If there's only one movie you see this summer...

We love a good movie trailer in our house. 

It’s the ultimate try before you buy.

“Do you want to watch that new show on Netflix?” Let’s watch the trailer.

“Should we watch Barbie or Oppenheimer?”  Put on the trailers!

But deep down, trailers aren’t just a good screening tool (pun intended). They serve another purpose, because they prime you for the movie. A good trailer helps me to know what to expect; the frame of mind I need to watch it. It can even build anticipation and excitement. Just like a good blurb on the back of a book.

So here’s a thing. What if you created ‘trailers’ for all your important meetings and conversations? 

Okay, maybe it won’t be an “If there’s only one meeting you go to this summer…” kind of trailer.

But a great meeting trailer should help people get into the right frame of mind. It should help them connect with the meeting’s purpose and also with you. And, very practically (unlike a movie trailer), it can knock off some of the background context and content so that you can hit the ground running and make best use of your time together.  

I’ve created 3 ‘trailers’ this week for upcoming offsites that I’m facilitating.  

Each of them has taken me less than 10 minutes to make, and they’ve already paid off in terms of active engagement from participants whom I’ve not even met yet.  

The simplest way is to use an app such as Loom - which is super easy to use and works through your web browser. You can record ‘video only’ using your webcam, you can do a screen recording with your voice only, or a combo of the two. And the best thing about Loom is that it instantly creates a web link of your video, which you can share with participants straight away - no need to worry about uploading anything.

Here’s a quick Loom I just made to give you the vibe of the thing - even if you don't include video in yours. 

Alternatively, you could set up a Zoom call with yourself, and record it. 

So what do you reckon… what meetings or conversations have you got coming up that you could make a quick trailer for?

S