Sean Cannell (0:00)

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 your growth. This class is 100% free, and you can watch it now on demand@think masterclass.com now, let's jump into today's show. If you're tired of working on YouTube with little to show for it, this is why the real reason your channel isn't growing is not the algorithm, it's leverage. For example, in the last 30 days, the Think Media YouTube channel's passed 5 million views. And this podcast channel alone saw a 30% increase in in revenue. Subscribers are up. Momentum is compounding. And it's not because I'm working more hours. It's because I'm changing how I work. But maybe that's not your story. Right now, growth feels slow. You're posting consistently, trying all the tips, and still getting stuck in the same cycle. I've been there, and I know how discouraging that feels. But there's a better way. And in this episode, I'm going to be sharing the four strategic shifts that I'm focused on right now, the same ones that are driving my growth and and revenue today. Because in 2025, it's not the most creative or even the most consistent that are going to win. It's the most leveraged. Let's dive in. Well, I'm excited because we're going to get into another session that I've titled what I'm laser focused on right now. The untapped content opportunities I see after 5 million views last month, there's four things I just thought about. Like, personally, I think there's takeaways for all of us. We're all in different places. It's not that you would need to do these, but you might find some insights. You might have some questions from what I'm focusing on right now. So four things that I think about. You know, also for context, my life's become interesting because I would say the hats I wear are maybe more than two, but in our company, we would be CEO, creator, and who can relate to that? Like, you're actually trying to operate a business and be the creator. So that's challenging for Some of us, sometimes we might think creator, and we then eventually have to add the business stuff. But for our company of something like 25 W2s and you add contractors, maybe 10 more, maybe close to 40 people. When you think about the different people that assist, it's like a lot of kind of ops and things to do. And we have an incredible team. I think, as you know, you're getting to meet some of them, but there's definitely the business side. So for me, and I'm going to come back to this word a lot, but I think it's worth writing down. It might be one of my favorite words, and it's the word leverage. Like, I always am asking myself, what is the most leveraged use of my time? What is the best use of my time? It would be awesome. I'm sure a lot of us would dream if I just had that person that would, like, maybe do all this stuff or do that, like, eight pages of title planning and then, like, tell me the titles and I could, you know, if I just had that person. Is there, like, one person I can hire on upwork that would do, like, these 26 things on my to do list that I've written down? You know, like, we. But a lot of times there isn't that. And so we find ourselves in the weeds trying to get stuff done. So because of that, These are the four things that I focus on right now in 2025. Number one is video podcasting. Video podcasting. I'm not saying you have to start a video podcast or that it's even right for you, but I would. These are the things that I would do. And there's a lot of reasons why, like, video podcasting is incredibly leveraged. And so YouTube recently, in fact, their most recent update of the end of the year, it'd be like their quarterly update and revenue update. The key takeaways from YouTube's latest quarter was a couple of cool things. They did 10.5 billion. Their advertising is up. They did 10.5 billion, up from 9.2 billion a year ago, which is just a good sign of that. YouTube is expanding like the pie that you're involved in. That's a great thing. But what it says on here is. The owner of Alphabet spoke of growth. First time that YouTube has ever surpassed 10 billion in quarterly ad revenue. 11% of all TV viewing is YouTube, which is wild. According to Nielsen, one of the reasons for the ad revenue spike was the election. But here's what I want to hone in on YouTube is seeing success in attracting podcasters. And people are watching over 400 million hours of podcasts monthly on living room devices. YouTube is now the most popular service for podcast listening and in the US and so on their earnings call, they highlighted their investment in podcasts. And what they essentially set up was not just that they're going to care about it more, try to have the algorithm be around podcasting. YouTube Music is the competitor to Spotify and Apple that's integrated as well. It's the most popular platform for consuming podcasts. And so for some of those reasons, I'm like, okay, YouTube is investing in podcasts. They love podcasts. And so one reason why I wanted to launch a podcast is because already doing YouTube, I thought, okay, this is gonna be a good use of my time because it's also leveraged besides committing to it on YouTube, we are leaning into Spotify. Now, of course, this gets more complex. We use buzzsprout if you wanna write that down. It's a good software service that helps us distribute to the other platforms. But even Spotify is also allowing you to upload video. You can upload a vertical video clip to promote your episode. This is like the podcast wars. So Spotify wants to compete with YouTube and I'm here for that healthy competition because they just want more dominance of who's listening to what. So I just think about the fact that if I can create a quality episode, upload it on YouTube, also distribute it to Spotify, also distribute it to Apple, and do my best to Invest on the YouTube side of things for us. The first podcast episode came out basically January 1, 2020. And so we're almost at $200,000 in ad revenue, almost 300,000 subscribers. And in, you know, four years and two months of the age of doing a podcast didn't happen overnight. And. But it's something I'm obsessed with and obsessed with making quality and investing in again, not just myself. We'll be talking about at the mastermind, building teams and hiring. And so this would then be our audio. Almost a 3 million audio downloads of the podcast. But when I'm talking about four things I'm obsessed with, I'm going to go deeper as to why, because if I sit down, go through this title process, why is it worth it for me to come up with something really high quality and try to come up with an episode that is. Doesn't take me forever to create, But I want to make sure I research it well, I structure it well, I deliver as much value as possible well, because it could be Chopped up into clips that could be distributed elsewhere. And so basically my main format of posting on social media, especially lately, I would say I've been off of social media for a few months. I mean, if you follow me, you see like a story here. Like earlier this week I was like, rise and grind was like the first time in like 60 days or something. Yet we still post about 300 pieces of content a week. So that's what my life of being off of social media is. 300 pieces is me is me on a social fast. Well, and I just mean I'm off because there's a system to it. There's a whole routine. It's leveraged. And so I just focus on making the video podcast. Now, this is not a member of our team. We actually outsource the vertical clips to an agency. And we started by paying them about $4,000 a month for one clip a day. Now the only reason you actually, I think, can get that many clips is you need a good amount of content to start with, and then they can chop it up. And then we went to two clips for a little bit of a discount, maybe 7,600 bucks a month, and then that gives us two clips a day that start on TikTok official think media Sean Cannell can then be distributed. But to me, again, that's leverage. Is it even all ROI positive? We could talk about that in Q and A if you're interested. But the point is it's actually sustainable. It's a system. And it's something that is happening, if you will, without me. But I speak into it and try to lead it, because this is all from really one commitment, and that is to podcasts. And then it also goes to Facebook reels as well. And so all this content and all this distribution, which all tracks back to the same thing, views, leads, and sales, because we know our business and we know what we're doing, then that is the one thing I do is that video podcast that creates all this impact. And so Archimedes, you may have heard of Archimedes lever before, that's the ancient Greek mathematician and physicist. The principle refers that a small force applied correctly can move a massive object. He said, give me a lever, a fulcrum, and a place to stand, and I'll move the earth. And so in content creation, this idea of one long form podcast repurposed into 10 short clips, automated distribution versus scheduling, tools and team, is a highly leveraged activity. And so with the right system, the right strategy, you can move mountains with minimal effort. One of our Mastermind attendees, Cap, which, if you haven't got to meet him, Cap, stand up so people can actually connect with you. Many people you should network with here, y' all. Cap has a video podcast directed life with Cap Chatfield. And so it's a smart commitment. You've got the opportunity to have consistent episodes by interviewing others. There's a whole networking side of it as well, and just relationships and building. But then you can chop up your clips and you have them on social media. And so four things I'm focused on. One, personally, I'm focused on trying to master video podcasting. And then I ask myself, it's like, the bridge is complete. Then I say, how can I go to another elite level of this and another elite level of this? And as we have revenue, how can I reinvest in this? The team we hire, you know, at an advanced level, our podcasts basically have little movie trailers. I'd call them trailers. Is a big trend in podcasts. Discouraging. If you're starting and you're like, I'm going to hit record and turn it off, like, yeah, you can't compete with diary of a CEO yet you can still win. But when you think about your podcast or your videos, there's always another level you could go to. And so maybe that's the hooks, the editing, your delivery, all of those types of things. Number two is strategic content repurposing leverage. Like, how do I take what I'm already doing and use it at a deeper level? And so we already talked about that with the clips, but this is another one of my favorite obsessions, and it's what are called, we call them content marathons. The probably more just understandable term would be a compilation. So this video came out on December 26th, and it's a video titled how to start your YouTube channel in 2025. It actually was very intentional. I started planning this video out maybe two months ahead of time because I looked at Google trends. This might have been obvious, but the absolute peak of the year when people say, how do I start a YouTube channel? Is the end of December, like the last week until January 16th. So I wanted to upload my video right before the rise and ride the entire wave. I also realized and banked on the fact that 99% of my competition was going to be full of cheese and eggnog at the exact moment that I was uploading this video. And so I started to architect a video on how to start a YouTube channel in 2025, titled parentheses free online course but the content of this video is actually. The video is 1 hour, 46 minutes and 38 seconds long. And the content of the video is actually four episodes of my podcast. Now this is kind of. We're in a weird space, we're pumping out insane amounts of content and there's a team and a system and. But because we have two channels, I have a podcast channel where I upload twice. And this would be our main channel. Think media where we'd upload less YouTube strategy stuff. But every once in a while, a video like this, it's already got 118,000 views. 6.4x outlier, 56 views an hour. But if you look at the time codes and chapters there, really what it is is just I looked at the best performing podcast. I looked at a logical organization of four episodes. I did. I then put those together into a one long video. And then I hosted in between each of the different episodes, I hosted, like fresh content, a fresh hook. And then in the transitions, views, lead sales. Every transition is kind of a commercial. Now the way I would do it is to just be like, hey, so we just learned this. We're about to get into this next part. But by the way, did you know I'm giving a copy of my book YouTube Secrets Away Free. If you want, you can go to ytsecrets.com just pay shipping. And so tell them about it. And then be like, all right, let's jump into the next section. Time codes and chapters for you. And so this is even a lot of work, I would say, but it's completely leveraged. If there was year, I would only put episodes that the information was still relevant. If there was references to time points, those would be edited out. And so this entire ep, this entire video that's now on fake media, it not only already has 118,000 views, but here's what's wild. I wouldn't be surprised if it collects more views than the other four videos combined. Repurposed content, strategically repurposed, but completely just repackaged. Repurposed. Now, one of the things that is also fascinating about this maybe sub point of what I'm focused on is, is, you know, if You've been in YouTube for a long time, you've heard about like, do the hook. The first opening, 30 seconds matter. Make your hooks good. Like, I get it. No, you don't. And neither do I. We can do better hooks. In fact, these ones broke a record. If you go into your YouTube analytics and you look at how many people are still watching at 30 seconds, my best, my worst is usually like 50%. My best was like 72%. These ones, 92%. These openings, crafting them in AI, the words that are said, B roll. That's used because I just realized it's like if. And I was also like, man, I'm trying to get somebody interested in watching an almost two hour long masterclass. This opening is going to matter something worth looking up later to just think about again. Some days you're just going to film a video in your car, hit record, turn it off. Like it's not. This is not every video. But this was reverse engineered to do what it's doing because I was looking for the leverage. And again, every single throughout that episode, it's connected back to views, leads and sales. And so it actually. One term I'd love to share with you is an insider phrase we use at Think Media. We're like, oh, we're going to chop the chicken. Okay, that's going to be a chicken chop. And I will now describe what that is in case you want to use the term for yourself. So one of the things I learned about was that grocery stores, you know, you could go into a grocery store and they're always thinking about how can they maximize revenue, save money, things like that. And so if you were to go into a grocery store, right, you could say, okay, I'm going to have people coming over, I'm going to head over to the meat section and the refrigerated section and I'm going to purchase a chicken that I plan on preparing and cooking tonight. And so that's, of course, one way you could sell the chicken. Maybe that's it. Great. But then as that expiration date approaches and nobody has purchased the chicken yet, what's going to happen? Do we just throw the chicken away? Well, no, let's cook that chicken up, put it up front as a seasoned rotisserie chicken. Come on, we're busy. Parents know, it's like, man, just grab that thing, it's ready. That's a whole other way to take that same chicken before it was about to expire and then sell it. But what happens if someone doesn't buy that rotisserie chicken, man? Probably throw that thing out. No way, man. Let's make a chicken curry. Put that in the. Give that another day or two. Ooh, it's getting a little. And that's our joke would be like, okay, like, what level of chicken curry is this? Like, how, how, like, is this still edible? Is anybody going to get food Poisoning from this content Is anybody, like, how far? But you think about chop the chicken, it's like, and so the big idea is letting good ideas go to waste. Most people only create once and they move on. But chop the chicken is repurpose, remix. Squeeze every last drip out of drip of value out of the content you're creating. Like scripts you've already shot that you could or already prepared that you actually should just kind of recreate. Maybe a different title, maybe a different angle on it. Like videos you've shot last year, you should be remaking this year. And even content you've uploaded that could be repackaged. And so the question is, how many ways can you chop your chicken? Ask your neighbor that. Like, there's. How many ways can you chop your chicken? When's the last time you asked somebody that? It's kind of awkward. That's weird. How many ways can you chop your chicken? I think it's a lot more than you think. And I think that the myth we believe is people are like, oh, that's repetitive. You know, I've already seen that. You know, it's different when people roll with you if you're more vlogging and they're following you in every episode. But I just don't think we, you know, or they stick with you like that. There's just so many ways we should be thinking about repurposing our content. And so the longevity principle is that a couple things. Build it to repurpose. So when I'm shooting, I'm thinking about this, I'm thinking about one. If you start with weak content, repurposing it won't save it. So what I'm not saying is start a video podcast, sit down, no plan, riff for 20 minutes, put that into opus clip, and then think the clips are going to be good. The content sucked to start with, like, or you might have got 10%. This is why more time just invested. And I hope you're seeing the roi. Like, I don't have time to start making better content. I'm busy. You don't have time not to. Because I'm telling you this from a very. Like, I don't have time. But because it's such leveraged activities, I'm like, the hours I might put here trickle down into the content, marathon into the clips, into thinking. As I prepare, the more quotable things or crafted statements I have are gonna translate a lot better to the vertical content. And for us, vertical content, sometimes we'll tack a little trailer on the end and use manychat and we have a whole Instagram thing going with leads as well. But it all starts with a YouTube first mindset. So if you start with weak content though repurposing it won't save it too. Build for repurposing from the start. Refining the idea, sharpening the execution and then making something worth multiplying. And then I mentioned earlier that Jen made $44,000 from ad revenue. $44,000 from one video. It's 2:53:44 long. The mega budget meals, ideas, three hours of delicious cheap eats. 1.1 million views. It is her other videos, her best videos. Stitched together but not haphazardly cut out the things that are irrelevant. Maybe a sponsor spot something else and repackage. Give it up for Jen for chopping the chicken. How many ways can you chop your chicken? All right, number three, search based content and rank videos. What am I obsessed with ranking videos? Man, it's 2025. I want to create search based content like never before. Are you a business owner or serious content creator that is struggling to crack the YouTube code? Are you feeling stuck, overwhelmed or just plain frustrated with slow growth? If so, then our new one on one coaching program at Virginia viral video coach.com is your premier ticket to YouTube success, becoming the authority in your niche, attracting engaged leads and loyal customers. We offer one to one coaching with our YouTube experts that'll help you get results fast and a supportive community that's cheering you on. So if you're ready to stop wasting time with trial and error and to stop leaving money on the table, then head to viral video coach.com to apply to see if you qualify for our coaching program. But heads up, this offer is not for everybody. It's only for serious content creators and entrepreneurs that are ready to take action. So if that's you, head to viral video coach.com to apply or click the link in the show notes. All right, let's jump back into the episode. You know, in our system it all starts with Reverse Engineer. And you can do this for trending content and you could do this of course for viral type videos. But I really think we're in an SEO revival and tomorrow I'm going to be talking about kind of some fresh things on 2025 YouTube SEO. But I'm doubling down on high intent long tail keywords versus broad appeal titles. And so this is back to which videos will attract the right people, you know, your ideal people and search based content, while oftentimes less gratifying in the moment, because it might be 10 out of 10. Anybody that's been uploading YouTube videos, you know the feeling when a video is nine out of 10 or 10 out of 10, which, if that's new to you, one out of 10 means YouTube's like, hey, your video just beats your previous 10. And 10 out of 10, you're like, well, I might as well quit today. You know? And that's the one you really worked hard on, too. So 10 out of 10. But when you do this, you have to, like, have an emotional resilience. You're like, I'm just planting a seed. It's the farmer mentality. At the Keller Williams event on Monday, I was talking to somebody and they were like, yeah, I just found that when I kind of do search stuff, it's, you know, it's more slower. And there's these other type of videos. They get more views initially, and I'm like, bro. But if you have the farmer mentality, and that's why your competition won't do it, they don't have enough mental toughness to wait it out. But what happens when you plant 3,000 ranked videos around? You still research them. I'm not talking about just, like, pointless videos that get no traffic, but I'm talking about very strategic videos. The compound effect that builds over even months and years is unbelievable. So the idea, it's leverage. Make it once, get views forever. That's the power of ranked videos on YouTube. Number four, leadership, team building and systems. So what four things am I focusing on then? What can I do? A video podcast? Make sure that I do my best job at that possible. How can we repurpose stuff? Even more leverage. How can I make some ranked videos, but mostly leadership, team building and systems and 100% in this room could benefit from even if you're just starting. I wish I would have thought about leadership and delegation and team earlier. And a lot of you are at this stage at varying degrees. This would be your ultimate impact point to grow in. You know, there was a girl named Molly Mae who had a quote when she was being interviewed. She was on Love Island. She was a Love island contestant. And there was a controversy around this quote because she said, well, you know, Beyonce has the same 24 hours as we all do. And people got offended, and they should have, because Beyonce doesn't have 24 hours a day. Beyonce has 1600 hours a day. Why? Because she has 200 staff. So every single one of those staff working 40 hours multiplied by the day they work gives Beyonce 1600 hours a day. And so people are right. It's not fair. And it is out of touch to just be like, oh, Beyonce has the same 24 hours. Anything's possible. No, there's people who have an advantage over you, your competitors that have two staff. When you're playing a solo game, that gives them an advantage. So the question, though, isn't to complain about it. The question is to think about, man, how do I build my team? How do I delegate? You know, there's. It's interesting. Some people that are doing incredible revenues and they don't have a money problem, they have a time problem, are still. You're still editing your videos or you're still doing the YouTube stuff yourself. It doesn't make sense. Like, you want to create the leverage. And so if you think that's crazy, during her last Tour, she had 2,600 people working on the tour with her. So Effectively, she had 22,400 hours a day. If you add up her 200 regular staff, that's equivalent to 933 days of work in a single day. Not fair. How does she pull off the tour and set up the lights and set it all up and do the video and do. Because of a team. So the takeaway is you need the team. And people were probably right to be offended that Beyonce is far beyond the same 24 hours. And I'm pretty sure Beyonce's my day is pretty good, but I bet her day is better. You know, she's got, you know, wakes up, maybe somebody. Which would you like today? Like, beverage choices as she's going to the spa or whatever it is. Like, there's something about leverage. Reid Hoffman, the co founder of LinkedIn, said this. No matter how brilliant your minder strategy is, if you're playing a solo game, you're always going to lose to a team. You got to get a team. You got to be thinking about it. It doesn't. It doesn't have to be a big team. It doesn't even have to be. It doesn't mean you have to have healthcare and employees. But it could be contractors, you know, different things that you delegate and you outsource, buy your time back. You know, I think about the team evolution for me, and the biggest aha moment was I had a big block when it came to hiring at first. And the main thing was as a content creator. I was also the video editor. Of course, I was wearing all the hats. I would film and I would shoot and I would edit, and that was my skill set. Video Itself since all the way back when I started from my church in 2003 doing video. And so I realized the thing that took most of my time every week was the editing itself. Sometimes the video would take four, six, eight hours to edit. It's a lot of time. And I was like, man, the thing I would get the most time back from was delegating the editing. But. But I had this huge block in my mind, and it was this block of. But I've been building Think Media to this point, and it's built around my personality and my connection with my viewers and this relationship that we have. If I delegate the editing, then people are gonna go crazy in the comments. They're gonna be like, you sold out. How I could tell, like, between this last video, who did this? You betrayed us. You know, I was thinking, maybe I'm gonna start getting mail, you know, and, like, just be torn apart. And this was real, like, feelings. I was like, this might just be the beginning of the end of my career. Like, my YouTube channel will stop growing. My audience will abandon me. It is over if I delegate editing. And so I actually was wanting knowing, though, but I need to build a team and if I'm gonna grow. And so I actually started. I went on meetup, meetup.com. i've been building relationships here in Vegas, and I went to these creative meetups and these blog meetups and these podcasting meetups, and actually didn't really meet anybody until I met one guy named Jay at this creative meetup. He's like, hey, yeah. Like, oh, yeah, I do some editing. I'm like, hey, would you try editing a few Think Media videos? He goes, sure. So I paid him just, you know, I think, like, a few hundred dollars just based on a few videos. I remember he edited the first one, and I uploaded it, and I was terrified. Video scheduled, upload to go the next day. Schedule uploaded to go public on the next day. And sure enough, you know, I made that video public. I waited for a while, and I read the comments, and you would have been shocked by how many people were tearing me apart in the comments about a different editor. 0 people mentioned anything different at all about the video. And even though. And I. When I watched his edit, oh, here comes the insight I saw, like, oh, I would have done that different. And, oh, I didn't like that. And, oh, that felt different. And no. And then, like, even the feedback I gave him, even the final version, I was like, I'm sick. It's just not a representation of my brand. But it went public and people had no zero comments about the difference of on my brand. Nobody cared. So it was a blow to my ego because it made me think, huh, maybe I'm not like God's gift to editing on planet Earth. And apparently nobody can even tell when I'm editing. And it just let me know that there's something about letting go and delegating. And it's one thing to of course delegate the stuff that you're not good at or whatever, but it's a whole other thing actually to perhaps delegate and hire around the stuff you are good at and you do like, because you just need leverage. And if you're like, man, how am I going to have time to do that? Next thing it's thinking about delegating, giving away the thing you're on. John Maxwell, leadership expert, talks about that. If somebody can do what you do, I would say he says, at at least an 8, man, I think if they're at a 7 and they can grow to an 8, it's time to hand it off. It's time to take like if somebody else. If your content drops to an 8 or to a 7 because you're in the process of reinventing or building a team, you got to let the drop happen because. Because you can't, you can't make the transition if it never drops. Because of course you doing everything is going to be a certain way, but that's going to be a block to you growing your company to the next level. So these are the four things that I'm laser focused on right now. And what are we doing next? Next is going to be a break and I didn't start my clock. What time are we at? Okay, good. So let's do some Q and A. Let's run the mic. Raise your hand if you've got a question and we'll get you a microphone. We'll have a second mic coming to the back right now. Go ahead.