STOP Doing These 7 Things on YouTube if You Want to Make Money!

0:00 5 years ago I sat down in front of a camera just like this one and I had a panic attack now not an actual panic attack but I came to the realization that I was weigh in over my head I didn't know what I was doing and I don't want that for you so today I'm going to provide you actionable steps to overcome these seven mistakes that I realized I was making so that you don't have to make them number one was not knowing my Niche or my avatar and I know everyone says that oh you got to pick your knee why is that important well it's actually very important that's why everybody talks about it the reason it's important is because if you don't know who you're talking to you don't know why you're making the video in the first place and it's crucial for YouTube to know who you're talking to so it can send your video to those people so this is not something to ignore once I got clear on who my ideal viewer is things started to

0:46 change so here are three steps real quick Define your ideal viewer someone once said that your your Niche or your avatar is probably who you were 5 to 10 years ago that's who you're bringing along in the journey number two research the needs the needs may have changed from when you were that person till now so make sure you know the pain points and the problem of the problems of the group of people who will be watching your video think about one specific person and then third pick a problem that viewer has and then start making videos about it which leads into my second big thing that I failed to do my biggest mistake was not solving any problems I was just making videos to make videos and that's not enough in our videos we should provide some some sort of clear value whether it's entertainment or uh making their quality

1:34 of life better or solving a specific problem we need to figure that out when I started framing my videos around solutions to problems my engagement went up and then so did my income so identify core problems that your viewers will have you can write down video ideas and make content to solve those problems you can utilize howto titles which tend to work on YouTube over time I would not suggest making every video this way but how-to videos are a good way to to get your channel seen in Search and then number three include actionable steps in every video so once you present a problem don't just talk about the problem tell them give them a way that they can overcome that problem and easy to follow steps my third mistake and it's kind of embarrassing was not being myself I wasn't being myself on camera I turn on the camera and it's not natural

2:20 to talk to a camera and so I I made a video took it home to my wife to show her like my first video what it's going to be and she was like who is that that's not you that why why are you being weird why are you being different and I was like yeah I don't know it's really hard and so I just had to like grab the camera and start moving around so my first video on my other channel if you don't know you may be looking at this channel thinking why is he talking to me about Channel growth and growing a business uh because this channel is relatively small but I have another channel that is my second job it's my other livelihood and I started five years ago on that so you can go check it out it's called Hey worship leader the first video on that channel is called why did I start this channel and I even though I was trying to be myself I still had this like accent I was like why am I starting this channel anyways I was just

3:06 trying to be myself and I even went I went to like a mall area and just recorded because sitting down in front of a camera stressed me out so much so just be yourself all right that's cool yeah Jimmy be yourself but how do you do that well the first way is highlight your unique perspective who are you in your Niche What Makes You Different once you find that then you can speak to people from that angle and that is your most comfortable angle because that's who you are you're not trying to be someone else number two share personal stories it can be hard talking to a camera that's no lie but when you start talking about things you're really comfortable with and we all like talking about ourselves don't talk about yourself too much but when you share stories people get to know you and you become more comfortable and that brings up number three just be conversational

3:51 it's hard to do it to a camera I understand but if you can just picture your avatar that one person and just talk to them it can be a lot more natural mistake number four was lack of consistency I would just post videos whenever I felt like it and sometimes I just wouldn't post at all and YouTube was like hey are you serious about this I guess not we're not going to show anybody your videos then so I realized that being consistent was really important so I followed a schedule now I don't think it's super important to necessarily say I'm going to post at 3:00 every Tuesday but if that's what you need to do to become consistent then do that come up with a Content calendar there's a lot of software out there that can help you and Shameless plug here I developed the YouTube starter no not YouTube starter YouTube starter is my

4:37 free lead magnet I'll tell you about that in a second my YouTube um digital planner so this thing is full of prompts it's got a calendar uh video planning as you can see there it really helps you nail down like your thumbnail video tags checklist of things to do on Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday video outline and then there's like this whole to-do list right here of things you might forget so it really helps you stay focused and then what's cool is it has these interactive tabs at the top so you can like touch and go to the next week uh-huh I might have just touched something wrong cuz I'm trying to do it in the camera there's places on here for like a brain dump um business tracker like different like goals subscribers money uh brand stuff if you're really trying to figure out your your Niche and your avatar and all that stuff you can

5:23 write that down here it's monthly in case things change there's so much you can do with it so if you want to go check that out Shameless plug go check that out but there's other tools that I use like Trello or Asana where you got these blocks and you can drag them around sometimes I use my content buckets that way the second tip for being consistent is to batch your content when everything's set up and the camera's on the lights are on and your hair is perfect or your beard looks fantastic like mine you might want to record more than one video so set a day where you're like I don't want to be on camera today that's another big thing that helps that keeps people from being consistent is like you wake up and you're like today is not a day where I want to be on on camera I feel that all the time so make that day a planning day and write down video ideas tags create some thumbnails write an outline that way when the camera is on you're like

6:09 you feel good today you don't have to do a bunch of work in between you can oh I have a video ready I already wrote my outline here I go let's record and you can do that for multiple videos bat your work and then just set a realistic schedule like I said you don't have to do don't try to make a video every day especially if you're just getting started I tried to post twice a week on my other channel and I post once a week on this channel three videos a week is my Max right now that's all I got to give as soon as I feel like I could do more maybe I'll start doing more than one video a week on this channel if I feel like it's needed for you set a realistic schedule and then try to stick to it as best you can if you miss it don't beat yourself up just get right back on the fifth mistake was focusing too much on vanity metrics I used to be addicted to the YouTube studio app my

6:55 goodness that will just it'll kill you the way it's designed is meant to depress you it it's either you're either going to ride a high or you're going to ride a low why because it takes your last 10 videos and shows where your current video ranks which is good information to know but it's not good information to focus on especially long term why because if every video does good then as soon as a video is like second best the arrows start pointing down they go down and you're like oh no they used to be red I think YouTube realized psychologically like red was bad and so now it's just green arrows up or green green and then arrows down are gray so it makes it a little less but when I started those arrows were red and I'm like oh no my YouTube studio app says I'm in the red I'm failing when really the video was probably pretty good it just wasn't as good performing

7:42 as well as YouTube decided that the previous video was working so easier said than done I know but here's what to focus on focus on engagement more than just views focus on engagement go to your YouTube studio app and not just look at subscribers and oh look at my new I like like this um don't just focus on views and subscribers see if people are commenting respond to every comment that's what you should be focusing on focus on building a community well how do you do that well encourage real interaction comment down below like I'm going to ask you right now what is your main struggle or the mistake you've been making that you're dealing with right now that you need to stop or if you haven't started yet what's the thing keeping you from start starting right now I want to hear it down in the comments just like that speak with your people talk with them be

8:27 human create engagement there way and then the third thing is measure growth on impact instead of just views and subscribers cuz views and subscribers do not necessarily equate to money in your pocket and we're here to build a business so keep track of your email list how many people are subscribed to your email list how many people are you getting on there how many leads how many people are actually purchasing your products you can gauge interaction and impact based on those rather than just subscribers and Views which doesn't really show a clear picture anyways the sixth mistake I made was being way too focused on gear like waiting until you have Pro gear before you get started on your channel you will hear it said you can make good content with an iPhone or Android do people use those um you can make good content no matter what kind of camera you have because we have access

9:14 to good cameras Even in our pockets these days what you need to do is solve a problem tell a story connect with your audience that's what's important so here's three solutions for you start with what you have focus on the basics of video yes but audio people will forgive bad video before they forgive bad audio that's something I heard one time focus on lighting make sure people can see you focus on those Basics first second learn basic editing on whatever platform that you have so I use Final Cut Pro it was $300 purchase one time it's not a subscription like the um Premiere um but there's also free options like iMovie which is what I started on on my other channel it's completely free and then Da Vinci has a free version as well so you don't have to spend money to get started and if you

9:59 have trouble editing go watch my last video it's about how to edit fast how I edit so I'm not sitting behind a computer all the time I can get and live my life so there's tips on how to edit fast go watch that video and then the number three is upgrade slowly now this camera is probably the most expensive thing in this whole studio I got amps over there I got expensive guitars I got a whole rack of pedals way more gear up there this camera is the most expensive thing I own and it's not even the camera itself it's the lens I love this lens if you want to know it is the Canon eosr is what I'm filming on but it's their RF 15 to35 which is image stabilized all my other footage before was cropped in more because it wouldn't go this wide and it was really shaky so that's just I'm nerding out on gear again don't Focus too much on gear all right the

10:46 last mistake the seventh mistake that I made when I first got started because I had no idea what I was doing was not using YouTube to drive people to my business actually I wasn't even using YouTube as a business if you are waiting to get monetized by YouTube to start making money on YouTube uh let me just stop you right there first of all they're not going to pay you what you're worth remember that and you can make money way sooner than having a th000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours waiting for that is the hardest thing ever and if that's the only thing you're focused on um stop you can make money before that and here's three tips for you real quick in every video make sure that you're giving them something for free in exchange for their email like I'm going to do right now create a free resource okay the free resource that I have created that I think will actually help you is my YouTube starter kit it's

11:32 what I almost said earlier when I was talking about my planner the YouTube starter kit is a stepbystep PDF with screenshots of when I set up this channel so you know exactly what to do step by step there's no confusion it's easy you can download that right now for free now you see what I just did I offered you something that I think will be valuable to you that's what you can do in your Niche you come up with something you make something valuable and you give it away for free in exchange for their email then you have a warm lead you can build a community even if YouTube shuts down you're building an email list that is key to utilizing and harnessing YouTube to fuel your business number two make sure you have a clear call to action in your video to get that warm lead make sure it's easy and then

12:17 number three strategically place links down in the description to make it as easy as possible to get the free thing that you're trying to give them I put the link in my description but I also most of the time if I remember pin it to the top of my comments so I will pin I will make a comment with a link here you go here's the free thing I talked about and you should be able to look on this video right now it's in my description and it's also at the top of the comments pinned up there go check it out all right I mentioned my editing video you can click right here to go watch it I'll meet you over there have fun don't go anywhere just go watch that video okay goodbye