All the mistakes I've made on YouTube so you can avoid them

Hey guys, it's Will. And in this video I'm gonna share with you all the mistakes that I've made on YouTube so that you can avoid them.

I've made a lot of mistakes. I've had this channel for.

Just touching on two years now I think and I've done edited videos, I've done, edited unedited videos. I've had lighting, I've not had lighting. I've scripted videos. Big mistake, big mistake. I've not scripted videos. I've shot videos in Bali, I've shot videos in Dubai. And over that two year period I've gotten just above two and a half million views now, amassed as of today, about 82,000 subscribers. And more importantly as this is a business channel, I've made $8.2 million cash collected from this YouTube channel. So just above two and a half million views, just above 82,000 subscribers, and I think about 90 videos now. And in this video that I'm making for you guys today, I want to stop you from making the mistakes that I've made. And I'm going to walk you through my YouTube process, ideation, titles, filming, scripting, bullet points.

Production.

So that this is the one video that whenever anyone asks me about YouTube, how to do it, how not to do it, I'm just going to send them to this video. This is going to be the only video that you need.

To start and grow a business YouTube channel.

That makes a lot of money for you.

Because I've done it essentially.

And I've made all the mistakes in the book. So I'm, I'm in a position now to finally make this video for you guys. So let's get started now. Why did I even start this channel in the first place? So for those that maybe don't know this, I used to own an elearning company. I sold it to private equity last year, or I think the year before. And my goal was to start a new consulting business to help people with, with what I've done and what I'm good at. And I thought, right, I'm going to have a one person business, no ads, no team. I'm going to make one YouTube video a week. I'll probably get a few sales calls from that, I'll probably close a few clients from that and, and, and I'll be happy. I'll make 30, 50, 70k a month and I'll be happy. That was my intention when I started this channel.

And the way I started it. And this is really point number one for you guys is I thought, right, well, if I want to start a YouTube channel, let me go on YouTube and I'll look at what other people are doing and if they're doing it, it must work, so I'll just copy them. So I look to all the usual people and these people were planning their videos, scripting their videos, heavily editing their videos, fancy thumbnails, 12 minute, 15 minute videos. So I thought, well, that's what you must have to do then. So. And there's a few of these videos still on my channel. I deleted a few. But my first few videos I got a multi camera setup, I got one of those slider things where a camera kind of pans around on you. I scripted the videos word for word, used a teleprompter.

Highly edited B roll, multiple camera angles, you know, slides, text, all this stuff. Because I thought that that's just what year did, really.

And they didn't work, they didn't get any views. I got like 200 views, 700 views, 300 views. And I just thought, this is weird because like I feel like I've got value to share. I feel like I can really help people with what I know. But it just wasn't working. No one was watching my videos, no one was subscribing. No, I was getting a few sales calls. I was just getting a few. I was getting like one or two a week. I was closing them and making some money. But like, it's not what I expected. And it, man, it took so long to make the videos. It was, oh, it was exhausting. Setting up all the tripods, setting up the slider, setting up the light, setting up the teleprompter, putting the script in, being in the mood to read a script, then sending it to the editor and wait. Waiting 10 days. God, it was exhausting. God, it was, it was bloody horrible. So anyway, I made about four or five or six videos like that and I was releasing one per week. And then eventually I just thought, you know, this is just not working. I'm not getting any views, not getting any subscribers. Yes, I'm getting a few calls, I'd closed a few people, but it wasn't the traction that I wanted and that I expected.

Now one day came along.

And I was having a coffee with one of my clients in the building that I used to live in and this, there was this woman who teaches knitting and she was making like 10, 11k per month and she wanted to scale. So I agreed to have a coffee with her and I told her some stuff and then I Just felt so inspired after we had that coffee that I went upstairs and I wanted to make a video, but I didn't want to script it. I didn't want to wait to film it. I didn't want to set up the cameras. So for the first time I just thought, let me just, let me just, let me just shoot it and I'll just get a coffee. I ordered a coffee. I waited. I had about 25 minutes before the coffee arrived. And in that 25 minutes I was thinking, what am I gonna say? You know, I was kind of trying to plan it in, in my head because I didn't have a script, I didn't have bullet points, I didn't have a guide. I just had a coffee and a microphone in my imac built in camera which is the one that I'm using right now on my Apple Imac. And the coffee arrived and I thought, let me just have fun. Let me just, let me just make it and just tell a story. So I made the video and I titled it how I'd make 10k per month asap if I had to start again.

And I think it was September, but whenever it was, I uploaded that video. And that video went on to be my number one biggest video of all time. It's got about half a million views now. And.

The money that I made, like you're talking, well, well above a million dollars cash from one video.

Easily, easily more. That video changed everything. Not only for the market and for me and for the business and a bit for her as well, the knitting lady.

But it also taught me a lesson. And the lesson was, well, I tried really hard with these edited videos that took so long to make and was so hard and so stressful.

And then this video, this other one that I made, I just shot it and had fun. And it wasn't high production value.

But it was high value. And I think people really resonated with the story and what I shared in that paired with my seven years of experience at that point, I'd made 16.4 million for my last company. I'd sold the company to private equity. I'd started doing some consulting. I. And.

Yeah, I just learned that people don't care about camera quality. If I could tell you in this video today how to make a million in 10 days, you would not care about the quality of the video or really the audio to a point. You would just want to be told how to do it right. And that video taught me that lesson. People don't care about 4k quality. They want actionable information that's really going to help them and have an impact on their life and, and just help them to do something or achieve something or learn something.

So it was a big learning experience. And with that said, I still doubted myself. I thought, well, maybe that was an accident though. Maybe, maybe I just got lucky. So I actually made a few more edited ones after that. And again, this video was blowing up and getting, you know, 10k views, 30k views, 50k views, 100k views. And the edited ones were now getting 700 1001, 2k, 500 views. So I made a few more edited ones that also didn't work. And then I thought, right, well. And I'd moved to another apartment by this stage. I'd moved out of the ocean view apartment into a cityscape view apartment further down the marina in Dubai. And I thought, well, let me try it again. Let me think of a story that I can share with people. So I thought, what if I shared the story of how I'd made the money that I'd made? And I called it something like step by step, how I've made 16.4 million, so you can just copy me. So, same thing. I ordered a coffee, I gave myself about 25 minutes to just think about what I was going to say and talk about.

And I shot it in one take, same thing again, uploaded it straight to YouTube, 40k views, 70k views, 150k views. To this day, it's got, I think about 250k views or something like that. And that was my second biggest video of all time. And I thought, I'm onto something here.

When I edit, it takes ages. It's really hard, it's really stressful. It's very expensive because I had to buy a light, three Sony cameras, three tripods, bloody, you know, a sound card, hire an editor. So it's really, really, really hard and it doesn't work. But the videos that I just shoot without really caring and I just focus on value and focus on helping people, they do really well and they're way easier to make, way faster to make, and they feel better to make as well. So this video that I'm filming for you guys right now, I went for lunch slash breakfast this morning with a guy called Takimura and a guy called Dan Bolton. And we were talking about YouTube and I just had the idea for this video. I thought, yeah, I should make a video about all the stupid mistakes that I've made to stop other people making them.

And I got the title in my Head. I wrote it in my iPhone notes, which is what I do when I think of a title. I write it in my notes on my iPhone. Came straight home, ordered a coffee, gave myself 20 minutes to think, pressed record. I really hope that I'm recording, by the way. Oh, thank God. Jesus Christ. That would have been bad. Yeah, I'm recording. Thank God. Good. This is how unprepared I am. I don't even know whether I'm recording. So crazy. So anyway, I had the idea and I just felt inspired and I thought, man, this could really help people. I wish I had a video like this when I started. Good God would have saved me so much time and effort. So that's point number one. I learned not to edit and not to script and not even to bullet point. And not to use multiple cameras and not to use fancy bloody lights. Not use a camera. Not. Sorry, not even to use a camera at all. Apart from my built in iMac one that I'm using right now. Because people don't care about 4k quality. They care about actionable value that will impact their life. If you give them that, you can film using a sausage. You could film using a sausage and I don't think they'd mind.

So that's point number one. You don't have to edit your videos and many, in many cases, you shouldn't edit your videos. And I started a bit of a movement. I don't want to be egotistical, that's not in my nature. But as my videos started blowing up, everybody, not everybody else, but a lot of other people started making raw talking head videos.

And it's worked amazingly well. Loads of people have made loads of money using these videos. And the second point that I want to share with you is more on the money and how to turn the views into money. Because it's all well and good if you get views, but this is a business channel and if you're watching this right now, you own an info business, you probably have a YouTube channel, and you're probably thinking, well, thank you for sharing that about the raw stuff, but how do you turn that into money? Right? Well, I'll tell you. And it's really simple. Now again, I've experimented and tested this and made mistakes. So I'll share one of the mistakes that I made first. And man, I see people all the time making this mistake. In fact, I bet a lot of you watching this right now, you're making this mistake. I'm about to solve it for you, so thank me later, okay?

The mistake is I used to either bury my VSL link in the description. So you had to click into the description to get to it. And that's bad, but it's not as bad as this. Going straight to calendly, that is suicide. If you just have a calendly link, you are costing yourself so much money. So much money you have to go. So two things. Number one, you have to build a proper VSL and a VSL page and a calendar and a survey and a thank you page and a follow up sequence. So you have to have the infrastructure there first. I learned that the hard way. So there's nugget number one and nugget number two. As crazy as this sounds, put the goddamn link at the top of your description. Just write work with me. Link to your VSL page. Do not have a calendar. Calendly will destroy your conversions. Also don't go to a school group from YouTube. It will destroy your conversions even if you've got a VSL on your school group page.

I won't go into all the data on this. I could make a full video on this. But going to school from YouTube, even with a VSL destroys conversions. Why? Because that school homepage isn't built for conversion. So people come to me sometimes and they have like a really good looking website and they're like, well my website's not working. People are like not in inquiring, they're not becoming a lead, they're not booking calls. Well yeah, because a website is for information, a funnel is for conversion, okay? And the school page and the calendar page, it's not built for conversion, it's not literally engineered for conversion, it's engineered for information.

So do not go to calendly. Stop it. If you're doing that, I'm talking to you. I know one of you watching this has got a calendly in their YouTube description. Stop it. I know some of you are going to school. Stop it.

Build a goddamn properly built high converting funnel.

Now there's other videos on the channel here about funnels and if you want me to go deeper on this, just comment.

Tell me more about conversion and funnels below the video or something like that. And if enough of you comment, I'll make a full video about the funnel side, the VSL side, the conversion side for you if you want me to. But this is not the video for that. This is all about YouTube and mistakes that I've made so that you don't make them. So that's mistake number two.

Put the link right at the Top of your description, do not go to calendly, do not go to Zoom, do not go to a website, go to a funnel built for conversion, specifically engineered for conversion with a very well written, well produced vsl. If you want an example of this so that you can kind of see what that would look like, just look at my description and the link, the work with me link, feel free to click it. You'll see my vsl, you'll see the page and that converts at the moment at about 11.4%.

So for every hundred people that go to that page, we book about 11 to 12 sales calls.

So that's the second thing is turning the views into money.

Now the third thing is editing and scripting. Now I have bounced between fully scripted videos, not scripted at all, videos like this one, bullet points.

And everything in between.

Also I have pre planned videos and thought of the ideas, put them in a spreadsheet, put the titles in there, maybe some bullet points and notes in there and kind of had a YouTube system. I've done that. And I've also just shot from the hip. And when I want to make a video like this one today, I just make it straight as fast as possible. If I have an idea, I write the title in my iPhone notes and man, I get to this computer and press record as soon as physically possible because the video starts writing itself in my head. And I'll help you with this in a minute. If you're thinking, oh that's great but I don't know how to do this, I'll tell you in a minute, so just chill, okay? But when I get an idea, the video just starts writing itself in my head. I get a coffee, I get to the computer, I press record and I shoot as soon as possible. And when I finish this video, I'll stop it and upload it straight away. I'll schedule it in for next Monday.

So which one should you do? Should you script, should you use bullet points or should you just talk? And if you should just talk, how do you kind of do it right?

For most of you, I would say 9 out of 10 of you watching this right now, you've got an info business, you're selling courses or coaching or consulting. You're probably making anywhere from 3, 5, 7k a month up to say 25ish, maybe 50ish, and you want to scale, you want more sales calls, you want more YouTube views and traction and in the end you want to make more money, right? So should you script or not? For most of you know, and here's why. When you script as hard as you try, you don't come across as authentic. You just don't. And there's something in the human brain.

We just know as humans who's real and who's not. We just know who is genuine and who's not. Who's reading a script and who's not.

Some people can do it and it comes across genuine. Because I know some youtubers that script everything and they come across very genuine. But most people can't.

Bullet points will distract you. A script will massively distract you, and it will just not come across as raw and real and genuine. And therefore it will not build trust. And trust is what gets people to buy.

Okay? Trust is what gets people to buy.

If I was near all knowledge, I would say, that's a bar. Write that down. But I'm not. Shout out Nero Knowledge. He makes great videos as well. Wonder who taught him that style. But anyway, a little humble brag for you there. But seriously, coming back to my point, it's best to practice just talking to the camera.

And you'll get better and better and better and better as you do it more and more. Now, if you're thinking, but will I just. I'm not as good as you at talking. I just can't, like, hold a train of thought in my head.

That's okay, that's okay. If you stumble, if you pause, you remember a few minutes ago when I checked if I was recording? Right. Well, that was genuine. I really thought, oh, shit, I hope I'm recording. And I checked and I carried on with the video.

And things like that.

They add to just the character of the video. It just feels better. It feels more real, it feels more genuine. It's kind of nice to know that someone's not perfect. So if you struggle, then struggle. If you're not good at talking, then be not good at talking. Now, the juxtaposition is you'll get better over time, right? But that, in my opinion, is an edge. You've got to be who you are and people like that. So I would. I would discourage more or less everybody from scripting. If you want to, you can test how you perform with bullet points, right? Not. Nothing wrong with that. I have. And from my experience, when I script, it does feels. When I use bullet points, it feels and does. When I talk to the camera, people usually like it. The videos do better. I book a lot more calls and get a lot more clients and make a lot more money and have a lot more fun.

As well. And for me, fun is important because life's too short to. I mean, man.

I've hired four YouTube consultants now and, and paid over about $40,000, maybe a little bit more. And they all tell me the same thing, Come up with good ideas, plan them out on a spreadsheet, script them out, do hooks and copywriting and stuff, have a good hook, blah, blah, blah. Make a fancy thumbnail. None of the videos do good. None of the videos feel good to make either. It's stressful, it's inauthentic, it's fucking annoying, and it's expensive.

This video is all that you need to do well on YouTube. You do not need to buy courses, you do not need to hire coaches or consultants. Honestly, are there nuggets of value? Yeah, of course they are. And I'm glad that I've worked with the people that I've worked with because it's always a learning experience. I've never invested money that hasn't taught me something valuable.

But you don't need to.

You don't need to.

You just need to do what we're covering in this video. So that's point number two. Keep it raw, keep it real, keep it authentic, and be you. Don't be scared to be you. If you're a bit nervous on camera, be nervous. If you can't speak very well, don't speak very well. That's okay. Keep it real. Shoot from the height. I was talking to a friend of mine, really popular YouTuber called Hamza, has like a male self development channel. And he said to me a few days ago, he said, will, your videos are best when they come from the heart. And I know when it's real and I know when it's not real. And I was like, so true, so true. Because I can feel it too. I'm sure that you guys can feel it. In fact, I'd love to know how you guys feel about even this video in the comments. Do you like it? Do you not? Do you care about the camera quality?

Do you care that the lighting is not particularly good and it's a bit grainy, let me know in the comments section. So that's number two.

Now number three is idea generation. And this is important. If any of you watching this right now have ever thought, how do I come up with good ideas? How do I come up with good titles? How do I come up with good thumbnails?

Well, again, I've made all these mistakes and I'm going to solve this for you right now and I'm going to Tell you something that I learned recently that is a God. It is a game changer. I'll tell you that in a second. Just give me a second.

So the best ideas come from your ideal customers.

I got very distracted over the last few months and I started trying to get views rather than solve problems.

Your YouTube channel is there to solve the problems of your ideal customers.

So let me ask you the question right now. Who is your ideal customer? Are they male? Are they female? Are they young? Are they old? What keeps them up at night? What do they think about or worry about? What is causing them pain? Where are they in their business or life? What are they stuck on? And just write it all down and just make videos, all about that stuff. And if you really want to come up with good ideas and titles, here's something that I tested recently that I wish I knew sooner. I'm still learning. I wish I knew this sooner.

And that is to ask your customers or your leads, and you can even email your email list or post on your Instagram or post on your Facebook or whatever and just ask them, what is the number one problem that you're stuck on right now? And let them tell you and then turn those into YouTube titles. And if you're anything like me, when I come up with a good title, I just get this feeling. I just feel like, oh, I could make such a good video with that title. I just know what to talk about. I know this is going to be a great video. And when you get that feeling, you get to your camera and you record and you talk from the heart with no plan, as soon as possible.

That's been working very well for me recently is asking people what their problems are. In fact, I was at the gym yesterday here in Bali. Get ready for another humble brag, by the way. And three people recognized me, came up to me and said to me, they all said the exact same thing. Hey, Will, I love your videos. I watch your YouTube channel and I always have a conversation with them. I'm like, oh, what's your name? What's your business? And yesterday I asked them all, all three of them. I said, what's one problem that you're stuck on right now? And I wrote it in my iPhone notes and I even asked them, dude, can I make you a YouTube video?

What? Give me a title. Give me something that you're stuck on, and I'll make it for you that.

That is how you get customers from YouTube, right there you go to your dream customers who have the problem that you solve. You ask them what their problem is and you show them that you can solve the problem.

That is YouTube ideation in a nutshell. I've just saved you buying courses, I've just saved you buying coaching programs. I've just saved you wasting time on YouTube looking through videos. That is how you come up with great ideas that will grow your channel, that will get views from the right people. You might not get 50,000 views, you might only get 1,000 views, but there'll be quality of people who should be watching your videos and people that will buy from you. They will buy from you. These are people. This is another thing that I've learned. Whenever anyone joins my consulting program, the very first thing I asked them on the first call, where did you find me? And 70, 80% of the time it's YouTube and it's a specific YouTube video most of pretty much all the time. It's over 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 months that they've been watching the channel before they buy. And I just wanted to share that with you guys because I know that some of you watching this will have been doing YouTube in the way I've described today. And you won't be booking many if any calls, you won't have gotten many if any sales and you'll be starting to doubt yourself and you'll be starting to think, oh God, oh, this is not working for me. I, I can't do this. YouTube doesn't work. What Will told me is not right, it's wrong or doesn't work or something. No, the viewers are compounding and in month two, month six, month 12, they will buy from you. They'll buy from you eventually. I just know the people that I've been speaking to recently, the clients that were sharing their problems with me, they'll buy eventually because they know I can help them and I know I can help them. And they know I can help them and I will help them when they choose to come on board. And YouTube is a long play. I mean business in general is a long play. Businesses, it's a multi year thing that you're building.

But patience is important. And patience is also an edge. Actually, I will say that because most people can't stick to things, most people will make 5, 10, 15 YouTube videos, get a few sales calls, not close them and quit. But if you just keep doing things in the right way, save this YouTube video that you're watching right now that I'm making, watch it again in a few days time, watch it again in a few weeks time. Because this, that the Stuff that I'm telling you right now has made me 8.2 million cash collected, got me 2 1/2 million views and 82,000 subscribers. What I'm telling you here is real. It works. I've done it. I'm giving you the shortcut. I've just saved you two years. I wish, I wish I had this video back when I started, which is why I'm making it for you guys. So that's number three, is patience.

Is consistency.

And letting the buyers slowly come to you over time and just making sure that your content is just on your ideal customer with their problems. Okay? Don't chase views. We all are egotistical humans. I would love to 50 million views and I'd love a million subscribers and stuff, but it doesn't really matter. What really matters is attracting the right people, getting them in your program, getting them a great result, feeling fulfilled, them feeling happy and making the world a better place. Really, as cheesy as that sounds, I know that sounds a bit, a bit cheesy and a bit cliche.

But that's what YouTube is really all about. It's just about value.

So that's the third thing that I've learned, and that is how I come up with all my titles, all my ideas. It's just around my dream customers and their problems. Now, the fourth thing goes back to conversion and goes back to making money. And this is something that I learned from a good friend of mine, actually my neighbor in Dubai, a guy called Ed Lawrence. And these are very small tweaks, but they'll make you quite a lot more money. Quite a lot more money. And it's this. Set your YouTube banner to say what you do. Now, my banner currently says, I help people with info businesses to scale. That is the simplest way of describing exactly what I do. And that's exactly what I do. You need to have that on your channel, who you help and how. Make it very simple, make it very clear, make it very clean. Set that as your header and put a link into your funnel as a clickable link. One link. I know I've got four now, but just trust me on this one link. And it's the one that is clickable because only one of the links, the top one that you set is the only one that people can click on your YouTube home screen. You're going to have the link that goes to your VSL into your funnel one more time. Not a website, not a calendly, not a school, a optimized VSL funnel to book calls.

And you can test this. And I promise you, because we've tested this and I've tested it with many clients as well, if you make those two changes, you will make more money. Promise? Promise. That sounds so gay. But I promise you, seriously, it fucking works. It is what it is, just works. So I wish I knew that sooner. Sometimes it's these simple things. It's these simple things sometimes. So clickable link. And I'll add a bit more value on that as well. If you are not tracking your links, so you'll notice on the end of all my links is question mark E L E equals name of the source. And that is so I can track where the calls come from so that I know which video is getting me sales, which videos are not getting me sales, where are the sales coming from? And that gives you control over your traffic sources, which is.

It'S less important when you're small. If you're making less than say.

30K a month, I wouldn't bother with that yet. That's more when you get to 30, 40, 50, 100 plus.

That'S when you want to start tracking. And one metric that we track, aside from where the calls come from, is how many views it takes to book a sales call. Now, at the moment, it takes us 472 views to book a sales call. So for every thousand views we book about.

I think a bird just flew into the window. Happens all the time.

For every thousand views, we book about two sales calls. So if this video gets 10,000 views, I'll probably book about 20 sales calls or thereabouts. And knowing that gives you more control because then you can start to map ahead and predict roughly the flow of your business. And if you get this many more quality views, you'll get this many calls, you'll get this many sales based on your close rate and collect this much cash based on your ltv. I'm not going to go into tracking and metrics today in this video.

But that is an important metric to track just so that you've got a bit of control over your channel and the cold flow from your channel. And that is another mistake that I made was not tracking that and all of those metrics.

Because without those metrics, business feels a bit up and down. It feels a bit unpredictable, uncontrollable. But when you have the hard data like I've got this whole spreadsheet and it's got every month, how the views per call changes, the LTV changes, the close rate changes, the views change, and, and then you can understand Right. We did this. That didn't work. Don't do that again. We did this. That did work. Do. Do that again. So tracking is really important. And if you're a client of mine, by the way, go into the training program, scroll about, oh, about three quarters of the way down, and the tracking sheet is there inside the program. So for any of you guys who are clients of mine, get the tracking sheet and use the tracking sheet, because that's going to give you a bird's eye view over your business and a lot more control.

So those are a few of the biggest mistakes that I've made over the years. And knowing what I know now, I could have started YouTube faster and easier, grown on YouTube faster and easier and further made a bit more money. I mean, we've done pretty well. We've done $8.2 million cash collected in 22 months. So I'm not unhappy with that, to be honest. But we could have made more. Knowing what I know now, we could have made more. And if I could leave you with one main takeaway, if you said to me, like, well, what's the most important takeaway? What's the most important focus point so that you can get more of the right viewers and make more sales and make more money? It would be this. This is what I would genuinely say is my biggest learning.

It's to be very aware of who you're speaking to in your YouTube videos. And they also call that the avatar.

And what avatar means for those of you who don't know. It's like the description of your ideal viewer or your ideal customer.

When I lost track of that, my videos got worse, I got more confused, we booked less calls, we made less money.

And when I regained focus on the avatar.

And even spoke to the avatar and spoke to them on Instagram, spoke to them in the gym, my ideal customers, and said, what do you want? What are your problems? And then I started making videos about those.

That.

Was a very important lesson learned.

I hope it helps.