How a Homeschool Mom of 4 and YouTuber Manages Her Busy Schedule with The Minimal Mom: The YouTube Power Hour Podcast 342
“Video is such a powerful way to share your life.”
Be sure to check out my Free 2022 YouTube Goals Workbook! Inside you’ll find you’ll find an exercise that I do with my clients and in my Bootcamp that will help you stick with and achieve your goals on YouTube. The journaling and reflection exercises in the workbook have three different components that we’re going to focus on: money, lifestyle, and mindset, and will help align your life goals with your YouTube goals to help create the 2022 that YOU want.
Dawn Madsen, also known as The Minimal Mom, and her family have lived as minimalists for 7 years now. Passionate about the message of minimalism, most often you can find her on YouTube sharing practical tips and ideas to simplify and declutter. Dawn shares her ideas with over a million people each month, was recently featured on the Today show, is author of Declutter Your Home in 15 Minutes a Day and is the co-creator of the Take Your House Back course.
As a mom, I know the struggle is REAL when it comes to running a YouTube channel, running a business, and being present for my kids, and I know so many of my students, clients, and listeners can totally relate. That’s why I was so excited to have Dawn on the show. Dawn is a minimalist YouTuber, business owner, and course creator, all while being a busy homeschooling mom! How the heck does she do it all?
Outsource, Outsource, Outsource!
There really are only so many hours in a day, and to make it all work, Dawn has hired a team. She began homeschooling her four children (ages 7-12) during Covid, but has since hired someone to facilitate that. She also has a video editor, full-time virtual assistant, and social media manager. By hiring and outsourcing to others what she was previously doing herself, she can stay consistent. When outsourcing, it’s important to find someone to match your style and who can mimic your voice when writing captions, and who you can really jive and work well with. Often, that can be easier said than done.
“I want to reach more people, because I think the message that I’m sharing is so powerful and it really is life-changing.”
A Week in the Life
Dawn posts two videos a week on her channel (Tuesdays and Fridays), and luckily, she’s been able to batch record and stay ahead of things so she doesn’t have to cram to get it all done on time. She typically records her videos on Mondays and sends it off to her editor. She spends the rest of her week working on the rest of her business: her courses and membership group, and tries to take Fridays off to spend with her kids. This of course is the ideal and what she tries to stick to, but it doesn’t always work.
Dawn’s Tuesday videos are her minimalism content that is relatively easy to batch produce, while her Friday videos are more vlog-style lifestyle content, which are much harder to make because they can’t be batched, and they require a lot more planning, forethought, and time. Dawn has been able to find a wonderful balance between giving value to her subscribers but also showing them more who she is, who her family is, and what their life is like. Remember: subscribers will first and foremost watch your content because of who YOU are!
Dawn used to do 3 videos a week, but she found that maintaining that kind of schedule was way too hard. It was burning her out, and zapping her creativity to the point where YouTube felt more like a chore and less like a hobby, so she decided to go to 2 videos a week instead. In fact, she made that choice after listening to my episode with Danelle from Weed ‘em and Reap! Eventually, she would like to cut down even more to 1 super high-quality video a week, but there are many factors that will play into that choice, most notably, sponsored content.
YouTube as a Marketing Tool
To diversify her content, Dawn created a workbook, Declutter Your Home in 15 Minutes a Day, and a course to go with it. Creating a video course as a YouTuber felt very natural to her, and also made her content and her channel feel more meaningful and impactful. Dawn only promoted this through YouTube, and she sold 15,000 workbooks and had 5,000 sign-ups for her course… all because of YouTube! Dawn has spent very little time promoting her business, and has never done targeted paid ads, but the power of YouTube is so great that her content spoke for itself. YouTube has been an incredible way for Dawn to build a community and a business.
She’s also had many wonderful opportunities as a result of YouTube, and been able to collaborate with other YouTubers (including another former YTPH guest, Cas from Clutterbug!). Not many creators say this, but being a YouTuber can actually be pretty lonely, so Dawn’s experience working and collaborating with a few other decluttering creators was amazing. Partnering with someone can really help and be a fun project to connect with other creators and promote it to a wider audience!
“YouTube is so powerful. It’s been incredible.”
Final Thoughts
Dawn has big plans for herself and her future. She wants to create more courses, including a decluttering certification program to equip other women with the tools to start their own businesses and help even more people. But she’s torn. While she wants to reach more people and scale her business, she also likes her business where it is right now and doesn’t necessarily want to hire more employees and put herself and her family even more into the public eye.
Her #1 struggle is feeling like there aren’t enough hours in the day, which many of us can relate to, but she’s doing the best she can. She also wants to pay more attention to her analytics, and while she tries to stand out and be different from other minimalism creators, she recognizes the need for better planning for her content.
Dawn’s advice to YouTubers? First of all, don’t read the comments after the first day of your video, and definitely don’t scroll to the bottom. The longer the video is out, the more negative Nancys come out of the woodwork, take her videos out of context, and leave mean comments. One negative comment can have a really terrible impact on someone, so don’t even bother. Second, give it a good year before you throw in the towel. It’s easy to think big YouTubers got where they are overnight, but the reality is that they’ve likely been grinding along on their channel for years. Even if you’re super passionate and knowledgeable about your topic, there is a learning curve in being able to explain your topic to others. There is so much to learn, so be patient with yourself! You have to learn how to demonstrate, show, and talk about whatever it is that you’re passionate about along with learning about video, lighting, sound, editing, tech, and more!
“Give yourself a lot of grace in the beginning, because each video you’re trying to learn and master is something new.”
Mentioned in the Episode:
57 Things We Don’t Buy Anymore | Family Minimalism
Decluttering “Just In Case” Items (Starring Justin Case!)
Course: Declutter Your Home in 15 Minutes a Day
YTPH Interview: Weed ‘em and Reap
Connect with the Minimal Mom
Resources
Add your name to the Zero to Influence YouTube Bootcamp waitlist so you are notified when space becomes available!
Watch my replay of my FREE Zero to 100k Subscribers Masterclass
FREE GUIDES:
Creating Content During Crisis: How to Create Impactful Content During COVID-19 Pandemic
Getting Started on YouTube: YouTube Niche Workbook
How to get onto PR lists and receive a TON of free product even if you have a small following: PR List
YOUTUBE OPTIMIZATION PLUG-IN I RECOMMEND
TubeBuddy [Use the code ErikasBuddy to get 20% off]
MY FAVORITE BUSINESS TOOLS
Course Creation: Looking to create a course? Kajabi is the BEST platform hands down. I use this for my course after extensive research on all the other platforms.
Live Calls and Interviews: I use Ecamm for my podcast interviews, both audio and for YouTube that you see here on YouTube. It makes it super easy to share my screen and create the split-screen with my guest. I’m not super techie and this software is really easy to use!
Webinars and Live calls: I use Zoom.us for my group coaching calls in my private membership group for female YouTube creators. It’s also the software I use to record my Road to 100k YouTube Subscribers Masterclass!
THE BEST YOUTUBE/PODCASTING EQUIPMENT
After interviewing HUNDREDS of successful YouTube creators, these are the pieces of equipment that hands down get mentioned time and time again. You can’t go wrong with anything on this list!
- 4k Camera: Great for starting out and vlogging
- Lens: This lens is recommended highly by many of my podcast guests, it gives the blurry “YouTuber” background look.
- Audio: If you want to upgrade your set-up, audio should be one of the first investments (after a good camera). This microphone is unanimously the favorite amongst my podcast guests.
- Podcast/Voiceover Microphone: If you are looking for a great microphone for a podcast or video voiceover, this is it! This is the one that you see in all of my videos and the one I’ve recorded my podcast on for years.
- Webcam: For my interviews, that you see in my videos, this is the webcam that I use. Super inexpensive and easy to set up!
- Inexpensive Lighting Kit: Need to pick up some lights but don’t want to spend a ton? This is a great set that will get you started and help improve the look of your videos.
- Ring light: Looking for that beauty look? Invest in a ring light! This is an inexpensive light that does that trick!
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