The Video Editing Software That Makes My Course Content Look Professional

How Descript changed the way I create video — and why it's worth learning

Note: Some links in these posts are affiliate links. I only recommend tools I personally use and genuinely love. If you purchase through my link, I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you — which helps me keep creating free content for coaches like you.

If you're recording courses, guest lectures, YouTube videos, or Instagram Reels for your coaching business, you eventually have to answer a question that most coaches dread: how the heck do I edit this thing?

Traditional video editing software has a steep learning curve. Professional editors spend months learning their tools. And most coaches — who are trying to run an entire business, coach their clients, and still have a life — don't have the time or interest to become video editors.

Descript is the tool that changed the equation for me.

What is Descript?

Descript is a video and audio editing platform built around a simple, genuinely clever idea: instead of editing your video on a timeline (the way traditional editors work), you edit it like a document.

Descript transcribes your video automatically and produces a text transcript alongside the footage. If you want to cut something out of your video, you just highlight the corresponding text in the transcript and delete it. The video cut happens automatically.

It sounds simple because it is. And it's changed the way I create content entirely.

What I use it for

Course videos. All of the recorded video content in my asynchronous courses — The Behavior Edit, The Business Edit, The Study Edit, and my mini-courses — goes through Descript before it's published. I record myself teaching inside of Descript, Descript transcribes every word clearly and accurately, I use Descript's AI tools (read more about these below), I clean up the text, and the video is edited.

YouTube videos. Any longer-form content I publish on YouTube is edited in Descript.

Instagram Reels. Shorter clips get edited in Descript too — it's easy to trim, add captions, and export in the right format.

Guest lectures. When I record a guest lecture for a coach training program or a webinar for a client, I use Descript to clean up the recording before I deliver it.

Why I love it

The transcript-based editing is the core feature, but Descript has a suite of AI-powered tools that genuinely save me significant time:

Filler word removal. Descript can automatically identify and remove "um," "uh," "like," "you know," and other filler words — either all at once or selectively. I've been a learning and development professional for 7 years and am realllllly good at skipping filler words when I present, but this feature alone makes the price of Descript worth it.

Silence cutting. Long pauses between sentences get trimmed automatically, tightening up the pacing of my videos without manual frame-by-frame editing.

Retake elimination. If I stumble over a line and re-record it, Descript can identify the duplicate and help me pick the better take.

Automatic captions. Descript generates captions automatically from the transcript, which I can customize and burn into the video for accessibility.

The result is that I can produce a genuinely polished video — one that looks and sounds professional, not like a screen recording I threw together — in a fraction of the time it used to take me with traditional editing software.

What it costs

Descript paid plans start at $25/month Descript Free: $0 (with limited features and export options)

There are several plan tiers depending on your needs. Use my link to get 50% off your first two months.

How to get started

1. Download Descript and sign up for a free or paid account

2. Import a short video you've already recorded — don't start with something important; experiment first

3. Watch Descript's getting started tutorial — it's clear and short

4. Try the filler word removal on your test video and see how it works

5. Edit your first real video — start simple and build from there

What you need to know before you start

Descript is easy, but it's not instant. You still need to understand the basics of what makes a video good — pacing, lighting, audio quality, structure. Descript can clean up a reasonably well-recorded video, but it can't save a video that was poorly set up to begin with.

Before you invest in video editing software, invest in your recording setup: a decent microphone (the single biggest upgrade you can make), good lighting (natural light works, a ring light is better), and a clean, professional background. Those three things will do more for your video quality than any editing software.

Once the foundation is there, Descript is the tool that makes the polish possible — quickly and without a film school education.

See all seven tools in my complete system — download The 7 Systems I Use to Manage My Coaching Practice.