The creator of the paint line I carry in my booth at The Village Antique Mall in Zionsville, Indiana does a weekly Facebook Live with her retailers and gives encouragement and advice for growing our sales. She knows that our success is key to her success. She has said that video is the best way to grow your business. BUT, here are 11 reasons to NOT have my own YouTube channel.
The reasons:
- I don’t like the way I look on camera. There were things I didn’t like about my body when I wore a size 4, had a lifeguard’s tan and a face without wrinkles. I have this crazy cowlick in the back of my hair that can only be tamed by the amount of teasing required for a 1950’s beehive. It hits extra hard when I’m editing a video and am forced to see the flaws, real or not, over and over and over again. Sometimes in slow motion. You can only edit out so many parts that you don’t want to see on film.
- I want to edit videos like a pro. I want Spielberg to feel threatened by my editing prowess. I’ve been at it for well over a month now. Somehow, those 30 some odd days haven’t brought me up to the level I’d like. I can learn lots from YouTube, but that brings us back to an earlier post, Seeking The Ballance Between Learning And Doing. I need to prioritize what skills I want to add to my resume and so far, Video Editing hasn’t yet made it into the top five.
- My cinematography skills also need serious work. Half of my footage was filmed horizontally (as it should be), but the other 50% is filmed vertically. I seem to be unable to maintain the balance of my phone. I filmed a bunch with the phone charger cable in the shot.
- YouTube doesn’t let you earn money from a YouTube channel until you have 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours of watch time in the last year. I’ve got 19 subscribers and 16 hours of watch time. I can maybe talk my family into watching my videos every waking hour but teaching my 70+-year-old parents to switch between the 981 YouTube accounts that it would take to reach the subscriber threshold sounds insurmountable.
Numbers 5 – 11:
- My camera work is shaky.
- I have an accent.
- Once I edit out all of the “ummms”, my video is only 10 minutes long.
- I will get my feelings hurt by all of the weird Internet stalkers and trolls.
- I chopped off the top of my head in the entire last hour of filming.
- My dogs won’t quit barking during filming.
- My eyelashes don’t exist.
I don’t need help coming up with reasons to not do videos. I’ve got that covered. BUT, I’m gonna do them anyway.
You can help me grow my business by watching my videos, subscribing to the channel, sharing the videos, and commenting on them. My business can’t wait for me to get the whole video thing perfect. It ain’t going to happen. I do promise to make sure they do get better each time.
