SSS #130: I Finally Found a Video Editor...🎬

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What a week!

We made the move from Parsippany to Florham Park. +Third bedroom FTW.

Dia's brother, Carlos, and nephew, Alexis, came all the way from Mexico City to help us move.

I loved having them here and appreciate their help so much, but if I could go back and do it over again, I'd definitely hire movers.

😩 My back hurts.

Livin' La Vida Luna

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Here's Luna helping with the move. Really pulling her weight.

As you may already know, I've been struggling to find someone to edit my videos for YouTube.

I asked around my network and almost everyone said the same thing: go to Upwork or Fiverr and start looking for the diamond in the rough.

That process didn't speak to me. I've tried finding talent on Upwork and Fiverr before and it's never been a fun experience.

So I threw myself a pity party and put my YouTube dreams on hold for a few weeks.

But as I was sulking, I noticed something surprising...

It's Working

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A video I uploaded 5 months ago received 1.4K views! For context: my next best video has less than 200 views.

But wait, there's more...

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In the description of that video, I put a link to a mortgage application. I don't know how many people clicked the link, but 51 people filled out the application.

That's a viewer:application conversion rate of 3.6% (51/1,400).

I'm no internet marketing expert, but I feel like that's really damn good.

Reinvigorated

Armed with this surprising data, I went back on the hunt for a video editor. But I'm determined to do things differently.

So I go to my old pal, Google, and search variations of "How To Find Video Editor", and I'm sure to include "-Upwork" and "-Fiverr" because I don't want to go down that path.

I stumble across a random Reddit post as a top result and then decide to search Reddit.

If you're not sure how to do that, you can just type "Reddit: Search Term" in your Google Search Bar.

Like this:

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This search brought me to the Subreddit: /r/YouTubeEditorsForHire

There are only 2,000 people in the community so it's pretty small as far as subreddits go.

I decided to shoot my shot here.

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Here's what I posted:

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Title: Looking To Hire an Expert Editor

Body: A little about my process / workflow...

I like to put out one educational talking head video per week.

It usually ends up being about 20 minutes of raw footage edited down to 6-10 minutes in the final cut.

From that one piece of "pillar content", I like to get 3-5 pieces of micro-content ranging in length from 30-60 seconds each.

I repurpose micro-content on IG Reels, YouTube Shorts, and TikTok so they’ll need to be re-exported accordingly (1080 x 1920) with a stylish caption overlay.

I can deliver the raw footage by Monday at Noon and would like to see a first draft by EOD Wednesday.

I can provide feedback and comments by Thursday at Noon and hopefully see a final cut by EOD Friday.

I publish the pillar content to YouTube on Sundays at 7am. The micro-content gets published on MWF of the following week.

Regarding the "vibe" I'm going for.

I'd like to model my production quality after Ali Abdaal.

For example, I made this video: https://youtu.be/7b2FT43Vihw

After seeing this video: https://youtu.be/7hVqxhZaxtk

If my process and desired production value seem like a fit, I'd love to explore working together again.

Job Requirements:

  • FAST internet.
  • Familiar with GDrive or Frame.io
  • Familiar with Notion
  • Access to quality B-Roll (StoryBlocks)
  • Access to quality BG Music (Epidemic Sound)
  • Can Create Thumbnails

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The post received 700 views and generated over a dozen Direct Messages.

Many of the responses were lazy so I simply disregarded them.

For example...

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But one candidate stood out (not that it was difficult for anyone to do so).

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Basically, it seemed like he actually read the job description.

He confirmed he had the tools to get the job done and then provided samples of work he's done that's similar to what I'm looking to create.

I asked him if he was willing to do a test run before committing to a longer-term and he said yes.

This is what he came up with:

Is Renting a Waste of Money?

Not bad for a first draft. I have some feedback for him before this is ready to publish, but I think I found my new editor.

The internet is a wonderful place...if you know what to search for.