Do you work with your spouse or partner? Or are you thinking about working with your significant other on a business venture? John Rainey (my husband) will be the first to tell you that while it's not always easy, it can definitely be worthwhile.

John started working full-time at Jenna Rainey HQ a year and half ago and he is the content KING. He's my videographer, YouTube director, podcast editor, and he does a friggin' good job at it all, too. (And he's all self-taught!)

So in this episode, he shares his insider tips for building a successful YouTube channel, our daily routine, and his favorite (and least favorite) things about working with me.

Related Post: Looking Back on Our First Year as Parents: Myles Turns One

Stellar insights

• [04:54] We remember the start of us working together and how we found our “lanes.”
• [06:00] John explains how he got started in videography…and he's self-taught!
• [08:24] John describes his color woes because of manipulations by Premier and YouTube.
• [11:44] It takes 45 minutes just to set up the gear, but we batch work and do a month's worth of YouTube video filming in one day.
• [13:29] A big part of the editing process is finding music. John has a subscription with Artlist.
• [14:59] SEO and good titles are important parts in the YouTube process to optimize discoverability.
• [21:40] John is also responsible for research and coming up with ideas for tutorials.
• [27:16] We explain our tag team routine for the day, balancing work and parenting.
• [31:01] Batch working is incredibly helpful, especially for working with your spouse from home.
• [33:15] John shares his vision for the future of the Jenna Rainey YouTube channel.
• [37:58] John says the key to our YouTube success was cross-promotion, consistency, engagement, and strategic topics to lengthen watch time.
• [54:13] John shares his favorite thing about working with me.

Rapid Fire Questions

What book have you recommend the most to others?

Okay. Everybody always answers with like some cool, helpful business book. That's not what you're going to get here. No, it's not the book that I recommend most is called The Reason for God by Timothy Keller. It's completely unrelated to everything we've talked about, but it's an extremely good, just on a personal note….I mean, I have my own YouTube channel. It's called Understanding Eden. It's all like Christian apologetics basically. And why I believe that Christianity is truth. But anyways, The Reason for God by Timothy Keller is a phenomenal book. I love it so much. I will probably read it once a year. It's a pretty easy read. And he's great. He's very, very smart. And I love that he draws from like a lot of poets and artists and great thinkers and philosophers just from any spectrum. He doesn't just stick to just Christian thinkers. He gets information, thoughts from all over the place.

What is the best advice you've ever been given? 

The first thing that came to mind was a former mentor of mine just told me one single word that really stuck with me. And that was “simplify.” For me personally, I spend a lot of time on the things that I work on because I'm a bit of a perfectionist and I want things to be absolutely as best as possible. And so I'll spend a lot of time, which I think can be really beneficial, but I think to a certain point, or if it goes beyond a certain point, it becomes detrimental. And so when I was just working on a particular project that I was very much overthinking and overworking and I was just told, Hey, simplify, it's just like this one word. And it kind of was a light bulb for me, actually it just, this one word. And I was just like, yes, I need to cut all of this stuff out. I need to just have it more focused and just this one thing and I know that's pretty vague.

What is your favorite organization hack?

So just to preface this, I am an organizer. I do keep things really tidy, which is actually kind of surprising that this is such a difficult question for me to answer. Nothing's really coming to mind. So the things that I work with, video podcasts… all of that stuff, since it is so much space on a computer, it's all working directly from a hard drive.  This is such a lame answer, but obviously…I have a really, really organized folder system on my hard drive. It's not like a fancy application, it's just like literally folders, but having a really organized way…because for example, with the videos that we shoot, there's like a wide angle, there's a closeup kind of more detailed angle, you know, clips, there's the sound clips and all these things. if all of that media was just like disorganized and just thrown into like a folder, it would just be a nightmare.

What is your favorite thing about working with me?

I really love what we do. My main things are YouTube and the podcast editing to… it's teaching people how to paint and encouraging people's artistic abilities. That's my favorite part because… this is the thing…I don't necessarily have like this super duper passion for filming, editing. I enjoy it, but it's not a humongous passion of mine. But I love, I LOVE that we're providing a resource for people to learn how to grow in their artistic ability. I really believe in what we do.

What is the most challenging thing about working with me?

I am 100% a words of affirmation person. I am just constantly desperate for encouragement. [laughing] I'm not saying that's right. I'm just saying that that's who I am. Jenna tends to be not very affirming with her words. Not that she's not…it's not that she's not affirming. It's just that it's not her default to be very encouraging. And I'm not saying she's discouraging. I'm saying […] there's just rarely, I would say, I'm not trying to make you feel bad. I just rarely get words of affirmation. And so I have to remind myself that Jenna likes what I'm doing, but it's really my own words of affirmation for me on Jenna's behalf. 

Subscribe & Review

If you had an ah-ha! moment or learned just ONE new valuable bit of information, I'd be so grateful if you would leave a 5-star review and tell me what you love most about this podcast. It's a HUGE motivator for me to keep creating this for you. In addition, it helps our raking in iTunes so that more people discover this show.

And to make sure you never miss an episode (including any pop-up bonus episodes), click here to subscribe on Apple iTunes!

Links mentioned

• John on Instagram: @john.b.rainey –> Go send him some words of affirmation! 😉
• John's YouTube Channel: Understanding Eden
• Lynda.com is where John took filming courses
• Artlist – music for videos
• TubeBuddy – Google Chrome extension to rate your title
• Video tutorial: Watercolor Leaves series
• Our most popular video tutorial: 10 Watercolor Flowers
• Jenna's paint supply list and John's video gear list
• The Reason for God by Timothy Keller*
• The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman*

*This is an affiliate link which means that I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. This helps me be able to produce free, valuable content for you. Thanks for your support!

Related Episodes

Episode 19: Looking Back on Our First Year as Parents: Myles Turns One
Episode 67: What It's Really Like Working for Jenna Rainey with Kelly Martin
Episode 28: How to Make the Right Hire
Episode 5: What No One Tells You About Being Your Own Boss
Episode 44: Ask Jenna Anything