iMovie Tutorial

Here is the outcome of my video project!

Introduction:
Hello my name is Marie Therese Lawlor.  Creating a movie with iMovie is simple if you know the different menus and buttons that are new to the newest iMovie.  I would like to show you how to make a short movie.  I am going to show you how I made my movie about the WaterFront Insular Hotel.  I am going to show you how to add photos, titles, transitions, voice over, music, subtitles, and much more.

1.  The first step to creating my movie is uploading my photos of the WaterFront Insular Hotel into my iPhoto.

2.  Once in iPhoto I must organize my photos into an album.  This will allow me to easily access the photos that I need while in iMovie.

3.  I must then go to the dock located at the bottom of my screen for iMovie or go to the applications folder and select iMovie.

4. To create a new movie I must click on the plus button that say create located on the upper left hand side or go to file then new movie.

5.  I am selecting no theme.

6.  I must then add a title TheWaterFront_InsularHotel.

7.  Once I have entered the title I can click on okay.

8.  After I have created a new movie, I will then have a blank timeline.

9.  Now I must add a title.  The title button is on the lower left hand side.  I can choose from all of the different styles.

10.  I am choosing the style focus because it is simple.

11.  Once I have a title I am ready to start putting in photos.  I’m clicking the iPhoto library icon on the left hand side, then clicking on the albums and locating my Insular_Waterfront_Hotel album.

12.  Once I click on the album, I can see all of the photos in the album.  I can then go ahead and put them on the timeline by dragging them into the timeline.

13.  Now I must choose a transition to put between the title and the first photo.  The transition button is on the lower left hand side.  I am choosing a simple transition called cross dissolve.  I am then going to drag cross dissolve into the middle of the title and the first photo.

14.  I am then going to continue adding the photos from my album and adding transitions in between the photos.

15.  Once I have added all of the photos and transitions, I am now going to put a title in the end that says The End to show that it is the end of the movie and a credit to me By: Marie Therese Lawlor.

16.  Now I am going to go through the movie and make sure all of the photos are showing up correctly.  iMovie adds a ken burns effect to all of the photos automatically, but not all photos show up correctly.  This photo needs the start point and the end point changed because it is a vertical photo and I would like to show the entire photo.

17.  Now that my photos are in order, I would like to do a voice over in the beginning and record a bit of audio advertising the Waterfront Insular Hotel.  I must go to the menu click on window and click record voice over.

18.  I now must them record my short advertisement.

“The WaterFront Insular Hotel is one of my favorite hotels.  They are located right across Paradise Island so you can take a boat from the Insular Hotel.  The hotel also has a beautiful pool and beach, delicious restaurants, comfortable bed, and a bathroom with a bathtub.  It was a wonderful experience.”

19.  Now that I have recorded my voice over I can now add music.  I am going to my iTunes library and finding a song called “Hello.”  I am then dragging the song onto the timeline.  The iTunes button is located on the lower left hand side.

20.  Now I must trim the song to fit my movie by dragging the audio clip to the left.

21.  In the end of your movie you can also fade the song by dragging the button on your audio clip.

22.  Now that my audio is in place, I am going to go through some of my photographs and write a subtitle explaining the photographs.  I am picking the title gradient black and putting them on the bottom of the photos then typing in the explanations.

23.  Now that I am done, I can share it to upload into Youtube.  I can just click Share on the upper left hand side and click file.  Once I click file, I can pick from the different sizes.  I am choosing the smallest size which is SD480P.  Then I am saving it to the desktop.

24.  Now that I am done, I am then going to log onto my Youtube account to share my iMovie movie with my family and friends.  Thanks for watching my tutorial.  Have a great day.

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Upselling During A Sale Boosts Your Sale

When I worked for Coach, I learned how important upselling was to boosting my sales. Upselling for Coach was an easy task because bags matched wallets and wristlets, but many times the customers did not know that so it was important to let them know. A customer would come in let’s say looking for a bag to bring to work. Well that customer does not know that she might want a wallet to go with that bag because in her mind she was just coming in to get a purse. What I would do once the customer had decided on a bag was walk them to the wallet wall.

The wallet wall was great because it was also close to wristlets and coin purses. Coach bags typically had matching wallets, wristlets, and coin purses and it was a matter of pointing this out to the customer and putting said wallet up against the bag then the customer would see the color or the fabric matched and it just looked really good together so of course the customer would decide to go with the wallet too. Where else was the customer going to get a wallet that matched so perfectly with the bag?

The other item the customer might want is shoes so I would go point out the shoes that we had. Sometimes we had scarves, hats, perfume, key fob and much more and the customer was typically impressed by these other products and decide to get some. Now the other type of upsell was asking the customer if he or she might want to shop for other people like friends and family and the customer might decide oh yes, her sister might want this beautiful purple wallet. And of course, during Christmas time or Easter or Mother’s Day, asking the customer if he or she was interested in buying presents was a must because this boosted sales.

Two things to remember to increase your sales:

1. What other products might the customer be interested in from your store?
2. What other special people in the customer’s life might the customer be interested in shopping for.

If you just keep these two things in mind you can boost your sales too.

Check out my short movie to go along with my blog post.

Demonstrate Your Product

While I was working for Apple selling computers one of the most important and most basic things I would do with my customer is demonstrate the product. I would ask the customers what they are mostly going to be using their computer for and they might say something like browse the Internet and email. What I would then do is browse the Internet with the customer and pull up a site like CNN to show the customer how fast the computer could access CNN. Then I would open up Mail and show them how to use email and how easy it is to set up.

Sometimes the customer was a liberal arts student and they were going to be using their computer for typing up research papers so I would open up Microsoft Word, which was installed in the demo Macs and show them how to use Microsoft Word. If the student was a photography major student, I would open up Photoshop for them and show them some simple photo editing techniques using Photoshop. Sometimes a customer was interested in using the computer for iMovie so I would then open up iMovie and create a short movie using the sample clips in iMovie.

All of these demonstrations led to a more interested customer and sometimes a sale. It’s interesting how you can persuade a person into buying a Mac just by simply showing them what a Mac can do. Basically the demonstrations allowed them to see how fast the computers were and then allow them to visualize themselves with a Mac and creating a movie quickly with iMovie for example. Testing out your product is key because having the customer use the product literally changes their thoughts and the customer can be more easily persuaded especially if you can prove to them that the product you are selling them is superior to others out there so one must demonstrate, demonstrate, demonstrate. Stay tuned for more blog posts on sales and persuasion.

Check out my short movie that goes along with this blog post.

Be Excited About What You Are Selling

You must be passionate about what you’re selling in order for you to convince your customers to buy the product and trust you about what you’re saying about the product you’re selling. When I worked for Apple I sold many iPhones because I owned the product and loved it. I could tell my customers the features and why it was so great. I told my customers that the iPhone was not just a phone and I talked about all of the features it had that was useful too.

I focused on the non-phone feature with the customers because there are many phones so instead I focused on what made the iPhone different. I talked about how I used my iPhone to listen to music, watch music videos, and even watch movies and TV shows. I talked about how when I was at break at work I would often watch a movie I had rented from iTunes. I told the customer that I got to watch my favorite TV shows that I had downloaded onto my computer via iTunes and synched into my phone when I was waiting for my haircut appointment.

I also focused on the Apps. I showed customers fun apps that were on the model phones in the store that I enjoyed. I showed them fun race car games, Tetris, and much more. I also told the customers that there are apps for pretty much anything you’re interested in. You just had to search for it on the App Store. I told the customer about how I was interested in American Sign Language and that there were even apps that helped me learn American Sign Language. Of course I showed the customer how easy it was to use the Twitter and Facebook apps.

I showed the customers too how to use email on the iPhone, take notes, record your voice for note taking, the alarm, and all the important features that the iPhone had for the busy professional on the go. But notice I focused mostly on the apps that made me excited. Why is that? Well I figured if I was excited about the app, the customer might be too, but more importantly I wanted the customer to hear my excitement in my voice. Customers can tell if you’re excited about something. So yes, the phone feature, email, alarm clocks, and more were great features, but the apps were revolutionary for the iPhone because there was endless amounts of apps and games which turned the iPhone into an entertainment gadget, not just a business gadget. The iPhone was for fun for me and I wanted to convey that which helped my sales.

Next time you are selling make sure to own some of the items that you are selling so you can talk about the product like a pro and also find those neat things you wouldn’t find out about your product unless you owned it. Make sure you talk about the general features, but most importantly talk about what gets you excited about your product. Try that out and see if you boost your sales. Stay tuned for more blog posts.

Check out my short movie to go along with my blog post.

Apple’s One to One

At one point I was a creative for Apple’s One to One program that taught the Apple computer owners how to use their computer. I had fun doing that job and what I learned is that Apple was very smart to educate their customers on how to use their computer because it led to more sales. A person who just owned an MacBook computer would progress to perhaps buying Photoshop, Mobile Me and later on a better computer like a MacBook Pro if they were interested in photography.

Here’s how the customer may progress from novice to pro. So the customer comes in and she has just a bought a new iBook computer and loves to take photographs and want to know what to do with it. Then I would teach her how to use iPhoto to organize her photographs using Albums, edit her photos using iPhotos built in editing tools, and then perhaps during Christmas time she might make a book as a present using iPhoto and order that book through Apple. The book would then be the first new Apple sale due to the fact that the customer came in for computer training.

Then the customer might decide she liked editing her photos and wanted something more professional. Then I would suggest Photoshop. She would edit in Photoshop and progress to more and more professional type photography work. Then after she progressed in photography she might decide then to upload her work on line using iWeb to make her own website. Once she’s made her site at the time she would have bought MobileMe to upload her site online. Buying Photoshop and Mobile Me would then be new sales because of computer training for the customer.

After a two years of the customer morphing from hobbyist photographer to professional photographer she might then decide her computer needed to be bigger and faster to better handle Photoshop and that she would then make the ultimate new sale for the customer which was a 15 inch MacBook Pro a newer, faster, larger screened computer. As you can see this whole program was not just a way for the customer to enjoy their computer and get good at a hobby and then perhaps be a professional, but this was a way for Apple to make more sales and more importantly possibly convert a customer to be an Apple fan for life. Training their customers on how to use their computer was one of Apple’s smartest decisions and as you can see how much they profited. Now imagine more than one person becoming an Apple fan for life and making them a group, then I would now call that group an Apple community so Apple didn’t just make a fan, but a new community with new hobbies and interests they had in common because of the Apple products.

User Behavior Tracked on iTunes, Youtube, Facebook for Better User Experience

iTunes, Youtube, and Facebook track behavior so they can better suit your needs. I think this is very interesting and I first noticed it on iTunes. I used to buy iTunes songs and iTunes figured out the type of songs I liked and suggested songs for me to buy. At first I was skeptical and finally I decided to try to some of the songs by previewing them and they were good and so I bought them. This feature was responsible for me building a great iTunes library. The way iTunes did this was by tracking what I listened to and then tracking what other bought who bought the songs I listened to and then they would suggest that song to me.

Another on that I logged onto and that tracked my behavior was Youtube. I logged on and watched Migrationology videos, which are videos about food and then one day Youtube suggested Fung Bros and it was a great channel. It’s a food channel, but mostly Asian food and now Fung Bros has more videos besides food, but it was the food videos that Youtube suggested to me so I’ve watched almost all of the Fung Bros food videos. Now when I log onto my Youtube and Youtube suggests videos to me I watch them. Youtube tracked the videos I watched and then tracked what other people who watched the videos that I was watching were also watching. Youtube found that many Migrationology viewers watched Fung Bros videos and so Youtube figures I might like Fung Bros videos too.

The other one that suggested things to me was Facebook. Facebook likes to suggest pages for me to like and so I click on them and low and behold they are pages I am interested in. Some I’ve found are more advertisements of pages like I’m interested in teaching abroad and Facebook knows this about my posts of links about teaching abroad and so now Facebook suggests pages of companies that organize teaching abroad.

Check out my movie about iTunes, Youtube, and Facebook:

Life Style Questions

For many years I worked in sales so I wanted to create some blog posts about sales and how to sell and how to be persuasive. The most important thing I learned in sales was asking lifestyle questions. Lifestyle questions basically are questions about the customer’s life and how they will be integrating the product into their life.

While I worked for Apple selling computers, the lifestyle questions I asked were pertaining to how they were going to be using their computer. It was important for me to know what they would be doing on their computer so I can gage whether they needed a MacBook Air because they needed something light because they were on the go or perhaps something like a MacBookPro because they were using Photoshop, but still needed a laptop because they’re a college student and will be working between the classroom and their apartment. Perhaps even a high end iMac because they were video editing and they didn’t need something portable.

When I worked for Coach a bag store. I needed to ask whether they were using their bag for daily use and therefore needed something more durable like a leather Maggie or perhaps they were using the bag for a fancy wedding so they needed a more formal bag that matched their pink dress. Sometime the customer told me they would be traveling and needed something convenient. In that case I would suggest an over the shoulder bag that was small, but was still large enough to fit their wallet, camera, travel guide and I would perhaps suggest a Haley.

In both jobs asking the right questions was important, but also the other important aspect about the process was knowing the products we had to offer. I needed to be knowledgeable about the different types of computers we had to offer at Apple and their specifications because with applications like Photoshop, the computer needed to meet certain specifications so that the application could run. With Coach bags, I needed to know what bags we had to offer for different occasions, whether they came in leather or fabric or patent leather so that if I student came in from RIT and were to tell me they would be using the bag to go to class, I would be able to suggest a patent leather bag so they could walk with their bag in bad weather from the dorms to the classroom. Also perhaps they needed to fit a large notebook in their bag, I needed to know at the top of my head that there are Poppy bags that are large, yet affordable.

I also needed to know what we had in stock. Many times at Coach we had specialty bags in that were rare. Sometimes customers came in looking for “fun” bags and I would be able to suggest to them all sorts of bags we had in the store that were not available in other stores except perhaps if they ordered it online. Perhaps a customer came in with a yellow dress and wanted a bag to match that, well not all of our bag styles came in yellow so I needed to be able to recall that the Kristen bags came in yellow.

In sales one must be curious and ask the right questions and also know what they have to offer. They needed to have all these information in the forefront of their mind so that the information was not, “Well one moment, let me look up what bags we have in that yellow.” The information that Kristen bags comes in yellow needs to be instinctual and I could tell the customer right away this is what we have available. Also when I worked for Apple sometimes I sounded like I had a script about why the customer needed an Apple computer versus a PC and I felt sometimes the customer could tell and in that case I needed to better tailor the customers experience with me and gear it towards them and personalize it and not be running a script. If you are in sales I hope this blog post was helpful. Stay tuned for more blog posts about sales.