Transcription
There is something happening with the top business coaches on YouTube right now. It is not their topics. It is not their posting schedule. It's not even their production budget. It's something that I want to [music] show you because once you see it, you can't unsee it. They started building world and I'm going to break down exactly how you can build it, too.
Hi, I'm Daren. I'm a Writers Guild Award-winning content producer and strategist who got her start right here on YouTube. Welcome to our production meeting where I break down the systems you need to run your own show.
I want to name something clearly because I think it's the source of a lot of the paralysis that I see with coaches and business owners on YouTube right now. You have built a reputation on your expertise or you are in the process of building it. Your brand is what you know in your brain, right? It's the skills that you've honed. It's the frameworks that you've developed. It's the results that you've gotten for your clients. It is not your morning routine. It is not whether your house is clean or messy. It is not your relationship with your kids.
So, when someone like me tells you to build a show, there's an immediate identity conflict because in your mind, show equals reality television. It equals oversharing. It equals becoming a personality rather than a professional. But, it scared you. The idea of you sharing every struggle, every setback, every feeling and you think, "That is not me. That will never be me."
Well, here's where it gets interesting because that's not what's actually happening with the coaches who are really thriving right now because I am seeing something very specific. Most creators focus on trending topics, but top business coaches are shifting their strategy to building a world that keeps viewers connected to their personality and brand identity.
>> Caleb Ralston, brand strategist, been around pretty much as long as I've been around in this industry, but he works with personal brands and I work with media companies or I've worked with media companies up until this point. And if you watch his videos, what you will notice before you notice anything else is that he is almost never at a desk. He's in his truck. He is on an open road. He's somewhere that is communicating something very specific about who he is without him even saying a single word.
>> Tia Keymore, business coach, he's doing something similar. He's filming from hotel lobbies. He's filming from airports. He's always in the middle of something in motion. There's always a world around him. And he's also known for drawing and whiteboarding, so he's usually interacting with this world as well.
>> Cody Sanchez, often films from her ranch, often films from the businesses that she owns. And that world is the proof of concept for her content.
One other thing to note, none of them are really sharing their personal life. What they are doing is something much more intentional than that. They're establishing that they exist in a world. And more importantly, that world is setting a vibe. It has a character. It communicates something about their values and their identity before the content even begins. That is world building. And it is one of the most powerful trust building tools available to any creator right now.
Because here's the thing about binge-worthy content, and I've said this before, but it bears repeating here, you do not binge information. You binge characters interacting in interesting worlds. In fact, in a good TV show, the character is often in conflict with that world in some way. Think about Ted Lasso. You don't keep watching because of the soccer tactics, right? I couldn't tell you a single thing about soccer or football if you're in England. You keep watching because you want to spend more time in that locker room with those characters. You want to be in that world. The world is the container that makes the content worth returning to. Ted Lasso is a coach, so that's a perfect example. For coaches, your world is the locker room. It's the container that makes your advice feel like an episode of a show that you can't turn off.
All of those coaches that I mentioned, who have already figured this out, are not making reality TV. They're building the equivalent of a television show's establishing shot. An establishing shot is a wide shot of the universe that these characters are in. They're saying, "Here's what it looks like to be me and to do what I do." Caleb's truck isn't just an aesthetic, it's character.
But I want to pause here because I know what you might be thinking. Darren, I don't have a truck. I don't have a ranch. I don't have a team following me through an airport. And I hear you. And here's what I want to tell you about that. The coaches who are resisting world building are typically not resistant to the idea itself, they're resistant to the assumption that world building means two things: costly production and overexposure. That it means your personal boundaries are being crossed or your budget or your time is being drained. That it means you're saying, "Get me a crew and come film my life."
But the world building that I'm describing is not about opening your life. It's about designing a world. And there is a big difference between those two things. Opening your life is reactive. That's a reality show. It's I will share everything that happens and everything I'm feeling and the audience will relate somehow. It's kind of where the yacht challenge is at right now. Designing a world is a little bit more sophisticated than that. Designing a world is deliberate. It's I'm going to choose what the camera sees. I'm going to decide what my world looks like to the viewer. I'm going to design the signals that communicate my character before I even say anything. That is production design. Every single thing that you see in a well-made film, the locations, the objects in the background, the lighting, is a deliberate storytelling choice made to tell you something about the character without dialogue. As a screenwriter myself, you are usually trying to figure out how to convey something without the character telling you. In a TV show, the character doesn't say, "I'm someone who moves fast." The camera will just follow them through a city and you feel it. Your YouTube channel can work exactly the same way. And when it does, you won't have to work as hard to be interesting, to share all of these personal stories that make you uncomfortable, because the world is doing half the storytelling for you.
So, when I say world-building, I'm not talking about fantasy worlds or elaborate sets. I'm talking about the storytelling principle that every great TV show understands. That the environment around a character tells us who they are.
Okay. So, what does this actually look like for you? Because I want this to feel actionable, not overwhelming. You don't need to be a professional cinematographer or hire one. I am a film director, but I'm not a cinematographer either. And in fact, I don't particularly enjoy setting up my camera and figuring out lenses and filters and trying to light. I would normally hire someone who is extremely talented to do that. You may feel that way, too. And you're thinking, "Yeah, Darren, I could do that if I could afford to hire somebody to do that." And I want to acknowledge something. Different creators have different constraints, different levels of comfort, different production resources, different personal boundaries. All of that is workable.
Here are the three levels of personal brand world building, and you don't have to move through them in order. You pick the one that fits where you are at right now.
Level one, the world behind you. This is for the coach who wants to stay in a controlled consistent setting, but make it intentional. So, instead of a generic desk or a ring light in your messy bedroom, you build a background that signals something very specific about who you are. Books that matter, objects that carry meaning. Maybe it's an old typewriter, maybe it's a sewing machine, maybe it's a picture on your wall, a color palette that reflects your brand positioning. This is your world, just a very deliberate curated version of it. That is actually what I do. This is obviously a stationary talking head video, but I tried to art direct my shot, design my shot. I actually just relocated, so my studio background isn't fully set up yet. There's a little bit more I want to do to design the background here to set my vibe. But if you look, everything here is very intentional so far. I have a back light, I have my Writers Guild Award, I have a nice colorful little vase, I have a bookshelf here with books that mean something in my life and my business. I have a little vase over there that adds a little pop of color. So, it's all very intentional. If you watch a Cody Sanchez video where she is sitting at a desk, she typically has is very strategically placed screen with her branding. These are showrunner decisions.
Level two, the world around you. This is on location filming. This is Caleb's truck. This is Rob the mariner taking a stroll. You pick one or two locations that feel authentic to who you are and what you teach. Maybe it's coffee shop with the right energy. Maybe it's outside your office. Maybe you have a pond nearby, which would be lovely. I wish I had a pond. Maybe it's a particular room in a building that matters to your story. You own that location. You return to it intentionally. And over time, your audience associates that place with you and you with that place. Just like I associate Caleb with his truck. That's the kind of thing that makes a viewer feel like they're checking in on a character, not just consuming content.
Level three, the world with you, the world in motion. This is for the coach who's ready to let their actual life provide the production value. Airports, conference rooms, the back of a car on the way to a keynote, a city you're visiting for work. The world is constantly giving you content if you want to use it. You just have to point the camera at the right parts of it. This is something that Steven Bartlett does with behind the diary. And of course a lot of vloggers do this.
And none of these require a crew. None of these require exposing anything that you don't want to expose. All of them require one thing. Intentionality. The decision to design what the camera sees rather than just pointing it at your face. That is world building. And it is the new visual language of authority building on YouTube.
So, if you're a coach, if you're a founder, if you're a creative entrepreneur building on YouTube, I want you to ask yourself one question. If someone watched your last five videos, what world did they step into? Was there a world, or was there just information? Because information is available everywhere. They could go to chat GPT, they could go to Claude for that. A world is only available from you.
So, I have a question for you, and I want you to let me know in the comments. What is one element of your world that you could put on camera this week? Not your personal life. Your world. The world that your expertise lives in. And if you want to go deeper on how to build a channel that people actually binge, not just watch once and leave, you can find all of the ways that we can work together in the video description, or you could check out the video that is popping up on the screen. I'll see you there.