In this podcast episode, I share the invaluable insights I’ve gained from a monumental milestone: posting 1,000 videos on YouTube.

If you’ve been on the fence about using video to grow your business, this is your sign to start. I’ll break down the three pivotal lessons that have not only shaped my journey but will also change the way you approach video content creation.

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Video Transcript:

This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos or grammatical errors.

Hey, Hey, Andy. NEARY here. Before we dive into today’s podcast episode, think back to how you came upon this podcast. Maybe it was through a post, a share, or one of your own peers shared this podcast with you. I don’t take any ads. I don’t take any sponsorships. The only way this podcast grows is through word of mouth.

So if you would be so kind to share this with a peer, with a teammate, with a friend, a family member, I would be forever grateful to you. This is how we impact more business professionals and this is how this podcast grows. All right. Let’s dive into today’s episode.

Hey. Hey. Welcome back to Bullpen Sessions. My name is Andy Neary, and this is episode 260.

In this podcast episode, I am going to share three lessons I’ve learned by posting more than 1000 videos to our YouTube channel. Well, welcome back. I hope you are having a fantastic week. I hope you’re digesting this at the end of the week as we release our podcasts on Friday mornings. Today, I just want to talk to you about three lessons I have learned posting more than 1000 videos to our YouTube channel.

It’s a milestone that I love celebrating because it speaks to one of our core pillars, which if you’re watching the video, you can see on our wall behind us, and that’s consistency. But there’s a lot of lessons learned over the last five years of posting a thousand videos and uploading them to YouTube that I want to share with you today, because I think these lessons have more their broader lessons than just what does this mean for video or posting YouTube?

I think it’s it’s old lessons that apply to business that just so happen to apply to my posting of 1000 videos on YouTube. Let me start let me set the stage for where this started about five years ago. I made the decision that I wanted to use video as a way to grow my business. I was digesting content from people I was following, like Gary Vaynerchuk, who were encouraging entrepreneurs that you need to create content if you want to grow your business.

And video was a medium that I felt was going to be very effective for me. I liked speaking. I like being in front of a camera, and I think video is one of the most effective ways to get somebody to learn from you and get to know you. At the same time, I don’t I don’t think there’s another form of content that is as effective that’s that maybe public speaking.

But I made the decision back in 2018 that I was going to use video to grow my business. I was going to use video to create awareness with my prospects. So in July of 2018, I built my YouTube channel. Now, at that point it was very basic. It was an Andy NEARY YouTube channel, not necessarily a complete game consulting channel as it is today, but it was going to be a place where I was just going to house my videos.

And you can fact you can go back you can go to our YouTube channel today and you can watch that very first video that I ever put out there. The lighting was bad. I remember I was renting some office space in Fort Collins. I was working for an agency out of Omaha, Nebraska, at the time. So I had my own our own space remotely in Fort Collins.

The lighting was terrible. I had this TV screen behind me that wasn’t helping with the lighting. And I, I just started shooting videos on things I thought were important to my prospects. You know why your insurance premiums keep going up and what can you what can you do to build a better health plan for less money? And I just made it a goal that I knew I wasn’t going to be good at it off out of the gate, but I knew I wanted to I had to stay focused if I was going to have success.

And so what I thought I’d do today is share some lessons I’ve learned over the last five years now of of shooting video. I’d say on a weekly basis, we’ve been consistently shooting video on a weekly basis for five years now. And what it’s really done for my business and what it’s taught me that I think can do the same for you.

And the reason I wanted to use this as a podcast episode is I get inquiries on a weekly basis from insurance professionals who have questions about content, especially video content. And I get inquiries about from insurance professionals who are fearful about putting content or I should say fearful maybe as much as nervous. And they’re stuck trying to create the right script, trying to use the right equipment, get the right lighting, and they haven’t even recorded their first video yet.

That’s you. It’s going to be a good episode for you. Worse yet, they’ve done a video or two or two and now I’m getting the messages that A&E. I don’t think I’m good at this. I don’t think video’s my thing. And I, I get these text messages and I just have a laugh because I ask them, well, how many videos have you done?

Two, three, five. And I’m like, Really? You’ve done three videos and you don’t think this is you’re good at it? Well, I got some news for you. There was a time where you were about three or four years old and you didn’t know how to ride a bike either. There was a time when you were 14 or 15 and you didn’t know how to drive a car yet.

And those are two things today you can do in your sleep. Why? Because you apply to repetition and consistency and time to those skills. So now that they are just natural byproducts of what you can do. Right. And so video is no different. So if you’re sitting out there in that same position thinking, you know, I’m just not good at this, or I’m actually afraid, even put my first video out there because I am stuck on wanting this video to be perfect.

Awesome. You’re going to like this this podcast episode because four weeks ago we hit this milestone of posting our 1,000th video to YouTube and it was a moment where I had to pause and reflect and it was a proud moment because I can recall that first video that I posted in July of 2018, and I can remember five years ago when I was just getting started, I had all the same fears you did, and I didn’t know how long I was going to be able to keep recording videos.

I just knew I had to be consistent and the quality and the skill will come at. And five years later, I’m proud to say this YouTube channel has done a lot of good for my business, a lot of good for building our brand around awareness and reach. And I know I can do the same for you. I’ve watched it with our clients.

I’ve watched it what it’s done for the careers of some of the advisors. We’ve been fortunate enough to work with who are using video today to open doors to opportunities they never dreamed of winning agents of record letters from groups that they probably would not have gotten into without their video content because they weren’t creating any kind of awareness.

So let’s talk about the lessons I’ve learned from this milestone in our business that I really think could help you become more consistent and that’s the best place to jump off consistency when you start creating content of any kind, whether that’s going to be video articles, emails, you name it, whatever it is, before you even think about quality and and all the tactics that go into creating that piece of content.

You have to start with the mindset that you are in this for the long game and in order to be in it for the long game, you have to build a plan that’s going to allow you to be consistent. You know, when we work with our clients on content creation and then I walk them through our championship content module and our formulas we use to create compounding content, we always get the question.

Andy, how often should I be posting? I don’t think that’s the right question. The question that you should ask is how often should I post so that I can do it confident It might only be once a week? Heck, it might only be creating one piece of content every two weeks. But the first thing you have to consider when it comes to using video in this case, but any kind of content is start with a cadence that you can confidently be consistent with.

And you have to come at this with the mindset of I am in this for the long game. I was watching a video a few weeks ago from one of the mentors I learned from Alex Formosa, and he was talking about some of the things he does when he hires marketing agencies. One of the first things he tells at the marketing agency is that he’s looking at this ROI as a ten year ROI.

He’s not expecting this marketing agency to create results for him in the next 90 days, six, six months or even a year. He’s looking ten years down the road. That’s playing the long game and you need to do the same thing. You’re going to create content wanting overnight success. You’re you’re already starting off on the wrong foot. So here’s the first lesson that I learned from uploading over 1000 videos on our YouTube channel.

Number one length doesn’t matter. What matters is what comes out of your mouth. I get this question all the time outside of how often I should post as Andy. How long should a video be? Is it better to have one minute video? Is it better to have three minute video, ten minute videos, 60 minute videos? What is the best?

My answer? It doesn’t matter. Length does not matter. What comes out of your mouth matters. A two minute video with a horrible message is a horrible video, a 60 minute video with a message that is inspiring and is educational is an amazing video. So length doesn’t matter. What comes out of your mouth matters. Now, when it comes to length, there are all different types of length.

You can videos you can create, right? If you are familiar with a platform like YouTube, you now know that they have this channel or this medium for YouTube shorts. These are videos under a minute long, but I’ve done some research and watched a lot of videos of myself, of my own recently to know that longer form videos are also playing very well on YouTube channels today.

Like I’m doing my podcast right now. This is typically a 15, 20, 25 minute video. If I interview somebody, it could be as long as 4045 minutes long form videos also work very well, but when it comes to the length of the video, don’t focus on the length. Focus on the message. Hi, it’s Andy NEARY and thank you for listening.

Do the Bullpen Sessions Podcast. Did you know the ideas shared on this show are things we actually specialize in helping to implement? If you’re an insurance professional and you want to turn your credibility into consistent client acquisition, visit complete game consulting dot com and schedule a free strategy call again that’s complete game consulting dot com to request your free strategy call.

All right let’s jump back into today’s podcast episode and you might see a little hint here, too, that’s going to help you if you are getting started on your video journey. Creating longer form video is easier because if I forced you to sit down today and record a two minute video, you’re going to stress out why? Because you’re going to want to make every single statement in those 2 minutes perfect.

You’re going to probably want a scripted out. So you’re going to sound robotic. You’re going to have to do 10 to 20 retakes because it’s going to you’re going to mess up and you’re not going to enjoy the process of doing a two minute video of if I said sit down and just hit play and teach me something around one of your areas of subject matter, expert expertise, and do that for 20 minutes, you’re going to be more laid back.

You’re going to tell stories, you’re going to slow the pace of your speech down. So recording a longer video is actually easier than recording a short one. So if you’re just getting started and you want to do it in a format that’s more comfortable, start by actually recording longer videos five, ten, 50, maybe even 20 minute videos. That’s why I love the podcast format of recording videos because I can just storytelling this talk at you and have a conversation with you.

And I don’t have to worry about trying to script out a two, two and a half minute video. So our first lesson I learned is length does not matter. The quality of the message coming out of your mouth matters, But if you really want to pick a length of video that’s going to make it comfortable for you to start hitting record more often, start with longer video.

Second lesson quality is not as important as quantity. Now that goes against what a lot of people will tell you when it comes to video. You will have people tell you that you want to focus on the right lighting, you want to focus on good editing, you want to focus on having the right equipment. I’m here to tell you you want to win the game of awareness and build a business or use video to build your business because a lot of prospects know you exist and they know who you are.

It’s about quantity, not about the quality. A lesson I have learned over the years in my own personal development is you want to strive for being consistently good versus being occasionally great. If you focus on quality when it comes to video, you might create one video that hits it out of the park. However, for every ten videos you record, that might only be one or two of them and the rest of them are mediocre.

And if you focus on they got to be high quality, what’s going to happen is you’re not going to post the other nine or eight or nine. However, focus on quantity that your job is just to create a lot of video. You’re going to focus on being more consistently good than occasionally great because the more quantity you can create, you create, create more search ability for your business.

The more topics you talk about with your video content, the more videos you create makes it easier for people to find you over time. So I’m here to say quantity is more important than quality. Now, the more you start recording video quality will get better naturally, right? The more reps you put in. Recording video is no different than becoming a better athlete around a certain skill set in a given sport.

Right? If I wanted to become a better pitcher, I had to spend time working on that craft on the mound. I had to work on my fielding if I wanted to be a good fielding pitcher, I had to hit the weight room if I wanted to have the strength to go into the seventh, eighth or ninth inning, ninth innings.

The work I put off the field, the reps is what allowed me to be a good pitcher on the field. Recording videos is the same thing. You got to put the reps in and just know at the beginning you’re going to suck. We all do. But the more reps you put in, the better you get at it. So the quality is going to come with time.

Quantity comes with consistency. So to dovetail back on something I said earlier, starting with a cadence that you are comfortable with that you can keep up consistently is very important and your ability to do that over time is where the quantity will come in. If you do the math. We posted our 1000 video on YouTube in October of 2023, posted my first video for YouTube in July of 2018.

That’s over a little over five years of posting videos consistently that allowed us to get to the milestone of 1000. So we’re talking about roughly 200 videos a year. Now, here’s a little secret about the quantity before you start stressing out with the new features that YouTube, a channel like YouTube, provides. If you’re going to use YouTube like YouTube shorts, you can actually create more videos in a shorter period of time.

One of the strategies we teach here at Complete Game Consulting is what we call compounding content. In the first lesson, it’s important what comes out of your mouth more than how long or short your video is. When you create longer form videos, you actually have the ability to cut out certain clips of that video and create what they referred to as shorts.

Like I said, YouTube calls, shorts, any video under a minute. But imagine you sitting down and recording a ten, 15, 20 minute video. Maybe it’s your own podcast like I’m doing here. And out of those 20 minutes you cut out six, seven, eight, ten shorter pieces of content. Well, guess what? At a one video, you now have created multiple pieces of video content and all you have to do is record one piece of content.

So lesson number two is quantity matters more than quality. And there are very simple ways to create quantity without you having to sit down and record a ton of videos and lesson number three, which I think is the most important lesson, is even though we have uploaded and recorded more than 1000 videos for YouTube, I feel like we’re just getting started.

And you could argue that our YouTube channel is not very successful because even after 1000 videos we only have 440 subscribers. So you want to argue that one of the lessons I should learn is that if you’ve done 1000 videos, you should have a hell of a lot more than 1440 subscribers. Sure, I’ll take that. But here’s the lesson I want to convey to you.

After a thousand videos, I feel like we’re just getting started because we’re playing the long game. We’re playing the infinite game. The goal in playing the infinite game is to keep the game going. There is no finish line. There’s no end date. When you’re playing an infinite game, you just want to keep the game going. You just want to keep the game being played.

So even though we have uploaded 1000 videos, we’re going to upload 1000 more. And even after 1000 videos, we’re just getting started. I feel like we are just at the beginning stages of learning how to record better videos. So if you’re out there right now sitting and listening to this podcast saying, Andy, I’ve done two videos and I just don’t think this is my thing, I’m here to tell you that after 1000 videos, we’re just getting started.

You need to be doing more or you can’t use a two, three or five video sample size as your determinant as to whether or not you should use video as a tool to grow your business. You need to be more patient, you need to be more consistent. But if you are going to use video to grow your business, just know this is just the beginning of your journey.

If you want to have success with this, you have to think long term. What is this video content going to do for your business in the next three, five, ten years, not the next 90 days. Because if you are always looking at this as a short term hack to grow your business, you’re never going to stay consistent because you’re going to constantly be looking back every 90 days upset.

That video has not created the result you want. So my last piece of advice for you, this third lesson I’ve learned with all of the videos we’ve done over the last five years, I know always uploaded a thousand, but we’re going to upload 1000 more. So my advice to you is play the infinite game, create content with the mindset that you are just going to continue creating content for as long as you can.

Because here’s what I can promise you. If you focus on the message you are conveying through the medium of the video, if you focus on putting out as much video content as you can, and if you focus on consistency and enjoy the process and make it a goal to just keep doing it, there is no finish line. What video content is going to do for you is going to create a ton of awareness for your business.

You are going to be educating your prospects more than any competitor is, and if you just stay consistent with it, you are going to create more inbound leads than you know what to do with. The only thing that is going to keep you from having success using video to grow your business is your lack of patience. So that’s my advice for you today.

I hope that this was helpful. It was a milestone for us a few weeks ago that we hit the 1000 mark on videos on YouTube. We have a long ways to go. We’re still getting better. We’re just getting started. But I’m here to tell you video can change your career. Video can do a lot for your business. It’s going to create a massive awareness for who you are.

You are the only thing standing in the way of having success using video to grow your business. So if you have any questions, you know where to find me. But man, apply that persistency, that consistency and that patience and you know what’s going to happen next? BE Well.

Thank you for taking the time to listen to today’s podcast episode. Remember, if you find value in this episode, do me a favor. Give it a like, share it, post about it. Go subscribe to make sure you get every episode from us every single week. And my only ask from you is that if you have anybody in your life, whether it be a teammate, a peer family member or a friend, please share this podcast with them.

That’s how we grow. We only grow through word of mouth and I would be forever grateful if you take the time to do that. All right. Now it’s time for you to take what you learned, and it’s time for you to go out. Share your message with the world. Execution, clarity and consistency is everything. Be well.