What Kinds of Video Sell Me Well?

1. Your primary clip (the one you drag to the top of your list of videos) should start immediately with you on stage speaking. This is what the buyer is interested in seeing. A video with three to four 30-second shots of you on stage doing your thing makes a nice primary clip.
   
2. We have seen primary (first in the list) videos that mix up on-stage footage with testimonials, media interviews, and shots of the speaker talking to the buyer. These can be great if they're heavy on the on-stage footage (at least 60%) with other things sprinkled in short pieces.
   
3. If you have a slick montage-style clip with lots of voiceover and graphics, resist the urge to make that your primary (first) clip (even though you went to all that work!).
   
4. Clips of you being interviewed on recognizable TV shows are great. If you have several, put them all together into a single video and title it something like "TV interviews".
   
5. Testimonial videos from clients are great. If you have several, put them all together into a single video and title it something like "What customers are saying about [Zeke]", or "My raving fans", etc.
   
6. One trend we like is the first-person direct-into-the-camera pitch. This is a 30-45 second video, not professionally produced, of you talking directly into the camera as though you were speaking to an event organizer in person. Talk about the benefits their organization or audience will receive from hearing you.
   
7. If you have several different topics on which you speak, upload a clip of you on stage for each of them, and title the clip in a way that reflects the topic. The event organizer will have a topic in mind and will home in on the clip title.
   
8. You don't need to put up a clip with an entire program on it. Buyers only watch the first 2-3 minutes of a clip.
   

Video Quality Tips

1. Audio quality is very important. A video taken from the back of the room with the camera's own mic will sound distant and hollow. Use video that has sound from the house audio system so you're getting clear audio from the mic you were talking into.
   
2. Widescreen (HD-format) video is the current standard. Older video clips in the 4:3 format (square, like older TVs) can still get the point across, but they look dated.
   
3. Video angles that include some audience are preferable to a shot that shows you on stage but never reveals the people you're talking to.
   
4. In spite of these recommendations, something is better than nothing. If the only footage you have violates these suggestions, put it up anyway until you can get something with higher quality.