Are you using YouTube to find paying clients?

In this quick tip episode of Art of Online Business, I’m sharing a guest teaching episode with one of my Accelerator coaching members, Karin Carr. She teaches people how to use YouTube for lead generation so they can find paying clients.

Karin Carr is a sought-after speaker on video marketing for real estate agents. A 15-year veteran of the real estate industry, she was named Real Estate Video Influencer of the Year in 2019 by Bombbomb.

The success of her YouTube channel led her to begin training other agents on how to have similar results and in July 2018 her coaching program, YouTube for Agents was born. Karin is the Amazon bestselling author of YouTube for Real Estate Agents – Learn how to get FREE real estate leads and never cold call again.

YouTube is an amazing way to grow your business because it helps you build trust with your ideal audience. You don’t have to be a realtor to use these amazing tips to grow your business.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why YouTube is the ultimate platform for finding paying clients
• Why organic YouTube videos can outperform paid ads
• How this platform builds trust with your audience
• Mistakes people make when using YouTube as an asset for their business
• The importance of targeting your ideal client 
• Why YouTube is such an effective way to grow your business
• How to get started using YouTube without fancy equipment
• Why consistency is the most important aspect of using YouTube for growth

Links & Resources:

• The Art of Online Business website
• DM me on Instagram
• Visit my YouTube channel
• The Art of Online Business clips on YouTube
• Full episodes of The Art of Online Business Podcast on YouTube
• The Art of Online Business Podcast website
• Check out my Accelerator coaching program

*Disclosure: I only recommend products I use and love and all opinions expressed here are my own. This post may contain affiliate links that at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission.

Karin Carr’s Links:

• Get the Video Boss Blueprint
• Visit Karin’s YouTube channel
• Check out Karin’s website

Please support the podcast by giving an honest Rating/Review for the show on iTunes!

Other Episodes You’ll Enjoy:

From Zero to $25K/mo: How to Create a Passive Income Stream with Niche Sites | w/Kristin Hanes

Ask Rick: How Do I Verify if My Evergreen Funnel Is Working?

The Power of CONTEXT In Your Team’s Success

Video is truly the most amazing thing that I’ve ever done for my business. Now, it’s kind of like the old adage, When is the best time to plant a tree? 20 years ago. When is the next best time? Today. And it’s the same with YouTube. 

Hey, what’s up, my friends? Rick Morty here. Welcome to today’s Quick Tip episode here on the Art of Online Business podcast. So on today’s quick tip, this is another guest teaching episode that I’ve got coming your way. Now. This is where I invite a member of my accelerator coaching program onto the podcast to teach you something that they specialize in, something that really good at and that they do in their business. Great tips, great tactics, strategies, etcetera. And today is no different. 

Karen Carr is going to be guest teaching for you today. Karen Carr from Karen NCAA.com. Karin S.r.r dot com. Karen’s been a guest here on the show. We talked about how she went from 0 to $1 million business in just about 15 months. In her business, she teaches how to use YouTube for lead generation and to find paying clients. She specializes specifically right now in helping realtors do that. But what she’s going to be teaching you here today is how you can be using YouTube, organic YouTube, by the way, how you can be using YouTube organically to find paying clients for lead generation to grow your email list. And no, you do not have to be a realtor to get a whole bunch out of today’s episode. So without further ado, here is Karen Carr teaching you why YouTube is the ultimate platform for finding paying clients and for lead generation. 

Thank you so much for that awesome introduction, Rick. I am so excited to be hosting a podcast episode all by myself on the art of online business. I had been following Rick for years before I joined the accelerator program and the support that I’ve gotten from Rick and his team has truly accelerated my business. In fact, I’ve been a guest twice before on this podcast talking about the way that my business has grown in the past couple of years. And one of the major things that I learned was how to hire a team. I stopped trying to do everything by myself. It’s exhausting being a solopreneur and being 100% responsible for 100% of everything in your business. 

So I started with a virtual assistant, and now I have an A coach in my business, an executive assistant, and a whole staff of Vas. And because I’m now truly operating as the CEO of the business, I’m able to spend much more time creating content that attracts coaching clients to me and creating new offers, things that will actually bring me paying clients. And one of those things is YouTube. I am convinced that YouTube is the ultimate platform for finding paying clients. I find it to be so superior to Facebook or Instagram or LinkedIn that I went all in on YouTube in 2017 and I never looked back. I’ve never once regretted it or worried that I made the wrong decision. I’m now starting to experiment with other platforms as well, since I have a team and I’m not trying to do everything myself anymore. 

But YouTube is absolutely my core focus and I want to tell you the reasons why. Number one, YouTube is so much more search engine than social media. I’m sure you know that Google owns YouTube. And in my mind, Google is for the written word and YouTube is for video. And the two of them together are a match made in heaven. My videos on YouTube will show up on page one of Google search results for free without having to spend any money on ads. And if I embed a YouTube video in a blog post or anywhere else on my website, that page can rank on Google as well. Let me give you an example. 

A year or so ago, I was preparing for a presentation I was giving and I wanted to have some screenshots. So I opened an incognito window on Google and I searched for a phrase that I was trying to rank for. Well, three of my videos and two of my blog posts all appeared on page one of Google search results, and I had not driven any paid traffic to those. 

And the reason why this is so important is because it didn’t just show up in their newsfeed. They weren’t mindlessly scrolling the Internet and then suddenly your piece of content is there. They don’t go to the Google home page and then just wait for stuff to populate.

They have to type something into the search bar in order to get the search results. So they are already showing that they’re interested in what you’re talking about and that they are actively seeking out more information on the subject. If they are already problem aware, they’re showing that they’re looking for a solution. And if you are the person that can provide the solution, they watch your videos, they like your personality. 

They start to trust what you have to say. Then they follow you and hopefully one day they become a customer. Which leads me to my second point. I have run a ton of paid ads in the past. I mean, I’m talking hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of the years, but I find that my organic YouTube videos far outperform revenue generated compared to paid ads. And here is why. If I run a paid ad and I say, Hey, I have this thing, it’s really awesome, you should totally go buy it. Click here and order it. 

Okay, thanks. But they didn’t know me. There’s no know like and trust factor there. They probably just think that I’m just another get rich quick guru selling them the latest shiny object that would be the equivalent of them flushing their money down the toilet. They buy it. They immediately have buyer’s remorse and then they either ask for a refund or they never do the required work. 

And so they don’t get the results. And then when they don’t get the results, they don’t become a raving fan. 

They don’t tell all of their friends and family how awesome you are because they didn’t get any results from themselves. Not through any fault of yours, just because they didn’t feel inspired to go through the program and do the actual work. But if they do a Google search or a YouTube search or YouTube suggests one of my videos to them on their home page and they click on it, they’re showing that they were interested enough because they clicked on it and then they watch the video. 

They get to know me. Hopefully they enjoy the video enough and found it valuable enough that they watch another one after it ends. And this is gold, because now YouTube says, Aha! Susan watched Karen’s video and then she watched another one when she was done. We should show her more of Karen’s content. So now Susan leaves YouTube, she goes to work, she comes home. She makes dinner, she puts the kids to bed. She flops down on the couch. She’s fooling around on her phone that night, and she opens the YouTube app. Youtube puts one of my videos in front of Susan, and if she clicks on it again, boom, it is like striking the mother. 

Youtube now says, Wow. Susan clicked another one of Karen’s videos. She must love this stuff. 

Let’s give her all of the content. And so every time she logs on to YouTube, my videos are right there on her home page. It is free retargeting. It’s exactly like running a retargeting ad on Facebook or Google pay per click ads only. I didn’t pay anything. It happened for free. And the more Susan watches, the more face time I get with her, the more she goes down that rabbit hole with my content. 

So now, after many, many videos where I have just delivered completely free value to her with no expectation of getting anything in return, I’m not asking her for a thing I haven’t tried to sell her anything. I haven’t asked her to do anything. I’ve just offered her more value, more training, more tutorials, more entertainment, free resources that can help her with her business goals. Now, when I present an offer and I say, Hey, I’m doing a five day challenge, you should totally come. It’s going to be awesome. 

Here’s the link. Come and sign up. Susan is so much more likely to sign up because I have proven to her by my organic videos that I’m not just some ruthless salesperson who just wants her money. I have shown her my personality. I have demonstrated that I really do want to help her. I really do want her to have amazing success in her business using YouTube, because if it worked for me, I know it will work for her too. 

If she’ll just let me show her how to do it, I can show her how to make very simple videos without a bunch of fancy equipment and do it in a way that only takes a few hours a week of her time. So now let’s talk about some of the mistakes that I see with people who are using YouTube as an asset for their business, as a way to grow their email list, a way to get in front of more potential customers. Mistake number one is that they talk all about themselves. They make it into a big fat commercial. They talk about their credentials, their success story, their results, how famous and popular they are. They make the whole video all about them. Listen, people do not go to YouTube so they can watch your commercial. They skip the commercials. When the commercial comes on, it goes five, four, three, two, one. Skip, They want your help. 

They want your expertise, your solution to their problem, but they do not want to listen to you. Go on and on for ten minutes about how you are the best, the most experienced, the most successful person in the industry. I began as a realtor and I see this in the real estate industry all the time. They open their video by introducing themselves as a real estate agent. And when I look at their analytics, the moment they said the name of their company and the fact that they were a realtor was the moment when the person promptly left the video. 

You might be saying, Hi, I’m Karen. I’m a realtor in Savannah, but what they hear is, Hi, I’m an annoying salesperson and I’m going to sell you something that you don’t want for the next ten minutes. It’s going to be really fun. So buckle up. They are not down for that. They promptly respond by hitting the back button and watching another video instead. Mistake number two is that they just don’t get to the point quickly enough. You’ve heard all of these statistics about how we only have a few seconds to capture someone’s attention. 

If you start off by introducing yourself or welcoming people back to the channel, asking them how they’re doing, your existing followers might appreciate that, but you risk alienating all of the new viewers. If this is the first time they’ve ever watched one of your videos, and if a minute or so goes by and you’re still just blabbing about nothing, you will lose them forever. Not only will they leave this video, they’ll never watch another video of yours again because they already think that you’re boring and self-absorbed. So when YouTube surfaces another video to them, they go, Oh yeah, don’t really like her, so don’t start your video like that. Start with a really compelling opening statement, your marketing hook, something that draws them in and makes them want to learn more.

Mistake number three is not really knowing exactly who you’re talking to. I am a huge believer in having a niche, having a specialty, having a niche. If you’re fancier than I am, you cannot be everything to everyone. So you need to decide exactly who your target audience is in order to cut through the 500 or so million videos that are uploaded to YouTube every day. And I’m only slightly exaggerating. The number is truly staggering. If you know exactly who you’re talking to as far as your ideal client, not only can they find your content easier, but they resonate with what you’re saying. They say things like, Oh my gosh, you’re in my head. You’re saying. 

Exactly what I’ve been thinking all of this time. And that is exactly what you want, because that deepens the connection they feel with you. It’s kind of crazy that I get recognized all the time. I speak at a lot of conventions about the power of YouTube marketing and people will stop me and they want to take selfies with me. They want to take me to lunch to thank me for all of the stuff that I’ve taught them. It’s totally cool and it makes me feel like a celebrity. I’m not going to lie. But the thing that’s so funny about this is that they truly feel like they know me just from my videos. I’ve never spoken to them before. We’ve never had a conversation. 

They truly don’t know me and I don’t know them either, but they feel like they do. They feel like they have a connection with me because what I say resonates with them in my videos. So then later, when I make them an offer, there’s so much more likely to buy it because they already trust me. Video is truly the most amazing thing that I’ve ever done for my business. Now it’s kind of like the old adage, When is the best time to plant a tree? 20 years ago. When is the next best time? Today. 

And it’s the same with YouTube. Now, you might think that you’re going to have a ton of competition on YouTube, and I guarantee you you don’t. Not that many people are using it for business purposes. Yes, there are a ton of people with YouTube channels that are doing it to entertain people and maybe they’re making all of their money from ad revenue and brand deals. They are essentially influencers and that’s great. 

I mean, if you can make $200,000 a month as an influencer, more power to you. But if you’re a business owner and you’re trying to increase awareness of your business, your product, your service, your offers, YouTube is an incredibly effective way to do it. And you don’t need fancy equipment. You can just use your phone or your webcam. I do recommend that you invest in an inexpensive microphone like a 30 or $40 microphone will be perfectly adequate. 

But you do not need to hire a videographer who’s going to follow you around town and document your day. You don’t need to edit it into the most entertaining vlog that you’ve ever seen. 

You can literally sit at your desk, talk into your webcam like I’m doing, provide amazing value to your potential clients and create a seven figure business doing that. And I know because that’s exactly what I did and I am no special snowflake. I am not unique. I am a 53 year old woman with gray hair. So if I can do it, so can you. So you start making regular videos. I think weekly is the gold standard on YouTube. So let’s say that you make one video a week, you record it with your phone or your webcam and your cheap little microphone. You think about your target audience, your niche, and you think about something that they have a problem with that you have a solution for, preferably what it is that you do for a living and how you can help them were they to pay you for your services. 

So you make a video talking about this. It’s not a super long video. I’m thinking ten minutes, 15 minutes. It does not have to be 2.5 hours long. A 10 or 15 minute long video is enough that if they watch even 50% of the video, it makes YouTube really happy and it’s going to get shown to more potential clients of yours. 

So you make these regular videos. You don’t have to go crazy with the editing. You can learn how to do it yourself, which is what I did, and I did it myself for about nine months. Or you can just outsource it. Get yourself a virtual assistant who can edit these videos for you. They do not need every feature that the editing program includes. They can be very simple. Just take out the mistakes, take out where you tripped over your words and had to backtrack a little bit. If the phone rings or the dog barks or the Amazon guy rings the doorbell, you can just cut that part out. 

You can add your name on screen, you can add a little bit of B-roll, which is something on screen that we are looking at, but we’re listening to your voice. So for example, if I was talking about simple video equipment, I could put some B-roll on screen of a person using their cell phone on a $10 tripod to record their video. So you hear me speaking, but you’re looking at something else. The video of me speaking is the A role. But what they’re looking at is the B-roll. You can get free B roll all over the Internet. There are also plenty of places where you can just have a monthly subscription and get tons and tons of stock footage that looks really, really nice that you can use in your final product, but it doesn’t cost you an arm and a leg. 

I mean, I’m talking very inexpensive monthly fees. Then you’re going to upload it to your YouTube channel and you’re going to be consistent. This is the part where most people just fall off the cliff, right? They have all of the best intentions. They want to make videos, but for whatever reason, they get busy with business. They go on vacation, they get sick, one of the kids gets sick, they kind of fall off the wagon. And then the next thing you know, three months has gone by. If you can make this a consistent part of your business, you’ll be amazed at what can happen. So what I decided was one video a week and YouTube is going to be my primary platform. 

Yes, I would also blog on my website. I occasionally would post on Facebook or on the other platforms, but YouTube was really where I put my emphasis and I made sure that I would be consistent even when I didn’t feel like it. Even when I said I’m just so not feeling it today, I’m not in the mood. I don’t feel like recording a video. I’m not feeling inspired. I sucked it up and I did it anyway. At the very worst, I did it the next day, but I didn’t skip a day or a week or a month or a year just because I didn’t feel like it.

I committed to doing it once a week and it was very important to me to keep my word to myself, to prove to myself that I’m someone who does what they say they will do. And after you do that week after week after week, your brain says, Yeah, you are someone that does what they say they will do. And suddenly if I write it down like it’s as good as done because I trust myself. I trust myself that if I put it on my calendar because I felt it was important at the time when I scheduled it, that it’s important enough for me to follow through. I have all kinds of tips where you can make this as easy and streamlined for yourself as possible. 

So if you want to start using YouTube and you just need a little bit more instruction on how to get started, I have a free resource for you called my Video Boss Blueprint. Just visit NCAA.com slash resources to download your blueprint. I give you seven steps to turning your YouTube channel into a bona fide lead generation machine. Also, feel free to follow me on YouTube at YouTube.com Forward slash. Karen Carr Thank you so much, Rick, for giving me this opportunity and letting me be the guest host of your podcast. I hope that I’ve inspired you all today to go make some YouTube videos. I’m telling you, you will not regret it. 

Hey, thanks so much for listening to today’s episode. Super. Appreciate it as always. If you’ve not yet subscribed to the podcast, please go ahead and do that. Click that follow button if you’re listening like on Spotify or subscribe there on Apple Podcasts to ensure that you’re not missing any of the episodes that I’m putting out here on the podcast. Also, it’s still really helpful if you take ten seconds to leave a quick rating and review for the show over there On Apple Podcasts. It allows us to reach more people with the show here and to help more people with their online business. Thanks in advance for doing that and as always, appreciate you for your attention and coming to hang out with me today. Until next time, be well, my friend, and I’ll chat with you soon.