461: This Genius YouTube Strategy Gets 177 New Subs Every Day!

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Think Media Podcast, Episode 461
“This Genius YouTube Strategy Gets 177 New Subs Every Day!”
Release Date: November 6, 2025
Host: Nathan Eswine (Think Media)
Guests: Nick & Lisa from The Ready Life

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Overview

In this episode, Think Media coach Nathan Eswine interviews Nick and Lisa, creators of the YouTube channel The Ready Life, which has skyrocketed from fewer than 3,500 to over 54,000 subscribers in a single year. The conversation dives deep into strategies that led to this explosive, consistent growth—including a pivotal content format shift, actionable series, targeting the right audience, and optimizing calls-to-action for business growth. This episode is a must-listen (or read) for creators aiming to turn “virality” into tangible channel and business results while staying true to their mission.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Big Shift—From Stagnation to Explosive Growth

• Initial Plateau: For a year and a half, The Ready Life produced weekly, talking-head podcast episodes with minimal subscriber growth and declining views.
  • Lisa: “That's basically what we did for a year and a half...We were consistent, but we were just banging our heads against the wall.” (65:33)
• Format Change to Action Series: They pivoted to a 21-day series of “action” videos—daily, hands-on, five-minute tutorials showing practical homesteading and preparedness tips.
  • Nick: “These were not just easy throw together five minutes. It took hours and hours times two every day.” (05:25)
• Results: This shift led to an immediate spike: thousands of new subscribers, viral-for-them view counts (2,000–23,000 per video), and a significant increase in AdSense and affiliate earnings.
  • Nick: ”We shifted our business where it now centers around our YouTube channel...One month from that series, I believe we made like $2,500 in AdSense revenue alone, and then $1,500 in Amazon affiliate...” (12:38)

2. Identify and Serve the Right Audience

• Struggling with Niche Clarity: Early on, Nick and Lisa felt “an identity crisis” regarding their channel’s direction and ideal viewer.
  • Lisa: “For a while, we really struggled. We felt like we were having an identity crisis because we couldn't seem to figure out exactly who we were targeting or why.” (19:17)
• Process of Discovery: Through experimentation, feedback, and coaching, they recognized the importance of serving a specific tribe—not the masses.
  • Nick: “We tried different types of content and seeing what worked...What did we enjoy doing, what were we getting really good feedback from?” (23:46)
• Mission-Driven: The goal is not only views, but transformation—helping people become more “independent for their basic necessities.” (01:24)
  • Nathan: “It's not about all the views. It's about the right views, the right people finding you, to hopefully go deeper with you.” (21:20)

3. “Packaging” Mastery: The Strategy That Drives Views

• Obsessive Focus on Title, Thumbnail & Hook:
  • Title comes first, then hook, then content—ensuring irresistible packaging and relevance.
    • Nick: “We're not building the content until after the hook, and we're not building the hook until after the title.” (00:51)
  • Nick built a custom GPT to brainstorm titles using formulas from Creator Hooks.
    • Nick: “What I found gave me the most out-of-the-box creative titles...is when I would leave it kind of wide open. I’d just say a one-liner, and then that would leave the door wide open for all kinds of options.” (34:53)
• Hook Must Deliver On the Title: First seconds must “connect the dots” between title, thumbnail, and content, with an open loop that keeps viewers engaged.
  • Nick: “You have to connect to the title and thumbnail, or else when they click on it, if it doesn't relate, they'll think it's clickbait.” (27:57)
• When to Write the Title/Hook: Never after the fact—doing this risks clickbait and disconnect.
  • Nick: “If you wait until after your recording to do the title, you’re much more likely to fall into the clickbait thing... because then you’re looking for a really good title and can’t find one that fits...So there’s the strong temptation to go with a title that’s kind of pushing the envelope.” (42:21)

4. First 30 Seconds: Hooking and Holding Attention

• Labor Over the Opening Line:
  • Nick: “As time goes on, I’m getting to where I’m laboring over those first few words more than anything. As attention spans get shorter...that first line, it makes all the difference on whether you’re going to watch or not.” (43:59)
• Visuals & ‘Open Loops’: Fast-moving visuals, action shots, and promises of key info to come pull viewers through.
• Ongoing Experimentation: Even small changes (removing a channel bumper, for instance) can dramatically improve retention.
  • Nick: “I noticed it was not a rounded drop-off. It was like a cliff. And I clicked on where was that? It was our bumper...So after seeing that, I was like, okay, I’m done with the bumper.” (50:07)

5. Going Beyond Views: Convert Viewers Into Leads

• Call to Action in (Almost) Every Video:

  • Every video includes a natural-feeling CTA, most commonly a lead magnet—a PDF, calculator, video series, or webinar—designed to be the obvious next step for viewers.
    • Nick: “The goal is, as somebody is watching along, they're well into the call to action and don’t even know it’s a CTA until you get to the URL...” (57:29)
  • Celebrate Your Audience’s Win: Ensure the CTA delivers on its promise and genuinely helps.
    • Nick: "We got so many emails from people saying, 'Thank you so much. That was super helpful.'" (58:37)

• Results: 8,500+ new leads (mostly from YouTube, not paid ads), radically better than years of expensive Facebook ads.

• Optimize for Device Usage:

  • Over 50% of their viewers watch on TV, so clickable links aren’t accessible—QR codes and easy-to-say URLs have become standard in their videos.
    • Nick: “I don’t think it's possible to click a link in the description on a TV...so now we use QR codes and easy URLs.” (69:06)

6. Embrace Iteration and Experimentation

• Channel “Virality” is Relative:
  • Don’t chase other creators’ benchmarks; measure progress against your own historical averages.
    • Nathan: “[Viral] for you—how do we help them go viral for them, not just viral in how most of us think about it, which is millions of views and stuff.” (15:08)
• Iterate, Don’t Stagnate:
  • Nick: “Persevere, but if you’re not getting results, keep changing things and seeing what works.” (65:49)
• Don’t Fear Niche Alienation:
  • People appreciate authenticity and strong stances—don’t dilute your message for mass appeal.
    • Nick: “Be okay with calling out your tribe and gently alienating the wrong people...because when you do that, you are connecting in a special way with your tribe.” (71:19)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

“We're not building the content until after the hook, and we're not building the hook until after the title.” – Nick (00:51)

“It can be challenging to figure out...who your ideal audience is...At the end of the day, what really helped us the most was just posting different kinds of content and seeing what felt right.” – Nick (23:46)

“What I think has moved the needle...is this ridiculous focus on the title and on the thumbnail and on the hook.” – Nathan Eswine (35:29)

“Who are you going to help if nobody’s watching it? First you’ve got to get a click to be able to get access to them and help them.” – Nick (40:02)

“If you wait until after your recording to do the title, you're much more likely to fall into the clickbait thing. Because then you're looking for a really good title and you just can't find one that fits your content.” – Nick (42:21)

“Persevere, but if you're not getting results...keep changing things and seeing what works, make little changes, tweaks. And that's what we're doing now...constantly changing things.” – Nick (65:49)

“Over half of our viewers are on a TV...so now we use QR codes and easy URLs...That's been huge for us for the call to actions.” – Nick (69:06)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:16] - Nick’s recount of channel growth and what changed
• [05:58] - Transition to “action” videos and difficulty/intensity of daily posting
• [07:04] - Defining “action” videos as hands-on, demonstrative tutorials
• [12:38] - The impact: revenue, email leads, and overall business transformation
• [19:17] - Early struggles with audience clarity and niche definition
• [26:35] - Discussion of strategic packaging: big idea, title, hook, thumbnail, CTA
• [34:53] - How Nick created his custom GPT for title brainstorming
• [39:38] - Lisa reflects on their new process and the importance of focusing on packaging
• [43:59] - Deep dive: the first 30 seconds, hooks, and lessons learned
• [50:07] - Data-led improvement (removing the video bumper)
• [52:10] - Business infrastructure: lead magnets, calls to action, and growth in email leads
• [69:06] - Data insight: over 50% of views from TV, leading to implementation of QR codes

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Rapid-Fire Tips from Nick & Lisa (64:05+)

• Persevere: Growth comes in ebbs and flows; compare to your old baseline, not just the latest high.
• Iterate: Change things up if they’re not working—even little changes matter.
• Include Lead Magnets: Almost every video should have a relevant, high-quality resource as an opt-in; repurpose the best ones.
• Action Thumbnails: Use real action frames from the video, ideally with eye contact. Add 2–3 words in large, readable font.
• Split Test Thumbnails: Try several options for the same video.
• Cater to Device Usage: If you have TV viewers, use QR codes and say URLs out loud.
• Series Can Jumpstart Growth: Consider themed content pushes for engagement and momentum.
• Resonate with Your Tribe: Don’t be afraid to repel the “wrong” viewers if it means connecting more deeply with your core audience.
• Invest in Production Tools: Action cameras like the DJI Pocket 3 have made hands-on filming much easier.
• Get Outside Perspective: Coaching or accountability partners are invaluable for strategy and honest feedback.

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Where to Find The Ready Life

• YouTube: The Ready Life
• Website: thereadylife.com

Nick: “...the channel is honestly where most of the action is happening. I have a friend that says that in the next couple of years, your YouTube channel is going to be more important than your website. And that's already the case for us.” (73:49)

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Final Takeaways

• Consistent, strategic iteration elevates your “personal viral.”
• Focus on the right audience and client outcomes, not just arbitrary view counts.
• Package your videos with intention: compelling title, thumbnail, and hook.
• Every video is an opportunity to move someone off-platform into your ecosystem for greater impact.

This episode is a real-world guide to reinvigorating a YouTube channel with practical, actionable advice from creators who’ve seen rapid, mission-led business outcomes.

Transcript

[Nathan Eswine]

Hey, before we get into today's episode, let me ask you a question. Do you want a step by step plan to start and grow on YouTube fast? Well, we're doing something brand new and it's called YouTube Jumpstart. It's a free three day online event live and online. You're going to get the exact blueprint we use at Think Media to grow, get views and even earn money before hitting 1,000 subscribers. Now, no fancy equipment needed. We're also going to be sharing some of the latest AI tools and YouTube strategies that we've never taught publicly before. So don't miss it. You can go to tubejumpstart.com to register for free and save your spot. And that is tubejumpstart.com to get access to this three day free online event. All right, let's jump into today's episode.

[Nick]

We're not building the content until after the hook, and we're not building the hook until after the title.

[Nathan Eswine]

They live off grid and make viral videos. Nick and Lisa run the channel the Ready Life, whose channel is at a lifetime view count of 3.3 million views.

[Nick]

One year ago, we were at less than 3,500 subscribers and today we're at 54,645.

[Nathan Eswine]

What do you attribute to, you know, all these outlier videos?

[Nick]

Go through all kinds of things, but I think at the end of the day, what really helped us the most was just.

[Nathan Eswine]

This channel is changing a whole lot of things when it comes to video creation. And that's what I want to talk about today. They are on a mission with their channel to help as many people as possible become as independent as possible for their basic necessities. So, like food, water, heat and power. And we're going to uncover their outlier strategy. I want to talk about, like, their hooks, their titles and thumbnails, how they turn also these views into leads to be able to support the business that they're building online while staying true to their mission into their faith. Welcome to the Think media podcast, number one show bringing you unfiltered YouTube tips for building a profitable channel. I'm Nathan, one of the coaches here, and Nick and Lisa, what's going on? How are you? How you guys doing?

[Nick]

Hey, doing good. Nathan, how about you?

[Nathan Eswine]

Hey, doing awesome. And I got to say up front here, if you're listening, if as we go forward together and you're like, wow, these, these, they sound awfully friendly, well, it's because we are actually fun fact. I am actually Nick and Lisa's coach. Who and have been working with them in our one on one coaching program called Accelerator. And so it's kind of cool because I hope this conversation serves as if you could shadow a YouTube strategy call. It might sound a little bit like this. And there's a lot to uncover. There's a lot of growth that has happened here. And if it's cool, y', all, let's just jump right into what's been going on lately. Because I remember when I first met you all, you're about like 7,000 subscribers. Now you're at over 50,000 subscribers. And like, like we talked about, the millions of views have come along with that. When you look at your channel and I sort by most popular, there's several of these videos that are responsible for the growth that you have achieved. And I thought we'd just start right there. Like, what do you attribute to, you know, all these outlier videos? What had changed? Because you'd been on YouTube for a while beforehand, but then making these videos, There's a very big difference, a very big change that's happened. From your thoughts, what's, what's responsible for that?

[Nick]

Yeah, it's been quite remarkable. You know, you were talking about views, but it's not just views. I was looking up some stats on our channel. Three years ago we were at 1700 subscribers. Two years ago we were at 2, 300 subscribers. So we grew about 500 that year. One year ago we were at less than 3,500 subscribers. And today we're at 54,645.

[Nathan Eswine]

It's crazy when you drop it like that. It's like, that is nuts. Okay. And it's because that growth came from these videos. Right? So what? Just kick us off. Start wherever you want. What changed? How have you grown as content creators to be able to make these kind of videos?

[Nick]

Well, it all started for us with a series. And so that's, that's one of the things that I attribute our growth to. We haven't done a lot of series, but we've had good success with them. And so we had been doing a video podcast for like a year and a half every week, Every week. And we, it was a sit down, you know, talking head podcast and we saw lots of other people doing it, having great success. And we thought, well, why wouldn't it work for us? And we just got to stick with it and see it through. And so we stuck with it. And year and a half later, we were maybe getting a little bit fewer views than we had when we started on Each video. And so we were like, okay, this is not working. And so we decided, came up with this idea. I don't know where it came from. I think it may have been you guys of doing a series and doing a series of five minute videos. That's just what we came up with. I might do longer ones now, I don't know. But anyway, it was a series of 21 day. Series of five videos. And every day, five for 21 days, we did a video that was brutal. I mean, seriously brutal. Because this, these were not just easy.

[Lisa]

Throw together five minutes.

[Nick]

Yeah.

[Lisa]

It took hours and hours times two every day.

[Nathan Eswine]

Especially going from the podcasting format. Right. Which I assume, which is a lot more laid back. You kind of. You can set up the camera, press record, and you're talking.

[Nick]

Right.

[Nathan Eswine]

I mean, like to that much. But when you think about the difference of content format, as I'm sure we'll get into, I mean, this series that you did, not only is it every day, but you, I think already. Right. There is a pretty big format shift, right?

[Nick]

Yes.

[Nathan Eswine]

So. Yeah, yeah, keep going. What was that series like to create?

[Nick]

Well, we had done a few action videos before and they had done well and we had kind of taken note of it, but for whatever reason, it didn't click in our brains that, you know, maybe our audience likes this format better than the other format.

[Nathan Eswine]

And when you say action, can you define that for us? Like action videos? I mean. Well, I could take a stab at it, but how would you say it from your perspective?

[Lisa]

So really, hands on. So if we're going to be standing here talking about fuel storage, which actually that was what inspired the 521 preparedness plan was we had a fuel storage podcast that kind of started getting a little traction. And so instead of just standing here talking about fuel storage, we'd actually go out to the shop and we'd have a can of fuel. Fuel. And we dump some, you know, stabilizer into it and shake it up and then, you know, show you what happens when you stabilize your fuel versus when you don't. And then different places you should store it or not. So it was very hands on. It was very out into the, out in the yard showing you how to actually do it rather than just talking about it.

[Nathan Eswine]

Okay, so that's huge. Right? So doing the thing as well as like talking about the thing. Yeah, that's huge.

[Nick]

I remember at the very least. Oh, I'm sorry.

[Nathan Eswine]

Yeah, yeah, keep going.

[Nick]

Oh, I was just gonna say at the very least, changing scenes and showing it while you're talking about it, you know, because some things, they're a little bit more theoretical and there's nothing that you can actually do. But, you know, just. We would change the scenes up and we'd be standing next to it while we're talking about it.

[Nathan Eswine]

Yeah, okay, I got it.

[Lisa]

Walking down the driveway or.

[Nathan Eswine]

Yes.

[Lisa]

Opening car door.

[Nathan Eswine]

Yeah, 100. And I assume that. I mean, as I think about that. Well, you all know, because we've talked about this, but I'm a big fan of the showing and telling if it's appropriate for your niche. Because it also gives you the credibility, too. Right. Because it's kind of one thing to be able to sit and talk about something. And obviously, if you can talk about it, you can teach. Well. Well, clearly you know something. But it's to that next level. It's a real big level up to your content to actually try and demonstrate what you're talking about, especially if you're in the educational space on YouTube. Okay. So we had this content format shift podcast, action videos. But not only did you just shift to action videos, you're like, let's just do a video every day again. Where did that come from? Because y' all are pretty brave and courageous to be like, every day for 21 days, let's do a video.

[Nick]

I think we were just kind of ignorant. If we had known how much work was going to go into that and how brutal it would be, I don't know if we would have done that. But we committed. We had a email list, and so we had sent an email out to them saying, this is what we're going to do. So we were kind of committed, and so we were a little bit desperate, so we just did it. Yeah.

[Lisa]

I think there were two things that really motivated our. Our movement into doing that series, and one was watching kind of the growth on that fuel storage video. And we were just like, wow, people really want to learn more practical stuff, first off. And then the second thing was we were kind of getting frustrated at seeing our numbers status quo for a year and a half. Um, there was very little to no growth on our subscriber list. We had. We were not getting leads, which we were trying to figure out how to get more leads.

[Nick]

We were getting some, but not very.

[Lisa]

Few, not a lot. And we were just like, what if we did this, like, thing? And it just kind of blossomed from there.

[Nathan Eswine]

So I want to talk about how this led you to these outlier videos, but I do want to seed really quick for someone who's Listening. We are, you know, think media. We're big fans of. Sean would call it massive imperfect action. Right. So just almost just like throwing the dynamite, you know, into your content schedule and just being like, I'm just blowing up this whole way that I've been approaching YouTube and I'm going to start to build a whole new way, a whole new way. I'm going to approach a whole new schedule, even a new format, just like shaking things up to, you know, give you some fresh motivation and inspiration, but a new direction to go. And I think that, you know, I've heard Sean say multiple times that one of the best things you can do if you're in a rut is to actually switch up how you do content. Like, if you've been creating and you've been creating, what you just voiced is a lot of stuff that all of us have felt. The low views for the amount of effort that you're doing and podcasting consistently for a year and a half, come on, that's like a lot of effort, right? You continued to show up, continued to think of ideas and how to serve your audience, but it still wasn't moving the needle. So hats off to you. All right, for just, okay, let's try. This is not working. Let's try something else. And so you've gotten into this plan, this, these 21 days. How did that lead you to. Yeah, being being able to create these videos that are now getting hundreds of thousands of views. We'll get right back to Nick and Lisa, but have you ever wondered how we're able to record these interviews even if our guest is in another state? Nick, Lisa and I aren't even in the same room right now. We're actually across the country. But what's cool, cool is we're able to record this entire interview on Riverside. The best part is how simple it is. Nick and Lisa clicked a link. No special software to download, and we were ready to roll. Riverside has been a game changer for us here at Think Media. Our content quality basically leveled up overnight because it functions like a studio even when we're just on our laptops. Riverside records in up to 4K video and records separate audio and video tracks for each guest. So that just means if the guest dog barks, I bump the microphone, we can clean it up, which makes editing way easier and faster. And speaking of editing, here's the cool part. Riverside actually has a built in video editor. This makes it ridiculously easy to start editing because you can trim the video just by editing the transcript. You can automatically add captions. You can even clip vertical shorts for social media all inside Riverside. No more juggling a whole bunch of apps. So if you've been thinking about starting a podcast, recording interviews, even just on your phone, we can't recommend Riverside enough. And they've set up a special deal for you. If you're watching or listening to this episode right now, you can use the Code Think Media at checkout for one month free of their pro plan. Again, that's Code Think Media. And we'll link that in the description as well. Okay, back to Nick and Lisa.

[Nick]

Well, I think what it did was the, the biggest thing was it showed us, drove home the point that I think we kind of already knew, which was that the type of content that our audience likes. So that was the biggest aha moment for us. And then the other thing was we had always viewed our. We had had a YouTube channel for years. I, I don't even remember how many years. It's probably been 10, 11, 12 years that we've had a YouTube channel.

[Nathan Eswine]

Okay.

[Nick]

But we were very, we didn't do much with it. Every once in a while we'd throw a video up on there and that was it. And we saw very mediocre results. And so we had always kind of viewed our YouTube channel as similar to our Facebook page or whatever. You know, just something that it was there if people wanted it, but it wasn't a major part of our business. And once this happened, we shifted our whole business where it now centers around our YouTube channel and creating videos for that. Because we realized, I think if I recall right, that one month from that one series, I believe we made like $2,500 in AdSense revenue alone. And then I think it was like 1500 in Amazon affiliate stuff because we would link to some of the stuff we were talking about. And so right there it was like, wowzers. That would be life changing. You know, I know we, we can't expect that this is going to happen every month, but even if it happened a few months out of the year, that could be life changing. And so it just completely turned our business model. And then the other thing was we got how many. We got thousands of email subscribers from that series. And that we had been experimenting with Facebook ads for off and on for years, paying money, and they were just junk leads and we'd, you know, pay all kinds of money for them. And here we were getting leads, we were getting paid to get new leads. YouTube was paying us to get leads. And so it's like how cool is that? So.

[Nathan Eswine]

Oh, that's the coolest.

[Nick]

And. And I must say, you know, I'm looking at the views. As we were talking about this, I pulled up our playlist for the. Our 521 preparedness plan series. And the views were not crazy, but they were viral for us. You know, so they were like 4,000 views, 5,000 views. There was one that was 2300, one that was 23,000. But, you know, that gives you a feel for the kind of views that we're talking about. Most were in the two to 5,000, which was huge for us. That was. We'd never seen anything like that on a consistent basis. It was just once in a blue moon that we'd hit a thousand or fifteen hundred. Um, so, yeah, that was, I think, a total game changer for us on those things.

[Nathan Eswine]

Well, and that's all you need too, right? Like this, this. I love how you said that phrase viral for you, right? Like, that is something that we say all the time. And as a coach, too, like, that's our job, especially when we're first linking up with someone, is to think about, okay, how do we help them go viral for them. And not just viral in how most of us think about that, which is millions of views and stuff. It's like, no, no, no. Your baseline, like, what your channel typically does, which YouTube tells you, right? That little gray bar, what you typically do on your channel. How do you just beat it? How do you just get to the top? You know, you have that blue line that kind of just goes over the gray. Like, how do we just do that? And maybe that means you usually. If you're listening to this, you usually get 20 views, usually get 50 views, right? But then you have a video get like 400 views, right? Or you can be. It can be even be crazier than that. You have. You get like 8 views, 10 views, 12 views, and then you get 58 views. It's like, whoa, I. I just went viral for me. And I think if you chase viral for me now, 58, the new standard to beat, instead of some just like metric that you're seeing from someone else, that's how you continue to beat yourself and iterate for yourself, which I hear in your story already. And I know we got a lot more to go because we haven't even touched the. Well, the big viral for you moments that have happened recently, right? So let's jump to there. What change? Okay, after the challenge, obviously that was a challenge for you all. Change up your content, switch Things up, almost like force things to happen right on your channel. Obviously, you're not going to sustain that. That's like every day. So what was the idea? Where did you all go to after that challenge? Because by that point, you got momentum, right? I bet you felt that momentum you never had on your channel before. So you're at this crossroads of sure. Of feeling like, okay, so we actually are getting views that we haven't gotten. We're getting leads that we hadn't gotten. So what do you do next? You know, were you tempted to. I don't know, did you keep posting every day or. Yeah. What was the strategy there?

[Nick]

No, that was not a temptation.

[Lisa]

We were done.

[Nathan Eswine]

That was it. It did serve its purpose.

[Nick]

You got to realize we're kind of perfectionists and we're recovering perfectionists. And both of us, unfortunately, me too. We, you know, we really put it into those videos. And we were absolutely laid out after that three weeks. And so we actually took a break. In retrospect, we should have somehow kept one going because we had some good momentum going, but we didn't. And we were coming into the holidays then. And so we said, okay, we're going to regroup for the new year. And so that's actually when we reached out to you guys and started coaching with you, Nathan was. Because like I said, this was the aha moment for us that this is actually a serious part of our business. We need to take this seriously and we need help because what we've been doing ain't working. And so that's when we took it seriously and we said, okay, the new year, it's a new start for our YouTube channel. We're going to take what we've learned from this and we're going to relaunch it and do something big this next year.

[Nathan Eswine]

So, so cool.

[Nick]

That's what happened.

[Nathan Eswine]

I love it. And this is now fun because I can kind of chime in now at this stage, right, where we first we start linking up and thinking through a lot of those conversations we had. I remember we spent a good bit of time thinking through, I think, actually really thinking through the. Even the business model. I remember even thinking about your niche, clarifying like, you know, who you're for and at what even. What subsect of the broader niche do you fall under and the audience that you're actually trying to capture. And so if you don't mind, I actually think that this is something that's incredibly important for someone who's listening to here. If you haven't thought that deeply about, about even your channel and kind of like the brand of your channel and for lack of a better phrase, like, how does it taste to people? Because you don't want it to taste awesome to everybody. Like, you know what I mean? Like that you can't reach everybody with your channel. So do you, can you all flash back to that? Do you remember any of those conversations or the tensions you were feeling about how to niche down, how what even is our channel, what who does it actually stand for and how do we find those people?

[Lisa]

For a while we really struggled. We felt like we were having an identity crisis because we couldn't seem to figure out exactly who we were really targeting or why. And so we spent a lot of time, I don't know, fussing over, you know, what exactly our niche was and who we were really targeting.

[Nick]

So.

[Lisa]

So, Yeah, I think 521 kind of helped us to dial in on that a little bit more. And then coaching with you was really helpful because, you know, sometimes when you're staring at something for so long, you just can't see it anymore. And so to have somebody kind of look in and speak to what they see was really, really helpful.

[Nick]

And I think also just trying different types of content and seeing what worked well and what didn't. And, you know, there would be some things that we would try and maybe it would do reasonably well, but in the comments the people would just be nasty. And it was like, I don't want this kind, I don't want to work with this kind of people. And so it's like, okay, we're steering clear of that kind of thing now. And, you know, so just kind of dialing in on who can we, who do we resonate with? It's not about getting the massive numbers of people, it's about getting the right people. And so can we find. We, we had to identify who are the people that we're actually going to be able to help because at the end of the day, we're a business with a mission. You know, this isn't just, this isn't about just making a bottom line for us. If it was, I'd be doing something else. But this is something that we're doing because we're passionate about it and we want to help people. And so who can we be the most help to? And that's who we need to target. And then it's just a matter of how do we identify, how do we call them out, as many of them as we can in the most powerful way that we Can.

[Nathan Eswine]

Oh, man. I think you just spoke just about everybody. Um, yeah, if you're listening to this, I mean, you, you're, you know, you're around kindred. Kindred spirits. You know what I mean? Like, just mission. Mission driven people. There's something you. It's not. Views are great, right? And sales could be cool, but I think for a lot of us, we're also like, there's a deeper reason that, I mean, goodness that we would put out the blood, sweat and tears. It is to make videos. It's not as simple, Right. As a lot of people make it out to be. Just post a video. It's like, no, it actually takes a lot of effort and intentionality and it's hard to push through all that if there's not some other bigger purpose. And so, man, if you just feel like you're in a rut right now on your channel as you're listening to this, I would really encourage you. You actually probably don't need to. Another flashy tactic. The best thing that I could say is just like a Big Brother, like, to you or little brother, depending on where you're at, is just to say, like, hey, think. Think about who you're for. Who are you really after? What is the audience you're trying to reach? Because you're not trying to reach everybody, just like Nick said. I mean, it's perfect. We talk about this all the time. Is. It's not about all the views. It's about the right views, the right people to find you, to hopefully go deeper with you. If you got, like, you know, business goals, you want to be able to build things to give to people services and products. But even just for success on YouTube, it's about identifying who you're actually for. And to get nerdy for just a quick second is like. That actually makes the algorithm's job easier, right? Is when you are clear as a creator on who you're trying to reach. Because once you know the person you're trying to reach, all of a sudden a lot of things get easier. Ideas come a little quicker to you because you're like, oh, yeah, if it's for this person, they're clearly interested in X, Y or Z, right? And so it gives you a path. It can make them a lot clearer. And so I love that, you know, we have a lot of fun stuff we're going to talk about these outlier videos and packaging and hooks and hardcore tactics. I'm sure we'll get into. Nick is a fellow nerd, so this will be A lot of fun to unpack together, but I do think that's mission critical. Don't skip over that step of spending the time, even if it means you take a break from posting. I remember there was a break from posting right as we were working through some of this because that's where your brain power needs to go. And it showed because I believe as I'm looking at your channel, correct me if I'm wrong, the third or the second video back actually looked like it outliered. And then by the time we get to the fourth video, that was a really big outlier. So as we get into this outlier territory, anything else you add to that, Nick, or do you want to. Ready to pop the hood on some of these?

[Nick]

Yeah, I just. I really want to encourage folks that it's. It's. It can be challenging to figure out to nail down who your tribe is, who your ideal audience is. We struggled with that for a while. And I think, honestly, I think we tried all kinds of different exercises. We'd brainstorm, we'd, you know, go through all kinds of things. But I think at the end of the day, what really helped us the most was just posting different kinds of content and seeing what felt right. What did we enjoy doing, what were we getting really good feedback from, where there was a lot of interaction with people and. And they were asking questions where we could tell they were getting it and they were digging in, wanting more, that kind of thing, those kinds of interactions and just what resonated. Right. And also did well as far as views and all of that, but you can't just go off of views. So, yeah, like. Like you said, Nathan, take the time to work on that. And it's going to take time, but as you go, just keep refining it. And I mean, I still feel like there's some ambiguity about who exactly our tribe is, but we're still dialing that in every video that we post.

[Nathan Eswine]

Man. In full disclosure, too, as we'll get to like, also still experimenting. Right? I mean, it's still experimenting with video style. The number of times you've probably heard me say that word on a coaching call. And anyone else who I get to work with, that's probably my catchphrase is like, let's try it. You know, be like, should we do.

[Nick]

This or do that?

[Nathan Eswine]

Both. You know, it's like, not like I'm trying to be haphazard about it, but just we don't know until we try, you know, and so I'm all big fan of running experiments to get clearer, because we only get clearer on the other side of trying things, right? That's where we get that feedback. So let's jump into these videos, because essentially what happened, right, is a couple of these videos started to hit, and then it seemed like we were just talking before we started recording Nick, that, you know, y' all were saying you. You were essentially had an outlier video, sometimes back to back to back, but at least once a month, there was an outlier video that just went way over your baseline, brought new awareness to you. And so let's get into this chapter. What changed? What was the. What were the big levers to get these kind of results on a channel that was not getting these results? And if you don't mind me saying, like on a kind of a niche channel, too, right? I mean, you're talking about things that, when I. And I mean this in the best way, like when I look at some of these view counts, over 600,000 views on a couple videos, it just. It's like, I'm sure you felt this, too. It's like, wow, there's an audience for that. You know, like, there's like that many. Oh, my goodness. Right. And so it's just like, it makes you think how many people are. We don't even know about us, right? And like, we could just keep growing forever. So what were those changes to get you into this hundred thousand view territory?

[Nick]

So I would say it's when we became very strategic. And I think you alluded to this earlier, but it's the basics. It's the kind of stuff that you guys teach in vra, where we focus on the big idea. That's really where it all starts, is the big idea of finding a big idea that matters to your audience. And because you can do all the steps, right? But if it's a big idea that nobody really cares about or that the wrong people care about, then what have you accomplished? So the big idea, then once you've got a good big idea where it's something that matters to them and that, you know, is going to push the needle for them and that there's an audience for, then for us, it's like identifying keywords with good traffic and low competition that relate to that, so we kind of can dial it in a little bit tighter and know exactly what direction we're going here. And Vidiq has been a great help to us and in that sort of thing, just identifying what direction to go with this big idea. And then we start working on a hook. An amazing Hook, you know, what's, what's that gonna look like? Or title? Sometimes we go back and forth on those, trying to remember which one is it that you guys say to do first, the title or the hook?

[Nathan Eswine]

We're like, oh, title. Probably before the hook. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. All of it's good to think about up front.

[Nick]

Yeah. And that's true. I. I do usually do the title first. And I actually created a custom GPT for titles that helps me brainstorm where I put a bunch of instructions in the, in the instructions for the custom GPT of the types of titles that I'm looking for. And I was gleaning that from other sources that are experts on titles. Plug that in there. And so then when I've got my big idea and I know my keywords, then just drop that in there and see what options it comes up with. And then I just keep going through those until I find one that clicks and then I tweak that one. Even still, I seldom leave it the way it is. You know, tweaking that and. And then a hook. An amazing hook. I personally think. Well, I don't know. I was going to say I think the hook is the most important. But honestly, nobody's going to see the hook if they don't click on it. And so, yeah, so the hook. But that, that was really something that we had not been doing was the hook. We knew about titles and thumbnails. We weren't maybe real good at it, but we knew they were important. But hook had not even really occurred to us previously. And so. But it's gotta be a hook that directly ties in with your title. Or else when they click on it, the first thing that they hit with, if it doesn't relate to the title and the thumbnail, then they're gonna think it's just clickbait. And so making that a really powerful hook that leaves them hanging where, you know, you know, where you're grabbing their interest. They know they're in the right place and. But don't tell them the thing yet. You have to. You know, we try and leave a little bit of a cliff there and, and then a thumbnail that relates. And that's something we can talk about in more detail if you want, but that we've been learning some interesting things about that what works for us. And then the last thing I would say would be punchy call to action at the end. And then something that you've been working with us on, Nathan, is mid roll call to actions, which we did not like doing previously. But we, whenever we can now, we work one in as long as it's a long enough video to warrant that. And yeah, I, I think those things have really made a difference and I guess the call to action shouldn't be on that list because that's not necessarily helping the video, that's helping our business. But yeah.

[Nathan Eswine]

Oh man. Let's park here for a quick second because you just dropped bomb after bomb and so I wanna. Let's hang on Tidal for a second. As much as I would love to say there's an affiliate link down below for Nick's custom title GPT so you can blow up just like them, we don't have that. That's actually just, you know, Nick hasn't even given it to me, you know, so he's just keep. That's under lock and key. But the idea of what's cool about that and Nick, you know, feel free to share whatever you want. But when it comes to that, that title GPT, I think what you're the, the cool thing about that is you are, you're finding a tool that can give you this objective opinion that can give you other ideas that like you're not relying on just yourself to think about title after title, but you're essentially pulling from different sources and you built this thing yourself. But what I think it's mirroring is part of what I know we enjoy really doing is when we hop on a call and it's like it's a packaging thing. I mean the number of times lately that we just talk about the title. Right the thumbnail and like I'm reviewing a hook or whatever, like we really hang park a lot of our time right there. I mean the results speak for themselves. But maybe do you mind filling us in a little bit? I just know someone's probably wondering how did you build a title GPT? You know, feel free to share whatever you want, but I think it'd be cool if you broke that down for us.

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[Nick]

Well, I ran upon this guy that's supposed to be like the title guru. I don't even remember his name to be honest, but at the time it sounded like he was somebody that really knew titles on YouTube and, and he had some principles. I listened to a podcast of his and he had some principles there that he laid out the types of titles.

[Nathan Eswine]

Probably Jake Thomas of Creator Hooks.

[Nick]

Oh, that sounds, that sounds right. It could be. Anyway, it's been a while back. Anyway, he gave the, these principles of these, what do you call them? Formats, you know, where would give examples of types of titles and then you know, based on things that are based on. I don't know, I'm. I'm massacring it. But anyway, kids, principles and that that he laid out in this podcast. And I think I, I think I tried his tool and for whatever reason it didn't resonate with me. And I thought, well, I think I can make something that's actually going to work better for me personally. And so I just, you know, I think I probably used Chat GPT to help me with the instructions too for the custom GPT and just played around with it. Of these are the principles, you know, that I want you to use in creating titles and I want you to create a bunch of different ones. For me, I think it's like 21 different titles that it creates when I plug something in. And, and yeah, so I just played around with it until I got it the way that I liked it. And so now I just go in and, and I find that it actually works better the less detail I give it. I, I used to do this, you know, long write up that I would drop in there and say, give me a title for this. Or I would do the cardinal sin of recording before I had thought about the title. And then I take the transcript and drop.

[Nathan Eswine]

Don't say it out loud. Sean might hear you.

[Nick]

I know. And I dropped the transcript in and say give me a title. But what I found gave me the most out of the box creative titles that I loved the most is when I would leave it kind of wide open. I would Just say just a one liner, just a short one liner. This is what it's about. Boom. And then that would just leave the door wide open for all kinds of options. And a lot of times I would end up going directions that I had not even thought of and it was like, wow, I love that title. And here's what I could, you know, here's the content that I could include in there and everything. So it's been really helpful.

[Nathan Eswine]

Yeah, that makes me think about essentially what it is, is it's iteration. I mean, the tool is awesome, but just the fact you said it just gives me so many different options. And I mean, you know, obviously I've seen those working together, but I think that's, that's the thing to drive home is YouTube. You know, right now it's, it's, we are just past the era of being able to just upload a video and just assume that it's going to do well because it's just a new platform. YouTube's, I mean, relatively young, you know, age wise, but it's just here and it's around. Right? And so what that means is what we're realizing is everything comes down to the click. That's just the game of YouTube, it's just the way it is, you know, and so working with content creators and people who have such mission driven hearts and like, things they want to help people with and the messages they want to spread, I'm like, all of that is awesome, but that kind of exists over here and no one's really going to know about that and get the change that you want them to get until if you're on YouTube, you understand. It just, it all starts with people deciding to click on your video. The first decision actually isn't, I'm going to watch your video. I think that's how a lot of people approach YouTube when you start is, oh, I just got to like get them to watch my video. It's like, no, no, no, that's this, that's like the fifth decision that someone has to make. Like the first one is, will I click based on the title and thumbnail, Right. Some people hover over, you know, just like there's a decision that goes on at the very beginning with the front gate, which, which is, am I even gonna click? And then there's more decisions. If someone clicks in, they have to decide to stay, right? So YouTube's watching those first 30 seconds and they have to decide to stay to watch more. So all that to say, this is, this is the thing that I think has moved the needle. One of them in your all's channel. And since getting to work with you is this ridiculous focus on the title and on the thumbnail and on the hook, which we'll talk about here in just a second. I'm curious from your perspective, Lisa, like, how, how have you viewed the changes that you all have made to how you create content? I remember, like, yeah, just like how much time is now being spent on the front end? I'm curious from your perspective, how are you at first, were you like, you didn't get it or you found it beneficial or are you just like, man, can we just like record the video? I don't even know, like, where's, where's your headspace at as you've all made this drastic change and how you produce a video?

[Lisa]

Well, I mean, the results really speak for themselves. Like, you know, I'm not able to, to work full time in the business like Nick is because of homeschooling and other things. But, but yeah, I mean, there have been many times where I've kind of like, why are you taking so long on this thing? Or whatever. But then, you know, when he finally publishes it, finally publishes it, then it's like, wow, you know, the, like I said, the results really speak for themselves. And I mean, we, you know, summers are generally a low time for us, but this summer, in spite of it, you know, we definitely saw a slump this summer. But still, even with the slump, we made more than we have ever made in our entire home business career in the months of, you know, June, July and August. And that was thanks to all of the effort that, that we, but mostly Nick and you have put into the title and the thumbnail and the hook too. It really has. I mean, we can see it. The results are there in hard numbers.

[Nathan Eswine]

So, yeah, so it's like sometimes frustrating, but it's like, ah, it's worth it. This is why I just appreciate, I really love coaching both of you because I've said this multiple times. I'll say it public because I mean it. Like, you both are just a good team. You really are like, you know what I mean? Like, you, you just have your strengths and you really balance each other out and that in itself is really cool. And so I know everyone listening to this, you know, may not be married or have a family, but if you had a friend or someone who's do it, who you could like who's doing YouTube as well, or you're interested in coaching or something like that, right? Like, if you could find someone to partner up with to compliment you, man. I've just gotten to witness a lot of really cool conversations just because you both are in it, you know, it's true.

[Nick]

And you know, and so now we've kind of flipped where I am often apologizing for how long it's taking me on a video. And he's like, stop apologizing. You make me feel bad when you apologize. And you know, we, we if we don't do this, you know, this is what needs to be done for it to have good results.

[Lisa]

As in this morning, you're like, this is fresh.

[Nick]

Yeah, but you know, that's not to say that every video is going explode. I mean, I've had, I can think of one video in particular that I put a tremendous amount of work into and I just thought this thing was going to just take off and it totally bombed out. And so you're going to have those moments, but the overall trend, you're going to see a real improvement. And one thing that you mentioned earlier, you mentioned that, you know, if you're a business with a mission that you, it can feel a little bit weird to be focusing so much on getting the click. Almost feel click baity. And for me, what has really helped me wrap my head around this is, you know, like you said, who are you going to help if nobody's watching it? So first of all, you got to get a click to be able to get access to them and help them. But then second of all, the rest of this process, this wasn't just the headline, the title, you know, this is also the hook and the content because remember, we're not building the content until after the hook and we're not building the hook until after the title. And so this is a totally ethical thing that's happening here because all we're doing is we're finding what is the thing that is of the greatest interest to these people and then we're building content around that. So this is not something where we're just getting a, getting a click for the sake of getting a click and then it's empty. We are, this is. They're getting what they clicked on, so they're getting their clicks worth out of it.

[Nathan Eswine]

I love that. That's that it's like taking ownership over the video, you know what I mean? Like, I love that approach and you all have definitely demonstrated that and in conversations together, making sure that, yeah, we're going to put a lot of effort in to the game that we're playing, you know, What I mean, and maybe game is even the wrong word to use, but it's just like whatever platform you're on, if you have something you're trying to share, even if you just want to be an author, you know, like, I use the word game because I just mean that there's like, a way to do the thing, right? So if you're choosing to publish on YouTube, there's a way to do the thing, you know, which is like, okay, it starts with the click, Then it's like people choosing to stay in your video, then they choose to watch another one, or you can get them to click a link in your description. There's like, there's a system. There's like a path to follow.

[Nick]

And if you.

[Nathan Eswine]

I appreciate that.

[Nick]

And if you wait until after your. Your recording to do the title, you're much more likely to fall into the clickbait thing because then you're looking for a really good title and you just can't find one that fits your content. And so there's the strong temptation, believe me, I felt it. To go with a title that's kind of pushing the envelope a little bit. It's like, well, did this kind. We kind of covered that, you know, so good.

[Nathan Eswine]

I know in. In content like. Or in, like, yeah, sessions together. I know that I'll ask that because especially. Right, like, I know YouTube, but I don't know your niche, right? Like, you know your niche. And I say that to just about anybody I work with is like, you know your niche. So I know the number of times I've spat out a title, but I usually try to say, but is that accurate? You know, like, could we say that? And sometimes you'd be like, yeah, or sometimes you'd be like, nope, we really couldn't. You know, we shouldn't go there because it's like, oh, that'd be such a good title. That would so work. But it's not true, right? To the content, or maybe more importantly, even true to you, right? And true to your. Your brand of the channel. So, hey, I'd love to if it's cool. Let's. Let's move into the 30 seconds. I think we've covered packaging. What's your all's playbook for the first 30 seconds? What have you learned? Because, man, you've got. You have the videos to prove it. You've proven you can get clicks. But it's kind of like if someone clicked in and then bounced out, your videos wouldn't be where they are. Like, the watch time. Then Follows the click. So what are you doing in those first 30 seconds? What stuff you're experimenting with? What excites you? What will you never do again? You know, like any. Anywhere you want to take it. How do you all approach the first 30 seconds? Now?

[Nick]

I would say trying to like that first sentence, even the first few words. As time goes on, I'm getting to where I'm laboring over those first few words more than anything. And as attention spans get shorter, I know how I am, you know, those first several words, that first line, it makes all the difference on whether you're going to watch something or not. So really laboring over that, trying to keep the visuals fast moving, especially in those first 30 seconds, first minute or so. And you know, if you have any clips or things that you can insert to where it. As long as it's true to the video, to where it lets them know that this isn't going to be just a talking head thing, you know, you're trying to demonstrate what's actually happening in this video so that they. They get a good feel for it. And then the open loop, you know, in there where you are laying out that this is the benefit for them, focusing on the benefit for the viewer and let them know how important it's going to be for them and almost get to the point of telling them and then, you know, don't quite get there where they realize that they need to watch the whole thing. And that I believe, you know, once again, this is one of those things that you could say, well, that feels clickbaity or whatever. But. But the fact of the matter is, if you give them that sound bite right at the beginning and they get that and they leave, chances are they're going to leave with a very inadequate understanding of the topic and they're not going to be able to apply that little sound bite that you gave them. So I feel like there's a ethical component to getting them to watch the whole video so that they can get the context and actually apply that sound bite with understanding and actually make it work and be successful. Because at the end of the day, that's what this is all about, is transformation. Helping people to get from point A to point B. And if, if the video isn't doing that, then all you've done is you've gotten some views. And so we're after transformation and we need their attention. We need them in the video to be able to give them transformation.

[Nathan Eswine]

You said something powerful there that I know we've talked about. But just like Again, trying to just keep this like a coaching call. Someone gets the shadow, you know, it's like I've been thinking a lot more about the opening line too, and how that, that's actually the hook. And I think that the way maybe I would have even coached YouTube a few years ago was the first 30 seconds. Because that's something YouTube measures. I think it like it got fused. Like the hook is the first 30 seconds. And I think maybe that's how I understood it as a creator, but then maybe even how I taught, you know, when like coaching YouTube and, and I've, lately I've, I totally, I don't teach that way. It's like I actually think, oh, the first 30 seconds is just a measurement. Like that's just YouTube. That's YouTube saying, you know, if someone's going to stay through that, there's a higher likelihood that they're going to keep going. Right? So obviously it matters what you do. And that is the beginning of your video. Like 30 seconds of a long form video is, you know, such a small fraction. But I actually think the hook to your point, Nick, is the opening line. And I think it's those first few seconds, not only the whole 30 seconds, but what you do in those first few seconds, what you say and what you show, that that actually is the thing to labor over. And that almost, it's like almost by the, by the 32nd mark. It'd be cool if we were into the content or we just started 0.1 or we just started whatever, right? Like we've actually already done hook, even intro or whatever. Like we're just in the content by 30 seconds, I think is the actual challenge. And that's the push that I give to most people. Most people now. And so anyway, yeah, I just, like it's, it's. I think it's, it's really worth thinking about that first line and to your point, how it connects the dots between the title and the thumbnail. Have you all noticed, you know, in your niche too maybe, do you mind explaining just a little bit your niche to maybe set up context for my question? So my question is, have you all noticed higher retention or more clicks or higher performance on titles, hooks, videos as a whole, where the framing, the positioning is negative versus positive? Like if you go the negative route of an angle, you know, like almost kind of, for lack of better phrasing, doom and gloom, this is why you should stick around to watch. Or if you go the positive angle, um, like I'm just curious if, you know, I Know, we've talked this a little bit, but I'd love to bring the conversation to everybody. What do you think's more effective? And so I know that there's a little bit of context on your niche. Maybe you can give us to that.

[Nick]

But we've seen both work well, you know, so I instantly, my mind instantly went to. I think the negative works a little better in our niche. But then I was glancing at the titles of our top videos. This congressman's off grid retreat is genius. That's not negative. How to survive without electricity off grid. That's not negative. The only emergency water storage guide you'll ever need. That's not negative. So when I look at the really big performers, and I could go on down the list, I'm still looking for a negative one and I'm not seeing one in the top 10. So, you know, that's. This is why the metrics are so important, because your gut reaction can be wrong. And, you know, once something that you think is going to do really well may not. Case in point. We were, I think on our last coaching call, we were looking at the performance of our most recent video, and I saw something that I had not seen before as dramatic. Usually, you know that you always see that drop off in the first 30 seconds. There's a pretty dramatic drop off for everybody, pretty much.

[Nathan Eswine]

We all have that.

[Nick]

Unless you're Mr. Beast, maybe that's right. But. But I noticed it was not a rounded drop off. It was like a cliff. And I clicked on. Where was that? And it was our bumper, you know, with our logo and our little music and. It's a short bumper. We don't have a long bumper. We did that in years past and we, we thought we were being really good. We had a really short bumper. What is it? Maybe five seconds, something. And. And that's where the drop off was. So after seeing that, I was like, okay, I'm done with the bumper. You know, we just lost what, 10, 15, 20% of our audience during that bumper.

[Nathan Eswine]

That's right. I remember, I do remember this conversation. Yeah. Where it was like, it's either really shorten it up, right. Like, the options either really trim it up or it's just gone, or it happens later. It's an ending. It's an ending. So I don't know. Right. Like, but if. To your point, what can you do to ensure a higher sustain rate in those first 30 seconds? And this. I love it. Yeah, you gotta look at the data, you gotta look at the tools that YouTube gives you. Cause you can make those decisions. Right? So I'd love to shift gears into the business side of your YouTube channel. Right. So it's clear we've talked about this whole episode. You've gotten a lot of views and the channel's grown. But we've also talked about getting the right views and having some place for those right views to go so they don't just stay views on YouTube. It's cool to have YouTube pay you, but it's also like another thing to be able to bring those people into a business and through something free that you're offering and collect emails and think about a course or a membership or just stuff that you can offer people that's off the platform. And you all been pretty diligent about this. I'd love to talk about. First, what does that infrastructure look like? You know, like, you've mentioned you're getting some, you know, getting leads with the views. What are you all currently doing with those leads? How do you. How do you get them? And then kind of, how do they exist in your ecosystem right now?

[Nick]

So I guess just to kick this off, email subscript subscribers. In the past year, we've had almost 8,500 new leads, and that's almost entirely from YouTube. We've done no paid advertising. That's almost like, that has to be, what, 95 or more percent of that is YouTube. And the pre. The year before that, we only had 3,100 new leads, and we were doing paid ads that year. We spent thousands on paid ads. And that's. And those were junkie leads, pitiful leads. We got almost nothing out of those. Um, and so that has been a game changer for us. You know, like I said in that first series we did, we got a bunch of leads, and it was like, okay, this is the solution. We're. We're no longer. And maybe I should. Maybe this is dangerous for me to say we're no longer going to do paid ads, because I don't want to be encouraging people. That's a good way to die, probably to kill your business, to not do paid ads. But for us, that was kind of the point we were at, because the paid ads had not been working very well for us. And so we were like, okay, let's do this thing. And so we really focused on that, and you encouraged us to every single video, have a call to action, whatever it may be. You know, it may not necessarily be a lead magnet. It could be affiliate links, could be to watch this other YouTube video, which that's something that we should do more of because I know the algorithm really likes it when you keep people on the platform. And we're, I have a hard time sending people back to YouTube. I want to, I want them to come to our stuff, but anyhow, we should do that. But our call to actions, we've really worked on those. So we started out with a small number of lead magnets. You know, would be a PDF or a spreadsheet calculator, or a video series or a webinar, an evergreen webinar, all kinds of things like that. And, but we didn't have very many to start out with. And so it was a, it was challenging getting going with doing a call to action every video because we had so many topics that we would be doing a video on and we had no lead magnet for that topic. And so in those times we would just try and pick the most general lead magnet that we had and plug that. And it's like, I know it's not probably going to perform as well as one that's targeted, but it's better than nothing. And then we would try and just add more lead magnets to our repertoire. You know, maybe once a month, once every couple months, maybe more than that. Anyway, we would, as much as we were able to surround, we would create new lead lead magnets. But I've heard of some people doing a new lead magnet for every single video that they do. And I've shied away from that because when I've heard of people doing that, generally they're, they've said that they're using AI to create it for them. And I don't want our viewers first interaction with us to be something that's subpar. I want it to be like over the top where they have a really good experience with us. And so we've, we try and keep it to, to stuff that we're proud of. And, and so we've been gotten a growing number of lead magnets, which has been super helpful because now with most of the topics that we cover, we have already a lead magnet that relates in some way to that topic. And then did you have anything you wanted to say on the lead magnet side? So then there's the call to action side. And so often call to actions are like this separate. We treat it almost like a advertisement, you know, where it's like a paid ad that has nothing to do with the video. And there's this abrupt change. You're, you're going along in your video and then boom, here's the lead magnet or the call to action section and everybody fast forwards to the end of it and pick up. Yes and, or they, if it's the end of the video, they bail out. And so we've really worked to try and make our call to actions as seamless as possible where when you're going along, you the, the goal is, I don't know if we've always been successful with this, but the goal is that as somebody is watching along, they're well into the call to action and don't even know it's a call to action until you get to the URL, you know, click here and where. And then the other thing is, I want it to be a natural fit where clicking on that link and getting that resource feels like the obvious next step where it's not them doing us a favor, we're doing them a favor because we've, we're teaching them this content and now here's your next step. This is what you really need and we're actually going to give it to you. And they're like, count me in, you know, and that's the goal. Now like I said, I'm sure we have not always implemented that perfectly but boy, the times when it has really clicked. It has been amazing the number of leads that we get. Like for instance, let's just talk about one of our top four videos. Number four, this congressman's grid down survival plan is brilliant. This was a interview that we had with a congressman where he's talking about the fragility of the power grid and you know, just fragility of the systems and how dependent everyone has become on the systems and these kinds of things. And then our lead magnet is a series of videos that takes people on a tour of different homesteads. And it starts out with that congressman's off grid retreat, where he's built a retreat that's completely off the grid and self sustaining and all of this. And so the, the call to action was, hey you, do you appreciate what this guy's been talking about here? If you do, wouldn't you like to see what he's actually done about it? Not just what he's talking about, but what he actually did to prepare for this. Well, click on this and you'll get to a tour of his off grid cabin. Man, that was just a perfect fit. And it was, it worked incredibly well and people appreciated it. You know, this wasn't just getting leads and then, oh, we've got them. And then no, this was people that really genuinely appreciated it. And we got so many emails from people saying, thank you so much. That was super helpful. That was an amazing cabin. You know, all that.

[Nathan Eswine]

I just. If you're listening, you should just rewind because you just, you just dropped a masterclass on calls to actions in a very simple, understandable way. I mean, goodness, I know this. As a coach, this is one of the areas that people struggle with, you know. Okay, how do I make the videos now? Got it. Pressing record, thinking about the title and the thumbnail. Cool. Outlining my videos and just feeling like, ah, how do I talk about? Like I'm feeling like I'm selling in a negative way. Like it feels slimy or I feel salesy. I feel like I'm not coming across. I don't want to ask people, they're already watching my video. I don't want to ask them to go do something. And so a phrase that I have said a lot is, man, if you have this other stuff you want people to be aware of, that's actually gonna help them. Because to keep it real, there's only so much help that you can do on YouTube. Like, you can do a lot and goodness, you just have to go watch Nick and Lisa's videos. They pack a lot of information into their videos, but you can only do so much, right? Like there is a next step to partner together in a membership, a course, a consultation. Like, there are other way. The best way you can help people is. The best way you can start to help people is on the platform. But the best way to see them through their transformation, I think is going to involve stuff off platform, right? And so when you do your calls to actions, I just love how you said that it should be a natural extension, a next step of what we already are doing here. You know, you're kind of just like, hey, if you're enjoying, it's so casual, right? It's kind of like Sean does this a lot. The open handed call to action. Hey, by the way, you know, if you're interested in whatever, whatever, you should check this out. But the way that you do that, I know, is very calculated. Now when you guys use B roll and you use text and you use things to really explain this place that you're trying to call people to. And so it's just really cool. Y' all are living proof of. Man, I'm so glad. It makes me so glad as you're all strategist and coach, like, okay, we have videos, right, that have gotten hundreds of thousands of views. That's cool. But the cooler thing to me is that they were architected on purpose that you spent the time upfront, you know, mulling over the call to action, building the landing page for someone to go put their email address in or whatever. And then just. Just the fact that you have videos that are overperforming and that actually can enable people to go into your business, that's. That's the coolest thing for me. That's what I geek out on. I'm like, oh, man, that's just awesome. Hey, we are going to shift into this list that you have, this rapid fire list. You're so kind, Nick and Lisa, to put this together for our audience, just to kind of like share things you've learned in your journey. But I would love to encourage you, if you're listening. You know, we've talked a whole lot here about a whole bunch of different things, and Nick and Lisa are a part of our coaching program. And so I'd encourage you, if you're interested in getting another set of eyes on anything that you're doing, at least just book a call with our team that's totally free. It's not going to cost you anything. And we'd love to help you strategize your next steps, even if it's not with us in coaching. Maybe there's some other way that we can help you, and you can do [e-mail] so if you go to viralvideocoach.com, fill out some information, if it looks like you would be a good fit, then we'll get a call on the schedule and you can talk to our team. Show us your channel, show us where you're at. You can even mention this podcast sent you there, like, however you want to do it. And we'd love to just come alongside you in your journey and help help you try to find out the next best step for you. Because there's a lot of moving parts here and it's hard to do this thing alone. Nick has got Lisa and Lisa's got Nick. Maybe it's just you. Maybe we could be your other partner. You know, that'd be great. So you can go to viralvideocoach.com we'd love to talk with you and check out your channel. Okay, Nick, go for it.

[Nick]

Nathan, can I. Can I just say that it has been a game changer for us, the coaching. It really has, you know. Yes. We have the two of us, and that's awesome. It's. We have amazing brainstorming sessions and all of that, but we are so close to our stuff that it's the, the. It's so tremendously helpful to get outside perspective from somebody who's not so close to all of this stuff and somebody who knows the game, you know, knows how stuff works, has more experience and exposure to stuff on YouTube and. And is willing to call out and say, you know, I think you ought to change that or consider that it's just been game changing, game changer. And that's when our, our, you know, we had our little moment of success a year ago, but it's after we started coaching that we got consistent. We've been getting consistent results. And so it's been amazing.

[Nathan Eswine]

Oh, man, I appreciate y'.

[Nick]

All.

[Nathan Eswine]

Thank you for the kind words. I'm just like, go team. Team effort. You know, that's what I usually say when we end our call is like, go team. You know, we did it. Another. Another video down. Another call to action made.

[Nick]

Right?

[Nathan Eswine]

It's awesome. Well, hey, Nick, I would love it if share with us, you and Lisa, if you want to rapid fire of these tips. Just, just giving away game here about what you've learned with your crazy amount of growth you've been experiencing lately, feel free, go for it.

[Nick]

So persevere would be the first one. There's going to be ups and downs. And when you see a big spike one month, you may be tempted to think this is your new normal. We certainly have. You know, like Nathan said, we had several months where we had a viral video every month. And Nathan kept telling us, this is not typical. And I'm thinking, well, this is typical for us now. So.

[Nathan Eswine]

Well, this is what we're doing.

[Nick]

Yeah. And then this summer we got a little reality check and, you know, down. But when you look at you, you have to look at your baseline and compare it to a year ago, compare it to where you were a year ago. And when we do that, it's like, wow, I can't believe the growth. Because it's so tempting to get discouraged after you've had this big spike. But you have to go back to what was your normal before and compare it to what your normal is now. And that can bring you back to reality. And it's like, wow, we really have made progress. And the next time we see a spike, it's going to go that much higher because our baseline is that much higher. So that's one thing. The next thing, I have one word. Insanity. So the. The doing the same thing over again and expecting different results, you know, that's the Definition of insanity.

[Lisa]

That's basically what we did for a year and a half with our podcast. And we saw zero, well, pretty much almost zero growth. And we were consistent, but we were just banging our heads against the wall over and over and over again without really seeing what it was we were hoping to see.

[Nick]

See, we weren't changing things up. That's, you know, the persevere, be persistent. Yes, but you got. If you're not getting results, and even if you are getting results, keep changing things and seeing what works, make little changes, tweaks. And that's what we're doing now is we're constantly changing things.

[Lisa]

Yeah. And that's actually iterate. Or the next tip you have on the list here is always be iterating, trying different things. You know, looking back at the metrics, which he's phenomenal at. You know, just looking at all of the numbers and seeing where you are. I mean, that was what was really encouraging for us this summer when we saw this, you know, dip in our views and everything was like, wait a second, this is actually massive growth compared to last summer and where we were. So.

[Nick]

And then lead magnets. Include a lead magnet in almost every video. You know, it doesn't have to be everyone. You could do affiliate links. We're starting coming up. We're doing a big push with affiliate links that once again, you know, ethical ones that you highly recommend. Only stuff that you recommend. But. But lead magnets, we do that on almost every video. It doesn't have to be a new one each time. You know, we. We use the same ones over and over just for a given topic. So we have a repertoire of maybe eight or nine different lead magnets and then thumbnails. What's been working well for us is not these highly processed, heavily doctored thumbnails. It's taking looking for action frames in our video, in the actual video that it's for, where there's a real connection there, and pick several of. Just go through it and take screenshots of these action frames and then compile them together and go through them and pick what's the best two, maybe, and then split test those. We will do a little bit of editing. You know, make the. It usually has one of us in there looking at the camera. That seems to be a common theme that works well for us, is action. But it needs to have one of us in there. And it's ideal if we're looking at the camera. If we're not looking at the camera, we'd better be doing something Pretty interesting. And, and then two or three words on the screen seems to often do well in big, highly readable text where it can be read when it's small. That, that's, I would say when you say, Nathan, that's pretty much the recipe of what we've been doing.

[Nathan Eswine]

For example.

[Nick]

Yeah, yeah. And then QR codes. We found that. Okay, I got it. This is an amazing statistic.

[Nathan Eswine]

Yeah, this is. I know where you're going. This is fascinating.

[Nick]

Okay, so I'm going to the audience. So I'm going to analytics and YouTube and I'm telling you this so that those of you that are listening, you know how to do this too. Go to analytics and then click on audience. And if you scroll down, it's going to tell you. Let's see, device type right now for, let's see, what shall we say the last year or the last month? What do you think, Nathan?

[Nathan Eswine]

I'm actually curious. The last year because that encompasses all these videos that have popped off.

[Nick]

Okay. For the last year. You know what? Number one is TV. 54%. Over half of our viewers are on a TV. I thought it would be mobile phone, hands down. No, mobile phone is 25%. 25, 26. Computer, 13%. Tablet 6, 7%. So you have to. When we realized that, when our first explosion happened and we saw all these TV viewers, I got, we got a comment from one of our, actually a personal friend of ours that watched our video and he said, how do you click that link?

[Lisa]

You find it.

[Nick]

You keep saying in the description, there's a link and I can't find it anywhere. And I'm like, well, you just go to the description. And then it finally came out. He's watching on a tv. So I did some research. We don't have a tv, but I did some research and it's not, it's. I don't think it's possible to click a link in the description on a tv. If it is, it's really, really hard. And so for now on, from then on, we use QR codes and have easy URLs, you know, the readylife. Com go or whatever. And then have a QR code where they can pull out their phone and do that. So that's been huge for us for the Call to Actions and then a series, we already talked about that, that's worked really well. And then trying to resonate, trying to figure out what resonates with your people, with your tribe, what format, what topics, just being a student of your audience and what resonates with them. And the DJI Pocket 3 has been a game changer for us because, you know, before that we had a camera mounted on our desk and we would do the, the sit down podcast style interviews. But when we realized we needed to do action, that made it so easy. We knew we needed something that would be so easy where in a matter of seconds we could pop it out and be filming whatever we're doing. And it makes it look good. It's smooth. Audio is so easy. With the wireless mic, the DJI mic.

[Lisa]

Mini, I can walk backwards with the DJI pocket and it takes really great video with me walking backwards, filming me.

[Nick]

As I'm walking forward so that there's movement. So even if we have talking head stuff, at least there's movement, you know. And yeah, then another thing has been be okay with calling out your tribe and gently alienating the wrong people. And I don't mean intentionally alienating them, but being okay with saying something that, you know, certain sectors of the population are not going to like and is going to turn them off. Because when you do that, you are connecting in a special way with your tribe because they know that you have stuck your neck out to resonate with them. They know that you just turned off a certain percentage of your viewership. And I think that there's a level of appreciation there that this person is willing to stick their neck out in order and to lose part of their viewership in order to be real and connect with me.

[Lisa]

Also, ebbs and flows. We talked about this a little bit earlier, like, recognizing that you're going to see ebbs and flows and, you know, outliers don't mean your new normal. Like for us, we were getting an outlier almost every month for a little while there. And you kept saying, you know, this is an outlier. This is not normal. But we're like, well, this is our normal. And to just recognize that, you know, things do ebb and flow and not to get discouraged when it does ebb because the flow is just about to come again. So.

[Nick]

Coaching, that's. That's been a game changer. Like I said earlier, it. It's been, we've seen amazing results. There's just something magical that happens when you get somebody knowledgeable in your corner who is not so close to your content, who's a third party and can give you input that would be input that you might get from your audience. That's been huge. There you go.

[Nathan Eswine]

There we go. Like, thanks for coaching all of us for those last few minutes. Oh, my Goodness. Such good gems, y'.

[Nick]

All.

[Nathan Eswine]

Thank you for sharing. Hey, I'd love to. Before we head out, where. Where can people find you, even if they may not be in your niche? But they're. But they're fellow creators on this journey. If they just wanted to look at what you're doing, see your channel, look at the stuff we're talking about, how are they doing their call to action? Just to learn from what you've done, would you mind shouting out your channel where people could find you? And then, of course, any resources that you have that you might want to, you know, bring awareness to.

[Nick]

Yeah, sure. Our channel is the Ready Life, and so if you do a search for that, you'll find it there. Our website is thereadylife.com, but, yeah, the channel is honestly where most of the action is happening. I. I have a friend that says that in the next couple of years, the. Your YouTube channel is going to be more important than your website. And that's already the case for us. And so, yeah, the Ready Life. And we'd love to see you there. Drop us a note in the comments if you want. And, yeah, that'd be awesome.

[Nathan Eswine]

Yes, please do. Let Nick and Lisa know what stuck out to you, what light bulb moment just hit you in this conversation. And let us know by liking, rating, sharing, reviewing, wherever you watch or listen. This is the Think Media podcast. I'm Nathan Eswine, and I can't wait to connect with you in a future episode.