Business and health lessons from a YouTube rabbit hole? (Gasp!)

Recently, I had the unfortunate (fortunate?) opportunity to spend a few days going down YouTube rabbit holes and found some wisdom that can help run a health practice.

What happened was COVID-19, so I was pretty much on the couch all day for three days. I didn’t have the energy or mental clarity to do effective research, read studies, write, or meet with clients, so I just let my body relax and recover, while avoiding going into buildings with others.

I needed to take a few self-care days, where I would normally knit . . . but I did not want to cough all over my yarn! So, knitting was not an option.

Whatever was there to do? Well, of course this means I spent three work days lying on the couch scrolling through YouTube rabbit holes searching for knitting inspo. 🤷‍♀️

I couldn’t wait for cooler sweater weather to arrive (if you ask me, this summer was way too hot for way too long), so I was looking for knitting inspiration specifically for shawl ideas. I found some lovely new-to-me YouTubers showing off their hand knits & other shawl patterns they’ve made and others they want to make and with which yarns. The content marketing in the knitting world is pretty good. I wish I’d explored it sooner.

What does this have to do with business wisdom for health practitioners?

Well, you can make some interesting observations and connections if you spend enough time online (this can be dangerous with all the bad, bad info out there, I know! Be careful of which rabbit holes you come across and fall down!).

1 – Make it obvious for people to subscribe to your email list and invite them to do so

One thing I discovered was that I had missed Knit City in Toronto earlier this year!

If I would have known, I surely would have gone. I go to several fibre events in and around Ontario every year. I book the dates off weeks in advance to be sure I can make them. When I’m there, I love seeing the small batch, hand dyed yarns and touching the luxurious fibres like cashmere, alpaca, and angora. I also love vising the animals if there are any.

Here are some pictures from fibre festivals I’ve been to in the past few years (none are from Knit City because I didn’t know about it—I’m rarely on social media):

. . . and speaking of rabbit holes, angora rabbits are so very soft (have you ever worn an angora scarf?).

What’s special about fibre festivals is the exclusivity and quality. It’s easy to get run-of-the-mill yarn and supplies from big box stores. If you’re on a budget, need yarn quickly, or need a lot to make a large project, run-of-the-mill yarn is just fine.

But, fibre festivals bring together high-end fibres, spinners, and dyers. Yarns made in small batches with much more love and attention than more readily available products.

That’s why I love going to these fibre festivals. They’re more exclusive and sell much higher quality items than mass-market stores.

Don’t get me wrong, I love local yarn stores too. They also carry higher quality items—many from the same vendors that are at the festivals. It’s just that the fibre festivals also have a larger selection because there are more vendors.

Biz lessons from sadly missing Knit City:

• Use several platforms to get your important messages out. In addition to social media be sure to collect email addresses and let subscribers know your announcements. (I have now signed up for Knit Social’s email and have confirmed my subscription.)
• Send out several emails about your important messages. Whether it’s an upcoming announcement, event, or sale, send an introduction email, then a reminder or two as well. Many of your followers and subscribers won’t have even seen your messages. You can confirm by checking your social media reach and email open rates. Be loud and proud with your offers, being sure to regularly send out valuable educational content between your promotions.

2 – Know who you help and how you help them

The video embedded below is very entertaining and kind of dials up the outrage about an absolute business miss (mess?) that can happen when you try to make money about a topic that you don’t know or care about by creating content and selling products that you don’t know or care about to people that you don’t know or care about in an entire industry that you really don’t know or care about. 😬

People can tell if you know or care about them. They can tell if you’re being authentic and approachable and that is necessary to build the trust needed before anyone will buy anything from you.

If you have time to watch the video below you’ll see the grave mistake these two guys made by trying to monetize knitting.com as simply a pet project for their *real* business which is ecommerce and their *real* audience who are “ecom bros” (not knitters).

Spoiler alert: Two guys who don’t know or care at all about knitting bought the knitting.com website in hopes to grow it to a million dollar annual income earner for them within one year.

The “best” part is when these two guys used their *other* brand (Ecom Crew podcast) to insult the current content creators and audience members in the knitting sphere, while treating them as though they’re merely “insatiable” ATMs to fuel their 7-figure brand fantasy.

Whether you agree or disagree with their approach or the backlash they got as described in the video below, there is plenty of wisdom to be gained from the public display of what happened.

Business lessons from knitting.com:

• First, learn something about the industry – If you’re not already an expert, learn about the technical and practical aspects of the field before you dive in.
• Learning also includes taking the time to listen to people . . . before talking – Engage with several people in the field to find out what they like and want to see improved. Don’t just make assumptions. Do some market research, like talking to lots of people.
• Don’t alienate your potential colleagues and customers – Respectfully listen and consider what your potential new colleagues and customers have to say.
• Be clear on who your target audience is – When you’ve decided this is the field you want to go into, be very clear as to who within the field you are communicating with (e.g., people with certain experience levels, needs, or goals). In other words is your audience new knitters, experienced knitters, or ecom bros?
• Create and share quality, credibility-building content – You want to inform and add value to your audience so they start to like and trust you. Don’t insult them and waste their time.
• DON’T use your other brands or channels to disrespect and insult people in your new field – In this case, they used their podcast about ecommerce to minimize and disparage the knitting community, proving that their *real* audience are their Ecom bros, not the knitting community from which they’ve openly stated they intend to derive millions of dollars in profit from every year 🤦‍♀️
• Resource from Racheal Cook of the right way to Start a Business (And Get Paying Clients ASAP)

3 – Walking is legit exercise for health, but may need to *step it up* for weight loss

I’m an avid walker. I track my walks, so have my handy spreadsheet and graph showing that I walk almost every day. I calculated my average daily walk time and since January 1, I have walked an average of 27.48 minutes every day.

And I know that walking is not just a “me” exercise. So many people walk. And so many more people could be walking more often.

That’s what drew me to this video about whether walking is good for health and weight loss.

As health experts, we know there is a difference between health and weight loss. What we eat and how we move are critical for both.

So, by eating foods that ensure we get an appropriate amount of calories and all of our essential nutrients is key for health. Regular physical exercise is also key for health.

But, for weight loss, we need to look more closely at both of these because what makes us healthy will not necessarily help to lose weight. And, of course, weight loss is not necessary for everyone’s health.

This nuance was explored deeper in the video below that shared research and insight specifically related to walking.

Does regular walking contribute to health: Absolutely, yes.

Does regular walking contribute to weight loss: It can, but there are other factors at play. For example, how fast and far someone walks, what other physical activity they do. And most of all, “you can’t out run (or in this case, walk) your fork.” So walking is great for health and *may* contribute to weight loss.

Final thoughts

I hope these insights gleaned from a few YouTube videos helps with your health practice. There is absolutely fundamental importance to effectively marketing your offers, knowing your niche and audience, and clearly communicating the difference between health and weight loss.

By the way, even after these few days perusing YouTube for shawl knitting inspo, I still don’t know which shawl to make. 🤦‍♀️

What are your thoughts?

Do you have anything to add? How have you successfully sold out your offers or done deep market research? How do you keep clients informed of the latest research for their goals (to be healthy, lose weight, etc.)? I’d love to know. Feel free to share your comments in the reply box below.