I can't actually believe it happened. 15 years are gone. It's all gone. I had
destroyed all websites. Well, it's time to sell this. It's time to let it go.
2.5 years, 2.5 years of hard work learning, studying, non-stop
work, crying here and there too. One chapter is
closing for good. Well, I guess it's time to say goodbye for good. I bet you want
to know what's going on. I spent 15 years in wedding photography industry, glamour
portraits and fashion. 15 years of developing portfolio, maintaining website,
working with clients and I'm throwing it all away. Everything. Why? Why am i leaving
weddings? Why not taking photos of people anymore?
Last 2.5 years I've spent working two full-time jobs. Well, actually
three full-time jobs. I'm also a driver, cleaning lady, cook, everything Mom has
to be. The other full-time job with not much pay until now, those 2.5
years was YouTube and I gotta say that even with this small number of
subscribers a small Channel 43,000 right now, I am in absolute disbelieve
and shock and I'm scared I'm gonna lose it, I'm scared it's gonna disappear one
day. I can actually say that I'm now officially a full-time youtuber. Not a
big full-time, it's still kind of like a minimum wage but it's full-time enough
for me to be able to drop the other full-time job which is weddings and
portraits and fashion and glamour. What does it take? What does it truly take? How
did I get here? Is it for everybody? What is the secret?
Is there actually any secret to it? If you are new here, Ahoj.
My name is Zdenka. I teach video and photography. I do product reviews and
creative camera challenges. Let me go back. Why on earth would I want to leave
the lucrative world of fashion, glamour, portrait and wedding photography? There
are few reasons, but the biggest reason of all is my family and kids. And the
family is always first no matter what. Weddings,
glamour, fashion and portrait photography is evening job or weekend job. When I was
working on the weekends I couldn't do all those daytime trips. I couldn't go
camping and do all that fun stuff with the family. I was always away from them.
When it comes to evening work, I just couldn't do it as the kids were getting
older, they required me to now drive them to different activities, they simply need
me around. Because I live in a smaller town, it's very difficult to bring in
clients between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. at that time are kids at school. Sure if I
was working in the evening, I would probably
be a lot busier but I simply had to rely on the weddings and yes I do shoot stock
photography as well for many years but that was and is always a part-time job
only even though I have 12,000 images in my portfolio. And this is the main reason
why I started YouTube channel 2.5 years ago. Not for fun, not
as a hobby. But I went in it with the attitude that
I am willing to work hard, I'm willing to improve and I'm not gonna stop until
this is gonna be my full-time job and I remember when I was just starting out,
somebody commented. Oh this is gonna be a great part-time job for you and I was
like no, no, hell no. I'm not stopping. I don't want to hear this. I'm here to stay.
I'm here to have full-time job. The first videos I've made
I was literally shooting blinds because I had no idea what I want to do here on
this channel. I had no idea what I'm gonna do and also if you look at the
first videos, they were shot in automatic mode because I had no idea about the
video. All I knew was photography. I was strictly only a photographer. I knew I
want to pass on the experience, I knew that my accent and English might limit
me, I knew that my age might limit me but later on I realized it's actually, it's
an advantage because of all those years of experience I can pass on. I let
my channel to sort of unfold on its own by reading all those comments and
responding to them. I was creating videos based on what people wanted to see and
that's how the channel kind of created its own direction and after all this
time I gotta say, I absolutely love this job. I love it. I love helping and I love
to see that people are learning. How was the process? Well, every field, every niche
on YouTube is different and requires something different. I'm in a field of
photography and video, very visual field so I knew right at the beginning that I
will have to learn Lots. I will have to improve drastically and I will have to
only go up and maintain the level, so I was studying day and night. I was trying
to get better, I was trying to improve. I was trying to learn all the stuff
while still working with all my clients, doing all those weddings and
taking care of the family. There were times which were, it was just
insane. It was crazy, it was busy, it was stressful, it was very hard and I
remember that two or three times I ended up on my knees and I was just crying
literally saying I can't do this anymore. The family part with kids is hard alone,
never mind those two full-time jobs. The first year on YouTube I was making no
money and then about one year when I reached one year I started making about
two to three hundred dollars a month and at that time I was a little bit getting
more relaxed because I knew it's going somewhere. Close to two years on YouTube
around Christmas time it became part-time job, pretty good part-time job.
At a time I was not as chasing the clients I was not as hungry to get new
clients. I was just getting whoever was still interested in hiring me as a
photographer and in January 2020 this year exactly, two years on YouTube, I knew
that it's about to become my full-time job but I was still very scared to do it.
I was too scared to do the transition and about two months ago I was supposed
to renew my wedding website, my glamour website, my portrait website and I didn't.
I just let it expire and it did expire about two weeks ago. I just woke up one
day and it was all gone. So I said okay, it's time to do it. It was a shock, I still
panicked a little bit. For some reason it's a little bit scary. At this very
moment I'm in a process of rebranding, so building a brand new website, organizing
all my affiliate links, organizing all my contracts, making sure everything is
legally correct I am following all the rules. It's just lots right now
going on.
Is there a secret to growing a YouTube channel? No. It's only a hard work. Film
high quality videos on schedule very regularly and then responding the
comments and mainly providing the content your audience want to see. Can
you make money just from YouTube ads? No, very little. You're gonna create a
spiderweb of different income streams and I'm talking about affiliate programs,
those YouTube ads, sponsorships, digital products, physical products, online
courses. It's just, it's a lot. You have to go slowly. You have to build it gradually
otherwise you're gonna go nuts. I still don't have online courses and I don't
have a merchandise. Eventually. Can anybody do it? I'm gonna say no. If you
don't have the business skills, if you don't have marketing skills, writing
skills, editing skills, photography skills, video skills, it's gonna be very hard. 50%
of all is just to make a video. 50% is everything else and I'm not saying this
to discourage anybody. No, no, I'm saying it because I just went through it and it
was pretty hard. I'm doing everything by myself, I have no help. It is not like you
make one video and you wake up and I have million subscribers.
You gonna maintain it, you've got to provide the videos on a schedule
otherwise you're gonna go down pretty quick. Here and there one of you writes
me. You deserve a lot more subscribers. But I gotta tell you honestly that I'm
quite happy the way this channel grows. It's not too fast, it's not too slow.
It's just right. It gives me enough time to improve and to get better. It gives me
enough time to catch up. What the future holds? I don't know. I'm just gonna go
with the flow. I'm just gonna go with it and I'm gonna provide the content and
I'm gonna try to do the best service for you
the way I can. See where it takes me. I'm not here to
become rich or anything like that. All I really want is stress free regular
paycheck. That's all I really want. For those who are starting an online
business or any kind of business maybe YouTube channel, work hard and be very
patient. It is a marathon and mainly don't allow yourself to give up, don't
allow yourself to stop. I'll see you my friends in the next
video. Cau... Ahoj...