In this motivational instructional video, Mary Schiller urges entrepreneurs and solopreneurs to launch a YouTube channel immediately, arguing that YouTube functions more as a searchable discovery engine than a traditional social platform. She explains that even without a large subscriber base or polished production, a channel can generate substantial client leads, email list sign‑ups, and affiliate revenue. Schiller shares her own experience—how YouTube has been the top source of new clients for her business since 2016—and demonstrates recent metric spikes after modest improvements (more consistent posting, proper thumbnails). She outlines a low‑bar entry method: use a phone for video, earbuds for audio, edit with Canva, and post two 10‑minute videos each week. The description box is highlighted as a “gold mine” for linking freebies, affiliate offers, and list‑building calls‑to‑action. She also stresses that YouTube can replace other social media efforts, offering a more effective, evergreen channel for reaching an audience. The overall message is that high‑quality production is unnecessary; consistency, basic tools, and strategic use of metadata are enough to start attracting viewers and converting them into customers.
Chapters
Start a YouTube channel. Start a YouTube channel. Start a YouTube channel. Are you getting the message? Now you may be saying, Mary, who are you to be talking about a YouTube channel? You don't even have a proper microphone setup or anything. And I'm going to tell you why that doesn't matter. But the reason I don't have a proper mic setup is because I'm looking for a new mic and I just wanted to go ahead anyway. You may also be saying, Mary, who are you to be talking about YouTube because you hardly have any subscribers? This is true for the moment. I'm working on it, and I'm going to tell you why it doesn't matter. You may also be saying, Mary, who are you to be talking about YouTube because your videos hardly get any views? This is true. Again, I am working on it. Some of my videos have quite a few views in the thousands, but most don't. And I'm going to tell you why it doesn't matter. So why am I here telling you to start a YouTube channel like today, like right this minute? Because YouTube is about a lot more than simply monetizing your channel. Yes, of course, that's a wonderful thing. We all want a monetized channel so we can make money from YouTube putting ads on our videos. That's amazing. In order to get monetized, you have to have 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of views on your channel. And as of this recording, YouTube does not count views of YouTube Shorts towards that viewing time, just FYI. Okay, but even if you're not at that point, I want to drive a point home that is so big and so important. I wish more people were talking about it. YouTube is a giant search engine. It's a big search engine. It's not like other social media. In fact, I don't consider it social media at all. I consider it a search engine that is entertaining and educational and Big plus if you're in business for yourself like I am, it can be a major source of new clients for you. In fact, since I started my business in 2016, YouTube has been the number one source of new clients for me, meaning even though my channel is tiny and it has not been monetized, I have still made literally hundreds of thousands of dollars from having a YouTube channel because people have discovered me through my channel and they have come into my universe. They have signed up for my email list, they have signed up for coaching, they have bought courses from me. All those wonderful things that we want to happen when we are an entrepreneur or a solopreneur as I am. So if you think it's not worth starting a YouTube channel because you don't have any subscribers yet because you haven't started a channel, or maybe you have a channel and you haven't paid attention to it. Just put all of that off to the side because I'm here to tell you it is incredibly valuable to start building a YouTube channel. Another reason to focus on building a YouTube channel is because in addition to being a great way for people to discover you, It's also a way that you can start to earn money and get people onto your email list via what you put in the description box. So when you put up a description underneath, you know, the little box that's below the video, you can include a link there to your freebie to invite someone to your list. You can put an affiliate link there for a program or product that you're representing for which you receive a commission. That description box is a gold mine, and it's going untapped by most people. Just to bring home this point even more about how valuable a YouTube channel can be, I still to this day have people who email me— this happens regularly— and they will say to me, Mary, I just binge-watched all of your YouTube videos. Do you offer private coaching? I mean, what— and this is before my channel had any of my actual focus. As you'll see if you peruse my channel, most of it is on a lot of different topics. I haven't put up any actual thumbnail images on by far the majority of them. I'm working on that now to improve that. But all this to say, even if you do YouTube imperfectly it can still be an amazing source of clients and an incredibly powerful way to reach people with your message, which is important. So I feel like so many people consider YouTube out of reach because, for example, they think it's too complicated to make videos and they think it's too hard to get things going. I promise you it isn't. What I have learned in recent weeks since I started taking a course— I will put my affiliate link to the course in the description because I love it so much— is that it takes consistency to start to generate new traffic, more traffic to your YouTube channel. And by consistency, I literally mean you could put up 2 videos a week, 2 videos a week 10 minutes each. That's the recommendation for the length of time for various reasons. I can go into that in another video, but it doesn't have to take long to create two 10-minute videos. I use a tool that I love so much, I will link to it in the description, to create and edit these videos. It takes me very little time to create a 10-minute video. I use Canva to make my thumbnails. And so now that I'm actually making thumbnails, and so there really is no reason anymore why you can't jump onto YouTube. You don't need much to get started. You literally just need a way to shoot video, a way for people to hear you. As you can see, like I said, I'm using my little earbuds because I don't like the other microphone I have and I'm looking for a new one and I'm not sure which one to get yet. So in the meantime, I'm just using this. You can use your phone, totally acceptable, because most phones have incredible video capability. As long as people can hear you, that's the most important thing. And then you need a way to edit video. You can even use something like Canva now to edit video. I have done that before many, many times. It's impossible for me to overstate how much YouTube has meant to my business. And I want to be clear that it's not just about the money. It's about the fact that you can reach a lot of people with your message, with what is important to you through YouTube. Could you basically give up all of your other social media posting if you had a YouTube channel? Absolutely. And in fact, as I'm recording this video for you, That is precisely what I am doing. I got tired of posting daily on Instagram. I got tired of posting on Facebook. I got tired of running a Facebook group. For me, it just wasn't working. A free group on Facebook was a lot of work and it just wasn't bringing me any benefits anymore. I tried TikTok, hated it. I can't even begin to think about going over there. I have not tried Pinterest. Sorry, Pinterest, it's not of interest. Maybe it is for some people, but at least right now it's not for me. But I've always loved putting videos on YouTube because I get a lot of response, even if people aren't commenting. As I mentioned a little while ago, sometimes they will email me and they will say, I just watched your video about such and such and it really made a difference to me. I mean, You can't get much better than that, can you? And I also think that there's a, a big misunderstanding about the quality, let's say, of editing and such. I think that many of us have started to feel like, you know, I can't be on YouTube because I don't have fancy graphics and all of those kinds of things. You don't need it. You do not need that. In fact, I find myself growing weary of these quick-cut videos. Maybe it's just me, I don't know. I like someone who is more real and where it feels more spontaneous and it just feels like a person who is talking directly to me. That's what I really appreciate. Of course, you can get as fancy as you want to. I'm not dissuading you from that. But I want to be clear that you don't need all that fancy stuff in order to start a YouTube channel. It requires simply a commitment to posting 2 10-minute videos a week, and that's really it. You don't even have to share that link all over the place. If you have people on an email list, of course you want to share it with them, but over time, and not that much time, The YouTube algorithm will start to work on your behalf. In fact, I have been amazed at what has occurred just in the past couple of weeks since I started paying attention to some of the things related to my YouTube channel, like posting more consistently, like using actual thumbnail images, and so on. The percentage of hours viewed has gone way up. The percentage of subscribers has gone way up. I mean, it's actually kind of blowing my mind how quickly these numbers are improving since I started paying attention to what I was doing here. Let's just take a quick look at these stats so you can see what I'm talking about. So for views over the last 28 days, as I'm recording this, my channel had 11,400 views. Which is 10,900 more than usual, meaning my channel usually gets about 500 views. This is just after spending a little bit of time and energy on my channel. The watch time hours have been 115 in the past 28 days, which is 45.2 more than usual. I've had 20 new subscribers which is 67% more than the previous 28 days. So are you starting to see what can happen with just a little bit of attention paid to all of this? Are you convinced that you ought to start a YouTube channel now? Do you see what the possibilities are? And I've just barely scratched the surface in this video, really just to give you a sense of how beneficial it has been to me, how much it has helped me grow my business over the years, how It has helped me to create a community of amazing people in my world. It's been the most powerful tool I have used in my business. The second most powerful tool I've used in my business is Amazon. I will talk about that in another video, but for now, I want to leave you with this: start your YouTube channel. Okay, I'd love to hear your thoughts and comments. Share them below, and of course, I invite you to subscribe to this channel for more. I'll talk to you again soon. Bye for now.
