Looking back, launching a YouTube channel was one of the smartest moves I made when transitioning from family medicine to entrepreneurship.
But the biggest impact wasn’t the subscribers I gained or the videos that went viral. It was what happened to my career because I kept showing up on camera.
If you’ve got expertise you want to share with the world and are wondering whether building a YouTube channel is worth the time and effort, read on.
In this article, I’m sharing what it actually made possible for me, and what it took to get there. Because building a YouTube channel and actually creating a successful career through it are two very different things.
So let’s dive straight into the five ways YouTube changed my career.
1. It made my expertise discoverable
I spent about twenty years working as a family doctor. I had years of training under my belt, decades of experience, and a whole lot of expertise.
But only my patients encountered that expertise. And when I left medicine, I had no audience to bring with me. I still had all that expertise, but no one to share it with.
YouTube allowed people who had never heard of me to find me. It helped me and my expertise become discoverable on a large scale.
Now I wasn’t just sharing my knowledge with one person at a time in my exam room; I was reaching hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world.
So if you’ve spent years developing expertise but you’re currently only sharing it with a small, local audience, consider what YouTube could do for you.
2. It opened doors beyond my own business
In recent years, I’ve published my book, Redesigning You, given a TEDx talk, and appeared on several in-studio podcasts, like The School of Greatness with Lewis Howes.
Those opportunities didn’t just fall out of the sky. But my YouTube channel is largely to thank for getting them.
Because the years I’ve spent writing, filming, and publishing videos online have created a public body of work.
Potential collaborators like podcast hosts can now watch some of my videos and immediately see whether I can hold a conversation, communicate clearly, and bring something useful to their audience.
Now, I’m not going to pretend audience size doesn’t play a big role in getting professional opportunities. It does.
But those numbers aren’t the whole asset.
The quality of your message and your ability to communicate your vision matter just as much, and those things can be visible long before you have an enormous channel.
3. It made me a sharper communicator
There’s a difference between knowing something and being able to communicate it in a way that’s clear and understandable. And YouTube helped me improve my ability to do the latter.
Creating videos every week forced me to ask myself questions like:
- What is the actual point I’m trying to make?
- Why should someone care?
- What do they need to understand first?
- Which example can I use to make things clear?
Over time, that process became more than a communication exercise. It became a way of developing my thinking.
And those communication skills I developed didn’t just help me with my YouTube content. They helped me write my book, give my TEDx talk, and answer interview questions.
4. It changed how people came into my business
Think about how we usually encounter a business.
We land on a website, read a few claims, and look at the credentials. Then we’re supposed to decide whether we trust this person enough to take the next step.
With video, someone can spend much more time exploring your ideas and understanding your approach before deciding to work with you.
I built my business with this in mind, ensuring there was an actual path to take someone from stranger to client.
First, they could discover a video. Then they could join my email list and learn more through regular communication, and eventually explore one of my programs or services.
I think many experts misunderstand this opportunity. They assume YouTube is about getting lots of views and earning advertising revenue.
But that’s just one possibility.
If you already have expertise people pay for, a YouTube channel can open up opportunities ranging from consulting to teaching to public speaking.
In other words, your channel could become a key part of your business model, with your videos helping the right people understand why your work can help them.
5. It changed who I believed I could become
This was the change I didn’t anticipate, but building my YouTube channel actually changed how I saw myself.
Because when you hear the word “YouTuber,” what comes to mind?
Probably someone younger. Quite possibly a man.
Probably not a midlife woman, talking about personal development, behavior change, and reinvention.
Similarly, when you think of its audience, you might think it’s just Generation Z that watches YouTube.
But according to Nielsen, over the past two years, YouTube viewing in the U.S. grew by more than sixty percent among people aged fifty to sixty-four. And it nearly doubled among people sixty-five and older.
This is a great example of how our assumptions can subconsciously determine which opportunities we even consider.
We say things like“I’m too old for that,” or “That’s for a different kind of person,” and we dismiss the possibility before we’ve actually explored it.
But the demographics of “YouTubers” and YouTube’s audience are much broader than you realize, meaning there is space for everyone.
What it actually took to build a YouTube channel
Now, all of this sounds great, but what about the work it takes to get to this point?
In this week’s YouTube video, I dive deeper into these 5 benefits and share three things I’d want any expert considering this to understand.
So if you’re considering starting a YouTube video but are unsure if you’ve got what it takes, watch the full video now:
By knowing what to expect, you’ll avoid making all the little mistakes I did when I first started out.
And whether you’re starting from scratch or reviving an existing channel, I’ve got something to help you. I created a free YouTube Authority Scorecard that lets you evaluate your channel across the same areas I look at when assessing whether a channel is positioned to grow.
Have questions about building a YouTube channel? Let me know in the comments!
Resources:
- Evaluate your YouTube Channel’s Potential: Download my FREE YouTube Authority Scorecard
- My Free Class for Health Coaches: How To Build A 6-Figure Health Coaching Business Using One Signature Program
- Dr. Kim on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drkimfoster/
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