Kickoff Sessions

#333 Ed Lawrence - The Only YouTube Strategy You Need to Make $100K/mo

• Darren Lee • Episode 333

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0:00 | 1:19:17

Why The Top 1% Take Everything

SPEAKER_00

What's the best way to use YouTube to grow your business in 2026? The best way to grow a business on YouTube is to become the 1% at the top. So what you cannot do is try and compete with the top 1% in your niche. Because the top 1% now are not just people who are good at making videos. The top 1% in most niches are people who have 20 years of experience on the topic. They've done it at such a high level. They know how to teach, they know how to educate, they know how to communicate. So it's basically the top 1%, and then 99% of people fighting for the same views. So what you have to do. If you don't have that experience, you mentioned the backstory. How would you put that together in a context for a business? People always say, What's my niche? But you don't pick your niche, you've lived your niche. I'll give you an example. My backstory had a video production company. I helped people build video funnels and present on camera. And then we edited and we filmed for them. And then I decided to start a YouTube channel teaching people how to do something similar. And then I became a YouTube expert. And then I generated millions of views. And then I taught people how to make money from those views. And then I made millions of dollars, right? So you break up my backstory. I could start a channel about video editing. I could start a channel about presenting. I could start a channel about growing YouTube channels. I could start a channel about making money from YouTube channels. I couldn't start a channel about making money from YouTube channels until I'd lived it and done it. So your niche needs to be the thing that you have expertise in that you can make content, put it on YouTube, and bring something new to the niche that doesn't already exist.

SPEAKER_01

What's the best way to use YouTube to grow your business in 2026?

SPEAKER_00

It would kind of depend on what stage you're at. So if you're brand new, you've got to get the following going, or some sort of following. If you've already got a following, then it's a different game. So who would you rather me answer that for?

SPEAKER_01

Well, the biggest category is people who don't have a following, or they are they're struggling to get their first 1,000 subscribers, right? Okay. So assuming they've already got an offer. Yes, and no, but I think these offers are kind of shit, right? If we if we're if we're really breaking down in the in the first instance, their offer is gonna be shit. So I love that.

SPEAKER_00

The best way to grow a business on YouTube is to become the 1% at the top. So every niche is broken into category leaders, and they're gonna take like 90% of the views in the same way that the first link on Google is gonna get all of the traffic, right? So if we use the business niche as an example, Paul Mosey's at the top, he gets all the views, and you've got like Cody Sanchez, you've got Dar Dan Martell, these other people, mass market views for business. So what you cannot do is try and compete with the top 1% in your niche. Because the top 1% now are not just people who are good at making videos. The top 1% in most niches are people who have 20 years of experience on the topic, 10 years of experience. They've done it at such a high level, they know how to teach, they know how to educate, they know how to communicate. So it's basically the top 1%, and then 99% of people fighting for the same views. So what you have to do is you need to look at your own backstory and you need to look at your own expertise and work out what subsection of that niche could I be top 1% of. So to give you an example, we had someone trying to break into the business space, 20 views per video. They'd done multiple millions over the years, couldn't get any traction. When I spoke to them, they'd made millions in a home repair service. So I said, Well, that's your channel. Just teach people how to make money starting a home repair business. They are now the top 1% in that space. Homozy can't compete with that either because he doesn't have enough specific expertise in that one thing. As a result, they started getting thousands of views. A few months later, they made 40 grand. So they went from nothing to expert, leading a very small section. So you have to break down your backstory and work out where am I top 1% in the wider niche. And then once you've got that, you can actually start to compete. Unless you're in a niche that doesn't really have a top 1%, but you choose to become so profitable that's getting rare.

SPEAKER_01

Can I

Build A Niche From Your Backstory

SPEAKER_01

ask you about some of the references towards what I would describe as a celebrity entrepreneurs? So I actually interviewed Dan Martel in December, and I was really fixated on his growth. So I really, really focused in on nine years to get to 100,000 followers, two years to get to three million or four million, whatever that is now. And his one of the things he broke down was the fact that he made things ten times simpler. The script, the ideas, like the Feynman technique, he stopped using the word revenue, started using the word money. Like he just broke everything down simpler. What's your observation of someone like that? Because my question is like, how did he become a 1% person, right? A one percent account.

SPEAKER_00

To become a one percent person, you need to be one, you have to have a lot of experience, and then you need to know how to communicate that experience to the level of three-year-old gonna understand. And most experts can't do that because we're too deep, right? The average person, the fact that Dan Mattel knew to say revenue is incredibly smart because I know that too. You can't say sales, people don't like selling. You have to say make money because they like that. You can't say revenue, you have to say make money. So when you want mass market, when you want the mega views, you basically have to get into the shoes of a complete beginner who's never done anything before, who's very likely to quit, who's just trying to dip their toe into it because they're like, oh, I'm kind of interested in this, because that is 90% of the market, right? It's not great for business, in the those people don't buy. So Dan Martell creates a huge following, and we all know of him as Dan Martell, but I've never watched one of his videos where I have I've turned around when it's too basic, right? I read his book because that's right for me. So Dan Martell's got a mass market channel strategy, which is great for him, growing a huge personal brand. He can then attract a wider audience and upsell within. But to try and achieve that in certain spaces, you've got to push someone else out. So if you want to do it in the business space, you need to come in harder than Dan with more expertise, more books, more experience than Homozy, or something very unique, or you have to find an audience who is not catered for.

SPEAKER_01

You know, what's a what's a lesson there? So let's just say you aren't someone who is a Dan Martel who's literally fucking 90% of us, 99% of us. If you don't have that experience, you mentioned the backstory. And I I always talk about origin story. If you look at like a Matthew Dix, Matthew Dix is someone that I widely respect for his ability to build that origin story with people. And he's worked with some amazing people throughout the years on YouTube to help them build that origin story and that backstory. How do you how would you put that together in the context for a business? Because let's just look at at the buyer, okay? So if I'm selling some B2B software, like how important is that backstory in my YouTube videos?

SPEAKER_00

Well, it's it's not necessarily the the videos, right? The backs, the thing that you for a YouTube channel, people always say, What's my niche? You know, but you you don't pick your niche, you've lived your niche. So your backstory is saying, I'll give you an example. My backstory. I had a video production company. Um, I helped people build video funnels and present on camera, and then we edited and we filmed for them, and then I decided to start a YouTube channel teaching people how to do something similar, and then I became a YouTube expert, and then I generated millions of views, and then I saw people how to make money from those views, and then I made millions of dollars, right? So if you break up my backstory, I could start a channel about video editing, I could start a channel about presenting, I could start a channel about growing YouTube channels, I could start a channel about making money from YouTube channels. I couldn't start a channel about making money from YouTube channels until I'd lived it and done it. So your niche needs to be the thing that you have expertise in that you can make content, put it on YouTube, and bring something new to the niche that doesn't already exist. Because if you just repeat what's already out there, you're not YouTube don't want that, and viewers don't want that. If you're talking to the viewers that are already catered to by the big channels, then you gotta fight really hard to get them. But when you bring that new edge and you solve a specific problem for a specific person based on your own expertise, you bring interesting stories, interesting opinions, you bring contrarian takes to the scene because you can turn around and say, no, that's not true. I found it out for myself. It's been three years doing that, it didn't work. I tell it worked. So you instantly have more interesting content. So the backstory is basically just looking at your life. You then work out the person and the problem who you can help solve serve the best. Um, but you have to check it off that you've actually done what they want in your own life. And this is where too many people struggle because they all come in going, I want to help coaches make a hundred K a month. And it's like, okay, there's about 10,000 people doing that. You know, they're all saying the same thing. You need to put a different spin on it somehow. What have you done that's different? But what have you done very well, better than others?

SPEAKER_01

And that can be within that context, right? Does that make sense? It's like we're all helping like entrepreneurs, we're all helping like you know, everyday consumers. Like it's other well, if it's actually B2B, it's companies, and if it's actually B2C, it's going to be your everyday consumer. But it's that lived experience that

Mass Market Channels Versus Specific Experts

SPEAKER_01

you talk about, it's that nuance that's added. One thing that I found was super interesting about your content was around the the decrease in views due to AI content, due to AI searches. So people searching, like you know, how to grow my coaching business on ChatGPT versus to look at how to do it on YouTube. I thought that was a very, very interesting man. And I think I'll hit that a step further when I when I watched that creational content. So how do you create educational content if the info is worth right? We talked about this before. I'm being like, you know, back in the day, your your education that separated you, but now if if information is widely distributed with AI, how do we create educational videos for your business? That is also valuable for people. We're trying to get them to watch it, right? How how do we do this? Is that the story?

SPEAKER_00

Well, it's what what what's likely to happen is so if we go back to the mass market channels, they generally speak to the beginners, the the flaky people who are gonna quit. They just think it sounds easy, right? So the the first place people will go to is AI because they just want to know a bit and they'll have a little bit of a chat with it. And I feel like just a lot of the flaky people probably won't even make it to YouTube now. They'll just go, uh, let's have a quick chat with this thing and type in how do I make 10k a month? And then they'll go, oh, I don't want to do any of that and quit, right? So it'd be great for them, it'll save them loads of time wasting, you know, watching videos and stuff. I feel like then the people who are more invested are probably gonna want more depth and they're not just gonna want AI conversation, they're gonna want to know more, right? So we might potentially get less traffic, but I feel like the people who do come to YouTube will potentially be better buyers because they're already a little bit more invested. Because it's actually kind of annoying going to YouTube now because it's so slow compared to AI. It's like you've got to listen to someone like go on a tangent and then you get clickbaited. The experience is not good compared to AI, which never clickbaits you. So I think it's gonna, it's gonna impact the amount of people coming for specific things. And then I think my main concern is right now the top 1% win with AI. Will it just be the top 0.1% winning? Because these people will get such leverage, you like Ormozy at the moment's doing his second channel, which is just spitting out like 10 videos a day. I'm pretty sure it's all AI generated from his other clips. Um you can flood a niche, right? And that actually stops other people from getting into it. So if the top 1% then suddenly start flooding niches because they've built AI systems, they've got all of his content, they're repurposing it, they're everywhere. It's gonna be even harder to break into the 1%. So I feel like it's gonna get harder at the top, but once you're at the top, it's gonna be very hard to displace you from the top.

SPEAKER_01

Um so what's true? Like, how do we how do we get in there to make it a make a debt? This is the case.

SPEAKER_00

Well, my nothing has changed. So my own personal strategy years ago was I I never wanted to be the the the top. I wanted to be the one person who was the first person you thought of when it came to solving a specific problem. And I was like, that's all I don't need to be make money online, I don't even need to be viral, I just need to be the guy that everyone goes, that's the guy you go to for that one specific problem. And if you do that, you can own your own space. So, you know, if if obviously there's lots of amazing business advice channels out there, and my channel touches on it, but people aren't really coming to me for that, so I don't really talk about it much. It always needs a YouTube spin. I stay in my lane, and by consistently hammering the same message over and over again for years, which used to be get loads of views, and then I switched it to make money from your views, just by going over it and over it again, you you kind of carve out your own space in the niche. So it's very hard now for people to come into my space unless they have helped like a thousand businesses. I've got there was software specifically to we're tracking a billion views on YouTube. So I know I have data no one else can see. I have products and services that I've worked with clients, so I see patterns across the whole of YouTube, which means it gives me a bit of an edge because no one else has this. And that then enables me to put this information into my content that is new, and that's what people want to see, right? And it inspires people. So you kind of want to be looking at I've got to get to the top somehow.

Competing By Finding An Unserved Gap

SPEAKER_00

Um, and coming up with new ways to do it is the best way, as in new information. So creating tools. This is what I love about AI right now. You can create tools, um all sorts of things that you then use in your content to make it more unique. But what you can't do is just expect to make a video and be like, Well, I'm I'm better than that other person at the top. Because even if you are, like if they've got years of experience making content, they now have to play the YouTube game. So you need to learn to play the YouTube game, and you need to come in loaded with experience and stories and ideally have worked with people so you really understand their problems. Because the more you understand the pain of your viewers and the more patterns you see working with people, the better your videos get.

SPEAKER_01

So we take a concept. So I was trying to draw this out earlier this morning for a client. So we have like the idea. So let's just say you sit in the nuance, right? So we'll we could use like a tactical example. I have a software company for sales. So let's say the idea is like how to make uh how to scale your sales team to sales team software. So that's the idea. Then the concept, would you say the concept then is like a walkthrough effectively? Like that would be like at a high level, but then we need to find like a new slot. So let's just say like the script then could be like um maybe like looking at the problems that it solves or the benefit that it solves, and then how do we like how would you kind of go about solving something like that, right? It's like the back in the whole day, you do like a Loom video, you keep it super in information heavy. Yeah, how do we this idea? Because that's what people really want to get from this podcast, right? It's like how do they take their fucking what's in their offer in their brain and convey this into step-by-step videos?

SPEAKER_00

So the the problem is you have to understand the niche to then understand where the gap is, to then understand where the competition is, to then understand how to position your content so that it appeals to your perfect buyers. That's why YouTube's very hard, right? So I'll explain what that means. So you've used the word sales, you're instantly up against a thousand channels talking about business, talking about sales. Well, who's your end user for the software? Like uh sales teams.

SPEAKER_01

So uh guys uh selling info, um yeah, info product, infoproduct sales teams, info guys in the user base. We obviously do other industries too, right? But we're we're doubling down on that. Like the benefit is that you're getting more leads, you increase close rate, all that kind of jets.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so in that case, your competition is Charlie Morgan, Tacky, um, people like John Pemberty, um basically anyone who takes his business at all because they're all very heavily sales related. So what you've got to do is find what's the new spin. So is this AI-based that you've got?

SPEAKER_01

Um it depends. So it's like uh it's AI-based for tracking, yes, but um, like we do AI sales coaching, all that kind of jazz.

SPEAKER_00

Um that's the new thing. Now we need to find the problem. So at the moment, we've got a lot of people talking about AI, also a lot of people trying to get into the AI sales space. So now we need to look at is all right, so we've got this offer that helps people, if I just simplify it, make more money doing less work. Um so you know, that potentially is a niche in that is I'm just gonna teach you how to earn more without more of a team. Because right now it's a trend on YouTube put without sales calls, without a team, without funnels, basically without the thing you hate, which is like bog standard copywriting. So you would look at it and go, right, well, is our channel gonna be about basically helping people grow their business without a sales team, without whatever this thing that our offer solves? And then we have to start looking at how do we get into click. If you make a video called, you know, how to set up an AI sales team, um, it's kind of a dull topic. We need some sort of result, we need some sort of number to tie into or some sort of proof. So you might want to set up a you create a title like this AI sales agent just closed, you know, 150k in an hour. So you've got to find some sort of because that's gonna get the attention of people, right? Um, but it's really the the the game on YouTube, which is what makes this so incredibly hard, is you need to study all the patterns within your niche, especially the business niche, and you need to know what words put people off, what trends there are, what um competition you're up against, where you can stick out within it. And then you have to come up with a thumbnail and title. That's the most important thing, because you, if you don't get a click, this isn't gonna work, that appeals to people in a way where they go, that's different to everything else. That sounds exciting, that targets the exact problem I have. But if you go too specific, no one's gonna click because it's too specific. So you're gonna limit your reach.

SPEAKER_01

Question for you on this on this, sorry, just to double tap on it, is when it comes to like benchmarking, which is effectively what it is, like finding the competitors, finding the key players, maybe even finding adjacent industries. How much time do you put into that? And then two, how do you process that? Like, do you have like a clawed bot or some shit that you keep on? Like, if we were to look at those examples that you that you shared, like how do we systematize this, right? Because if I spent every minute on YouTube, I'm not gonna grow my business, right? So obviously, this needs to be done through a system and a process.

SPEAKER_00

Someone needs to be spending every minute on it in the business niche now. And that's good at sitting over here and sitting in the corner right now. So that's like it's it's a bad answer, but it needs to be all up in here. I'll tell you why. Because when someone says to me, shows me a title, I can look at it and go, change that word based on a video I saw two years ago that blew up and a pattern I'm seeing in another niche right now. That word's probably more like to get traction. So just through like experience, you get it. You can use AI tools to help a lot, and that's what we do. But the best way to do this is to get so good at understanding how YouTube works and spotting patterns, it becomes second nature. And when you meet all of the top YouTube strategists, they'll be they'll just throw a title at you that they've seen somewhere obscure on the internet that's that's like pure brilliance. Otherwise, what you have to do is you have to profile the niche and you have to look for words of patterns, of topics, words that people like, words that people don't like that are associated with flops. You need to raid the comments to find where the confusion was, what people liked about the content. You need to then look at patterns within thumbnails, so titles, uh styles. You also need to look at the patterns of content tone. So in certain niches, the niches actually split up into different types of viewers. So, for example, you could have someone like Hansa, who's really rough and ready, like just talking to young guys, shooting with a webcam, ranting for hours in the same space, fighting for similar viewers. You've got someone with high production who looks like uh Netflix, giving this like really classy stuff. And then you've got someone else doing something very different. And what you find is different types of people are attracted to certain different types of content. So you need to also work out what is the style of content, what is the type of content my ideal viewer wants. Because a lot of people turn around and make these really flashy thumbnails and this really flashy production and making dirty little loom recorded videos going through a Google Doc, because that's actually what's more of interest to their specific audience that would make the perfect buyer. So it's a massive game of testing and trying stuff. So when I do testing periods on my own channel, I'll do 90 days and I'll do two videos a week, and I'll just be thinking, I need to try stars, I need to try presenting tone, I'm gonna try different titles, and I'm gonna try and fail as fast as I can so that after 90 days, I've picked up a few lessons, which I can then repeat on my channel ongoing.

unknown

So

SPEAKER_00

So it's this is what makes it so tough because the the the competition has got so fierce and the level of quality that's come to the platform there isn't there isn't room for just put a video up and hope it gets views anymore. That went a long time ago. So to systematize it, you need to systematize research probably the most because you have to understand your avatar and all of the data on YouTube, which is basically views, will tell you a lot about your viewer, and then you have to post, learn a lesson, post, learn a lesson, post, learn a lesson until you basically make every mistake and are only left with the right things to do.

SPEAKER_01

Which

Research Systems That Spot Winning Patterns

SPEAKER_01

is like which is a funny game when this is what your offer is to help people grow their business, right? As in they they need to, I completely obviously agree with you. It's like you need to be so autistically obsessed with YouTube to make it work, you know, to really, really yeah, like well, you just need to invest your time and energy into it, right? I'm not saying this this be your only thing, but I I definitely would love to ask you about the views versus sales because it's interesting you said, like, you know, you swapped your offer from getting views to to getting sales, or at least like that's where your interest and and your and your passion isn't now. I'd love to I'd love to get some insights into how do you really interpret that for certain channels that like for you when I'm looking at your channel, it's like oh yeah, it makes sense. You know, 10k to 15k views, he's getting good leads, he's getting true, good click-through rate, they're signing up to his wait list, he's selling on an email list or whatever. But if you're small and you're struggling to get views on your channel, how do you think about the views versus sales game?

SPEAKER_00

So, my my my opinion has always been the same on this and still is the same now. Because of how time-intensive this is, I would focus growing a channel before I try and sell anything, even if you've got an existing offer, right? You can leave links to below to link so on. But my main focus would be how can I get from zero to one to three thousand views per video consistently? And for a lot of people, that's gonna take a huge amount of time and effort because if you don't know how to film, edit, you've got no systems in place, like even just talking to a camera can take people like an hour to come up with something that's 10 minutes long. There's a huge amount of work you've got to do. So your main goal should be get a channel and focus all my energy on just giving as much high-quality value until I build a bit of a fan base. Now it might take 18 months, could take three years. Some people it doesn't take long at all. It really just depends on the niche and the experience and the level they are at making videos. Then once you've started to get that right, the sales from YouTube are easy. When people like you, you can have a I know the offer is very important, but you can have a sales page that doesn't make your offer very clear, and people will buy it. I have people who have bought my stuff, uh, even though they already had it, they bought it again because they wanted to give me some money because of the value I'd put on my channel. And I was like, Oh, you bought it twice, and they were like, Don't worry, I meant to do it. Like, it's weird.

SPEAKER_01

Like, so you if you're ship with your audience, you have to keep on button.

SPEAKER_00

That's what you want to build up. That's when this really works well, is when people already feel like they owe you money because you've given them so much amazing value that just seem to help them. And then when you press the button to like launch an offer, everyone buys it who's been watching you for that long. If you can get into that, that to me is what a personal brand is. And and that's not the same as getting 10,000 views on a video, that's the same as getting 3,000 return viewers to every video. You want people coming back over and over, and then they just warm up. Then you don't need a VSL, you don't need a webinar. You could argue you don't need sales calls because your entire marketing funnel is just on YouTube and you just need to show them the offer. But if you don't have that, what happens is everything's harder. So you sit there going, oh, the channel's not growing, the sales aren't coming in. I'll fix the sales page. Well, the sales page doesn't often need fixing. Like I didn't change mine for 18 months. But eight out of the end of 18 months, it didn't even represent why I was selling anymore. It was like completely wrong. But we just got them onto the call and then re-explained it, right? So we my my thing has always been build, get the content going, and then just point them an offer and a buy it and then optimize from there. So you want to focus on that, and then once you've got traction, start thinking, okay, now let's start introducing an offer. Let's start trying to sell. But when you do it too early, it's too much of a distraction. Like my channel will grow so much faster if I only make YouTube videos. I don't do any other work because you're just in the creation headspace all the time. The moment I switch on sales, YouTube's harder. I can't write as much. There's distractions, you're constantly thinking, like, oh, yesterday was a bit slow. It lives in your brain and it eats up all this creative space. So if you can get focused on just content, don't worry about the money, don't worry about the money, don't worry about the money. Once you press, you know, send the emails to sell something, it it the payback comes so much faster.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I think about we have like a long three-hour course on my channel, and people always say, like, after they worked watch the first five minutes, they knew that they were in, you know, and we don't even have a issue, it's just a fucking call option underneath to my own fucking software. So it's just like they click it, they see it, they're like, Oh, that makes sense, they book a call. And yeah, and I like it as a litmus test. I've tried to actually recreate that course in different ways, like a 45-minute version, a one and a half hour hour version, but it's just like sometimes you can just get it right and you want to kind of rinse it over and over again.

Views Versus Sales And When To Sell

SPEAKER_01

Um, I want to chat to you about two different areas. So um I actually was at a mastermind with a guy called Gosha. You know Gosha, the the YouTube strategist? No. He he basically he he did all of Iman's well, he did Iman's business channel. I know I saw you reference him on one of your videos. It was at Imman's Mastermind, but he did like the aesthetic, like the old money aesthetic um of the of the raw channel, and then obviously of the business channel. And basically he he be he broke things down into two different areas. That's what I want to reference him specifically, is that he basically said like all YouTube videos follow two areas. One is like scripting, so scripting, storytelling, the ideology of the video, and the other other aspect is production value, and you can obviously see that in in man's content. So I thought it was very interesting. The way he explained it to me was like, look, if you're gonna get 10 leads, well, you'll get 12 leads if it's better scripted, and if the production's higher, you'll get 15 leads, so you'll still get the 10 base plus the two plus the three. And I thought that was like a really nice way to look at like why why the fuck should you increase uh the amount of time you put into a video to get a better script and so on? I'd love to get your opinion on like do you script content? Do you script like every fucking line? Because when I watch your videos, obviously, because I've just been creating videos for a while, I can tell that you've really wrote the lines, but then I can also not tell that it's scripted or read from a teleprompter, like it comes natural to you, obviously, you know.

SPEAKER_00

So, yeah, I agree with him. I I think I don't know what numbers he quoted, but I would say you get 10x return on scripting and trying to make something good, but not just from one video. Because what happens is people are too obsessed with views, right? But if I can write a script so that I can not exhaust someone, give them just enough information so they go, that was good, I get it, I want more, and keep watching, they'll keep warming up, they'll keep warming up, they'll keep warming up. That doesn't necessarily mean my channel is gonna suddenly blow up, but it does warm them up for the offer. So with this thing about scripting, yeah, I I would he says two extra, I'd probably say 10 because you also have to take into consideration people's time. Like I hate the advice on YouTube, they're like, oh, just come up with three bullet points and present from it. It's like, I guarantee, if I took their video and wrote into script, I could probably get their message across in like four paragraphs because most of it has been spent rambling, it's got no structure to it, they've not really thought about how to communicate, they've not come up with the framework, they've not come up with any sort of visual to make it sink in, they're just talking, right? So the viewers are watching maybe, but it's it's not syncing in at that level that gives them that aha moment. And those are the little moments where people go, damn it, this guy's good, right? So coming up with them, that that to me is the complete that is the the art of YouTube. That's what I teach everyone to do. The production value, I'm not as set on. I'll tell you why, mainly because of what I said earlier. So people like Charlie Morgan, it it didn't when they went high production, it didn't work. But when he went back to just Charlie sitting in his room being this relatable guy chatting from a screen recording, it worked better. And I felt it too because it it I actually quite just liked watching that and the way that he delivers his information, I feel like it's actually better suited because he he do he used to go a bit deeper. Like Iman's main channel is mass market, right? So he's he's not going deep. His business one he goes really deep. So I don't think production value will do that. I think it will for certain viewers and others actually don't want that, they just want something simple. So we are seeing a bit of a change at the moment. We definitely went away from production for a bit. I mean, Iman's always done everything properly, and it that that's his brand. It went away to a bit scrappy. It does when I'm looking at the channels that are growing fastest now or appearing out of nowhere, they all have high production again. Just nice studios, good lighting. Um, but it feels like they're appealing to a slightly different type of viewer than what the scrappy ones did. I think the scrappy ones actually got more associated with bro marketing in the end, uh, which will eventually backfire.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, because even if you look at yours, like your camera sub right now, I would consider that to be high production, right? It's just it's classy, like the tones are right, and like you've like mastery takes a lifetime, and you've put every fucking detail into those small nuances, so much so that people don't feel it as overbearing. You know, it's not like oh fucking this guy like is in a Lamborghini. It's like it's not like that feeling, right? It's like they're just small subtleties that showcase that brand. Now, that's actually a good point about the bro marketing. You'll find this quite interesting, actually. So um we didn't have like bro marketing, but I was very much just more chill, like we're just creating content, dudes watching it, and so on. When we toned down the kind of just fucking dude linguistics, we attracted so much more uh female entrepreneurs, and I mean probably five times the amount of male because they were like, oh, like like this content's actually also for me. And like females are actually not generally on YouTube as well, right? Which is pretty interesting, it's like six, seven percent shit. So I thought it was very interesting how one significant change was colour tones. Like it's obviously darkened out for me, but usually I was always wearing black and I just kind of stopped wearing black. But this was like a phase thing, it wasn't like an it wasn't like an intentional thing. Um, but I just thought it's very funny how like color psychology, production value, you know, either being a little bit more relatable, however you want to describe it, um, has a big impact long term. Um and it's funny because I actually spoke to Tacky about this, like it was in my house, we had a podcast, and I was trying to explain this concept to him, and he couldn't get it across in his head because it was a very, very dramatic change. Now, there's obviously other reasons why that happened, but I think obviously some of it is to do with the context, right?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so it's interesting. When you look at the channels that men and women watch, there's patterns within thumbnail styles. So, generally speaking, uh the the channels that appeal to women have really messy thumbnails, a lot more going on, a lot more cluttering. Um, whereas the ones that appeal to men are way simpler. So if it's it's it's I used to my my ex-girlfriend, I go on a YouTube and I was like, What the hell is this? Like, this is giving me a headache. I was like, What are you watching? These thumbnails, like you can't even see what's going on. She was like, Oh, I love these sort of things. Um, so you do you do find there's definitely differences for sure. And I have to try and be mindful of it because I I get a lot of complaints because they're like, Oh, you only ever use men as an example. My job's hard because it is mainly men on YouTube, and in the business space, it's mainly men too. So I'm always trying to find female examples. As a result, a lot of my clients are men. But um, what you will find on YouTube is that if a female appears in a niche where it's all men, she can suddenly do very well because all the women are like, finally, to listen to these dudes, so they pick up fractions.

SPEAKER_01

Shelby is the best example of that. Who's sorry? Shelby Sah. Obviously, that's short form on Instagram, right? But like it's so just counter-narrative that it's just I think it's fucking great to analyze. Like, I probably referenced it on like half of my coaching calls at this point. It's just such a great example, you know what I mean, of just how you can come in and totally up-end an industry, yeah. Uh based on just fucking or based on many different variables, you know.

SPEAKER_00

Well, this is the thing about gaps. So we we've we've used an example here of basically if a male-dominated niche, suddenly a woman comes in and suddenly all the women are like, oh, thank god for this lady, she has created a gap. We were talking about James earlier talking specifically to like Christians, there's an audience there who suddenly feels catered for. So when Charlie Morgan came in and started doing these scrappy-looking videos, there was a whole audience that felt catered for. And that's the name of the game. It's different styles appeal to different people, and then different personalities appeal to different people, and that's what makes things feel new, and that's what gives you an edge. But what

Script Quality Beats Fancy Production

SPEAKER_00

you generally see on YouTube is everyone just copies Iman or everyone copies Homozy, which won't get you anywhere. You've got to find the the unique spin, and then when that happens, it can really kick off.

SPEAKER_01

So how okay, even my mind is spinning a small bit with this. It's like everyone has like some skill or like some ability or some backstory. How do we actualize this? Right. So, like, even if looking myself an example, like I've been an entrepreneur for a long time, but I've had my business folks for six years, we've done well. Um, I have some I'll give you an example. Like my copywriter, when he first came in initially, he was like, Oh, like I write short, succinct writing, like very to the point, very blunt, very direct. Is that like an edge you lean into? Like, how do how do people actualize this for themselves?

SPEAKER_00

You don't intentionally find it, I don't think. So you can do, but the luck is definitely a skill in this sense. So um a lot of people who break out don't mean to. They just do it because they had something unique. But you can research it, you just have to profile your niche. You have to look at okay, what are the if you're gonna look at it right, you want to score it. So you would look at your niche and go, who's at the top, who's getting all the views, who's the level below, who's like in a sub-niche, and you try and look at how many sort of views they're getting, what's their production style, uh, what are the comments saying, and then you want to look at if it was me versus them, who would win? Right? And if you look at them and go, do you know what? Based on what they've said, I think I've got more to offer than them. That's where you go. Now, the problem with that is nearly everyone thinks that about everyone they're watching. They're like, Oh no, I'm better than them, and you'll soon find out if you are or not, because YouTube will reward you if you are, but at a certain point, you've just got to take a stab. So for me, it's a game of just working out what's my strongest card, play that, test, and then the data will tell you.

SPEAKER_01

I want to discuss a cognitive load. So something that I love about your content is the concept of making things. I guess the way I describe it is finding the diagnosis for your viewer or prospect and giving them the accurate prescription they need to solve their problem. And the way you probably describe it is giving them the right cognitive load.

SPEAKER_00

Can you explain that to people as well? So you your your memory, you have working memory, right? It's the things that you'll notice. Like I guess it's like RAM on a computer. It's like how many things your brain can work on at once. So that's three to five things is what science says our brains can hold on to it like one bit of it at one time. So what happens is people overload their information with too much information too fast. So this podcast so far has been high cognitive load. Because I've been talking about all these different things, right? Um, and it's not been structured into a framework or a visual, which means a lot of people are gonna be like not taking it in and they'll get mentally exhausted and tap out. And because of the way that YouTube works, but also learning, we need people to keep listening. So, what we need to do is make sure that we're not bringing in more than sort of three to five things for them to focus on at once. So a thing could simply be you're editing too fast and it distracts them from the message. You know, once they click play on a video, they're instantly listening to what's being said, but they are mentally scanning it going, is this what I wanted it to be? So that's another bit of brain power that's getting used off. That they're having this narrative within their head whilst listening. So there's always stuff going on. What we need to do is reduce it so that they're never feeling lost, overwhelmed, or that they're not being delivered what they clicked on. And if you can do that, you keep people watching. So in order to do that, you need to come up with examples and stories because we don't remember lists, but we do remember stories. So if anyone's bought Russell Bronson's book, you remember that he got into it because he sold potato guns. Have you read his books? I I read uh expert secrets, right? So I can't remember which one it is. It's the first one, it might be that. He starts the whole book with how he got into selling stuff because he he made like a spud gun or whatever it was. And I've never forgotten that. Because you remember it, right? You when he when you're listening to a story, you are visually picturing Russell Bronson, like putting a gun into a potato and firing it. So it just stores in your memory. So when when people tell stories, it reduces cognitive load and it's using up less of their working memory because they're picturing this one thing, they're not getting distracted. So the the art on YouTube, if you want views and you want retention, you want to keep people watching and you want people to learn, is how do I take all of this information I've got and distill it into something that eases them in? I give them a story that simplifies it, or I show them a visual demo where I literally show them the problem on screen and then point it out so they can see it. They're not trying to think. And then once you've done that, you've they've kind of understand it already because the story has simplified it. They've filled in all the pieces for themselves. And then once you've done that, they've learned it. You often don't need even more explaining. But then what I'll usually do is layer on more information because they'll understand the foundations from the story themselves, and they're ready for a little bit more depth. So the way I look at content and why writing is so important, for me, it's a game of going, how do I put this in an order and a framework or a story that's simple to follow so that they want to watch another one?

SPEAKER_01

So you're you referenced a lot in your content about you know your client stories, your editor story, which is great, right? Like your editor getting like 20k a month or whatever it was, and being able to wrap that in. So do you take, let's just look at it tactically. So you take a concept of like how to how to make money from YouTube, and then you look at one of your case studies, you go through Johnny was here, he went on the expert secrets, or he went on the um the hero's journey, effectively, and then we we wrap that story in and and uh could could that be your 14 minutes or seven minutes in a video?

SPEAKER_00

It could be two lines, it could be 10 minutes. It's really up to you. So at the start of this, you asked me a question, and I told you a story about someone who became a top 1% in their niche, and they were trying to compete in the business space, and that they then started a channel about mobile home repair, right? Like, that's by design. Because how else am I exposed to Splain? Otherwise, I've got to turn around and list, like, right. So, in order to come to a niche, you need to get to the top 1%. What does that mean? So I need some sort of visual, simple way to show it, to prove it, and then you will grow your business by looking at your clients, the ones you've helped, and sharing their story to simplify the point. Because at the end of it, you can show they got a result and you can be like, I helped them with it. Subtextually, the viewers sitting there going, Oh, this person's an expert. How do I work with them?

SPEAKER_01

So, question for you on that. So, one thing I almost find hard, even in an ad copy or and so on, is like telling those stories. I don't know. Something about testimonials I find that's like a personal thing, I find hard to convey, even record them. Um even recording them with people, like people can make a fucking 200k a month, and I just like have like a bit of a resistance to it. I don't know why. I don't know why. But how do you tell those stories? That's not like did you ever see that meme? There's a fucking hilarious reel of a guy like with a with a gun to someone's head, and it's like, tell tell the camera how much money we helped you make. And I always think about that as an example because like some of them. be like fucking scripted and shit, you know? Yeah. So how do you do this in like an authentic, an actual authentic way that fits your story?

SPEAKER_00

Get videos from them. I've got somebody who sells videos when you're telling the story. How how do I was all right? So when I'm telling it, well I just tell it. So I know right because one of the benefits of what I did was I continued to work with clients, which meant I got stories and wins and case studies, but I did it via a program that had hundreds of people in and I had a Discord with a celebration room. So anytime someone went right they're like then they're celebrating my channel's blowing up I just made a hundred grand. That's my story. It's just sitting there waiting for me. So I screenshot all these testimonials I've got like a thousand in a drop box. They're not really testimonials, they're just social proof. And then when I'm thinking to myself right the point I want to teach right now is that you need to get to the top 1% of your niche. The first thing I'm thinking is what is the best way to explain that to someone so that's easy to understand. So it's either going to be a story, a metaphor or what I call a visual demo. Visual demo is literally where you show them a visual like the problem or the solution a before and after. So I'll turn around and often if I want to change someone's belief, I will use a story that basically breaks a false objection, which is what you do in marketing anyway. So I would think right what was an example of someone who was really struggling who then blew up and made a load of money. Oh cool I can think of three people right I'll just pick one of them. That's it. But you need to you need to be in the game or collecting them because otherwise you don't have any stories to reference. And that's what a lot of people struggle with.

SPEAKER_01

They say how do I

Cognitive Load And Teaching Through Stories

SPEAKER_01

come up with a story and I'm like well they you just need to ask what's happened and if the problem is if nothing's happened you don't have a story to share that's so interesting man because like we similar to yourself like literally have fucking hundreds of it yeah you will have loads does that make sense like you don't like it's weird right it's kind of like and you know this yourself right when you're coaching someone the opportunity is off in front right in front of people and they're usually like it goes over their head that what what they have in front of them and they think they need more but if I was because tomorrow is like our I'm going to record like one or two YouTube videos tomorrow. And I'd love to get your thoughts on that process through which we can come to next but for me it sounds like the fastest way to start with the idea is to look at what's been happening in the business what results have we gotten for whoever and then what was the reason for that and to build out a storyline of this. So it's step by step by step as a result. Yeah kind of so well I always start with the thumbnail and title right so how you position your content is important because we have to come up with a clickable thumbnail and title um then once we've got the thumbnail and title how would you do the thumbnail if let's say you're recording somewhere so I was uh we uploaded a video yesterday which was about like how to scare your sales with some shit and the thumbnail came from me on stage at the event afterwards. Yeah how would you how would you do that retrospectively beforehand? Like how would you think about it?

SPEAKER_00

Think about it.

SPEAKER_01

Well you're using pre-recorded content from a talk right uh yeah so like we get I gave like a like a master class but but we hired videographers and stuff so that we could actually upload it as like a free training as well simultaneously.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah it's like right so the the problem with that straight away is viewer expectations. This is like the unspoken rule of YouTube no one really knows about so if I click on a highly designed photo of you with some text and then it's a stage presentation my expectations are gone because your thumbnail told me it was going to be a traditional talking head video. And I don't want a guy on stage I want someone there giving me quick information right so if you have a thumbnail of you on stage that's better because it's clearly setting the tone for the content. The thing is what percentage of people want to sit there and watch a guy talking on stage most people come to YouTube because they want someone talking directly to them. So you've got to work out if it's if it's a stage video now you need to come up with a title that's going to work really well and you still probably want to create some level of curiosity within the thumbnail with some level some sort of text on it that makes people ask how what or why you have to create a a curiosity gap. If if your thumbnail and title don't work together where someone looks at it and asks how what or why it's very unlikely they'll click.

SPEAKER_01

Can I can I share screen and you can you can roast it in particular this is going to be uh probably the dead of me I'm not gonna lie probably not a good idea but let's just do it anyway. This was the idea right which was I fix 80 found 80 founders sales process in two hours and then this is like me on sales all right so the the in in terms of expectations right that's the right kind of style because that's what the content's going to look like.

SPEAKER_00

You're instantly telling me this is an onstage presentation. And funnels like this weirdly can go on and do really well even though they're kind of simple. So I'd create a few variations I'd have one like that I'd have one where you're to the side with some sort of text. So you've put I fixed AT founders sales process are you see you've used the word founder that's not a very clickable word on YouTube. You've also used the word sales process so you've instantly limited your audience because most people don't have a sales process. So the the second fun that I'd have would probably be you a bit more to the right in the gap it would say something along the lines of stop doing whatever it is the thing they're doing. So they go wait that's what everyone tells me I'm doing what's this guy's new take but the title should be I fixed 80 founders sales process in two hours well what was the result of all of the income generated when you fix those 80 founders sales well I guess what's the result?

SPEAKER_01

Obviously they make more money but that wouldn't be in the short term, right?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah so that's that's when you're making an idea you've got to look at what's the most interesting one. So 80 founders is good because it's a nice number it shows credibility. Founders often appeals to tech companies because they tech startups call themselves founders whereas business owners just call themselves business owners. So it'd be I fixed 80 businesses sales process is not the right word funnel again is going to limit your audience but in terms of making sales the word funnel's good because it's going to appeal to a slightly higher level of business person.

SPEAKER_01

But if you want mass market we have to Dan Martellify it and basically just go for the most biggest result that could appeal to the most people you see the problem it's like there's so many little things you need to know and this this is going to be an important question as well for many people and I feel like I don't want to know what the answer is but basically so I kind of grew my brand based on my podcast right I had like podcasts with all the big guys and all that kind of shit. But then on the back of it people are like oh this guy's not like that totally fucking dumb so like let's buy his shit and we have an agency and all that kind of stuff too. But then we started putting out more of this style content more like authority style content but then we kind of we deliberately decided not deliberately semi-deliberately decided to mix the podcast with my own individual content the justification for that is because it's largely the same shit. Like this is me and Will doing like a fucking doing a um like a masterclass if I was to do this myself we'd probably say the same stuff anyway. I'm not trying to justify myself what I'm trying to say is like how do you how do you make that decision then to go like one channel or two channels?

SPEAKER_00

Well for you we want one to start right and we just want to get one working really well. So if you go back to your home page the issue you've got is you've got no um I don't look at you and go this is the guy that does this so if you've got my channel this is the guy that helps business generate sales views um if you go on Will's this is the guy who helps people make 100k a month or whatever right on yours if we scroll down we've got you've got like um inspiration for more faces right so you've got why you can't scale your business so to me that's Matt you've you've you've entered Matt Gray's space there with that thumbnail style and that's okay that video did quite well for you then on the right the ultimate guide to scale your sales and revenue you've got a thumbnail style from three years ago that appealed more to the kind of bro scene right then you've got um Daniel with your podcast and that works but it's again it's a slightly different style so you've got different expectations from different viewers coming to that content. The person who's going to want the the slip of you in the pool is looking for a lifestyle business. They're looking for the barley experience the travel the person on the right who says optimized sales they just want to make as much cash as they can and they want to grind. Then you've got the person who wants to sit lean back listen to Daniel Fasio podcast right so at the moment you've got people coming to your channel for all different kinds of styles of content you've not really landed on the one that you can become known for that will bring people back over and over again. And that's why my thumbnails are so boring. If I change them even the slightest bit I always test different designs the moment I leave my face with big boring text it falls apart. The video I just put out yesterday was doing really bad until I switched it to that boring thumbnail and it shot up again. So your return viewers right they come back because they want the same thing in a slightly different way each time and when you stop doing that you put out a video tests it with return viewers straight away if they don't buy it it won't push it much further. So YouTube is a game of working out your viewers one giving it over and over again so that it gets to more people like them.

Thumbnails Expectations And One Channel Focus

SPEAKER_01

So how how would you explain maybe like this video right so why I learned tracking sales from one billion viewers and it says use emojis that seems like a disconnect title or thumbnail text.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah it's it's not the best thumbnail but it it will make you ask why but would that not confuse people I'm just trying to like poke all potentially that one that's that's probably one of my least that's probably one of my worst ones by the way like I struggle with this still right I don't get it right every time so the the that video itself is about tracking sales from YouTube videos using my software it's instantly hit my reach because you already have to be having an offer you have to understand the benefit of tracking you have to like data it's not content that's ever going to get pushed that far. So if I'm honest I don't put as much effort into the packaging when I know that this is not a video for views. It's a view a video for sales and introducing people to software because my software is for people who are doing 10, 20k a month already do you know what I mean? So if we go and look at let's go up to and again if in all in all honesty right if you go through my channel you can literally see when I'm focusing on my offer more than my channel. So if you scroll down you can see exactly how to make sales from every video you make top right. At that point I was at a stage I was like is there any point me making content anymore because I need to fix up my business. I need to rebuild it so I stopped making videos for three months because I mentally didn't have the bandwidth to do a YouTube channel and the business. And I knew if I carried on going, I was just my views were going to go down and down and down and it was pointless. Whereas if you scroll back down again you start to get to a point where you'll see there's multiple videos in a row that start to pick up more traction like the social media is a trap one and the future of YouTube those are optimized specifically just to get attention and if you look at them the content's really light really basic but it's optimized more for views. So I'm playing a slight different game where some videos are for views some videos are for sales but the packaging is always very similar because what the thing people discover you from is the thing they want more of and if we keep changing too drastically you won't be able to build that return viewership. But what you need to find is a style that actually works straight up that works so then you can repeat it. Because if you look at my top videos at least you just repeat them over and over again similar thumbnails and titles.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah because like the what's coming up for me right now is you know you mentioned a lot about like production based on based on like the viewer right so if you look at someone like Will will obviously and he should lean into the fact that he has an exit so his stuff is like yeah dude I just have a cup of coffee here and let me just help you throw your grow your business. So he has like that expertise or or like knowledge asymmetry with he knows more than you know the average person. So it's low production but then there's many other guys who are like young who need to talk up so if you look at like a Nick setting like Nick's production is very high because he's like 22 or some shit.

SPEAKER_00

So like my observation is like his production quality is really really high because he's talking up like liter quite literally like dressing up so it's about kind of like finding that that edge if you look at like Tacky Tacky's like the wise uncle he's like passing that wisdom to you and it's like oh yeah that's exactly it right you see how Tacky's got a style that makes him unique Will's got a style that makes him unique um everyone has who who eventually gets good results from YouTube has something that is different to other people in the niche.

SPEAKER_01

How would you observe like someone like Tom if you look like Tom Nosk you know because like it's funny because I I would kind of consider someone like Tom to be super creator style but now he's kind of more on like the info style.

SPEAKER_00

So Tom is Tom is he's got Instagram style right so everything he was to me Tom was appealing to young men who were stylish they like the whole idea of making money online the lifestyle thing they like the cars but he is appealing to me he's appealing to a younger audience like if I my audience is older if I use those thumbnails they ain't clicking they don't want to see me driving a car they don't care never got kids they want to see me driving a van right so most of my like audience are like way older than that I'm in like 40 40 50 vibes like like genuinely like much much older well especially our clients and it's just this is probably another question is like how much of your viewers are a resemblance of your clients like I would say is like sometimes a lot of mine are very different. Which is kind of a probably I don't know and that's very good insight right that's very good insight overall viewers and buyers are not the same not the same at all. So like this was the last 2025 was the the biggest realization I've ever had because I started tracking sales from individual videos. So to g to give you an idea right so 2024 I did about two million and I wasn't tracking and we had had a sales team come in and I didn't change the funnel at all but one month we had this video blow up and the conversion rate of the sales calls went down to like 22% and um so I said like what's happened I said oh yeah the league quality was just awful they were like people were turning up they didn't even read the sales page some people didn't even know why they'd booked a call they were like it was like it was weird so I looked and I was like well we had 6,000 views of the sales page 2000 more than month before we had way more calls the show rate was fine what happened because the sales guys I know they're not bad right so I just looked at the channel and I was like oh this one video blew up and it was specifically designed for the widest market it just drove tons of beginners tons of people who were just wrong who don't read anything who just wanted to get rich quick we had to cancel tons of calls. So when I did that we started tracking stuff and then what we noticed was the start of the funnel the traffic source YouTube basically what I put out on there was what ended up on the sales call. And what I put on the channel if I was optimizing stuff for sales meaning I was going deeper I was talking to people who were already making over 10k a month I was showing systems to turn views into sales the thing that my offer did by the time it got to the sales calls the conversion was up at like 50 to 60% and we actually sat around 50 to 60% forever after that. So anytime I wanted views I could literally say to the sales guys the channel's popping like we're probably going to see worse lead quality.

SPEAKER_01

And then

Viewers Are Not Buyers And That’s Fine

SPEAKER_01

the months where it grew slower lead quality went up that's crazy man I'd love to actually ask you more about your your business yourself.

SPEAKER_00

Like what's the structure you had so you you were doing two million then you did four million I'm just curious like what's the setup because I know you said you're we're changing your offer whoa it was it was uh 2024 I switched to like an open 90 day program it was back then but then we moved it to six months and it was like a 7k offer uh I started with no sales calls I just launched it just to get a few people in tested it for a few months then got in a sales team um and then I ran it for a year and then last year we ended up doing about five um but we switched to a waitlist model so it it doubled because well the two reasons I think it doubled was I actually knew what content was going to generate the best leads but then I basically I could I I'm a bit obsessive with rebuilding it. So I've rewritten the thing like four or five times. It takes me months to do this and I've been building it for years in different variations. So I shut it down for two months at the end of the year had to say to the sales guys I I don't have a time to make this as good as I want to do like we have to shut sales and they were they were good about it they they hung on until January but in that time I just drove people to a wait list. January came and I thought I don't know if what I've done is going to make this better or worse. Hopefully better let's just let in 50 people see what happens so long as there's nothing that's really confusing people we'll open up sales all the time again the next month. So January came we opened sales 50 spaces now they're at 10k so 50 spaces went in seven days um and then the sales guys are like conversions at 50 to 60% so they're loving it. The people getting on the call who are like just how do I pay how do I pay so then I shut it down to with the idea of let's just see how these people go and I reopened it again in February and between January and February I'd driven people to a new wait list. So we opened sales at the start of February same thing happened again seven days 50 spaces gone. And I was like hang on a sec, let's just keep doing this so what what I had I had one metric to measure my business by and that was how many people I had on the wait list. And it was nearly always the same. If I got 500 people on the wait list every month we'd get 50 clients and the other cool thing about this was I couldn't really scale quicker than 50 clients a month because we have we do a lot of support in the back end. So I just did this for months and but yeah by the end of the year we've done I think it was 4.8 million um from the year before which was two so you're basically it's it's basically monthly uh releases yeah yeah but then you're still doing like 300 400k a month up to 500 yeah how big is your team like like how how does this operate so you said you work a lot on the client success side too I had three sales guys who were basically in all fairness and they were like we don't like doing it because one of them was getting up at like 2am I think to work nights um yeah because he was in the UK I'm pretty sure he was just getting up because most of my clients are in the States so we had three three sales guys and I didn't manage them at all. I had an agency so I didn't even train them. I literally they just came in and we said let's optimize from there and they were always great so we just left it and then I have in my Discord I had two people in the business support room and they do an hour a day and then I had four in the YouTube support room and they do an hour a day. And then we did five live calls a week I did two of them and then one of my team did two hours and then one of my team who's a copywriter did one just on copy feedback. So we didn't have any we had no on full time and we just had people doing maybe an hour two hours a day and then I was picking up a lot of support as well but that was doing the actual support myself was one of the best decisions I've ever made because it I learned so much so fast in the business speech I could see all the patterns so yeah but then I shut it at the end of the year I I love that though it's cool like it's it's there's different ways to slice and dice it you know um yeah there's just different ways to do it because like open coaching is obviously a great model like it's it's a great model it's probably better than cohorts in general to make to optimize for cash but obviously you you lose the you lose like the novelty when it's always open you know like we run offers and shit and we we we make shit up and you know like you you have to like dress it up for sure but that's an interesting way to be like okay now it's actually closed now we're actually letting so much people in and so on so forth you know like putting more limiters on it is much more valuable.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah you know you know what's actually really impressive I think like maybe you don't even realize about yourself is like you're a very creative guy like obviously because your backwards like he was in field production but then you obviously have a very high business acumen at the same time no usually it's one or the other so there's like the creator guy or the operator guy. Like for me I'm more like an operator and I had to like learn marketing I'm like oh fuck's I gotta make a YouTube video and I have a better mindset of it to be fair. But like like I just fucking love like building Shit general, all but tinkering with stuff, not like procrastinating, but I find like the sweet spot is the dude who can have the design, can have the taste, uh, can have the interest, but then also isn't a fucking princess. And is like, yeah, I do need a sales team, or I do need to work on this thing to build this thing. Like that is very, very rare, man. Like, it's extremely rare to have someone that can play both sides of the coin.

SPEAKER_00

It is. Uh, and I I think it became problematic because part of my teaching is yeah, I just just just make YouTube videos, do this, do this, like devote all your time to making content. Oh, and then in the afternoon, do all the settles. So I think last year I got to the point where I was like, Am I an outlier here? Am I actually teaching people something that is really just not obtainable unless there's two of you, or you're a bit weird like me. Um, and I think Sam Ovens cottoned onto that, which is why he stopped making content and partnered with Homozy. Because I said it when I met to him. I said, Would you would you do content again? He's like, No, there's no point. That you need one person just focusing on the business and one person just focusing on content. Because when you have that one focus, everything else just gets so much better.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, bro, yeah. But but then the challenge is it's hard, right? Like, it's hard to get people in the right seats who are not absolutely fucking potatoes. Like, we we grew to like three million a year last year, and then we have a bunch of people, and then the my summary is that you put people in to be accountable and uh responsible, and they're neither responsible nor accountable. Now that's obviously like leadership, right? I obviously take responsibility for absolutely fucking everything in my life, but at the same time, sometimes like the like Tacky talks about this, right? Tacky talks about like how he grew the business. I don't know how much they were doing, probably eight million a year. He brought in like a marketing team, they were giving him scripts, there was total bullshit, total shit, and his business started going down. So he basically brought people in to help in the system, but that was the Achilles heel of his business. This is 2023, 2024, not now, obviously, he's doing very well now.

SPEAKER_00

Hmm. I'd say I I'll tell you one other thing that I don't think people really talk about enough is, and one of the things that made a huge difference to my business that actually enabled me to get more testimonials, which I then put into my content and made sales easier, was we I got way more strict with who we'd let in, the more I saw people come in. And what happened was the more barriers we put in the way, the more we started saying, no, you have to have this and this and this in place, the better the results we got. Because many people came in and were ready to go fast, but also the less support they used. So we were getting more people in who are asking less questions, and when they did ask questions, they were much easier to answer. And there was way less, like people often have like emotional breakdowns, right? When it comes to business, especially if they're newer. So I we then started to become way more obsessed over if they're not the right fit, they can't come in. But when you limit the amount of people you can let in and you've got more demand than supply, you can literally just start handpicking the right clients, and then the rest of the business just runs better. And I think I see that a lot with people when I look at their businesses, and that they're complaining this isn't working, this isn't working. You look at the clients and you think, I don't think you can actually help these people, you've got them in too soon.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, a 7k price point really solves that too, especially if you don't put like you know 45-way splits on it.

SPEAKER_00

That's just yeah, yeah, we we we we were it was 10 and then it was at first I was like, I don't want to do a I don't want to do a split pay because it potentially then makes this accessible for people who are going to be harder to work with. But then I realized that actually split pay does help in certain elements, and it wasn't that bad, but we just made that 20% more expensive and everyone paid up front anyway. Hardly anyone ever went to split pay after that.

SPEAKER_01

The

Revenue Tracking Software And Data Led Content

SPEAKER_01

uh one of the last areas I'd love to chat about is around the software. So something you know, I'm I'm just I'm a fucking nerd, right? So what I wrote down a few things here about how how it's built, right? Like specifically Rev track, right? How do you actually track the revenue? So they book call, sorry, they they come through the link, you have some type of UTM tracking, correct? So they come from youtubers, and then they book call do you integrate with like Tannelline shit and then the payment processor?

SPEAKER_00

Like, how do we do this? So no, it's just done on um it's literally just done on thank you pages and sales pages. So let's say if you've got a I had a book a call funnel, right? So bit of code goes on the sales page, bit of code goes on the thank you for booking a call, thank you page. So they've they they've booked the call and then it takes them to the page, and then when they signed up, um the thank you for signing up, thank you page, and then that's logged, call, conversion, click. That's it. It's pretty simple. So what if they pay on stripe? Just for context. Uh well if they pay on stripe, does the checkout auto-direct them to anything?

SPEAKER_01

I guess yeah, you could put it to the onboarding page, right, or some shit.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Well, what we get what we actually used to do was I used to um to make sure everyone got logged, when they signed up, I I would email them straight away part of the automation. There is an important survey I need you to fill out because I I always try and work out my buyers' problems, and then I put that back into my YouTube content. Because if I just target the problems people signed up with, I get more people like them. So they have to tell me their top three problems and their goals, which then we can use to like profile clients. But on that page was also the thank you code. So everyone came in and they had like an onboarding call with one of the team. The first question she asked was, Have you filled up the form? If not, they had to go there to log the tracking but give me the data. So that's that's all we did. But if you got a low-ticket offer, it's pretty simple. That's just buy now, then thank you page.

SPEAKER_01

How do you um how did you build it? Like, like how did you grow it? Like, what's the what's the background?

SPEAKER_00

Um so it was just a friend of mine. I was I was fed up. I'd started to think that some of the content I was making was just driving bad leads based on like this these interview videos and stuff. And I was like, I want to know what's making the best calls, what's the best, you know, what's getting the most emails. So I just spoke to my friend and he was like, I want to know that too. But he was a coder, so he was like, I was like, what do you want to partner on it? Do you want to build it? And he went, all right. So we we knocked up a really basic version for ourselves and then started looking at the data, and I was like, Oh, this is game changing for me. But not only that, he gave me a unique edge and things I can talk about in videos too, right? So um, yeah, he built it, but we've we're we're we're developing it now to turn it into more of a lead gen software. So it's got tracking, but we're starting to build in things that are actually gonna help people on YouTube generate more sales, specifically from tools that we can build now. Um because it's too niche for to track stuff, right? You've really got to be into your marketing, you've really got to care. And the people that get it are like, I can't live without this. But the wider market, it's too overwhelming for them filling out a spreadsheet, right? They don't even know how many people go to the sales page a month. So we're gonna start to develop it into something that's actually more about making the money rather than just tracking, because at the end of the day, that's what people want.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, because like for our platform, we track when things are coming in from like Hyros or like any sort of ad, but like it has to be uniquely set up. What I mean by this is like this this shit goes deep. You know, there's like the basic that you click the link and it works, but then like there's a new and you have the 21-year-old dude from Miami that's like, Well, I actually have a different edge case, so that's the reason why I ask is like data coming in the top is usually fine, but then it's about like what happens afterward, and that's why like for our company the the what we tried to do was we try to be the system of record so that the end state okay, take that back. If you look at like any company that's really really valuable right now, like actually valued, they own data, they own fucking absolutely everything, and then people can pull off of it, so we we can integrate very easily with stuff. So that's why I'm just asking, and I'm like, I wonder how how how much data points you have of the leads because you could do a bunch of shit. Um we're able to pull their jobs, and because we will do like a routing, so keep it simple. Someone comes in, they hit a scheduler, we then can pull that against like uh Apollo to find out someone's company size and their fucking job. Basically, it's it's batch of crazy. Um but it's tough, it's tough, obviously. It's very, very tough to build.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I see. So you'd need multiple like touch points and stuff. Now, this is a lot simpler. This is, I mean, at the end of the day, like if you if you're using ads and doing that level of tracking, this is not what it's for. It's it's mainly for organic content. So yeah, of course. Um well it's it's straightforward, you know. The cool thing about it is it takes ideation from YouTube to a dashboard where basically you see a title and a style of video. So I basically established I call them a short process. If I make a video that tells people five steps to get a result, it can get views and money. If I make a roast where I basically critique someone's content, it makes more money. So the dollar per view goes up. If I do a deep dive, the dollar per view goes up. So I'm starting to look at different styles of content and different ways to produce, and then different titles that generated me the most income. So last year, all I did was 75% of my videos I ideated from my sales data, and the rest I did ideated from views data on YouTube, and it worked.

SPEAKER_01

But it's um and you were able to do that too from when you're when the calls are booked. Sorry, I'm just such an artist with this stuff. Like I think this stuff is so sort of helpful for people too, right?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so that's that's probably yeah, that'll be a screenshot of my dashboard from a while

Small Changes That Fix Big Leaks

SPEAKER_00

ago. So that's that's the reduced data. So you can see there, right? We've got this just changed YouTube forever. 35,000 views, 107,000 generated. So we might have found that um oh no, the one below, let's focus on that one. That's more interesting, right? So this I studied a thousand YouTubers, this stops them making money. That was a roast. So I literally am just going through people's content or their funnel and saying this is what works, this doesn't. Um and then it's basically tracking calls and sales. So certain content just drove the hottest leads, and then other ones didn't.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. That's sick, dude. That's so so sick.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and then but if you can just you need some data, right? Obviously, you can't once you've not gotten if you've not got sales and views coming in, if your funnel's not that well optimized, it's it's not it's not as helpful when it is.

SPEAKER_01

What I also say people though is like fucking, you know, you how do the big guys become big? It's because they have this stuff. So if you if you if you don't have the right tools, it's like trying to make a fire in a cave, or it's like a caveman, right? It's like, yeah, you could fucking figure it out, or you could just use the right tools and get to the answer now. That's why I'm you know, and you don't even know.

SPEAKER_00

Digital marketing is great because you can track every touch point. So if you're if you're like me and you have a very simple funnel and there's only like four or five touch points, it's very easy to work out where your problem is. A lot of people don't even bother tracking how much sales page traffic or conversion they've got, or even things like show rate, um, which is the basics. Once you know that stuff, it's just all I did was look at my spreadsheet at the start of every month and go, what didn't perform as well as it should have done last month? I'll fix that this month.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, man. And then you can go back into the messaging, you can go back to like what's actually happening inside the content uh overall. I think that's where yeah, it's funny because like you're just doing it from such a like a first principle basis, which is like here's the data, here's the progress, here's the details.

SPEAKER_00

It's a lot easier than guessing. Yeah, you know what's mad. One month we the sales conversions went down, and I said to the sales guys, like, what happened? And they were like, call quality just seemed a bit weird this month. It felt like no one had what looked at the sales page, and I was like, Oh, that's weird. I put the apply button at the top of the page last month at the end of the month. That's the only change I'd made. Basically, people were not reading the page, they were just coming in, clicking apply, booking a call, and it was about so we moved it back down the page again, solved the problem the next month.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and that's the funny paradox. Like a lot of times, it's like you're able to actually diagnose it backwards, you know. But look, yeah, that's that that's a nuance that you have, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00

At the end of the day, if you make one change at a time and then wait and see what happens, it's not that hard.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, yeah, and like I think that's actually an observation I've had is like I'm trying to make too many changes too much at once. Uh, that's actually what what fucked our recent webinar. Uh like I still ended up fine, but making too many changes at once and then not being able to track them in the right way. Like we change it, it's a good idea, we change the angle, which wasn't a bad idea. But there's a few things that you if you move too too quickly on, you just end up kind of like cooking the whole scenario. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I generally just find changes that make things go backwards before they go forwards. That's what I've always noticed.