One of the best ways to improve your site or blog rankings on search Engines is to add a sitemap. This will help your site’s Webmaster tool crawl on your website and find popular keywords being searched everyday thus ranking higher on search.
In this video, I show you how to add sitemap to your WordPress website or blog.
If you you need help to create professional screencast videos for your website or blog, request a free quote here.
In this video tutorial, I compare Camtasia 2020 and Camtasia 2021 showing you the new features. Please share your feedback on what you think of my presentation below this video.
History of Carrot and stick policy dates back to 15th century and was applied to the conduct of the Chinese during the Ming treasure voyages. The Phrase ‘Carrot and stick‘ is a metaphor which refers to the combination of reward and punishment in order to induce a certain behavior.
This is a motivational approach that top hiring managers use to achieve the best of every freelance talent or creative they engage in their project.
If the carrot and stick approach is appropriately used, it will bring the best of any creative talent, but if overexploited, it will turn the good intention to slavery and exploitation of labor for services being offered.
Remember the definition of ‘carrot and stick‘ above?
The client will make you do a lot of hard work with a promise of good reward for excellence. It thus takes me to the history of most ‘Freelancers.’ A lot of freelancers who are rated highly in a particular ‘niche‘ learnt their skills at work. They are self taught. They started as beginners with meagre pay.
Watch Video – How they apply carrot and stick policy on you as a freelancer
Those who were lucky to meet the best clients while at their early stages of Freelancing grew to become highly on demand. The best clients in this case can turn anything to Gold. They create different ‘Carrots‘ to pull the freelancer to deliver their best within their set budget.
Here are few rewards used by clients that can be referred to as Carrots in the stick. It can either make you great as a Freelancer or blind you if you don’t have a vision of what you want to achieve in your career.
Bonuses After Completion of A Contract
There is nothing wrong with bonuses. I mean it’s a free carrot for excellence. Moreover, how many clients are kind enough to give bonuses these days after you have completed a contract? With this said, a competent freelancer should learn from this and see if they can package the Bonus they were given -when offered a new contract by another client – and as an extra service. Before you go ahead and do so, ask yourself, what made the client offer you the bonus?
Do you offer extra revisions on a video or design(s)? Did you work for extra hours without billing the client? While such extra miles that you take is often treated as a gift to the client, it should also be looked at in a business perspective.
You can then apply them to those stingy clients who never see the extra hours you spend to give them the best. Also, sometimes it costs money to go the extra mile and being rewarded for it should be taken seriously.
Promise For More Work
Most Freelancers will agree with me on this. Let’s say you have completed the project as per the client’s description. When you deliver it, the client requests for revisions. You are ok with it as you want to satisfy him or her. After 5 rounds revisions, you realize that the requests are becoming too much and you start to question why?
The client first declines to say anything and keeps requesting for more changes. Noticing that you are persistent, he/she apologizes for ignoring you at first and starts explaining to you why you should make the changes. He says that their company is made up of a big team and only you can get paid on approval by the company director which is a time consuming process.
Looking back, you have no option but to do as they say. When finally they approve the project, they praise you and promise to assign you a lot of work. While you are happy that they still want to work with you, you are afraid of complying with their ‘Carrot and stick’ policy the next time they hire you.
Good news is that you can bend the policy by restructuring your terms. When they are ready to set new milestones, you can bring in your terms to accommodate the past conditions. i.e Introduce a charge of a certain amount for additional extra revisions after the 5th revision. This is something I have practically applied and it works.
Sending Referrals Your Way
This is very common in the media and design industry. You give your best knowing that many people will watch the video or see the designs you worked on. Most definitely, one of them will like what they see and follow up to know who did it.
Question is, how sure are you that they will refer them to you? That’s why professionally, in video production, its highly ethical to include names and contacts of the production company on credits at the end if it was a video. This way, if someone watching the video wants your service, they can reach out to you directly for help.
On the other hand, doing the donkey job with a promise to get referrals in return is not fair. It is thus important to set your limits and ensure that no one exploits you in anyway.
Give You A 5 Star Review
There is a price for everything. This is the price you pay when starting up as a freelancer. Give your clients unlimited revisions on tasks that you know you can complete them yourself. However, don’t spend your money to go an extra mile to do work in the name of revisions. You will be playing too hard to get the carrot in the stick.
If it costs money to make a certain revision; e.g Voice over revisions for a video you are producing; Let your client know of the cost implications.
You will be surprised to learn that serious clients don’t play carrot and stick on such costs. Don’t give your client a reason to intimidate you.
Just do what you can to give it your best. At early stages of your career, go out of your way so that you can grow. Once you have a name, start reviewing your limits by putting a price tag on it.
Exposure
This happens mostly to actors, musicians and spokespersons. If someone is talented; when they are starting up, a lot will be required of them. In return, they will get half the pay with a promise of exposure. This is an idea that was borrowed from carrot and stick policy.
Now, before you take any action as a freelancer, analyze the situation. Is the exposure worth it? Is the work linked to a popular brand? Some brands are very popular and you being associated with them will be worth it. Do your research and know their rates. That way you will know how to negotiate when offered an opportunity.
When you do this, you will be in full control.
Conclusion
Always update your terms based on how demanding the client is. For instance, if after giving your all and the client wants revisions, set a limit on the number of revisions you can offer. e.g I offer 3 rounds of revisions for free. Then, put a cost of any revisions after that. Tell your client upfront when delivering the first draft of the project. This way, they will be careful because they want to save money.
And that’s it from me. Do you know of any other ways clients apply Carrot and Stick policy? Let me know in the comments below.
If you need help to create professional screencast videos for your software’s or application, website review and more; let me know here.
While I am writing this blog-post from the video producers perspective- the secret formula of video script writing I am going to reveal in this blog post is very practical to any newbie in video script writing business.
It took me many years to believe that I could write a video script. This is despite having several of them at my disposal that I used in producing videos. Video production and script writing is like art it revolves around imagination. Art is universal. It shares the same goal; to tell a story.
If you don’t already know, copy-writing is the grandfather of story telling. A small tweak on the words that you use in selling and you get more sales or you lose more sales.
Video relies on a written copy with an aim of persuading a prospective customer to take action. The ultimate end goal is to sell something to whoever watches the video.
The formula I am going to share with you today on this blog-post is ridiculously easy. Please don’t complicate it by getting IMPATIENT or letting PRIDE take over. Creative inspiration come slowly and it is inspired by simple things.
STEP 1 – Identify 3 Marketing Videos That Are Inspiring to Watch
This step is quite obvious and you might be tempted think that you already know the formula I am going to share with you. I advise you to follow through to the end. You will notice that there is one or two things that you have not been doing right thus you are still certain of your ability.
If your list of videos are more than 3, re-watch them and narrow them down to 3. This is for practical purposes. Most clients will refer you to a style of video they like and ask you to write a script of something related.
STEP 2 – Transcribe The 3 Videos Into Scripts
Yes. watch them and transcribe the videos into scripts. Study your scripts’ structure. See the approach that they have used when introducing the problem, offering solutions and asking the prospect to take action. What makes you get hooked to it?
Step 3 – Take a Break For a Day and Think of Products That Fits into the Script Structure You Have
Change a few keywords in the script and put in your words from the new product(s) you have picked. While doing this, read it loud and hear how it sounds. You will get encouraged when doing this exercise. The more you do it, the more you master the process. Also, you will realize that you can apply the same structure on many products and it will inspire you to write more using your own language.
Step 4 – Use This Formula To Write Scripts For Use in Your Portfolio
Believe you me, when a client says he/she wants a similar style of storytelling, they mean it. If you can write a script similar to the one they are referring you to in your own language, they will love it. And when this happens, you confidence and creativity will blow up. Before you know, you will be writing more and more for TV.
Step 5 – Use the Same Formula in Writing Scripts For Use in Different Industries
When you master this formula in writing scripts for short videos, it will be easier to apply it on longer version of video copies. You just need to be a good story teller.
And that’s it.
If you need help to script and produce professional screen-cast video tutorials, let me know here.
Like photography, anyone can do a screen cast video- all they need to have is a computer installed with a screen-casting software and headphones with a microphone to record their voice-Period!
So, how can you make this a business if anyone can do it? Who will pay for a such service?
Well, here is a little secret, the companies which develops and distributes screencasting software\’s uses the keywords-easy to use and anyone can use– as their marketing hook. Many of those who have purchased and used any of the screen-casting software are surprised with what follows after they have recorded the screens that they needed with narration.
They realize more is needed in terms of editing. e.g sections where there was some silence or where the is uhmms and uhs. Besides, some sections need to be highlighted and zoomed in. In other occasions the audio may need some cleaning up to reduce the background noise.
This thus means, the user has to spend more time learning how to edit their recordings. This is besides other things like \’sharing settings.\’ At the end of the day, if he/she is a busy executive, he will have to spend a lot of time perfecting the video. This is not good when it comes to productivity.
With this awareness, you are able to begin your research on this niche to identify and segment target clients/markets for yourself. For example, SaaS businesses with high customer volume will prefer to hire a freelancer to help them handle their screen-casting projects in response Frequently Asked Questions by their customers.
Here are 5 tips to help you start and build a successful business in screen-casting;
Do a Research On Areas Where Screen-casting is Used
This may sound simple. Writing this down will surprise you even more. You will realize that the market is so wide. Coming into realization that clients with high volume customers will not mind spending money on your service will inspire you even more.
Produce Screen Casts\’ That Stands Out
Why would someone pay you to produce something that they can do themselves apart from saving time? Make you presentations stand out by adding simple animations, motion graphics and more.
Be Good In Writing –Know how to script tutorials
Now, some clients will ask you to script their tutorials (especially if it\’s a software) after familiarizing with it. You may miss this opportunity if you have poor skills in writing and do not like writing. Even if you do not like writing, partner with a fellow freelancer who can write and negotiate extra to accommodate their service.
Deliver With a Studio Quality Voice Over
Not all of us have good voice or speak in native English accent. But will you miss opportunity because of this? No. Think outside box. If you don\’t know anyone you can contact to do voice over for you, sign up and hire a freelancer to handle this for you on sites like Upwork.
Scale Up Your Pricing Once You Have Gained Confidence in The Market
When I started up as screen-cast video producer, I used to charge $30 for a 3 Minutes video. Since then, I have scaled up and now charge $500-1000 for same service and more advanced quality based on my experience. Busy professionals would rather pay more to someone who needs little or no supervisions once the deliverables are clearly defined.
Summary
Like any other niche, you will grow based on your tactics and ability to bring in more value to the service for more money. It\’s an art and the price is infinite. You choose how much you should charge.
That is it from me today.
Until next time, bye and take care. Once again, do a good job and You will be handsomely rewarded.
If you need help to produce professional screen-cast videos, you can request a free quote here.
If you own a software, application, website, program then at some point you have used a screencast video tutorial to demonstrate to your users how your product works.
But over time, the style of presenting these screencast instructional videos have evolved. Marketers are now using more sophisticated presentation styles to win the confidence of their customers.
But this without proper preparation is a total waste of time and resources. At the end of the presentation, your target needs to be able to understand how your product works. The message has to be conveyed in the shortest time possible.
Over the years, I have found out that most instructional video tutorials fail to retain viewer attention because of the following reasons;
Sound Quality
The presenter may have an accent that is not clearly understood by everyone.
On the other had, most presenters lack proper equipment to use in recording the videos thus the voice is distorted with lots of background noise.
This thus lead to boredom and may make your customer loose interest in watching the video besides not taking you serious.
Video Length
Some presenters repeat themselves without knowing and end up with a long tutorial which if proper planning or scripting was done, the information could have been presented in half the time.
This is costly if you are dealing with high end customers who have less time to watch the video clip.
Screen Recording Settings
Good understanding on best recording and rendering settings is the key to producing a high resolution video.
Someone with no knowledge in video production may not know this and will end up producing low quality video.
It will take a professional video producer to record a high resolution screencast video.
More Videos Means Good SEO
Everything you do must be duplicable especially if the tutorial being produced is to be published on YouTube.
It starts with scripting. If you take time to segment your software videos into sections, it will help you reach out to more new customers because you will have several videos posted online.
For instance \’how to add a product to your site on (your website)\’ may get you ranking on YouTube or google.
Branding
Besides using the tutorial to support your existing customers, its crucial to consider branding it in order to market you company to new customers. Branding displays professionalism and will make new prospects to take you seriously.
There are many other things that if you consider when planning to produce a screencast video, will help you archive your expected results besides ranking high on the search engines.
Of-course I have mastered the art of producing screen-cast video tutorials. If you need professional help, you can request a quote for free here.
Don\’t forget to give me a thumbs up and leave a comment below.
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