STOP Making This One Mistake That's Killing Your Small YouTube Channel

Creating consistent YouTube video can be a lot. I get it. And I've heard from many of you say, this is why you haven't started a YouTube channel. And you've also asked me, how do I do it? How do I stay motivated? How do I stay consistent? So I want to break down a few reasons why it may be hard for you to be consistent with your YouTube videos. Then I want to walk through a few hacks to help you stay motivated. Plus, I'm also going to share my number one secret to being consistent here on YouTube for over eight years. And I'm going to be real with you. For me to stay consistent while I get ready for vacation, I am filming on a Saturday. My kids are outside helping their father wash a car, clean a car out. They're blasting music. So if you hear children music, any background sound, that is because for me to stay consistent, I have to figure out how to fit this into my schedule and I just have to make it work. Do I feel guilty that I'm not out there with my kids on a Saturday? Absolutely. But am I doing this for future me? So when I go to the beach, when I go on vacation, I have my content going out and I have my business running for me because these YouTube videos are what keep my business running. While YouTube videos can be a lot of work, planning the videos, scripting the videos, filming, editing. One of the biggest reasons my clients come to me and can't stay consistent is because they don't have a content plan. They are trying to figure out what their video is going to be the week or the week before they need to be publishing it. Or they're just playing out of ideas. They're not even sure what they should be talking about anymore on YouTube. Let me know in the comments if a content planner coming up with content ideas is a main or a big reason for you staying consistent here on YouTube. Like you're just running out of ideas or you don't have time to come up with ideas. Let me know what that looks like for you in the comments. But I teach my clients why we're going to think big picture when it comes to our YouTube content because we don't want to be creating one off videos. We don't want to sit down on a Monday, think of a video idea, script it on a Tuesday, film it on a Wednesday, and then publish it on Thursday. That is not how we are going to get the best results from YouTube. We want to create series of videos that our viewers will binge watch because binge Watching on YouTube is not only the key for YouTube success, as in YouTube, promoting your content to more people, but also the key to turning viewers into clients or customers. Because if a client watches one video and another video and they then are already watching four or five videos, they are a much warmer lead than somebody who maybe saw an Instagram post or even somebody who just watched one video. So you want to think about your YouTube content as a season. So when Netflix drops a season and we all sit down to binge watch, we want people to binge watch our content. That's why when I work with my clients, we sit down and research and map out at least a six month content strategy for their YouTube channel. If you go and look at the content on my channel for the last year, you're going to see there are series of videos that I drop, there are themes I drop, usually five to six videos within a theme that are strategically mapped out. So if somebody finds the first video in that series, they're going to be much more likely to watch the second one and third one. And they flow easily together because then they're not realizing they're clicking that next video. They're enjoying it. They want the answer to that next video. This is how your strategy has got to be planned out on YouTube. This allows you to never be out of content ideas. So that when you actually have the time to sit down and dedicate to YouTube, you're not wasting your time figuring out what the idea is going to be. You know the idea, you know where it fits in your strategy. You script it and you can film it. Another reason I see a lot of my clients have a problem staying consistent or even motivated on YouTube is setting unrealistic goals. Look, we are in a day and age where we love instant gratification. And if we don't instantly go viral or we don't instantly see hundreds of thousands of subscribers, we assume it is not working. So many people think they can just post a YouTube video and poof, they're going to be YouTube famous. In fact, I had an argument with one of my husband's friends once at a picnic and he was just talking so much about how YouTube is so dumb because it's so easy. Da da da da. And I started breaking down why YouTube isn't what you think it is. Because there is so much that goes into every single person who puts a piece of content up on YouTube. Why do you think so many content creators get burned out? It's because they put 100% in these videos. They're planning out their content, they're planning other titles, they know what their thumbnail is going to be. They put a lot of work in these videos and it's not just throwing a video up. So when people start to think, oh, I'm going to get started on YouTube and they're like, I'm going to get a thousand views on this video, that's what my goal is. And it doesn't happen, they instantly assume it's not working for me. Move on. So when you are Getting started on YouTube, it is critical that you set realistic goals for your channel and your videos. These realistic goals need to start with just posting consistency because you don't have a crystal ball. You're not sure how many views or how many subscribers you are going to get when you first get started. As you start posting your videos, you can start tracking benchmarks. What are the average views you're getting on your videos? What are the average impressions that you're getting? What is the average click through rate that you're getting? And these are your standards. From there you can then start setting realistic goals to go above your standards. That's why we created this metric tracking spreadsheet for our clients inside of the YouTube coaching experience. So they can just plug in what their views were, what their impressions were, what their click through rates were on each of their videos and they can have a nice clearly defined list of standard benchmarks for their channel. That way when they publish a video, they can easily look at their standards and be like, oh, my goal was to get half a percent higher click through rate and it's not hitting half a percent higher. What can I do to adjust the click through rate? We aren't just making some random pie in the sky goal. We are backing it up with data that we see in our channel. And these adjustments and these tweaks and metrics do not need to be massive. For example, if YouTube's going to put your videos in front of 500 people, you get 500 impressions and your click through rate is 3%, you're going to get 15 views. But if you increase that click the rate just by 1% to 4% click the rate, you're going to get a 20 more additional views and then that all starts to stack. As you continue to improve your click through rate and as your channel starts to get validated on YouTube, YouTube will start to put your content in front of more people. So then let's say within a month you now have 5,000 impressions on your video. With that 3% click through rate, you're looking at 150 views. Now let's improve that click through rate by just 1% to 4%. Now you're at 200 views. You increase views by 500 just by increasing your click through rate by 1%. And those are the types of goals that you are going to want to track to stay consistent on YouTube, to stay motivated and to see the results on YouTube. Because if you're not seeing the results you want on YouTube, that is going to affect your consistency because it's going to affect your motivation. Another major reason why I see a lot of my clients not being able to stay consistent is not batching or figuring out what their batching routine is going to look like. Listen, I'm not saying you need to sit down and film 10 videos in one day. I1 don't have the time for that anymore or the energy to crank that out anymore. But you do need to be strategic with the time you have available and maximize that time. Because I know you're a business owner, you're a mom, you're a caretaker, life is happening and you don't always have time to film videos. That's why it is important to be batching. That's why over the course of the last two weeks I've been trying to film two to three days each week to get all of my videos done so I can life and go on vacation for two weeks with my family. But on a typical routine. What this looks like for me, because I want it to be a cycle. And every other Tuesday I'm planning two to three videos and then the following Wednesday, every other Wednesday I am filming. This is just something that I do in my schedule. It's like a habit, right? Every other Tuesday is scripting, every other Wednesday is filming. And this is what allows me to stay consistent. And you heard I may be doing two to three videos at a time. That's because it will allow me to potentially have a video in my back pocket when life is going to inevitably life like the kids are home because they're sick from school and it's a filming day, right? Or it's the summer and we don't have a summer camp plan for that week. I need to have those videos already in my back pocket. Otherwise I'm not going to stay consistent. I have to plan for that. But if you are not batching and you're trying to come up with a video idea, script it, film it, edit it in all one day, it is not going to happen. Plus it is not the most efficient way of using your time. This is why at the very beginning of this video I mentioned having your strategy done for six to 12 months in advance. So you can spend time dedicated to do that. Set it aside so then you can sit down on a Tuesday in my example and get in that scripting mode. Because when you say in one particular zone of genius, you're going to be able to get done more things instead of being in the zone of scripting and then having to take that hat, move over to the zone of filming, then have to take that hat off, then move over to the zone of editing. You are losing an estimated 15 to 30 minutes of time between each of those transitions of hats and you are going to be wasting about 90 minutes of your time when you do that all in one day. Instead, if you just stay in scripting zone, you're going to be able to plow through that a lot quicker. When you just stay in filming zone, you're going to be able to plow through that a lot quicker. I'm actually going into more detail about how I create a two hour a week routine to stay consistent on my YouTube and a recent on demand workshop that I released. It is totally free and you can watch it@trina little.com forward slash workshop. You're going to learn my three part framework that not only has allowed me to stay consistent on YouTube for over eight years, but also has allowed me to get the results I want from YouTube. I. E. Growing my audience, booking clients, selling courses. Again, you can watch that for totally free on demand. Com Forward slash workshop. Before I address my biggest secret when it comes to consistency, I want to address the motivation piece of this all. I know it is incredibly hard to show up and create videos. You got to maybe do your hair, makeup, you've maybe got to find your kids to go somewhere. Although I would challenge you that you don't need to because it makes you more of a real human. If a kid comes in, interrupts you, you hear kids screaming in the background, background. But this is why you've got to really figure out what's going to be the best thing to do in your business. And for me it always is YouTube. YouTube is a priority. YouTube is the priority. It is the only piece of content marketing that comes first. And as of right now, I am just dedicated to YouTube. I am not creating on Instagram, I am not creating on podcasts, I am not creating on Facebook. YouTube is the one and only platform that I am focusing on. And listen, I have two full time team members. And I still don't have the time to dedicate to Instagram because I dedicate a lot of my other time in my business while I'm not creating these videos to my clients and my coaching program and getting them the results I want them to get to kind of pull this together here. You want to find something that's going to keep you motivated. And my clients are what keeps me motivated. And I'm getting my clients from these YouTube videos. Because if you're not creating consistent new videos, you're not getting in front of consistent new views. And if you're not getting in front of consistent new views, you're not consistently growing your list. And if you're not consistently growing your list, you're not consistently making new sales. Marketing. Content marketing is a must in your business. There's no way around it unless you want to dump money into ads. So when you are lacking the motivation or the energy to show up, you've got to really dig deeper, deep and think about why you are showing up here and why you have a business. You have got to keep that in front at the forefront of your mind. Because showing up every week on YouTube, creating consistent content, growing an audience, keeping your business running and profitable isn't going to be easy. If it was, everybody would be doing it right. Everybody would have a YouTube channel, everybody would be starting an online business. There is going to be no easy button, no matter what kind of scammy coach is promising you that easy button. So you have to always come back to why are you doing this? Why are you showing up each week? I love getting the comments, not only here on my YouTube videos about how I've helped people not only in YouTube but in their business. But comments I get from people like Kristen, who not only grew her YouTube channel to her subscriber goal, but she was able to host for the first time ever, a in person sewing retreat and book it out completely, fill it out within 48 hours because of her YouTube audience, you've got to be looking at these wins and remembering these wins to make all the hard stuff worthwhile. Okay, what's the big secret I've been hiding about how I stay consistent? Stop overthinking and start simple. Listen, you aren't going to start a YouTube channel with like $1,000 camera and another thousand dollar camera lens. You're not going to have a professional background. In fact, I've now officially changed this background in this house about three times now. And you're not going to have the most fancy editing in fact, the good news about fancy editing, that's something that's not even working right now on YouTube. In fact, what a lot of people are craving and watching is more raw, organic, less edited content anyways. So how can you keep things simple so you can stay consistent and continue to remain motivated when it comes to creating YouTube content? 1. Make your equipment stinking simple. I've made this mistake with my fancy camera and I just hated setting it up. So when I came to sit down today to film, it only took me maybe five minutes to put this camera on the tripod, put my ring light over there and put my softbox and I was ready to go. If it would have took me longer than that, I may have not wanted to come up here. I'm like, oh, I got to set up all that stuff. But I know it's quick for me because I keep the setup simple. Don't overthink your area. That's my second tip. Because listen, you're only seeing this right here. You're not seeing the stack of Legos over here that apparently my kid was using my desk as a my Minecraft battle zone while I wasn't here. And so I just push them over to the side. You're only going to see this square right here. So don't overthink about what your background is going to be. Third is you don't need to be perfect and you've really got to get that out of your mind. You're not going to have the perfect camera, you're not going to have the perfect background, you're not going to have the perfect way you're delivering your content. You're not going to look perfect. You're going to stumble over your words. You're going to have kids outside screaming while they're scootering. You're going to have the yard crew show up right when you start filming. But this is real life and people want to connect with real life people. It makes you human. Every single video that you create is not going to be your best. Trust me, I know. But you won't get better and you won't get results if you don't stick with it. Keep creating, keep filming, keep showing up for those people that are supporting your. Why? As I said earlier, it's not going to be easy because if it was, we'd all be YouTube famous by now. Now, in the next video that's on your screen right now, I'm going to dive into how you can actually make your content better by showing you the exact analytics that you should be looking at and what that tells you about your content. Because remember, numbers don't lie. So you can simplify even more what you're focusing on, because the data is going to tell you what is and isn't working. And start focusing on the things that are going to get you the biggest bang for your buck. So make sure you click there and watch that video next.