This may be the best time in history to sell EdTech. But that said, the rules have changed. Rather than in-person sales calls from your reps, a virtual presentation is the new norm, and virtual presentations and video communication require the mastery of new skills. Personal videos are a powerful new way for your sales team to connect with district decision-makers and create the next steps necessary to make a sale. But mastery of this communication requires three very important steps. Practice. Practice. Practice.

Practice makes perfect for just about everything in life, including how well your personal sales videos turn out. By rehearsing, getting multiple takes, and aiming for a professional level of polish, you can start cranking out compelling, personalized sales videos that truly speak to your leads.

And let’s not forget how powerful a tool video for sales reps can be. 70 percent of those in the B2B marketing industry find video more effective than any other type of content. Including a well-crafted video in your emails to prospects can double or triple their likelihood of opening the email.

So, start practicing with your sales videos to get better at making them over time. You can use the following tips to improve more quickly and ensure your videos hit their mark.

Always Go Back and Watch Your Videos

After you record footage, watch it.

Watching yourself helps you think from the perspective of an audience member. You want to know what your prospect will be seeing when you send them a video.

It can be awkward to go back and watch everything. But you will always learn since you can see yourself doing things you weren’t aware of. Maybe you have a nervous tic, or maybe you had a really good cadence when describing a certain detail.

Watching and taking notes on old takes is the fastest way to improve your on-camera persona. Even if you know a certain take was bad, see if you can observe what did and did not work.

Know What to Re-Use and What to Scrap from Your Older Videos

There’s nothing wrong with recycling some of your old scripts when making personalized sales videos. Just make sure that anything you re-use is specifically chosen because it adds value for the recipient. Keep the concerns of your prospect in mind when you are deciding which content to include or discard.

The last thing you want to do is repeat something that wouldn’t be relevant or interesting to them just because you used it before. Treat each video as unique, including how you pick-and-choose what bits to recycle from past content. Is your prospect a teacher or other end-user? A tech director? A curriculum director? A superintendent? Each prospect has a different motivation to buy.

Pay Attention to Production Quality

There are a couple of rookie mistakes people make when recording themselves. One of the worst is having an ugly or distracting recording environment.

Ensure that wherever you record has a clean, non-distracting background and no sound echo. Also, use plenty of light so that you don’t look washed out or ghoulish.

Recognize That Improvement Takes Time

Just like learning a new language, juggling, drawing, or anything else, you will need to make mistakes when recording sales videos before you can improve.

When starting out, you may need 15 takes to get something right. That is okay. Even veteran actors need practice when doing something new. Eventually, it will come easier as you develop habit and instincts.

Make Personal Sales Videos for Prospects Concise

Your recipients will love you if you can get across everything you wanted to say in 30-40 seconds or less. Record yourself going at a comfortable speed, and then nitpick your script and your reading of it to see what you can cut.

Try not to speak too fast or move too quickly through a topic, either. Deliver knowledge and information in bite-sized chunks, along with the connecting ideas that your prospect needs to see the picture form from all the dots.

Remember to Breathe!

We aren’t all the Micro-Machines guy. We can’t blurt out hundreds of words in a few seconds and be understood. Nor would everyone really want to listen to it since they can’t all keep up.

So, make sure that your video script includes moments where you pause and take a breath. You want these pauses to feel natural, almost like they are punctuating the moment between one idea and the next.

Always re-watch your videos and keep an eye out for things like cadence and natural pauses.

Talk Naturally, Which Requires Rehearsal

When making a personalized video, you want to sound like you are talking directly to someone, not reading from a script.

Ironically, you need to rehearse your plan for a video before you execute it to sound more natural. If you know the information you want to present and feel confident while recounting it, you can appear much more comfortable on camera.

Ideally, you will be saying everything you need to say in a casual yet professional way. Try to mix up your tone and cadence to avoid sounding too canned or stilted.

Eventually, you will be able to switch up your approach in each take. Experimenting with options but always adhering to a standard of quality is the key to improving. Each interaction you have with clients should tell a story, so work on speaking to people through videos in a way that grabs attention and fascinates.

About the author

Bob Riefstahl founded 2Win! Global on the simple concept that if we focus on more than best practices and correct our bad practices (as Bob calls them, “Crimes”) then we separate ourselves from the competition. Bob is a thoughtful, practical senior executive with a passion for helping pre-sales professionals advance their careers and their lives.