Get Your Channel Ready for 2026 - NOW | Ep. 69

This might sound backward…

but I don’t want to run my business by a promotional calendar.

I was sitting here mapping out 2026 (yes, really, in September) and I just stopped.

Because that’s not how I want to do business in 2026.

I am taking a different approach next year.

And I’m sharing exactly how I’m planning my business and channel for the new year.

If you’re a course creator, membership owner, or digital product entrepreneur, I’ll walk you through my approach to content, offers, and staying human in an AI-driven world. Let’s make 2026 easy, peaceful, and fun together!

VIDEO: Get Your Channel Ready for 2026 – NOW | Ep. 69

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Finding the Balance Between Structure and Freedom

I absolutely love planning! I’ve always been someone who loves to plan, but I also love doing what I want. Every September, I find myself already dreaming about the new year ahead, what I’ll create, how I’ll grow, and what feels right to pursue next. While I don’t follow every single task I write down (and that’s okay!), I’ve learned that I thrive with just the right mix of structure and flexibility.

When planning content for my YouTube channel and business, I don’t want to be tied down by a strict promotional calendar. Instead, I focus on alignment, making sure that my content, programs, and overall business strategy work together naturally, without feeling forced.

I need a clear roadmap to stay focused, but I also need room to pivot when inspiration strikes. That balance keeps my creativity alive! And honestly, I’ve always been this way; ask my family, and they will tell you I’ve never been one to follow a plan too strictly.

When I apply this mindset to my YouTube channel strategy, it means giving myself structure through planning—like defining my topics and offers, but allowing freedom to adjust when I feel called to go in a new direction.

At first, I made the classic mistake of planning specific video themes for every quarter, January, April, July, and October, but quickly realized that kind of rigid schedule doesn’t work for me. Instead, I decided to build a strategy that flows, one that allows my channel and my business to evolve naturally while still staying aligned with my bigger goals.

Defining My Offers: Clarity in a Crowded Market

Before I could plan my content, I had to clarify what I’d actually be selling in 2026. And this year, simplicity is my guiding word!

My main focus remains my Video Brand Academy — a YouTube business membership that helps creators grow their audience, sell their courses or programs, and revive their inactive channels. At just $49 per month, it’s the heart of my business and will continue to evolve as I integrate even more AI tools to support my students’ success.

My second offer is my Video Editing Made Easy course — a standalone program designed to help creators edit efficiently without feeling overwhelmed. These two products work hand in hand, and they’ll be the foundation of everything I create next year.

Both offers will run through my Backstage Pass YouTube funnel system, paired with my signature unlaunch strategy, so sales happen naturally through evergreen, automated systems. The best part? This setup allows me to spend more time creating and connecting, and less time “selling.”

Aligning YouTube and Business Strategies

Once my offers were clear, I faced the next challenge: planning my content!

And here’s where things get interesting. Wearing my business strategist hat means I think about what topics will attract the right clients and lead to conversions. Wearing my YouTube strategist hat means I focus on what will perform well in the algorithm, drive traffic, and grow the channel.

Sometimes, those two strategies clash! But that’s also what makes YouTube so much fun, it challenges me to merge both sides. My goal is to find the sweet spot where YouTube content helps my business grow while still performing well organically.

Using Proven Growth Strategies from My Toolkit

Inside Video Brand Academy, I teach several proven methods for finding winning video topics, and for this planning session, I became my own star student! I applied every strategy I teach:

Keyword Research – identifying search-friendly topics that attract my ideal audience.
Spiderweb Strategy – connecting related content to build a strong channel ecosystem.
Shared Audience Strategy – discovering overlapping audiences and aligning my content with theirs.
Rich Niche Neighbor Spying – analyzing what’s working in my niche for inspiration.
Snowball Method – building momentum with a series of related, high-performing videos.
Fill Your Funnel and Ultimate User Guide Methods – crafting content that naturally leads viewers toward my paid offers.

After running all these strategies, I created a master list of 60–70 strong, juicy video ideas, topics that excite me, and are proven to perform well.

The Business Hat: How AI Is Shaping My 2026 Content Plan

Then came the business strategist hat again, this time powered by AI.

I switched back to my business strategist mindset. I gathered data and maintained a document filled with topics, questions, problems, mistakes, and fears that arise during client calls and group sessions within the Video Brand Academy.

The business strategist in me recognized that to effectively promote the membership and the Video Editing Made Easy course, I needed to extract topics that would deeply resonate with my ideal clients and existing customers. I reviewed recordings of my Video Brand Academy meetups and analyzed surveys from new members. Crucially, I employed AI to help me pinpoint common struggles, mistakes, and fears our clients and students face.

I also experimented with asking ChatGPT for highly clickable YouTube titles. Now, it’s important to note that ChatGPT, without specific guidance, isn’t inherently a YouTube strategist. It analyzes existing YouTube titles and often produces generic results that scream “AI-generated.” While AI can produce great insights, raw AI-generated titles often sound robotic. That’s why I use a custom GPT model trained on my voice and style, along with tools I’ve developed inside the Video Brand Academy, to refine those ideas into clickable, human-sounding YouTube titles.

I focused on extracting topics from all the gathered information and utilized a specific GPT model I’d trained on my own content. Additionally, I incorporated tools within the Video Brand Academy that are designed to teach and generate YouTube titles in my teaching style. This enabled me to have my AI tools craft truly compelling and clickable YouTube titles based on the insights from my ideal clients and existing students. This process generated a whole new batch of topics and titles that perfectly aligned with my existing YouTube strategy and addressed the pain points of my audience.

It’s vital to me that my YouTube content serves not only potential new clients but also the members already within the Video Brand Academy. I want them to find value and continued growth through my free content as well.

Building a 2026 Content Orchard

After combining all my strategies and insights, I ended up with a total of 120 pre-written video titles, about half for my YouTube channel and half for my podcast. Each one has been vetted for performance, searchability, and alignment with my 2026 goals.

Having these titles ready to go feels like standing in a beautiful content orchard. All I have to do is pick the next ripe idea and start recording, knowing that it fits perfectly into my YouTube channel strategy for 2026. When I see these finalized titles, I’m instantly motivated to show up and create because the hardest part, the brainstorming, is already done.

It’s such a game-changer!

Instead of scrambling to come up with topics week by week, I can simply batch my recordings, stay consistent, and actually enjoy the process. Because the titles are already optimized and ready, the process feels easier and more inspiring. It’s a small shift, but it makes a huge difference in staying consistent and motivated.

Embracing the Humanness in an AI-Driven World

Now, as I mentioned at the beginning, it’s entirely possible that in a week. I might look at this list and deem it all awful! That’s just part of my personality. Sometimes I don’t feel like being consistent, and sometimes I just don’t feel like recording. But the closer my video ideas are to being ready to record – not just topics, but with titles finalized, and even some thumbnails pre-made, the easier it feels to simply show up and hit record. It’s a form of playing mind games with myself, and it works!

The reality is that much of what I’ve outlined for 2026 isn’t dramatically different from my strategies in 2025, 2024, or even 2023. However, each year I become more adept at maintaining the cohesion of my plans and seeing the bigger picture. I can more clearly identify the areas where my role is simply to show up, fill in the blanks, create the videos, and contribute to the Video Brand Academy. This holistic view provides immense clarity.

Navigating the AI Disruption: Zigging When Others Zag

AI continues to reshape the content world—and yes, there’s no denying it’s changing everything from thumbnail design to SEO. Recently, I experimented with Google’s Nano Banana AI image generator and was amazed at the quality. But as more creators use AI tools, thumbnails and visuals may start to look eerily similar.

That’s why I believe now is the time to zig while others zag. The more AI-generated content floods the internet, the more audiences will crave genuine, real human connections. The future belongs to creators who prove their humanness. We’re entering an era where authenticity wins! Viewers can instantly tell when something feels robotic, and they naturally gravitate toward creators who feel real. That’s why I predict live streaming will make a major comeback—it’s the ultimate way to show your true self and connect authentically with your audience.

I’ll continue using AI to speed up my workflow, but never to replace my voice or authenticity. I use AI to make the human in me more efficient, not less visible.

The Power of Authenticity: Your Human Advantage

Looking ahead, I believe the most successful creators will be those who stay real. As AI-generated content floods the internet, people will crave genuine connections. Viewers are smart, they can instantly detect when something feels robotic or insincere.

That’s why I predict a rise in live streaming and more natural, human-focused content. We might also see a move away from overly polished, designed thumbnails – what I sometimes call the “stupid YouTube face.” Smart marketers will embrace the less automated approaches. While perhaps seeming traditional a decade ago, they are becoming increasingly vital for differentiation in a world where distinguishing between automated and real content is becoming nearly impossible.

I’m not suggesting we abandon AI altogether, far from it! I love AI and will continue to use it. But I love using it to enhance my human efficiency, freeing me up to show up more authentically in live streams, meetups, and my content. I want a genuine human connection with my audience and my clients, and I believe everyone else craves that too. As AI tools for design and other creative processes become more sophisticated, I anticipate a swing back towards genuine, live, human-centric content. The only true way for people to know they are connecting with you.

For me, that’s what keeps this business meaningful. I want a real connection with my audience, clients, and students. I love showing up live, hosting meetups, and being myself on camera. That’s what sets us apart from the robots, and that’s how we’ll stay relevant no matter how advanced AI becomes.

Conclusion

So, is it too early to plan for 2026? I don’t think so!

Having a clear YouTube channel strategy for 2026 gives me peace of mind and excitement for what’s ahead. Even if I don’t follow every single plan, having a roadmap makes it easier to adapt, stay consistent, and keep growing.

The key is to stay flexible, use AI wisely, and lean into what makes us human. Because in the age of automation, authenticity is your greatest marketing advantage. Here’s to making 2026 your best year yet, peaceful, profitable, and full of creativity!

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