Henry Ford was the founder of the Ford Motor Company, which now employs over 200,000 people and is the fifth largest automaker in the world.
Ford founded his company in 1903 and wrote his autobiography, “My Life and Work” after running the company for nearly two decades. In the introduction, Ford outlines some principles of the service that his company performs. Each of these principles can be applied to starting and successfully running a YouTube channel today.
1. Ford advocated having no fear of the future and no worshipping of the past. He believed that anyone who fears the future or who fears failure, restricts his activities. He treated failure as the opportunity to start again at what you were trying to achieve, only this time with more intelligence. Therefore, there is no disgrace in honest failure but there is disgrace in fearing to fail. Past endeavours are only useful in so far as they suggest the ways and means for progress.
In the context of YouTube, don’t be afraid to make videos on controversial topics. There are many subjects that polarise opinion, politics and religion being two of the most common. If a video you create isn’t popular or is not well received, treat it as part of your learning curve. It means you can make your future videos with the increased knowledge and intelligence regarding what works and what doesn’t. At the same time, don’t rest on your laurels. If you find that a particular type of video is more popular than any others you make, act on it. Make more of them. You can be constantly looking at how you can progress, examples include checking your analytics for high performing videos or asking for ideas and suggestions for improvements from viewers in your comments.
2. Henry Ford promoted a disregard of the competition. He believed that whoever did something the best ought to be the person to do it. He thought it wrong to try and take that business away from this individual because you are then trying to “lower for personal gain the condition of one's fellow man”.
In terms of YouTube don’t try and simply copy other people’s videos if you don’t make them as well as he or she does. Find what you’re good at, whether that be a subject that you know a lot about or a particular style of creating videos that you excel in. Focus on creating the best, as the cream always rises to the top. In my case, there are many people that already create animated book videos very well that focus on the self-help and self-improvement genre. I’ve decided not to do the same but instead focus on what I know more about – books such as memoirs and biographies about successful people and the ideas we can get from them.
3. Ford encouraged the putting of service before profit. Now it is important to note that he said there is nothing inherently wrong about making a profit because without a profit, business cannot extend. However, he believed that profit inevitably comes as a reward for good service. In fact, he went so far as to say that well-conducted enterprise cannot fail to return a profit. Ultimately, the basis of business must not be profit, profit must be the result of service.
On my YouTube channel, as of writing I don’t have any ads. This may change in the future but at the present time I am not doing this fulltime, I’m doing this because I enjoy it and it’s beneficial. My main priority with regards to the channel is to increase its popularity rather than to immediately earn as much money as I can. Hopefully the content is valuable for you, the viewer, as the intention is for people to learn as well as to think critically after watching these videos. It is also beneficial for me as the method of creating the videos help me better remember and learn the lessons from the books and articles I’ve read. This is the service I provide. The better the quality of the videos, the more popular the channel becomes and in the long run, the more chance of profit as a result.