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Social Media Decoded
From Credit to Content: How Calvin Russell Jr. Uses YouTube to Drive Leads and Build Wealth
00:34:14
In this episode, Calvin Russell Jr. shares how he turned YouTube into a lead-generating machine for his credit and real estate business. He breaks down simple strategies for improving credit, building wealth, and creating consistent content that attracts the right audience.
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- [00:00]
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- [01:19]
Calvin Russell Jr.
Then I transitioned to caring about views and I got less clients and I said wait a minute, how can I get both? And so that's what people have to understand. You can get numbers, you can potentially go viral. So to me Viral is probably like 1 million, I don't know. But since that time and me just giving my core audience what they want to see, now it's easier to make a video that gets a hundred thousand views.
- [01:42]
Michelle Thames
Hey hey. Welcome to the Social Media Decoded Podcast, the Go to podcast for entrepreneurs and business owners who want to grow their brand, increase visibility and make more money without the overwhelm. I'm your host Michelle Thames, marketing strategist, business coach and the person who's here to give you the real no fluff strategies to help you succeed online. Each week I bring you expert insights, actionable tips, and real talk about what's actually working in social media and digital marketing. Whether you're just starting or scaling the six figures, you're in the right place. So grab your coffee or Matcha if you're like me and let's dive into today's episode. All right. I am so excited today because today you you all know I get excited when we have special guests and we talking about some YouTube stuff. Okay? Talking about keeping it real, building visibility, growing your brand and Turning online traffic into actual profit. And today's guest is doing exactly that. And not with 1 million followers, but with strategy, consistency and value. Today I am talking to Calvin Russell Jr. And we actually went to college together, y'. All. We were just talking about this, right? And the CEO of 850 Club Credit, right, it's a FICO certified credit expert and real estate investor. Business. Right. Business builder and content creator who has turned YouTube into a daily lead machine for his business. So today is going to be a little different. We talking credit education, real estate, business systems, and most importantly, how you can build a six figure brand through video content. Okay. Without ever going viral. So if you want to stop guessing and start using YouTube to actually get clients and close deals, this episode is for you. So you already know the drill. Get your pens and your notepads ready because gems are about to be dropped. Calvin, you welcome to the show.
- [03:33]
Calvin Russell Jr.
Listen, thanks for having me. I greatly appreciate it. Michelle. Listen, I've seen a lot of people come on here dropping gems along the way, and I'm just glad to be a part of the lineup. Thanks for the invite. Yes.
- [03:42]
Michelle Thames
I'm excited for today's episode. So let's get right into it. Let's talk about the business behind the brand because you got a lot going on, like me. Okay. Credit coaching, real estate, YouTube. So take us back to the beginning. How did 850 Club Credit come to life?
- [03:58]
Calvin Russell Jr.
Yeah, so I don't know if you remember the platform. Periscope. You remember that?
- [04:02]
Michelle Thames
Oh, man.
- [04:03]
Calvin Russell Jr.
Right? Don't we all? So a little bit before Periscope, I actually was writing blogs. My wife introduced me to blog writing and she was writing for a lot of people. And then she says, you know what, you should start blogging. And I was like, you know, let me start doing this. And so I started writing blogs and stuff like that. Then I started reaching out to some people. And long story short, I was really just tired of just typing. I was like, you know what, I'm really a talker, so let me just drop a couple videos. And so at the time, Periscope was hot. And so I put a couple videos on Periscope. And the issue was people kept saying, man, I missed the Periscope. And that was the thing about Periscope. It didn't last long. Like as far as the, you know, the videos were up for like 48 hours or something like that. It was like the first version of Snapchat, really. And either way, the videos went away. And then people said, hey, can you post it again. I posted again on Periscope and you know, same thing happened. It was always a different group of people that just kept missing the video. And so I said, you know what, what platform can I put videos on without people like saying that they missed it or whatever? And I was like, Duh, YouTube. Now mind you, let me take you back. This was in 2015. The channel will be 10 years old this September, believe it or not. And so did that. And I started putting video. I took those same exact videos actually and put them on YouTube. I didn't care about orientation. I didn't care, man, the mic was horrible. I'm talking quality was trash. You think about it, it was there. But that my first video I think now today has like 48,000 views or something like that. And it just is what we call, it's an evergreen video. So it answers a question that people have all the time. And that was how to buy a car with a 650 credit score or lower. And people watch it every single year. And that's how it started. Wow.
- [05:45]
Michelle Thames
Okay, okay, look, you don't need the best mic, you don't need the best anything. What I just heard you say is.
- [05:51]
Calvin Russell Jr.
Just start, just start. Really. I think a lot of times what I like to tell people is, you know, we try to colle this, right? We think we need this, we think we need this, we think we need this. And in reality, in today's world, people are replacing old fashioned television, old fashioned entertainment media into the palm of their hand. Right now everything is controlled media. And so people just want to connect with people on a social level. But at the same time, they're really just looking for consistency. It doesn't matter what you're talking about, people will find you. And at the end of the day, if you're just, if you start off being consistent, I think some people are kind of watering down. Consistency, you do need quality, but consistency first. Even if you suck, people will expect to see a horrible video the next week. But if, even if you're amazing, right? It's like, when is the next video coming out? You know? So I say consistency comes first.
- [06:45]
Michelle Thames
Yep. Consistency is the key. And another thing is people think that they need to go viral or have 100,000 followers to make money on YouTube. And I know that's not true. So please break it down how your channel consistently brings in leads for your business.
- [07:00]
Calvin Russell Jr.
Yeah, so it's a couple different things. One, I didn't even realize this until I think until we made, I made the second YouTube course during my second YouTube course, that's when I really broke down and I realized, I said, wait a minute, we're at 50. At the time it was like 48,000 subscribers. And it took us eight years. The channel be 10 years. It took me eight years to get to 48,000 subscribers. But I want to pause on that real quick. I don't want you guys to think it take eight years to get there. It doesn't. Here's my thing. I didn't care about subscribers. I still kind of don't. In a sense I care about more. I do care about video performance, which does bring in views, which does bring in those subscribers to follow. However, back then I did the math and here's the thing, Michelle. From 2017 to 2021, my wife and I brought in over $2.4 million just from having 48,000 subscribers. Now here's the crazy part. YouTube on average was paying me three to four hundred dollars a month during that time frame. Probably like from 2018 to like 2021. So. And it literally paid off. My car, every time the check would come in from YouTube, I literally had it automatically going straight to, you know, the bank account that the car was being, the car note was taken out of. So I'm saying that to say people have no idea how powerful YouTube is because like for example, a traditional cable television channel like espn, you have to go to espn, you have to click, you have to save, you have to put it in your favorites, you know, so that's traditional television. With YouTube, if you watch anything that has to do with any of the topics that I've talked about, it will find you because it'll say, hey, you just looked at this. Which that means you may be interested in this because other people that looked at these topics were interested in this guy's channel and me, amongst others, of course. And that's when I realized that the entire time people were used to put my. I'll never forget, I put my cell phone number on like the first two or three videos and I had to take those videos down and re upload them. It was like the first three, maybe like the, maybe like the first six or so, like that video, three, four and five. I had to, that's what I did. I had to cut it out because people kept calling my phone. It was ridiculous. I was working my full time job. I was working at a dealership, best job I ever had, making over six figures a year. And I realized I started getting a phone call. It went from a phone call like A week to like a phone call a day. And Michelle, let me tell you something. I was averaging 15 to 20 calls a day and I couldn't even do my regular job. And I'm like. And people were just calling saying, man, can you help me improve my credit score? Can you help me qualify for homeownership? And you know, and then I would say, okay, let me do this. And I was scheduling consultations after 9pm I would work from 9 to 5, come home. Me and my wife have, you know, our time then around about like 9pm, 9 to midnight because there were clients that, clients that lived in Hawaii, clients that lived in California. There it's 10am, 10pm Their time. And I'm doing consultations. I'm like, oh my God, my, my schedule is just booked up. And so at the time I was making probably about half, a little less than half just from selling products to people that were coming from the traffic from YouTube. And oh my God, like today the numbers are just insane. But again, to your point, I probably had one video at that time between 2015 to like 2021, maybe 2022. I had one video do over 100,000 and it was like one video, that video did 200,000 views. It made me like, I don't know, I don't know, $200 at the time just because it. And that video wasn't even really relevant to my audience the way I know things now. But yes, you can make a full time income without even relying on AdSense. It's really not even about AdSense. AdSense is the icing on the cake. YouTube is really what people don't talk about is the strength of that YouTube algorithm. It's going to fucking find people. And don't get me wrong, people love short form. They love TikTok. But you know what people don't like? They don't like always having to find something good. And that's why Facebook and Instagram, they're now tweaking for sure. Facebook, they're tweaking their algorithm to be more like a TikTok. TikTok. See, for example, all the early social media platforms they would just look at, they would send you things based on what you said you were interested in. TikTok doesn't ask you what you're interested in. They look at how long you watch something. If you watch something for 15 seconds, 60 seconds, they say, okay, we're going to give you more of this. Facebook now does that. They look at what makes them stop scrolling. They're interested in this is it the text, is it the color? Is it the language? Is it the creator? And they're going to. And then. And while. And you haven't scrolled up yet, so you're thinking, oh, I'm just going to see more of my friends. But. Well, maybe. But you. But while you at the bottom and you haven't scrolled up yet, they're. They're calculating what you're going to see Next, just like TikTok. So they. So now it's going from what you say you're interested in to what you're actually watching. And we have to, you know, use these platforms for that, to get us in front of people that we can't reach outside of Facebook, because Facebook is friends and family. You know, back in the day, it was very common for you to leave a friend request, you know, with no response because you're like, I don't know this person. Right. But now everyone's looking for growth, which means you have to. We don't have to. But people, they want to follow you, and most of them don't know you. If you're looking to make six figures or looking to try to make. To obviously get to a million, you have to. You have to know this. You have to grow an audience outside of your friends, your family, and your neighbors. It's going to have to reach people that you never thought that you're going to be able to reach with a lot of these traditional. These traditional methods, I should say.
- [12:57]
Michelle Thames
Man, you just gave us a master class, y'. All. And Calvin actually came into my elevating empower community and broke it down for us even more. And so I was like, you have to come on the show, Calvin. So, y', all, you might want to join the elevate and empower community, too, because he definitely did a very nice video recapping for us about YouTube. But, yeah, that was good. Like, I hope y' all was taking notes. I want to move into content creation because this is a very hot topic. Okay, so I know that you turned your knowledge of credit and real estate into content that educates and converts.
- [13:30]
Calvin Russell Jr.
Yeah.
- [13:30]
Michelle Thames
I want to know what is your content creation mindset.
- [13:34]
Calvin Russell Jr.
Yeah. So to be honest with you, and people need to start using AI like, you have to use AI now. It's, you know, it's a game changer. You know, I think a lot of times people either because they don't know how to use it or because of their ego, but you're going to get left behind. And because it's not Just about someone doing something for you. I think ChatGPT is everyone's assistant, I should say, or Gemini, whatever. And saying that to say it's also understanding metrics. Don't get me wrong. Talk about what you want to talk about, but then look at the metrics and see what's performing. You know, you gotta know what's trending in your niche. If you're talking about football, you need to talk about Shadur Sanders. He's trending right now. If you're talking about politics, money, I don't have to go too deep into that. You know, Trump is always trending. So it's knowing what's working for your audience. And this is what I pay attention to is the backend. A lot of times people spend so much time just pushing out content instead of actually looking at the analytics. And so I became an analytics nerd. I watched a video, I watched an interview of someone, and I talk about this too inside of my course. And we kind of break down a lot of these things because you can use AI, but if you don't know the right prompts to put in, you're not going to get the best benefit out of all of that. So I break all that down@youtubebag.com but. But one of my strategies that I do use is, for example, when you're looking at your analytics, the number one thing you want to focus on is going to be if, of course, as it pertains to YouTube, is click through rate. Okay? That's also known as CTR. Click through rate essentially means when we give people an opportunity. It's also called like an impression. So when we put. When we show someone your thumbnail and your title, how long the video is, how old the video is, when we show you that, how quick or how not won't say necessarily how quick, but what's the chances of someone actually choosing your video? And even if your thumbnail's trash, even if your title's not all the way right, you start learning what makes people click, and then you start going into your hooks and things of that sort. And so for me, I looked at what people were clicking on the most, what were videos that people were watching longer. And I said, let me give them more of that, because I was thinking that they were interested in certain other topics. And I had no idea, Michelle, that I was actually giving them content that they were not that interested in. I didn't know that they were not interested in success stories of people that I had helped they more so was saying, hey, what can you do for me? And so what can I learn from this? And you can't forget that people want game, they want the gyms, they want to watch it and like get. They want your free information to be good or better than some paid information that they've had in the past. And once you do that, and that's a different level of thinking because we were first in the blogging era and then vlogging and videos and content creation, it was all about get them just a little bit, right? So they can kind of, you know, in hopes that it works. Now the game has changed. It's like, let me see how much you know, because, oh my God, if you're giving me this information and it's free, I could only imagine what you would give me and if I paid for something. So again, use ChatGPT. One of the prompts that I like to use is you can really just kind of give it the analytics too and say, hey, these are the titles of my best performing videos, or at least the topics. What are some similar things that I can do? What are some similar topics that I can do? And I did this, actually, I did this part of the training inside of your. When I was talking to your group as well, I said, if you could narrow down your niche in one word and just put that in the middle of the, of a sheet of paper and then circle that, and then you make another circle surrounding that first circle. And what you're doing is saying, okay, what are some sub topics? For example, my niche is personal finance. Really is personal credit. Okay. And from personal credit, some things outside of that may be business credit. Then what are some things you can do with credit? Buying a car, renting an apartment, buying a home. And then I realized that when I talk about homeownership, I get more clients, but I get less views. But back then, since I didn't care about views, that was phase one. I didn't care about views, I cared about clients. So I got low views, I got a lot of clients. Then I transitioned to caring about views and I got less clients. And I said, wait a minute, how can I get both? And so that's what people have to understand. You can get numbers, you can potentially go viral. To me, viral is probably like 1 million, I don't know. But since that time and. And me just giving my core audience what they want to see now it's easier to make a video that gets a hundred thousand views.
- [18:04]
Michelle Thames
Man, I hope y' all had y' all pens and notepads ready. Because that was good. And I am in a hundred percent agreement with you. I actually do similar things here on this podcast. I love that you said they want to hear and know that you know what you talking about. I get a lot of comments about this podcast. Like, man, Michelle, you were really able to tell me so much in five minutes. Because as you all know, my solo episodes are no more than 10 minutes long and I give you everything. I do not hold back because I do know what I'm talking about and I do want to share. And so, yeah, just imagine, like you said, when we're sharing these things on our channels that are free, Right? This podcast is free for you to listen to. I'm not charging you anything. But just imagine how you can get into my brain and get into our worlds when you hire us. Right? So I love that you said that. And another thing that you said was analytics, which I'm big on. The most listened to episodes on this podcast are about Instagram. So why do you think there are more Instagram topics that I always talk about? Because they are the most viewed and listened to. And so I will continue to talk about Instagram. It's a hot topic. People love it. People hate it. And I love to give you a different perspective on that. So I heard you say we all need to take a look at our analytics because it is important and don't keep doing extra work by just creating random videos.
- [19:23]
Calvin Russell Jr.
That's right.
- [19:24]
Michelle Thames
Look at your content, look at how it's performing and recreate that. Do not reinvent the wheel. And so that was gold. Calvin. Man, this is such a good episode. Like, I know we only got like 20 something minutes, but, man, y', all, you might have to go back and listen to this because it's just so good. Absolutely sticking to this content. And I know there are a lot of real estate people that follow me that follow this podcast, and I want to dive into this a little bit. How does content play a role in making complex information such as financial topics and mortgages and credit feel less overwhelming for people? Like, how do you make it feel less overwhelming?
- [19:59]
Calvin Russell Jr.
Yeah, you know, I think the biggest thing for me is I incorporated interviews for topics that I did not feel. I had a really like a. I had, like, that wasn't my strength or people may do it, like, for example, in my niche, or I would say personal credit, obviously, we talk about credit scores, rebuilding credit, credit cards. The list goes on. And I realized that some of the comments, this is another thing too. Read the comments. My God, you got to you got to read the comments now. Can you read everything? No. We get a hundred comments a day. I can't. I cannot keep up. I have no intentions on keeping up, so. But I do keep an eye on it. I glance at comments on a daily basis. Here's why people run from comments because they first off, there's going to be negativity, there's going to be crazy people. It's going to be people that's going to be negative. Listen, this comes with talking to the public. If you want people to be nice to you, then just keep talking to your family. Okay? So, but then if you want to make a million, guess who you got to talk to? People outside of your family. Okay, so just don't. I'll give you an example. When I was in my earlier YouTube days, people would say things like, well, you know what, man, your mic is kind of going in and out here. I was saying, oh, look at this person just being negative, complaining about my mic. And in reality, they really, they like, hey. Another way of me looking at it, the way I look at now say, hey, I really want to listen to you. I really want to watch your content, but your mic is trash. And so it's like, so take that because you know, it's crazy. You can send out an email blast to thousands of people and a lot of people won't tell you when you have errors. You know, people make posts on social media all the time. It'll have gradical errors, whatever. People won't tell you. So you're lucky that people care enough to take out their time to type and tell you that something is wrong. So you need to understand that you know as well. So that's one thing is no looking at ways to always be open to make progress and just get better. Then it kind of goes into another thing that I do to keep myself from being overwhelmed. And that kind of goes back into the interviews was finding people that are in my niche that don't mind being interviewed on topics that they specialize in. I sold cars at Nice at a dealership and I was there for six years. And long story short, I sold over 550 cars in less than four years. So I know the car business. I've sold over 200 some homes in the last couple of years. So I know how real estate works. But I'm, but there are certain banks that I don't have relationships with and I'm like, you know what, Let me bring those people in. So it felt less overwhelming because people are now Getting the information from someone else. The next thing would be again going back to AI, you know, talking to Chad GPT. I think a lot of times, you know, one of my mentors told me, well, he's not my mentor, you know, people you listen to online. And, but someone online had mentioned that, you know, Chad, GPT is only as good as the questions that you ask, right? And so I realized, I said, man, you know what I said? I start having different types of conversations with Chat GPT. If you treat them like a friend and just kind of give them more information, not just being personable, just to be personable, but more so saying, hey listen, this is what I'm looking to do. This is what I know how to do. These are the topics that I usually talk about. And it started broadening out what I could talk about. It says, hey, you could talk about this, but have you thought about this? And I didn't think about that. So it's a strategist, right? It creates that strategy. And Some people think ChatGPT is generic. And to be honest with you, a lot of times people don't master the basics. They're always looking for the new flashy thing and, and if you master the basics, like making sure you know how to make a good title, making sure you know how to make a good thumbnail, making sure you know how to get a good hook. Once you start mastering those so called basics, then you can start venturing off into everything else. But that's where, man, we're not even going to talk about where YouTube is going because people are now creating so much content. You're seeing multiple different types of videos within the same channel.
- [23:46]
Michelle Thames
It's getting crazy, man, this is so good. And shout out to Chad GPT. I just have to say something about that because you are so right. Most people are using this so basic. But me and Calvin, I know, since he just said that I'm using it like my friend, when I tell you I talk to it and it's like, yeah, Michelle, you could do this, you could do that. You're doing it because I've primed my Chat GPT to know about me and everything I do, like when it spits it back out to me, it's, it even says like, yes, girl, you're on it, you're such a ball, all these things. And I'm like, man, Chad, you really do know. So let's stop using Chat GPT, just basic you all. You have to go deep with it. You have to go like, you can't Just be surface level. You do have to prompt and really talk to it. And I think you got to be smart to use chat gbt. I think people are saying, like, oh, you're, you know, it's going to make you dumber. But my thought process is you have to know how to use it to even get what you're looking to get out of it. So.
- [24:42]
Calvin Russell Jr.
Absolutely. And another thing, Another thing too is people gotta understand. See, we. We get in this habit of trying to be the smartest person in the room, and you gotta put yourself in positions where you're learning something. I think people forget to how to be a student, and you have to keep learning because, see, the more I learn, the more I know to either ask ChatGPT or not even just ChatGPT. Really, the more that I learn, the more I can then teach my audience. And I think people just. They don't understand how leverage works. And that's why a lot of times, like, you know, it's not just about AI itself, but it's just about leveraging the information and saying, hey, audience, this is what I just learned. You know, here's some information. And instead of me spending 30 minutes or an hour putting together the outline or putting together a script, let me tell you something. We know it's crazy, Michelle. My first 1500 videos, I know it sounds crazy, but my first 1500 videos, I never used a script. I never used a script. And so now on like 30% of my videos, I use some sort of a script. And so I was. I wasn't against scripts. I just don't want to have to write it out. I was literally going off the dome and it was just. Just talking. So saying that to say it says, hey, listen, if you want to. Because I was forgetting certain things when I was just going off the dome. And so it was like, hey, if you want me to have me to mention this ebook, you know, Inside the Flow. And before you know it, you're seeing a commercial about the ebook, and then you're kind of weaving these things into the content. It's like, oh, my God, this makes so much more sense.
- [26:08]
Michelle Thames
Let me guess. You've been showing up on Instagram trying to be consistent, but your stories. Crickets. Here's the thing. Stories sell when you use them, right? So I created a free mini guide called the $200 a day story Strategy to help you start turning views into conversations and conversations into cash. Inside, I give you the exact framework that I've used to sell our offers using just Instagram stories. And voice notes, no ads, no pressure. Grab it for free at the link in the show notes or DM me the word story S T O r Y on Instagram. Your content is powerful. Let's make it also profitable. Man, that's a bar. That's a bar. Oh, this has been such a good episode. I got one more question, y'. All.
- [27:00]
Calvin Russell Jr.
Sure.
- [27:00]
Michelle Thames
I mean, you, you're gonna have to go follow Calvin because clearly he knows what he's talking about, when to YouTube and just so much more. And what I want to talk about next is one thing that might ruffle some people's feathers, because they don't like to be the face of their brand. I'm the face of my brand. You're the face of your brand.
- [27:16]
Calvin Russell Jr.
Yeah.
- [27:16]
Michelle Thames
So how do you balance being the face of your brand on YouTube while running the business, while doing all the back end growing and all the things? How do you do that?
- [27:24]
Calvin Russell Jr.
Yeah, you know, and, and I'm glad you brought that up, because this is something that I think that no one really thought about 10 years ago, 15 years ago, five years ago, or anyone that's like new to content creation is that you're making the content first. And there are some people who do go faceless first. Now you got AI avatars, you got a lot of different options. But, you know, these are things that most, most people don't commonly think about this, and you inadvertently become the face of the brand itself. And that's good. And it's bad. It's good because people can associate your face with the brand and say, oh, my God, there's a black guy talking about personal finance. You know, so then you have the other side of the coin where it's more so like, okay, people will only watch it if they see my face. And that's why I've also said, okay, let me bring in interviews, let me start doing different things. And now, and this is a gem, by the way, if, when you think YouTube channel, you think vlog, you think people just doing crazy stuff. Let me explain something to you. One very important word is called channel. And when you think, let's just think about your favorite channel before. If you go back 20 years ago, 15 years ago, what channel you would watch on TV today, whether it's HGTV, ESPN, Nickelodeon, whatever that channel is. And you realize, okay, there's a show coming on. Watch where I'm going. There's a show that comes on every 20 to 30 minutes. This is on every TV station. And so, but on YouTube, a person's not going to come out with something every 20, 30 minutes. But if you listen, watch this gym. Don't miss this. Everyone knows who Chip and Joanna Gaines is, right? Yeah. They put HGTV on their backs for, like, years, right? Here's the deal. She just came out with a YouTube channel, but it's not a regular YouTube channel. And she's on this YouTube channel. She makes a video every week. But here's what people don't understand. She has six other playlists that also drop videos every single week. So that means she has a video dropping every single day. Just like tv. Now, we not going to spend time talking about Diddy, right? But here's something that he did pick up on with Revolt, okay? Is that he has drink Champs. He had Caresha, Please. Not he himself, but he created that platform because he saw where this was going. Watch where I'm going with this. Here's the issue that Revolt has. It's too many different audiences. The same audience that could watch as Caresha, please. They don't want to be notified when a drink Champs is coming on. That's a completely different ratchet audience, okay? So it's. It's different. And so that's where things are going. And I also want to leave this gem in here, too. You. When you're doing your. When you're making your content creation, you got to make sure you're leaving a call to action, you know? So, for example, if I'm talking about personal credit, I'm then saying, hey, make sure you go ahead and download the ebook. Or if I'm talking about YouTube, I'm saying, hey, make sure you go to youtubebag.com so you can learn how to make a hundred thousand dollars a year on YouTube. See how I just did that? So it goes right into the content itself. Because let's be honest, people watch people not just for education and entertainment. They're looking for direction. Okay? When Michelle goes to an event and she learns something, she brings her notebook, she brings her tablet, she brings her computer, because she's looking for direct. And so people are looking for direction. So when you tell them, hey, listen, download this ebook, watch my. Watch this video, sign off my webinar, sign off my course, or whatever that is. Get the free, you know, worksheet, whatever, then. Then that's the whole point, because people are waiting for you to tell them what's next. So when you make content, think about that. When who I'm making this for, for my audience, but they're going to ask me what's Next. What's my next step? You have to give people the next step. Will everybody do it? No, don't spend time on the people that don't. You want to spend time on the do and keep making that better. Spend more time making not only your content better. Working, you know, and then working on your equipment. Getting better mics, getting different things. Like if you go back to my videos, there was this setup. My wife set all this up. She says this is the setup you need. Right? Then I start. We start getting mics and a better camera and you. So you gotta level up your stuff too. Because now the game is going beyond consistency. Now it's going into quality. When you start looking, I'll give you a perfect example. I know your audience doesn't watch this because you got sophisticated people that watch your podcast and your channels and such. But for those that may have those ratchet moments when they watch Drew Ski Finds Love, they'll see that there's a lot of high production and things like that. So production is now. Quality is now gonna be the next game.
- [31:48]
Michelle Thames
Man. Man, Calvin, you just dropped a whole masterclass in building an online business that actually works. I am just. Look, I was taking notes. This has been a great episode. But before we wrap, I know you already talking about the YouTube bag. I definitely am about to type that in after this episode. But tell people where they can connect with you, subscribe to your YouTube channel or even get help on their credit and home buying goals, if that's what they're looking for.
- [32:12]
Calvin Russell Jr.
Absolutely. So the main channel is 8,50 club credits. You can find us right there on YouTube. Join the Family is over 140,000 of us just watching the videos and learning. We do interviews, we do live, you know, streams, and of course we have pre recorded recorded content and shorts as well. So there's always something going on on the channel if you are looking to improve your YouTube game and just really turn YouTube into a reliable income stream. And when I say reliable, we're talking two months ago, the channel did 11,000. Last month the channel did 9,800. So again, this is. It's real. And let me tell you all something. This is people just watching the content for three to four minutes. What happens if you get someone to watch it for 10 minutes? What hap. What happens then? So I'm telling you, this is one of the easiest bags of our lifetime is content creation. Pick your platform, master that platform, but do no long form. When people watch longer, there's more ads that are being shown. There's more money to be spread out. No one goes to YouTube to see what YouTube posted. No one cares what Mark Zuckerberg posted. They go to see what the content creators are actually put. Content creation is the world. Nothing goes on nowadays without content creators. And so just something to keep in mind. And of course, if you're looking to do that and take your YouTube business to the next level, you can go to youtubebag. Com and I'm on also on Instagram @ Mr. Park.
- [33:36]
Michelle Thames
Y', all, if you're ready to build a real business using video and strategy, not vanity metrics, this episode is your blueprint. So go ahead and rewind. Share this with somebody because this was just way too, too valuable. I'm always super appreciative of guests like you, Calvin, who do not hold back and do not gatekeep, because that is what this whole podcast is about. So listen, y', all, take notes and make sure you tag us at Mr. Park850 and at Michelle L. Thames. And also tag the podcast at the social media decoded pod with your biggest takeaway from this episode, because I know you got one. And if you're listening on Spotify, go ahead and leave a comment on how fire this episode was. Matter of fact, put some fire emojis in there and I might just do a giveaway. Okay, so thank you so much, Calvin, for this episode. This was awesome and I'm just so excited. I'm going to have to re listen to this one because it was just that good. All right, y', all, I will.
- [34:31]
Calvin Russell Jr.
Absolutely. Thanks for having me.
- [34:32]
Michelle Thames
No, thank you. And I will talk to y' all in the next one. Peace. All right, that's a wrap on today's episode. I hope you guys have some valuable insights and real strategies you can apply to your business right now. If you enjoyed this episode, I love for you to do two quick things. First, take a screenshot, share it on Instagram, and tag me Michelle L. Thanes so we can keep the conversation going. Second, if you found value in this podcast, it would mean the world to me if you left a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Your support support helps this show reach more entrepreneurs just like you. Oh, and if you want to support the show and fuel my matcha obsession, you can always buy me a coffee at the link in the show notes. Thank you for tuning in. Until next time, keep showing up, keep growing, and I'll talk to y' all in the next one.
- [35:26]
Calvin Russell Jr.
Peace.
- [35:33]
Wix Studio
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- [36:21]
WhatsApp
On WhatsApp, your personal messages stay private between you and whoever you send them to. So things like the passport numbers for your honeymoon stay between you and your fiance and that video call for your grand's 80th stays in the family. Even your streaming password stays between you and your college roommates who still ask for it every week in your group chat. Because on WhatsApp, your personal messages are yours. No one else can see or hear them, not even us. WhatsApp message privately.
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Calvin Russell Jr.
Packages by Expedia. You were made to be rechargeable. We were made to package flights, hotels and hammocks for less Expedia Made to travel.
- [37:07]
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