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. There's a business opportunity that's hiding in plain sight that 99% of creators and entrepreneurs are ignoring. Look, I get it. It's easy to think that the time and money and energy invested in YouTube is just another expense, another thing to do on your overwhelming to do list. But here's what's happening while you wait. Companies with similar products and services to yours are capturing disproportionate market share. They are lowering customer acquisition costs. They're building direct relationships with your customers. And the window of opportunity, it's closing. Over the past decade, I've built multiple YouTube channels with over 4 million subscribers right now and almost a half a billion views. And I've witnessed businesses transform from small operations into into media companies, generating seven and multiple eight figures. And in today's episode of the Think Media podcast, you're getting exclusive access to a keynote that I shared at a YPO business event in Miami. We're going to be covering why YouTube isn't a marketing expense. It's your most strategic business asset. The two paths that every CEO and business owner can take to dominate their market through video. The exact system that turns content into a business flywheel that compounds year after year and why companies like HubSpot invested millions to become media companies. And why you should, too. By the end of this video, you're going to have complete clarity as to whether or not YouTube should be a part of your strategy and if it should be exactly how to implement it. Let's dive in. What's up, YPO? Well, I'm excited to talk about YouTube today, and if we're just meeting, my name is Sean Cannell and I it happens to rhyme with YouTube channel, so I don't know if that's destiny, but let's dive into this. I want to talk about building your media empire and some smart strategies for CEOs, leaders and operators. And by the end of this talk, I Hope you have clarity for how YouTube might be a tactical strategy you can implement in your business and what you are trying to achieve. And, and here's a question. Why do some companies capture disproportionate market share despite having a similar product as yours? Our strategic insight is that YouTube isn't just a marketing expense, it's your most strategic business asset. And so in this training, we're going to be Talking about the YouTube opportunity most CEOs miss the strategic decision every CEO must make before starting and, and simple systems to turn content into business assets. And so let me share you a little bit about how I came to this discovery in my personal journey. And so back in 2010, I was waiting tables at Red Robin and I started to film videos and post them on the Internet. And you could see I was filming in my car, even on the way to work or in between shifts. And I started to do tech reviews and camera reviews and things like that. And these videos were horrible, like these, you know, just, just nervous getting on camera. But I kind of saw an opportunity on YouTube and I started to first epiphany that I had was that YouTube is a search engine and that it's still to this day, in light of AI and in light of lots of other channels, it's still the second largest search engine in the world. And so I started to become obsessed with this concept and idea that, that you can make a video, post it on YouTube and it could be found by total strangers. And as a small town kid growing up in a rural community an hour north of Seattle, Washington, this opportunity seemed significant to me. And so I had some early success. And by around 2015 I was able to just as an independent content creator, kind of make a six figure income, start to make a living. But I did see a huge problem and that was that I was playing a solo game. I started to kind of study business and was like, okay, there's not going to be a lot of scale to this if I'm just an independent content creator. And there's actually a book called Built to Sell, many of you have probably read it and it totally changed my life. I actually never read the book. I just read the title and it seemed clear enough to me though. It was like, is your business built to sell? And I was like, mine's not. And so that's quite, quite a revelation. Maybe I should figure out how that could happen, especially because that would be mean. I'm building a better business that's more durable and let me see if I can Figure that out. And so some of my inspiration for thinking about not just being a solo content creator, but thinking about media company was a brand like Saturday Night Live because they are a brand not connected to any one individual. But many individuals and creators have come through that show and that entire media company. I thought about CNET and that's closest to what we do today. CNET talks about TV reviews or consumer electronics. Our company is niched down to tools for people that want to do video and want to create content. So we do camera reviews with multiple creators. I even thought about the Wu Tang Clan early inspiration, you know, and as one brand, one musical group that had nine different individuals, I just thought hey, how could we scale this thing up? And so fast forward to today. We built multiple different YouTube channels and have built a team of creators and a really media company and we're still figuring it out as we go. So actually at this moment we're a little over 4.3 million subscribers, nearly half a billion views have post almost 5,000 long form, high quality YouTube videos and thousands more when it comes to YouTube shorts. And that's led to a lot of open doors and opportunities. And as a small town kid in college dropout, it's been super weird to be featured in like Forbes, Success magazine and stuff like that. But the weirdest one was HBO Max. Yeah, like I just got in a very strange documentary and I don't know, it's just, it's life is kind of, kind of strange. And so here's actually a recent picture of the flywheel now of our business of kind of five divisions. And so this was sort of just that expanded thinking. We have our Think Media network which we would. We were posting content, 300 pieces of content a week, ads, brand deals, affiliates. And then we do paid and in person events, free online and in person, free and paid. That also leads into info products, courses and books and things like that. Recently launched a coaching program with actual one on one coaches and group coaching. And and then we also have what we'd call Think media partnerships which would be sort of like expanded opportunities to use our influence and our platform to do deeper partnerships. And so my experience though is not just anecdotal. The Data confirms that YouTube really should be or could be part of your strategy. And so let's talk about why YouTube and actually just some current stats. YouTube has over 2.7 billion monthly active users right now. YouTube is still the world's second largest search engine. And you know, I've heard Eric talk a lot about search Everywhere optimization. And of course there's ChatGPT and Amazon's a search engine and TikTok's a search engine. But YouTube is still the dominant second search engine after Google. 68% of YouTube users watch video to make a purchase decision. Over 75% of Fortune 500 executives watch online videos regularly. YouTube content has a long shelf life compared to TikTok and Instagram. And that was one of the original epiphanies that I'm still obsessed with today. All the content channels are very cool and our company now is active on all of them. But YouTube is like a fine wine. It gets better with age and your content there because it can be posted today and still be viewed as a content library, not just for weeks or months, but for years to come. YouTube also drives higher buyer intent than TikTok or Instagram. And shopping on TikTok and shopping especially in China and other places is far advanced is a major the TikTok shop, Instagram shop. But the quality of a YouTube viewer. The CMO of HubSpot said that YouTube subscribers are the most valuable subscribers on the Internet. And so the intent and seriousness of those watching YouTube. YouTube grows your brand organically without paying for ads. Marketers using video grow revenue 49% faster than non video users. And so with these statistics in mind, let's just explore three ideas of how you could leverage YouTube strategically in your business. And if I think we might have a few moments for Q and A as well. And so here are three strategic insights for YouTube success. Number one, YouTube is your most valuable untapped business asset, not just another marketing expense. And so Dharmesh Shah said that modern media companies have a software company embedded inside. And next gen software companies will have a media company embedded inside. That's the founder and CTO at HubSpot. And HubSpot made this major play to not just be a SAS company, but to really become a media company. And I think this is the idea that we're living through an era where any business can and perhaps should start a media company within that business. And so their kind of history at HubSpot was a lot of SEO driven content marketing, then eventually free software's lead generation. But in 2020 to the present there was media company acquisition and development as a major campaign that they started to invest in. They acquired the Hustle, which included my first million as a large YouTube channel and video, podcast and newsletter and started to invest in a lot of different verticals of the podcast network with multiple different shows, a YouTube network creator, columns and multiple different newsletters and really doing content and media at scale. And Kip Bodnar, the CMO said, we didn't want to dip our toe in the water. We knew that if we're going to do this, we had to do it big. And they did it big and continued to. If you look at the YouTube network, there's now multiple YouTube channels, including their marketing channel, the Hustle, which again was acquired marketing against the grain, different shows as well as other languages. On here you'll see the different types of channels. And that's a terrible slide with, you know, breaks every rule in public speaking of how much is on there. But really I just want to circle what's in red here is like the different strategies of how they're doing this. Some is in house, in house staff in house team members are the ones creating the content, some is creator led, partnering with existing creators. And then the other approach is a hybrid of mix of both and creator led content became one of HubSpot's biggest growth drivers in under three years. Lowered customer acquisition cost, built direct audience relationships and built a content flywheel that has compounded roi. But you might be wondering, is it only for tech companies? You know, should only certain companies be doing this? Well, this could also work in consumer facing, direct to consumer type of brands. And so Beard Brand is a men's grooming company that started in 2012 turning a niche beard oil business into a lifestyle business brand through YouTube. And they have subscription services and so all the kind of men's grooming products and a whole product line. And really at the center of it is a very powerful YouTube channel, the Beard Brand YouTube channel. It's grown to over 2 million subscribers. And the founder Eric said that if you watch 10 of our videos, you're probably going to buy, but the goal is to make videos you'd watch even if you don't buy. I think this is a very important quote for the mindset when it comes to this first point. YouTube is not just a marketing channel. It could be. We could do some paid ads there, could just upload some advertisements on our YouTube channel, but that's not gonna work very well. But if you approach YouTube as a media company, the goal would say the question would be how do we create content that people would wanna watch? Because just the content itself is good. How could we create content that people would wanna consume on a regular basis to really build trust, to build depth, to expand our brand? Videos that people would want to watch anyways. And if that's something that they subscribe to and watch. And so their YouTube channel is really lifestyle. It's barbershop conversations. It's content that people subscribe to and are happy to receive when it pops up in their subscriber feed. But it keeps their brand top of mind the entire time. And so YouTube is not a marketing cost, it's an asset. And so now let's decide how to deploy it. Business led or expert led personal brands. 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@viralvideocoach.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 viralvideocoach.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. So number two, big idea is smart CEOs then can choose between a business led media machine or a personal brand authority. There's kind of two paths here. We'll cover both of them. The first path, for those who don't want to be on camera, who here would say full participation because now we've drank in our AG1 and our coffee. I just don't want to be on camera though. There's no way you're going to get me being the content creator. And so, okay, only 3% of the room, so that means 97% is ready. You guys are all ready to start YouTube channels. You're all becoming YouTubers. Come on market. Okay, but who actually would be interested in like, no, I'd be. I'd be like Eric Sue. You know, I'd be like Neil Patel. Whatever. I would start a YouTube channel. Wave at me. You would be interested in being on camera. Okay, cool. And then who here is just not gonna respond or interact with me at all? Would you wave at me just right now? Appreciate it. Thank you so much and so awesome. So build a business LED machine. Being opportunity number one. If you don't wanna be on camera, no big deal. There's a lot of ways to do this. And so you could do internal team development. And so Ahrefs is here. They're actually in the lobby. Of course a killer SaaS brand and product helping you with SEO and a lot of things expanded beyond that. And they've got a very powerful YouTube channel and their internal team. Sam. Oh, I believe something doing something in marketing. There is a face of their videos on their main channel and they've continued to innovate and improve and really create content that people love to consume. Education about SEO for sure and some search based tutorials and things like that. But now even business stories and well crafted content to really build their brand. And the YouTube strategy has been going really well, but there's also multiple different channels. They also have team members once a month product update on a separate channel with a very utility based implementation there. And so just kind of giving a place to connect your current customers and put out that education. And then also a video podcast. Tim Solo is here and you should, he's got a great podcast as well. Multiple channels around their overall brand. But these are internal team members that are the faces and the founder is not one of those individuals. Also external talent acquisition. So you're sitting in this room, hey, we could do YouTube. I don't want to do it. Well, who could you partner with, what could you acquire, what channels, what creators? Who could lead this? And so my first million going back to our HubSpot example was an acquisition when they acquired the Hustle. And so they got an incredibly powerful show and then continued to invest in that show. And it helps lift. You could see very small under my first million it says HubSpot Media up on the channel banner up there. And then the Hustle itself. And they do. You can see why American trucks are so big or why America has so many big houses. Kind of general for entrepreneurs, for decision makers, for business owners. It's a great channel doing incredible views actually. And it continues to grow and innovate. So that would be external talent acquisition, but then creator partnerships. And the HubSpot has continued to invest in creators, not wanting to constrain or overly manage what it is that they're, they, they're not owning these creators but they're partnering with them and, and kind of doing it in a very organic way. And so Tina Wong here has a channel where she's talking about AI and talking about different business topics. Google AI Studio in 26 minutes. But she's one of the creators that's a part of HubSpot's network. And so there's a multi level play that individuals are making like HubSpot to have a business led media machine and then a hybrid approach. And so ultimately you could do any combination of all the above. It could be as simple as thinking about who on the team who internally right now could you work with. And maybe they have a passion for it. They've got the charisma, they've got the skills, the desire you resource them or any of these other methods. And then HubSpot went all in as they said, and it combined all of them. But maybe you want to become the face of your brand and some of you in the room would say absolutely that I would love to do that. And for those willing to be the content engine. And so y' all know Eric Hsu, obviously a legend. So great, can we give up for Eric again just for putting this together? Come on. And, and he's got a great YouTube channel. I'm sure all of you have seen it before. And if not, hit the subscribe button today. Share like and hit the like button. Leveling up with Eric Hsu. So as a founder of Single Grain CEO, but also building his personal brand, leading to so many different opportunities in terms of not just customer acquisition. In fact, a couple nights ago we were having dinner and talking about how this content leads to the right ideal customer profile, at least to open doors, leads to connections, leads are coming in every single day organically for various projects. The content's being made strategically. There's just so many, there's a high roi. And if this is your desire, it's a great model to follow. So YouTube personal branding isn't just for creators, it's for CEOs and it also works in fitness, fashion and even physical product businesses. So again, doesn't just have to be in SaaS or tech. This is Bare Performance Nutrition, a supplement company founded by Nick Baer in his dorm room that has grown to I believe over 50 million a year right now. And Nick has built a YouTube channel that's been driving again, not just sales and acquisition, but lifestyle and building culture and really building a movement for that founder led, CEO, creator type of model. So you ultimately have different paths that you can choose. So a few questions to ask are, are you willing to be the face of your brand? If not, there's still a way forward with YouTube. Does your YouTube, does your business lean on team expertise or your personal authority? And do you want to build a brand that scales beyond you or do you want one that's powered by you? Ultimately though, no matter which path you choose, business led or personal brand, there's one thing that separates those who win from those who stall. And that's systems, the invisible engine behind visible success. And our third insight as we land the plane today. So number three, YouTube success is built on systems, talent and consistency, not viral videos. And so how much is this going to cost? The interesting thing is that investing in YouTube for especially businesses like yours could be incredibly affordable and a bootstrapped internal opportunity for you. So I asked Eric, you know, how much are you spending on content a month? And he said about $25,000 a month to do all of the content he's doing at the level he's doing, it's very impressive. Neil Patel is spending around 60 to $70,000 a month. If you follow any of his stuff to think about, that's, that's all the content. You go, I'll break down the teams and stuff a little bit for some of those ideas. But again, very affordable. So here's our weekly content calendar at our company Think Media, two main YouTube channels. And on our main channel, Think Media, we post three long form, high quality videos per week and then five shorts. And then I'm the main face and driver of our weekly podcast, the Think Media podcast. We have two episodes a week, also distributed on audio, but on our YouTube channel, which as a side note, YouTube has become not only the dominant podcast platform, bigger than Apple, bigger than Spotify, but YouTube continues to invest heavily in podcasts. So if there's, if anybody has a podcast here and it's not a video podcast, it's a pretty easy switch to flip and a very strategic switch to flip, turn on a camera, figure out how to make it a video podcast, and then distribute across audio as well. And so that's what we're pumping out every single week. And this slide actually also hard to read, but if you want to take a picture of it, it's kind of a full stack of the 14 roles that currently we have to do what we do. And so as the CEO creator, I am talent and also just helping lead. And so I'd be one of the content creators four and five. Craig and Nathan are two other content creators. So there's three of us that are talent actually on camera. We have a podcast manager, a director of the whole team. We've got a couple of video Editors, we have W2s, but also we will work with contractors if the editing load expands or decreases. A Full thumbnail designer, full time. We've got a content and partnerships operation manager, somebody that focuses on brand partnerships. In fact, Mark lives here in Miami. We're mostly a remote team, but that's pretty cool. And then we have a YouTube optimization guy named Pierre. When you start playing YouTube at a higher level, he's in there split testing titles, split testing thumbnails. And not just when you release the content, but optimizing past library for increased lift and optimization. And that's his full time focus. And then we've hired a vertical video agency that will cut up our long form into short form. And then you could expand this into social media. This goes beyond YouTube, but mostly this team will run YouTube and then the rest of our business is larger than this, but this would essentially be our content team. And that comes out to 55,000 on like a floor level a month to 80k if we're traveling and other expenses or if we scale up with contractors. And so that's a lot of content. And that's the, that's a full media company. And a question for you is, could you build that company inside of your company? And of course do it not just because you're bored and you have nothing else to do, but because of the strategic opportunity that YouTube has for your future. And so that is that what we just discussed is that first red corner of our flywheel. What we would see is as our media engine, the YouTube channels and the social media channels that then fills and funnels to everything else we do. We've definitely discovered. We also that's this is all organic by the way, organic content. But we do paid media as well. And every business that has both high quality, significant influence in organic drives down their paid costs like crazy. And so customer acquisition cost goes down, lead cost, advertising. And so it really helps fuel the whole flywheel. So where do we go for here? Whether you're just getting started or scaling up, the future belongs to those who act before the opportunity becomes obvious. And as mature as YouTube is, in fact, I think yesterday was YouTube's 20th anniversary and I actually very oddly got onto YouTube in 2007, about two years after it started. I was just volunteering at my local church in a small town. The youth pastor handed me a video camera and I started to shoot videos, edit videos actually before YouTube even started learning the video creation. That's why that's what I teach today. And in 2007 we started a weird video blog for the pastor. And that was early, I mean to be there. 2007 so it's kind of crazy to now look. YouTube is 20 years old. But YouTube is also just getting started. By far, it's the dominant video force. And there is a lot of opportunity on YouTube. In fact, as I close, I want to amplify or look at that opportunity as we land the plane on the strategic inside of the day. YouTube isn't just a marketing expense, it's your most strategic asset. So my friend Marcus Sheridan said this though. There's an argument to be made that in the next five to ten years your company's YouTube channel could be more important than your brand and to your brand and business than your company's website. I think that's true and I think that we are seeing a lot of consumers wanting to see a YouTube presence. Of course there's influencer marketing. Many of us should be doing that. But this would be owned media, your own media company. And so will you invest in YouTube while the opportunity is still wide open? There's a company called Target that really has every resource to win the attention game. Thousands of stores, whatever, billion in revenue, and I think maybe 100 billion. And we all know Target a significant force. And Target actually does have a sizable YouTube channel. 663,000 subscribers. Their promise is you're gonna see lifestyle fashion tips, maybe you're gonna see some celebrities on here. You're going to kind of get that Nick Bare kind of lifestyle content that's going to the beer brand content. You're going to get, you're going to get shows and stuff that you want to watch. Well, I don't know what happened, but this is a screenshot of Target's YouTube channel in the last two weeks. And so one of the videos here they uploaded was called growing your retail business. It got 158views. And so I don't know like who decided to upload the internal like deck from like pitching the team. Another one was line reviews explained that got 132 views on their 663,000 subscriber channel. In fact somebody commented and said Target needs to, needs someone who understands YouTube to be on their marketing team ASAP. It's a real comment on Target, on Target's channel. Target. I'm available for consulting if you're, you know, if you're interested. And so, but, but why, like why would a, with a business, like many of your businesses, you got money, you got opportunity, you got talent, you could figure this out. Why is this happening? I think they're just, they're, they're, they're Underestimating the opportunity. They're clearly making some mistakes and maybe they'll clean this up and make a pivot, but they're perfectly positioned to seize this media company opportunity. And I'm sure there's a little bit of fear, of course, about controlling their brand. Although allowing this to happen doesn't seem like a good brand move for me. But like, about their brand or. But for 25,000 to like 100k a month, they could have. Some very passionate creators are ready to be hired by you full on. They would kill for an opportunity to be the lead face, lead talent with a budget and to be the media company for an established business like yours. So the opportunity is there. The question is, will you invest in it? Why? The opportunity is still wide open. Thank you. We've got a couple minutes for questions, if there's any questions and then we could go to our next speaker. Yes, sir. For CEOs thinking about becoming the face of the brand and doing videos, on the one hand you talked about long form and there's huge growth and popularity in long form. But at the same time there's another message is that you have to be. People have short attention spans. You got to be clear, pithy, be quick. Is there conventional wisdom on what works? What's the right duration of videos? Yeah, that's a great, that's a great question. I mean, I kind of would think about it like fishing. If you think about my stepdad used to take me fishing, his name's Phil and he would have like different lures and different lures would attract different types of fish. So you're actually going to attract kind of what you put out there. If you commit to the short form game, you'll be playing to a short form, short attention span algorithm. That doesn't mean that business leaders can't use short form. As I actually have used the Cinnabon strategy illustration before that in social media at the mall, there would be somebody that had a tray of samples and it would get me every time. In fact, when I would be walking through the mall with the Cinnabon samples, I'd be like, can I get three of them for the rest of my family? They're like, oh sure. And I'd grab all three. My family wasn't with me, God forgive me, you know, eat them. And so, but that's, to me, that's like short form content was the samples and then medium rage content was the mini bonds, which we got to meet the creator of those. And then ultimately, if you're really ready to commit. Maybe somebody watches longer form content with you. So I think every media company could have a funnel where you meet people and then it leads deeper. But in a more direct answer to your question, serious people are ready to consume long form content. Does anybody here listen to podcasts? Would you like? And so, and this is a room of serious people. The longer form content tracks what you want. It's the lure that gets the individual that wants real data, real depth. And so there isn't really a direct answer. I will tell you this. I'll give you my one strategy as we land the plane and I'm out of time. If, if I was going to start a YouTube channel this year and I wanted to ramp it up, I would do one highly strategic, positioned long form YouTube video per week that's from 8 to 15 minutes long. One strategic video designed to attract my ideal customer profile. It's around eight to 15 minutes long. That's a sweet spot. Much shorter than that. And I actually think it's not long enough. YouTube wants time on PL platform top. They want people to be on the platform as long as possible. So like rich content. And that's not a magical number from 8 to 15, but it's like I would be trying to put out something valuable on my channel every week. Eight to 15 minutes, one upload and then you could expand from there into all the spin offs of short form and everything else. Is that a good answer? Appreciate you. Thank you so much.