How to Conquer Fear, go live with confidence, take your local business to a new level, and get in front of more eyeballs.

8 reasons to Conquer Fear and see how Local Businesses are Going Live Online With Confidence:

Building a business isn’t for the faint-hearted and going live on any platform to grow your business.

It will help to get you in front of more people quicker than any other marketing idea out there.

Getting attention to your local business isn’t easy with all the competition out there.

Going Live will help you to build relationships quicker than flyers or mailers will.

You will be able to connect with people on a deeper level on a regular basis because of live video.

It allows your audience to have access to you for Q&A or anything they need to know from you, that they wouldn’t normally have.

You don’t have to speak about business all the time and I recommend that you just speak about business 20% of the time anyway.

You can share behind-the-scenes videos that let your audience know exactly what you put your time into to help serve them better.

If you wanna crush live videos for your local business then check out my Facebook Live Formula which gives you step-by-step instructions. It will tell you everything you need to do before, during, and after every live video no matter what platform you’re on.

Click here to grab your Live Video of Formula

Local Businesses have taken a back seat thanks to 2020 and all its endeavors.

It’s no secret that local businesses are struggling more now than they ever have in the past. It wasn’t hard enough to grow a business. We had to go ahead and throw a worldwide pandemic in there to make it even harder. The statistics before 2020 80% of businesses failed within the first 5 years.

It’s too soon to tell but now that we have a global issue, and it doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere anytime soon the statistics can’t be good. I drive down the streets of my neighborhood I see going out-of-business signs every. To join our group of local businesses mastermind “Science2Social Marketing Lab” Click here.

JC Penny is currently having a going out-of-business sale at the time of my writing this article. They’ve been in business since 1902. I believe the truth of the matter is that, If they and companies in the same situation right now were able to shift and pivot to the way things are done today they would still be in business (Look at Amazon).

How to keep this from happening to your local business?

“So what does this all have to do with going live on Facebook and how is that going to help me stay in business?” I hear what you’re asking. I also had that exact same question when I asked what was the best way for me to grow my business and My Mentor told me to make a video.

How is that going to help me? Hear me out on this. Live video reaches more people faster than any other media. It’s the number one way to grow your business in 2020.This year local businesses have been on camera more than ever before.

(Kicking and Screaming of course) If you’re trying to keep your local business alive then I would suggest doing yourself a favor and utilizing the medium.

What can Live Video do for your local business?

It can help to build a community that helps build that “know, like, trust factor” quickly. Creating videos generates an audience that gets more eyeballs on your local business. After all, that’s the goal of any marketing tactic so why not go for it.

What keeps most local businesses from doing live videos?

In my mind, I can think of three main barriers to going live,

Time

Skill

Fear

Let’s tackle fear first since it’s the most prolific barrier people struggle with:

People make all sorts of excuses that will ultimately keep them from the very thing that will help them the most. Speaking in front of people is the most feared thing in the world. People would rather jump out of an airplane that speaks to an audience. It’s definitely something that’s very uncomfortable. Being nervous is Okay. Most people get nervous about doing things that aren’t in their comfort zone.

My friend “John Maxwell” says Get comfortable being uncomfortable and do the thing that very few are willing to do. The problem is that I know I’m not the only one that suffers from impostor syndrome. I have thought before “who am I to teach this?” There are so many others that are more skilled than I am. But I have to tell myself I am skilled and someone needs to learn from me.

Join our group of local business owners mastermind 

Let’s talk about skill next since that is number two on my list of barriers:

Live video isn’t always easy. One of the things that draw viewers to live video is simply that it’s real and raw. It’s not a question of if something goes wrong but when something goes wrong.

Make sure to have a plan

I have my DSLR camera and two Logitech cameras in case one or two don’t work. Here is the link to the Logitech C920 Camera that I use. I have my internet hard-wired in so that I have a wonderful up-load speed. Upload speed should be at least 10 for a good live stream without it glitching too much. The more the upload speed you have the better. You’ll get more comfortable with all the tech the more you do it. And sometimes no matter how much you plan something may still go wrong, but hey “It’s a live video”.

Make sure you have a good external mic

Next after your internet speed, your sound is the most important piece to doing a live video. If your audience can’t hear you they won’t watch your video and this defeats your purpose.

Another thing to think about is your lighting

Making sure you have good light that is in front of you and not behind you. This is going to help you to look good on camera. The only way to become more confident in front of the camera is by actually going live regularly. The more you go live the better you get at it and it feels just like riding a bike.

I recommend joining a live video challenge so that you can start in a safe place where everyone is in the same boat. And it doesn’t feel so awkward. This way you practice living with other people who want to practice in a safe environment (such as a Facebook group).

Here is the ring light I recently purchased for a client.

And last but not least the barrier of Time

“I don’t have time” is really just saying it’s not a priority. It could also be an excuse, either way, going live is going to be the norm for most local businesses in 5 years. Why wait? Why not be the pioneer for local businesses and shift to what’s inevitable anyway?

Another good read is the 4 Pillars to Social Marketing. An article I wrote on the four things that need to be in place for marketing efforts to be optimized

Click here to learn what those four things are.

The time factor is going to be the death of any local business that isn’t willing to see what’s right in front of them. Not being willing to learn something new is a killer for sure especially when it comes to marketing your business.

Don’t let time stop you from growing your business to new levels. Trade time for your live video for something that really isn’t an IPA (Income Producing Activity).

To join our group of local businesses mastermind “Science2Social Marketing Lab” Click here.

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