 Well, hello, episode 171 of the Confident Live Marketing Show. My name's Ian Anderson Gray, welcome. Today is a very exciting day, because we are talking about the elephant in the room. Well, it's been the elephant in the room probably over the last 171 episodes, and that is perfectionism, or should I say recovering perfectionism, and how you can get over that, how you can be consistent, create amazing content, and I have the master of this. I've been so inspired by all his content and his workflows and how he has got over his perfectionism. Not that perfectionism is always bad, as I've seen him say, but sometimes you can get in the way, and so that's what we're gonna be talking about today. We have the amazing Alec Johnson in the house. Great to see Alec, how are you doing? Very well, thank you. Great to be here, thanks for inviting me, Ian. Oh, it's a pleasure. The honor is all mine, seriously, because as I said to you before, I've been getting a little bit addicted to your YouTube channel and binging on it because you've got so much amazing content there to do with, well, eCom Live and Streamdex and all this kind of stuff. So, yeah, when did you start your YouTube channel? Because you've not been doing this, I don't get the impression you've been doing this for that long, but you've really grown that channel. Yeah, it was May last year, so just come up to my, just past my one year anniversary. So it was the 14th of May, it was my first kind of, my first live stream, which was my first video, and then, yeah, I aimed to do 100 videos in my first 100 days. I did that, and then I aimed to extend it to 365 videos in my first year. I didn't quite meet that because a few other things got in the way that took my time, but hey, I'm not perfect. That's what we're gonna be talking about today. It's kind of interesting in a way, because like, you've set these really big goals. Do you think that is, like, I don't really want to get into this now because we haven't started the podcast, but maybe I'll ask you that later, but sometimes these big goals can be good for perfectionism or not so good, but you're dialing in from Thailand. Tell us where in Thailand and tell us a little bit about where you're from. So I'm from the UK originally, in case you couldn't tell by my accent, from North Staffordshire, but then I've been living in Thailand for 16 years. I'm in a little town called Nong Khai, which is on the border between Thailand and now on the Mekong River, nice little quiet backwater town, away from the crowds. So, yeah, as I say, being here for 16 years and absolutely love it. It's a wonderful place to be and to raise kids as well. Awesome, that sounds beautiful. So I'm kind of, I'm trying not to be jealous, but I've just been in Florida for a week, so I think it's all right. Well, if you just, sorry, carry on. I had FOMO with that event, I would wish I had been able to be there as well. It looked like a great event. I know, it's hard to hold. I really try not to do FOMO because sometimes it's really hard. Like there was social media marketing world back in whenever it was. And it was the first time I've not been since 2015 and seeing all my friends there. But yeah, it's, yeah. But you know, things are starting to open up and we hopefully start to come to more conferences and events and things like that. But anyway, if you have just joined, welcome. I can see we've got some live people watching. I've not been live for probably about two weeks now. So it's getting back into the scheme of things. But if you are watching on Alex channels on Tech One Tech, welcome. You might be wondering who on earth I am. I'm Ian Unston Gray. This is a confident live marketing show. And I've got the fabulous Alex Johnson on. We're gonna be talking about workflows to conquer your recovering perfectionism. So I'm looking forward to that. I think it's time to get on with the show. So I'm gonna press record on the podcast machine and let's do it. But if you're watching, let us know where in the world you're watching from. And I'd also love to know if you are a recovering perfectionist, let us know. Let's be, we'll be with you just after this. Hello and welcome to the confident live marketing show. My name's Ian Unston Gray. And in this episode of the confident live marketing show, we are talking about recovering perfectionism and some workflows to conquer that, to create consistent content. I've got a fabulous guest on the show, Alex Johnson, let's get on with the show now. Welcome to the confident live marketing show with Ian Anderson Gray. Helping you level up your impact authority and profits through the power of confident live video. Optimize your mindset and communication and increase your confidence in front of the camera. Get confident with the tech and gear and get confident with the content and marketing. Together, we can go live. Well, hello, Ian Anderson Gray here. I'm so excited to be here. It's been about a couple of weeks since I've last went live. I've been in Orlando, Florida at VidFest. I'll try not to make my guest today feel too much FOMO. We were talking about FOMO just before we started, but that was fabulous. I'm gonna talk a little bit more about that in the next episode, which will probably be next week if you're watching live or next Friday if you're listening to the podcast. That was VidFest. It was fantastic. But yeah, if you haven't come across my podcast before, just go to iag.me forward slash podcast. It's the confident live marketing podcast and we go out every single Friday. The live show normally goes out every Tuesday and Thursday, but well, I've been away. So hopefully you'll forgive me. But I'm excited because today I have a fantastic guest. So you're not just having to listen to me today and my guest shares a problem that I really struggle with and that is perfectionism. Well, it was a problem because now we don't call ourselves perfectionists. We call ourselves recovering perfectionist and we're gonna be talking about workflows on how to create consistent content. So I'm excited to be bringing in today the amazing Alec Johnson. I'm so excited. He has a diverse background in the fields of aeronautical engineering, architectural design and construction, graphic design, algorithmic trading, video production and consultancy, quite varied, but all have a common thread, problem solving. Love that. Specifically using the latest tools and tech to get the job done perfectly. Oh, I shouldn't say perfectly, efficiently. Why did I say that? Anyway, welcome to the show Alec and I can't find, where's my cheering sound? Oh, talking about recovering perfectionism, where's it all gone? Anyway, there's normally a cheering sound at this point, but I'll just imagine the crowd's cheering. How are you doing Alec? I'm very good, thank you. Thank you very much for having me on. It's a pleasure to be here. Oh, it's awesome. And as I was saying just before we started recording, I'm a massive fan of your content. Your YouTube channel I've been addicted to. So this is Take One Tech. If you are watching or listening, just search for Take One Tech on YouTube and it's all to do with, well, I mean, how would you describe your YouTube channel Alec? Well, it's all about the way I started it because it was intended to be all about the applications and things that I use on my Mac to help me get my things done in my work. But then the tool that I started using to make my videos was Ecamm Live and the Stream Deck and they became kind of two of my favorite tools. And so the majority of the videos seems to have been on that subject rather than the Mac automation and things like that. So it's probably about 50-50 productivity and automation and then the live streaming and Ecamm Live stuff. Yeah, definitely. So if you're into Ecamm Live, if you're into Stream Deck, but also like, I mean, there are some more geeky episodes so using automation, so there's not techs expanded. What's the one? It's a keyboard maestro. Keyboard maestro. Yeah, yeah. And keyboard maestro, I've had it for probably two and a bit years, but have I kind of like used it or opened it? Yeah, I kind of opened it and I get like anxiety because you've got some great videos. Yeah, it's a bit daunting, but it's great and I find that really helpful. So I'd love to know how you got into this. You've had your YouTube channel for a bit, but you know, you've got, as I said, as I was reading your bio, you've got a really varied background. You were in the UK, you're now in Thailand, beautiful Thailand. And yeah, tell us a little bit about your journey of what you did and how you got to Thailand and what you're doing today. And then we'll talk, but we'll dig into the whole perfectionism thing. Okie dokie. So yeah, moved to Thailand 16 years ago. I came on a diving holiday for, I was here for just about a month, something like that. But then realized I would be able to work from here just as easily as I could from the UK potentially. So moved over. It's a lovely country for anyone who hasn't been. Lovely food, lovely weather, lovely people. I can't say enough good about it. And coming from a rather rainy UK as I did, it was a nice change. So yeah, I've got, it's hard to really nail down. You know, when people say, what do you do? Because like you heard in the bio, there's quite a diverse background there in, aeronautical engineering was what I studied at university. But then graphic design, architectural design, all these sorts of things as well I've also done there. It all comes down to this design and problem solving though. That's kind of what I sort of nail them all down to. But in recent times, I've been involved in a couple of companies that I'm a partner in where I've been needing to make training materials. So wanting to create course content. And I initially started doing that the traditional way of filming the course content and then editing it. But I was my own worst enemy when it came to editing really, because if I knew that I could retake things, I would take lots of different takes and then trying to stitch them all together in the edit would just end up being a bit of a nightmare. So I thought that there must be a better way of doing it. And first tried out OBS, which is a open broadcast software to allow you to record direct to tape as it were and create different scenes and things like that. But I probably pulled out my last few hairs using that. And then discovered Ecamm Live, just sort of by chance watching a edition of Matt Great Weekly and Doc Rock was on there talking about it. And that's how I discovered it just over a year ago. And it's basically transformed the way that I create course content. And so I wanted to practice the process of creating videos in one take. And so I thought, well, if I start a YouTube channel and get into the habit of posting stuff consistently to there, then that will help me sort of sharpen the saw as it were in terms of getting better at that skill of producing videos so that then that would translate over into all the course content I make. And that can be done a lot more efficiently. So that's how I came to be doing YouTube content. That's awesome. And yeah, we're gonna talk all about that. Massive Fan of Ecamm Live on the show. We've had Doc Rock on the show as well and Katie and get Ken and Glenn who are the co-founders of Ecamm. We've had them on the show before. But if you're not a Mac user, we don't hate you. I was a PC user for many years. And there are other tools out there that can help them. OBS is not the easiest and the most user-friendly, but it's certainly possible to do some of the things that we're gonna be talking about today using OBS. But it's a lot cheaper to buy a Mac these days. And I've got an M1 Mac Mini, which I've got a MacBook Pro, but actually my main computer these days is an M1 Mac Mini and it just is amazing. So it's definitely possible to do that. So I love hearing people's kind of stories because so often, I think we have this feeling that we've all got like a plan that we did one thing that was led to another thing and it's all, it was all planned. So like, Alec, you knew exactly what you'd be doing like 15 years ago and no, it doesn't happen that way. But all of a sudden, I'm sure you'd agree with this. Like all of your background, like the engineering and the graphic design and all this kind of stuff and the business. I mean, there's a huge amount of business stuff. That has really helped to where you are today. There has been a progression. It's not been necessarily planned. But so the problem solving is really interesting. I very much into that as well. But tell us a little bit about perfectionism. I know that you, there are pros and cons with this, but how has perfectionism in the past kind of manifested itself for you? Maybe talk about some of the pros and cons with that. Cause it's not all bad, but obviously- Not at all. Yeah, but there are some bad sides to it. I always say, it's better to strive for perfection than strive for mediocrity. If you fall short of perfectionism, then you're still gonna be further along than Mr. or Mrs. Average. So I definitely think that it's a good thing. And I think that that has been instilled in me from the jobs that I've done. So for example, the aeronautical engineering, you don't wanna say, well, it's about right. And the first job that I had was working for a missile defense contractor. So designing guidance systems for missiles. You don't wanna say, well, it's gonna get roughly to the target. Everything there has to be military precision. So it's, I think that part of the sort of precision and perfectionism in me has come from the different roles I've done. One of the things that I did when I came to Thailand was set up an architectural design and construction company. So we were building really sort of high spec houses. And somebody comes to you with a dream. I would design them their house and then oversee the management of the building of it. I can't really turn around to them and we're handing the keys over and say, well, do you know what, this is almost perfect. It's always been a real sort of, it's not a burden. It's an absolute pleasure to deliver something that's of really high quality to somebody. But there is that sense that this has gotta be perfect. When somebody walks through the door, they need to see their dream home and realize not part of a dream home. So I think that the things that I've done in the past have sort of driven that perfectionism in me. But what can happen then, if I'm my own client, I often have higher standards. I set higher standards for myself than I would expect of others. So if I'm getting somebody, a building contractor to do some building work, then I would set a higher standard for myself doing it than for somebody else, if that makes sense. I'm too self-critical of my own work, I guess, is the thing. And so the negative of that is obviously, if you feel like it's not quite ready, I just need to do a bit more on it and it's not quite ready to ship it as it were. So that's the recovering perfectionist part in me is just wanting to get over that sense of, I need to just make it that little bit better before I release something, rather than just actually getting it out there. I think that's the key. It's if it stops you from actually starting or creating in the first place. I know that's been the case for me. I'm gonna be totally honest and transparent. That is still an issue for me on YouTube and you have really inspired me with the one take thing, which we'll talk about in a minute, because I think what we tend to, what we often do, you're very right in that we have a higher standard than we would assume that we would for other people. And you go on YouTube and the number of videos that I watch that I find really, really helpful and they're taken on a smartphone, because ultimately what I'm wanting, I'm wanting some information and it doesn't necessarily have to be on a really high-end camera like you're using or I'm using with a fancy microphone. But I stopped and I didn't create content because I thought I needed to have the best tech or I needed to have everything sorted. Do you think part of it is it's kind of, well, maybe not necessarily aiming for perfection, but if you start at very mediocre, but you have a goal to get better and you're getting towards that goal of not, maybe 90% perfect, you're getting there one step at a time. That's the aim that we're getting better and better and better each time as long as you have that in your mind. Do you think that's the right attitude? Yes. This is totally a journey of self-improvement for me as much as it is for making educational-style, tutorial-style videos as well. It's I'm learning through it all as well. And so whilst I do the recorded videos, my weekly live streams that I do tend to be more sort of me talking about the process of what I'm doing. So it was tracking the progress towards my different goals that I was having and things like that. And so it is more kind of me just being open about, this is where I am, this is what I'm doing and this is the progress I've made and sharing the things that I'd learned along the way. So it's definitely a process of improvement, self-improvement, but I also don't quite agree when some people say, oh, if you want to become a creator, just pick up your phone and start now. Like just literally just go live right now because I think that it's a case of setting a sort of reasonable starting point that you're happy with, even if it isn't absolutely perfect. And so when I started my channel, the first video that I did did have a certain level of polish to it. You know, it wasn't a case of I just picked up the phone and I spent a month knowing that I was going to go and do my first live stream, whatever day it was. I gave myself a month to get things set up. So setting up the channels, setting up the website, setting up the scenes in Ecam Live for example and things like that. So I do believe that there should be some planning but the thing that I was conscious of was I set the date of when I was going to start and if I wasn't quite ready then, then I was going to go anyway. So just giving myself that bit of freedom to say, right, well I'm happy if I'm not entirely happy with it. Yeah, well I mean the planning is the most important thing. It's kind of the boring bit. And I think sometimes like people, like the planning in a sense requires you to think and thinking can make you scared, particularly with live video because you know you're just about to go live. And so sometimes that planning can get in the way but you're absolutely right. You need that time to check the tech, just make sure that everything's working and you know what you're going to talk about but then you know, don't procrastinate. You do need to press the button. And you can like do some test lives. You know, go live in a Facebook group or something. And I suppose the upside is when you first go live, when you're probably going to make mistakes and say, oh and I still stumble over my words but at least at the beginning you're probably not going to have many people watching. So there is that. And over time as you get better and better, hopefully you'll get more and more people watching you. Mel Bridger is in the house. Great to see you, Mel. Always lovely to see you. He says, love the hoodie. And I think I'm going to have to order the, sorry for podcast listeners. I like his right way, a fantastic hoodie. Recovering perfectionist, love that. I want a cap as well. That's probably a bit overkill though, isn't it? It is a little bit overkill, yeah. Love it, love it. Okay, so I think we've, I think we've defined what a recovering perfectionist is. And I think that many of us struggle with it. And it's not that we shouldn't be striving for, I hesitate to say that we should strive for perfection but we should at least strive to get better each time. I want to know about your process. So you're using Ecom Live. Let's start off with, let's not talk about your live strategy. We'll come on to that. But I want to know about how you create your YouTube videos because I think you said that in the first 100 days of setting up a YouTube channel you did something about like 100 videos and 100 days. I mean, that just blows my mind. I mean, for me, one video in one week, that would be momentous. No, not quite, but, so tell us a little bit about your process. And I'm also interested, like did you honestly think you were gonna do the 100 in that first 100 days? I did think I was gonna hit that target because I'd sort of done that month that I spent before starting, before my first live, I'd already sort of planned out the list of videos. I'm never short of videos to make. So I've got a list now that's well over 150, 200, I think now that I've got still to make. So I'm never short of videos and this new one's been added to it all the time. So I wasn't really worried about the content and because I'd been sort of trying out different things in terms of the scenes that I was gonna have and how I was gonna control everything with the stream deck as well. I knew that it should be possible. And my approach to making the videos is, so I get up pretty early. So I'd normally wake up at three o'clock, do my sort of morning meditation, journaling and coffee, three till four. And then four until six was normally my kind of education time, if you like, when I'd be learning something or reading something before the kids get up. So the kids normally get up at six or seven. So I had these two quiet hours of me time, which was normally for, like I say, self-development. So that's the time that I allotted to do my YouTube stuff because I still have other stuff going on during the day. So in that two hours, my sort of workflow for that was that I would sit down at the computer, pick one of the videos that I was gonna make. And they're all about, all of the videos are about some piece of software or equipment that I'm using that I know pretty much inside out anyway. So the style of the videos is always as if I was sitting down and telling a friend or colleague or whoever how to use it. So that's my sort of approach to it, is I'm just gonna sit and tell a friend how to use it. So in that sort of two hours, it's a case of maybe set the screen up. I've got a number of different shortcuts to position things on screen where they all need to be. And then I would load up whatever program it was gonna be and do the demo. My videos averaged out at about 30 minutes. So then there'll be like a 30 minute video. And then at the end of the recording, make a thumbnail and upload it. So it was in that two hour window that I had every morning that I was creating my videos. That's really interesting, the time scale thing. Well, we're gonna come onto the 3 a.m. thing a minute because that's like, oh my goodness, 3 a.m. But you have this like short time window. And I've found a really productive time for me is like if I'm taking my kids to like choir practice or dancing or swimming, I've got this hour in the car and I wouldn't be able to produce like a video within the car, but I find that if I'm editing, I can, because I know that I've only got that short amount of time. So it's amazing having that kind of like, in a sense it's like an artificial deadline that you've set yourself, you have to do. But you do go to bed early, don't you? So the 3 a.m. sound like- It's not like I'm living on three hours sleep or anything like that. I normally go to bed eight or nine-ish, something like that. So I'm getting a good eight hours in. But it's a case of like finding a good time where there's time in the space and you've got this focus, which is so important. By the way, I can see Mel Bridger saying, yes, let's get into the tech, which is what we're doing. And Doc Rock is in the house saying, I am trying to sleep and you two, you lot are making noise. I'm sorry, Doc, but you obviously heard us earlier talking about you. We've got somebody watching in a Facebook group. We unfortunately can't see who you are because Facebook, you know. Good day, boys. If you want us to know who you are, just go to confident.live forward slash show my name. That's confident.live forward slash show my name and just give restream permission for us to see that. But yeah, so that's amazing. So I'd love to know a little bit more about your process. So for me, if I'm creating a YouTube video, I have to plan what I'm talking about. I have to get everything set up. And then I start recording. I usually have a script as well, but it takes me a long time because I'm stopping and starting. I stumble over my words and then I edit it to death and it takes me ages and that. Who likes editing? Who likes watching themselves and editing all those bits out? So you don't really do that. If you do, then it's very minimal. Tell us about your process of how you create a YouTube video. Yeah, so there isn't any editing, probably in the 300 videos I did make. There was, so far, there's been a couple where somebody would walk in or there'd be a noise or something like that. So I'd literally just cut a little bit out. But apart from that, they're generally all just one take. And I've got an idea with the video title that I've got of something that I want to demonstrate. I've got a very clear sort of purpose in terms of what aspect of it it is of an application or something like that that I'm going to be demonstrating. And yeah, don't do any scripting either. For want of a better word, I wing it. But the one bit that I do occasionally mess up is the very beginning of the video. So although it's technically one take, technically it's not always the first take. So sometimes I'll start the video and the bit at the intro where you say this video is for you, if you want to learn about X, Y and Z or today I'm going to be talking about this, that's the part that still doesn't quite come totally naturally to me. So I've got a little button on my stream deck that I press in it, kind of resets everything. So it'll stop the recording, go back and reset everything for eCAM. So it's that first sort of, I would say 10 seconds. I've often done multiple takes of that just to get that first bit out of the way. But then when I'm actually talking about the thing, if it's something that I kind of know, then I don't seem to have too much problem just talking about it. It does mean that occasionally there's, sometimes when I've made a video when I've missed something out, I meant to say or that I should have said and I'll end up going back and adding it in the comments or making another video about it. But generally, it just all seems to come out from somewhere. It's not amazing. And you're so right, it's that first bit. It's usually the first bit. And I find sometimes it's the last bit. Like at the end of my show, sometimes I forget what, I mean, I normally say exactly the same each time. And I get, sometimes I'm a little bit tired at the end. And I think, what do I say? But it's usually that first bit, isn't it? Because your brain goes to much, particularly with live, but also with pre-recording. So having that written out, I think it's important. But I love that button. That's quite a cool hack on the stream deck. You've got a video about this. I'll try and link to it. I think you go through all the buttons on your stream deck. And yeah, yeah, I think I've said that. I did binge on your YouTube videos. So that was a good one. Yeah, so let's look at the comments. Katie Simpson is in the house. Great to see Katie. Yeah, we're still live. You've not missed, well, you've missed some, but you can go back and watch later. Amel has been very kind to share this into a fitness group. So lots of colleagues want to learn about going live. Yeah, definitely. Live video is so vital to lots of industries. We're going to talk about live in a minute. We're talking about pressing pre-recorded video at the moment, which can actually, in some ways, well, I think actually live video is a lot easier once you get over that fear of the camera thing. And Katie feels the same about YouTube and says, one take, wow. Yeah, and this is something I want to do. Doc says, I love editing. There's always one, Doc. But I'm really fast at it. Katie says, yeah. Katie says the first 30 seconds is paramount. And business growth ready says sleep eight hours, four hours firefighting, 18 hours work, need more hours, oh, need the gym time also. It's just really difficult to get that balance sometimes in our lives as well. And we'll definitely, I'll definitely link to that video, Katie, no worries. I mean, I think I will say one thing. Business growth ready that I think we've got, I think it's important. Alec, I think you'd agree with this. We should never compare ourselves to other people's lives. Not all of us, some of us have kids, some of us aren't married. And you'll have different schedules. Sometimes you might have a really very tiring job. But you may be the weekends all the time when you can do that content creation. You think you have to work out what is best for you. So we're certainly not saying that you need to get up at 3 a.m. to be productive. I know you're not saying that Alec, but I also think it's important to say. And Mel says outsource. Yeah, if you can, I'm actually interested in that. Do you do everything yourself or do you outsource some of it? Because a couple of years ago, I did realise the joy of outsourcing certain things. But yeah, I'm just interested, what do you do? For the stuff on YouTube, yeah, it's all just me. I have been planning to outsource some of it because I'm looking to sort of scale up what I'm doing. I'm sort of coming out from just that two-hour window in the morning. I'm actually looking to change my workflow a little bit to start batching stuff because it is more efficient than doing things one at a time than to actually batch some together. The last few months, I wasn't doing one a day at all. In fact, this last month I've only done my lives, but up until my sort of one year anniversary, if you like. The last few months of it, I just became really busy with lots of other things in the other things that I was doing. And so what I want to do is make sure that I am being consistent on YouTube. So I do want to start batching stuff up to continue with the sort of one a day, but just have three or four weeks or a month of them in the can as it were ready to go out. And so I'm looking to sort of rearrange my workflow. But as part of that as well, I do want to look at having people doing the stuff that I don't particularly like. I mean, my thumbnails are not that adventurous. They all look exactly the same pretty much, just changing the text. That's just by nature of I don't have time to fit that in or haven't made time for it. So getting somebody to try and do something a little bit more adventurous with my thumbnails would be one thing. But then also potentially at some of the videos, I do want to try and do some things where I just do a bit of minor editing, actually just editing out some of the gaps because I do tend to waffle. I don't really get negative comments on the channel, but when I do of the three or four that I've got, it's kind of like, oh, this guy drones on and on that sort of stuff. Because I do tend to, if I feel like I'm missing something then as I'm doing now pretty much, I'll tend to just maybe waffle on a little bit more than I should. So it'd be interesting to just do a test of removing some of that and seeing what effect that has on the videos. That's really interesting. And I think with your channel, I have to admit, like when I first came across you, I saw some of your videos are like an hour, two hours long. And I thought, oh, I don't know if I can watch that. Because I suppose in that stage, I wasn't really that, I suppose I didn't know you. I didn't know the content. I wasn't really invested in your content at that stage. But I think then I think that one side, I'd consume some of your shorter contents because you've got stuff that's under 10 minutes and like 15 minute stuff. Then I realized, actually, this guy knows his stuff. Then I was willing to invest in like half hour on the hour long ones. So I think it's important on your channel, I'm sure you'd agree with this, that you have different lengths of videos. I don't just put on half hour videos because that's quite a lot for people who don't know you to invest. So yeah, I think that's important. Now, Mel says, I teach in the evenings, I'm definitely more productive in the mornings after the school run. So it's working out when your productive time is. And I think if I could get up early, I think I would be productive. But the problem I have is that my office is kind of quite close to the kids. So I think you have to just work out what's best for you. Martin says, I think your thumbnails look great. So there you go. I think maybe that's that perfectionism, Alec. I'm not beating myself up about them, but they do. So I had one particular style of thumbnail because I just had a Photoshop file with a Tikaloda silly pictures of myself, doing the old YouTube face, that sort of thing. Tikaloda knows pictures and made all my thumbnails with this same template and just changed the text basically. So there was, I'd occasionally put an image or something out on there if I was talking about a particular product, but they all look the same for the first, I would say 150, 200 days. Then I decided that I was going to change it and I didn't really change it that much, but I just changed the color of them because I thought it looked better. But then when I've looked at the analytics on, I've done a split testing using TubeBuddy, actually in almost all cases, split testing my old style against my new style. The new style, which I thought looked a little bit fresher and bolder and stood out more, they've actually underperformed. So it shows how much I know. So it's that kind of thing. I want to test it. The other thing that I've had some feedback about is that it's not easily, because they all look pretty much the same, albeit the style might look okay. Because they all look pretty much the same, it's hard to see like, is this one I've seen before kind of thing. So it's not so much that I'm really dissatisfied with them as such, but I would definitely like to play around with something a little bit more, a little bit different, a little bit more adventurous and just see what happens because I'm all about the analytics and split testing and trying things out. So yeah, that's the engineer in me, I think, you know, I need to figure out how to do that. Well, that's good. I think, yeah, I probably don't look at the analytics as much as I should do. Maybe I should outsource that and get somebody to look at the analytics and tell me all about it. But that's probably, yeah, I probably should do it myself. But that though, that's really interesting. And I think with YouTube or with any kind of thumbnails, I think it's important to keep them probably fairly simple. And I think this is a problem that I've got. So I got a designer to go into. I use Ezel, which is like Canva to create lots of templates. I think they work well for like Facebook Live and possibly LinkedIn Live, but for YouTube, there's just too much text on them. And, you know, I put the whole title on the thumbnail and really I shouldn't do that. I shouldn't do that because the text is already there. So I think, yeah, outsourcing, getting some help. I'm not a graphic designer. And even if you, I know I'll let you, you have done graphic design, but it's probably something that you could get somebody else to do. So it's outsourcing is, yeah, something we should definitely do. So we've talked about your process of creating pre-recorded video. You just, so there's the planning stage, and then you set everything up in Ecam Live and you press record and you get started. If you mess up your words at the beginning, you can restart it quickly. And you pretty much once you've got started, you're on fire and you just go for it. And if you do make the odd little slip, I suppose you can edit that later. And there's even a cool little thing on the Stream Deck, which I think you've done a video on where you can even do timestamps as well. I've got that set up and I always forget to press the button. So that's, I don't know, do you do that? I do forget to press it. Yeah, as my main use case for that was it always gonna be for my live streams, actually. But I have found that I've kept forgetting to press it. And then if you forget to press it at one point, unless you press the timestamp at every point, then you've got to try and figure out, well, did that, how many other points did I miss? So I'm still working on being more, using that in a better way than I have been. I know, it's really annoying, because like today, so what, the way I was gonna use it, when I have a guest on, because often my guest will share something like really amazing. And I wanna press the button. So I know, like for repurposing for later, if I'm gonna take a little snippet, and I keep forgetting to press it. I was thinking about, well, maybe if I get one of the Elgato pedals, that'll make it easy, but that's just an excuse. I just wanna buy more tech. So let's talk about live. So you treat your pre-recorded videos in a sense like live. You do it live as if it were live, but it isn't live. I'm interested to know how you use live as well, because tell us a bit about how you use live video with Ecamm, where you go live to, how often you do it, why you do it. And yeah, just really interesting to know what your live strategy. Right, so for my channel, I do a weekly live stream as well. And as I said earlier, this is kind of more me sort of sharing my journey if you like. So it's talking about kind of the stuff I've been doing on the channel, as opposed to, you know, a live tutorial. Although they do often end up being, you know, some sort of tutorial if somebody asks a question, then I'll go into stuff. It was a case of practicing the process even more, because the recorded stuff, you still, you know, you still always can press that go again button. So doing something live, I think, is good to sort of stretch myself. I have done public speaking before on stages, but doing a live stream is somewhat different when you're trying to control everything as well. So you're not just getting up there and talking, but you do have to, you know, manage other different things that are going on with, you know, different scenes and things like that. It's something that I want to get better at. And so I'm always looking for ways to improve it. So for example, the last live stream I did actually was about the the Roadcaster Pro 2. So I'd also queued up like a load of different B-roll clips so that as I was doing like a full rundown of all the updates for the Roadcaster, then I was sort of feeding in B-roll. And that's something that I hadn't really done before, but I was practicing that live because I also want to feed that into my videos to sort of make my, even my recorded videos have more of a look of an edited video by incorporating that B-roll, but just doing it actually live by, you know, pressing a stream deck button and, you know, playing a video as I'm talking over the top of it. So I like that the live streams are for me to sort of practice new things as well, really, in front of everybody. Well, I think that's a really good reason to go live. It's not, I mean, what a lot of people will talk about it's to engage with your audience build community. And I assume you're not against doing that. I mean, that's important stuff as well. Oh, it's certainly, yeah, sure. It's certainly all of that as well. But I think for a personal reason, I think I'm with you on this. It's a great way to improve because there is that pressure like today, you know, I've been away for like, I've been away for a week and I haven't gone live probably for about a week and a half and already like in that space of time, I'm a little bit rusty. I'm thinking, oh, what do we do now? And I've not got all my tech working. So having that regularity and practicing is really important. It also means that you're probably less likely to stumble over your words because you're practicing, would you agree with that? Yeah, yeah, it's all, yeah, all practicing the process. It's also, I mean, you talked about engaging with the community. It's great to get feedback like that. So I'll often say, I'm thinking of doing this. What do you all think and get some input? So yeah, it's definitely good from that perspective. And I do do, you know, I do training courses, but then I also use ECAM for like on Zoom calls and things like that in business. So it's all just about, you know, the stuff that I'm doing live on the live stream is actually not that much different to, you know, doing a live presentation in a business context with ECAM just going into Zoom instead of going into, you know, YouTube. So it's practicing that aspect as well. It's all about sort of presentation skills at the end of the day. Definitely, definitely agree with that. We've got LBC branding is in the house, watching on YouTube, great to see you. And business growth ready, watching on YouTube says, I have invested hours in thumbnail design and color theory, which may be overkill. Well, there's sometimes, there is a danger, isn't there, that we can almost know too much or overthink things. So like, how does overthinking coming into this? I mean, this is part of kind of being a recovering perfectionist, isn't it Alec? Do you tend to overthink things? I mean, how do you balance that? I suppose it's a question. I definitely overthink things. That is part of my lifelong issue. But the thing about spending hours on, you know, thumbnail design and stuff like that, I'm all for doing that if you can accurately sort of measure it. And that's what we can do with the analytics. Now, I'm not somebody who sort of, I don't get up and check my subscriber numbers every day and be like, you know, all what's going on or anything like that. But when it comes to things like thumbnails and stuff that I have actually got control over, then doing the split test, for example, so I use TubeBuddy that allows me to run a split test on a particular video where it's gonna serve the same video but with two different thumbnails. And it will tell me the click-through rate because at the end of the day, you're making YouTube videos because, you know, we want people to watch them. And if we're looking to build YouTube and everything else we're doing as a business, which I am ultimately, then you want a higher number of people who see your thumbnail to click on it. So when I'm seeing the analytics from the split tests and I'm seeing that 4% clicked on this thumbnail but 5% clicked on that thumbnail, some people have this mindset where they think, oh, it's only 1% difference. It doesn't make that much difference really. But actually going from 4% to 5% is a 25% increase in traffic from that little change that you've made on your thumbnail. So it's the relative change from one to the other that is the key there. And it does have a massive impact. I've seen it myself just from my great new thumbnail design that I did that didn't actually work. It was actually worse than what I was doing before. And so I'm all for spending time on doing things like that that are gonna increase traffic. It's the same with the retention. So I always used to have a little intro that I did on my videos. So after I've done my speaking intro, then there was this little animation of my logo. I came to realize having spoken to much wiser people than myself on these things, Doc Rock being one of them. People aren't coming to your videos to watch the little animated intro. And so I've cut that out now. And I've noticed that I've had a much higher retention where people are watching the first few seconds and then they're not dropping off. They're actually, the engagement staying for longer. So I'm tempted. One of the things that I'd get outsource would be in YouTube, you can actually edit the videos that your existing videos in YouTube. So I've been through to some of my more popular videos and actually edited out that little title sequence just so that they go smoothly from my little intro straight into the content. So I'm all for spending times on things like that and analyzing it. That's really interesting. And I can definitely tell your engineering background when you're talking about going from four to 5% is actually the 25% increase. I mean, it's kind of weird the way four, 5%, it doesn't sound much of a difference, but when you put it that way, it is. So yeah, yeah, that's cool. It's working out what the priorities are because going back and editing videos like that, yes, I know you're thinking about outsourcing it, but that sounds like a lot of work, but overall that could make quite a big difference to your YouTube channel. Now with live, so I know the live part of it is, yes, you do see the importance of community and things like that, but a lot of it is to do with your just improving. And I would definitely think that's a great way of doing it. And that's one of the reasons why I do live video is actually, it kind of forces me to create the content. I love interacting with people live. So I love the community aspect of it too. I think the two go together really highly, but it is hard at the moment with live video. It's not what it was like three, four years ago but with the number of, well, it's basically down to Facebook in particular, but also YouTube not pushing, sorry, LinkedIn I mean, not pushing live as much out to your followers. Have you found that and have you got any kind of tips for us to increase the number of people watching as live? I suppose the reason I'm asking you this Alec is that you have a YouTube video that says, you have a lot of people watching your pre-recorded video and sometimes that live element can kind of skew things or get in the way of those numbers. So I'm kind of interested in your take on this one. So in terms of the other platforms, when I started my channel, I signed up to restream and I thought, let me just stream to everywhere. Surely that's better to stream to everywhere and then some other great advice from doc is that you don't necessarily want to actually segregate the audience. So I ended up just focusing on YouTube. I've only just recently sort of rekindled my LinkedIn, I have to say that I didn't really done anything with for probably four or five years or something like that. So I'm really started streaming to LinkedIn. That's something that I'm looking to do as I sort of ramp up the content over the next few months. We'll be doing some dedicated stuff on LinkedIn as well as the stuff that I'm doing on YouTube. I'm also in the Amazon influencer program. So we're doing some separate live streams to Amazon as well. Now what I noticed with my live streams, another part of them for the ones I've been doing on YouTube was to as well as get feedback from the community. It was about me sort of sharing my findings as well. But I did notice that the typical people that come to the live stream is quite low. I do get probably 10 times more watch it on the replay than are actually at the live stream. But then I was realized, I contribute a lot of the things I do to Doc Rock actually because I get lots of great advice directly from him. But one of them was making sure that the live streams are friendly for people who are watching on the replay, I should say. So one of the things that I tend to do is it be kind of like me just chatting with people, the people that are in the chats, the community for an hour and a half is usually what my live streams go for. So it wasn't necessarily well organized for the people who are coming to watch the replay for some interesting and useful content. So what I've tried to do now is be more conscious about giving a clearly structured beginning to it. And then the chat and things like that can come more towards the end. So I've tried to be more conscious about doing that with the overall structure of it. That makes perfect sense. I love that. And something I've been thinking about is I have my little chit-chat thing at the beginning but actually maybe potentially putting it at the end makes much more sense because live viewers take some time. I mean, to begin with, when we first went live today we had zero people watching us because it takes time. And then we had two, I think we had two people watching. I mean, unfortunately we can't see how many people are watching on LinkedIn and some of the other channels. But so the numbers are kind of skewed, but we've gone up to over 10 people watching excluding LinkedIn. Cause I know we've got quite a few people watching on LinkedIn, so that's not included there. So actually kind of waiting till the end is probably makes more sense to have that little bit and focusing on the replay bit at the beginning. And then you don't even have to really trim the video. Cause I used to trim the video. So I trim that beginning bit off but the problem on YouTube, you could probably tell I overthink these things too. Like if you do that, then you kind of get rid of the live chat replay, which is kind of annoying. Yeah, Doc Rock is amazing. I need to have him on the show again cause he's so full of all these little tips that we've all, I suppose, brought into our own systems. So thanks for that, Alec. That's some good insight, even if part of it was from Doc. Yeah, so what is next for you? I know that you've just had your anniversary, your first year anniversary. It's been amazing to see how much you've achieved in that year. You have just been so prolific. You've had a bit of a break, which I think you deserve because you have been putting so much into it. But what is the next, what are the next goals on the next stage? You know, in your bit to kind of counteract that recovering perfectionism, but, you know, strive towards perfection. What is the next thing for you? It is more the same, but just, you know, continuing the process of growth, really. So continuing what I was doing on YouTube and keeping that sort of content the same. But then as I mentioned, I'll be, are we doing more stuff that is more tailored to business on LinkedIn? So I do offer consultations through my website to help people and the typical people that I talk to on consultation calls want help with one of two things. It's either the Ecam Live and creating videos and stuff like that, or it is the, you know, the automation and becoming more efficient in their work. So there's two kind of distinct groups really. So the LinkedIn stuff I see has been doing specific content for LinkedIn, potentially live streams that are, you know, dedicated to that stuff. And then the YouTube would just be sort of more of the same. But then on Amazon, that's going to be more product orientated for obvious reasons. So I really love all the gear in the tech. I don't want to turn my YouTube channel into, you know, just another YouTube channel where they're talking about making YouTube videos. But actually on Amazon, that's the ideal place for me to, you know, let my tech addiction run riot and do a couple of shows on there. So we're doing one that's all about using various different bits of tech and tech products and things like that. So more kind of tutorial styles but about the actual tech itself. And then there'll also be one that'll be just pure product reviews as well. And then I'm also looking to do an interview show which will be about people who are, you know, using all these devices and, you know, live streaming. And so that will be on Amazon, but then also on LinkedIn. So coming from a sort of business point of view, the tech that we use in our businesses for communications and so on. So we're just more of the same. That's a huge amount of stuff but having a plan and processing is so important. I want to come back to what you were saying about, you know, multi-streaming because yeah, a lot of people think that multi-streaming is the way forward. So that, you know, it's going live everywhere. But yeah, it doesn't always work. You know, and for this kind of show, I think it makes sense. I've actually cut down the number of places that I go live to. I do go live to YouTube, Facebook and LinkedIn and Twitter. And I don't really know why I bother with Twitter but I do have quite a big, I do have a bit of engagement onto it but I can't unfortunately see the comments. So that's a bit of a downer. But I think when it comes to certain things like for Amazon, it makes sense, I think just to go live to Amazon because it's product-centered, it doesn't really make sense to go live elsewhere. And it sounds like that's what you're doing. In one sense, you're making more work for yourself but I think it's going to be more, you're catering, you're gearing it much more towards that audience. And I'm very excited about Amazon Live. You know, I've had, I've been in, it was called an influencer, isn't it? Been an influencer on Amazon for a while but I've not really, I've gone live there a few times but something I'm going to be spending a lot more time investing in as well. And Doc Rock is saying, stop blaming me. Well, we do, we blame you for everything, Doc. You're, you know, anyway, there we go. What is business growth ready to invest in? You have one billion viewers on LinkedIn in some multi-metaverse, maybe. Well, maybe yes, we have the metaverse. That's web 3.0, we've had, we've talked about that. That's the whole other thing which we're not going to get into today but we have talked about that on the show. That's the other thing. Cool. Well, thank you, Alec. It's been great to have you on this show. We're going to finish a little bit early today, just a few minutes early because I'm off to Scarborough, sunny Scarborough. So I'm sure you'll be very jealous of me, Alec. You know, you and your like beautiful sunshine and I'm going up north to Scarborough for a couple of days. But yeah, I've got to get all the kids ready for that. But thank you so much, Alec. It's been great to have you on the show. Katie says we will, we always blame you, Doc and it's true. But if you want to find out more about Alec then do check out his YouTube channel, which is Take One Tech. You also have a fantastic website. If you go to takeonetech.io, I love the .io, and you've got all your community, you've got your courses. Tell us a little bit about what you've got there. And you've even got a Discord server as well which is all very, very cool. So yeah, on the site, I do iCompact for Stream Deck. So they're all in the store. And then I've got a couple of courses. So I did the Ecamm Live Masterclass, which is all about how to use Ecamm for all of the stuff we've been talking about today. And then at the end of this week, I will be adding in my Zoom Masterclass as well. I'm taking part in, there's a great free event hosted by Ecamm later this week, which is their Zoom workshop. So I'll be there as one of the hosts of that. Three days of great content. And then there'll be a weekend workshop as well. So definitely check that out. That's ecamm.tv slash Zoom. So yeah, you can go and sign up there. But then I'll be also launching my Zoom Masterclass at that course as well. And that will be available on our website too. Definitely check that out because Alex's content is absolutely amazing. If you wanna learn quickly and learn everything about it, the detail as well is just fantastic. So thank you for that, Alex. Do check that out. And have you carelessly scattered yourself across all the socials as well? Where's the best place people can follow you or stalk you in a nice way on the socials? Yeah, all of the socials. LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, wherever. All as Take One Tech, you'll be able to find me there. In fact, actually I'll take that back. Twitter is Take One Tech underscore because someone else had got to be that one before. That's annoying. Never mind. I know it is, isn't it? It is, but if you search for Take One Tech, you'll find Alec on there, definitely. And Katie didn't know you were hosting that. So that's awesome. When's that, the Zoom thing happening? It's Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. And yeah, it's ecamm.tv slash zoom is I think the link. Just let me double check that. But yeah, there's Doc speaking, Adrian Salisbury, Mr. Ecamm himself. And then there's Kat Mulvihill, who's amazing as well. Jan Kek is talking about doing presentations. And then there's also, who else is there? The folks from Liminal, so Andy who Liminal created Zoom ISO, which allows you to basically pull out individual feeds from Zoom, so that then you can use them in other applications like Ecamm. So he's doing a full session there as well. I'm missing someone else. Kirk Nugent talking about audio as well. So it's gonna be a great event. Sounds amazing. Yeah, you always in danger if you start mentioning names that you have to then remember everyone. So I was very impressed that you went down that route. You did it, so well done. Oh, and David Paskin, the Torotek guy as well. Oh, cool. And you admitted. Well, if you've missed somebody else, I'm sure we'll forgive you. It's not the end of the world, but I presume there's gonna be a replay of that. So for... It's all live on Facebook, live on YouTube. So it's on the Ecamm YouTube channel. So you'll find them all there as well. Yeah, so if you're listening to the podcast, don't worry, just go to the Ecamm YouTube channel and you'll be able to do all of that. Martin on LinkedIn is saying, well, try and catch the Zoom gig. Great liner, it sounds amazing. I'm probably gonna have to watch the replay myself because we're away for a couple of days, but I can't wait to be learning more about that. Well, thank you, Alec. It's been awesome, it's been great. I mean, I can't believe we actually haven't spoken to each other in person yet, but hopefully at some point, we'll actually see each other in like face-to-face at some kind of event somewhere. I look forward to that, yeah. Mm-hmm, definitely, definitely. Well, thank you, thank you so much, Alec. It's been great to have you on the show. Well, we are out of time, unfortunately, but that's just the way things are. Time just moves so quickly. Thank you so much for watching. Do check out the podcast that I did, you got me, forward slash podcast. And until next time, I encourage you to level up your impact, authority, and profits through the power of Confident Live Video. See you soon, bye. Thanks for watching the Confident Live Marketing Show with Ian Anderson-Griffin. Make sure you subscribe at iag.me, forward slash podcast so you can continue to level up your impact, authority, and profits through the power of Live Video. And until next time, to the loo.