How to Survive Being a Small YouTube Channel (The Truth About Growth) transcript

Meredith's down there with the gang eating cucumbers from the farm. And then technically I am working right now. I need to clear my head. I need to be balanced. And literally everything from our house to our kids to my lack of a job is all possible because of YouTube. So if you're a small creator and you're not making money yet, you're struggling to plateau, maybe even just thinking about getting started, this video is for you.

So, I started YouTube much like any of you. Turn the lens down so I don't look at that. I didn't know what I was doing when I started. It took me years to ever actually make any money at all. I had no skills. I had never picked up a camera before I started YouTube. And there were multiple times where I was absolutely thinking of quitting. There was a six-month period in the first couple years of of starting YouTube where every time I posted, I would lose like three or four subscribers.

I had maybe 100 200 subscribers and every time I posted I would lose like five of them and then I would gain a few more, one or two a day, you know, for the next week and then I would post and I would lose, you know, five or 10 more. That's what was happening. It was horrible really. And I didn't know at the time why that was happening. But now after what, 700 long form YouTube videos, I know what was wrong and I kind of want to help you get through that.

So, first of all, I stopped worrying about how my channel did. And I started to treat YouTube not only like a business cuz you hear a lot of people treat it like a business, you know, but I started treating it like a skill that I was learning because this reframes success and it also makes success possible cuz each of those weeks instead of saying like I didn't get views, it wasn't my breakout video, I don't know what's wrong, whatever.

I was like, hey, did I make better music this week? Like was my sound selection better than last week? Did I do some cool transitions? Did I learn like videography this week? Did I make a better title and thumbnail this week? I started working on the systems and the skills of YouTube instead of stressing about what the outcome of those things are going to be. Because all we can do with anything in life is the input. You can't really control the output.

If you think about dieting compared to YouTube, you can control what you eat and what you exercise. You can't control exactly what your body looks like besides the two levers that you have, eating and exercising. And so focusing on the mirror, focusing on anything else besides what you can actually control, is kind of stupid. And the same thing with YouTube. You can learn the skills of YouTube. You can learn, you know, how to edit better, how to talk on camera better.

You can learn a bunch of those things. And that is all you should really be focusing on for the first year or two is just learning the skills of YouTube. And because I learned those skills, then I was able to start a second channel and a third channel and have success pretty much right away and kind of find some proven formats that are just like going to work for new channels and small channels. And the only reason that's possible is cuz I now know YouTube very well.

I I only know really like my space of YouTube. I don't know like entertainment YouTube that well, but I just became an expert at my field, at my craft. And that's what I feel like we should really be focusing on. And a lot of times, if you're feeling stuck right now, one way to get past that is to stop asking, "How can I grow?" This is one thing a lot of people focus on is like, "How can I grow? I didn't have a lot of subscribers and therefore I didn't worry about making money." And it was like this whole thing.

I was very self-centered, right? I want to reach 1,000 subscribers. I want to get monetized. On my main channel now, it would be I want to get my gold play button hopefully next year. But that's very selfish. Who cares? really the only way I can actually get that is by I focus on my audience. I focus on how can I help them? Like this video right here, I was thinking about myself during that time period. I was like, you know, can I make a video that would help that past me?

And hopefully that that is you here helping. And like what are the things that I wish somebody would have told me? What are the things that I wish I would have known that could have helped me, you know, get out of that cycle faster that would have, you know, helped me not quit? I think I just got like hyper obsessive and that's one of the reasons I didn't quit is like I just hyper focused on stuff and then 8 years later here we are.

But think about that audience. Think about how you can serve them. What problems do they have? If you're not getting views, it's because you're not either the quality of your stuff's not good enough. The packaging of it is not good enough. The ideas are not good enough. Ideas are like so much of how a video does is the idea of it and then how you present that idea. But maybe you're making selfish content just for yourself and you're not thinking about other people.

A lot of times what grows the best for me is not what I like to do. Maybe I would like to just vlog my day. Nobody cares about my day until you have an audience and then they care about your day, right? So, if you start with what you see other people doing, a lot of times that doesn't work. But you can also vlog your day in a way that helps other people where you can share certain things, right? So, it's not necessarily about like, oh, don't vlog.

Oh, I don't whatever. You can share your story. You can share the process. There's a lot of different ways to kind of do this, but ultimately, are you helping people? Are you entertaining them? Are you serving them? Are you making things that your audience wants to see? Even if it's not exactly what you want to do, are you kind of reaching that? or is it everything is very selfish for I would say another thing that I would have focused on way earlier is making money and before we get into what I would have focused on earlier which is making money I want to tell you about a tool that I've been using for 3 4 years now and that is the sponsor of this video Story Blocks one of the only sponsors I've ever had on this channel because I absolutely love them.

If you don't know what Story Blocks is, it is unlimited downloads of high quality humanmade video. So a lot of B-roll you might see it in different videos on this channel on the main channel. a lot of the music that we use. There's different tools for editing, presets, pictures, tons of different stuff you need to make higher quality videos all for like one set price. I used to have like three different platforms that I would use and it's like really a pain.

And now we just kind of get sound effects, everything you can just get in Story Blocks and they're really high quality, right? It's not AI slop. It's all made by actual people and supports actual people. So, if you want to check them out, there's a link down below. I've been using them personally and my and my team uses them for literally years now. So, thank you to Storyblocks for sponsoring this video. definitely check them out.

But let's also talk about making money because like like we just saw with the story blocks sponsorship here, that is something that you can do as a slightly more established bigger channel. But I always thought I would have to wait until I could get sponsorships. I would have to wait till I can make money with AdSense in order to make money on YouTube. And therefore, I never focus on making money. And one of the things that will keep you from quitting is making money early, fast, first video. might not think that's possible, but I've made over $10,000 on a first video on a sauna and cold plunge review channel.

That's over the course of like two or three years now. But that being said, that video makes me hundreds of dollars a month. And I like years old. Anyways, I think one of the reasons why a lot of small creators quit is cuz they don't see making money as a possibility. And one of the reasons that they don't see that is because they're not focusing on people's problems. You get rewarded on YouTube and and in life in general for solving people's problems. like that sauna and cop plunch review channel that I talked about.

That one people are wondering what sauna and cop plunge to buy and so they go and they check that out. It's a very transactional channel. They don't care about me in the least. If I did a day vlog it would do terrible. The content is totally different there than I would do anything like that on here. But that is serving an actual need in the world and I get rewarded for that. Even with what 1500 subscribers now I've made over $50,000 on that channel just because it serves a need and nobody follows me cuz they don't care at all about me.

I'm just serving people. I don't care about the content either. Like I like the soda and cold blendes, but like I don't want to review it. It's not like my favorite thing to do, but it makes money. And so if you think about a small channel, are you serving a real need? When we think about Natasha, one of my students, she made over $9,000 with 1,000 subscribers because she had a coaching offer. And so it doesn't have to be affiliates.

It can be coaching. It could be whatever. You don't need a large amount of subscribers at all to make money. But the thing that I never made $10,000 until I had like 30 or 40,000 subscribers because I never had a way to make money. I never tried affiliates. I never tried collecting emails. I never tried a one-on-one offer. I never tried doing a cohort. I never tried anything until I was like over 100,000 subscribers.

I think over 200,000 subscribers is when I like actually started to give myself a chance to make money. And that's like one of the things that has allowed me to pretty much double my income to the point where it's a little nuts right now, especially on my main channel and actually all the channels is because I now have things that I offer people. And the only reason why any offer is going to be successful, the only reason why affiliates are going to work, the only reason why any type of coaching program is going to work, the only reason why any type of digital product is going to work is because it promises and actually does solve a problem greater than the amount of money that you charge for it.

Like for instance, on my main channel, I have this offer right now that has nothing to do with how to grow on YouTube or anything like that, but it is this thing called the 1% club. It's $20 a month and it's this community where I'm in there every day interacting with people. We have weekly challenges and monthly challenges together. and for what they're getting. Most people would charge $50 to $100 a month. But since I'm early doors on this, I'm like at like 20.

I might go to 27 soon. But I've been able to build that to we just passed I think 7500 in reoccurring revenue with that thing because it solves a problem for people. A lot of people need accountability. They need clear direction and then they need a a group of people doing stuff together. So that was something that I've seen a lot of people ask for. A lot of people know what to do. They just can't get themselves to do it.

And so this was my way of helping them do that thing. And that wasn't necessarily something like I I wanted it for myself, but I've wanted a lot of things and I haven't made products about them. Um, this was something that I saw repeatedly from my audience that they kind of wanted as well and then we've been adapting it and changing it into what best serves those people. Same thing with my 5-hour YouTuber program. When I initially made that, I didn't just like come up with this idea and then make it.

I got feedback from people. I was getting people messaging me on Instagram, coming up to me in real life, just tons of people asking how to grow on YouTube. I set up 20 different calls with my audience and I asked them like 15-minute calls and I asked them a bunch of questions and then I was like, "Okay, I'm going to make a minimalism course or a finance course because those are my main topics on my channel." And I think almost every except for two people, everybody else wanted to learn how to make money on YouTube.

And I was like, "Okay, apparently literally everybody wants to learn how to make money on YouTube. And this is a skill that I'm excellent at." Or not excellent, but like I've spent tens of thousands of hours, so that's the only skill that I have literally. And so I was like, "Yeah, all right. I'll make this program." And then I sold that program. And we made over, you know, it was like $400 when I launched that product.

And it made over $60,000 within that first launch of that product. And that was really eye opening for me of like I thought I was going to make a minimalism course. I thought I was going to make a finance course. And instead, I listened to my audience. I listened to what they wanted. And I put in a ton of effort building something that I was like, I think if you follow this, this is literally all that you need. It's the same blueprint all of us top creators use.

We all do the exact same thing for the most part. We build these systems. We follow these things. this is the best mathematical chance of success. And then I just packaged that because that's what people asked for. And I was able to have a really successful launch with that product. And it's adapted and changed and now it's a year-long program because a lot of people again feedback from people 6 weeks wasn't enough. So we built this year-long version of it called the inner circle.

And then that's done really well as well. But the only reason why this works is because everybody else who has a year-long program where you actually get access to the person teaching it is going to charge $6 to $12,000. Like that's just what they charge. minimum a couple thousand dollars a month probably for top creators. So that's what other people charge and I was like what if we just did that but we make it way cheaper than everybody else and you know we we really put in a lot of value to it.

And so that's mainly the only way I've ever had success on launching stuff. A lot of other small creators that I see as well. The only products that are successful is when you offer way more value than you're charging and the value is very aligned with your audience and you're getting feedback and every time you're making it closer and closer to what your audience wants. So, it's not just the product that I want. It is a product that I know will help the people the most because that's the feedback we've gotten.

And so, like if you have a low ticket thing, you have a high ticket thing. It depends again on your niche. Like on my main channel, I haven't really had many products on there just cuz what I talk about early on, I chose like a bad paying niche and it is what it is. But with my other channels, like I make money a lot sooner because I solve a lot bigger problems for people than like more entertainment. So, anyways, just don't wait forever to start making money on YouTube.

You can start immediately. And the more success you have quickly and the sooner you can see that like, hey, if I have $1,000 product, I just need to make one sale a month to make $1,000 a month. Okay, then like what does that look like? Well, maybe I need to get 500 views or a,000 views or 5,000 views a month in order to get that. Okay, well now how can we get to $3,000 a month? How can we get to 5,000? It's much easier with a higher ticket product.

And the only reason you can have a higher ticket product like a,000, $2,000, $3,000 cuz you solve a huge problem for people. My general rule is like it should be charged 10 times more. Like if we have a $2,000 product, I would be comfortable if somebody paid me $20,000 for it. That is like the value that I always try to go for, which maybe might be a little too extreme in my head, but that's why what I always think about is like, would this be reasonable at 10 times the price?

Yes. Then it's like a no-brainer to say no at that. And the only thing that's worth that much money is something that drastically changes somebody's life. So you have to make an amazing product to have success with that and be able to keep launching it and keep getting testimonials is because you like offer way more value. So that's generally how I try to think of it. If you're a small creator, those are generally the steps.

Like find a way to make money and then focus on those people. Exactly. Get feedback from your audience. See what big drastic changes you can make in their lives. Or you can do small changes that you can make in their life. But it's just got to be a lot of value. And then when you start making money, you start making your first $100, $200, $500. We just had one of our students made her first $500 on an ebook that she launched like last month.

When you start seeing that even as a small channel, you start to realize like, oh, this could be something. And then you start treating it more seriously. then you start really working on the skills, then you start investing in yourself. You start, you know, showing up like more consistently and stuff and that's how you make a lot of progress. So yeah, that's what I got for this video. If you enjoyed it, got some value, feel free to drop a like, subscribe, all that type of stuff.

If you do want to join the inner circle, you can join the weight list down below. We generally only let in a few people a month to kind of keep it small so I can get to know everybody personally. You can also message me on Instagram if you want to talk specifically about it. And of course, I am teaching a live workshop coming up in not that long actually. Um, so feel free to check that out down below. And that is exactly how to run a profitable YouTube channel in 5 hours a week.