Use this STRATEGY to Grow Your Business on YouTube!

you're listening to this right now there is Untold growth for your business your personal brand your reach on the other side of you giving up the fear of other people's opinions the need to be liked the need to please everyone and the need to avoid offending anyone you never could anyways but you got to crank up that tolerance for that and there's a lot of growth on the other side when you start putting out powerful messaging that you believe in on YouTube and social media everybody what's up I'm back here with Sean Cannell rhymes with YouTube channel and if you've listened to the previous podcast where Sean was a guest we're talking a lot about live production the big gamble scared money don't make money uh we're back because Sean's got a second edition an updated edition of This Book YouTube secrets I'll provide links and notes uh in in the show notes the approach today is to really have a kind of a master class for entrepreneurs who have either dabbled with YouTube or thinking about getting into YouTube or thinking is this a good strategy for me is this a platform I want to invest money and time and energy I can't think of a better person to share insights on this because I think Sean your primary thing is YouTube right like you love YouTube you talk about YouTube you teach people how to grow on YouTube so why don't we take it from there and in case you missed the first episode Sean can you introduce yourself and tell a little bit of your backstory yeah Chris thanks so much for having me back um I today think media is the company I run we have 20 W2 employees and 10 contractors and we're on a mission to help people figure out how to create video so we do a lot of camera Tech live streaming build your equipment set up to create content and then the strategy side and our focus is YouTube because I believe that YouTube is the most highly leveraged platform we can get into that but with all of where we are today I'm I'm as shocked as everybody else because I'm a small small town kid College Dropout and kind of an accidental entrepreneur and really a story of YouTube itself and its transformational power I got into video in 2003 volunteering for my local church the First Youtube channel that I started was for this church an hour north of Seattle small town 2007 we start a YouTube channel for the church and a vlog for the pastor which is way ahead of time I mean this was two years after YouTube started 15 minute upload limits no custom thumbnails totally different platform the Techno technological infrastructure of it so I've been in video social and YouTube for a long time eventually started a freelance video business in 2009 and then eventually started to think media and discover the power of affiliate marketing creating content and ranking videos and the reason I fell in love with YouTube is YouTube is the only platform where your content lives forever it's the only platform where if you create the right kind of content in the right way you can post a video today that'll still get views weeks months or even 10 years later I just looked up one of my videos that is over 10 years old it grew my channel by like 16 subscribers made 35 dollars in YouTube ad revenue and was actually talking about a lens attachment for a really old camcorder and people are still watching that video and clicking the affiliate link so I truly have a passive income generating asset that is over a decade old that I'm doing nothing with I'm not promoting it I'm not talking about it just the power of the YouTube algorithm and here's what makes YouTube unique all of the other social media platforms are content feeds they call it an Instagram feed a Facebook feed a Twitter feed YouTube is a Content Library behind you if you're watching on video is a library of books and if you had a particular problem or pain point you could walk over to your bookshelf and you'd say I want to learn about teamwork I want to learn about leadership I want to pull a book off the shelf about mindset I'm going to pull off a book of the Shelf about YouTube I'm going to pull a book off the shelf of design maybe design inspiration or branding YouTube's the same way when someone has a particular question a particular problem or even just intent they don't actually search a phrase they just Express their intent by their behavior YouTube's algorithm starts to recommend content to try to meet that person's needs so every business owner entrepreneur creative freelancer should be creating strategic content that either attracts the ideal client or customer they want or that leads to serving and solving a problem and then you're able to monetize that attention in a lot of different ways nice that was fantastic I think the industry term is its long tail content versus short tell we talk about the lifespan of a piece of content and the reason why I think people get anxious about creating content is because if your content doesn't hit within the first three hours 24 hours it kind of disappears in the feed because YouTube right is powered by YouTube search engine you're right it's like just this kind of idea of just-in-time learning the habits and behavior people are much different on YouTube and therefore I think and I want to get your perspective on this is it a social media platform it is the Forgotten social media platform I think one it's never listed um people you typically typically don't put it in the list of social media platforms I think too because it's not quite as interactive as other platforms there's no DMS although they're thinking about adding those back at one time there was um and there is comments and debates and conversations happening in the comments but it's different than other places and because you're not posting photos the same way as you would on Facebook although you have a community tab which very much is like a Facebook feed and photos or polls or words in a way to talk to your audience and YouTube is uh for better or worse I believe if it's better and almost every platform is doing this but it's a challenge no matter what is they are trying to be everything whether it's YouTube shorts there is a stories feature YouTube stories there is the community tab which is text photos and a feed there is of course your main videos there's live streams there's long form so it could be kind of overwhelming the end podcasting is one of the things I'm actually super excited about youtube.com forward slash podcasts they hired a a leaked document from alphabet the parrot company of Google and YouTube revealed that they hired a podcast executive they're they acquired 20 NPR shows they invested 500 000 into other creators that were only doing audio to get them doing video podcasts and the stats actually reveal that at this moment YouTube is the number one podcast destination for listening consumption to podcast that surprises people because how could it be bigger than Apple or Spotify but I think it's because of the factor of times YouTube is bigger in general and so if you're listening to your podcast you're listening to Lewis house impulsive Logan Paul h3h3 especially some of these famous YouTubers YouTube is much larger already in terms of a podcast destination and they're thinking about adjusting RSS feeds so I I would dare to say to put it bluntly that it is irresponsible for any serious business owner entrepreneur creative to ignore YouTube I mean if you care about your message and you want to reach people and you want to go if you're comfortable where you are today then by all means don't invest in YouTube but if you want to not just maximize your impact today but also position yourself be recession-proof for the future protect your brand I think that your YouTube presence isn't essential Sean not mincing words here it's irresponsible of you as a business owner to ignore YouTube before we get into some more of this stuff I do want to say there's one thing that makes me consider YouTube not a social media platform and the biggest one is shareability like if I love a video I don't go on YouTube to share with other people who are on YouTube it just doesn't seem to work like that or maybe I don't know Sean I take the video and I go and share it on Twitter somewhere else where that kind of active sharing happens and so I put YouTube in a very special place now both you and I I think and I'm speaking for for you and tell me if I'm wrong I have a special connection to YouTube because I didn't do social media before I actually learned how to create content on YouTube and YouTube is what I would always consider for the foreseeable future our home base of operations I've since ventured fourth as you have as well but I consider a very special place now somebody might be listening to us and think well why is it so special for me it's special because YouTube's one of those rare companies that takes an interest in helping you as a creator make a living doing this thing with monetization they produce events and they used to pre-pandemic have greater spaces where you can come and shoot they have advisors or managers who help you and they're constantly talking to you with you to help you figure out a way to make money they had the merging merchandising thing they had a subscriptions to channel now they're adding lots of ways to put real money into your pocket not to mention the affiliate deals and the sponsorships that you can establish outside of YouTube I've checked my earnings on Instagram I'm not sure it's enough to buy like a meal yet I'm not sure but on YouTube it's revenue or expense neutral for us meaning we generate more Revenue passively just from AdSense then it costs us to produce the content which is like a crazy model if you think about it many of you will run a campaign to onboard new customers and you'll spend money it's called cost per acquisition and you're looking at roast return on ad spend what if you can make content that people consume that is like uh marketing material for you but they pay you to consume it this is a phenomenal idea and we you and I were there with harmozie at your your conference he's like you know what I used to spend all this kind of money doing ad spend and now I put it into content I'm getting a 10x return so you're probably right it's probably responsible 100 and we experience the same thing uh Erica kohlberg um has kind of known probably most people here have seen her and you might see she uh is the same person in like a tick tock as the customer that says I want to return these Nikes and then they go uh you know it's past their pool date she goes no actually it says I can if there's a tear in them and they go who told you this and she's like I'm Erica the social media lawyer so she revealed her her numbers and this is true as you mentioned your Instagram uh can't probably buy a meal mine is similar and I think she said she hadn't qualified for some reason for Instagram so that was Zero Tick Tock was a couple thousand like three uh Facebook was a few hundred and YouTube was 36 000 in this particular case study and I know she's earned more than that but those are the kinds of factors of dollars in the YouTube world and what's fascinating is you know YouTube shorts is about to unleash a whole nother level of monetization which is going to be disrupting in the market YouTube is already a attracting a lot of people from other platforms maybe build a brand somewhere but they want to move to YouTube because that's like where the big kids live it's like where the serious brands are established and so they leverage their Authority somewhere else but they want to be on YouTube and it also pays the best and so February 2023 when that rolls out it's like um gonna pay even more for those doing YouTube shorts I know you do a lot of YouTube shorts and the CMO of HubSpot said that YouTube subscribers are the most valuable subscribers on the Internet it's a to your point of Alex tremozzi mentioning that you literally get paid to essentially grow your brand and get a positive revenue and it's so it's a win-win-win win win win win when you're really doing YouTube right and so I agree uh YouTube is a very unique place and of course in this conversation that's not to say it's not easy it's easy it's not to say that what you've built or what I've built has happened overnight or um is something that isn't going to take work hustle and resources or and all of the above but I think it's about as Business Leaders we're always kind of strategically deciding where to invest our time and money and so I want to invest in a good investment I want to invest in something that even if there's a heavy upfront investment in my mindset my labor maybe getting hiring delegating learning the skill sets getting it set up it's just saying is that all going to be worth it and YouTube is good ground to plant on and it's also not like it's about to stop it is the number one video platform it has absolute market dominance no matter what numbers Tick Tock claims there's a few more minutes of watch time among gen Z and a day by day basis it doesn't even speak to the depth again the CMO of HubSpot YouTube subscribers are the most valuable subscribers we see the numbers too our Tick Tock is blowing up I am I am passionate about other platforms we started really late and we're almost to a quarter million followers five million likes this thing is but even when I measure Lincoln bio clicks like even at just depth of people wanting to go deeper it doesn't come close to Instagram which has smaller numbers right but it doesn't come close to YouTube in terms of revenue generated but also actions taken meaning clicking a link in the description or clicking the link in a pin comment or following a verbal call to action YouTube is where people go to be they want to seriously learn it's where professionals go it's where people that are in more of an action they have their credit card out to make a purchase they are in an action learning mindset and so respect to Tick Tock but you're you're in a more passive consumption entertainment mode of course you could do education there of course it can lead to business opportunity but it has nowhere near the depth and so these are some important facts about YouTube so you can make an educated decision about how you're going to invest your time your money your Human Resources your financial resources okay so much for us to follow up on the one thing I wanted to point out that you mentioned earlier about podcasts is I believe uh Joe Rogan is the number one listen to podcasts in the world maybe and I gotta tell you I've never listened to his podcast but I watched him on YouTube all the time and didn't occur to me that that stat would then line up and I think you're right and I think for some people who might be like oh you well I'm experienced the same thing we've recently found success by video podcasting now like this is a podcast you're going to listen to this and some of you will actually see this on YouTube and there's a visual so you can see Sean's face and you can see his passion and his uh his steel blue eyes he's just looking right at you piercing through the screen you might be able to see that and we're seeing that people like long form content especially the data we've seen on our Channel not just shorts now you talked about a couple things about the mindset of people who are consuming content and I think you're right and I'm I'm just looking at myself too I'm holding up a mirror here on other social platforms it's really passive I want to be entertained I have short pockets of time I'm not really in this Active Learning space I'm just leaning back whereas on YouTube I'm not on YouTube unless I'm looking for something I'm looking for help I'm looking for some topical story about what's going on in the world and this is where I'm gonna get my news and entertainment from so it's an active lean in mindset I want to pull something out and I think and and your the data seems to back it up the audience that's on YouTube is the most valuable in the world of all the different platforms because of the behavior and the mindset okay if you're sitting there driving listening to this where wherever you are and you're like you know what you're right you're right I need to get on this okay there's some challenges obviously some some some big barriers to entry Sean and help us get us through this recording editing producing publishing a video requires the most amount of effort the lease would be a tweet of the opposite of the spectrum on the Creator side right what can you tell us about that barrier barrier to entry that can help someone put this into action yeah I think that also is one of the reasons why there is opportunity because it is arguably the most challenging platform um all of the skill sets come together it's not just a still image on Instagram you need to make a still image for your thumbnail it's not just good copy you need to write good copy for your title you don't just C to be on 15 seconds like a story on Instagram but you need to probably thoughtfully put together a video that is three four five six seven eight minutes long and there is no ideal video length in today's world it's just as long as it needs to be but as short as possible delivering value and then production I think that still um what can happen is because of all those moving Parts I've heard in sales a phrase that says a confused mind never buys and I also think that confused entrepreneur doesn't take action as soon as you start thinking about your YouTube strategy you go okay I listen to Chris I listen to Sean but and okay I do have a camera but I don't know how to use it or I do have then then you kind of just stop and I think a lot of people get stuck in that Journey so we encourage people you got to just punch fear in the face punch perfectionism in the face and press record I think the simplest thing to to do is to realize that your smartphone you could just flip it to landscape it doesn't have to be portrait like the other platforms you can plug in a good microphone audio matters what we teach is avls audio video lighting stabilization audio you could get a simple mic off of Amazon there's some really cool ones for iPhone or USBC that plug right into the port and then hook to your shirt that are Wireless for as cheap as 25 or less um that's kind of the third party Brands you could pay a lot more for slapping a logo on there but you don't need to you can sit in front of a window or connect a simple there's fifty dollar light light soft boxes and then stabilization would be a tripod to just be able to get your smartphone Mount sit on a stool get the try get the camera angled properly and then you can just hit record and additionally if you just shot on your phone you could walk behind the camera press record sit down start talking and just move the front and the back end of the video no editing meaning you just kind of trim starting it a little bit and then upload that right from your phone and for most people the best place to start would be to answer specific questions we call it the asq method as a professional you're already doing this there's already the top 10 to 20 questions you get and you could turn one question into one video and think about it you know what do I say what if I get nervous think about it like having a conversation at coffee with a friend you're gonna sit down across from them at the table grab your coffee or your tea and you're just gonna deliver value and they might if you were in real estate they just say yeah but I'm just kind of overwhelmed how do I know how much house I can afford and you go oh here's how you calculate it how much you made it and you could probably any anybody listening to this in your area these basic answers and that's a key I would encourage individuals to not think that you have to get super Advanced to not assume that because maybe this question's already been answered or there's already competition no the place to start is with beginner and basic answers and the curse of knowledge keeps most people from even going here because they assume it's too obvious they assume everybody knows this no there's always new people and there's always people that are looking for Clear answers to specific questions it's even better would be what is the housing market update in King County or Snohomish County we just got an Airbnb going in Snohomish County and you'd be shocked in a 2023 World you'd think ah it's probably already saturated with agents and loan officers sharing Market updates and real estate information and in a place as busy as Snohomish County which is north of Seattle and there's like one person who's consistent and he's not even that consistent his name's Zach McDonald we went to high school together and so I'm like are you kidding me that in a 2023 world all he does is sits down in front of a phone at his real estate office got a journal out it's okay to read off it one of my favorite channels is called I think clear tax value or clear value tax something like that he stands in front of a wall with good lighting good audio a clipboard and delivers information basically real time in about seven to eight minutes and he's pulling 200 280 000 400 000 views of video and it's because the information is good people are not worried about the production value I would argue his presentation is not that charismatic I love him because he's clear he's brief he's concise he delivers the point and so for the if you're listening to this I think that's the opportunity to just start to start simple with the phone you already have to start before you get 75 dollars of accessories from Amazon and our YouTube channel think media could point you to those or you could just seek them out and all of a sudden you're you're you can hang with anybody in terms of your production quality but that is not what people are asking about and I would go so far we have so many students that have already proved this point they have done everything wrong they frame the video wrong their energy is wrong there's nothing fancy about how they delivered whatever but but let me put wrong in air quotes it's not wrong because I'm thinking about Andrew who's a a real estate agent in Vegas this first video he posted on a terrible webcam framed up wrong with horrible echoey audio in his office has 305 000 views because he just talked about mistakes buyers make when talking to an agent and buying a house and delivered value so if you understand that it's the content value not the production value and certainly over time you can enhance everything in fact that's key like anything we should be getting one percent better with every upload always working on our craft you're one of the biggest proponents of this about Mastery skill development about owning your craft and really being an artist and delivering all of that but that's overwhelming at the start that's part of the journey and you can watch it all evolve over time but don't oh overestimate the barrier to entry keep it simple figure out how you're going to create the video with your phone answer some specific questions be brief be bright be fun and be done in the content and then upload that thing to YouTube and then just keep going and of course that's why channels like ours exist because yes you might be like what about these other million things hey one thing at a time and one upload at a time how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time and so we uh uh and then pace yourself and you'll be shocked because your hesitation is why 99 of your competitors are not going to take action so when you're the person that takes action that becomes the opportunity and again I this is kind of a polarizing statement or just save for what it's worth I believe that saturation is a myth I think that I'm not ignorant or denying that there is competition competition or that there's a lot of competition in some Industries and some niches but Steve Jobs said it like this he said business is a game of attrition if you just keep standing if you're just still there six years later and that's what I've now had the privilege of being in this for so long that I'm like man those that are just consistent they improve their content a little bit uh with each upload they keep adding value you might not strike here's the key you this is not a get risk quick thing you might not strike gold in year one year two or youth year three but you might on on the flip side you will have an Empire on your seven eight and nine if you just commit to your craft and what will happen is again a lot of your competition will fall off um because business is a game of attrition okay a couple things to follow up on here if you're the person who's doing the content yourself a lot of what you're saying applies and I just want to let people know because I I came back from Adobe Max earlier this year and using Premiere it auto transcribes the words that you're speaking and you can edit the video like you would a Word document and it puts the cuts in for you so tools are coming out if they're not already available that are going to make the whole process of creating a video even easier so it comes back to the to the real problem which is what do you have to say how do you create value for others how do you serve other people and the ones who can do that the best will win this game eventually you just have to stick it out long enough so that the algorithm can find you that your community or audience can can discover you and it might take a year it might take more than that might take multiple years but you need to do that now I want to say this and I think I mentioned this last time but in case somebody's not watching you know how I motivate my team I tell them Sean is at 2.2 ish million subscribers we're at 2.02 so uses 200 000 ahead of us and it's difficult to catch someone who's a prolific Creator whose business is to help others grow their YouTube channel but I said catch Sean love him he's a good guy but catch him please because it motivates us like what do we have to do how do we have to grow how do we need to change and improve and connect and use all the tools that are available to us because it's like you've ran four laps ahead of us and to catch you at this point unless you fall asleep it's not going to be easy but that's what gets us up in the morning I just want to put that out there it's not a negative competitive thing it's a positive competitive thing we have to catch you somehow and you got an amazing team I saw them at work at your conference okay let's rewind the tape here I love the way that you phrase things you have a Cadence you're almost like a freestyle sermon Minister just dropping dropping bombs and things like that how did you develop this skill set and then I want to get into like if we want to grow YouTube as a team there's a whole team of us and we have money we'll get into that a little bit so how did you develop this Cadence this flow that you have how did I develop this skill I think the first thing was the intentional decision that I wanted to grow as a communicator um I think that I'm a big believer in having a PDP a personal development plan and a big believer of having being clear on what do you want to grow in but also being clear on what you don't want to grow in I'm not working on my golf game right now I'm not working I'm not trying to become a better basketball player I've narrowed my focus and I've thought okay what do I want to be great at as it pertains to what I do and uh communication is not only one of the most high-powered skills in general but especially if you're going to be a content creator that's the essence of what it is and of course communication can be verbal it could be your Cadence when speaking but communication is everything down from the crafting of the video itself as it weaves into all the little Parts but in relation to essentially public speaking and on camera speaking the first thing was a decision the second thing was uh getting resourced I'll remember back might have been 2008 or nine where I got on eBay and I brought bought a 12 CD set on how to be a better communicator and so yes CDs not mp3s and it was John Maxwell and Chris Weidner for the discs were on just a bunch of vocabulary words and and they're actually teaching on teaching I think it was also helpful is you know one of sometimes the missing pieces I believe that the e-learning industry is one of the biggest opportunities right now people packaging what they know in an online course it's going to be a billion dollar and Indus a day industry soon and however a lot of people are kind of just going you know half-heartedly or or they're jumping into it do you know how to teach do you know how to structure your content have you ever studied teaching itself or a adult learning theory so I've had the privilege of I was a part of a small Bible College and then I taught in that same school so these early years forced me and then I was also in school I was learning how to prepare a sermon preparing A good sermon is actually like preparing a good YouTube video you you want to have a hook you want to get the listener engaged you are you have a premise you have a a point you want to make and then you're building around that point you're there structure to it and then going deeper if you're actually taking someone through a curriculum so all of that served me and it was not passive like it's kind of like Malcolm Gladwell popularizes the 10 000 hour rule people think it's ten thousand hours doing the thing or ten thousand hours of practice which is an incomplete truth and not what he discovered what he discovered was one distinct word it's not ten thousand hours of practice it's ten thousand hours of deliberate practice and that changes everything being deliberate is the fact that you're there are taking notes observing the details one of the things that breaks my heart the most is I don't see people take notes anymore um I'm a big Faith guy Church guy I don't see people take notes in church I think it's their loss however I'll go to all kinds of conferences you know social media conferences marketing conferences I'm shocked people aren't taking notes and I'm like man you you bought a ticket you hope to learn what you're absorbing and you also I hope you you want the end result you want to learn what the session is teaching retain it apply it so that your business grows so that ultimately the money hits your bank account for you and your family and so you can make a bigger difference in the world what else you're gonna do right now why why are you hey why are you scrolling on Instagram but B even if you're paying attention why aren't you not taking notes all the data would reveal that even if you never refer to it again it's going to be more sticky by writing it down you're going to retain it better but if you review it once your retention goes up like 4X and so I not only will take notes through it basically everything I take notes all the time um it's kind of a rabbit Trail but I think there's value here like I take I took notes on our teams in Enneagram presentations once because I want to uh our whole team at our all team went through Enneagram personality tests and I was like I want to know them better and so I'm going to take notes this entire time as opposed to uh just you know passively listening or getting distracted and so the punch line is uh Not only was I always in a deliberate practice mindset but no matter what session I was sitting in it might not even been the content I was interested in I would take notes on the delivery I would have those two parts of the observation what can we learn here from the person that's speaking what can I learn at this conference what can I learn from studying great communicators on TED Talks how can I reverse engineer there's a good book called decoding greatness man it's one of my favorite books you'd love it if you haven't heard about it by Ron Friedman and it's it's actually about the skill of reverse engineering and saying that all the greats look at the Masters and model the Masters and break down the pieces and reverse engineer talks about how Gates and it has Steve Jobs was so mad at Bill Gates because he's like you stole our software and uh you know I can't believe and he goes um Steve actually um we both stole it from Xerox like they have had this you know and so to that end it was it was somebody else inspired them and so communication best practices are it's a lifelong journey lifelong learning and and so being intentional and getting around great communicators and then deliberately learning and then asking questions when I had the opportunity to get feedback on my sessions um when I'd maybe speak on stage hey what could I have done better if I could get coached from somebody if you can enroll in somebody's program to be kind of become a better speaker I've done all of the above and then I think the final thing that's also a missing piece for many I heard one person say and I Bruce I don't know if I respect this but but I I maybe they're busy whatever they go you know what I post stuff online and I never watch it back and I'm like wow why are we bragging I heard somebody else say yeah I don't take notes anymore I just I I'm they've really arrived at some kind of success I'm like why are we bragging I take notes on sessions I already know if I actually know it I'm still writing it down because repetition is the father of learning and the mother of Mastery I'm trying to absorb this repetition's a key to training I want to repeat something so much not just so that I remember but so that I never forget I want it like in my spirit so that I can be world class the final thing though is is watching game tape tape and you know Kobe may you rest in power was famous for watching his game tape back whether he won or lost because he wanted to learn and be a master of what he was doing so it's watching back your YouTube videos or a web class you do or anything that you've done I just noticed on a recent podcast that I every few words I said and so on and so forth and so on and so forth and I'm telling you about that now because I watched this this morning and I was like I need to have a a better go-to phrase or more variety in my reset phrase I I want to be thoughtful about not saying and so on and so forth 38 times in one podcast mind you I just got out of Asana with Andrew Andre dick weirdest podcast I've ever been where I was with him and his co-host in Asana at five levels of heat so I might not have been in the greatest State of Mind nevertheless I'm like I you know I'm still a good podcast not overly critical I don't go I don't catastrophize and spin out I just go okay that's a good distinction I I should I want to work on that by reviewing my game tape so I hope those are helpful taking notes deliberate practice reviewing your game tape and then having kind of a grace-based productivity in a grace-based growth process that you're not comparing yourself to anyone of course when you start communicating you might be saying a lot of ums you might not be super sharp you might not be super polished it's a big Journey me it's been deliberate practice over decades now for me of being intentional with this so just pacing yourself having Grace on the journey but making a decision that growing as a communicator forget YouTube it's just one of the most important and Powerful skills that you could ever grow in if you grow as a communicator your income will grow your relationships will be stronger you'll be able to enlist more people in your vision you'll be able to communicate your ideas more powerfully you will ultimately make a greater impact in the world it goes back to one of those things that it's like why would I hesitate to invest in something that powerful if there's anything I'm going to study and improve my game in I definitely want to do that in communication I'm going to ask you a question and before I get you to answer I want to remind our audience who we're talking to we're talking to Sean Cannell he co-wrote the book YouTube Secrets they're on their second edition uh Eco wrote the book with Benji Travis who I know like as well and we're talking all things YouTube today strategies high level concepts for you the entrepreneur who wants to grow a channel to develop your authorities create opportunities for yourself maybe even to develop passive income who knows what your motivations are but we're here to help you I want to ask you this question because I get this question asked a lot they'll say Chris you're a great communicator great public speaker I like how you speak about things your tone your Cadence and all that and the question they ask is it's a strange question but I get the spirit of it which is how do I become you now I'm going to ask you this question more specifically you just gave us a bunch of notes but I want to ask you kind of maybe a side question here which is who do you model yourself after that's a little bit off and weird that people didn't know I'll answer that question as well because how do you learn to speak and to present and get your flow from is there a person living dead somebody you're watching listening to that you're like here's a person and I picked this up from them and I'm trying to do that myself I'll try to go fast I mean there's so many and in fact in the back of YouTube Secrets uh the acknowledgments is a very meaningful portion and it was updated for the second edition um one of the biggest privileges I've had was also being a video editor and one of the things I learned about Joel Osteen and who's probably the most maybe the most influential Communicator broadcasted most widely globally uh in terms of television and radio he was a video editor for his dad and his dad was the pastor of the church before him and they started a TV show so Joel would edit his dad's messages well most preachers they talk long 45 minutes 52 minutes an hour and three minutes well he had to edit his dad's sermons into 27 minutes for TV so week after week he was sitting down listening to good communication but learning how to be precise learning how learning distinctions and finding ways to maybe say more things in less time there's another good book out right now called smart brevity that I'm reading about I think an important skill set for today's world and he as a result took his communication to another level so being a video editor myself and having freelance clients one of the people I learned in particular humor timing from was a guy named Dr Dave Martin so I was doing freelance social media and video editing for him for a couple years I I learned a lot of things I learned that he also he had mainly one message or two messages that he would share everywhere because he would speak new places which popped the myth that I always had to be saying new things that it actually spoke to that if I could craft core messages and actually say a few things really well that that's more poignant than trying to always come up with something new nobody could can effectively do that it's very difficult to always have like a polished and so I learned that I he he would include a lot of jokes in his material so I would list literally second for second because I'm editing video so I would learn timing Cadence that is one um genre that is very worth studying see and many people already would probably watch Netflix specials of comedians comedians are are the greatest communicators on the planet they test jokes in different environments they get the good ones they learn the timing of them you'll notice their vocal delivery vocal change the tone Whispering speaking louder and then even mannerisms that reinforce what it is that they're doing if you start watching I hope maybe after listening to this podcast everyone's future is ruined because they can it's like people who learn storytelling and can never watch a movie again because they understand like three act sequence and they're like ah I know what's gonna happen because the antagonist and the pro you maybe not be won't be able to watch a comedian without deliberate practice now okay I'm watching Kevin Hart I'm watching Dave Chappelle through a new lens of how and when and pausing leaving some margin in how they speak and so uh Dr Day Martin's one John Revere would be another one in the church world and and people maybe have different background if they've been a part of any church where they'd say I did not get exposed to like a world-class communicators in church in my experience I think maybe because of the uh types of churches I was exposed to communication Beyond even just preaching or teaching was elevated to an extremely high level where I've had the opportunity to sit in rooms with some of the world's probably greatest communicators especially in the church world and whether that's a TD Jakes or a Joel Osteen or working for Benny Perez in Las Vegas again an incredible communicator and certain jokes or timing or even mannerisms certainly have influenced me and then watching a lot of garyvee there could be things that have come through or watching Casey neistat where there'd probably be nothing visual or that I'd say but just as you study storytelling or as you study editing or also as you practice a lot so there's a ton of influences in my communication and those are a few I promise I would share some of my own and it was kind of interesting how much of our life is different but overlap at the same time I have to give my hats off and my hat off to to Joel Osteen because I've watched him speak my wife's a born-again Christian she was watching for a period of time so I kind of was able to peek over her shoulder and look this this gentleman is very good at storytelling pulling you in making complex Concepts very simple to understand and repeatable and he's very charismatic in this way powerful speaker but he also doesn't put himself on a pedestal he brings himself down by referring to daddy always says and he speaks like that like you're a grown man with children yourself but he refers to his dad this way and so it makes you feel like I can relate I can get on this train and ride this with him um the other person that the types of people you mentioned are comedians I watch comedians for for different reasons mostly for stage presence and storytelling and so I remember this one where Kevin Hart goes out into football size Stadium maybe all of his concerts are like that but he walks on with a Swagger that I've never seen before and he's a small man and he knows his his physical comedy and how he does things right he's swinging his arms around and I think I need to steal that and so I'm watching it rewinding it and I'm practicing the exact same walk we talk about modeling about editing and studying and reverse engineering greatness my walk my wife walks in the room what are you doing this this is a little strange like you're caught doing something weird and then I do the walk for her and she goes that's really cute you should do that and getting that stamp of approve from my wife's like okay I might try this on stage next time but uh I want to just bring this right back to you which is this how would you describe your communication Style what makes you unique and different Sean I'm just curious about your self-awareness and how you perceive the way you come across to people I don't know I would actually be interested in your response um and I don't know how strong my self-awareness is but a few things I try to do I do try to depreciate be self-depreciating and that's a powerful communication thing again A lot of times people's defenses are up so if you could be vulnerable or transparent I think vulnerability and transparent I like to be known for just real real talk uh perception of course might not be perceived that way but for just being a complete open book on almost any podcast I'll go they'll go what's off limits here what can't we go I'm like I don't know why anything would be off limits as far as I know my phone's tapped right now the internet facial recognition I just uploaded my face to an AI generator you know on the trend privacy has got to be gone so why wouldn't I tell you anything I'm happy to share all my numbers because I share them with the government and I trust you way more than the government like they know my numbers and so I'd be happy to tell you mine so just happens to so kind of a vulnerability raw wannabe known for for truth and and then I think a huge word for me would be Clarity I don't want to waste people's time so when I sit in a communication situation the way I get frustrated and I still and I would say frustrated because I'm still learning you can learn from the wins and the losses the mistakes that you observe is we've all probably been there too you're like where's this going this person lost me and I'm thinking why'd they lose me I'm they're opening up I'm not sure what we're talking about how are they framing this what's happening so my Pursuit is to be clear and then I think probably the other big word for me would be teacher so even on my YouTube videos I have some live streams minute for minute no editing 45 minutes one's on its way to three million views I teach off of a slide deck I just talk on the webcam USB microphone teach off a slide deck which by the way is a good crutch is a helpful crutch I got notes behind not afraid to look down and read my notes so that I can read a pre-written poignant paragraph because I want to deliver Clarity I'm not most frustrated or I'm not most worried about someone seeing oh he looked down and read his notes I'm most worried about the information being clear and effective and so it's it's really coming from a teacher hat which as far as I almost anybody maybe my competitors or whatever they be teachers as well but I think I go back to that almost studying and wanting to have teaching best practices very points driven a lot of stuff I'll teach we'll at least have three Five Points so there's organization to it and you could argue that it would probably be um in fact on stage that uh the preacher from my experience especially in Ministry comes into how I would deliver business content as well and some of the attributes of preachers that I love the most is again if it's clear if it's engaging if there is humor to reset attention my years in youth ministry I think is helpful fast forward now to kind of tick tock and I don't think it's an age thing I think that adults appreciate it as well but especially if you want to connect to the next generation one of the things you learn is you can't drone on and be monotonous for very long without losing their intention so it might be the consistent insert the insertion of of a joke of a pop culture reference of something all of those little details have found their way into my communication style over the years but I I don't know if we have time I'm curious from your observational standpoint I might not be able to see the forest from the trees if there's anything you think is distinct about my communication Style I think you're spot on I would use different words and I'll I wrote down my word so I'll share them with you so that there's a reflection here for you I I would probably put you right like one of the top attributes that come to my mind is high energy I if I don't know and I don't know I would guess you're an extrovert I remember walking by the auditorium when you were speaking at uh growth with videos like oh my God there's like coffee for your brain it's like whoo Sean is just on it right now he's cranked it from four to like 12 and he's high energy you are very clear intentional deliberate speaker you're very persuasive I believe there's that same teacher DNA whether it comes from a youth ministry or whatever there is the the preacher vibe in you not to say that you're preachy but people who know how to command the word and a phrase and and control the energy in the room and moderate their own energy you definitely have that I'd also add the word stoic in there that and you're very persistent like when you want to say something you're going to say it and you're not super concerned whether or not somebody's gonna like wow why is he saying that you know what you want to do and you're there to deliver deliver whatever it is your intention is and it's okay that some people misread that and that's I think that's a good thing you're not so caught up in yourself that you're second guessing what it is that you're saying I would consider your sense of humor like there's some dad jokes thrown in there that'll like it and people like that some puns and pop culture references that's how you sprinkle them in you don't do it too heavy because you're not trying to like be a comedian on stage but you do that because it brings some levity and it makes you way more relatable so those were my words I appreciate that you know and the funny thing about humor I was listening to a talk about this receipt that's a tough one I don't know if I'm good at it because the problem is depending on the room depends on how good the humor hits or not because is the pop culture reference understood I think the dad joke is funny but historically dad jokes your wife doesn't think it's funny and when your kids are old enough they don't think it's funny either it's like the dad joke is for the dad and it's terrible and so um that has actually been a a pitfall I've fallen into and I appreciate you giving me some feedback and it was all kind and so I'm always open a critical feedback in fact that's my preference because that's how you get better iron sharpens iron I like that pain um but humor is a tough one and that's one I'd want to improve on because I was listening to a talk that's saying to your point Kevin Hart any comedian they test in small clubs lots of jokes to narrow down one oftentimes one set for an entire year that can impact a larger group of people you're in trouble if some people get it and only a portion of the audience gets it but probably one of the biggest mistakes you can make it as a communicator is also alienating another part of your audience so how do you maybe at times do that a few times but not too much so that you don't push anybody away and you at least include as many people as possible reaching people where they are John Maxwell wrote a book called everybody communicates but not everybody connects what is our goal here he's not the number one question for any Communicator is first none of the stuff we just talked about it's who are you talking to your degree of understanding we say the Creator who understands the viewer best wins so on YouTube the Creator who understands the viewer best wins when you have empathy and understanding and Clarity of the problems and Ambitions of the viewer you want to reach on the other side that goes everything because what we could argue this person's funnier this person's not funny this person's a good communicator this person's not it's actually kind of subjective it it's the combination of them plus the audience in fact there's not everybody thinks Kevin Hart's funny or as a Kevin Hart fan you're not everybody's cup of tea I'm not everybody's cup of tea uh you are not everybody loves the future like it's fine like so actually it's kind of like finding your community finding your voice and also finding your people finding the way you communicate being yourself having that authenticity and improving and uh and then leaving at being okay with the people who don't resonate with you but going deep with the people who do and having as much empathy and understanding for your audience I'll briefly share a story I speak at Social Media Marketing world every year uh mostly over the last few years my friend Michael stelzner and um two years back this might have been pre-pandemic so there's a couple years where it didn't happen so this might have been 2019. I got my reports they do a great job of surveying the audience and I bombed terribly bombed film or Sean reaches out to me he's like hey we've known you to be really a love speaker here but you did you got one of the lowest scores out of all of the speakers and they have like a hundred speakers so I was like that's oh my God it was it was Heavy I was like Oh shoot what happened what had happened was I completely misunderstood the audience what they wanted was no fluff tactics uh Etc but what I did was I just I I was on the community floor so I I thought oh it was a newbie beginner so I thought it'd be more story driven um and it was it was very beginner it was Heavy story and it absolutely disconnected tactical social media managers that were there wanted didn't want any of that it was kind of a waste of their time and they didn't think I was funny maybe also because of the value I wasn't delivering I really learned about a knowing who your audience is also learned to take full ownership like my fault I could have done a better job to uh make sure I I knew who I was talking to Etc and then I wanted to get better after the and and the mistake was that exact talk because I just did a talk I just done previously crushed two weeks earlier at a different event what was the difference who is in the audience and the understanding of delivering it to that audience Mike said hey you want to come back can you do better the last time I said Mike I really think I can I know who I'm talking to now I know that you just want no fly I don't need to tell a story let me open up my deck let me share some screenshots of analytics I can go as tactical as you want bro let's go deep um but taking full responsibility for my mistake and learning from it man knowing who you're talking to their education level are you as a beginner intermediate Advanced uh what's their background what is maybe some humor some stories spoke in Florida earlier this year um to a lot more Gen X and Baby Boomers and inserted last minute a story about my grandfather who served in the Army Air Corps and my grandmother who they met she was in the Air corps as well as a mechanic on planes and I shared this story I had people coming after me that was a story that resonated because I thought this room will relate with that and family and Legacy these were insurance providers and financial men I was like this story matters here I don't know if this story would matter as much if I'm speaking to a gen Z audience those Details Matter really understanding who is it you're talking to that could be the key to power up your communication did you get a chance to go back and do that talk yet I did so I've been I think I was back at least maybe this last year was the first year back since the um pandemic I did a new talk I talked about the perfect video recipe which is one of the chapters in YouTube secret second edition and um and it crushed good scores great scores and by the way and it probably probably what are the talks that I most over prepared for because of the over correction of literally the war scores of my life like being the last place right of the worst speaker of this entire event it's song man and especially uh I mean you gotta be able to suck it up but you know learn from your failures but uh but it hit me hard because I I want to at the things I'm committed to I want to do my best and it always is a bummer to disappoint people or to to strike out but hey we're all going to strike out sometimes you get up learn from it failures are the Stepping Stones to success yeah I I want to say a couple things that I want to get into some of the the high level strategies that you'd write about in the book YouTube secrets in that you mentioned Kevin Hart I think Kevin Hart knows who he is I think he knows he's a small guy trying to play in a big person's World quite literally that he's also a smart dumb guy and he plays that character really well like if you use a word he doesn't know he's like I know that word and you just he makes it up and he's like he's pretending but he knows that you know he's pretending anything that's brilliant I'm not saying that everybody should not evolve or steer away from their core you could do whatever you want as you progress but I find that your sense and style of humor is very endearing it just it's I look at him like that Sean that's just who he is just go with it and and when you tell those jokes and and you drop them in there and you say it very seriously like and I'm like I know he's joking right now but the way your delivery it's it's perfect I I would just say it's perfect but that just could be me okay let's get into the book a little bit I'm an entrepreneur you've you've convinced me I I know in my heart already before you even spoke that I need to be getting onto YouTube and creating content for all the reasons we talked about I also have things I I can say I've written articles I might have written a book but I don't have the time but I do have money so give me some high level tactics or strategies if you can afford it here's what I would do so that you can grow your channel your Authority as quickly as possible number one um take you behind the scenes to our event growth video you were there on the third day we had kind of a mastermind deeper dive business day one of our speakers was Brad Lee and he shared the concept of don't create content be the content now maybe garyvee said document don't create but I always either misunderstood him or felt like he was saying something different like okay you're not an expert yet share the journey Vlog the journey and I never actually thought that was a good strategy I think that there's too many people doing that it's hard to grow but if it's if it's document your life as a business owner or your expertise as a business owner don't sit down and create then then Bradley and Gary would be saying the same thing be the content don't create the content and the story went like this Bradley hired a videographer so we're talking to business owner with money hires a videographer that videographer starts showing up to the office and they would schedule time so they could shoot some content for social media for YouTube and the videographer would knock on his door hey Brad we need a film I need you know tap his watch Brad would say I'm busy a meeting's going long day after day week after week this happened for a couple of weeks and he just kept punting it and he's paying the guy but he's not actually sitting down to create content and then finally one day he was about to go into another meeting virtually or someone sitting in the office and he's like you know what just come in here and start filming and what he did his strategy is as simple as I'm about to describe I think the key is hiring the right people is he just started to have the camera on miked up with a lav mic and excuse me he would um do a meeting so he's doing a coaching call or he's talking to his team or he's giving an instruction to another team member or he's leading a team meeting he's delivering some leadership content some tactical content and that videographers filming and then he left it up to that videographer and whoever else maybe a social media manager maybe the person filming isn't the strategist but he turns it completely over his team to then distribute on social media Bradley is not everybody's cup of tea that's for sure but if you look him up on Instagram the real bad Brad Lee the views are are pretty staggering in terms of the Real views he's getting and uh and then there's also his YouTube channel is very influential so document be the content don't create content is the absolute most high leverage thing it's maybe a courageous move to take the time to hire the talent um and then to allow them to just oh sure if the meeting's private then it's not that one but there's many instances where maybe you're delivering 10 or 15 minutes to your staff or to your team and then that could just be cut and put on online and you want to talk about leverage you don't do anything yes you got to set it up but once it's set up you just focus on your day-to-day business Ops and that person can can do what they're doing secondly and you myself Brad is also doing the same thing um and many others is I think the highest leverage activity is starting a video podcast because you just kill 36 birds with one stone and you are in this case sitting down to interview somebody or to deliver some kind of a solo round type of content but not only do you get the YouTube video out of that you could distribute the audio on the audio platforms but you also get the clips and that would include clips for YouTube potentially but it also could trickle down all the way into social media so to summarize if you said Sean what would you do right now if you have money you don't have a lot of time and you want to tap into this let me put my I'm going to put my um self in the shoes of Anton Stenner he is a good friend real estate investor and my real estate agent up here in Snohomish Washington and he's got money uh he's very busy he's doing deals he's meet with clients he's helping me he is now pumping out his reels game but he hasn't started his YouTube channel if I'm Anton I'm investing serious cash I'm gonna take a loss potentially for a year or two because I have the money um and I am going to step one work on acquiring Talent hiring there's a good book called who not how the best person to hire would be a director of even of the other roles my friend Ryan Pineda puts it like this higher top down so wait okay I gotta hire an editor I know that guy doesn't know how to actually optimize the YouTube video so I gotta hire somebody optimize YouTube video but none of these guys have the skill to graphic design so who's doing a thumbnail I gotta no no how do I do all that hire one person and let's get real raw this might be a 70 80 90 100K roll that would be a Mastery level that'd be the director think of it as like the CEO of your media company the person who is responsible you find the contract editor you find the graphic designer um you you here's the schedule on my time that I'm gonna let you put it in there you're the producer of the podcast you're scheduling the guess you're eventually get the admin assistant that is going to schedule the guest but you're responsible it's who's waking up thinking about this that would be I think the most intelligent way to do that assuming you have dollars and then tracking all the way back because you might go sticker shock a hundred grand for just the one roll what about the cameras the other roles the software all the different things we invest well you know we re Alex and Layla hermosi they just keep updating it every single month but they recently revealed that I think they're spending a hundred and twenty five thousand dollars a month on organic content creation video editors software team cameras whatever it takes um and that is because the ROI is there the ROI impact to the bottom line but also the ROI impact to the brand lift the marketing dollars all the other things so of course this has to just track back to make sure you've connected in your own mind and with whoever you work with how does this correlate to Roi just do the math so as a business owner your responsibility would say okay but when you hire a six-figure position you don't pay them six figures up front you only got to pay that first month and so you can start investing today to realize I'm investing ahead of time I was in a event where Ezra Firestone talked about how he thinks about hiring people and he goes I actually think about hiring people that they're not going to be a positive our life for six months so I'm actually planning on losing money on the individual for at least six months and I what's interesting is many people listen to this probably yourself you said that's actually been the case where many times the ROI could be almost instant that is a possibility it could actually be one month or it could just be it's they they do the role they fill the role but in this case you actually are taking a level of a gamble if you're starting from scratch because you're like my YouTube channel is not successful yet whatever and that's still that's the move I would make what I know from Anton Landing the plane would be he's got the dollars building his brand is never going to hurt him he also spoke I said what is your Roi it wasn't that he could get more people that want to buy or sell a home um that is decent but that's not why he'd want to build his brand he goes what's what the real winning play would be is the Grant Cardone strategy and many other real estate gurus would be the raising money strategy that the bigger your brand the bigger that you're known to quote quote Grant Cardone no matter how everybody feels about him sounds like Grant to say this uh if they don't know you they can't flow you and so so it sounds like him and um but but how is he able to to raise for Cardone Capital uh which I know has come under recently but uh you know whether it was Brandon formally with deeper Pockets or different guys a lot of people build in syndications guys are raising millions of dollars because of building no like and Trust on social media and so that that you're probably listening to this and this is not your business model but I think that's the key what am I also working towards what is it I'm trying to build I mean let me go the polar opposite Chris why even do this at all I mean I know I want people to get YouTube secrets and I know I want people to be on YouTube but but unless we start with first principles and we start with the end in mind and we we are Purpose Driven I think it's really important to get super clear on what winning looks like three years from now five years from now ten years from now what are you trying to build do you want to be known and have a brand are you also investing ahead of time because when you have attention when you've grown your email list when you have subscribers your your next 5 to 10 to 15 moves you may not even need to monetize right away like Anton for example he doesn't need to monetize this year next year next year so he could be playing a long game then you hit that Tipping Point to what you're saying where in a year ad Revenue offsets all of or the majority of the cost to produce the content so that's kind of cool but what you're really playing for is maybe the fund or the investment or the multi-family thing he wants to build years later that's how it would do it today is I would staff around it and treat it as a small business as a new Division I open treat it as a media company I'm starting and hire from the top down and essentially hire a CEO of your media company um running your YouTube channel and the team that supports it the theme that I got from all that you said there was integration that if you're thinking about a social media strategy whether you want to go on YouTube Tick Tock or Instagram or wherever else it's you can't think of content creation and content marketing it's a separate thing that you have to do it's got to be a big part of who you are and what you do because those that are able to tap into that will have a competitive advantage compared to those that don't the question I get asked a lot is what would you do what would you tell your younger self and I would say get on the content game sooner make that a part of who you are and what you do so it's not a separated activity so with Bradley's example it wasn't like I'm gonna go create content now what I'm doing is the content I just need someone to document that and because the greatest way that you could demonstrate your expertise is to show people literally you coaching a team giving advice doing a sales call whatever your expertise is and we see a lot of these kinds of videos at least on my feed on Tick Tock I just like watching blackhead extractions so what does that person do they're demonstrating to you what it is that they do these are so addicted to me I can't stop watching them and that's that's really what you need to do so it's not like you stepping outside of your environment putting on your YouTube base putting on your radio voice and doing that thing just do what you do and be brave enough to bring the world into this little place and hopefully over time an audience will show up for you I also like that tip that you said you know what especially if you have money and you've made this commitment don't try and figure this out yourself don't try to be the director just hire the director and make a commitment and I also like that you know you broke it down if you're thinking it's a hundred thousand dollar salary it's divided by 12 which is divided by 30. it it could be or 365 it could just be broken down into little pieces then you're not spending all that money up front smart play I want to get into something with you right now which is like I said at the beginning of the art conversation I need to catch up to think media the future has to catch up to you that's just how I have to do it and you're gonna say no you're not because we're going to keep out pacing that's the way it's a game we'll play so I want to ask you what have what has been some of your highest performing videos tell us the video tell us a little bit what is it that you think that made it tick because I would love to be able to make hits all day long it's not possible so I want to learn from you I'd love to trade back and forth and compare notes well man as we as we dig into this little bit I think one of the questions is it's really it can be difficult to Define what winning looks like yeah because his winning look is winning Impressions is winning um views is you could be viewed uh have a lot of views or are you getting the right views and let me tell you the top 10 I'm pulling them up on think media top 10 most viewed videos of all time on think media and the first one let's go into reverse uh order um we're gonna go top eight the the eighth most viewed one is 2.5 million views how to make YouTube videos on your phone beginners tutorial couple reasons why that one uh everybody has a phone broad appeal is a big key into getting maximum amount of views now this is on brand for us because we teach people how to make videos uh and how to create actual content but if we were to say how to make YouTube videos on your Fuji xt4 I I don't think it's possible to get 2.5 million views because not that many people have that camera on your phone is a broad appeal so how wide is the audience second key would be beginners beginners is also always a larger market than intermediate or Advanced the most people in any anything are always beginners um next two years ago how to make a YouTube video for beginners start to finish this video is two hours and five minutes I'm a big proponent in extra long form content our uh our friend Lewis Howes and Evan Carmichael their top performing videos are two two and a half three and even four hour videos right now they're doing what these these super long videos that the key is they're really rich in their case it's rich and maybe an individual or a topic with lots of experts sharing information on a topic but how to make a YouTube video for beginners start to finish is basically like a free deep dive class that delivers on the promise of the title that'd be another key you make a promise in a title in YouTube videos and then you deliver on that promise in the video it's two and a half hours this video is not easy to make this was a it's an in-depth I talk about the gear I sit down and film it I take them step by step through the editing I take them step by step through the upload process it is literally delivering on how to make a YouTube video start to finish that's 2.6 million views uh next is 2.6 million how to come up with the YouTube name three tips and mistakes to avoid again the how broad the question is how much interest the question is this is why keyword research or topic research is still worth doing because there's a million topics you could talk about next on YouTube if one had 10 people a month interested in it and one had 10 million a month interested in it which one is giving you a bigger opportunity of reach the one with the broader interest by a large majority of people next uh six years ago too 2.9 million views the best cheap cameras for YouTube Six budget camera reviews cheap and budget are the key there because um there's more people are on a budget and are looking for a cheap option then are looking for a premium auction option luxury as I know that you probably have taught a lot it'd be better to pursue clientele on the high end because it'll be easier to work with you could work with fewer clients um and and you may need to sell less items at a premium price than cheap but nevertheless if you think about again broad appeal 2.9 million views cheap cameras for YouTube budget cameras for YouTube six years ago this video what for these are all not none of these are actually viral videos viral Maybe by age but usually what a by definition viral video is something that quickly accumulates a lot of views I've done a video called how to get free stuff on Amazon and it's shot up and I think why is because quite literally that was true this was back when there was these websites that would send you free stuff if you'd leave a product review and you would just fill out your information and it could be pretty cool they'd send you like a little phone charger and so the appeal of that locally and globally in the US and around the world it was pretty wild and it delivered on the promise like you're at home and you just invest a little time and someone's shipping you free stuff from Amazon people are pretty pumped and it spread like wildfire the final three number three the bronze the best video editing software and video editing tips this also I would admit that today this might be hard to repeat this is maybe being first it's not too late to start YouTube I still believe it's a blue blue ocean and saturation's a myth but I think you got to go more specific the riches are in the niches but at the time this was a seven minute 35 second video that um delivered a good answer to the question but in the thumbnail is a picture of Final Cut and Premiere which there was a lot less options than that doesn't even say that in the title but visually someone that's maybe trying to decide between those two would see that and um delivered very valuable content and answering a question that many people ask best video and software and video editing tips and then number two the silver best copyright free music for YouTube top three sites and the text and the thumbnail I've got headphones on good I'm holding up a phone with a little uh music logo on it and the text and the thumbnail says free music for YouTube videos which again cheap and budget's gonna do good the word free is historically uh Untouchable in marketing free gift free prize free so so free music for YouTube videos and again people could argue well is this click bait right that or or that sounds hypey the key is that you want to have ethical click bait you want to bait The Click but it's honest click bait by definition means it's deceptive typically so it's like you click and then the video doesn't deliver that video literally gives you three options for completely free music that you can use in your videos with no copyright claims and it got 3.8 million views so being arguably maybe one of the best videos on the platform of just delivering great information and great Solutions again the title makes a promise in the video gives an answer but number one gold this will be a surprise and this I think is a good example and a joke internally on our team because how is Success really measured and even though this is our most viewed video I would say it's not even near our best video and it got 4.6 million views it was posted a year ago and it's 30 plus funny sound effects YouTubers use with a meme guy in the photo funny sounds and then parentheses royalty free and this video just is stuck to our top of our real-time analytics always getting views people are searching it probably because a 14 year old video editor is looking for a fart sound searches this finds this video and then in his home movie that he's gonna upload on Tick Tock or YouTube finds this video and puts it in there now of course maybe others are finding that as well but that's probably who the audience is and therefore it goes back to yes while it does have 4.6 million views for someone listening to this that maybe wanted to get a few high-paying Consulting gigs a month that would be the wrong video to attract your ideal audience as many views as you get so what we joke about because there's that one and another one that stays stuck to the top which is royalty free sound effects pack YouTubers use is I always joke I go we're uh or a sound effects Channel and I go and sure enough we are still the number one downloadable sound effects Channel which is not who we want to be now I also have to be thoughtful about my brand it's not so off brand that we're going to make it unlisted or private but these are some this key strategic distinctions that you don't want to get into Trend surfing or rather chasing you don't want to just Chase Trends or just pursue as many views as possible as if that's the only metric what does impact look like what type of videos would attract the ideal audience but it's a mix of both so many leadership principles and truths are held in tension it's it's the tension between reach Impressions brand growth brand Impressions Top Line reach and also impact depth and uh it's not really either or it's both and and being a Content strategist being thoughtful of your top video so those are the top eight and uh maybe a few distinctions we can learn from them okay uh that last one your top one it's a it's like a prank video right isn't the title how is successfully measured and it's got like funny sound part effects it's just it's it's literally just like uh a Motion Graphics background with an audio wave and it goes like fart swish and it it says what it is on screen and it just goes through all the sound effects and that's it and so it is a very search utility practical again someone's in their High School video editing class on the internet looking for funny sound effects YouTubers use and they just download that that video using 4K video downloader throw it in their final cut project and never know who we are and never see us and never subscribe but on the flip side you know whatever so it it is it is a utility that is on brand for think media but I mean if I go deeper let me mention a few things actually I don't I think one of these and we may have lost this money somebody copyright claimed maybe one sound and I don't know if we uh could fight that yeah maybe they did it should have earned thirteen thousand three hundred yeah this one's no copyright content so this video is earned as 13 Grand so that's kind of crazy in its own right um but uh what I was going to look up was the the demo on this video the demographics and so the audience is uh 18 to 24 is 46 I mean that's 13 to 17 is only 10 percent um yeah it's it's great and and it's led to 12 200 subscribers I think just the thing to be considerate of and again happy to leave this video public I think it's still on brand enough for us but you want to be cautious to not attract subscribers you don't want to attract the wrong subscribers it's not a race to who can get the most subscribers it's it's the goal would be who could get the right subscribers um and the most maybe engaged audience I would say we're kind of doing both think media's kind of got a mass Market approach but we're also trying to be thoughtful about then how we reach those and by the way for as much as I hope what we do we're just trying to be guinea pigs we're just trying to be test subjects that can go through successes and a lot of mistakes pass along that information uh to others so they can go further faster make more Intelligent Decisions so again it's one of those things where I'm like monthly in fact every single month YouTube gives you a top ten the top content in the last 28 days and our top two videos are always 30 plus funny sound effects for YouTubers and popular meme sound effects for video editing that's the other one and so I'm like so we're a sound effects Channel apparently and uh you know no one really cares about any of us the Deep information or Nolan or Omar or Sean the content creators or anything else but uh we are known for being the sound effects Channel yeah and if you made sound effects that would be on brand and it would be the perfect audience that you're looking for but it's kind of funny that these are the two most viewed things in your top ten okay yeah here's what I wrote down broad appeal utility know your audience and have strong hooks that appeal to a lot of people strong okay now I start to realize our desire to catch up to you might be ill-advised and and not possible because we don't have a lot of content that has brought appeal and so I'm I'm like reading your things and your titles I'm like oh my gosh how do we how do we even compete with that so I gotta go back to the drawing board and talk to the team here what the heck are we gonna do exactly what you're saying the you could have the wrong goal so by the way by all means catch up to us and surpass us but I think this is a powerful truth and I'm speaking to myself as we discuss this and I hope it adds value to The Listener your Clarity on what winning actually looks like is everything you taking the time to get crystal clear on defining your end goal and maybe the bigger thing to agitate for The Listener is that the way you're defining it now could be wrong or incomplete it maybe doesn't have enough detail or maybe if we keep asking well why is it you want to achieve that and why is it you want to achieve that that we need to make it a little bit more distinct and I and and I would think that as well your I actually think you absolutely could surpass us but but do you even want to go broader the opposite could be true actually let's grow slower like I mean imagine if that was a goal like team actually I kind of want to slow down our growth because what I would rather do is get the precise perfect subscribers for the mission that we're on and who we want to help as opposed to just reaching for a Top Line number that what does that mean and by the way if you really do some deep thought work and deep personal processing you still may come to the conclusion that absolutely the goal is to grow as big as possible and and uh within creative constraints we do want to keep pushing for bigger numbers well great but yeah in today's social media World we're mainly vanity metrics Impressions and Views are like the main way we measure winning or even ad Revenue because again I might go oh wow that video made thirteen thousand dollars that's actually pretty cool however it's actually kind of a drop in the bucket compared to our other Revenue so a lot of times good is the enemy of the great we get distracted by these lesser things there's a good book called The Pumpkin plan and it's basically applied to business about how to grow a prize-winning pumpkin is the fact that you have to cut off the little pumpkins and all the little ones will will suck away even though you're like look at all these great sized pumpkins that we have around we recently we sunseted a program this year that was earning about twenty four thousand dollars a month that sounds ludicrous that actually sounds for a small town kid called a Dropout that thought earning six figures a month was like the Pinnacle as a business owner I have to work on my mindset to say okay what's a good thing it's twenty four thousand dollars a month that's incredible but we we had to make the hard decision to Sunset it because compared to some other things it was hurting the prize-winning pumpkin it was a little it wasn't even a little pumpkin it was a pretty good sized pumpkin but it's stuck in energy resources away and where the real magic can happen is when you actually simplify down and maybe let go of so anyways I mean I don't know should I make the videos unlisted I don't I don't know you could you could really dig deeper into analytics to see how many return viewers uh returning viewers versus uh new viewers are related to this video that come to it and uh and you keep doing your best and so um there it is yes so the the lesson to learn there from some videos that might help your channel grow in terms of subscribers but it will grow the wrong audience and ultimately that'll hurt you because as you release new videos that are on brand on Channel that this other audience who came in like they're not watching it so it shows a lower percentage of your audience who are shown the video actually watch it and that can hurt you I my goal is Perpetual growth and I will use anything within my Arsenal mental tricks to just push us to keep trying new things and finding more effective ways to teach and to grout so when I think of it I think it's Jim Rohn who said it's like the goal is important but it's not as important as the person you become in the pursuit of the goal so we know our Channel we know the content I'm not doing dance videos I'm not doing whatever it is that I need to do to grow the Channel I want to grow while delivering on that clear message and the value that we've been able to do in the past now I will share this quickly and I'm gonna have to land This Plane pretty soon here but the top three of the five videos that are on our channel are the same video Sean um so we were like what the top most viewed video that we have is 49 million views it's a short and number five is the same video just cropped vertically so that it's more for shorts content and that has 3.2 million views okay so why why are the top three okay so there's a couple things you can learn from this first we made this longer video which is uh I don't know how long it is it's 36 minutes and one segment in there that we cut together is the that long video squeeze down all the juice into the most bombastic thing and that was released as a short that that then got us like 700 000 subscribers not one video now here's here's what I put out there I think I know what the formula is for our Channel and every person's channel is going to be different when I am doing something that is contouring or highly polarizing you could before it you could be against it doesn't matter when I'm doing something that feels like it's real I'm some emotion like this is a reality TV I'm arguing with a potential client and we're going through stuff that you're going to be on one side of the other and it stirs up all kinds of emotions and then there's a piece of value that's baked into that that seems to be the winning formula for any video that pops for us that's a that's a formula though that I do think applies to almost any Niche and any platform the polarizing one is a big one if it could be triggering and again the goal would be I think to do that ethically is you're not like sitting down to just make something up you're digging deep into self-awareness of what is your True Values principles convictions um and then not being afraid to share those also a something that hurts I think social media virality is hedging and one of the things that helps it is by stating something in an absolute I think what we have to remember is that even truth is held in tension that there could be two sides this is a mistake for me because when I do think about every audience I like to hedge that's not what triggers and goes viral what goes viral is by making a statement what we're afraid of is people then go yeah but what about the other side and you could say well this was a 16 second short so it's not that I'm saying there's not another side and this was actually this is a power principle for anybody who made it this long in the podcast this is worth I remember I remember going to traffic you could version Summit opening session Ryan dice actually spoke about five elements of creating movements and five elements of of uh you essentially should create a movement even a cult and that's a strong word but if you look at Jim Collins built to last good organizations good teams have cult-like elements all that to say was uh one of those things was you said that the greatest movement leaders speak in absolutes and he mentioned characters like Grant Cardone and garyvee you oftentimes hear garyvee say I remember back in 2011 I went to a live talk and he said my friends if you are not using search.twitter.com daily you will not be in business five years from now okay there could be no further false statement from the truth like there's first of all probably everybody in that room is probably still in business five years from now none of them went home and you searched.twitter.com everybody could probably get away from not never using Twitter search strategically or whatever but his conviction and the point he's trying to make now me also too as a background in PR Communications I was a director of communication at a church I always want to like tell every side like if you're not using search unless you're this or maybe it's not true for every industry it's not true so all that to just go a little bit deeper on that polarizing thing I think that if you're listening to this sometimes you just might be afraid to put something out there or you if you are like me and you're like yeah but yeah but what about this or what and by the way add on top of that Council culture add on top of that you're putting something on the internet but how could you possibly speak to every different background um economic background you know cultural background and you're like well in certain contexts this could be offensive you got to be willing to post Pat all the greats are willing to push past that they're not they're they're and if we're defining Greatness by reach they're not afraid to be misunderstood they're not afraid of triggering people they're not afraid and this is not I think the myth is a lot of us like to be liked and we like to be um perceived as kind we don't want we don't want to offend anybody and listen all of these things can coexist at the same time like that could all be true about you but if you want the growth and the reach you got to put it out there and be okay with somebody saying yeah but what about the alternative you're like well there's an entire video podcast like this was just the short of it like I break down the other side or or there's more to it or for you to assume or color in you leave a little mystery like you're leaving it yeah but what if you got to be okay with the 10 what ifs and make the statement and that was one of the attributes was that that these movement leaders and you could argue with social media these viral videos because it's it's really getting a lot of reach is it's it's it's polarizing you're stating something you're making a conviction there's emotional attention there arguably triggering but Chris knowing you you're doing this from a place of Integrity you're experience love for the audience and I'm sure we could look in the comments and see a lot of people that are upset and offended potentially uh as you talk about how much you should pay a lot of people I can never charge that month why would you tell people you know uh oh yes uh this all that kind of stuff and those are your most viewed videos you're listening to this right now there is Untold growth for your business your personal brand your reach on the other side of you giving up the fear of other people's opinions the need to be liked the need to please everyone and the need to avoid offending anyone you never could anyways but you got to crank up that tolerance for that and there's a lot of growth on the other side when you start putting out powerful messaging that you believe in on YouTube and social media Sean before we get out of here I just want to say a couple of things in reaction to what you just said the criticism of people that the criticism about social media people Lobby against me and just social media in general is that we're not having these nuanced thorough analysis conversations and there's a time and place for that but what we have to do is we have to stop someone to get them pay attention long enough so they can learn something they can take action on and improve their lives that day and I find that when I try to phrase something that's so nuanced it just loses all the bite and the punch it's like it's been watered down and so I need to say in a way that someone who needs to hear this today in this moment can hear it so I said recently theory is lonely it loves action don't keep them apart that is not a nuanced statement I'm clearly have an opinion and a point of view to this and that's the post that people are like well let's re-share this let's uh and that's what happened so but if you were to sit there and give a dissertation on that people would yawn they're going to move on to the next thing we're now whether you like it or not the attention span has been so reduced if you can't capture them in that hook that headline the thumbnail they're not going to watch the video in the first minute of the video if you can't keep them they're out and so you have to learn The Art of Storytelling and this kind of the Jenga effect which is I kind of know what's going to happen but I can't turn away you're going to keep pulling apart until it looks like it's going to fall apart and then it's done I think that's brilliant and I said it a little bit earlier it was one that that comes out I try to repeat it was I also said it's irresponsible for you as a business owner to not be on YouTube strong word and that was one of cultivated so it stings a little so again that's kind of hey taking a page from garyvee so so someone might say irresponsible it's offensive kind of what are you attacking my character you know like I'm being irrespect I think I'm a responsible father I think I'm a responsible business owner and and again sure there's so many different ways you can survive in business yes you probably will be all right if you don't get on YouTube but you don't want to leave that up to chance just meaning because your lead sources or your awareness could dry up in other places so it's nice to be Diversified but that's not me defending the statement the punch line is to let it sting is you're trying to get people to pay attention of course I can back up the statement but I think one of the things we're both saying and this is about this is even powerful for me because it's always making me think of think about what are my core convictions but also what are new ways I can package those to stop the scroll and get attention um in a way that's in total authenticity Integrity but also that's not afraid of being triggering and that actually is even being intentionally a little bit triggering I mean if we really go to probably the modern goat greatest of all time at this at this moment very polarizing figure probably be Andrew Tate got canceled and just has a particular way about him of just saying things that are sometimes not new ideas but he's certainly saying in a new way he's saying I'm in in uh maybe some new energy and saying some things that uh these are appear to be his deep convictions I don't even really know him until he got canceled um but I think it's kind of a good example and to that end if we put some handles on this for the listener you know one of the things I think we don't take time to do as business owners necessarily is sit down and say what are like the five to ten things your deepest you're most convicted about and of course maybe your actual what are actually some of your values and ethics and principles but it also could be YouTube like facts about YouTube YouTube is the best social media platform because it's like a fine wine it gets better with age it's the only platform you're con where your content lives forever it's irresponsible for you as a business owner to not be on YouTube and craft some of those those a core beliefs but then how can you power up some of those then those can become some of your core pillar messages what do you believe to be true about the world um what do you believe to be true about your business in the world what fires you up and gets you mad sad angry what what are you what are you deeply passionate about in relation to what's happening and I also think I know some people say hey you're a business Channel don't talk about politics you're uh you know on our podcast the think media podcast we recently had Patrick at David and he kind of shook me a little bit because he said he said you actually need to start sharing where you stand on issues because if you don't people won't trust you and actually more whether whichever side you stand on you're maybe maybe the most extreme people you push away but some people be like okay I know where he stands I follow him for YouTube I don't agree with him on that fact but uh I'm at least he's being open and his point was a comparing contrast between Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos Elon being very public very outspoken very polarizing well it's just blowing it all up some would say maybe negatively but positively in terms of his personal brand business et cetera we'll see how it all plays out and Jeff being a lot more hidden and and him saying Elon is is essentially kind of doing it right and people could be very mad at him but he's outspoken and he's he's sharing beliefs this is maybe the key what are you willing to take a stand for what is the standard and and vanilla doesn't work in 2023 on social media like pick a side pick a fight but don't just pick a fight for picking a pie a fight's sake that's being a jerk that's being rude what is the fight you actually care about and and then what would you be afraid make a list what would you actually what do you deeply believe what would actually be afraid to say on social media what do you deeply believe about your industry about your competitors who's your enemy and Chris you know this in good marketing and branding the best businesses have a good enemy and the enemy could be greedy core sellers who put out horrible information and give give course graders a bad name greedy internet marketers that that all they care about is image and Ferraris and so I go that's that's one of my enemies is is is the lifestyle of it's all about money and wealth and I'm like it's all about family and impact I'm gonna take a stand whatever and so these are some handles where I think you take some of this material and you put this into your future YouTube videos vertical videos podcasts uh you're gonna take those things to a whole other level and reach a whole other level of impact and then be ready for the backlash because you have crucified the fear of other people's opinions a fear of man a fear of of backlash because they didn't even know you anyways now they do know you and so you're getting the negative comments but what about the people you're called to reach and for every person that you polarized there's somebody else that now has discovered you and you're able to impact them with your product Services your mission and your message Sean what a way to end it that was straight fire in case you're just tuning in right now I've been talking to Sean Cannell who co-wrote the book with Benji Travis YouTube Secrets they have an updated version all for 2022 and 23. it's been a real pleasure talking to you and if you dear audience member have made it all the way to the end of this however long this is gonna wind up being edited to reward Yourself by subscribing to this channel to leave a comment and to leave a review and Shawna people want to find out more about you and think media in the book where should we send them yeah Chris thank you again for having me on and so much love and respect for your audience you're such a person of Integrity Vision excellence and I know that people who follow you follow you for those reasons so massive love and respect to your community the book's on Amazon so physically on Amazon ebook on Amazon and then Audible for the audiobook brand new audiobook recording Benji and I did in the studio and so if that's the way you love to consume uh books definitely check that out this second edition three new chapters deleted chapter all Rewritten 90 new pages brand new appendix with all kinds of free resources and training and videos um I think it's a good investment of 4.99 for the ebook if you're interested in doing YouTube and happy to help and answer anybody's questions I'm Sean Cannell rhymes with YouTube channel on social media accounts hit me up Reach Out tweet me DM me uh here to help and uh really believe that um YouTube could be a key vehicle to helping you reach your goals in the future foreign