In this episode of The Kerry Barrett Show, we’re diving into Creating Content and Live Streaming Strategies with our guest Chris Hennessy, Founder and Executive Producer of HIP Productions.
Transcript
In this episode of The Kerry Barrett Show, we’re diving into Creating Content and Live Streaming Strategies with our guest Chris Hennessy, Founder and Executive Producer of HIP Productions. We’ll explore how live streaming can help you grow personally and in your business.
We’ll chat about the benefits of live streaming and how to keep your audience engaged. From being yourself and building your personal brand to connecting with your audience on a deeper level, our guest shares some great tips and stories.
We’ll also talk about using social media, staying consistent, and turning mistakes into opportunities to connect even more with your audience.
Join us for a fun and insightful chat on The Kerry Barrett Show and level up your live streaming game!
Transcript
Kerry:
Oh my goodness. If only you could hear what’s Going on behind the scenes. Thank you all for joining us for The Kari Barrett Show. I am your host, obviously, Kari Barrett. And I am here today with Chris Hennessy. Chris, you and I think we met on LinkedIn probably 2 or 3 years ago when you were really just beginning Yep. Your business. And if you don’t know Chris, I would advise connecting with him on LinkedIn.
Kerry:
He is a live Streamer, a live stream expert, a live stream producer, the whole 9 yards. Chris, it’s awesome to have you here. Take a second and introduce yourself to the audience.
Chris:
Yeah. Thanks for having me. Also, like, it’s a little not really nerve wracking, but I’m catching myself not looking at you, looking at the camera, because going off all the tips that you always post. So what happened? I’m like, I’m with the video expert. Bring out the camera. Do not break the camera.
Kerry:
That’s okay. Breaking gaze is fine. Listen, I’m sort of a disaster today. So anybody that’s listening or watching, I just got in from a long flight. The day has been chaotic to say the least. I didn’t have my gear set up. And I’m like, Chris, what do I sound like? And very graciously, he’s like, you sound like you don’t have your mic set up. And I thank you for that, and that’s why you’re so good at what you do.
Kerry:
So don’t be nervous. Tell the audience a little bit about How you got started and your live streaming expertise in your business.
Chris:
Yeah. I’ve been on LinkedIn for about 3 years, and I’ve been live streaming for about two and a half of that. And LinkedIn had just come out with live streaming. It was still in the beta phase. Not everybody had it. You had to apply for it sometimes multiple times before you could get approved. And, a friend of mine went live, and she was just having a conversation with somebody. And they were talking like there was no point to it.
Chris:
They were just having fun, cutting up, and laughing, you know, riffing on LinkedIn and the whole 9 yards, and I thought, man, that looks like fun. I wanna try that. So I applied for LinkedIn live, like, 3 times, finally got approved, and just had no clue what I was doing, like none whatsoever. My 1st show was, I mean, it was fun. There were, like, 8 people there. We were just talking about nothing and laughing, but it was just, The graphics were bad. The sound was horrible. The humor was terrible.
Chris:
Like it was just, it was awful. But, yeah, it was terrible, but I kept going, kept doing it and it kinda grew. People were showing up, engaging in the comments, and that’s really how I got into it. And it led to doing another show called ending the stigma. I had a co host back then. I don’t have a co host now. He left LinkedIn, but we talk about the stigmas associated with being a felon, addiction, all that kind of stuff. So I go back and forth.
Chris:
I’ll do that one for a little while, and then I’ll do so I did a thing as the other the 1st show I started for a little while. And as I got to see more and more people on LinkedIn going live, making all the same mistakes I did That kinda led to me starting my side hustle, hip productions. Anything is possible. Kind of a riff on my last name or play on my last name, I do a little bit of live stream training, but mostly do, producing for people.
Kerry:
I love it. And that’s actually how I Met you. I came across your live stream, your LinkedIn live through, I guess, a mutual connection. And I was immediately drawn to you. And I think part of it, you mentioned like the, that first episode was, was bad. I, I didn’t see that episode, but Well, so my 1st LinkedIn live to share a similar story with you was I had applied and I had, I did Get approved. But I thought at that time, and maybe it’s the same now, I’m not sure. They gave you a window where if you don’t go live within like this certain No, you’re gonna lose it.
Kerry:
And so I was looking at my calendar one day and I’m like, oh my gosh, I have to go live by tomorrow. Otherwise, I’m gonna lose this privilege. So I had like 10 minutes in between calls. I think I might have still been in pajamas. And, I just jumped on LinkedIn live and was like, hey, guys. I had nothing planned. You know, I gotta use this LinkedIn live, otherwise, I’m gonna lose it. So I’m just here doing a live for the sake of doing a live.
Kerry:
And I ended up turning it into a story. It was like, the show must go on. And, you know, you overcome whatever you just and it ends up getting a lot of engagement and it’s really fun. But I think my point in Saying all of that is sometimes those moments that really freak people out about the idea of going live, like you can’t unring the bell or whenever. Right. Once it’s out there, it’s out. But in your experiences, that’s like the stuff people engage with. They enjoy it.
Kerry:
They care about it.
Chris:
Oh, gosh. All the time. Yeah. That’s all the people. And that’s what I tell people I train or people that I produce for people could care less if you mess up. Yeah. It adds the realness to it, the, you know, it shows your human side. If you go live consistently and you don’t have a plan and your shows are just terrible, people might not.
Chris:
But you know, just the random stuff is what people are gonna laugh at. You laugh at it together. One of my absolute worst shows, I could not string 2 words together to make a coherent thought, like, the whole show. And my guess was very gracious, but I took the worst and it was a minute long. Worst minute long clip out of that show where I was just, like, stumbling over everything. And I post that every couple of months just to show people, even the pros, even the experts, even the people that have been doing this for a while are gonna mess up and have, oh, crap moments.
Kerry:
Absolutely. So like you being kind of a newbie in live streaming at that stage, how did you Overcome that? How did you not let that bad episode or any you know, that particular Episode where you couldn’t string 2 words together, how a lot of people would’ve just hung it up and walked away and said, like, this isn’t for me. I’m not good at it, and I’m done. How did you keep pushing forward?
Chris:
Well, the good thing about it was that in the 1st episode, I didn’t realize it was a bad episode until I got better at it and went back and watched. And then I was like, oh my god. What were you doing, dude? So thankfully, y’all didn’t have enough luck to where it is. You know? It was different.
Kerry:
Sometimes the day is the best thing at the moment. Ignorance is bliss. Yeah.
Chris:
Who said that? But, like, whenever that had that really awful episode, I just knew it was an off night. Like I’d done it enough by then to know that because this was just last year. It was a little over maybe the beginning of this year.
Kerry:
Yeah.
Chris:
I don’t remember. It wasn’t that long ago. So I’d already done, you know, almost a 100 episodes by then, so it wasn’t it wasn’t that big a deal.
Kerry:
And you just felt like, you know, You were at the point where you could just recognize that it was Yeah. It was an off an off element or an off day, and you could push on Forward. Did you get any flack from it? This is the other thing that people worry about, like, trolls and and getting grief or getting critiqued or judged. Did you deal with any of that?
Chris:
Nope, not at all. No. Like I said, I’ve been live streaming for two and a half years and I don’t think I’ve ever been trolled. Yeah. I’ve been spammed. Right. But I’ve never been trolled.
Kerry:
Spam is better than troll.
Chris:
Spam, but
Kerry:
I would agree with that. In my experience, trolls are always Punching down at people.
Chris:
Maybe I hadn’t got any because I’m not up high enough for them to stop.
Kerry:
You are my friend. I haven’t gotten any trolls either since I started LinkedIn live, and I used to get plenty when I was on the news, so maybe we need to put our heads together I’m teasing. LinkedIn is a great place. So let me ask you about that. Right? There’s a 1000000 places you can go live. You know, there’s YouTube. You can go on Instagram. There’s you know, you can multi stream.
Kerry:
Why did you pick LinkedIn, and why do you stick With LinkedIn. I know you do some other stuff, but LinkedIn seems to have a special place for you.
Chris:
I just fell in love with it. I fell in love with the people, especially because, you know, you hear about LinkedIn being a boring place, and I got on it kind of expecting that, and it is not a boring place to hang out. And so that’s kinda where I grew my audience. Like, I just got on Instagram 3 or 4 months ago, like, not long at all.
Kerry:
I gotta tell you.
Chris:
All that’s all personal. Like, that’s not even I don’t even talk about livestream. That’s bourbon and fishing and hunting. So I’ve just kind of grown to like LinkedIn. I stream to YouTube. Yeah. I don’t have a following on YouTube. I have 120 subscribers or something.
Chris:
Yep. But I always recommend people do this, and here’s a free tip for anybody listening. If you’re gonna live stream, you know, using the streaming software like Restream or StreamYard, you can stream to multiple social media platforms at the same time. And I always recommend YouTube because it’s such an easily accessible library. It’s easier to go back and find your streams later or point someone to a particular episode than it is to try and go back. You know, if I were to go back to my 1st episode, when I was just streaming on LinkedIn, that’s 3 years worth of post I have to scroll back through.
Kerry:
They don’t make a nice repository No. In LinkedIn the way they do YouTube and the other platforms.
Chris:
So I always recommend YouTube. Even if you don’t ever grow your channel like it’s there, it’s easier for you to access if you don’t save your recordings. But
Kerry:
Yeah. It’s a holding tank. Speaking on a live stream on any platform is one of the best ways to get Good on camera as quickly as you possibly can, because you have to dig yourself Out of whatever hole it is that you find yourself in, whether it’s marble mouth or your child, you know, breaking into your Is etcetera. And once you realize that you can handle whatever is in front of you and you can sort of navigate your way through it and come out on the other side, standing, That’s game changing just in terms of content, but it it also means that you’re not overthinking anything and it and it and your production process Is much more efficient. So getting back to that point, the production process.
Chris:
Yep.
Kerry:
Tell me a little bit about, you know, In terms of time, podcasting and live streaming, and I know you like live streaming better. We’re gonna talk about that, but if you’re really one of the best ways to Batch produced, if you will. Like, talk about all of that stuff.
Chris:
No, there’s a bunch of different streaming softwares. I use restream. So I’m gonna say restream, or whatever I’m talking about, but like Restream records your live. It records the audio and it records the video and they just recently did it where you can download split video tracks now. So, you know, if you wanna use, if you wanna give your guests just the recording of them so they can clip out stuff they said, or if you just wanna clip out something you said, or you can have it all together either way, which is really cool. Restream doesn’t have it built in, but you can like, transcribe it and use it as blog posts or cut pieces out of it for, you know, social media posts. You can clip the video into 1 to 3 minute clips to post as in social media posts, then you have the audio for podcasting. And with, you know, some of the new AI tools, it’ll clip the video out for you.
Chris:
You should have to do a little bit of tweaking on it. But you don’t even have to go through and search for time stamps. You can just plug it into Opus, I think, is one of them. I don’t remember. I have to reset it. I haven’t used it yet. And it’ll pull the clip out for you and you just throw some captions on it and post it. Like, it’s super easy.
Chris:
So you spend, say, an hour, prepping for your live stream, going live, all that kind of stuff. And then maybe another hour afterwards, downloading the video, doing some clips. In 2 or 3 hours, you’ve got 2 weeks worth of content that you can do something with.
Kerry:
And by 2 weeks, you’re, we’re talking every day, 14 weeks?
Chris:
Every day if you wanted to. Yeah. For sure.
Kerry:
What do you have a specific sort of repurposed process that you go through or is it sort of based on what you need? You know,
Chris:
I’m worried about doing it for myself. Yeah. I preach it. Really, I just you know, if an episode or something really profound to say in one of the episodes, I’ll clip it out, throw it in a video software, put some captions on it, a little background music, and then I’ll post it. Like, I don’t do anything fancy with it.
Chris:
And for my clients, because video editing is not my forte. It’s not one of my skills at all. I have somebody that kinda does some contract work for me that we’ll do for my clients. That way, you know, you get a professional looking video and not one that looks like it was done by me.
Kerry:
I hear you. Editing is not my forte either.
Chris:
No, it’s not.
Kerry:
People would never pay me to do it as a matter of fact. So live streaming is sort of having a moment, and it’s been having a moment really since you I think since about the time that you got into it, which is probably why it was so easily discoverable, what is it about live Streaming that is regardless of platforms. So popular. What is it about live streaming that makes it that way?
Chris:
It’s 2 things. It allows you to connect with someone like your guest. Like a lot of my guests, I’ve never had a conversation with them.
Kerry:
Yep.
Chris:
Prior or like a video conversation, we may have engaged in the comments or DMs or whatever. And it allows them to connect with them, but it also allows you to connect with your audience because you can interact with them. You can talk to them. They can ask you questions. And it turns into, like, a networking event where they’re having a party over there in the comments. They may be oblivious to what you’re saying. I mean, they’re hearing it, but they’re over there cutting up with each other. Yeah.
Chris:
And it’s just the connection aspect of it, I think, more than anything. Also, you can bring somebody on that may be like a soft lead for you to talk about what they’re doing. And you’ve automatically built rapport with them, especially if you bring them on and you have a conversation and then you give them some social media clips already done, ready to go. Yeah. And not just the whole recording, then you’ve built that rapport with them. And whether anything comes from it or not, you’ve made that connection.
Kerry:
It almost is like you are A you, you, well, it is you’re your own media hub, except there aren’t any of the gatekeepers that you normally encounter when you’re pitching Traditional media. So if you’re looking to get in front of, you know, let’s say a CEO at some corporation that you’d like to work with, but don’t have a connection, rather than just asking for a call, you can say, hey, you know, I have a platform to help you get your message out. Would you consider being a guest? And you’re giving before Or you’re asking. I think that’s one of the top elements of it as well. Is that, is that sort of connection and then additionally, the people that you’re able to sort of Interact with in this live feedback loop. Is that why you like live streaming better than something like this podcast?
Chris:
Is. I love the audience interaction. That’s what makes it fun. Like, I love having the conversations, but then being able to interact with the audience is just amazing. And it’s it’s maybe a a bit of an ego stroke, but it’s also really humbling whenever people are showing up to support you week after week after week.
Kerry:
I’m sort of thinking about this. Could you ever, let’s say, take a live stream and maybe save if you’re doing q and a, save them, you know, the questions until the end and then shoot them out, edit them out, and use that live stream as a podcast. Could you sort of double dip as you will? Yeah?
Chris:
You absolutely could. You can even like, if you wanted to do it as a podcast, because sometimes the questions are really good and you might wanna answer them on air.
Kerry:
Yeah. Or
Chris:
on the podcast recording, which you absolutely can. There’s a feature in restream where you can start the comments you wanna come back to, or it puts them in a different place. That way you don’t have to scroll back through them and look. So you just click the star button, and then go over to the pinned comments, and they’ll all be right there, and you can answer the questions.
Kerry:
And then I imagine sometimes there’s probably some good inspiration for additional topics Or podcast episodes in those questions. Yes?
Chris:
Absolutely. Yeah.
Kerry:
Yeah. Perfect. So give us the basics. So if somebody’s, you know, alright, I I think I would like to do this or at least, you know, get started. What gear do they need? What are the first steps that they need to take?
Chris:
So I always tell people, start with what you have. You don’t have to go out and spend a bunch of money on fancy gear. I started with a $35 Amazon webcam that had a built-in mic. Because at the time, I thought, hey. It’s got a built-in mic. It’s great. Right? It worked Yeah. But it wasn’t the greatest.
Chris:
Right. The first thing I tell people to invest in is a mic. It doesn’t have to break the bank. You can go buy a $60, $100 mic. Mhmm. Because that’s the number one thing. If your audio or if your video is not super crisp and people can hear you, they’re gonna stick around. But if they can’t hear you or hear you well, they’re not gonna stick around.
Chris:
So the number one thing I recommend is a little, a microphone, and then you could upgrade your webcam or your lights or whatever after that.
Kerry:
You need a camera. You need a good mic. If you’re live streaming, obviously there is a video component that is Automatically going to be there. Do you suggest or have any thoughts about whether that video itself should be uploaded as the podcast, Let’s say onto YouTube, or do you like to strip the video out of it totally and upload audio only and have the podcast air that way?
Chris:
It really it’s a quarter of what my clients want to do. I don’t do a podcast with any of my live streams. I really need to end the stigma because I feel like that’s the one that has a little Purpose. And so I did a thing because that one’s just kinda all over the place. Yeah. It’s relaxing. You know, it’s my fun time. Yeah.
Chris:
Phone, but it’s really, it’s according to what you wanna do. I know people that record and re or, yeah, record and restream, and then they just upload.
Kerry:
Now let’s say you have, You know, at least the basics in terms of gear. What comes next in terms of show planning, Figuring out how to get the tech set up, do you need to have a show name right out of the gate and a strategy and an intention, or is that Something that grows as you fine tune your message and your goal.
Chris:
I think if you’re thinking about starting, you need to just go ahead and start because you may talk yourself out of it if you wait too long. You don’t have to come up with a title right away. Mine came pretty quick. Like, the 1st episode was so I did a thing because that was kinda my hashtag on LinkedIn. So, and I did Back then I was doing, so I did a thing post. If you’re thinking about doing it, just do it. Like, get restream or stream your heart and just do it. And then you can kind of figure out as you go.
Chris:
You know, a lot of people are, and I recommend this to anybody I talk to in your very first live. Don’t try to have value. Don’t try and, you know, say anything profound. Bring somebody on if you want to that you’re comfortable with, and y’all just have a conversation and have fun and play with The dashboard, figure it all out. If you’re gonna do it yourself, if you’re gonna hire a producer, call mate. But if you’re gonna do it yourself, then, just get in there and have fun with it and learn it without having to worry about bringing value, because it’ll take the edge off. You’ll get over your nerves. You won’t be so worried about if I mess up because you’re already expecting to mess up.
Chris:
Yeah. So just, just do it and then start bringing it together after that.
Kerry:
Is there a strategy for coming up with a topic? And I know that’s such a big question, and I’m sure there is, but you see, You know, executives who are doing live streams and podcasts that are not necessarily about business at all, and you see people who are entertainers who Aren’t doing, you know, through line in all of their episodes, they’re interviewing people about whatever the, The guest wants to talk about Mhmm. How do you come up with a topic, make sure that it resonates, and make sure that it’s something that you can Banned into if you would like, let’s say an episode a week, that’s 360 or no. It’s not. Yes. No. It’s not. It’s not 365 episodes a year because that’s days. Once that week well, you have
Chris:
to be a beast to do that, ma’am.
Kerry:
It’s 52 episodes a year.
Chris:
So episodes a year.
Kerry:
Yep. You don’t wanna, you don’t want to box yourself in too tight either.
Chris:
No. And I recommend people, like, if you’re gonna come up with a topic about if you’re a business coach and you wanna talk about, you know, some strategies for growing your business, then do it in shorter series and not worry about trying to carry 1 topic out. You know, you may grow your business. You may then do managing your business or something just to kinda break it up where people don’t get bored with it. And also so you don’t get bored with it. And make some fun stuff in there every once in a while. You know, it doesn’t always have to be about what your Area of expertise is, you know, if you wanted to come on and talk about why Dalmatians have spots or just whatever, just something to kinda throw people off and and have fun with it, and it keeps people engaged and keep people coming back. I don’t necessarily do topics in my shows.
Chris:
I’m more guest focused. So, we may talk about what my guest does on, So I Did A Thing, or on Ending the Stigma, we’re gonna talk about this person’s experience in prison or addiction or this person who works for or volunteers for an an organization that helps people coming out of prison or helps people overcome addiction, we’re gonna talk about that. So I’m more guest focused than I am topic focused.
Kerry:
Got it. So once you have all of that stuff squared away, what’s the best way is there a best way to leverage, Promote, you know, is it as simply a matter of, like, how do you make sure that it gets in front of the most eyes, assuming you’re not Putting ad dollars behind it.
Chris:
So first thing is, especially on LinkedIn, you have to be active on the platform. You cannot just not be active and then decide, I’m gonna go live and it’s gonna blow up. If nobody knows who you are, they’re not gonna come to your live stream. So, you know, posting 2 or 3 times a week, engaging for 20 or 30 minutes a day is gonna be huge in growing your live stream. Also, whenever you create the event, you’ll create the event in Restream, and it automatically pushes a post to all your platforms. Those get absolutely terrible reach on LinkedIn. You might get 2 or 300 impressions. The most I ever got on one was 1500 and it blew me away because that was just like unheard of.
Chris:
So I go in and I invite people and it’s kind of a tedious process. It takes 10 or 15 minutes because you have, there is a check box at the top where you can just check all, but I don’t like spamming people with invitations. So I go through and pick people that I know were active and I handpick them and I’ll pick, you know, invite a 100 and 50 ish, 80, you somewhere between 70, 70 80 usually say they’ll, they’ll be there. And then anywhere from 10 to 30 actually show up. So be active and then send those invitations out.
Kerry:
What are the mistakes that people make when they are first doing this? And let’s assume we’re gonna put aside the, I have a marbled mouth, and I I don’t know what I’m doing. What are the big things you see people doing where you’re like, oh my gosh, this fix is so simple, but you’re killing yourself right now as you exist.
Chris:
Yep. One of the biggest things is, and it’s not really anything on the technical side. It’s just People starting the show and then waiting to give people time to show up before they get into it. So you’ve got 5 minutes or more of them going. Yep. We’re just gonna wait a minute. I’ve literally seen people just sit there quietly for like 5 or 10 minutes waiting for people to show up. And I was just like, oh my god.
Chris:
Don’t do that.
Kerry:
Right.
Chris:
Absolutely don’t do that. Dive into it. If they miss some of it, they miss some of it. But I build in a little bit of space at the beginning with like a minute and a half intro video. And then I talk for a minute and I introduce my guest. So I build in 4 or 5 minutes automatically without waiting. That’s probably the number one thing I see people doing is waiting.
Kerry:
Basically Punishing the people who showed up on time.
Chris:
Yes.
Kerry:
Don’t do that. Just bed to
Chris:
reach. I will leave in a minute if you don’t grab my attention.
Kerry:
Yeah. You’re out. Ed, sometimes a minute is even almost too long. So they do that. And then is there anything else that you See people doing on the regular that people who are listening to this, that they’re live streaming are probably doing. That’s wrong.
Chris:
Like I said earlier, not engaging with your audience. You’ve gotta have some form of engagement. If you don’t acknowledge people, they’re not gonna keep coming back. So whether you take, you know, a certain amount of time, it’s designated point in there to start to greet people. I do it at the beginning. Hey. I see Carrie’s here. You know? Thanks for dropping in.
Chris:
I’ll bring some comments up on screen. Mhmm. Not engaging with your audience or at least having someone in the comments doing community management is huge.
Kerry:
Yeah. People like to see their name pop up on the Screen, even if you don’t necessarily have time to address the comment, if it’s something that is, you know, beneficial, controversial, we’ll Start conversations. Sometimes even just putting it up on the screen and letting your audience look at it, you know, v and visually absorb it as they’re listening can make a big
Chris:
Friends. Yep.
Kerry:
Are there certain things that you must do in order to make sure that your live stream is successful?
Chris:
Consistency. I haven’t seen people do this as much as I did in the beginning, but consistency is absolutely key. When I first started, I would go live. I would tailor my showtimes in days to fit whatever worked for my guest. And then I would get DMs. Chris, I thought you were, did you go live tonight? I was like, no. I Went live 3 nights ago. They were like, well, I thought your night was this night.
Chris:
Whenever I nailed it down to Monday nights at 7 central and people knew to look for it. It blew up. Like, it it went from 5 view, and I say blew up, went from 5 viewers to on average of 20 viewers,
Kerry:
Then That is a blow up. I mean, percentage wise, that’s what is that? 500%? Yeah.
Chris:
Yeah.
Kerry:
Yes.
Chris:
Consistency is absolutely key. It’s okay to take breaks like, I’m on a almost month long break right now. I’m fixing to start back up. Absolutely take breaks. Be very consistent with your show day and time.
Kerry:
Got it. And when you say Consistency, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it has to be, you know, barring any sort of intentional break, once a week Or 3 times a week or whatever. It could be once a month if that’s what your consistent schedule is. Is that right? Okay.
Chris:
Yeah. But if it’s gonna be once a month, I always recommend, you know, if you’re gonna go once a month, then pick a day and make it the 1st Monday or the 2nd Thursday or whatever just so you can advertise it like that.
Kerry:
Got it.
Chris:
Back the next you know, every 3rd Thursday.
Kerry:
Yeah. Like, making it rather than saying, you know, this, Whatever. Thursday 21st. Like, it’s the 3rd Thursday of every month, whenever the number is, that’s the day it’s gonna happen. It’s easier for people to remember.
Chris:
It is. Yep. Yeah. We’ll mark it on your calendar.
Kerry:
So I wanna ask you about one other element of engaging with your audience or making sure that your audience is engaging. I know that you talk a little bit about this. I’ve seen some of your discussions or posts, I guess, about it. Parasocial interaction, which is, in a nutshell, sort of the psychological relationship that You or the performer has with the audience. Can you dive into that a little bit?
Chris:
Yeah. So think about it. I mean and this is Perfect for you because you used to be on the news. But I think about, like, the weatherman. Mhmm. We’ve had the same weatherman in this in one of the the TV stations here since I was here since we moved here when I was 12 or 11. Wow. Yeah.
Chris:
Mark Scurto, like, and he’s the weather app I use because he’s been on TV, and I feel like I know him. You know? I feel like I could walk up to him and shake his hand if I saw him in town, because I’ve been watching them on TV my whole life. Yeah. That’s what it is. It’s that relationship, like you said, between yourself and somebody on TV or someone on social media, you feel like you know them. When people were watching you on the news, they felt like they knew you because they saw you. They were you were in their living room
Kerry:
Yeah.
Chris:
Every day.
Kerry:
Oh, gosh. These days, yeah, I could have been in their bathroom, in their bedroom, and all of those guys. I know. Right? Exactly.
Chris:
Anywhere. But they feel like they know you because they see you all the time, and it builds trust, and it almost sounds icky to say, but you need to capitalize on that. Yeah. Not like you’re manipulating or anything. You wanna be honest and, you know, don’t be a jerk, but use that, capitalize on that. If people can get to where they trust you, then you’re gonna, if, even if they don’t work with you, you’re gonna stay top of mind, whatever live streaming comes up.
Kerry:
And you’re right. It’s not about manipulation. It’s just about I see, yeah, that you have a message. And if you’re shrinking from delivering it, then you’re not doing anybody any good, Your audience, ignore yourself.
Chris:
Right. 100%.
Kerry:
Is there any let’s say an executive, a CEO is listening to this and he or she says, like, well, listen. I work at this big company. I can’t do a live stream. I can’t talk about Personal stuff or maybe it’s a small business owner who says, I don’t understand it, and I’m just getting started, and I don’t wanna, I don’t know, damage my credibility or something. Like, is there anybody who lives streaming or any demographic industry, whatever that it doesn’t work for?
Chris:
No. I don’t think so at all. And personal branding is huge. Yeah. You know, if you gotta talk about a little bit of personal stuff, get people to feel like they know whether you’re live streaming or just doing text posts on social media or whatever, even if you’re not doing any video whatsoever, there’s still that parasocial element. People feel like there’s people that I know on LinkedIn that I don’t ever do any video or live stream, but I feel like I know them because I read their posts every day. I interact with them. So you gotta have that little bit of personal element to it.
Chris:
And I wouldn’t think you could damage your credibility. You don’t wanna have a guess that it’s a loose cannon unless you’re okay with it. Right. But, you know, be selective with your guests or just don’t have guests. Yeah. Like, if you’re worried about it, but I don’t think if there’s any demographic it wouldn’t work for.
Kerry:
Yeah. It’s interesting you mentioned the personal branding thing. Whenever somebody I think of Two people, for better or worse, love them or hate them. And I know there’s people on both sides. I think of Jeff Bezos and I think of Elon Musk. And both of them Have, you know, more followers on social media than their companies do. Like, Elon Musk has more followers than Tesla, And it’s because he’s got a personal brand that is so huge. It funnels his personal brand into his product.
Kerry:
And, I mean, that’s sort of it in a nutshell. You know, you can use this as a platform to talk about who you are as a person or to share a particular experience story message much like you do, with your different shows. And that’s an opportunity to sort of, like, break outside of the boundaries that I think a lot of especially executives feel when they’re on social that they have to fit this Certain kind of mold, and this is the space where people are sort of sitting on the edge of their seats waiting to see what’s gonna come out of your mouth next because it’s So raw, it’s just a great opportunity. And I would mention because it’s raw and because it’s live, people are much more forgiving of mistakes.
Chris:
We are. And, you know, as you were talking about a CEO, I’m just sitting here thinking about turning it into a personal branding kind of deal. Yeah. You know, it would be really cool if the CEO got up or got on a live show, not wearing a coat and tie.
Kerry:
Mhmm.
Chris:
You know, showing up looking like Gary Vee or something with a backwards hat and a raggedy t-shirt Yep. Or just something comfortable. Yeah. And y’all talk about or whoever it is, whoever their guest is, just talk about current events or or or what, just something, anything other than business. Yeah. You know, throw some business in there sometimes. But it would be huge in building a CEO’s personal brand. Like Elon doesn’t talk about Tesla.
Kerry:
No. Not at all. Yeah. There’s so many opportunities For it to grow. So let me ask a couple of questions now about your shows, which I think, again, like I said at the beginning of this show, was how I Came across you. Tell us about your 2 shows and, you know, how they started and where people can find them and a little bit about, you know, what they’re about and why they’re so important
Chris:
to you. Alright. So, I did a thing that is the name of the very first show, and that’s the one I, I still do that one. I just bring cool, cool people that are doing cool things and have cool conversations. Like, it’s totally unscripted. There are no show notes. I don’t show notes anyway for me, because I can’t stand it. Like, I like to free flow.
Chris:
And I just have conversations with people and we may talk, we have, you know, talk about something they wanna talk about. Or usually we talk about what they do or something they’re doing like, you know, whether they have a book launch or whether it’s, you know, their business or whatever, and do some Q and A and just kinda get to know them and let people in my audience get to know them. Yeah. And sometimes I just bring people there. There’s absolutely no point to it anyway. Like, my buddy, he’s another streamer, Gabe. He comes on 2 or 3 times a year, and I’ll go on his show 2 or 3 times a year, and we just cut up and have fun. Yeah.
Kerry:
And it’s a blast. The other show is called ending the stigma, and that’s the one that’s kinda The more serious one, it does have topics. It does have, you know, we may share, or like I said earlier, I may bring somebody on that’s been to prison or been on probation or whatever, and they’re they’ve had troubles finding jobs or or or maybe they didn’t have trouble, but, you know, they had trouble overcoming addiction or being tempted when they got out or just whatever the case might be. Or maybe they work for an organization that helps people coming out of prison, whether it’s finding jobs or housing, any of the plethora of things that felon’s face whenever they come out. You know, there’s organizations out there to help people with that. So I’ll bring them on and talk about it. Some of my favorite ones to have or people whose family members have been locked up and the effect that it had on them because people don’t always think about that. Yeah.
Chris:
You know, they focus more on the person coming out of prison and I’ve had some guests that were just, you know? And I didn’t think about it. Like whenever I was in prison, how hard it was on my family. Yeah. And so you get these guests on and they’re talking about it and you’re like, oh my God. Like I knew I put my family through hell. Yeah. But I didn’t realize how me being gone really affected them. So those are probably some of my favorite conversations to have.
Kerry:
Have you ever had a family member on your show? Mm-mm. What if your family, like your family member?
Chris:
I have not. Nope. No? I sure haven’t.
Kerry:
So how, if people are interested in working with you, I know that you, you know, have A couple of different levels of live stream production and a couple of ways that you work with people in terms of training. Can you Rent us through, through what you do? Okay.
Chris:
So I’ve kinda, I’m weeding out. I’ll still do a little bit of 1 on 1 training. I’m probably not gonna do any more boot camps for a while. It’s a whole lot of time and effort and the return on it is not what I want it to be. So I do 1 on 1 livestream training. We’re in 4 sessions. We’ll go through and I’ll teach you some strategy, tips and tricks on how to make it successful, basic equipment stuff, how to set up your light, how to set up everything in Restream. So we’ll spend a lot of time in Restream going through all the features and the ins and the outs of it.
Chris:
Yeah. Very basic Canvas stuff, just for, like, making the thumbnails for the event promos and, Yeah. You know, the overlays and some graphics to go in the studio. That usually takes about 4 sessions. And then I offer Live stream production where literally all you have to do is if you’re gonna have a guest, you have to source your guests and you come up with a topic. And I handle everything after that from creating the event, event promotion, invites, running the show, making sure that the comments are handled, whether you want comments up on screen during the show or whether you don’t, making sure if you wanna do a q and a that I pin those comments. Mhmm. Making sure any presentations that you have so you can bring presentations into the studio, like, slide,
Kerry:
slides and stuff.
Chris:
Slides. Yep. Or even videos. Yeah. I’m making videos for it. And then giving you the record, making sure you know how to download the recordings and all that if you’re gonna do anything with it. And then I have a level right above that where I do all of that, plus give you 2 video clips per episode, polished up, ready to go to post, and I give you your audio. It’s been edited and polished and all the ums and ahs and stuff taken out of it and ready for you to upload onto wherever you want to publish your podcast.
Kerry:
That’s awesome. Chris is so good at what he does, and he’s such a delight to talk to and work with. If somebody is interested in maybe Discussing with you ways they can work together or or learning even just a little bit more about your company or yourself, Where should they go?
Chris:
You can find me on LinkedIn, Chris Hennessy. It’s linkedin.com/ipbizlive. You can go to my website, www.hipproductions.live, or you can shoot me an email, chris@hitproductions.live.
Kerry:
And all that stuff for our listeners. I’ll put that in the show notes. So if you missed it or you’re driving, You will find it there, all of the information you need to get ahold of Chris and have him work his magic with your livestream.
Chris:
Yes. I will.
Kerry:
Chris, it was awesome talking to you. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
Chris:
Thank you so much for having me on. I enjoyed it. Absolutely. Yep.
