By default, we’re pretty private people – it’s just how we work and how our families brought us up to be. Because of this, it’s no wonder that most of our followers don’t have a clue what we actually do outside of YouTube videos and occasional social posts. Now, Premium Members know most of what we do, simply because we talk about it a lot more on Live Q&A’s, in the VIP Facebook Group and within behind-the-scenes content. This gated area for us is a safe space, a comfort bubble if you will, a family area.
I realise that I’ve used a Five Minute Friday slot to release this one, and sacrificed an epic video (next week now!) to do so, but it’s important to me to share this “behind the curtain” to hopefully provide some insight and understanding.
When the Five Minute Friday announcement video went out we had a lot of comments – mostly good, some nasty and some concerned. The concern was mostly directed at my time, with assumptions being made that I spend too much time in the premium membership, that I don’t have any time left over for YouTube anymore because of that and that maybe I should spend less time with MTog’s.
Firstly, because this is our platform and indeed our business, it’s important for me to stress that how I handle my time, and my teams’ time, is really my responsibility and mine alone. I allocate time and resources to places where it is best spent, both holistically and literally. Yes, we spend far more time on the membership than we do on YouTube videos, because the membership is a direct service to end-users who pay to be there – they require specific services which take time and we’re more than happy to do that! However, the time we spend on MTog’s and YouTube, even online courses, is around 40% (ish) of the teams collective output.
Sharon spends most of her time managing the social channels and looking after member administration.
Dan spends most of his time on our other business, which we all also work within. The remainder of his hours are spent editing video (he does all of that). A lot of his video editing is for commercial clients too, which is worth keeping in mind.
I split my time around 70:30 with 70% being held on tuition content or portrait client shoots and editing, excluding commercial work, and 30% focused on the other business for complex, agency-level campaign or design work. I also assist both Dan and Sharon when required, as well as manage a wider team and client comms. This is subject to fluctuate all the time as resources dictate.
YouTube is still my passion project, much like TogTalk, the premium members magazine, but overall it makes up less than 10% of what we do here, if that. So, for the rest of the time, we do a lot of things!
I’ve kept membership work out of this vlog, but alongside monthly round-up emails, weekly YouTube videos, weekly online one to ones and membership pieces listed below, this is what we did in May and June of 2022!
Monthly membership bits that happen all the time:
- Weekly Deep Critique videos for Premium+ members
- Fortnightly (ish) “Tips” pulled from Deep Critiques
- Monthly Live Q&A sessions
- Monthly long-form content or full BTS pieces
- Quarterly TogTalk Magazine (writing, designing, printing and shipping/online uploads)
- Quarterly Live Edit sessions
So, here’s a round-up vlog, which I hope acts a window into our changeable and interesting day-to-day lives: