Farookh was praying for an application to build 4 minute videos quickly, he found that with Pictory!
Introduction
Farookh Sensei is a Leadership Coach and uses Pictory to create his video courses. Today he speaks to us about how he creates videos, and how he formats and edits them. Plus, how you can use different platforms, such as Udemy, to monetise your content.
Farookh Sensei: My name is Farookh Sensei. I'm from India and create leadership training programs. I train coaches and speakers on how to take their leadership to the next level.
I create a lot of videos on a regular basis and sell them on different platforms.
One of the platforms that you all may know is Udemy. I sell a lot of training programs, especially video programs on Udemy, which is my key area.
Pete Bennett: That's perfect. I know Udemy is taking off, it's huge, isn't it?
Farookh Sensei: Exactly.
Pete Bennett: Many of our customers use Pictory to produce content for Udemy. Have you used traditional desktop editors before you used Pictory?
Farookh Sensei: I used a lot of them, but it would take a lot of time. If you're a leader, you should not be working in the business, you must be working on the business.
At the end of my day, I would feel my goodness, what am I doing? I'm not promoting my course and I don’t have time to upload my courses on Udemy or any other platform.
I was sitting at the desk and working because I need to have the best features, best images and best videos to create a video in around four minutes.
This would take my whole day and I was praying for a program like Pictory.
I know there was one software application I was using last year when I was looking for an alternative. It was accidental that I discovered Pictory.
I believe it was on Facebook that somebody gave me the name Pictory . I thought, let me just check, as I had recently looked during a short interval. And I used a lot of applications which were not working.
I didn't go straight to purchase with the other programs but went for it with Pictory. I said this is the one, there was no second thought for me.
I felt that this matched my chemistry and I encountered two excellent customer service people and I can't forget their names.
One was called Abid, and the second one was Isha. These were two people who helped give me complete support.
And the very same day I said, “I'm going to buy it”.
With my videos, especially Udemy, for each chapter or lesson I use 4 minutes, because for my audience any longer wouldn’t work.
Pete Bennett: So you keep it at four minutes, that's the length?
Farookh Sensei: If I were to go for a traditional desktop cut and paste using video clippings, that would take me the whole day, but with Pictory it's only 45 minutes.
I use my own voice and two of my colleagues do the voice-overs. This is because Udemy prefers an actual human voice, not an artificial voice. I record it and take my time.
Within 1.5 hours I have done two videos and I do three videos in a single day, every day. By 10 a.m. I'm done because I'm an early riser.
Pete Bennett: Wow, that’s great!
Farookh Sensei: I often ask myself, how can I take my business to the next level? The best part is, that I'm teaching all this to my daughter.
This is so I can completely get rid of this task, and she can easily use the program because Pictory chooses the images and videos by itself.
It is absolutely fantastic, because it will match the text I create using the text to video function, and it’s working perfectly.
I'm getting a lot of great feedback at the moment and questions such as;
How do you get the quality of the video so good?
How do you get it in such a sequential manner?
How much time do you take?
Pete Bennett: Well, thank you for speaking to that. As an experienced editor using Premiere Pro, I can identify with this.
It can easily take a day to make a four-minute video, particularly when you are adding captions to those videos.
I think unless you've done the painful work of trying to use a desktop editor, maybe people don't realize quite how much time and effort you can save using Pictory, it's amazing.
So you're doing four-minute videos, one or two quite easily within a couple of hours.
How are you finding the quality of those videos?
Farookh Sensei: It's amazing. If I'm coming up with a training program on public speaking, for example, each video is different and the content is different.
If the video needs images of a speaker talking to a group, then I just have to go and in one click I get images where a speaker is speaking to the group.
If it is about speaking on a mic, you get the image in one single video with no repetition of any video clipping in the same four-minute video. There is no repetition at all because all of them are different.
If I used the word speaking itself, I would get hundreds of videos.
Why should I only have the choice of one particular video? And keep repeating that? People would become bored seeing the same video over and over again.
With Pictory it’s a pool of videos and clippings of a high standard, which will definitely help you to move to the next level.
If you are into Udemy, if you want to sell your courses, for those who are listening. If you want to sell your courses on Udemy or any such platform, then this will get your videos approved.
My video courses get approved within 24 to 48 hours and sometimes on less time, they get approved very fast.
You need to be organized, you should be seeing this as a business. You should be looking at this as a business, it's not only about being creative.
People can be very creative, but they don't look at the end result, you have to cater to an audience who will listen to you and watch your videos.
You need to think in that manner. What is it they see? What is the picture that will resonate with them? That is the video that you have to create.
Sometimes you may not get the exact image or clipping, then you just have to enter the keyword and a lot of videos will pop up.
If you're creating videos for the month, for example with 21 chapters, you just divide that and every month and you can release those courses.
Pictory can be used as one of the key tools that will help you generate revenue.
I have students in 139 countries speaking 39 different languages and that all happened during the covid. And with Pictory, that's going to increase more, and the feedback I'm getting is amazing.
Pete Bennett: That's wonderful. Also a little tip, I'm sure you know this, but maybe others wouldn't. If you can't find an image that's exactly what you require you can upload your own image with your own branding, you can do that within Pictory.
You can use the AI ones by all means. but if you want to put your own in there, you can.
We are really interested in Udemy. I'll be honest, I don't know that much about it.
It would be wonderful if you could just speak a little bit about how you make money on Udemy using Pictory.
Farookh Sensei: As I mentioned earlier, a one-month program is around 25 chapters, that’s my target. The length of each program would be around about two hours.
People used to create courses with 50 hours or 25-hour courses and so forth. But today people just want a few hours' time maximum. I would say the maximum length is around three hours.
Then I upload all these courses on the Udemy platform, it's really simple and easy.
You upload and the marketing is done by Udemy. You can do your own marketing whereby you can generate more shares, but I don't do the marketing part.
I upload and use the marketing that is done by Udemy itself, and since Udemy is doing the marketing, they get the major share of the revenue. This is fine, because I'm not good at marketing and you need to play to your strengths.
My strength is creating videos, creating courses and that is my area, my strength. I focus on that, other people do the marketing, and that's how I generate revenue.
I also look at different ways I can use the same video. I can upload on JV Zoo or Click Bank, you can also send it as an affiliate program.
You can send it as a PLR program, which stands for “Private Label Rights”. People can use this to sell their content and they can generate revenue.
There are different pathways for you to generate money with this one single platform. By creating one single video course, you can generate revenue from different sources.
Pete Bennett: I know that's something that our viewers would be very interested in. Currently, a large amount are concentrating on Youtube, but more and more we want to provide help for people.
Helping them to make money on other platforms, because Youtube is not the only game in town, is it?
Farookh Sensei: Absolutely, I have more than 900 videos on Youtube but that is not my main focus. If you want to make reels or to make shorts then that’s fine, you can do that as well.
But the question you need to ask is whether you want to become popular, or is it that you want to generate revenue because it all depends upon your purpose.
If you don’t know why then you will be creating courses and creating videos that will not give the end result you are looking for.
So even before creating a video, you need to ask yourself;
What is the purpose of this video?
Who are you going to target?
Is it the young generation?
Is it the old generation?
What is the focus of this particular video?
What platform is the best for it?
Also, what should be the length of it? Should it be long or should it be short? Should it be in a different format such as square for Instagram and so forth?
There are a lot of questions that you need to ask yourself. Identify what is it you want to target? Is YouTube number one and Instagram number two?
For me, it’s generating courses, and then choosing which platform would be the best for that particular course. As I mentioned earlier, Udemy is just one of the platforms.
There are many other platforms where you can sell your courses and generate revenue from them.
It all depends upon the purpose behind creating those programs and videos.
Pete Bennett: This is absolutely fascinating. Would you like to give a shout-out to some of your courses on Udemy so people can go check them out?
Farookh Sensei: Absolutely, my latest course is on trust management and unleashing the power of choice, and I used Pictory to create it.
I use my own voice on this video and my students are also creating videos. They are creating voice-overs. I am teaching my daughter and giving her the challenge because your kids can work on this.
There are only two things that you require. Number one is the English language. If you know the English language, that's number one.
And number two, basic computer skills, you do not require anything else.
As you said earlier Pete, you have worked on other platforms. But you don’t require all those things. You don't have to be a video editor to do this.
You copy and paste the text and break it down into small chunks. I don't keep it too long, that’s important.
The reason being is in one single frame you will see three or four lines which is too much visually.
I make sure I only use one to one and a half lines maximum.
I bring it to the next and the next line and the number of slides increases. When it increases I break at the right spot, adding a full stop or a comma.
If you have 60 slides to break down, sometimes that could become 120 slides, which is absolutely fine.
And the second reason is why English? You will want to use the search box to find the correct image or emotion to connect with the viewer.
Anyone can do this, no creative ideas are required. Pictory will do everything for you.
Emotional engagement is very important, you must become the director of the movie.
Pete Bennett: Well, you've shared some amazing tips on Udemy and using Pictory. I have one final question.
If there was someone out there who was thinking of using Pictory or giving it a try, what would you say to them Farookh? Go for it?
Farookh Sensei: No doubt, I feel Pictory has taken the whole burden from my shoulders. It was like, a heavy weight for me when I was using other tools.
I would pick images from free websites and some have great images and videos, but you're spending and wasting a lot of time picking the right ones.
With Pictory, at the click of a button, everything is available and you just have to do small edits.
Don't go into the kitchen and create and cook for yourself. It's all prepared and it's not junk. It's healthy.
Pete Bennett: That's a wonderful analogy. Thank you so much for your time. It's been an absolute pleasure.
Farookh Sensei: My pleasure Pete.
