Setting Up Your Studio As A Coach: Tech Walkthru

Are you looking to upgrade your home studio set-up for your coaching business? Not sure what microphone to get, or what to consider for your lighting?

From your camera, to sound, to lighting, to the ambient background that you have, we walk through all the pieces of our home studio (that we set up after getting stuck at home during the quarantine) and where we chose to spend a little extra investment, and where we were able to save some money to optimize for our coaching business.

What about the key software that is going to be important to any coach? We’ve battle-tested a lot of options, and layout in detail which software we have chosen to be our core tech in our business, and exactly what that software does for us.

Join for this walkthrough of everything we rely on for equipment and main software at The CRUSH Method, and be sure to click here to download your own copy of the cheat sheet that we walk through in this episode.

Don’t miss this week’s episode, and join in the conversation. Don’t forget to subscribe!

Get the full mp3 and transcript at https://www.amandakaufman.net/blog/setting-up-your-studio-as-a-coach-tech-walkthru

Setting Up Your Studio As A Coach: Tech Walkthru

Transcript of Vlog - April 24th, 2020

Hey, are you coaching from home? But you're not really sure if you've got the right lighting set up the right backgrounds, the right this and the right that or are you trying to set up? A home office and you're kind of worried about the clutter behind you? Well, I wanted to do this little video that shares with you some of the set up that we have and answer some of those technical questions that we often get. And I'm just gonna go ahead and disclaim this right now....

I am not a coach that has, you know, the state of the art cameras and the craziest of things. But I did choose to make some investments in some key things, and I want to walk you through it. And what I'm actually gonna do is I'm gonna show you setting up your home studio cheat sheet, and walk you through it real quick. And then wherever you found this video, look for the link to get the download of this cheat sheet for yourself. So setting up your home studio,

the cheat sheet, the first thing is you need a camera and I'm a huge fan of Apple. So 90% of the time including right now I'm just using the built-in camera on the iMac 27 inch the other 10% of the time I'm using my iPhone. It's that simple. I think we can sometimes overblow what? What is really required? And to be honest, the cameras in the iPhones nowadays are so good that you can just kind of stick with that and you're fine. So if you're a Windows user and I was a Windows user for over a decade,

I do kind of get it. But you might consider an external webcam like Logitech makes if you're not happy with your current camera And if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Now, one thing that did invest in is a microphone. So for right now, my favorite is the I'm gonna just show this to you right here on the Cam jam. There we go. So this is a Rode Podcaster Mic, and you'll see it's kind of got this weird spider thinking. Sorry. Ah, this weird spider thingy that's holding the mic in place.

And so that if I accidentally boom on my desk it doesn't get picked up by the microphone, and it's on in an articulating arm. So that's a Rode Podcaster Microphone. It comes in white. It comes in black. I really like it, and it doesn't come with this pop filter. The pop filter basically helps you deal with "plosives" which are the popping sound. And if there's, you know, wind disrupting your sound. So, by the way, these are affiliate links. So if you click the links,

thank you very much. I think I get a few pennies if you happen to buy the thing. Um, but you're welcome to Google, for if, if you prefer not to click my links, that's cool. So I use a microphone articulating arm because I like to be able to reposition the microphone, especially when you get the standing desk kind of involved to be able to move the microphone around. Plus, I'm often broadcasting with my husband, and so we kind of position the microphone a little differently for when there's two of us here instead of just yours truly.

Oh, by the way, I think I forgot to introduce myself. If you've never heard of me, my name is Amanda Kaufman, and I am a high performance coach and marketing coach. And that's why I'm telling you all about the set up today. Okay,

so the shock mount was that spider looking thing so that you don't have shocks going through to the microphone and picking that up in the sound.

And if you want, you can do a portable microphone tripod stand like this, and I actually got this with my Audio Technica travel microphone.

So this is really small. It was actually a gift from a podcaster, and I love it. It's it's really portable,

came with everything I needed right in the box, including that little stand. So, It's not too expensive either.

So that's a really good alternative if you don't want to invest in the Rode. Now, if you're filming away from your computer and you're indoors and you're up close to your iPhone,

then you don't really need external audio. But if you're doing something like a course and you've got the camera kind of far away from you,

you're gonna want what's called a lapel mic. So a lapel mic, you wear it on the lapel of your shirt.

Basically, um, or ladies, you can wear it underneath your blouse as long as they're not a bunch of rustling.

And basically, the best one that I'm aware of is the Rode Smart Lav, Mic. And that is,

I think, $80 or so. But if you're starting out cheap and cheerful, I really like the Rovtop Mic.

It was around 10 bucks and really easy. Um, and just remember that if you're plugging it into your phone and you've got a lightning port,

you're gonna need to get the adapter from Apple. Lighting is really important! And I think it is even more important potentially than sound because 80% of videos online are watched silently,

right? So people want to be able to see, like, both sides of your face, and so consider where you're placing your office so most of my light comes from a

window. That's right here, and it's just that simple. But then the rest of the room is pretty dark,

so we've brought in, um, brought in some lighting here. My first and favorite light is the Diva Ring Light Supernova,

because it's big, it's dimmable, and I often film with just that light. And, um,

it came with a tripod stand to secure your light on, and it's got a little holder for your phone.

It's awesome. Now, if you're doing a scene with the green screen or you want to film yourself at a whiteboard,

you're gonna want a lighting kit that either has light panels like LED light panels, which are more expensive.

Or you could go the cheap and cheerful route. And that's actually what we have lighting up the green screen behind me.

Cause if you get really close to the green screen and there's a lot of shadow, um, it really interferes with the computers ability to discern between you and the green screen.

So we light up the screen behind us and get rid of the shadows. Pretty cool, huh? So,

um, the thing is, is that I got this kit and I gave you a link to the kit that has the soft top boxes and the curtain that we have like cause behind here behind here is like a normal suburban house hot mess.

Okay, but I'm projecting through, eCamm, and we'll talk about software in a second and there's a green screen behind me that allows the computer to discern between me and the green screen.

So I did all of that in this little kit, and it was like 150 bucks at the time,

so I'm not sure exactly what the price was on the link that I gave there, but it's darn close.

I was looking for something cheap and cheerful. Now, if you're if you're looking for the scene selection,

right, if I showed you what was behind that curtain, it's kind of distracting. There's some toy boxes and Lego boxes and things like that because we set this up in Ah,

in one of our kids. Rooms were kind of shuffled everything around because we're here for quarantine. We don't have access to our normal office.

So, um, if you are starting out in a corner of your home, Or maybe you don't love the look of what's behind you,

the green screen, like is in the kit is the way to go, and you can use virtual backgrounds.

Zoom. You can use virtual backgrounds with eCamm. There's lots of different options for that.

And if you do decide to do like a real physical space, just make sure your artwork isn't to reflect-y and position it behind you by several feet.

So it kind of blurs out in the background. And generally speaking, minimal is better than cluttered. And if you have,

if you are using a virtual background, I really recommend against animated right, because you want you want you to be the animated thing.

So, um, I picked mine from Canva.com, and I hear that StarWars.com has some new virtual backgrounds available as well.

Notes of other handy studio items are like I I wish I got the Versa Desk sooner than I did.

Basically, it sits on top of your standard table or your desk and it's heavy like you don't want to,

like, move it around very much. But it's it's electric, and it will lift and lower your desk space so you can stand and work or sit and work.

And it's versatile, hence Versa Desk. So, um, I also get asked all the time,

like, how do I do white boarding and presentations when I'm coaching and teaching and all that kind of thing.

And it's just an iPad with an Apple Pencil so you don't even need the Pro. You can just get the iPad.

It doesn't have to be the iPad pro. The Apple Pencil is supported on a standard iPad these days,

and people always ask me, How am I live on Instagram and Facebook At the same time? I use a little guy called a Tenikle.

This is a Tenikle here. I'll go back to my screen, and yet there we Oh, so this is a Tenikle,

and it's kind of cool. It's very bendy. It's very flexible. You can, like, wrap it around things,

and it's got these suction cups. So as long as your phone has a smooth case, you can just suction your phone right onto the tentacle.

So then what I do is I hook it over my computer and a position the camera right next to the other camera.

So that way I'm not having to look like over here for Instagram and over here for Facebook. And I basically go on Instagram on my phone.

Um, at the very same time that I hit go live from my computer for Facebook. And that's how I'm on both at the same time.

So, you know, little Hollywood mystery revealed Okay, So I also thought, you know, I was putting together is how do you set up your home studio?

I also wanted to share with you some software that I won't be canceling any time soon. The first the 1st 1 is Zoom.

I love Zoom. I do all my video conferencing and most of my webinars through that platform. I absolutely adore it.

I do all of my private coaching through Zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom. So do make sure you use the security settings on it.

Make sure that you are getting people to register for webinars. Ahead of time, and if you're doing big meetings,

especially to have them register ahead of time just for security and so you don't get zoom bombed, which is the new latest craze,

eCamm, which is actually the software I'm using to record this very training on. And this is the software that I used to broadcast all my Facebook lives,

and we just love it because it really helps our workflow. It basically instead of having to download my Facebook live video to my desktop from Facebook,

it just lets me keep keep doing Sorry. It saves it at the exact same time, right to my desktop.

So it sees me a ton of time I use Kajabi a lot! It's where administer all my courses.

It's where I host my website. I run my transactions. Through it, I produced 95% of my landing pages through Kajabi.

I love me some Kajabi, and because I use it a lot and I'm also a partner, I could give you an exclusive 28 day trial.

If you go to their standard site, it's only 14 days. So, um, there you go,

Coach Accountable is where I house my private coaching relationship content. So that's where any special note taking journaling sharing of files like privately because Kajabi is more for,

like, a crowd, right? And so, for the private connection I use Coach Accountable and Mdrn Books is bookkeeping software that I recommend,

that is by Bonnie Forte, who is a money expert accountant and an enrolled agent, and she basically created this program,

and it's like 20 bucks a month. It's way less expensive than a lot of, like, really over kill way robust software solutions for bookkeeping.

So it's really great for coaches and people in network marketing and, you know, people with really, really small,

micro kind of businesses. And I use Searchie all the time to transcribe videos and to make all of my video content searchable,

which is bananas. My clients love it. And if I'm doing a lot of calls on the phone and I want to be able to record always with permission from the other person on the line,

I use Tape-A-Call to do that. So there you have it. That's like everything that I use in my tech.

And if you look for a link around this video, you'll be able to download your very own copy of that worksheet.

I hope that it served you. I hope you have an amazing day. Thanks for watching