Transcription
So, for the longest time, I was probably in the same position you're in right now. Which is: you have these thoughts, you have these aspirations of starting a YouTube channel, or maybe you already have started a YouTube channel, but you just don't feel like it's getting the traction you want, or that maybe you even feel like you deserve. I was in that exact same position. I've been on YouTube for—this will be my 10th year right now—and it took me so long to crack the YouTube code. But when it did, I can tell you right now, take away my stocks, take away my real estate portfolio, take away my companies; if you leave me a YouTube, I know that I will be a multi-millionaire for the rest of my life. And that is truly the power of YouTube when you do it correctly.
And by the way, what I'm going to show you right now isn't just how to build a YouTube channel and get millions and millions of subscribers. Like, yeah, sure, fair enough, this channel has a lot of those, but I have separate channels. I have a vlog channel, and that fulfills a very specific purpose and helps drive growth of some of my businesses, for example, like my iare company. And that's, you know, more the focus of that. And then I have smaller niche channels, like my business channel that is specifically targeted to successful and existing business owners, and I don't speak to anyone except for my ideal client for my licensing business.
So the reason I say that is because when I give you advice today, I want you to know that it's for the benefit of not only you personally but your business, and it's really all about building an intentional personal brand. I'm not going to give you some advice, there some uh YouTube shorts hacks that's going to get you millions of views, but what—what are those views worth? Like, what—what are we trying to accomplish here? Okay, so in today's video, I'm going to show you, if I had to start a YouTube channel again this year, this is exactly what I do to not only have a YouTube channel but actually help it achieve my goals, both personally, financially, and in the business.
The day after Christmas in 2015, that is actually when I posted my first YouTube video. And looking back, this was genuinely one of the best decisions I've ever made in my entire life. But quite frankly, it didn't always feel like that. You see, in fact, when I first started as a little kid with acne on my face, you know, I was so stressed, I was so worried, what are people going to think about me? Um, uh, is this okay? Is this not okay? Is—is my content—am I speaking well enough? Like, you know, like you know what I'm talking about. You probably have a lot of these same thoughts right now, and don't worry, by the end of this video, that pressure you put on yourself, all of that—like putting YouTube on a pedestal—all of that will be alleviated. Not only am I going to give you the tactical, tangible, you know, SOPs and everything you need to do step by step, but I'm also just going to give you the mental models.
So I can tell you right now that however bad your first YouTube video is, it will not come close to how bad my initial content was. Okay, and when I first started, my content was, quite frankly, you know, excuse my French, it was—okay, I was clueless, and I had no idea what I was doing. I mean, the cool thing about me is I've been uploading on YouTube now for 10 years, I don't private any of my videos. Look, go look back at my videos 10 years ago, 9 years ago, and you can literally see a 16-year-old bodybuilder, day in the life. You know, I was making all this like uh gym fitness content; I was also, you know, talking about what books I was reading; I was documenting as was—I was, you know, trying to build my first business, which was my agency, I guess at the time I didn't even recognize it as an agency, it was just like, you know, finding clients to—to pay me for services. Uh, at that time it was—it was mainly content stuff. And you can see right—right here, after one whole year, I got to 1,451 subscribers. And you would think, okay, cool, first year, I get it, it's tough, but after that, you know, growth continues and it goes hyperbolic. No, this, my friend, is 1 year later, 5,26 subscribers. So, and by the way, I was dedicated, I was uploading consistently, okay, and I only got to 5,000 subscribers. You know, a lot of people freak out, they're like, oh, it's been a month that I haven't gotten to 5,000 subscribers. And at this point, it's led to well over $100 million in career earnings, and to be honest, I can credit a large majority of that to YouTube.
Okay, now most people get stuck in the beginning stage; they either get started or they quit before seeing the result. But I do not want you to go through this and make the three worst mistakes that I personally see people make, which is: number one, overthinking content; number two, having the wrong intention going into it; and number three, overcomplicating the process. I know what you're thinking, oh, I don't know what to make content about, or I don't have anything valuable to share, or me—I'm—I'm not an expert at anything. Listen, the truth is you do not need to be an expert; you simply need to be one step ahead of someone else. Like, for example, with me, when I was first started making content, I was not—like, clearly I wasn't an expert; I was just, you know, 16-year-old, bear in mind, you know, reading a book a week, documenting my journey, me training in the gym, this that. So yeah, for a lot of people, maybe that wasn't interesting, but for a lot of others, I was just one step ahead of where they were, or maybe I was one step ahead in one area of their life, and that was enough for them to be like, oh yeah, I would like to follow along on this journey, or I find this content valuable or fascinating.
And by the way, the best part is, especially these days in this climate, you don't need fancy equipment, you don't need experience, you don't need complex strategies. Listen, things were a lot different when I first started. I remember even seven or eight years ago, I kind of had to bring my camera everywhere because the—the phone quality, I think back then it was like the iPhone 7, iPhone 8, or something, 10 years ago, something along those—but I just remember there was like a visible big shift in like, okay, if I'm using my camera, or even like back then my vlogging camera, between that and iPhone content. Whereas these days, I shoot stuff on iPhone. I have the most expensive equipment in the world; even yesterday, I was just in the car, I was coming back from a meeting, and I was like, let me just put my phone down in the car, and I'm just rifting, and I just made a 30-minute video off the cuff, and just like this video, I had some times where I had to pause and think about what I was going to say next, or, you know, regroup to my train of thought, and that's fine; in editing, you just cut it out, you just snip the—the—the long pauses or the bits where you're thinking about, okay, how do I tie this back into the first point that I was bringing, cuz, you know, we all lose our train of thought sometimes. And that's it, you don't need anything fancy. Me, in my position where I literally have multiple Red Raptors—if you're not familiar with that, that is Netflix grade, that's the stuff they shoot films on—like full grade, net production quality, even though I have that available to me, I still shoot with my iPhone a lot of times because it's just—it's just easier, it's just better.
So it's really cool because these days, YouTube, because of that, is just democratized now. All you need is a simple step-by-step plan that actually works, so that way you can stop overthinking your content, from someone who's actually been building their personal brand for over 9 years—I guess 10 years at this point—but let me make something very clear: make sure you focus on the right thing, okay? Intention. I am not telling you here to be an influencer. If you want to be an influencer and you want to be super famous, just like that's cool, maybe watch another video on how to become viral or blow up. I just don't think that's the most important thing; maybe for you it is—I said maybe this isn't the video for you—but for me, I am here to provide value and build my businesses. Okay, that is my goal, my intention these days, and it has been for the past few years. And in the past 3 years, I have gotten more out of YouTube than I did for the six or seven years prior. Okay, for me, it is about building an intentional personal brand, and YouTube is your number one tool in order to do that.
Okay, while most people are chasing vanity metrics like views, I focus on attracting customers who actually want to buy what I sell, because views do not pay the bills, whereas customers do. And you know that's why I told you at the beginning, I have intentionally kept my business channel super small and qualified; I only want to attract high-level business owners here. So you can see right here, this is literally one of my channels with 13,000 subscribers. I could post that content on this channel, you know, with 5 and a half million subscribers, but the reason I don't is because the audience that I'm speaking to, and as well as the way that I speak, is a lot different there than it is here, because I have different goals. So really the reason that I bring that up is just because I don't want you to think that I'm trying to give you advice here to make you viral and an influencer and super famous. No, that's not the point here. The point here is building a YouTube channel so that way whatever it is you want to get out of your personal brand, it can serve you. Remember, you should not be a slave to your YouTube channel; your YouTube channel should be there to serve you as its master.
When done right, here is how powerful your personal brand can be. It is the one asset that cannot be copied, replicated, or taken away from you. It is undeniable, and I hear this, you know, people say, oh, you know, AI is so powerful these days. Even if in that specific a piece of content someone doesn't understand that it's, you know, AI and that the video is not made by a real human, later—okay, once they find out, okay, that's an AI creator, everything loses its appeal. There's no way that channel or that creator is going to grow. Your personal brand becomes even more important because people want to relate with other real humans. Okay, so this is the one thing that cannot be taken away from you. Yes, AI can come in and disrupt a bunch of different markets, but it can never take the humanness—it will never be able to remove the humanness out of you. And I think the more human you can be in today's day and age, the more powerful with a strong micro personal brand you stop having to chase clients because they come to you. And by the way, that's exactly what happened in my agency. I had an agency for 6 years, between 2016 to 2022, and I was able to attract the majority of my clients. Yes, we still did outbound, yes, we still ran some ads, but I was still able to attract a lot of clients simply through inbound, right, because I was just generally making marketing content. So stop chasing, start attracting. And this is what some of these guys have been able to do below, and I'm going to give you a few examples outside of myself, especially throughout the rest of the video.
This top channel you can see right here, one of my good friends, Guom, he has a company called Lless; it's a multi-hundred-million-dollar software company. So this goes to show that your YouTube channel can basically help grow whatever venture it is. So he has a software company. Gentleman below, a guy called Alex Becker, once again, he's got a software company. What's very interesting about him, he's very similar to me; he has a channel with like 2 million subscribers, yet he posts on this other channel with 20,000 subscribers because he's specifically speaking to a small segment of the market that is the right sort of user, the right sort of client, customer for his software, Hyros. And then we have my other good friend, George Hean, below. He documents, you know, his entire brand-building journey; he probably has one of the most impressive companies that come out the UK in the last decade. What he's done with Represent—this is more than 100 million pound a year—100 million pound or dollar a year in revenue business—uh, all bootstrapped, all from scratch. And one of the biggest leverage whys? Because it wasn't always like that; some point, you know, the business wasn't in the healthiest place, and, you know, this isn't private knowledge, he's mentioned this in his YouTube videos before, podcasts. When he started building a personal brand and really creating founder-led content, that's when Represent went a whole different scale. And it's actually cool to see in this end of 2024 roundup, he's actually wearing my physical product brand, my ior company; I think he's wearing the exact same glasses as me. So yeah, always cool to see stuff like that.
So moving on, what is the best way to build a personal brand content? Okay, content takes you from invisible to visible. People buy from people; they buy from those who they know, like, and trust. So how the hell is someone going to buy from you if they don't even know who you are? And by the way, I know some of you guys are saying, well—well, I don't want to build a personal brand. I have very sobering news for you: you have a personal brand. Do you really think that when you go apply to a private members club, or you try to go buy a Rolex, or you try to apply for a job, or whatever it is that you're trying to do, you really think they don't go look at your social media? Really, your 300 Instagram followers you have, that is your personal brand. We all have a personal brand; it's just, are you going to use your personal brand to benefit you, or is it going to hinder you? Because for a lot of you guys watching this, your Facebook page, your Instagram page, your whatever it is, it's hurting you. Okay, so that's why you want to be very intentional with what you create. Also, I want to make it clear, I'm not saying that in a way where you have to overthink every single piece of content that goes out there and stuff like that. No, that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm just saying that you have a personal brand, so let's make the most of it, and let's use it in a way that actually benefits your life rather than taking away.
Okay, so as I said, the question really is, does it help or does it hinder? Really think about this now. When it comes to creating content, there's one platform that absolutely dominates: YouTube. When someone watches your YouTube videos, they spend hours and hours with you. In fact, the 7-11-4 rule states that a buyer needs 7 hours of interaction across 11 touch points in four separate locations before they make a purchase. Okay, so if you want to turn a viewer into a buyer, the best time to start is now. And this is how you turn a viewer into a buyer. In fact, now is the best time to start. I don't know if you've noticed in the space the last few months, but YouTube's made a massive change to their algorithm, and they are now favoring smaller creators over big ones. I really started noticing this a few months ago where I'm like, wow, this video has 57 views, like why is this in my feed, like in my home feed, and why is this being suggested to me? And this is actually an initiative that YouTube is pushing out, and that is why a lot of small creators are really starting to pop off, and they really tried to level the playing field. So I guess that's, you know, bad for someone like me who obviously has big socials and has a big audience, but that's amazing for people like you, because, you know, as I said, now they've really leveled the playing field.
Now I see a lot of people saying they want to make content but don't want to show their face, and others saying that they think it's cringe. And my question to you is: number one, what are you scared of? And number two, why do you not want to show your face? Because this is something that everyone aspires to. In fact, I'll prove it. You see, nearly 30% of kids age 8 to 12 listed YouTuber as their top career choice, and this is done in 2019, by the way. I guarantee if they redid that same survey now, it would probably be uh, you know, magnitudes higher. Additionally, another study showed that 54% of adults between the age of 18 to 60 said that they would quit their jobs to become a full-time creator.
So to get started, I actually want to set you a little challenge. Okay, it's all fine and well watching this YouTube video and thinking, oh yeah, this is cool, this is nice information. I'm giving you a challenge, so please follow through this challenge, because it's all fine and well watching all these YouTube videos, but you actually have to take action on it, or you have to just take that small little step. I'm not saying you need to dedicate to a YouTube schedule, you need to make your full-time career your full-time—no, you can dip your toe. Sometimes it's fine to dip your toe. Okay, that's the honest truth. If you told me when I created my first YouTube video, yeah, you have to like make a commitment that you're going to stick with this for the rest of your life, that might have scared me a little too much. Okay, so sometimes it's just good to like be like, I'm going to dip my toe and just make my first video. In fact, we're going to go one step before that; you're not even going to upload your first video yet. I'm not even going to challenge you to that. So here's what I want you to do instead: I want you to pick up your phone or camera and commit to filming 10 videos. You do not need to post them; in fact, I don't want you to post. Okay, the world doesn't need to see these videos; these are just for you. Pick up your phone, pick up your camera, whatever it is, I just want you to film 10 videos over the next 10 days—so one video a day for the next 10 days. Okay, while you're in the car now—bear in mind, you know, 10 and 2—two hands on the steering wheel—you know, if you have one of those clip things where you can clip your phone on, just record, talk about your day. Okay, so either that, or while you're cooking, whatever it is, okay, as long as you're not putting yourself or others at danger in any environment you want to do so, but just chat. Okay, just chat. And that is it; that is all you're going to do. You're just going to record yourself once a day for the next 10 days. It is not going anywhere; no one is going to see it. Okay, this is a private video for yourself, and just anything that comes on your mind. It could be the most random—I want you to either tell a story, talk about your day, anything that's on your mind, something maybe that annoys you, something that a lesson that you learned, or something someone said that really opened your eyes—whatever, it doesn't matter. Okay, don't judge yourself; you could talk about are you a dog person or a cat person, and why—it does not matter. The contents of what you are filming does not matter; it's just getting used to recording yourself. Okay, because for me now it's like second nature; I literally feel just as comfortable recording as I do not recording. Okay, and that just takes repetition. So that's why the best thing to do is just record 10 videos, then never see the light of day anywhere. Okay, so that is my challenge to you; please follow through with it—uh, once a day for the next 10 days. Make sure you go ahead and record now. Let me break down how to actually crush it on YouTube, and know you do not need millions of subscribers; all you need is a micro-niche personal brand. And by the way, I'm going to share some basic concepts here before getting into some of the more advanced stuff later on.
In the presentation, so grab a pen and paper, because no matter where you are in your journey, you're going to take something from this video. And it all starts with my content Trifecta, and here's what I mean: content is what you create; plan is how you create it; and packaging is how you present it. So let's run through this.
Content. Now you might be saying, "I don't know what to make content about. I don't have anything valuable to share. I'm not an expert at anything." And as I said, you do not have to be an expert. You already have everything you need at your disposal. And I'm going to give you an example here. There is a gentleman called Goa Duan—I hope I'm not butchering your name, by the way—and he started making content of things he was interested in, such as personal branding and entrepreneurship. And in just 7 months, he already has 6,000 subscribers on YouTube. By the way, it took me, I think, what, 2 years to hit 6,000—over 2 years to hit 6,000 subscribers, or 5,000, as you just saw. And here he's just focusing on his interest, his experience, and his expertise, in his own words, by the way. If you watch this channel, he never had any intention; he literally just recorded and just whatever came to mind. He didn't have a master plan of, "Okay, this is where I want my personal brand to be in 12 months or 24." Like, all he did was just make his first video and he's like, "Let's just see where it goes." I started this channel and I had zero plans. I started talking about things that I really enjoyed.
Even Alexi, we've got this 13-year-old kid—and by the way, I say "kid" in the nicest way possible—who's making $50,000 with 2,000 subscribers. Okay, now bear in mind, he never ever claims to be an expert; he never says he's an expert. All he does is he simply analyzes the market and then shares his unique view on specific topics. Now, some people might even consider him an authority in his space. Just know that whether you consider yourself an authority or not, this has no direct impact on how much money you can make. I really want to make this clear here. Okay, he never says, "Oh, I'm such and such an expert." All he does is to give his viewpoint. Okay, he's like, "This is the market; I'm analyzing this, this, this, this, this," and then a lot of people will be like, "Oh, that's interesting. I think this person knows more than me, so I would like to pay for, you know, his services, his agency services, his info, his consulting, whatever it may be." So, as I said, you don't need to say you're an expert; it's just by you creating content in of itself, you're already going to be viewed as an authority.
And the same thing happens with Dry Creek Dwayne. His signature style and strong point of view on certain topics attracts a specific audience. So you know, he creates content; once again, he doesn't say he's a life expert or a life coach or this that; he just talks about what's on his mind. And then, of course, a bunch of people now view him as an authority, as an expert, as a, you know, a father figure, as a, "This is the person that I want to listen to." And that's why I'm saying you don't need to freak yourself out. Even with me, like if you told me when I was making content back in 2016, 2017, did I think I was an expert? No, not at all. In fact, if you look back at my videos in 2016, 2017, I actually look back right now sometimes; you know, my early clients, my early clients, I feel quite bad for, because my content was horrible. But I was selling my clients on photo/video services. Now, I gave my absolute all to these clients and I gave the best that I had, but to be honest, looking back now, you know, the amount that I was paid for agency services and the amount that I was paid for content creation services, considering how good I was, is like shocking; like I should not have been paid that much. But once again, because I was creating content, I was viewed as an authority, and I was able to charge premium pricing because of it.
Now you've got someone like James Clear, he's known for habits, or Cal Newport, who's known for deep work. These guys basically own their space because they decided to start and make content on things they genuinely care about, and people resonated with that. But for this to work, you need to provide actual value to your audience. So how do you provide value? Because a lot of people think, "Oh, well, you just need to like, you need to make a video like this step by step." No, there's many ways to provide value. First is documentation; document your journey. Don't try to be perfect; just be real. Okay, open someone's eyes; share a unique perspective on things. So that, with that, you're not giving like step by step. Like, for example, in this video, you're just sharing a thought that you had, and the thought that you had may be a slightly different, you know, everyone has their unique worldview, so the way that you see a situation is valuable to some people. They like, "Oh, I I didn't look at it that way." Or education. Okay, so for example, this kind of video, share how you do things and what you know.
Now, content types: you've got superficial, which makes you known, and then you have in-depth, that makes you money. Okay, so there's two examples right here. I have one of my videos, "How to be a Topw s Men in 2024," that was a sort of superficial, bringing in a wider new audience, and I have in-depth, my the E step SMA Outreach process in 2024, and a video like that helped move people towards my info par, which is my agency program. I think this video was actually back in 2023, but we rehashed the title for 2024. So I actually use a 3:1 growth to nurture strategy; you need both to sell. Okay, you want to bring in a new audience, but then you also want to make sure your existing audience has in-depth content. So like, "Okay, yeah, whatever it is that this person is selling, I want to buy that."
Now, when it comes to content research, don't waste your time studying your competitors, because you will always be one step behind. Instead, study creators from completely different niches. Consider niche, problem, solution. Now, a great tool for this is something called VidIQ. Okay, on VidIQ, you'll see a multiplier, and you can see right here, this has a 39x multiple, which means that it's performed 39 times better than this individual's uh normal YouTube videos. So look at what is doing well, and then add your own twist to it, and this is how you stay original.
Now you might be saying, "Okay, but I don't know which content will perform best." So for this, let me share two of seven proven formats. It doesn't matter what industry, what niche you're in; these are proven to work well. So I'm going to share two of seven proven formats straight from inside my personal branding blueprint. This will guarantee that your content performs every single time, because they are based on proven principles. First things first is brand leveraging. Now, brand leveraging is all about studying successful case studies and showing people how to apply things. And you can see an example right here: More Plates More Dates, use Christian Bale's transformation to show people how to get in shape without surgery. Okay, another example is ultimate guides. This is kind of an example of a step-by-step or an ultimate guide, and these are longer step-by-step tutorials that make complex stuff simple. And you can see right here, 3D Printing Zone did this with their 3D printing 101 ultimate beginners guide. As I said, in fact, this very video you're watching is a YouTube Ultimate Guide. Think about it; I'm showing you how to start a YouTube channel in 2025 and onwards.
So I'm going to introduce you to two concepts right here; it's actually two that kind of seem like they're opposing. First things first: you're one of one; you're unique. Okay, there's no one out there that has the same interest, the same experiences, the same life view, the same perspective, the same parents; like you have things that are unique to you. So there never has been another one of you; currently there isn't another version of you; and in the future there will never be a version of you again, because the unique combination of all those things combined means that you are special; you are one of one. Yet, on the other hand, you also have traits; okay, you fall into certain buckets that other people can relate to. And you see, we like familiarity. I mean, just think about Joe Rogan; okay, he likes very random stuff: aliens, UFC, podcasts. So there's some people who really like Joe Rogan stuff, and there's some people that just don't care. Okay, there are people who will never buy from you, and that's okay; you're not trying to speak to them. Okay, as long as you stay true to yourself, there will always be a slice to market. And I get this all the time; people say, "Oh, but you know, why would someone watch me?" I'm just going to call how it is: someone could watch you because you're a girl, and they would rather watch a girl speak about these specific topics than a guy. You know, guys obviously usually watch content from other guys, or like, let's say you're from a certain ethnic group; of course you're going to have more people from that ethnic group listen. It's a simple fact of nature that we usually hang around or watch people that look like us, talk like us, maybe even dress like us. You know, there's some people on YouTube that only want super raw, uncut, long videos, and there's some people that can't sit past a 10-minute video. And I'll give you an example of this: you've got Jordan Peterson and you've got Ben Shapiro. You know, both these guys have very similar interests, and they're technically in the same market, but because they have very different approaches, they own different slices of the market.
The point is, when you are trying to be someone you're not, you're going to end up attracting the wrong people as well as ostracizing the people that genuinely like you for you. There's no point trying to like be someone you're not, because the market you're trying to tap into will understand that you're not part of their market, and the market you're a part of will be like, "Well, they're not being true to themselves." So the most important thing here is you really just want to lean into who you actually are, so that way you can attract the people you want to attract. And by the way, that's also why I have different channels for different things, or different different platforms for different things. I know there's a certain section of my audience that would never watch my main channel but would only watch my vlogs, and I know there's some people that only watch my business channel, or a lot of people only like just my short-form content on different platforms but would never watch my long-form stuff. So I guess all that to say, I'm not trying to appeal to everyone at the same time. Okay, and quite frankly, there's also some people that will just never watch me just in general; they maybe they don't like the way I talk, maybe they don't like the way I present myself. I don't care; quite frankly, I don't care. I'm not trying to appeal to everyone, and trying to appeal to everyone is the number one worst way to grow your brand and, on as a byproduct of that, grow your income. I can tell you right now, there's a market for whatever you are into, and it doesn't need to be business-related at all. I mean, just look at YouTube right now; people are crushing with teaching Excel, speed reading, chess, and even meditation. So whatever content you know it is that you're creating—now obviously I'm in the entrepreneurship business primarily space, that's why like I'm familiar with law creators in the space—there are YouTube channels in so many verticals that are crushing it. Okay, you just need to get started, and as you create more content, you will see what actually resonates with your audience. So you don't even need to have everything figured out from day one; I certainly didn't. Once again, if you look back at my content from 2016 compared to where I was in 2019 compared to where I was in 2023, totally different.
Okay, so let's talk about growth topics. You see, as you make more content, you'll notice that some videos will get watched longer, some less. Okay, so just look at your videos with the longest watch time, and these are what's known as your growth topics. You want to double down on these. For me, it was stuff like millionaire habits and beginner-friendly business Smalls, but I only figured this out with time and testing. Okay, and that is why to actually succeed on YouTube, you need a plan; you need to execute on that plan, and then you reiterate. So here's a couple ways to actually succeed with YouTube. First things first: optimize for search traffic using Minefield farming, and then map out your audience's problems using problem farming, and then you want to establish a content aid to batch create and save time. So let me actually run you through these; I know some of these might sound confusing to you. Minefield farming is all about optimizing for search traffic. Now, Miles Beckler is actually a perfect example of this; he's been using this technique for years. His videos are search traffic optimized, despite only averaging 5 to 10,000 views per video. He never needs to go viral because he deliberately attracts only those who are searching for specific topics, like Google Trends. This way, he keeps his audience smaller and more qualified and makes millions of dollars a year in the process. So that is minefield farming.
Now let's talk about problem farming. Problem farming is all about mapping out your audience's problems. So I'll give you an example with farmland—very random—but I know, once again, you can create content on anything; you can make YouTube videos on anything, and from that, never need to work a day—well, I guess listen, YouTube is technically work, but you get my point—you never need to go back to 9 to 5 again a day in your life if you can just commit to this for 6 to 18 months. So let's go back to the farmland example. The problem includes low on cash; so people who want to buy farmland, they're low on cash, and they have a lack of understanding on how to actually acquire farmland. So you're going to create two framing points: one is problem-oriented, which is, "Watch this if you don't know how to acquire farmland." Number two is solution-oriented: "How I'm buying farmland with no money down loans." By the way, that is how you can come up with the concepts of videos. You create two framing points: a problem-oriented framing point and a solution-oriented framing point, and then, for example, you can create a title, then from that create 5 to 10 more variations.
Now here is something crucial that I learned the hard way: stop trying to appeal to everyone. Okay, when you speak to everyone, you speak to no one. Look at every successful creator out there; they all started by dominating one specific segment. Most people don't know this, but MrBeast started with gaming content. He didn't try to be everything to everyone; he picked a lane and he stuck to it, and as a result, he built a dedicated audience that actually gave a damn about what he had to say. And then, with time, his content naturally evolved, and his audience grew with him, just like mine did. Okay, I started with agency content—well, I guess I started with just documentation content for a couple years; all I did was just document my life as I was building my agency—and then more and more people were like, "Okay, how do you do this whole agency thing?" And I was like, "Okay, cool, let me create content on this." So I would share, you know, me building the business, for example. You can see right here, "Day in the life of SMA owner 2020," and I would just share, okay, sales calls, signing clients, sometimes losing clients, what we were doing in terms of hiring, how we were getting meetings, all this stuff. Okay, and then I went from that to just generally online business, and then from online business I went even, I guess, more open-ended, and that was a very strategic decision that I made for my personal goals as well as my business goals. I had businesses, for example, like my iare company, where, you know, anyone in the world can buy. Okay, so for me, it makes sense to go a little bit more broad these days.
Now you must start small; in fact, the smaller you go, the easier it is for you to stand out, because there are less creators to compete with. Take the pressure off yourself. I mean, just look at how I got started: went from bodybuilding—super random—to fitness to agency. Okay, so I used to just make like fitness content, and then I went more into like, okay, I'm building a business mode, and I was just documenting my life as that happened, and then I just basically documented building my business, and then I went into more step-by-step agency content. Okay, you have nothing to lose at the start; your content will evolve over time. The content that you start making is not the content that you will make after 6 months, a year, 3 years, 5 years, etc., etc. Now remember, I mentioned mistake number three is people overcomplicate their content. So to simplify this, I want you to use the six-step process, and I still use this process to this day, by the way. But do not obsess over strategy when you can't even make a decent video yet: big idea, title and thumbnail, script, film, edit, publish. To make things even easier for you, here is my power of three framework for scripting. So you want to have a big idea, a hook, three main points, three sub points, and a clear takeaway, and that will take your video anywhere from 8 to 15 minutes. I mean, you can draw it out even more, but that alone is a perfect video package. Okay, big idea, hook, 3 main ideas, three sub ideas, and then a clear takeaway.
Now you might be saying, "But but this seems like too much work." Let me show you how simple this can be. Pick one day each week to film; call it your content day, and I still do this to this day. Okay, I schedule a day where I just record two, three, sometimes even four or five videos. Okay, that way I can just batch it all together, and this will save you tons of setup time. Second, keep it simple; you do not need fancy equipment; all you need is good audio and a clean background; that is all you need. Okay, and yes, eventually you can, you know, you can hire someone to edit your videos, but you don't even need to do that to start off with. Remember, I have a team; I have the best equipment in the world, and literally yesterday on my way to a meeting, because I had some extra time, I put my phone down, I recorded for 30 minutes on my iPhone camera. I don't even need to edit it; I mean, there, you know, maybe like five or six different cuts where, you know, I was trying to uh get my thought back or whatever, maybe I stumbled over my words, but apart from that, it was the easiest thing ever. Okay, now later down the line, you know, you can reinvest back more into content or, you know, have a nicer setup or this that, but I mean, listen, look at Wizard Liz; she gained 7 million subscribers in 3 years, and all she did, and still does to this day, is record on her iPhone: no fancy setup, no crazy edits, just valuable content that resonated with her audience.
So let's address your next 90-day game plan. Day 1 to 4—I actually mistyped there; it should be 4-5—is build momentum. I want you to post one video every week, and bear in mind that is, I guess technically, your next 10 days will be training. So your next 10 days, just record one video on your phone; doesn't need to go anywhere, nothing. Okay, for the next 10 days, one video on your phone; that is it; just get it done, get practicing. I can tell you right now, think about the last thing where you got really scared; you're like, "I don't know if I could do that." You know, maybe, for example, for you is cooking or driving; you know, like we all have those things where before we start doing it we're like, "That's just so tough," or "It's so complicated." YouTube or creating content is just like any other skill. For the first few days, you're like, "I don't know how I'm ever going to do this." After like 2 weeks, you're like, "Oh man, this still is is tough." After a month, you're like, "Okay, this isn't..."
As bad as I thought it would be, after 2 months you're like, "Oh, okay, you know, I got the hang of it." After 3 months, you feel like an expert. Okay, and it's the same thing like pretty much anything in life. Okay. So after you've done the 10 days of creating content, be in mind if you already feel comfortable, you can just move straight to this 90-day game plan.
Day 1 to 45, you're really building momentum. Post one video a week. Do not obsess over perfection; just focus on consistency. Experiment with different topics and styles. Film those 10 videos that will never be posted, as I said.
And then day 46 to 90, what you're going to do here is you're going to curate your signature style. And what I mean by that is start thinking like small things, like even for me, I have different signature styles on different platforms or different channels. But you know, even the way that things are edited are different channel to channel. But I will say at the end of my videos, "And as always, I'm watching from afar." You know, obviously I'm not in the room there with you, but I'm watching from afar, basically to give you a reminder like I'm watching out for you, and I'm rooting for you. And that is a part of my signature style. It's a thing that people really like; they really appreciate. They're like, "Okay, you know what? I saw this video, and Eman at the end just reminded me that like he's always watching." And of course, that's not a literal thing; that's a metaphorical thing, as in like, you know, I I'm here to keep you accountable, and I'm rooting for you, as in like I genuinely give a about your success, and I genuinely want to see you win. And these are things that will weave into your signature style as time goes on.
Next, you want to identify your growth topics. Remember when you start, you have nothing to lose; it's a it's a clean slate. Okay, the only way is up from here.
Now let's talk about packaging. Packaging is the thing that most people actually neglect. The truth is, 80% of your success on YouTube will come down to your big idea and how you package it. The other 20% comes down to execution and following the plan that I laid out for you. Now you can see this video right here; the video did not perform well. Now if you actually zoom in, you'll see that every time we repackaged it, you know, we gave it a new thumbnail, it just went it went crazy; it went ballistic. Okay, so a lot of times you can actually restimulate and re-engage growth by packaging it differently. Or the best way to start is actually package it correctly from day one. Okay, your packaging is how you present your content to the world. But you do not need to nail your packaging straight away, as you can see. I test, you know, I go back and I'll rehash my thumbnails or rehash my titles, so I'm constantly trying to repackage and find the right way to formulate my uh thoughts, my ideas, and present to the world. Put simply, even if your content is incredible, if your packaging sucks, no one will ever see it.
Okay, and the truth is, YouTube really only cares about two metrics: CTR, so click-through rate, and watch time. The algorithm basically works on a basis of fractional exposure, so what it's going to do is it's going to show it to a small amount of people and then test, and then if it's performing well, or show it to more and more people, and it will keep doing this, so basic to see how relevant can this be to different markets. Okay. Now how do you maximize these two numbers? It really comes down to three things: number one, your thumbnail; number two, your titles; and number three, your hooks.
Now Veritasium actually made a video about the Magnus effect. The video title was "Strange applications of the Magnus effect"—not the best title. Okay, great content, but the title was very technical, and it got any views because who the hell knows what the Magnus effect phenomenon is, and quite frankly, a lot of people just don't care. Okay. Then someone actually repackaged the exact same video with the following title: "Throwing a basketball off a dam." Different title, same content. Okay, as well as a different thumbnail, I should say as well. And then that video went on to get 9 million views in a week. Now bear in mind, does that fit into their goals for their YouTube channel or their personal brand? Maybe. Once again, on my business channel, I don't try to make my content wide because that's not the audience I'm trying to reach on my business channel. I'm trying to make my content very specific, speaking to a very specific type of candidates, so I'm not trying to make my stuff viral. So here's an example of how your title and your thumbnail can make a piece of content that maybe was very niche and take it to a broad market, but maybe that's not what you want. So these are all things to think about as well.
So let's start with thumbnails. Most people treat thumbnails as an afterthought, and that's a big mistake. I did that for years and years, and to be honest, I saw no growth or very minimal growth during that time. You do not want to just slap some together, which is what I did. Okay, I would record a video; I wouldn't even think about what the title would be; I didn't think what the thumbnail would be, nothing like that. I would just record a video, and then on the day I would just decide, "Okay, let's spend 5 minutes create a thumbnail," and I just randomly choose a title, and that was it. Okay, I made that mistake for years. Please do not make that mistake. I've learned over time this thumbnails; it's not about art; it's engineering. And I've even had people tell me like, "Oh, that thumbnail you made was really good; like it was so beautiful. Why don't you change it out? Oh, blah blah blah." I'm like, "I don't care; the data tells me." Okay, I don't care if one is more beautiful than the other; for me, I'm just simply trying to increase my click-through rate; that's all that matters to me. Okay, if one is this beautiful piece of art, you know, such an amazing-looking thumbnail, and then the other is mid, or "Oh, that's an ugly one," I don't care; I'm just trying to achieve my goal, which is having a higher click-through rate. So for your thumbnails, keep things simple. Thumbnail rule of three: number one, your face showing genuine emotion; number two, clear readable text; and number three, visual that adds context. In fact, some of my best-performing thumbnails are actually just mid-action stills. Sometimes the best thumbnail is just the most simple. So sometimes if you can just have a a a still, but the still is compelling enough, then that's all you need. Okay. Another great example that works very well for me is three-way splits, as you can see in this example right here.
Next, let's talk about titles. For titles, you have one job: to make people want to click. Now here are three titles that I like: "How-to" thumbnails, number titles, and "why" thumbnails. You can see right here: "How to get rich with AI 2024," the next one, "Three books that changed my life," the next one, "Why I left London." So you want to be specific; you want to spark curiosity. Now instead of saying "How to make money," say "How I made $10,000 in 30 days as a complete beginner." Quick bonus: your title should be no longer than 55 characters, or it gets cut. I see people make this mistake a lot. You can have longer titles; that's fine, but just make sure they're not more than 55 characters.
Next, let's talk about hooks. Hooks basically mean retention. Okay, the reality is that 80% of your viewers drop off in the first 30 seconds; that is really how long you've got to hook someone in. My top hook principles are: bold claim, use, you know, use one of these: bold claim, spark curiosity, value promise. Instead of saying something like, "Today we're going to talk about making money online," or those boring, "Hey guys, welcome back to my channel" intros, or you know, like that's the sort of stuff you would do back in 2012, you know, when people have like actual physical like channel intros, and you're like, "Why are you doing this? Like no one knows who you are," or at least if you're trying to grow your channel, like why do you have like a 30-second channel intro? So instead of saying something like that, instead you say, "I made $110,000 in my first month online with zero experience, and today I'm going to show you exactly how." So instead of your hook being like, "Hey guys, in today's video I'm going to show you how to be more productive and spend less time on your phone," you start off the video by saying, "In today's video I'm going to show you exactly how I've reduced my average screen time by more than 2 hours a day, and because of that I made more money than I've ever made, my relationship with my wife has been the best it's ever been, and I'm in the best shape I've ever been in my life, and I'm closer to God than I've ever been before." The first one, I'd be like, "Okay, cool, bro, like nice," whereas the second one, I would be like, "Oh, those all sound like amazing benefits that I would like to have in my life. Listen, let me be very honest with you here: building a personal brand is the biggest opportunity of this decade. It is the only way to truly future-proof yourself because whatever you do in life, your personal brand will make sure that you never need to worry about money ever again—whatever not worrying about money means to you, by the way. For some of you, that's a few extra thousand a month; for some of you guys, you know, you have a little bit more expensive taste, so whatever it is. Okay, there's no right or wrong, by the way. I'm a little bit more on the expensive taste side of things, so you know, people always say like, 'Oh, be true to yourself.' Now if true to yourself is you have expensive taste, then great, go for it. If true to yourself is like, 'I would rather make 10% this amount of money I know I can make, but I would also rather work 20% as much as you know I would have to work if I made 10 times more money,' so whatever life you want, once again, there's no right or wrong life; it's it's only whatever you choose.
Now I have seen so many people do everything wrong and still succeed because they're personal brand, and that's just the honest truth, B. Okay, I've seen so many people like that should not have successful businesses to the level they do, but yet they are in the position they're in. And by the way, I'm one of those people. I know that if this was 30 years ago, for me to have made as much money as I have in my career, which I've been incredibly blessed, and you know, I wake up every day so grateful for what my personal brand has afforded me, and you know what YouTube has afforded me, and and all of these things, but I'm you know, I'm not unaware or I'm not ignorant to the fact that 20 years ago, I would not—this everything around me would not have been possible. Listen, 20 years ago, would I still have been, you know, a multi-millionaire? Sure. But to hit the numbers that I have in my career earnings so far, not even factoring in what my companies are worth, I'm so incredibly ridiculously blessed, and I want this for you as well. I've just seen it time and time again where there's people who are so hardworking, so smart, do everything right, yet they get laughed by other people who are willing to, you know, you might think, "Oh, YouTube is stupid," or like, "I don't want to do YouTube." Okay, well you're going to work 10 times as hard as the person who does spend a little bit of time and a little bit of annoyance, you know, setting up their YouTube and building their micro-niche personal brand. I can tell you right now that in 5 years that person will work far less than you and make far more than you. And we can sit here and complain, or we can say that's not right; the world shouldn't be that way; it's just the way the world works. Okay, so you know, we can either complain about it, or you can take action on it.
And the best part is, in 2025, crushing YouTube isn't about fancy setups, years of experience, or complex strategies; it is all about authenticity, consistency, and intention. Create more than you consume, and that's the truth of it, you guys. You know, there's so many of you watching there spent 3, 4, 5 hours a day on YouTube, and that's fine. Funny enough, most people don't realize I probably spend 30 minutes an hour a day on YouTube. I like to see what's going on, you know. You might even see like some creators on here where you're like, "That person has like 2,000 subscribers; how do you know who these people are?" I spend time on YouTube because I like to study it. Now I watch it a little bit more from a perspective; I like to see what's working, what's not working, this that, but even me myself, I said I spend easily 30 minutes a day on YouTube. Okay, so for sure I consume on YouTube, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but to spend, you know, 3, 4, 5 hours a day on YouTube consuming and not create anything, I just think it's foolish. So remember, you don't need millions of followers or views; you just need a small, qualified audience that will buy what it is you sell because it's you. And never ever ever forget, you know, have this ingrained in your mind: you are one piece of content away from building a million-dollar personal brand, or let's even remove personal brand; you are one piece of content away from building a million-dollar business.
Okay. Now before I go, I want to leave you with one final question: Are you going to start building your personal brand today, or are you going to be in the exact same spot 5 years from now wondering why you never started? And that is a question that only you can answer. So with all that being said, I hope this was a valuable video for you. As as always, I'm watching from afar, and I'm rooting for you.