Have you seen the viral video of the woman selling wigs on QVC?
Her name is Toni Brattin. She’s a beauty entrepreneur and wig designer who’s been hosting live shopping segments for years, so this is certainly not her first rodeo.
She’s on QVC modeling one of her wigs, and she has her back to the camera because she’s showing what the wig looks like from behind. She’s talking about how it looks, and instead of saying “blowout,” she says “blow job.”
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How She Handled It
Because her back is to the camera, you can’t actually see her face when she realizes what she just said, but you can see it in her body. She just kind of freezes, and then you hear her stumble over her words, trying to correct herself and keep going.
Her co-host on the segment takes over, and you see Toni just go straight down out of the camera’s sight.
Obviously, the clip immediately went viral. Then all the stitches and reaction videos started popping up. My favorite one is someone doing a skit showing what she probably looked like from the front. I’ll put a link to that one in the show notes because it made me laugh so hard.
And now there’s been a ton of coverage about it. Toni has talked to multiple news outlets. Jimmy Fallon made a joke about it, and then she has since been on his show. QVC even got in on the joke on their Instagram.
In the end, everyone is talking about Toni Brattin, QVC, and her wigs. And from what I understand, the wigs sold out.
Now, before you go intentionally saying inappropriate things during your next Instagram Live in hopes of selling out your inventory, that’s not necessarily the lesson here. Although, this is one of the things some creators do to manufacture viral moments, if that’s your thing.
But what struck me about this whole situation is that the thing so many business owners are terrified will happen when they put themselves out there happened to Toni.
She fucked up in a pretty spectacular way on live television, even with 30 years of experience under her belt.
But she survived.
What Are You Afraid Will Happen?
Maybe you’ve thought about doing a live shopping event. Maybe you want to start creating more face-to-camera videos instead of just posting pretty pictures of your products. Maybe there’s a local TV segment you could pitch yourself for, a podcast you could go on, or a workshop you could teach.
Maybe you want to partner with other business owners to do some sort of collaboration that would include live video, but you keep putting it off.
You tell yourself it’s because you don’t have the right equipment. You need a better backdrop. You’ve gotta figure out what you’re going to say. You want to learn how to edit video. You need a real plan and strategy.
But sometimes, we’re just afraid of looking stupid.
You worry you’ll stumble over your words. What if you forget what you wanted to say? What if nobody shows up? What if there’s awkward silence? What if something goes wrong? What if you just suck at it?
And the truth is, some of those things will probably happen.
Apparently, even after 30 years of doing it, you might accidentally say “blow job.”
But that’s part of the deal.
Getting Better Doesn’t Mean You Stop Screwing Up
I think sometimes we look at people who are really comfortable on camera, really good at public speaking, or really good at selling their products live and assume they got to a point where they just don’t mess up anymore.
But that’s not really true.
They just get better at recovering. They get more comfortable when things don’t go according to plan. They don’t treat every little stumble like evidence that they suck at it.
Because the goal isn’t to get so good that you never screw up. That’s literally impossible.
The goal is to get comfortable enough that screwing up doesn’t stop you.
And the only way to reach that level of comfort is to just start doing it, right?
You don’t become comfortable on camera and then start making videos. Although, if you’re thinking about doing Lives, you can always practice by recording yourself and never showing anyone those videos.
I did that when I was starting eCommerce Badassery because the last thing I wanted to do was a live video.
You have to make a lot of shitty videos until you become comfortable on camera.
You’re going to have to host a few awkward Lives before you get good at selling live. And once you do it a few times, you’re going to figure out what questions people ask. You’ll learn where you tend to ramble. You’ll figure out how to transition between products. You’ll learn what keeps people watching and what makes them leave.
Eventually, you’ll just get better at it.
That’s how you get good at anything: by doing it again and again.
Your Audience Doesn’t Know What Was Supposed to Happen
There’s something else I want you to remember if and when you start doing this.
You are the only person who knows what is supposed to happen. Your audience doesn’t.
If you forget one of the talking points you wrote down before you went Live, nobody’s going to know.
Even with all the videos of Toni online, there were so many comments from people who said, “I bet if she didn’t freeze, it wouldn’t have become such a thing.”
I don’t know if that’s actually true in her specific situation, and I think it was a lot more trying to hold back laughter than anything else. But the point is that the people watching your Live don’t know what you were planning to say. They don’t have your outline.
So if you screw up, your audience is none the wiser.
You might end up beating yourself up about it for a bit, thinking it was a disaster, but it probably wasn’t. It just didn’t happen exactly the way you pictured it in your head.
Again, there are exceptions. If you say “blow job” instead of “blowout,” people are probably going to notice.
But the vast majority of the things you’re beating yourself up over barely register to anyone else.
Being a Real Person Is an Advantage
Sometimes those imperfect moments are the things that make people like you more because you seem like a real person.
And this is especially important when you’re running a small business.
People want to support real people, so being the person behind your brand can be a huge advantage.
You don’t have to act like some giant corporation with a perfectly polished marketing department. All you’ve gotta do is hop on a video and talk about why you created a particular product. Tell them why you love it. Which one is your favorite? Show them how something works. Answer their questions.
Laugh when something goes wrong.
Have a personality.
People will eat it up.
And with Q4 around the corner, this is worth thinking about because over the next few months, your customers are going to have a shit ton of marketing coming at them. Every brand is going to be fighting for attention.
So if you’ve been thinking about how to stand out a little more, get more visible, and create more connection with your customers, doing some sort of live video might be part of that.
And if the thing holding you back is that you’re afraid you’re going to be awkward or screw it up, I need Toni Brattin accidentally saying “blow job” on QVC to be your inspiration.
What Is Waiting Costing You?
There’s one other side of this that we don’t talk about enough.
What is the cost of waiting until you feel ready?
Let’s say you’ve been thinking about doing live shopping events for two years. If you had started two years ago, even if the first ten Lives were awkward as hell, how good would you be at it now?
How many products could you have demonstrated? How many customer questions could you have answered? How many pieces of content could you have created from those live videos? How many customers could have gotten to know you?
How much could you have learned about what your customers actually care about just from having those conversations?
We spend so much time worrying about the downside of putting ourselves out there that we don’t always think about the downside of staying invisible.
Start With the Smallest Version
So here’s your challenge.
I want you to think about the thing you’ve been avoiding because you’re worried about how you’re going to look doing it. The thing you actually want to do or know would probably be good for your business, but you keep finding reasons not to do it.
What’s the smallest version of that thing you could do?
Maybe you do a really quick Live where you demonstrate one product. Maybe you do a pre-recorded face-to-camera video. Maybe you pitch yourself to one podcast or one publication. Maybe you host one workshop. Maybe you reach out to a fellow business owner and you guys do something together.
I will say, it’s a lot less stressful when you’re not the only one on camera.
And then just give yourself permission for it to be awkward.
You’ll never be able to eliminate the possibility of embarrassment before you put yourself out there, so don’t let that possibility make business decisions for you.
And if Toni Brattin can accidentally say “blow job” on QVC after 30 years of selling products on television, survive the Internet turning it into a meme, laugh about it afterward, and sell a shit ton of wigs, I think you can survive a slightly awkward Instagram Live.
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Featured Image Credit: Todd Owyoung/NBC
