I Built My YouTube Channel the Wrong Way So You Don't Have To

For years, I was putting gas into an electric car. And here's what I mean by that. I was building a YouTube channel completely wrong and didn't realize it until it was too late to save it. So in this video, I'm going to share with you the most important lessons that I learned from that failure so you can build your channel the right way from day one. I have a question for you. How long, how many days have you wasted not creating content, even though that's what you want to do. Because I wasted 827 days before posting my first video on my first channel. I was waiting for this glorious moment to feel ready to start creating content, but it never came. I even tried to construct that moment by keeping myself busy working on a channel banner or an intro video or even thumbnails for videos that I didn't even create yet. I would treat motivational videos like a Red Bull to energize me, to get me to start creating that content. But that didn't work either. The truth was this: I didn't feel confident enough to show up as I was, and I was doing everything that I could to create that confidence before I pressed record. But confidence doesn't come before you take action. It is the result of when you take action. That lesson alone took me 827 days to learn. I wasn't gonna feel ready by working on a channel banner in Canva. I wasn't gonna feel ready going to Fiverr, having some freelancers work on a logo that's right now just sitting in my gallery. It's just collecting dust. That wasn't gonna help either. If you wanna feel ready to start creating content, feeling ready is the result of reps. And you only get those reps when you allow yourself to just show up for whoever would benefit from what you have to say. Studies show that the anticipation of doing something difficult is always worse than actually doing it. And I can attest to that. When I posted my first video, it was way more easy than anticipating of what could happen if I did post it. Everything that I thought would happen that would go wrong didn't happen. You want to know what else is great about this? I didn't have a following and I wasn't popular. So YouTube didn't send my videos out to anyone because it didn't know that what I had to share was what— is what others would want to listen to. The fear that I had that other people would judge me if they saw those videos was never real. And I want you to hear me on this. The fact that you have something to share and you want to share it, it makes you a good person. But good people don't withhold the value that they have that they know can help someone have a transformation in their life. Which brings us to lesson number 2: Be the specialist, not the generalist. When I first started creating videos, it was because I wanted to be the next Les Brown or Eric Thomas. So I was creating all of this self-help motivational videos. And even when I published my very first book that same year called You Were Born with the 10 Tools of Success, just like the videos, the content within it was broad because I felt like I could just save the world. With me trying to be so noble and save the world, my message never land because YouTube didn't know who to send my videos out to. It was sending them to random people who didn't watch it, or if they did watch it, they clicked off of it. So there are two reasons why you must be the specialist and not the generalist. The first reason is this: YouTube is great at pattern recognition and making assumptions on what a viewer wants to see. And if your message isn't clear and it ain't speaking to a specific individual in mind, YouTube has no reason to promote that video because it knows it's not going to get a return on its investment. The second reason is that when you have content that's good for anyone, it's usually terrible for everyone because the messaging is so diluted that no one can relate to it. I mentioned the book that I published that same year I posted my first video called You Were Born with the 10 Tools of Success, but What is success? Success for you can be something totally different than success for me and someone else. And because it wasn't specific, it was hard for anyone to relate to it. And it didn't have that, that, that factor of, wow, he know me so well. He been through exactly what I'm going through now. When you are the specialist, your audience is going to feel like you reading their minds and trust that you are the best option to solve their problems. Because your messaging is catered to them. Here's lesson number 3 for you. Burnout happens when you don't know your audience well. And I look at it like this. Burnout is when the motivational flame gets blown out by the winds of uncertainty. When you don't know your ideal audience with clarity, you aren't sure on what they want to see. And I was burned out several times. And again, it was because I didn't know who I wanted to help specifically. I was creating videos on topics like depression or the fear of failure or why happiness is a terrible objective to chase. My content was like ants when you disturb an ant bed. It was just all over the place because I didn't know who I wanted to help. So I resorted to creating selfish content. I said to myself, you know what, I'mma create content when I feel motivated or if I feel committed to share a certain message. And when I didn't have that rush of energy, I felt dim. And when you feel dim, when you know that you enjoy being a positive impact on others, you feel out of alignment with your purpose. So I had to get clear on my ideal person, and getting clear meant niching down. Now, you would think that niching down means that you will have less content because you will have less people to serve. But once I niche down, My mind was like an ocean of ideas. I could see the different problems that they would have because they are who I used to be. So I know exactly how to solve all their problems, plus the future ones that they will have after they solve their current problems. Here's what happens when you niche down and you get clear on your audience. You will have an endless amount of content because when you focus on them, you will know their current problems. And once you solve their current problems, you will be able to anticipate their future problems that they will have. In fact, because you know them so well, you will always come up with ideas on helping them. Now, here's a lesson I've been excited to talk about, which is this: posting too many Shorts confuses the algorithm. When Shorts became popular, everybody was creating them, and I was hesitant because of the stigma with Shorts because it was mostly all these kids doing all these weird dances, and I was like, you know what, that ain't for me. I want to be taken serious. But all the marketing experts that I was listening to at the time was hammering down on the fact that creators need to be creating Shorts. So that's what I did, and I made a lot of them because I found out that creating these Shorts was so much easier and effortless than creating these long-form videos, and it was less time-consuming as well. Oh, and when AI came to the scene, oh man, it was a wrap. It became so effortless to create all this short-form content. But what I didn't realize is that posting those short-form videos on my YouTube channel was like a parasite that was slowly killing my channel. Because the more I posted them, the more YouTube identified me as a short-form creator and stopped sending out my long-form videos to people. It was easy to get views and followers from Shorts. And that's why I kept doing it. But it was hard to grow a real audience committed to long form. 95% of my subscribers came from Shorts, and short-form consumers are not the same as long-form consumers. It's a challenge to convert those short-form viewers into long-form viewers because short-form videos are— they're snackable. They're easier to consume. And it's addicting to keep scrolling and scrolling until you find that next video that gives you that satisfaction that you've been looking for. And when viewers ain't watching your long-form videos, they ain't connecting with you, which makes it harder for them to know, like, and trust you because they aren't spending a lot of time with you. And I was dealing with this problem for some time, and I got tired of it. I needed some answers. So I went to YouTube Studio because they have this AI that will give you data about your channel specifically. And I asked it, why is it that my short-form viewers and my short-form content isn't converting to long-form viewers and my long-form content? It told me that YouTube sees me as a short-form creator, and because I'm getting views and followers this way, these are the videos that it's going to post, the short-form ones. So I decided, you know what, I'mma abandon this channel and start a new one that is more clear on the audience and more clear on the videos that I want to push out to my ideal person. So they can have the transformation that they've been wanting. Now, I can't show you overnight results because I'm still building this channel, but I can tell you every day on this channel, I know exactly who I'm building for. And every view means something to me because there's someone who actually wants to hear what I have to say. So that leads us to this. If you are the best kept secret coach in your industry who wants to Stop waiting until you feel ready to press record and show up for those who you know you can help get a transformation and a result. Then subscribe, because I'm gonna help you become the coach who takes action to have the results that you want. Your voice, it deserves to be heard, because it's the only one your ideal person will listen to, and they'll feel seen and trust you. So don't wait another day. Don't waste 827 days like I did. So press record today and subscribe so you can watch the rest of the videos that will guide you through every step of showing up on camera with confidence. If you're ready to take control of your life and develop that confidence that you've always been waiting for, then these two videos will help with that.