Business-Building Ideas From Terry Brock

If you use a Mac you are in for a treat with the new version of camtasia:mac which was recently released. Watch this video and read the article to get an idea of what you can do to use this tool to boost sales and build relationships.

You know that feeling you get when something you’ve wanted for a long, long time finally happens? It is a joyous rush of adrenaline when it occurs. It is even better when you experience new options that are even better than you anticipated.

Well, that was the case for me with the new Camtasia for Mac (or camtasia:mac —yes, all lower-case) that was released recently. This is a tool that can help boost your sales and build relationships.

Camtastia Studio, from TechSmith, has been the premier tool for creating movies of what happens on your computer. Business people use it to illustrate, for instance, a procedure, a website or a PowerPoint presentation. It can be made available online or via DVD, CD or live presentations. Until now, Camtasia was not available for Mac users.

In the past I’ve used other products like Snapz Pro and Screenflow which perform similar tasks and have worked well. Yet, this new release of camtasia:mac sees those benefits and raises the bar even higher.

If you’re using a Mac, you can use this tool to showcase new products, services and provide training. An accounting or financial planning firm could use a PowerPoint or Keynote presentation that illustrates the importance of proper investments for today. You can use graphs, pictures — even sounds and video. Then you can capture this and demonstrate it for anyone to see on your website using camtasia:mac.

One of the areas where Camtasia:mac sparkles is the ability to share video. You have the built-in ability to send your video to iTunes or YouTube easily. This can help in your marketing to send out information fast. I’ve used the great product Screenflow to create some movies in the past. However, each time we have to upload it separately to YouTube or iTunes. Now with camtasia:mac you can do it with one operation.

The product allows for some very nice transitions that add a touch of pizzaz to what would otherwise be dull and drab (think accounting and financial presentations!). One feature I particularly like is the ability to personalize your presentation by having a video of yourself as a picture in picture (PIP) that can float around the screen at various times. See the powerful effect of this on the video accompanying this article.

You can see that video of what you can do at http://bit.ly/tYzz3. Think of how you would use something like this in your own marketing and sales boosting work.

The product has many features for editing video and displaying it. I found that there are a lot of features and it took a little while to grasp some of the intricacies. The ability to create a subtitle graphic over a solid-color insert background took a little while to understand (took me about 1 hour). Once I figured it out the effect was a nice tool that I can use over and over. If you tie it into a Keynote presentation you’ll find that it works very well.

camtasia:mac is not identical to Camtasia Studio on Windows. You’ll be able to build on top of your existing knowledge if you’ve used the Windows version previously. Your previous experience will be a good foundation for this new version.

A strong feature of camtasia:mac is the ability to generate HTML code and place your video on your website for buyers to see. We haven’t had this available on Screenflow — but I suspect it will be available soon.

If you use Macs in your work, this new tool is worthy of your consideration. See the video I produced and you’ll get an idea of some of the things it can do for you. Remember, business is not about the technology, but about building solid mutually-beneficial relationships. You can catch the video for more real-world applications at http://bit.ly/tYzz3. By combining the technology of camtasia:mac with the personal touch of you talking via PIP, you can strengthen your Relationship Marketing. Now THAT can really get the adrenaline rushing!

(camtasia:mac, US$99.00, http://tinyurl.com/lfe3bb)

Copyright (C) 2009 Terry L. Brock and Achievement Systems, Inc.