Unlocking YouTube Success with Meredith Marsh

In this episode of Quilting on the Side, Andi and Tori interview Meredith Marsh, a YouTube expert, who shares her entrepreneurial journey, insights on content creation, and the evolving landscape of video marketing. 

Meredith discusses the importance of community building through memberships, the relevance of blogging alongside video content, and the impact of AI on content creation. She also provides practical advice for new YouTubers, strategies for working with brands, and guidance on choosing the right tools for online courses. The conversation wraps up with rapid-fire questions that reveal Meredith's personal preferences and insights into her creative process.

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Chapters
00:00 Introduction to YouTube Expertise
00:30 Meredith's Entrepreneurial Journey
04:18 Navigating Content Evolution and Rebranding
06:31 Starting a New YouTube Channel
08:34 The Relevance of Blogging in the Video Era
10:29 AI's Impact on Content Discovery
13:19 Building a Community through Membership
13:52 Choosing the Right Platform for Courses
18:14 The Importance of Taking Action
25:13 Working with Brands and Sponsorships
27:16 Navigating Brand Collaborations
29:41 Aligning Content with Audience Interests
34:07 Essential Tools for Video Creation
38:25 The Rewards of Content Creation
42:30 Finding Inspiration in Unconventional Places

Guest Links

Meredith Marsh on YouTube

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Co-Hosts:

Tori McElwain @heytori.tech

Andi Stanfield @truebluequilts

Transcript

Andi (01:04)
Welcome to this episode of Quilting on the Side and we are going to step outside of our crafting exclusive space and welcome Meredith Marsh here as our resident YouTube expert. I've known Meredith for a few years now and she just brings such wonderful insights and I know people have a lot of questions about YouTube.

Let's dive in. Meredith, can you tell us a little bit about your entrepreneurial journey?

Meredith (01:35)
Yes, thank you so much for having me. ⁓ My entrepreneurial journey, wow, where do I even start? So ⁓ my background is actually in web design. And while I was an in-house web designer, social media person for a local company, I was like, hmm.

Andi (01:41)
Hahaha

Meredith (01:59)
how do I start working for myself again? Because I used to do freelance and then I had a job and then I was like, ⁓ how do I go back to working for myself? So I dug into this world of content creation. I really set out to be a blogger, ⁓ had no business like making videos or doing YouTube or anything. I just kind of like saw other people doing that. And I thought, well, like how hard could that be?

You know, I saw people just like standing there talking to a camera and ⁓ I kind of waited for a niche to find me. I had no idea like what I was going to create content about. You know, I was like, I had a full-time job. had two little kids. Like it was just sort of like typical mom life stuff. And I bought a GoPro camera one day and

I'm not an action sports person like at all, but I let my kids go outside and play in the snow with it. And I made a little video of them playing in the snow and decorating Christmas cookies. And I just like watched their faces light up as I showed them this video. And I thought, how come no one's like doing this with their kids? Like making these little videos. You know, people were just kind of taking videos and then throwing them up on Facebook.

hoping that Facebook was gonna archive these special moments, you And so that was the light bulb moment of, ⁓ maybe that's what I could create content about, because I can figure out how to use this camera and edit these videos. And it kind of gave me something to grab onto. And so I just kind of put all of my skills to work in the... ⁓

like content creation space, the keyword research space. And I thought if I'm going to create content around something to do with videos, I should probably like make videos like that just kind of seemed obvious. So I started putting my content on YouTube. I basically would write a blog post and make a video about it. And within really just like a couple of months, the YouTube channel was where I was getting like people were subscribing.

didn't know what that meant, but I was like, okay, cool. And leaving comments and saying, can you make a video about this? And can you make a video about that? And so I just kind of like kept going with it. And that was 10 years ago. So things have shifted over time because I got kind of tired of making videos about GoPro cameras, because it's all kind of the same, kind of the same thing. Every camera that comes out is kind of the same. ⁓

I just, I anyone who's making content for their business or starting a business as a content creator or taking an existing business and using video marketing. And that's, that's what I do. All, all like the whole gamut of how to talk to a camera and sound natural to like the tech set up to doing keyword research, to growing the channel and all like the strategy stuff.

and things like that.

Andi (05:22)
Yeah, I think I've been around long enough, that I remember those original VidProMom days. So how difficult has it been over the years to kind of pivot and rebrand what advice do you have if people sense a big shift?

Meredith (05:40)
Um, it, that's a tough question because if I had, if I had know, if I knew now, if I knew then what I know now, I probably wouldn't have pivoted. I probably would have just like put a pretty little bow on what I had created and started a new thing, started a new channel or whatever. I mean, it's still me. It's still.

It's not that much of a different personal brand, but from a content standpoint, from the YouTube algorithm data standpoint, it's different content. It's a different audience. a couple years ago, I did a video where I explained the pros and cons of pivoting on YouTube. And that's one of the things that I...

had said is that I don't regret it. I don't really regret anything that I've done. Everything leads to where I am now. But if I could go back, I would have figured out a way to not pivot, but just kind of like wrap it up or even package up what I had and sell it and start something new. so

In the end, I do like the idea of evolution, you know, versus like burning down your business and restarting. I hear people talk about that all the time. I'm going to burn it down. I'm going to restart. And I think that's, that's tough when you've invested your time and energy into something. So it's, it's sort of like, it's a double edged sword pivoting. You know, I don't regret it, but if I had to go back, I would say, Hmm.

Is this really the smartest thing or not?

Tori (07:36)
It's interesting that I think this is very timely because I just did exactly that. I went and opened up a brand new channel, but I haven't put any videos up. So as a brand new, brand spanking me really, to YouTube, is there any first actions that maybe I should do before or maybe after I post my first video? Maybe, what kind of advice would you have for me for just barely starting?

Meredith (08:00)
For a

brand new channel, ⁓ I'm a big fan of like starting with a plan of five or 10 videos and creating some kind of a series or at least some kind of like a seriesified string of videos that follow, like one follows another. ⁓ That way it kind of gets like, you already know how to create videos, but for someone who's

like trying to figure out how the whole workflow works, know, recording to editing. It kind of gets you into like figuring out what your own workflow is, get the steps down, and then gives you kind of a runway to have like, all right, I've got these five videos ready to go, and then I can publish once a week or twice a week, and it gives you a little bit of a runway to then plan your next videos. I think when you know...

I don't think you have to have an entire channel or like an entire year planned out, but when you know ahead of time what the topics are you're going to create and you feel excited to create them, then you're going to be driven to actually stick with it and do it.

Andi (09:15)
You mentioned Meredith starting out in the blogging world and everything kind of, you know, everybody was really amazed when Instagram came on and they were like, it's mini blogs and now, you know, YouTube, it's all about video. Is there still a place for blogging either on its own or in conjunction with a YouTube channel?

Meredith (09:38)
Yes, I would say so. ⁓ especially with AI because when you have the content laid out for AI to pull from, AI is recommending websites to people just like it's sort of the new Google chat. GPT isn't

as big as Google, obviously, ⁓ for like on my website, for my blog content and on YouTube, I have search traffic or I have referral traffic coming from chat GPT and it's tiny, but a couple months ago it wasn't there, it didn't exist. And so I mean, I have to imagine that it's gonna grow, ⁓ but just the fact that it shows up even as a tiny blip on the radar.

⁓ tells me that it is still effective. And not everyone wants to watch YouTube videos. Some people, human beings even, not just robots, but actual people want to read and read the steps or read the story or read whatever. And so it's so easy to do both. It's kind of like...

If you just, if you make a YouTube video, your blog post is basically written. And, or if you write a blog post, then your YouTube video is basically scripted for you. So either way you go about it, you're, you're like 90 % of the way to that other piece of content, just needing a little bit of polish and editing. So blogging is definitely not dead. ⁓ for sure. It's still effective.

Tori (11:33)
Again, it's really interesting.

Andi (11:33)
Now I'm feeling guilty for not putting a

blog post up with all my videos.

Tori (11:39)
I've actually been diving into exactly that how chat, chat, GPT and other chat bots find websites and different research that I found YouTube is actually either fifth or sixth ranked on the websites that those chat bots visit to find answers to questions they don't have the answers for. So you are, I think you're very accurate when you say that both YouTube and blogs can go together and that chat GPT and other chat bots like that are searching that content to find

to find answers and they can find your business and they can refer you and your videos, you and your blog posts, your website through Child GPT.

Meredith (12:18)
Yeah, exactly. ⁓ I've been hearing more and more about how, you know, it used to be like we were used to, I need an answer to something. I go to Google, I get a link, I go to that site and I get the answer. Great. And now like the intent of somebody using Chad GPT isn't just, I need this quick answer. It's like, I am down a rabbit hole. I want to know everything.

I want to interact with the content. And when chat GPT or perplexity or Gemini or Claude is able to say, well, Andy from True Blue Quilt says, blah, blah. If I'm in that, the intent of somebody who's really trying to learn something, I'm going to go find Andy at True Blue Quilt. Where does she come from? Where am I going to go? Like the, the, those tools are linking to the content that it's referencing.

So I can go there, but I can also search you up on Instagram or YouTube or whatever. And it's not just like, here's the answer to my question. It's like, Chad GBT sees Andy as an expert on this thing. it's like, it creates that sort of deeper connection, like for your personal brand that now I trust you because Chad GBT trusts you. So therefore I trust you before I've even...

visited your content, it's like it establishes some trust there.

Tori (13:52)
You know, it's funny, ⁓ during my research, found an article where a journalist, when AR first came out, kind of bashed AI and now AI like holds like chat GBT specifically and it holds a grudge and it won't, it won't reference him anymore. It won't link to his stuff. and it just kind of has a poor opinion of that, that journalist. So it's funny that you said that because I think that it kind of does in a way like hold, ⁓ opinion.

Meredith (14:16)
interesting.

And that is interesting.

Tori (14:21)
It was pretty interesting.

Andi (14:23)
I don't know if we could go down the implications of that. We are creating this intelligence that has some kind of logic programming. So it certainly could get that viewpoint. yeah, exactly. ⁓ So Meredith, part of your business these days is a membership. Can you talk about the process of building that community and how

Tori (14:39)
Might follow that rabbit hole later.

Andi (14:53)
YouTube is part of it.

Meredith (14:56)
Yeah, so I have a membership called Video Brand Academy, which is where I get to chat with Andy whenever we have meetups and everything. So I actually started the membership like seven years ago. Yeah, seven years ago. It seems like from like 2020 to 2023 is kind of a blur. It's kind of like all one year. So 2018 was seven years ago, which is just crazy to me.

But ⁓ I initially created a course called YouTube for Bloggers and then quickly turned it into a membership because it just seemed like with something like YouTube, things are always changing. There's always something, you know, new to learn or adapt or try or different strategies. So I turned it into a membership and I had other courses. I've

sort of gone back and forth between do I grow the membership or do I sell these courses and in the last two years I Focused a lot more on the membership because mainly because I enjoy it like it's fun to You know, I'm basically I curated a space that I like to hang out, you know, and so You know, they say your vibe attracts your tribe

So the people that are in there are out there trying new things on YouTube. Andy's doing live streaming and she often brings live streaming tips and things. And so we're all kind of doing these different things, but then coming together to share that with each other. And for people who are legitimately brand new to YouTube, there's a lot of my curriculum and lessons and things in there on, you know, like,

keyword research, like getting started stuff, the strategies for starting and actually growing. we have an AI tool suite. Andy, do you use the AI tools? OK. So I've been playing with ⁓ just creating my own, kind of like my own custom GPTs, but they're embedded into ⁓ the membership.

Andi (17:08)
Yes, it is amazing. Yeah.

Meredith (17:20)
So that's been really fun because it's a lot different to instead of like, here, let me put four hours of lesson content together to teach you something. I will just make this little tool. I'll spend four hours to play with the AI to make the tool. And then all you have to do is put in some information and it will just magically come out for you. So I'm always kind of tweaking those.

They're not 100 % perfect, but AI is still kind of like in its infancy, I think. ⁓ Or at least maybe I'm just in my infancy and using it. But ⁓ the tools are really cool, but I think the community is the kind of like, I don't know, it's kind of like the crown jewel, I guess. There's a lot of content in there, a lot of lessons, and the tools are cool.

But having the community of people who are kind of on a same, like the same or similar journey as you is really, it's really helpful to me, it's helpful to other people to kind of get everyone's perspective and experience on things.

Andi (18:28)
So when you develop this YouTube community and membership focused on video creation, we do have, as a paid member, we do have a lot of variety of niches that people are involved in. And ⁓ I'm forgetting where I was going with this question, but.

I guess it was the tools because you use Kajabi and it has an app now and it just it really seems robust. How did you narrow it down and decide because that always trips our audience up is like which tool do I use, you know, and then you spend a year researching all the platforms and you never get your course out there.

Meredith (19:18)
Yeah. Well, so the first courses I created were on Teachable way back in the day, like 10 years ago. And ⁓ it seemed to me that in maybe like 2018, I guess, that ⁓ all of the successful online course people, membership people were using Kajabi.

It seemed like the big kid platform, you know, the grownup, like, if I'm gonna take this seriously, then let's have a serious platform. And so I transitioned to Kajabi way back then. And ⁓ it's a tough question, because right now there are so many options and Kajabi is on the more expensive side and they just raised their prices and changed how the pricing works. ⁓

but it's marketed as an all-in-one platform and some of the new features that they just added make it even more robust as an all-in-one platform because you can do your email marketing, you have landing pages, you have the courses, you have the community membership, and I have been paying extra to have my branded mobile app. ⁓ So.

To answer your question, there's no real good answer because one thing that is a real pain is to switch. So it's like at some point before you're ready, you have to kind of like, it's like buying clothes that you're gonna grow into when you're a kid. You know, it's like if your mom ever made you like buy shoes that were too big because you were gonna grow into them. It's like, it might be awkward at first, but you'll grow into it.

⁓ But moving later on is a real pain ⁓ in the buns.

Andi (21:19)
Yeah, yeah. And like you said, there are a lot of platforms out there that have similar features. So one piece of advice that Tori and I have tried to tell our audience is at some point, like you said, you just have to pick one and commit to it and learn it and do the thing rather than be stuck in research mode.

Meredith (21:42)
Yeah, and I also think that ⁓ you don't have to even have a course platform. Like, it might sound radical to say, but depending on what, like the nature of the content you're delivering, I recently bought a program from somebody who had some live Zoom calls and a Google document. And when after the Zoom call lesson,

Andi (21:53)
you

Meredith (22:12)
He put a link to the Zoom replay. I don't know if he might've even uploaded it to Google Drive or something. It's just a link in the document. There's no course login. And it's not because he's just getting started. He's very successful. I think it's just because he was like, I'm gonna sell this thing. Boom, Google document, Zoom calls. That's all it is. And so I think there's a little bit of ⁓

Like a thinking that like, ⁓ this has to be in this cohesive. It has to be Kajabi or teachable or whatever the other platforms are ⁓ to be legit. But that's like, people aren't buying your stuff because of the platform it's on. They're buying because of the value they're getting out of it. So ⁓ I actually did have a client or a member of Video Brand Academy who had a course.

And she too was like, I don't know which one to use. I don't want to invest in something and then change my mind later. And I said, just put the videos in a Google Drive and link to them. And that's exactly what she did. And she's made 20 or 30 sales of her course from that. So I think it's, put your energy into creating an offer that people really want and not so much in the platform.

because it's not as big of a deal as people make it out to be, at least when you're first starting. If you're in the space where you're trying to figure out which one to choose, just don't choose any of them. Just do your stuff in Google Drive.

Tori (23:51)
I think that's really important for our audience. tend, as quilters, we tend to be bit of perfectionists. So they want everything to be very pretty, very ⁓ well done, very complete looking. When it's, and I agree with you, I think that to get started just having a Google Drive to link videos can be a great way just to get started. Test out your idea, test out your course and see if people like it.

Meredith (24:02)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Andi (24:15)
And YouTube now has that course feature. I saw a video on it that you can have free or paid courses on your YouTube channel.

Meredith (24:27)
Okay, that's, I haven't explored that and I knew that was something they talked about. So you can actually create something in charge for it on YouTube.

Andi (24:38)
Well, that's see, this is where they preview new features and don't give you the complete information. So I haven't figured out how you set up the backend on it, but I did see a few examples and I think it's in, I would have to go back to the YouTube creator page to get more information. ⁓

But yeah, was like, it just clicked when you were saying, you you can do everything from Google Doc and we've had that discussion too. Well, why can't I just put my course videos as unlisted or private, you know, and then as students pay me, send them to YouTube and everybody's like, you don't want to, you want to own your platform kind of argument.

Meredith (25:01)
interest.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah,

and you do, of course you want to own your platform. But, you know, I, at some point you have to just like do something. Something is better than nothing, especially if you're trying something out and trying something for the first time, because, you know, you can always evolve and grow as you grow, but only if you've like taken the first steps and got going.

Tori (25:53)
So speaking of evolving, we've gotten one question repeatedly that we don't really have the answer for. And wondering if we can pose it to you and see what you suggest. ⁓ So that question is about working with brands. And ⁓ when a quilter's reached out to a brand asking to do like a sponsored video, like how much do you charge, what that kind of looks like on the back end, do you have any advice for them?

Meredith (26:17)
⁓ yes, okay, brands. I have a love f- ⁓

Andi (26:21)
because I know you have a piece

on affiliate marketing and that ties into it too, so.

Meredith (26:26)
Yeah,

I have a love-hate relationship with working with brands. ⁓ It is kind of like the Wild Wild West. I don't know if anyone's ever heard that before ⁓ with regard to working with brands, but it's a very, ⁓ it's sort of like a free-for-all kind of industry in a way. ⁓ know, Tori and Andy, you could have the same exact size audience and one of you could say,

I'm charging $10,000 for this brand deal. The other one could say I'm charging a thousand and the brand might be like, okay, to both of you, might just, they're not going to say, well, Tori's charging 10. Are you sure Andy, you don't want to? No, they'll just be like, okay, that's fine. ⁓ so they want to pay you as little as possible. You don't necessarily know what they're paying other people. like, how do you figure that out? And it's tricky. It's really tricky. So.

Andi (27:07)
You

Meredith (27:25)
You have to, like, first of all, I would say one thing you have to realize about working with brands is it's a lot like they are your client. And a lot of people kind of approach it like, you're coming to me. You're going to pay me to be in front of my audience. And if you want to continue getting brand deals, like especially from that brand, you want to kind of think of it the other way around where they're your client. And so.

you're gonna get back to their emails right away and you're going to kind of build this relationship so that you become an easy yes for them every time they have a campaign. They're like, yep, I know I can go to Andy with this and she's gonna be on time and she's gonna create good content. the whole like figuring out what to charge.

One thing you can do, you could do, is reach out to people who've worked with that brand and ask them. They might say, none of your beeswax, or they might give you some type of a range. But it's really helpful to know some kind of an idea. What I like to just do is, first of all, I don't work with a brand that...

I mean, it sounds silly to say I don't work with a brand that I don't want to work with, but really it has to be like, yeah, I'm excited. Of course. Yes. I would love to work with that, with that brand. ⁓ because it is a lot of back and forth. It's a lot of communication and, they might be like, you know, you might do a video and they might be like, we have 500 changes for you. So you have to really want to do that work with that brand. ⁓

and ask yourself what would make it worth it to you moneywise. And I mean, a lot of people do undercut themselves quite a bit, but you need to make it worth your time because you're making a video in lieu of something else that you'd be putting your time into. So I know that doesn't really give you any kind of an answer, a clear answer.

If you can, always, always, always, if you can ask the brand what their budget is, because they might have a budget or they might say, well, it looks like you get this many views per video. And so, you know, we, we do want to pay you X, Y, and Z. They might not care how many views it's like I said, it's the wild West. So some brands just have like, we're running this campaign. This is our budget. They're reaching out to creators and just

hang them whatever they can, just like your grocery budget. You're like, I have this much money and this much space in my cart, whatever fits in, fits in. So building the relationship though, I think is even if you don't end up working with them because you're like, well, no, I can't do this for a hundred dollars. You're still building that relationship and they may come back to you later with a higher number, hopefully.

Andi (30:45)
Yeah, yeah, good point. One of the things we think about, especially in the quilting and crafting type of space, is that you want to align the products that you're promoting. You're not gonna advertise a sprinkler system on your quilting channel, usually, because, but then there's the whole idea of these people that are...

are more in like the vlog share everything about their life space and they're so I guess I I'm kind of going where's your stand on super niche content versus multiple topics

Meredith (31:27)
⁓ you're just talking about in like in general, general content, or are we still talking about working with brands?

Andi (31:34)
Well, segue, because yes, working with brands, obviously you want to align your audience and their interests with whatever the brand is. But it's one of those things that if you have a quilting channel, in terms of all the commerce opportunities out there, quilting is just a very small piece.

Quilters like to drink wine. Quilters do like pets. Quilters, you know, we have these multifaceted lives. So where would you target your efforts? Would you stay in the craft space? Would you try to go adjacent? What's...

Meredith (32:13)
I think this is like a personal preference. ⁓ I think that like lifestyle content that is very like general, like, like yes, I do crafting, but also I rearrange my kitchen, rearrange or reorganize my kitchen, rearrange my living room. I think that's to me sounds like vlog style content.

Andi (32:33)
you

Meredith (32:43)
a little bit. When you're first starting out, you have to be found for something specific. So if you want to be found for quilting or quilting related stuff, it makes it really easy for YouTube to recommend your content to the people that are interested in that. In your videos, you can use storytelling to

talk about how you were reorganizing your kitchen, ⁓ you know, or your pets or whatever, ⁓ which is a really smart thing to do, to bring like, bring your own personality into the quilting, bring your personality into the niche, rather than having multiple personality niches on the channel. ⁓ And some people just are like, no, I don't want to paint myself into a niche corner.

And that's fine, but strategically, if you want your channel to grow as fast as possible, you kind of have to... ⁓

I like to say create a spiderweb with all of the with all of the topics around this one niche and it makes it really easy for YouTube to recommend your videos to the right people and if you do all these videos on quilting and then the next video is like 10 ways to reorganize your kitchen Then it kind of alienates your audience in a way you've built up this audience YouTube is like yeah We put your videos in front of these people and then all of sudden they're not clicking on your videos

because they didn't come here for that. But maybe you have the personality to kind of carry it over, you know? So it's really a personal ⁓ thing. I think you can never go wrong with storytelling and interjecting your personal personality stuff into your content. I think for business though, if you're thinking like a business, I say stick with the niche.

Tori (34:43)
That's great

You talked about how you also like to discuss equipment. So I always like to ask when someone has that kind of expertise, what do you suggest ⁓ a new video expert, a video maker? What could they start with? What would be like easy? What would you recommend?

Andi (34:58)
Video Star Creator. ⁓

Meredith (34:59)
I'm

⁓ okay. I have a whole series on my channel called crush it on camera series. There's a guide with links to cameras, lights, microphone, all that kind of stuff. I do think that phones are amazing these days for creating content. ⁓ you can record on them, you can edit on them. And as long as you have pretty decent lighting in a room that's like really nicely lit.

with even just natural light. ⁓ They do, like your phone does a pretty good job on its own. ⁓ And then you can edit on the phone too. You don't have to, you could edit on your computer. That's how I do it. ⁓ So I would start with what you have. Start with your phone. And lighting is important, but you don't necessarily need to buy lights because you can just open your curtains and have natural light.

Audio is also important. It's kind of an overlooked thing, but people are more likely to watch a bad-looking video than they are a bad-sounding video. Our ears are very sensitive. You don't think about our ears being sensitive until you hear something that sounds awful. And you're like, ew, as soon as I hear static on the radio, I change the station. I don't really listen to the radio anymore. I've usually got a podcast in.

But I always change the station if there's just the tiniest little bit of static. ⁓ And I think most people are like that, right? And so ⁓ having some type of a microphone, if you are using your phone, you can get ⁓ like a wireless microphone. You see people on TikTok, you know, holding it. You can do that if you want, or you can clip it to your shirt. ⁓ So those are all over the place, readily available.

I make my videos sitting right here at my desk. So I have a nice, fancy, expensive microphone that sits here all the time. I'm not walking around with it. ⁓ It would be different if I was making quilting videos and I had to like move around or like Andy probably does this, like position it here and position it there. I would have to think about ⁓ having some type of a wireless mic or something like that.

Andi (37:24)
Yeah, those are good key elements.

Tori (37:25)
What do you use to edit?

Oh, I wanted to ask, what do you use to edit?

Meredith (37:30)
I edit my videos with Descript. I've used all of the video editing editors, video editing editors over the years. Descript has just cut down on so much time. I make a lot of mistakes when I'm making videos and I'm literally just sitting here at my desk. So ⁓ I mess up my words, I restart my sentences. And so I use Descript because you have the transcript there.

I have edited, not completely, not like polished, but do a rough edit before without even watching the video because I can read through the transcript and edit it just like a document. So I can see the eight times that I restarted the sentence and get rid of it and go through the whole document like that. You can like read faster than you can watch. So to cut down on

What I think is like the time consuming part of like, I have all these clips from here and there and this angle and that angle, and then putting them together. The script just makes it so much faster to get like the rough part of the edit done. And they've added a lot of features that really help just kind of polish things where you don't have to have like a professional editing software to make it feel polished and look professional.

Andi (38:56)
Great advice. Okay, I think we are ready for our rapid fire wrap up of questions. And since Meredith is not a quilter, I have adapted some of the questions so that we won't put you on the spot. But we do like since quilting is so visual, everybody has opinions about color. And so what colors do you gravitate towards in your YouTube graphics?

Meredith (39:24)
Well, okay, so first of all, I have to say I am not a quilter. You're right about that, but I have made a quilt. Can I show it to you? I have it right here. Okay, I made this like 19 years ago. It's small. It's like a baby quilt. This green is from a sheet. And you're not supposed to use sheets for quilting. It's not good quilting fabric. So. ⁓

Andi (39:33)
Of course, yes! Woo!

Bye.

Yeah

Tori (39:49)
think you totally can.

Andi (39:50)
But the whole

repurposing idea that, you know, just say you got it at a thrift store and everybody will forgive you. ⁓

Meredith (39:55)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. So you're right. I'm not a quilter, but I have quilted and I would love to start quilting again. And I just don't have the space for it, which would make a great topic. What's that, Tori? OK, well, here's a good topic for somebody. I would I would love to start quilting, but I don't have the space for it. I have a dining room table that's always got laundry on it. So that would make a good topic for somebody, a good series for someone.

Tori (40:09)
think that means you are a quilter. ⁓ I think that means you are a quilter. You've made a quilt.

Andi (40:11)
Yeah.

Meredith (40:28)
⁓ you know, how to quote when you like literally do not have space. ⁓ So the colors, I gravitate towards all colors. And ⁓ honestly, this question has driven my youngest daughter crazy like forever, because she's always like, mommy, what's your favorite color? Her whole life she's like obsessed with what is your favorite color? And I'm like, ⁓ I can't choose because I like blue, but as soon as I say blue, but I'm like purple is really nice. you know, so. ⁓

Andi (40:54)
Mm-hmm.

Meredith (40:58)
I like all colors except yellow. I'm not a huge yellow person. like blues, purples, usually if I had to pick, if I had to rescue one color to take to a deserted island, it would be blue.

Andi (41:20)
Good night.

Tori (41:20)
I like that answer.

So what is the most rewarding part of your business?

Meredith (41:28)
Oh, the most rewarding part for me is when I hear that something I've helped somebody with actually helped them, like they've actually done the thing. You know, I mean, which is the whole point of my business really is to help people do the thing, make the video, grow the channel, you know? And so I love hearing a specific like...

Meredith, you told me to do X, Y, and Z and I did X, and Z and now I have this result. I love that. I love that.

Andi (42:03)
And so this is a good place to say you need to do more bingo challenges. That was a blast. And in terms of being, you know, rewarding for you in terms of seeing us, the students do the thing.

Meredith (42:20)
Yeah, and that was fun for me too, because I was, I, so what Andy's talking about is this, like, we played Bingo where I had people do little tasks to revive their dead or dying YouTube channel. And ⁓ I put it together and I was like, this is the dorkiest thing. People are going to think this is so, like, almost juvenile. You know, I was like, people are going to think I'm such a dork. And ⁓ I was like, whatever.

people obviously people like my dorkiness or they wouldn't be here. So I put it out there and did it and then people loved it and they were doing it and to see them post their bingo board, like I got bingo, they post it and I'm like, my gosh, you guys are doing the bingo. And it was so fun and quirky and different. We'll definitely do bingo again for sure.

Andi (43:13)
We ask our crafter audience what their favorite notion or tool is. So is there a particular tool in your business that is just the one thing you can't live without?

Meredith (43:30)
Ooh, one thing I can't live without. ⁓ I would have to say chat GPT right now. I open chat GPT for like every little thought that I have. And I have it really well trained on the business and everything. So it's a great little like thought partner to kind of like bounce ideas off of or organize thoughts and ideas.

Andi (43:34)
Hahaha

Meredith (44:00)
I mean, I wouldn't say I can't live without it, but it's definitely one of my go-to tools for sure.

Tori (44:08)
Next question is who is inspiring you right now?

Meredith (44:12)
Who is inspiring me right now? ⁓ man. I get really inspired by people who are doing things sort of against the grain of what you typically see online, like in the online space. Especially with courses and memberships. I think like there's so many people teaching like do a webinar and have a course with four modules and blah, blah. And...

You don't have to like, those aren't rules, right? And so I get really inspired by seeing people do things that are just as effective, but it's like something they figured out on their own through their own experimentation and works for them. That's not just like this status quo thing that everyone else is doing. And I also think that, ⁓

Like right now, everything is really shaken up by AI and just like content in general. Like there literally are no rules anymore. There's not a single rule that anyone really needs to stick to because everything is so different. And I feel like all the balls are just kind of thrown up in the air right now. so going against the grain and trying things and really...

When people are doing stuff in business that fits their life and they're building the business that fits the life that they want to have and not just doing what everyone else is doing, that's always inspiring to me.

Andi (45:55)
for sure. So you showed us a quilt and I'm wondering if you have any other handmade items in the room with you.

Meredith (46:06)
⁓ handmade items. ⁓

Andi (46:10)
And it may not be handmade, but there's a pillow that is in the background of some of your videos that I think is really fun.

Meredith (46:19)
this pillow?

Andi (46:21)
That one! Well, you know. It could probably inspire a hand-made person somewhere. It says Phil-Phil. It's really cute.

Meredith (46:22)
This is from Walmart, so it's not handmade.

It was

probably stolen from a handmade. This is probably somebody worked hard on Etsy for this design and Walmart stole it.

Andi (46:35)
Yeah. ⁓

Well, thank you so much for sharing your crafty experience and your YouTube insights. We've really learned a lot through this conversation, Merida. Thanks for being here.

Meredith (46:51)
Thank

you so much for having me. It's always fun to break out of my own niche and like go into another niche. So it's fun.

Tori (46:59)
Can you let our audience know where they can find you?

Meredith (47:02)
Yeah, if you

go to YouTube and search my name, Meredith Marsh, you should find me there. I'm meredithmarsh.co on like Instagram and stuff like that, but I don't ever use Instagram. So, but you can find me there if you really want to, if you want to send me a message or something, that would probably be the best way to do it.

Tori (47:24)
quick question that just came to mind. Do you have favorite feature on YouTube?

Meredith (47:31)
⁓ a favorite feature on YouTube? I would say just regular videos. Does that count? I'm not a big fan of shorts. I wish I could commit to live streaming, but it's, it's like, have commitment issues. the thing about just regular videos is they just kind of keep going or they have the potential to keep going forever.

I had a video that I made in 2020 about how to record your screen in your face at the same time. And it's consistently been the top viewed video on my channel. But in that video, I said something like, if you're watching this in 2025, the software is probably different. Because a lot of times, if I make a video about software, then I get comments that are like, well, mine doesn't look like that. And I'm like, I made that video five years ago.

Look at the date, things have changed. And so I was so like annoyed by those comments that I, I called it out and was like, if you're watching this in 2025, then what you see on my screen is probably not what you see. And there's probably other stuff. And now I keep getting comments from people that are like, anyone else here from 2025? Because they're in the now, 2025 is the now for them. And it just blows my mind that it's still getting out there to people. They're commenting on it.

Um, and you know, still bringing engagement to it by making those comments about the fact that it's 2025. And I just comment back like, yeah, I'm still, I'm still here. I'm still here in 2025 too. So yeah, just regular YouTube videos are kind of like the goat of YouTube.

Andi (49:19)
Yeah, pretty amazing.

Tori (49:20)
Thank you for taking that softball.

Thank you so much for being here, Meredith. It's been wonderful to meet you.

Meredith (49:27)
Yes, thank you so

much for having me.