I already know it's the creator space. Do you consider yourself a creator?
Yes, absolutely. And
what exactly do you create?
So right now I've got two things that I'm creating. I've got a blog about golden retrievers, and then I've got a newsletter that kind of reverse engineers. Why people click on YouTube videos.
Interesting. Let's dig in a little bit about that newsletter. When did you start it? Why did you start it and why isn't your blog? A YouTube channel.
So I started the blog a couple of years ago. That's why it's not a YouTube channel, but I was kind of the channel manager, editor and chief at efficient. I had to write six titles a day. So two videos a day, two blog posts a day and two email, subject lines a day. So it was kind of like a run out of ideas. And then my boss was talking to some guy who had a hunting podcast and he's like, Hey, one of our best podcasts was about newbie hunting gear. So then we didn't want about newbie fishing gear.
And then of course that crushed it for us. That was like our most opened email of the month. So that was kind of like the light bulb or like, And you don't need to come up with ideas yourself. They're already out there just. What works. So that kind of led to the newsletter where I'm going across a bunch of different industries, different niches, and finding what works, and then kind of breaking those down into formulas.
Like, Hey, you know, this is what makes people click and here's how you can use the same formula to get people to click on yours.
Awesome. Yeah. I could see that translating from YouTube videos to newsletter, subject lines, to podcast titles, just about
everything in. Yep. I mean, all it is really psychology people click because of three emotions, desire, curiosity, and fear. And if you can learn how to trigger those emotions, no matter what medium you're in, if it's a podcast title, if it's a blog, post subheading or an email subject line, all you have to know is those basics. And then your career as a creator, it can just take off from there. What are your three
favorite
formats for title? One is the number one skill you're missing to make. Reaching your goal easier too, is the ugly truth about industry you don't see. And then three is a little, uh, vulgar. It's a five strange things your vagina does that are actually normal. And the reason that I love that is because one, it's a list of five strange things to it's curiosity, like strange things builds, curious. But also the contrast between strange things that are normal. I love that.
And then vagina has got a little bit of a shock factor.
Other what about YouTube for how much does the content matter
versus the, Ooh, that's a great question. I hate to say it, but I think that they matter equally. So again, if someone clicks your video and then they watch like 20 seconds of it, they're just going to bounce around. Then at the same time, if you've got like a great video with 80% retention and it's a 30 minute video, but nobody clicks on it, then you know, it's not going to go anywhere. So I think.
They're kind of equal, but like at vid summit to my great pleasure, everybody was talking about how important the title and thumbnail are when you're talking about what makes people click. There are three things. It's the thumbnail, the topic and the frame. So like, you know, obviously the thumbnail is what people see in the grab someone's attention, the topic, let's say it's, you know how to get a six pack. And then the frame is kind of, how do you make that spicy? Like how do you make it sexy?
How do you make someone want to click on it? So the free might be how to get a second. In 20 days or less or five mistakes to getting a six pack or, you know, eat this one thing to get a six pack. So you got to frame it to make it clickable and know those three elements are what helps people click on your video.
How do you build your audience now? What's the current strategy you're using on the newsletter. And what are you using on the
blog? Yeah, so the blog is pretty easy. I'm just cranking out content, identifying words and topics and ideas that people are searching around golden achievers and then trying to provide the best resources. Um, so if that's like best brushes for golden retrievers, then you know, I'm doing research and I'm creating the best resource for the best brushes for golden retrievers. I'm doing a little bit of promo for that. So like I'll post on Facebook, I'll post my own Facebook page.
And then also sometimes I'll go in groups and that's one way to find out what people are searching for is they'll ask in the Facebook group. So then. I'm going to like 20 different golden Schriever Facebook groups. So I'll just answer their questions and that's how I naturally promote the blog there. And then I've got an email list, so I'll send those out and that's really all the promo I do for that. And just kind of let Google do its thing.
And then I dunno, four or five, six months later, it's ranking on the first page. I'm getting a couple of people per day for that. And then for the newsletter, it's been a lot of word of mouth. Thankfully, I just went to vid summit, got a bunch of people signed up there, met a lot of cool people. I've been on a couple of podcasts and I'm ever so slowly stepping up my Twitter game. So got a couple more threads coming down the five-year soon.
And so then how does that differ from where you started out or how you started out building your own. I'm guessing for the blog. It's pretty similar all the way through. I know those are more a factor of time than anything, but let's focus a little more on the news that are here, I guess.
Yeah. The newsletter was interesting. So I haven't been doing too much promotion recently, but I really, really hustled to get kind of like my first a hundred subscribers. One thing is, uh, reached out to a bunch of YouTube creators. I said, Hey, you know, here's this new newsletter and here's how it would work for you. So I would just kind of DM them or email them like three different things. So they'd be like, oh wow. Like these ideas work. Yeah. Please sign me up for the newsletter.
So then one chick, she did teach, you know, how to grow. And like the first day at launched, she included me in a video. So that got like my first 30 or so. And the idea kind of came from my first million podcasts and I read it. I was like, Hey, you know, listen to my first million. This is the idea came up with thanks for the inspiration guys. And then say it. Retweeted it, and that got me like another 50 subscribers. So that's how I got my first hundred subscribers.
And then, you know, since then I've taken my foot off the gas a little bit as far as promotion, and just really try to make it the best thing possible. And, you know, because of that, because it has been pretty good, people are.
Awesome. So in podcasting, there's very poor distribution and capture mechanisms in place. If I don't have a show that can grow on just purely word of mouth, like I have no idea why more people listen, then it's not a good enough show. Yeah. And it sounds like you can apply that same thing to
newsletters. Yep. You know, if you wanted to run a newsletter, you can have like a lead magnet and you could run ads to. Or you can consider it around, posted around, but if you're not going to grow from word of mouth, then you're eventually, you know, kind of run out. So it has to be good enough that people want. And then when you add those growth tactics on top of that, that then you can really start growing.
How do you go about monetizing? You mentioned some consulting. I'm guessing there might be some ad sense or advertisers sponsorship on the blog and walk me through. Yeah, some money
on the blog, maybe a little bit more than half is ads and with media vines. So they're my ad network and that's been great. I also do affiliate marketing and I have my own little ebook that I worked with some dog trainers to create from most lucrative to least lucrative. It's. Affiliate and then info products there. And, you know, hopefully that'll keep growing. And I don't really foresee that order switching anytime soon, but ads and affiliate is pretty passive, so it can't beat it.
And then for the newsletter, I didn't have monetization in mind anytime soon, but like when I had the 150 subscribers, this big channel. And I got like a decent consulting gig for a couple thousand a month. And that was a nice little surprise. And I'm going to try to do more of that. And then as I grow, hopefully a title generator and then maybe do like a subscription kind of from that, maybe a newsletter or an ebook, maybe a video course, and then some consulting as well,
big fan and consulting. Yeah. I make pretty much all my money off of this sort of.
When I first started, I didn't want to do consulting at all. Like, you know, let me do all passive and stuff. And then I saw like kind of the money and I was like, well, this is kinda easy. I'm definitely not. I'm a fan of consulting.
Yeah. If you have nothing, except a block of content consulting is the fastest way to get a hundred, 200,000 in revenue.
Yes. I agree. And especially like for a smaller creator, you know, like if I launch an ebook or a video course, I'm not going to do anything. Like I might do a hundred bucks a month, like a couple hundred dollars a month, maybe a thousand, but with consulting, you know, that's definitely, like you said, the easiest way to make a hundred, 200,000 a year.
What's your north star metric.
How do you know you're on the right path, both the blog and the newsletter. It's really email subscribers. It's kind of two reasons, especially for the newsletter one. I'm not doing that much marketing. So I know that if it's growing, it's through word of mouth and I know that if people are sharing it through word of mouth, then it's doing its job. It's actually helping people. And then two with a bigger audience, kind of everything is easier.
If I want to validate a product, it's going to be either. With 10,000 and 20,000 subscribers than it is with 1000 or 2000 subscribers. And like, same with any other monetization with bigger distribution, it's just going to be easier. So, yeah. So email subscribers is the north star metric and that's how I've been basing all of my decisions right now. Can
you have a current goal in terms of subscribers or. Within your creator lifestyle
internally, my goal is more freedom. So like last week I went to vid summit. I didn't have any issues of like, worrying about what's going to happen. You know, is this going to be published on time? Is this going to be done in time? Is the customer waiting for this? So kind of the internal goal was freedom. You know, the external. Is helping people because I know that if I'm helping enough people and everything else is going to come, the subscribers are going to come.
Then the money's going to come. And I just started the newsletter a couple of months ago. I saw, I guess, a quantitative goal right now is about 10,000 subscribers. I'm pretty far away from that now, but, but I've got a good solid plan to get there. So I'm not too worried about that, but I know that as soon as I hit that, The next goal is going to be 50,000. And after that, it's going to be a hundred thousand. If you could send a
tweet back to your start, what would it be? And when would
it be? So I'm kind of like that typical entrepreneur who like read four hour work week, got the four hour. And then I was like, yes, I need to be an entrepreneur. But I started with e-commerce and I really wish that I had started with content first. So my tweet would be, as soon as I was done reading the four hour work week, Hey, content is the way, um,