Evan Carmichael explains how to start a YouTube channel: begin with genuine passion, test your format for weeks before spending money, and focus on delivering clear value in each video. He started with a basic home camera and gradually upgraded, eventually producing 14 videos a week after hiring an editor.
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How do I get started on YouTube? That's a question that came in from one of my YouTube viewers. Name is Leven Holland, who wrote in to say, hi Evan, thank you for your videos. I'm a new financial advisor in Toronto, my hometown, and would like to get started creating good content for YouTube channel. Can you share how you got started? Thank you. So great question. For me, when I'm starting any project, related to my business, if it's marketing, new project creation, services, whatever it is, there has to be a founding core reason, purpose behind it. So I started doing videos because I felt that I, I was a visual learner and I enjoyed learning from videos. Most of the content that I created was written, so newsletters, website content, articles, that kind of stuff, and I felt that I learned better through videos and I wanted to do videos because I felt like it could impact a lot more people. It suits my learning style and I felt like it could help others as well. So it wasn't, "I need to find a way to market my business." It wasn't, "I want to be a YouTube sensation." The core reason of starting this channel was to help entrepreneurs and I felt it was a way better learning experience for people who are tuning in. So you have to start with something that you believe in and that's passionate. So why are you starting this YouTube channel? If it's genuine, if it's gonna help people, if you're excited about it, then it's worth getting started. If it's, "Somebody told me to start YouTube channel because it's great marketing," you're not gonna have success with it. Okay, you have to start with the reason. From there, any new project I start, I always start small, test it out, see if it's for me, see if I can get momentum going, see if I'm still excited a couple weeks later. And then continue to invest into it. I hate spending money until I'm making money, and with YouTube there's some, there's some equipment costs, right? So when I started up, I just used my regular camera. The videos sucked. You can go back, the quality of the content was pretty good, but the production quality was terrible. I used my home camera, no microphone, terrible lighting, had no idea what I was doing, and people still like those videos, so I keep them up on my channel even though it's, it's, it's I feel like I should take them down, it's a little embarrassing, but people like it. And I started off small, I started with one video and I posted it and we got some responses and so I posted another video and I found eventually a way to make money doing it because it promotes my brand, promotes what I'm talking about, and bigger companies were interested in coming on board and sponsoring some of them. I didn't start spending a lot of money until I found a way to make money and also make sure this is something I wanted to stick with. Here's the problem with a lot of entrepreneurs: we get excited about a project, we go out and we invest a ton of our time, a ton of dollars into buying the equipment, the gear, the supplies, everything we need to make this project take off. We get into it and then it dies. You lose the excitement, it's harder than you think it was going to be, It dies. And you're stuck with all this equipment, inventory, supplies that now you're not going to use. And I didn't want that to happen with my videos. I didn't want to get all excited at the start, go out and buy a camera, tripod, lighting, microphone, all that gear, only to then in a couple weeks say, "Ah, you know what? This isn't for me. I'm not liking this. It's not what I thought it was going to be." And now I'm stuck out all these expenses. So I made sure it was for me. I got started. My first camera was something like my home camera. It wasn't anything fancy. Some of the videos you'll see are wobbly. I just put it up on my, my dresser and I filmed myself, so that they weren't great by any means. And as I learned more about it, and as I started making a little bit of money off it, then I invested into better cameras. I went through 4 different cameras all through Costco because they had a 90-day return policy. Where most video stores would be like 7 or 14 days. And I kept upgrading my camera because I needed more things. I needed to have an external microphone jack so I could plug in a microphone, where most cameras, you know, the base models don't have it. So I kept upgrading, and eventually I stuck with what I'm using now. It's a Sony camcorder, it's got the external mic. I use a Sony microphone. I have the stand, the tripod. For the video camera that stands on. I usually read off questions that come from readers on my phone. And at the start, I did everything myself— editing the videos, producing the videos, putting up on YouTube. Eventually I hired somebody, so now I record all my videos, put them in Dropbox, and Christina, who's on my team— hey Christina, she's watching this video now, she's editing— she'll put on the intro, put the music, put the effects, closing, post it to my YouTube channel, schedule it, all that stuff. So it takes it out of my hands and frees up my time to be able to do it. It started small and it built up to become core of what I do. I'm doing 14 videos a week now. My Wednesdays are basically video days. It's a Wednesday afternoon here and I'm recording my videos. It's become core to what I do. A lot of the projects that we start up don't end up going anywhere, but a few of them stick and become really important and part of your messaging, part of your brain, and part of what you do on a regular basis. So It's worth spending the time investing into it and money when you know that this is something that's going to be really important to what you're going to do. Most of the content that I talk about are things that I care about. So it'll be questions that come in from readers just like you. How did I get started on YouTube? How can I, you know, make it bigger? I answer questions. I'll share my own thoughts if I'm modeling a successful entrepreneur or something that happened to me during the week. I experiment with some raw footage of things, of me doing something or a rant that I have. You wanna make sure that each video that you have has a message. What should people care about? Right, it's not just you sitting there eating pancakes. You have something that is meaningful that you wanna share with people that's gonna touch their lives for the few minutes that they're spending watching your video. Now the first videos you make will probably suck. You'll be nervous. It takes a lot of practice to get used to talking in front of the camera. I had dozens of takes for each video that came out at the beginning. Now most of them is one shot. Make the video, if there's a mistake, usually I just keep going through. It takes a while to get used to it, to get good at it. And you're always going to be your own worst critic. You're going to look back and say, "Oh man, that sucked." But, you know, put it up. See what happens and continue making them better each time. So that's how I got started on YouTube. And again, if you're doing it for the right reasons and you start small and you're sharing a passionate message, then you're gonna have success with it too. Believe. For those of you watching, you like the video, please give it a thumbs up below. Makes me wanna do more for you. And I'd love to hear what you have to think about this video. If you've had success on YouTube or if you have a different question for your business, please leave it in the comments below and I'll make a video reply for you. Thank you guys, see you soon.
