How to record an async walkthrough video for a client proposal

You sent the proposal on Monday. On Wednesday the prospect replies with "Thanks, we are reviewing it," which often means one person skimmed the summary and the fee, and nobody has read section three, where the thinking is.

A walkthrough helps by reading the document with them. You open the proposal on your screen, with your camera on, and talk through it in the order you want it understood. They can watch at seven in the morning on their phone, when they might have skimmed the PDF anyway.

Why a walkthrough beats the document on its own

Documents are read in whatever order the reader chooses, and the reader often starts with the fee. A recording lets you set the order. You can spend ninety seconds on the part that justifies the price before the price appears.

You can also point. "This bit here," with a cursor hovering over a diagram, does in two seconds what a paragraph of explanation struggles to do. And the prospect hears your tone, which tells them how confident you are about each part. A document sounds equally sure of every section, while your voice shows which parts you are certain of and which you are still weighing.

A walkthrough does not always replace a call, and sometimes it earns one. If you are deciding between the two, personal video versus discovery call goes into when each is the better choice.

How long it should be and how to shape it

Aim for two to five minutes. Under two, you are introducing the document rather than walking through it. Over five, you have recorded a meeting, and the prospect will treat it like one by putting it off.

The shape is simple: open on camera for about ten seconds, spend most of the time on the screen, and close on camera for twenty seconds with one ask. The opening and closing exist so the prospect sees a person at both ends, and the middle exists for the content.

On hi.video, screen plus camera is one of the two ways to record, and you pick it before you start. The free plan caps each video at one minute, which suits an introduction but not a walkthrough, so for anything this length you will need the Pro plan, which allows up to ten minutes per video.

What to show on the screen

Show the actual document rather than slides about it or a summary you made for the video. If they are going to read the proposal, let them see the proposal, so what they watched and what they read line up.

Before you record, make the text big enough to read on a phone. Close every other tab and turn off notifications. A message from another client sliding into the corner of the screen is distracting, and it may show the prospect something it should not.

Pick three or four places to stop. You do not need to scroll through every page. Stop at the part that shows you understood the problem, the part that explains the approach, the timeline and the fee. Spend the least time on the fee. It is a number, and they can read a number.

If you are walking through a draft rather than a proposal, show one thing you considered and rejected. "I tried putting the signup form on the first screen, and it looked like this, which is why it is now on the second" tells them you made choices rather than accepted defaults.

When to be on camera and when to be on the document

A rough rule: be on camera when you are giving an opinion, and on the screen when you are showing a fact.

Be on camera at the start, when you say who you are, and at the end, when you ask for something. The other moment that earns a face is when you tell them something they might not want to hear. Be on the document for everything else, with the cursor doing the pointing.

If you are not sure which a moment calls for, choose the document. A long shot of someone talking is harder to sit through than a document the prospect can read along with.

A structure you can copy

Here is a layout for a three minute walkthrough of a proposal, addressed to a made-up prospect called Ana. Adjust the timings to your document.

0:00 to 0:10, on camera. "Hi Ana, Pranav here. This is three minutes on the proposal I sent on Monday, so you know what you are looking at before you read it."

0:10 to 0:40, on the document, page one. "This first section is what I heard from you on the call. If anything here is wrong, the rest of the document is built on it, so tell me."

0:40 to 1:50, on the document, the approach. "Here is how I would run it. Two phases. The first six weeks are about the data, because every problem you described comes back to it." Point at the diagram. Pause on the risk paragraph and say why it is there.

1:50 to 2:20, on the document, timeline and fee. "Dates are on page seven. The fee is on page eight, and it is split the way the phases are, so you can stop after phase one if you want to."

2:20 to 2:50, on camera. "One thing I would like from you. Could you read page one and reply by Friday with whether it matches what you told me? That is the only part I need agreement on before we talk about the rest. The button below goes to my email."

2:50, stop.

There is only one request, and it has a day attached.

How to end with one ask

Walkthroughs often fail at the end, when the person says "let me know if you have any questions" and stops. Few people act on that, because it does not ask for anything.

Ask for one thing. Make it small enough that the prospect can do it from their phone without opening anything, and attach a date. "Reply with yes or no on page one by Friday" works. "Let me know your thoughts" does not, because thoughts have no deadline and no button.

On hi.video you choose what the button under the video does before you publish. Point it at your email if you want a written reply, or at a calendar link if the next step is a call. Say which it is in the closing so they are not surprised.

Before you publish

A short checklist, because a walkthrough has more that can go wrong than a one minute hi.

• Watch it back once. If you lost your place in the document, trim it or record again.
• Check the text on screen is readable at phone size.
• Add captions. Some prospects will watch on mute, and captions on your intro video covers how to do it well.
• Add the recipient's name and a two line note saying how long the video is and what the one ask is.
• Paste the link at the top of the email, above the attachment, with the length in the sentence.

hi.video has no uploads and no generated presenter. You record in the browser from your own screen and camera, and that matters more for a walkthrough than for a plain introduction, because the prospect hears how you reason through each section. The trust page covers why hi.video works this way.

If you have a proposal sitting unread in someone's inbox right now, the quickest way to test this is to open it, record your first hi with screen and camera, and send the link before the end of the day. The first take will probably be a little rough, which is what retakes are for.