Hey Reader,

I’ve been neck deep in revamping how I do things. I was getting really annoyed at myself for how long it took me to make stuff.

Turns out, making stuff to make stuff faster, while trying to make fast stuff, took longer than I expected.

You’ve been getting sneak peeks at some of it as I worked on it. Dictation scripting, ideation, editing.

Building all of them at once showed me where my time was really going. It went to the pieces I was missing.

What a missing piece costs you

When a piece of your process is missing, you reinvent it every time you get there.

If you haven’t figured out how you like to do something, you can get paralyzed by all of the possibilities. It interrupts your flow, because you have to stop and make decisions without any constraints.

Then it takes longer than you expected. You’re not sure what you’re doing. And you start to feel defeated, even on a video you were excited about.

I hit one of these this week. My normal thumbnail process starts with looking for a spark, something that grabs me. The video I’m finishing didn’t need anything special, so I never went looking. And with no spark, I had no process at all. The thumbnail just sat there.

If you want the result, there’s work to be done. And it’s not complicated. There’s a formula to it.

Check your process against this

You don’t need to use my systems. But if you’re missing one of the pieces below, it can bog things down pretty dramatically.

A system can be a doc, a checklist, a template, or a step-by-step you follow. It just has to mean you’re not starting from zero.

Here’s every piece I can think of, from finding an idea to after you hit publish.

1. Know who it’s for. You need a through line from your audience to your offer. Your content, your lead magnet, and your offer should all solve the same problem for the same person. Your email is where the relationship lives. They’re different mediums for the same purpose. Some of this is just deciding. Some of it’s research. Some of it comes from the offer you already have.
2. Finding ideas. When you sit down, you know where to look, you know what a good idea looks like, and you can check it against your audience.
3. Packaging and angle. You need a way to get a working title and a good thumbnail, find something to say, and figure out your angle. Validate each piece as you go. Then check the whole thing again at the end as a failsafe, to make sure everything you combined still works.
4. Hooks. Start from the core fundamentals and examples that have proven to work. Give yourself options you can pick from, mix, and combine.
5. Scripting. There are structures you can follow and a few ways to fill them in. You can write each section yourself. Some people have AI write it and edit from there, which gets a lot better once you’ve written down how it should do that. You can also dictate, where you talk through the subject without the pressure of being on camera. It’s still your words, and you can rearrange them after. I’m not a fan of letting AI do the craft side. I let it do all the tedious stuff.
6. Filming. Cut every bit of physical friction you can. I have everything set up on a stand, so I hit a button and go. No setting up lights every time. My process is to read the script out loud before it goes on the teleprompter, so I can fix anything awkward. Then I run it start to finish, flubs and all. Then I record from the top, and when I get to the end, I redo the hook. That’s when I’m most warmed up and I know the tone of the video best.
7. Editing, in three parts. First is the rough cut. You chop out the dead space, flubs, and retakes, and you can have rules for when to cut. Second is graphics. There’s the standard stuff that goes in every video, like text on screen, title cards, screenshots, and picture-in-picture. Then there are custom ones that level up a specific video. Third is putting it all together, plus sound design. Have a checklist for this one. I tend to forget captions.
8. Upload. Descriptions, chapters, playlists, all of it. I have a system that takes an uploaded video and checks every box, so I don’t spend 15 minutes to two hours doing it myself.
9. After. Comment analysis. Competitor analysis, including their offers. And if you’re going to launch an offer, a set of email templates and a process to follow.

Batching shows up in a few of these. It’s mostly about flow. Switching from ideas to writing to design to being on camera costs you every time. It doesn’t work for everyone, but it’s worth trying.

Putting mine to the test

Upgrades to my program are happening. I’ve been spending time building my systems, and now I’m putting them to the test.

Everyone in my program has been giving great feedback. They’re the guinea pigs. A couple weeks back, I committed to a number of videos. I decided to double it, and I think I can go even further.

And I have room for some more people now.

I opened up 10 spots to work with full-time business owners 1-on-1. The goal is a channel with all of the puzzle pieces it needs, fitted together.

It’s not cheap, but it’s the lowest price it’ll ever be. I’m only taking on 10 people until the end of the year. Once they’re taken, they’re taken.

If you want 1-on-1 support and every piece on that list (and more) for your channel, we can work together. Apply here​

I’ll be sharing more details soon!

Thanks,
Dave

P.S. I’ve got a short video going up Sunday or Monday that lays it all out.