208. Brad Hussey on evolving from web designer to creator/educator

And in this episode, we talk about how he made that leap from an employee all the way back in the day to being a full-time web designer and now to where he is today. Whereas he's an educator, a creator, a community builder. At utuber and a whole lot more. So we talk about how he's actually built this business. That that is a, essentially a flywheel for where he is today.

He sells courses on various platforms that drive traffic and awareness two is his own website, which further perpetuates the flywheel. He also sells courses and coaching and services on his own website. So it's a really interesting business model that plays really well with his expertise and creates this harmonious relationship between all the different parts. So you're going to want to listen to this one.

And we're also going to talk a little bit about how he's built his YouTube channel and any advice that he has. To help you build your own YouTube channel. This is an interesting episode. And if you're kind of in the mode of how do I get out of some of these services, how do I find new ways to leverage my expertise into courses, into community, into partnerships he partners with Wix, which we're going to talk about how that works.

Uh then you're gonna want to listen to this as always if you get any value out of it share with a friend that's all i ask and i hope to see you on the other side. Brad, thank you so much for joining us. I'm super excited to unpack your story and all the cool things that you're doing right now. And we had a recent discussion, we connected online and you're an interesting character because you have this great background in web design. You fell into, and I'm going to use that.

Generally into education work. Now you're running a community in partnership with Wix. So as always, I want to unpack, how did you go from that hands on keyboard selling websites to, to packaging and leveraging your, your expertise to, to build a community that you're in now, why don't you take us back to where your roots are and then what led you out of the path of just selling websites?

So I started out, I went to school, uh, out in the west coast of Canada here, uh, For interactive design learning is a catch all program, a couple of years where you learn everything from graphic design to animation to flash Adobe flash before nobody uses that anymore, but, uh, to backend programming, front end design, the whole Adobe suite, you know, we'd learned some business SEO, it's kind of a catch all program to kind of prime, uh, people in this technical and creative field for a career

in, in whichever route. And so there's a lot of. Colleagues, my colleagues, whatever they're called, you're my cohort in school. Um, they went on to be game designers, uh, app developers, you know, graphic designers. And, um, I, from the beginning chose, I was like, I'm going to figure out a way to do this solo. Like, I don't want to work for a company. I don't want to do any of that. I want to find a way where I could just do it myself. It's gotta be a way.

And, um, so that was always on my mind. And so I started doing freelance work. In school, this was 2009 to 2011. I started just taking on clients. I, as soon as I learned HTML and CSS, I was like, okay, I I'm, it's good enough. I could do something. I could sell something with this. And so I got a client to build a chiropractic website and that led to another referral. And so I just, I've had clients since 2009 and selling cheap websites and then they'd get a little bit more expensive.

I get better. And then, you know, as that story goes. Finished school and I got a job as a front end web developer at a boutique agency. Uh, when we worked on big campaigns, it was very cool. Got to work on big projects for like movies and TV shows, car companies, like large kind of products that, you know, household names. We had to work on campaigns and websites and. You know, local restaurants, even things like that.

So I got kind of deep dive into the world of building sites for these sorts of clients and, you know, working on budgets that would be, you know, 20 to 200, 000. And so I got to see how that all worked. Um, but I still freelanced on the side and it was, I got to the point where I was freelancing almost full time outside of working full time. And this was prior to having children.

So I had the capacity to do it, but I still had dissonance because I wanted to spend more time with my wife when we were newly married at that point, just a couple of years. And so I wanted to spend more time with my wife and not just working and then working and then having 20 minutes before work and 20 minutes before bed. You know, like I wanted more time with her. And so I was like, something's got to give.

And I've been always wanting to do something solo and have that flexibility and that freedom. And I don't necessarily like my job, though. It's a dream job, so to speak, in this capacity, it's really cool. And I just realized, you know what? I think I need to go all in on this freelancing. And I think with the amount of time that I'm going to buy from that. I should be able to, I should be able to do well. And I had enough clients where, you know, I, I had a strategic plan.

It wasn't some haphazard, I want freedom and I'm throwing it all, you know, no, I made a plan and, uh, gave them a heads up. That job actually became one of my bigger clients for about six months. As I transitioned out of it, I said, Hey, I'm, well, you know, we're leaving, I'm leaving the job. We're leaving the city. My wife's, uh, pregnant, we're going to have a baby and we were going to move.

So I can't stay here, but I can, uh, keep doing your front end development work on a contract basis until you find somebody else. And they said, sweet, that sounds amazing. We appreciate it. So that was a nice segue out of that ramped up freelancing, kept that going. And within the first three months of, uh, Freelancing, this was like only like a few months before we had our first baby.

Um, I went from like doing pretty decent, like as a beginner freelancer, you know, paying bills, like it wasn't anything to blow your mind over, but it was like, Hey, I could pay all the bills. to like making like, I think it was like a 716 a month. And I was like, that's not going to work at all. I can't even pay rent with that at the time. And so I was like, well, my options are an eye out for going back to a job.

which I did all this work to not do, or find another way to make income in addition to client work. Because I, as I started to really realize client work is up and down, up and down. If you're selling fixed one off projects, especially in the one to 2, 000 range, you know, it's like, you got to hustle a lot, scrounge up some work for that.

So I, uh, at the suggestion of my wife, she was like, why don't you like teach, like book a room at the university or the college and like sell tickets to teach web design or something. And I was like, that's an amazing idea in my mind. I was like, what am I going to get? Like 10 people. And then what I got to get another 10 people. I'm still selling my, my time. It's not scalable. And it's a lot of effort.

And I was like, I don't like the lack of leverage in that, you know, but I like the idea of teaching and extra income. So I like Googled at the time. I was like, how do you teach a course on the internet? Because at the time, like 2000 and 12, it wasn't as, it was more of a novel idea. It wasn't as accessible as now everybody, this is a thousand course platforms and marketplaces and it's pretty common. Like it's not a crazy idea, but then it was.

So Udemy came up and this was long before Udemy was like the number one online course marketplace for anything and everything. At all. Um, I was like, I'm going to try this. I'll sign up. We taught you, show you how to record some videos and put a course curriculum together. And so I whipped together a course called PSD to HTML5 and CSS3. So slicing and dicing a Photoshop mock up and coding it in HTML, CSS. And I just kind of leaned on my, um, personality and my passion for. Subject.

And, uh, I have a theater background, so I was cool with being on camera and kind of hamming it up a little bit. And, uh, content was, I think it was pretty good. I mean, looking back on it now, it's kind of embarrassing, but at the time it was pretty good. And I put it on Udemy and I remember going to bed one night after getting it all published, waking up the next morning and seeing like three sales came through and it made like 60 bucks or something like that.

And it just like, it was like a paradigm shift where I went. That's a thing now that I could do.

Um, I'm trying to say this without like sounding like I'm gloating or anything because I don't mean to. But I was lucky enough to be one of their top instructors for a while, quite a while in the design and development category. Now there's like thousands and thousands and thousands of instructors. Then it was maybe hundreds or something. Um, and so my stuff bubbled up to the top pretty quickly. And so I got like pushed. I was on the homepage. I was on the featured page.

Like so I got tons of traffic. And then that. You know, creating free stuff, creating paid stuff. And so that like for quite a while, it was this amazing engine for revenue, but also traffic and brand recognition and awareness of me. So people started searching my name and Googling me. Uh, and I realized like I should probably blog or have a website or collect email addresses so that I can keep in touch with these people outside of Udemy if they want to stay in touch.

Maybe sell them website services. And so I would, I would also get, that would be like a flywheel. People say, Hey, I tried taking your course and you're so good at it. Or I really liked your vibe, but I'm terrible at building my websites and I'm an entrepreneur. I'd rather someone do it for me. Could you do it? Absolutely. So it was like a flywheel. It was a lead generator in addition to selling education. Then that led me to another thing.

So I, my ethos for business has just been to keep my eyes open for opportunities and be open and, uh, you know, I have business plans and ideas and strategies, but I think I reserve like 50 to 60 percent of my career existence to just open your eyes, man, and see what's there because I might think this is the best path, but there's something right here screaming at me and I should try that out. It's because of those.

That awareness of just being open, uh, it's led me to like my biggest career breakthroughs, including this Udemy thing. When my wife was like, why don't you try this? I might've been like, no freelancing. I have to do this. And I got to sell WordPress websites. Um, just keeping my eyes open and trying an opportunity of being okay if it doesn't work. And so these students would say, Hey, now how do I get clients? Like, I kind of way. How do you get clients? And I was pretty good at it.

And so I was like, I can, I could show you what I know. I'm a few steps ahead of you, but I can, I could show you what I know. And so I would create a course about freelancing. And then I started to learn more about freelancing, doing it and building websites and getting better as a designer and a business person. So I was just going to share my insights, like 10 steps up the road. And package it into a course or a live stream or a workshop. And some of them would be free.

Some of them would be paid. And, and then it just kind of real, like all sort of kind of coming together. I was like, Hey, I think I've built this thing where I am not only a web design freelancer or a creative studio selling websites and marketing assets and collateral, but I'm also like a, somewhat of a expert who's able to sell my expertise and sell my knowledge and sell my advice.

People would book calls with me and ask for my advice about this client situation, or how much should I charge, or these things. So I started following that, and that built up a list, it built up a list, it built up courses, coaching, you know, and that would again bubble into people wanting me to build sites, or build their sites, start to craft a bit of a niche, um, and all the while I'm creating content, YouTube videos, courses, doing free training, paid training, coaching people.

Kind of just being open and uh, so I've got this like bulk of, or maybe not bulk, like library of content that I've created across the internet. Um, both for my sites and also other people's sites, kind of like being on this podcast. And those, I never really realized. Um, until like five years later, I've been doing this now, like 10, 11, what is it, 2009. So whatever that is, 14 years. So it's a long time. It's kind of weird. Um, that compounds opportunities like investing in the stock market.

So I created something and made a deposit, let's say I purchased a share of, or I'm trying to create this metaphor here by creating a content, a piece of content, of course, by You know, doing that, investing and creating that, and years later, it would create an opportunity.

Hey, I just signed up for your course, or hey, I just saw your stuff on Udemy, or hey, I watched that YouTube video you did, oh, you changed my life here, or I tried this thing, or I really love this, and I'm like, man, I created that eight years ago, and you're watching it now, or you're just thinking of it now, like, so it blew my mind, but that would create opportunities, and one of the most notable opportunities for me, um, was Over the pandemic, uh, business was a bit slow for me.

Um, you would think that the freelancing world offering services and coaching for freelancers would be actually a really good opportunity to get, um, customers during the pandemic. Cause all of a sudden everyone had the opportunity to be freelance. And, uh, I think a lot of folks did pretty well because of the pandemic and, and that they were positioned right, maybe they got a stroke of luck or they're in the right place, right time, not quite for me. It actually was the opposite.

I don't know why. Um, it was very much like people were like, ah, I don't really have the cash right now, or I don't want to invest in a coaching program or another course. Like I just need, I just need work. I just need a job. You know, I don't have the money for it. So I had a lot of that. And so it was kind of a little bit slow, a little scary at times, but I'd built up a portfolio of income sources.

That was kind of like a, like a huge safety net to be able to like, it's not just cut off or like tanking, like one can be taken out, but you've got these other ones that you've created. So that very much was the case for me. And so I was grateful for my efforts in the past to do that. Bye. Um, it was slow and I was like, I don't know, I don't know what I'm going to do here. Like clearly I'm in like a, a massive crossroads in my business and I don't know what it looks like in the future.

It was like for the first time ever that I was pretty uncertain and pretty scared and was fully open to like, I don't know what's next, but I got to really keep my eyes open here to see what's next, the next step. And, um, I got an email from somebody, uh, an agency who partners up large brands with creators to create content for them. And in this case, they were like, Hey, we need you, uh, we need you to create a video ad, uh, for, uh, you know, first piece of software.

And I looked into the software and I was like, yeah, it looks cool. Like I actually kind of liked that it was in the web design space. So I got to film a YouTube ad. And kind of was a one off project. And anyway, that, that was fine. And I was grateful for a little project, um, that was different.

And then anyway, this person from the company who was creating it for, so this is Wix, uh, they reach out and, uh, he goes, Hey, I'd love to talk more to see if we can work together, like, I like what you're doing, got on a call. And I was like, why, why, why me? Like, why are you reaching out to me when there's like a whole bunch of creators out there and you're like, what, what do you, what draws you to me? And so he's like, I like your vibe. I like your stuff. I've watched your content.

I've seen your videos, your courses, the thing that you did for us here. Like, I like it and I like you and I'd like to work with you. And so that led to some conversations and fast forward a little bit. Um, now, like I have this really cool, relationship with them helping to bring awareness.

And, uh, recognition and to draw the conversation in the web design and no code space to editor X. So that's the no code creation platform, no code web creation platform for agencies and professional designers who are building websites, but without code, you know, and that's a huge thing right now. So lots of software competing for their share in the market. And so editor X is an incredible product that I use myself now, and I really enjoy and they've.

Basically, because of the work that I've done over the last 10 plus years, created an opportunity for them to say, I'd like to work with you because I've seen your portfolio of efforts and content. And I like that. And I want you to, to help us in this capacity. And I was like, say what? Like that. I just is one of my clients. Wix like, and I'm going from, from restaurants and smaller, you know, you're kind of scrounging up work or you're getting medium sized businesses.

And, and I'm pretty good at that to just go like, boom. Like what? So I was very grateful. And so now bringing it to today, um, I, I still do client work. Uh, it's very choosy and picky. Um, so I, I'm in a privileged position that way. Very grateful for it. But I get to pick the projects I work on and we can talk about that in a little bit. And I create a, uh, content on YouTube and a community.

I'm facilitating and growing a community for creative professionals, web design agencies, and creative studio owners who are building websites for clients, building products for clients, uh, designs designers and we want to help them succeed. And so that's a free community. And because of my partnership with editor X, They, um, allow everybody wins here.

So the community wins because the content that they're getting from me in terms of bringing in guest experts, interviewing experts, uh, creating content, creating original content, videos, training courses, uh, resources, tools, assets. Um, live Q& A sessions, co working sessions, networking opportunities. It feels like they should be paying a lot of money to be a part of that community. But it's free. So I've had people ask, like, when are you going to start charging me for this? But I'm not.

And that's because of my partnership with Editor X. So you can thank them for that. They've paid your admission. And I get to just create the best version of what I've always wanted to do, but I've had limitations. The wrong gear, not enough time, not enough resources, had to scrounge money over in the freelancing department, over in this, I had to do... Now I just get to create unfiltered, pure content I've always wanted to be able to do.

And so now I get to do that for free, for these folks, and Editor X wins because we also create content, training, and guidance. For editor X, but also, Hey, if you're using a different tool, it's okay. That's fine. But you also know you get this access and this network because of editor X. So you're going to look at them in a nice light. And the, the feedback has been nothing but positive.

Whenever I ask, whenever people ask me what's going on here, I tell them and they go, man, that's really cool. I've never seen that before. So that's what I'm doing now. Uh, in addition to some client work and some consulting and coaching, very much selling my thinking. Uh, and my advice selling my, uh, selling my brain instead of my hands. Uh, and so that's kind of where I'm, that's where I'm at now.

And that's all because I've just kind of kept my eyes open and kind of, uh, allowed myself to explore.

It was burnt, you know, I was like burning out, but like trying to make this thing work like you, I wanted to be self employed. And so there's kind of a lot of echoes to what, what you're doing there. And I love how you just sort of landed on teaching and you thought, okay, maybe the in person stuff might've worked for you. Probably would have to some extent, uh, but you went, you know, online as an. Almost a pioneer in the Udemy space, which is, which is interesting.

Um, do you, let's, let's break it apart a little bit. So you currently have the Wix, you know, funded editor X community, right? Well, it's, it's, uh, it's not, it's not a Wix editor X branded, but it's kind of the sponsorship and it's a brand play, so they pay you some money. That's, I don't know if you call that a sponsor deal or kind of a partner deal, I guess, some kind of a partnership.

If someone has questions about how to direct, or if we want coupon code or this or whatever, like we've got a really good setup there. So it's way more than a. Sponsorship in the sense that it's more authentic. It's not just, Hey, we'll give you 500 bucks for a video or something like,

Are they looking for any KPIs or are you compensated by any kind of things separately, like how, what's the rough shape of it without getting into, you know, anything sensitive?

Like if you're getting a budget for something, you know, the people who are all got the purse strings, like they want to know, like, well, what are we getting for that, you know, and let's set some benchmarks for, you know, for determining if this is valuable or not. So it's very cool to, to be a part of that, but it also, you know, you know, it's not just like, okay, I opened up my community and answer some questions and I create a cool piece of content or a fun video.

It's like, no, no, no, no. Like all these things have to be tied to what's the theme here. And how is this going to. Increase engagement in the community. So we have benchmarks for what good engagement is and what it should be and what's not good enough. So conversations started, uh, DMS happening between members, uh, people attending events. So when we do events, uh, and guest experts, it's like, Hey, you usually have a 30 percent attendance rate.

This one had 50 percent with a longer, uh, stay time. Like, what did you do differently there? Okay. Let's do more of that and see what happens and change the call to action. So there's lots of strategy, um, lots of figuring out like. You know, it's not just numbers. Like let's get lots of people in the community. It's we want engagement rate.

We want, um, people conversing, attending events, consuming content, but also sharing feedback, helping each other out, collaborating, and also ultimately at the end of the day, signing up for an editor X account and ideally. You're an agency owner and that's like our target market here. Uh, and you build sites for clients. So you sign up for editor X, you take our free course on it. We help you out. We do a live call. We walk through, we help you out, or they help you out.

We've got a cool arrangement there for that. And you go, okay, I love this. This is going to be a game changer for my, my business. Uh, and I've got a whole bunch of clients and all my new clients. We're going to set them up on the editor X platform. So what's nice. Uh, KPI as well. How many people are signing up? And how many of those people are bringing in new editor X accounts?

You know, so if you're an agency and you got 10, 20, 50, a hundred clients on editor X, well, that's, that's excellent for editor X because that's that many premium accounts. And if we bring in a whole bunch of agencies and we really help them succeed on the platform and, and not only on the platform, it's like holistic approach, like, Oh, your pricing's way off. Or like, Oh, your marketing is way off.

Or have you set up automated email marketing or your branding or your design is pretty janky, man. Like we've got to fix that, you know, so that sort of stuff so that they can really succeed using the editor X platform. Now, if they don't use it, that's fine, but we have KPIs for. What we'd like in terms of all of these metrics and so it's very cool to see community building as like a business

Uh, but are they paying you basically to like, how is that, like, is it a fixed, like, are they, is it based on hours or anything or is it all, you know, is it a fixed fees or performance? Like what's that, how did you come to the deal?

So if that's once a month or twice a month or early, the earlier stage last year, it was once every week. Cause I was able to do that and I wanted to get the channel rolling then cool. But it's not like, no, you have to hit four videos a month or, or this, it was more like. It has to be quality. It has to be good. And if you are doing it, like it has to meet your standard that you set for yourself, like high production, high quality, entertaining, educating.

Um, and in terms of the community, like we do try to set like, you know, when we do certain meetings, numbers of members are ideal because at this point with about a year and a bit of data behind us, we can see roughly how many people convert to. Like to signing up for editor X or to create a premium accounts, um, roughly. So it's like we, okay, well, let's, um, let's say within the next X timeline, we want this many new members, but remember, it's not just members.

Cause if you're bringing in a whole bunch of like newbie freelancers. Who love platform Y over here, it's not going to do anyone much good. If they're all like asking, how do you make 500 on, you know, WordPress or something like that? So it's like, you know, we try to create craft or target audience and, and focus on that. But, you know, make sure that we're accommodating for other folks who are, we're not using. Uh,

So, so like, it's hard, like, as you know, this is where partnerships are key, mutual trust, where it's an understanding of, okay, this is a, a brand play. And yes, there's performance indicators. There are signals that it's moving in the direction that is creating sign ons of agencies who have downstream clients, who's then going to create that ripple effect.

Um, but we also have to be realistic about measuring everything and, you know, it's really proxies for success, you know, and does this feel good? Is that quality of interaction? Is that quality of video high and not knowing whether that's going to perform a result? Do you find it difficult to juggle that performance element with this? Brand element at the end of the day is what, what you're building. Uh, is that difficult for you or are they pretty understanding of how that all works?

I treat it very, uh, uh, professionally. And, you know, I, and every single individual member who comes into the community and joins an event or asks a DM or any of these sorts of thing or needs help, you know, it's like, I see them all as like, I have the capacity now to really serve this person. Whereas before I'd be like, ah, they're not in the top of funnel and then buy my 99 course and the three month timeframe. I'm not very profitable.

And I got a quick, I got to get a client job to pay the bills. It's like, no, like set me up for success so that I can set other people up for success. And so they're really accommodating and trusting that way, which in turn makes me show up hard. And so it is interesting juggling. You know, like KPIs and certain metrics and like, okay, what's your goal? What are you going to do next time we meet is this timeline. Uh, what are you going to bring to us? I'm like, Oh, wow.

You really want to know that. Okay. So I'm going to bring you, we're going to have this many more members. We're gonna have this many more conversations. We're gonna have a 10 percent increase in this. And I'd like to see this many premiums. Like, sweet. Okay. Make it happen. I'm like, Oh crap. Okay, let's go. Let's make that happen. But in a genuine, authentic, fun way. That, that truly helps the person.

And so that's why sometimes we'll have people come in and say like, ah, I'm a WordPress developer. I'm on this platform and I've been doing this, it's my business. And then I go like, look, I'm not going to just like, try and like convert you over arbitrarily. Like if this is your thing, that's cool, but I want you to win and I want you to succeed whatever you're using.

Because also it's the same sort of thing if I pay that forward and I serve this person, help them increase their price, add a new model to their, their business. Or really helped them out of a sticky situation. They're going to go, well, you know what, Brad and his crew helped me out with that.

And that's because of that situation he's got with editor X. And so maybe someone, you know, wants to know more about editor X and they see it in a positive light because it's been beneficial to them in some way.

Or like, it's good to have these measurements and to aim for them. Um, you know, so to some extent it sounds like this, you know, you're, you're cool with it, but there's a bit of pressure to deliver performance where really the main performance is like, you're only seeing the tip of the iceberg. I don't know. I mean, you've kind of already commented that on that, but it's an interesting mix that you're dealing with there.

That adds the brand value, but you don't have to give up any of your own independence as a, as a professional. You know, educator and freelancer. How does that work? Like do all the people who join the community become your subscribers and then you have that relationship or is that more of like, this belongs to the community and maybe one day I'll go away and someone else will take the reins. How does that work in terms of owning that relationship?

So long as they opt in, you know, people obviously unsubscribe or they're not interested in marketing emails, um, as well, or, or newsletter emails, cause everybody's got too many newsletter emails in their inbox anyway. So, but it is like, In tandem, growing my audience as well. Um, whereas the community, so the community. Is, um, it's its own thing, but it's tied into my list that way.

So, and then also in terms of you get on my list, uh, and you'd go through my welcome series and you realize, you know what, I'd really like to learn how to increase my prices or switch over to value pricing for my, uh, agency. You know, or product ties. I'd really like to learn how to product ties. It looks like Brad's offering a workshop and, uh, and then you could buy it. You're it's like, and it very much feeds into that.

So people will buy my freelancing courses, pricing courses, workshops, uh, certain replays products. You know, you can buy my Udemy courses anytime, but same with my other courses. Um, people will book calls, coaching calls. Yeah. You can book me for one off coaching calls as well. Uh, I have a restrictive schedule for that, but I still offer it occasionally. And if, um, I also offer kind of a freelance, uh, intensive service for email marketing and website refreshes.

So if you need a, like a brand refresh or you need a, you know, email marketing, automation, sequencing, and convert kit, you can, you can book me, uh, either by a day or a week. And so I still do those, but again, you know, like I'm just, I, I allot the time that I, that is appropriate. So my priority is my community and content that I'm creating, but sometimes I got a good week there or a few days where I go, you know what I could take on an intensive there. And if someone is looking for that.

Often they come through the community or my list. Then, uh, I'll then we'll book it in and we'll do that and I'll make sure to allott that time for it as well. So yeah, I very much have that capacity to do that.

That's really great in terms of a partnership. So in terms of the breakdown, right? So you've got. Money coming in from this, from the community via your, your partnership. You've got Udemy, which maybe you can talk a little bit about that. Um, you're on YouTube. Uh, do you monetize your YouTube? I guess there's a little money coming from that.

Like 17, 200 subscribers at the time of this call, which like, I think it's incredible. So we've been able to monetize, you get a little bit of ad revenue, nothing crazy, but it's, it's validating. Um, and, uh, it means that the content is very specific. Like it's not a little bit of this, a little bit of that. Like my other channel, it's more like, no, it's like helping creative professionals and agency owners succeed using editor X, no code.

Um, You know, improving your design discussions about this industry. It's like, it's really targeted.

Is it like 80 percent sort of the community and then sort of the rest great straight 20 percent or how does that break up for you? Roughly? I mean, I don't know.

So 10 percent ish, maybe around there. And then that leaves me with another 10%. Is it so give or take a bit, it's going to be a sorted income from affiliate revenue from just like links on my blog or my YouTube videos, uh, sponsorships. So we do sponsorships as well. Like on the channel, I got to do sweet sponsorship for. Like a password security manager, uh, it's not on frame right now in the camera, but like I got a whole bunch of desk organization gear that I got to review.

So we do the occasional sponsorship, affiliate revenue, um, uh, ad ad revenue from YouTube, from my. This channel and my other channel. Um, and the occasional, did I not include freelancing in that?

It's like, why can't you build once and sell twice on eight different places, you know, like, and create various versions. So what I say, I'll say this quickly is yes, absolutely. 100 percent build your list, build your audience, build your personal brand, build that. Yes. But let's say you don't really have much audience, much leverage. Well, Udemy has got millions and millions of users.

So you got a Skillshare, you got all these places, um, create a course that's on your, for your list and make it the, the, the full kitchen sink. You got a community, you've got weekly live calls, you got coaching for the first a hundred members, free coaching call, and you got the course. Which is like five modules plus three extra ones. Sweet. Sell it for whatever you want. I don't even care. 50 bucks, 5, 000 bucks. I don't care. Like just whatever works for you, the value you're creating.

That's your thing. Take that and look at it in context and go, you know what? This, these three modules, I'm going to spin around into a Udemy standalone course for that market, create new intros and outros for each of the modules and make sure you craft it so that it is genuinely helping and serving the Udemy audience. And it's not like a recycled knockoff of your main course. Like make it real, make it good.

And I, and I'm a firm believer, what I really like as a takeaway from that is, yes, you're building independence and you are then taking it, packaging it into a discreetly valuable thing, which you put on U Udemy for a fee, which you'll get maybe some small percentage of in other platforms. Really easy to replicate and it's lead gen for your main thing. All of this is a big flywheel for, for you. And it's amazing how that works.

And then putting it as a lead gen opt in incentive, you know, and then a taste, a sample, if you will, of your content and your. Your style and your vibe really love how all that, that works together and it just maximizes the benefit of your labor. So, um, yeah, super, super interested in that. It's, you know, as you're talking, I realized like, it was like at some point I'm like, you know, when the narrative voice comes in, it was like at this moment you realized.

He should have booked him for three hours, you know? And so now I'm like wishing that we were on a three hour podcast because I have so many rabbit holes that I want to go down with you

Um, how would you recommend, and it's great because this is a little bit fresh for you've done this now twice building a subscriber based on YouTube. How would you recommend some of crack? The YouTube, not like getting into YouTube, getting your first, you know, a thousand subscribers, what would you need to know going into a mindset? You've talked to a quality as a main North star for you.

What would you say is like, what, what, what advice would you give to someone thinking about building not just an audience to monetize and sell courses, but maybe to drive services and other benefits to your direction?

And so I'd set up a bit of a funnel where, Hey, you want to hire me or buy my courses, hire me, request a proposal. I'll get back to you. We'll jump on a call and then we'll talk business. So very much like you use your content marketing and video form to generate service clients like a hundred percent. Um, and so recommend, uh, advice in that department would be, That's a great one. Okay. So what I found is consistency really does matter. And the first bit is a bit of a grind.

So they say like the YouTube grind, you know, you're on the YouTube content, hamster wheel, and you burn out and all that sort of stuff. Um, if you're not making income outside of it, the burnout will happen much sooner because this was for me, I had like this, uh, this partnership or this, uh, this cool relationship. Where I'm building the community, the content, like I wasn't needing for YouTube to make me money. It was more like we're creating something here, a marketing asset.

Um, so I didn't really experience that like, Oh man, when's this going to start making cash? So I didn't have that, you know, uh, panic. So I'm trying to like, keep that in mind for if I'm doing this with zero funding at all, you know, and that'd be a lot of folks. So consistency really does matter. Um, if you can put out one video a week. Like that would be awesome. Pick your cadence and stick to it for like a year. Um, and like, just like, and don't look at the numbers. Don't worry about it.

Don't over, uh, analyze it just like consistency really matters. Cause somebody told me this is that you're paying the YouTube tax. And it's just like a term that they use paying the YouTube tax. Basically, I think what YouTube is doing is they're watching you to see, are you actually going to show up? Are you going to be like 98 percent of the other YouTube creators who burn out at month four and a half. Or even eight.

You push through, you got to a year and you crack that thousand subscribers or whatever the minimum num number is, or this many hours on your shorts or this, this, this, okay, we'll monetize you and we'll put you as a YouTube partner and you, and then you go, oh wow, like this is really working. And then you get a little more views and you get suggested, and it's basically you're paying a YouTube tax.

Uh, in one sense, yeah, people are watching your videos, there are ads on all your videos, but you don't get paid for those. YouTube does. You know, like, meaning, or YouTube doesn't have to pay you out. So in a sense, you are paying a YouTube tax. You're creating content. For revenue, you know, in this ad, in this ad world where you're not getting that revenue share for a little while. So put in the time, be consistent, but also balance.

I know a lot of people would be like, just use your webcam. Everyone's got a fancy camera in their pocket. I say bollocks to that. Like if your stuff looks crap, I mean, you got to have really, really good content in order for someone to look at a crappy iPhone video on like reverse and widescreen and with bad audio. Like Make it look decent. Like you can, you can set it up, you can get a window. Like it's not that hard to make your setup look good.

You don't have to spend like a mortgage payment, getting that set up, but make it look good, make it sound good and show up. Like if it's every two weeks, do it, do it for a year. Um, being consistent, that's a huge thing. Uh, also like, pick a, pick a niche and be like specific to that. Um, cause if you're here and there and everywhere on your channel, you're just gonna extend the time it takes for you to find your voice and for the algorithm to find your audience cause. Who is it for?

Nobody knows. The algorithm doesn't know. That's for sure. Pick your audience. And if you just want to be really specific and your channel is a stupid specific, like the people who create content for notion only, or in my case, you know, like it's really hyper focused on editor X and using that to amplify your, your creative business focus on, you know, and that niche, like it's really important and it helps you come up with better content ideas too.

And that would be kind of like my, it's like really unglamorous. There's no secret hacks, you know? And I've, believe me, I've tried some of the secret hacks. None of them are real.

You need audio, you need decent lighting and a decent camera with all of which, like, if you go to Kevin dot me slash AV, you can see my setup. Uh, you should check out. Brad, do you have a similar resource? Cause I feel like you've got this

And have your taste be higher than your skills and.

You know, if you're not a web developer, just delegate the web development. If you're not a designer, just delegate it, have a budget for it. Treat it like a business, you know, and don't try to do everything yourself.

And if you can get a freelancer who does video editing as a subscription for, you know, 500 bucks a month, thousand bucks a month. I don't know. Like, and they have a certain capacity. Like that's, so it's worthwhile for sure.

And so that's going to change a bit. So we'll have all the forwards and stuff if someone's going to an old link. Um, but, uh, initially it was just, that was the domain I could get.

Um, and then the one I've been really enjoying lately is, um, uh, the, the book, uh, by it's not by Naval Ravikant, but it's using his words, the almanac, they all, yeah, the almanac by. Uh, forget his name right now, the author, I usually have it on hand, um, but I've been, I split through it. Just little ideas, little bits. I go, ah, it's really good. It's very validating and kind of opens your thinking.