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Lesson Info

How to Make It Easy

So the first way to make it easy is to just make a plan. Literally, when are you going to shoot your videos, what are you gonna talk about, and then when are you gonna post them? That seems simple, but I'm surprised at how many people say, "I wanna do a weekly video," and I say, "Oh, when are you gonna shoot it?" They're like, "Uh, ah, well, when I have time." Well then no, you're not gonna make a weekly video, because life is gonna get in the way, and you don't have time, or else you already would have done it. So, a little tough love: make a plan, decide exactly when you're gonna shoot it, exactly when you're gonna upload it, and you can get even more specific and talk about what you're gonna talk about when. So I will tell you what I use. First of all, on page 10 of your workbook, I want you to integrate this plan into the plan you already have in your business. So if you already have a blog you regularly publish, or you are really consistent on Instagram, when do you do that? If yo...

u already have a plan for what you're gonna launch when, where, how, how does that work? So ask you, do you already have a plan in your business? And then how can you fit whatever content you have planned into that plan you already have? So I use a Filofax planner, I use a software management, or a task management software, so I can just work my content into that 'cause that's already how my business is running. If you have no system for how you do anything, this all gonna be brand new (laughs). But it's really gonna help you get consistent with it. So the first thing, write down all of your ideas. All the time, be writing down your ideas. It's impossible to make a video if you don't know what your video's gonna be about. It's impossible to make a good video if you haven't thought through what it's gonna be about and make sure that it's really useful to your audience. So write down all of your ideas, and expand on them before you shoot. Then you can use a spreadsheet, which is what I use, I use a Google Sheet so that I can share it with people who collaborate on it. Mine-- and, oh, I link to this in the resource guide. I made you a blank template that's linked up in the resource guide. It's got the date, it's got the title, and I think it's got, "Have I shot it yet or not?" and any other notes. You know how Joeli was saying that she puts just two words on the thumbnail and then a couple words in a description? If I'm really on top of things, I'll write that two-word thumbnail. Because I know everything I say in the video, and I know what I want it to be about, so I can write what goes in that thumbnail. I have a little column for that as well. I don't always do it, and make her do that hard thinking. But all of those little pieces that are gonna go together, you can think it all out and plan for it. So you can use a spreadsheet, or you can use a calendar. You can use, a lotta people use Google Calendar, and they just have set a certain color that's their content. So if they're gonna do it daily, they will go on and put their daily prompt on there, or if they're gonna do it weekly, they'll put what that weekly podcast is gonna be about. Alternatively, if you're recording ahead of time, you could put what you're recording on that day. Does that make sense? So if I record on Tuesday, but my podcast comes out the next Wednesday, on that Tuesday, I could say, "Record on topic X," and it's going to be published then. So, that's what I mean by making a plan. Decide the day you're going to record, decide what topic you're gonna record on. I fill mine out two to four weeks in advance. If I'm gonna be traveling a lot, I go on and think through a month or two, and when I was asking my audience before I did this, I was like, "What are your questions?" Everybody said, "How do you stay on top of it? "What about a content calendar?" 'Cause that's what we're talking about, a content calendar. Calendar of what you're gonna talk about. That's a content calendar. And then, on the questions about a content calendar, was, "What if I wanna change it up?" Dudes, it's your own calendar (laughs). You decide what you wanna talk about when you wanna talk about it, so you just move things. If I had planned out my content, and then I found out I was doing Creative Live, well obviously I want to talk about Creative Live this week, so I'm gonna move those down. If something comes up, and I wanna mention it in this episode, I just make time in this episode to mention it. So you're not-- No one else is in charge of you, but you. (giggles) So you get to move it around as much as you like. That doesn't mean you're failing, or you're not doing the right thing. I will often list like the next month or two, just ideas, not really like the full title yet, and then realize, "I do not want to talk about that. I'm just all-- Pfft! Two months ago, I was super into it, I'm not into it, not talking about it, take it off the list." 'Cause nobody else is a part of this; it's just for me. It's just to make sure you can stay consistent. You know what to talk about. So all those content ideas we generated in the last little section? You can go home and put those in a list with the date next to them of when you're gonna record them. Then if you don't want to, just don't. But find something else to talk about so you can stay consistent. So just keep it flexible. And it's really important that you're talking about what you wanna be talking about and what you can be excited or enthusiastic about talking about. So if the calendar is not something that is speaking to you, you can absolutely go off the cuff, as long as you know when you're gonna record, and you make yourself record at that time. It's the only way to get consistent. And you can also make it easy by fitting it into the schedule you already have. So I talked about if you already have a way that you plan out what you're gonna post on Instagram or what you're gonna post on social media, just figure out, add in your video content into that. And if you have a schedule already of like, "I'm in the studio Monday and Tuesday, and I am out in the world teaching classes or meeting with clients Wednesday and Thursday, then figure out where in that schedule you already have that your videos are gonna be able to go. So how many of you have in your work like a day by day, you kind of do certain things on certain days. Okay. Yeah. (laughs) Do you have like a, you always get something done on a certain day or in a certain time period, like 10-noon I kinda work on this, 1-2 I work on this? Yeah. Not so much? She was nodding, looking at me like-- Depends on the week. (laughter) No, but I really would like to. Right! (laughter) Aspirationally. (laughter) Yes, well, here's the thing about any new habit that you wanna do in your business, and especially any new marketing thing is, "Don't try to do everything at once." So don't both decide you're gonna keep a super strict schedule, and you're gonna shoot videos, and they're always gonna be about this, oh, and you're gonna start an email list. Just pick one thing. So if your schedule is all over the place, and you never do what you think you're gonna do when you're gonna do it, figure out how to fit in a video in there (laughs). Maybe make the video the one thing you always do at Tuesdays at ten. But don't also re-overhaul your whole schedule, because you will get totally distracted and not shoot videos. Now, the next way that you can kind of get around this whole crazy schedule thing is you can batch your videos. So you can shoot a bunch in one day. Hey man, if you've already combed your hair and put on clothes, you might as well shoot all the videos right then. So shoot all the videos, and they'll be done. And then, you can also batch-edit them all, if you're gonna do any editing. You can also batch-upload them all to Youtube. So Youtube lets you schedule when something's gonna post. So that means you can shoot them all-- And now you can't schedule from your mobile app. So if you're recording and uploading on the go, it's gonna just-- (snaps) That video we did, it uploaded to my Youtube right then. Now what I could've done is set it to private, and not made it public until I wanted it to go live. Does that make sense? It would've just been hidden. But if you're on the computer on your browser, you can schedule a time that it's gonna publish. So you could shoot four on a Tuesday, right after you're done, upload them all to Youtube, that's gonna take a while for the upload times, then write all their titles, descriptions, keywords, schedule them all to go out the next week, then the next week after that, then the next week after that. And then you can be done thinking about it. You're just all done. So earlier in the chatroom, somebody asked, "What can you batch?" Every part of this. You can batch-shoot, you can batch-edit, you can batch-upload. It's gonna save you a lot of time if you do them all at once. I tend to do them week-by-week just 'cause that's what's fitting in my schedule. But you could absolutely; I could get them all done. Like I said, when I travel, I do them all for the next couple weeks, 'cause I'm not gonna wanna shoot and figure it out from the road. So batch them so that you actually get it done. And then going along with that is shooting ahead. So most of the people I know who have a regular show that upload the same time every week, they are not shooting it-- If they go live Wednesday at 8 a.m., they aren't shooting it Wednesday at 7:45 a.m. They're shooting it the week before, two weeks before, a month before, 'cause they batched it. So if you wanna get consistent, have your video done ahead of time. Unless you're just a person who loves to work at the last minute, in which case, you know that about yourself, go on and stress yourself out and shoot in the last minute. But I really recommend shooting ahead. It's gonna just save you like a tons of stress and pressure. Any questions about how to make it easier? Yeah. [Male Crowd Member] I don't have a question, I have a technique that has worked for me, is, when you said that it might take 30 seconds for it to upload, I already have my descriptions, titles, and tags (stutters) on a Word doc, and then while I upload it, it's gonna take 30 seconds, I just copy and paste in that 30 seconds. That's awesome. And boom, it's done. That's awesome. Yeah, so he's already written it up. Now, if you-- So some of my videos are an hour so they take like 30 minutes to upload (laughs). So what you could do during that 30 minutes is write it all out, right? Or if you've just batched in a lot, write it all out and then copy and paste, and they're just good to go. That's super smart; I like that. And that's some of what I do on my content calendar ahead of time. I will write the title that I wanna use. So when I first fill it out I'm just writing, "Talk about confidence and mindset. "Talk about how to sell without being slimy." But then I go back in and actually write a title that's much more descriptive, and people are gonna click on it. And then you could even write the description then. But definitely, write that description when you shoot it, 'cause you're gonna forget later. So if you shoot it today but you don't upload it for 2 weeks, write the description now. 'Cause later you're gonna be like, "I don't wanna go back through and watch that video again to figure out what I said." And you will forget what you said. I never remember. Afterwards somebody will come up and say, "Hey on that podcast you said this and this," and I'm like, "(gasp) I did? That was genius! "I don't know. I don't remember." So write it right then, so that you remember.