The Reason YouTube Doesn't Feel Worth It (For Business) | Ep. 86

Are you tired of creating YouTube videos that never seem to pay off? I get it! Most business owners are following YouTuber advice instead of strategies that actually grow a business. In this video, I break down why your ideal clients aren’t finding you—and how to fix it with my Spider Web Strategy and YouTube Visibility Report. Let’s make YouTube finally work for your business!

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Transcript

If YouTube hasn't been paying off for you, even though you've been publishing regularly or even publishing every once in a while, if you feel like it's a whole lot of work for not a whole lot of results, not a whole lot of audience growth leads, clients core sales, there's a reason and there's a good chance that the reason is because you're approaching YouTube like a YouTuber instead of like a business owner.

And if you've been wondering why you're still sort of invisible in your niche or industry, why you are easy to ignore for your clients and customers who you know are out there on the internet searching for the solutions you provide.

 let's talk about that because I think once you hear what I have to say, YouTube is going to feel very different for you, like actually worth your time as a business owner different.

Now, here's what I hear from clients and members of Video Brand Academy all the time. These are solo entrepreneurs, small business owners,

service providers, course creators, coaches. They say things like, Meredith, I know YouTube is important. I believe you when you say that YouTube is the most powerful way to grow your audience online, but it takes so much time that it doesn't end up feeling like it ever actually pays off.

And honestly, there's a hundred different reasons why this could be true for you, but most of the time what I see, what I'm actually seeing with my actual paid clients and students is you're approaching YouTube like a YouTuber. So you're right. It's not paying off. It's not paying off to grow your actual business to get clients and core sales.

And it's not going to,

because almost all of the tools, the tutorials, the videos out there on YouTube, like how to Grow your YouTube channel in 2026, and it was like the same strategy they talked about in 2025 and 20 24, 20 23, and on and on. And it's gonna be the same thing that they posed in 2027. In 2028.

All these tutorials, even chat GPT, it's built to think like a YouTuber. It's built to think like, let's get subscribers, let's get views, 

but that's not building a business, that's building a YouTube channel, that's building a, a media company even. And if that's what you want, that's fine. But most of my clients are business owners with programs, services. They do coaching, they have memberships, they have courses, and they work with people to solve real problems in their lives.

They're not here to just be a full-time YouTuber

Using YouTube to get clients and core sales and build your personal brand to build your business requires a completely different approach. So you don't have a subscriber problem or a, I don't have a fancy enough camera problem. You have an invisibility problem. Your ideal clients can't find you on YouTube, your ideal customers, and The people who you created your programs for, that you recorded your course material for. They're not finding you on YouTube even though you feel like you're doing everything you can to show up. It's not like you're not making videos, and it's not that your videos aren't any good,

it is just that you're not making videos that actually attract the ideal client and customer that your business is here to serve.

And your videos that you're posting probably aren't connected to each other in like an algorithmic way that makes it stupid easy for YouTube to promote your content.

videos probably aren't even connected really to the people who actually want to pay you to help them, and it's really not your fault.

 I mean, if you go to YouTube looking for help with YouTube, you're going to find a lot of YouTube educators who are very experienced and are very good at teaching YouTube and actually presenting really powerful strategies. It's just that those strategies are designed for a completely different goal.

So let me give you a reframe to help you kind of think, rethink about this whole thing.

YouTube is not social media, it's not Instagram, it's not Facebook, it's not LinkedIn. If you're hearing this, watching this and you're like, duh, of The point I wanna make is those platforms are designed for you, the content creator, to keep feeding the feed.

You post something, it gets a little bit of engagement, and then it disappears, and then you have to do it over again tomorrow to keep getting the engagement. Those platforms need you to keep posting You are feeding the content on those platforms. You are working for those platforms hoping to get clients and and customers out of it.

And if that's working for you, that's great. YouTube is an entirely different. Kind of platform. And here's a stat that a lot of people don't know about. I don't know why more people aren't talking about this, but there's a guy, Scott Graphis, who's been tracking social media, uh, stats for over a decade. He has data that shows that a Facebook post has an 81 minute shelf life, 81 minutes.

You post something, it has a shelf life of 81 minutes. Instagram has a shelf life of 19 hours, which makes sense if you're a daily Instagram poster. You have to keep doing it every day because what you posted yesterday is no longer getting in front of people, so it's no longer getting engagement. YouTube has an almost 10 day shelf life.

The shelf life being the amount of time it takes for a video to hit half of its total engagement. What the heck does this even mean? It means that your YouTube content keeps working for you long after you hit publish. Instead of you working for the platform every single day, the platform is working for you.

And the wild thing about YouTube that a lot of people don't understand, 'cause it is, you know, the algorithm is kind of confusing and nobody, you know, aside from me and other like YouTube people, nobody wants to be an expert in how the YouTube algorithm works. But one thing you need to know is that the algorithm serves the viewer always on every platform.

The algorithm exists to serve the viewer.

That's why you have to post daily on all those other platforms because as the users. Are using the platform all day, every day. They're just scrolling, right? They're looking for something to zone out over. They're doom scrolling. They're looking for a way to disassociate with whatever's going on in their life, right?

But on YouTube, and I'm talking about long form content, not shorts. The intent of the user is to go deeper on something and they might just be watching videos to support their hobby or their interests or, um, just like whatever they happen to be interested in. But they're looking to go deep. They're not looking for dopamine hits.

But it's when people, when your clients or customers, your ideal clients or customers are actually looking for answers to something, looking for solutions, even just looking for expert opinions, or they wanna know what the thought leaders on this particular topic are saying about this particular thing.

They're seeking out this information. This is why I like to call YouTube the Let Them Come To You Platform. Let them seek out the information that you are an expert in that, that you are the thought leader in, that you actually help people with in your business. Let them come to you.

You are not chasing people. You're not dancing for the algorithm, you're not looking up what are the latest trends that you have to like fit your intellectual property into just to get attention, just to get eyeballs, just for the chance that somebody decides to stop scrolling

on YouTube. You're creating assets for your business. You're creating this, a library of content that your ideal, um, clients find you when they are ready,

when they're searching for solutions and when they're looking for someone exactly like you. And there's actual psychology backing this up.

The longer somebody spends with you, the more they trust you. So the longer somebody spends with you, the more likely they are to actually become a client or a customer of yours. So as a business owner, creating content as a, as a solo business owner, creating content where you don't have a lot of extra time to just play around on YouTube,

creating long form content that actually builds trust and connection and proves that you're a human, by the way, is like an absolute no brainer, especially since the content you create lives on for weeks, months, and even years after you've posted it. Not just getting views, not just getting subscribers, but actually getting leads and clients and customers.

So if YouTube is really this powerful, Meredith, why does it feel like it's not working?

Three reasons, and they all come back to this same thing. You've been approaching YouTube like a YouTuber instead of a business owner.

Reason number one, you're using the YouTuber tools like to Buddy and Vid IQ and um, whatever else is out there to make business decisions. Let me state that again. Reason number one is you are using YouTuber tools to make business decisions. These are tools built for. YouTubers, they optimize your search volume.

They, uh, they find you trending topics. They're optimizing for subscriber growth. They'll tell you what to post to grow your channel. It might look like a title that a robot wrote, but it's trying to help you grow your channel. But they don't know your business. They don't know what you offer. They don't know your expertise.

They don't know your intellectual property. They're just trying to get you views and subscribers, and that's them making good on the promise of the tool. That's what two buddy in Vet iq and even like chat, GPT wants you to feel good about what it's telling you. They're designed to do that.

Last week I hosted a workshop, the YouTube visibility workshop, and one of my VBA members, Roxanne, I came in and she creates content for teachers. She teaches teachers, she canceled Vid iq and she mentioned this in the actual workshop. She canceled Vid IQ because she felt like the topic suggestions that it was giving her to create on her channel and like the, the way the titles were written were very click Beatty, like infomercial style titles.

And she said something that stuck with me, which is her audience is looking for real help with real problems. And the way I interpret that. In how she was explaining why she canceled Vid IQ and it's using the video brand toolkit instead, is that she's, she's not just here to create content for entertainment, she's, she's here to actually create content that actually helps people and that's what she's doing in her business.

So when she ran the YouTube visibility report inside of the toolkit, which is something I built specifically for business owners, not YouTubers, it nailed exactly what her audience was looking for. And she said something like the topics it suggested that she creates where nothing like what Vid IQ was suggesting, the topics that it suggested that she creates are actually tied to her business and her offerings, and the people that she really does wanna serve in her business.

These were topics that she was thinking she wanted to create on her channel, but like Vid IQ wasn't bringing them up. And so she wasn't sure if this was the right move. And the visibility report confirmed what she already knew about her niche. And this is one of the things that drives me crazy about these tools 

 most of the time, you know, your niche far better than Vid IQ or Tube Buddy ever could And when you use a tool that understands your business and your audience and YouTube strategy, instead of just chasing, you know, search volume and subscribes and, and likes and stuff, everything just kind of clicks into place.

Reason number two, and this one might sting a little bit, but, um, there's a good chance you're trying to serve too many revenue streams. And I learned this one the hard way. So let me save you some pain. Um, I always thought, and because it sounds very logical, who doesn't want multiple paychecks? Of course you want multiple revenue streams.

Have a course about this, have a course about that, have a digital product, have a, um, have a membership work with brands and promote other, um, software programs, et cetera, like Amazon affiliate marketing

and collect your ad revenue from YouTube. what could go wrong? What could go wrong with multiple revenue streams? Right. Well, let me tell you, let me tell you what could go wrong.

First of all, when you're trying to figure out what to post on YouTube, that's going to be worth it, that's going to be worth your time. You don't wanna make the wrong decision, right? But when you have multiple revenue, um, targets or like revenue objectives, how do you know what to post? Like, which one are you going after today?

It can lead you down this path where your YouTube channel is kind of all over the place with topics. 'cause you're trying to like hit every possible revenue stream that you have

And then. Where does that leave your own product or program or service that you offer? And that's the part that really got me, because I was serving so many revenue streams. I had an affiliate partnership that a couple years ago, they changed their terms.

I went from $1,500 a month to 150 overnight, and it's still never built back up to anywhere near that original 150 or $1,500 per month that it was. And they can do that. They can change their terms. That's That's totally fine.

And then I guess because the universe has a sense of humor, I was hit with a YouTube traffic, invalid traffic bug. my ad revenue, went to zero overnight for six weeks, zero, zero ad revenue.

The, the graph was flat at zero for six weeks it wasn't enough to tank my business. But when I looked at the actual numbers at the end of that year, I looked at the numbers and I was like, oh. My own products and programs are the only ones that didn't abandon me Over the years, the Video Brand Academy and my courses and working with clients, my own stuff were the only revenue streams that actually stayed consistent and grew over time.

 the products that you have the most control over are going to be the most sustainable ones for your business long term.

And then it becomes really easy and really clear exactly what to post on YouTube because it's all about growing your own business. It's all about growing your own target audience to serve your own clients and customers and help a specific like target of. Of audience rather than trying to scatter around and kind of cover everything.

 multiple paychecks sounds great until you realize you have to have multiple bosses to have multiple paychecks, right?

So the most sustainable way to build your business is to scatter your attention across multiple revenue models and revenue streams. It's to go all in on your own thing and use YouTube to drive people to it reason number three, your videos probably aren't connected to each other and they're probably not connected to your business and you might think that they are. I see a lot of people creating videos on topics that they want to be seen as an expert in. They create videos on topics where they're like, this is where I wanna show up as a thought leader.

I wanna show up as a thought leader, as an expert, as like the go-to person for these topics. And that's what they make videos about. then they find that it's really hard to get traction on that, and they wonder why, because they are the expert on those topics. They are the go-to person on those topics.

So why aren't people finding them? Why are they still invisible?

And most of the time it's because what you're posting are topics that someone would have to know you and know that you are established in that topic or in that expertise in order to even know, to look for you talking about it.

in in that regard. You're still essentially thinking like a YouTuber, not a business owner. You're bouncing around from like what you feel like creating and what's going to make you feel good But in order to be known for anything, you have to be found for something, right? You have to be found before you can be known.

So if nobody's finding your channel and finding you through your content, it's simply because YouTube literally doesn't know who to show your content to yet, yet, right? So I teach something in Video Brand Academy called the Spider Web Strategy, and the idea is really simple. This question came up in the visibility workshop this week,

So the idea is really simple. Instead of making random videos on random topics, even if those topics are tightly related to your niche and your expertise, and you know what you're talking about. unless they are part of this like strategy where your topics, your videos are sort of like topic clusters of, of tightly related topics, then it's really hard for YouTube to kind of piece together who you are, what your channel's about, and who to bring to your channel for viewers.

'cause remember I was talking at the top of this episode that the YouTube algorithm is operating basically on behalf of the viewer, not on behalf of you. The, the person creating the video. 

And tell me if you've ever been in this situation where you publish a video and it does really well, like out of nowhere, like unexpectedly. Well, you get 10 times more views than you normally would get, but it doesn't blow up your whole channel. And the next video you post it doesn't get the same amount.

Or maybe have a couple videos that do pretty well. And then it just kind of goes back down to what is normal. And that's because the spiderweb effect isn't spider webbing, 

I like to say you have to make it stupid easy for YouTube to promote your videos for you, and that's why the Spiderweb strategy works because the Spiderweb effect works. I like to say that you, you want your ideal clients and customers, even people who never watched a video from you, people who never hit subscribe.

You want your ideal clients and customers to not be able to open YouTube without seeing your face or seeing your thumbnails. That's what the Spiderweb Effect does for you, because that's what the algorithm wants to do for you.

That's how you become unignorable. That's how you show up for people who aren't even searching for you, that don't even know you exist, never heard of you before in their life, and now you're, you're suddenly everywhere For them, you're unignorable and the YouTube algorithm makes that happen for you without having to pay for ads or post every single day on social media.

this isn't gaming the system. This isn't hacking the algorithm. This is just making it really, really obvious what your channel is about and who it's for. So the algorithm doesn't have to think too hard about who to promote your videos to on the homepage and in the algorithm.

Okay, so if you're wondering, okay, so what do I do then, Meredith, you've told me all the things I might be doing wrong. How do I do it right? this is what it looks like to stop approaching YouTube like a YouTuber and start approaching YouTube like a business owner.

You build what I call a YouTube ecosystem. A YouTube ecosystem is the most sustainable way to grow your audience and generate consistent clients and course sales without posting every day on social media and without putting all of your profit into meta ads just to be visible It is basically building a library of digital assets that work for your business. Content that attracts the right people, builds trust over time, builds trust even instantly, and leads them to your offers without you having to chase anyone, right? We let them come to you. This is the Let Them Come To You platform.

There are five phases to building your Let Them Come to you YouTube ecosystem.

Phase one is obviously attract. You have to attract the right people, the right viewers to your channel with your videos, right? So you use a targeted topic strategy to create content. That your ideal clients are actually looking for? Not necessarily what's trending and not necessarily what they're typing into the search bar and typing.

We're not just looking for high search volume. I mean, SEO is still alive and well on YouTube certainly, but we're talking about what are people specifically seeking, not just searching, but seeking and trying to find answers to problems, questions. And going after, just like high search demand search terms is exactly what a YouTuber would do, but a business owner would look into their i their ideal clients and customers Yes. But like their existing clients and customers and be able to say and pull out some of the specific problems, specific mistakes, specific, um, questions that those people are asking that

that. Might not be high search volume, but are going to be like high value, high connection, high trust for those people.

And when you stop going after just the high search demand, high search volume topics. What all of the YouTube gurus and YouTube tools tell you to do, you actually start showing up in places where other people aren't. That's how you stop being invisible. The second thing is you obviously have to create videos.

Now I mentioned earlier, I'm talking about long form content. I'm not talking about shorts. We are talking about making connection content that builds trust in you, in what you know, what you have to say, what you have to offer.

Your personal brand, your voice. 

 simple, long form content. You don't have to have some high production value. Like we're talking about creating videos that answer really specific questions that your really specific target audience are searching for.

And all you have to do is show up as human. And this is something that I think you're, you're gonna have to come to terms with if you wanna make YouTube work for you. If you wanna make YouTube work for your business, you're going to have to come to terms with the fact that as we move closer and closer to, um, the internet filling up with AI generated stuff.

It's gonna become easier and easier to prove that you're a real human, a trustworthy human who knows what they're talking about simply by turning on your webcam and hitting record. And you might think, well, it has to be polished, and I have to have good lights, and I have to have a camera. I have to have a microphone.

Yeah, I mean, you can polish your stuff, but if polishing your videos is going to cost you a bunch of money that you don't have, and your setup is gonna cost you a bunch of time that you don't have,

I mean, you have to weigh what you're gonna get back out of it. Being consistent, creating long form content that's easy for you to create, where all you have to do is show up and hit record. The consistency is part of the asset that you're building. A couple months ago, I was at, I was at an in-person conference and it was BBD Live with James Wedmore, business by Design Live.

And like I showed up, I went to the registration table and I saw someone I knew gave me a hug and, you know, we were like, hi, how are you? Blah, blah, blah. And they said, oh, congratulations on all your YouTube stuff. And I was like, oh, thanks. And I didn't really know what they, I didn't really know what they were talking about.

 I saw somebody else, a second person, same exact thing. They were like, oh, good job on your YouTube, blah, blah, blah.

Just watched your video. And I'm like, what are they talking about? Third person, same thing. This was in the, over the course of like. A half a day. Third person, same thing, said, good job on all your YouTube stuff. Congratulations. And I was like, am I going viral or something?

Like, what's, what, what? Congratulations on what specifically? Like, it was a really kind of awkward question. And he said, well, every time I open up YouTube, you're there on the homepage. You're so consistent. Those were the words. He said, every time I open up YouTube, you're there on my homepage.

You are so consistent. And I thought, oh, okay. So I'm not going viral. nothing crazy is happening. It's just that I was consistent. the consistency makes you stick in people's head even if they don't hit play, even if they're not subscribed, even if. They haven't watched, you know, all of your latest videos and they don't follow everything you do.

Just showing up. Just showing up consistently is enough to establish you as like a trustworthy person in your niche.

So you can't afford to go, well, I need fancy lights and a fancy camera and I have to hire an editor and I have to have two different camera angles and I have to this and I have to that. You need people to watch your videos so that they can find you so that more people can find you, so they become clients and customers. That's the objective. And the simpler your videos, the simpler your setup, the more you're able to stay consistent, and that consistency is a huge component to the trust building.

So first you attract second, you create videos, obviously. The third thing is the connection. And this is where yes, you're connecting with people on, you know, through your content, but this phase is more about connecting your viewers to your business, connecting your viewers to the fact that you have services, um, courses, a membership, you have ways to help them more deeply or more personalized or in a more custom way.

The best way to do that is through building your list, building your email list.

Offering a lead magnet, some type of a cheat sheet, a checklist, my YouTube visibility report, I'll link to it down below for you. It's a free thing. It's a free thing I created that I'm providing to you in exchange for you joining my email list. You're providing real valuable things with your content and with your lead magnets.

And then with your list and your launches and your promotions, then you sell to the people who need your stuff, who want your stuff, who wanna work with you. you have a YouTube ready lead magnet that is like the next obvious thing after watching a YouTube video. Like, download this thing.

Download, you know, go get your visibility report. Right? That's the connection phase. That's the third phase. And then this backstage revenue system idea. you're not just a talking head on, on YouTube saying like, buy my thing, buy my thing, buy my thing.

The backstage revenue system is for more in depth, like trainings, workshops, webinars, challenges, where. The ideal clients and customers can, can sort of extract more from what you have to say and also learn about your offers and the ways that they can work with you on the backstage. I teach a YouTube funnel playbook inside of the membership, and it's one way of doing it. 

the fifth thing is what I call the algorithm multiplier. This is where the spiderweb strategy, um, foundation kind of turns into momentum because. You could just use keyword research tools and just keep going after, like what do the search engine say that people are searching for right now? You could fill out your spiderweb strategy like that.

But the weird thing is when you think about it, there's like two and a half billion people on YouTube. There's not two and a half billion searches happening on YouTube. There's a lot more people watching YouTube videos just based on what they're seeing in the algorithm than what they're searching for.

And there's a few different ways to kind of tap into all of the different algorithms, not just search. The algorithm multiplier method that I teach in Video Brand Academy tells you what to look for inside of your channel, inside of your metrics to figure out where, where are some like low hanging fruit?

What can we pull on to actually get even more momentum, more algorithm. Momentum out of your next videos and out of the videos that you already have on your channel.

 I know this sounds like a lot and you're building a business, right? It is. It is a lot. Building a business is a lot. There's a lot of things that you have to know and do, and a lot of things you have to like keep an eye on and pay attention to.

One of my VBA members mimsy, she used the exact systems and processes that I teach in VBA. She had a small-ish channel and she basically copied the templates. I gave her the, the, the exact templates that I give in VBA. She set up a YouTube funnel for her course. She has a channel and a business around home decor, sewing.

She created the course. She set up a YouTube funnel, and she started making sales of that course immediately. Not because she had a huge audience, she didn't have a million subscribers, but because her content was attracting exactly the right people and her offer was right there in the right moment.

That's the ecosystem at work.

 So if you are listening to this or watching this and you're thinking, okay, that's a lot.

Where do I start? I built something for you. It's called the YouTube Visibility report. I already mentioned it. It's completely free. I'll put a link to it down below. You put in your channel, you answer two questions about your business. What is your business like?

What do you do? And what does your business offer? What do you sell? And it will generate a report for you showing exactly where you're showing up on YouTube already, where you're invisible, and what your biggest opportunities are for your next videos as you build your YouTube ecosystem. 

and the key thing here is that it's not just about growing your channel, it's about growing your business because it asks about your offers, it asks about your actual business.

What do you do? Like, what is your expertise? What is the business that you're building? Tell me about your ideal clients. Like what is your actual niche? so the recommendations that it gives you are actually connected to your business goals, not just search volume. Go run it. Do it for yourself. See for yourself, it only takes a few minutes.

It might genuinely change how you think about your YouTube channel. So I'll put a link to the YouTube visibility report below. And if you want the full system, the full Ecosystem blueprint, the spider web strategy, the weekly coaching calls, where we actually look at your channel, look at your analytics and help you figure out what's going on and maybe like what to do next.

Video Brand Academy is open. Now it's open for the next couple of days. It's $49 a month as of today. I just built out this entire video brand toolkit to go along with the community and coaching and the core content and like lessons 

 The full video brand toolkit is unlocked for you and everything. You need to plan, script, and publish videos that actually bring you clients and course sales or just get started on YouTube.

If you have been waiting for an opportunity to finally just get started,

when you start treating YouTube like a business asset and not some second job that you wish you didn't have to do, but Meredith keeps telling you it's really important,

it becomes the the most powerful business asset that you have because it's bringing you business without you having to pay for ads or post every day on social media and stress out about that. Stop feeding the feed, start building something that actually works for you, and I hope to see you inside Video Brand Academy.