 Today, I'm with Gord Eisman, and I'm excited. We're gonna be talking about videos, making videos especially for YouTube and how we can grow our YouTube channel. Before I introduce Gord and his bio, just want to say hi to you, Gord. Thanks for being here. Hi, George. It's a pleasure. I'm really excited for our discussion today. Yeah, me too. Yeah, we're coming to you from from beaches here, right? I'm on my beach. You're on your beach. Hope it's not too windy out there. It's always a beautiful day here. It's always a beautiful day. All right, so let me share your background with the audience and then we'll get going. So I'm just gonna read your bio first. All right, so Gord Eisman helps small businesses and entrepreneurs grow their businesses using online video. He's had a long career in IT and in the business intelligence and project management sectors. And then Gord pivoted and took up a more creative and fun process of making, producing, distributing video content. And now that he's been doing it for several years, he developed a wide variety of skills to be able to help entrepreneurs, small business owners and people on YouTube achieve their video goals and to solve their content marketing challenges. Gord offers clients a variety of services, including done for you, so you can make videos for you and also one-on-one coaching through every stage of your video brainstorming, creation, you know, marketing, including storyboarding, scripting, shooting, editing, all that stuff Gord can coach you through. So Gord, I'm excited to talk with you because I have some questions too that I'm sure you can answer and thanks for being here. Thank you. Yeah, I'll do my best. Yeah, totally. And before we go on, I actually want to mention that besides doing this video stuff that you're known for, you also have a book on Amazon of kind of spiritual wisdom, right? It's called Pedals of Life. Is that right? Pedals of Life, right? And I made that in 2014, and it was one of those projects that really just lit me up inside. You know how when you start a project from beginning to end and you don't know where the time went and it happened so fast. So I knew I was really in my zone and I actually even wrote my first poem in, I don't know, a long, long, long, long time. And I just love the process and that's where I started to really get excited about the visual side of media. And I was into photography for a long time and through a camera club I belonged to. And when I got to learn the teachings of someone called Almeen, who I really enjoyed her spiritual teachings, I found this was like a deck of cards and it had all kinds of joyful things on it. And I was going through the deck and I said, you know what, if I think I have an incredible library of pictures that could really add another dimension artistically to this, and I presented it to her and she was like, oh my god, I give you full authorization for the content that you're using and I want you to publish it. So there it was, I became an author. And yeah, and I want to mention that because you're not just somebody who knows all the tech and the marketing side of things, but you also have that spiritual element. So I think people in my audience would enjoy working with you because of that too. So let's get into this conversation. You have a lot more experience about making videos and especially on YouTube than most of the people watching this. But a lot of people watching this want to succeed with YouTube especially. We could talk about Facebook video too, but let's actually focus on YouTube now because YouTube is such a bigger place for getting views of our videos. So I'll just kind of let you start and I'll kind of chime in with questions. But like what's, you know, I've noticed this myself. Like a lot of people like they go, oh, YouTube, it's like the second biggest search engine in the world. And, you know, people have millions of followers on YouTube and gosh, I have something to say too, you know, and then they put their video up there and they get no views. And they get one view or five views and they get so discouraged because like, I kept myself on YouTube and nobody is finding and nobody cares. So what's your coaching around that dynamic and that experience? Well, I'm just going to give you a little bit of background first. So before I dove into YouTube, I was, I don't know if many people know who Brian G Johnson is, but I took his course called Trust Funnel Academy and from that he started something called Tube Ritual, which was where we got deeper into video. So I was originally learning about product launching and things of that nature. And video was kind of something I was really interested in but haven't, you know, dive deeply and he said, we're starting out the Facebook group with a challenge and you're going on camera every day for like the next, it was for the month. Okay. And I was the kind of person that hid behind whiteboard sketch videos. That's what I had mastered at that stage because I thought, I'm never going on camera because I don't have to because I can give my message out through things like whiteboard sketching and hide behind PowerPoints and things of that nature. And then I realized, well, I love coaching and that's, you know, I eventually decided that I wanted to go all in on video and develop the skills to help people that maybe had the apprehensions that I had or the fears overcome those things. And because I have the project management background and consulting and I in consulting in my IT days, I just knew that it was natural for me to be able to do a lot of coaching to help people. So what happens is when people go to start out with YouTube, they're all excited by what I call the vanity metrics and the success of all the popular influencers and different channels that they love. And they think, oh, wow, I can just like jump on and achieve something similarly and, you know, I'll get going and, you know, it's going to happen. But the reality is I say to everybody pretty much it's a long game and it's a long game more than anything because you're going to learn so much about yourself in the journey because you'll start out, you're going to have to learn about the gear, you're going to have to learn about how to improve with each video you put out. This is again, if you have, it all depends on what your definition of success is. And I think that's why people need to think about that before they dive in and then, you know, spend a certain amount of time and then start scratching their head because they didn't really think about what the outcome was that they wanted to achieve. So a lot of people go go down the path that they dive in. And like you said, George, they produce a video or two, they don't see the views. And there's all kinds of, you know, techniques and things that you can learn to help yourself get discovered. And they're different for people that are new YouTubers versus ones that have been around for a while. And it all depends on your niche and all kinds of other other dimensions. And so you're learning all the time. And I loved it because my career was involving analytics. Okay. And so YouTube provides tons of analytics. So I started to study YouTube SEO and all that stuff and apply the principles and with some good mentoring and coaching for myself. I developed the skills and decided to take my deeper dive niche after I did a variety of videos on educating on video, I started to dive into something called Camtasia, which is a very popular screencasting video editing software. And I chose that direction because I believe that 90 plus percent of the content you see on YouTube doesn't have to be done with, you know, Da Vinci Resolve Blackmagic Cinema Grade video editing technology for you to get a great result. So I want to help people get there more quickly, you know, and take on and learn more skills as they're ready if they want to. And that's why, you know, it's, there's so many dynamics involved that YouTube is, that's why it's a long game because it's a big self-discovery experience in the process. I know I went a little all over, but I wanted to touch on a variety of things which will unfold in our discussion. Totally. So you mentioned that people don't really understand what their goals should be or, you know, well, first it's like, oh, I'm going to put a video up and then I'm going to be famous or or get lots of views or whatever. But what is reasonable then for us to expect maybe just in terms of setting goals in the beginning? Yeah, yeah, this is very important. I actually learned the lesson that every video should have an intention and a goal in mind. So are you on, I'll give you an example, to appreciate what you're doing when you when you set out to do YouTube. Are you using YouTube to help you succeed in marketing a business that you have and YouTube's like just a part-time and augmentation thing? Or do you want to vlog and get into a whole different kind of level of video editing to do fancy stuff, to show people B-roll and experiences and travel and all kinds of interesting things? Well, is your purpose there to help business or is it to get YouTube famous? And this is why I say people should try to figure out, but they always say, discover your niche and focus down. And it's a challenge for a lot of people because if you don't have the passion for what that scope of your niche is that you end up pursuing, it's going to be hard to get consistent in publishing. And you talk all about consistency and I don't know anyone that's more disciplined than you, George, and consistent with that. And you know how hard it is to build that muscle to sit down and create when you don't necessarily feel like it's imagined. If the passion isn't there, you're not going to jump into because the work to continue to improve on the quality of product that you produce, whether it's tutorials like I do or vlogging or whatever, there's always stuff to grow and learn and change up to keep things interesting. So I think people need to have a strategy for what they're going to do on YouTube unless they're just opening up the channel for fun. And a lot of people do that just to post videos to share. But I get a lot of calls from people. They know they've established their small business and there's a lot of people in our MasterHeart community and they've done a bunch of videos and they don't really, really utilize a lot of the tools and features and capabilities that they have in YouTube to help improve their chance of discoverability in search. Because to be honest, many realize it can be overwhelming. But you know, this is where I say people are going to learn a lot about themselves in the process of trying to build out a YouTube channel. But knowing the reason you're there for and having intention with each thing you produce will make it easier for you to accept the big picture that you're moving forward on. Yeah. And so you mentioned some of the YouTube tools that people often are not aware of. Do you want to kind of go into do that a little bit? What might we be looking for in the YouTube tools? Okay, so well, there's there's tools inside YouTube, you know, like there's a lot of analytics data that's provided for you where you can do things like analyze how long people stay and watch a video. When do they actually drop off? You can see, based on how many times your video is shown, your thumbnail that you can understand how many click-throughs happen on certain number of impressions. That means how many times your thumbnails are seen, so that you can learn things about am I on target? How do I look compared to my competition? I will always do search searches to compare the content that I want to create. Even before I create a video, I go out and search. And you know, if you're out there with the intention of growing your channel, that's that's part of your goal. And maybe you want to earn some AdSense review and affiliate income through doing other things. Well, then you want to know what people are searching for. So there's techniques inside YouTube to actually, you know, use and search the keywords and understand the key phrases that are used and comparing videos with with competition and in the suggested list. And then, you know, I also use tools, third-party tools like TubeBuddy and MorningFame, which are also keyword search and analytical tools that that help me do that analysis. So I'll know, for example, pardon me. If I want to compete on a very popular topic, like on a YouTube video, I'm going to know, I know that I don't want to match a keyword phrase for like the most popular video. I'll want to do more of a long tail, extended version of the title and see if there's search value in that. And so that I can be found with maybe, you know, not having to match on the exact keyword phrase as the top videos. And, you know, I want, I want to give my videos a chance to be seen and be found. So you use the tips and tricks in the metadata and in your title and thumbnail, you know, these are things inside YouTube because think about it. It's like a bookstore, right? If you're looking at YouTube, you see the thumbnails, it's like your book cover. If that's not even attractive, you may not even look at what the video is about, right? So it's so important, the title and the thumbnail. And there are people that spend hours on perfecting thumbnails just to put those out, believe it or not. And so, you know, you'll get to learn the tricks and where to focus and how to evolve and do a good job on creating your branding style that will work on YouTube. And, you know, so there's a variety of tools that you can use. And I mentioned a few things, you know, YouTube's analytics, which there's all kinds of stuff to analyze your audience and your retention metrics. And then I do comparative, a lot of comparative analysis. So I mean, you can go into a lot of detail there, but that gives you an idea of some of the different kinds of tools that I use to help me, you know, and, and I think that's a very important thing is that once you've sort of focused on your nation, you know what you're doing. Now you want to learn about what topics you should be creating videos for if your goal is to compete and build your authority out on YouTube. And that's why I say a lot of small businesses want to be known and be shown and get discovered for their expertise in certain subject areas. And that automatically helps me because when I meet somebody new, they're likely coming as a lead from YouTube. And they see that my channel and they've consumed a bunch of my videos. It's almost like they know me before we say hi. And so it can be a very powerful tool for you in your marketing to help you get discovered. Nice. Nice. So do you have any hardware recommendations for succeed on YouTube or just making, making good videos? Oh, okay. So well, that can cover everything from webcams to DSLR cameras to capture cards to lighting. And I say, you know, it sounds cliche, but you know, work with what you got. It all depends on what kind of budget because not everybody is going to want to invest a lot of money. Like I'm just now very close to upgrading my DSLR to a 4k DSLR. And it's, you know, fortunately, I just was the recipient of a grant and I'm going to be upgrading some of my gear. But I think this is where coaching and mentoring can come in with just like a little bit of consultation. And you know, someone like me discusses with the person to find out, hey, what affinity do they have with technology and gear? Because if they don't have that, you know, you're not going to go, there's no point in trying to convince them that they need a mirrorless or DSLR camera to run and do live streaming and have to go into all the nuances that's involved there and hooking it up through capture cards and other software to run your broadcast that's very sophisticated. You know, they may be, you know, a phone will be more than enough for them to handle. So you need to talk a bit about, you know, where they're they're at with their, with their skill level, what budget and, you know, are they willing to invest in what they're doing? And, you know, sometimes if their goal is something it may be beyond what they thought it was. So they may tell you that they know what they, they need, but what they really told you is what they want from what they've learned and seen from others. And, you know, it's like today I got asked, can you recommend a ring light for me? Okay, so a lot of people do use ring lights and they're great because they provide a nice big circle of light. But a few of glasses, you might have problems depending on how you're going to utilize and position that ring light. So I would have a discussion rather than just because somebody saw a video that uses a ring light, I got to have one of those, you know, just be sure that they're making wise choices for themselves. I didn't go into specific gear, but I'm just saying like I'm using a Logitech 4k Brio webcam now. I used to use the C920. I still have that here. So if I want to do multi webcam and, you know, the C920 is a great product. I mean, for going live on YouTube like what we're doing, you're kind of maxed out in your broadcast live at about 1280x720 on something like Zoom. So you don't need super fancy gear and phones produce more than enough quality to achieve that. So it gets into a discussion on, you know, what is it you're doing with your video? And, you know, so we have a discussion and we've worked through the variables and position, you know, what kind of gear makes sense for what they want to achieve. That's how I get about it. And that's one of the things you offer people is you offer, we're at this time anyway, as of this recording, you're offering those who are watching this, a 30 minute free consult with you. So that's really cool and grateful for you. And of course, obviously on a first come, first serve basis, I don't know how many you can do on this, but I'll be sure to put the link below so people can like contact you and do that. Another perfect example, by the way, some people just, you know, I know I want to improve my gear or my microphone, I want a little better quality, but I don't know what to look at. And, you know, coming up with a few options that make sense for what their affinity is for using the gear and what their desired outcomes are. We can come up with something fairly quickly as an example. Yeah. And one of the questions that people are, I mean, that's one of the things people aren't doing that is a lost opportunity is that they've created content, but they don't know how to repurpose it for YouTube. So maybe you can just talk for a few minutes about that. What is repurposing content? And why is that, you know, a great opportunity for people? Okay, so a lot of people love to be able to just go on and whether it's on YouTube, going live or on Facebook, just press the record. They feel fine to do their thing, serve their community, and produce a video. And there are some people that do, you know, half hour shows, hour long shows, and with intention, they cover a lot of points. Let's say they may cover a topic and they cover 10 points on it, or they may have an amazing interview with somebody and they've already planned for it and cover a whole bunch of things. And, you know, once you've produced that video or once it's been saved, you now have, I consider this kind of content a vault in itself because if I was to take something that was a longer stream, like, you know, half an hour an hour, on YouTube, you could create a playlist that broke down into certain strategic messages that you want. So for example, I did an interview with Evan Carmichael, and I broke it down into two or three videos with, you know, 10 nuggets on this. And, you know, here's my, part of my live coaching session that I had with him. And, you know, it's just easier to consume. And that's, that's what it is. It's about meeting your audience and not everybody responds the same. Some people like to listen on audio. Some people like to see video on YouTube. Some people like to just watch it in a Facebook feed with closed captions. And maybe they don't want to watch it, right? So, but people have that aren't like video editors at heart or don't want to really dive deep. Why wouldn't you want to repurpose or use something that you put some great effort into and chop it up into some meaningful segments that are more snackable and usable, right? So, as you know, George on different platforms, different lengths of time of video are more palatable and consumable, right? So, you can get away with much longer content on YouTube. You know, for example, I just did a 50 minute review video of the New Camtasia 2020 release. And it's doing extremely well. But wow, it took me a long time to plan that out. And it's like, literally a 10 to 12 mini tutorials brought together. But I did it in a way to build up something that I wanted to show. But now, if I want to, and I've already done it, I've gone on a few shows, I'll pull two or three of those segments out and I'll talk around it. So you can take things and use them in different ways. And, you know, repurposing on YouTube, some shorter segments and playlists, I think goes a long way. And that's why I think every piece of content you make, think about its purpose and repurposing is something of value in there as well. Yeah, that's helpful to hear. So thank you, Gord, for the work that you do. And I just want to mention again, you are offering everybody watching this a 30 minute one to one session with you if they're wanting to get serious video. Yeah, well, they want to get serious about making videos, they want to really build out a YouTube channel that can, you know, tap their potential. That that time with you is very valuable. And learn about video editing, because that's a lot of what I do and educate on my channel so that, you know, I say any topical area that I can help you with related to video can be of conversation. Yeah, awesome. And I just want to mention the kind of services you offer you do video editing and production for people. You help people get their YouTube channel set up and their strategy for growing on YouTube. You help them repurpose existing videos that they have, maybe it's long or short videos that can be chopped up into, like you said, more snackable content. You help people get video testimonials produced, right? And of course, video editing, you can you can train and coach people on that stuff too. So anything else you want to say before we complete this interview? Sure, you're going to say there's just there's one other offering I'm going to be working on. And it's going to be it may be my first course or second, depending on the timing of things, I'm going to be working on a project to do to educate on live streaming and repurposing video. So sort of a combination, you know, we've touched on some of the angles there there today, because I think the timing is very apropos. And I've got someone that I can that's also a specialist. And I'm really excited about that because the timing is great for people to learn and grow with what's going on now through through learning. So yeah, that's that's one of the other things up next. Exciting. So of course, I'll have links in the video notes for people to schedule that 30 minute one on one free consult with you. And your website, of course, we're going to put your YouTube channel links so people can go and see actually, what kind of traction you've been getting. So that's exciting. Thank you so much, Gord for just being a resource, just for being so generous and sharing your knowledge. And I hope people will go and take a look at what you're sharing out there and schedule some time with you. Thanks, Gord. Thank you. Thank you, George. It's a pleasure. Thanks.