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- [00:00]
Sean Cannell
Hey, quick heads up. Before we get into today's podcast episode, if you missed our recent three day YouTube growth sprint event, you can still catch the limited replays, but only for a short time. Just go to ytsprint.com enter your name and email and we will send you the links so you can watch the free trainings. People have been asking for the recordings and they are coming down soon. But if you want clarity, traction and a real plan for your channel this year, just go to ytsprint.com and watch the replays while they are still available. All right, let's jump into today's episode.
- [00:41]
Dr. Joseph Allen
Within the first year, I was getting to a point where I was hitting like 10 grand a month. That first year was really tough cause again, I didn't know what was going on and I almost had like a mental breakdown. Four months in trying to produce a video every week.
- [00:53]
Sean Cannell
Today we're going to be learning how a medical professional turned boring eye content into viral videos.
- [00:59]
Dr. Joseph Allen
Finally, one of my videos did hit. Got suggested again a little bit by luck, but I caught a topic going.
- [01:05]
Sean Cannell
To be breaking down the exact method he uses to structure videos to keep them watching. One of his videos hit 1.5 million views doing this and the content shift that helped him jump from a struggling creator to over 139 million total video views. But right at the start, we're going to cover the three biggest mistakes he sees people making on YouTube when they're just starting out growing their channels.
- [01:30]
Think Media Host
Welcome back to the Think Media podcast, the number one show bringing you unfiltered YouTube tips for building a profitable channel. Today is a powerful conversation where Sean is sitting down with one of our video ranking academy students, Dr. Joseph Allen from Dr. IHealth. And quick note, today's episode is brought to you by vrapodcast.com we've got a limited time cohort that's gonna offer coaching and accountability, but I'll tell you more about that later. V. For now, let's jump into the conversation.
- [01:58]
Sean Cannell
Dr. IHealth, welcome to the show.
- [02:00]
Dr. Joseph Allen
Hey, thank you, Sean. This is amazing. Longtime fan of everything thinks you're doing. So again, an honor.
- [02:06]
Sean Cannell
Well, I'm fired up to dive into a little bit of your story. Some advanced tactics as the conversation progresses. But let's start off really quick. What are the three biggest mistakes that you see creators making? We brainstorm these ahead of time. The first one is random content. Break that down.
- [02:21]
Dr. Joseph Allen
Yeah, so I see. Even for myself, when I first started off, I wasn't sure what I was talking about. I wasn't sure really what to make, but over time really boiling down to what your audience wants, like how can you best show up for them and being very direct about how, what the problem is and how you're going to help them. I think having clarity on what you're going to be really focusing on can accept really put your content above everybody else's because you're really getting to the sharp pain point of what the keyword is, the key phrases and what the audience is looking for for that content. And even if it's not a hot topic, if you are direct about it, it will find an audience.
- [03:06]
Sean Cannell
So good. Number two is not getting to the point fast enough. What do you mean here?
- [03:10]
Dr. Joseph Allen
So at the beginning of the videos, if you spend too long not getting to the point or really getting the information or allowing the viewer to know they're in the right place, that the information that they click that they are going to get that information, then you see audience retention drop off way too fast. So you have to kind of figure out how to present yourself quickly and get kind of reaffirmed to the, to the audience that you are. The video is what it's going to be about. Right. You don't want to be just clickbaity enough so that people will be interested in it, but not too clickbaity that you're, you're going to be taking them on a wild ride.
- [03:50]
Sean Cannell
I love that. And the third biggest mistake you see creators making is on their thumbnails. What are some of the mistakes?
- [03:55]
Dr. Joseph Allen
There biggest thing is too crowded, right? There's. It's not. They got way too many words on the thumbnail. Perhaps they don't have enough emotion or enough color. I think sometimes simple is better than too complex. And so I've really started to lean into that myself and really analyzing. Okay, how do I better get this thumbnail to pop out and make it very simple. How do I draw eyes this direction? Because once I get their eyes on the, on the thumbnail, they're gonna be able to see the title and if the title's in alignment with that thumbnail and it's enough curiosity, they'll click through it. I'll see the click through rates improve.
- [04:33]
Sean Cannell
If you're ready to get serious about YouTube and you want more support, accountability and momentum, let me be really honest with you. Most people don't struggle on YouTube because of a lack of motivation. They struggle because they don't have a proven system and they don't have a deadline with accountability. That's why right now, we just opened a limited time opportunity, VRA Fast start. Five weeks of group coaching and accountability. It includes video ranking Academy with lifetime access, a system that has helped thousands of creators in over 100 niches. Plus five weeks of live group coaching and accountability that actually helps you implement. If that sounds like what you need, go to vrapodcast.com to see this limited offer or just click the link in the show notes. Enrollment is limited because this five week cohort starts soon. Soon. And once it begins, the offer closes. So if you know that YouTube matters for your business, your message, and your future, this is your time to stop circling and actually commit to see this limited offer. Just go to vrapodcast.com or click the link in the show notes. All right, let's jump back into the episode. I want to talk about YouTube shorts. And not every creator embraces shorts. Shorts are probably one of the most polarizing and controversial topics on YouTube because some creators are saying shorts will destroy your channel, divide your audience, hurts your regular views on your main videos. When I look at your top shorts, you've got a short that has 7.7 million views. Now your most viewed regular video has 4.8 million views. Congratulations on both fronts. Crushing it. But I'm curious, when did you decide to brace shorts and what have you learned? Has it been a positive neutral? Is there pros and cons that you've personally felt? And are you committed to still posting shorts?
- [06:28]
Dr. Joseph Allen
So when we started doing shorts, I think I came to it late. You know, I started just testing it out a little bit here and there. Wasn't really sure how to do it because I've never really gravitated toward TikTok or Instagram Reels too hard. But I thought, you know what, this is something. It's part of YouTube. YouTube's investing in it. I should at least try it, see how it affects things. And we had a little bit of success doing some reactions, but I started just kind of saying, hey, let's pick topics, especially even SEO, things that, you know, I can't make a full video on this, but I can at least make kind of a short and zoom in on that. And it's not going to hurt anything for me to try it. And what I've found, it actually has done nothing but help the channel because it's a lot of times these short videos go to people who are more interested in watching short content than just long form content. And it gets in front of people who've never seen my, my content before. So it ends up at least drawing them to the channel. And at some point if they watch one or two shorts, the algorithm may learn, hey, this person might also like a long form from me and they get shown one of my like top 10 videos, they, they get more introduced to my, my world of eye care. And that's kind of the mission. I want people to learn about the eyes and take care of them better. And so the more people I can raise awareness to, then that accomplishes my mission. So what we're doing now, we are going to be investing more heavily in short form content for all platforms. Right. I'm not just dedicating just to YouTube, but I make it with the mindset that YouTube is still my priority number one platform. So we're going to be doing more, but we're planning our short content largely around our long form. And so when I plan out a long form video, like again, we have Astigmatism. I'm remaking some of my older top 10 videos that I started with and that Astigmatism video, wow, there's, there's actually like four or five shorts I can make all around Astigmatism and I can post those a week before the main video. I can post those during the week of the main video, I can post those afterward and they all will feed back to that main video. And so we're going to continue kind of coming up with these strategies down the road and leaving room as a trend may come up, a trend may come up on any platform and we'll be able to comment on that or find places to fill that in with our content schedule.
- [09:00]
Sean Cannell
It's interesting for an established creator like you, I think I heard you say we're going to remake our top 10 videos. Break that down for maybe somebody listening, even if they're just starting. It might be a way to think about what if I run out of topics? Well, there's maybe the ability to repeat yourself eventually, especially if it's months or even years later, over your now seven years of building a channel. But explain your thinking behind looking at your top 10 and then redoing it. What is the mindset there, the strategy there?
- [09:33]
Dr. Joseph Allen
So we know that just looking at our statistics, okay, there's certain topics, like the topic is interesting. There's a lot of people asking about these hot topics in the eye care world, of course there's things like eye bags, there's dark circles, there's floaters, there's contact lenses. There's a lot of these key common questions. People are asking in some of these videos I made back in 2018, 2019, I used older cameras. The information I'll be putting out may be very similar or the same because not much has changed about like astigmatism that hasn't changed like what we know about it, but I have changed. The way I shoot, the style of how I, the way I communicate has changed. But in addition to this, I have grown almost a million subscribers since then. A lot of those subscribers may have never seen that original video from 5, 6 years ago on astigmatism. So I'm, if anything, I'm doing them a disservice. I should be talking about this important topic this next year and just getting that out to new people and maybe people who've already seen the old video, maybe they'd be interested in learning more about it from a different perspective. So I, I think there's, there's, it's a easy bet for me to say, hey, this is a good content that is going to be consistent and I can do a better job. And it's a way to show up for my viewers and future viewers.
- [11:05]
Sean Cannell
I think this is one of the most underrated strategies that creators miss because they're afraid of repeating themselves or they feel like, I've already said that and that impression might come if they do repeat themselves. One person in the comments are like, haven't you already, like, talked about that? Or haven't you already posted a video about that? And then you know you've posted a video about that. So in your mind you're like, well, I've already talked about, about that. Even if you reflect back, you're like, well, I've already covered astigmatism, not realizing all of the strategic and logical reasons you've mentioned. Well, there's a bunch of new people that still need to learn about it. There's, you have new style and new gear. It's a new year. There's probably 10, 20% of. Maybe it's not even new information. Maybe it's a little bit of new information because maybe a few new medical break, you know, papers or something, but also just your ability to communicate it. What I want listeners to really take away is that I think a lot of people are missing out on the opportunity of repeating themselves more on the proven topics. They're constantly searching for something new. I heard one person put it this way. We shouldn't be constantly trying to say new things because if we are, then we at some point are making stuff up. Because in any niche there's probably like 10 core topics, 30 adjacent and like max a hundred if you're really. And then of course you get into. But there's not that many things you'd ultimately be saying when you're covering those core topics. Of course, different niches are different. The quote is, you shouldn't be constantly trying to say new things to new people. You should be trying to say the same things to new people. There's millions of people who still have not discovered you even though you have a million subscribers. There's. If any channel has a hundred thousand subscribers or 10,000, their videos aren't getting 10,000 views usually. So what? 1% of your audience, 5% of your audience has seen it. And the myth is you believe you post a video and everyone sees it and then you believe they watch the whole thing. So you believe they've even got all the information. And then you realize too, you just, you have an entirely new strategy of viewer retention. So if you posted that before, and sure it did well, and it did incredibly well, but also if the average viewer duration was two minutes, there's a lot of information they need on a 10 minute video. I'm just giving a lot of rationale for the listener to do exactly what you're saying, that like remake your winners, repackage your best topics, don't be afraid to repeat yourself and don't worry about the 1 or 2 or 3% because thank God for the 3% of people that go, you already talked about this. You should say like, thank you for being such a super fan. Because that is such that it's not the majority. That's one person is like, they watch every single thing you do. It's like, all right, I appreciate you, you know, acknowledging that the 99% still need to be reached even of your own subscribers usually. And so I really got excited about that strategy. Let's go a little bit broader and take it back now to your journey and what we can learn from that. You just said, you know, we, one of the things we are working on, which speaks to the, the aspect that your channel has grown million subscribers, building a team, delegating things, but of course that's not where you started. So if we were to walk through the seasons, take us back to you getting started, day one. What's your lifestyle? Working in a clinic, thinking about starting a YouTube channel and trying to figure this thing out when there is no we and there's maybe not an extra budget and there's not fancy cameras, but just what it really takes to get going as a busy professional back when you started.
- [14:51]
Dr. Joseph Allen
So when I had this idea to start a YouTube channel. And I won't get too into the romance of it, but I had this idea and I said, okay, it's New Year's, 2017's ending, beginning of 2018, I'm going to start a YouTube channel about eye care. Nothing really exists on this topic and I don't really have anybody to guide me. I didn't really have mentorship, so I got to figure this out. I had no idea about cameras, no idea about lighting, video editing, nothing. So I go on YouTube and start typing in. How do I start this? Actually, that's how I found you, Sean, and found Think Media. So you helped me figure out what camera to get, what lenses to start with, how to set up the lighting. I, I basically studied everything. Think Media, posted for about three months, trying to just even learn the basics because again, this is a new world for me. So it took about three months of me just, I was sitting on the bike in the gym, taking notes, watching videos on what I needed to buy, kind of strategizing, okay, how do I make content? And then I finally purchased all the gear, maybe two and a half grand worth of investment into different gear because I wanted a certain level of professionalism. I didn't want to come off like I'm a doctor. I don't want to be look like I'm just shooting off of my cell phone in a garage. So I did invest a little bit for higher quality gear at that time. In retrospect, I wish I would have invested more because I've probably wasted thousands of dollars on crappy lights that only lasted, you know, one year or something. And I should have just invested in something a little bit higher end. It took about six months of me studying content, practicing, learning how to edit before I had enough courage to post my first video, which came out in July of 2018. The first three, four months, again, I was just throwing stuff against the wall, like throwing videos against the hall, hoping it would work out. I remember some tough days. I was, you know, working six, seven days a week in the clinic and spending my Saturday at the clinic when I could have been outside hanging out with friends. You know, they're going to movies, they're going fishing or boating back in Minnesota, where I was living at the time. And I'm sitting there, I'm in here on a Saturday, sitting in front of a camera, re recording introductions and saying the same lines and trying to find better ways to explain things. And getting frustrated at myself. I think if you're not used to producing YouTube videos, if you're not used to making content, it can be a challenge. But I got into this mindset of, like, you know what? Even if I'm struggling now, it's. I'm gonna. I'm building a skill set. I'm building a skill set of knowing how to produce videos. I'm developing a skinny. A skill set of how to talk and how to be a better presenter, how I can be a better communicator, which is a really essential skill for, I think anyone, almost anyone, but certainly somebody in healthcare. I just kept on working. And that first year was really tough because again, I didn't know what was going on. And I almost had like a mental breakdown. Four months in trying to produce a video every week and, and learning all these skills at the same time. But one of my good friends encouraged me. He's like, you know what? You're doing great. You're making at least some core videos that you can share with patients. And then finally, one of my videos did hit and got suggested again a little bit by luck. But I caught a topic which was on ifloaters, and I somewhat. I sort of. I can't say I fully copied a video from thick media, but again, I didn't know how to talk on camera. So I watched one of your videos, and I remember writing out almost word for word script of one of your videos. And instead of camera lenses, I crossed it out and to put contact lenses. And I would slowly kind of teach myself, oh, okay, I see how he's teaching this. And so I used that as kind of a framework to learn how to write videos. But that first year was really tough. And then finally, after having some success, I said, hey, I'm going to invest in this guy's course, your VRA course. And I took that. And I think when I finally had that course, it started to click. But I went through the course like six, seven times. I would listen to it on my way on my commute to work. And so I think the fundamentals of what was taught in that course I was able to really apply. And that at least was proof of concept. And I started having success. Success. And that was the first, the first year. In fact, the first two years was a constant, like skill building year.
- [19:35]
Sean Cannell
Such a clear picture of the even years this can take. So I'm curious, when did you go? When did, like, the finances click? In a little bit? Did you lessen your time at the clinic? Are you still keeping that as like a pillar full time because of passion and what was kind of the transition between your full time work and what you would call going quote unquote, full time on YouTube, which is defined differently by different people.
- [20:00]
Dr. Joseph Allen
Yeah. So I, when I went into this niche, especially in eye care and YouTube, like it never really existed before. So again, I didn't have a mentor. I didn't have any idea of how much potential it could, could make financially. So I think the first moment I had when I was like, wow, like financially, even just as a YouTube channel, I didn't have a course, I didn't have any products to sell. It was just AdSense and basically like some affiliates. And within the first year I was getting to a point where I was hitting like 10, 10 grand a month of extra income. Right. And, and I think for a lot of people that's, that's not small change.
- [20:42]
Sean Cannell
Was that your first year or second year you mentioned? Like, I mean if I count six months of kind of prep, three months of throwing videos against the wall, eventually you get vra. I'm just curious, is there, was there kind of like almost like the, the, the prequel and then it starts because you're getting ready or just so we have like a realistic timeline.
- [21:01]
Dr. Joseph Allen
Yeah, thanks for clarifying that. I guess in my head I meant one year after I got monetized.
- [21:07]
Sean Cannell
Ok.
- [21:09]
Dr. Joseph Allen
First year, of course I spent six months not posting anything. I, by the end of that first year I did get monetized and I probably made at most, at least got my money back for my equipment at the end of the first year. That doesn't include all the time investment. Right. But for, for at least physical equipment, maybe two and a half thousand dollars by the first year. Because when you first get monetized, unless you have a huge video, you don't get that much off of AdSense. And I maybe had, I was just dabbling in affiliate that. Didn't really know how. I just gotten onto like an Amazon partner at the time. So as the channel continued to build up, probably we'll say a year and a half into the process from my first video posting, I got an AdSense check of like $9,000 and I was like, wow, I had no idea it had that potential. And that's off of adsense, which is I think unreliable at best. I hate to say, but it's, I think that was a big moment in my head. I'm like, whoa, this has a different type of business model that, that could work very well in fueling the mission rather than me just working six days a week in the clinic, which is not uncommon for a lot of doctors.
- [22:34]
Sean Cannell
So did you stop? Do you still do some. What was that pivot point? And how do you define full time?
- [22:40]
Dr. Joseph Allen
Yeah, so in 2021, I eventually started winding down the. The YouTube channel had gotten to about 200000 subscribers or so. The clinic I was working at actually ended up selling to a private equity company because originally I was going to become partner but lost that opportunity. And I was like, you know what? This might be a blessing in disguise. I have this upper opportunity that I've been working on. It's growing, it's having this success. This is a time for me to pivot and put a little bit more weight into the YouTube channel. And I wanted to see more success there. So I dropped down to two days a week in the clinic, more time on YouTube and I stayed at two days a week from 2021 until 2024. The beginning of 2024, I switched to one day a week in the clinic. Now I still see patients. I love seeing patients. It also keeps me relevant in my. The core profession and other professionals in my space take me more seriously. The fact that I still see patients every week and then so I've really shifted to more I. In my mind I'm more full time YouTube. It's still, it's like a seven day a week job. You know, if you're a business owner, you think about it almost every day. But it's, it's the primary focus of what I want to do and what I want to continue pushing and building.
- [24:05]
Sean Cannell
I really love your story and I love this ethic. You know, to each their own. Listening to this, how their career might evolve. But it's a personal, I mean maybe call it a pet peeve of mine that there are so many legendary teachers you could learn from. Maybe you meet one at college or university. But also universities in my opinion are unfortunately there's too many like business professors that have never run a successful business or they ran a successful business 30 years ago. And I just think it's something so powerful about staying in the trenches. You know, one of our ethic ethic media, we recently had Nathan and Craig on our podcast. And like whether it's doing church video production, whether it's shooting weddings on the weekend, whether it's, you know, using the cameras in the real world and of course creating content is the real world as well. But we call it player coaches. This idea of like we always want to be on the field and if we're going to be teachers, great, but let's keep it. And it might shift to one day a week. But it's also. I want to share this because I think it gives you an edge, it gives you an unfair advantage when this idea of content creation can become so meta, where all you're really doing is like you're not in it as much. And the closer you are to the pain points, the feelings, the issues, facetime. You know, in the church world, there was a quote that I was a campus pastor once and like an old school pastor that had like the wisdom and the time under his belt. He told Miguel Ogas, who I was working with, he said, I can tell you're a real pastor because you smell like the sheep. Kind of a funny quote. But it was like, because you're actually, you're not just in the green room, you're not just locked away, you're not just, you know, they call it management by walking around Michael Scott the office, you know, but it's like, it's like actually being out there, like you know, using the stuff like putting the wear and tear on it, whether that's the gear, whether that's whatever you do. Not to overemphasize that point, but I just love seeing that progression and the wisdom of staying in it when certainly you have so much opportunity before you and so many things you could do that could just completely take up all of your time. I really like that. Now if we go back to, well, actually just paint today, who's on the team? Do people edit the videos? Thumbnail designers, Assistant. What does an assistant do? What?
- [26:35]
Dr. Joseph Allen
So yeah, the, the team has evolved a little bit. I still have the original assistant, she now has takes on a little bit larger role. We're trying to still figure out what do we call her because she does more than just my assistant. She's almost like a co producer in a way. She helps figure out the content, what plan are, you know, the structure of the content, the planning of the kind of time blocking throughout the week. She still schedules what my meetings are, but she also, as an educator, she has a really high level understanding of how do we build systems and how do we better teach to teach our viewers and potential customers, clients, that sort of thing. So we're still working on what her role really is, but she's expanding and doing a lot of things. We do have a part time assistant, only works about 10 hours a week, but he does more on the sides of research, helping plan and look up SEO, numbers tracking. Okay, what are, what are good topic, possible title options? He also does some research of like, hey, if I'm going to be doing a video on this topic, I want him to go dig into PubMed and pull up every single publication in the last five years on this topic. That saves me time. You know, I don't, you know, my time is worth a little bit heavier because I need to write the videos, I need to produce the videos so he can at least save me the time so I'm not sitting there scrambling, doing all this research. I still read the publications he finds, but again, digging through the algorithm, the search bar, I don't have to do that. And now as a business, we're in this hot season. The new season we're in is really reformatting the business, building in systems so that we can find someone to build the thumbnails for us. I've had an editor, we've been paying, this is a private contractor for years. He does great. But we're looking at maybe finding someone that's more full time, that can invest more time into building better animations or graphics for us rather than us having to do that heavy lifting. And so we are, we're in that season of growth and change. Right.
- [28:38]
Sean Cannell
Who does the thumbnails?
- [28:40]
Dr. Joseph Allen
I largely still do the thumbnails.
- [28:42]
Sean Cannell
So you're still. Okay. So you're hands on. What do you use software wise?
- [28:45]
Dr. Joseph Allen
I still use Canva. You know, I started using Photoshop but it's, it's a bit complex for me. So I got into Canva and now I'm at like a black belt level of it. Yeah, if you look at some of the thumbnails, you're like that, that, you know, there's like multiple layers of different things on top of each other with different shading and, and kind of creative uses of removing backgrounds. And it's, I, I'm, I'm impressed myself sometimes, but it's, it works great.
- [29:13]
Sean Cannell
So you've had a contract editor, a contractor, you've been doing the thumbnails. When it comes down to like getting the title and the video optimized and description and all of that, do you also do that, do all your own posting?
- [29:26]
Dr. Joseph Allen
That has historically been me for the last six and a half, seven years. And now again, we're in that season where we're trying to shift and see who can do that and take that off my shoulders because I need to be investing my time more wisely.
- [29:40]
Sean Cannell
Got it. And then today, what are the revenue streams? You know, you mentioned it's Really, I mean 10k a month on ad revenue is really incredible actually because some never make it that far. But they can actually build very profitable YouTube businesses and online businesses. But as you fast forward to today, if we were to draw like a pie chart, even if we don't have numbers, how do things break down in regards to ads or other income streams?
- [30:05]
Dr. Joseph Allen
So right now we're equal about one third split adsense, another one third split of product sales like affiliates, and then another one thirds is probably more on the line of sponsorships or some sort of brand deals. But again, we're in this season of change and we're in the process of building our own digital products. And so the business is going to shift pretty heavy here going into the next year. But I think that will expand our potential income and accelerate massive growth. I expect with, because we're going to be, that's going to give us more funds to grow the business to get us from producing one video, major video a week to two videos a week. We'll hire more people. It's, it's, it's going to be great. I think it's going to be a great asset for us.
- [30:55]
Sean Cannell
And has that been your commitment over the past six years? One video a week?
- [30:59]
Dr. Joseph Allen
I've been basically doing one video a week. We also have done live streams like once a month and we kind of put that in place of one video because we've actually found great success with live streams over the last few years. The amount of time like this watch time has been incredible. And some people prefer that long form content. They, they, we find that we, they. A lot of people listen to live streams that are 30, 40 minutes long as if they're listening to a podcast. And we go a little bit deeper on subjects than just what we stay kind of surface level with just the like a 8 to 10 minute YouTube video.
- [31:34]
Sean Cannell
I mean for education channels. That is absolutely true. I know a lot of people in the fake media podcast watch replays of our live streams because it is basically a podcast with rich information. Even the Coffee with Cannell show replays cover all kinds of different stuff. And I do the same. I don't know if you do, you know, I'll go to when I find a channel I like, I, I will look at not just the videos but the live streams and maybe find a topic. It's 45 minutes. It's an hour and 15 minutes. Turn it on when I'm driving, doing you know, chores around the house or something. So you're saying one video a week, but maybe if you did three and you don't have another one going, you would replace one with a live stream. But the ethic, the simple strategy is one video a week for six years.
- [32:20]
Dr. Joseph Allen
Basically.
- [32:20]
Sean Cannell
Yeah.
- [32:21]
Dr. Joseph Allen
And right now, if you, if people who are, if you were to go to my channel right now, you'd see, I haven't posted anything for three weeks. What's going on? Well, I am strategically making that business decision of, like, I need to pull back, I need to restool the business I have. And funny enough, we actually have seen more growth in the last three weeks not posting anything because we have put in the work of videos that rank videos that have great content. And so it has bought us this time off to retool the business and build our product, which is ultimately going to leverage us in the future. So it's, I'm about to jump out.
- [32:59]
Sean Cannell
Of my chair and click my heels like a leprechaun. Because if compound interest is the seventh wonder of the world, ranked videos are the eighth. Because when you have a library of ranked videos, videos like you've posted that are as old as six years old and still getting views, it not only helps you build the empire you've built, but it buys you freedom. Freedom to take time off, work on the next thing, rest, recover a little bit, and still have your channel growing.
- [33:24]
Think Media Host
Man, what a conversation. I mean, if you needed proof that it's not too late and you don't need to be this crazy entertainer out here to get views and win on YouTube, that was it. I mean, Dr. Allen is the legit eye doctor, you know, who started from scratch, fought through that messy early season, and now it's crazy to think about how his channel has reached millions of people. He's even been featured on Diary of CEO. I mean, mind blown like, that's crazy. I don't even think he would have ever imagined, right, that life would look like it does on the other side of punching fear in the face and pressing record. What I want you to take from this conversation, is this who you want to be tomorrow, is what you're going to do today. So if you've been saying, when life slows down, when I get all the money together, when I bought all the equipment, then I'm going to start. If that's you first and foremost, I get it. I've said the same things too. But I also want to encourage you. That's actually the very reason you should start right now. Real talk. If Think Media has helped you at all through this podcast, YouTube videos, and you're finally getting serious. I want to personally invite you into our VRA Fast Start cohort. It's a five week sprint where our team is going to help you go from stuck, inconsistent, overwhelmed, to publishing with clarity, actually having a strategy, feeling confident, gaining momentum. We've never done something like this before with this hands on approach from our team because we want you to actually succeed. And you know what, if you don't mind, I'm actually just going to go and pull up. Here's the weekly flow. Here's what we're going to do each week. Five weeks, what's going on? Week one, the Fast Start plan. We help you pick the right direction. We're going to help you map out your upload strategy and get your first videos moving. That's week one. Week two, it's all about titles and thumbnails that actually get clicks and talk about click through rate. We're going to talk about testing, we're going to talk about, hey, how to just create simple, clear packaging. Packaging is what we use the terminology for a title and a thumbnail. So no more overthinking here and a lot of us can get stuck here. No more guessing. Week three is all about how to find video ideas that are actually going to work for your channel. Anyone stuck here? I mean, this is a big deal. How do you actually know what to create? Week three is all about teaching you how to pull topics from trends research so that in your niche, you're never stuck staring at a blank document. This is huge. I mean, that's probably worth it right there. But week four, how to grow your views faster. The core YouTube growth levers. Sean's going to break down what to focus on and what to stop wasting time on. That's huge. Week five is a live Q and A and channel reviews, so you can leave the cohort with clarity, feedback and your next steps locked in. And you're not doing it alone. That's the whole point of why we put this together, is you're going to be in a community, your own little Narnian wardrobe of the world. Niche reference. Oh, good. But you're going to be in your own safe place where you're gonna have other creators plus our whole team here, Sean, our coaches in your corner this entire way. We're so stoked about this. Our team's putting a lot of effort into this. So if you're ready, if you're ready to go, to move, to make a difference, to make the change, the time is now. The year's just beginning. Get in before we have already started. Go to vrapodcast.com to save your spot. To get acquainted, jump in the community. Say hi, and I can't wait to see you in there.