← The Think Media Podcast
Loading summary
Transcript160 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hey, before we jump into the show, I wanted to give you a heads up that my free YouTube strategy class is available right now on demand@thinkmasterclass.com on the class, I reveal the one YouTube strategy we use at Think Media to generate over 330,000 views every single day. So if you're new to YouTube, this will help you start right and avoid mistakes. And if you're a YouTube pro, this training will help you multiply your growth. This class is 100% free and you can watch it now on demand@thinkmasterclass.com now let's jump into today's show. Some YouTubers I think should stretch themselves and not just be thinking about making your own videos or your own vlogs, but like do client work. It's an unconventional path to what full time on YouTube could look like.
- [00:49]
B
Yes, my big thing that I loved doing on the side was shooting concerts. Eventually I got into a Post Malone show.
- [00:56]
A
You never know what's on the other side of your courageous.
- [00:59]
B
Yes, my video production agency. I was running simultaneously to getting these different positions until I started actually doing some freelance work for Think Media, producing some content, which led to then opportunity to work full time for you guys. I started off my video career by working with clients, shooting concert films and working in a professional video production environment. Eventually this led me on a journey to becoming a content creator and making videos around what I'm more passionate about, specifically cameras and video tech. So I'm going to share my journey of learning the skills of photography and video, the route that that took me on, and hopefully inspire those watching to punch fear in the face and pursue what you love.
- [01:44]
A
So we're going to be talking about the unconventional path to building a YouTube career or going full time in YouTube, but also really just kind of the skill set of video because video can be monetized in so many different ways. Business video production that can lead into content creation and listeners in this episode can walk away with ideas for making more money going full time faster. Today I'm with Craig Pruitt, who is a content creator, husband, father of two with over nine years of experience in video production. And we're going to be going through your story, pulling out lessons that listeners can learn and you have kind of an influencer timeline. You have a video professional timeline. And I'm certain that listeners can learn from all of that about how they might reach their goals faster. Craig, welcome to the podcast.
- [02:32]
B
Thanks for having me, Sean. Excited to be here in Las Vegas and just be chopping it up a Bit.
- [02:36]
A
Yeah. So let's dive into your story. We have eight pillars of your journey, and each pillar is something we all could apply and learn from. And it goes all the way back to starting with laying a foundation of free work, networking, and building up a portfolio. Now, free work is kind of controversial. People think, oh, you shouldn't do free work.
- [02:57]
B
Sell yourself short.
- [02:58]
A
Don't sell yourself short. But this is similar to my journey and it was instrumental with skills and relationships that led to where I am today. So what year was this that you kind of started to lay a foundation and build your portfolio?
- [03:13]
B
So this was back in 2015, so about nine years ago that I started my video creation, content creation journey. And it started with stills photography in particular. So at the time I didn't even have any portfolio to present to clients. So if I wanted to start making money, it was like, well, you have no leverage. You don't have anything you can show to clients. So really it started this journey of who can I find in my circle of influence who I can start making content for? So I started in particular with, since I was at the time in college, I still had a lot of friends who were in high school, so they all needed senior portraits done. So I started just right there with just like, hey, let me take your senior photos. And with that started to build a network and more and more people were like, hey, Craig, like, you do senior photos, can you do mine? And I would just do as many as I possibly could for free and even would do like low level, like family photo sessions for people. And I was just trying to build a portfolio and really just shoot anything that I could, which really honestly set me up for success to then quickly after building, you know, a portfolio of five to seven photo portfolios, then be able to dive into more of paid gigs.
- [04:21]
A
How did you, did you like learn on the Internet? How did you originally learn photography skills?
- [04:26]
B
One of my favorite YouTubers, even to this day still is Jared Poland, Froknowsphoto, you know, dot com. We all know Jared, love his stuff, but he's really who taught me a lot about photography. And actually during this time in 2015, I was studying athletic training in school. So I was playing college football. Totally thought I was going to go on this career path for like being an athlete, working with athletes. And something happened in me where I was like, I felt this career shift, God, taking me a completely different direction of just like, I want you to pursue video, in fact. And at the time, like, I was just taking photos, I just thought like, Maybe I could be a professional photographer, go on tour with artists and be their, you know, tour photographer or something. But I felt something stirring in me of like, hey, like this video thing, it's very similar. It's kind of like photo adjacent. And you can learn a lot of the same skills that you're learning right now with photo, you can learn and take them into a video career. So I actually pivoted in 2015 my, my major in college from athletic training and shifted to video production and animation. So I got kind of dual concentrations.
- [05:31]
A
In those, you know, this idea of building skills and the fact that once you become a content creator or do YouTube shot composition, thumbnails photography, you know, I took actually in sophomore year black and white photography where I developed photos in a dark room.
- [05:48]
B
That's awesome.
- [05:49]
A
And it was that foundational class was again starting to help me with shot composition. I also did Internet radio, Cross rock radio at King's High School. And I was using Adobe Audition to mix like sports events from the school and songs. So it was kind of a foundation for video editing. So by getting into just the game of the YouTube skills in any way possible, of course, is so powerful. And did you ever get paid for those family photos or senior photos?
- [06:17]
B
Yes, eventually. I mean, and that kind of goes into our first strategy for making money with video or photo is, is to start doing low level freelance work. So eventually if you start building a portfolio and you have that leverage, you. And that's why I think it's so important to post your work and publish your work, even if you're a little bit embarrass, embarrassed at first because then people can start seeing that you actually produce stuff and you never know who's watching and might want a photo album created for their family or something. So eventually, yes, like it's just natural that people see you take photos. What do you, what's your rate? That's the very first question they usually ask you is what do you charge? And so eventually the light bulb kind of went off for me. It was like, I can charge for this. Like, this is great. I just like doing that as a passion thing. And so that was basically all of the free things that I was doing just very quickly turned into paid gigs, very low level dollars. I mean for some people it's life changing. It was, you know, 200 here, 300 here. But it starts to multiply as you do 5, 10, 20 of those, you start actually making a pretty good side hustle. So that was the first realm for me. And at the Same time, I was also beginning to study video production in school, so I already sort of understood photography composition, shutter speed, the exposure triangle. And then I had to apply that all to video and then start making kind of on. I was sort of two different journeys. I had the photo journey and the film journey. That was kind of lagging behind slowly. So I had to catch up to my photo knowledge. And so I was doing some of the video projects for free. Working for nonprofits, they often don't have a lot of money, so they want you to do stuff for free for them. So, yeah, that was kind of the journey there.
- [07:51]
A
Yeah, Skills are more valuable than money because if you actually develop skills, you can print money in the future, but if you only get money in the short term, you can't reproduce it. And so I always loved getting paid to, even if it was a small amount, to, like, practice more photography, practice more videography, similar to my journey. So, number one was lay a foundation of free work and building a portfolio, which led to paid work. Number two, freelance photographer, videographer. When was the first time you got paid to do video and you didn't do video for free?
- [08:20]
B
Oh, man. The first time, probably. Well, the first time I got really paid, like, actually, I considered it a solid payment for a photo gig was a wedding. And this is a very interesting story. It was the day before this person's wedding, and their photographer got pneumonia. And I was out with a friend bowling, and it was just a friend of a friend kind of situation. And they're like, oh, Craig takes photos. Like, you should go do this wedding. And I'm like, what? I've never shot a wedding before. I know nothing about this. So I went and I hired my mom as my second shooter. And there's some funny story there behind that. The bride wanted some particular stuff for her husband. So my mom's taking photos of the bride, some crazy stuff.
- [09:01]
A
Did it turn out okay?
- [09:02]
B
No, I mean. I mean, it was okay. Like, looking at the photos now, I cringe. And I would do a hundred things differently now, now that I've shot, you know, 20, 30, 40, 50 weddings. But that was kind of the first photo gig. The first video gig probably was a nonprofit. I think working for a church would have been my first kind of paid gig. Somebody needed, like, a church promo video for the website, so I produced that for them. And I'm sure It was like $300 or something.
- [09:32]
A
And I mean, building your network. A friend of a friend, they're getting married is so critical. And I think, like, the Courageous, Yes. Can change your life. The day before because someone else canceled because someone else got pneumonia. You know, when I was living in a small town in the Pacific Northwest and also doing like kind of nonprofit video work, I met a guy named Benji Travis at the YMCA and we both had a similar interest in YouTube and his wife was already a decent sized beauty YouTuber. But he, I want to say, text me the day before he was going to propose to her and said, hey, can I hire you to film? And that willingness to have a courageous yes. Am I ready for this? Do I even know what we're doing? You know? But it was just like, yeah, I'll show up and I'll shoot. Of course, I would do a lot of things differently, but that video was a kickoff video of them then hiring me for an entire series. You know, today we wrote a book together, YouTube secrets. You never know what's on the other side of your courageous. Yes. And you never know what's on the other side of doing it. Messy because it's funny, you look back and I think it's attention, you know, I think we get scared if we step out in the quality of the work. I mean, it's a risk, you know, but. Yeah, but the tension between just working your way up, doing projects, making mistakes. I've had SD cards fail for clients and stuff and just had to work. Me too.
- [10:52]
B
Dude, that is. That is the worst feeling.
- [10:55]
A
Yeah.
- [10:55]
B
Like, it happened to me one time where the guy looked at me after it failed and he just like, he gave me the look of like, I thought you were a professional. And I just felt awful. Like I could, like the rest of my day was just completely ruined. I'm like, I just. I don't even know what happened to this day. Like, I just hit end and I saw it loading and it just not happened.
- [11:16]
A
I. I actually only I lost a critical angle. The episode with this Amy K. Hutchins, who hired me. The episode had to become audio only with just like a picture because we had multiple angles. But like the critical angle of her died because the battery died. And because the battery just died, it didn't Capture right. The SD, the recording at like 45 minutes just turned off. And so this, this is the pain of it. And this is that unconventional path to. How do you learn resilience? How do you learn all this different stuff? So by doing freelance video, freelance photography, and not everybody listening to this. There's some business owners that are doing YouTube, but some YouTubers I think should stretch themselves and not just be thinking about making your own videos or your own vlogs, but like do client work. And of course UGC is kind of that. And sometimes vloggers could go start making ads and commercials for local businesses. Like they're, you know, it's maybe different. You, you could also be the talent and the video and a lot of people actually have created those kind of careers. That's like one of the big takeaways I want people to have is it's an unconventional path to what full time on YouTube could look like. And it's like everyone just wants all the adsense and wants to keep it simple without be nice.
- [12:31]
B
Yeah.
- [12:31]
A
But even right now, what we're experiencing in Think Media, mind you, we make a ton of money in ad revenue, but compared to the size of our team, if we're not doing other stuff like there's, you know, and so for most people it's interesting to think about client work as a way of making money.
- [12:46]
B
Well, and for a video creator too, if you wanted to be a YouTube creator about camera products, tech, it's a little bit difficult to do that unless you can speak from a place of authority where you have worked with clients and you've been on video shoots. And so I think for me, I'm really thankful for the journey that I had, which was because I didn't really start YouTube until the last couple years of my life and now I work full time for a YouTube channel, which is sick. Love the job, but I wouldn't be able to help educate learners and people who are earlier on in their journey unless I went through that journey and was able to shoot a ton of stuff, which I'm thankful I've had that opportunity.
- [13:22]
A
There's another bomb and takeaway and that is that in the competitive landscape of YouTube, depending on what your industry is, obviously it's meta for us to talk about this because you and I both have background as photographer, videographer, editors, and that's what Think Media does. And so we're compounding those skills and not everybody listening to this that might do client work wants to do that. But saying so like out of 10, 20, 30 competitive channels, who do you think is going to have the most depth, most trust, most authority and most longevity? The person who is a camera reviewer, who only ever did camera reviews about reviewing cameras, or the person who's been on the wedding shoots, done church video production, done the different stuff. And I think that's a big case to why I think media has the authority it does. That was true about Omar. It's true about everybody. Like, we actually all have like divergent skills and other industries. We would use case studies, even from client work to tie into product reviews. And I think it's helped us build trust. I think maybe more nonlinear for listeners, man, just the deeper you can go in mastery. Mastery always leads to money. And so there's something about just getting more experience, developing more mastery. Which number three, you start doing freelance video editing.
- [14:37]
B
Yeah. Yes. So this was, honestly, this was a huge light bulb moment for me because all of my freelance video and photo projects were really just me. Maybe I would hire a second shooter to come help me, but they weren't really at a large scale. And so the reason I started editing freelance was because I was actually shooting church camp promo videos. And I would make them like as lit as I possibly could. Like just kids love these things. And so I would pull out all the stops that I kind of learned from, like producing concert films. So these things would be really edited really nicely. And so a dad of somebody saw this video and they were like, hey, this is amazing. Like, who is this person making these church camp videos? And so he hired me as an editor. So I edited for his company for about two years when I finished out college. So I was, I was still finishing college and it was a great side hustle season for me to produce some extra income and I didn't have to be out in the field shooting as much. I could be, you know, studying at home, but then editing on the side. But what it let me do is see an insight into the business model that this guy was running. I could learn from him, watch him direct clients, watch the way he interacts and positions cameras and does multi camera shoots. And so I got the experience of like what it would be like to run my own video production company by just editing. And I didn't have to front all the cost to like be out in the field and try to get that experience by being the boots on the ground. I could learn that through the computer screen, which was a huge thing for me. And then I realized, like, hey, like I'm learning a ton here. I could probably do this on my own if I just invest in some equipment and a little bit of just, you know, more learning.
- [16:14]
A
So there's another one hot off the fish scales is what am I even saying. Ultimately though, the. That's a big insight because, you know, I think what a lot of people listen to this are like, I want to be a full time YouTuber, you know, or I maybe want to be a Full time content creator and I just want to make videos. But what they don't realize is that as things grow, you have to become a CEO and it's overwhelming. It's super overwhelming. And you could think about like sometimes people are worried about what happens if I fail. Honestly, you know what's harder than failure? This could be offensive to some people. Oftentimes success can be a lot harder than failure. I've seen success crush more people than failure ever has has because it starts getting complex, it starts getting hard mo money, more problems and and you also. It's one thing to try to figure out how to do video, it's a whole nother thing to figure out how to like you said, run a business.
- [17:09]
B
Yeah.
- [17:10]
A
And so if you getting time on the journey, that's why this is the unconventional path to full time on YouTube. I'm excited because some people, I mean if you learn a lot, I hope you're reading books, listening to audio books. I hope you're investing in yourself. These skills are figureoutable. Maybe it depends on some couples do this together and one person's maybe more of a manager and you gotta decide what your skill sets are. But you know, even recently Tim Pool, kind of a conservative news guy, was talking about how he's just kind of burnt out and he is just done with being an operator talent with being an operator content creator. I can relate. I'm like, yeah, it's like gets really hard as you start having to wear the CEO hat and even on a small scale because now you're also kind of being a manager and that's not just about thumbnails videos, but now it's about P and L and emails and a lot of different things. All that to say is I love hearing, you know, putting yourself in the environment where you can learn new skills. I think a takeaway could be that a lot of people that want to do full time on YouTube should go work for somebody that is a media company.
- [18:17]
B
Yeah, absolutely.
- [18:18]
A
And even if it's something you have a vision like I want to be there 1, 2, 3, 4 years, like what you will learn will be so invaluable to maybe the longevity of your career. Because a lot of times people that have a breakout viral video to get crushed by it, they have 15 minutes of viral fame or not crush 50 minutes of viral fame, but they can't sustain it now. There's no business acumen underneath the foundation of like what it is that's very interesting. Which leads to number four that then you launch your Own video production agency.
- [18:45]
B
Yep. Yeah. So I mean, it's actually still active. It is an llc. It's called Prospective Media. If I could go back though, the way it's spelled is P R U S, P E, K, T I V, E. So pruespective with like a K and a P. Cause of my name.
- [18:59]
A
Because it's like kind of connect to your name.
- [19:01]
B
Yes. It's like, why did I do this?
- [19:02]
A
This is a big insight.
- [19:03]
B
Yes.
- [19:03]
A
It's clever, weird wording. Don't. Weird YouTube names, weird brand names, weird unspellable websites.
- [19:11]
B
No.
- [19:11]
A
5 people listening to this are in big pain right now. They're like, wait a minute. But I love the creativity. No, no. Clarity is more important than creativity.
- [19:18]
B
Every time I would tell a client, like, they like, do you have a business card? Like, and they're. They're trying to look at it. They're like, what is this? What does this mean? I wish I would have just like perspective. Just say the word, like, spell it normally. So anyways, it is still active though. So I take on maybe a couple clients a year. And it's. It's grown over time. I'd say it's probably been. This business has been active for about five years, realistically. And over the last year or so, I've tried to scale back and focus more because now I'm a dad, I'm a husband, My wife doesn't live if I'm gone all the time. So I get that. And I think by doing that freelance editing for a season really taught me a lot and about how to scale. And so this past year was a huge win where we did a wedding for a client. And it was a big wedding where our team was doing both photo and video stuff. But this was the first time that I was not even involved. I just built a whole team, sent the team out and trusted everybody to do their thing. I wasn't even there. And it was a huge success. The film was incredible. The photos were incredible. And so it just brought me inside. Is like, you don't have to always be, as you're talking, like an operator, talent. Or in my case, like an operator. And also boots on the ground, operating cameras. You don't necessarily have to do that. You can just work in the back and be more of a producer instead of being the director on set. So, yeah, I've learned a lot through running my own Prospective Media over the years. And it's still active, but I'm just trying to scale back as I'm trying to focus more on stuff here at Think Media.
- [20:42]
A
I think some people listening to this too is like, truth is client work, people facing work is going to have one giant problem. People themselves, they're the worst, aren't they? Yeah, you know, like, because people got problems, people got opinions, people got revisions. Video editors know the revisions. If you don't put a revisions clause, max two, max two revisions like you, you got to learn your contracts early on. You're like, we're on revision 22. Because I didn't say, ah, can you change this? Like non. So what's interesting is, you know, on the one hand there's like this dream of like make a video, rank a video, connect it to affiliate marketing. I mean, if you could scale that up, it's like the ultimate dream. Because you're actually really not dealing with people. You're not even dealing with brands. A brand deal or a brand sponsorship is still really a client then that you have to please. And so saying that at the same time, I think that there is so much opportunity for people listening to this to be willing to get into the trenches with people. And obviously I'm joking a little bit. You know, it's like it's just the nature to do the work, to jump in, to maybe start an agency. And I've seen a lot of people, it's one of the best moves. You adapt your YouTube channel, you start thinking about it's not just maybe making a digital course that's an option. It's not just affiliate marketing that's an option, but it could be starting services of some kind, freelancing on the side, or realizing that your YouTube channel is a marketing arm, it's a mini media company that could then feed into other places. I think about like for example, Gary Vaynerchuk who oftentimes talk talks about this. He'd say, you know, like, client work sucks. But I decided to go into a client services business and try to scale that into a global advertising company where a lot of people would accuse Gary Vee of being a grifter or something like that because he talks on social media. When it's like, dude, he's got 2,000 employees and is like running and gives away most of his information for free, of course, writes some books and stuff, whatever. Bottom line is, a lot of just not a lot of people want to do that work.
- [22:54]
B
No.
- [22:56]
A
And if you're going to be antifragile, recession proof, that kind of foundation that you might have as a part of your business, because again, things can ebb and flow in the creator economy, 100% brand deals might come up, they might drop, dry up for a while. Affiliates could be crushing. One season, they might go down. Ad revenue could be all over the place. And so having an aspect of maybe some type of an agency could be a strategy for people.
- [23:19]
B
Absolutely. And I think that's a big hack for people. I mean, I know I have a lot of friends who want to become, they want to be YouTubers and they're in the camera creative niche. But I think it's a big hack where you're able to tap into different markets. You can make video reviews and product reviews and work with brands. But as you said, it ebbs and flows. There are high months, there are low months. So if you can leverage the fact that you have these creative skills and you can go produce content for other companies, then you're able to tap into these different markets to generate revenue in multiple ways, which is just can give you peace of mind when you sort of have a fallback. If your AdSense isn't coming through or a brand drops you or something, you can go produce some content for other people.
- [23:57]
A
Hey, we're going to get back into today's episode in just a second, but if you haven't heard, we are running a special sale on the complete package for growing a successful YouTube channel in 2025 for just $57. This special offer includes your ticket to our upcoming YouTube strategy event, the updated YouTube starter kit, our brand new AI prompts guide, our video editing basics course and our five hour YouTube workweek system all included in one bundle. Basically everything you need to start and grow your YouTube channel in 2025, valued at over $1,900. But for a limited time, you could get a massive discount on our most comprehensive YouTube training bundle yet for just $57. If you want to take advantage of this offer, just click the link in the show notes or go to think media sale.com But I got to be real with you. This bundle with these products at this price is truly limited. So just click the link in the show notes or go to think media sale.com all right, let's jump back into the episode. So your next move number five is full time video production for organizations. You why did you move beyond the agency? Did the agency not earn enough? Did you want more stability? Yeah, because then and then there was a church as well as a college. So what year is this? Yeah, now you went and got a job doing video production and even kind of leadership in these organizations.
- [25:27]
B
So my video production agency, I was running simultaneously to getting these different positions. And so I never went full in on the video production agency model, frankly, probably just because of stress. It's very stressful to try to constantly be acquiring clients and it's a lot easier to work for an organization who is already established and they already have systems and processes and people in place. So I worked as a communications director for a church for about three years and that, I mean that taught me a lot. And that was part time employment while also building up my agency part time. So I did these things simultaneously. But what the job at the church did for me was I handled all internal and external communications for the organization, but also did video announcements. And this was the first time really that I went from always being behind the camera, managing talent to now having to be in front of the camera. And it was wildly stressful, like I didn't want to do. I still don't love being in front of the camera. Like I'd way rather be behind the camera working with these tools. But I learned a lot in that season as a communications director which then led to another role at a university where I was the director of video production for a digital department of this university, which that was, that was a really kind of a culmination of everything that I had learned at that point in my career. So I was managing teams, I was managing budgets and just producing hundreds and hundreds of videos for this university for multiple years and until I started actually doing some freelance work for Think Media, producing some content which led to then opportunity to work full time for you guys.
- [27:01]
A
Man, church video announcements are the secret of success. They are for so many successful content creators today. It's actually funny because in 2000 I started a video in 2003, YouTube in 2007 for my small church in a small town. And unfortunately, and most of this stuff is lost, there's a few episodes out there on. I burned them to DVRs early on and I wish I could have and should have been uploading to YouTube even if only for my own archive.
- [27:31]
B
Sure.
- [27:31]
A
Just wasn't even the mindset you don't really think about that. I uploaded this episode that's on the Think Media channel called Classics. And it was my friend Spencer and I doing a church video announcements for our youth group. And we, we kind of only thought about this as just like a way to entertain ourselves and like the kids in the youth group and like do really dumb stuff and then be like, hey, you know, summer tour is coming up. Get your, you know, new T shirts. We're going to do an outreach event. But what's so funny is again, that is super fascinating that being a director of communications and then getting on camera, finding a place that's going to put you into like the crucible of having to learn communication on camera.
- [28:11]
B
Yes.
- [28:12]
A
Because I know a lot of people are scared about getting on camera. They're scared about, you know, and that path to a. Not just going full time on YouTube and being a good communicator on camera, but even being a better communicator because everybody listening to this, man, if you upped your communication skills, you know, make better videos that hold attention better, if you storytell better and all of that. And so it's super interesting. Church video announcements. I know a lot of. Obviously it's kind of a niche within a niche, but it is, it is something that, you know, it forces you.
- [28:39]
B
To go through all of the steps of a video creation process. So pre production, the planning, the scripting, making sure that everything is laid out properly. And then the production, you gotta film the thing and then post production. So. And it's a weekly rhythm too. So Sunday's coming, there's deadlines. So it kind of forces you into this creator rhythm that we now see here at Think Media. We try to kind of stay at a weekly rhythm where we have content, we're pre producing and then filming. And so it's a very similar format, honestly, a church announcement video to a YouTube video. Very similar workflow, honestly.
- [29:12]
A
That's so true. And what's so. What's so funny about that is I would actually say that in 2003, I posted at least 52 videos. Forgive me, I didn't post them. They played every night at youth group. 52 pieces of content that had a deadline. And then the senior pastor was like, bro, you should do these on Sunday. And I did it as a volunteer. So back to like lay a foundation of free work. Someone could be like, dude, why are you, you know, working so hard for, you know, you know, a church and you're not getting paid or whatever? And I was like, well, one, because of my commitment to making a difference in my faith and my. But two, like, that was the most priceless thing I could have ever done developing the skillset of 104 uploads or not uploads, you know, they played Sunday, they played Wednesday in 2004 with archaic equipment compared to today.
- [30:02]
B
What camera were you using?
- [30:04]
A
A Canon HV30, mini DV tapes, FireWire cable out of that into FireWire card in a PC, Adobe Premiere, Creative Cloud, CDs. Right? You install the CDs to install the software. Opened up Adobe first day, zero video editing training and like, no YouTube tutorials, no think Media. And it said, it opened up and it said you had to select the, you had to build out the project. And it said 25 or 30 or not. Yeah, pal, I believe, right? 25 frames a second or NTSC. And I remember looking at all these options and all these numbers and I, even though I was in America, in Marysville, Washington, I selected PAL because it sounded more friendly. Literally, I was like, that's like, I have no idea what NTSC is. Pal. That sounds, just sounds better. I'll pick that one. And so for that entire first year, and if you're listening to this and not an editor, that is the European frame rate. And on YouTube, it kind of doesn't matter because most monitors can handle it. And then it can take almost any frame rate.
- [31:12]
B
So you had the jitters.
- [31:13]
A
But we had jitters because when you would play it on American TVs or an American projector, and I, by the way, I would capture. So I would have to download the 50 minutes of footage I shot, which was very excessive for church video announcements, throw it into the timeline, edit, and then I would capture the final product. I'd export it back onto the mini DV tape, put it into a VHS converter, and then in our sound booth, we put it into a VCR and it played it on the projection screen. That's how we play the weekly video announcements. And it was jitters. Like, crazy. Format was wrong. Didn't know about white balance, didn't know about camera settings. It'd be like, turn it on. Do we see it? All right, press record, put it in Premiere. Pal. Sounds good. And, and then learning and then being like, well, I was doing it wrong for a year. There's been so many times in my career where I've been like, bro, I've been doing it wrong for a year. Smaller things too, but like, oh, you can actually make the skin cones look different. Like, some days I feel like we got lucky. Like, that just looks good. I don't know why. Other days, like, why does it look yellower? I don't know why. And, and actually, I mean, a huge light bulb for all of us listening on the podcast. You're living in a really blessed time. Oh, yeah, sure, there's increased competition, but literally, you have this podcast. You've got incredible videos on YouTube, you've got the main Think Media channel, other great Creators, the education, the knowledge, the tools. Sure, competition is rising, but you can either also look, you can focus on the challenges or you can focus on the opportunities. Cameras are better than ever. It's easier to create great content than ever. The learning curve is still real and that's what our company asks us for. But. But I mean, though the archaic workflow that I was 20 years ago, the.
- [32:48]
B
Barriers to entry that were there in 2003 to put out a video announcement or a YouTube video that are now totally reduced to. If you have a cell phone, you can run an entire YouTube business through a phone with get high quality 4K video. You could start a video podcast. Honestly, the microphones in these newer iPhones too are fine enough that you could just literally just have your phone, camera, microphone, and then upload everything to the YouTube Studio app. And you're running a YouTube channel off of your phone.
- [33:13]
A
The phone is a supercomputer.
- [33:14]
B
Yes, it is.
- [33:15]
A
It does it all. Design, graphics, editing. Okay, so number six. And we will kind of get to the Think Media season. But you, you did start securing some brand deals on Instagram. That was kind of the next move where if we're talking about the path to making money, the long road to YouTube success, but you did start making even additional money besides freelance work. Do you remember your first brand deal? And Instagram was the first place.
- [33:42]
B
Yeah, Instagram. So as I'm continuing through this kind of professional video production journey, my big thing that I love doing on the side was shooting concerts. So I would shoot concerts for anybody that came locally. I'm from kind of the Portland, Oregon area, so we would, you know, there's many, many concert venues around there. So I would shoot as many concerts as I could. Eventually I got into a Post Malone show in Portland, which this is also not an endorsement for Post Milan, but.
- [34:11]
A
Anyways, what level was he at at the time?
- [34:13]
B
He was. He was big. So this is 2019. So he's. He's kind of just coming out of people.
- [34:20]
A
I mean, White Iverson was his first song.
- [34:23]
B
Yeah, it's Post White Iverson. Post Post.
- [34:25]
A
Yeah.
- [34:26]
B
Goodness gracious. Okay.
- [34:27]
A
Pre Country, Post Malone. He's got a lot of phases. Pre Pop.
- [34:31]
B
It was his. Hollywood's bleeding.
- [34:33]
A
Okay, that's mid.
- [34:34]
B
Yeah, Mid Journey for sure. And he was popping off. I mean, so I was thankful there was another creator who we followed each other on Instagram. He wanted some help, so went out to the show, shot it, and then he loved the work. So he ends up asking me to come on tour to assist For a few weeks with Posty, so made a bunch of content.
- [34:54]
A
Did you meet him?
- [34:55]
B
Oh, yeah, yeah. Really nice dude.
- [34:56]
A
Really? Hang out with him?
- [34:57]
B
Yes.
- [34:58]
A
Did he have a cigarette and a Budweiser in his hand? Most of the time.
- [35:00]
B
Bud Light.
- [35:01]
A
Bud Light.
- [35:01]
B
Bud Light. He is a Bud Light connoisseur. Yeah, but, yeah, and a cigarette. Always. Yeah. Just kind of not.
- [35:09]
A
I will say he seems super chill and kind.
- [35:11]
B
He's so chill. Very nice. Always a yes, ma'am, thank you, sir kind of person. Anytime he'd be around people. Any interaction I had with him, really polite.
- [35:20]
A
What else did you learn from that trip?
- [35:22]
B
The main thing I learned was I do not want to be in touring. I do not want to tour. Um, and it was cool to see it at the. The tippy top, highest level of excellence.
- [35:32]
A
Did you get, like, a hotel room?
- [35:34]
B
Uh, we were on the tour bus, so we were just. That's. That was it.
- [35:37]
A
You were on the tour bus with Post Malone?
- [35:39]
B
Uh, not with Post Malone. He's got his own separate tour bus. Yeah, but. So I was with another artist.
- [35:43]
A
That makes sense. He's doing well. He doesn't have to.
- [35:45]
B
Yeah, exactly. He doesn't need to ride one with Craig.
- [35:47]
A
So.
- [35:48]
B
Yeah, so there was. There was a whole team of us. So I was kind of like the management team with another artist who was one of the openers.
- [35:55]
A
Where's the other. Other videographer? Managers and stuff were on the bus with you?
- [35:58]
B
Yes. Yes. Yeah, so I was one.
- [36:00]
A
People, like, drinking and smoking weed.
- [36:01]
B
Oh, my goodness.
- [36:02]
A
Yes. It was like the managers and stuff.
- [36:03]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [36:04]
A
Were they, like, hot boxing and stuff on the bus?
- [36:07]
B
Yes. 24 7. Dude. I had to go.
- [36:09]
A
Were you married?
- [36:10]
B
No, I had. My wife at the time was just my girlfriend.
- [36:13]
A
Have you ever smoked weed before?
- [36:15]
B
Never.
- [36:15]
A
But did you get kind of a contact high?
- [36:17]
B
See, I don't even know if that's real. Yeah, I don't know if that's real or not. I mean, is it real? I mean, could you tell me?
- [36:22]
A
Well, I mean. I mean, you might have been like, I don't know. This is sort of weird, but I'm kind of giggly right now or something.
- [36:29]
B
Yeah, no, I never felt that way at all. What I would do is there was all these bunk beds, and they're like three tiers, and they, of course, put me on the bottom bunk. That's, like, impossible to get into. But there's like, these little drapes that you just kind of close, and they sort of lock a little bit. So I would just close myself In.
- [36:43]
A
Well, that probably was helpful. A little bit of a barrier.
- [36:45]
B
Yes. That's. I was hoping for the contact high and for many other reasons.
- [36:48]
A
Was it ever. Was it ever weird? They, like brought like, girls on and stuff?
- [36:51]
B
They did, yes.
- [36:52]
A
That team, the managers. Oh, yeah, yeah.
- [36:55]
B
Oh, yeah, absolutely. And that's when Craigie would just close the door.
- [36:58]
A
We're going to, I mean, remove myself as a faith based creator on tour with Post Malone. Yeah, just out there. Just. Yeah, just. Just doing it.
- [37:06]
B
Yeah. That was great. I mean, and it presented a lot of great opportunities to share my faith with people. The person who invited me on the tour, his name is Chris. He's now directing huge music videos for all sorts of artists. He's awesome. He's very talented. But we have many conversations. We were in New York City at Madison Square Garden, but we had a cab ride in New York where we just kind of got to share our hearts with each other, which was so cool. And I just got to ask him questions about just his life and where he's at and just a really cool opportunity. And I think, I really think God let me go on tour to have that conversation. But also one of the openers, this guy was trying to get me to drink every night. And I just, I just haven't drank. I just don't drink. It's just not a thing that I do. And so he would always ask me, like, craig, just take one shot with me before you go, Please. Just take one shot. And I remember I was walking out of the tour bus to get my Uber to fly home and he's just like, one more time. He's like, please, Craig, just one shot with me. And I'm like, I'm not. I'm good. Like, I don't need to. And he just. I remember him just saying, like, man, Craig is just like the most straight edge, like, person. He doesn't compromise his values. And I just really respected that, like. And later down the road, his name is Tyler. His artist name is Tyla Yahweh.
- [38:17]
A
Wow.
- [38:18]
B
So that's, you know, that's a. I'm not. I wouldn't, I wouldn't make that my artist name if I was you. But so anyways, he. We had some great conversations. And later down the road, I actually helped Chris film a music video for him about a year later.
- [38:30]
A
Yeah.
- [38:31]
B
And he remembered me and everything. And it was a really good, just healthy, healthy conversation that I got to have with him then. And he just realized something's different about this dude, bro.
- [38:40]
A
You were like, Daniel in Babylon.
- [38:43]
B
That's a great, a great analogy.
- [38:44]
A
Yeah, just like just standing strong. There's something powerful about being straight edge. There's a straight edge wave right now. Like a lot of people are just giving up drinking completely or cutting it almost way, way, way down. If you start watching some of the Andrew Huberman videos and stuff, it's like there's actually like something to really think about our view of alcohol, of course, all these different things. So that, that is interesting. And man, what a story. Okay, so, but let's bring it back. So you, you did start securing brand deals on Instagram. Who paid? So it was your friend and you were paid. You consider it with working with post or. It was.
- [39:20]
B
So, so what led to me building up that I was building up a following because of the concert stuff.
- [39:25]
A
Got it.
- [39:26]
B
And so as I built up that following, 5,000, 10,000 followers on Instagram, brands start to reach out. They think you got some influence. And so the first brand deal that I got was with a company called Cove Audio. And so it was kind of, I think they saw that I was in the music realm. Maybe some of my audience would like a nice speaker. And they're kind of a budget competitor to jbl. So they reached out and were like, hey, let's can we send you some products? We'll do a simple brand deal for low level payment. And I did that. And that's actually where we can maybe dive right into our next one, which is affiliate marketing too. So this was my first brand deal, but also my first affiliate. And I didn't really understand the power of affiliates.
- [40:02]
A
On Instagram.
- [40:03]
B
On Instagram. So you just, you know, people DM me and I actually posted a YouTube video. So I had no, I had, I had no platform really at the time. And my first YouTube upload was actually an IGTV video that if, for those of you who remember igtv, such a.
- [40:20]
A
Weird little kind of a couple minute vertical video.
- [40:23]
B
Exactly. Yeah. So I made a review about this, this micro or this speaker that they sent me. And so I decided, I guess I could just upload that to YouTube as well and then publish the link. That was like my first real upload as a creator and did amazing. And for like three years straight, I got affiliate revenue from those speakers selling and people, I was the top search result ranked in search. People were like Cove Audio headphones or Cove Audio speaker. So then Cove sent out like five different products and I did reviews of all of those. And so I was just kind of the guy that like if you want to Cove speaker. Also not an endorsement for Cove. Like, the speakers are decent, they're fine. But like, I wouldn't probably, if I could go back, I'd be like, is this really in alignment with what I'm doing? Like, I'm a kind of a create like a camera creator, not a. I'm not selling Bluetooth speakers. Bluetooth speakers, right.
- [41:11]
A
And yet your first like the found, like they'd be like, this is the COVID audio channel. Because that was like your only first video.
- [41:16]
B
Craig, he's like the speaker guy. It's like, no, I didn't, I didn't want that at all. But it did work out where I was able to generate thousands of dollars in affiliate sales from just that speaker deal.
- [41:26]
A
That's super powerful. Obviously we love affiliate marketing stuff at Think Media. We, we recently did a thing called tubemoneysecrets.com where we went really deep on that because it's my story as well. And a huge takeaway from that is why it can be so alluring to like, I want to get free product. I, you know, I could get affiliate income. And there's different brands that maybe want to work with me. But your principle of like knowing who you are, is this on brand? Where do you want this to go? And I think it's really fun on the journey to just kind of say yes to a lot of stuff. That was my journey. I did the ra. The most random stuff. But I look back and it's like even on Think Media, I want to say, and there is in the history, there is like there's a luggage carrier little. It was back in Famebit days. So Famebit would pay like 250 to connect you with the brand and a product and then like the affiliate link. So it was a luggage scale. And I remember this was on Think Media. It's still there. We'll watch it after this podcast. There was like LED video light review. And then my worst one was this video on the Human charger, which was this little iPad looking thing that supposedly, you know, killed jet lag. And you put these little ear pods in that shined light into your brain.
- [42:48]
B
And you tried this out.
- [42:50]
A
Well, yeah, so listen, I didn't just like read a screen. I had this trip coming up to South Africa with another videographer producer friend, John Mediana, to like paid the gig. And I was like, yo, let me take Human charger. There's going to be time zone changes. Because it'd be the idea, like to overcome jet lag. Like, when is it sunny or, like, when does the sun come up? So why not just shine light into your ears? But there's, like, scientists that are like, yo, that's not how it works. But I was. And maybe it was placebo. I was like, I tried it, and, man, I felt great the next day. I mean, I don't know if it. The espresso or whatever. And so anyways, wow. I, like, I have learned. I have certainly made mistakes along the way. And whether that's. Again, I will say I had good intent. I really tested it. I talked about my experience, I talked about what it is. But I also look, you know, back in hindsight, it's like, you know, stay on solid paths.
- [43:44]
B
Yes.
- [43:44]
A
Like, don't, you know, don't try to, like, avoid brands. Like, you know, it's kind of that tension. Like, don't sell out or. And I also got distracted because there's so many Bluetooth speakers is what inspired me on all this. There was weird niche things where I would do on every headphone company wanted to give me a free pair of headphones. Every Bluetooth speaker. I think we'd also go to CES in Vegas and that's what would happen. And I'd be like, I want some free headphones. And I'd be like, well, how many headphone videos do I need on Think Media? And it's. And that was off brand, because at that time, even it was tools for creators. And I was like, yeah, I mean, headphones, like, maybe while you're editing. But is that the real tool? Like, you'd have to review a hundred pairs of headphones. Much more of an audio channel, which is a great niche in and of itself, but was off brand for us. But I hit all those windy paths of distraction as well.
- [44:32]
B
Yeah. I mean, it's like our audience is coming for us, for us to solve a problem for them. And I think for me, like, initially, my YouTube channel was. It was nothing. So I was like, sure, I'll post this video here. But later down the road, now that I actually have an established channel and now that I work for Think Media, there's. You gotta have integrity with the kinds of products that you're gonna put your endorsement on.
- [44:55]
A
Yes.
- [44:56]
B
You know, we. My. My wife laughs at me because she wants me to take, like, these brand deals that are, like, for, like, an espresso machine or like, a peloton bike, but there's, like, no alignment at all for my users. It'd be dishonoring of them. But. But selfishly, it's like we want to. I don't want to pay for a pellet, dude.
- [45:14]
A
I think about this every day. I think about starting like new channels every day because I'm like, man, it would be cool to like get stuff, you know, that I'm side passionate about fitness stuff. Biohacking stuff's another one for me. Like red light panels and stuff can be so expensive. I'm like, dude, I want to start a little niche biohacking channel which speaks also to the power of focus. Because there's just so many good. That's a good idea. You just can't chase every good idea niche down. Think about what your brand is, what it isn't. Okay, so number five was full time video production for organizations. You did a church, you did a college. Number six was secure brand deals on Instagram. And then that kind of drifted over to YouTube. You also, number seven started to do affiliate products. And then when did your channel get monetized? Do you remember what year? And. And your own channel?
- [45:58]
B
So yeah, my own channel in spring of 2023 got monetized. And the reason it got monetized and I, I don't recommend this to people is I did a reaction video to an NF music video in which I as a filmmaker responded to the filmmaking techniques of the video. And so that video got me all of the watch time I needed and the subscribers that I needed with one upload. And I had been trying to build a channel around filmmaking for about six months and I was at I think like 800 subscribers. And it was just kind of a slow journey for me. I wasn't getting anywhere. And then I post one reaction video which again is off brand. Like my brand was not reaction videos to music videos. I was like, I'll just try it. And that's what got me monetized. And I immediately started making money that way. And I'm like, should I just become like a music reaction channel? Maybe I should pivot my niche. And my wife graciously redirected me of like Craig, that's not. You don't want to become a reaction person for NF yet.
- [46:51]
A
She's trying to send you down the peloton route, keeping you safe over here. But where is she redirecting you?
- [46:57]
B
Exactly. Yeah. So. But I did get monetized spring of 2023 and just started doubling down on the things that were working, which were as I was building on my Instagram, I saw a lot of these budget cameras people wanted to hear about, like these nex series cameras that Sony Produced that. At the time, people hated those nex cameras. They thought they were kind of a gimmick and DSLRs were still the thing. And so I just started buying every single cheap Sony camera that I could possibly find off of ebay, bringing it into the studio and doing a review on it. And that's what really grew the channel. I think right now we're almost to 19,000 subscribers, which is a, is a big win for me because it happened all within about 18 months or so, which I'm very thankful for, man.
- [47:41]
A
There's two big insights for me. There is one, you really are one video away from getting monetized.
- [47:46]
B
Yes.
- [47:47]
A
You have to weigh that. Like, if you really step into a trend or a video goes viral or micro viral, what kind of audience does that attract? But if it pushes you over the watch hours, like, yeah, all you need is one like 4,000. I know it's going to be very discouraging. You're listening to this, you're like, I've been grinding, trying to get the.
- [48:04]
B
I was overwhelmed. I was like, dude, I've made like 30 videos and I'm at like 500.
- [48:08]
A
Hours of watching so much time. And the fact though that like one video could get 10,000 watch hours, 20,000 watch hours. And I'm not trying to, you know, flex, like easy for you to say think media, but it's like just repost videos that get 4,000 watch hours independently all the time. And easy for you to say because you have a lot of subscribers. Actually, no, like in 2025, like subscribers don't really matter. It's helpful, but it's predicated on the content. It is predicated on the algorithm is interest based based on the quality of the content. That's why there's so much opportunity for new and small creators and the right video on the right topic at the right time. You making a video about reacting to one of NF's music videos literally got your channel monetized. That is for listeners, that, that is an opportunity for you. The question is, you know, what, when is it going to happen? What video is it? And you probably. You weren't even really planning that.
- [49:06]
B
No, not at all.
- [49:07]
A
But that speaks to staying commit committed, staying resilient and realizing that success could just be one or two moves. One or two days, one or two weeks away.
- [49:16]
B
Yeah.
- [49:17]
A
With how quickly that can happen. And then I think another interesting insight is like, I think that almost any channel we've seen that builds momentum in what you would call like a competitive niche and like cameras, competitive health, competitive cooking, competitive. Usually though they find their thing, they find some kind of subcategory. Like when I really was coming on best camera for YouTube actually was not saturated and it was actually more filmmaking channels and it was not like tools for YouTube channels. So I was like really a thing. I built momentum on I think about co author of YouTube Secrets Benji Travis, his wife. There was a lot of beauty gurus at the time, but people hadn't really done hair. And so her just that aspect of yes, beauty gurus but she started doing hair. That was kind of an edge. You find that these cameras that in a very crowded world of billions of people and a lot of content creators out there, nobody is focusing on the NEX cameras. That stuff happens all the time. You're listening to this, it's like 2025, we're going into 2025. Like there's opportunities everywhere and what is wild is you might have 100 competitors, a thousand competitors. There is like your nex. There is your reacting to a certain music video. There is your hair tutorials or Sean's best camera for YouTube opportunity for you. It might not be easy to see but especially I think if you develop the lens, you know, there's some books we could put in the show notes. Kind of like the Blue Ocean strategy type of a lens where you're just looking for like non competitive markets. It could be something small you develop the lens of. We have a series on this channel. It's pretty deep and it's pretty advanced but it's on the book Positioning, which is a classic marketing book. We'll link up that playlist in the show notes. If you kind of develop that way of thinking, you are kind of one video but also like one strategic campaign, one video series, one theme theme that you don't have to even stick with forever but it becomes your breakout because that's really all you need. Once you start to break out, people get to know you. You could drift into other topics. But it was, it's, it could be that one series that changes everything.
- [51:19]
B
Yes, absolutely. We were just at the Vault conference and Patrick bet David one of his quotes I think might even be from Blue Ocean Strategy but was you are one innovative campaign away from an explosion in your business. And that's exactly what I saw on my Instagram and my, my YouTube channel with this nex series. I posted one video about the NEX 5 went viral on Instagram which then led to people searching it on YouTube and I happened to have a YouTube video for it right there, it was the answer to the question they were looking for. And that was the little campaign. And the campaign began or became doing the whole Enix series, which was really cool.
- [51:55]
A
Well, that's incredible. Well, as we land the plane, you know, we covered eight things here and number eight was you monetize your content. It's a windy road. And I want to acknowledge listeners for hanging out with us because you might be thinking, and how does exactly does this apply to me? If this feels unconventional, it's because it is. We are paving our own paths. It's unique to us in the creator economy. But the future is bright. There's so much opportunity. Goldman Sachs research says the next three years are going to be the best three years in the creator economy. It's basically going to double between now and 2027 in terms of how much money there is in the system. It's true, though. Competition is higher than ever before. But you're one innovative campaign away from an absolute explosion in your online business and your YouTube channel. And you know, when I think about, we have seven core values at Think Media, and two of those core values are the pursuit of mastery and resilient spirit and mastery. Robert Greene says it like this. To achieve mastery in any skill, you must develop a deep understanding of the fundamentals and then relentlessly practice and refine your technique. Mastery is a journey, not a destination. It's a lifelong pursuit in excellence. If you were to give final words to listeners about the pursuit of mastery, I think that marks your life, your career, your. The discipline you've built and want to just acknowledge you. I'm super grateful you're part of what we're doing at Think Media, part of the team. And I really have seen that that was a foundation you laid all the way back with photography and some family portraits into like the true master of your craft that you are today. For those that are maybe just starting or on the journey, what are just some final words of encouragement to them?
- [53:32]
B
Yeah, I'd say it does take time. I think by the nature of that word mastery, it means practice. You've practiced, whether it's athletics, content, creation, being a husband, being a father. I mean, I'm a father of two young, young baby boys, so I have a lot to learn. And I think my hope too, for even those little boys is just to show up day in and day out and just try to be the best father possible. And I think the same thing applies to being a creator. Just showing up day after day and working as hard as you can and trying to stay focused on what it is you feel like you're called to do.