How a Room Full of Small Business Owners Turned Fear into First Videos

Reflections from the Small Business Academy Workshop, Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce

This morning’s Small Business Academy session with the Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce was something special. Led by Jayne Hume, Head of Global Division at the Chamber and the driving force behind the Small Business Academy, this series of expert-led sessions is all about practical insight, peer support and helping founders move forward with confidence.

The theme today was visibility specifically, overcoming the fear that so many founders feel when it comes to creating and posting video content. A room full of business owners gathered in a supportive, kind and non-judgemental space, ready to tackle one of the biggest emotional barriers in modern marketing: putting yourself out there.

Why Visibility Matters for Small Businesses

During the session, we looked at why visibility is crucial now more than ever: building trust and authority, standing out in a crowded market, forging genuine customer connections, attracting investment, and opening doors to partnerships. These aren’t abstract ideas. They’re practical business outcomes that visibility directly supports.

But knowing why visibility matters is very different from feeling comfortable doing it.

Normalising Fear Through Real Data

We used Slido polls throughout the workshop and the results were powerful:

• Nearly half of the room had never posted a business video or hadn’t done so in over a year.

• Most people shared physical reactions like tension or anxiety when thinking about visibility.

• The inner voices people reported were often about relevance, judgement and self-critique.

• Crucially, when asked about the realistic worst case, most people rated the impact as “annoying but manageable” or “hard but recoverable”.

This wasn’t about shaming anyone for not posting more. It was about showing that fear is normal and shared, and the real world consequences are usually far less dramatic than the internal story suggests.

From Thought to Action

The heart of today’s session wasn’t theory, it was doing. Participants were encouraged to record their first business video, not perfectly, but genuinely. Real business owners, facing real fear, taking real action.

What was striking was how quickly the energy in the room shifted as the polls populated and people saw how aligned their fears were with others. That’s where the transformation begins: not when fear disappears, but when it stops being isolating.

A Supportive Community Makes All the Difference

One of the most resonant themes from the day was the power of community. When a room of founders is supportive, kind and non-judgemental, brilliant things happen. There’s an environment where self-critique gives way to curiosity, where shared experience becomes confidence, and where the first step suddenly feels possible.

Participants left with more than new skills, they left with evidence that everyone feels this, and that posting content is simply a way to keep learning, not a test you must pass first.

Looking Ahead

The Small Business Academy, led by Jayne Hume and supported by the Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce, continues to create spaces where business owners can learn, reflect and take practical action together. Sessions like this go beyond tactics. They build confidence through shared experience and community.

For many founders in the room, today’s session also connected directly into the wider journey of building a business with clarity and purpose. That’s exactly where Vision to Venture fits in.

Vision to Venture is designed to help founders move from uncertainty to action, breaking the start-up journey into clear, practical steps. Visibility, testing ideas early and learning through doing are all core parts of that journey. Not because fear disappears, but because progress only happens when we act alongside it.

Today reinforced a simple truth that sits at the heart of Vision to Venture as well:

You will never lose the fear. But you can stop letting it decide for you.

A note of thanks

A big part of why this session landed the way it did was down to the support behind the scenes. Huge thanks to Dan Dennis from Video Formula, who helped shape the structure, flow and practical delivery of the session.

Dan’s experience in helping people feel comfortable on camera and keep things simple was invaluable. Not about overproduction or polish, but about creating space for people to start, experiment and build confidence through doing.

Exactly the mindset we were encouraging in the room.