Most editors stare at raw footage with no real starting point. They guess where the music should switch. They guess where the visuals should go. And they think there's no story. No wonder the final result feels off. So the client sends specific revisions like: "The music here doesn't fit" "Here we need another animation" "This cut's too abrupt, add more silence" But what's actually broken isn't one specific moment in the video... It's that the edit never had a foundation to begin with. 👉 Next Wednesday, we're running a live Masterclass where I'll walk you through the exact workflow that solves this. 🤖 You'll also get a custom AI tool, 🎹 Keyboard shortcuts to save hours, 💻 And I'll show you how to apply the workflow on a real client project By the end, you'll know exactly where every music switch goes and how to create a story with visuals. Find the full info about the Masterclass here → https://masterclass.full-time-editor.com/ See you Wednesday, – Artem

I talk a lot about charging high prices: $2.5k videos $5k retainers $100k clients But I'll be honest – getting to that stage takes a lot of time. And the process of getting there usually isn't glamorous... Let me share the actual reality: 1️⃣ Coaching call with @André Rodrigues yesterday: Andre joined FTE around 5 months ago, without any youtube-editing experience. A month or so ago, he landed his first consistent YT client, and here's what we decided on the call: To slightly go DOWN in price, so that he gets 4 vids per week, instead of 2. 2️⃣ Coaching call with @Alejo Melian today: Alejo has been working with his main client for years, and when he joined FTE, we basically tripled his price right away. The client agreed, but pulled back on the quantity of videos (3-4 → 2 per month). Still more money per month, but now the client spends his Saturdays editing videos... So we decided to take a bit of an L and lower Alejo's price for these simpler videos that he can get done in no time 3️⃣ Coaching call with @Максим Уляница today: Max is such a legend tbf - Joined FTE literally a few weeks ago - Never edited a long-form vid in his life - And got a response on his very first outreach message LOL (that's what happens when you do outreach the proper way, instead of 10000 automated cold DMs a day) But anyways, the prospect asked for Max's rates and said upfront that the budget is tight Is that a dream client? No. Is that a great opportunity to practice and start building up a long-form portfolio? Hell yes. So instead of trying to charge as much as possible, we decided to be flexible with the rate to actually secure this 100K subscriber client. Learning > earning. —————————————— Lots of you are grinding hard rn towards that $5K/month goal... And I know it's tough. So after the calls, I got inspired to write this and let you guys know the reality.

In January 2024, I made $3,930. That was my best month by far. But I hated every bit of it. I had 4 clients running at the same time. That was my max. And with every single one, I had zero certainty. I'd open the raw footage with no real plan, cut what felt right in the moment, throw some graphics on, and pray the client would accept the video. Some weeks it worked out okay. A lot of weeks it didn't. But drowning in revisions wasn't even the worst part. The worst part was this: The 10th video for the client wasn't much better & faster than the 1st. Every new video felt like starting from scratch. Then, one of my client's lead editor mentioned something that would change my career forever: "Yeah, usually before starting on the video, I plan it out first. Like label all the footage and add structure." (see pic 1) I didn't think much of it, but decided to give it a try. I'll be honest – at first, it wasn't a complete game changer. But I finally had something that worked, so I started building upon it... Every video started being a bit better than the last, not because I got smarter overnight, but because I wasn't starting from zero. I wasn't reinventing my process every Monday morning. I was sharpening an existing one. Videos that used to take a full week started taking five days, then three... All while getting better. Before this, I thought speed and quality were a trade-off. Turns out, that's only true when you don't have a system. A few months later, I got my first zero-revision video. That doubled my rate $1k → $2k per vid. And a few months later I hit my first $10k month. But the real win wasn't even the money. It's that I was building something long-term, something that actually compounded, client after client, video after video. I still use that exact workflow today for every video, 3 years later. And it's the first thing I help every editor who joins FTE set up (see pics 2 and 3) Because it's the difference between a $3,930 month that burns you out and a $10k month that doesn't.

On the first video for a client, you won't be your best (no matter how hard you try) But $5K editors learned to compound their edits: 📈 Quality goes up 📉 Turnaround time goes down ✅ With every single video How do they do it? By not starting from scratch every time I call this system a Base Folder 📁 → It's a home for every asset that works for this specific client Here's how I have it set up... On my editing drive, I have a [Client Name] folder, that has two things: 1️⃣ Video-specific folders [Client Name] > [01_Video Title] [Client Name] > [02_Video Title] ...and so on 2️⃣ A Base Folder – where the magic happens [Client Name] > Base → SFX → PNGs → Music → B-rolls (labelled) → Memes → MOGRTs → Overlays → Backgrounds → Client story archive EVERY reusable asset that fits this client goes here (pic 1) Last Thursday, we've built a bunch of Base Folders on our Weekly Masterclass inside the paid FTE community (pic 2) P.S. If you're curious to learn more about the paid program, and how we scale to $5K/month on 4 hours of editing a day – comment BASE down below, and I'll reach out 📩

Stock footage sucks. Real-world assets tell the story 10x better. And there's a way to find them in literally 2 minutes, here's how: