[0:22] no one cares what I look like or what I sound like they care about what I'm saying the content that I'm creating the, the hopefully the help that I'm offering someone else, the Vulnerability I'm giving, the story that I'm giving, that matters way more than, than all of the things that are going on in the back of my head
[0:38] Ian: Hello, we're back with another season of the confident live marketing show. My name's Ian Anderson Gray. And in this season, we're going to be talking about or looking at communication and confidence. How can you become more confident and communicate more effectively in front of the camera or in front of the microphone, whatever you're creating.
[0:58] So I'm very excited because I've got. My great friend, Katie Fawkes returning onto the show. We're going to ask her questions on this topic. Last time it was all about studio setups. So just a reminder, Katie Fawkes is the director of marketing at Ecamm, where she gets to work alongside some of the most amazing live streamers, podcasters.
[1:19] And content creators out there helping them reach their goals and grow their business to video and live streaming. In addition to heading up Ecamm's marketing team, Katie is also the co host of the video podcast, The Flow. Welcome back, Katie. It's great to have you back.
[1:37] Katie: That's great to be here. Super fun.
[1:39] Ian: Yeah it's exciting stuff. Cause we, last time we were talking, we were getting all geeky last week and, or last time. Now we're going, I want to dive into your creation journey. And so what have you what in terms of video content and podcast content in particular what's your journey?
[1:57] Because before that you were more into writing, I think, am I right?
[2:01] Katie: Yeah. Yeah. I've been on a journey for the last, I guess at this point for four plus years. So prior to joining the Ecamm team, I started I have an English literature degree and I started my career in the copywriting side of things. So certainly in the marketing side, but. writing blog posts, writing copy, and then moving into social media, but always behind the scenes and always, definitely not on camera hidden behind, behind a brand or a company.
[2:32] So it was definitely an interesting experience joining the e cam team where, you know, immediately from the get, it was going to be. You had to be on video. You had to be live streaming. You had to understand how the tool worked and the challenges that our customers were facing. So I had to just force myself to go live, which was incredibly scary and took me a little bit of time to get comfortable with.
[3:00] But the more I did it, the more I found that it was actually a really fun space and gave me a lot of. Freedom. And these days I feel like it's actually way easier for me to live stream than it is to record a video still really bad at recording a video. Cause my perfectionist tendencies take over and I get that pause button or that stop button and I blew it all out.
[3:22] And I don't like it. I don't like recording videos.
[3:25] Ian: We're, perfectionists, aren't we? I have a Recovering Perfectionist t shirt, which I should
[3:30] Katie: I know I need it.
[3:31] Ian: It's funny, isn't it? Because that is a similar story to me. I jokingly say that I could have been called the reluctant live video guy. And and yeah, I had to jump in the deep end like you did, but you did.
[3:43] So can you maybe tell us a little bit how you were feeling at the time? So this is a time when you were Perhaps, was it, were you struggling with confidence in front of the camera? Or was it more the perfectionist side of things, what were the emotions going through your brain at the time when you first got in front of the camera, when you knew you had to do it and you didn't particularly want to?
[4:04] Katie: That's a great question. It was probably a little bit of both. It wasn't necessarily confidence in speaking. I, I come from a theater background. I'm used to presenting and, talking with people. That part wasn't scary. What was scary was all the tech and, and, I was the face of Ecamm, at least in my mind.
[4:26] It was, trying to make sure that I was making the tool and the company look as great as they are. And so I was really afraid that I was going to screw it up or something was going to happen, or someone was going to ask me a question on the software that I couldn't answer. I was going to struggle to find something.
[4:43] It was all of those kinds of fears that kept popping up in my head. And, what happens if I. My video quality doesn't look as good as the guests that I'm bringing on, or, what if the stream goes down and everything fails? It's all the fears that everyone has as they're thinking through getting started in video.
[4:59] You don't want to look dumb. I didn't want to look like I didn't know what I was doing, and there's not really a good way to practice. other than doing it. You have to just accept the fact that things might go wrong, and probably will, and figure out the best way to deal with them that's authentic to yourself, and doesn't make you feel, I guess you always feel a little bit nervous, but doesn't make you feel dumb, in the bigger picture of things.
[5:24] Ian: That's interesting, so there's a couple of things that I, it sounds like to me that it wasn't so much, so for some people, we're just having a conversation now, and there happens to be a camera there. But sometimes that camera, that inanimate object, can just do people's heads in.
[5:39] It just, their brain goes to mush. It sounds like that wasn't quite so much of an issue for you. More that, it was more the tech side. It wasn't the fact that you were being recorded as such.
[5:50] Katie: Yeah, which is actually, it's actually interesting that you say that, because I, thinking it through, it's definitely the camera and the fear of the camera when I'm recording a video. And I think part of it is my perspective on it. So with a live video, it has always felt to me that because you have live viewers and you're in the moment, there, there is a sort of a forgiveness there that it doesn't.
[6:14] You might trip over your words. You might say you might, all of these things might happen and it may not be perfect and that's okay to the viewer. But in my mind what's not okay, especially as someone that represents and works for a live streaming and video production tool company is not understanding how the software works or not being able to answer a bunch of those tech questions.
[6:37] Whereas If I was recording a video, and when I'm recording videos, there's an expectation that a recorded video is really well produced, and a lot of what makes it, watchable and what people really want to see is something that's really high quality, answers their questions, you do need to be really put together, and so in that case, I feel like it's less forgiving and I need to say the exact right thing and because I can pause it and stop it, I I'm panicking at the, at what the camera is capturing.
[7:06] Do I look good? Do I sound my best? Am I saying the right thing? Was that the best way to say it? Oh, I need to stop that. I want to re record it. It gives me permission to be more of a perfectionist than live video does.
[7:17] Ian: Yeah, no, definitely. And I've being a recovering perfectionist myself. I found that live video in a sense was partly my savior. It was that almost like the perfect antidote to perfectionism.
[7:28] Katie: It really is.
[7:29] Ian: Yeah. Now you said that so you said you wanted to say you wanted to make sure you would saying the right thing and particularly being the face of he can, there was a huge responsibility.
[7:40] That was it all that I mean, it sounds like it was mainly that but for a lot of people it can't there can be an element of imposter syndrome and i've spoken to a lot of people here who they just they have this doubt that They don't they know deep down that they do know the answers to these things But they're but this doubt can sometimes particularly when it comes to getting on camera And other people knowing that other people are watching and potentially judging you that this imposter syndrome can come up with.
[8:07] Was that an issue for you? Or have you spoken to people who this is a big problem with
[8:12] Katie: Yeah, both. It was definitely an issue for me. I was very aware from starting at Ecamm that I knew the marketing side of things, but I didn't know anything about video. Nothing. Like I, I had taken photography classes back in the day, but I had never, recorded video even on the, from my, Personal, my personal content creation journey, I definitely always was in the more, blogging, writing photos side of things.
[8:36] So 100 percent felt like an imposter. I knew that our customers were going to know way more about this than I was going to. And so there was definitely going to be time as I was Getting up and running and forcing myself to use the software more and forcing myself to Livestream and to record video more that I wasn't going to know everything and so it was either Embrace that and you know do my best to at least sound You know, as authoritative as I can or leverage and learn, from people who are incredible at it and just accept that or, or fumble publicly, fail publicly as I, as I was getting up and running and so it, yeah I think, and I think imposter syndrome, it continues to be something that I deal with often.
[9:21] I, I work with Doc Rock who knows literally everything about video. So I'm always the kind of foil. And I have dealt with that by accepting the fact that I know more and will always know more than someone who's just joining, right? So there's always going to be someone watching or the potential for someone to watch who's brand new to all of this.
[9:41] And they probably would rather, they appreciate hearing My journey or my story or me ask questions that they are afraid to ask or, see me fail at something and figure out how to make it better next time than for me to act as though I know everything. So I've held on to that all the way through and I'm so thankful to all the kind of customers and Ecamm fam and friends and colleagues who have sat in the chat and said Oh, that was really helpful or Oh, I didn't know that or it confirms everything and.
[10:11] Gives me that confidence to keep going.
[10:13] Ian: Yeah, and I think the more Of an expert you are on a particular subject, the more likely you are going to forget what it's like for beginners to starting off. So we need people across all those different areas. And yeah, it's been amazing to see you and you grow in your confidence and over the years I've known you, so what have been what.
[10:34] Has there been like a pivotal moment or has it been lots of little steps along the way that's helped you grow your confidence and also your, the fact that I assume you would agree that you are much more confident? Yeah. Yeah. effective in your communication in front of the camera as well. How would you say that?
[10:52] How was your journey? What has been the journey? Has it been like lots of little bits or a few pivotal moments?
[10:59] Katie: A little bit of both. So I would say a lot of little bits at the beginning. So I started by doing a live show called meet the pros, where we brought on some of our like expert customers and interviewed them about, how they're creating and their content creation journey and how they use E cam and forcing myself to do that was certainly the kind of the.
[11:21] jumpstart into getting into this space. And then, learning along the way and watching what everyone else was doing and picking up tips just by being around, around our customers and around video creators and seeing what's possible and really diving into the tool. So those were all little steps.
[11:36] A year and a half ago, we as a team made the decision that, we were seeing more and more people. really getting into and adding video to their podcast. So this was a new audience opportunity for us. And so we made the decision as a team. We're like if we really want to understand this audience better, we need to also have a video podcast of our own and need to go through what those steps are to really understand how the software works for that.
[11:59] Does he can work well for video podcasting? What are some of the challenges that we're going to face? So I think that was a pretty pivotal moment for me. And my journey into this space was really doing all of the steps myself and having doc as my kind of partner in that helped me figure out.
[12:19] how to do it. And the, the more that I did it, the more that I had people like you, Ian, who, asked me to come onto their shows and I would talk more about it and I would see how they set up their shows. And so I really immersed myself fully in the podcasting space and that helped give me a ton of confidence.
[12:37] And then I ended up starting my own. video podcast about a year ago as a result of it, which has been, again, just a great experience and a lot of fun in being able to play around with some of the cool technology out there and and reach an audience and just have fun in the video space.
[12:53] Yeah.
[12:55] Ian: had fun. You didn't stop because I'm sure there were moments maybe when you thought, Oh, just give up. It's not working. You also surrounded yourself People, you're cheerleaders, people who were going to support you and help you. And also you just went on and did it, you went on other people's shows.
[13:09] You could have said no and been too scared to do it, but you kept on doing it, which is amazing. So have you got a disaster story that you can share with us that a mistake that you made on camera? That was a learning, so I want, it sounds like a negative question, but I want, what was your learning moment from that?
[13:26] Because a lot of people, they make a mistake and then they just want to give up and live, just lie down in a darkened room.
[13:32] Katie: So I've had a lot of them, but the one that always stands out, and I went back and found the video clip so I could share it back, back again recently. But I had one of our customers, Kevin Colby, who's an incredible creator. He's he's got like a photography and videography background. And I was doing this series called Live, Live Happens?
[13:50] I can't remember the exact name of it. Something like that. And so I had him on as like an expert, and we were talking about these things, and we were chatting back and forth and I had two epic fails in the same stream, so it was like hugely embarrassing. The first was that he was getting all set up.
[14:06] He was running the stream. And so he was like, okay, I'm just gonna, I'm going to do my intro. You're going to be behind the scenes, in the green room. And then I'll bring you on. And I was like, great. I'm like, I'm going to run and get, get a glass of water and get my computer cable so that my computer doesn't run out of battery while we're in the middle of streaming.
[14:24] But I didn't tell him that because he had already gotten started. And I was like, Oh, I have more than enough time. So I ran out of the room. to get my stuff. And as I was coming back into the room, I could hear him saying, Katie, are you there? And on screen life was just my chair sitting and he was laughing his head off.
[14:41] And I had to run back in and because I always use. Earphones because I need to be able to control my audio and avoid any feedback. It took me like in my, shaking with panic moments to try to put my earphone back in. So that was hugely embarrassing. And then I got through that and we laughed it off and it was probably about five minutes before the end of the stream and my camera battery died because at the time.
[15:04] I was running my Nikon DSLR camera connected by USB into my computer and didn't even think that, hey, like maybe this battery isn't going to make it all the way through the stream. I didn't have a dummy battery at the time. And so it froze like with like my face all awkward and horrible.
[15:20] Ian: the worst pose
[15:21] Katie: And I didn't even, I was just so horrified. I was, I think in the background, I was just like, turn it off, please. It was bad. It was really bad. So I I learned a lot in those moments. I learned like how important it is to communicate really clearly. Like I should have just said to him, Hey, don't start the show or type something into the chat and let him know that I was running downstairs.
[15:42] And obviously just really double checking everything in advance, right? Like I should have had water and my cables and a dummy battery ready to go. Now I do. I have everything like nearby and ready often backups of cables in case something happens and it still might happen. Like it's still, I think that camera freezing situation happened a couple of times to me over the years.
[16:03] But now I know that if it does that, I can switch immediately to a different camera, right? I can switch my built in camera if I need to, or, often I have multiple cameras to choose from. So I no longer like in this moment of just turn it off. Please just turn it off. Can, I have a backup plan and and I know what to do when those kinds of things happen, but you have to go through them in order to know what to do.
[16:24] Ian: you do. And part of it is if it happens again, you're probably not going to be as flustered, but also it's in one sense. I I don't enjoy it at the time, but I do like when things go wrong. Cause it's another thing that I can mark on my checklist that I can make sure it doesn't happen again.
[16:40] Although, yeah. So want to move on to another topic, which is to do with personality. We're all different and. We all have different personalities and we, sometimes we put ourselves in boxes. So I'm in danger of putting you in a box here, Katie,
[16:56] Katie: Put me in a box. That's
[16:57] Ian: So would you describe yourself on, on the scale of like shy on one side and bold on the other, and there's another scale of introverted and extroverted, how would you describe yourself there?
[17:06] And the reason I'm asking you this is because lot of people say, Oh, I could never do that because I'm this, I have a particular personality. And then the follow up question from that is how does this affect the way you turn up on camera? It's.
[17:21] Katie: That's a great question. I am the opposite of shy, but I am fairly introverted. So I'm which I feel like it's taken me a long time to figure out exactly where I fall on some of those scales, because I am the person that going to a Party or an event. That's my nightmare.
[17:42] Like I would rather be with one one person having a really great conversation or like a group of close friends than being like in a large group of any kind. Like large groups just suck the energy out of me and I need time to recover on the other side of it. But I'm I am chatty and friendly and probably talk way too much and I'm not shy per se.
[18:06] So it's interesting because I feel like that mix of personality or that those couple of boxes that I'm in, make it easier actually for Video and podcasting and doing these kinds of interviews because I like having these kinds of conversations and, I don't feel as though there are a ton of people in the room, even though in many cases, there's a ton of people watching, but I don't see all of them.
[18:30] I only see the camera. And for me, it's you and I are having this conversation and that is really energizing for me. So yeah, I think it actually works out pretty well, but I probably wouldn't have thought that when I was just getting started because it would have seemed scary.
[18:44] Ian: It's interesting. And I think some people think that if you're introverted you will also be shy as well, but I actually met what I would call like bold introverts. There's actually quite a few.
[18:54] Katie: a good one. I'm a bold
[18:55] Ian: and, and I think, knowing you Katie you do, when I meet you in person, you're, you seem very confident and happy in your own skin. And I think that probably helps you get in front of the camera. Whereas some people. And I have to admit, I was a bit like this I didn't like the sound of my own voice, didn't like the way I looked, I also was comparing myself with a lot of people, sometimes those elements can come into it and they are, they're killers.
[19:24] So we, so if you can just be comfortable and confident, and it can be in a quiet way, if you may be more introverted, then that's cool. But I
[19:34] Katie: that, that side of it and I can't remember if it was Diana Gladney or if it was Luria Patruzzi, both incredible creators, but one of them had told me when I was just getting started. That when it comes to whether or not I want to wear makeup or the fact, I don't like the gap in between my teeth or how my voice sounds.
[19:53] I have those things. I feel those things often. But in the end, what they said was it has nothing to do with you. You have value that you need to be able to bring to an audience and someone on the other side needs to hear what it is you're saying. And if you can constantly think of that as you're putting yourself out there that it's not about me doesn't no one cares what I look like or what I sound like they care about what I'm saying the content that I'm creating the, the hopefully the help that I'm offering someone else, the Vulnerability I'm giving, the story that I'm giving, that matters way more than, than all of the things that are going on in the back of my head about, oh I don't like my sweater today or my my background isn't the way that I want it to be.
[20:35] All these different things that we all think and we all feel it's, you got to just keep telling yourself it's about your viewers and about your listeners and about your audience way more than it ever is about you.
[20:45] Ian: Yeah, it so is. And it's not easy to do that. And some people find that easier than others, but it's changing that, that soundtrack in your head because those negative voices can sometimes rise up and stop you from creating your own, your best stuff, really. You've you've answered my last question, really, which was, I've got written down here, encouragement.
[21:05] For an advice for listeners, aiming to improve their confidence and communication skills. And I think you've answered that really well. I think that's such an important thing that we all need to take to heart, really. So thank you, Katie, so much for coming back on the show. It's been great to have you.
[21:18] How so for people who didn't listen to the last one, obviously go back and listen to it. But tell us how people can find can follow you and tell us a little bit about what you're working on
[21:31] Katie: Yeah, absolutely. So I am on all of Ecamm's channels, so E C A M, you can find us on all the different social platforms. We have a Facebook group that you can hang out with us in and certainly I'm live or recording videos on YouTube on a fairly regular basis, so you can find me there. On the personal side, I do my own video podcast every Thursday night at 9 p.
[21:54] m. Eastern. We live stream our recording process. So if you want to hang out and listen to us review movies from the nineties, you're welcome to do that. It's called the VHS club podcast, and you can find us at the VHS club pod. com.
[22:07] Ian: Awesome. Definitely get in touch with Katie. Follow all her stuff because she is awesome. Thank you so much, Katie. It's been great to have you back on. We are out of time for this episode. I do hope you're enjoying it. Do get in touch. Let me know how you're getting on with listening to this and do spread the word.
[22:25] It would be great for you to do that. But until next time, I encourage you to level up your impact, authority and profits through the power of confident live video. See you soon.
