#242: Mark Manson – Why YouTubers aren’t making more money

Summary

Creator Science Podcast Summary: Episode #242 with Mark Manson – "Why YouTubers Aren’t Making More Money"

Release Date: February 11, 2025

Introduction

In Episode #242 of Creator Science, host Jay Clouse delves deep into the challenges YouTubers face in monetizing their channels effectively. Joined by bestselling author and prolific YouTuber Mark Manson, along with industry expert Colin, the conversation unpacks the underlying issues hindering YouTubers from translating viewership into substantial income. This episode offers invaluable insights for content creators aiming to transform their passion into a sustainable business.

1. The Complexity of Scaling a YouTube Channel

Timestamp: [00:00 – 01:27]

Jay Clouse opens the episode by sharing his personal struggles with scaling his content creation business, leading to the development of Creator HQ—a comprehensive workspace built on Notion designed to streamline content creation, task management, and revenue generation. Although this segment serves as a promotional introduction, it sets the stage for the ensuing discussion on the intricacies of growing a YouTube channel beyond mere content creation.

2. The Unstable Nature of YouTuber Businesses

Timestamp: [01:27 – 04:19]

Colin highlights a critical observation: “Most YouTuber businesses are incredibly unstable.” He emphasizes that while many channels garner substantial views, their lack of business acumen leaves them vulnerable. This instability stems from inadequate backend processes such as hiring, managing teams, clear communication, setting proper incentives, and optimizing monetization funnels. Colin recounts experiences with creators who have amassed millions of subscribers yet struggle with basic business operations, revealing a significant opportunity for those who can bridge this gap.

3. The Disconnect Between Content and Business Strategy

Timestamp: [04:19 – 07:04]

Mark Manson agrees with Colin's assessment, pointing out the superficial approach many YouTubers take towards monetization. He observes, “Just nothing on the back end of views, like views. And then that's it.” This lack of backend strategy—focusing solely on views without a cohesive plan to convert audience engagement into revenue—results in missed opportunities. The conversation underscores the necessity for creators to view their channels as businesses, not just platforms for content dissemination.

4. Challenges in Hiring and Team Management

Timestamp: [07:04 – 11:48]

Mark delves into the difficulties of building a reliable team. He shares his frustrations with hiring thumbnail artists who, despite their talent, lack professional communication skills. Colin echoes these sentiments, explaining the dichotomy in hiring:

• Traditional Professionals: “They are vastly overpaid and very entitled.” They often bring outdated expectations that clash with the dynamic nature of YouTube content creation.

• YouTube-Only Talent: “There’s just a complete lack of professionalism.” Many young creators lack experience in structured work environments, leading to issues with punctuality and dependability.

Mark adds, “It's really hard to work with… professionals 100%,” highlighting the struggle to find team members who can balance creativity with business responsibility.

5. Monetization Strategies Beyond YouTube

Timestamp: [11:48 – 25:20]

The core of the discussion revolves around the limitations of YouTube's monetization. Colin states, “The monetization on YouTube is actually not great.” He advocates for creators to diversify their revenue streams by:

• Expanding to Other Platforms: Utilizing podcasts, newsletters, and other social media platforms to reach different audience segments.

• Developing Products and Services: Creating and selling products such as books, courses, or merchandise that directly cater to their audience’s needs.

Mark concurs, emphasizing that relying solely on YouTube's ad revenue is unsustainable. He shares anecdotes about YouTubers struggling with brand negotiations and the pitfalls of accepting low-paying sponsorships without considering the actual value provided to the brands.

6. The Importance of Audience Quality Over Quantity

Timestamp: [25:20 – 34:53]

Colin introduces the concept of “content audience fit,” likening it to “product market fit” in startups. He advises creators to prioritize the long-term relationship with their audience over short-term view counts. Key points include:

• Quality of Views: Evaluating whether views come from engaged subscribers who are likely to support future content and purchases.

• Balanced Content Strategy: Maintaining a mix of growth-oriented content (high reach) and engagement-oriented content (deep relationship building).

Mark adds that focusing purely on view maximization can attract an audience that doesn’t convert into loyal supporters or customers, ultimately harming both the creator and the brands they partner with.

7. Navigating Brand Sponsorships Effectively

Timestamp: [34:53 – 38:43]

The conversation shifts to the nuances of handling brand sponsorships:

• Long-Term Relationships: Colin suggests building enduring partnerships with a select few brands that align with the creator’s audience, rather than chasing numerous short-term deals.

• Understanding Sponsor Needs: Creators must assess whether their audience matches the brand’s target market to ensure mutual benefits.

Mark emphasizes the importance of aligning brand deals with audience interests to maintain trust and credibility. He warns against the pitfalls of aggressive deadlines and the administrative burdens that accompany sponsorships, which can detrimentally impact content quality.

8. Professionalizing the Creator Business

Timestamp: [38:43 – 44:34]

When asked about next steps for creators feeling their business is unsophisticated, Colin advises:

• Education: Invest time in learning business fundamentals through books, courses, and mentorship.

• Financial Management: Understand taxes, payroll, cash flow, and customer lifetime value (LTV).

• Strategic Planning: Treat the YouTube channel as a startup, iterating towards a “content audience fit” before scaling.

Mark reinforces the necessity of professionalizing the business side, likening it to managing any entrepreneurial venture. He stresses that neglecting business management can lead to brand destruction or financial ruin.

9. Future-Proofing YouTube Channels

Timestamp: [44:34 – 48:38]

Colin shares his vision for the future of YouTube, emphasizing the documentary format as a high-leverage content type that offers depth and storytelling, contrasting with the prevalent “talking head” style. He believes documentaries can attract a more engaged and loyal audience, positioning creators ahead of the curve as the platform becomes more saturated.

Mark adds that investing in complex and resource-intensive formats like documentaries can create a competitive moat, making it difficult for others to replicate the creator’s unique style and content depth.

Conclusion

The episode concludes with a consensus that while YouTube offers unparalleled distribution potential, its monetization model alone is insufficient for sustainable growth. Creators must adopt a holistic business approach, diversifying revenue streams, professionalizing their operations, and strategically planning content to build a loyal and engaged audience. Mark Manson’s insights underscore the critical need for YouTubers to bridge the gap between content creation and business management to thrive in the competitive digital landscape.

Notable Quotes

• Colin: “Most YouTuber businesses are incredibly unstable.” (01:27)

• Mark Manson: “Just nothing on the back end of views, like views. And then that's it.” (04:19)

• Colin: “The monetization on YouTube is actually not great.” (15:17)

• Mark Manson: “It's really hard to work with… professionals 100%.” (07:04)

• Colin: “Think about the quality of those views as well… Are these views from people who are likely to stick around and see another video?” (25:20)

Final Thoughts

Episode #242 of Creator Science serves as a crucial guide for YouTubers aspiring to elevate their channels from mere content hubs to robust businesses. By addressing the often-overlooked aspects of monetization and business management, Jay Clouse, Mark Manson, and Colin provide a roadmap for creators seeking longevity and financial stability in the ever-evolving digital space.

Transcript

[Jay Clouse]

As you start to reach more people, things start to feel more complex, there's more to do and more to keep track of, and it starts to actually take time away from creating content. I felt this struggle personally. The more creator science grew, the more it felt like I was dropping the ball. So I did something about it. I built a set of rock solid systems all in notion to support the business as we grew and it worked like a charm. I built Creator HQ to be an all in one workspace designed to save you more time, create more content and drive more revenue. By leveraging Creator hq, we are publishing more than we ever have and we're nearing $1 million in annual revenue because of it. It brings all of your data and processes into one place with custom built dashboards to reduce friction in managing tasks, creating content, and collaborating with your team. I've spent more than three years building this and now you can have the same systems that I use right out of the box. If you're new to notion, don't worry. I've included a ton of specific tutorials to help you learn how to use Notion generally and Creator HQ specifically. I've never seen another Notion product integrate.

[Mark Manson]

Tutorials like we have here.

[Jay Clouse]

More than 300 other creators are already using Creator HQ and I am not exaggerating when I say I would be lost without this system. As a podcast listener, I'm giving you my best price. You can get 10% off using the promo code podcast at checkout. Just head to creatorhq.co to watch the video and learn more. That's creatorhq.co and use promo code podcast to save 10%.

[Colin]

Most YouTuber businesses are incredibly unstable. If these channels are getting this many views and they clearly have no idea what they're doing on the business side, there's a ton of opportunity here.

[Jay Clouse]

Meet Mark Manson. Mark is an author who wrote the best selling book the Subtle Art of Not Giving a F. Wait, no.

[Mark Manson]

Mark is a YouTuber who.

[Colin]

Hold on, I guess I identify as a creator or an entrepreneur first.

[Mark Manson]

This entrepreneur first approach is how Mark.

[Jay Clouse]

Has been able to speedrun YouTube success.

[Mark Manson]

Gaining 2 million subscribers in just two years. But beyond subscriber growth, here's why that approach is really important.

[Colin]

The monetization on YouTube is actually not great.

[Mark Manson]

In this episode, we break down Mark's whole approach to YouTube from content strategy.

[Colin]

There's growth oriented content and there's engagement oriented content. It's very hard to optimize for both of those things in the same piece.

[Mark Manson]

Of content to how he's setting up his channel for long term success.

[Colin]

Most YouTube power users are probably teenagers or early 20s. What are they going to be interested in seeing, say, five years from now? How can I be already excellent at that by the time they get there?

[Mark Manson]

And now let's talk with Mark Manson. What have you seen in terms of how entrepreneurial most YouTubers seem to be?

[Colin]

I'm going to be honest, I was a little shocked. I mean, granted, the average YouTuber is quite young, but I was shocked at the lack of business sense and expertise. I noticed this too when I started hiring. You know, I hired most of the people on my team, worked for other large YouTube channels, and the things that they would tell me about how their previous YouTube channels functioned was absolutely shocking to me. It actually made me more bullish on the space because I'm like, okay, if these channels are getting this many views and building audiences this big and they clearly have no idea what they're doing on the business side, there's a ton of opportunity here. We are still very, very early innings. And I guess I'll be a little bit specific here. When I say the business side, what I mean is nuts and bolts stuff. So hiring, managing clear communication, setting incentives properly, monetization, like optimizing funnels. Right. So if somebody comes in through my YouTube channel and they subscribe and they watch a bunch of videos, obviously the next thing I want to do is get them onto my newsletter. And then once they're on their newsletter, I want to like get them into a product or buying a book or signing up for a course. And it shocked me how many youtubers not only like did not have those processes figured out, but didn't even know that that's what you should be doing.

[Mark Manson]

Just nothing on the back end of views, like views. And then that's it.

[Colin]

Yeah, it's like maybe a brand sponsor. But even then they're like, I don't know how to negotiate a price. I kind of just take whatever price they get. I'm sitting there, I'm like, dude, you get like 2 million views a video. What are you talking about? You should be getting paid like three times as much as you're getting paid. It was shocking. I went to a dinner here in LA and I met a guy, wonderful guy, super nice, but yeah, probably early 20s, YouTube channel, over 10 million subscribers. And one of the first questions he asked me was about taxes. And I was like, what do you mean? And he's like, what do you do for taxes? I'm like, I have a fucking cpa. Sorry, can I curse, of course. I'm getting worked up over here. Of course. I just, I kind of looked at him, I'm like, how much money are you making? Oh my God. So I actually think, and this is why I'm like, I'm really thrilled with like, you know, what you're doing and what Nathan's doing, what Colin and Samir are doing. Like, I think this is so important because I think this space, the, the audience of this space has grown so quickly and the, and the creators growing. These audiences are so young and they've never had a real job. A lot of them never went to college. We need to get the business side caught up, right? Like all this stuff that happened with Mr. Beast this year, it's funny because I've actually hired people who used to work for him and I heard the stories from them and I posted a little bit publicly. But I remember thinking to myself, I'm like, man, this guy, he's going to have. Something really bad's going to happen, like something on set or there's going to be a big lawsuit or something. And all this stuff that has come out and it's not surprising. It's like you've got this 20 year old guy who has never had a job in his life and he's making millions of dollars and he's hanging out like his employees are his high school friends. Like, of course, of course it's going to be a rat's nest of a business for four or five years until he gets it straightened out. So I think there's for the people listening who are, you know, early, early in their creator career or even if you're like, well along. The business side of this is so important. Like you have to take it seriously as like treat it as a startup, treat it as a small, a small business. And if you don't enjoy that side of it, you really need to go find somebody who you can either hire or who can advise you to do these things properly because you can absolutely shoot yourself in the foot.

[Mark Manson]

Yeah, this is true. Not just of the face on screen, but the teams too. We've gone through some thumbnail artists and our first thumbnail artists that we had on the channel, super talented, couldn't get them to respond to an email or a message to save our life. And it wasn't that they didn't deliver, but we had no reason to believe that they would. We would just get the files in our inbox, hopefully before the deadline that we asked for them, but no communication.

[Jay Clouse]

Up to that point.

[Mark Manson]

And it was so frustrating. Like, really talented young people who just don't have communication. And it's really hard to work. It's really hard to do a professional endeavor when you're not working with professionals 100%.

[Colin]

I actually, you know, so we. I have a team of about 15 people, of which about half are on the video production side of things. And it's funny because I find it twice as hard to hire People for YouTube and podcast production than any other aspect of my business. And what I have found is that you really have two options if you want to hire somebody really good. You kind of have two options in this space. One is you go poach from Hollywood. You poach somebody from traditional. And what I found with people from traditional is that a, they are vastly overpaid and very entitled. Like, they expect. They expect you to move moons for them before they even set their foot in the door. And for them, it's like they're taking. YouTube is low prestige. So they kind of have this arrogance about them. And so that's super frustrating. And then on the YouTube side, like you just said, there's just this complete lack of professionalism. And I've run into it too, with editors, producers, thumbnail people. Like, it is. And a lot of it is just because it's a lot of people who. They started editing in high school for their friend, and they started getting paid for it, and now they still do it. And they're 22. They've never had a real job, They've never worked for a real company. So they don't have those communication skills. The. The punctuality, the dependability. Like knowing how to communicate to a boss. Knowing how to communicate to a client. They've never had to learn that stuff. And it's. Yeah, they don't. They don't stick around on my team very long because I just don't tolerate it. Yeah, I'm like, I don't have time to train you, man. Like, go figure this out.

[Mark Manson]

The plus side on the hiring front is I find. I find that I get to just act like a talent scout a lot of the time where, like, even if I'm not actively hiring, I'm kind of like building these lists of people where I see their work, and it's like, wow, that person is really talented. They're probably undervalued by the market, and we can create something really great together, probably as a stepping off point for them to do something that can pay more than I can at some point. But it's fun to collaborate with really.

[Jay Clouse]

Talented people in this space.

[Mark Manson]

Because now the people that you're hiring, they grew up on YouTube, they breathe the culture, and so they can bring so much to you, the creator, and the channel as a whole. Because nobody that I've hired on the video front has had the same viewer behavior as me, which is super valuable when you have people that their YouTube thing is just vastly different than yours in terms of what they like to watch.

[Colin]

Yeah. And I'll add to what you said, I agree about the talent thing. When you do find a really talented person in the YouTube space, they tend to be fantastic. And the other thing I'll add is that what I have found is that because most YouTuber businesses are incredibly unstable and poorly managed, if I can be like an island of stability, I've noticed that really talented people, YouTube people, they just feel so relieved. Like they're just so. They feel very safe and taken care of on my team. And again, I saw that as like a competitive advantage that I could have of, like, hey, I know how to manage people. I've got, like a really steady revenue stream. You're going to get paid, you're going to have work. You're not going to have to worry about the ups and downs. You know, if a brand sponsors, if a brand cancels this month, like, it's not like the, you know, it's not like the world is ending. Things are going to move on as normal. And so what I have found is that a lot of the YouTube people on my team are, like, just thrilled with the stability and kind of calmness.

[Mark Manson]

Yeah.

[Colin]

That we have.

[Jay Clouse]

After a quick break, Mark and I talk about why monetization on YouTube is.

[Mark Manson]

Not all it's cracked up to be.

[Jay Clouse]

And what YouTubers should prioritize instead. So stick around.

[Mark Manson]

We'll be right back.

[Jay Clouse]

I am once again inviting you to join our membership for professional creators, the Lab. Of course, I am biased, but Andrew is not. Andrew has been a member for about two years now, and this was a testimonial he sent me unprompted.

[Mark Manson]

Joining the Lab has been the single best investment I have made in my business and in myself since I started doing this, going solo 17 years ago.

[Jay Clouse]

If you benefit from the conversations here on the podcast, you'd love the things we talk about in the Lab. In fact, some of the past guests of this show are members themselves. The Lab helps you keep a finger on the pulse of what's working and what's changing for creators right now. I could tell you about all the things that are included like all of my courses including Build a Beloved Membership podcast like a YouTuber, the Newsletter Masterclass. You get a complimentary copy of Creator hq, our operating system built in notion. But the best thing is the people incredibly generous, incredibly kind, incredibly smart and accomplished people are in the Lab. I could go on and on about this, but just know there is nothing more important to me than continuing to make the Lab the absolute best community for professional creators. You can join the basic tier now which is an absolute bargain or you can apply to join our standard or VIP tiers. Just visit creatorscience.comlab to learn more and get started. That's creatorscience.comlab. it's in the show Notes. I hope to see you there. If you know me, you know I'm obsessed with branding. A clear, unique brand is such a differentiator in an attention economy that's getting more competitive all the time. Your brand is in everything you do, including your domain name. But when creators start selling products, they often get stuck behind some long awkward URL like courses.creatorscience.com it's hard to say, hard to remember, and ultimately it weakens your brand. And that's where store domains come into play. A.com domain can be anything but when you hear DudePerfect store, you know it's a store. I picked up my own store domain creatorscience Store, so I can quickly tell people where they can buy some of my most popular products. It's my name, my brand store. And I'm not alone. Store domains are used by more than 1.5 million sellers, including top creators like Mr. Beast, Colin and Samir and Zach King. It does not get more direct than your brand store, and it doesn't just sound cool, it actually helps you sell more. Here's the best part. Store Domains has a special offer for Creator Science listeners to secure your branded store domain for just 99 cents. For the first year, just visit Creators Store J and use coupon code J at checkout. That's Creators Store Jay and use coupon code jay again J A Y to secure your very own store branded URL. And now back to my conversation with Mark Manson.

[Mark Manson]

I want to talk about this insight you had about a lot of the channels that you talk to. They make great videos, they get a lot of views, but then there's not a lot on the back end. I kind of think of it as like front of house and back of house. I've always seen myself as a great back of house operator and I've really had to push myself to figure out how do I get people to actually care and pay attention. So I've gone in reverse. And that's nice because then any gains you have on the attention front, you see a direct correlated return on the back end. But curious, from your standpoint, what should YouTubers be thinking in terms of after I get the view, what really should I be doing to build a business on the back of this channel?

[Colin]

Oh, man, where do I start? Okay, the first thing to realize is that generally speaking, the monetization on YouTube is actually not great. YouTube as a business, financially, on its own, having a popular channel, even doing brand sponsorships, you're not getting paid super well for the amount of eyeballs and audience that you're generating. So even if you not even talking about backend products or creating some sort of funnel or coaching or consulting or whatever, even like diversifying your platforms, like podcasting, for example, is financially way superior. You get paid way more per unit of effort for a podcast than you do for a YouTube video. Newsletters, potentially, you can get paid way more per unit of effort than you do for a YouTube video. So I think the first thing YouTubers should start thinking about once they've built that initial audience is like, okay, how can I diversify my platforms so that I can monetize on more fronts? And YouTube's superpower is audience discovery. Its weakness is audience monetization. The second thing is to start thinking of your audience over the long term. I think a big trap that younger creators or newer creators fall into quite frequently is that they get so caught up on that cycle of just like, oh, let's get the next viral hit out, let's do the next, like, what's the new trendy thing? Let's put the next thing out that's going to get a million views. A lot of times you can burn your audience out. You can burn the trust and credibility that you've built with your audience. And so maybe you get more views in the short run, but because you're harming your reputation with your audience members, they don't stick around as long or they're going to trust you less and they're going to be less likely to buy from you. So I really think it's important to don't judge each video or piece of content purely on the views that it gets in and of itself. Think about the quality of those views as well. Are these views from people who are likely to stick around and see another video? Are these views from people who are likely to sign up for your newsletter or buy something from you. Because a lot of times optimizing for high quality views is going to be a very different video than simply optimizing for quantity of views. And then finally, I think it's really important to understand, once you've built that audience, maybe you've launched a newsletter or something, you've developed more engagement with them. Really think about what problems your audience members have in their life, what is a solution that you could provide for them, and find some sort of product or service that you can do to provide for it. I mean, you don't have to launch your own products or services, but ultimately it is the best form of monetization that you can develop for yourself. It's going to be the most stable, the most dependable, and it's also, if done very, very well, it's going to bring in the most revenue by far.

[Mark Manson]

Couldn't agree more with all of this. There's a bit of a chicken and the egg situation that I think a lot of creators have where they make videos because they want to make videos. And if we are to believe that YouTube is a great recommendation engine for bringing you new audience and it'll continue to get better and better, there is this underlying need to kind of package yourself, your channel as the place for something and that will inform what videos you make, that will inform what products that you make. But when should people really be polishing that part? You know, when, when should people really be thinking about what is this channel about, what is this business about? What am I about? How early in the process?

[Colin]

I think it should be something you're working towards from very early on. I actually think that the process that a creator goes through is very, very similar to the process that a startup goes through. It's just that the product is different and the testing is different. So if you look in the startup world, obviously everything starts with an idea. Bunch of founders get together, they've got an idea for a product, but everybody kind of understands that nine times out of 10, that initial idea is not what actually works. And so in the startup world, they'll go, maybe they raise a little bit of money from their friends or their family and they start testing their product ideas. So they create a little piece of software, they launch it, they share it on Twitter and LinkedIn and send it out to their friends or whatever, get some feedback. Doesn't work. So then they iterate on it, change a little bit, send it out again, see if that gets anything. Doesn't work. They get feedback, tweak it again. They go through that cycle probably 5, 10, sometimes even 20 times, and then eventually they find something that it takes off. People start recommending it to their friends, they start recommending it to their coworkers. Suddenly you get all these people that they've never heard of before signing up for people, and Lithuania and Australia are suddenly signing up for it, and they're like, oh, wow, okay, we found something, right? And that moment when that happens in the startup world, it's called product market fit. It's essentially you have found a product that solves a problem for a market, and that means that you can make. You are very likely going to make a bunch of money. And that's the moment then that startup founders usually go and raise money, raise investment so that they can scale. That product creator goes through a very similar process, right? Let's say you want to start a TikTok channel or a YouTube channel or a substack. It could be anything. And you have an idea of what you want to create. Nine times out of 10, that initial idea of what you want to create is not actually what's going to work, but you have to start there because it gets that virtuous cycle going of, okay, you put out the video ideas that you had. Nobody really watched them, but your friends gave you some feedback and it gave you an idea for a different video. And so then you put out a couple new videos of that different idea and you start going through that cycle. And then sure enough, it's around idea 8, 9, or 10 that you find, I call it content audience fit instead of product market fit, but you find content audience fit of like, boom, okay, this one took off. And suddenly I'm getting viewers from Lithuania and Australia and all these people I've never heard of or commenting and messaging me. And that's a really exciting moment. And that's kind of whatever that thing is, that's what you double down on and you start scaling up. And I think that is the moment once you found the content audience fit, that's the moment that you really start thinking seriously about what you're talking about, which is like, how do I brand this? What is the. What is the message? Like, what does this channel stand for, essentially? And I think getting that right is kind of part of unlocking the next step.

[Mark Manson]

I was at VidSummit this year and there was a creator named Hopescope there, and she talked about when she was starting her channel, she was making vlogs, and then she made a video about leggings, reviewing leggings and then that hit super hard, and suddenly the majority of her audience came from a leggings video. And now she starts making leggings videos. And implicitly, this just kind of becomes what she is. And when she wanted to get out of that, she had to be very thoughtful for a very long period of time to basically slowly change the direction of the ship so that she kept some people going in this direction, but also, like, she didn't completely confuse YouTube in this direction. So there is, like, some risk of if you aren't being thoughtful about the content or the audience for a piece, if you're not thinking about the audience for a piece of content you're making and you don't want to make more of that, if it goes well, which you would think is the best outcome, suddenly you're in, like, a worse position. Actually, yes, it's.

[Colin]

People don't think about this until after it happens. But there is a world where you actually build an audience that you don't want to have, and you can do this unintentionally, starting out like the example you gave. I've also noticed that a lot of times, especially in the podcasting world, there's a concept called audience capture, which is essentially, people start. Creators start noticing. They're like, hey, when I talk about this really fringe, controversial subject, a ton of new people come in. It goes viral in these kind of obscure sub niches, and so they start hitting on that controversial topic over and over again. Well, it brings in this kind of crazy town audience that nobody likes, and then it scares out their core audience. And next thing you know, your brand, you are known for that kind of crazy, fringe, controversial topic. And I can't tell you, I'm sure you've met plenty of creators, too, Jay, that in private, when you talk to them about their business, one of the first things they say is like, man, I got to get out of this. Like, I don't know how I got to pivot out. I need to, like, rebrand. I need to launch something different. I can't tell you how many, I guess you would call them, golden handcuff situations creators can find themselves in because they have either committed to a topic or a format that they're. They don't actually. They're not super well suited to, but it generates views, it generates money. They go out and hire a bunch of people, and now they got to meet payroll, and they just feel like they can't stop. They feel like they're stuck.

[Mark Manson]

And you can wind down a channel, but you can't wind down a cultural perception of who you are, you know what I mean? So it's really kind of scary. And I'm putting it out there because in this pursuit of content audience fit, I could see people just kind of throwing spaghetti at the wall without thinking, like, if this goes as well as it could go, am I happy with that future? Yeah, and I think that's a good question.

[Jay Clouse]

And it goes in the inverse too.

[Mark Manson]

Like on our channel, our lowest performing videos in terms of views are like the videos where it's just me and my producer talking about stuff. But those videos also tend to have the highest avd. People stick around the longest, the people.

[Jay Clouse]

Who choose to watch it.

[Mark Manson]

And we know like those videos are not going to bring in new audiences, but we also know it's serving a fundamental purpose for the channel, for the business because it's developing a deeper relationship with the people in the audience who do want that.

[Colin]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean it's, I've always thought of this in terms of there's growth oriented content and there's engagement oriented content. And very often it's hard, it's very hard to optimize for both of those things in the same piece of content. So like, generally the things that are going to get the most reach don't develop the deepest relationship. And then oftentimes the things that develop the deepest relationship don't get a lot of reach. And I think it's really important to diversify your content. I think the temptation is to just constantly grow at all costs and just try to hit bigger numbers every single time. But ultimately, again, coming back to that concept of fostering a relationship with your audience and thinking about your audience not in terms of how many people are going to view this video, but it's how many people are going to view the next 20 videos and how likely is this piece of content to promote future viewership? So yeah, you definitely, you want some sort of mix of both and there needs to be like a ratio of both within your content.

[Mark Manson]

We've had Patty Galloway on the show a couple times. You've maybe met Patti, great consultant for YouTube growth in particular, and he's a self proclaimed views maximizer. And I think view maximization is typically best served for an advertising based business where you're really trying to drive views for a third party. Whereas if you're diversifying your revenue streams and you're selling your own products or your own services, view maximization may not be the strategy that makes the most sense for the channel.

[Colin]

It's funny because we've actually run into this in our own business. So I never took ads or did ads for basically up until a year and a half ago. And I, because I was investing so much in scaling YouTube and the podcast and I was hiring a bunch of people, I was like, you know, we should bring more revenue in. And then also I kind of figure I'm like, over the long run, if I'm going to be in this space for the long haul, like, I should really understand how brand sponsorships work and advertising works and build some relationships with some agencies and some sponsors. So we started doing brand taking brand sponsorships about a year and a half ago and I kind of had the same assumption as you. I was like, let's just get as many views as possible. You know, let's. And because the more views, the higher, the more we can charge the brands and then the more money we make. That's true for the first year. What happens is those brands come back and they're like, hey, so those 50,000 people you sent to our website, only 100 of them actually bought our products. So we're actually not going to pay you. We're not going to re up for the next year, but if you're willing to sell to us for a lower rate, we might consider it. And so you actually start running into the same problem, which is if you're attracting viewers who don't buy anything, eventually the brands are going to leave as well because they need to pay their bills too. So I do think there's a little bit more kind of intermediation that happens between the sponsors. And also there are some brand sponsors who just don't seem to give a shit. They don't seem to check or care how much traffic you send or don't send. But for the majority of them, they, they will eventually look and do the math and come back to you and be like, hey, your audience isn't buying our stuff, so thank you, but we're out of here.

[Mark Manson]

Yeah, there are, there are some brands. There's like a, there's like a barbell, I think, or maybe it's the wrong way. Maybe it's a, maybe it's a, an exponential curve or something. But there's, there are some brands that they have a huge budget that's all about eyeballs and they're just trying to allocate that in as few of places as possible to like lower the amount of time they're spending on it. I heard, like Jordan Harbinger's podcast, he's got McDonald's and progressive and it's like, what a wonderful place to get if you want to be sponsored by those brands. Where it's like mostly you reach a ton of people. We're trying to reach a ton of people. We'll sponsor you. But you're right in that most brands are running a math problem and saying money in versus money out. We sponsored you for this amount. What was the outcome of that? And I think a lot of YouTubers, they will optimize for getting the first.

[Jay Clouse]

Brand deal or the first deal with.

[Mark Manson]

A brand, and they create this revolving door of new brands trying it for the first time, but they haven't figured out the right pricing to actually build a relationship with the brand either. So how do you think about that now? How do you think about pricing and what brands you work with now you've had this experience?

[Colin]

Well, it's funny because I'm actually going to stop doing brand sponsorships in 2025, but most of that is just personal. We could keep doing it, but I've just found that I don't enjoy it and I would rather promote my own stuff, release my own products and promote my own stuff. But I would say that the biggest lessons that I've learned is again, coming back to that message of thinking long term because I did the same thing. I'm like, oh, wow, Shopify wants to buy 18 ads over the next six months. Hell yeah, let's go for it. Not thinking at all about conversion rates or is my ad read good? Is the CTA solid? Am I actually sending them any traffic or not? Does my audience even care about Shopify? Like, not. None of that stuff is going into my head. I'm just like, hell yeah, Shopify wants to give me money. Which I think is. That's kind of the standard creator, creator reaction when, when those emails come in. So if I was to keep doing it, I think, well, and this is. We already started doing this probably four or five months ago. Is getting much stricter on, like, which brands we accept because if you accept a brand that your audience doesn't like, it's actually bad for both of you. It's bad for the brand because they just spent a bunch of money and didn't get any return for it. And it's bad for you because now you're promoting a thing that your audience doesn't care about and it makes you look bad. So it's a lose, lose situation. And it's actually better to. I think the right approach is if I was to Keep doing it. I would really try to zero in on like six or eight brands that my audience likes that I like and try to build a relationship with them over the long term. Maybe give them a little bit of a sweeter deal early on and, and just establish that trust and that reliability and then do some sort of long term, like one year deal, two year deal down the road.

[Mark Manson]

Because there's a little bit of a right sizing too. Like there's the, there's the brand audience fit, but then there's a right sizing of what the cost of the product is and the lifetime value of a customer. Where if you have a small channel and you're promoting, you know, meundies, that's a ton of units you might have to move to cover a several thousand dollars sponsorship. You know, whereas you're selling a larger product or a SaaS product that has recurring revenue, they might be able to sponsor you and get a return for fewer conversions. Maybe this is your experience too, because we're also thinking about not doing ads on the channel. I find myself being pulled through the content production process by deadlines that I've promised to sponsors that were too aggressive and it has a negative impact on the content as a whole.

[Colin]

Totally.

[Mark Manson]

And it's not a great relationship with a sponsor then because they're like, where's this video? And it's like, well, do you want.

[Jay Clouse]

A shit video or do you want.

[Mark Manson]

The video that we want to make and can you give us another couple of weeks? It just like puts a lot of pressure on the situation where again, if you are selling your own products and services, you don't have to have that conversation. And also your audience is going to trust something made by you if they're watching your channel more than a third party.

[Colin]

Yeah, we've definitely run into those issues as well. I mean, I think people, I think creators, you underestimate the admin headache.

[Mark Manson]

I definitely did, yeah.

[Colin]

I mean, it's funny because it's actually very similar. I ran into this like in my, in my publishing career, I ran into. It's a very similar thing with speaking. I don't know how much speaking you've done, but you know, when that email comes in, basically the email is like, we want to give you. And then it's a large amount of money. And that's kind of where your brain seems to stop because you're like, that's so easy. And I was speaking, I used to notice this. I'm like, hell, I just fly to Nashville and talk for 30 minutes. And I make all this money like, oh, my God, that's so easy. And what your brain doesn't think about is all of the admin and overhead, all of the email chains, the approvals, the confirmations. You got to send them your slides a couple weeks before. You got to do your pre event meeting. You got to do your sound check, your VIP meet and greet. There's 8 million things that you don't think about that you have to do. And next thing you know, you just wasted four days on, you know, the speaking for 30 minutes. And I think it's very similar with brand sponsorships as well. Like that initial email comes in. You know, Shopify wants to give you a bunch of money and you don't think about like, okay, I'm gonna have to. The amount of email chains, the approvals that you have to go through, the deadlines that you set when it's like your editor gets sick, and so the video's gonna have to be pushed back a week. So now you've gotta, like, go back to the sponsor and explain to them and get their approval again. And, oh, well, it turns out that they don't like the single word you used in your ad read. So now you got to go, like.

[Mark Manson]

Get a haircut for continuity. Then you got to sit down and rerecord.

[Colin]

You got to wash the shirt that you wore because it's in the laundry. You know, it's. It gets. It's such a pain in the ass sometimes. And yeah, you don't think about that overhead. The other thing, I mean, I. You raise a really good point about the unit sales, which is something that, yeah, it's. You don't think about very much. Again, it's like thinking about what the sponsor's needs are and then trying to cater to those. Because, like, for. For example, if you're selling a sleep eight mattress, which is. Or eight sleep mattress, which is like, I think three or $4,000 per unit, that ad read should probably be different than me undies, which is like $20 per unit or $15 per unit. But again, as a creator, you don't really care, so you don't really think that hard about it. Whereas it's actually very, very important to those sponsors. The other thing that I'll add that we ran into a lot is my audience is extremely international. So, I mean, it varies per platform. But on YouTube, it's 25 to 30% U.S. i think of it U.S. and Canada is, I think, 35 to 40%. And then the rest is International. So it's like two thirds of my audience is international, but there's a lot of brands that don't sell internationally. And we ran into this over and over again that they would buy an ad spot for our standard rate. They'd get really bad results, they'd come back to us and then we'd have a discussion and they're like, well, we don't sell in Australia and we don't sell in India and we don't sell in Brazil and we don't sell in Spain, like all these countries that I have a lot of audience in. So that's another thing of like being careful what audience you're building and like what the marketability of that audience is.

[Jay Clouse]

When we come back, Mark lays out how YouTubers can professionalize their business and.

[Mark Manson]

What the future of YouTube holds. So don't go anywhere. We'll be right back.

[Jay Clouse]

And now please enjoy the rest of.

[Mark Manson]

My conversation with Mark Manson. So if I'm listening to this and I'm feeling like maybe my business behind a YouTube channel is not very sophisticated, what do you think my best next steps should be?

[Colin]

I think if you're new and starting out, let's say you are at the point you've hired your first couple employees, you just quit your job recently, you're kind of in that stage. I think the best thing you can do is just simply educate yourself, go out and buy all the popular business books, buy the books on management, start watching YouTube videos, start following some business people. You have to treat this as a business because it is. Ultimately you have to be a grown up. You have to think about taxes, you have to think about payroll, you have to think about cash flow. You should learn all these things. Learn what, what LTV means. What's the lifetime value of your, your, your average customer? And, and what's the lifetime value of a newsletter subscriber? What's the lifetime value of a YouTube subscriber? Like, you should be thinking about these things if you want to have the longevity because I mean, it's again, being, being in this space for almost 20 years. Like most, I'd say at least half of creators who blow up and build an audience, they don't last for more than five or six years. And in most cases they did themselves in. They either destroyed their brand or reputation over chasing numbers or they didn't manage their money and screwed up the business side of things and they went broken. Take it very, very seriously.

[Mark Manson]

I think the opportunity that people don't realize when they get monetized on YouTube, you know, they get the YouTube partner program, like I'm getting monetized now. And yeah, you're getting a 55% split.

[Jay Clouse]

Of AD revenue, which is better than any other platform. But still, why would YouTube give you that?

[Mark Manson]

You know, how much is the attention worth that you're bringing to the platform? Probably quite a bit. And so, you know, the more you can do to weaponize, monetize that attention for your business, the better off you're going to be.

[Colin]

Yes.

[Mark Manson]

Given that you see that there's still a huge future for YouTube, you think it's early innings, it would stand to reason that a lot of other people will probably rush to the platform over the years also. So what are you doing now to try to stay ahead of the curve of what's going to be a successful business as a channel over the next five, 10 years?

[Colin]

There are two things that pop to mind. One of the things that I'm doing is I am, I'm trying to think of where the audience taste is going to be. The average YouTube viewer is quite young. Like most YouTube power users are probably teenagers or early 20s and they don't have a ton of money. They haven't lived, you know, they haven't had a career yet, they haven't been married yet, they haven't bought a house yet. All those kind of typical life stage stuff. I'm an older guy. My core audience is people in their 30s, late 20s to early 40s, and that's generally who I appeal to. So I'm trying to pay attention of these tens of millions of YouTube viewers who are today, they're watching Mr. Beast or Ryan Trahan. What are they going to be interested in seeing, say five years from now and when they're getting their first job or having their first kid? And how can I appeal to those sensibilities? How can I be already excellent at that by the time they get there? So that's what I'm focusing on. And so it's actually this kind of comes back to the, this ties into the discussion around long term value of an audience. A lot of the things that I'm working on right now are probably suboptimal for generating viewership today, but I think that they are going to be optimal for viewership, say over the next 10 years. One of the things we're working on is getting really good at a documentary style format. And today that is definitely suboptimal. But I think five years from now we'll be just completely ahead of the curve. So that's one way I'm approaching it. The other way I'm approaching it is understanding that I do think as these platforms get more saturated and more competitive, it's going to get harder and harder for people to break through. And as somebody who has already broken through and has built a pretty vast audience, I'm thinking about ways to, I guess, finance or help smaller creators come along. I'm very interested in ideas around creator incubators. Finding a bunch of really talented creators who have developed a small audience, but they still haven't put all the pieces together. They don't have the business side figured out. They don't know anything about it. They've just found that content audience fit, but they're still struggling to scale it. If I can find a bunch of creators kind of in that spot, come in, accelerate their growth drastically, say over the next three to four years, but then kind of bring them under a larger umbrella, almost like a studio system or something, I think there's going to be a lot of opportunity for those sorts of business ventures. So I'm. I'm thinking about that a lot, and I'm in some early talks around that, but I think we're going to start seeing more of that down the road.

[Mark Manson]

How did you land on documentary as a format that you think is interesting in the future?

[Colin]

Trying to think how long I want my answer to be up to you.

[Mark Manson]

You're already giving me bonus time. I'll let you go as soon as you want.

[Colin]

No, man, no. This is a great question and this is something I've thought about a lot. I'll start with a theory and then I'll kind of get more into just explanation. I think when you look at YouTube. So again, the monetization on YouTube is not great. Like the amount of dollars per eyeball that's being generated, if you compare it to like Disney or Netflix, it's minuscule. But you make up for that in distribution, right? It's way easier to get, say, 10 million eyeballs on YouTube than it is on Netflix or Disney. As an average person, maybe if you're like Scorsese or something, it's not. That means that YouTube is. It makes sense that the best business models on YouTube are going to replicate the formats, the type of video content that is cheapest to make and has the widest appeal. And I think it makes sense to me why Mr. Beast blew up doing essentially reality TV format, because reality TV is extremely cheap to make and it has extremely wide appeal. And so the Mr. Beast era of YouTube totally makes sense in that regard, you are tapping into the highest leverage video content format and just taking advantage of the wider distribution. I think somewhere up there is a documentary format. Documentaries are relatively cheap to make. You can make a really high end documentary for a million bucks, two million bucks, and then if you get rid of all the Hollywood bullshit, you can probably make one for 100k. But it's hard to get that distribution. There's 8,000 documentaries on Netflix or something and most of them haven't been viewed by barely anybody. So if you can create a really, really good documentary that targets a niche audience, you can take advantage of the distribution and the discovery of the YouTube platform and generate a very large audience. So I very much see documentaries as kind of being. I don't know if it's the next step or the next phase, but I see it. It's another high leverage format of video content. And when I think about, okay, if the average YouTube power user today is 19 or 20 years old, what sort of content are they going to want to watch when say they're 25, 26? I think documentaries is probably up there, right? Interesting. I think young adults are probably very strong documentary consumers and also I love making them. We tried a bunch of different formats and the documentary format was like the one. I guess as a nonfiction writer it makes sense, but it was the one format that I was like, this is a ton of fun, I could do this forever. So the combination of all those things is why I'm betting really heavily on it. I do think people are eventually going to get really sick of just kind of the talking head style guy at a desk giving you these five productivity tips or whatever. And there's eventually going to be a demand for something with a little bit more depth, a little bit more story, something a little bit more engaging. And I think a documentary format can fit that content extremely well and essentially deliver the same benefits, but in a way more engaging way.

[Mark Manson]

Yeah, that's interesting. If I were to guess, I would have thought you would have said something along the lines of because you have a relative head start on the platform and because you have resources to invest, investing in a higher effort, more difficult medium, and getting good at that before other people do will give you a lead and a moat on the back end.

[Colin]

Yes, that's a huge part of it as well. The problem, as someone in the self help space and the life advice space, the biggest problem on YouTube at the moment is that anything I create that hits and does really well, eight other people just immediately make the same video sometimes with the exact same title, same hook, intro, everything. It's happened to me probably three or four times already in the last two years. So. And I see it happening among other people in my space as well. And we've, you know, ripped and done versions of other people's stuff. Like, it's just anything. Any new innovation, any new concept, any new packaging that does well in my space, it event it. Like, within a month, eight other people have done basically the exact same video. And I just. I look at that and I'm like, audiences are going to get sick of it. If they're not already. The audiences are going to get really tired of it. So I've already been thinking, like, what is something that when I do and it hits, is, like, not easily replicable, that other people would. It's a massive learning curve that I've already climbed it. And other people are going to be like, oh, my God, it's going to take me two, three years to figure that out. So that's part of the strategy as well.