0:00 The way you know you've got the idea 0:01 right is you literally feel nervous to 0:03 [ __ ] it up. You can't find an 0:05 opportunity that you can't see. We've 0:06 added over $100,000 in monthly recurring 0:09 revenue from that video from just a week 0:11 of it being posted. Gren is 22 years old 0:14 and he runs hundreds of different 0:15 YouTube channels for many of the biggest 0:16 creators on the platform such as Gary 0:18 Vee, Ali Abdal, Many Chat, Instantly, 0:21 and hundreds of others. With a team of 0:22 more than 50, he's generating his 0:24 clients millions of dollars a year. 0:26 You've recently just posted the best 0:27 performing YouTube training video on the 0:29 platform. Now, with that in mind, why 0:31 should anyone sit [music] through the 0:33 next hour and who should stay and 0:35 listen? I think that the YouTube advice 0:39 that's already out there on the platform 0:41 is very surface level. I feel like 0:44 there's a massive gap in the market for 0:48 real tactical value on how to actually 0:51 grow a YouTube channel that nobody else 0:53 is giving. I think from personally my 0:55 experience of growing 100 plus YouTube 0:57 channels in many different niches for 0:59 like you said like Gary Vee, Many Chats, 1:02 Instantly AI, Ali Abdal, lots of these 1:05 channels were helping grow. I think that 1:06 I've got the experience and credibility 1:08 to be able to give that value and I 1:10 think the evidence speaks for itself 1:12 with me myself having the most popular 1:17 YouTube training on the entire platform 1:19 right now as of the time making this. 1:21 And the response from that video very 1:22 clearly shows that people feel there is 1:26 a lack of real value for how to grow a 1:28 YouTube channel that goes beyond the 1:30 surface level tactics of take an outlier 1:32 from a different niche. Make sure you 1:34 have a curiosity gap in your thumbnail 1:35 and these things that a lot of these 1:37 YouTube growth gurus spit out. So, I 1:40 don't think there's anybody else that 1:41 has the experience that I have evident 1:44 from all the case studies and results 1:46 I've gotten, all the channels and brands 1:48 that trust me to grow their YouTube 1:50 presence, and also what I've now done 1:52 for myself with the first video that 1:54 I've posted and really taken seriously 1:56 on this channel. So, I think if anybody 1:58 wants to seriously grow their YouTube 1:59 channel and they want the real stuff on 2:01 how to grow it, that is what I assume 2:04 this podcast is going to cover by the 2:06 end of this video. That is what the 2:07 viewer is going to get out of this video 2:09 is literally everything that they need 2:11 to know on how to grow their YouTube 2:12 channel end to end in the most deep 2:16 detail as possible. There might be some 2:18 advanced stuff in here. I'm sure I'll 2:20 get into side tangents where I go really 2:22 deep, but that's where a lot of the real 2:24 value and the insights that make you one 2:27 or two% better than the competition. But 2:30 that is what gets you 10x results. If 2:33 you can just make incremental 2:34 improvements by one to two% on your 2:37 YouTube videos and your channel ahead of 2:39 your competition, it's not just a case 2:41 of your videos performing one or two% 2:42 better than your competition. It's night 2:44 and day difference because YouTube's a 2:45 winner take all platform. So, anybody 2:47 who wants to grow their YouTube channel, 2:49 whether you're a brand, business, 2:51 creator, educational expert, anybody who 2:54 wants to grow on YouTube or help others 2:56 grow on YouTube, like YouTube 2:58 strategists, YouTube agencies, thumbnail 3:00 designers, video editors, anybody in the 3:02 YouTube economy, this video is for and I 3:04 truly believe that by the end of this, 3:06 it will be the best video that they've 3:07 ever watched on YouTube growth. I make 3:09 that promise to you. 3:10 >> That's amazing. I'm really excited to 3:11 get into it. 3:12 >> Let's do it. How did you end up doing 3:13 this? What was the starting point that 3:15 made you realize there's this massive 3:17 gap in the market and you were able to 3:18 take it over? 3:19 >> Yeah. So, I had my first YouTube channel 3:22 when I was 10 years old and so that's 3:24 where I already got the experience of 3:26 running a YouTube channel, not to like a 3:28 super high level, but it taught me the 3:29 basics. I then was in school and I went 3:32 through the process of education, got my 3:34 A-level results here in the UK. I got 3:36 perfect grades, but I didn't get 3:37 accepted from any of the universities 3:39 because of a certain virus that was 3:40 going around, which meant that a lot of 3:42 the university spots were already taken 3:44 for what I applied to. So, there was no 3:46 room for me, even though I got great 3:48 grades. So, I took it as an opportunity 3:50 to explore my entrepreneurial side and 3:52 start a business. And my parents didn't 3:53 want me to. They wanted me to go to 3:54 university. So, we went back and forth. 3:56 Quite an intense argument. We came to 3:58 okay, let's settle on this. I'll take a 4:01 gap year. And if in that gap year I can 4:04 build a successful business to where I'm 4:06 making more money than what I would be 4:08 after 3 4 years of university then I 4:11 don't have to go to university. If I 4:13 can't do that then I'll go to 4:14 university. And them obviously thinking 4:17 that I would not be able to do that and 4:18 also me probably being very naive to the 4:20 fact that that was actually quite a 4:22 difficult feat and I was probably being 4:23 overconfident. They said yes because 4:25 they thought I wasn't going to do it. 4:26 Then I was like cool what business do I 4:28 start now? So, I started with a web 4:30 design agency because a lot of the 4:31 online business gurus were saying that 4:33 that was a good one to start. And so, I 4:35 learned the skill of web design in two 4:36 days. And I started door-nocking local 4:38 hairdressers being like, "You should buy 4:40 a website from me." [laughter] I started 4:42 pitching basically the idea that they 4:44 should go from offline bookings where 4:46 it's just via the phone to online 4:48 bookings via the website because these 4:50 local hairdressers only took bookings 4:52 over the phone. They didn't have an 4:53 online booking platform. So, I said I'd 4:55 build you a website and then I'd 4:56 implement online booking. 4:57 >> Yeah. I knocked at probably about 100 4:59 hairdressers, barbers. One of them said 5:01 yes, sold the website for £60, which is 5:04 like $100. And I soon realized it was 5:06 not a sustainable business model for me. 5:08 So, I had to pivot. And so, I was like, 5:09 "Okay, well, I don't know what to start 5:10 there." And this is where things really 5:12 came together. I was just scrolling 5:13 social media. There was a business owner 5:15 that was looking for a video editor to 5:18 help grow their business YouTube 5:19 channel. It was like a hiring post. It 5:21 was on X Twitter at the time. And as 5:22 soon as I saw this, I was like I just 5:25 like felt the emotion of like this is my 5:27 shot. Like I just felt it in my body of 5:29 like this is the opportunity and like 5:31 this might be my only shot. Literally 5:33 within an hour I created a custom pitch 5:36 video where I sat down, I recorded it, I 5:38 edited it in an hour as well. And I was 5:40 basically pitching that I would not only 5:42 edit his videos, I would run his entire 5:44 channel. So, I'd come up with the ideas. 5:45 I'd find the best topics for him to make 5:47 videos on based on who he's trying to 5:48 attract his customers. Thumbnails, 5:51 posting, everything. And I did that 5:53 because I knew that I would stand out 5:56 from the other video editing applicants 5:57 cuz everybody would just be like, "Oh 5:59 yeah, here's my portfolio for editing." 6:00 So, that was the thought process behind 6:01 that. Long story short, he said yes to 6:03 that and we started working together and 6:05 that was my first client. And that was 6:07 how I got into what I'm still doing 6:10 today. Because what we do now is just a 6:12 complete evolution of what I was doing 6:14 back then. The same service, but just 6:16 levels and levels and levels better. At 6:18 that point, I wasn't even really that 6:20 good at YouTube. But I just had the 6:22 foundational skill from running my own 6:23 channel when I was a kid, which I got 6:25 bullied for. Yeah. Like that's how I got 6:27 into it. 6:28 >> Amazing. How much did they they pay you 6:30 to run the channel when you first 6:32 started? 6:32 >> Yeah. So, it's quite different to what 6:34 it is now, and I'm sure we'll get on to 6:35 that. But the first client I pitched 6:39 $1,700 per month for two to three, not 6:43 even two or three, like two to three, I 6:45 gave a broad range, which he took 6:47 advantage of. We did three [laughter] 6:49 videos per week. All done for you, 6:51 editing, thumbnails, everything. If I 6:53 charge that now, be like $15,000 a month 6:56 at least. And and that was just you 6:59 doing everything. There was no team 7:00 involved. This was literally just you 7:01 doing it 7:03 >> I was doing everything. Yeah. So I was 7:04 doing the video editing, the ideation, 7:06 the thumbnails. It I was just a solo 7:08 band. 12 to 14 hour focused days. 7:12 Literally waking up editing the videos 7:14 which took 5 to 10 hours at least 7:16 depending on the video. The thumbnails I 7:18 had no idea how to use Photoshop. So I 7:20 had to figure that out and so that took 7:21 me ages. Not to mention the other pieces 7:23 as well. So yeah. 7:24 >> Yeah. That's amazing to see the 7:26 evolution of literally being at the very 7:28 bottom of the food chain to where 7:29 everything's going now. Yeah, 7:31 >> it's really interesting. Yeah. 7:32 >> A question that a lot of people have is 7:34 why is it that most YouTube channels 7:36 fail? Because the reason anyone will be 7:38 watching this now is because they're 7:40 having that same problem. And so, what 7:41 are the biggest things that you see 7:44 being as you manage all these channels 7:45 and you've seen thousands the biggest 7:48 thing that would cause any channel to 7:50 fail? I think that most YouTube channels 7:52 skip to the tactics that are given by 7:54 these YouTube growth gurus. Like take 7:57 what's working in another niche and then 7:59 take it to your niche where it hasn't 8:00 been done before or the tactics of how 8:02 to make a good thumbnail that's almost 8:04 like a little checklist of have a 8:06 curiosity gap three element rule. And 8:08 like these tactics that sound sexy and 8:11 attractive to people, like an aha 8:14 moment, but it's just regurgitated 8:15 advice from YouTube growth gurus. And 8:18 they take these tactics and they 8:19 misapply them because they don't 8:21 actually understand the principles and 8:24 the foundations behind why those things 8:27 are the way that they are. So they don't 8:29 understand why sometimes and sometimes 8:32 not taking something from another niche 8:34 that has worked really well and bring it 8:36 to their niche where it hasn't worked. 8:37 They don't actually really understand 8:38 deeply why those things have worked. And 8:41 so people are operating off these 8:42 surface level tactics which everybody 8:44 has access to without really 8:46 understanding the true fundamentals and 8:48 first principles thinking of how to 8:51 actually grow a YouTube channel. How to 8:53 capture somebody's attention on the 8:55 YouTube home feed over all of the other 8:57 videos. How to get them to click, how to 8:59 retain a viewer, how to make sure that 9:00 you keep them watching, how to make sure 9:02 that you actually meet their expectation 9:04 of what you said in the title and 9:05 thumbnail. I don't think people really 9:07 spend the time to deeply learn the 9:11 fundamental skill set and understanding 9:14 of viewer psychology and just the 9:16 psychology of the audience that they're 9:18 trying to attract to be able to 9:19 effectively grow. I also think that 9:22 people operate not only with a lack of 9:25 skill, knowledge, and fundamentals to be 9:28 able to properly have control over the 9:30 outcome of growing their YouTube channel 9:32 and what results they get with their 9:33 videos and overall channel growth. I 9:35 think that people really lack visibility 9:38 over what makes a good video idea, what 9:41 makes a good thumbnail, what makes a 9:42 good title, what makes a good video 9:44 structure for the particular video that 9:46 they're making. Because I don't think 9:47 enough people spend the time to actually 9:50 study YouTube videos, find YouTube 9:52 videos that are perfect examples of this 9:55 was a great YouTube video in today's 9:56 market because the market's ever 9:58 shifting. So, what was a great YouTube 9:59 video 5 years ago isn't necessarily a 10:01 good video today. People don't spend 10:03 enough time to find those and actually 10:05 study and think about why has this video 10:08 worked really well? And sometimes 10:10 there's multiple reasons because from 10:11 that studying is where insight comes 10:14 from to be able to understand what makes 10:16 a good video in today's market across 10:18 YouTube but also in these different 10:20 specific niches with these different 10:22 specific audiences so that they can use 10:24 that to better understand when they step 10:26 into their niche what is a video title 10:29 that their market would resonate with 10:31 based on who their audience is. What is 10:33 a thumbnail that will actually capture 10:34 their target market's attention and get 10:36 them to click over all of the other 10:37 videos? what is an editing style that is 10:40 best suitable for their audience rather 10:43 than just blindly taking what's working 10:45 from a niche where the audience might be 10:47 completely different. And so it's really 10:48 comes back to the fundamentals and doing 10:51 the real work and spending significant 10:55 time and putting significant reps into 10:58 like mastery of YouTube. Instead, 11:00 they're just taking the surface level 11:02 tactics. So, there's a lot of examples 11:04 that fly off of what I'm saying there, 11:06 such as most people don't know how to 11:08 actually do YouTube research. Most 11:10 people don't actually know how to take 11:12 that research and do something with it 11:14 to turn that into a video idea that's 11:15 really effective in their niche. They 11:17 don't know how to come up with a 11:18 thumbnail concept that logically would 11:22 stand out on the feed and get the 11:24 attention of their target market over 11:25 the other videos and get them to click. 11:27 and they don't know how to structure the 11:30 video and plan a video out to make it 11:32 unreasonable that their target market 11:34 wouldn't be satisfied by the end of 11:36 watching that video, which then would 11:37 lead to high viewer satisfaction and 11:39 therefore make it unreasonable for the 11:40 YouTube algorithm to not push your 11:41 video. There's a lot underneath that 11:43 scope of what I'm saying that I'm sure 11:45 we'll get into and will give a lot of 11:46 tactical value on. But that is the core 11:48 issue in the root problem of what I see. 11:50 >> Interesting. There seems like there's a 11:52 there's a lot of factors that go into 11:54 making a video actually win and it's far 11:57 more than whatever the surface level 11:59 guru advice people would give away. 12:00 >> Yeah, 12:01 >> it's really interesting. Thousands of 12:02 videos go out every day on YouTube and 12:04 every one of them start as just an idea 12:06 that someone thought of. How do you know 12:08 which ideas are actually going to work? 12:10 >> Yeah. So, I would say like out of the 12:12 thousands of videos that go out every 12:13 single day, probably about 0.001% 12:16 of those actually came up with the video 12:19 idea to some level properly on YouTube. 12:24 Like I think 99.99% of those came up 12:27 with the video idea from just thinking 12:29 what is a good video idea for my target 12:31 market? What do my target market want to 12:33 watch? Okay, they like this topic. They 12:34 want they're interested in this topic. 12:36 They demand this topic. what would 12:37 logically be a good way to title this 12:39 video that would make sense that they 12:41 would want to click on and at most the 12:44 99.99% of people the very best of what 12:47 they'll do when it comes to good YouTube 12:49 practice is they'll be like oh I saw 12:52 that this video worked really well 12:54 that's got an interesting title let me 12:56 take my topic and mesh it with this 12:58 title and that seems like a really 13:00 interesting cool title that's where the 13:02 video idea comes from that is the vast 13:04 majority of the entire market that is 13:05 doing that but The problem with that is 13:07 is that they haven't actually validated 13:11 that people want that video on YouTube. 13:12 They've just used their knowledge of 13:14 their target market and assumed they 13:17 want it on YouTube. That's number one 13:18 mistake. Number two, they're effectively 13:21 operating blind when it comes to how 13:24 should I package a video around this 13:26 topic? And when I say package, I mean 13:29 everything around the topic in the title 13:31 and then also the thumbnail. How are you 13:33 representing a video around that topic 13:35 publicly on the feed? People are just 13:37 basically doing that blind because at 13:39 very most as I said they are just taking 13:42 inspiration from what they've happened 13:44 to see work on YouTube when they're 13:46 browsing YouTube. And most of them are 13:48 probably using AI to generate the titles 13:50 and just using Claude chatbt and they're 13:52 asking it what makes a good YouTube 13:54 title. They're using these free tools, 13:56 free YouTube tools, at most $50 a month 14:00 to tell them what the right title to use 14:03 is when those tools everybody has access 14:06 to and we don't use those tools. I'll 14:08 say that. And so that's what most people 14:11 are doing. So even though there's 14:12 thousands of videos, well tens of 14:14 thousands, probably hundreds of 14:16 thousands of videos that go out on 14:17 YouTube every single day, a tiny tiny 14:19 tiny speck of those videos are actually 14:21 doing ideation to a level of properly. 14:24 And within that tiny fraction, 14:27 that spectrum of doing it properly is 14:30 very vast. It's from one side of they're 14:34 using these tactics like outlier theory 14:36 and they're using these surface level 14:38 tactics, which isn't terrible ideation, 14:39 but YouTube's a winner take all 14:41 platform. And if you're going up against 14:44 somebody where you're that person who's 14:46 doing outlier theory and that's the most 14:48 that you're doing, you're watching these 14:49 YouTube growth videos that give you the 14:51 service level advice. Maybe you bought a 14:53 YouTube course but most of them are 14:54 slop. That's the most that you're doing 14:57 and you're going up against well someone 14:59 like me where I run 100 plus YouTube 15:02 channels. Some of which are the top 15:03 channels in their entire niche. We 15:04 posted thousands and thousands and 15:06 thousands of videos last year alone, 15:08 never mind over the past four years. 15:10 We're posting hundreds of videos every 15:11 month which are all highly strategic. We 15:14 get the data from all of those videos 15:16 and we also spend hundreds of thousands 15:17 of dollars per month on YouTube. So, we 15:19 have more visibility than anybody else. 15:22 If you're going up against us, 15:25 you're not going to be able to compete. 15:26 And that's the spectrum, right? What 15:27 makes a good video idea is one that the 15:30 demand of the topic that you're making 15:32 the video around is validated and you 15:35 know that actively right now in this 15:37 current moment in time proven by the 15:39 data on YouTube there is enough active 15:42 attention circulating around that topic 15:44 where people are actually wanting a 15:46 video around that topic. Right now in 15:48 this given market there is enough of 15:50 that to which you would be satisfied 15:51 with and you could logically assume that 15:53 if you captured that demand being 15:55 realistic you would be satisfied and if 15:58 you were a business you would probably 15:59 get a client or so or a number of 16:01 clients to which that would be worth it 16:03 for you if you did get that number of 16:05 views. So that's validating the demand. 16:08 After that, there has been the proper 16:10 diligence to try and figure out what is 16:13 the right way to package a video around 16:15 this topic so that I can be confident it 16:18 stands out more than the other videos 16:21 that are around that given topic so that 16:23 my video gets clicked on more times than 16:26 not over all of the competition. Because 16:28 YouTube, again, it's a winner take all 16:30 platform. There's 10 plus videos on the 16:31 feed at once. If somebody searches for a 16:32 video around that topic, you are 16:34 actively competing against the other 16:36 videos that are coming up in that feed 16:38 and only one of those gets clicked on. 16:39 So you need to be the channel and you 16:41 need to have the video that gets clicked 16:43 on more than the other videos over a 16:45 large data sample size and continue for 16:48 that to be the case as time goes on. And 16:50 so you have to properly figure out and 16:53 be confident in backed by data, not 16:55 prediction as much as possible. Not 16:58 always you can be 100% certain, but as 16:59 much as possible. what is the best way 17:01 to package this video that will get more 17:03 people to click on my video over 17:04 everybody else's backed by data more 17:06 times than not. And then once you've got 17:08 that, you've obtained the click. If 17:10 you've done both of those things 17:11 correctly, you in theory should have the 17:15 video that captures most of the 17:16 attention and you should have the most 17:17 successful video on that topic if you 17:19 execute correctly. Because you can have 17:21 an amazing video idea, but if you don't 17:23 fulfill on the vision of that video idea 17:26 correctly and effectively enough, then 17:28 the video is not going to perform. 17:29 Because if somebody clicks that 17:31 thumbnail, that title, that idea that 17:32 you came up with, that beat every other 17:35 video that it was competing against, but 17:37 they feel like you bait and switch them 17:39 because the video doesn't meet the 17:41 expectation. Whether that be they don't 17:43 feel confident from the hook, the first 17:45 60 seconds or so, that you are actually 17:47 going to deliver on that promise and 17:48 therefore they click off before you even 17:50 have a chance to give them that value. 17:51 Or maybe you do sell them effectively in 17:53 that first 60 seconds of the video, but 17:55 as time goes on, as they make it through 17:57 the video, they realize, "This isn't 18:00 giving me what I expected." Then the 18:02 YouTube algorithm is a very smart 18:04 algorithm. It's owned by Google. And if 18:05 you don't trust that, Google knows how 18:09 viewers feel about your video when 18:10 they're watching it, then you're 18:12 definitely mistaken. And so Google 18:15 knows, YouTube knows, the algorithm 18:16 knows if the viewers that have clicked 18:18 on your video are dissatisfied. 18:20 Likewise, they know if they're very 18:22 satisfied. And if they're dissatisfied, 18:24 it's going to stop pushing your video. 18:25 No matter how effective the packaging 18:27 is, but if they're very satisfied, then 18:30 the YouTube algorithm is going to push 18:31 that to more people. And because you got 18:33 the best packaging, more people are 18:35 going to click it than the other videos. 18:36 They're going to be satisfied. And it 18:38 enters this flywheel where it goes 18:40 through this cycle. and it stops pushing 18:42 it to more and more people when it 18:45 begins to get pushed to an audience that 18:48 starts to show signals of lower viewer 18:50 satisfaction to where it's to the point 18:52 where it doesn't make sense for YouTube 18:54 to push your video as hard or at all 18:56 anymore. And that's where you'll see 18:58 your YouTube video slope off. So, if we 19:00 take all of that good video ideas that 19:02 perform really well on YouTube versus 19:04 the thousands and thousands of videos 19:06 that yes, are posted but don't see the 19:08 light of day in the algorithm, let alone 19:10 see the heights of hundreds of thousands 19:11 or millions of views are the ones that 19:14 make sure there's enough demand to 19:15 capture in the first place. figure out 19:16 the best way to package a video around 19:19 that topic to actually effectively 19:21 capture the potential demand and then 19:22 fulfill on the demand in the actual 19:25 content itself because at the end of the 19:26 day the YouTube video itself is the 19:28 content and the algorithm is going to 19:30 look at was this audience that we 19:32 captured satisfied because their whole 19:35 purpose as a platform is to keep people 19:37 watching the videos and keep people on 19:40 the platform. That is literally what 19:42 determines their success as a platform. 19:43 It's what generates them money through 19:45 ad revenue. But also a platform's 19:48 success is dependent on how much time 19:49 people are spending and how much 19:51 consumption is occurring on the 19:52 platform. And that in essence is what 19:54 separates the best video ideas and the 19:56 best videos from the ones that don't 19:58 succeed. 19:59 >> Interesting. That's that was a big one. 20:02 >> Very deep. So in terms of the packaging, 20:04 it's not always just having a good idea 20:07 that's been validated. You found that 20:09 there's actually demand for it. You've 20:11 worked it out. You've scripted it in a 20:12 way. It's also the thumbnail, the title, 20:15 the way it's been edited, the hook. If 20:17 you're getting one of these little 20:18 pieces wrong, it could be the life or 20:21 death of the video. The way that I think 20:22 about it is growing a YouTube channel, 20:24 but chunked down, creating a YouTube 20:26 video is just a series of decisions. If 20:28 you make the wrong decision at any 20:30 stage, it could completely ruin your 20:32 video. You could do everything else 20:34 right, but if you have one decision 20:37 wrong at a critical stage, then it could 20:40 ruin the entire performance. And you 20:43 might just look at that poor performance 20:45 and be like, "Damn, I just made a bad 20:47 video." But that might not have actually 20:48 been the case. For example, 20:50 you could have the best video idea. You 20:53 could pick a topic that has a lot of 20:54 demand. You could find an amazing way to 20:56 package it. You could make an amazing 20:58 video that actually fulfills in that 21:00 demand, but you could have the wrong 21:02 editing style for that video. If your 21:04 video is meant to have a raw editing 21:05 style because the video idea and the way 21:08 it is packaged sets an expectation of 21:10 rawness and that homemade sort of feel 21:12 to the video and that's the brand feel 21:14 that the viewer expects to get because 21:17 of the psychology behind why they want 21:19 that. For example, they want to be able 21:20 to trust in what you're saying. It's 21:22 just what their expectation is. And if 21:25 you then edit that video in a way which 21:27 is all these graphics, all this editing, 21:29 all these effects, which traditionally 21:32 in the past on YouTube has been good 21:33 editing and what people would consider 21:35 optimal editing for YouTube, if you do 21:37 that, your video could very much not 21:40 succeed. There's plenty of videos that 21:41 I've made that I know for sure, if we 21:43 had have had good editing in that 21:45 particular instance because it needed 21:47 raw editing. If we had have had good 21:49 editing, the video wouldn't have 21:50 succeeded. And most people as well would 21:52 look at the video's performance 21:54 afterwards and they wouldn't have 21:55 thought that that good editing was the 21:58 reason why the video didn't succeed. 22:00 They wouldn't identify that as the 22:02 bottleneck and they would incorrectly 22:05 diagnose that as the reason as to why 22:08 the video flopped. And for their next 22:10 video, they'd be like, "Okay, this video 22:12 didn't work. It was probably because of 22:13 XYZ reason that wasn't editing. So, let 22:17 me not do those things." and the next 22:19 video might have ignored the things that 22:21 actually were so close to making that 22:24 video succeed and were the right things 22:25 to do and they carry forward the thing 22:27 that stopped it from succeeding. This is 22:29 why it's really important to understand 22:30 the fundamentals and understand YouTube 22:32 to a fundamental level. Because if you 22:35 don't, then you're not going to be able 22:37 to properly assess where did we go 22:40 wrong? Like where did my video go wrong? 22:42 What stopped it from succeeding? If you 22:44 don't study YouTube enough and you don't 22:45 question why did those videos succeed or 22:47 why did these videos not succeed, then 22:49 you're not going to be able to do that 22:49 with your own videos and you're 22:51 basically flying blind. You might even 22:53 get a viral hit. You might even get 22:55 lucky and get a viral hit and you might 22:57 be super excited. You might be thinking, 22:59 "Oh my god, my channel's going to blow 23:00 up." And then the next video flops 23:02 because you didn't actually know why 23:03 that video succeeded. And you didn't 23:04 know why the ones that didn't succeed 23:06 didn't succeed. So even if you get a 23:09 viral hit, you don't get any information 23:11 from it to be able to actually 23:13 effectively compound the decisions that 23:15 you made in that video that actually 23:17 helped it succeed. You have to really 23:19 see YouTube and making a video as a 23:21 series of decisions. And your goal is to 23:25 get every decision right. and remove the 23:29 points of failure from every process. 23:31 You should have no points of failure by 23:33 doing proper ideation, doing your proper 23:35 diligence there. Proper packaging, 23:38 planning the video properly and being 23:40 certain at every stage as you move 23:42 through the stage of planning a video 23:45 from initial idea and concept all the 23:48 way through to being ready to publish. 23:51 feeling extremely confident to a 23:53 airtight level that you're making the 23:56 right decisions and that each stage is 23:58 not a point of failure and then tackling 24:00 the stage ahead of it. Don't move on 24:02 from the idea stage until you feel this 24:06 isn't a point of failure. And the way 24:08 you know you've got the idea right is 24:10 you literally feel nervous to [ __ ] it 24:12 up. Like this is a banger. I know this 24:15 can succeed without a doubt if I do 24:17 everything else right. And so that 24:18 should create nerves because you don't 24:20 want to [ __ ] up that idea and burn it. 24:22 And then doing the same for the next 24:23 stage and then the next stage and the 24:26 next stage. Not recording the video 24:28 until you're airtight confident in the 24:30 planning. Not editing the video until 24:34 you are super confident that you've 24:36 recorded it correctly, even if it means 24:37 re-records. Not moving on to publish the 24:40 video until you are super confident that 24:42 you've got the right editing style. you 24:44 made the right editing choices to 24:45 maximize the viewing experience for the 24:48 particular viewer and for what the 24:51 particular viewer wants. And then the 24:52 thumbnail design as well, making sure 24:54 that the vision that you had in the idea 24:56 stage of the thumbnail, you actually 24:58 fulfilled on that and you're not 24:59 settling for less and lowering your 25:01 standards of what you visioned. If you 25:04 go through that, it's a lot of effort. 25:07 But this is why YouTube is a quality 25:09 game, not a quantity game. And when we 25:10 say quality, it's the quality of 25:12 decisions. It's not necessarily the 25:13 quality of editing. It's not necessarily 25:14 the quality of the camera and being in a 25:16 nice studio. It's the quality of the 25:18 decisions that you're making. And that's 25:20 why YouTube is a higher effort game. And 25:22 when we talk about putting effort into 25:24 videos. So yeah, that was crazy 25:27 insightful. Um, yeah, I think most 25:30 people get it wrong where it's like, oh, 25:32 you need to put more effort in. Oh, it 25:34 must be the editing. It must be this. 25:35 But I mean, I think of someone like Sam 25:37 Sulak, for example. he has the most raw 25:39 authentic page on YouTube because that's 25:42 what it needs to be. And so it's finding 25:45 the demand for whatever it is you're 25:46 doing and backtracking and setting all 25:48 the steps in place to actually work out 25:50 what do I need to do? What's going to 25:52 work? And then like you said, having it 25:54 airtight so you're like scared to post. 25:56 >> Yeah. And just nobody does that. Like I 25:58 think I would say for most people 26:01 watching if they listen to that and 26:04 contrast it with what they're currently 26:05 doing like the gap should be enormous I 26:09 would predict. But that is why there is 26:12 such a massive opportunity for if you 26:15 can close that gap because nobody else 26:18 is this is why we get the results that 26:19 we get for our channels and like we 26:21 always take channels from a stage where 26:23 they are not happy with where they're 26:24 at. Most are at zero. Most have tried 26:26 and failed. some are seeing some level 26:28 of success, but they just know they 26:30 should be way higher. Like you got the 26:31 guys like Gary Vee who are he's like top 26:33 five entrepreneur in the world or 26:35 something like that in terms of brand. 26:36 So he gets decent views but for what he 26:40 should be getting nowhere near. And 26:42 we've got our clients and channels that 26:43 we run who they were starting from 26:44 companies with no brand but the 26:46 situation with them is all the same 26:48 where they weren't happy with their 26:49 results that they were currently getting 26:51 and they had no idea how to grow as 26:54 well, right? they were at this side of 26:55 the spectrum and the the gap was here as 26:58 to what we do for for the channels that 27:00 we run. But their competition's also 27:03 right at that side of the spectrum. So 27:05 it's like with YouTube being a winner 27:06 take all platform if you're better than 27:08 all the competition then you will win 27:12 like over a long enough time scale you 27:13 will win. Your competitor might have a 27:15 breakout video that does better than 27:18 some of your average videos but they're 27:21 not going to be able to replicate that 27:22 to the same extent that you're going to 27:23 be able to. and over a large enough 27:25 sample size and time, you will wipe the 27:27 floor with them. And so that is why if 27:30 you can close the gap, the script flips 27:33 because you will go from not being able 27:36 to get any traction in the algorithm and 27:38 being like, why are my videos not 27:39 getting pushed to being the person who 27:41 is dominating the entire niche, ranking 27:43 at the top of the search results, 27:44 getting all of the algorithm push on the 27:46 YouTube home feed, etc. And that's why 27:48 our clients succeed so quick when we 27:51 step in because we're closing that gap 27:52 immediately. the time is compressed to 27:55 literally zero. But people can do it as 27:57 well on their own. They just have to be 27:59 cognizant of it, of what I'm saying, and 28:02 do the work to close that gap as fast as 28:04 possible. And that takes time. It takes 28:06 reps. But if you've got direction, you 28:08 can learn quicker than anybody else 28:09 who's not going to apply this because 28:11 most people won't do the work and most 28:12 people won't listen and be ignorant and 28:14 will still copy the tactics that are 28:16 easy and that feel nice because it feels 28:19 easy and it feels like they can just 28:20 take it and do it now, but you'll run 28:22 them over, you know? So, [laughter] 28:25 that's what you want. 28:26 >> So, going back to ideas, where do you 28:29 actually look for those ideas? Inside 28:31 the client's niche or somewhere else? So 28:35 there's two parts to this and it's 28:37 actually both. 28:39 Idea is the topic plus the way in which 28:42 it's presented. So it's what are you 28:44 deciding to make a video on and how are 28:46 you deciding to present that video in 28:48 terms of title, thumbnail and also 28:50 general vision of direction in terms of 28:52 how the content will go because that has 28:53 to align with the expectation of the 28:55 title and thumbnail that's being set. So 28:57 the way you decide on the topic is 28:58 within the client's niche typically 29:00 because what you're doing is trying to 29:01 validate that there is enough demand to 29:02 capture that you would be satisfied with 29:04 around the topic of which you're making 29:06 the video on. And so naturally that's 29:08 inside of the niche because you're 29:10 looking at the videos that have already 29:11 been made around the topic to understand 29:13 how well they can do. So you're 29:15 assessing what's the upper limit of what 29:17 this video can do. if I make this video 29:20 amazing and all the wildest dreams, like 29:22 if I make the video that gets pushed the 29:24 most, what could I potentially expect? 29:26 But then also, what could you 29:28 realistically expect? Like if you just 29:29 made a good video as a kind of flaw, 29:32 what you would expect? So you got like 29:33 the ceiling and the floor. So you're 29:35 trying to determine what is the view 29:37 floor of if I make a good video, what's 29:39 really the minimum slashconservative 29:41 case that I would expect and would I 29:43 still be satisfied with that? Would it 29:45 still be a profitable video for my 29:47 business? cuz I could reasonably expect 29:48 if I get this many views, I'd probably 29:50 convert this much and I sell at this 29:51 price point. So, would it be worth my 29:53 time and effort and resources to make 29:55 that video? And what could be the upper 29:56 limit, right? What could be the moonshot 29:58 if you make the best video at that 29:59 thing? So, that's inside the niche and 30:01 also using your logic and your 30:03 understanding of the target market to be 30:05 able to logically assume every single 30:06 one of my target market wants this topic 30:08 because I know my target market. So, 30:10 it's the combination of validating that 30:11 on YouTube, but also just off YouTube 30:13 and your knowledge of the target market. 30:15 That's how you decide on a topic for a 30:17 video idea and what would be a good 30:19 topic for a video. The second part of 30:20 the idea is how to package it which 30:23 sometimes in rare cases you will still 30:26 take inspiration from what's inside your 30:28 niche and sometimes in rare cases you 30:30 might actually do something that's 30:33 already working in the niche because 30:34 there might be a certain type of video 30:35 that just works and that there's an 30:37 opportunity for you to also capitalize 30:39 on do. Maybe there's a new way that you 30:41 can do it. Maybe there's a slight way 30:42 that you can differentiate or maybe you 30:44 just think that this exact video with 30:47 this exact packaging, multiple people 30:49 have done it and succeeded, but I think 30:50 all these videos are terrible and I can 30:52 make a way better video than that. And 30:53 so your hypothesis is that you can win 30:55 against all those videos and capture the 30:57 demand that those videos are capturing 30:59 instead of those videos if you make one. 31:00 But in most cases, what you're doing is 31:03 you're actually looking inside your 31:04 niche to understand where the gaps are. 31:06 You're looking inside your niche to see 31:08 what is everybody else missing and not 31:11 doing that I know will work. But the 31:13 only way that you'll be able to identify 31:15 that is if you have something to compare 31:17 to. Because how can you spot a gap in 31:19 the market if you don't know what isn't 31:24 being done in your niche that is being 31:27 done elsewhere? And so this is where for 31:29 packaging the idea, it's usually coming 31:31 from having a broader view of YouTube 31:34 from other niches because you can see 31:36 what is working in these other niches 31:38 and across YouTube as a whole macro that 31:41 is working with every viewer on YouTube 31:44 but also in niches where viewers are 31:46 similar. They have similar behaviors. 31:48 There are similar demographics and 31:50 psychoraphics. So for example, age, job 31:53 title, industry, 31:55 behaviors, intent behind the view, like 31:58 why are they watching the videos that 32:00 they are watching in that niche? What is 32:01 the reason? What is the underlying 32:03 desire of why they're clicking that 32:05 video? And if you're understanding these 32:06 things that are working for these 32:08 different types of viewers, then you can 32:10 look at that and see what's resonating 32:12 with types of viewers that are similar 32:15 or the same as yours. So viewers in your 32:18 niche might also view videos commonly in 32:21 other niches. And if you can see what is 32:23 working in those niches and there's 32:25 something significant there, like 32:27 there's a distinct pattern between what 32:30 viewers are clicking on in that niche 32:32 and it's not being done in your niche, 32:34 then there's an opportunity to 32:35 potentially take that because you've 32:37 literally validated that it works with 32:39 that specific type of viewer and you 32:41 know they are the exact same type of 32:43 person in the way that they think and 32:45 the way that they consume and what they 32:47 actually desire and what their pain 32:49 points are. So, this could be the same 32:50 viewer where they're consuming videos in 32:52 multiple niches because, you know, your 32:54 viewer consumes videos from these other 32:56 niches, too. Or it could just be viewers 32:58 that aren't the same, but they're 32:59 similar. So, you wouldn't expect 33:02 necessarily that the viewers of your 33:04 niche would watch videos from the from 33:05 that niche, too. But the way that they 33:08 think and the reason why they're 33:10 watching those videos and all of these 33:12 things is the same. So, they're not the 33:15 same viewer, but the reason for 33:16 consumption is the same. So, for 33:18 example, if I'm in a niche like Facebook 33:21 ads, I'm making videos for businesses 33:24 who want to scale with Facebook ads, 33:26 then I know that viewers in a general 33:32 business niche, the broader niche, are 33:34 the same viewers. So, the same viewers 33:36 that are consuming videos in the 33:37 Facebook ads niche are also the same 33:39 viewers that consume videos in the 33:41 business niche because the viewers in 33:42 the business niche are literally 33:43 businesses. and the viewers in the 33:46 Facebook ads niche have to be businesses 33:48 because what's your other reason for 33:50 doing Facebook ads? So that's a 33:51 situation where you can reliably look at 33:52 what's working in the business niche 33:55 because you know it's the same viewer. 33:57 So if stuff is working in that niche and 33:59 there's a distinct pattern between the 34:01 titles that are working, the thumbnail 34:03 styles that are working, the type of 34:04 language that's used, the video 34:05 structures, if there are those distinct 34:07 things, you could reasonably assume they 34:08 would also work in your niche. Now, a 34:10 situation where you might take 34:11 inspiration from a niche where viewers 34:13 aren't the same, but they're similar. 34:15 And so, you can still reliably take 34:17 stuff that's working from that niche and 34:18 transfer it to yours or use it as 34:20 insight as to what might work in your 34:22 niche and identify potential gaps in the 34:25 market is Facebook ads and YouTube 34:28 growth. Most people in the YouTube 34:29 growth niche are not necessarily 34:32 businesses. There are a percentage of 34:34 businesses who want to grow their 34:35 YouTube channel and consume those 34:36 videos. But I would say 90% of the 34:39 consumers in the YouTube growth niche 34:41 aren't businesses. But the intent behind 34:44 why they are viewing those videos. If we 34:46 think about it, they want to grow their 34:48 YouTube channel. They want to grow. They 34:50 want to do it for the reasons of 34:52 building a brand and achievement and 34:56 success, right? because they might want 34:58 to generate ad revenue or they might 34:59 just see success associated with 35:02 subscribers or follower account, right? 35:04 The same way that businesses want to use 35:08 Facebook ads to grow their business for 35:10 higher achievement, to make more money, 35:12 the same way that people might want to 35:14 do it for ad revenue and to achieve 35:15 higher levels of success. The same way 35:18 that viewers of the YouTube growth 35:20 niche, despite maybe not being 35:21 businesses and despite maybe not even 35:23 caring about the money, they want to 35:24 grow their YouTube channel because they 35:26 see success that way. The same way 35:28 businesses see success as growing their 35:31 business, right? And so the intent 35:33 behind the view and the reason as to why 35:36 somebody would click and therefore what 35:38 would make them click and what would 35:39 grab their attention is the same. Those 35:42 are like the two different relationships 35:44 between a viewer in your niche and a 35:46 view in a different niche and 35:48 how you can use 35:51 what's working in other niches to 35:54 compare that to what's working but 35:57 what's more so missing from your niche 35:59 to identify gaps in the market. You can 36:02 only do it through comparison. With us, 36:03 because we run so many channels, because 36:05 we have our own internal research team, 36:07 because we just have that unfair 36:08 advantage, because our company is 36:10 centered around it, we're able to see 36:12 what's working across YouTube to a 36:14 greater extent than anybody else. So, 36:16 when we step into a niche, we are able 36:18 to spot the gaps in the market straight 36:20 away when somebody else would be 36:22 completely blind to it and they would 36:23 just not be able to see it. You can't 36:24 find an opportunity that you can't see. 36:26 Good video ideas come from looking in 36:28 the niche to understand the topic and 36:31 what to make videos about. But typically 36:33 in terms of how to frame that topic in a 36:35 way that actually succeeds, 36:37 it's a combination of understanding your 36:39 niche combined with the knowledge of 36:41 what's working elsewhere broad YouTube 36:43 for a general viewer and specifically in 36:46 niches where viewers are similar or same 36:48 to the viewers in your niche to make the 36:51 comparison between the two and see the 36:53 delta and see what's missing to identify 36:55 gaps. That way you have more insight 36:56 than your competition. So you are better 36:59 positioned to make better decisions than 37:01 your competition on what title to use, 37:04 what thumbnail to use, what structure to 37:05 use because you have better information. 37:06 With better information becomes better 37:08 decisions. 37:09 >> A really good client of yours that comes 37:10 to mind with everything you just said 37:11 there where it comes to finding what's 37:14 working in other niches is uh Dr. Tessa 37:16 Dam where she was an insulin doctor. No 37:19 one really cares about insulin or what 37:21 it is or what it does, but everyone 37:23 wants to lose fat. And so it's taking 37:26 what's working in the fat loss niche 37:28 over to her niece for insulin. And 37:31 because she's a world-class doctor and 37:32 knows exactly what she's talking about, 37:33 you've like pulled this idea from there. 37:35 And then you've twisted it and then it's 37:38 her channel in the past 28 days has got 37:40 like what over a million views or 37:41 something like that. 37:41 >> Yeah. It went from like 10 to 20 views a 37:43 day because she was try still trying 37:45 YouTube but basically zero to within 37:47 less than a month a million long form 37:49 views generated. Insane 0 to 30k subs in 37:52 that time frame. and she grew her 37:54 business from zero to over 50k in net 37:57 profit after expenses, but also after 38:00 paying us as well. So that was her 38:02 actual profit after every expense within 38:05 that time frame too. So that's like a 38:07 what 10 11x on the initial upfront 38:10 investment of 5k a month, right? 38:12 >> Yeah. 38:12 >> Yeah. That's ridiculous. 38:14 >> All of that is is it's just YouTube. 38:16 It's it's just getting the idea and 38:19 knowing the process of making a winning 38:20 video. 38:21 >> Yeah. We'll get Omar to just put like a 38:23 fake like stock image over the front of 38:26 it with like the white background and 38:28 watermark still left on. [laughter] 38:30 >> So once a video is published and it's on 38:32 the feed, how do you get someone to 38:34 click on that over every other video 38:36 that's available for them? 38:38 >> Yeah. So this is about the title and the 38:39 thumbnail because this is ultimately the 38:41 only things that are on the feed. 38:42 There's a couple different parts to 38:43 this. So, one is what I'm saying where 38:45 it comes to the way that you can 38:47 confidently expect your video to get 38:50 clicked on over all of the other videos 38:52 that it's going up against is through 38:55 evidence. And when I'm saying evidence, 38:57 it's through knowing where other 38:59 thumbnails and titles in those different 39:01 niches have won that same battle. You're 39:03 looking at the videos that have worked 39:04 in other niches. Viewers are similar or 39:06 same to yours and also just broad level 39:09 to see if there's any specific patterns 39:12 between the thumbnails that are working 39:14 in those niches. So, for example, 39:15 there's sometimes certain actual 39:18 concepts of thumbnails that work 39:20 particularly well. Sometimes it's a 39:23 specific style of text that's working 39:25 particularly well in those niches. 39:27 Sometimes it's the overall brand feel of 39:29 the thumbnail. for example, is it more 39:31 polished and professional versus does it 39:33 look more raw and amateur? And so 39:35 there's understanding that too. And so 39:37 you can see the battles that have been 39:40 won in given niches in terms of what 39:42 thumbnails have won against all of the 39:43 competition because the evidence is 39:45 there through the view counts of those 39:47 videos and the success of those videos. 39:48 But you obviously have to actually look 39:50 at those videos and you have to come to 39:52 the confident conclusion that the 39:54 thumbnail at least had a significant 39:56 part to play in its success. Because 39:57 sometimes the thumbnail might actually 39:59 not be the reason why that video 40:01 succeeded. And this is why when you're 40:03 finding these videos that have worked 40:04 really well, it's not about just taking 40:07 what's worked in another niche and 40:08 applying it over. You have to actually 40:09 understand what about that video drove 40:12 it to succeed because sometimes it was 40:13 just the title. Sometimes it was 40:15 primarily the thumbnail. Sometimes it 40:17 was neither. But the video was just so 40:19 good that YouTube just had to push it. 40:21 And so you have to actually be able to 40:22 really figure out what was the driving 40:23 force of why this succeeded. And if you 40:25 find that certain types of thumbnails, 40:28 certain assets that are even in the 40:30 thumbnail have drove it to succeed, you 40:31 can take that as inspiration. Same goes 40:33 for the title. So the way that you can 40:34 confidently assume that your video would 40:36 get clicked on over the competitions is 40:39 by figuring out what are the best ways 40:41 to title videos right now and structure 40:43 the titles with viewers that are the 40:44 similar/same to mine backed by data in 40:48 the niches where there are the 40:49 same/similar viewers. that hasn't been 40:51 done in my niche and that logically when 40:54 I piece together the title not just 40:56 backed by data but I actually look at 40:58 that title and I'm like that's a banger 41:00 title like that I can imagine that my 41:02 target market would actually click on 41:04 that because you understand your target 41:06 market and you understand what they 41:09 would actually resonate with and so 41:10 therefore you can predict if it would 41:12 really strike a nerve with your target 41:14 market the same way that it struck a 41:16 nerve in those other niches with their 41:18 target market and you do the exact same 41:20 for thumbnail 41:21 Like certain thumbnail concepts, certain 41:24 thumbnail styles just work. They work 41:26 backed by data and they work for actual 41:29 reason because when you break it down 41:31 and you understand why you break down 41:33 why do you think they've worked? You 41:34 begin to question who is the target 41:37 market in these other niches. How do 41:38 they feel? What do they think? What's 41:40 their intent behind the view? And as a 41:42 result of that fact and who they are, 41:46 why are they interested in clicking on 41:47 this video over the other videos? And 41:49 when you begin to really dig into the 41:50 why and you explore your curiosity, you 41:52 get to the bottom of it. And that's 41:54 where the real insight comes from to 41:56 there when you can go into your niche 41:58 and apply those same insights. There's 42:00 the tactical part of again figuring out 42:03 what's working in these other niches and 42:04 taking it to your niche. But then it's 42:06 also actual first principles of data 42:09 aside. Why would somebody click on my 42:11 video over the other ones in the feed? 42:13 they would click on my video because 42:14 it's one catches the attention of them 42:17 and their eyes before they even consider 42:20 another video. So, they consider mine 42:22 first. That's ideal. And then once that 42:25 happens, if you successfully achieve 42:26 that, how do I effectively get them to 42:29 click on my video before they consider 42:31 let my eyes wander elsewhere to 42:33 potentially consider another video? 42:34 Because the more that that happens, the 42:35 more risk you introduce of them clicking 42:38 on another video instead of yours. If 42:40 you go back to first principles of how 42:42 do I get somebody to click? What is the 42:44 process of getting somebody to click? My 42:45 video has to land on the feed in front 42:47 of them. And once it does that, they 42:48 have to see my video before they click 42:50 on another video. And when they see my 42:52 video, if and when they see my video, 42:53 they have to click on it before they 42:55 look elsewhere and click on a different 42:57 video. My video has to be appealing 42:58 enough to get them to click in that 42:59 instance before they click on someone 43:01 else's. That is the process. Go more 43:03 granular. Okay. Okay, first I need to 43:05 achieve the first part of that. So my 43:07 video lands in the feed because that's 43:09 the work of the video itself. That the 43:11 title and thumbnail doesn't have a part 43:12 to play in it landing on the feed. The 43:14 title and thumbnail plays a part of once 43:16 it's on the feed. So the first step we 43:17 have to consider that process of getting 43:19 somebody to click and watch is getting 43:21 the attention of them. What can I do to 43:24 get the attention of my target market 43:27 before they look at any other videos? 43:29 How can I get them to get attention? And 43:31 this is where once you go to first 43:33 principles, this is where the tactics 43:36 come from. This is why previously on 43:39 YouTube people used bright colors 43:41 because they knew if they use bright 43:43 colors, the eyes would naturally 43:44 gravitate towards that. But now viewers 43:46 are more sophisticated to where they are 43:48 skeptical of clickbait to where that 43:50 sort of effectiveness balances out and 43:52 you have to be careful in which you can 43:53 do that. So you have to be careful in 43:55 the way that you use those tactics 43:56 because viewers are skeptical of those 43:59 being used, right? So that that doesn't 44:00 work as well anymore, but there's still 44:01 time and place in it. But that's the 44:02 reason why that worked. It's the reason 44:06 why tactics like the three element rule 44:08 exist because if you keep your 44:10 thumbnails simple, then at a glance, the 44:14 viewer can process it quickly and they 44:16 can understand if the video is for them 44:17 or not. So the less there is to look at, 44:20 the more each element has an impact and 44:23 therefore the more likely you are to be 44:26 able to grab their attention at a glance 44:28 because if they're just looking across 44:31 their feed, your thumbnail is processed 44:33 in an instance quicker than videos with 44:35 more elements in it. And this is going 44:36 to be an underlying lesson that's gave 44:38 throughout the podcast is the tactics 44:41 that are true in certain instances and 44:45 they do have a time and a place and they 44:48 exist as tactics as a reason because 44:50 they do and at least have worked is 44:52 because of first principles. It's 44:54 because if you go deep enough on the how 44:57 to achieve the objective of what you're 44:59 trying to do, which with title and 45:01 thumbnails is getting somebody to click 45:03 after your video lands on the feed. that 45:05 is the purpose to play of the title and 45:07 the thumbnail. If you dig deep enough 45:08 into the how and you chunk the problem 45:10 down of the steps to get there and then 45:12 you go within each step and you chunk 45:14 that down too and you really consider 45:17 how can I achieve this outcome. This is 45:20 where the tactics come from. So, like 45:21 for example, if we're isolating this 45:23 step of capturing the attention, having 45:25 as minimal elements as you can without 45:28 reducing the effectiveness of the 45:30 message conveyed in the thumbnail is 45:32 naturally going to lead to the thumbnail 45:33 being more effective at achieving that 45:35 outcome of getting somebody's attention 45:36 because there's less to look at. Each 45:38 element has more of an impact because 45:40 there's less elements. So, it drives 45:42 more of an impact. And if those elements 45:44 can effectively convey the message of 45:46 the thumbnail and who it's for and what 45:48 the video is about, at least infer what 45:51 the video is about from that, so they 45:53 give the title reading a chance. If 45:55 you're doing that, then that's naturally 45:57 going to give you more of a chance of 45:58 them seeing your video over the 46:00 competitions first. Another tactic that 46:02 I give that falls under this same logic, 46:05 which I don't see talked about a lot, is 46:07 visually representing the desired 46:09 outcome associated with the video of 46:11 what your target market wants out of the 46:13 video in the thumbnail. I don't know if 46:14 you've ever seen thumbnails that have a 46:16 Stripe notification. Stripes a payment 46:18 processor for businesses if you don't 46:20 know or Stripe dashboard or Google 46:22 calendar notification or these different 46:24 things. We were the people who invented 46:25 that. We created the Stripe notification 46:27 asset. Like I've got the proof for this. 46:29 We were the one who created this 46:30 notification. Everybody used that across 46:31 YouTube. The reason why I created that 46:33 was because I went through this process 46:35 of thinking, how can I make a business 46:37 owner know within an instance the video 46:39 is for them for this video that was 46:41 about making money, growing their 46:42 business. Well, what is the outcome they 46:44 want? They want to grow their business. 46:45 What does growing their business look 46:46 like to them? Well, if they're on their 46:48 phone and they see Stripe notifications 46:49 coming through, which is the most 46:51 popular payment processor, or at least 46:53 at the time it was, that is how they 46:54 visualize it. That's how I visualize it 46:56 when I was growing my business. So, I 46:57 understood the target market to that 46:59 deep of a level. And so then I was like, 47:00 well, if I include a Stripe notification 47:02 asset that says $10,000 received, even 47:04 if they don't know Stripe, they're like, 47:05 "Oh, what notification?" I ass Oh, 47:06 $10,000 received. Oh, I want that. 47:08 Right. And so then they give the title a 47:11 chance. Now, that asset has been 47:12 overused now because everybody's copied 47:14 us. And through them copying us, more 47:16 people have seen their videos. And then 47:17 it's just kind of grown out of 47:19 proportion now to where everybody's used 47:20 it. I think even the top top YouTubers 47:22 on the planet have used that now. But 47:25 when it was then it stood out cuz nobody 47:27 else was doing that. Nobody else was 47:28 visualizing the desired outcome for the 47:31 target market to such a close accurate 47:33 level that literally visualized what 47:36 they visualize, right? They're the 47:37 they're dreaming about $10,000 received, 47:40 $10,000 received, $10,000 received. And 47:41 so when you visualize stacks of those 47:43 notifications, it like literally strikes 47:46 a nerve with their monkey brain. And it 47:48 like it's obviously going to get them to 47:50 consider it if they've never seen that 47:51 before. It's captures their attention 47:53 more than anything else because how 47:54 could it not and it's a pattern 47:56 interrupt because nobody else was using 47:57 that and it's like that is exactly what 47:59 I want. It strikes a nerve so hard and 48:00 so of course they're going to read the 48:02 title and then if the title is effective 48:04 as well under this exact same logic at 48:06 selling the video and conveying the 48:08 value proposition of the video for the 48:10 target market, then they're going to 48:11 click. I could go on and on and on about 48:13 all the different tactics that create an 48:15 effective thumbnail and that effectively 48:17 get people to click, but the most 48:19 important thing to understand is the 48:20 first principles of it of like what is 48:23 the process of getting somebody to click 48:25 when it lands on the feed over all of 48:27 the other videos. Understanding what the 48:28 steps are in that process and 48:30 understanding how to achieve each step 48:33 successfully and achieve the outcome of 48:35 each step successfully. In which case, 48:37 for thumbnails, it is getting their 48:38 attention and then getting them to 48:40 click. before they look elsewhere. And 48:42 this is where, for example, for the 48:43 second part, getting somebody to click, 48:46 this is where tactics like a curiosity 48:48 gap comes into play. Why is that a 48:51 tactic that people sometimes talk about? 48:53 Well, it's because if you have a gap in 48:55 curiosity is to where like they either 48:57 can't get the value of the video out of 48:58 the thumbnail because then they might 49:00 feel like you've already gave them the 49:02 answer and so why do they need to watch 49:03 the video if you've given them the 49:04 answer in the thumbnail? Or maybe it's a 49:06 case of they're clear on what the video 49:07 is about. Like they're still clear in 49:09 the video. not confused but there's just 49:11 still a little gap of like this is 49:14 interesting I wonder what you know is in 49:16 this for me that gap in curiosity is 49:19 what then makes them make the decision 49:22 subconsciously to read the title and 49:25 then the title gets considered and then 49:26 that does the selling right so the 49:28 reason that exists as a tactic is 49:30 because you've got to understand the 49:32 psychology of somebody who is on the 49:34 platform and this is universal like so 49:36 these tactics the reason they work 49:37 universally is Because humans are human. 49:40 Our brain like a lot of the times works 49:42 similarly. But certain types of people 49:45 depending on the way their brain works 49:47 because of their background, their 49:51 occupation, these things, their brain 49:53 works differently because it's been 49:54 matured and developed in different ways. 49:56 And so that's where not everything is 49:58 universal. So if you really go deep on 50:02 understanding first principles thinking 50:04 and understanding your viewer to such a 50:07 deep level to where you can literally 50:10 enter their state, you can literally 50:12 almost convince yourself you are the 50:13 viewer. So when I simulate that process 50:16 of being my target viewer on the home 50:18 feed, I can understand what would get me 50:20 to click on another video and see 50:22 another title and thumbnail before 50:24 another video and then get me to click. 50:25 That is the most important lesson of all 50:28 because that applies to the entire 50:29 YouTube process. I can go through 50:31 tactics of these things, but it's that 50:32 piece that's really important. 50:33 >> That was really interesting. I think 50:35 there's a lot to pull from what you've 50:37 just said there. So, what would be an 50:39 example where you've done this for one 50:41 of your clients? 50:42 >> Yeah. I mean, there's a ton cuz we did 50:44 this like this is the process for every 50:46 single one, but I would say Gary for 50:47 example, Gary Vee. So, his channel was 50:50 averaging like 10 to 20,000 views a 50:52 video before we started working 50:53 together. and his titles were just being 50:56 chosen on a whim. Like everything I've 50:58 described of bad practice in terms of 50:59 just thinking what my target viewer 51:01 might want, what would be a logical way 51:03 to title this video without any 51:05 visibility or consideration of what 51:08 makes a good title backed by data on 51:10 YouTube, but also like again first 51:11 principles thinking and the thumbnails 51:13 were like AI generated. So that tells 51:14 you enough on that front. So the first 51:15 video we made for him got 300,000 views. 51:17 So immediately from 10 to 20,000 views 51:20 per average, some getting less to 51:21 300,000 views. Then we doubled down on 51:23 that video and got 700,000 views on the 51:26 next one. So with that first video is 51:28 the new rules of social media in 2026. 51:31 And the reason why we did that video is 51:33 because one again if we take the two 51:35 parts of what I just broken down in 51:37 terms of what makes a good video idea. 51:38 There's the data side of it, but there's 51:40 the actual logic behind the data and 51:42 there's the reason behind the data, not 51:44 just taking what's working. So the first 51:45 part was we saw this format of the new 51:48 rules of this thing in 2026 and yeah. 51:51 So, for example, we saw the new rules of 51:53 SEO brackets 2026. We then did it in the 51:56 LinkedIn niche for one of our clients, 51:57 the new rules of LinkedIn 2026. We also 51:59 saw the new rules of YouTube 2026. So, 52:02 this new rules format was working across 52:03 different niches that were all related 52:05 in some way. Now, that was a format that 52:06 was working. Why did it work? Well, the 52:09 reason why it worked is because when 52:11 implying that there are new rules to 52:13 something, rules 52:15 suggest if you don't follow these, you 52:17 will fail. So, if there are new rules 52:20 and you didn't know there were new 52:21 rules, then you're going to be pretty 52:22 inclined to want to know what those new 52:24 rules are. If you are the target market 52:26 of which that video is for, if there are 52:28 new rules to YouTube and you want to 52:29 grow your YouTube channel and you don't 52:31 know about any new rules, you're 52:32 thinking, what are the new rules? What 52:33 new rules? Rules. The definition of the 52:36 word rules that already tells you, it 52:38 tells their brain subconsciously, if I 52:41 don't know this, I will not be able to 52:42 grow my YouTube channel if I am not 52:44 doing these rules. And even the risk 52:46 that I don't know these rules is too 52:48 great to which I can't take that risk if 52:51 that is if they are a true viewer of 52:52 that niche cuz that is their desired 52:54 outcome. That is the thing they want 52:55 more than anything else. It also is 52:58 exciting as well because it's like oh 52:59 new. So if I know these and most people 53:01 don't I'm going to get ahead of 53:03 everybody else and people whether 53:04 admitted or not love to be ahead of 53:06 people. like it's ego. With both of 53:09 those factors combined, the fear of 53:10 missing out and the desire of being 53:14 greater than anybody else and getting 53:16 all this praise because they grow a 53:18 massive YouTube channel or they achieve 53:20 top ranking and SEO which then results 53:22 in the implied outcome of more business 53:24 which then is their desired outcome. You 53:26 know, they make these subconscious 53:28 thoughts in a given instance. So, but 53:30 this is what the brain goes through. 53:31 That is why that video title is so 53:33 attractive. That was what was working, 53:35 but it was why it was working. And so 53:37 that's the thought process that went 53:38 through my brain. And because it had 53:40 worked with SEO, which the reason why 53:43 they want to know the new rules is so 53:44 they can rank at the top of search, they 53:45 can grow their business, so on and so 53:46 forth. It's businesses that want to know 53:48 that. But then LinkedIn, some are 53:50 businesses, but some are people who just 53:52 want to grow their LinkedIn and grow 53:52 their social media. But again, the 53:54 underlying pattern between why there's 53:57 different types of audiences that would 53:58 both click on that video is the same 53:59 intent. They want to grow for different 54:01 reasons but same ultimate desire 54:03 personal to them. YouTube same thing 54:05 right? So if it had worked for all of 54:07 those it would I could predict it would 54:09 work pretty well for social media which 54:11 both attracts the business audience 54:13 because businesses want to grow on 54:14 social media nowadays. And so the fact 54:16 it worked for SEO validates that it 54:18 would also probably work for social 54:19 media. And the fact it worked for the 54:21 individual social media platforms was a 54:23 pretty good signal that it would work 54:25 for social media in general. And so that 54:27 was a very confident bet that I could 54:28 make. And then that became one of those 54:30 videos where because that was a format 54:32 that was working pretty much every time 54:33 that it had been done right and it made 54:35 sense why it was working so well in the 54:38 market because also not only was that 54:40 new rules title one of these videos that 54:42 was working well. There was also other 54:43 videos that had that same underlying 54:45 psychology whereas basically these 54:47 shifts are happening in this market that 54:49 you're interested in and you need to 54:50 know about them otherwise you'll fail 54:52 and if you do know about them you'll be 54:53 ahead of everybody else. Like this thing 54:54 is about to change forever and nobody 54:56 even realizes. you're not ready for the 54:57 next phase of these are all different 54:59 types of the same type of video, the 55:01 same different ways to frame the same 55:02 underlying type of video because I knew 55:04 all of that was working because I looked 55:06 at the data to back it up, but because 55:08 also it made sense why the same reason 55:11 why it worked for those different niches 55:12 would be also the same reason why it 55:14 would work for the audience of my niche. 55:16 That was one of those instances where I 55:18 knew the idea was not the bottleneck. 55:20 the idea was no longer a potential point 55:22 of failure and the idea was something 55:24 where I was like this is such a good 55:25 idea I'm nervous to [ __ ] this up like I 55:28 said earlier and so now the idea problem 55:31 was solved for and then it entered the 55:33 next stage which was the planning 55:35 process of the video the same thing 55:36 happened for the time when we doubled 55:38 down on that video after seeing that I 55:39 got 300,000 views and was what like a 10 55:41 20x outlier for Gary Vee was the new era 55:44 of social media has just begun so it was 55:47 the same underlying psychology the same 55:50 type of video, the same reason as to why 55:52 somebody would click, but framed 55:55 differently and was different enough to 55:57 where it could succeed as well as or in 56:00 this case even better than the original. 56:02 And obviously I can get into why those 56:04 videos performed differently and how 56:06 that why that one got 700,000 views 56:08 versus 300,000 views. But for the an 56:11 application of where I'm applying both 56:14 the due diligence side of finding the 56:16 data, finding the formats that are 56:17 working, but actually understanding why, 56:19 that's like a really good application of 56:21 that. There's many, many more, but I 56:22 think that illustrates it enough. 56:24 >> So once you've got them to click, you 56:25 brought them in, they're watching the 56:27 video, what are the steps next for them 56:30 to keep watching. 56:32 >> Yeah. So again, thinking of YouTube as a 56:34 funnel, it lands on the feed. a 56:36 percentage you capture the attention of 56:38 a percentage click. And then this is 56:40 where we're at this next part, which is 56:42 how do we get them to continue watching 56:44 from literally the second the video 56:47 presses play all the way ideally through 56:49 to the end, but doesn't have to be to 56:50 have a successful video by any means. 56:52 Not 100% of viewers will watch to the 56:54 end. But how do you make sure that the 56:55 average viewer is extremely satisfied 56:57 with the video that you've watched to 56:58 where the YouTube algorithm gets so much 57:00 signal that it was a good video for that 57:03 particular type of viewer and also the 57:04 other viewers that you've attracted to 57:06 where it pushes it to more of those 57:07 people because no matter how good your 57:10 title and thumbnail is, no matter how 57:12 much you smash the competition when it 57:14 comes to winning the game of getting 57:17 clicked on over your competition, if the 57:19 video doesn't deliver, you're not even 57:20 going to show up on the feed in the 57:22 first place or you'll stop showing up on 57:23 the feed, which really if we loop back 57:25 is the first step before even capturing 57:28 their attention, right? And so that's 57:29 how the loop goes. So this part is so 57:32 important because this is the ultimate 57:33 content of the video. And there are 57:35 again different stages to this. First, 57:38 when a viewer clicks, they're looking 57:40 for every reason to click off because 57:44 it's not that people's attention spans 57:46 are low nowadays. It's that they pick 57:51 where to place their attention. so 57:53 carefully. Attention is the most scarce 57:55 resource for somebody. It is literally 57:57 their time. It is their attention. And 57:59 because of short form algorithms, most 58:02 people's brains are being conditioned to 58:05 be very very very quick to shift where 58:08 their attention goes. So because of 58:10 this, naturally, when we take all of 58:11 this logic, we understand that we have 58:13 to do such a good job for the moment it 58:15 presses play to really reaffirm their 58:18 decision on clicking on that video and 58:20 why they should continue to stick by 58:22 that decision. And so this is what you 58:23 call the hook. This is your opportunity 58:26 to sell the viewer and convince the 58:27 viewer as quickly as possible before 58:30 they run away and click off why they 58:32 should continue watching. And that's the 58:34 first part for us to consider before we 58:35 even get into the video itself. There is 58:37 a very simple framework that people can 58:40 use in order to make an effective hook. 58:43 Because if we think about the questions 58:44 that are going on in the viewer's mind 58:46 after they click is, is this video 58:48 really going to deliver on what I just 58:51 clicked for? The second thing is why 58:53 should I listen to this particular 58:54 person, this creator to deliver on the 58:58 expectation that is being set? What 58:59 makes them so suitable to be able to 59:02 give me what I clicked for? And then 59:04 after that, if you've successfully done 59:06 those two stages, sometimes there's 59:08 still a lack of clarity as to how are 59:10 they going to achieve that for me? How 59:12 are they going to deliver on that 59:13 promise? They've said they're going to 59:14 do it and they've reaffirmed that I 59:15 really am going to get that, but I just 59:17 don't quite see how they're going to do 59:19 it because in my mind, there's so many 59:21 different steps them delivering on that. 59:22 So, like they want more clarity to give 59:24 them more confidence that you're really 59:26 going to deliver on it. And sometimes as 59:28 well, the fourth question, which 59:30 sometimes is clear from doing the rest, 59:32 but sometimes they need a bit more of a 59:34 nudge, is is this video really for me? 59:36 Like, can we really just reaffirm that 59:38 this video is truly for me? because the 59:40 packaging didn't make it quite clear 59:42 enough and and give me enough confidence 59:44 that it was for me to answer those 59:45 questions that I just laid out. Promise, 59:48 proof, plan, persona. That is the 59:52 framework. The four Ps. Promise is 59:55 promising what you are going to give 59:57 them in the video. This is confirming 1:00:00 the click. This is reaffirming the 1:00:02 expectation that you set in the title 1:00:04 and thumbnail and just giving them that 1:00:05 additional bit of competence of okay yes 1:00:07 like I they are really going to center 1:00:08 the video around this focus. This is 1:00:10 actually about the thing that I clicked 1:00:12 for. This is actually about the 1:00:13 expectation that they set. So you do 1:00:15 plan to give me this but why should I 1:00:17 listen to you? That's proof. So you use 1:00:19 your own social proof and you convince 1:00:23 them through what you have achieved that 1:00:25 you are the person you are the authority 1:00:27 to give them that promise and deliver on 1:00:29 that promise. So, for example, if the 1:00:31 promise is to teach them how to scale 1:00:32 their business with Facebook ads, you 1:00:34 need to have some serious credibility in 1:00:35 the eyes of the viewer even more 1:00:37 credibility than what they're typically 1:00:39 used to ideally from other videos they 1:00:41 might have watched in the niche. That 1:00:42 makes you the person that they should 1:00:45 listen to rather than clicking off and 1:00:46 going to a different Facebook ad channel 1:00:48 and seeing if they're the person. That 1:00:49 is where you really have to hammer the 1:00:51 proof in and convince them that you're 1:00:53 the person to listen to. Okay, cool. 1:00:54 Cool. So, this person actually is the 1:00:56 person to listen to, but I still feel a 1:00:58 little bit unsure that am I really going 1:01:00 to get? It's just skepticism, right? Am 1:01:02 I really going to get what they 1:01:03 promised? Like, I I just don't see how 1:01:04 you're going to get me there cuz it's 1:01:05 such a bold outcome and it's such a 1:01:08 desired outcome that I haven't been able 1:01:09 to achieve yet. And so, naturally, 1:01:11 they're skeptical. The same way that if 1:01:12 somebody's on a sales call and has 1:01:14 previously been burned by other vendors 1:01:17 that haven't helped them achieve the 1:01:18 outcome that was promised, they need to 1:01:20 be convinced through proof, case 1:01:22 studies. The same thing applies with 1:01:23 videos. If somebody else has previously 1:01:25 placed their attention and trust in 1:01:26 videos that have made that similar or 1:01:28 same claim and it hasn't delivered on 1:01:30 that, they're naturally going to be 1:01:31 skeptical. And so they really want to be 1:01:33 convinced as to how are you going to get 1:01:35 me there? And so this is where the plan 1:01:36 piece comes in where you're laying out 1:01:38 the road map of if it's a grandiose 1:01:41 outcome of I'm going to teach you from 1:01:42 going from this position of essentially 1:01:44 zero and failing to this really desired 1:01:46 outcome that would be huge for you to 1:01:48 achieve. The value of that might be 1:01:49 worth hundreds of thousands or millions 1:01:51 of dollars if they actually if it did 1:01:52 actually meet the expectation and so 1:01:54 that's why naturally they'd be 1:01:55 skeptical. But if you can lay out the 1:01:57 clear road map of how you're going to 1:01:58 get them there then that gives them a 1:02:00 lot more confidence to continue 1:02:01 watching. So, for example, if it is how 1:02:03 to scale your business with Facebook 1:02:04 ads, I'm going to teach you how Facebook 1:02:07 Ads Manager even works. I'm going to 1:02:09 teach you how the algorithm works so you 1:02:10 actually understand that first and 1:02:12 foremost. I'm going to teach you how to 1:02:14 navigate around the ads manager. I'm 1:02:15 going to teach you how to find winning 1:02:19 ad creatives that you can take that will 1:02:21 also work for your target market and 1:02:23 attracting your target market and being 1:02:26 profitable. I'm going to teach you how 1:02:27 to build the funnel so that once you've 1:02:29 made effective ads and you've gotten 1:02:30 people to click the learn more button, 1:02:32 how to actually move them through that 1:02:33 funnel to get them to book a call, get 1:02:36 on the call, so on and so forth, right? 1:02:37 And there's way more stages to that. 1:02:39 Like after the funnel, I'm going to 1:02:40 teach you how to make sure that you 1:02:41 maximize show rate. After that, I'm 1:02:43 going to teach you how to maximize close 1:02:44 rate through the best sales process that 1:02:46 I found works for every different type 1:02:48 of business on paid ads, on cold 1:02:50 traffic, so on and so forth, right? You 1:02:52 get the point. And so now there's much 1:02:53 clearer road map to where they can't see 1:02:56 any gap as if you're going to teach me 1:02:58 this this this this this and at this 1:03:00 point because of the proof they trust 1:03:01 that you're actually going to do that 1:03:02 quite well. You've now kind of handled 1:03:04 all of their objections before they've 1:03:06 had the opportunity to click off. And 1:03:08 then the final one is persona where 1:03:10 sometimes in niches there are multiple 1:03:11 potential target markets and the viewer 1:03:13 understands that. So, if you're a viewer 1:03:16 of the Facebook ads niche and you're an 1:03:17 intelligent business owner, you 1:03:18 understand that other viewers might be 1:03:20 e-commerce brands and the way in which 1:03:22 they might scale Facebook ads might be 1:03:24 different from how your business would 1:03:26 scale Facebook ads. And so, this is a 1:03:28 lingering question in their mind and if 1:03:30 they get any potential thought of this 1:03:32 video might just be for e-commerce 1:03:33 brands, you know, and this might not be 1:03:34 for me, then they might click off, 1:03:36 especially if the video is a longer 1:03:37 video and it's again they're just 1:03:38 weighing up the decision of should they 1:03:39 keep watching. And so naturally, if you 1:03:42 can pre-handle that objection and be 1:03:43 like, whether you are an e-commerce 1:03:45 brand or this type of business, this is 1:03:48 for you. This video is for you. And so 1:03:49 you've handled that objection. So now 1:03:50 it's like all the clarity that they 1:03:52 might have previously been questioning. 1:03:53 Is this video for them? You've cleared 1:03:54 that confusion now. And so you're just 1:03:56 maximizing your chances of getting them 1:03:58 to stay. So again, this framework that 1:04:00 I've given you is a tactic of promise, 1:04:02 proof, plan, persona is just because of 1:04:06 first principles and the thinking about 1:04:09 what are the things that a viewer is 1:04:12 questioning as soon as they click on the 1:04:14 video that might lead them to clicking 1:04:16 off because that's the thing you don't 1:04:17 want them to do. So it's like the only 1:04:18 thing you want them to do is keep them 1:04:20 watching. So, if we consider the most 1:04:22 important moment of the video, which is 1:04:24 when skepticism is at an all-time high 1:04:27 and attention allocation is considered 1:04:31 at the highest rate. What are the things 1:04:33 that I can do to minimize the amount of 1:04:35 people that make the decision to click 1:04:36 off because you want to keep everybody 1:04:38 watching. That is the ultimate goal. And 1:04:39 then once you've done that, we move to 1:04:40 the next stage, which is okay, we've 1:04:42 effectively hooked people in. Now, how 1:04:44 do I now keep them watching? Now, in 1:04:46 entertainment niches, you need to do a 1:04:48 lot more voodoo YouTube magic to be able 1:04:50 to keep people watching because this is 1:04:52 where people's attention spans truly are 1:04:54 lower. And yeah, people are just 1:04:56 attention spans are in entertainment 1:04:59 related niches a lot more because the 1:05:01 type of viewers that consume in those 1:05:02 niches often times stereotypically are 1:05:05 the types of viewers that are scrolling 1:05:07 social media and just brain rotting 1:05:10 effectively. Now, if you're in an 1:05:12 educational niche, which are typically 1:05:13 the type of channels that I work with, 1:05:15 but these same principles apply to any 1:05:18 niche, but if you're in an educational 1:05:19 niche, you've got a lot more leeway with 1:05:21 this because people are coming for 1:05:22 specific value and they're not going to 1:05:25 click off your video because you didn't 1:05:28 give an open loop tease of like, you 1:05:30 know, and the last point is going to be, 1:05:32 you know, cuz with that audience, that 1:05:34 can actually turn them off. With an 1:05:35 entertainment audience, that is like 1:05:37 they eat that up, right? So you have to 1:05:39 understand your audience which again it 1:05:41 all comes back to understand your 1:05:42 audience and understanding first 1:05:43 principles and thinking about what your 1:05:44 viewer is thinking at every single stage 1:05:45 of consuming your video. So if you 1:05:46 understand an audience, for example, in 1:05:48 an educational niche, after the hook, 1:05:50 the thing that you need to do as soon as 1:05:52 possible to keep them watching is 1:05:55 shorten the time to value. Because after 1:05:58 you've convinced them to continue 1:06:00 watching, 1:06:01 the only thing that they're looking for 1:06:03 next is any signal 1:06:07 that if they watch the full video, 1:06:08 they're going to get immense value. and 1:06:10 they can predict based on the earlier 1:06:11 part of the video where value is they 1:06:13 begin to give the value that they're 1:06:15 going to get immense value and their 1:06:16 expectations is going to be met forward. 1:06:18 So the time to value in the video is 1:06:20 extremely important cuz that's what they 1:06:22 make that prediction based off of. It's 1:06:23 like a first impression, right? If you 1:06:25 make a bad first impression with 1:06:27 somebody, then their expectation of you 1:06:30 and their outlook on you is already kind 1:06:32 of set and it becomes harder and harder 1:06:34 to undo that expectation and for some 1:06:36 people they make the decision to be like 1:06:37 to cut it off completely. So, for 1:06:39 example, if you walk up to a girl in a 1:06:41 bar and you come across as creepy, you 1:06:43 might have not been creepy. It might 1:06:44 just been that initial body language in 1:06:46 which you came across. Some girls might 1:06:49 give you a bit of a chance, like they 1:06:51 might give you a bit more time to like 1:06:53 make yourself up for it. A lot of girls 1:06:55 would be like, "Ew, go away, Angela. 1:07:00 Angela." [laughter] But like most girls 1:07:03 would do that and you might have been 1:07:04 the best guy. You might have been the 1:07:05 guy for them. If they might have if they 1:07:07 continued speaking to you and you didn't 1:07:08 [ __ ] up the first impression, you guys 1:07:10 might have ended up in a lifelong 1:07:11 relationship and that might have been 1:07:13 your wife. Hopefully not. That's quite a 1:07:15 depressing thought if that actually does 1:07:16 happen. But like you get the point, 1:07:18 right? And in business as well, if the 1:07:21 time to value is too slow and it takes 1:07:23 them too long to get the initial result 1:07:25 beyond what they were expecting, then 1:07:26 you might have got them an amazing 1:07:28 result in 3 months, but because you 1:07:31 didn't get them a fraction of that 1:07:33 result in 7 days, they already think 1:07:35 your service is [ __ ] and they might 1:07:38 leave you before you even have the 1:07:39 chance to actually deliver the full 1:07:41 value. And if they had have stayed, even 1:07:43 though you might have had slower time to 1:07:45 value than what was ideal, they would 1:07:46 have got the full result. And so those 1:07:48 examples I give because this is the same 1:07:50 selfish intent that a viewer has when 1:07:52 consuming a video. They want it for 1:07:53 them. They want value. And so the 1:07:55 quicker that you can give them 1:07:56 significant value in relation to what 1:07:58 they clicked for and what they were 1:08:00 expecting to receive, the sooner they 1:08:01 get that signal and confidence that 1:08:03 okay, oh [ __ ] like this guy's good, you 1:08:05 know, like this creator expert, they are 1:08:08 the person who I should listen to 1:08:09 because they get the evidence. It's not 1:08:11 just them saying it, they're walking the 1:08:13 talk. And so that is the next thing that 1:08:15 is most important. And then it is just 1:08:17 maintaining that like for an educational 1:08:19 audience they don't need these 1:08:22 retention tactics and these things as 1:08:24 much because if a viewer is serious 1:08:26 which hopefully they are if you're 1:08:28 targeting a sophisticated audience then 1:08:31 you just need to give them what they 1:08:32 want but the time to value is really 1:08:35 important there and that can have a 1:08:36 massive impact on retention. Like if you 1:08:38 see that the retention graph didn't drop 1:08:40 off much at the start you can accurately 1:08:42 assume the hook was good. If you see 1:08:44 right after that moment from where the 1:08:45 hoop kind of ends, it goes a little bit 1:08:47 longer flatline and then it drops. 1:08:49 That's a signal that they probably 1:08:50 weren't getting the value quick enough. 1:08:53 This is where you can actually use the 1:08:54 retention graph to actually diagnose 1:08:56 what might be the issue in your video. 1:08:57 If there is certain points where the 1:09:00 gradient just starts to increase 1:09:02 downwards in terms of like at a certain 1:09:04 point, it's probably because they've 1:09:05 been feeling for a little bit and 1:09:06 starting to have this thought of kind of 1:09:09 dragging a bit, not really getting to 1:09:10 value quick enough. And so then more 1:09:12 people dropped off. And so like if you 1:09:14 understand the psychology, if you put 1:09:15 yourself in the viewer's shoes and you 1:09:16 understand the first principles of what 1:09:18 you're trying to achieve and what are 1:09:20 the different things that you can do to 1:09:22 influence whether you achieve it or not, 1:09:24 you can begin to better diagnose the 1:09:26 result of that, right? And then from 1:09:28 there, it's about maintaining that value 1:09:30 consistently. So they should be 1:09:31 continuing to receive that value 1:09:33 throughout the video and maintaining 1:09:34 that pace. I suppose at this point, if 1:09:37 you've done things well, you've probably 1:09:38 got them hooked. like they're probably 1:09:40 there to watch cuz you've gave them the 1:09:41 confidence that you're going to continue 1:09:42 to give that value. So, it's just about 1:09:44 maintaining that and not giving them any 1:09:46 thought of being like, I know that part 1:09:48 was good that I just watched and the 1:09:49 part that I just watched a few minutes 1:09:50 ago was honestly really good, but like 1:09:52 actually I'm starting to get a bit 1:09:52 uncertain again. Not giving them the 1:09:54 opportunity to have that thought. If you 1:09:55 keep that up throughout the video and 1:09:57 you do ultimately fulfill the 1:09:58 expectation because they've watched the 1:10:00 video ultimately throughout the entire 1:10:01 video, they do actually get the outcome. 1:10:03 You've made a good video. If you 1:10:05 actually achieve that and you focus on 1:10:08 achieving that to obviously the greatest 1:10:09 level, by the end of the video, the 1:10:10 viewer actually does feel like they've 1:10:13 achieved the outcome or they've got what 1:10:15 they need to achieve the outcome and 1:10:16 it's actually transformed them 1:10:17 significantly. And you do that 1:10:20 consistently across all the viewers that 1:10:22 watch or at least the ones that you want 1:10:23 to attract and you want the YouTube 1:10:25 algorithm to push the video to more of 1:10:27 the video is going to succeed. It's just 1:10:28 about considering how can you do that at 1:10:30 every single stage. Like what are the 1:10:33 different things that you need to hit on 1:10:34 in order for them to achieve that 1:10:35 outcome? You need to unblock them at 1:10:37 every single stage. If you give them an 1:10:38 educational viewing experience, you need 1:10:40 to make sure you cover everything that 1:10:42 by the end of the video they're like, 1:10:43 "Holy [ __ ] I have everything I need to 1:10:44 achieve this outcome." You need to do 1:10:46 that in the best way. And how do you do 1:10:47 that in the best way? Well, at certain 1:10:49 points, you might need to be screen 1:10:50 sharing, showing the thing that's going 1:10:52 on. Maybe it's through a whiteboard at 1:10:54 certain points. Maybe it's through 1:10:58 editing and in post-prouction 1:11:01 visualizing the thing to assist the 1:11:03 viewing experience. If we think about 1:11:05 these things when we commonly watch 1:11:06 YouTube videos where somebody's doing a 1:11:08 whiteboard format, right? Again, there's 1:11:10 execution formats that just work. But 1:11:12 why do they just work? Well, because for 1:11:14 certain videos, it makes sense as the 1:11:16 educational viewing experience if we 1:11:18 want to maximize viewer satisfaction and 1:11:20 maximize the value that we can give for 1:11:22 it to be a whiteboard. But certain 1:11:24 instances, it doesn't. certain instances 1:11:26 it makes sense for it to be a screen 1:11:28 share. And if you had have done a 1:11:30 talking head video, the viewer wouldn't 1:11:32 have been able to properly follow along. 1:11:34 And sometimes it makes sense for it to 1:11:36 be talking head because if you did 1:11:38 screen recording, it would feel scrappy 1:11:40 and their attention would be diluted 1:11:42 because they're seeing you in the corner 1:11:43 and they're looking at a screen, but 1:11:44 there's no real reason why they're 1:11:45 looking at a screen. And so it would 1:11:46 have been better for it to be talking 1:11:47 head but at the point where things need 1:11:51 to be visualized using post-prouction 1:11:53 editing to be able to visualize those 1:11:55 things and visualizing those things in 1:11:57 the best way. If something is better 1:11:59 visualized through an actual graphic an 1:12:01 animated visual rather than text, you 1:12:04 should make that move. But if something 1:12:06 doesn't need to be animated and we don't 1:12:08 need these flashy effects going on and 1:12:10 the only reason and intention of why 1:12:13 we're wanting to do those is because we 1:12:15 believe it will retain the audience 1:12:16 more, we shouldn't do that because it 1:12:19 might be negatively impacting the viewer 1:12:21 experience. If the viewer is clicking on 1:12:22 the expectation that you're going to 1:12:23 have a raw sitdown conversation with 1:12:26 them, then you would be negatively 1:12:28 impacting the viewing experience and 1:12:30 therefore viewer satisfaction if you had 1:12:32 all the hyper editing. So again, it's 1:12:34 understanding what the viewer wants out 1:12:36 the video based on the expectation that 1:12:38 you set and based on understanding your 1:12:39 audience and what they want and really 1:12:42 planning that out, which is the act of 1:12:44 scripting or outlining so that you can 1:12:47 be confident that you are actually going 1:12:49 to provide the best viewing experience 1:12:51 to the viewers. And that's how you plan 1:12:53 a really good video. And it's just about 1:12:55 recording that, right? And some people 1:12:57 are very competent at doing that on a 1:12:58 whim. they don't need to plan because 1:13:00 for me I'm obviously articulating 1:13:04 all this experience live right now. It 1:13:06 might be a bit extensive and I might be 1:13:08 repeating myself in certain instances 1:13:10 but I know if somebody does listen to 1:13:11 everything I'm saying and really take it 1:13:12 on board. I've covered every single gap. 1:13:15 They know how to grow a YouTube channel 1:13:16 and they they're best equipped to be 1:13:18 able to do that better than any other 1:13:20 video has taught them. the same way that 1:13:22 the video that I posted that absolutely 1:13:24 blew up did. I made sure that I covered 1:13:27 everything from doing YouTube research 1:13:29 in the first place, calling out what 1:13:31 most people did so that I knew that they 1:13:33 would resonate with that because that 1:13:35 was their situation. So, they're like, 1:13:36 "Okay, he knows my situation. He 1:13:38 understands. I'll hear him out." 1:13:39 Teaching them how to do it in a way they 1:13:41 never even heard of how to do it before 1:13:42 because everything else is slop out 1:13:43 there. So, they genuinely were 1:13:44 transformed by that time to value very, 1:13:47 very quick. From there, leading them 1:13:49 through that same process for every 1:13:51 stage, from research to taking that 1:13:53 research into a video idea, giving them 1:13:55 actual actionable stuff for how to 1:13:57 package it through title and thumbnail, 1:13:58 but giving them the underlying tool to 1:14:00 be able to go off and do that 1:14:01 themselves, not just a single tactic, 1:14:03 every single stage all the way to after 1:14:05 the video is posted, how do you take 1:14:07 that data and loop it all the way back 1:14:09 around? And so, I completed the full 1:14:11 loop and paid off the entire expectation 1:14:14 that I set of the most valuable YouTube 1:14:16 training you'll ever watch. if they 1:14:17 actually watch that video might have 1:14:19 been low retention. Maybe I could have 1:14:20 made some micro optimizations here or 1:14:22 there to compress the video more to 1:14:24 increase retention a bit, but it didn't 1:14:26 matter because the people who watched 1:14:28 that video who I attracted had serious 1:14:30 intent to grow their YouTube channel and 1:14:32 I fulfilled on that promise to the best 1:14:33 of my ability. Even with the visual 1:14:35 style of I'm giving a talk which is 1:14:38 subconscious authority visually. I 1:14:40 didn't even have to say anything and 1:14:41 they're like, "Why are people listening 1:14:43 to this guy? He must be somebody. Let me 1:14:44 hear him out." Then I give the auditive 1:14:47 social proof of Gary Vee, many chart 1:14:50 insti while the results are on screen as 1:14:52 well. So then they're convinced that 1:14:54 they want to watch. I gave the plan of 1:14:56 the video. I'm going to show you how to 1:14:58 come up with killer video ideas. I'm 1:14:59 going to show you how to package them, 1:15:01 how to plan them every single stage, how 1:15:03 to use the data to get even better 1:15:05 ideas. So that completed the loop for 1:15:07 them. So they were now sure of like, 1:15:09 okay, this guy really gets my pain 1:15:10 points. This guy really is going to 1:15:12 cover all of them. Then I had the visual 1:15:13 assistance of the presentation to be 1:15:15 able to effectively give the value. 1:15:18 Right? When I was going through the 1:15:19 algorithm of how to do YouTube research, 1:15:21 it was visualized at every single stage. 1:15:23 They understood it. When I was talking 1:15:24 about examples, I had the examples on 1:15:27 screen. When I was talking through a 1:15:29 process, I walked them through that 1:15:31 process visually through the 1:15:32 presentation. I made the decisions that 1:15:34 logically would give the best viewing 1:15:36 experience. And I've really thought 1:15:38 about that upfront. Some people can do 1:15:39 that naturally, most people can't. 1:15:41 Doesn't matter which way you are. 1:15:43 Sometimes I can do that naturally, 1:15:44 sometimes I can't. There's nothing wrong 1:15:46 with either way. But you do need to make 1:15:48 sure that you've got that in place 1:15:49 because that's what makes all the 1:15:50 difference. And that is why that video 1:15:51 succeeded, right? It's the full loop and 1:15:53 then the packaging was correct and 1:15:54 everything because of all the reasons I 1:15:56 described. So that is really how to make 1:15:59 the video the right way. The editing it 1:16:02 also is the exact same process. What 1:16:05 editing style you choose depends on what 1:16:07 the expectation is, what the audience 1:16:09 is, what they want, what's suitable for 1:16:11 that specific video, and the specific 1:16:12 decisions. Not just that's the style, 1:16:14 but the specific decisions you make in 1:16:15 editing of like, do I include this 1:16:17 visual or not at this stage? Do I 1:16:19 animate something now? What do I do in 1:16:21 the hook? It all comes down to that same 1:16:23 underlying psychology of would this 1:16:25 improve the viewing experience or would 1:16:27 this actually degrade the viewing 1:16:28 experience based on what the video is 1:16:30 about, what the expectation is, who the 1:16:32 viewer is. And like that's really 1:16:34 everything in terms of how to make a 1:16:36 good video. 1:16:36 >> So that's the full process from going 1:16:38 from an idea all the way to posting the 1:16:41 video. Once the video's posted, what 1:16:44 data should someone be tracking to know 1:16:46 if that video is working? So once you've 1:16:50 posted a video, the first thing you're 1:16:52 obviously going to want to assess is is 1:16:54 this performing well? Is this not? And 1:16:57 so there's a couple things that I look 1:17:00 at to be able to determine whether 1:17:02 that's the case. Now, one thing a lot of 1:17:04 people get wrong is they'll anxiously 1:17:06 look at YouTube Studio after it's been 1:17:08 posted, refreshing it, and judging it 1:17:11 way too early. And what you don't want 1:17:14 to do is make decisions too early in 1:17:16 terms of changes because you might be 1:17:17 changing something that actually was 1:17:19 originally going to work for something 1:17:20 that actually won't work. If you try and 1:17:21 anxiously diagnose a YouTube video, not 1:17:24 good. You need to be patient and you 1:17:26 need to like look at it levelheaded, 1:17:27 logical. First and foremost, a couple 1:17:29 things I want to address. Clickthrough 1:17:31 rate on its own is not something that 1:17:33 you can look at as a metric. 1:17:34 Clickthrough rate is a noisy metric 1:17:36 because when videos are pushed to your 1:17:38 existing audience, clickthrough rate 1:17:40 will be higher than if it was pushed to 1:17:41 a cold audience naturally because the 1:17:44 existing audience has a bias towards 1:17:45 clicking on your videos. They know your 1:17:47 face. They want to watch your videos. 1:17:50 Likewise, a video that's getting pushed 1:17:52 to the masses, typically we'll see a 1:17:54 click-through rate drop and a lower 1:17:56 click-through rate than maybe typical 1:17:58 because it's getting pushed with broader 1:18:00 and broader audiences because the video 1:18:01 is great. It's doing well for those 1:18:02 broader audiences. But naturally, if 1:18:05 it's getting pushed to broader 1:18:06 audiences, there's going to be more 1:18:07 variation and volatility in whether 1:18:09 somebody would click or not. You can't 1:18:10 use clickthrough rate as a measure for 1:18:12 is this a bad title and thumbnail? Have 1:18:14 I packaged the video bad? because we've 1:18:16 had videos that have gotten hundreds of 1:18:17 thousands of views with a 3 to 4% 1:18:21 clickthrough rate in some instances. And 1:18:23 a lot of these gurus say you need to aim 1:18:25 for a 7 to 10% clickthrough rate, but 1:18:26 it's just it's not the case. Those 1:18:28 videos have generated hundreds of 1:18:29 thousands of dollars. We've also had 1:18:31 videos because we've made thousands. 1:18:32 We've naturally had these videos that 1:18:34 have occurred in the past where they 1:18:36 haven't performed that well and they'll 1:18:38 have a 10 to 20% clickthrough rate. Why? 1:18:40 Because they didn't make it past the 1:18:41 existing audience. And so the same 1:18:43 applies to retention as well. We've had 1:18:45 videos with 6% retention that again have 1:18:48 gotten hundreds of thousands of views 1:18:49 and generated hundreds of thousands of 1:18:50 dollars. The leading indicator is the 1:18:52 number of views. And if you've got a 1:18:53 history on your channel, it's the number 1:18:55 of views that you've got relative to the 1:18:58 time that's been posted relative to what 1:19:00 you typically get. So if you pull up 1:19:01 YouTube Studio and you go into the 1:19:02 analytics of a particular video, you can 1:19:04 see that there is an average time of 1:19:07 which your video will be pushed. there 1:19:09 will be a typical shape of graph 1:19:12 specific to your channel and it's 1:19:14 actually pretty accurate most of the 1:19:17 times. So again, this is not the only 1:19:19 signal. You have to take everything that 1:19:20 I'm mentioning and make decisions based 1:19:22 on all the information that you have. 1:19:24 But typically your video is pushed after 1:19:26 2 or 3 days on your channel or a week or 1:19:28 within the first 10 hours, right? It 1:19:31 there is typical shape of that. And so 1:19:34 you can use that as information, but 1:19:36 it's again just information. It's not 1:19:38 the only signal. So, the views relative 1:19:40 to when it's being posted, how's it 1:19:41 doing? What's the shape of the view 1:19:43 graph as well? Is it climbing up still? 1:19:45 And is it just slowly trickling up? Is 1:19:47 it laddering up? Cuz that's also fine, 1:19:49 too. If it like has a spike up and then 1:19:51 it might the gradient might decrease 1:19:53 significantly, but it's actually still 1:19:54 getting pushed to somewhat of a 1:19:56 significant level. That's sometimes a 1:19:58 good signal that YouTube's just slowed 1:20:00 down the pushing of it, but it's still 1:20:01 testing it because it's still satisfying 1:20:03 an audience and therefore it might pick 1:20:05 up again. But then you've got videos 1:20:06 which spike up and then it's a sharp 1:20:08 flatline drop which 1:20:11 might mean that YouTube pushed it and 1:20:13 it's like whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa we 1:20:14 just got a strong signal of 1:20:16 dissatisfaction or low viewer 1:20:18 satisfaction. Let's hold our horses. 1:20:20 It's not to say that the video won't get 1:20:22 pushed again. It's just like a pretty 1:20:24 sharp signal of okay like it's 1:20:26 information again. It's intake. If the 1:20:28 video is just going like 1:20:30 and it's just continuing to go and go 1:20:32 and go, then that's obviously a good 1:20:34 shape and you're you're good for now, 1:20:36 right? Especially if the gradients 1:20:38 continue to increase and it's already 1:20:40 above what you usually average. 1:20:42 Something's clearly working there, 1:20:43 right? But it doesn't mean that your 1:20:44 video is not going to slope off. So, we 1:20:46 can't make 100% predictions. We're just 1:20:48 taking all the information that we can 1:20:49 and collectively making an assessment. 1:20:51 Another signal that is a strong piece of 1:20:53 information that we can combine with the 1:20:55 other information that we have such as 1:20:56 the view graph shape, such as maybe the 1:20:58 click-through rate and retention in 1:21:00 combination to those things is the 1:21:02 sentiment of comments and the positive 1:21:06 comment to view ratio. How many positive 1:21:09 comments and strong signals from the 1:21:11 comment sections are you getting? How 1:21:13 many units of that are you getting? So, 1:21:15 a comment being a unit per,000 views, 1:21:18 per 100 views. Because if you're getting 1:21:20 an overwhelming amount of organic, not 1:21:23 botted, organic positive comments 1:21:26 saying, "Wow, this video was so 1:21:27 valuable." Or like, "This was the best 1:21:29 video I watched." Or, "How is this video 1:21:31 only got this many views?" Or, "I really 1:21:33 liked how you said this, this, and this. 1:21:35 That really clicked with my brain. 1:21:37 Nobody else has ever spoke about this in 1:21:38 this way." If you're getting that to a 1:21:41 level that seems relative to the views 1:21:43 that you've currently got quite high, 1:21:45 that is one of the strongest signals 1:21:47 that I have seen. that is a leading 1:21:49 indicator of success before it happens 1:21:52 for a given video. That is probably the 1:21:55 strongest signal above all else. So 1:21:56 before you might see that you've got 1:21:58 views that you're satisfied with and 1:22:01 that the view graph is taking a 1:22:02 trajectory that is super exciting and 1:22:05 bullish before you have that if you have 1:22:07 nothing else to go off of that is a 1:22:09 really good signal. If we take my video 1:22:10 for example being a live example of this 1:22:13 and my own example and proof in the 1:22:14 pudding. My video the most valuable 1:22:16 YouTube training you'll ever watch which 1:22:18 was a massive claim to the market 1:22:19 satisfied that claim so well that we had 1:22:21 so many people commenting. I've never 1:22:23 heard anybody give this advice ever 1:22:25 before. This is the best advice I've 1:22:27 received. This video was so good. This 1:22:28 is the best video that I've watched in 1:22:30 the YouTube growth niche. I can't 1:22:31 believe this is free. How is this 1:22:33 channel only at 4,000 subscribers? which 1:22:35 now by the way is at like 11,000 and 1:22:38 probably when you're watching this even 1:22:39 higher. And so those signals 1:22:43 early on before the video it was 1:22:44 performing decently well but we had no 1:22:46 idea where it would go. What we did know 1:22:49 is that people loved it and it was 1:22:50 resonating with the market to such a 1:22:52 statistically significant level that we 1:22:55 could project the broader hypothesis 1:22:58 that more people would have that same 1:23:00 belief and maybe even the entire YouTube 1:23:03 growth consumer market would have that 1:23:05 same feeling that this might be the most 1:23:07 valuable YouTube training that they've 1:23:08 ever watched and that the advice given 1:23:10 in that video beats all the advice from 1:23:12 these other videos and therefore because 1:23:14 of the purpose of the video has higher 1:23:16 viewer satisfaction than all of those 1:23:17 videos, which therefore would get pushed 1:23:20 more than all of those other videos. And 1:23:21 because we also have the title and 1:23:22 thumbnail intact, because we know what 1:23:24 we're doing, and I did my thought on 1:23:26 that, and I went through the diligence 1:23:28 of that, that video would really hit it 1:23:30 off. And it did. The video sits at 1:23:32 currently 460,000 views, getting 1:23:34 thousands of views every hour. I think 1:23:36 it's between like around 5 6,000 views 1:23:39 an hour right now, averaging, and we'll 1:23:40 probably be at over 500,000 views by the 1:23:42 time this is recorded, maybe even more. 1:23:44 Who knows? I was able to make a 1:23:46 prediction. not to a 100% guarantee 1:23:49 level, but an accurate prediction that 1:23:50 that video would do very well. I would 1:23:52 didn't know that it would get 500,000 1:23:53 plus views, but I knew it would be a 1:23:55 video that was worth making and that 1:23:57 would be defined as successful in my 1:23:59 eyes and that I would be satisfied with. 1:24:01 That is probably one of the strongest 1:24:02 signals, but it's everything. You're 1:24:05 taking all the information. The like to 1:24:06 view ratio is another one as well, 1:24:09 right? compared to what you typically 1:24:11 see from a YouTube video on your 1:24:13 channel, maybe on other channels. Are 1:24:15 you getting more likes per 100 views, 1:24:18 per thousand views to a significant 1:24:20 level than what you usually would? And 1:24:22 so that's how you can get early signals 1:24:23 that you've made a YouTube video that's 1:24:25 hitting resonance and might be 1:24:26 successful. And then of course to know 1:24:29 if a YouTube video is succeeding, it's 1:24:31 the outcome metrics which are how many 1:24:34 views did you get? Subscribers is 1:24:36 vanity. We don't care about that. But 1:24:38 it's good signal because it shows did 1:24:39 this video resonate with people watching 1:24:42 to such a degree that it converted 1:24:45 people into pressing the subscribe 1:24:46 button at a high rate despite most 1:24:49 viewers actually knowing that 1:24:50 subscribing to a channel's useless 1:24:52 because they just get fed videos from 1:24:54 the algorithm anyway. So if somebody's 1:24:55 subscribing, it's almost just an active 1:24:57 service because the video is so good. 1:24:59 And so that is to a high percentage. 1:25:00 Again, it's a good indicator, leading 1:25:03 indicator of is this video valuable. So 1:25:05 you see how there's all these different 1:25:06 signals that I'm taking into 1:25:08 consideration that just give more and 1:25:10 more confidence stacked up with each 1:25:12 other that the video is going in the 1:25:14 direction that I want. But yeah, in 1:25:15 terms of the actual success of a video, 1:25:18 if it was successful or not, it's the 1:25:20 outcomes that matter such as views and 1:25:22 then conversions. Views is the best 1:25:25 leading outcome metric because 1:25:28 conversions might not sometimes happen 1:25:31 as the views are happening. If you're 1:25:33 selling a high ticket product, for 1:25:34 example, off your YouTube channel, you 1:25:36 can't judge if the video is successful 1:25:38 within a week of being posted based off 1:25:40 of the high ticket sales because your 1:25:42 typical conversion cycle for somebody 1:25:45 learning who you are to actually 1:25:46 converting them might be longer than a 1:25:48 week, which is typical, right? But views 1:25:52 combined with the logic of looking at 1:25:54 your title and thumbnail and the type of 1:25:56 viewer that you've attracted based on 1:25:57 the type of comments you're getting, 1:25:58 you're able to assume the type of viewer 1:26:00 that you've attracted. And if that was 1:26:03 mostly the target market that you were 1:26:05 going after, if a low percentage of it 1:26:07 was your target market that you're going 1:26:08 after because it went broader, you can 1:26:10 kind of make that assumption as to how 1:26:13 much of the views that I got is probably 1:26:15 my target market. That sort of blended 1:26:19 metric/kpi 1:26:21 is the best thing to look at. I am 1:26:22 looking at views because that is 1:26:24 ultimately the data for me to then make 1:26:26 a decision of did this video succeed and 1:26:29 then you know after a longer time period 1:26:30 of the video being posted we can make a 1:26:32 proper assessment on was this successful 1:26:35 and attracting the right audience that 1:26:36 actually converted so you can further 1:26:38 diagnose was it successful in that area 1:26:40 or did I actually fail in that area 1:26:41 despite getting a lot of views. There 1:26:43 are some indicators that are more 1:26:45 leading than conversions that you can 1:26:47 look at if you are wanting to actually 1:26:50 monetize your YouTube channel through 1:26:51 your products and services and grow your 1:26:53 business, which are obviously link 1:26:55 clicks, leads, booked calls because 1:26:59 these happen much earlier than the 1:27:01 conversion. So link clicks can happen 1:27:03 pretty immediately. So you can see if a 1:27:06 video is driving value to such a level 1:27:08 and resonating to the audience that 1:27:10 you've attracted to such a level to 1:27:11 where they are willing to take action 1:27:13 beyond a subscribe or beyond watching 1:27:15 more videos on your channel or beyond 1:27:17 leaving a positive comment. Right? And 1:27:18 then the leads which is a relatively low 1:27:21 friction way of showing intent because 1:27:23 it's just opting into something which is 1:27:25 free. It's not committing to a sales 1:27:27 call for example and it's definitely not 1:27:28 giving their money over. That is the 1:27:29 next layer which is also very good. But 1:27:31 you can only judge those if you've got 1:27:33 significant amount of data to work with. 1:27:35 Like if you haven't got a,000 views on 1:27:36 your video yet, it's pointless looking 1:27:38 at those metrics cuz you haven't got a 1:27:39 large enough sample size of data to be 1:27:41 able to know whether you're getting a 1:27:43 lot of link clicks for your video and 1:27:45 you're even going to convert somebody. 1:27:46 Right? Those are the different metrics 1:27:47 that I look at outcome-wise to determine 1:27:50 if my video is successful. successful 1:27:52 being defined as what is successful in 1:27:54 my eyes based on what my goals are with 1:27:56 the videos and the channel overall and 1:27:59 the leading indicators before those 1:28:01 outcomes happen. So I can predict on 1:28:05 whether it will achieve the outcomes 1:28:07 that I want or whether I can predict 1:28:09 that currently as things stand it might 1:28:12 not. So that maybe I might need to think 1:28:15 about what changes might I and 1:28:19 potentially should I make in order to 1:28:22 increase the chances of changing that 1:28:25 prediction and that hypothesis. And so 1:28:27 like this is where you start to get into 1:28:29 should you make a thumbnail change or 1:28:30 not, right? Like once you've got these 1:28:32 things like, okay, the views are getting 1:28:34 less than they usually would. That's 1:28:36 typical to the average on my channel. 1:28:38 and the click-through rate is low and 1:28:42 you can even diagnose further the 1:28:45 click-through rate by traffic source. So 1:28:47 you can see if it's getting lower than 1:28:48 what it usually would get even with your 1:28:50 existing audience and see what it's 1:28:52 getting with the browse traffic that 1:28:54 might be more cold. So you can really 1:28:56 dig into the data and again take all 1:28:58 that information as well as with the 1:29:00 logical qualitative data slash view of 1:29:04 just looking at your thumbnail and using 1:29:06 looking at the data looking at your 1:29:08 thumbnail and thinking does it make 1:29:09 sense why it might be lower and is there 1:29:11 things that I can change in order to 1:29:13 make it higher. That's how you start to 1:29:15 make those decisions or if views are 1:29:17 lower than what they usually are and 1:29:18 there's a sharp retention drop off 1:29:20 midway through the video. What happened 1:29:22 at that part of the video that caused 1:29:24 that? Oh, I gave a call to action and 1:29:26 the call to action was conveyed in a way 1:29:28 that was hard. Okay, I want this video 1:29:31 to succeed. I'm willing to sacrifice 1:29:33 conversions a bit because if I don't get 1:29:35 performance on the video, giving the 1:29:36 call to action issues useless anyway. 1:29:38 Let me go into the YouTube editor even 1:29:40 after it's being posted and let me try 1:29:41 see if I can cut that segment out. Oh, 1:29:44 I've cut that segment out. The video 1:29:45 started taking off. Right? So like you 1:29:47 can't always predict an impact that a 1:29:48 decision will have on like making a 1:29:50 change for example, but naturally you 1:29:53 just want to make the better decisions 1:29:54 that are in favor of giving you the best 1:29:56 chance, right? And so you just make that 1:29:58 diagnosis. You really look at the data 1:30:01 and the data isn't the thing that tells 1:30:02 you something. It tells you where to 1:30:04 look. So the data doesn't tell you what 1:30:05 to do. The analytics don't tell you what 1:30:07 to do. A low clickthrough rate doesn't 1:30:09 tell you to make a thumbnail change, but 1:30:11 it might tell you to look further into 1:30:13 that. So leading indicators 1:30:15 predictive of potential success to the 1:30:18 closest that level that you can get 1:30:21 and also potentially predictive to 1:30:24 failure 1:30:25 before it happens so that you have 1:30:27 enough time to make the change in order 1:30:28 to get the outcome that you want. The 1:30:30 outcome metrics are obviously what you 1:30:31 ultimately want. Views being the most 1:30:33 leading version of that. Link clicks 1:30:35 next, leads next, so on and so forth 1:30:37 every stage down the funnel to the sale 1:30:39 which has the longest conversion cycle. 1:30:40 And so you might not actually receive 1:30:42 accurate data on that outcome metric. 1:30:44 And therefore whether that video was 1:30:45 successful, if that is the conversion 1:30:47 event that you are optimizing for until 1:30:50 your sales cycle has played out from the 1:30:53 moment of which you started to get a lot 1:30:54 of views. For me, for example, the 1:30:56 YouTube video that I posted which got 1:30:58 400,000 plus views to date. Well, that 1:31:00 video was very successful from the 1:31:03 conversion event that I was optimizing 1:31:04 for within the first week. So that was 1:31:08 the fact that my conversion cycle was 1:31:10 usually longer than that because I've 1:31:11 built a business to over $500,000 a 1:31:13 month and so I've got enough data and 1:31:14 clients to know what my average 1:31:16 conversion cycle is from somebody 1:31:18 learning about me to actually paying me 1:31:20 money for my service. It was getting 1:31:23 conversions way quicker than what I 1:31:26 would have expected. People were going 1:31:28 from not knowing about me to watching 1:31:29 that 30 minute video of me and within a 1:31:32 couple of days paying me 5,000$10,000 1:31:35 plus dollars a month just like that from 1:31:38 only knowing me for 30 minutes and 1:31:39 potentially binge watching all my 1:31:40 videos. And it wasn't just a couple 1:31:44 people doing that. It was 10 20 plus 1:31:47 people doing that. In total, we've added 1:31:49 over $100,000 in monthly recurring 1:31:52 revenue from that video from just a week 1:31:54 of it being posted. Right? That is 1:31:56 people who are paying me5 $10,000 a 1:31:58 month with the intention of investing 1:32:01 into that forever because it's to grow 1:32:04 their YouTube channel. They're not 1:32:05 planning on just doing that one time or 1:32:07 for 3 months. That's an intention to 1:32:09 commit forever. They expect to pay me 1:32:10 hundreds of thousands of dollars if 1:32:11 things go well. And they've done that 1:32:13 from a 30-minute video not knowing me 1:32:16 beforehand. And so it's already made me 1:32:18 over $100,000 that one video within a 1:32:20 week of it being posted. But lifetime 1:32:23 that video will probably net me over a 1:32:25 million dollars. 1:32:27 and it's only been posted for seven days 1:32:28 and I've already got that pred right. So 1:32:30 like that is the definition of 1:32:32 [clears throat] a successful video and 1:32:33 so I know that video has worked and so I 1:32:34 can now really dig into what works so 1:32:38 well about that video because it is 1:32:39 worth it for my time to really go into 1:32:41 that to get to the bottom of that 1:32:43 because if I can just replicate that and 1:32:45 compound that over and over again 1:32:47 because also expecting that that video 1:32:49 that I've posted will continue to get 1:32:50 hundreds of views per day. If I can 1:32:52 replicate that it's going to be 1:32:53 exponential, right? That's how I think 1:32:55 about it. 1:32:56 >> That's really 1:32:58 insane. [laughter] 1:33:00 >> I think viewing videos almost like 1:33:03 million dollars, million dollars, 1:33:04 million dollars. Like actually being 1:33:06 able to see and know how much you're 1:33:09 making from it is it's it's insane. 1:33:12 >> Yeah. 1:33:12 >> So that's the data that you track. Once 1:33:14 you've got that data, what do you 1:33:16 actually use it for? Once a video 1:33:17 succeeds, 1:33:20 you can then really diagnose why it 1:33:22 succeeded, you know? So it's like every 1:33:24 time you post a YouTube video, you want 1:33:25 to figure out if it succeeded, why it 1:33:27 succeeded, what was done differently 1:33:28 about that video versus your other 1:33:30 videos that made it succeed. So the same 1:33:32 way you find out the reasons why other 1:33:35 videos that weren't yours succeeded, you 1:33:38 figure out why they succeeded for you, 1:33:39 but for you, you evaluate not just why 1:33:41 they succeeded in terms of views and 1:33:42 these public facing metrics that you saw 1:33:45 with the other videos, but also the 1:33:46 internal metrics such as the 1:33:48 conversions. Like why did this video not 1:33:50 only get so many views, but why did it 1:33:51 convert so well? and like really getting 1:33:54 to the bottom of that and not settling 1:33:56 for not getting to the bottom of that 1:33:57 and just considering the surface level 1:34:00 of it because if you can really figure 1:34:01 that out and you can get clear on that 1:34:03 and it can click, you can now take that 1:34:05 forward with every other video that you 1:34:07 make. But the exact same also goes for 1:34:09 if a video doesn't succeed because an 1:34:12 upload that doesn't succeed isn't 1:34:13 necessarily bad. It's going to happen if 1:34:17 you can identify why didn't it succeed. 1:34:19 It's actually good because you have to 1:34:22 test on YouTube. Marketing is really 1:34:24 just another word for testing. And 1:34:25 obviously testing with calculated risk 1:34:27 if you're an intelligent marketer and 1:34:29 YouTube is just marketing. And so you 1:34:32 have to test, you have to fail, but it's 1:34:34 what you do after the failure that 1:34:35 matters. And so if I do a video that 1:34:37 flops and I can diagnose, if I can get 1:34:39 to the bottom of this was a banger 1:34:41 video, but the reason why I didn't 1:34:43 succeed is because the topic was just 1:34:45 too niche. I know not to do that topic 1:34:47 the next time. If I diagnose the topic 1:34:49 was actually amazing, but the title was 1:34:53 kind of wishy-washy and I used a format 1:34:56 that actually now that I look into it in 1:34:58 hindsight doesn't actually have a super 1:35:00 high success rate because lots of other 1:35:02 people failed with using that. Even 1:35:04 though some people might have succeeded 1:35:05 massively with it, it was a bit hit or 1:35:07 miss the format that I used. And it made 1:35:09 sense why? Because when I look at that 1:35:10 title format and the way in which it 1:35:12 packages topics, it actually makes sense 1:35:14 why it doesn't stand out that well and 1:35:15 doesn't strike a nerve because it's not 1:35:16 really anything that's like too special. 1:35:19 Then I can assume that okay, I probably 1:35:22 should not use that format going 1:35:24 forward. And maybe both of the topic and 1:35:26 the title was really good. But when I 1:35:28 diagnose the video itself again, I see 1:35:30 that there might have been a sharp 1:35:31 retention drop off midv video. Okay, I 1:35:34 know not to give call to actions in that 1:35:37 way the next time. how can I give a 1:35:38 better call to action for my specific 1:35:40 videos to my specific market? Right? And 1:35:42 so it's that learning process that over 1:35:45 time if you go through that feedback 1:35:47 loop of making a video, getting a 1:35:50 result, good or bad, analyzing that 1:35:52 result to get feedback, positive or 1:35:54 negative, implementing that feedback and 1:35:57 taking new actions the next time in the 1:35:59 next video, you're implementing new 1:36:01 action, new knowledge in your operating 1:36:03 system towards YouTube to produce a new 1:36:06 result. you get a new result. You 1:36:08 analyze that, you take that feedback 1:36:10 again, new new action, new action 1:36:13 squared, and you iterate through that 1:36:16 through that cycle. And if you actually 1:36:17 are disciplined enough to do that, you 1:36:19 take YouTube seriously enough to where 1:36:21 you really treat it like, you know, a 1:36:23 game of iteration and constantly 1:36:25 identifying what was the bottleneck of 1:36:26 this video, what was the limiting 1:36:28 factor, if it was succeeding, what were 1:36:30 the factors that drove its success. So 1:36:32 you're collecting both the things that 1:36:33 are driving your channel to succeed and 1:36:35 also the things that are potentially 1:36:36 holding it back and you're removing the 1:36:38 things that are potentially holding it 1:36:39 back and replacing it with new things 1:36:41 that might be untested. It's calculated 1:36:43 risk but you haven't tested it yet for 1:36:45 your channel in your situation and you 1:36:47 test that but then that might become a 1:36:48 new success driver, right? And so you're 1:36:51 continuously removing the limiting 1:36:52 factors, stacking more success drivers 1:36:56 until you've really got minimal limiting 1:36:59 factors. you really have no limiting 1:37:01 factors and you just continuously, you 1:37:03 know, you get a really good grasp on 1:37:05 what drives your channel forward. If you 1:37:06 actually do that, like there's no way 1:37:08 you can fail. But it's just most people 1:37:10 don't do that. Well, like that's the 1:37:11 true reason why YouTube is a consistency 1:37:12 game. And YouTube takes time. You can 1:37:14 shortcut a lot of the time and learnings 1:37:19 by doing the things that I've talked 1:37:20 about in this video. And if you do that 1:37:23 up front, you're going to minimize the 1:37:25 failures. But still, no matter how much 1:37:28 you do of that, failures are still going 1:37:30 to happen and that's fine. But be 1:37:34 intelligent about the way you go about 1:37:36 things when you get those failures so 1:37:38 that you can minimize them more and more 1:37:40 and more, right? And so that is really 1:37:42 the complete loop from learning the 1:37:44 foundations of coming up with good 1:37:47 ideas, not just good ideas, but the best 1:37:49 ideas in your market that logically 1:37:51 backed by data, but also first 1:37:54 principles make sense why they would 1:37:56 beat the other videos in your market. 1:37:58 It's also how when you have those video 1:38:00 ideas and you present them and package 1:38:02 them correctly and you've gotten the 1:38:04 click, how you actually turn that into a 1:38:06 video that succeeds. It keeps the 1:38:08 viewers watching. It satisfies them to a 1:38:10 level to where the YouTube algorithm 1:38:12 will continue to push it to an extent to 1:38:14 which you're satisfied with because you 1:38:16 get the results that you want. And it's 1:38:18 how you after posting that video, you 1:38:21 can determine on whether the video 1:38:23 succeeded or failed. You can also 1:38:26 determine earlier on before it succeeded 1:38:29 or failed. Can you do anything about it 1:38:32 to make it succeed if it looks like it 1:38:34 might be failing? Or if you haven't seen 1:38:38 it succeed yet, is it potentially going 1:38:40 to succeed because of the leading 1:38:42 indicators? And then once you've got the 1:38:44 outcome of okay, it succeeded, it 1:38:46 failed. Doing that analysis of why in 1:38:49 the failures there's going to be things 1:38:51 you did well that you should continue to 1:38:53 take forward and continue to do. And 1:38:54 there's going to be things that you did 1:38:55 wrong. Obviously, otherwise wouldn't 1:38:56 have failed. With a video that 1:38:58 succeeded, there's going to be things 1:38:59 that were done well, obviously, because 1:39:00 it succeeded. But there's also 1:39:02 potentially going to be things that you 1:39:03 could have done better that if you 1:39:04 didn't have in that video 1:39:04 [clears throat] or you didn't do with 1:39:05 that video, the video would have 1:39:07 succeeded even greater. So, even in the 1:39:08 positive videos that succeeded, there's 1:39:11 still learnings 1:39:13 that you want to get in order to improve 1:39:15 your videos going forward to get even 1:39:16 better results. Just like how with the 1:39:19 Gary Vee video that I made, the first 1:39:20 Gary Vee video, 300,000 views. That's 1:39:23 amazing. Most people just celebrate that 1:39:24 and be like, "Oh, cool. we're going to 1:39:26 blow up the channel. Now, what I did 1:39:28 instead was I really analyzed, okay, 1:39:29 this video succeeded. Why did it 1:39:30 succeed? And I realized, okay, the new 1:39:33 rules of format clearly struck a nerve. 1:39:35 People are clearly wanting videos around 1:39:37 the shifts of social media. They're 1:39:39 really resonating with that, which was 1:39:40 also backed by examples such as social 1:39:43 media is about to change forever and 1:39:44 nobody even realizes by a completely 1:39:46 different channel, and you're not ready 1:39:47 for the next phase of social media by a 1:39:49 completely different channel. So, I know 1:39:51 that there was demand around the shift 1:39:52 videos and that further confirmed that. 1:39:54 But then I was like, what potentially 1:39:55 held this video back? How could I have 1:39:56 made a video that succeeded even more? 1:39:59 And so I knew it wasn't the idea because 1:40:01 the idea was already very strong. And so 1:40:04 I started to diagnose the content. And I 1:40:06 was like, "This is a great video, but 1:40:08 how could I have made this video 1:40:09 better?" Because the total addressable 1:40:11 market of the social media niche is in 1:40:13 the millions. There's no reason why this 1:40:14 video couldn't have gotten a million 1:40:16 views. So the limiting factor had to 1:40:18 have been the content. And the video was 1:40:20 good, but I was like, "Okay, how could 1:40:22 it be made better?" And Gary is the 1:40:25 social media guy. He is known for 1:40:26 calling his shots when it came to social 1:40:28 media. Like back when newspapers were 1:40:30 the thing, he was live streaming and he 1:40:32 was on that live stream. He was saying 1:40:33 social media is going to be this next 1:40:34 big thing when people called him crazy 1:40:36 for it. He's been known for predicting 1:40:37 these things. And one of the most recent 1:40:40 predictions he made was that we're no 1:40:43 longer in social media anymore. We're in 1:40:46 interest media. This was his new 1:40:48 narrative that he was calling a shot on. 1:40:50 I knew this because I go very deep on 1:40:52 the research with my clients to the 1:40:53 point where off the platform of YouTube 1:40:56 and I saw that these videos were being 1:40:58 posted on Instagram and these videos 1:41:00 were getting millions of views. These 1:41:01 were outliers on Instagram for him. His 1:41:04 typical videos would get hundreds of 1:41:06 thousands on short form which is much 1:41:07 easier to get views on and these videos 1:41:10 were getting millions and millions 1:41:11 around interest media which have 1:41:13 validated that people were resonating 1:41:15 with this message of we're not on social 1:41:17 media anymore we're in interest media 1:41:19 because with short form content the 1:41:21 content is the entire idea unlike with 1:41:24 YouTube because the packaging has an 1:41:26 influence play at YouTube with short 1:41:28 form it's the message the message is 1:41:30 what carries fully because it's the hook 1:41:32 of what was said which in his case 1:41:33 because we're not in social media 1:41:35 anymore. We're in interest media. And 1:41:37 then the content of explaining that that 1:41:40 that is it. That is the piece of 1:41:41 content. And so if the video succeeded 1:41:43 to a statistically significant level, it 1:41:45 must have struck a nerve with the target 1:41:47 market that that reached more than any 1:41:50 of his other content. So because of 1:41:51 that, I could make that assessment that 1:41:55 people really resonated with this angle 1:41:57 backed by data. But nobody had made a 1:42:00 video about that on YouTube in detail 1:42:02 about how we're in interest media now. 1:42:05 We're no longer in social media. Even 1:42:07 though people were talking about the 1:42:10 shifts that were happening on social 1:42:12 media and what that meant for the 1:42:14 viewer, etc. People were making those 1:42:15 videos on YouTube, but they hadn't made 1:42:18 one video just around that narrative. So 1:42:20 because I identified the potential 1:42:22 bottleneck of that first video that we 1:42:23 made despite being successful by a 10 to 1:42:25 20x multiple getting 300k views, I still 1:42:28 diagnosed that the reason why it didn't 1:42:29 succeed further was because of the fact 1:42:33 that the content could have been 1:42:35 potentially a bit stronger even though 1:42:36 the content was good. And then because I 1:42:39 saw this proof that this content that 1:42:43 Gary was making around interest media 1:42:45 even in a short form format was amazing 1:42:49 content because backed by data it drove 1:42:51 high viewer satisfaction on short form 1:42:53 platforms. I thought well what if we 1:42:55 take that and we just make one long form 1:42:58 video on it which hadn't been done 1:42:59 before. Nobody had done that because 1:43:01 people were resonating with us so hard 1:43:03 and so that's what we constructed. We 1:43:04 took all the content that existed of 1:43:07 Gary across the internet of where he 1:43:08 spoke about interest media. We 1:43:10 structured the video in a way from this 1:43:12 pre-recorded content. By the way, he 1:43:13 didn't even record it in a way that it 1:43:15 delivered on that promise. So, in the 1:43:17 hook, it was like we're not in social 1:43:18 media anymore. We're in interest media. 1:43:20 And then it explained it and then it had 1:43:21 the proof part as well about the 1:43:23 results. So, we like we construct the 1:43:24 video in that way. And then we found the 1:43:26 best way to package it, which was 1:43:28 similar to the first one, but it fit 1:43:31 this video more, which was the new era 1:43:34 of social media has just begun because 1:43:36 this is it. It's a new era, right? We're 1:43:38 not in social media anymore. We're in 1:43:40 the new era of social media, which is 1:43:41 interest media. So, the title really fit 1:43:44 that well. And the way we came up with 1:43:45 that title was through our previous 1:43:46 process of this was a format that I 1:43:48 actually came up with. I invented this 1:43:49 format. I did it for a client in the 1:43:51 LinkedIn niche, which was the new era of 1:43:53 LinkedIn had just begun. The reason why 1:43:54 I did that and I made it up and I took 1:43:56 that risk was because all of the other 1:43:58 current formats for shift videos had 1:44:00 been done in that niche. So I had to 1:44:01 figure out, okay, how do I still take 1:44:03 that same underlying psychology of why 1:44:06 those videos work but stand out without 1:44:08 copying videos that have already been 1:44:09 done in the niche with that format. And 1:44:11 that's how I invented that. People took 1:44:12 that to other niches, saw amazing 1:44:14 success. And so I basically put the two 1:44:16 and two together and I created that 1:44:17 video. And that video is the one that 1:44:18 currently sits at over 700,000 views and 1:44:20 it's on its way to a million views, 1:44:22 million long form views. So from 10,000 1:44:26 views per video to a million is where 1:44:29 that video is going, right? But even if 1:44:30 we just take the concept of he's getting 1:44:32 hundreds of thousands of views per video 1:44:33 of the videos that we've made for him 1:44:35 and that one's got 700,000 views to date 1:44:37 as the time recording this. So that's an 1:44:39 application of that. Even with a 1:44:41 successful video, I was still obsessed 1:44:44 about how could we have made this 1:44:45 better? How could we achieve the bigger 1:44:47 and bigger numbers? And obviously I'm 1:44:48 doing the same for the negatives too. So 1:44:50 that's like an actual application of 1:44:52 that too. S salty salty. 1:44:55 So I guess that's pretty much the full 1:44:57 process then of starting finishing and 1:45:00 everything in between. My next follow-up 1:45:02 question would be a lot of people 1:45:03 watching this now will think that 1:45:05 whatever they do is boring or they have 1:45:07 nothing interesting to see or just 1:45:09 nobody wants to watch a video about them 1:45:11 or what they have to do. What would you 1:45:13 say to them? [sighs] 1:45:15 >> I would say that everybody uses YouTube. 1:45:18 Everybody uses it. It's the second 1:45:21 biggest most visited website on the 1:45:24 planet. Second biggest search engine in 1:45:26 the world. YouTube videos are 1:45:27 recommended by ChachiBT, Gemini, all 1:45:30 these AI models and these LLMs. It's 1:45:33 suggested in those. There's basically no 1:45:35 way that people can escape watching 1:45:37 YouTube videos. Everybody has to watch 1:45:40 YouTube videos because it's not just on 1:45:42 YouTube, the platform that people have 1:45:44 to be on to watch YouTube videos. It's 1:45:46 on Google, so on and so forth, right? 1:45:48 And so with that said, as long as the 1:45:52 people that you're trying to target and 1:45:54 capture are on the internet, they will 1:45:57 naturally watch YouTube videos or they 1:45:59 will receive the information that you 1:46:00 give in those YouTube videos. And it 1:46:02 doesn't matter how boring the things 1:46:05 that you might consider are boring 1:46:07 you're talking about are, they're not 1:46:09 boring to your target market. Tessa Dam 1:46:12 speaks about insulin. Now, quite 1:46:14 frankly, no disrespect to Tessa. She's 1:46:17 my client and she's an amazing woman and 1:46:19 very good at what she does. But I don't 1:46:21 care about insulin and I definitely 1:46:23 don't care about how it applies to it to 1:46:25 females because well, as you can see, 1:46:29 [laughter] you never know. 1:46:32 But it's interesting to the target 1:46:33 market because they have a problem. They 1:46:36 want to lose fat. And it's exciting to 1:46:39 them the thought that this like unique 1:46:42 mechanism of insulin which they haven't 1:46:44 heard as a typical way to lose fat 1:46:46 before they can control that and reach 1:46:48 their desired outcome as a result of it. 1:46:50 Like that's exciting to them. It's like 1:46:52 a discovery. And so this goes the same 1:46:55 for loads and loads of niches. I don't 1:46:58 find gardening interesting. People are 1:47:01 super passionate about gardening and 1:47:02 some people would pay thousands of 1:47:04 dollars to get better at gardening for 1:47:06 gardening products, so on and so forth. 1:47:09 Not everyone's interested in business. I 1:47:11 watch loads of business videos. And so, 1:47:13 like, it's not boring for the people who 1:47:15 you actually want to build an audience 1:47:17 around. And because everybody on planet 1:47:20 Earth who uses the internet watches 1:47:23 YouTube videos or receives the 1:47:26 information in YouTube videos in some 1:47:27 way, even if it's in the form of an AI 1:47:30 model delivering the information that 1:47:32 was in the transcript of your YouTube 1:47:34 video, they can receive your information 1:47:36 and you can build that audience. 1:47:39 So 1:47:40 if people are hesitant for that reason 1:47:42 because they think they're too boring or 1:47:43 they think what they talk about is too 1:47:45 boring or they wonder is the people that 1:47:49 would be interested in that are they 1:47:51 going to watch the YouTube video how is 1:47:53 it going to find them? Everybody watches 1:47:55 YouTube and if you make a good enough 1:47:56 video the YouTube algorithm is 1:47:58 intelligent enough to seek them out. The 1:48:00 YouTube algorithm wants to serve its 1:48:03 users with the videos that it believes 1:48:06 those viewers will be interested in. 1:48:08 will click on, will watch, will be 1:48:10 satisfied with, which then in turn keeps 1:48:11 them on the platform because they've 1:48:13 provided them with an good viewing 1:48:14 experience and what they wanted. So, 1:48:15 they will naturally gravitate towards 1:48:17 using that platform more. And so, it's 1:48:19 in their best interest as an algorithm 1:48:21 to optimize for that. And YouTube's been 1:48:24 around for a pretty long time and it's a 1:48:26 pretty big company, so it's got a pretty 1:48:29 good algorithm. And so, it knows who 1:48:31 your target market is. It knows how to 1:48:33 find them. And so it just comes down to 1:48:35 you making the right video and making 1:48:38 the video right. The algorithm will do 1:48:39 the rest. 1:48:40 >> If someone starts a YouTube channel 1:48:41 today with no audience, no brand, 1:48:43 nothing. What should they do? 1:48:45 >> First step, understand the audience that 1:48:47 you're attracting. So some people say 1:48:49 pick a niche. Your niche might already 1:48:51 be predetermined if you run a business 1:48:53 and you know the audience that you're 1:48:54 targeting. But if it's not, then you 1:48:57 need to figure out and decide what do 1:49:00 you want to build a channel around. What 1:49:02 do you want to be known for? What 1:49:04 audience do you want to build? And if 1:49:06 you are planning to monetize, even if 1:49:08 you don't have a product right now, what 1:49:09 do you think you would want to monetize 1:49:11 around? And therefore, what audience do 1:49:12 you need to attract in order to monetize 1:49:14 in that way? Understand that audience to 1:49:16 such a deep level. Understand their 1:49:19 demographics, their psychoraphics, 1:49:22 exactly who they are, exactly how they 1:49:24 think, and exactly what gets them to 1:49:26 tick and what they resonate with. And 1:49:28 therefore, when it comes to the stage of 1:49:31 consideration of what title and 1:49:33 thumbnail do I use to get their 1:49:34 attention and get them to click, how do 1:49:36 I need to structure this video and what 1:49:37 value do I need to deliver in order to 1:49:38 deliver satisfaction, you're able to 1:49:40 actually accurately do that. That's the 1:49:42 first step first and foremost because 1:49:44 that influences the quality of decision 1:49:47 that you can make at all of the future 1:49:48 levels that I'm about to discuss. The 1:49:50 second stage is gaining understanding 1:49:53 and awareness of YouTube both in terms 1:49:55 of what's in your niche and what 1:49:57 specifically your target market wants 1:49:59 and is proven to want and what they 1:50:01 already resonate with and also in terms 1:50:03 of broadlevel YouTube so that you 1:50:06 develop an understanding of what is 1:50:08 working on the platform right now in 1:50:10 today's market and why are those things 1:50:12 working. So, this is the act of 1:50:14 conducting YouTube research. And you 1:50:15 should be doing this consistently every 1:50:18 single day as much as possible to be 1:50:20 able to build the understanding and 1:50:22 awareness of what works on the platform 1:50:24 and why as fast as possible. Because 1:50:27 that combined with understanding your 1:50:29 audience and first principles thinking 1:50:32 is what will allow you to be able to 1:50:34 step into your niche and understand what 1:50:37 are the right potential videos to make, 1:50:38 where are the gaps in the market, so on 1:50:40 and so forth. During this YouTube 1:50:41 research, look for videos that have 1:50:43 performed outstandingly well. Videos 1:50:44 that have succeeded five, 10, 20, 100 1:50:47 times better than the average video on 1:50:48 that channel. Make sure the traffic has 1:50:50 came organically from YouTube. Make sure 1:50:52 that there's enough comments that would 1:50:54 make it make logical sense that that 1:50:56 traffic is organic because proportional 1:50:58 to the amount of views that it has, it 1:50:59 has a good number of comments. Make sure 1:51:01 that the view graph using free YouTube 1:51:04 extensions show you the view graph. Make 1:51:05 sure that looks organic so that you know 1:51:07 the traffic is real. understand the 1:51:09 reason why that video succeeded so that 1:51:11 you can gain insight from that. Because 1:51:13 it's all good finding videos that 1:51:14 perform outstandingly well, but if you 1:51:15 don't actually know why it really 1:51:17 succeeded, you may take the wrong 1:51:19 insights over and you don't actually 1:51:21 gain any knowledge from it. Keep doing 1:51:22 that, repeating that process and do that 1:51:25 as much as possible through the act of 1:51:26 YouTube research. Do that across 1:51:28 multiple different niches to gain a 1:51:30 broad view and not a narrowsighted view 1:51:33 so that you have as much awareness as 1:51:35 possible. Then step into your niche. 1:51:37 Research your niche using the exact same 1:51:39 process. Look for the videos that have 1:51:41 performed outstandingly well. Look for 1:51:42 the channels that are succeeding, but 1:51:44 with the knowledge that you've obtained 1:51:46 from everything that you've done outside 1:51:48 of your niche on YouTube. Use that to 1:51:51 hypothesize potential gaps in the 1:51:53 market. And that is where the ideas come 1:51:56 from. from seeing what people are 1:51:58 resonating with elsewhere and 1:51:59 understanding the reason as to why and 1:52:01 then applying that information, 1:52:03 knowledge and insight to your niche 1:52:05 where the other people in your niche 1:52:07 don't have that same level of insight 1:52:08 and that's where you can take over. 1:52:10 That's where the video ideas come from. 1:52:12 From, for example, in common cases, 1:52:15 finding titles that have worked in other 1:52:17 niches, taking them over to your niche, 1:52:19 but because you understand why, and 1:52:21 because you understand that the reason 1:52:22 why they worked in those niches with the 1:52:24 viewers that are consuming in those 1:52:25 niches transfers over to the reasons why 1:52:28 somebody would be interested in clicking 1:52:30 in that same type of title in your niche 1:52:32 with the viewers that are in your niche 1:52:33 and their behaviors. Do the exact same 1:52:35 for the thumbnails. And there you have 1:52:37 your video idea because you've already 1:52:39 identified which topics have demand in 1:52:41 your niche and you've validated that as 1:52:43 well. When you've got your video idea, 1:52:45 understand if you're taking inspiration 1:52:47 from any particular videos or formats of 1:52:49 videos. If there is a particular type of 1:52:51 execution style that is typically used 1:52:55 with that type of video you taken 1:52:57 inspiration from, understand that that 1:52:59 might have been part of the reason why 1:53:00 the video has succeeded. And therefore, 1:53:02 you should probably take that same 1:53:03 structure to your video because if you 1:53:05 don't, you're losing one of the 1:53:06 potential reasons why that video 1:53:08 succeeded in the first place. And 1:53:09 therefore, if you don't take it over, 1:53:11 you're increasing the risk of your video 1:53:13 not succeeding. Also, use first 1:53:14 principles to understand why that 1:53:16 structure would make sense for your 1:53:18 video or if that structure would make 1:53:20 sense for your video, cuz not always it 1:53:21 would and there might be a better 1:53:22 structure that would make sense. 1:53:24 Understand what format in which you're 1:53:25 recording the video makes sense. Should 1:53:27 it be a whiteboard walkthrough? Should 1:53:29 it be a screen recording video? Should 1:53:31 it just be talking head and should it be 1:53:32 a raw talking head or should it be a 1:53:34 highly edited talking head? Understand 1:53:36 that before going into the video. Then 1:53:39 use tactics such as proof, promise, 1:53:42 plan, persona in the hook in order to 1:53:46 effectively hook the viewer in and sell 1:53:49 them on watching the rest of the video. 1:53:50 But again, understand why that tactic 1:53:53 works. And that also goes for all of the 1:53:55 other tactics. and then give them value 1:53:57 as fast as possible to the level of 1:54:00 which it would give them the confidence 1:54:01 that you really do walk the talk and 1:54:04 therefore they can be confident in 1:54:06 investing into that video fully to 1:54:08 receive the rest of the value from you 1:54:09 and then deliver on the rest of the 1:54:11 value and meet their expectation. Use 1:54:13 their editing style, use their delivery 1:54:15 style, and use the structure and your 1:54:17 expertise to best satisfy that and 1:54:20 actually achieve that and drive high 1:54:23 viewer satisfaction to such an extent to 1:54:25 where it becomes impossible that the 1:54:27 algorithm doesn't push your video to 1:54:29 more of your target viewers. And then 1:54:31 the algorithm enters this cycle of 1:54:33 pushing your video to more and more 1:54:34 people as it's doing so, provided that 1:54:37 you made a good video. Keep an eye on 1:54:38 the data. Look at the shape of the view 1:54:41 graph. Look at if it's performing better 1:54:42 than average. Use the other signals in 1:54:44 combination of that, such as the 1:54:46 click-through rate, but not in 1:54:48 isolation. Such as the retention graph, 1:54:49 but not in isolation. Such as the 1:54:51 positive comment to view ratio, the like 1:54:53 to view ratio, and all of these other 1:54:55 things combined to understand is your 1:54:57 video performing better than usual, or 1:54:59 is it actually underperforming and might 1:55:01 it require change in order to make it a 1:55:04 video that might have a higher chance of 1:55:06 success. Then after a long enough time 1:55:08 period has played out, you can make a 1:55:10 full assessment of whether your video 1:55:11 has succeeded or failed in the end. And 1:55:14 you can diagnose what was done well, 1:55:16 what was done wrong, carry forward what 1:55:18 was done well, discard what was done 1:55:20 wrong, and test something new. New 1:55:23 action, new result, feedback, new 1:55:25 action, new result, feedback. And you 1:55:27 continue through this discipline cycle 1:55:29 of iteration in order to hit green every 1:55:33 single time and compound your channel, 1:55:36 compound your success, and make good 1:55:38 YouTube videos that actually succeed. 1:55:41 It's an endless cycle of compounding the 1:55:45 effectiveness of your videos and how 1:55:46 good your videos are and in turn 1:55:49 compounding your results and compounding 1:55:50 the growth of your channel. And that's 1:55:52 really the full cycle. 1:55:53 >> This video is going to be so good. I 1:55:55 want to play a fun little game with you. 1:55:57 Okay? 1:55:58 >> So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to 1:56:00 go through a list of well-known, 1:56:02 reputable people in the space on 1:56:04 YouTube, and I want you to tell me the 1:56:06 first thing that comes to mind, what's 1:56:08 wrong with them, and what you think they 1:56:10 should fix in order for them to actually 1:56:12 see better growth. Number one, Grant 1:56:14 Cardone. 1:56:16 He's just not got the fundamentals in 1:56:18 place, not got a good YouTube strategy 1:56:20 process, has none of the things that I 1:56:22 talked about in terms of YouTube 1:56:24 research, figuring out what the topics 1:56:25 that make sense for his target market 1:56:27 are on YouTube and figuring out the best 1:56:28 way to package them. What I would do is 1:56:31 there are obvious topics that are in 1:56:33 demand in his niche, right? If we take 1:56:35 his niches, sales for example, or 1:56:37 whatever it may be, and whatever 1:56:39 positioning he wants to take in this 1:56:40 current day and age, he is objectively 1:56:42 one of the best people to speak on it. 1:56:43 And so if he just finds the right topics 1:56:46 to make videos on that attract his 1:56:48 target market and achieve his goal of 1:56:50 his YouTube channel and just finds the 1:56:53 right way to frame those topics through 1:56:54 packaging because he is the authority on 1:56:57 that and obviously he has became the 1:56:59 authority through the level of value 1:57:00 he's able to provide. I've got no doubt 1:57:02 that those videos are going to meet the 1:57:04 expectations provided we're giving him 1:57:05 the right guidance. Obviously he has to 1:57:06 follow the right structure but he is one 1:57:08 of those perfect examples of where he is 1:57:10 the person who with the right system 1:57:13 around him would completely take over 1:57:17 but he doesn't but he's got everything 1:57:19 that he needs from a value and expertise 1:57:22 and social proof standpoint to do it but 1:57:24 he just doesn't have it very similar to 1:57:26 Gary really Neil Patel Neil Patel's 1:57:28 channel is kind of hit or miss where 1:57:31 some of the videos that he does has 1:57:32 decent YouTube strategy like for example 1:57:34 he did the new rules of SEO no one, but 1:57:36 some of the videos that he makes just 1:57:38 don't really seem like good 1:57:38 opportunities. And so, I think there's a 1:57:40 bit of a hit or miss strategy process 1:57:42 there where there needs to be more due 1:57:44 diligence put into the idea up front and 1:57:46 being really selective with the videos 1:57:48 that he does, really identifying where 1:57:50 does he have a massive unfair advantage 1:57:52 and again that brand positioning and 1:57:53 laser focusing on that cuz he also makes 1:57:55 videos around completely different 1:57:56 topics like he does SEO and then he does 1:57:58 like completely other things. So, like 1:57:59 that also hurts the channel and the 1:58:02 video's performance because the YouTube 1:58:04 algorithm has uncertainty as to who to 1:58:06 actually push the channel to because 1:58:08 it's like all these different audiences 1:58:09 are being attracted and they're not 1:58:10 clicking on the other videos that they 1:58:12 came through a certain video and then 1:58:12 they go into his channel but they're not 1:58:13 clicking on those videos cuz they're 1:58:14 completely for a different audience. And 1:58:16 so that's another problem as well. But 1:58:17 yeah, really identifying what is the 1:58:19 strategy here. How do we want to grow 1:58:21 this channel and who do I want to be the 1:58:23 person the channel for? defining that 1:58:25 and being satisfied with that as the 1:58:26 north star. And then from that under 1:58:28 that scope defining the list of topics 1:58:30 so on and so forth that are the topics 1:58:32 that make the most sense to make videos 1:58:34 around because we validated again the 1:58:35 demand and logically for the target 1:58:37 market it makes sense that they would 1:58:38 want those topics and then really really 1:58:41 really being specific and picky with 1:58:44 what is the best way to package the 1:58:45 videos around those topics cuz sometimes 1:58:47 he picks a banger like the new rules of 1:58:49 SEO and the new rules format is 1:58:50 obviously one that's worked really 1:58:51 really well but sometimes it just seems 1:58:53 like a normal title. I can't remember 1:58:54 the exact title, but I saw one recently. 1:58:56 It was just like seven social media 1:58:57 trends that blah blah blah blah. That 1:58:59 might have even been a format that work 1:59:00 for other people, but like you got to 1:59:02 assess what is the success rate of that 1:59:04 format and how strong is it compared to 1:59:06 a format like the new rules of and why 1:59:08 settle and lower your standards for a 1:59:10 format that is weaker. You want to 1:59:12 literally feel like with every idea that 1:59:15 you do, you're literally nervous to [ __ ] 1:59:17 it up because then with a guy like Neil 1:59:19 Patel, he's not going to [ __ ] it up, 1:59:21 right? So you know that the content is 1:59:22 not going to be a point of failure if 1:59:24 he's guided properly. And so it's about 1:59:26 putting a lot more effort into the 1:59:27 ideation and the strategy and the 1:59:29 selectivity of which videos to do in 1:59:31 order to remove that as the bottleneck. 1:59:32 That is basically the bottleneck of his 1:59:34 YouTube channel. 1:59:34 >> Sabri Subri 1:59:36 Sabry again similar case to Neil Patel 1:59:40 in a way where he's proven that when he 1:59:43 selects the right idea the videos do 1:59:45 really well. like he's actually in a 1:59:46 really good spot because it's already 1:59:48 proven that when he selects the right 1:59:50 idea, he has all the value to deliver on 1:59:53 it to where it can succeed. So again, 1:59:55 it's already proven for him through 1:59:57 diagnosis that the content itself is not 2:00:00 the bottleneck, which is great because 2:00:02 then we can diagnose the bottleneck as 2:00:04 the idea because if we look at his 2:00:05 ideas, some of them will be like learn 2:00:08 97% of meta ads, I think was one of the 2:00:10 recent ones he did, which a proven 2:00:12 format across YouTube is learn 97% of 2:00:14 this thing. Typically, it's tools, but 2:00:16 it can be done for other things, too. 2:00:17 And so that is a very proven format. 2:00:19 Why? Well, because learn 97% of sparks 2:00:22 the question, why 97%? So, grabs 2:00:24 attention, interesting, but also as 2:00:25 well, it's almost honest that you're not 2:00:27 going to learn everything. It's like 2:00:28 you're going to learn close to 2:00:29 everything about this thing that there's 2:00:31 lots of different intricacies of and the 2:00:32 viewer can assume that if they learn 97% 2:00:34 of it, it's enough to get the full full 2:00:36 value of it, right? They don't need 100% 2:00:38 and so they believe in the claim. They 2:00:40 trust in the claim. So, that's the 2:00:40 reason why that form worked. He took 2:00:42 that applied to meta ads, which is a 2:00:43 topic where that psychology makes sense 2:00:46 applied to it. And the video did well. 2:00:48 He did another one as well. It was give 2:00:50 me X minutes and I'll make you 2:00:51 disgustingly good at marketing I think 2:00:54 was it that came from a form which was 2:00:56 give me X minutes and I'll make you 2:00:57 dangerously confident. Give me X minutes 2:00:59 and I'll achieve this outcome for you. 2:01:00 So the give me X minutes format and I 2:01:02 will give you this in exchange is a 2:01:03 format that works really well. Why? 2:01:05 Because it's basically saying you just 2:01:07 give me a little bit of your time and 2:01:08 I'm going to give you an outsiz return 2:01:10 where like it's a no-brainer deal 2:01:12 because it's what the top viewer 2:01:13 actually wants. So it can range from 2:01:14 everything of like give me x minutes and 2:01:15 I'll improve your communication skills 2:01:17 by 110% all the way to dangerously 2:01:19 confident. And then he took it and did 2:01:20 disgustingly good at marketing which is 2:01:23 a bit of an adaptation. So you could 2:01:24 argue he increased the risk there but 2:01:26 also logically it would make sense that 2:01:27 it would resonate with his target market 2:01:29 because disgustingly good at marketing 2:01:30 like that resonates with his target 2:01:32 market right that video did very well as 2:01:33 well. So when he does those videos they 2:01:35 do very very well but again it's one of 2:01:37 those hit or miss things where I see 2:01:38 some videos that are just completely out 2:01:41 the strategy. like it's just like he's 2:01:42 came up with the title or AI has came up 2:01:44 with the title or it's took inspiration 2:01:46 from a format that just isn't really 2:01:47 strong or it's been taken from a form 2:01:49 that is strong but it doesn't make sense 2:01:52 in the way that he's applied to the 2:01:53 topic. It's like he's taken a proven 2:01:55 format that's really really good for the 2:01:56 topics that it does mesh well with and 2:01:58 because if you look at the title data 2:02:01 aside, it makes sense why it works well 2:02:03 with that specific topic and he's apply 2:02:04 to a topic where that psychology doesn't 2:02:06 transfer over. And so again, it's the 2:02:08 strategy of that where if he had that 2:02:09 more consistent, it would crush. 2:02:11 >> So given you've just spoken about some 2:02:13 of the biggest names in the space, I 2:02:15 wanted to ask you who would be your 2:02:18 dream client to work with? That's an 2:02:21 obvious answer. Alex Hamozi for sure. 2:02:24 Yeah. And I will get him as a client as 2:02:27 well. 2:02:28 >> Really? 2:02:28 >> Yes. 100%. Alex is the absolute dream 2:02:33 client because I've watched Alex through 2:02:36 the business journey of me growing my 2:02:38 business from literally the very start. 2:02:40 He was who I watched at zero all the way 2:02:42 through to the different stages. And his 2:02:43 content's been like very relevant to me 2:02:45 at all stages. Still extremely valuable. 2:02:47 Like massively respect him. But also as 2:02:50 well, like I genuinely see massive 2:02:52 opportunity with his YouTube channel 2:02:54 because again, like the same sort of 2:02:55 thing applies with strategy. He's 2:02:57 probably one of the people out of the 2:02:58 list you mentioned before who's doing it 2:03:00 the best. But there's still some massive 2:03:04 gaps in what he's doing where even just 2:03:07 certain ideas that I have that he could 2:03:09 do, I know would absolutely crush it. 2:03:12 And I even came up with video ideas for 2:03:14 him like 2 years ago that he's done 2:03:17 within the past 6 months or so. And I 2:03:19 came up with these ideas 2 years ago. 2:03:20 Like I came up with the idea for him of 2:03:22 if I started a business and this year I 2:03:24 do this. And he did that video 2:03:25 eventually 2 years later and it it's 2:03:27 gotten over a million views. And there's 2:03:28 many many other cases like that where 2:03:30 I've done that for him. In fact, I've 2:03:31 actually got some for him. The new rules 2:03:34 of business 2026. If you want to do that 2:03:36 one, Alex, that would be a good one for 2:03:37 you. But yeah, like there's lots of 2:03:39 ideas. That was a joke. It was actually 2:03:40 a good idea. But like [laughter] 2:03:42 >> I'm going to refresh his channel 2:03:43 tomorrow. 2:03:44 >> But that was a joke. But there are loads 2:03:46 of ideas that I do have which obviously 2:03:47 I don't want to give away because other 2:03:49 people would just take them and do them 2:03:50 instead. But it's not just about the 2:03:51 video ideas. It's also about like the 2:03:54 just diff all the different stages. I 2:03:56 talk about the series of decisions that 2:03:57 you make and what improvements can you 2:03:59 make through diagnosis of the channel 2:04:00 and the videos even the successful ones 2:04:02 and there's like so much there. So I 2:04:04 genuinely believe that I can actually 2:04:05 help him and yeah like I will work with 2:04:08 him. He will become a client even if he 2:04:12 doesn't want to. Oh, [laughter] he's got 2:04:14 no choice. 2:04:15 >> So, 2:04:15 >> well, that's that's really exciting. 2:04:17 Being able to confidently say that 2:04:18 you're going to take the biggest guy in 2:04:21 the whole business side of YouTube and 2:04:23 run his channel and that you can 2:04:25 confidently make it better is is a great 2:04:27 place to be. 2:04:28 >> Yeah. And it will be clear as well when 2:04:30 I take it over. Like look at Gary Vee's 2:04:32 channel for example. you'll know which 2:04:34 videos we made and which ones we didn't 2:04:35 because of the results, but also you can 2:04:37 literally visibly see and it's a good 2:04:39 exercise for you to see the difference 2:04:42 and what I'm talking about and what most 2:04:44 channels do and why they fail and what I 2:04:46 do and what I'm teaching in this video 2:04:48 and why they succeed. You can literally 2:04:50 see the visible difference in the 2:04:52 titles, the thumbnails, the videos 2:04:53 themselves and the outcome of that, 2:04:55 which is ultimately what matters, but 2:04:57 it's the decisions behind that that lead 2:04:58 to that outcome. So yeah, with Alex it's 2:05:01 the exact same case. He's obviously 2:05:03 doing it a lot better than 99.999% of 2:05:07 the people, right? Like he's one of the 2:05:08 people who's doing the absolute best and 2:05:10 that's why he's where he's at. But even 2:05:12 still, I know for a fact he could be 2:05:14 doing way better. 2:05:15 >> You've already casted a pretty clear 2:05:16 vision of where the company's going to 2:05:18 go, the people you want to work with. 2:05:21 Where do you actually see things going 2:05:22 in the next 5 to 10 years? 2:05:23 >> 5 to 10 is kind of crazy because the 2:05:26 company's only been in existence for 4 2:05:28 years. September 2022 is when I started 2:05:30 and we've achieved so much in that time 2:05:32 frame and within the last year it's been 2:05:34 crazy. So we're at revenue-wise and 2:05:36 scale-wise about $100,000 a month 2:05:37 started this year. We're now at well 2:05:39 over $500,000 a month and the goal was 2:05:41 always to be at a million a month by 2:05:42 this year which was an ambitious goal 2:05:44 10xing the company in a year. We're 2:05:46 going to smash that. Like we're going to 2:05:47 absolutely clear that. I'm very very 2:05:49 confident in that. and not only the 2:05:51 revenue goal because I think that 2:05:52 actually matters less but it's just a 2:05:53 testament of what we've built because 2:05:55 we've been able to build a company to 2:05:57 this level of scale and sustain that 2:05:59 which means we're a really good business 2:06:00 and we provide a really good service and 2:06:02 not only that we have some of the top 2:06:03 clients in the industry already like I'm 2:06:05 really proud of what we've built. We're 2:06:06 working with the big names like Gary 2:06:08 Vee, Ali Abdal now, Jeremy Haynes, big 2:06:11 brands like Many Chat, Instantly AI, and 2:06:13 that's only going to continue to 2:06:14 compound more and more. And I'm only 22 2:06:16 as well. So like, you know, I've still 2:06:18 got a lot of time on my side. But the 2:06:19 age matters less cuz I still want to 2:06:21 build this thing to remarkable levels at 2:06:23 a remarkably young age. And so I think 2:06:25 on much more of like a 1 to threeyear 2:06:26 timeline because that's actually all I 2:06:28 can foresee. I would expect that within 2:06:30 the next 1 to 3 months I'm going to be 2:06:33 causing a lot of noise publicly and 2:06:35 people are going to be starting to think 2:06:36 like whoa where did this guy come from 2:06:38 that also relates to the company as well 2:06:40 and what we do as a service and the 2:06:42 clients that we work with etc. more 2:06:43 attention is going to be put on that to 2:06:45 a level of where people are like whoa 2:06:46 where did this guy come from in 6 to 12 2:06:48 months really in 6 months but in 6 to 12 2:06:51 we'll say I'll be known as the YouTube 2:06:52 guy across YouTube and we will as a 2:06:57 result be the most prominent YouTube 2:06:59 company in the space we might not be 2:07:02 irrefutably the YouTube company yet but 2:07:05 as a result of me being the YouTube guy 2:07:07 will have eyes on us from all the top 2:07:10 people and you know Most people who are 2:07:13 considering to take YouTube seriously 2:07:16 and the vision within the next 3 years 2:07:19 tops five because I want to move fast is 2:07:21 we will be the YouTube company like we 2:07:24 will be the company that touches every 2:07:26 successful YouTube channel. Every 2:07:27 successful YouTube channel on YouTube 2:07:30 educational but even also in the 2:07:32 entertainment space and just general 2:07:33 YouTube. Their success will be 2:07:35 attributable to us to somewhat of a 2:07:38 significant level. Whether that be we're 2:07:39 running the entire channel for them, 2:07:40 whether that be we're consulting with 2:07:42 them, whether that be they just use our 2:07:43 products and services and softwares, 2:07:45 whether that be they watch my free 2:07:47 content and applied insights from it 2:07:49 that resulted in massive breakthroughs 2:07:51 for them. Every single successful 2:07:53 YouTube channel will be a part of our 2:07:55 ecosystem. 2:07:57 Free, 2:07:58 low ticket, high ticket, partnership, 2:08:02 joint venture, like whatever it may be 2:08:04 in some capacity and we will be known as 2:08:07 the YouTube company and we will 2:08:09 completely monopolize the YouTube 2:08:12 industry. Not in an evil way because 2:08:15 YouTube, I don't want you to shut my 2:08:16 company down and shut me down. Um, it's 2:08:19 all in the best interest of your 2:08:21 platform and the YouTube economy. And I 2:08:23 also want to serve jobs, careers, and 2:08:27 the best opportunities to the entirety 2:08:31 of the YouTube economy and service 2:08:33 providing market. Every video editor, 2:08:35 every thumbnail designer, every YouTube 2:08:36 strategist, every YouTube agency, every 2:08:39 agency that is providing an end-to-end 2:08:41 service that would be considered a 2:08:42 competitor of mine, but I don't see it 2:08:44 that way because I want to have the 2:08:46 biggest possible impact on the industry. 2:08:48 And so that is where I think we will be 2:08:51 in 3 years from now to be honest which 2:08:54 might seem extremely grandiose but 2:08:57 really I think we're going to smash that 2:08:59 but if we want to be conservative 5 2:09:01 years I think we'll be there. 2:09:02 >> Yeah pretty sides Alexi 2:09:06 I'll send the stripe link [laughter] 2:09:09 last question. 2:09:11 If you could go back to the start and 2:09:13 whisper one thing in your own ear, 2:09:15 something that would have made all of 2:09:16 this easier, faster, or more profitable, 2:09:20 what would it be? Speed. 2:09:23 I would say under the scope of speed 2:09:25 comes numerous things, but speed. Making 2:09:28 decisions fast and not overthinking 2:09:32 decisions past the point of diminishing 2:09:35 returns. I think because of my ability 2:09:37 to think orders of consequences ahead 2:09:40 and really think about what is the right 2:09:42 decision to make and high stakes 2:09:43 scenarios, it's been a big contributor, 2:09:48 a necessity for where we're at right now 2:09:51 and my success, call it that, and the 2:09:53 company's success because decisions from 2:09:55 what videos to make from a YouTube 2:09:57 standpoint for clients, but also 2:09:58 decisions in business on how to deal 2:10:01 with certain situations, how to deal 2:10:03 with top tier talent, that is pivotal in 2:10:07 the operation of making the best YouTube 2:10:09 videos and the results that we get for 2:10:10 our clients that might potentially 2:10:12 consider leaving the company because of 2:10:13 misalignment or emotion dealing with 2:10:16 that scenario so that that didn't 2:10:18 happen. Like there's countless countless 2:10:20 examples of where I could talk about 2:10:21 these highstakes situations where if the 2:10:25 outcome had have went the other way in 2:10:26 an alternate universe, it could have led 2:10:28 to a series of events that could have 2:10:31 led to catastrophe or overall failure of 2:10:34 the business. And that happens all the 2:10:36 time to people. And so I think my 2:10:38 ability to make decisions and think 2:10:40 orders of consequences ahead and be able 2:10:42 to understand people and how to work 2:10:46 with them and so on and so forth. 2:10:48 Everything is led to my success. But 2:10:49 also as well I think in certain 2:10:51 situations if I could go back there are 2:10:53 lots of times where I'd make things 2:10:54 faster and I've lost out on 2:10:56 opportunities by being resistant to 2:10:58 things that I could have just done 2:10:59 faster. This also comes to if I had went 2:11:03 back in time, I would have hired faster. 2:11:06 I would have delegated my weaknesses 2:11:09 faster. I would have dropped my ego and 2:11:12 been admitting to what I'm not so strong 2:11:15 at. And I would have filled those gaps 2:11:18 with people who are super competent in 2:11:20 those areas. Like for myself, I'm not 2:11:22 somebody who's very organized. I'm super 2:11:25 creative and I'm a visionary and I can 2:11:28 really vision solutions and a company, 2:11:31 right? This is what I'm really good at. 2:11:32 I can vision ideas. I'm creative, but 2:11:34 I'm also logical. So, I can like really 2:11:36 think through solutions to complex 2:11:37 problems. But the actual implementation 2:11:39 of that is something that I'm weaker at 2:11:41 like taking that vision and actually 2:11:43 getting that integrated and solidified 2:11:46 in existence and therefore actually 2:11:48 solving the problem, not just the idea. 2:11:51 That is something I'm weaker at. and 2:11:52 also organization etc as I said and 2:11:54 that's something that I bear the burden 2:11:57 of for too long which slowed me down and 2:12:00 it also resulted in negative outcomes 2:12:03 such as maybe in certain situations in 2:12:05 the past clients churning or talent 2:12:08 leaving because my bandwidth was too 2:12:10 stretched right and I think this is just 2:12:11 the natural course of if we're being 2:12:13 really honest anybody in business who's 2:12:16 trying to build something big these 2:12:17 mistakes are natural especially when 2:12:20 you're running solo you know I haven't 2:12:22 any mentor really up to the point where 2:12:23 I'm at now. I don't have a co-founder 2:12:26 like I've learned on my own through 2:12:29 obviously education that I can access 2:12:30 online and through programs that I might 2:12:32 have invested in albeit I don't think 2:12:34 any of them really transformed anything 2:12:36 for me. I've generally speaking learn on 2:12:37 my own and so I had to learn through 2:12:38 failure. So if I could go back it would 2:12:42 be what decisions could I make in order 2:12:44 for me to move faster? How could I make 2:12:47 decisions faster? How could I make 2:12:48 better decisions along the way? And one 2:12:50 key part of that in business would 2:12:52 definitely be hiring faster and thinking 2:12:54 about how can I spend all of my time in 2:12:58 the place where only I can do the things 2:13:01 and my time is best spent and what can I 2:13:05 remove in order to make a step closer 2:13:08 towards spending all of my time there. 2:13:11 And I think this is even the phase that 2:13:12 I'm really really really focusing on 2:13:14 right now because if you're seeing my 2:13:17 face now up to this point I haven't 2:13:19 really been able to focus on building my 2:13:20 brand because I've been stretched across 2:13:22 building the business and all the parts 2:13:25 of building the business. Now I've got 2:13:27 an amazing team in place and we have 2:13:30 amazing people on board that are 2:13:31 enabling me to focus more and more of my 2:13:33 time towards this which is the only 2:13:37 thing the one thing that only I can do 2:13:40 to the level of which I can do it and I 2:13:43 should be doing. This is the one thing 2:13:45 that if I focus on all problems 2:13:48 disappear, all opportunity arises. And 2:13:51 so tending as much of my time towards 2:13:54 this as possible and dedicating it 2:13:56 towards this as possible is my focus. 2:13:58 And that's what I'm really making my 2:14:00 focus right now. bringing the right 2:14:01 people on board, putting them in the 2:14:03 right seat, enabling them in the right 2:14:05 way with the right direction with the 2:14:07 right layer of management as well so 2:14:09 that I can take things off my plate know 2:14:12 that it's going to be handled well and 2:14:13 it doesn't diminish the quality of the 2:14:16 outcome of that given thing but actually 2:14:18 increases it because they are more of an 2:14:20 expert than I am at that thing and they 2:14:22 have more of a focus than I could 2:14:23 possibly offer and me solely being 2:14:25 focused to the thing that I should be 2:14:28 focused on which is now building the and 2:14:31 getting everybody to know who I am, 2:14:32 becoming the YouTube guy in this given 2:14:34 era of my life and what we're building 2:14:37 here at the company Views to Clients. 2:14:39 And I wish I learned that way sooner 2:14:41 because naturally if I had have done 2:14:43 that and I dropped my ego and I did 2:14:46 things even more aggressively than what 2:14:47 I did, which honestly I thought I'm 2:14:49 pretty good at compared to other people 2:14:50 and it's why we're at where we're at. I 2:14:52 still think I could have done it more. 2:14:53 And so like the fact that I still think 2:14:55 I could have done it more shows how 2:14:56 important that piece really is. We 2:14:59 scaled really aggressively, you know, 2:15:00 and we hired so many people through this 2:15:02 journey of 100k to 500k a month that 2:15:04 enabled us to actually sustain that. And 2:15:06 I lost profit because of it. Profit 2:15:08 margin, I think, even went to zero at 2:15:10 one point because of it. I think even 2:15:12 one month I might have even lost money, 2:15:14 but I just didn't even care because I 2:15:16 knew that it was because of the massive 2:15:18 hiring decisions that we were making. 2:15:21 And it was all for the greater purpose 2:15:22 of what we are building, which is the 2:15:23 thing that actually matters to me and 2:15:24 the the vision of the company. That's 2:15:25 what allowed us to scale really fast. 2:15:28 And I wish I did it even more. That's 2:15:30 what I would have told myself going 2:15:32 back. 2:15:32 >> Act with speed. It's a great one to lead 2:15:35 with. I think now seeing the changes 2:15:38 that you've made in the business and 2:15:39 yourself and where you're now pushing 2:15:41 your energy towards, I mean, it's pretty 2:15:44 transparent. Look at the last video, 2:15:46 over 400,000 views. The channel's now 2:15:49 quadrupled in a week, and we're making 2:15:52 videos like this. We're recording more 2:15:54 content. The energy, the drive, it's all 2:15:56 there. And no one's going to forget the 2:15:57 face. 2:15:58 >> Yeah. The moment that I've been able to 2:16:00 put my attention where it is best spent, 2:16:04 literally the first instance of it was 2:16:06 speaking at that event, taking that and 2:16:08 making it into a YouTube video. And that 2:16:11 video within the first 7 days has 2:16:13 already made us not just over $100,000, 2:16:16 but over $100,000 in monthly recurring 2:16:18 revenue that we would expect to receive 2:16:19 next month. That one video has created 2:16:21 size of revenue for the business and 2:16:23 company that most people could only 2:16:26 dream of from one YouTube video which 2:16:27 shows the power of YouTube by the way if 2:16:29 you make the right video. And that's why 2:16:31 I'm now making my focus now. I have the 2:16:32 bandwidth for it. If that's the first 2:16:34 instance of it, 2:16:36 what's that going to look like in 1 3 6 2:16:40 12 months from now of dedicating pretty 2:16:42 much all of my life force towards this? 2:16:44 Obviously not detaching completely from 2:16:45 the business by any means. like still 2:16:47 very much leading the business because 2:16:48 that's what we're building this for and 2:16:49 that's why I'm doing this. So the 2:16:50 product matters to me more than anything 2:16:52 but understanding that growing my 2:16:54 YouTube presence doesn't just grow the 2:16:56 business but it actually attracts the 2:16:57 best talent in the world which is all 2:16:59 serving the greater mission that I am 2:17:02 focused on. And I have identified this 2:17:03 to be the one thing that if I spend all 2:17:06 of my time on all other things 2:17:07 disappear. By the way like that video 2:17:10 the most valuable YouTube training 2:17:12 you'll ever watch. If you haven't 2:17:13 watched that already, I would suggest 2:17:14 that you watch that video next because 2:17:16 everything we're speaking in about in 2:17:17 this video in a more extensive 2:17:19 conversational manner. I have already 2:17:20 distilled in that video in a very 2:17:22 structured way, which I think is well 2:17:25 quite frankly the most valuable YouTube 2:17:26 training you'll ever watch. And the 2:17:28 400,000 people who have watched it also 2:17:30 feel the same. So, I think we'll wrap up 2:17:32 here. Watch that video if you haven't 2:17:33 already and I'll see you in the next 2:17:36 one. 2:17:42 >> [laughter and gasps]