James Brett is the founder of Truly Finance, an Australian mortgage brokerage nearing its fifth year in business. With more than 40 lenders on its panel, Truly Finance helps first-time homebuyers, refinancers, investors, and other borrowers find financing suited to their individual circumstances.

James wants the company to be more than just somewhere Australians go when they need a home loan. He wants Truly Finance to become what he calls a "soft finance educator," sharing useful information with people who have a mortgage, are preparing to buy a home, or simply want to better understand their finances.

​Social media was already central to that strategy. Truly Finance published four to five times a week across Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

​But James wasn’t using one format: video.

​"I never wanted to be on camera," James said.

​That meant video, and the additional reach it could provide, was largely out of the question. HeyGen changed that.

Reaching people beyond Truly Finance's follower base

Before HeyGen, Truly Finance's social strategy relied mainly on static images and written posts.

​"Before video, all the content was only seen by followers," James said.

​James wanted to reach beyond that existing audience. Video gave Truly Finance another way to share its financial education with Australians who might not already know the company.

​The challenge was finding a way to consistently create video.

​James wasn't interested in becoming an on-camera personality, and traditional filming wasn't a practical foundation for an ongoing video strategy. With HeyGen, he could create videos without recording himself for every post.

​That helped Truly Finance add video to its existing social media strategy, rather than completely overhauling the company's content creation process.

Going from no regular videos to 2 or 3 a week

Today, James publishes two to three HeyGen videos each week, in addition to Truly Finance's existing content.

The company continues to publish four to five static posts across Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, but video has increased both the volume and variety of content it can share.

Truly Finance has also added TikTok, expanding its social media presence to four platforms.

For James, the biggest change is simple. Video has gone from something he avoided to something Truly Finance can publish every week.

He's using the format to share approachable financial education rather than turning every post into a pitch for a mortgage. The idea is to build familiarity with consumers before they ever need to speak with a broker.

If someone eventually needs a home loan, James wants Truly Finance to be a company they already recognize and trust.

Expanding reach and sparking more conversation with video

James is still in the early stages of developing Truly Finance's video strategy. He's experimenting with topics, posting frequency, video length, and the types of educational content that resonate most.

But he's already seeing a difference.

Since adding video, James says Truly Finance is seeing "much greater reach and far more comments."

That's particularly important because reaching new people was one of the main reasons he wanted to add video in the first place.

James isn't attributing a specific new loan or sale to HeyGen yet. Instead, he's looking at whether video is helping Truly Finance share its expertise with more people and generate more conversation around the brand.

The early results are giving him a reason to keep going.

Making video possible for a camera-shy founder

For James, the biggest impact of HeyGen isn't necessarily the number of hours it saves compared with traditional video production.

​Without HeyGen, he wasn't regularly creating videos at all.

James already had the mortgage expertise and ideas he wanted to share. He just needed a way to turn them into video without having to get comfortable filming himself every week.

​Now, video is a regular part of how Truly Finance communicates.

Some viewers recognize that the videos use AI, but James hasn't seen that stop people from engaging with the content. Instead, the videos have also sparked interest among friends and colleagues who are curious about how he's creating them.

His advice to other mortgage professionals facing the same barrier is straightforward.

"Go for it if you're camera-shy like me!"​

Truly Finance spent years building its lending expertise and helping Australians navigate their financing options. With HeyGen, James can share more of that expertise on social media in a format he previously avoided.

Instead of trying to become an on-camera creator, he's publishing two to three videos a week, reaching people across four social platforms, and generating greater reach and more conversation around Truly Finance's content.

For a founder who never wanted to be on camera, video is finally something he can create consistently.