Sarah Arnold-Hall

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Embrace The Hot Mess

Sarah Arnold-Hall

My success philosophy is not about a perfectly executed plan, but about embracing being a total hot mess.

For example, one of my goals in July is to hit 600 subscribers (and I started on 487 at the beginning of the month).

Yesterday I had 92 left to go, with 13 days left of July. That means I need just over 7 people per day.

I could have thought about SEO, and click-through rate, and hashtags, and other technical jargon.

But I realized that since I don’t have any of those skills right now (and I don’t have a clue how I’ve got any of my previous subscribers), I would have to get creative.

I made an epipahny list (a game where I keep coming up with solutions until I have an epiphany).

  1. Go knocking door to door in my neighborhood and just ask people to subscribe

  2. Post on my private Facebook profile asking for subscribers

  3. Message all of my friends individually and ask them to subscribe

  4. Go out in public, like to the mall, and straight-up ask people to subscribe

  5. Offer a promotion exchange (you share my channel, I’ll share yours)

  6. Pay for ads

  7. Make my own YouTube support group on Facebook

  8. Ask my sister to share with her Snapchat following

  9. Reach out to our local newspaper and get a story printed

  10. Go to a networking event and connect with lots of new people

I decided to start with number 3, then number 5 and now number 8.

So far, in the last 24 hours, I’m up by 8 subscribers. Not bad, considering my goal was to hit 7 per day.

These solutions aren’t long term solutions to growing my YouTube channel. But what they are, is a creative way for me to solve my problem right now. As my channel grows, I will likely use more traditional, effective methods of growth. But I’m not there yet. So for now, just doing something is good enough.

That’s got to be one of the biggest mental shifts that I’ve made when it comes to achieving my goals: that in the beginning, you just have to fly by the seat of your pants and be a total hot mess.

You can do all the fancy techniques later.

Right now, you just have to get out there and DO SOMETHING.

(P.S. help me be the hot mess & subscribe to my channel here!)