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- [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. We make about $500,000 a year on Think Media ad revenue brand deals has gone anywhere from a 500 to a million dollar a year and affiliate marketing probably another million. I was like I need to package what I know into an online course to teach this. I don't know if our money obsessed. It's just you need money for the mission, you need cash flow is oxygen. And that's exactly how I got to essentially 5k a month relatively quick and then just kept scaling it up. When I started I focused on one strategy. Create intent based aka search based YouTube videos that help people answer specific questions related to video production and the tools for video production. Another way to put it would be product reviews or product tutorials with a tech YouTube channel that specialized in tools for creators. Think media and the income streams were. I would actually say that my focus was to focus only on affiliate marketing and to view YouTube ad revenue as just a a byproduct rather than the main goal. And the this particular thing that I focus on was ranking videos meaning I wanted to create videos that you know, fast forward to today. Whether they were one, I don't even know if they had. I don't think they had 1 out of 10 or 10 out of 10 on like YouTube when you upload something new in the studio. In Fact I'm in 2010 YouTube Studio Beta now the official creator studio looked entirely different. But a lot of people want to go for these. You know, of course viral the video pops off, it beats your last video. It's parabolic. It like goes straight up. But I sort of had the search based strategy. The ranked video strategy takes a lot more patience I think is a lot more powerful and antifragile. Arguably recession proof because if you rank a video so if I make a video called I made a video about my setup that we were using with the fisheye lens on my Canon Vixia for Think International and because I'd invest in that gear. That video is 14 years old and it's like a review of that fisheye lens. Here's what's actually crazy is that video still gets views today. It earns about $20 in ad revenue a year. It grew the channel like five subscribers. And I think the affiliate would link, link would work except for the fact that product isn't even for sale so that you, you actually might still get credit because it's used. It's like not still pretty old. But you could click like the used on Amazon. But then the fact that also if someone clicks my affiliate link for 24 hours, I get credit for anything else they purchase on that. So let's, let's talk about this. This video is 14 years old. It's still getting views today. And critics might say, oh, it only made $20 in a year and grew five subscribers. Okay, Ralph, like how many 14 year old videos do you have that are still bringing in passive income, still actually growing your channel? And I was like, not good at the time. I mean that was 14 years ago. Like I barely knew what I was doing. I was just taking massive, imperfect, messy action. And I just continue to dial on that process. So when I understood that YouTube is a search engine and an intent based platform, especially in education, where people go to solve specific problems, learn specific skills, research specific products, I just focused wholly and solely and completely on that one strategy. How many ranked videos could I create? I personally solve for and help a lot of our students solve for finances. I don't know that I'm sure I get criticized for all kinds of things. I don't know, like, like you know, but you're money obsessed. And I'm like, I don't know if I'm money obsessed. It's just you need money for the mission, you need cash. Flow is oxygen. And I want to start with a business model in mind that is sustainable, that this could actually be practical. So that was, it was of course value first. I think you're. And of course serve the end user because I think the creators have attention. I think a lot of creators struggle because they need a business and marketing mindset. And I think a lot of business and marketers struggle because they need the creator mindset. But I think that's what was helpful for me was there are all those creative elements, but the business practicality side, especially when I was six months away from zero in my bank account, I was like, well this better practically work. So that was the one strategy. It was like rank videos connected to affiliate marketing for passive income. People also hate on passive income, like, oh, it's not really real, there's no such thing. And I'm like, well, I've got 14 year old videos still getting views, paying me passively. So well, maybe it's semantics or a debate of terms, but it feels pretty real to me. Feels pretty real to my bank account like so I don't know. Here for the debate. So ultimately it's like ranked videos on YouTube are like real passive income and really passive too because Amazon has to ship the product and if the person doesn't like it, they have to deal with returns and they have to deal. So also I think the key there though is for 99% of people it doesn't work in every niche. Every niche I believe can do affiliate marketing, but like every niche I don't think could do affiliate marketing as their main income stream. Yeah, but tech can if you get to enough scale, because I did and can just prove how it happened. And that's exactly how I got to essentially 5k a month relatively quick and then just kept scaling it up. Because again, the big idea here was when I got $4,500 from what I had earned in December, In January of 2016, that was not the same as building your list and making an offer and then selling something or, or like having a couple breakout videos, but then having to make some more, that was not only hitting that financial level, but actually creating a new baseline that wasn't going to go much lower than that because those were all ranked videos. So they had produced that. Now of course it's going to go down because December is higher, but that's what I've continued to compound. It was just how many ranked videos could I have in my library? And I think the reason people struggle with this, I'll never forget the first payment I got from Amazon affiliates was $2.12 and after like working my face off, it got to like $223. But now it's like 20k a month, almost never goes below and as high as 50 more or less whether I upload new videos or not because of exactly what we're describing. I have thousands of ranked videos on YouTube. So when we talk about income streams, that was the essentially first and only. And then ad revenue scales up though. So then ad revenue was like, that's cool. And then these days, I mean, fame bit, if anybody remembers that fame bit was a brand deal marketplace that YouTube eventually acquired, renamed and then shut down. But, but I would do a few Brand deals and I would get some free products and some other things. But I do think there's something super powerful for every entrepreneur. I think it's probably bigger an issue than today than ever before is shiny object syndrome and distractions and chasing too many income streams. We've got 21, I think media, but that's because we have 30 people that can help manage it and run it. And I think it makes sense at our scale.
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B
Wait, you have 21 revenue streams?
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A
Yeah, okay, I'll break them down in a second. But so, you know, anyways, so it was the one thing, and then that became the one thing, the baseline, the pillar. It also gave me some stability because at least in our proven niche in our business model, it was like, okay, now we have like 5k baseline. And I don't. Another way to put it is I don't have to like hustle over the next month to replace the 5K. You know, a percentage of that is coming in reoccurring. So I have stability to build on, which gives me I can make some more videos to grow that number. But then I also can now start creating another thing. So relatively quickly, I was like, I need to package what I know into an online course to teach this. And that's why our main course and program is called Video Ranking Academy. So that did come out in 2016, a little rough around the edges, but the core thing had already worked. And it wasn't like I had just done that over the previous few months. I'd been doing it since 2010, not just for myself, but for others with the big idea that 100%. And now it has evolved because a ranked video, by our definition, is any video that ranks in search because someone types something in or asks Siri for an answer to a question on YouTube and your video shows up and their audio search is a real thing. But also suggested like any video that just keeps getting views for weeks, months and years to come after you've posted it, posted it, that doesn't just launch and then die, but that just continues to get views would be a ranked video. And it's like if compound interest is, you know, the seventh wonder of the world, ranked videos are the eighth because it just continues to compound. And even more so, that's. That's through affiliate marketing originally. But for a business owner, you want leads consistently. You want clients or customers to be dis discovering you and building no like and trust as they're watching your content for free. A ranked video is like a employee you pay once. That works for free for you for weeks, months and years to come. Not saying it's easy to take the research and the time and the thumbnail and shoot it and edit it and put it out there. But again, what's it worth to have a five year old video that let's say brings you five leads a month and you don't do anything. It's like you're, and it's inbound because you're not cold calling or knocking on doors or doing anything. It is actually inbound traffic that discovered you when they were ready. When the student is ready, the teacher appears and they had a pain point. They find you on YouTube, they start watching a few videos and then they give you a call. Now you're texting them, now you're, you know, they jump on your email list. So that was the initial thing, then it was like the course. And what's interesting, we also have a book and called YouTube Secrets wrote with my friend Benji. That's actually a separate business, separate LLC called Video Influencers. But I would attribute that to as far as income and that's mostly passive today. If you can create an asset like a book and I probably won't be able to remember all 21 income streams but when I say 21 I'm going to say physical book, ebook and audiobook is three.
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B
Right.
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A
Because they really are three different income streams. Audiobook's incredibly, surprisingly lucrative if you also put out a good audiobook. And YouTube Secrets is like 135,000 copies sold, the book ranks, I think it's the number one best selling YouTube strategy book. So even as it's discovered natively on Amazon, but that amount of content on YouTube as well is getting discovery to an additional. It's not affiliate marketing. That's our product. And so fast forward to today and if I, if I combine those two businesses, if you will, or just kind of list them out, you've got ad revenue and percentage. Lee. I mean I'm down to share some number. We make about $500,000 a year on Think Media ad revenue. Now we have a Think Media podcast channel that's probably 50 grand or something in ad revenue. And then brand deals has gone anywhere from a 500 to a million dollar a year business. I don't think we've ever quite hit a million but. And then affiliate marketing is probably another million. Now Amazon's about 300, 400 just itself. But here's kind of the crazy thing to throw out. There is we are a part of 100 affiliate program. No, no, Hyperbole there certainly some are like that did $4 and 17 cents like some niche thing like like a plug in for a video editing software. Templates that at one time were shouted out in a video and every once in a while someone and so but yeah that's a lot of. A lot of SaaS. And then you can split affiliates also into J. JVs or joint vet venture partners. So I would call that actually separate affiliate marketing and separately would be joint ventures meaning if somebody else has something cool. Usually in education like my friend Amy just launched. She helps people with online courses and so we were like promoting her thing.
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B
So we just had her on the podcast actually.
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A
Yeah, Amy Porterfield is a legend.
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B
Yeah, she's amazing.
- [12:52]
A
Probably the best, the best for online courses. And so at times as it especially too it also helps us focus. What I love about that stuff is sometimes people try to be like well I've also done online course. We fell into this trap for a while. We had this program called Inner Circle. It actually was a very good thing. But I've learned that good is the enemy of the great and it's a distraction. And it was the fact that like we had learned online courses, ads, funnels, email marketing. Like we and I'm not saying me, I'm saying it's credit to the Think Media team are pretty good at this stuff. So it was like it was kind of logical. Like why not have a program where we teach this stuff. But what I realized it's a whole nother thing. And we had sort of like a revival at our company where it was like wait a minute, shouldn't the book is YouTube secrets like all roads lead to YouTube. Like YouTube. Like let's double down on YouTube. And so even though it was a very powerful program and what heroes were actually kind of wild for like a business insight was it was making. This episode is brought to you by streamyard. Streamyard is our go to platform here at Think Media for live streaming to Facebook and YouTube and for recording our video podcast. It has an incredibly easy to use interface for built in branding, transitions text lower thirds and seamlessly bringing on guests. And they just added an awesome new feature called Local recording. This allows you to take the quality to another level by separating out your audio and video from your guests, giving you more control over your content for later use. This feature is perfect for video and podcast creators. And so to get a special deal on Streamyard right now and to see all the features that are included, just go to stream with think.com that is streamwiththink.com it was making $25,000 a month mrr and we shut it down. And so small town kid, college dropout. Like that was emotionally difficult to do. But also the fruit of it was insane because once it was sort of. There's this good book called the Pumpkin Plant Plan by Michael Malowitz I believe. And it's, it's for, it's a business analogy of how to grow a fruitful business based on how to grow a prize winning pumpkin. Interesting. So how do you do it? Well, the way you grow a prize winning pumpkin is you have to cut off the little pumpkins because they'll take away from the big one. So even though you're like, well that one looks so great especially it's like fall. Like we need our pumpkin spice latte. It's like we need lots of little pumpkins, different sizes. It'll make the front porch look so nice. It's like you got to be willing to, you got to be willing to cut off the little pumpkins if you want to grow a prize winning pumpkin. And that was our business grew as a result. Although I mean that's crazy. That's 300 grand a year or whatever. Like, but we scaled after we, we cut off and we've, we've continued to try to do that over time. So and then online course is, you know our main course video ranking today we've got levels to it. So we have like do it and it's turned into a membership. So it's do it yourself, do it in a small group with kind of cohort based with small groups or do it with a one on one coach. And we now have thick media coaches. And then when I also said 21 income streams like I got into a stuff like we had Dave Ramsey speak at our event and I'm mainly, we have, we're bootstrapped, never raised money, never took on a small business loan. But we do use credit cards. You know, not that I need to defend myself but like, and what's like I consider an income stream especially because we do paid ads and stuff. I want to say we probably generate well over $100,000 a year from credit card points. I know they're, they're like no one ever got rich with credit card points. And I'm like me. Yeah, well, and again, I think, I think even for listeners too they miss that you hear numbers like this like oh my gosh, like you're making so much money. And like also true but like you know, at the same Time like even right now we've been running pretty really slim profit margin. We're at record top line revenue record because also expansion so it's like no we're paying people and we just added health insur and you gotta have cash flow for a rainy day and we're reinvesting in the business and all kinds of stuff. But that's an income stream. And then I talked about like investments because I tried it to personal and investments compounding is an income stream. When they say millionaires have seven the IRS says the average millionaire has seven income streams. They actually are. The IRS did not find affiliate ranked videos is not one of them for the average millionaire it's like real estate which is true for us as well. And like and then investments that are growing and you could go high yield savings. So you could start getting in to see how there could be lots of different but then trying to go through more we do events so that's a different one and I think we just call that one but physical events, paid online events and then consulting could be one that I would do and or speaking myself there's another one paid speaking engagements. So I mean in answer to your question I'm happy to you know share any other areas that I could illuminate but those are. Let me summarize with this. The way we look at Think media today and we might break it up in the future or organize it a little bit differently because it's. But I see it as four businesses. I see it as and I'm look and the way it's set up is there's leaders over each business. So for example think the YouTube channel is one business Kyle Anderson is running is like our director of the channel and channels kind of you have the podcast channel. And so that business the goal is to make each business profitable and self sustaining. And that business is YouTube ads, affiliate marketing, brand deals and sort of like front facing. But then the other goal is that they all connect and feed each other and they do like naturally as. As it would so then the second business would be you could call it info products or education membership sites. The third business would be management consulting which would is kind of the wrong term but it's nice. It's the right term. It's coaching business. And and this is a kind of a tip I learned was don't try to reinvent the wheel but like get your language right. I learned this from Leila Hermosi. Like if you want to hire somebody like figure out literally what their title should be and don't like. I don't know exactly. Go figure. Find it out. Is it a. Is it a chief operation officer? Is it a director of operations? Is it a. Because these. They're paid differently. And what exactly do you need? So I was like, man, I kind of want to think about starting a coaching business. Well, sure, but you start reverse engineering back from what would a management consulting company do? Would be like how could that be structured? How could we learn it? And just sort of a different approach. So that's why I would call that one the coaching. The coaching arm. And then the last one would be an events business. And while they're all think Media or Clear Vision Media Inc. Kind of our holding company, ultimately that is sort of the four arms that we're building out. And. And then all these niche income streams sort of connect and then certainly some of the income streams step into like a personal finance which lives inside and outside of the company. For example, if you take business revenue, sophisticated business owners, many listening might benefit from this or some are already doing this. Like if you're sitting on a bunch of cash, you can still sit on it, but you might as well put it in high yield savings or money markets or something that how soon do you need the money? And that's an income stream. Like especially depending on how much dry powder you have, how much cash you're sitting on. Like you throw a million dollars at 5% on the high yield with the way interest rates were, is that 50 grand in a year? Yeah. That's meaningful. Am I right? I'm not good at math. So that's an income stream. You just made 50 grand because you put your money to work for you, even at a quote unquote lower level because interest rates have been so high. Yeah. That is having your money working smarter, not harder. 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 $1900. 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 gotta 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 thinkmediasale.com all right, let's jump back into the episode.
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B
It's interesting too, seeing it in the four business models within the kind of umbrella company and to think about where you started with one to two revenue streams and now there's 21 in four different business categories is really amazing. And, and I think it shows how much you have had this vision all along for what you were building. And I kind of want to kind of wrap us up in this way of like earlier in the, in this conversation you mentioned early you were thinking about the legacy of the business. And I'm curious now, almost 10 years into Think Media, 15 into YouTube and being a creator, almost 20 actually, what do you feel like your legacy is at this point? Like, and how do you feel about the way that it's developed over time?
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A
That's a deep question. I think that what I ultimately want to solve for is impact. And one simple phrase would be I'm trying to live up to my God given potential and I'm trying to steward. Stewardship is the word for me. There's been a lot of strategy and a lot of thinking that's went into all of this, but I also, I actually think I'm also kind of just a reactionary intuitive leader, if you will. Because again, it was like I didn't even jump out until my freelance clients fired me. So then I was like, I guess I'm starting this next thing. And then it was like, you know, we have content creators. We could have a part two of the conversation. Like this whole idea, building media company and having talent and lessons I learned, you know, but like even that was. Were you trying to be the Daily Wire or something? Like no, like not at all. Like I, it was sort of almost accidental, but I think more it was intentional, but it was stewardship, meaning the people who just came into my life and the conversations that happened over coffee. And I think it's also stewardship just looks at man what's in my hand and how can I multiply it? Which is like a faith based perspective. I believe that's what God challenges us to do. It's like just what's, what's in your hand? You know what, just stewarding. What was put in my hand back in 2003 by my youth pastor was a Video camera and Adobe Premiere video editing software. And I just wanted to serve the youth ministry, help it grow, and make the best weekly video announcements that I could. And so then as Think Media has grown, I'm always at the intersection of also thinking about family, kids, solving for those types of things. But as a leader, I just, I'm asking, how far can we go? And what I'm way more into is actually the journey. I certainly, yes, money for the mission. But like, right now we're running 1% profit margins, which is actually terrible in the online influencer space because a lot of people that do and, and like course creators and stuff, like, they're like, oh, we got 50, 60, 70% profit margins. At least 30. But it's just different mindsets. Respect. There's a good phrase called stay small, keep it all, but what are you solving for? And so another good book from Michael McCallowis is called Profit First. So profit's a pretty big deal and this whole thing's gonna fall down if there's not enough profit over, you know, but, but what am I solving for? I'm. I am solving for now the stewardship of the incredible humans that have come along to help us build at Think Media. Like our executive team, Brian and Kyle and Melissa and Jordan and Sonia. Like, all of us is like, who's here? What could we do? What could we build? What's next? How could we, how could we steward this thing? And how can we solve for making a difference in our customers and our community and our viewers? And how can we pivot to what's happening? But just, yeah, where could this thing go next? Because it's way different than I thought it would look like. And it's kind of like you're everybody listening to this is trying to climb the mountain and they think they, they, they are shooting for the summit of the mountain. And I feel like I've hit different summits, and it wasn't until I got there that I realized, wow, I just reached the top of the mountain. But now I realize I'm still at the bottom of a whole nother mountain range. So now it's just navigating this next season of where are we going for? And so for me, I think legacy is what I would want to solve for. And I was just. There's a book called Trillion Dollar Coach, Bill Campbell, who's like a Silicone Valley Legend, and 2,000 people were at his funeral. Great man. And just speaks, speaks to the impact and the difference in the make the lives of people. And it Also speaks to me always course correcting because it's easy to get into just type A productivity survival, task oriented. But at the end of the day, it's people. We're in a people business. I tell our team all the time that we're customer focused business. Like what winning looks like is adding value. Yesterday's home runs will not win today's games. Nobody owes us anything. We're not entitled to views tomorrow. We're not entitled. Like we have to just always strive to add value to that end user and our income will be directly correlated to the value we add to the marketplace. And then. But, but more probably the. Probably one of the main things that drives probably two things. I want to make great content. But probably even more importantly, I want to build a great company culture and just do meaningful things with people I love.
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B
Yeah.
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A
So. And I hope and I think we're experiencing that I think right now. And cultures like a garden, you gotta pull weeds and water it consistently and you might have an aphids attack in one side and they're eating all your, you know, your leaves or something. I think it's gonna happen. It's, it's, it's going to be an ongoing process of, of planting, nurturing, watering, refining. And so to me, that's kind of what I'm after. And just feeling blessed and humbled and grateful. And I. There's this verse where King David in the Bible says, who am I, God, that you brought me this far? Life's weird. Like I just don't, I don't even know what's happening, but it's like, it just feels like stewardship. I'm like, just here we are, what do we do now? And a level of also feeling, you know, 1% profit is also thinking not just what can happen for Sonia and I, my wife and our kids now and legacy, but I feel a responsibility to the, like somebody did the math. And it's not just the, the 30 to 40 people, you know, with contractors, but it's their kids and their families. There's a lot of responsibility on my weight and I want that responsibility. It's the way I be wired. That's. I always love the team leadership. Could we build something, you know, that's, that's special and that's meaningful and have fun in the process? And it goes all the way back to just stewarding that video camera that was put in my hand. I didn't know this YouTube thing would happen. Also we kept asking, is YouTube gonna like keep, you know, is it going to turn into being a MySpace. And so the humility I try to have to also just be like I am incredibly blessed and can't take credit for the fact that a lot of right place, right time to be in YouTube early and that then YouTube when we continue to say like Goldman Sachs said that the creator economy is going to double in the next three years revenue income wise, the next three years are going to be the best three years in the crater economy. YouTube continues to grow the most. The made on YouTube thing just happened is viewed more than Netflix and Hulu and everything else now longer form video More on TVs most predictions is like, is YouTube going anywhere? Like no is YouTube. It's like not only is it secure, it like continues to compound. Well, shoot, it's really nice, you know, and obviously there's others. I remember when 2020 happened and a bunch of people launched their book and course on Clubhouse and you know, they were going all in on being like the number one clubhouse expert and stuff like respect is good, go for it. And I remember being on Clubhouse like all day, every day when we all had nothing to do. I don't know how that's working out right now. So, but, but like obviously clubhouse has shifted and we have Twitter spaces punchline. Just incredibly grateful. So stewardship, it's like just stewardship of that. Trying to be faithful with what's in my hand, multiply it and trying to live up to my God given potential and honor the people around me, the team, my family, our customers, our viewers and just do the best I can in the process.
- [30:48]
B
Wow. Well, you are. I can tell that you are an amazing leader. I could listen to you talk all day long and I love the focus on stewardship, like focusing on what's right in front of you, the resources that are in your hand and kind of having that like open palm receptive mentality as well, which I can tell has been a constant throughout your journey. Thank you so much for sharing so much wisdom and transparency in this conversation. I get so much life from these discussions, especially when entrepreneurs like you kind of let down the veil a little bit and like really tell us what's going on. And I just appreciate your transparency in that. I know people are going to want to talk to you after this. So where can people connect with you moving forward?
- [31:32]
A
Well, yeah, I want to thank you for having me on and just so grateful to. I hope today's conversation was valuable. Yeah. You know, Sean Cannell rhymes with YouTube channel Instagram. You can slide into my DMS S E, A, N, C A, N, N, E, L L and then, you know, Think Media and Think Media Podcast, like, probably Think Media Podcast is where a lot of my energy is. We have two shows a week, and so I would. Yeah, if people are interested, you could definitely check that out. And it's a good time to start and grow a YouTube channel. And it's a tough time to start and grow a YouTube channel. Oh, it's a little bit harder now for sure. What are you going to do, complain? It's still. YouTube is recommending small channels and new channels. They just launched some new things for it. So the landscape's always changing, but the data supports right now. There's massive opportunity on YouTube. And when you're even thinking about how you could build a community and how you could build a circle and how you can, you know, think about other income streams and whatnot, we're there to help you on the Think Media podcast to, you know, the promise is unfiltered YouTube tips for building a profitable channel. So we're there to help you really navigate and create a path to figure out how to make it sustainable and have money for the mission. So that's the Think Media podcast comes out on audio and the YouTube channel specifically. And I really appreciate you having me on.