Digital Social Hour - Building a YouTube Empire: Secrets from Sean Cannell | Digital Social Hour #69

Episode Date: August 11, 2023

Hey there, friends! Have I got a treat for you today! In this exciting episode of The Digital Social Hour podcast with Sean Kelly and Wayne Lewis, we dive deep into the world of YouTube and the secrets to success. And joining us is none other than the incredible Sean Cannell, founder of Clear Vision Media and a YouTube powerhouse with over 2.3 million subscribers! Get ready to be blown away as Sean shares his wisdom and experiences from his 16-year journey in the content game. From his early days freelancing with wedding videos to building multiple successful YouTube channels, Sean has seen it all. And now, he's here to spill the beans on how YouTube can be a game-changer for your brand. But what's the secret to gaining millions of views and growing your channel? It all starts with smart topics and trend-jumping! Whether you're into conspiracy theories like James Janney or fascinated by viral-style content like Mr. Beast and Ryan Trahan, there's a niche for everyone to thrive in. And guess what? You don't need a massive budget to get started. With just $100, you can create your very own YouTube setup using a tripod, softbox light, and a good microphone. Sean spills the beans on how to gradually build out your studio, from a basic setup to a crispy video podcast powerhouse without breaking the bank! But YouTube success isn't just about creating great content. It's about having a solid business acumen and diversifying your income streams. Don't get stuck relying solely on ad revenue and brand deals like many influencers. Learn from Sean's experiences and discover how to monetize beyond YouTube, ensuring long-term success even during a recession. What sets this episode apart is the depth and breadth of information shared. Sean doesn't hold back as he spills the beans on YouTube Secrets, his bestselling book that has garnered over 2,400 positive reviews on Amazon. From the seven C's of YouTube success to social media strategies and monetization methods, this book is a game-changer for aspiring content creators. But that's not all! Prepare to be inspired as Sean shares his incredible journey, his faith, and the importance of staying disciplined in your work. He opens up about his breakthrough moments, the massive success of his business conference featuring speakers like Gary Vee, and the need to keep pushing forward with courage and strategy. So, my friends, if you're ready to take your YouTube game to the next level, be sure to tune in to this incredible episode now! Sean Cannell and our hosts are here to guide you on your path to YouTube success, and trust me, you won't want to miss a single second. Start your journey today and witness the power of YouTube firsthand. It's never too late to start, and the rewards will be with you for years to come. BUSINESS INQUIRIES: [e-mail] APPLY TO BE ON THE POD: https://forms.gle/qXvENTeurx7Xn8Ci9 SPONSORS: AG1: https://www.drinkAG1.com/DSH Hostage Tape: https://hostagetape.com/DSH --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/digitalsocialhour/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How much money would you say you need to get the right setup for starting YouTube videos? Man, I think the right setup today is like a hundred bucks. That's it? One of our students, Mary, joined our course when she was 60. She's 65 now. She's about to get a gold play button. 922,000 subscribers. Wow.

We're doing it all. I think we post about 328 pieces of content right now. 328? of content right now 328 a week all right welcome to the Digital Social Hour. I'm your host, Sean Kelly. I'm here with my co-host, Wayne Lewis. What up, what up? And our guest today, Sean Cannell. Sean Cannell.

Man, Sean and Wayne, I'm fired up. Let's get it, man. Fellow Seans, we got to stick together. Sean and Sean. Sean and Wayne. I'd love to, and Wayne. I'd love to dive into your story. Yeah.

Yeah, so, I mean mean it's kind of a wild journey these days running a youtube channel that's kind of a media company and we got about 20 people working there 10 contractors um we teach video and so we have some youtube tip stuff but we teach cameras lighting live streaming uh youtube channels got around 2.3 million subs, a couple other channels, I think over 3 million subscribers total, 500 million video views, um, eight fig company, but, uh, didn't, didn't start there, you know, obviously, um, uh, started from the bottom. Now we're here. And, uh, I actually got into video though. I've been doing this a long time. So I got into video in 2003.

Whoa. And I was volunteering at my local church in a small town. And like the youth pastor gave me a camera and I started making videos and they were terrible. And then the first YouTube channel we started was for that same small church in like a small town in 2007, two years after YouTube started. So I've been doing video for 20 years, YouTube for 16 years. I've probably made more mistakes, failed more than anybody. And that's where I learned some lessons. And I try to help other people learn video and grow their brand with YouTube. Also like wrote a book, YouTube secrets, which I think is the number one

bestselling YouTube strategy book in the world. I think we're over a thousand, a hundred thousand copies now. So in second edition just came out And yeah, I really believe that online video is the big key to getting your brand out, your message out, video podcasting like this. Right. But YouTube is really where it's at for the long game, the long term, long form. Even though with shorts and everything, it's like the long form dominant platform. And so entrepreneurs and everybody should be serious about building their brand on YouTube. I love that. So you were in the content game early, super early, super 16 years

in it, bro. That's a long time. And most people give up in 16 days. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. I just committed the process. I freelanced a lot. So in 2009, I started a business called clear vision media, wedding videos, music videos, multiple different YouTube channels. So I just kind of like fell in love with the game. There's so many different hustles around it. You can freelance, you can shoot video, you could, you know, help people on the strategy side, video marketing. I've done just all the different things. So they could talk about like the 10,000 hour rule.

I'm probably like 50,000 hours. Literally aware of that. Yeah. In terms of just different video scripting on camera behind the camera and so so what was like your first like niche like what what did you dive into as far as the youtube categories you're like okay cool this would be well it's interesting is in 2010 no it was actually like faith-based content okay and with my friend uh jeff we started a channel called think international our channel now is called Think Media.

That was kind of by like Think International was because we thought Think Skateboards were cool. And we had been to Canada. So we were like, we're international. And so we started that. And we did about 250 videos, which was interviews with like pastors, authors, speakers. That's a lot. That is. Especially then.

Yeah, that's a lot. And nobody was doing that yet. So that was, I cut my teeth. That grew a lot. That is. That's a lot. Especially then. Yeah. And nobody was doing that yet. So that, that was, I cut my teeth that grew to 10,000 subscribers and that was very early. So that was kind of the first thing. And then out of that, people were like, how are you making the videos? What cameras are you using? How are you just like showing up to events and like filming interviews with a really lean setup and then turning them around fast. So I was like, okay, think media is just microphones, cameras, like the video production side. And again, because I've been doing photography and video for weddings, music videos, I started making videos about like lenses, cameras, and I've discovered that YouTube's

a search engine and I discovered affiliate marketing. And that's how I made my first six figures was doing this kind of tech reviews or like, what are the best lenses or what are the best budget lenses? What's the best camera for YouTube. And with a video that would rank in search, people would click the links. And then through just the Amazon affiliates program,

uh, was able to get to, you know, seven, eight K a month or whatever, six a year, YouTube ad revenue, another couple of hundred or thousand, you know, seven, eight K a month or whatever, six a year, YouTube ad revenue, another couple of hundred or thousand. And then and then these days started to teach specifically

that system too. There's a lot of, there's the whole suggested side, kind of the viral side. That's where the big growth is, but YouTube is still a search engine and there's that slow and steady growth. If you go around answering specific questions, reviewing products, doing search based content content. Search-based is even relevant for shorts in some regards too, if you're, especially in a business context, product context. Somebody recently was looking for building a video editing PC or a gaming PC and every part they researched was a ranked short talking about the part, you know, whether it's the GPU or whatever it is. So anyways, I really love search-based content. It's not as sexy, but it's kind of like

the sleeper method of passive views, passive income. Cause the content lasts a while. Exactly. It could be evergreen. Yeah. You're not like, like, Oh, you're not even going viral. You're like, yeah, but money's coming in consistently. Cause if that's also connected to smart income streams, whether a little bit of ad revenue or affiliate marketing, but if you're a business owner and you have an offer or you're doing leads, um, or, you know, we have a lot of service providers, real estate people and stuff. Like if they just need a couple of leads in their local city, search-based content, getting discovered for market updates and Snohomish County can get you leads. And that's

all you need to close a couple of deals. How much money would you say you need to get the right setup for, uh, for starting YouTube videos, man? I think the right setup today, it's like a hundred bucks. That's it. I mean, cause let's assume you already have a pretty decent phone. You buy a tripod off Amazon off amazon for 18 a softbox light for 50 and a good mic for another 20 that's gonna be like decently crispy to get most people started wow and a lot of sweat equity you got to put the time in too sure and and that's not a video podcast setup like this if you if you go up to that next level, I think you can make a really big dent with around a grand. Get like a $750 Sony ZV-1 tripod, microphone, softbox lighting kit.

Now assuming who's going to edit. Are you going to outsource editing or do you need a MacBook or something? And then for like a nice crispy video podcast setup, you could probably do it for under 5k. I built a home office setup is around 20 to 30 K. So you could step it up. And that was like standing desk, two monitors, three cameras, lights mounted on it. And that was also, so I could just switch myself and run my team and shoot from home. So, so there's the, there's the a hundred dollars set up and then you could, you know, 10 or 20 K. You can go hard with it yeah yeah you're looking

you start building out the studio to sam sound is joe rogan's at his house uh used to be right is it still there yeah wherever he's shooting it i mean you went into that like alien looking so yeah you start you could start spending 30 40 50 depending on like the architecture to the background if you're putting tvs behind like what are you going to do so but so what were you doing like in the interim like while you were i mean obviously you knew you wanted to do content or yeah build a media company were you actually still working like a normal job or yeah i was working at a church for how long yeah so uh and when i got into video i was working part-time um back when the youth pastor handed me that camera. I was waiting tables at Red Robin, flipping his burgers. I was the host.

I was the expo. I was the busser, and then I was a server. And then eventually I was part-time at a church. That's why I also had my doing media. And then eventually I moved to Vegas to work at a church as director of communications. So it was a bigger staff, like 40 people. I was doing, uh, I got more into digital marketing doing that. I was helping like the pastor launch books, Facebook ads, you know, kind of like the church, social media accounts, his personal brand accounts. And that was 2011 to 2015. And, uh, during that time,

I was chipping away at YouTube, but that was like the main thing, the main job video editors. Uh, how do you source those? Cause I know people struggle with that. Yeah. So, I mean, there's a couple of ways you could go about it. There's like the vid chops level, which is, or video Husky, which is these services where you're going to film this stuff, upload it to Dropbox and the videos kick, kick back to you in 24 to 48 hours. Very affordable. Um, maybe not the best editing, but they will rotate you through until you like the editor. And if you get into a workflow and if it's like a simple talking head video, that could be one of the best ways to do it. You of course could just go up work, um, and, and look at, you know, you kind of get what you pay for. If you start paying more per

hour, you can start getting like higher level YouTube edits, uh, but it could be more expensive. You could also try your luck on fiber doing the same thing, just kind of trying to figure out somebody, um, the, you know, next level would be, you know, tap your network or, or actually do a proper hiring process, indeed LinkedIn, whatever, and just actually look for somebody what a lot of people maybe want entrepreneur wise is a shredder a producer shooter editor that lives somewhat local that heard of that term shred you know teenage mutant ninja turtles but yeah if that if they could come out because i actually there's a couple different skill sets video editing especially with ai and stuff i think is actually becoming in a a couple of different skill sets, video editing, especially with AI and

stuff, I think is actually becoming in a way, a less valuable skillset, but like the psychology of how to edit a great YouTube video is becoming like a more valuable skillset. So meaning like basic video editing will, I think get replaced by AI, that like lower level stuff. So it's where what's really becoming valuable is that strategy level. So if you just have somebody that's turning the camera on and off, it's a whole different level

than a producer, shooter, editor, that's gonna maybe come out, kind of help architect the shot, perhaps make sure that you're shooting everything, hooks, the content, the outros, thinking about things. Let's, hey, let's flip the camera and get like a vertical video, like somebody that may be synergistically working with you and then where does it go next is there a YouTube strategist are

you doing that who's uploading it thumbnail title optimization and so may be hard to find somebody with all those skills but if you got one person for a lot of entrepreneurs you depending on where you live 50 60 70 80 90 100k would be that one person could potentially run your youtube you know kind of empire they work with you locally and for in a way a lean startup you know maybe 80k a year that role if they were world class at all those skills it's pretty pretty legit person so there's kind of a spectrum of what it's just hard to find dependable people now 100 yeah and so that's why ai is important to all of us and granted it can't do everything but well it's our clips yeah yeah you either pay for it or you build it so i think it's also depending on your leadership style and your skill set um again that again, if someone is hungry, they might come in at 35, 40,

depending on where, you know, 45K. And then over 12 to 24 months, you have them watch all our thick media videos and like go through our course and immerse themselves. And if they have the aptitude for it, then you build it. And that's kind of true for any role. And you're right,

because it's to find that level of mastery is difficult for sure. It is. They don't really want to work anymore. Yeah. But you work with a lot of big YouTube accounts, and you also study all the big accounts. What are some common things you notice for the YouTube pages that get millions of views? I mean, YouTube pages that get millions of views are really smart about the topics they're covering. There's just certain topics that get millions of views.

If you're covering kind of conspiracy theory stuff or you kind of position it that way, there's a guy named James Janney who will cover like MLMs or he'll cover exposing fake gurus or he'll cover that kind of stuff and he makes also great kind of documentary style people know how to hack viewer attention and kind of loop and continue to re-engage the viewer i watch his videos yeah right so you watch so so that's that kind of stuff in sort of any different niche. You know, when Sean, I don't know why I'm forgetting his last name, he's famous and he started doing the, he did like the, maybe a Jake Paul kind of three-part series or something. Oh, Shane Dawson. Shane Dawson.

Thank you. So yeah, that's kind of a good example too. I think that those are interesting. Of course, he had the previous um growth and subscribers however the subject content itself was trending it was about so if a lot of times the biggest channels are um definitely going to cover maybe trend trending people uh influential people even if there's a whole faceless movement right right? Automation channels, they do similar things like the 10 richest celebrities or best celebrity mansions, like that kind of interest. Personal finance is massive. Um, and again, if it interestingly enough, long form can really crush if it's very engaging. Yeah. Sunny V2 is another example of that like i'll watch a lot of stuff that um is like the rise and

fall of like bam marghera you know or something like the same thing with me you look up you didn't watch 20 minutes of it yes the clips are just graphing you just connie iceberg yeah part one yeah part two part three and it just keeps going down and then all this other stuff you just like turn it on yeah and then i think also i mean what's interesting is a certain video podcasts are going value tame it i love patrick yeah and so uh politics if you you build up that influence tucker clips yeah a hundred million what didn't you get offered by patrick uh yeah and clips can get 400 000 and podcasts get 700 000 and some of them break out and get millions i think he's getting 100 million views a month on youtube content at this moment

wow um 400 million uh patrick david across multiple you know he's saying and that's all on talking head but political commentary kind of business a little bit more politics. So I think, and then of course, Mr. Beast is kind of a skill that, that type of content and Ryan Trahan and a lot of people that are doing that style of content. And then I think it's also, there's the, the, the niches, you know, it's interesting about our community is we like people that are part of our course and stuff. We'd kind of like to talk about him as like the the unfamous unknown YouTube creators that are wealthy mm-hmm because they don't have necessarily huge channels but they got a big bank yeah or they got like and so or even crazy

stories like this one of our students, joined our course when she was 60. She's 65 now. She's about to get a gold play button. 922,000 subscribers. Wow. Right at this moment. She's got making bone broth videos, you know, how to cook a chicken. It's never too late, bro.

It really isn't. It's never too late. I think people give up early. And to that point, I think also, like you said, who's getting millions of views. Like the stuff that really goes big is tapping into like sometimes dancing, music, children, trendy stuff, kind of like viral clips.

But I think viral is overrated. Meanwhile, you know, Levi Lassick, um, is in the story. He's in the back of, uh, the second edition of YouTube secrets. He'd read the first edition, implemented everything, started a channel called living in Dallas real estate. He's a local agent, his partner, Travis plum. They started doing organic YouTube videos. There's no other marketing source in their real estate business in Dallas, just organic YouTube videos. They're not over 5,000 subscribers for six months. Nothing happens. A few leads come in the following 12 months. They do almost $90 million in top line revenue, which is $3 million in real estate commissions. Wow. They don't even have 5,000 under 5,000

just taking videos of houses and explaining neighborhood tour yeah because you because video builds know like and trust and their business model like i like to think of you know real estate's kind of like high ticket affiliate marketing because you get three percent on a million dollar home you get thirty thousand dollars i get four percent on a thousand dollar camera i get forty dollars so it's better to get a forty thousand dollar real estate commission so it depending like what's the business model what's the opportunity vehicle that you're connected to your youtube channel so what's sometimes it's funny that even like haters in our community is like oh you're a you know a youtube coach but you

don't get as many views as mr beast i'm like number one nobody does number two mr b to tell you that exactly nobody's beating me but number two like you're also you're not seeing underneath the surface because especially if entrepreneurs business leaders as it leads client sales just what's the model yeah you know and i think i think right now we get 40 million views a month so i'm always like i apologize like that we're not getting enough for you but like that's all organic no that's all organic how many views are you getting 40 millions a lot you know and so so yeah it really it is like the iceberg it depends you see the views up here but like what's underneath the surface and for some a lot of influencers are hurting right now like brand deals are drying up a little bit, especially with some tech companies, FinTech, um, ad revenues down a little bit. We're kind of going into a recession. Um, you know, if you're dependent on the influencer income streams and you haven't created general products

or services, you're vulnerable. And so that stuff's all amazing, but I think diversifying your income streams and having like a deeper business than just YouTube is important yeah but most people don't have that business acumen to you know want to um you know monetize on top of whatever they're doing it kind of get comfortable i agree yeah you know cpms are hitting they're getting ad ad money and it's just kind of like oh we're cool they got to grow i mean that's or or accept you know or partner you know i think that's what some people do like mr bees didn't figure out how to start running restaurants or doing like ghost kitchens he hired a ceo to do that for him obviously he had that leverage so i think a lot of influencers and i've been able to see as you can see you know graying my beard like

i've been in the game you know i've been on youtube 16 years like that's crazy so i've seen people come and go i've seen people like you know um really rise and fall and a lot of times people they've done really well massive money was coming in but they weren't at that point they should have been like partnering hiring building their business acumen but instead they're just spending their money. What gives you that drive though, bro? Like what gives you that constant, just tenacious attitude? Just like, yo, I'm going after it to be 16 years of doing anything, bro.

That's like, nobody even plays in the league that long. What you got a couple. You might be the longest. You got Haslam. You maybe got a couple different, Tim Duncan, maybe like, like like how did what gave you that drive like what's pushing you like what what is it like since 2003 yeah oh it's 20 it's 2023 youtube started in 2005 yeah 2003 i got into video so i had a two-year head start learning

yeah so like what what gave you that like you're like no i'm gonna make a million dollars for sure like you just like yeah i mean I think a couple of things. I think I think that even though as an entrepreneur, I've been distracted by stuff like you always have a million ideas. I think I understood the compound effect that like if you could stay disciplined and keep doubling down, like you could just get so much more depth out of something instead of just switching things all the time. Like like for me, you know, my faith in my values are really important. I've been married 17 years, you know. Wow. I would. So she stuck with you through all the Red Robin.

All this stuff. Breaking the yard. And I know she didn't marry me for money. We were broke as a joke. Right. We got married at 21. You were originally from where seattle seattle so and it's expensive to live out there it was so we were more north

but yeah no we were we got crushed we got crushed in the uh the housing crash in 2007-8 yeah because we actually had two houses declared income the whole thing but i guess what i was going to say is again my ethic would be like i would rather double down and go deep in one relationship and have with the same woman thousands of times than like have with thousands of women or whatever. So it's that why there's that depth, that trust, that relationship, there's more richness there. And so applying that to like, by just choosing to pick a horse and write it. I think, I think, uh, Dr. Phil, I heard him say once, God only gave you one. So pick a horse and write it. You can't write two horses, you know? And, uh, and so I've just been riding the same horse. And by the way,

there's a lot of times when it's tempting to be like, man, still talk about this, getting bored with this, but man, as it goes deeper and as you build more momentum, kind of learned that from Steve jobs to like, as the, when he left Apple and then the product lines expanded and they've got all this noise and all this destruction. And then when he came back, he narrowed it back down. They fired him actually. Yeah. Yeah. We've actually, we did that. You start just creating other things.

You're responding to stuff. You're getting distracted. And like, uh, I just saw Layla Hermosi tweet, like you actually will grow faster by subtraction, not by addition. Wow. And so this idea of like, just continuing to add more. So yeah, just trying to double down. And what I found is that it's just has created more leverage, more doors have opened more momentum and more opportunity, more, uh, more depth in the expertise. So I think that's part of it. I think that, um, I also was making an educated guess on the horse I was betting on and that was YouTube itself. And I think that YouTube, of course, anything could happen, but YouTube is the play. It's the longevity. It's the strongest platform.

It's the biggest library owned by Alphabet. It's got the greatest technological infrastructure. It's got the greatest head start. Like who's going to disrupt YouTube? TikTok is just noise because the depth is not there. Last year at VidCon, grace africa who had millions of followers did a meetup and nobody came and it was this whole thing with you know respect but she it showed the depth of like a tiktok audience versus the depth of long form we even studied

audience retention of our clips and our vertical clips like youtube shorts had the longest shorts audience retention by double of tiktok and then reels was last now that might be subjective to us but it just even shows the mindset like shorts are like shallow calories if you want real longevity and to be built to last you want that real depth which by respect to everything we're doing it all like i think we post about 328 pieces of content right now 328 a week a week whoa yeah that's a lot the whole system i thought we were doing a lot of it yeah i mean we did how many episodes are we right now 150 episodes 150 we're not posting them in three months that's two like two two new vertical videos a day

tick tock instagram reels facebook reels youtube shorts a couple different channels like and because by the way and people are like why that sounds dumb well at all we're doing the math now we're tracking everything so like the roi is there but the punch line is i'm into all of the stuff but as far as the depth and i did think i heard jimmy mr beast talk about like they people are like what are you doing next is this a stepping stone and he was like doing next youtube is the play like youtube is the destiny he talked about how he didn't want to hire people from hollywood because they saw youtube as a stepping stone to something more legit right and he was like no i want people to understand that youtube is the game like youtube

is and and i i agree so at least for the foreseeable future, this next decade is going to be the best decade on YouTube. And so to that point, I mean, 16 years here, if it went the way of MySpace, if it crashed. I mean, obviously, what I would do is some people when Clubhouse came out, some people were like, ooh, I'm going to write an e-book and create a course. And I'm the number one expert on Clubhouse. And I'm going to build my castle on Clubhouse. And then four minutes later. So I think there's something about that as well. I feel incredibly blessed that I got into video. And in a way, I felt like video chose me.

I didn't choose video because I just showed up at church. And my youth pastor was like, dude, start filming stuff. And I just didn't stop. So YouTube Secrets secrets first and second addiction addition i said addiction yeah it's all the same um what actually made you come up with with with that content like okay there's secrets there's there's a method to the madness so i'm gonna you know tell everybody what it is what what made you this well i think the title was just good marketing yeah to be honest i mean and and there's secrets in the book for sure

but respect to the to the haters because some people go oh there's no secrets in here or you could find this information on youtube and i'm like okay yeah but respect to 100 000 copies sold you secrets is just classic good marketing and we have like a 2000 200 2400 positive reviews 4.5 stars on amazon because everything's a secret to somebody especially like probably 99 of people listening to this that book would blow their mind but if someone's like i've been doing youtube for five years i've watched a million videos i didn't learn one new thing i'm like all dude, I'll refund it. Just give me your PayPal doggles. You know, like people really come in and say, well, no, I mean, there's like four reviews

that are like, you could get all this on their YouTube channel. Also true. If you dig long enough, like you're probably eventually going to figure it all out, but people want the book and whatever. So saying that, uh, you know, it's a pretty good title and, and the, how lean the title is. And that's helpful for how well the book's done. Then on top, then on top of that, the book's in two parts. So the first part is actually timeless, which is very hard to do in social media, but it's the seven C's of YouTube success, which is clarity, you know, start with

the end in mind. Uh, no, it's actually first it's courage. You actually have to have the courage to get on camera and press record then clarity. What's your channel about? Who's it for? Then you actually have to set up your channel. That's the third C. Then you have to start posting content. That's the fourth C. Then you need to think about your community. That's the fifth C build your community. Sixth is cash. How are you going to monetize? And then seven is consistency. How are you going to keep going? And it's a circle because you just keep going and it's a circle because you just keep going through all of those even this show right you could come back to it man how do we go to the next level like maybe be more courageous i'm sure you're there but it's like be maybe more

bold more polarizing whatever always we're always having conversations about next level courage and then clarity who's our audience what's the next level strategy so always clarifying the strategy can we update the channel like right now how's your playlists? How's your community tab? Are you posting daily on your community tab up to three times a day? Are you on polls getting feedback from your audience? Like how can the features of your channel itself categorizing all the new playlist features, YouTube music, whatever. And so anyways, that's the seven C's of YouTube success. So what was powerful was building a framework that's unbreakable. Like those aren't going to probably change. And I think that's also what's helped the book is sometimes people just kind of do like tactics, but tactics without

strategy is the noise before defeat. Oh, I have some title tactic. Yeah. But what's your overall strategy? Oh, I just figured out this hack that's working this month on the community tab. Yeah, but what's your overall strategy? So like the seven Cs of YouTube success. The reason we just wrote a second edition is then the second part of the book is about social media. When should you post vertical video, YouTube shorts, new features, ranking videos, new ways of making money, um, uh, like click through rate stuff, the perfect video recipe, how do you good thumbnails, good titles and nuances that kind of change, you know? So, um, there's a lot in there, but, uh, it's definitely a good foundational

solid, but we put a lot of work into it too. There's a lot of fluff out there. That's like chat GPT wrote the book. They got like mid journey to do a cover and the book was out in four minutes, but it also like sucks. Like we really put our blood, sweat and tears into it. And so it's a substantively good book. That's awesome. Yeah. A hundred thousand copies. Numbers don't lie. You also had one of the best business conferences I've ever went to. Um, you managed to get speakers like Alex Ramonzi, Gary Vee, Patrick, but David and others, how were you able to pull that off? Man, it's a good story. Um, it all started with, we'd done the event five years.

This was the fifth year, but nowhere near this side. We took a size. We took a quantum leap up and two years before it was pandemic. So it was virtual. So we had like a hundred people, our first year, like 200, our second year, then virtual was pretty good, but it was virtual. And then we're a hundred people our first year, like 200 our second year, then virtual was pretty good, but it was virtual. And then we're like, we're coming back strong. And at our previous year's event, the big idea was what if we had Gary Vee, because we kind of leaned towards

the entrepreneur side, my friend, Daryl Eves and Mr. Beast run vid summit. And that's leans a little more entertainment based, right. And it's to be style entertainment channels. So we kind of lean more business entrepreneur channels and teachers, people that are helping people solve a problem. So we're like, who is a celebrity guest speaker at the highest of levels, especially for entrepreneurs? And Gary Vee is like, in a way, the one. I couldn't even really think of other people we could brainstorm, but like that really sells tickets. So then it was a matter, could we even get him? What would he cost?

And on down the list. And so I had a couple of friends that introduced me to Vayner speakers and some people in the backend, Gary, actually the coauthor of YouTube secrets, Benji, Gary actually endorsed the book and Benji went to his office. They worked together previously and they had a conversation and Gary's like, yeah, I get the, but that was helpful. So like, it's always nice to and benji went to his office they they worked together previously and they had a conversation and gary's like yeah i get that but that was helpful so like it's always nice to have that kind of stuff too so he was like aware uh of me which might have been helpful because he's busy eat whether or not you could pay his keynote fee is it will he even do it you know so that's kind of the long story short was locking him in 155. I think his keynote fee went up immediately double that.

Yeah, man. We, we made 180 K in our business the first year, like 160. So it was basically, I was like, Gary's keynote fee was the totality of paying my wife, myself, all the contractors, every expense in our first year of think media which was about mid by the way not back right when it started but it was like when i went full-time and so anyways it was that was a leap of faith but then it just got crazier yeah all right we eventually ended up spending 917 000 on that event holy and we were profitable in ticket sales but i mean whether that was like vip was full so we had to add like the 10th thing at the m hotel and add more seats and then the hotels wait this was at the m here yeah bro wow

yeah 10 minutes from my house and then and then i was like well what if we get patched with david as well you know and and then uh a friend of mine knew alex hermosi and then i was like well what if we also got house and he was just blown up i mean he's more busy these days or whatever and he's just kind of getting more into content and that was his first session ever talking about content and the session was funny right because he was like this isn't even my main thing but here's what i did so far and now he just crossed a million subs you know know? And so it was kind of the compound effect from there. And what I learned was it was sort of like first scared money, don't make money. Right.

Absolutely not. And then locked in. But then it's like skiing. Like once you lean down the mountain, you got to keep leaning. Because if you lean back, you're going to fall over. Then I was like, shoot, we're just going all in. And whether even ads, like now we better hit a tipping point of awareness. And it's not, we didn't even spend that much on that, but like

just everything. It was like, we are not hitting the brakes. It's all offense on this. And so, and then kept adding, we kind of had too many speakers. I think it ended up pretty good. Like you got to be there, but like, because I just taken so many actions and different people had said yes. and we didn't we thought we were gonna have a breakout room we ended up not we learned a lot and so i definitely think that's also when you make bold moves at whatever level you're at in business if it doesn't break you those are your greatest growth seasons right and the networking you made i thought about must have been phenomenal insane greatest growth brand and that way it was it was the other thought about it was it was a branding play

it was like a shift our whole brand um which i believe it accomplished that purpose and i mean content from it's like still coming out today clips or whatever and it's you know about a year old now so it's about run its lifespan but even that there was not just the event but past the event the virtual side all the stuff yeah dude it was a great event you gotta go to the next one yeah he was telling me about it out there he was yeah yeah we took a break this year too which was people were like no dude you got all this momentum but but even just trying to be wise as a entrepreneur leading our team um it also kind of almost killed us in a way of like we're not an event company technically and so until i have the right team and systems so we have a sustainable pace for just health and lifestyle and everything we value for our team we we paused until we could make a few key hires

reorg a little bit right so that we could do it year after year in a healthy way because there's a big stress it's like it was like lifting above you know if you're not fully trained to run the marathon the recovery is it's it's pretty taxing to put on a concert yeah so we're we're uh getting to the place where we could be like the iron cowboy in this next netflix show where he ran like you know 50 iron mans in 50 days or something so that we can actually just have like the foundational fitness to do it. I don't know if that's healthy either, probably not, but to do it over and over. Sean, it's been a pleasure, man. Any closing comments for the audience? No, man. I appreciate you. Thank you for having me on.

And yeah, I mean, closing stuff for the community is especially if, if people are thinking about doing YouTube, you can always check out YouTube Secrets on Amazon. Audible is out as well in the e-book and physical book. But whether you're into that or not, I want to encourage everybody, like, YouTube is a good bet. And it's not too late to start. And it's a marathon, not a sprint.

So it builds over time. And so starting to invest, not a sprint. So it builds over time. And so starting to invest now, start messy. You're going to be really grateful you did, not just 12 months from now, but three, four, five years. Looking back at the momentum you can build from posting simple videos on YouTube and building your brand. Absolutely. Wayne?

You can follow me on Instagram at The Creator. Sean Kelly here. Thanks for coming on the digital social hour podcast see you guys next time peace