Transcription
All right, guys. So, this is how much I made in AdSense last year from my channel. And the craziest thing is I basically did an experiment last year where I spent less than four hours a week on my channel, pretty much the entire year.
Now, the reason I was able to do this is because of systems that I've created over years of figuring out how to do YouTube correctly and the fact that I was an early adopter of Claude. So, Claude is without a doubt the best AI tool for content creation. And I'm going to show you exactly the systems that we use, step by step, and exactly how we use Claude to make videos like the videos on my channel.
And so, literally, all I was doing last year for the entire year when it comes to my YouTube channel was recording the videos. Everything else was done for me. And this is how much I made just from AdSense alone: $333,80.7. And that is just in AdSense alone. That does not count the amount of money that I made from affiliate marketing, sponsorships, selling my own products and services, etc., etc. That was far, far more. And in this video, I am going to show you exactly how I did that.
Now, you might be thinking, "Well, Shane, I don't want to show my face. This is a channel where you show your face. I want to do a faceless channel with YouTube automation." And yeah, I totally get it. And when I first started on YouTube, I actually started with a faceless channel as well. And even on this exact channel, I've done plenty of videos that are faceless, and they've done just fine, right? This video right here, for instance, I did not show my face. It got over 1.4 million views and made over $7,800. And it is still getting about a thousand views a day, even though I posted this over 1,300 days ago. I posted this like over 3 years ago, and it's still getting about a thousand views a day.
So, this works whether it is for a faceless channel, whether it is for a personal brand channel, or any number of different types of channels out there. This is going to be useful for you pretty much no matter what type of channel you're doing. With that being said, I do have a specific approach to doing YouTube, and I'll kind of get into that during the video, what I think is best, but it's going to be useful no matter what type of YouTube channel you're making.
Now, before we get into this, I just want to go ahead and kind of show you this says $333,000 or $80.7. Now, first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to go ahead and refresh the page, and you're going to see that the same amount of money pops up. Okay, it is taking a little bit of time here, but yeah, $333,000. Then I'm going to go to settings and, uh, you can see here that it's US. So, this is a common thing that I've seen on like Instagram and a bunch of these fake faceless YouTube channel guru marketing BS videos where someone will literally just select a different type of dollar and it'll show a much higher amount than what it actually is.
So, I'm going to go ahead and go here and I'm going to select New Taiwan Dollar. And you're gonna see, wow, I made $10 million last year. Yeah, it's $10 million, but it's New Taiwan Dollars, unfortunately. And then if we select Jamaican Dollar, it's gonna say $52 million in one year. Wow. I am well on my way to being a Jamaican Dollar billionaire. So, yeah, don't fall for those scams, guys. Make sure that you know that it's actually US Dollars that people are making here. So, I'm going to go ahead and set it back to USD. And you'll see it is $333,000 just in AdSense alone. Okay.
So now I'm going to go ahead and show you step by step exactly how we make these videos using Claude, using systems, the parts that you need to do, the parts that you don't need to do, the parts that maybe you can partially do, and exactly how you can use Claude AI and create a content system that is going to make it to where you only have to spend 4 hours a week, or sometimes a lot less than that, in order to meet your YouTube goals.
But rule number one, which is a warning, which you absolutely should not skip because if you do skip it, you will get demonetized, is this: YouTube does not have a problem with you using AI. But what they do have a problem with is 100% AI-generated, mass-produced, zero-effort slop. So if you sit there and type, "Make me a video about online jobs," and you just take whatever the robot spits out, slap a robot voice on top of it and upload it, your channel is done. Okay?
And all the goofball YouTube gurus that I see on here talking about faceless YouTube channels and YouTube automation, all these goofballs that I see that tell you to do this, that tell you that AI can do literally all of the work for you. In 99.9% of cases, that's just not true. You're just going to create AI slop and it's not going to get any views or any traction. But even if it does get views and traction, in 99.9% of those cases, it's going to be very easy for someone else to just come in and copy you immediately. And even if they can't copy you immediately, for some reason, right? So, we're talking about the 0.00001% that are actually successful and can't be copied. Almost all of those people are going to get demonetized and or their entire channel banned. Or in some cases, if they have multiple channels attached to an AdSense account, they're going to get multiple of their channels banned. Okay?
So, YouTube is not messing around with this. If you try to create AI slop content, what YouTube calls inauthentic content, it is just a countdown clock until you get banned. Do not do that. Anybody who tells you to do that is an absolute [expletive] and do not believe them. Okay?
So, let me be crystal clear about what I'm doing here. I'm the director. The AI is the tool. Every step that you're about to see, I am steering the ship. I'm making the calls. I'm adding my own stories, my own data, my own face, my own voice. Claude does the heavy lifting, but a human being stays in the driver's seat. Either me doing it directly or indirectly. So, get that one thing right and you will never have a problem. But if you get it wrong, no playbook on earth will save you. Okay.
So, here is what the entire system looks like. It's all on one screen here. And it's basically going to be the idea, the title, the thumbnail, the intro, the script, the pre-production, the post-production, the upload, and that's it. Right? That is the whole machine that made $333,80.7 last year just in AdSense alone. And the best part is I'm either using a custom Claude AI skill for this or a really good, well-fine-tuned Claude prompt for almost every single step of the process. And more on what that actually means here in a second. So, we're going to go through them all one at a time. So, grab a notepad or honestly just re-watch this part later and let's start at the top.
All right. So, step one is the video idea. And this is where 90% of people lose the battle before it even starts. Okay? Because the brutal truth is most YouTubers are just guessing, okay? They're just throwing stuff against the wall in the dark. They don't even know if it's stuck or not. And they have no idea why a video did well or not, right? They sit there going, "Hm, what should I make a video about?" Right? And they pull something out of thin air that nobody is searching for. And that is how you make a video that gets 47 views and kills your motivation. So, do not guess ever. You always need to have what's known as proof of concept.
Now, this proof of concept could come from other people who have already made videos on YouTube, or if you already have a business or something like that and you're interacting with clients, or you do incredibly deep research on the internet. The proof of concept could come from that. But honestly, it's way easier to just get your proof of concept from other videos. And this is something that I call the Icon Method. And we have made a simplified version of the skill, which we will put in the description in the pinned comment below for you.
Now, you might be thinking, "But Shane, why don't you just give me the full version, man? Stop being so cheap." Well, the reason it's a simplified version is because it takes some time to actually personalize these things. So, if you want to personalize it to yourself, a really easy thing to do is to just have it interview you and basically say what outcome you want, and then have it interview you and ask you for information that will allow it to achieve that outcome. Right? So, this is the process that we go through with our community members that makes these skills even more powerful. But, you're going to get over 80% of the way there just by using this skill. So, definitely check it out. Click the link in the description, the pinned comment below if you want to follow along.
So, watch this. I'm going to open up Claude and I'm going to run my video idea finder skill. And it is built on something that I call the Icon Method. So, quick analogy here. You know how the smartest investors don't gamble on random stocks? They hunt for proven undervalued companies and they pounce, right? That is literally what Carl Icahn built his entire fortune on, and that's what I named this method after is Carl Icahn. So we do the same exact thing here but with YouTube. So instead of inventing an idea and praying, I have Claude go find videos that are already proven winners, small channels pulling massive views, and then we make a better version of them. Okay? So AI isn't coming up with a random idea. It is handing me an idea that's already proven to print. And that right there is the difference between posting a video that gets 47 views and posting a video that takes off and changes your life.
Now, there's definitely other ways of doing the Icon Method. For instance, if you have sort of insider data, like if you already have a channel that has a bunch of videos, you're going to have more information and you're going to have better proof of concept. Additionally, if you already know how much different types of videos make, not in terms of views, but in terms of the money that you make from the videos, then you can do the Icon Method with money instead of views, right? So that's typically what we do. You might notice that sometimes on my channel I don't have the highest views, and that is because we are choosing videos that we know are going to make a lot of money. We don't really care about how many views we get, right? We don't care about views. We care about getting the right views, right? So this is a simplified version of the Icon Method, but generally speaking, this is the best place to start, especially if you're a beginner. With that being said, this is a simplified version. We teach more advanced versions inside of my community. So what you want to do here is open Claude, use that skill that you downloaded in the description in the pinned comment below, and then paste in three to four channels in your niche and ask to find videos that are massively outperforming each channel's average. And those outliers are going to be your next videos.
Now, you might be thinking, "But Shane, I don't have a niche." Quick break. I'm going to be doing a live training this week on how to start YouTube step-by-step for beginners. This is going to be for people who want to start a channel but they don't know what niche to pick, what videos to make, or how to actually get started the right way. And it's a completely free training. No strings attached. In fact, I'm giving away even more bonuses at this training. Just as an example, I'm going to be giving away my Niche Validator, which works for ChatGPT as well as Claude skills, which is a super valuable piece of software where you can finally figure out what the best niche for you is. So, do not miss out on this training. Make sure you sign up for it down in the description and the pinned comment below because you only get it if you join the training. So, if you don't join now, you might miss out on it forever. But that being said, in the workshop, you'll get to meet me and you get to ask me questions directly. So I look forward to seeing you. So click the link in the description and the pinned comment below this week. Make sure you put on your calendar. And if for whatever reason you missed out on it or you weren't able to attend, make sure you still click that link because we might be having workshops in the future as well, and you'll be the first to know about it. So yeah, hope to see you there.
Now back to our regularly scheduled programming. With that being said, step two is the title. And listen, your title and your thumbnail are basically going to be 90% of the game after finding the idea. So finding the niche is kind of like the foundations for your channel. You need to make sure that you have the right niche. The niche is incredibly important. And the ideas are sort of like the little building blocks that make up a niche. So it's kind of like if the niche is your body, the ideas are the little cells, the little building blocks of your body. And having the right niche and finding the right ideas are like 90% of the game. It's incredibly important. However, you need to express your idea with the title.
And when you're picking the title, I actually like to think of the title, the thumbnail, and the intro or the hook of your video as one thing. And I like to do all three of them at once. And I call this the Holy Trifecta. And not only is it important that the title, the thumbnail, and the intro are good, but even more important than that is that all three of them are congruent with each other.
Now, let me give you an example. This exact video that you're watching right now. You might have noticed that on the thumbnail I'm showing my YouTube Studio. The YouTube Studio shows a number amount, $333,000. And then on the title, it says $333,000. And then in the intro of the video, I'm showing my YouTube Studio. So, the intro of the video literally looks like the thumbnail. And what does it say? $333,000. So, is that the best thumbnail, title, or intro that's ever been made? No. The thumbnail, title, and intro were all probably about, you know, seven or eight out of 10. However, the thing that's important is they were all congruent with each other. They were all pointing in the same direction. If I would have started off this intro with a talking head video and I don't share my screen for the first 3 minutes of the video, tons of people would have clicked off. Why? Because the expectation that the title and the thumbnail set were not met by the intro. Okay, so this is why this is a perfect example of why the Holy Trifecta is so important and it's so important to have a title, a thumbnail, and intro that are not only relatively good, but more importantly congruent with each other.
So here's what I do. I take that proven idea and I run it through my Holy Trifecta skill. It spits out a batch of title options and it scores each one for click potential. And it is not throwing spaghetti at the wall. It is matching the title to the exact thing that made the original video pop. Then I read through them. I pick the strongest one and maybe I tweak it so that it sounds like me. Sometimes I don't. My best ever videos on my channel were literally written by Claude. Like the titles for the videos were literally written by Claude. So, just as an example, this video right here, "Nine Boring But High-Paying Online Jobs Always Hiring." This was probably one of my most viewed videos last year and it's really the most viewed video on the entire channel. And it made $62,000 just from AdSense alone. It's still getting about 1,000, 500 views a day. And the title for this video was made by Claude AI. Okay, so basically what I did is I had it make five to 10 titles and then I selected the one that I liked the most, and that was this title. Okay, so I'm not kidding around when I say to use Claude for this. Like it is seriously good. So like I said, it's going to give you a few suggestions and you're going to go ahead and pick your favorite one. And if you're totally clueless on how to do this, then probably just go with its first suggestion because usually the first one is the best.
All right, step three is the thumbnail. So, this is the same skill, by the way, the Holy Trifecta. It is going to hand me the title, the thumbnail concept, and the intro all in one shot. So, for this video, the concept was dead simple: a screenshot of the actual revenue, $333,000, slapped right on the thumbnail because nothing stops the scroll like a real specific, slightly insane number. Vague doesn't sell, specific does. So, Claude gives me the concept. It tells me the exact text to put on the thumbnail and the layout idea. And then the next part is where Claude is still a little bit weak, and that is actually making the thumbnail itself. So I do not recommend actually making the thumbnail itself on Claude.
You've got two different options. One, you can have an actual thumbnail designer make the thumbnail. It is going to be very quick and easy for them to make the thumbnail if they already have instructions on exactly what you want. You can even ask Claude to make like a rough sketch of what they want as well, and that makes it super, super easy on them to actually make the thumbnail. The second option is if you want to do it yourself, I recommend actually using ChatGPT. So you would copy and paste the exact directions for making the thumbnail into ChatGPT. Then you would ask it what it needs in order to make the thumbnail for you. It would tell you, and for one, it's probably going to want you to put in a good photo of yourself, just as an example, and any other types of things that it's going to need to actually make that thumbnail for you. And then it can literally make the thumbnail for you. And honestly, ChatGPT right now, at the time of recording this, is the best out of all of them. I would say Nano Banana is probably the second best.
Now, there are specialized companies that literally like what they do is thumbnails. And these are AI companies where literally the only thing they do is make thumbnails essentially, right? So, two of them that I've had an experience with that I think are pretty good are Pixels and the other one is Oneof10.com. So, ChatGPT is honestly pretty good. You can just use ChatGPT directly, or you could check out Pixels or Oneof10.com if you want to use other AI tools that are specialized for this. Now, the advantage of using Pixels or Oneof10.com is it can actually make many different thumbnails for you at once. This of course costs a little bit more, but at the same time it's going to save you some time. Whereas with ChatGPT, typically it's just going to make one thumbnail at a time, and if you don't like it, then you got to prompt it again, wait, and if you don't like that, you got to prompt it again, wait, etc., etc. Okay?
So I absolutely love Claude. The one weakness that they have in the entire production process is making the actual thumbnails. The thumbnails that Claude makes are usually quite bad. Hopefully, this changes in the near future. If it does, I will let you know. But right now, if you're going to make thumbnails on your own with AI, I recommend ChatGPT. That's the easiest way to get started. If you want to pay for different ones, you could use something like Pixels or Oneof10.com.
Now, the thumbnail is really important, okay? It is like the storefront window. You know, nobody walks into a restaurant with a sad, empty window. The thumbnail is the window. The title is the sign, and the video is the meal. Okay? And you've got to get people in the door first before they can consume the meal because you could have the best food in the world, but if people don't get in the door and actually try your food, they're never going to know. So, the way to get started with this is you can ask Claude for, you know, three thumbnail concepts for your title. I think three is a really good one. And then you can follow the instructions and make thumbnails in another way.
Now, if for whatever reason you want to make the thumbnail yourself, but you don't want to use AI, typically what we recommend to people is Canva. We actually give our community members a bunch of different Canva templates that makes it super easy for them to actually make the thumbnails. And they pretty much just have to replace my face with their face. And these are proven templates that convert incredibly well on YouTube, that have been split-tested and tested in many different niches as well.
All right, so step four is the intro. Now, all of these are kind of done at the same time. I like to do all of these at the same time. With the thumbnail part, a lot of the time I'll just do the thumbnail concept. So, I'll basically just say what text I'm putting on the thumbnail, what visuals I'm putting on there, but I don't actually make the thumbnail itself at that time. However, I almost always do the title, the thumbnail concept, and the intro all at once when I'm making a video because you can have a killer niche idea, title, thumbnail, you get the click, and then you lose them in the first 10 seconds with a boring intro. Okay?
So again, same Holy Trifecta skill. It gives me a few different intro angles. Some of them are going to be aggressive, some curiosity-driven, some credibility-proven. And the intro that you watched at this very video, it was basically a version of a Claude intro. Now, I kind of added my own energy to it, my own personality to it, right? I don't always go exactly what it says, but I generally speaking followed the idea or the concept of the intro that it recommended. So, AI gave me the raw clay and I shaped it.
So, the way to get started here is to have Claude write three intros for your videos. I typically do three to five intros per video and then I just choose my favorite one when I'm recording. So, one of them is going to open with a shocking number, one that attacks a common myth, and one that leads with your credibility. And then, if you want to, you can write another intro that just gets almost like straight into the content. It just, it's a super quick intro that gets straight into the content. Just pick the one that fits your audience. Pick the one that feels right for you and rewrite it in your own voice if you want to.
All right, so the next step is the script itself. Now, this is the one that everybody screws up on because this is exactly where the AI slop problem lives. Okay? So if you just say, "Hey, Claude, write me a script," you're going to get generic robot garbage that sounds like every other faceless AI slop channel on the internet, and viewers can smell it instantly.
So, here is the trick. I built a custom script writer skill and I trained it on my voice, my transcripts, my phrasing, my energy, the way that I actually talk, etc., etc. So, when it writes, it doesn't sound like a robot. It sounds like me. And then this part is non-negotiable. I go through it line by line and I add my stories, my client examples, my data, the stuff that only a human can bring. So again, I'm going to give you a taste of this in the description in the pinned comment below. Every single step of this process, you get it in the description, the pinned comment below, but our community members of course have it more personalized so that it sounds like them.
So a quick analogy here is AI is like a sous chef, right? It can chop all the vegetables. It can prep everything. It can do the boring work in a fraction of the time. But the head chef, that is still you, right? You still need to taste the dish, season it, and decide what actually goes out to the table, right? You're doing the strategy of the restaurant and the strategy of like making the food really good, but AI carries out the actual manual work of making the food.
So, here's how to start. Don't ask AI for a script cold. Feed it either two or three scripts that you've already created, or two or three of your favorite creators' transcripts first so that it learns the voice. And then basically have it interview you and ask you what you liked about those videos and what you want your videos to be like. Then you want to have it make a barebones outline. And then give it what's known as a YAP session. Okay?
So, a YAP session is literally where you talk to the AI. So you can either use Claude's in-built audio functionality where you can talk to the AI. I personally don't use that because I think it only lasts a few minutes and it's also not as accurate with the language. What I like to use is WhisperFlow. Okay? Not sponsored, not affiliated or anything like that, but that's just what I use. And I will literally just use WhisperFlow and I'll talk to Claude and I will give it what's known as a YAP session where I literally just talk off the top of my head and tell it what I want the end video to look like. Now, during this time, sometimes I'll be, uh, looking at other videos that I think are good, you know, "Hey, I like the way they edit this video," or "I like the way they told stories in that video," etc., etc., and I'll give it feedback on its outline. And then I'll give it that initial YAP session. And typically, I'll have it interview me after that. So, I'll have it ask me a series of follow-up questions, then I'll do another quick YAP session, answer all of those questions, and then usually that end product is really, really good.
Now, if needed, of course, you can edit the end product, but typically that end product is going to be extremely good. So, yeah, check out the skill. Do this YAP session, it is absolutely life-changing. You literally just talk to the AI, pretend like it's a friend, pretend like it's a family member or a viewer, something like that, and just talk to the AI and tell it exactly what you want. And because of that, one, it's going to know how you actually talk, and it's going to write the script in the way that you talk. And then two, it's also going to be a source of truth, right? It's going to have an origin of information that comes from, right? So, a lot of people, for instance, if they have Claude write the script, they'll be like, "Oh, I don't agree with that. I don't agree with that. I don't agree with that." And when you do it this way, typically you're going to have way less of that. You still might have a few things here and there, but you'll have way less of that.
And a pro tip here is to use what's known as the anti-fragile scripting methodology. And basically what that means is, let's just say you're making a video like "10 Best Remote Jobs" or something. Okay? You actually want to have Claude do 15 so that if there's a few that you disagree with, you can just choose your 10 that are your favorite. Okay? Because that's what almost always happens is if you have it do a list of 10 things, there's going to be a few that you don't like. And so if you want to do 10, just do 15 and then pick your 10 favorites. And if you're thinking, "But Shane, I don't make listicle-style content. I make how-to videos." If you think about it, every single video is a listicle. Okay? In fact, every single type of content out there is a listicle. Whether it is an actual listicle video, whether it's a how-to video, whether it's a step-by-step guide, whether it's a tutorial video, whether it's a book, they're all lists. Even movies are lists, right? Think about it. Movies typically come in a 12-step story writing or movie writing formula, right? There's different acts, there's different steps inside the acts, etc., etc. Books are made up of chapters. What is that? It's a list, right? It's all a list at the end of the day. So, write your scripts in this way, and then if there's anything that you disagree with, just skip it. It's very easy.
All right, next step. Step six is pre-production. Now, by the way, everything up to this point can either be done by you, or you can actually just hire somebody else to do it. So, if you want to hire somebody else to do it, that is what's known as a creative director. But it really doesn't take that much time for you to do it yourself. It's basically just a YAP session and a little bit of editing, right? So, the entire time it's going to take me to make this video is probably about an hour, maybe an hour and a half max. And basically, before I record the video and hand it to my editor, I'm going to have Claude write the creative direction, the on-screen text, where the cuts go, which lines need emphasis. Basically, a full brief so that my editor isn't sitting there guessing. And no, I'm not talking about cheesy stock footage, right? I'm talking about simple, clean, on-screen text and cuts that actually add to the value of the video. So, my editor opens one document and they see exactly what I say and what goes on the screen at every moment. In other words, the AI gives creative direction to the video editor, which saves them a massive amount of time and effort.
So, a quick analogy here is it's kind of like handing a contractor a detailed blueprint instead of just saying, "Hey, build me a house. Figure it out." The clearer the blueprint is, the less back and forth and the faster the house is going to get built. So, the way to do this with Claude is once your script is done, ask Claude to add editor notes. Right? Pretend like it's the best creative director in the world and ask it to add editor notes, on-screen text, and cut suggestions right next to each line. And then share that document with whoever is editing your video. I typically just use Google Docs for this.
Now, the next step is the one thing that you can't have Claude do, and that is recording the video. So, obviously, we're not going to spend that much time on this step. I'm actually not even making it into a step, but obviously, right after pre-production is done, you are going to need to just record the videos yourself. That is the one thing that Claude can't help with. Of course, you're going to have every goofball AI guru and YouTube guru out there saying that you can just, you know, use HeyGen to create an avatar of yourself and use 11 Labs to clone your voice and then you don't have to record the videos. But then you'll notice that 99.9% of them don't actually do that themselves. And the reason for that is because if they did do it themselves, one, it probably wouldn't work because people can still tell if their IQ is above 80 that it's not a real person. And even if they can't 100% tell, they usually just get a little bit of a creepy feeling. This is typically referred to as the uncanny valley, but they get a creepy feeling that it's just not quite right, and then they end up clicking off the video. So, in the first place, it's not going to work in 99% of cases. Second, even if it does work, chances are YouTube is going to demonetize you, possibly even ban your account, or they might just shadowban you. And that's probably the worst out of all possible outcomes. So, that doesn't work in 99.9% of cases.
And it really is better for you to just record your video because that's why people click on YouTube. If they wanted super high production quality with, uh, people that are just perfect at delivering a script and all that kind of thing, they would turn on TV. They would turn on Netflix. That's not what they did. They went on YouTube because they want to connect with other people. Okay? That is what YouTube is all about. They want to connect with other people that have unique personalities and are interesting. Okay? So, you just got to record the videos yourself.
Now, you could technically have someone else, a another real human being, record the video for you, but but I think there's really just so many advantages to recording the videos yourself. When you build a personal brand, when you establish yourself as an authority online, I cannot even describe the power of doing that. You know, I've made entire videos about building personal brands and I talked about all the million different reasons why you should build a personal brand, but it just makes everything else, literally everything else you do, just goes on easy mode in your business. If you build a personal brand, you become an authority in your niche. So, I just can't imagine why you wouldn't want to do that.
With that being said, let's just say for some reason you want to stay anonymous, I still recommend using your own voice, but you just don't have to show your face. In that particular case, you can do what my client Whiz of Ecom did where he basically started off with kind of like a cartoon character that represented him, but it was still his real voice. And he actually got to seven figures a year doing this. But then eventually, he realized the power of having a personal brand. And what did he do? He did a face reveal. He actually revealed his face. Okay? So you can do that if you want. You know, don't get me wrong, that is an option for you. You can definitely do it if you want, but I really recommend just showing your face.
And now we're going to move on to step seven, which is post-production. So post-production is basically after you record the video and you send it to the editor. Now, a lot of the time what we'll do is the editor will, of course, edit the video. Descript is a great tool to do that, especially for a beginner. It does have an AI editing feature where it will take out all the silences, the mistakes. You can also just literally edit like as if you were editing a Google Doc. Oh, and by the way, Descript does a really good job when it comes to your sound as well. So, it'll automatically make you have really good sound even if your sound kind of sucks. So, Descript is an incredible tool, especially for beginners when it comes to YouTube.
Now, by the way, you might think that you need some incredible recording setup, but you absolutely don't. You can easily just record with your iPhone, or if you just have a laptop. Let's just say you have a MacBook, for instance, like our client Nurse Jen. She just had a laptop and she would record by looking at the webcam. She used Descript to do the recording and the editing, and she absolutely blew up within the first couple months working with us. She's already had two videos reach over 500,000 views. She's making a full-time income and she's absolutely crushing it on YouTube. And she did it all literally just recording with her webcam on her laptop. Okay, so you can use the webcam on the laptop. Descript does a really good job with all of the editing as well as the audio optimization. So, do not let not having a fancy camera or a fancy set or the right lighting or the right lens or whatever the excuse is hold you back.
But let's just say that first draft comes back and you now have a rough draft for your finished product. What you can do is you can take the transcript for that rough draft and then you can put it into Claude again and have it suggest different types of B-roll or visuals or words that you can have pop up on the screen at various different parts of the video. So, we do this as well. We typically do have this post-production process where we just put the transcript of the video into Claude with the timestamps typically, and then we just ask Claude what we should put in terms of B-roll, visuals, etc. at the different parts, and it gives us some really good suggestions.
Now, I will say there are more advanced versions of this. They typically take a lot of time and they cost a lot of money as well, but you can actually have Claude literally read your video. So, what it does is it'll take pictures every 3 seconds or so at various different points, and it will see the visuals that you use at various different points of the video, and then it can give you even more specific directions. So, it knows what you're saying and it sees the visual at the same time, and it can give you very specific directions on what you should put at those different parts. But that is really complicated. We also don't use it all the time. Typically, we want to get our turnaround time really fast for videos. And a tool like that just makes it longer and harder to actually get the video out. So, we typically don't do that. But yeah, that is an option. So, a simple version of doing this is just get the transcript with timestamps, drop it into Claude, ask it where the retention is most likely to drop, and ask it how you can increase the retention for the video at those different parts.
So, step eight is the upload. And most people grind for hours on a video and then they completely phone in the upload, right? Huge mistake. So, I have Claude write the whole thing: the SEO description packed with the right keywords, the tags, the chapter timestamps, even the pinned comment. That stuff can all be done by Claude. And this is the stuff that helps YouTube actually understand and recommend your video, which is especially important for a brand new channel.
And now, I know I'm going to get some absolute genius in the comment section that's going to say, "Well, tags are totally useless. Tags don't help you at all, bro." There's going to be some galaxy brain in the comments below that has 13 subscribers that's going to tell me, a YouTuber with 1.5 million subscribers, that tags are a waste of time. And there is some truth to that, right? Tags are not that important in my opinion. With that being said, you can do them in less than 20 seconds. In many cases, it might help advertisers tell what your video is about so that they can put ads on your videos more easily. And it helps YouTube tell what your video is about as well. Plus, there might be some update in the future where tags are important, right? If they were completely unimportant, YouTube would not have them as a feature. So, even if they technically are unimportant for some niches right now, it's possible that they could be important in the future. So, you might as well just do them. It takes 20 seconds. And honestly, all of these things take like 20 or 30 seconds, so you might as well do them.
Now, additionally, if you're not sure that your upload settings are right, you can actually just screenshot your upload settings and put them into Claude as well, and it'll tell you if there's anything wrong on there. But yeah, an SEO description that is packed with the right keywords definitely helps. Chapter timestamps can definitely help. And then having a pinned comment, especially if you're able to make sure that that comment gets pinned right when the video goes live, that helps too because people know that you're there watching right when the video goes live and they're much more likely to comment on your video because they think that you're going to comment back, which you should right when your video goes live if possible. But if you don't have time, it's understandable. So yeah, all of this takes like 2 minutes to do. You might as well do it. Especially since you're probably waiting for the video to get uploaded anyways, you might as well just use Claude and do this. So, paste your final script into Claude and then ask for a keyword-rich description, a list of tags, and chapter timestamps. And then copy, paste, and publish.
Now, by the way, if you're wondering how to get your transcript, the script literally automatically gives you your transcript. So, it's the easiest thing in the world to just copy your transcript and put it into Claude as needed.
Okay, so that is the entire system: the idea, the thumbnail, the intro, the script, the pre-production, the post-production, the upload. And that is exactly what I did this last year on one channel and it's done $333,80.7 the entirety of last year just in AdSense alone. And actually, I didn't even do it myself. My team did it. All I did was record the videos. That is it. So, it was completely automated to the point where all I had to do is record the videos. Each one maybe takes me 30 minutes to record. So, in many cases, I was only spending about an hour and a half per week on the videos, which is insane. But the maximum was 4 hours per week, and I did that for an entire year.
Now, if I was doing the other steps of the process, I probably would have spent a little bit more time than an hour and a half per week, probably about 4 hours per week. But to be honest with you guys, the AI was never the secret. The system that you strategically use AI within is. Think about it. Anybody can open a chatbot and type a prompt. Millions of people do this every single day, and it makes exactly $0. But what actually made the difference were the skills, the custom-trained up Claude skills that know my voice, know the proven idea method, know how to package video that actually gets clicks, etc., etc. That is the leverage, right? The AI is just the engine. The system is the car. And building that system the right way so that you make money instead of getting demonetized is exactly what I do with people inside my program, Content Growth Engine. So, we help creators and business owners build this entire machine, the skills, the strategy, all of it, so that their channel actually prints. And we've helped people like Josh making all the way up to over $185,000 in a single month. And we helped Nicole go from 85 subscribers to making over $80,000 in a single month as well. And they are not special. They're just running the same playbook.
Now, one other thing that I'll say is there might be certain parts of the process that you don't want to use AI for. Like you either don't want to use AI for it in its entirety, or you just want to use AI as a helper, or maybe you just don't want to use AI at all. And that is completely fine. Now, I know that 99% of people who watch my content are going to just consume my free content on YouTube. They're going to get a lot of value from that. They might attend my live trainings and get a lot of value from that as well, which you totally should. Click that link in the description in the pinned comment below. But you're never going to end up working with us one-on-one, and that is completely fine. Our goal is to give at least 10 times, preferably 100 times more value than we receive. But there's always going to be that 1% or maybe 0.1% of you out there that do want a one-on-one experience. You want someone to one-on-one teach you exactly how to do YouTube, or you just want us to literally do it for you. If that is you, go ahead and book a call by clicking the link in the description and the pinned comment below. We are very limited with the people that we work with. We're basically like the Harvard of YouTube coaching. So, we accept less than 18% of people who apply. But the typical types of people that we accept are going to be business owners who want to grow and make money on YouTube and build their brand. YouTubers who are getting a lot of views but they're struggling with monetization. YouTubers who are crushing it but they want to crush it even harder. Or people who want to treat YouTube like a business. Typically, these people are a bit older. They're professionals. They're experts in whatever they do, and they want to build their YouTube personal brand on the side to get the indirect and the direct benefits of that. The indirect benefits are networking, becoming an authority in your niche, which can get you your dream job like I did with Josh. And then, of course, you can start a side hustle, start making side hustle income, and eventually it can be a full-time thing, but you don't have to quit your job to do it. You can start it on the side, which is awesome.
Okay, so those are the types of people we work with, but they all have one thing in common, and that is they want to treat YouTube like a business. They're very serious people, and they want to treat it like a business. So, if that sounds like you, go ahead and apply to book a call by clicking the link in the description and the pinned comment below. But only do it if you're very serious about growing and making money on YouTube because we can only accept about three to five people right now. We are very limited in the amount of people that we can accept into the program at any given time.
With that being said, check out this video right here to see an example of someone that we worked with, Sean, who we literally made a category king with his YouTube channel, and he made it to over $500,000 in a single month.