Stop Avoiding Video Content: The Easiest Way to Finally Show Up On Camera

If you’ve been putting off video content, you’re not alone, and you’re definitely not out of excuses.

In this episode of Kickstart Your Week, we’re breaking down the real reasons business owners avoid video (yes, even the ones we tell ourselves are “valid”) and how to actually move past them without overcomplicating the process. 

From “I hate being on camera” to “I don’t know what to say” to the classic “I don’t have time,” we’re tackling it all with practical, doable solutions you can implement this week.

You’ll learn how to make video feel natural, how to come up with content ideas quickly, and how to create a system that saves you time instead of draining it.

Because here’s the truth: video doesn’t have to be hard, but avoiding it is costing you.

What You’ll Learn:

•  Why being on camera feels so uncomfortable (and how to get out of your head) 
•  Simple ways to make filming easier, even if you hate doing it solo 
•  What to talk about on video (hint: you already have the answers) 
•  How to use AI to plan your content without losing your voice 
•  The fastest way to batch record and create weeks of content in hours 
•  Types of video content that actually work (and where to use them)

Key Takeaway:

You don’t need more time, better equipment, or a perfect script; you just need a simple plan and the willingness to start.

Ready to Take Action?

If you’ve been waiting for the “right time” to start video—this is it. Start small, keep it simple, and focus on consistency over perfection.

And if you want help creating professional, high-quality video content, Kickstart Studios is ready for you.

Get more from Kickstart Your Week!

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Meet your hosts and learn more about Kickstart Collective at kickstartcollective.co

Kickstart Collective is a creative marketing agency based in Wilmington, NC. We offer our clients a creative advantage through creative content and marketing strategies. 

Transcript

Welcome And Weekly Focus

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to Kickstart Your Week, brought to you by Kickstart Collective, a marketing agency focused on helping brands grow with purpose. Every Monday, we're here to help business owners, creators, and marketers start their week with clarity, momentum, and practical ideas you can actually use. Kickstart Your Week is produced right here at Kickstart Studios in Wilmington, North Carolina. Let's Kickstart Your Week. Welcome to Kickstart Your Week. This week we are talking about why you're avoiding video and how to fix that fast. This is real. This is a real conversation that we have with uh business owners and industry, you know, professionals often. Um, video creating video content can be hard. Um you don't want to feel like a content creator, you know, necessarily, depending especially your business and your role in your business. Um, and so there's a lot of just natural resistance and truly practical, I'll say excuses, but just very real reasons why creating video content can be hard. So we're gonna talk today about how you can make it happen easily because that's the name of the game. If it's gonna be consistent, it's gotta be somewhat easy to do.

SPEAKER_04 1:17

All right.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

Um, so I'm Lara. This is Alyssa, Joshua. We are with Kickstar Collective, and we're gonna help you stop avoiding video in your marketing.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

It's funny because we were just talking to a client yesterday about a new video creation strategy for them. Yep. So it's perfect. So we're in it. We're in it.

Why Being On Camera Feels Hard

SPEAKER_02 1:41

Um yeah. So yeah, last week we talked about how video is important, especially in the age of AI, because so much content can be easily generated via AI. Um, so go back to listen to that one if you need some convincing that you need video. Um, but now more than ever, I think being on camera, showing your face or your team, um, those real conversations um is just more important than ever in terms of building trust with your target audience. Um, so let's talk about some common objections objections to creating video.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

Yeah. I mean, I feel like the the one I hear most is I hate being on camera.

SPEAKER_02 2:21

Yeah. And this is Joshua. He is our videographer and podcast producer. If you're new to the show, um, so when you're creating content with us, you're this is who you're talking to. Um, so he talks to lots of business owners and people.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

I wave a lot.

SPEAKER_02 2:35

He says hi on camera. Um, so yes, people don't like being on camera.

SPEAKER_00 2:40

They either feel like they're not gonna get their point across well or they're feeling like you know the angle's not gonna be right and you know, accentuate their what they're already like, they're their natural selves, or they're not gonna have their best angle or what have you. And I think that's all a bit too much in your head.

SPEAKER_02 2:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

I think it's easy to it's easy to get in your head about things and and maybe insecurity start to to kind of like get in there, but truly, people aren't looking for, they're not gonna be trying to critique you. They just you just want to they want to hear your your your vision, what your mission is and and what you're trying to portray on the video itself.

SPEAKER_02 3:14

Yeah. Um, yeah, I mean, I had a lot of reasons.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

I'm like, I don't want to be on camera, but here we are. We did it, we've been doing it for a while. I was gonna say the same thing, like from personal experience. Honestly, it the more you do it, the less daunting it is, the less intimidating it is.

SPEAKER_02 3:28

Yeah, and I think something we figured out very early on is recording by yourself, at least for me. Not everyone, some people are great at it, and if you are like jealous, but for me, it's hard to be on camera by myself and doing this, talking to the camera for you know five minutes or however long the content is. Um, that's when I get in my head and I start rambling, and then there's no way to like easily redirect and be like, hey.

SPEAKER_04 3:58

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 3:59

So if you do, or you're like, I don't want to be on camera, I don't like it. The self-conscious side of it, studio lights help a lot.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 4:07

Having a professional frame it and coach you and be like, hey, sit up, turn, do this.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

You look great, relax. Yeah, take a deep breath.

SPEAKER_02 4:14

Yeah, no one sees what you know you're worried about. Um, just very practically speaking, that is helpful. Yeah. Um, lighting is always super important. Um, but then if it's, you know, the talking on camera, that side of it, pull somebody in to be on there with you. I mean, I know we've had some people where the second person isn't even on camera, yeah, but it allows you to talk to looking at my imaginary co-host. It allows you to talk to someone versus having to stare at the camera and it can be conversational, and then that's where editing comes in.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

Yeah, absolutely. I I think that's actually a really good point. Some people will bring in like a significant other or a friend and just have someone to off camera to talk to, or they can even prompt them with questions to kind of get them going conversationally. Because really, all you want is that conversation. You're not looking to for cookie cutter answers, you're not looking to most people, some people use a teleprompter, but most won't. You know, you're just looking to kind of get a conversational point out of what you're trying to say. And so having someone off camera, I can be that guy if you need me to, you know, I can, I've done it before. Um, or having someone on camera that you can talk to as well, yeah, that can certainly help.

SPEAKER_02 5:22

Yeah. The more conversational, the easier it is.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

Yeah.

What To Say On Video

SPEAKER_02 5:26

Yeah. Um, what about the folks that are just like, I don't know what to say? Like, I know I need to do video content for my business, but like, what the heck am I gonna talk about?

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Yeah, I mean, that's where you can use a little bit of AI.

SPEAKER_04 5:40

Ooh, AI?

SPEAKER_00 5:42

Pull from pull from last week's. Yeah. Uh be like, hey, you know, this is what I'm looking to talk about. I don't know what to say. But uh, could you help me uh figure out what would be some good quick conversational points to talk about this specific topic?

SPEAKER_04 5:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Um, and it's a great way to get the ball rolling because you're not you're not using it as um, it's not going to be talking for you, you know.

SPEAKER_04 6:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Um, but it's just to kind of get you a couple bullet points and you can kind of craft it into what you're actually trying to say.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Yeah. Yeah, that's a great point. And you can kind of use it too if you're just doing casual content or if you have like a broader campaign that you're trying to plan, or I don't just if you're a small business and you have a sale coming up, obviously it can be targeted towards that, or if you have a specific goal for your business, you can work your video content around that too to kind of give you some structure for sure.

SPEAKER_02 6:33

And I think too, like in your day-to-day job or talking with clients, like what are the questions that you're getting all the time? Like, what are what's your FAQs basically? And just go through each one of those and answer them. I mean, part of it, it's gonna be interesting for social because there are probably a hundred people who don't ask the question for every, you know, one person that actually does.

SPEAKER_04 6:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:55

Um, so you're being proactive and providing that information. Um, but then you can let it live on your website or send it out in emails of like, hey, you know, clients always ask us about this. If you're wondering, like, here's the answer. Um, so you can provide some value. And again, it's it's stuff that you already know people are wondering about because they're asking you. Yeah. Um, so um, I think that's you know, just another easy way to think through of what to say. And two, like the things you know that are like obvious to you as a professional, your target audience probably doesn't know. That's why they're coming to you.

SPEAKER_03 7:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

Um, so the more yeah, you can just share your expertise and just make it easy for people to understand, I think the better. And what's nice about video also, and I'll claim this one, is you can ramble and say all the words and all the things, and then someone can go back and edit it and make it look so clear and obvious. Um, but it just gives you a chance to, and those instances where you can just brain dump on camera.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

And just a quick thing like if you've gotten three or four people reach out to you about the same with the same question, yeah, you need to get a video out about that.

SPEAKER_04 8:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

Because that means, like you said, 10, 15 times the amount of people that that person actually reached out to are asking that same question or wondering the same thought.

SPEAKER_02 8:14

Exactly. Um, yeah, and it works great as a sales tool in terms of like, oh, hey, we recorded a video to explain this, and on the front end, too, to answer those questions and just seem proactive and build trust before someone even reaches out to you.

SPEAKER_04 8:28

Yeah.

You Do Have Time

SPEAKER_02 8:29

Um, all right. This is my favorite excuse. I don't have time.

SPEAKER_04 8:34

Lie.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

I don't have time. I don't have time to do this.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

You do have a lot of children. You specifically have a lot of children, so I understand that. But you most people do actually have time.

SPEAKER_02 8:44

And I do too, because here we are. Um, no, I mean, this is I think a great excuse um for everyone all the time for anything. No one has time for anything. Like, let's be real.

SPEAKER_04 8:58

Right.

SPEAKER_02 8:59

But well, before I go down this tangent, I'm gonna answer this question with a few things. You do. You, you do. I do, you do, we do. Um, but you do have to schedule it. Um, and it doesn't need to be something you have to do every day. Like for most businesses, sure, you might want to post on Instagram like a video. You might need to post every day, but you don't have to record every day. Um, you can do an hour, two hours a month, block it out, film the content, whether you're doing phone content and editing on your own, which yes, that does take up more of your time, or if you're doing something like a lot of our studio clients do, they come in for an hour and a half, they bulk record, we do, you know, there might be a 30-minute video out of that, you might get five-minute videos, and you could get truly unlimited short form videos that you can post. Um, it's all on different topics, but it looks consistent, it's clean. Um, so it's just it's a matter of making time. Um, and one thing I was thinking about, which we do it with our team, so it's not quite the same, but um, depending on your business and the type of video you want, you can also invite a guest, like a referral source for your business, a client. It doesn't, you can serve two purposes at once. You can do some networking, but also you're getting content for you and you're providing value for them. So I think you just got to get creative on what kind of video makes sense. But then, yeah, I need to connect with so and so.

SPEAKER_04 10:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:39

Let me see if they want to join me for a 30-minute video. Um, and then with a studio setup or something like that, it's nice because you're not, you know, inviting them to your office and you're not familiar with cameras, you're sitting here chatting while Josh was doing sound checks and all that, you create value for both of you, and then you're done.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

I mean, what a networking opportunity.

SPEAKER_02 10:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Because no matter what, there's going to be 15 minutes of setup time and 15 to 30 minutes of post-like hangout talk time. Yeah. And it's just a natural like social lubricant, if you will, like doing the video itself to get to know someone better and to connect. And yeah, I would actually argue too, just kind of back to your talking about I don't have time. I would say camera, time, and video is the most efficient way of using your time for marketing and stuff like that. Because uh instead of having to write something out, you can just pull up a couple points, batch record, like you said, get a month's worth of content in a day or in a couple hours. Um, and it's it's uh, I think a great time efficient way to get content done and created.

Content Types That Actually Work

SPEAKER_02 11:40

Yeah. And I think um we didn't really talk about this in last week's episode, but one thing that is cool is okay, let's say workflow-wise, throw this out there. We're gonna tangent a little bit. Let's use AI to come up with five topics that you can share on social this month for your target audience, your business. Here's what you really specialize in or love to talk about. Like, pick things that like with this. We can we have notes, we could ramble about this all day long. Like, pick something you already know about so it's easy. Yeah, let AI outline it for you, bullet point it for you, you know what topics you want to talk about. Come in and record, do your thing, get your edits, grab the transcripts from your videos. It's your voice, it's your idea, it's your experience. Let AI write your captions. Yeah, it really makes it so simple. So simple. Like a three-step process. Yeah. And since you're using the transcripts, you're using your voice, like AI is smart, it can pick up on the voice and the tone and the messaging. Um, and it just makes it super simple. Back to like the efficiency thing that you mentioned, um and the FAQs coming in and answering your FAQ your FAQs for 30 minutes to an hour, you then have a library of videos to share to someone. So you're not having the same conversation 10 times a week over the next three years. You have a video that answers that, then you have your follow-up. So you can get creative with the video content as well in ways that's gonna actually save you time. Um nobody has time. But it's but you do, we do. It's fine, you can figure it out. Um, but yes, I think that I mean, those three things I think are what often hold people back. So um, what about some different types of content that people can create? I know obviously you're on the video production side, you're very much in the social side of it. Um, those things overlap a lot, but also have their like core pillars of video content. I'm just in the middle of talking strategy to people.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

Um so who wants to go first? Okay, sure, yeah, I can take it. I think from a um social side of things, it is more short form, shorter attention span.

SPEAKER_04 14:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

Um, so you can go the educational route and use those videos on social. You can also go the trendy route, the humor route. Um, you can do day in the life, you can do behind the scenes. Um, going back to the video we filmed last week, like authenticity really does matter. So it's just you showing real life in front of the camera. It doesn't have to be super produced. Um, it can be more casual, but the beauty of bulk recording, like coming in the studio and bulk recording, is that you can use all that on social, but also like you can use it in so many places. You can use it in ads, you can use it in email. You can the there's a lot of possibilities when it comes to like bulk recording and then repurposing that content. Yeah. Love a good repurpose. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:06

Yeah. Um, so yeah, other forms of video content, studio podcast content. I think I'll be, I think we've talked a good amount about that. We can talk more about it, but then what about like when you actually go out and do let's just do like a brand video for someone because that's easy to talk about, or like a very specific campaign focused piece of content.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

Yeah, so that one uh brand videos will have a very specific purpose in trying to get your message across. And that's when you're kind of like pulling out all the stops, and you can really plan each shot and each interview/slash answer, uh, question answer. So um, yeah, that's a great way to really get uh I'd say concentrated uh points across, more so where a podcast might be a little bit more conversational and like chill. Um brand videos and not, you know, it's it's of course everything's pre-planned, so it's not like a stressful thing, but um, it's just very like you're you're focusing on the concentrated point that you're trying to get across.

SPEAKER_02 16:06

Yeah. Um, and I think to that point, the brand videos and those video shoots, like we're coming to you, we're filming, you know, in your office or on location, we're getting the shots of, you know, people laughing, working, you know, hands-on shots. Um, so then you have the finished video um that's very specific and you know, maybe more about the company or the brand or specific service or something. But then you have all of these shots, like more of the lifestyle shots, the working shots, um, that the B-roll shots, if you will. Um, if you know the terminology. Um but you can then, you know, repurpose those and reuse those. So you get a library of content again in one session or depending on the video, you know.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

And they're very high quality shots, they're pre-planned shots. Um just kind of like pulling back the curtain. I I will people who we do brand videos with, we have at least one meeting, maybe two, and we're trying to like figure out exactly what type of b-roll shots you want. And I'll like make a list so that we make sure we get each one. Um, and then yeah, that like you were saying, like that's a great catalog to pull from for uh social media or any other thing you can get creative with or have us make more content for you with that. Um, and it can last years.

New Studio Announcement And Wrap

SPEAKER_02 17:25

Yeah. Yeah. So there's um there's a lot of ways you can get video content in terms of short form, easy cell phone, studio again, easy comments, sit down, higher production brand videos, or very specific ad campaign videos. Um, and then it can be as, you know, you have to be involved because you're gonna you or your team is going to be the ones on camera. Um, but the planning portion of it, you know, if you're working with somebody, they're gonna help you think through all those things, or if it's you know, easier just organic social posts. Um, again, AI is a great tool for that as well. Yeah. Um so I hope after listening to this episode, you have no more reasons to avoid video. Because it's so easy. We can do I can do it. If I can do it, you can do it. Um, no, but for real, I think the importance of it that as it is grows with AI and all that, um, getting on camera is important. So just figuring out like where are you resistant to it and just what is that next step to just do it? Yeah, realize it's not painful, and then be consistent over time, building out content. So um that being said, we do have an announcement. Tremble. Yeah. This is our last episode for Kickstart Your Week in the current studio. Um, we have a new space starting in April. Um, so we're gonna have three to four set designs. Um, so there'll be more options to choose from. So your content can look, you know, more like your brand, your setup, um, just a lot of different options there. So we are excited. Kickstart your week will also be obviously recording in our new studio as well. But if you're interested in getting studio content, um, whether that's you know, the short form FAQ educational things, um, recording a webinar, starting a podcast, um, we will be set up and ready to go. So let us know. Um, we have loved this studio. Um, we've actually this this will be our third studio upgrade. The room gets a little bigger every time. It will. Um, so we were just on the other side of this wall. So this is gonna be uh a down the street move. So this one's a little bit bigger. Um, but we are very excited. So stay tuned for updates about that. And we will see you in the new studio on the next Kickstart Your Week. Thanks for listening to Kickstart Your Week. If today's episode gave you something to think about or try this week, be sure to subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a review. It helps more people find the show. And if you're looking to create your own podcaster content, Kickstart Studios is available for booking. We'll be back next week with another conversation to help you kickstart your week.