Around this time last year, I became a video editor for a popular YouTube channel with over 2 million subscribers. It’s been thrilling to be a part of a creative YouTube team, bouncing wild ideas off each other to make videos that are fun and engaging for our audience while also pushing us
further as creators.

Many YouTubers want to grow their teams so they can take their videos to a higher level, which frees them up to work on new exciting ventures.

But there’s a big question on the table. When should you take that leap and hire a team for your YouTube channel?

Jumping the gun

So, I have a confession.

I have a YouTube channel of my own. A few years ago, I thought it was the perfect time to invest in a full team of editors, writers, producers and social media managers. At one point, I had 5-6 people on my YouTube team, all helping me grow my channel.

But, admittedly, I jumped the gun too quickly.

I was overly ambitious and not a great businessperson, with no plan to ensure the channel could support a team of 6 when it was barely supporting me. I figured it would all work out in the end.

It didn’t.

Lesson learned

Now, I’m a part of a new team under a pair of YouTubers who were much more equipped to grow their channel into a small business, Jonathan and Ben Carlin from the channel SuperCarlinBrothers. So, I took this opportunity to ask them about when they initially invested in more team members. Additionally, we can see where I went wrong with the benefit of hindsight when I tried establishing my team.

Johnathan and Ben Carlin of SuperCarlinBrothers.

“We’ve always had two key priorities when it came to team-building,” says Ben. “Firstly, we wanted them with us in person. It helps forge stronger partnerships and makes communication faster and more effective. Secondly, we’ve always wanted to make sure our crew was fairly compensated and that we provided them with health benefits.”

You need to pay up

Payment is the most critical thing you need when hiring new people. Never hire someone to work for you for free. Their time and labor is valuable and needs to be compensated. If you are making money from the videos you’re making with them, they should get a piece of it.

Online video creation is notorious for people experiencing burnout, especially on YouTube. No one needs the stress of working in this field with the added anxiety of wondering if they can make rent despite their efforts. If you can’t afford to pay someone for their work, you shouldn’t be hiring.

I say this as a person who had no business hiring anyone on my team all those years ago. The amount of hours they put in for free is staggering, and I’m honestly ashamed that I couldn’t compensate them fairly.

Once you can pay up, where do you start?

Once you’re positive that you can afford to hire a new team member, whom do you hire first? Typically, your initial hire would be either an editor, an assistant or a manager.

If you’re wondering which role is more vital for you to hire someone into, either pick the task you’re the worst at, the task you hate doing the most or the task that takes the most time, and find someone to fill those roles first.

When hiring people for your team, it’s best to start hiring for the task that is the most time consuming.

“The first thing we knew we needed was an editor,” explained Jonathan. “It was easily taking up the most amount of time, and putting a lot of pressure on us […] and freeing up that time was immensely helpful. It also allowed us to open up time to develop new projects as well. I also think having a person we were paying for full-time work encouraged us to create more things to make sure our employee had enough to be working on.”

Having a team helps you create more

By delegating your workload onto people who are passionate experts in their field, you become freed up to work on more things that excite you. And having a new person with fresh creative talent and energy to work with can breathe new life into your creative projects.

It’s nice to be a part of a team. There is no shortage of talented and creative individuals out there who want to be a part of a
team that makes excellent content.

Collaborating with writers, editors, social media experts can inspire you to push your videos beyond what was previously possible. Find which roles need to be filled in your creative workflow, pay people fairly and go make fantastic videos!