June 3, 2024 • 40 mins
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@breannaaponte
@thesoftlifeceo
Website:
www.thesoftlifeceo.com
Community:
www.thesoftlifeceo.com/society
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www.thesoftlifeceo.com/free-training-optin
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@thesoftlifeceo
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Before you start recording anything, you have to think about
why am I showing up specifically on YouTube versus other platforms.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hey, I'm Brianna Aponte, your host of the Soft Life
CEO podcast. I dropped out of college at the age
of nineteen to start my first business. I worked seven
days a week, wore way too many hats, and was
the true definition of a hustler. Years later, I'm finally
living the dream that I worked so hard to make
my reality. I've transitioned from a hustler to a soft
Life CEO, working only two days a week to maintain
(00:30):
and run a high earning business that gives me the
freedom to live a life I love. Now it's my
mission to help as many entrepreneurs as I can elevate
their brand, increase their income, and reclaim their time. Join
me and guest experts as we share our transparent journeys,
work smart and not hard, strategies, and the behind the
scenes of running a successful brand in business. You're tuned
in to the Self Life CEO. What's up, everybody? I
(00:52):
am so excited for today's episode because we have a
tech educator and YouTube coach for service providers and get
the show She is all about helping you work less
and live more. This is my girl, Lashanda. She has
a YouTube channel called Bootstrap Biz Advice and just some
small tea on How I know her. I came across
her as one of the panelists on an event I
(01:12):
was speaking at the Signature CEO. We got together for
dinner ahead of time. We had amazing conversation. Leashanda was
so open about sharing about her business, her journey, different
strategies for growth, and immediately I was like, I love
this girl and I need her in my life. And
then I got to hear her presentation and she was
just beaming with confidence and passion, and I knew she
(01:35):
was someone I wanted to have on our show. So
without further ado, let me introduce Leshanda Brown.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Hey girl, Hey, hey girl, Hey, super excited to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Very excited to have you. So we're going to start
off with a very important question because, as you know,
a lot of people share the glory, but they don't
always share the story, right, So share with us what
your entrepreneurial journey has been like and how you got
to the point where you are now being a a
YouTube and tech educator, coach and business owner.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah. So I think the most important thing that I
can communicate about my story is that I didn't set
out to be a YouTuber or a tech educator. My
background is actually in theater, and so I started performing
when I was seven on stages at military basis, you know.
Fast forward to college, getting my degrees in theater there
and really thinking like, I'm going to go to Broadway
(02:31):
and that's going to be the thing. Well, I decided
to get married and start a video production company with
my husband, and so we did that, and we continue
to do it, you know, for ten years, and I
started to look around and say, you know, do I
want to keep doing this? You know, I love doing
videos for other people, but is your a way for
me to still use my skill set and change things
(02:52):
up so it can stay fresh and fun. And so
I saw YouTube sitting right there, and I thought, you
know what, I'm going to give it a try, And
as it started to pay stained, I decided to double
down on it. And so that's what I do for
a living.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Out of all of the social media platforms out there,
why YouTube, Why do you think that YouTube is one
of the best platforms for entrepreneurs?
Speaker 1 (03:14):
I think it's one of the best platforms because it's
really not a social platform.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
It's a search engine.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
And so when you think about how beautiful it is
to be able to create a blog post and years
later that blog post is still performing for you or
even like some pens have a long shelf life. When
you think about Instagram and you think about platforms like TikTok,
it's so much active marketing and constantly posting and constantly
showing up, and so I wanted a place to show
(03:41):
up online to share my thought leadership where I didn't
have to be constantly promoting and driving traffic to it.
And so I just found that the YouTube community was
the right one for me because it fit the pace
of life that I wanted in my business.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
That makes a lot of sense. I've actually come across
a lot of YouTubers that have actively gotten off of Instagram,
like not gotten off of it, but like their page
just sits there and they've been really just focusing on YouTube.
And their reasoning why is what you just said. It's like,
why create content that lasts for a few moments if
you can create content that lasts forever and that at
the end of the day also brings you revenue, because
(04:16):
if you're monetizing your page, you're actually creating content and
getting paid for it. Whereas you know Instagram, yes you
can do a paid sponsored post and things like that,
but your content isn't paying you. So that makes so
much sense. And outside of what you just said, can
you share some other amazing ways that entrepreneurs can leverage
YouTube in order to grow their brands and businesses.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
So I think the thing that people don't consider with
a YouTube channel, whether you are a speaker or you're
a coach or a consultant, is your YouTube channel is
also a portfolio to demonstrate whatever it is that you
want to show, whether you want to say, hey, here's
clips that show you how I can speak, or hey,
here's just examples of content I can create. I have
(05:01):
companies that actually hire me to create YouTube content for
their channels. So when you look at my channel and
you see what's visible there, that is not the full
extent of what's online that actually has my face on it.
Because people saw what I was capable of doing and said, hey,
instead of me building a video production company for my business,
(05:22):
why not just hire you to do what you're doing.
But on my platform, and so I have just been
finding so many more lucrative opportunities using YouTube as a
foundation to show what I'm capable of than being confined
to a real or a photo.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. And one of
the things that I had been looking at right because
for those of you listening who don't know, I have
marked the year. My launch date is going to be
my birthday, October eighth. My YouTube will be live. And
if it's not Leshanda, you have the right to put
me in a choke hold and be like you didn't
(05:59):
do it. But I really have my goal set on
like having it launched, and not just launch on my birthday,
but launch and fully be in a place where I
am able to consistently create content. I have a nice
strategy going on, and I have a batch of X
amount of videos that are already scheduled and you know,
set myself up for success. But one of the things
that I was thinking about with that, I was like,
(06:21):
I'm a curly hair girl, and I was like, imagine
if I just did some curly hair videos, what different
brands I could maybe have partnerships and sponsorships with or
you know, there's just sky's a limit. It's like, what
are you waiting for? That's me talking to myself. So
going back into YouTube, because a lot of our listeners,
(06:41):
specifically a lot of my clients that have been thinking
of launching YouTube, they have pretty much the same fear,
and that is that they're not going to be able
to keep up. So what would you recommend for someone
who is starting and is brand new to YouTube? What
would a good post strategy look like for them? And
is there any types of specific content that they should
(07:03):
either stay away from when they're first starting or that
they should absolutely adapt when they're first starting.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
I think it all.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Comes back to what is the goal of the channel? Right?
There's so many different people creating on the platform. You know,
there are folks who are doing makeup tutorials and all
they care about is getting views. You know, some folks
are trying to do an affiliate strategy. Some folks are
trying to drive traffic to their offers. And so I
think before you start recording anything, you have to think
(07:32):
about why am I showing up specifically on YouTube versus
other platforms?
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Are you ready to go from hustler to soft life CEO?
I'm here to help. I've created the soft Life Society,
a membership based community where I provide weekly events such
as group coaching calls, brand and social media audits, masterclasses
and featured guest speakers. Get access to members only in
person events, and discounts on soft life CEO services. And
here's the best part. You can join today for free
(08:01):
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use code free trial for thirty days free access.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
And so a lot of the folks that are in
my community, they're people who sell their time for money,
you know, service providers who are looking for a way
to passively drive traffic to their email list and then
to you know, low ticket offers that they can upsell.
So the whole goal of the channel is how can
I communicate value in such a way that I can
(08:29):
get people to leave YouTube and go on my email list.
But if that's not a goal for you, if you're
wanting to just be a content creator and focus more
on traffic and views, well then that's a whole different strategy.
So I think it's super you know, super important that
you decide in the beginning what kind of channel am
I trying to create? And then also think about the
(08:49):
fact that you don't have to set the bar super
high on YouTube from the very beginning. You know, even
though I own a production company, you know, I would
not recommend that people go out and hire a production
company to shoot their first YouTube videos.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
You're going to need to create.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
And put yourself out there and hear from your audience
and get a pulse for what they want to watch.
And you can always continue to evolve and grow the
more that you post. But I think that, you know,
if you compare Instagram to YouTube, I think we're still
used to seeing the high quality images on Instagram that
we feel like we have to start out that way
(09:26):
on YouTube, and you really don't. You've got kids sitting
on their bed, sitting on the floor talking and getting
thousands of views. So for many of us who love
business and love putting ourselves out there in a professional way,
I would encourage you to kind of lower the bar
in the beginning. Focus more on the quality content in
(09:46):
terms of the content of what you're saying versus the
content creation process of making the video that.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Makes a lot of sense, and in terms of consistency.
For a beginner, how often would you recommend that they
post on a monthly basis.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
I would say at least twice a month.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
I think the goal is typically weekly for someone who's
actually running a business and YouTube's not their job.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
But twice a.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Month is enough to keep people coming back and to
give you an opportunity to promote your content.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Because a lot of my clients, when they are thinking
about actually starting the channel, starting the channel isn't what's hard.
Maintaining the channel is what they're nervous about, and a
big part of maintaining it is editing. So can you
share some either helpful resources that make editing maybe easier
or quicker. And then for someone who is at a
(10:39):
position where maybe they want to outsource editing, if you
have any resources that make sense or even tips or
advice on what that would look like for outsourcing editing.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Yeah, so I think from the very beginning, it goes
back to what's the most important thing to you. If
your time is the most important thing, then you can
outsource from day one. I have a friend of mine
who hat a workshop for me who he said he's
never edited his YouTube content, but for him, he always
had that budget set aside, so it was never an
(11:08):
issue of Okay, this is costing me money while I'm
not making that money yet, his time was the most
valuable thing. And so if you're in that position where
you can outsource from day one, go for it. But
if you're not, then what I would suggest is to
simplify the format of your videos.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
And for a.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Lot of my audience, I encourage them to actually use Streamyard.
Streamyard is a platform that I use for live streaming.
I use it for webinars, and if you're just by yourself,
you don't have to worry about necessarily the quality of
other cameras involved with guests coming on. It's a great
way for you to get familiar with the platform and
(11:46):
kind of edit while you're creating. So just getting that
ball rolling, keeping your topic simple. You can always use
the Streamyard studio, download it and then re upload it
so you don't have to go live if you don't
want to. But that is like, that is like my
like baby, Like if you're going to go from I've
never created a horizontal video to I'm trying to go
on YouTube, I'm like, okay, let's simplify it as much
(12:09):
as possible. And so I made a video where I
created a YouTube video in real time and I just
called it like ID to edit a video on your computer,
and it's so simple, and so many people are like,
thank you for just taking the pressure off of me,
making it so easy to follow along and to actually
create the content for my channel.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
So I would say outsource.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
If you have the budget and you know time is
the limited quantity for you. But if that's not, you
know where you're at, then just keep the format simple.
Either go live or use a platform like stream yard
to help you easily record and edit.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
I love that. Thank you girls. That was a very
ul Now I do want to talk about the subscribers. Okay,
So another fear is that you start YouTube channel and
nobody wants what you're talking about and you struggle to
get subscribers, or worse, you're getting great views but no
one is actually hitting the subscribe button. Do you have
(13:11):
any strategies for how to make sure that your viewers
turn into subscribers.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
So one interesting update if you're watching YouTube on your
phone is when you verbally say the word subscribe, the
subscribe button underneath the video player actually lights up and
draws your eye, and so it's like a new update
that they've done, and so in the past, I would say, like,
you don't need to say, you know, like and subscribe,
(13:40):
But if you're trying to get people to notice that button,
if you verbally say it, it will light up, which
is a really cool feature. So I would definitely say
verbally acknowledge that you want them to subscribe. But the
other thing I would say is when people consume content
that they really like and they want to make sure
(14:00):
that they get notified, then they're going to naturally subscribe.
And so one of the cool things about live streaming,
whether you're doing that for your main content or just
a way to engage your community, is you can remind
them why they should you know. It's like the reason
why you want to subscribe is to be able to
turn on the notification so you don't miss my new videos,
(14:21):
so you know when I'm live even if I don't
send an email. Also, utilizing email to market your YouTube
videos is a great way to almost not necessarily trick
the algorithm on YouTube, but to work with it because
that first twenty four hours of your video is super important.
So just to kind of give it a little extra umph.
(14:42):
If you post your video and email your list. Within
twenty four hours of you posting that email list, traffic
to your video is going to help to get picked
up in the YouTube algorithm and more people will see
your content.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
That way.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Awesome. Okay, so a few things. One come on technology.
The fact that you can say subscribe and it's.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Like, dang, yeah that is that's a new thing. And
I'm like, okay, so now you know, backtrack, I changed
what I said. I'm like, no, it does draw my eyes.
So when people do it, I'm like, oh, that's smart.
I've seen a different approach to it as well. So
it's just whenever you say the words subscribe, not just
the phrase, you know, make sure you subscribe to my channel,
(15:20):
da da da. As long as you say the word
subscribe that I'm assuming it's AI powered, it does light
the button up. So one thing that I have seen
people do is they will go into the back end
of their channel and they'll say, you know, I see
that eighty percent of the people who watch my content
are not subscribed. If you would be willing to help
(15:41):
to subscribe to help me improve that number, that would
be great. It helps me to get, you know, to
be able to do this for a living, or get
better guests on the show.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Or what have you?
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Diary of a CEO? He does that really well, and
so you can also do the opposite. You could say, hey,
this is how many of you are not doing this.
Would you willing to change that to help me to
change this number. So there's a lot of different approaches
to it, but I think the biggest thing to understand
is YouTube is less concerned about the subscribers once you
(16:13):
hit that one thousand. The one thousand is just their
way to vet people into the partner program, to say, hey,
you've met the minimum requirements to be monetized once you
hit that one thousand, until you hit one hundred thousand
or a million, it really doesn't matter. What matters more
is the engagement and the views on your videos.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Well, what I really liked was the second thing that
you said about sending out like a newsletter to let
folks know like, hey, a new YouTube video went up.
And so essentially, if someone has a post strategy, let's
say they're going to post on their YouTube channel every
Monday at nine, it would probably be smart to do,
like a Monday at twelve pm or ten thirty, send
(16:56):
out something alerting people and then you can kind of
include other things that you have going on in your
business or in your brand, but make sure that that
video is highlighted and is kind of like a priority.
So that was helpful for me because I was trying
to figure out like build that into emails that people
want to be emailed. So that takes me to my
next question because I know that with YouTube being an
(17:18):
amazing search engine and the goal for an entrepreneur to
be that they want to continue to scale, grow and
build their brand, building their email list is important. What
strategies would you suggest for how to make sure that
each video kind of like leads to something else, which
is ultimately building someone's email list.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
So I think that email marketing is really changing a lot.
And you're beginning to see two dynamics. Either people have
like a signature freebee and it's the freebee that they're
known for, and no matter what they're doing, you know
they're trying to draw traffic to that specific resource. Or
they're taking the approach of of you're watching a piece
(18:01):
of content, reading a piece of content, and the freebie
that you are offered is specific to that piece of content,
So to give an example, quizzes have just gotten a
whole new life online and Interact as a company that
I recommend that people use to create their online quiz. So,
if your quiz is specifically geared to your you know,
(18:24):
ideal customer, and your YouTube channel is a resource to
your ideal customer, you could put your quiz and your
channel art. You could recommend your quiz in every video
that you do, and so ultimately every single video could
be driving traffic to that quiz. However, say, for instance,
you are you know, someone who is a nutritionist is
(18:47):
a good example, and you're showing a recipe. You could
create a video showing how to put together, you know,
a whole thirty dinner and thirty minutes or less. After
watching that piece of content, what's one thing that would
be super helpful to the viewer. Well, maybe to have
the shopping list or to have the recipe written out.
And so when you have a resource that's specific to
(19:07):
that piece of content, that's like, wow, that was really good,
but I need a little bit more, and you can
easily grow your list by having a specific resource. So
it all depends on the strategy. I've seen both work
really well. But at the end of the day, getting
people from YouTube to your email list is going to
be the most profitable way to monetize your channel.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Get my free training from Hustler to Soft Life Ceo,
which includes my untold entrepreneurial Journey, the soft Life CEO Roadmap,
and my winning recipe for elevating your brand, increasing your income,
and reclaiming your time. Head over to the soft Life
ceo dot com backslash free training.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
So ultimately, don't think about the end goal being oh,
I just want views, so I just want subs. If
you are a service provider, you are utilizing YouTube to
be a passive income engine for your business.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
And I will say this as a business coach, I
would tell my client if they had a YouTube channel,
to create specific kind of lead magnets that draw people
to your email funnel so that you can actually see
where people are. Because when you have lead magnets, it
tells you what people are interested in, and that can
help with determining if you have five overall lead magnets
(20:18):
and one has a thousand downloads and one has ten,
that gives you a very clear idea of what people
have more interest in. So it means create more content
and alignment with the one that had a thousand downloads.
So it's a way to kind of test your audience
and take a temperature on where people are and what
they find the most valuable. So I absolutely love that.
Now this is a beginner's question. Does it matter if
(20:40):
people comment and engage on your YouTube videos or No,
it matters.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
If people engage, so engagement just like when you think
about Instagram, it could be a like, it could be
a comment, it could be a save, it could be
a share.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
But ultimately, what.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
YouTube is doing when they look at the track of
your content is to say how satisfied was someone after
they clicked on that thumbnail. Did they watch it for
a long period of time, did they rewind it, did
they like it? Did they subscribe? Did they comment? They're
looking at all of that and so ultimately, you know,
the number of comments isn't a direct indication of whether
(21:19):
or not the video was good, because sometimes people just
don't have anything to say, especially with tutorials, you teach
them something, they're like, great, you answer my question, thumbs up,
you know, but what you ultimately want is for people
to finish as much of the video as possible and
so ultimately, sometimes we get long winded, we're not concise
with our scripts, we're wandering all over the place. And
(21:42):
so one of the things I have noticed time and
time again is people will say, thank you so much
for getting to the point, thank you so much for
delivering on what you said this video was supposed to be.
So it doesn't have to be super complicated. And if
you feel yourself getting long winded, I would encourage you
to create a part too, you know, back, do a
second video, make it a series. But ultimately, people are
(22:03):
wanting quick answers to their questions, and that's really where
YouTube is powerful.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Do you have any specific process or rule of thumb
for determining what your channel should be and if it
needs to be niched down to like one specific thing
or multiple playlists, like what are your thoughts? And if
you have someone that comes as a new YouTuber and
then they can lashand to help me kind of launch
from scratch, what would be the first thing that you
(22:29):
do to kind of figure out what they need to
do on their channel.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
So I think they're different personas that you can have
when it comes to a YouTube channel. And it also
one of the things I like to talk about is
the fact that there's so many different ways for you
to use YouTube.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
If you are so used to.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Creating Instagram reels, that Instagram reels and vertical content is
you know what's easy for you and it goes with
your workflow. Well, I have people in my community that
have a YouTube short strategy and have like hardly any
long form content, you know, and so you don't necessarily
have to immediately leap to horizontal video. And so I
(23:07):
think when it comes to the strategy, you have to
think of it more as like a TV channel. You know,
you go to that channel and you expect a certain
type of content when you go to that channel. I
don't expect to see, you know, Project Runway when I
turn on ESPN, right, So it's like, Okay, if I
go to ESPN, I'm expecting to see sports. Now, there
(23:28):
may be different types of sports that are shown on
that channel, but I know what I'm getting into when
I come there. And so the most important thing for
your YouTube channel it doesn't have to be one topic
every single video, but it needs to be for one
type of person.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
So if you.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Decide I love showing my tech side, but I also
want to show my fashion side your fashion side to
be a secondary channel. You shouldn't try to mix them
together because it confuses YouTube and it keeps YouTube from
understanding how to catalog your channel.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
We're going to now jump into the questions that our
community has, and the first one is what are some
common mistakes that new YouTubers make and how can they
avoid them?
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Yeah. I think a common mistake that YouTubers make is
that their videos are too long.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Too long.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
I think it's so much easier for you to build
that muscle if you're keeping your content, you know, ten
minutes or less than if you come out the gate
going like, oh, I got to make a thirty minute video,
Like that's that's a hard ask, especially when you don't
have someone else to engage with you while you create.
So I would definitely say in the beginning, keep it short,
keep it concise, and that way you can just build
(24:42):
that routine of content creation and not have such a
heavy lift in the beginning. All right.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Our next question is what are the first steps to
take when start in a YouTube channel. If you're creating
a YouTube channel specifically to lead people back to your business.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
I think one of the most underused areas of YouTube
is the upload defaults, and so there is in the
back end of YouTube there is a tab that you
can click on that will allow you to create a
template for your description box. Ultimately, the money is made
in the description box, the ability for people to watch
a piece of content and click on links underneath your video.
(25:19):
And so you want to make sure that you spend
a lot of time curating what you want that box
to have. And so what I do is I put
everything I could possibly want to promote and then delete
the things that don't make sense for that particular video,
versus every single time I'm having to post, having to
think about, oh, what links should I be referring to, Like,
(25:40):
what's the link to my email list, what's the link
to my site, what's the link to my other socials?
And so I would say if you're starting out like,
that's the thing I would spend the most time on
because I think it's very easy for us to come
up with topics for the video, but we forget the
videos are supposed to be leading to a call to action,
and so if you struggle with that part, having that
template are made is going to help you a lot.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Did y'all hear that that is a work smart, not
hard strategy that she just gabled. How do you ensure
that your content stands out in a crowded market like YouTube.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
You've got to put your handprint on it. And I
think that's the thing that I really encourage my community
to do. It's like, no one else has your handprint.
So the more that you put your special touch on it,
the less people will compare it. I mean, you want
there to be some some comparison so that you know
that there's like a market for what you're talking about.
(26:35):
You don't want to be so far out there that
it's like no one has ever done this. It's like, well,
is there an audience for it? At that point, you
should be able to think like, oh, this reminds me
of so and so when it comes to your channel.
But at the same time, I mean, it could be
something as unique as the music that you choose, or
you know, maybe you have a YouTube uniform and you
(26:57):
wear the same thing in every video, so you don't
have to worry about what to wear, Like it could
be what you say in your intro, Like there's so
many different things that we can do to customize our
channel to us. But if you create a channel that
feels uniquely you, then although people be able to say
this reminds them of so and so, you will stand
(27:17):
out because it is custom made to what works for you.
So that's what I would just encourage people to do.
You can be inspired by other channels, but don't duplicate them.
You know, always think, Okay, they've proven that there's a
market for this, but what's what's my take on it?
What's my perspective?
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Guess what your girl is. Finally, on YouTube, I'm posting
weekly content including behind the scenes of my self life,
all things entrepreneurship, and the journey of my husband and
I starting our family. Head over to YouTube and subscribe
to my channel, Brianna Ponte, the Self Life CEO. The
next question is can you recommend any resources or courses
for learning more about YouTube marketing? And I want to
(27:54):
say that es If you go to Lashonda's Instagram bio,
it's at Lashanda m bron and just click the link
in her bio, she has workshops and resources listed for
you there. But do you have anything else you would
like to add to that? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (28:08):
No, I think I think that's a great place to start.
I also have an ebook that I made that's just
called the YouTube Passive Income Guide, and it's for people
who are wanting to use YouTube specifically to make money
while they're sleeping like that. That will be a good
thing to download as well. But I tried to make
those workshops things that were about specific topics. So whether
(28:28):
it's I need to increase my watch time or I
need to hit my one thousand subscribers, like that should
really help you.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
The next question is what are some tips for scripting
and planning YouTube videos in order to keep them engaging?
Speaker 1 (28:43):
So I definitely think utilizing a teleprompter is going to
help a lot of folks. Big View is the one
that I recommend because they have a desktop and a
cell phone.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
App, so that's super helpful.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
But there's also the ability if you just open up
up you can actually do it in your notes app,
or you can do it within Google Docs. I actually
put the Google Docs app on my phone as well,
and so you can do speech to text within Google
Docs and you can just turn on voice typing. And
so if you're the type of person that you send
a lot of voice notes to people, you might find
(29:18):
that it's a lot easier for you to use voice
to text to write your scripts.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
Just get the ideas out.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
You can always go back and fine tune it from there.
But if you put the app on your phone, then
it's more like you're doing a little voice note, and
then everything that you say in your app.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
Is going to sync to your computer. So those are
the two tools that I would use for that.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
I have a confession. I do that when I'm in
the shower. I do it on my notes, but I'm like,
I get way too many good ideas in the shower,
and I was like, how can I talk to my
phone and turn it into documents so that later I
can actually go through my thoughts and make them make sense.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
So I love that.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
I haven't tried it with the Google docs though, and
that's what I use. I'm going to try a Google
dox instead of the notes, but I love that. Now
this is a question, how do you stay motivated to
consistently create content?
Speaker 3 (30:11):
Oh my gosh, isn't that like the million dollar question
for all of us?
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Right?
Speaker 1 (30:16):
You know, I think it's super important to actually build
a community first, Right, So whether you are talking to
ten people or ten thousand people. When you can actually
put a face to a name and you know there
are legitimate people who are wanting to learn from you
and really like your perspective on things, it's a lot
(30:37):
easier to show up and create a piece of content
to answer Breeze question than to create a piece of
content just for the Internet, right. And so I think
that when you are disconnected from the people that you're helping,
it's harder to serve them with content. And so I
think the more opportunities that we can have to make
that real, whether it's you know, answering your comments, da
(31:00):
live streaming, what have you, to help it feel more
grounded and real, it'll make it easier to show up.
And then also just not putting a ton of pressure
on yourself that you need to constantly be pumping it out,
because YouTube will take that pressure off. I do a
thing every year called twenty five Days of Canva, and
I have noticed that even if I post daily like
(31:21):
people do for Vologmis, I can see months later the
benefit of what I'm doing, because people are not expecting
to come to YouTube every day to see something new,
So that pressure that we felt from other platforms isn't there.
And so that can help make it easier to show
up because you can batch your content when you're feeling creative,
create all the things, and then just drip it out
(31:43):
week by week.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
What are some of the best practices for promoting your
YouTube videos on other social media platforms? I love that question.
It's a good one. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
So I think one of the things that I've seen,
and I think we're seeing this with all types of
content on Instagram is to connect it to me e
chat like I know, we're all you know, here we
go here it comes minichat again. But truly, I think
that third party app is single handedly holding Instagram up.
And so I think, you know, whatever we can do
(32:14):
to be able to talk about our content and eliminate
the amount of clicks it takes for people to go
watch it, the better. So email is obviously, you know,
my first pick. Minichat is great coming from Instagram. You
can post a clip from your YouTube video and say,
you know comments, you know, you could say the title
of the video to get the link. You could do
(32:36):
episode numbers if you're doing a podcast. I think the
link sticker and Instagram Stories is effective. But obviously Instagram
doesn't like people leaving Instagram, and so I would say,
if you're going to use the link sticker, just use
it first and don't post other things that day, because
when you only post one story, Instagram does prioritize it.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
So it's like, well, got to play the game if
that's what you're going to do.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
So linkstickers help on that platform as well. And yeah,
I mean, I think ultimately, when you have a cadence
that people are used to and you're constantly you know,
if you're posting every Monday or posting every Thursday, people
do tend.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
To come back.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
So you'll have some people who will just watch your
content without you driving traffic to it. But you utilizing
platforms that you already have is going to be super helpful.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
And now the next one you kind of answered this already,
but she asked if there's more requirements, it's how do
you monetize your YouTube channel? What are the actual requirements
for doing so? You mentioned that you got to get
to the one thousand follow or one thousand subscribers. Is
there any other requirements for monetization?
Speaker 3 (33:41):
If you're not.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Doing a short strategy, then you'll need four thousand watch
hours on your channel within the last twelve months, so
they split things up recently and so, and I think
it's because a lot of people from TikTok were coming
on the platform, and so there's a much higher views
that are necessary if you're just posting shorts. So you
can choose shorts or feed videos, and they're two different requirements.
(34:05):
But I want to say it's like millions of views
if you do shorts versus thousands if you do horizontal videos.
So I tend to put people on the thousand side
if they're trying to get monetized. How do you handle
creative blocks or burnouts as a creator? Yeah, I think
all of us are embracing the sabbatical, you know. And
(34:27):
I think that when you think about your YouTube channel,
just like TV shows go on hiatus over the summer, typically,
like it's totally fine for you to go on hiatus
or for you to rent back on how often you post.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
So I'll see people who.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Will say, Okay, well I usually post every week, but
I'm going to go to every other week to give
myself a little bit of break, or you know, say,
for instance, for me, I'll typically not live stream in
August because that's my anniversary month. I got a lot
going on into summer, and so I think that's a
healthy pace for people is to kind of think in
(35:04):
the beginning, Okay, what is the cadence that I want,
and let me plan ahead of time to work at
a pace that works for me versus waiting until you
burn out to have to react to it.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
That's that's great. And you know, I am a queen
of batch working. So that's why I said I won't
launch nothing unless I got things in the roll of
decks ready to come out, because I just prepare for burnout.
It happens, you know. The next question is can you
share any examples of entrepreneurs who have successfully grown their
businesses through YouTube so that they can take a look
(35:39):
at them as an example?
Speaker 3 (35:42):
Yeah? Yeah, I think two.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Of the ladies that I really look up to I
think that are doing it well are Katie Steckley and
Latasha James.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
I think those two. Yeah, yes, I don't know. I
would say I would say those two.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
That is such a good one. Katie is amazing. I
love her. How do you balance creating content that is
both informative and engaging or entertaining?
Speaker 1 (36:11):
I'm sorry, I think the more that I've created on
my channel, it's helped me to be more and more
myself in my content. I think in the beginning, we
kind of all start with that, like this is my
video voice, you know, and we want to be polished
and professional. But over time, the more that you create,
the less you feel like you need to put on
(36:31):
this show, and the more you're able to just help
a friend. And so I think that that's been a
really fun transition for me.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
We are down to our last question. Girly, you have
been hard at work. It is what are some tips
for collaborating with other YouTubers or influencers and do you
recommend as a form of growing your channel.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
I definitely recommend collaborating, but I think it's more important
when you have a very clear audience established, so you
can make sure that the person that you're bringing on
is also bringing on the right people, because you don't
just want views for the sake of views. You see
that a lot when people go viral and then all
(37:12):
of a sudden, like they start getting all these hate
comments and trolls, and it's like, well, where is this
coming from? And it's because you're getting so many people
and your ecosystem that don't really know you or don't
really want to learn the things that you're putting out there.
And so once your channel starts to grow and you
start to get a pulse on like, oh, like, my
audience is content creators or my audience is you know,
(37:34):
busy moms or what have you. Once you have a
good pulse on that, then it's so much easier to
find like minded channels that are serving the same group
of people.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
I appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule
to talk with us and help us out because you know,
like I said, a lot of our listeners are wanting
to do you too, but there are some fears. There
are the unknowns, you know, so hearing from someone like
you is definitely super helpful. So before we go, is
there one last piece of advice, tip, or quote or
(38:05):
anything that you want to leave our listeners with. Are
you ready to elevate your brand, increase your income, and
reclaim your time? My team and I are here to
help go to the soft life CEO dot com backslash
book a call for free consultation today.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Oh man, There's so many things I could share, but
there is one quote that I used to include in
like all of my talks when I would speak in person,
and it's not my personal quote, but I just love it.
And it's light yourself on fire with passion and people
will come from miles to watch you burn. And so
I think if we are creators who are super passionate
(38:43):
about what it is that we love, how we serve people,
and you leave with passion and your content, you will
get the views, you will get the subs. That's the
least amount of your worries. And so just focus on
how can I create an environment where I can just
share my passion with people, And if you can do that,
then people will come from miles to watch you burn.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
Now, let's just tell everyone how they can stay in
touch with you and get in touch with all the
things Leashonda.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
Brown, Yeah, you can go to Leshondabrown dot com and
that's going to be my home base for all the things,
and my app will be rolling out within the next
month or so. And so right now, if you go
to Bootstrap, visitvice dot com, you'll go straight to my
YouTube channel. But soon you'll be able to uh to
join the app and join the community.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
So that is exciting.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
And that is something that you mentioned on our dinner
some year ago that you were working on, so it's
so cool to see that come into fuition. Well, one
last time, girl, thank you so so much for your time.
You have been a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Well, thank you so much for having me, and I
wish all of you luck with your brandy YouTube channels.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Thanks for tuning in to Soft Life CEO. I hope
that today's episode gets you a little bit closer to
achieving your definition of a soft life. If you're ready
to start the journey from hustler to softlafe CEO, go
to the Soft Life ceo dot com backslash Society for
a thirty day free trial in my coaching community. If
you found this episode helpful, share it with a friend,
leave a review, and don't forget to subscribe.
Before you start recording anything, you have to think about
why am I showing up specifically on YouTube versus other platforms.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hey, I'm Brianna Aponte, your host of the Soft Life
CEO podcast. I dropped out of college at the age
of nineteen to start my first business. I worked seven
days a week, wore way too many hats, and was
the true definition of a hustler. Years later, I'm finally
living the dream that I worked so hard to make
my reality. I've transitioned from a hustler to a soft
Life CEO, working only two days a week to maintain
(00:30):
and run a high earning business that gives me the
freedom to live a life I love. Now it's my
mission to help as many entrepreneurs as I can elevate
their brand, increase their income, and reclaim their time. Join
me and guest experts as we share our transparent journeys,
work smart and not hard, strategies, and the behind the
scenes of running a successful brand in business. You're tuned
in to the Self Life CEO. What's up, everybody? I
(00:52):
am so excited for today's episode because we have a
tech educator and YouTube coach for service providers and get
the show She is all about helping you work less
and live more. This is my girl, Lashanda. She has
a YouTube channel called Bootstrap Biz Advice and just some
small tea on How I know her. I came across
her as one of the panelists on an event I
(01:12):
was speaking at the Signature CEO. We got together for
dinner ahead of time. We had amazing conversation. Leashanda was
so open about sharing about her business, her journey, different
strategies for growth, and immediately I was like, I love
this girl and I need her in my life. And
then I got to hear her presentation and she was
just beaming with confidence and passion, and I knew she
(01:35):
was someone I wanted to have on our show. So
without further ado, let me introduce Leshanda Brown.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Hey girl, Hey, hey girl, Hey, super excited to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Very excited to have you. So we're going to start
off with a very important question because, as you know,
a lot of people share the glory, but they don't
always share the story, right, So share with us what
your entrepreneurial journey has been like and how you got
to the point where you are now being a a
YouTube and tech educator, coach and business owner.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah. So I think the most important thing that I
can communicate about my story is that I didn't set
out to be a YouTuber or a tech educator. My
background is actually in theater, and so I started performing
when I was seven on stages at military basis, you know.
Fast forward to college, getting my degrees in theater there
and really thinking like, I'm going to go to Broadway
(02:31):
and that's going to be the thing. Well, I decided
to get married and start a video production company with
my husband, and so we did that, and we continue
to do it, you know, for ten years, and I
started to look around and say, you know, do I
want to keep doing this? You know, I love doing
videos for other people, but is your a way for
me to still use my skill set and change things
(02:52):
up so it can stay fresh and fun. And so
I saw YouTube sitting right there, and I thought, you
know what, I'm going to give it a try, And
as it started to pay stained, I decided to double
down on it. And so that's what I do for
a living.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Out of all of the social media platforms out there,
why YouTube, Why do you think that YouTube is one
of the best platforms for entrepreneurs?
Speaker 1 (03:14):
I think it's one of the best platforms because it's
really not a social platform.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
It's a search engine.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
And so when you think about how beautiful it is
to be able to create a blog post and years
later that blog post is still performing for you or
even like some pens have a long shelf life. When
you think about Instagram and you think about platforms like TikTok,
it's so much active marketing and constantly posting and constantly
showing up, and so I wanted a place to show
(03:41):
up online to share my thought leadership where I didn't
have to be constantly promoting and driving traffic to it.
And so I just found that the YouTube community was
the right one for me because it fit the pace
of life that I wanted in my business.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
That makes a lot of sense. I've actually come across
a lot of YouTubers that have actively gotten off of Instagram,
like not gotten off of it, but like their page
just sits there and they've been really just focusing on YouTube.
And their reasoning why is what you just said. It's like,
why create content that lasts for a few moments if
you can create content that lasts forever and that at
the end of the day also brings you revenue, because
(04:16):
if you're monetizing your page, you're actually creating content and
getting paid for it. Whereas you know Instagram, yes you
can do a paid sponsored post and things like that,
but your content isn't paying you. So that makes so
much sense. And outside of what you just said, can
you share some other amazing ways that entrepreneurs can leverage
YouTube in order to grow their brands and businesses.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
So I think the thing that people don't consider with
a YouTube channel, whether you are a speaker or you're
a coach or a consultant, is your YouTube channel is
also a portfolio to demonstrate whatever it is that you
want to show, whether you want to say, hey, here's
clips that show you how I can speak, or hey,
here's just examples of content I can create. I have
(05:01):
companies that actually hire me to create YouTube content for
their channels. So when you look at my channel and
you see what's visible there, that is not the full
extent of what's online that actually has my face on it.
Because people saw what I was capable of doing and said, hey,
instead of me building a video production company for my business,
(05:22):
why not just hire you to do what you're doing.
But on my platform, and so I have just been
finding so many more lucrative opportunities using YouTube as a
foundation to show what I'm capable of than being confined
to a real or a photo.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. And one of
the things that I had been looking at right because
for those of you listening who don't know, I have
marked the year. My launch date is going to be
my birthday, October eighth. My YouTube will be live. And
if it's not Leshanda, you have the right to put
me in a choke hold and be like you didn't
(05:59):
do it. But I really have my goal set on
like having it launched, and not just launch on my birthday,
but launch and fully be in a place where I
am able to consistently create content. I have a nice
strategy going on, and I have a batch of X
amount of videos that are already scheduled and you know,
set myself up for success. But one of the things
that I was thinking about with that, I was like,
(06:21):
I'm a curly hair girl, and I was like, imagine
if I just did some curly hair videos, what different
brands I could maybe have partnerships and sponsorships with or
you know, there's just sky's a limit. It's like, what
are you waiting for? That's me talking to myself. So
going back into YouTube, because a lot of our listeners,
(06:41):
specifically a lot of my clients that have been thinking
of launching YouTube, they have pretty much the same fear,
and that is that they're not going to be able
to keep up. So what would you recommend for someone
who is starting and is brand new to YouTube? What
would a good post strategy look like for them? And
is there any types of specific content that they should
(07:03):
either stay away from when they're first starting or that
they should absolutely adapt when they're first starting.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
I think it all.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Comes back to what is the goal of the channel? Right?
There's so many different people creating on the platform. You know,
there are folks who are doing makeup tutorials and all
they care about is getting views. You know, some folks
are trying to do an affiliate strategy. Some folks are
trying to drive traffic to their offers. And so I
think before you start recording anything, you have to think
(07:32):
about why am I showing up specifically on YouTube versus
other platforms?
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Are you ready to go from hustler to soft life CEO?
I'm here to help. I've created the soft Life Society,
a membership based community where I provide weekly events such
as group coaching calls, brand and social media audits, masterclasses
and featured guest speakers. Get access to members only in
person events, and discounts on soft life CEO services. And
here's the best part. You can join today for free
(08:01):
visit the soft Life Ceo dot com backslash Society and
use code free trial for thirty days free access.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
And so a lot of the folks that are in
my community, they're people who sell their time for money,
you know, service providers who are looking for a way
to passively drive traffic to their email list and then
to you know, low ticket offers that they can upsell.
So the whole goal of the channel is how can
I communicate value in such a way that I can
(08:29):
get people to leave YouTube and go on my email list.
But if that's not a goal for you, if you're
wanting to just be a content creator and focus more
on traffic and views, well then that's a whole different strategy.
So I think it's super you know, super important that
you decide in the beginning what kind of channel am
I trying to create? And then also think about the
(08:49):
fact that you don't have to set the bar super
high on YouTube from the very beginning. You know, even
though I own a production company, you know, I would
not recommend that people go out and hire a production
company to shoot their first YouTube videos.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
You're going to need to create.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
And put yourself out there and hear from your audience
and get a pulse for what they want to watch.
And you can always continue to evolve and grow the
more that you post. But I think that, you know,
if you compare Instagram to YouTube, I think we're still
used to seeing the high quality images on Instagram that
we feel like we have to start out that way
(09:26):
on YouTube, and you really don't. You've got kids sitting
on their bed, sitting on the floor talking and getting
thousands of views. So for many of us who love
business and love putting ourselves out there in a professional way,
I would encourage you to kind of lower the bar
in the beginning. Focus more on the quality content in
(09:46):
terms of the content of what you're saying versus the
content creation process of making the video that.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Makes a lot of sense, and in terms of consistency.
For a beginner, how often would you recommend that they
post on a monthly basis.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
I would say at least twice a month.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
I think the goal is typically weekly for someone who's
actually running a business and YouTube's not their job.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
But twice a.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Month is enough to keep people coming back and to
give you an opportunity to promote your content.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Because a lot of my clients, when they are thinking
about actually starting the channel, starting the channel isn't what's hard.
Maintaining the channel is what they're nervous about, and a
big part of maintaining it is editing. So can you
share some either helpful resources that make editing maybe easier
or quicker. And then for someone who is at a
(10:39):
position where maybe they want to outsource editing, if you
have any resources that make sense or even tips or
advice on what that would look like for outsourcing editing.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Yeah, so I think from the very beginning, it goes
back to what's the most important thing to you. If
your time is the most important thing, then you can
outsource from day one. I have a friend of mine
who hat a workshop for me who he said he's
never edited his YouTube content, but for him, he always
had that budget set aside, so it was never an
(11:08):
issue of Okay, this is costing me money while I'm
not making that money yet, his time was the most
valuable thing. And so if you're in that position where
you can outsource from day one, go for it. But
if you're not, then what I would suggest is to
simplify the format of your videos.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
And for a.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Lot of my audience, I encourage them to actually use Streamyard.
Streamyard is a platform that I use for live streaming.
I use it for webinars, and if you're just by yourself,
you don't have to worry about necessarily the quality of
other cameras involved with guests coming on. It's a great
way for you to get familiar with the platform and
(11:46):
kind of edit while you're creating. So just getting that
ball rolling, keeping your topic simple. You can always use
the Streamyard studio, download it and then re upload it
so you don't have to go live if you don't
want to. But that is like, that is like my
like baby, Like if you're going to go from I've
never created a horizontal video to I'm trying to go
on YouTube, I'm like, okay, let's simplify it as much
(12:09):
as possible. And so I made a video where I
created a YouTube video in real time and I just
called it like ID to edit a video on your computer,
and it's so simple, and so many people are like,
thank you for just taking the pressure off of me,
making it so easy to follow along and to actually
create the content for my channel.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
So I would say outsource.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
If you have the budget and you know time is
the limited quantity for you. But if that's not, you
know where you're at, then just keep the format simple.
Either go live or use a platform like stream yard
to help you easily record and edit.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
I love that. Thank you girls. That was a very
ul Now I do want to talk about the subscribers. Okay,
So another fear is that you start YouTube channel and
nobody wants what you're talking about and you struggle to
get subscribers, or worse, you're getting great views but no
one is actually hitting the subscribe button. Do you have
(13:11):
any strategies for how to make sure that your viewers
turn into subscribers.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
So one interesting update if you're watching YouTube on your
phone is when you verbally say the word subscribe, the
subscribe button underneath the video player actually lights up and
draws your eye, and so it's like a new update
that they've done, and so in the past, I would say, like,
you don't need to say, you know, like and subscribe,
(13:40):
But if you're trying to get people to notice that button,
if you verbally say it, it will light up, which
is a really cool feature. So I would definitely say
verbally acknowledge that you want them to subscribe. But the
other thing I would say is when people consume content
that they really like and they want to make sure
(14:00):
that they get notified, then they're going to naturally subscribe.
And so one of the cool things about live streaming,
whether you're doing that for your main content or just
a way to engage your community, is you can remind
them why they should you know. It's like the reason
why you want to subscribe is to be able to
turn on the notification so you don't miss my new videos,
(14:21):
so you know when I'm live even if I don't
send an email. Also, utilizing email to market your YouTube
videos is a great way to almost not necessarily trick
the algorithm on YouTube, but to work with it because
that first twenty four hours of your video is super important.
So just to kind of give it a little extra umph.
(14:42):
If you post your video and email your list. Within
twenty four hours of you posting that email list, traffic
to your video is going to help to get picked
up in the YouTube algorithm and more people will see
your content.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
That way.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Awesome. Okay, so a few things. One come on technology.
The fact that you can say subscribe and it's.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Like, dang, yeah that is that's a new thing. And
I'm like, okay, so now you know, backtrack, I changed
what I said. I'm like, no, it does draw my eyes.
So when people do it, I'm like, oh, that's smart.
I've seen a different approach to it as well. So
it's just whenever you say the words subscribe, not just
the phrase, you know, make sure you subscribe to my channel,
(15:20):
da da da. As long as you say the word
subscribe that I'm assuming it's AI powered, it does light
the button up. So one thing that I have seen
people do is they will go into the back end
of their channel and they'll say, you know, I see
that eighty percent of the people who watch my content
are not subscribed. If you would be willing to help
(15:41):
to subscribe to help me improve that number, that would
be great. It helps me to get, you know, to
be able to do this for a living, or get
better guests on the show.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Or what have you?
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Diary of a CEO? He does that really well, and
so you can also do the opposite. You could say, hey,
this is how many of you are not doing this.
Would you willing to change that to help me to
change this number. So there's a lot of different approaches
to it, but I think the biggest thing to understand
is YouTube is less concerned about the subscribers once you
(16:13):
hit that one thousand. The one thousand is just their
way to vet people into the partner program, to say, hey,
you've met the minimum requirements to be monetized once you
hit that one thousand, until you hit one hundred thousand
or a million, it really doesn't matter. What matters more
is the engagement and the views on your videos.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Well, what I really liked was the second thing that
you said about sending out like a newsletter to let
folks know like, hey, a new YouTube video went up.
And so essentially, if someone has a post strategy, let's
say they're going to post on their YouTube channel every
Monday at nine, it would probably be smart to do,
like a Monday at twelve pm or ten thirty, send
(16:56):
out something alerting people and then you can kind of
include other things that you have going on in your
business or in your brand, but make sure that that
video is highlighted and is kind of like a priority.
So that was helpful for me because I was trying
to figure out like build that into emails that people
want to be emailed. So that takes me to my
next question because I know that with YouTube being an
(17:18):
amazing search engine and the goal for an entrepreneur to
be that they want to continue to scale, grow and
build their brand, building their email list is important. What
strategies would you suggest for how to make sure that
each video kind of like leads to something else, which
is ultimately building someone's email list.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
So I think that email marketing is really changing a lot.
And you're beginning to see two dynamics. Either people have
like a signature freebee and it's the freebee that they're
known for, and no matter what they're doing, you know
they're trying to draw traffic to that specific resource. Or
they're taking the approach of of you're watching a piece
(18:01):
of content, reading a piece of content, and the freebie
that you are offered is specific to that piece of content,
So to give an example, quizzes have just gotten a
whole new life online and Interact as a company that
I recommend that people use to create their online quiz. So,
if your quiz is specifically geared to your you know,
(18:24):
ideal customer, and your YouTube channel is a resource to
your ideal customer, you could put your quiz and your
channel art. You could recommend your quiz in every video
that you do, and so ultimately every single video could
be driving traffic to that quiz. However, say, for instance,
you are you know, someone who is a nutritionist is
(18:47):
a good example, and you're showing a recipe. You could
create a video showing how to put together, you know,
a whole thirty dinner and thirty minutes or less. After
watching that piece of content, what's one thing that would
be super helpful to the viewer. Well, maybe to have
the shopping list or to have the recipe written out.
And so when you have a resource that's specific to
(19:07):
that piece of content, that's like, wow, that was really good,
but I need a little bit more, and you can
easily grow your list by having a specific resource. So
it all depends on the strategy. I've seen both work
really well. But at the end of the day, getting
people from YouTube to your email list is going to
be the most profitable way to monetize your channel.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Get my free training from Hustler to Soft Life Ceo,
which includes my untold entrepreneurial Journey, the soft Life CEO Roadmap,
and my winning recipe for elevating your brand, increasing your income,
and reclaiming your time. Head over to the soft Life
ceo dot com backslash free training.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
So ultimately, don't think about the end goal being oh,
I just want views, so I just want subs. If
you are a service provider, you are utilizing YouTube to
be a passive income engine for your business.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
And I will say this as a business coach, I
would tell my client if they had a YouTube channel,
to create specific kind of lead magnets that draw people
to your email funnel so that you can actually see
where people are. Because when you have lead magnets, it
tells you what people are interested in, and that can
help with determining if you have five overall lead magnets
(20:18):
and one has a thousand downloads and one has ten,
that gives you a very clear idea of what people
have more interest in. So it means create more content
and alignment with the one that had a thousand downloads.
So it's a way to kind of test your audience
and take a temperature on where people are and what
they find the most valuable. So I absolutely love that.
Now this is a beginner's question. Does it matter if
(20:40):
people comment and engage on your YouTube videos or No,
it matters.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
If people engage, so engagement just like when you think
about Instagram, it could be a like, it could be
a comment, it could be a save, it could be
a share.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
But ultimately, what.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
YouTube is doing when they look at the track of
your content is to say how satisfied was someone after
they clicked on that thumbnail. Did they watch it for
a long period of time, did they rewind it, did
they like it? Did they subscribe? Did they comment? They're
looking at all of that and so ultimately, you know,
the number of comments isn't a direct indication of whether
(21:19):
or not the video was good, because sometimes people just
don't have anything to say, especially with tutorials, you teach
them something, they're like, great, you answer my question, thumbs up,
you know, but what you ultimately want is for people
to finish as much of the video as possible and
so ultimately, sometimes we get long winded, we're not concise
with our scripts, we're wandering all over the place. And
(21:42):
so one of the things I have noticed time and
time again is people will say, thank you so much
for getting to the point, thank you so much for
delivering on what you said this video was supposed to be.
So it doesn't have to be super complicated. And if
you feel yourself getting long winded, I would encourage you
to create a part too, you know, back, do a
second video, make it a series. But ultimately, people are
(22:03):
wanting quick answers to their questions, and that's really where
YouTube is powerful.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Do you have any specific process or rule of thumb
for determining what your channel should be and if it
needs to be niched down to like one specific thing
or multiple playlists, like what are your thoughts? And if
you have someone that comes as a new YouTuber and
then they can lashand to help me kind of launch
from scratch, what would be the first thing that you
(22:29):
do to kind of figure out what they need to
do on their channel.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
So I think they're different personas that you can have
when it comes to a YouTube channel. And it also
one of the things I like to talk about is
the fact that there's so many different ways for you
to use YouTube.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
If you are so used to.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Creating Instagram reels, that Instagram reels and vertical content is
you know what's easy for you and it goes with
your workflow. Well, I have people in my community that
have a YouTube short strategy and have like hardly any
long form content, you know, and so you don't necessarily
have to immediately leap to horizontal video. And so I
(23:07):
think when it comes to the strategy, you have to
think of it more as like a TV channel. You know,
you go to that channel and you expect a certain
type of content when you go to that channel. I
don't expect to see, you know, Project Runway when I
turn on ESPN, right, So it's like, Okay, if I
go to ESPN, I'm expecting to see sports. Now, there
(23:28):
may be different types of sports that are shown on
that channel, but I know what I'm getting into when
I come there. And so the most important thing for
your YouTube channel it doesn't have to be one topic
every single video, but it needs to be for one
type of person.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
So if you.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Decide I love showing my tech side, but I also
want to show my fashion side your fashion side to
be a secondary channel. You shouldn't try to mix them
together because it confuses YouTube and it keeps YouTube from
understanding how to catalog your channel.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
We're going to now jump into the questions that our
community has, and the first one is what are some
common mistakes that new YouTubers make and how can they
avoid them?
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Yeah. I think a common mistake that YouTubers make is
that their videos are too long.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Too long.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
I think it's so much easier for you to build
that muscle if you're keeping your content, you know, ten
minutes or less than if you come out the gate
going like, oh, I got to make a thirty minute video,
Like that's that's a hard ask, especially when you don't
have someone else to engage with you while you create.
So I would definitely say in the beginning, keep it short,
keep it concise, and that way you can just build
(24:42):
that routine of content creation and not have such a
heavy lift in the beginning. All right.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Our next question is what are the first steps to
take when start in a YouTube channel. If you're creating
a YouTube channel specifically to lead people back to your business.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
I think one of the most underused areas of YouTube
is the upload defaults, and so there is in the
back end of YouTube there is a tab that you
can click on that will allow you to create a
template for your description box. Ultimately, the money is made
in the description box, the ability for people to watch
a piece of content and click on links underneath your video.
(25:19):
And so you want to make sure that you spend
a lot of time curating what you want that box
to have. And so what I do is I put
everything I could possibly want to promote and then delete
the things that don't make sense for that particular video,
versus every single time I'm having to post, having to
think about, oh, what links should I be referring to, Like,
(25:40):
what's the link to my email list, what's the link
to my site, what's the link to my other socials?
And so I would say if you're starting out like,
that's the thing I would spend the most time on
because I think it's very easy for us to come
up with topics for the video, but we forget the
videos are supposed to be leading to a call to action,
and so if you struggle with that part, having that
template are made is going to help you a lot.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Did y'all hear that that is a work smart, not
hard strategy that she just gabled. How do you ensure
that your content stands out in a crowded market like YouTube.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
You've got to put your handprint on it. And I
think that's the thing that I really encourage my community
to do. It's like, no one else has your handprint.
So the more that you put your special touch on it,
the less people will compare it. I mean, you want
there to be some some comparison so that you know
that there's like a market for what you're talking about.
(26:35):
You don't want to be so far out there that
it's like no one has ever done this. It's like, well,
is there an audience for it? At that point, you
should be able to think like, oh, this reminds me
of so and so when it comes to your channel.
But at the same time, I mean, it could be
something as unique as the music that you choose, or
you know, maybe you have a YouTube uniform and you
(26:57):
wear the same thing in every video, so you don't
have to worry about what to wear, Like it could
be what you say in your intro, Like there's so
many different things that we can do to customize our
channel to us. But if you create a channel that
feels uniquely you, then although people be able to say
this reminds them of so and so, you will stand
(27:17):
out because it is custom made to what works for you.
So that's what I would just encourage people to do.
You can be inspired by other channels, but don't duplicate them.
You know, always think, Okay, they've proven that there's a
market for this, but what's what's my take on it?
What's my perspective?
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Guess what your girl is. Finally, on YouTube, I'm posting
weekly content including behind the scenes of my self life,
all things entrepreneurship, and the journey of my husband and
I starting our family. Head over to YouTube and subscribe
to my channel, Brianna Ponte, the Self Life CEO. The
next question is can you recommend any resources or courses
for learning more about YouTube marketing? And I want to
(27:54):
say that es If you go to Lashonda's Instagram bio,
it's at Lashanda m bron and just click the link
in her bio, she has workshops and resources listed for
you there. But do you have anything else you would
like to add to that? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (28:08):
No, I think I think that's a great place to start.
I also have an ebook that I made that's just
called the YouTube Passive Income Guide, and it's for people
who are wanting to use YouTube specifically to make money
while they're sleeping like that. That will be a good
thing to download as well. But I tried to make
those workshops things that were about specific topics. So whether
(28:28):
it's I need to increase my watch time or I
need to hit my one thousand subscribers, like that should
really help you.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
The next question is what are some tips for scripting
and planning YouTube videos in order to keep them engaging?
Speaker 1 (28:43):
So I definitely think utilizing a teleprompter is going to
help a lot of folks. Big View is the one
that I recommend because they have a desktop and a
cell phone.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
App, so that's super helpful.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
But there's also the ability if you just open up
up you can actually do it in your notes app,
or you can do it within Google Docs. I actually
put the Google Docs app on my phone as well,
and so you can do speech to text within Google
Docs and you can just turn on voice typing. And
so if you're the type of person that you send
a lot of voice notes to people, you might find
(29:18):
that it's a lot easier for you to use voice
to text to write your scripts.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
Just get the ideas out.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
You can always go back and fine tune it from there.
But if you put the app on your phone, then
it's more like you're doing a little voice note, and
then everything that you say in your app.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
Is going to sync to your computer. So those are
the two tools that I would use for that.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
I have a confession. I do that when I'm in
the shower. I do it on my notes, but I'm like,
I get way too many good ideas in the shower,
and I was like, how can I talk to my
phone and turn it into documents so that later I
can actually go through my thoughts and make them make sense.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
So I love that.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
I haven't tried it with the Google docs though, and
that's what I use. I'm going to try a Google
dox instead of the notes, but I love that. Now
this is a question, how do you stay motivated to
consistently create content?
Speaker 3 (30:11):
Oh my gosh, isn't that like the million dollar question
for all of us?
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Right?
Speaker 1 (30:16):
You know, I think it's super important to actually build
a community first, Right, So whether you are talking to
ten people or ten thousand people. When you can actually
put a face to a name and you know there
are legitimate people who are wanting to learn from you
and really like your perspective on things, it's a lot
(30:37):
easier to show up and create a piece of content
to answer Breeze question than to create a piece of
content just for the Internet, right. And so I think
that when you are disconnected from the people that you're helping,
it's harder to serve them with content. And so I
think the more opportunities that we can have to make
that real, whether it's you know, answering your comments, da
(31:00):
live streaming, what have you, to help it feel more
grounded and real, it'll make it easier to show up.
And then also just not putting a ton of pressure
on yourself that you need to constantly be pumping it out,
because YouTube will take that pressure off. I do a
thing every year called twenty five Days of Canva, and
I have noticed that even if I post daily like
(31:21):
people do for Vologmis, I can see months later the
benefit of what I'm doing, because people are not expecting
to come to YouTube every day to see something new,
So that pressure that we felt from other platforms isn't there.
And so that can help make it easier to show
up because you can batch your content when you're feeling creative,
create all the things, and then just drip it out
(31:43):
week by week.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
What are some of the best practices for promoting your
YouTube videos on other social media platforms? I love that question.
It's a good one. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
So I think one of the things that I've seen,
and I think we're seeing this with all types of
content on Instagram is to connect it to me e
chat like I know, we're all you know, here we
go here it comes minichat again. But truly, I think
that third party app is single handedly holding Instagram up.
And so I think, you know, whatever we can do
(32:14):
to be able to talk about our content and eliminate
the amount of clicks it takes for people to go
watch it, the better. So email is obviously, you know,
my first pick. Minichat is great coming from Instagram. You
can post a clip from your YouTube video and say,
you know comments, you know, you could say the title
of the video to get the link. You could do
(32:36):
episode numbers if you're doing a podcast. I think the
link sticker and Instagram Stories is effective. But obviously Instagram
doesn't like people leaving Instagram, and so I would say,
if you're going to use the link sticker, just use
it first and don't post other things that day, because
when you only post one story, Instagram does prioritize it.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
So it's like, well, got to play the game if
that's what you're going to do.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
So linkstickers help on that platform as well. And yeah,
I mean, I think ultimately, when you have a cadence
that people are used to and you're constantly you know,
if you're posting every Monday or posting every Thursday, people
do tend.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
To come back.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
So you'll have some people who will just watch your
content without you driving traffic to it. But you utilizing
platforms that you already have is going to be super helpful.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
And now the next one you kind of answered this already,
but she asked if there's more requirements, it's how do
you monetize your YouTube channel? What are the actual requirements
for doing so? You mentioned that you got to get
to the one thousand follow or one thousand subscribers. Is
there any other requirements for monetization?
Speaker 3 (33:41):
If you're not.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Doing a short strategy, then you'll need four thousand watch
hours on your channel within the last twelve months, so
they split things up recently and so, and I think
it's because a lot of people from TikTok were coming
on the platform, and so there's a much higher views
that are necessary if you're just posting shorts. So you
can choose shorts or feed videos, and they're two different requirements.
(34:05):
But I want to say it's like millions of views
if you do shorts versus thousands if you do horizontal videos.
So I tend to put people on the thousand side
if they're trying to get monetized. How do you handle
creative blocks or burnouts as a creator? Yeah, I think
all of us are embracing the sabbatical, you know. And
(34:27):
I think that when you think about your YouTube channel,
just like TV shows go on hiatus over the summer, typically,
like it's totally fine for you to go on hiatus
or for you to rent back on how often you post.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
So I'll see people who.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Will say, Okay, well I usually post every week, but
I'm going to go to every other week to give
myself a little bit of break, or you know, say,
for instance, for me, I'll typically not live stream in
August because that's my anniversary month. I got a lot
going on into summer, and so I think that's a
healthy pace for people is to kind of think in
(35:04):
the beginning, Okay, what is the cadence that I want,
and let me plan ahead of time to work at
a pace that works for me versus waiting until you
burn out to have to react to it.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
That's that's great. And you know, I am a queen
of batch working. So that's why I said I won't
launch nothing unless I got things in the roll of
decks ready to come out, because I just prepare for burnout.
It happens, you know. The next question is can you
share any examples of entrepreneurs who have successfully grown their
businesses through YouTube so that they can take a look
(35:39):
at them as an example?
Speaker 3 (35:42):
Yeah? Yeah, I think two.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Of the ladies that I really look up to I
think that are doing it well are Katie Steckley and
Latasha James.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
I think those two. Yeah, yes, I don't know. I
would say I would say those two.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
That is such a good one. Katie is amazing. I
love her. How do you balance creating content that is
both informative and engaging or entertaining?
Speaker 1 (36:11):
I'm sorry, I think the more that I've created on
my channel, it's helped me to be more and more
myself in my content. I think in the beginning, we
kind of all start with that, like this is my
video voice, you know, and we want to be polished
and professional. But over time, the more that you create,
the less you feel like you need to put on
(36:31):
this show, and the more you're able to just help
a friend. And so I think that that's been a
really fun transition for me.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
We are down to our last question. Girly, you have
been hard at work. It is what are some tips
for collaborating with other YouTubers or influencers and do you
recommend as a form of growing your channel.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
I definitely recommend collaborating, but I think it's more important
when you have a very clear audience established, so you
can make sure that the person that you're bringing on
is also bringing on the right people, because you don't
just want views for the sake of views. You see
that a lot when people go viral and then all
(37:12):
of a sudden, like they start getting all these hate
comments and trolls, and it's like, well, where is this
coming from? And it's because you're getting so many people
and your ecosystem that don't really know you or don't
really want to learn the things that you're putting out there.
And so once your channel starts to grow and you
start to get a pulse on like, oh, like, my
audience is content creators or my audience is you know,
(37:34):
busy moms or what have you. Once you have a
good pulse on that, then it's so much easier to
find like minded channels that are serving the same group
of people.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
I appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule
to talk with us and help us out because you know,
like I said, a lot of our listeners are wanting
to do you too, but there are some fears. There
are the unknowns, you know, so hearing from someone like
you is definitely super helpful. So before we go, is
there one last piece of advice, tip, or quote or
(38:05):
anything that you want to leave our listeners with. Are
you ready to elevate your brand, increase your income, and
reclaim your time? My team and I are here to
help go to the soft life CEO dot com backslash
book a call for free consultation today.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Oh man, There's so many things I could share, but
there is one quote that I used to include in
like all of my talks when I would speak in person,
and it's not my personal quote, but I just love it.
And it's light yourself on fire with passion and people
will come from miles to watch you burn. And so
I think if we are creators who are super passionate
(38:43):
about what it is that we love, how we serve people,
and you leave with passion and your content, you will
get the views, you will get the subs. That's the
least amount of your worries. And so just focus on
how can I create an environment where I can just
share my passion with people, And if you can do that,
then people will come from miles to watch you burn.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
Now, let's just tell everyone how they can stay in
touch with you and get in touch with all the
things Leashonda.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
Brown, Yeah, you can go to Leshondabrown dot com and
that's going to be my home base for all the things,
and my app will be rolling out within the next
month or so. And so right now, if you go
to Bootstrap, visitvice dot com, you'll go straight to my
YouTube channel. But soon you'll be able to uh to
join the app and join the community.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
So that is exciting.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
And that is something that you mentioned on our dinner
some year ago that you were working on, so it's
so cool to see that come into fuition. Well, one
last time, girl, thank you so so much for your time.
You have been a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Well, thank you so much for having me, and I
wish all of you luck with your brandy YouTube channels.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Thanks for tuning in to Soft Life CEO. I hope
that today's episode gets you a little bit closer to
achieving your definition of a soft life. If you're ready
to start the journey from hustler to softlafe CEO, go
to the Soft Life ceo dot com backslash Society for
a thirty day free trial in my coaching community. If
you found this episode helpful, share it with a friend,
leave a review, and don't forget to subscribe.
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