone through. And it's because they can feel that coming through. So for you it doesn't have to be I love you, it can be I want you to be an amazingly fit person, or I wish the very best for you, or I hope you're having a fantastic day, whatever it is you wanna say that gets you in the right energy, right space to make a really great video. Cause those are things that are gonna make it even better. Do you guys have any questions about this not talking about yourself, about keeping your energy up? Somebody online said that their friend knitted a small chicken that they use to put right by the camera so they had someone to talk to, which is kind of entertaining idea. You know whatever works for you. Absolutely, I absolutely love that, that's super cool. So yes, anything you can put up. A lot of people print off their best customer photos, or even a photo of themself and a customer, and put it up there so they have something to look at. So, we're going to now, that you have these tips and ideas for not talking about yourself for serving your audience, we're gonna shoot another video. Remember how I told you that practice makes you so much better? So we're gonna practice shooting another video, and in this one I want you to do a couple things. I want you to envision the person that you're talking to, and I want you to answer one of their questions. So even if you're not gonna do a talking head video usually, just practice looking at the camera as a friend. And if you're doing an interview show by the way, and you're doing it on Skype or Zoom or any type of technology, you're gonna have to be looking at the camera to talk to the person you're talking to and not look at their face on the screen. So practice doing that, practice looking at the camera. Practice breathing deep, practice smiling, think loving thoughts towards them, and answer some question that you get regularly. Okay, and that will be the video. And now, when you go home and you go to upload your videos to YouTube, you're gonna have two options. You can choose from the one you did earlier, or you can choose this one which will be answering a specific question. Any questions about that? Okay, and if you haven't filled out the pages in your workbook I want you to do that all the way up until page eight, because it's really gonna help us. What we're gonna do next is generate tons more specific episode ideas. So what we've got so far, is what your audience wants from you, what her questions are, how you can serve her, and what we're gonna do then is turn into this is my next 10 podcasts or YouTube videos. I'm gonna do these next 10 YouTube videos so that you leave here knowing exactly what you're gonna do. Then we're also gonna talk about how to make it easier. Content calendar, batching, all kinds of ways that you're gonna make sure that you make a consistent video every week.