Do you hate editing videos? Me too. And I've got great news for you: you don't need to edit your videos, especially if you hate editing.
Editing your videos takes a ton of extra time and energy. That's why most of my videos are literally unedited. I've uploaded over 4,000 videos on YouTube, and most of them got no editing at all. I'm in my studio, I use OBS, I hit record, I talk, I hit record again to stop the recording, and I upload it immediately. Not one single edit.
I can't stand all these videos out there talking about how to edit your videos to make them viral and doing all this crap. Most of you should not bother editing at all. Yes, I acknowledge that maybe occasionally there's one of you who can make beautifully edited videos. But if you don't love editing videos, you should just skip it and instead focus on doing videos from the heart.
"What do you know? You've got a little small channel."
Now, some of y'all are like, oh, what do you know? Your channel, you've got this little small channel, you don't know anything. And I just made — I have eight YouTube channels. This new creator channel has less than 100 subs right now, and it's just for videos for fellow YouTubers.
Take a video I put out yesterday, unedited: an 18% click-through rate, two out of 10, an unedited video, all organic traffic, average view duration two minutes, and the video is like five minutes long. An unedited video. But you're like, I'm not impressed with that.
Well, then look at another channel of mine. I made it a little over a year ago. This channel has 2.4 million views, and it makes me about $10,000 a month. I started it from zero, and I've grown it with the vast majority of the videos being unedited. I literally hit record and uploaded.
And there's another one with 52,000 views. Organic, cold traffic for the most part, people who'd never seen me before showing up in YouTube search. I did a three-minute tutorial. The total video probably took me 15 minutes to make. I hit record, talk, hit record, upload.
But you're like, okay, well, anyone can talk for a minute or two. No — this works long format too. A 43-minute video of mine has 53,000 views, and we're talking a very high ratio here, like 96, all organic. There are 10-minute videos, 15-minute videos. Here's one that's an hour and 42 minutes.
Now, technically, I tried some editing process on these, but it only edited three minutes out of the video and was almost fully automatic. And I'm not even using that anymore. You can use it if you want — you can automatically take silences out of your videos using Adobe Premiere Pro. But even that, as fast as it is, isn't necessary, because people are craving authenticity. We are having so many videos, so many edited inauthentic videos that cut out the humanity, that people are starting to crave authenticity on YouTube. And the easiest way you can be authentic is to just not edit your videos. This is clear proof that it works. The vast majority of these videos are unedited. I hit record, talk, hit record, upload.
"But Jerry, I can't just show up and talk."
Now I know you think, well, that's great, Jerry — you've been on YouTube since 2011, you've filmed over 10,000 videos online, uploaded over 4,000 on YouTube alone and thousands more on other websites. But Jerry, I can't just show up and talk without editing my videos. And I say to you: that's not true either.
The way I started being able to do my videos without editing — because when I first did my videos, I grinded through. Actually, the very first videos I did, on my autobiography channel, I didn't edit those. I went back and watched a video I did in 2011, and I'd just put up really short videos. So the thing you can do to start is just do a really short video, like a minute or two.
Now, you're telling me you can't talk uninterrupted, unedited, for a minute or two? I guarantee you do it every day. What you need in front of the camera is just to be natural, to just talk to the camera. Pretend like you're talking to yourself. And if you don't know how to talk to yourself, then pretend like you're talking to one of your friends. Just talk the way you do naturally, and watch how much you normally talk unedited and uninterrupted in everyday life.
And then what I did is, obviously, I practiced, and I edited my videos. After my first few videos, I started trying to make them higher quality with editing. The problem with that is it drastically reduces the speed at which you can create videos. And if you want to get better at YouTube — I'm really good at YouTube now. I start new channels for fun, just to enjoy growing them organically from scratch. I often don't even take the time to really cross-promote my channels, except I do have them all listed on my website. I often don't even take the time to post videos from one channel to another channel. I know that the most important thing to growing and getting better as a YouTuber is to film videos, upload those videos, and repeat over and over and over again. I keep all of this going inside my YouTube Coaching playlist if you want to watch more.
Start with a one- or two-minute video
If you refuse to edit your videos, and you just do little one- or two-minute videos, those can do really well. I've put some on my Thoughts channel, for example — literally a one- or two-minute little video with a little thought. One of them, just a little simple background on OBS, got a thousand views as cold traffic on a new channel. It's literally a minute, fifteen seconds. I guarantee you, you can do that.
And if you just do short videos to start, then repeat, and just upload them, think about this: how can I deliver somebody a message that's helpful? How can I just say whatever's in my mind, in my heart? Just say that, and try and help somebody with it. You don't need to try and go viral with your videos. This is the same point I make when I argue that your upload schedule is not the problem — consistency and helpfulness matter far more than polish.
In fact, one reason I hate editing my videos is that the more time I put into editing, the easier it is for me to be pissed off when I don't get as many views as I think I should get on it. On my crypto channel, when I just take 10 or 20 minutes, maybe even an hour or two on some of these, to film an unedited video and then just upload it, if it doesn't do that well — so what? I just did whatever I thought could be helpful. And if it does do really well, I feel this massive sense of accomplishment. Like, man, I just took 10 minutes to film a video that's got 52,000 views.
You don't need a lot of views to make money
Now, if you're wondering, well, don't I need a lot of views to make money? No. All you need to do is put videos out that help people and then set yourself up. I've got a website, and I've got communities to chat in. Set yourself up in a way to connect with your viewers. I've got Discord and OpenChat, and then I have one-on-one video calls. If you offer one-on-one video calls, even a small amount of views can turn into a lot of income. This is exactly how I run the Jerry Banfield Family — direct access and calls instead of chasing view counts.
My crypto channel gets right now anywhere around 8,000 views a day, and that's $10,000-plus a month just off this one channel. That means I can do all the rest of my other channels and do whatever I want, wherever I want, whenever I want, however I want, and just have fun with it. And this channel, I don't take too seriously either. I show up and try and help people with the videos I make. And if my video gets a 6 out of 10, so what? I showed up, I did a video I thought would be helpful for people, and it's not up to me to make people watch.
Grind out videos — do 100 first
If you want to get better at YouTube, you need to grind out videos. Like MrBeast said, you shouldn't even be thinking about trying to get views or growing or anything on YouTube until you've done 100 videos. And you can do 100 videos in a month easily if you film without editing.
Your first few videos may not be very good, but you have to be willing to do videos that are embarrassing to look back at. On my autobiography channel, I was embarrassed. I didn't even want to show those videos, but people kept asking, oh, let me see some of your old videos. I'm embarrassed to show them, but I'm glad I did them. Because now I've filmed 17 videos in one day — literally two videos on average for every channel I have. And nothing on YouTube substitutes for just consistently creating content.
I've tested so many different things. What doesn't work for the average YouTuber is doing some MrBeast strategy, where you put a ton of time and effort into one single video and release it. What most YouTubers will find works is just grinding out content. Just make something you think is helpful for people and publish it. And then do that again and again and again. This is really the biggest problem for most creators — they obsess over one perfect video instead of building the habit.
What the editing gurus aren't telling you
These outliers, these people that are doing all this editing — you don't know what else they're not saying either. In some cases, they may be using bots to push their videos. They may have other little things going on: a whole bunch of traffic, relationships, networks. And yes, sure, maybe one, two, or three percent of people will do really well doing one really well-edited, viral kind of video a week. And like MrBeast said, yes, it is easier to get more views with fewer videos if you're operating like he is, if you know enough about YouTube to try and very carefully pick topics.
But what I can say is that on my crypto channel I've tested these strategies out myself. I tested out doing a bunch of short videos every day, and those got a lot of impressions and instantly increased my views. And I also tried doing these once-a-week videos. I just personally hate the pressure. If it's going well — I published a video on how ICP will flip Bitcoin and Ethereum, and I got 53,000 views. I waited another week and put a video out, and it got 33,000. And then I put a video out that bombs the next week, and then I put one out the next day. It's just — every niche on YouTube is different, too. Sure, some niches you can put a video out once a week. But in crypto, people want new videos all the time. Your week-old videos, people don't care about — it's too old. People want brand new, brand new, brand new.
So the easiest way to crank out videos and get better at YouTube is to stop editing your videos completely. Don't even pay somebody to edit them. Just stop editing your videos, grind out videos, and repeat the filming process.
The same way you get better at music
It's the same way people told me to get better at music: you want to get better at music, finish songs. And what am I doing with my music? I'm making really short, really easy songs. I was trying to make these much longer songs, and I did them on my original channel, and I saw people blowing up their YouTube channels by basically just grinding out these really short, like one-minute songs. And then what people do is they find your one song in the algorithm, and then they'll go on your videos and click "play all" and listen to every little short song. This allows me to get better at making music faster by cranking out these short songs.
Now, for most niches, it seems better to do longer videos, because — are you going to watch every one of my videos? Maybe, maybe not. But some things you obviously want to make binge-watchable.
I hope this experience is helpful for you. I've been on YouTube since 2011, I've had a huge variety of experiences, and I've learned a lot that can help the average, normal YouTuber. If you only take one thing from this, let it be this: stop editing, start filming, and just keep going.