So we're here at the NAB Show and this year we wanted to introduce you to some
of the people that really influenced us and in terms of creating YouTube content
and YouTube videos there's no one bigger or better than Sean! Sean it's nice to
have you on the channel dude super pumped to be here NAB man epic show love
it every year and have to be connecting with you guys thanks very much
so I'm sure a lot of our viewers know who you are but for those of them who
may have not seen your channel before key tell them a bit about your channel
and what they can expect yeah so I run a channel called think media and that's
the best tips and tools for building your influence with online video so we
cover a lot of lighting cameras as well as strategies for growth and then we
also have a channel called video influencers where we do a weekly
interview show with people that are killing it with YouTube online video and
trying to help people with tips I co-founded out with Benji Travis and we
recently wrote a book called YouTube secrets so talking about kind of YouTube
and growth is a great topic for today I actually purchased that book and I was
reading on the the flyover has very good work I'm about 70 percent of the way
through so I'm really loving that that book so for people and we deal with a
lot of people who are filmmaking for the first time some people are just
freelance filmmakers some people want to get into YouTube to potentially earn a
living but we hear a lot of excuses the lot of there's a lot of procrastination
around you know should I start a YouTube channel yeah what do you think about
some of the excuses about maybe I don't have the right kit I don't have enough
budget to be able to afford to get started what do you think about those
excuses yeah I mean there's a lot of different excuses we hear all the time I
think one is is I don't have the right gear one is it's too late it's too
crowded right now one is I don't have enough time one is I don't have the
right skills and all these different things but we we just prove all of those
I mean first of all you only need your smartphone I mean you really do like so
many people started with the webcam or a smartphone people say yeah but this
other creator and it's like yeah but what you just got to start with what you
have the best camera to have is the one you already do have and once you start
creating content then momentum can start so you can start with the phone you
already have I think the second one is skill and you got to start to build
those skills like your first videos are gonna be your worst videos you know what
I mean so like like people look at you today or me today and they think oh man
I'm not confident to get on camera like that yet but I'm sure you've put out
some bad videos before you were comfortable to
stand on camera and just do this kind of thing so you just got to do it you got a
punch fear in the face punch perfectionism in the face and press
record you know money you already have your
phone and YouTube is free by the way you can upload unlimited HD 4k content and
if you got an internet connection and a smartphone that's all you need and then
even the timing yes YouTube is getting more crowded but like I kind of relate
it to coffee it's like coffees crowded man I come
from Seattle I grew up and that's where Microsoft started and Boeing and
Starbucks and Starbucks came on the scene almost two decades ago and there
was tons of coffee though there's Pete's coffee Seattle's Best Coffee Dunkin
Donuts what's your favorite coffee tell us in the comments section but you know
there's all these different things but they just brought something different
they started you know a place for people to stay and maybe like Starbucks maybe I
hate it I don't know but one way or another they're massive now even though
they came into a really crowded industry and the reason they were able to do that
is because they found a way to be a little bit different and so we encourage
people different is better than better if you were just yourself you just jump
on camera you just start shooting some videos then you'll be able to kind of
figure out your own voice and find a way to be just a little bit different so
it's not that it's easy but it is simple another word for excuses is fear like
we're just staying in fear what I need that lens first I need that camera first
no you got to just start and when you start you can get better as you go and
let me just share one more tip perfectionism is what a lot of us we say
is holding us back but what's interesting is when you look at the word
perfectionism - it means ongoing perfection of something that is already
out there so actually technically perfectionism means you need to ship it
you need to put the video out there start the YouTube channel and then
perfect on the next video and then the next video perfectionism does not mean
not publishing perfectionism is perfecting what you published by having
forward momentum and just taking action and pressing record so people who are
just getting started they may only have like 100 followers I mean you have
though verse like 700,000 now but there must have been a time when you're
staying out where maybe the good the growth was slow to begin with how do you
get how do you keep going when at times you
feel like maybe this isn't for me maybe this isn't working out yeah I mean I
think that you have to get kind of a guerilla mindset to prepare yourself for
the long haul I mean great things take time and patience anything that's of
value is gonna take serious time and so what I encourage people is that social
media has deceived us YouTube has deceived us because we've
heard of weird outlyer examples of someone who blew up overnight when
almost even in every one of those examples overnight success is never
overnight overnight success takes ten years and so the thing is social media
is tricked us right because it makes us think that like we should have all these
results instantaneously but I kind of like in YouTube too like the gym right
like people don't think that if I go to the gym and I lift weights one time I'm
gonna get the guns right like I clearly have not been going to
the gym and therefore these arms are super tiny right the same things true
with YouTube people are like I posted like four videos I posted like 13 videos
why don't have a million subscribers yet and it's like bro you gotta keep showing
up not just day after day week after week month after month year after year
and it's slow and steady wins in this industry and any of the Great's have
gone through times of obscurity you have to use your season and obscurity to
prepare you for popularity so set your mind and then encourage yourself that
use the season when nobody really knows you to just be practicing you know just
use it to to be leveling up your craft in fact commit to your first year of
videos try to do a video a week 52 weeks be way less worried about the views and
more interested in the personal development the learning the education
getting comfortable on camera that happens in that process of taking
massive action and it's 2019 too late to do a channel 2019 is absolutely not too
late to do a channel we could ponder all day long and say well I think it would
have been easier in the year 2010 of course it would have been what would've
been easier in 2015 yeah maybe but it that's the past man we can't change that
all we can do is focus on the future people say when is the best time to
start building your platform online five years ago when's the second best time
right freaking now bro like start right now and like forget the excuses
and here's the cool thing is let's say even you were to invest all this time in
YouTube and you didn't break through there you're still making forward
progress because just by learning editing by taking action by getting on
camera by learning what works what doesn't work
by studying analytics you're gonna be positioning yourself with the skills you
need for that next season that next thing maybe you don't become a big
youtuber yourself but all the skills you learn in YouTube helps you work with
somebody else that leads to a career that you end up in and a job I'll tell
you one thing sitting around on your couch and just coming up with excuses is
your fastest way to lose and you're already losing if you're doing that and
so you have to just get off the couch and just do something because when you
do something stuff happens this might sound pretty redundant but literally the
peat the difference between the people who succeed on YouTube and the people
who don't succeed on YouTube is the people that succeed on YouTube do
something yeah like they take action I know I've made that same mistake last
year 2018 I was not going full force and we weren't doing enough videos and it is
your channel that inspired us to keep going keep moving forward and you know
in 2019 I wish in 2018 I had been moving and we weren't in 2019 we're moving you
know thanks thanks Polly to your channel so
yeah you've got to keep going keep moving forward
so Thomas about YouTube secrets as well as I said I purchased the book I've been
reading on the flight over I'm about 70 percent of the way through fantastic
book well done on that shit people a bit about the book what can
they learn from from that yeah I mean we can cover just the seven seas this
YouTube success and then you can check out the book to go deeper but I mean
just seven quick tips I mean when it comes to starting on YouTube it starts
with courage that's kind of what we've been talking about you have to just
start you have to like get over yourself and post a video and then once you start
then you're gonna move on to your channel there's nowhere to upload a
video unless you have a channel so set up your channel and then maybe think
about your channel if you're on YouTube when was the last time you did a spring
cleaning like does that avatar picture need to be updated does that cover image
need to be updated does it make sense you know update your channel and then it
comes to actually clarity comes before that and clarity means start with the
end in mind like what is it you actually want to be on YouTube for are you there
to you know actually you like create reviews of products are you there to do
too of gardening are you there to interview
experts are you there to start you know a Cooking Channel are you there to be
entertaining it started vlog like what is the purpose who's your target
audience who are you trying to reach and what do you actually try to do on your
channel then you set up your channel and then you got to focus on the content
content is king right master your content think about how you can make
your content better and then it's gonna be next gonna be community this is not a
one-way conversation it's a two-way conversation and so you want to be
engaging with the community using you know being intentional to realize it's
not like old-school TV where you just checks out you want to be like doing an
doing intentional things to answer comments engage ask people to like
comment below and hit the like button if you're getting value out of this video
like really a two-way street then cash how do you monetize we talked about that
in the book talked about ten different ways but you know you too bad it's
affiliate marketing brand deals marketing your own services freelancing
consulting coaching so many different ways you can monetize and then finally
consistency and that's not just a platitude you need strategies to do this
consistently you know it's been crazy because in our industry a lot of people
been burning out because it could be hard especially when you're juggling
life family you're trying to create content and so you need to have smart
systems in your life whether that's batch producing whether that's making
saying no to certain things in sync so you can say yes to creating content and
building your branding your business but when you follow those seven C's over
and over that's how you really snowball growth on your YouTube channel and if
people want to check out the book we go deep into all of them with strategies so
you can get faster results I definitely recommend the book definitely make sure
you subscribe to Sean's channel give this video a like and a subscribe and
comment below if you've got any more questions you want to ask comment below
and we'll get back to everyone but Sean thanks so much great to me and thanks so
much for all the great value there appreciate you so there you go I hope
you enjoyed that interview we certainly did and a big thank you to Sean and the
team at think media also if you're thinking of getting into YouTube make
sure you stay tuned to the Creator series we've got here on the channel
we've got great interviews with people like Ryan Connolly from film riot Kelsey
from Premiere gal and people like Jeff and Dovie and Matt Johnson too so make
sure you subscribe to this channel hit that notification bell and
you'll also be notified of when those videos come out also if you're getting
into filmmaking for the first time head over to editors Keys comm where we've
just got a ton of shortcut keyboards for your editing program so thanks for
watching and we'll see it in the next one