- What does it take to
build a full-time living as a YouTube content creator? I wanna welcome you to
this special bonus session of our conference Grow With Video Live. My name is Sean Cannell,
and I'm super fired up, because if you haven't
heard about the new study that was done of 1400, part-time and full-time content creators, there's a lot of disruptive
data that you need to know. It's really revealing
that how to make a career, what is the lifestyle? What are the attributes? What are the really habits and the traits of those that are making
a living as a YouTuber, as a content creator? And let me know in the comments if that is one of your ambitions, you know our mission here at Think Media, is to help 10,000 purpose-driven people create a full-time living on YouTube. And so I'm so fired up
for this very session. So smash the like button, we're actually sharing
this on Think Media. And we're also streaming it
inside of our conference, and I'll tell you a little
bit more about that as well. But let's just get straight into this. And really, the title of this session is the rise of the YouTube entrepreneur, five qualities of highly
successful content creators. And in this training, we're gonna be discovering
the biggest opportunities in the creator economy right now. The difference between a content creator and a content entrepreneur and
five unmistakable qualities of people that build full-time
lifestyle businesses, on YouTube. But let me ask you this question, have you ever had somebody say, hey, what exactly is it that you do? I'm sure you have, right? I think about just, you go to a party, sometimes it's a hard question to ask, you're even hanging out with family, someone comes up to you,
like, what is it you do? And maybe you kinda read
the person a little bit, you know what I mean? You're like, okay, well,
based on the room I'm in, I might answer the question differently. You might say I'm a student. But if you're in another room, you might say the job where you work. Now, let me know, if you've already been a
content creator for a while, if you've already been creating content, maybe you're a part time YouTuber, maybe you're already doing it full-time. The question is really awkward to answer. I mean, I'll be driving in an Uber, and sometime, people
say, what is it you do? And I have a second to
be like, I'm a YouTuber? I mean, and now like,
does that make sense? Is that a known term? You know what I mean? When I was traveling between
the United States and Canada, I had to fill out a little
customs card, right? And I was filling out the card, and I was thinking about
like, what do I say here? Do I write YouTuber in profession? I think I just wrote photographer to try to like not create
any drama or awkwardness. I saw this meme actually,
it's pretty funny. What my friends think I do,
they think I sleep all day. What my mom thinks I do, she thinks I just watch
Netflix and like eat snacks. My neighbors think I'm the unemployed man. I'm just wandering
around the neighborhood, just going to walk in
the middle of the day. Like why does he never
leave the house, right? My boss, I guess I am the boss, but my boss thinks, I'm just
in my boxers on the couch, what I actually think I do
is get a lot of stuff done. And then what I'm actually
doing every day is, I'm shirtlessly, just
sitting with a headset on my battle streaming system live stream. I probably shouldn't live stream
shirtless, that's probably, maybe actually that would
increase the viewership, I'm not sure. But it kind of like gives
us this whole vibe of like, man, what is a YouTuber? I mean, you have these questions like, what is a full-time YouTuber? What's does a YouTuber make? What is YouTuber even mean? These are Google questions, like, what do you need
to become a YouTuber? Who was the first YouTuber? And in this very session,
it's interesting, because we're gonna be going into data where they were now this very real career, they've been revealing
some of the attributes of really what a YouTuber is,
or kind of more importantly, what a YouTube entrepreneur is. Because I think what happens is that, when it comes to YouTubers, there's a big difference between like a YouTube
entrepreneur and a YouTuber. Have you ever looked up who are the most famous
and richest YouTubers? A lot of people wanna know this, there was actually a Forbes article. And here's some of the big ones I noticed, David Dobrik, he made
$15.5 million in 2020. Could you live on that? Like, would you be able to, is that, here's this guy, his name's Blippi, he does kids content. He had a $17 million year not too bad. If you've heard of Nastya, she's a eight year old Russian YouTuber. And she had an $18.5 million year. That's pretty good, creating content, and I think she has multiple channels. And then at the top of the list of the highest paid YouTubers, was Ryan's Toy Review, right? 29.5 million in a year. Can somebody say, well, that would be pretty nice. Like that, you know what I'm saying like, and maybe this is what
people think, right? Maybe people think, when you think about what is a full-time
YouTuber, you think about, Nerdy Nummies or Lilly Singh
or PewDiePie or MrBeast, in fact, tell me, who is your
favorite YouTuber, right? You think about, oh man, it's only about
these celebrities now, these famous YouTubers, but the question we're asking today is, is it possible for everyday
people, not superstars, right, for everyday people to
make a full-time living and build a real legitimate
business on YouTube without a huge following
or superstar status? That's the question. And so we enter what's called
now the creator economy. Now another term for this has been called the passion economy. And this is actually
putting some language, for me, I got started creating
YouTube videos in 2010, actually, originally
for my church in 2007, two years after YouTube started, and so there was no creator economy or passion economy at the time. But these are some language
that's coming around this, and the SignalFire actually did a report that revealed there are now
50 million content creators, a part of the creator economy. Only about 12, or rather, 13
million of those are YouTubers. And they revealed that 1 million of those are professional creators, that means they're earning
over six figures a year, on YouTube, and the other
12 million on YouTube are amateur creators. So they're on the journey if maybe they haven't
earned any money yet, or they're beginning to earn, 100 bucks a month or $10,000 a month, or whatever it is. And of course, there's other platforms you could be building your influence on. But what's crazy about the crater economy, is SignalFire revealed that
this is actually, and I quote, the fastest growing small
business type right now. Wow. Like opening up a subway franchise, right? Like starting some kind of
other small business endeavor, the fastest growing small business type is actually being a content creator. But, this we have to ask the question, is the goal to be a content creator, like is the goal to actually be a
full-time content creator? And even more, what's the difference between a content creator
and a content entrepreneur? And a recent deep dive study
came out from thetilt.com, we'll share the link to that in the notes and description or comments. And it was this, I highly
recommend reading it, it's called "the Unconventionals". And it was a study of 1400, part-time, full-time
aspiring content creators that are really being called
content entrepreneurs. And what's interesting is, the details about, it's
not the stereotype, the media, and I'm reading the article now or rather the study, the media invariably
focuses on young influencers with viral hits on TikTok and YouTube. That's what we think about
when we think about a YouTuber, but it's high time to
debunk that stereotype. Content entrepreneurs span all age groups, industries, channels,
and for the most part, their success is not based on a viral hit or a massive audience. This is the rising trend that
we're seeing of the real ones that are creating a
full-time income on YouTube. This is what we're seeing of those that are really building a real business around their YouTube channel. It's not celebrity status,
there may never be a viral hit, they may not be known, in fact, they're not known by you, they're not being written up in articles necessarily by Forbes, but yet they're building
full-time incomes. In fact, content entrepreneurs
are not who you think, banish the image of under-30
viral YouTube and TikTok stars. The largest and most
financially successful cohort in this study was Gen X 40%, that were now in their 40s and their 50s. Wow. Here's the top 10 industries
that this study revealed, of those that were succeeding
as content entrepreneurs. Business was 19%, these
are the niches, right? People in the marketing niche, the education niche, health and fitness, lifestyle was only 7%. You have arts, crafts, and DIY, entertainment, science and technology, travel and events, and cooking and food, as far as content entrepreneurs go. So let's think about it. Like, again, you can choose your own path, YouTube really is your tube, you can choose your own adventure, right? And so my question to you, is
what category do you fall in? What is your niche? What is your category? What is your topic? And do you personally relate
more with the term YouTuber? Or do you more closely relate
with maybe new language which we're calling YouTube entrepreneurs or YouTube preneurs for short? To be clear, this study is talking about content entrepreneurs, which might be across platforms. They're doing it in blogs,
or TikTok or Instagram. But it's our belief here at Think Media, that YouTube is the absolute
best place to plant your flag. And here's what one person explained, and said, please don't consider it, people don't consider it a real business because they think about
Instagram influencers or YouTubers doing silly stuff. Content creation covers a lot more than what most people think, including business blogging and education. So I'm excited to dive into this, we're gonna be talking
about the five qualities of highly successful
YouTube entrepreneurs. And we're gonna be going through, the cool thing about this, is this is not based just on my story, because it's one thing for
one person to do it one way and it's not repeatable, the exciting thing is this is data across people
of all ages, ethnicities, backgrounds, and niches, so
that you can actually say, okay, what's my path? If it's your ambition to
be a YouTube entrepreneur, a full-time content creator
building a real business, you can follow the pathway
that others have blazed in the woods to get to the destination that maybe you wanna get to. And this session right here, we're streaming this on Think media, so shout out to Think Media, if you're watching in
our Grow With Video app, shout out, so grateful you're
a part of this conference. This session is actually
just kind of an opening night bonus session of our conference
Grow With Video Live. If you haven't registered
for Grow With Video Live, you can check out the
link in the description or just go to growwithvideolive.com. It's a two day conference where we're gonna be going
deep into the fundamentals, the tactics, the data over a
year's worth of case studies that we've been looking
at across our channels, people in our communities channels, and really just unpacking the
need to know gritty details of how do you become a
full-time YouTube entrepreneur. And I'll tell you a little
bit more about that later. But let's get into attribute number one. Attribute number one is
focus and discipline. How are people making a full-time living? Doing what they love working from home as a YouTube entrepreneur, number one focus and discipline. And I quote from the study, those that are succeeding, they work on their content
business full-time. The research shows that those
who are invested full-time are more likely to be
financially independent than those that treat it as a gig. And this makes sense, growing a successful venture
takes focus and discipline. Now, here's what you might be thinking, you're like, okay,
Sean, what good is that? I wanna do it full-time,
but I have a job, you know, I would love to do it
full-time, so I don't get it, those that are the most
successful are doing it full-time, that's my dream, but I
got a job, I got school, I got stuff to do. But hear me, the attribute discovered, is that those who really
make it in this industry, they're not dabbling, they're dominating. And I want to encourage you that full-time at least starts with the mindset. That you gotta know
there's a big difference between the person that's like, ah, it's just kind of a hobby, like, I'm just kinda
gonna hope this works out, a big difference between that person and the person who approaches it, as like, no, this is a business. This is some, I'm getting
focused right now. I'm going to calendar block my schedule, I may have the school
and the job and the kids and the different stuff
happening in my life, but it's time for me to
get serious, to get focused and to get disciplined. Those who succeed, that
was a common trait. Because even those who maybe
finances was not the challenge, that but just kind of treated it as like, ah, just kind of a side thing, clearly didn't have
anywhere near the results. And maybe, let me know if you can
relate to this image, right? Like maybe you feel like this right now, and you're like, Sean, how do I do that? Like, how do I, I've got kids, literally, this is your
situation, you have a crying baby. I feel you, I'm a new dad, on a way to have an 11 month
old in just a few days. And young Sean Bradley like
it's a whole nother dimension, I'm trying to figure out
life, kids, sleep schedules, poop, diapers, I'm into
the whole thing, man. It's a whole nother dimension, plus life and responsibilities. I mean, over the years,
I've waited tables, over the years, I've worked
at a church full-time, 40, 45, 50, 55 hours a week with a salary and then trying to figure out
how to do YouTube on the side. But I will tell you this, I was focused, and I was disciplined to
work on my side hustle, because I really believe
that if I was focused on my day job and getting
that, doing that well, but then devoting time
and calendar blocking so I could work on my dream job, that one day my dream job
would become my day job. And that day has been
today here at Think Media, focus and discipline. And you might be able to relate to having so many different
things on your to-do list. We're actually gonna be
talking at Grow With Video Live about productivity strategies, and I'm not the king of this, Heather Torres from the Think Media team is the queen of this, and with three kids, and with doing her job at Think Media and being a content creator,
and hosting our podcast, and having responsibilities,
volunteering at church, and having all this
different stuff in her life, here's the key, focus and discipline. You want this to be full-time,
it's time to get focused, it's time to get focused,
it's time to get disciplined. Number two, these are
attributes from this, lean in for this, because this gets really interesting. Positioning. They choose a proven and a
profitable niche, positioning. Now notice this and lean
in, this right here says, out of all the different tactics that these YouTube
entrepreneurs were doing in terms of how they grew their audience, we might wanna plug this laptop
in, it's about to die too, if we could do that, we
literally have seconds. And these are some different tactics. SEO was the top tactic
for content entrepreneurs. SEO was the top tactic, I got my power supply over
there as well in that bag. SEO is the top tactic. So what does that mean, though? So what this tells me is that, content entrepreneurs primarily create search-based content, right? And therefore they're proving, they're in a niche
where there is a problem that people are online trying to solve. This doesn't mean that you
can't make it of course, as an entertainer or as a singer, or as, you know, somebody else. But ultimately, that
you are able to, that, and the second most strategy was hashtags. Hashtags. And so 48% of those building
their audience use hashtags, 56, use search engine optimization. Now I get it, you might be saying, okay, YouTube is not
about keywords anymore, it's not about search anymore. First of all, that's a fallacy. But I totally understand that, like, click-through rate, we're gonna be talking about
that, suggested videos, that's where traffic
on YouTube comes from. But the key is that these business owners, these YouTube entrepreneurs,
they're choosing a niche, they're choosing to build
their channel around something that actually is honestly
more monetizable, and is search-based in
terms of their positioning, in terms of their positioning. So here's the question that a
YouTube entrepreneur answers, is they answer what problem do they, they know they solve a problem, my question for you is what
problem does your content solve? See, entrepreneurs solve
problems for a profit, okay? And therefore, if you
go, well, I don't know, it's like, I kind of just vlog my life. That's cool. And like, you're gonna get value, of course, subscribing
and being connected to us to be in Grow Video, but to really have the shortest and most proven and practical path to being a YouTube entrepreneur. You think about what problem do you solve, it makes me think of Ben. So Ben Azadi has a YouTube
channel called "Keto Kamp", "Keto Kamp", he's got 129,000 subscribers, he's got that silver play button. And I would consider Ben
a YouTube entrepreneur. He's crushing it as a
YouTuber, think about it. Your aspiration is to get that
silver play button, right? And maybe let me know, do you wanna hit 100,000 subscribers? If he's driving in an Uber, and that Uber driver is
like, what do you do? He could be like, I'm a YouTuber. I mean, I got the play button. But that's not what Ben
would position himself as, no, he's more of an entrepreneur. But even more than that,
he's a health teacher. He's a teacher. And so he's wrote a
book called "Keto Flex", so he's an author. And so these are also
different ways he's monetizing, he's packaged his knowledge into a book, he's packaged his knowledge
into online courses. He's got Keto Camp Academy, he's got Keto Camp membership site, he's got 60 minutes consulting
that you can do with him. And so the key here, right, and this was what the study found, was that content entrepreneurs were building real businesses. They were actually looking at
YouTube or whatever channel as more of a vehicle and not
really as the main thing, again, more power to the MrBeast model. And there's a lot of opportunity there, but this content entrepreneur pathway is the most practical pathway which brings us to tip number three. And attribute number three is that they have a business mindset. They have a business mindset. It says this, they are
focused on financials and structure of the content business, how to model monetize, how to diversify, how to build an asset rather
than a cult of personality. We should read that again. They're actually thinking, man, how do we build an asset rather than a cult of personality? We should talk about this. You know, when it comes
to this whole culture that we're in right now, listen, I want you to be an influencer. Like, I want you to be
famous, like I want, but I actually think that that pursuit has some dangers with it. And by the way, it's
impractical for most people, like everybody wants to be famous, everybody wants to be an influencer, but what if you didn't
build a cult of personality, but you built a real business? What if you built a micro community, where you're the leader, you're an authority in that community, you are in a way micro famous. But what if fame wasn't the point? One of the biggest pitfalls I see a lot of people in
our community fall into, is they kinda fall into the trap of just, I want all the subscribers in the world, I wanna grow my audience as big as, I want all the views, and all
they want is vanity metrics. Fame is cool, but fame
is a vanity pursuit. What about, what if we
thought about impact? What if we thought about service? What about, what if we thought
about solving a problem, not building a cult of personality? It goes on to say, and content
creation, this is huge, is not how they spend the
majority of their time. So there really, it's like, the Uber driver
is like, so what do you do? Are you a content creator? You're like, well, I'm not really a, I mean, I create content, but
I'm actually a business owner. Like, I'm actually a
teacher, I'm an educator, I'm an author, I'm a speaker, these are some of the pathways
that people are doing things. I'm a leader, these are
the different things, now listen to this. Diversified revenue streams. Tip number three, attribute number three is they have a business mindset. The research shows, however, that successful content entrepreneurs are more likely to invest
in multiple channels, and diversify their revenue streams, much like a traditional entrepreneur diversifies their business, more resilient content
entrepreneurs should consider how they generate revenues from more than one channel or tactic. And here are the channels. These are the most profitable
monetization channels of YouTube entrepreneurs. The top one is they make an online course, workshop or a workshop
on their own platform. Look at me, this is a attribute when you think about the majority of those that are content entrepreneurs, are building out an online course, the majority of those are
building out a workshop, they're building out something
related to education. I think that's fascinating. Again, it goes back to
search-based content. You know, I was going through, we have an app for our
conference, Grow With Video Live, and I'm so pumped to connect with, I've already been connecting
with people, we're at, we're finding out people's niches, we're finding out what people are doing. And we're going through and I'm seeing, there's all kinds of
different niches in there. And again, we're living
in the passion economy. But this report revealed that that's actually not
even the best language, because yes, your passion matters, but content entrepreneurs,
it's not just about passion, it's also about business. But we're seeing people
passionate about comedy, and we saw people passionate about travel, which is actually very practical
when it comes to business, we saw people passionate, but I saw a yoga teacher in there that's gonna be teaching beginner yoga, that's a search-based problem, and it lends itself to
workshops online courses. Of course, maybe people that
wanna learn how to be nomadic, and travel in an RV. I saw someone in our community doing that. People that are teaching business, that are teaching marketing, I saw someone that does Bruce
Springsteen guitar covers, which is like the channel, it's all Bruce Springsteen tutorials, but here's the thing, it lends itself to making an online course
about how to play guitar, beginner guitar, maybe a premium set of printable
Bruce Springsteen download, something that can be sold, hence, some type of a way
to build your own business, build your own products. The number one way YouTube
entrepreneurs are earning money and their most profitable
monetization channels, the top one is online courses. So you might say, Sean, well, but I don't
wanna make an online course. Well, you don't have to do
anything you don't, like, but, well, Sean, but I just, I don't know if I wanna do that. I'm not saying you should do
that or you have to do that, but I am saying success leaves clues. I am suggesting that when you study now a no longer beginning industry, this is no longer an emerging industry and it's no longer undefined,
in 2021, going into 2022, this is now an industry that is evolving at a rapid pace, right? And success leaves clues, it makes me think, okay,
what niche should I be in, based on my passion, skill set, proficiency things I'm good at. Of course, that if an online
course was maybe the end goal, I might not even build it
for one, two or three years, that's fine, but would
this even be productizable? That's worth writing down. Would my niche, does it lend itself to being able to create products. Here's the second one,
advertising and sponsored content. So that's going to
include, your YouTube ads, as a YouTube entrepreneur, it's gonna include brand deals, right, working with brands specifically. Next, affiliate marketing. Next speaking fees. Next one is membership fees. Then we have books, we have
online courses, workshops, and having like a third party site, and then we've got, on a third party site, so that's different than the top one, actually is, you could
put that all together and say online courses is 20%. Then you have job boards and listings and then donations finally. Now hear me, donations,
right, it's a great one, that's like Patreon, like I just want people to
support content creation for me. Cool. But that's not the biggest
for content entrepreneurs. See, those that are
building a real business are not thinking about A,
just donate to the channel, which these are all
monetization strategies we talk about and we love. This very session is called the rise of
the YouTube entrepreneur. So this is data that we did
not come up with, right, that's revealing how
people are doing this, they're able to quit the job they hate, they're able to get out the situation they don't want to be in any longer. They're able to stay at
home with their kids, make their own hours, but they gotta, you gotta put in the work. And we're given some really powerful data that can help us get to that destination. So, meet Chris. So Chris is from FlyRyde, and he does custom LED or headlights, for custom automotive lighting. Do you want that car? We're giving that car away. Leave a comment, I'm just kidding. That'd be pretty sick,
though, wouldn't it? And so, I mean, that headlight
just looks unbelievable. So Chris is an expert at this. He's done this, he has
his own shop, right, he has his own workshop,
he's sold the lights, his worked with other people,
he's employed other people. But he started a YouTube channel, FlyRyde. So he starts earning money
in a lot of different ways. And he goes at it, though, not
with, I wanna become MrBeast, he goes at it with, man, I'm gonna build a
business around this. So he's been a part of
our signature course called Video Ranking Academy
for a couple years now. And so we've stayed in contact
and we talk on Instagram. So I actually asked
him, I said, hey, Chris, like, how is it you're making money now? Like, again, business mindset, what are the ways you earn money? Check this out. So he shoots me a DM, he's like, well, AdSense on YouTube and or my website. So he's earning money from google AdSense ads on his website, and on his YouTube channel. From the creator fund, from brand deals, next, from
POD merch, from physical goods, which are easy to fulfill, from
digital affiliate products, from physical affiliate sales on Amazon, from Patreon, and YouTube memberships, from digital courses, from private group memberships,
from one on one coaching, and from professional service. Like (laughs) so take a deep breath and hear me, Chris did not start all of those monetization streams at once. But he's going at it a different
way than most approach, going full-time on YouTube. If you wanna be a full-time YouTuber, one of the things that this study found was that those that are succeeding do have multiple income streams. So the question for you, what are the best income
streams for your niche, your channel, your style of channel? Again, if you are more in entertainment, that's gonna have to probably
be brand deals and ads, and you need lots of views. But as soon as you move
over into education, search-based content, now all of a sudden, there's a whole platter, there's a whole buffet of opportunity in terms of ways you can earn money. And what's fascinating,
was this study revealed that 30% of these content
entrepreneurs, the CEs, they only spend 30% of their time on content creation each week, not 30%, all of them only
spend about 30% of their time on content creation each week. So what else are they doing? Well, they may be known
as content creators, CEs spend just 30% to 40% of
their time creating content, the majority of their time is
spent running the business, be it responding to social media comments, providing customer
service, managing people, or most importantly, overseeing
monetization efforts. As one survey taker explained, content creation is only half of the job. If you intend to create income, at least half of your time if not more, must be spent on figuring out
how to monetize your content. It's the most difficult part of the job. And this is the point
of Grow With Video Live. So if you made the smart
move and got a ticket, you're in the right place, because we're gonna be focusing on, not just how to hack and
get views and all that, but man, how do you build a business, the most difficult part of the job around your YouTube channel? What are the long-term
ambitions of the business? What are your long-term ambitions? What are the long-term
ambitions of the business? This right here says, if you notice, here's the
different generations, so we're looking at Gen Z,
millennials, Gen X and boomers. And we're noticing that there's
the different age groups and that in the red, you can see that as
the smallest percentage are like this is just a hobby. Now, that's cool, let me know, is this just kind of a hobby for you? That's a great ambition. Now, the next group, the orange group, plan on being a solopreneur, and possibly to support one person. Maybe you haven't thought
about needing to hire somebody or hiring a video editor
or something like that, but that next group is
going into it thinking, I'm gonna be a solopreneur,
maybe I get a virtual assistant, maybe I get, now hear me,
this is so important too, because if you, like, the
way you start something influences where you end up, right? Like we call it reverse engineering, start with the end in mind. So a lot of times we go into this, and we're like, I mean, I don't know Sean, I don't know how to
answer these questions. I never really thought about,
wait, am I gonna build a team? Am I gonna need help, man, you're making me think
about the business way bigger, I wasn't even thinking
like a business owner, I wouldn't consider
myself an entrepreneur. But when we look at the
successful content entrepreneurs, YouTube entrepreneurs, they're
going into it being like, okay, I'm gonna do this full-time. Number one, focused and disciplined, right, I'm focused and disciplined. Eventually, I'm gonna hire somebody. In a second, we're gonna
see how long this takes and how long it took to earn the money and how much money they earn. But the next group, they
plan to support a few people, they actually kind of wanna build a little kind of movement thing. They wanna build, maybe a couple people that their content creation, will actually be able to support others, what a beautiful thing, employ others, employ other contractors, and some on the other end
of the spectrum in the gray, they plan to support many people. And you can see broken
down among the generations, that this is how these YouTube
entrepreneurs are thinking. Now, this reminds me of Denise, now Denise Jordan, again, one of our Video Ranking Academy students, 43,000 subscribers in a
really cool season of life. She's retired, and actually in a situation where she doesn't like
need money right now. She's all about impact and service. Now, of course, she's also
about building her business. So she wants to earn money, but she's in that retired season. And she's doing this and
that with Denise Jordan, which is this powerful
homemaking kind of gardening. We had her on what's called the VRA show, and she was talking about, I wanna help the next generation, who's actually kind of lacking some of these homemaking
skills, you know what I mean? Like lacking, just how do you
do stuff around the house? How do you solve problems
around the house? And here's a screenshot of
her Amazon affiliate page. And so you can see she's
got canning supplies and preps for your prepper pantry. She's got, must have kitchen essentials. And the key here is it's not about just, picking out some products and putting them on an
Amazon influencer page. The key is aligning everything. Like how do I not only
position my YouTube channel, but think about my bigger business, and also think about
how I'm gonna monetize. And think about the best income streams to earn money in my niche, but think about all of
these different details, that's what Denise is doing. But even more than that, check this out. She started aprondiva.com. So she's making custom aprons, right, super cool, I mean, the site's dope, you know, she's got the banner on there. Like she's hustling building,
hear me, her business. Remember, content entrepreneurs are spending 30% of their
time making content, but they're building out
websites like aprondiva.com. And again, you don't have to do that, you don't have to do any necessarily one of these ingredients. But our goal over the next two days, is to help you figure out your perfect cocktail of ingredients, to reach your financial goals,
reach your schedule goals, how much time do you wanna work each week? How is it, what is
exactly you want to build? So check this out. So, how much though, does
the business bring in? For many content entrepreneurs,
being an entrepreneur affords them a modestly comfortable living for doing something they find satisfying. So, full-time content
entrepreneurs, all of them, were earning $50,000 a
year as gross revenues, and this was the medium. Now, if they'd been doing this for four or more years, $100,000 and full-time content entrepreneurs with seven or more years
of experience $125,000. Now, how powerful is that
to not only think about, okay, it's also important
to maybe think about, what's the practical side of this? There's people who make
a lot more than that, there's those who make less,
is the median income now, of now a very verified
and more studied industry. But also, you could see a
trajectory towards the future, you could see, okay, as I commit to this, more experienced, seven
years of experience, they get better, their income's going up, they start to build more
influence over time, they start getting just smarter at all the little details over time, which brings us to number four. And that is, build a brand
bigger than one platform, build a brand bigger than one platform. So what they discovered was that, these YouTube entrepreneurs,
content entrepreneurs, begin primarily on one channel. So for some, they might be a
podcaster or a blogger, right. In our case, we're saying, YouTube should be the
channel you start on. And we believe that
because it's the platform, it's the only platform where
your content lives forever. It's search-based, so you
can create content today, that's viewed for weeks,
months and years to come. Therefore, there's a
good return on investment of your time and your energy, because your time is so precious. Like I love Instagram, and I love TikTok, and I love Facebook, and I
love all these platforms, but they're so hungry for content, you gotta post all the time,
you gotta just keep posting, you gotta keep posting, I don't know about you,
it's super exhausting. If you do YouTube right, you
could post a video today, it'll work for you a year
from now, two years from now, and we're gonna be
unpacking the exact details of how to do that over the next two days. But they primarily begin on one platform, but then diversify into
many other channels. So again, we recommend YouTube being the platform that you start on, but then listen to this data
that the study revealed. Their goal was to ultimately
focused on owned channels. The most experienced content entrepreneurs are most likely to use channels
without intermediaries, blogging and E-newsletters. So what is it saying? This is saying that the most experienced
content entrepreneurs, are like, okay, YouTube's awesome, that's gonna be my home base. But they don't stay
focused just on YouTube, they realize, things could change. So I need to build an email list, that, algorithms could change. So I need to actually set up
my own website or my blog. This says more experienced
content entrepreneurs. And we're right in this very session, kind of thinking about
some of the goalposts you should have on your journey to say, okay, if those that have gone before me, that are crushing it at this, their goal is to maybe start somewhere and even continue to stay there and dominate there, do whatever. But, man, what website am I building? Am I building an email list? Do you have an email list? Are you actually, do you have a text message list? I'm not saying you need this
in the next five minutes, we're trying to see the vision of, okay, here's how you build
this into a real career. Let's keep reading. There are tremendous advantages to owned, more controlled channels. First, these entrepreneurs also own, the analytics and insights they can extract from their audiences. Because you own those
that come to your blog, Google Analytics, email newsletter. Second, they're not beholden
to the whims and rule changes of large social and tech platforms, algorithm changes, arbitrary blocking and withholding of data. Finally, without an intermediary, CEs can leverage new
monetization strategies that offer more control as
well as much healthier margins. Let me give you an example. When you build say a membership
site for one example, you can, we use things like Thinkific, who's one of our sponsors
of the conference. There's other ones like, you know, Kajabi, or there's other all
kinds of different ones, those different types of places where you could host a membership,
and membership content. They usually don't take any percentage, you pay for the service, but they don't take any
percentage of the revenue. So once you pay your monthly bill or you pay annually, that's it. Now, YouTube offers you
channel memberships. So they're kind of stepping into this, but here's the key, it's
not an owned channel. Which is nice, well the nice
thing about YouTube memberships is it's all right there on YouTube, people can join your thing right there, they can start subscribing right there, and it kind of takes away the headache. But did you know, they
take 30% of your revenue? All right, now it might not be a big deal, if you're earning $100 a
month, they're taking 30 bucks, I would feel the sting of the 30. But it's like, it doesn't
matter as much there. But imagine if you became
at $100,000 a year level, as a YouTube entrepreneur,
all in channel memberships, and YouTube was taking
30% of your revenue. That will be $30,000 a year. Could you do anything with that? Is there anybody here that
just wants an extra 30,000, well, that's not gonna
move the needle for you, you know what I'm saying? So why are content entrepreneurs
focusing on owned channels, is because they understand that the whim of YouTube to
charge whatever they want for you using their channel memberships, or whatever it is that, other features that they
give you on that platform. I'm not cynical about it,
I'm not bitter about it, I think YouTube is the
greatest place in the world, they give us access to
this platform for free, and even channel memberships for free. But that's also not where we
host our channel memberships, we have a thing called inner circle, and we host it in a place, where we again are able to
keep 98% of the revenue, and the 2% goes to the payment processor, which is like Stripe or
PayPal or things like that. So, why? Because, I think, we think at Think Media, like YouTube entrepreneurs,
and not like YouTubers. You choose your path, you pick your path, but this is why they focus
on their own channels, they have more control, and
for sure, healthier margins. Which brings us to number five, and if you happen to be checking out this kind of bonus session,
first session on YouTube, thanks so much for being here, smash like if you've been getting value. Patience and commitment,
that was number five. Patience and commitment. This isn't rah, rah, I know
I can be that guy sometimes, like, come on, you got that
youth pastor passion, cool. This is legit patience
and commitment though. And where does it come from? Well, first of all, here's what the study
from thetilt.com revealed. The median amount of money that full-time content entrepreneurs invest in their business was $10,000. So, the medium amount that
people invested to get started as a YouTube entrepreneur was 10 grand, that is no small amount of money. That's number one, that's
focus and discipline, and that's patience and commitment. Because we're gonna see how long it takes to earn their first dollar. So, the approach to it,
isn't, interestingly enough, the approach is like
starting a real business. Like if you're gonna
start a real business, you might go to Bank of America, talk to, go sit with the guy at
the counter and say, I wanna take out a small business loan. This is not financial advice, I'm not telling you to take
out a small business loan. I'm just saying, because
you're starting a business. So those that are starting
this, they're thinking about, okay, what is the gear that I need, and the content that I need,
and the coaching that I need, and the education that I need,
and the website that I need, and the software that I need? And all those little
details that go into it. This is just what the study revealed, that the median amount of
money that was invested, to me, that's commitment. You know what I mean? It's like, you put your
money where your mouth is, you know what I mean? People can talk big, but then when it's time to write a check, they're like, oh, I don't know about that. I'm not that committed. Which is fine, but the
CEs that are crushing it, the YEs, the YouTube entrepreneurs, I'm interchanging the term, 10 grand, like to get started in this. Now watch this, well, so how long did it take, to build a successful content business? On average, watch, you need 26 months from launch to supporting a single
person from revenue. So they launch, zero months, all right. Nine months later, they've
earned their first dollar. So about nine months until
they earn their first dollar, and this was on average
for those that again, today are making 50, 100, 50, 100, to 125 over years, 18 months in, they hired
help for the first time, and at 26 months, now they're
supporting one person, meaning now they have
like a whole video editor, or a whole personal
assistant, or somebody else. 26 months, two years and
two months more than that, in terms of these YouTube entrepreneurs and how long it takes,
patience and commitment. And hear me, what we can
discern from this study, is it's not 26 months of just dabbling. You know, 26 months of like,
uploaded a video whenever, 26 months, I saw a comment on Think Media, about to call you out. And this person said, I've
applied all your tips, this is not necessarily
what they sound like, but this is what they
sound like in my head. I'm applying all your
tips, it's not working, so I click through to their channel. And I'm looking on the other side, I have never seen worst titles
written, it was kind of, it was a gaming channel,
but it was like non content. Titles were like a word, it was like red. So I was like, well, you definitely
haven't applied all my tips, because we talk about titles all the time. The thumbnails were
just meaningless images, and even the content itself. I was like, what do you mean
you've applied all of my tips? I don't think you've ever
watched any of our videos, like have a niche, like reverse engineer,
like thumbnails, titles, like take this thing (muffled speaking) like focus and discipline,
like, man, you gotta learn, you gotta grow, you're not just entitled to
some kind of YouTube success, you just lie about a title,
randomly pick a niche. I just feel about like
talking about my opinions every day online, like, well, that's cool, if you just wanna talk
about your opinions, but how is that based in anything
that serves anybody else, solves anybody's problems? Well, I really think my
wisdom and my advice, could really help others. Well, maybe it can. But I'm talking focused and disciplined. Like, if you're gonna open up
a local coffee shop in a city, like you don't just go and just go, you know what, I'm just
gonna open this shop and people are gonna come and
they're gonna buy my coffee. Someone tries your coffee,
it tastes like dirt, like quite literally, you might think coffee tastes like dirt, it actually tastes like dirt. And then people go.
(sipping sound) This tastes like dirt. And you go, yeah, but like
you should buy it anyways. And then you go, I don't know
why my coffee shop is failing, your coffee tastes like dirt. And then you don't actually
put a sign outside. In fact, the sign outside
says, gardening supplies, and they come in and they're like, I'm here for a gardening supply. But do you hear what, this is what people are doing. The titles doesn't make
sense, it's not a clear idea, it's not a clear business. When you get there, it tastes like dirt, and so the focus and
discipline isn't there, and then you've been
doing it for 26 months. And you're like, well, Sean said, I could support one person after 20. Well, that's not what I said, first of all, the Tilt
said, so take it up, email at the tilt, just kidding. But like, you ultimately look at it, it's gonna take number
one, focus and discipline, a full-time mindset even if
you can't do it full-time. And it's potentially
gonna take nine months until you earn your first dollar, 18 months, now you've
been hustling by yourself, and you've hired help for the first time. And 26 months later, now
you're actually like, breathe in a little bit, and saying, okay, now we
got some momentum man, I'm supporting myself, I'm
supporting somebody else, I'm recouping some of my investment. That is what business owners do. And maybe that's the difference
between a content creator and a content entrepreneur. We're calling them YouTube entrepreneurs. So why do they do this? Why do they wanna do this? This is interesting. Here's the vision though,
and I'm curious, your why, because the why matters. I may have just talked you
out, right, (laughs) of, you're like, well that
actually sounds a lot harder than I thought it was gonna be, it sounds like I'll actually
have to do some work. But you gotta remember your why, what's your why for wanting to do this? Content entrepreneurs
are fiercely independent. Do you think a college degree is required to be a successful
content entrepreneur, a YouTube entrepreneur? 85% said no. These are people who are
blazing their own path, making their own way. Can I operate my content business from anywhere that has reliable internet? Almost all of them said yes. So there's work ahead, yes, but man, there's opportunity,
and an incredible lifestyle, you work from anywhere with internet? And next one, once you've
been a content entrepreneur, is it hard to go back to traditional work? 76% say yes, hard to go back. So, after I think it's so important, and I want you if you're
connected to our community, to always hear that we're not
trying to give false hope, or just disproportionate hype, we're just so passionate and
this study has proved it. This is real, this is a
career, this is happening, this industry is gonna
double, triple and quadruple over the next years, all
the data supports it, the SignalFire article, that supports it, there's a process to it, it's what we're talking about the next two days in Growth Video, it's what our company is committed to. But it's gonna take real work, but it's also the best
career in the world. If you really wanna do this, if you really wanna be able to work wherever you want in the world. If you really wanna be able
to embrace this and say, man, it'd be really hard to
go back to traditional work, because this is a whole
different way of living. This is just a whole different dimension of independence and freedom. I don't have to get a college degree, I don't have to go through
the traditional pathway set up by traditional gatekeepers,
I can make my own way, I can blaze my own path, I
can work on my own terms, I can work at the own, I can work whenever I want in my day, I can eventually, hear me, I can eventually decide that
I wanna work 15 hours a week or 25 hours a week, so that I can be at my kid's soccer games or so that like one of my friends, so I can go help at the elementary
school and build shelves, because I wanna be able to create that. I'm not trying to overhype it and say, type in a magical key word, and all of a sudden a million dollars gets transported to your bank account, but what I am saying, is
that by the patience it takes and the commitment it takes on the other side of that,
is massive opportunity. And people say, what are the benefits of being a content entrepreneur,
a YouTube entrepreneur? Lifestyle issues overwhelmingly selected over traditional factors
like compensation were, independence, that's the top one. And let me know you, like let me know if
this resonates with you. Do you want more independence? Do you want more freedom? 78% want more independence, the ability to pursue my
passions, flexible work hours, we enjoy our work, enjoy my work hours, like I love those,
because we enjoy the work, but maybe you wanna be able
to work when you wanna work. I think about the Think Media team, and half the team is golfing all the time. I'm like, I guess that's pretty cool. That's the dream, we're
trying to build a culture that is built in this YouTube
entrepreneur lifestyle, because the reality is, it's like okay, if you're
gonna be going golfing, in the best time, in the early
of the morning, whatever, but you could work whenever you want. Like we've just gotta get the work done, doesn't matter when you do it. You wanna work at night,
wanna work during the day, like when do you wanna work? And so flexible work hours,
enjoying your work hours, being challenged, earning
more than a traditional job, getting to choose where you live, now you have location freedom, more time with my family and friends, more time to pursue my hobbies, and lastly, being able to
prove myself to others. So what's the future? What's the future of being
a YouTube entrepreneur? Is it too late now? You know, now that there's
some established CEs, YEs, now that they're established, is it too late to start doing this? The data suggests, no. Right now we are seeing that the monthly active users on YouTube is up to 2.3 billion monthly
active users worldwide. Is competition increasing? It sure is. But is consumption increasing? Even more, at a rapid rate. More people are hungry to solve problems for entertainment and
education, for quality content, for content that resonates with them, for a content creator
that resonates with them, made me think about the Growth
Video Live community member that's doing beginner yoga, it made me think, was anybody
else doing beginner yoga, for sure, it's competitive. So you gotta figure out how
you're gonna be different, but the powerful thing, is you also really just
need to lean in being you, because the reality is, people like to follow people from different backgrounds,
ages, ethnicities. It reminds me of my friend Dotto Tech, who helps people with tech, kind of like I do on Think Media. But Dotto Tech is a baby boomer and there's this rising revolution of people trying to figure
out how to make side income. And I talk a little bit fast, I'm a little bit more
caffeinated than him, right, a little bit more optimistic
probably, in my communicating. And so ultimately, you just
think about you being you, you leaning into your difference, finding your unique
content and video ideas to help you get discovered. Defining what it is about
you that makes you different, leaning into understanding who
will resonate with you best, who you're talking to, their problems, their
ambitions, specifically, that could be in a micro
demographic, and the psychographics of the group of people
you're trying to reach, and dialing in your laser focused approach in a big world of 2.3 billion monthly active users on YouTube. Is there an audience for you? There sure is. Is there the chance to
still build up a career? Maybe starting and not
earning your first dollar for the first nine months? I'm sure you've probably
already experienced that. But also is there gonna be a
need of you to get focused, to get more disciplined,
because the last nine months, if you're honest, you've probably have been
consuming a little bit more than you've been creating, right? Maybe you're dabbling a little bit, and really not leaning in with discipline. And so the opportunity is real, in fact, views on YouTube, this reveals, from Tubular Labs, that views on YouTube continue to grow throughout the pandemic. And views for top videos
on YouTube grew 18%, even during the first half of 2021. So this is super recent data, that you're seeing on screen to be clear. And what it's suggesting, is
that YouTube is not stagnating, it's not declining. And I know even though we're in pandemic, part two, three, or four, who knows where we even
are in this whole journey, but that things are kind of open, kind of not open, closed down again, but maybe less than it was. But even though some people have returned to kind
of somewhat of normal views keep going up. See, everybody was re-educated. Like, I even think about my family, like my parents, because of the pandemic, they were so locked down, they
had never used, we went over, my dad has a projector in his living room, like is your dad like that? You know what I mean? I don't even like projectors as much, because they're not as
crispy as a TV, whatever. And so he's got this projector. And I went over and
they had YouTube videos up on this projector, and we
were about to have dinner, my wife and I and my son, with my dad, and they were playing
these YouTube videos. And they discovered this couple who sings songs in outfits in their car, I forget who they are. And they're like, these guys are so cool, guys, you gotta see this. And they play it, and they're like, using like an apple TV
thing, like talking to it. I'm like, when did my
late 60s and early 70s mom and stepdad start talking to Siri, and having favorite YouTubers. That's what the pandemic did. Every generation just continues
to have more adoption, more interest, more consumption, no matter what culture is doing. And it's only going forward friend. If you feel like you're too
late, you're not too late. If you feel like, I wish I
started back when Sean did, well, of course. But the best time to plant
a tree is 10 years ago. The second best time to
plant a tree is right now. And when you're focused and
you make the commitment, and when you're patient,
big things can happen. You know, these are really recent numbers. YouTube hits 7 billion in ad revenue, and tops Wall Street expectations. 7 billion in ad revenue, this next quarter is projected that YouTube's gonna hit 10 billion. Now, again, what this is telling us, is that ad revenue is
up 84% year over year. Well, Sean, what good is that for me? Like YouTube is making more money? No, you're making more money, because ad revenue is split with creators. So YouTube continues to go up
in revenue at a crazy pace, what does that tell us? It tells us that there's
more money in the industry, there's more money for you, there's more money for
YouTube entrepreneurs, what are you doing to get positioned? How serious are you, about figuring this out
mastering the platform, so that you can capitalize
and get a piece of that pie. $7 billion, and that doesn't
mean your online course, your membership site that's off platform, your merch that you create,
doesn't mean any of that stuff, it literally actually just means, what should be, being compensated for, for the views on YouTube, because that's their
main way of earning money that's driving those numbers. So over the next two days, we're gonna be talking about how to specifically crush
it on YouTube right now. We have a seven step system that we teach in our
Video Ranking Academy, and we're gonna be going through it not just at a high level,
but also in detail, in terms of what have we
learned at Think Media over the last year. And that's the point of
Grow With Video Live. And at Growth With Video Live, we think about, man, what's
working on YouTube right now? What has stopped working? And we have a whole session devoted to like things that
are just not worth your time, and that they're just
not worth focusing on and your time is super precious. We have Omar El-Takrori talking deeply about how to create
content that gets attention and even practical tips in regards to the best tools
right now to use for YouTube. We have Tony Arriola, who's gonna be sharing in detail about, he's like our lead YouTube strategist, about what we've learned in
terms of titles and thumbnails. We have Heather Torres, talking about how to master your time, how to grow your channel, how to overcome a lot of
the other things like, how do you build your
confidence to get on camera? How do you overcome the fear
of other people's opinions? How do you deal with the
whole psychological battles that we go through in being
a YouTube entrepreneur? And so I want to encourage you, if you're already a part
of Grow With Video Live, the next two days are gonna be incredible. And if you actually have not
joined yet, you still can, because the conference
really hasn't even started. This is just kind of
our kickoff bonus night, where we're testing everything,
we had the power cord, you know, we had to figure
some of those things, this is just a test session, we wanted to invite Think Media to be a part of some of these details, because we're getting locked
and loaded for two days, basically, nine to five,
every day streaming, there's a special conference app, there's, it's an incredibly
immersive experience. Myself and the whole Think Media team are there to give you the
most world class content, giveaways, we have prizes,
we have Zoom meetups, and after parties that
are digitally happening, and in the midst of a
precarious time in the world, we really believe that it's
more important than ever before, that we gather together that we link arms, that we get world class
content and strategy for right now and for
this next year on YouTube. And that we also get
connected to a community to stay encouraged in
the midst of these times. And so that's why we built an app, so that you can actually
engage in a digital community and have some real relationships,
the best we know possible in these crazy times in the world. Growwithvideolive.com is
where all the details are at, Think Media, if you got
value out of this video, smash the like button
and leave me a comment wherever you're watching this, of what are you gonna do next? What was your aha moment
from this training? Have you decided that you wanna become
a YouTube entrepreneur? Maybe you're settled on, actually I kind of wanna
be more of a YouTuber, or maybe you're like, all I know, it's just
been like a fire hose, I need to learn some more,
I need to study some more, wherever you are on the journey, my name is Sean Cannell, and
I'm super grateful for you. I'm here to serve you and
help you on the journey, and would love to be a part of that. Whether you're a part of
Grow With Video Live or not, I look forward to seeing you soon, in the next video and with that.
