Why Video Still Feels Hard (and How Small Teams Make It Work)

And because we have this set up, I'm not kidding, we can shoot. Let's go from need to finish production and produce in the platform in a week. Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, wherever you are and wherever you're watching from. Today we're going to be revisiting an episode with Megan Torrance.

You know, since we recorded this episode, a lot has changed in video over the past couple years, namely new tools. AI has been a like a tidal wave, changing so many things. We've got some faster workflows and I would say there's probably even more access to video tools than ever. But what hasn't changed is important.

And that's part of what makes video kind of hard. It's deciding what to make, how to make it doable, and how to stay consistent as a small team. So if you're a small team, this might be relevant. If you're an individual contributor, that's still all relevant as well.

So here's why I wanted to revisit this episode because I think this conversation still holds up. As you listen, maybe don't focus on the specific tools, but listen for the decisions, the constraints, the mindset beyond the mindset behind making video actually work for your organization as a creator and for all the things you want to accomplish. With that said, let's dive into our conversation with Megan Torrance. Today we're going to be talking with Megan Torrance about this idea that as a small business owner, how she's empowered by the ability to easily make videos.

Megan, welcome to the Visual Lounge. Thank you. I'm super excited to be here. So Megan, real quick, give us a little background about yourself.

So I am the founder and CEO of Torrance Learning. And we are a mostly corporate learning design and development company. So we do strategy, content, design and development, a ton of video, and then learning platforms and stuff. Okay, so let's, we're gonna go back in time a little bit.

Tell us about the need that you had for video, particularly during the pandemic. What happened there? Okay. Okay.

So a couple of things happened. Well, I mean, a lot of things happened. Right? A lot of things.

So a lot of things happen. And we were using video, we were creating an off the shelf video product at the time and, and that was great. And then we had a lot of instructor led courses and face to face stuff. And in the pandemic, I was the only one coming to the office.

So previously when we recorded video, we had. It was whoever was in front of the camera. We had one person behind the camera. Sometimes we had an additional sound person and then we had script check, right?

And so we had a lot of people in an enclosed space, which suddenly became a super, super bad idea. So at the same time with the pandemic, all of a sudden all of my face to face glasses needed to go online and we had a little bit of time to kill. Not a lot of time to kill, but some. So what we did was.

This is awesome. So our team set up a whole video situation in which it only required one person in the room, the person in front of the camera. So I could go in and these little, little pieces of green tape around the room went like, turn on this, plug this, do this. And you know, one switch would fire up the amp and the lights and all these things and.

And then I would just load up my teleprompter and rock and roll. And that's been such an amazing tool. And we've taken that places we never thought we would. So I'm curious with that because obviously there's some work to get that set up.

But what the. Out from an outcome perspective here now you've got this ability that you don't. You're not requiring two to four people to help you. And what kind of videos are you creating on a regular basis with that setup?

So now, now that it's easy and I just push four buttons, I can walk in and I can record video anytime I want. Right. So I'm doing almost all of my marketing videos are in that setup. And it's preset with a big white blank slide so you can stick anything you want.

So it's super, super flexible. It also means that we have a little bit of license and creativity. So if we have a, you know, a client course and they need a video and we just need somebody to make a stand in video, or we can do that, or sometimes we do goofy stuff just because we can. Well, so, okay, let's talk about that for a second.

Because obviously there's this flexibility that you have. There's this capability that you've opened up that, you know, because you don't need those people. But look, as a small business owner, you've got to be super aware of all the time that goes into video and all the time that can be spent. And then here you're saying a little fun, goofy stuff, right?

Like, I'm sure there's some CEO of a small business out there saying, no, we can't, we don't have time for that. So why is that important to you? Well, so it's it's, it's partly important because being authentic and real is super important. And I can write a memo that most people will ignore.

Memo, email, Right. Yeah. Century. Am I in?

But. Right. And, and it's hard to convey a message in email to get the right tone right. Slack is a little bit too casual and then that kind of disappears too.

And a video lets people go back and refer to things. It lets people see your emotion and your tone and that's really helpful. Now the, the trick is, right, how do you do that at scale and, or with frequency and not make it be a ton of extra effort? Right.

So we try as hard as we can to make short videos, single take videos, and low post production videos. I'm keenly aware of the amount of time it takes to cut out every single one of my flubs. So we have a few things that we do, a shot list that I keep track of that I send to the team. Like ignore, ignore, ignore.

Oh my gosh. Totally don't ever even listen to that one. Use this one. It's the right one.

So those kinds of things that help focus the team's time. So from a production side, you know, you're going in, you're recording and then are you also editing or your team's doing mostly the editing? My team is doing most of the editing. Is there anything that you've been able to pick up on, help with that scale?

Obviously you talked to your shot list, right? Here's the things that worked, here's the things that didn't work. Is there anything else that you found that to be really helpful there for your team to kind of speed through that, you know, So a couple of things. One is we're using the Camtasia, the review tool, right.

And so that allows all of us, and we have a process by which, you know, here's the shot. Grab this one. Before we clean it up, we put it in and we like, you know, chop here, add this. This is a great place for that silly outtake that you did.

Whatever, right? And that lets us get an initial take, an edit round, a second second round of video, an edit round. Then we're adding closed captioning and things like that and the, you know, color correction and sound. You're doing all the rough stuff, right?

Yes. Awesome. Let me ask you this because you've been, you've been able to invest in this way and it's. To me, it's always clear, clearly an investment, even if it was easy, even if it didn't cost A lot from an outcome standpoint, again, looking at.

From a. As a leader of a small business, you're worried about the outcomes. How is. How has these videos that you've been able to do at building up a little bit more scale, how has that impacted things?

Because you talked about, you're doing, obviously, course videos, you're doing marketing videos. You're having some fun with it, you know, connecting with, kind of making it human. What. What would you say that that's.

How has it changed your business or helped it? That's a great question. So one of them is speed. So, for example, we have.

We have these course videos out there. They're on Open Sesame, they're on the Cornerstone platform. And there are times when certain things will be out of date or a client. Right.

Or the language around things has changed. Right. So in the last five years, the whole language around LGBTQ has changed. And so we've had to update things or we've had to add onto things, or somebody said, hey, this version of this course is kind of lightweight.

Can you beef it up to hit this particular need that a client has? And because we have this setup, I'm not kidding, we can shoot rates go from need to finish production and produced in the platform in a week. And that allows us to move so fast because we have this efficient system. It allows me to pump out marketing videos pretty quickly, which is great.

And they're a little bit better, you know. Yeah. I can hop in front of my Zoom and hit this recorded cloud and that's great. But it's not as polished.

Right. Everybody knows it's me in front of Zoom and it doesn't feel as professional. And then where we're shooting just quick video, internal video or small targeted group, that's where we're bringing in that. That authenticity and a little bit of fun.

Right. All the other stuff is pretty lock and docked and not terribly. It's kind dry, right? It's kind of dry.

Yes. Right. And people have said, hey, you and your plain copy, free or copy space background. It looks a little bit boring, but it's fast and efficient.

But when we can use all that free copy space to have fun or we keep. We keep track of not all of, but a lot of the really fun outtakes. We keep them because they become useful. Yeah.

Well, Megan, this has been awesome and I love that you're taking this as a leader and focusing on it because obviously it takes work to get that set up to be so anyone can walk in and use the studio. We've done the same thing in our office where we've got a setup that ideally people just plug in a computer, turn on the camera and a setup that is way better, way better than their laptop camera and microphone. So I love that you're focusing on and you can see those benefits from the video.

So if someone want to connect with you, where should they reach out? Good place to find me is at our website, torrancelearning.com and Torrance is T O R R A N C E or I'm on LinkedIn. And it's also another really good place to play and there's not a lot of Megan.

Torrance is there. Perfect. Well, thank you, Megan. Thank you.

All right, you guys heard from Megan. Look, you can do a once easy setup. You can use video in lots of different ways, whether you're a small business, big business, you're an independent contributor, you're leading the team, video has power for whatever you're doing. All we ask you at the visual lounge is you take a little time to level up every single day.