How To Nail Every YouTube Video (Even If It's Your First!) with Amy Landino

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, the only daily show interviewing the world's top entrepreneurs seven days a week. Today, we'll be talking about how to nail every YouTube video, even if it's your first. To drop these value bombs, I brought Amy Landino into EO Fire Studios. Amy is a high-performance brand coach turning personalities into seven-figure thought leaders. She is an award-winning YouTube creator and three-time author, including her global bestseller, Good Morning, Good Life. And today, we'll be talking about making long-form YouTube videos in a short form world.

0:36We'll talk about getting started, titles, thumbnails. We'll also talk about what makes the video worth our time and oh, so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Amy and our sponsors. Franocity has helped hundreds of people leave unfulfilling jobs, invest in recession resilient businesses and create legacy income for their families through franchising. Visit franocity.com. That's F-R-A-N-O-C-I-T-Y.com to book a free consultation and start your franchising journey with expert guidance. Amy, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1:17John, Fire Nation, I'm so excited to be back. Thank you for having me. Here's what I believe. People care about who you are, but they don't care about you. That's my number one rule of personal branding. And I think it's really important for people to understand what it means and why it's important and why it's good news. Does that kind of line up with the Mary Angelou quote of, you know, people will forget like who you are, what you said, what you did, but they'll never forget how you made them feel. Definitely. It's very close to that. My belief is that when you have a powerful personal brand, which by the way, we all have a personal brand, You're trying to shy away from it maybe, but someone knows you and therefore someone knows something about you.

2:04When you have a powerful personal brand, it's because someone is able to remember you. Part of that has to do with how you make people feel. And when I say people care about who you are, that means how are people able to articulate what you're all about? People not caring about you. It's the other stuff. We think personal branding is I should share my lunch on social media today. Let me give you the latest and greatest about my babies. And I always say, my audience doesn't care what my babies look like. They care that I'm an entrepreneur running a business, having kids at home at the same time and able to make all of that work.

2:43How is that possible? The children are the context as to what people know me for. So when you understand that dichotomy, you don't take as personally the stuff about your life that, you know, you get haters and and commenters about. You use it as the layers of your personality, of your character that make you different, help you stand out and make it possible for people to articulate who you are. So I never say the following. So Amy, my audience will actually believe me, but Fire Nation, Amy's one of my favorite people. She really is. I love her. We've been friends for over a decade now. I mean, literally we were just talking about a picture that we were hanging out together in Cebu, Philippines at Tropical Think Tank, an event that we both spoke at.

3:26I mean, we spoke at countless events all around the world, a ton in the United States. And now she's living up in New England, which is where I was born and raised, which of course I love, even though now I'm down here in the tropics of Puerto Rico. But Amy is amazing. She's authentic. She's great. I love getting her on the show. I actually might be hanging out with her in a couple of months here when I go up to Maine. We're going to have a little baby date with Bo and her two gorgeous daughters. Didn't we talk about maybe having a little, uh, little, little marriage arrangement coming up here, Amy?

3:53You know, it should be discussed. We just like options. Okay. We have Bianca and we have Sienna and they're both a great time. And Bo is just going to have a wonderful moment for all of us to get to know each other. And then later we'll take credit for it. Listen, Bianca and Bo, I mean, that just goes together. Bo likes his ladies a little bit older. He really does. So, I mean, this works out great. We'll have to see how it goes. No pressure on either one of them. Fire Nation, back to what you really want, which is value for you and your business. That's why we're talking about how to nail every single YouTube video, even if it's your very first one.

4:30And Amy and I kind of went off a little bit in the pre-intro chat because, you know, I launched a new show back in November and I've been loving YouTube. It's been a daily show about it. It's been really cool to see the growth of the channel and I've had a lot of fun doing it. but you know, we're constantly being told that humans have the patience of a goldfish. So Amy, talk to us. Is it even worth making long form YouTube videos in this short form world that we live in? I love this question because we are living in a short form world. I've even gotten to the point, guys, I've been on YouTube since 2007.

5:01That wasn't a typo in my voice, not 2017, 2007. It's been a really long time. So the short form world really threw me for a loop. I was absolutely one of those YouTubers that was like, YouTube, stop trying to make shorts happen. Stop trying to become TikTok and become Instagram reels. But we can't change what happens with the platforms. They compete with each other. And when they do, we can leverage those features to our advantage. The exciting thing about that in the long form space is that YouTube is still by far and away the best, the best place to represent yourself and your brand and share your message and build your business with long form video.

5:39And I love it specifically because it turns out the better you are at long form, the more you upload there, the more you have firepower in the short form world. And we've actually dialed in a formula, not just for my personal brand, but my clients so that we can do long form content on a consistent basis and streamline that into even more consistent short form content. So is it worth it? Yes. You're actually probably going to be able to time batch your life a little bit better, get more done in a shorter period of time. If you do long form as a part of your short form strategy. You said two of my favorite words, fire.

6:17So you get bonus points for that. And then of course you said batch, which I love batching like a baller. It's been my life now for 13 years, 4 ,600 episodes. I mean, I have done those almost all on a Thursday because I batch. I want to say how consistent this is for anyone that has never been on your show. I literally think I used the exact same booking link to get on the show, the same scheduling, the same, the format's the same. I know I can only talk to you for a very short period of time. Like you are the king of batching podcasts. I love it. And Amy, we would still be on Skype if they didn't literally close it down.

6:52Like I was forced to move to zoom. Like when I would book people, they'd be like, I haven't opened my Skype account since 2004. I'm like, well, rile it back up because we got to get going with this. I forgot we were on Skype before. That is so funny. Until honestly months ago. Like this is, this zoom thing's new for me as far as recording these interviews. It's really funny. But anyways, listen, let's just assume because it's a good assumption that we have limited time and limited resources. What the heck do we need to get started? You know, we're all trying to paint a picture all the time and we sit down with a blank canvas and it's going to take you a very long time to get to the end of painting that picture, especially if you're a brand new artist.

7:33Let's just be honest about it. So if you have limited time and resources in everything that you're doing, literally everything, whether it's administrative or content creation, like I'm going to share with you, you've got to find a template. it. My business coach calls it a stencil actually, which I think is really fun because it's reminiscent of creativity and art. If you wanted to go, let's say, paint something on your wall, let's say in your kid's bedroom, you're going to paint a tree because it looks nice. Would you really go freehand that? Or don't you think you'd go get a stencil that would help you get it done in a much shorter period of time?

8:12That's what templates allow you to do. So whenever you need to improve something in your brand and in your business, using a template is a great way to get started. I highly, highly, highly recommend if you are going to make long form YouTube content or short form for that matter, you should have a template because it's very easy to free flow and go crazy for an extended period of time in a video. And what we know for sure because of the short form world is how distracted everyone is. You really have to work hard to capture attention. So the first thing that you can do is just try to get an idea of what are the bumpers that I need to know so that I can sit in front of a camera or however you're going to capture the content, deliver as efficiently as possible, not the fastest, but efficiently in the way that it needs to be done.

9:01What's a template I can use to give me that direction so I know how to measure success every single time I upload. And if you think I'm consistent with entrepreneurs on fire, I mean, you should literally see my workflow when it comes to MSTR today, which is my YouTube show. I mean, I have the exact same workflow, the exact same template for every single show. It's about a 15 minute news show on the last 24 hours of that company, MSTR strategy. So I have five bullet points that I say I'm going to hit in this upcoming video. And then I hit those five bullet points and then I say goodbye. Like it's, it's, it's like this template that's just made perfect for me.

9:39I was telling Amy before the show, I sit down at 7 a.m. By 7.45 a.m., I have researched, recorded, edited, and published that 15-minute video. And it's 45 minutes of my life. And that's where I've been so consistent. I haven't missed a day since early November on a seven-day-a-week show. We're talking Saturday, Sundays, Christmas Day, New Year's Day. It doesn't matter. Like, a show is going live because I can get it out in 45 minutes. And by the way, Amy, kind of a side note, you're the only other American English speaker that I know that says literally like I do. Like, I think we're both influenced by Chris Ducker on that one.

10:13Yes! I think I stole that from Chris Ducker. It's such a better way to say the word. He's my Brit. Like literally. Like I just can't have like 19 syllables in a word. I'm like literally. Like let's just get out of my mouth. Everyone's saying literally every five words now. So you have to stand out a little bit. Literally. Like it's my moment to be a little British. I'm always afraid I'm going to go British on a podcast because it does happen. I feel like I go in that direction. You could pull it off. You could totally, so many ways you could pull it off. But listen, something that I do stress about, I'm just going to be honest and vulnerable here.

10:43Titles, thumbnails, break it down. What makes a great title? What makes a great thumbnail? Well, I want this to be super memorable. So if you don't mind, John, I would like to give a gift to the audience. If you guys head over to my Instagram, because I know some of you are driving around the treadmill right now. Like, don't write this down. I've got it for you. Follow me on Instagram. Just look up Amy Landino. The name is Schmittastic. It's verified. You cannot miss it. And message me EO Fire. Just for you guys, I want to gift you something called my P sheets. It's a template. It's going to help you nail every single video on YouTube from conception to actual content.

11:19And in it, you'll find in the conceptions sheet that there are four P's. Two of them specifically are going to help you with title and thumbnail. But I'm going to walk you through all four. You need to know these four P's in order to have a great title and a great thumbnail. and generally a great video altogether. You need to know the problem. You need to know the package. You need to know the promise and you need to know the process. So the problem and the package are really interesting. You're talking about current state, the problem and desired state, which is the package. It just helps you to kind of get an idea.

11:57Why am I making this video in the first place? Maybe you have a really good idea of what your audience's problem is and you can just write that down on the P sheet. Okay. I got a great idea of the problem. Now I just need to come up with a way to solve it. Or maybe you have a great idea of what they want. What is desired state? Getting you to focus on both of those things. If this is desired state, then what's the problem? When you see those two things next to each other, it really starts to help unpack video ideas. You may have the same problem and package for lots of videos with different titles and different thumbnails, but it helps you to stay focused on what the game plan is.

12:35And it's going to be really important for title and thumbnail, the absolute best part of this. And that's the title. A lot of people get caught up with titles because they're really like messy and all over the place and just trying to be SEO friendly. Just make a promise based on what the problem is and what the package of desired state is like, where are we going here? What is this video promising me as a part of that journey. This is huge. If you can just make good on the promise that you made in the title of the video, then you can deliver totally generously 45 minutes long. It doesn't matter what's in the actual video, as long as you made good on the promise.

13:16And that's amazing. And the thumbnail for me is the process. I have noticed that when you put something in the thumbnail that teases what's in the video, it's very powerful. But the reason it's powerful is because you're letting somebody understand what you're going to be teaching them. And this is usually a process. You might actually have a list of 10 things in this video. And one of those things makes the copy on the thumbnail. That's one of the processes you mentioned. And it'll be that level of intrigue that makes someone go, oh, I like that promise in the title. And now the thumbnail is making me wonder, what's the two minute rule?

14:01Well, the two minute rule might be something I put on the thumbnail as the process. And you're wondering, well, what could possibly take two minutes when it comes to that promise? You have to have a nice level of balance with intrigue and information with the title and thumbnail. A lot of people get this backwards and they try to make the title intriguing, don't do that. Make the thumbnail intriguing. It's a visual representation of what people are going to watch. And so when you make a promise and give them a little bit of a glimpse of what the process looks like in the thumbnail, you have a really powerful start to this video.

14:32What's amazing about this is I'm experiencing this as somebody who's been viewing a lot more videos on YouTube than I ever have before. It's man, when these thumbnails end up being click Beatty, meaning they're not delivering on the promise. Like I lose the know, the like, the trust of that creator. And I don't go back. I don't subscribe. I don't go back because I kind of feel like they wasted my time and I kind of feel like they lied to me. So, I mean, like I love the fact that the thumbnails, when the thumbnails share something that is absolutely going to be delivered within that video. And by the way, Amy, when you said pea sheets, I mean, you have a one and a three-year-old and I have an 18 month old.

15:09I mean, I was, I was thinking about something a little bit different. I was like, don't all sheets have pea on them at this point? I mean, that's just kind of the... If we're lucky, we're trying to get out of diapers for one of them over here. Oh, you got this. You got this. But I mean, Fire Nation, go over. And again, Amy, it's Schmittastic. Yes. You can just send her a message, EO Fire, and she's going to send you this as a free gift. Schmittastic. Yes. And there's a whole video walking you through it too. So you really can dial in exactly how you want to handle this. But it's very important to deliver on that promise.

15:41I want to hit on one thing you said, John, because everybody loves the word clickbait because it's, it sounds negative, right? Here's the cool thing. Click clickbait is great. Clickbait is awesome. As long as you told the truth, as long as it is delivering on that promise, something can be very clickbait looking and sounding, but make good on the promise. And that makes it a great title far and away. Please don't, don't, don't think clickbait is bad, just make sure that what you're clickbaiting people on is going to deliver. Like you said, John. Yes. Cause you are trying to cause that intrigue, that interest, that curiosity to be satisfied.

16:20So I love that. Now we have so many more value bombs. When we get back from thinking our sponsors, starting your own business can feel intimidating. Where do you start? How do you grow? When will you start generating revenue? All valid questions. If you love the idea of creating wealth and freedom, but you're not sure if starting from scratch is the way to go, then I'm excited to tell you about Franocity. Franocity has helped hundreds of people leave unfulfilling jobs, invest in recession-resilient businesses, and create legacy income for their families through franchising. Their clients come from all walks of life, executive veterans, first-time buyers, and multi-unit investors, and their mission is simple, to remove the guesswork, reduce the risk, and help everyday people become business owners through franchising.

17:01Don't know anything about franchising? That's the beauty of it. Franocity provides personalized one-on-one coaching at no cost to you, and they have access to over 600 franchise brands. And Franocity doesn't just help you pick a franchise, they help you understand the business model, investment risk, scalability, and operational reality. Ready to explore business ownership through franchising? Visit Franocity.com, that's F-R-A-N-O-C-I-T-Y.com to put a free consultation and start your journey with expert guidance. And we're back, and listen, most of us, I would say almost all of us, are great off camera.

17:33I mean, we're sitting with our friends at a coffee shop. We're having the best conversation ever. It's natural. You're not even thinking twice about it. But when that little red light goes on, something happens and a lot of people freeze and they become like this different, like a robotic person. Like, I don't know what I'm talking about now. So what are your thoughts on what we should actually be saying on camera to, you know, number one, sound natural, but of course, number two, to add value. I love this question because it's a lot of pressure when the camera goes on. And I just want to start by saying that the best thing that you can do, no matter how good you feel, how experienced you are, no matter how great your script is, if you have one, look at the lens of the camera like it's a person and really know who that person is.

18:17You should be speaking to somebody like you know them very well because you know what their problem is. You know what their current status. You know what their desired status. When you know someone like that, it's a lot easier to talk. I want you to be able to create long form YouTube content and not feel like it's overly done, overly planned. You will not get to a natural state. The goal for me on camera all the time is how do I make sure my personality stays in this? Because what I have to say is extraordinary to me. And I want people to appreciate me as their coach, as their guide, as their motivator, as their instructor, whatever it is today.

18:55I have to be able to speak naturally for that to be the case. I want you to talk about things that if you were given, if you don't have total stage fright, let's say you get on stage and you're in front of a thousand people, you've been given zero notice and you have to give a talk. What could you talk about for 30 minutes or on a podcast like this with John? What could you talk about without hesitating because you love it so much? That's how you should feel when you're on camera delivering information. You do need some guard rails, right? My P sheets will help you with that. And I like to just make sure I get to a point where I can finally free flow.

19:31But I will say that again, in this world of short form and capturing attention, I have a very dialed in script to open every video. That opening could be anywhere from 10 to 30 seconds as quickly as possible, but it's basically the marketing of the marketing. You're marketing the fact that the video is worth continuing to watch. And what you say at the beginning, you should make sure is focused on a couple of things, but most importantly, reiterating what you said in the title. I'm making good on this promise. I'm going to show you how I'm going to make good on it. And letting people know why it's you that's telling this story, that's sharing this information.

20:14If you start with that, you're in a really good position to then continue on with your tutorial, with your list, with your story, with your vlog, whatever the case may be. Amy, time is money. I mean, most of us are quite strapped for time, I would say. So how can we actually get our money's worth? Like, how do we make the video that we do worth our time? I hate sitting down to shoot anything that I'm not going to make the absolute most out of. It's not that I don't enjoy having the conversation with my audience, but I already know that that level of value is going to be there for them. So knowing that you could upload a video and it get a hundred thousand views, like, and it's usually the one you don't expect.

20:59You want to be ready to receive. You want to be prepared. You want to be ready to catch. So you've got to always plan on having a call to action. It does not mean, okay, I delivered on the entire video, which I used to coach on. I had an authority video formula that I taught for a very long time. And the call to action was at the end of the video. And it was like, well, if they made it through the video, then it's finally time for you to get your return on that experience. But actually it's okay if it's earlier, it actually makes way more sense if it's integrated in a contextually appropriate moment of the content as you deliver it.

21:39So I just want to encourage you when you're looking at what is this promise and what is the process and what am I teaching here? What would be the next natural step for someone to take? It may not be, you should hire me, but it could be something else that gets them further down the buyer journey with you in your business, know what that call to action is. I call it a business CTA. What is the business CTA? Where is the best place to put it? And if you can come up with a soft version, it doesn't have to be a hard CTA. It could be, Hey, join my email list. Here's a free download for you in return for that attention and just leading them to that.

22:18But have that free download, have that lead magnet, have that thing, that gift be totally related to whatever it is you're talking about so that someone is more likely to sidebar from the video viewing experience with you and take that step. You can get the value. I tie all brand building to top line revenue. We're not making YouTube videos for fun anymore. Yes, I'm still in a basement, but I'm not in mom's basement. I'm in a studio. Okay. We have light bills to pay and amazing people on my team that are helping me scale up. So many entrepreneurs are not getting paid what they're worth and what they should get paid because they're not charging enough to grow the business to be more than just them.

23:02Stop giving yourself a risky job and build a real scalable business. Make sure you always have some kind of a business CTA integrated into your video. It doesn't matter at what point, but make it make sense. Amy, anybody who's looking to take the next step in this area, these topics, this value that we've been talking about today is absolutely insane because you have such experience. I mean, you said 2006 is when you started on YouTube. You've seen everything, the ups, the downs of the platform. And now to where it's at, where I personally love the platform where it's at right now, because I've seen what is done with my very specific niche topic.

23:43And And it's really exciting to see that you can just say, hey, I'm going to talk about this one thing. I'm going to provide the number one solution to this real problem in a growing industry. And I'm going to be able to turn it into a revenue generating machine if I do things right. To me, that's awesome. That's the American dream. At least that's a YouTube dream. So take us home. If Fire Nation wants to connect with you, wants to learn more from you, how do they do that? I would love it if you'd come over to check out YouTube to just see that I know what I'm doing, what I'm talking about. That's youtube.com slash AmyTV.

24:17And of course, don't forget to grab the P sheets. It's over on Instagram. That's where I hang out offline outside of YouTube. Ashmetastic. Amazing stuff because Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with AL and JLD today. So keep up the heat. And for links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com. Type Amy in the search bar. The The show notes page will pop right up. And Amy, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thanks, JLD.

24:50Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Amy for sponsoring today's episode. And Fire Nation, are you an entrepreneur on fire who's looking to share an amazing message with the world? If yes, we are now accepting applications for entrepreneurs on fire. To learn more about becoming a guest, Visit eofire.com slash guest. And I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Franocity has helped hundreds of people leave unfulfilling jobs, invest in recession-resilient businesses, and create legacy income for their families through franchising. Visit franocity.com. That's F-R-A-N-O-C-I-T-Y.com to book a free consultation and start your franchising journey with expert guidance.