“We're not a visual business”
We hear it from accountants, solicitors, insurers, consultants and care providers. It's rarely true. Short-form video isn't a showroom; it's a two-second promise that something worth knowing is about to happen. Any business that solves a problem has that.
The businesses that struggle aren't the ones without pretty things to film. They're the ones waiting for pretty things to film.
Three things every business can film
The work. Hands doing the job. A keyboard counts, if something changes on screen — a tangled spreadsheet becoming one clean page, a red number turning black, a form filled in the right way.
The people. The person a customer will actually deal with, saying one true thing about the job. Not a script. Not a sales line. The thing they'd say to a friend in the pub.
The questions. Every business answers the same ten questions every week. Each one is a video — and each one is something people are already searching for.
Ideas by type of business
- Accountants and bookkeepers: the three receipts people always lose; what happens if you file late; a messy spreadsheet fixed in fifteen seconds.
- Solicitors and advisers: one term explained in one breath; “the question I get asked most this month”; what to bring to a first meeting.
- Care providers: the kitchen at seven in the morning; a carer's one tip for families; what a first visit actually looks like (with consent, and without residents).
- Consultants and coaches: the mistake you see every week, and the fix; a before-and-after of a real (anonymised) document.
- Trades: the fault already in frame; the tool nobody knows about; the job from arrival to tidy-up. More in our guide to short-form video for tradespeople.
Before and after, even for invisible work
Start with the state you're called in to fix and end with the state you leave it in. The shoebox of receipts, then the finished return. The overgrown garden, then the lawn. The empty diary, then the booked week. The change is the hook; the viewer stays to see how you got there.
A tip that helps: show the after for one second first, then cut back to the before. The viewer now knows where the story ends and wants to see the middle.
Answer one question, fast
Put the question on screen in the first second and say it out loud. Answer it. Stop. No intro, no “thanks for watching”, no sign-off. If the answer takes more than thirty seconds, it's two videos.
These videos compound. The same questions your customers ask you are typed into search bars every day, on Google and inside TikTok and Instagram themselves.
Turn one conversation into five videos
A single good customer conversation often holds a week of content. Suppose someone asked you, “Do I need to register for VAT?” That can become:
- The question itself, answered in twenty seconds.
- The mistake people make when they get it wrong.
- The one number they should know.
- What to do this week if it applies to them.
- The question they should have asked instead.
Film all five in one sitting, in the same place, and you've got a week without having a new idea. Swap in the questions your own customers ask — about roofs, care fees, contracts, boilers — and the pattern holds.
Talking to camera without cringing
If you speak on camera, don't read. Know the one point you're making, say it to one person you know, and film it three times. Use the take where you sound like yourself. Nobody expects a presenter from a local business; they expect the person who'll actually turn up.
Be careful with people
Never film clients, patients or residents without clear, informed consent — and in care settings, think twice even with it. You rarely need them. Your hands, your tools, your team (with their permission) and your own voice are enough. Blur or crop documents so no personal details show.
Where to start
List ten questions customers asked you this month. Film the three you're most tired of answering. Those are usually the ones people most want answered. Then read where to start with short-form video for the basics of kit and format, and how often to post once you've got going.