Do you want to be a YouTuber like me? If so, there are five basic skills that you will want to learn that will make it very easy to create YouTube videos, like it is for me. I've uploaded over 4,000 videos since 2011 on more than six different channels, and I dragged my feet on one of these skills, which slowed my progress down and cost me a lot of money. So you're going to want to know each one of these skills from start to finish.
Skill 1: Public Speaking
The first skill I'm going to talk about is public speaking, because talking to a camera in my studio is about the same as speaking to other people, at least it is for me. If you want to be great at YouTube and have it be easy, the best way to do that is to practice your public speaking, because talking in front of other people is the exact same way you talk to the camera. Toastmasters is a great place where you can practice your public speaking, meet some new people, and get up and speak in front of others on a regular basis.
For me, I've actually practiced my public speaking the most at Alcoholics Anonymous. When I got sober in 2014, I started going to AA meetings, and I share in front of anywhere from 2 to 20, 30, sometimes 50-plus people for a minute to three minutes almost every day. I've been to over 3,000 Alcoholics Anonymous meetings since 2014, which means over 3,000 times I've practiced speaking in front of an audience — and I also did Toastmasters. This, plus all the time filming my videos, makes it so I can just come up with an idea real quick, step into the studio, throw up a few slides, start talking, and very quickly and easily make videos.
What you want to do as a YouTuber is cut down on the time it takes you to make a video, and being practiced at public speaking will allow you to very quickly deliver your message. Then what I do is talk almost all the time as if I'm making a video. Just having regular conversation with my wife and my family and my friends is the same way I talk to the camera. That way I don't have to try and put on a persona — I just talk to the camera the same as I talk anywhere else. If you're struggling with public speaking, Toastmasters or recovery meetings are a great way to get out of that.
Skill 2: OBS Studio
The second skill I have learned that's been really helpful for being a YouTuber is learning how to use OBS Studio. This is the software I use to film my videos. It allows me to just bring up a background on my computer and set up my cameras. I've got four different cameras: one I don't usually use for filming, my main camera in the center, a side camera which is an iPhone 8 that I've plugged in, a webcam I've hooked up in the back, and another camera I use for Zoom calls so I can use both at the same time.
You want to learn OBS Studio because you can use it to film your videos for free, and you can also use it for live streaming. What OBS Studio allows me to do is just go into the studio — I have an Elgato Stream Deck, which works with OBS Studio — get a video idea, bring up a quick background, hit record, talk, hit record, upload. I have six channels, and I put out multiple videos every day. Some days, I put a video up on five or six of my channels in as little as two or three hours of real time. As a YouTuber, being able to quickly crank out videos is just like a superpower, because most people spend so much time and energy on their videos. I love how fast I can produce videos, and learning how to use OBS Studio is a key skill that's allowed me to do that.
Skill 3: Adobe Photoshop — the One I Dragged My Feet On
Now, the skill I dragged my feet on the most, the third skill, is learning Adobe Photoshop. On this one, I spent thousands and thousands of dollars and a bunch of hours of time, and what I learned is that it's a great tool. I waited to release my videos, all because I wouldn't take five or ten hours to learn Adobe Photoshop, learn a bit of graphic design, and watch some videos showing how to design thumbnails. All you really need to be able to do as a YouTuber is use Photoshop to design a thumbnail.
Now, if you listen to a lot of the YouTube help advice that I've listened to, at least, they make it sound hard. Like you need to have this thumbnail that's so perfect, and here's how Mr. Beast does his thumbnails, and here's how I created this thumbnail. They go through it fast and make it look difficult, especially if you've never used Photoshop. But really, if you are going to be a creator on YouTube, it saves so much money and time to be able to design your own thumbnails. And guess what? You don't have to try that hard on your thumbnails. I've started multiple brand new channels recently, and the thing is, your thumbnails just have to be good enough.
Take the last two thumbnails on my crypto videos — I didn't even use Photoshop for either of those. I went even faster and cheaper by using Canva. But on a lot of my thumbnails, I use Photoshop to make my fonts and colors and icons look better. My Jerry Banfield Crypto channel, which I started in December 2022, has made tens of thousands of dollars of income and has about a half million views out of 124 videos. Most of those videos were pretty quick to create, and the thumbnails are just Photoshop thumbnails that I made very quickly. One of them I actually paid somebody to do — and I only paid 10 bucks for that one — but I had to go back and forth with the editor to try and get the thumbnail done just right. As I keep doing the thumbnails, I am getting better at them.
Among my very top videos, yes, a designer made one of the thumbnails. But another one I made myself: I literally took the XRP logo, put it on there, added a little bit of text, and pointed to it. On another, I grabbed a stock photo and put it in the background. Another I made myself with a stock photo, and another with a stock photo too. Are you getting the point? You don't need to hire a designer. All you need to keep your thumbnail really simple is a big picture of your face, a little bit of very relevant text, and some kind of a background. You don't have to try that hard, and it's not that hard to learn Photoshop. I realized this after seeing so many other people with thumbnails that don't even look that great — and they're growing, and they're getting views.
So you want to do your own Photoshop. It sucks to pay somebody to do something you can easily learn, especially if you crank videos out like I do. I just hit record, hit record again, and then do a thumbnail and an upload. It sucks waiting for someone to do thumbnails, and doing your own saves so much time. So once you get Photoshop down, public speaking down, and OBS down, you are nearly there.
Skill 4: Adobe Premiere Pro
Once you've got your Photoshop down, the other thing you will want to learn is Adobe Premiere Pro. I have an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription for like 30 or 40 bucks a month, and this gives me access to Photoshop, Premiere Pro, and the whole rest of the Adobe Creative Suite. If you do need to edit your videos — and I do not edit most of mine — I use Premiere Pro when I do. I try not to edit my videos because not editing is so much faster and easier for me, and in my experience, editing the videos generally doesn't make that big of a difference for me personally. It's better if I just film five videos and put them out on five channels instead of filming one video and trying to edit it.
And I hate paying a video editor. What's obnoxious about paying a video editor is that I have an idea of how I want the video to be, I try and communicate that to them, and invariably they get some of it right and some of it I don't like. Then I think, why didn't I just edit the video to start with? You see some videos that people are watching where the editing is not even that good, if there's any at all. You can easily do it yourself if you take a few hours to learn Adobe Premiere Pro plus Photoshop. Then you can do all your own YouTube.
Run Your Channel with No Expenses
The key that I'm showing you here is to run your YouTube channel with no expenses. Toastmasters is very affordable. Alcoholics Anonymous and recovery meetings are free, but you do need to have some kind of addiction or problem to go to those — if you're a friend or a family member of an alcoholic, you can go to Al-Anon. Toastmasters will cost you a little bit. OBS Studio is free. Photoshop and Premiere Pro will cost you maybe 30 or 40 a month, especially if you get the Black Friday special in November. What you can do then is make videos with almost no cost. That's what I do, and that's why I make lots of profit every month — because I have almost no expenses.
Skill 5: Analyzing Your Analytics
Now, the final skill you're going to need, after you've already learned these other four, is how to go into your YouTube Studio and analyze the analytics. What I've noticed in the past is that I've put way too much time into my analytics and over-analyzed them. The main thing you need to check out in the analytics is where your traffic is coming from. On my brand new channel, I've just instantly created traffic, and the key with getting traffic is creating videos that are actually needed. There's no substitute for testing, but if you make videos that are actually needed on YouTube, you can get instant traffic.
For example, I have a crypto reviews channel that I just launched because I know people need honest negative reviews of all these altcoins — alternative cryptos to things like Bitcoin and Ethereum. So I put up videos saying this altcoin sucks, that altcoin sucks. Simple title, simple picture in the background, instant views. I don't even care that much or look at whether this one got 200, this one got 1,000, this one got 3,000. I'm just putting out videos that I think are useful, and then YouTube is cranking these out in search results.
The Two Stats That Matter Most: Click-Through Rate and View Duration
If you want to understand the key things on your video, the main things are right in your overview in YouTube Studio. On your latest video, your click-through rate and your average view duration are the most important statistics. There are three main things that drive your click-through rate. One, your thumbnail. Two, your title. And three, any past experiences people have had with you. If people have seen you before and enjoyed a video, there's going to be a higher likelihood of a click on almost anything. If people saw your video before and didn't like it, there's going to be a lower click-through rate and lower view duration, no matter what it is.
So the goal is to make a title and a thumbnail that people actually want to watch, that's going to give them something useful, and then offer that in a package people can understand that will ideally get search traffic — and then, when people click on it, deliver. On one of my videos, a 10% click-through rate is awesome when you're on cold traffic — people who have maybe never seen you before — and a view duration of about three minutes on a brand new channel that people haven't even seen is great. Another video got a 14% click-through rate and almost a five-minute average view duration. And keep in mind, I didn't edit that video. I used Photoshop to throw a thumbnail together really quick. I didn't even need Premiere Pro. I hit record, talked to it, and recorded. If you put up something that's actually needed, it will come into YouTube search.
You can analyze your videos really quickly in your analytics, but don't get stuck analyzing your videos there. Ultimately, if you make videos that are useful to people, and you think about how each video is going to help someone, and then just do that over and over again, you're going to get the views and the traffic you deserve in time.
Know Where Your Traffic Comes From
Here's one of the main things you want to see with your YouTube views: where are you getting your traffic from? One of the easiest ways to get traffic starting out is from YouTube search. You'll notice 75% of my traffic on my new channel is from YouTube search. This helps you understand what context people are finding you in. I knew this ahead of time because I've been on YouTube 12 years, since 2011, and I also know the space. I know crypto YouTube. I know if you go search for most cryptos, all there are is a bunch of videos saying this is going to pump, this is going to 100x, this is going to 1000x, this is so great. So I know if I make a video with a thumbnail that says this crypto sucks, and a title that says Hex is an obvious scam, PulseChain is an awful crypto investment, Sui is a horrible crypto investment, Quant is a horrible crypto investment — if I take kind of that extreme position with it and talk about why it sucks, well, that's probably going to do well in YouTube search traffic. And this is an amazing click-through rate to have on cold traffic. It shows I'm offering something that people are interested in. To be clear, those titles reflect my opinions as a creator — none of this is financial advice.
Returning Viewers vs. New Viewers
Another key stat is whether you actually get returning viewers or not, and this depends on the setup of your channel. I've made a channel that's here to get YouTube organic search traffic as the main place I'm offering people value, and the data is a little bit behind on this. But you'll know how you get returning viewers if you can get somebody to find you in search or browse features and then come back for your future videos. That's where you can really grow your channel. You want to see in your stats how many people are returning viewers versus new viewers, and think about how you can make videos that will go out to search traffic where the people who watch your videos in search will want to come back and watch more videos.
That's why I have a more general crypto channel. But you've got to think about who's watching. On Jerry Banfield Crypto, I have more general options and more audience-type content. One video from yesterday got almost 3,000 views, which on 13,000 subscribers is awesome. That's more general educational content — the kind everyone in crypto YouTube could benefit from seeing. Whereas my other videos are very specific: they're aimed at YouTube search. What happens with those videos is that if you find me on some altcoin review, you may not care about my other altcoin reviews, so it's often more difficult to get returning viewers from them. These are the things you can pick up on in your analytics.
The Fastest Way to Make This Easier: Get a Mentor
If this sounds like a lot to you, and you're wondering how to make this way easier, the easiest thing you can do is get a mentor. I've been doing YouTube for 12 years. I have not had a real job since 2012, and I've been a full-time content creator since then. I've been through a lot of ups and downs and successes, and the two things I do best are making video tutorials and entertaining videos on YouTube, and coaching and mentoring people. I love doing both of those. Today, the best way to work with me on your channel is to join the Jerry Banfield Family, my community for YouTubers, streamers, and content creators, where you can message me and get feedback on exactly what you're doing — and that's where the magic happens.
If you want to make your journey on YouTube way easier than mine was, get a mentor. One reason I've been able to grow brand new channels so quickly is, one, my own experience. But two, I got a crypto-specific mentor who has a bigger crypto channel — one of the biggest crypto channels on YouTube — and he walked me through getting my channel off the ground. A mentor will make everything so much easier. For more on growing your channel, you can also watch my YouTube Coaching playlist.
I really appreciate you reading this. I have six channels on YouTube, and this one came from my Jerry Banfield business channel, where I put videos on how to be a content creator and entrepreneur online. I appreciate you sticking with me to the end. This is also on the Jerry Banfield Show podcast, and I'll put it up in some other places too to take those additional views.