Karla Gregg On How To Build A Personal Brand And Youtube Channel

Our guest today has a ton of experience in social media and content creation, especially video. She has worked as an assistant to big time Youtubers, created content for American Ninja Warrior and even turned down work with the Ellen show.

Karla Gregg named her Youtube Channel “What Would Karla Say” because she has a huge passion for lifelong learning, personal development and goal setting. Even though Youtube has not been her full time focus, she definitely is an expert in how to grow a YouTube channel. She learned a lot of this through her own trial and error. But, she also worked as an assistant to Joey Graceffa, learning a ton about building a YouTube brand behind the scenes.

Karla is a heart-felt, and vulnerable personal brand coach. Her work and experience focuses on storytelling, video content strategy and defining your brand. If you’re ready to embrace your spark and turn your personal story into a marketable brand, then she is one of the best to guide you.

She is the founder of a courage based weekly newsletter at karlagregg.com, the courageously you collective, and creator of the YouTube channel What Would Karla Say? Much of her focus in the last couple years has been on speaking, coaching and creating resources for people in the area of entrepreneurship.

While she started her career with aspirations to work as a social media manager for big brands, it was the classic story of being laid off from work that led her to being a business owner. She gives credit to people like Tim Ferris, Marie Forleo and Jen Sincero when it comes to building her foundation as a personal brand expert.

We talk a lot in this episode about following your own path. It feels scary to be an entrepreneur, but that fear is the exact evidence that you are on the right track. The question is how do you not give up when you are faced with challenges?

Throughout the episode Karla opens up about struggling with her own vision and patience. She mentions how many times she probably would have succeeded in a passion area if she went with her gut and cared less about what people think. She talks about how simple it would be to take the easier, conventional path, but how that doesn’t make her come to life.

Karla has always used the catchphrase “create your own path” and you’ll understand why after listening to this episode. She also gives so many great tips on being a badass business owner and starting a YouTube channel for the first time.

12 Tips To Help You Get Started On YouTube

1. Create content you're excited to edit. You may want to edit a particular theme, teach a topic, or tell certain stories. Don’t edit a video just because you think it might get views, you’ll give up, or you’ll burn out quickly.

2. Find your unique brand story. What are your values, personality traits, stories and passions? Put those together and your audience will feel connected to you.

3. Every video should provide value. It should entertain, empower or educate. Even if you're not monetizing yet, you're still building a community who supports you.

4. Have a consistent structure and flow. I tend to give like 15 seconds of what the video will be about. I'll share some form of hook, or activation. And then I’ll do a funny, or creative montage with music, or B-roll and music. And then I'll hop into the main points and story, followed by some element of conclusion, or recap.

5. Write a script. Not an elaborate novel for a Morgan Freeman like voiceover. Have three main points and stick to them so you’re not rambling on.

6. Find the balance of engagement and education. It's all about personality, so don't just sit there and waste people’s time for fifteen minutes blabbering about nothing. There is a mid-point between being a teacher and lacking energy, find that.

7. Have a strategy mindset. If you are strategic you will succeed. If you study up on trends, keywords, captions, descriptions, and comment best practices, PLUS add personality, you’ll win. Don’t forget to treat thumbnails, and titles like a researcher. What works and what doesn’t?

8. Define your niche. As much as it is fun to inject overall personal interests, there should be a specific reason that someone would search your channel. What is your overarching purpose, or topic?

9. Define your sub-niche. A specific video should be able to be searched by a keyword that people are actually looking for in search engines. Once you find related keywords you will also have more ideas for things to include on your channel. A quick personal example:
I made a video of me having pizza with my friends. I called the video "having pizza with friends". Nobody is searching for that. But if I say “best pizza place in Philadelphia”, people come across my video and all of a sudden it is a fun video of me trying the best pizza places with friends, they could be like, I like this girl and channel and maybe subscribe when they originally came for a piece of content that they searched for.

10. Quantity over quality. With more videos, quality will naturally increase. You'll learn how to be more efficient, creative and provide more value. Over time you will know when it makes sense to start creating longer form, slower produced videos, but starting out get focused simply on creating more.

11. Monetize early. It’s important to monetize for the right reasons as long as it’s aligned with your values. There should be a balance, but it can’t only be about the art and storytelling. You need money to be able to reinvest in the channel. Don’t jump at everything, but always be on the lookout for strategic partnerships and revenue streams.

12. Be patient and focus on the journey. I put so much pressure on myself to be perfect and plan everything just right. We are all just trying to do the best that we can with the resources we have. Give it your all, but don't be too hard on yourself. And make sure you do it because you love it first, any results are a bonus.

Memorable Quotes
“I used to compare myself a lot to people doing similar stuff to me. But a coach told me, instead of looking at them as competition, look at them as inspiration and collaboration.”

“One of the biggest tricks is realizing we are not going to be perfect, we won’t have everything. There will be ups and downs, but you just need to put yourself out there and do it.”

“Figure out who your audience is. Knowing these 4 answers will help. Who vibes with your personality, passion, skills and story? These 4 questions make up your brand story and are the key to success.”

“I passed up a lot because I worried what people thought. But, one of the cool things about being an adult is we start worrying less. If you can have a carefree mindset younger, maybe even in high school, you can start to see yourself as a badass who doesn't worry what people say, which really helps you be more creative.”

Guest Bio

Karla Gregg is a business coach, speaker and content creator who focuses on helping people face fear and create their own path in life. As a leader in entrepreneurship, she is a tremendous role model for anyone looking to build their own brand. Perhaps her greatest strength is a tremendous understanding of the power of storytelling.

She has worked on NBC’s America’s Got Talent, American Ninja Warrior and spoken at conferences around the world on the topics of brand identity and content creation.

Her website is KarlaGregg.com, YouTube channel is What Would Karla Say and she has created a podcast called Live Well Be Bold, a show called Never Have I Ever and a newsletter to help people be more bold and courageous with life and business decisions.

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