165 Clients From One Little YouTube Channel

If there's one lesson I've learned in the last 12 months, it's this. Bingers are buyers. The people who get the most clients from content aren't the ones who go viral. They're the ones who get people to go deep down the rabbit hole binging their stuff. The more they consume, the more likely they are to become a client. In the last 12 months, this little YouTube channel of mine has brought in 165 clients and $5 million directly attributable to YouTube. And I'm still figuring my [ __ ] out. I'm not a pro with this yet. So, in this video, what I want to do is I want to show you the number one metric I'm optimizing for with all my content across all of the platforms. And then specifically, how am I thinking about long-form content to sign me clients instead of going viral. It's going to be tactical. It's going to be useful. Let's do this. I'm super lucky to have worked with some absolute ballers of clients. I met this dude called Sharan. A couple years ago, he was a amazing client in Black Belt and then Boardroom. And now, he's like the president of acquisition.com with Alex and Leila. It's so cool. When I was chatting with him about what was working with his marketing, he figured out something really dope. He got his marketing manager to have a look at all the people who had bought coaching or a course in the last couple of years to figure out what was going on that they could double down on. Like, was it this ad or this funnel or whatever? It wasn't the demographics or the psychographics or a particular ad or a particular funnel. It wasn't the thing that we suspected, which is how long they'd been on his list. The thing that made the difference was how much content they'd consumed. Turned out that each of them, all the people who'd bought, the only thing they all had in common was they'd spent at least 47 minutes consuming his content. He called it time on brand. I call it brand width. See, in the old days, I would just get people into my world, into my email list, and I figured that eventually, if they consumed enough stuff, eventually, over time, they'd be ready. What that led to was some people who bought straight away, but others who'd be take weeks or months or one guy who took 8 and 1/2 years to finally figure out that maybe I could help him out. That wasn't his fault. It was mine. I was optimizing for time on list instead of optimizing for time on brand. The moment I figured out that it was actually about how quickly I could get people to consume my content. I was already dialed into short form, but it meant that long form, particularly here on YouTube, was going to be the biggest opportunity of the last year. Now, everything I do is optimized around how do I get people to find me and then quickly consume as much stuff as I can because I know that binges are buyers. So, we're going to video six of the marketing map, a little series where I'm taking you behind the scenes and just showing you what's working right now for me and my clients as we generate leads and sign clients. This little map on one page responsible for 1.7, almost 1.8 million dollars a month in income. We've talked about lead generation in the previous videos, you can check them out. And today specifically, we're jumping into long form because we know that we can get people to watch our stuff for longer, they're more likely to become a client. I don't know about you, but there's a chance that you've got a little bit of yeah, but going on. Little bit of butt face. That sounds great, Tax. I can build brand with, but long form content's hard, isn't it? Is it really worth the time and effort? Isn't it a complete pain in the ass? Man, last week, I've had two clients who are gangsters like doing hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. Both say, "Hey, I'm thinking about pausing my YouTube. It's working, but it's just a lot of work." So, before I show you like the YouTube strategy that we're using, let's talk about finding a format that is easy. I think about it like this. You're creating content. You are creating content, mate. Please create content. And that content is either working for your business, you know, it's slaps, there's ROI, or it's not. And it feels like it's not. This is bringing you leads, money, ROI, and this is like it's just a cost. So, it's either working for your business or not. And it's working for you or it's not. This is it's easy and it's fun and it gives you energy. And this is like it's a drain, it's a pain, it's a pain in the ass, it's kind of hard. I don't know about you, but a lot of people seem to be playing the content game on the left-hand side of the equation. They're doing like 75 hard for content. It's brutal. And don't get me wrong, I'm not perfect. I've had days where I feel like stabbing myself in the head with a fork would be more fun than shooting a video. Today is not that day. We are on a roll. It might have been the Vietnamese coffee I had before. I don't know. I've got some friends who are ballers at content. Like millions of subscribers, millions of views, like legit you'd know who I was talking about if I mentioned their name. But they're playing this content game like it's a mental toughness exercise designed to prove how manly or womanly they really are. It's a grind. Then I've got other people who are just getting started and they're just like putting their head on on camera like it's a FaceTime to a friend, not really talking about anything useful. It's not doing anything anything for their business and they're just kind of flying blind. Those two not so great. And I see a bunch of coaches who are working really hard at their content and it's doing nothing for their business. And when I look at them I cringe. Not cuz they look crap on camera or whatever, but just because like they're working so hard for so little return. It's not worth it. What I want is to create the kind of content that is easy for you to create and gets people frothing. Where people binge. The easy is really important because if it's effort you won't stick to it. I think the average podcast has something like three episodes ever. If you've recorded 10 episodes, you're in the top 1% of podcasters. Just because you've done 10 trust me, dude, it's going to take a lot more than 10 for you to be great. So, let's find something that you could do forever. I want to get you up here in the top right. The things that make it um work versus not work is really about topic selection and the segues into your offers. And the things that make it hard, not easy really comes down to formats that we choose. So, let's chat about both of those things. Einstein said that everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it'll grow up its whole life thinking it's stupid. That's what it's like trying to create content in a way using a format that you're not built for. We want to make content that is epic for the market and easy for you so you can stick to it. If you think about like the ideal content format for you, it would look something like this. It would take almost zero preparation. It would play to your strengths. It would allow you to demonstrate your ability to serve your target market. It would build authority, and it'll get you into a flow state. Those things make it easy, and anything that isn't that probably doesn't want to be part of your content rhythm. Now, I get if it's your first time on camera, it's going to be harder. Because you got to learn a bunch of things, and talking to a like a a little black circle is kind of weird. Luckily, Shawn is sitting behind the camera, and I can joke and have banter with him. I don't know how long you've been creating content, particularly video. So, I want to give you something if you're just getting started, and something if you're a bit more pro. If you're just getting started, we want a structure and outline we can follow. Um most of my videos have a pretty standard structure. We've got a a hook, an intro. Then, I've got like three to five key points that are pulled from client stuff, which makes it easy because I don't have to invent new things to talk about. It's helped my clients, so I know it's going to be useful for you. And I've already said the words, so I'm just like pulling bits. Then, I just scribble them out on some cards, and then I get to riff a little bit. So, the first thing is like you need a a structure to pour your content and your personality into, and that takes the pressure off. That way, you don't have to think about like what am I going to say, and how the hell do I structure it? We're just doing the okay, I've got a structure. What am I going to put into that today? The next piece if you're just getting started is like how scripted do you want to be? I was cooking breakfast for my son Ethan this morning. He was like, "Hey Dad, you want me to help you shoot the videos today?" I'm like, "Man, that would be fun." He goes, "Well, I can press record." I'm like, "Well, Shawn, I've probably got that bit covered. The most important thing for me to do is like to get my notes together." He goes, "Well, just remember that if you make it too scripted, you'll come across a bit wooden. Maybe you just freestyle it." I'm like, "Well, somewhere between overly scripted and not prepared enough, there's a sweet spot. If I'm too scripted, he was right, I'll come across wooden. If I'm not prepped enough, I'll be uncomfortable staring here blinking at you, and you'll be like, "What the hell? This guy calls himself a an expert. He doesn't know what the [ __ ] he's talking about." And you'd be right. We want to be just prepared enough to crush it on camera. Consider being over prepared or under prepared, I reckon you find the outline that allows you to just crush. For me, it's notes on a card, and that's plenty for me. But, you might like a script or an outline or bullet points or even slides. Whatever works for you, do that. If you're a pro, you already know that stuff. Let me give you something for the pros. You've probably seen a bunch of content right now that is by some of your favorite gurus where it's just Q&A style. Somebody asked them a question and they riff. That is epic if you're a legitimate expert. If you're just getting started and somebody asks you a question and you're like, "Um uh um uh uh well, I kind of um y'all asked me." So, if you're getting started, stick to a structure. If you know what you're doing, lean into that. One of the clients I mentioned before, he was like, "I'm thinking about pulling the pin on YouTube." And I was like, "Dude, your short-form content is epic." You know what he does for his short-form content? When he's on a coaching call with his clients, talking to the camera, he's got another camera just over here, just off to the side, which records him giving devastatingly accurate ballistic-level answers to client problems. That's what he does for his short-form content. He answers his clients, and then over here it's recorded, and that just gets clipped up with a hook and some words on screen, and that's his stuff. It's easy. It's effortless. He's doing it anyway. Guess what I told him to do for his YouTube? That. But, long-form. All we're trying to find is a format that is effortless, that gets you into flow state, that shows your expertise, that allows you to be you at your best without really trying. Like, this little piece of the content, this wasn't in my outline. But, we were thinking about these two cats, and I wanted to do this bit for them. I don't need an outline or a script. I'm just telling you what I'd tell them. So, now we know that if we can get them to binge, we can get them to buy. So, long-form's important, and we want to find a format that is easy, that we can do consistently. Because if you can't couldn't do it forever, don't do it for a day. Now, I think you're ready for the sauce. This is how you turn long-form content into long-term clients. #longtermcontentintolongtermclients. That's a write it down, people. Tweet that [ __ ] In order to get clients from long-form long-form content, there's only two things you need to know. We break the whole model down into two halves. There's the show. What do you talk about? How do you structure it? What do you say? And there's the business. How do we turn content into money? Honestly, everybody on YouTube focused on this bit. There's a bunch of content about that. Nobody's talking about the business. Luckily, that's my job, so let's do that. You can spend a bunch of time creating amazing content, but if you don't have a path to turn those viewers into clients, you're wasting your time. So, the very first thing we want to do is set up conversion bridges. A simple pathway from I watched the video and I liked it to knowing what to do next. And the two most important bridges for you to set up are one, for cold leads, which is going to be a micro magnet, which we talked about in one of the other videos, and two, a microwave VSL, which takes people from warm to hot in a few minutes, and we talked about that in another video in this series as well. Conversion bridges first. Now we've got the pathway in place, it's time to go, "Okay, well what is the most useful content I can create that's going to grow my business?" We answer that with a really simple content map. The short answer is, if it helps your clients, it'll be great for your prospects. So, anytime I'm sitting down with a client to map out their content plan, I go, "Forget about the content plan, show me the client plan." If it's in your program, it belongs in a video. Those two pieces, the conversion bridge and the content map, that's the business. Now you're ready for the show. I don't know about you, I don't like too much structure, but a little bit really helps. I like to freestyle in a framework, and the framework is the first piece we need. Every video for me starts with what I call addiction architecture. It's just like the structure of a video, so I know that someone's going to get excited at the start and stay all the way to the end and get the magic. So, once we know where we're going to take people, we need to know how to grab their attention in the first place, cuz YouTube, long form, is a game of getting attention, keeping attention, and then redirecting attention with our bridges. So, you can structure the best video in the world, but if they don't click it and watch, it's all for naught. So, the next step is what I call attention wrapping. That's your title, your thumbnail, and your three sentence introduction. So, now we know we can get people to click and grab their attention and hold their attention. The only thing that might screw it up is you being a little bit [ __ ] on camera. So, we need to fix that with a natural outline. We don't want to be over prepared, we don't want to be under prepared, we want to be just prepared enough that we can crush it on camera, whether it's scripts or an outline or some notes on cards. Now, you got what you need to deliver it well. Long-form content is one of the four options on the menu for warming up your leads in the nurture cycle. Watch this video next to get the next one.