Sean Cannell (3:57)

Ouch.

Bobby Richards (3:58)

Visit HubSpot.com marketers to learn more.

Donald Miller (4:05)

I've been at this 20 years. I wish I'd have known about you 20 years ago, but I think you were probably in the womb or something. Or at least maybe you were in grade school. You look young.

Sean Cannell (4:15)

Well, I appreciate that and thank you so much for having me Excited to be hanging out with you. And I actually just turned 40, but I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and I never saw the sun, so maybe that was a little bit of an anti aging opportunity there or something.

Donald Miller (4:28)

You are literally one of my favorite followers on Instagram and that's where I first discovered you. You just have so much wisdom to offer and honestly, it translates so far beyond YouTube. It translates into keynote presentations and executive presence, all that kind of stuff. We're going to focus on YouTube though, if you don't mind. Now, you coach people in a specific lane. That is YouTube. What were you doing just before you pivoted into coaching?

Sean Cannell (4:57)

Yeah, you know, my journey with YouTube actually started with video, and it started all the way back in 2003. I actually was just volunteering at a small local church an hour north of Seattle, Washington in the youth Ministry. And there was like six kids in youth ministry. I started interning and the youth pastor handed me a video camera and Adobe Premiere video editing software. And he said, hey, start making some videos for Wednesday night youth group for the announcements and stuff like this. And you know, these videos were terrible, as you can imagine and like antiquated technology. But I started to make one video a week. And actually I would encourage coaches to start thinking about, okay, I'm going to create consistent content. You know, what quality piece of content could I put out there at least once a week that could start building my brand and getting me leads? So you think about this opportunity. I was doing this before really people were posting content on the Internet, practicing. And in 2007 we actually started a vlog for the pastor of the church. I was like following him behind the scenes. We did like 10 episodes. This is ridiculous, like how early this was. But fast forward to today now. I've been doing video for over 20 years. I've been on YouTube for like 17 years. And I was behind the camera helping coaches, business owners, leaders, like with their YouTube channels, doing video production. I've worked on different church staffs and doing production. And then eventually for the last eight years, we've been scaling our company with team of 30 people and now really in an education, business, coaching business and have just seen the power of YouTube continue to compound since all the way back in the day when I first got on the platform.

Donald Miller (6:35)

You know, I think of YouTube when I. When we launched our YouTube channel, it's Coach Builder, by the way, on YouTube. When we launched our YouTube channelSCHERE, I really just thought of it as sort of air cover. And what I mean by that is sort of brand awareness. Get some wisdom about what we're doing at Coach Builder out there, start to build a community. But there are people who are actually making a killing. They're making a great living on YouTube. How do you, how do our coaches make money on this rather than just use it for. For air cover?

Sean Cannell (7:01)

Yeah, I mean there's so many things if you do list it out, I think the personal branding, the air cover, the awareness, that's very valuable because you want to be top of mind and tip of tongue for those prospects, those people in your network and consistent content can help you do that. And that leads to business just kind of passively, if you will, awareness. But there's a lot of specific things. And what's cool about YouTube is one and more directly leads and prospects, like using YouTube to get leads, build your email list, build your contact list. But eventually, once your YouTube channel grows, YouTube will pay you. So too you could do YouTube ad revenue. And what's fascinating is some people that have built large YouTube channels, this is actually $500,000 a year of revenue comes directly from Google, who owns YouTube paying us, I think, number three, you get into something like affiliate marketing, where as a coach you might recommend resources. You're going to say, here's three books every business owner should read. Number one story brand, obviously. Number two, you know, 21 irrefutable laws of leadership. And you link these resources, but then you can have links in the description of your video. And you get money as an affiliate when sharing those links. Another really powerful way to think of that would be software, because there's maybe tools you use. Hey, these are, this is CRM. I use these different resources you use in your business, even as a coach that would maybe serve your clients and your viewers. And you could set up reoccurring revenue in that case, because someone registers for a software and every month that they get billed, you get a cut of that. So I encourage people when they're starting out to think about what is the shortest path to revenue and to stay focused. You know, follow one course until successful focus. But over time. And warning disclaimer, but we're over right now. And think media. We're part of over a hundred different affiliate programs.

Bobby Richards (8:53)

Wow.

Sean Cannell (8:53)

We have 21 active streams of revenue in our company. And that's a lot of people running it. And a lot of that's a compound effect. I think sometimes trying to diversify too soon is like if you try and chase two rabbits, you end up catching none of them. But YouTube gives you so much leverage. And as a coach, you can create practically multiple streams of income tapping into this tool.

Donald Miller (9:16)

You know what's amazing about me, you know, I, in my YouTube journey, I have a two and a half year old at home, got started, got married late, became a dad, a little bit late. And I'm wise enough now to know I need to come off the road. Not just that I need to come off the road. I want to come off the road. I don't want to, you know, be on a stage when I could be with my daughter. YouTube gives me a chance to be on a stage in front of a thousand, you know, thousands of people every single day and get the same effect. Right. You know, emails come in and people know who I am, they know my new book is out. You know, earn some trust there. It's just a, it's an absolutely Fantastic tool. If you're a coach and you have no YouTube presence, what are some things that you would want to advise a coach to do in order to get started?

Sean Cannell (10:02)

Yeah, I think, number one, we talk about different strategies. We have like 16 of them, and they include things like teach specific skills would be one of them. Trend surfing, I think we should touch that one in a second. But the foundational one is ask answer specific questions. Now, this is perfect for coaches because it's what you already do. But what you like to think about for YouTube is you could brainstorm right now, what are five to ten of the most asked questions that you get in your business as a coach? YouTube is a search engine. It's the second largest search engine in the world, and over 70% of people use YouTube to help them solve a problem. And so a good video would be maybe something specific. What's a specific question that people ask you? How do I solve an HR conflict? Or maybe it's something specific. If you were coaching people in finance or taxes 2020 or, you know, what are the 2024 updates in the tax code? It's a very specific question, very searchable. And one question, one video, so that people can as they're looking for information or even as just the YouTube algorithm recommends videos, you've got poignant content that is hitting a specific pain point, a specific question. And sometimes we get overwhelmed with the tech and all of that stuff. But the key is it's not about the production value, having any kind of fancy gear. It's really about the content value. Reminds me, we work with a lot of real estate people, and this Andrew Finney is a real estate agent in Las Vegas. And we look up one of his videos, eight things you should never say when buying a home. And I watched the video, and it looks like it was shot on a baked potato. I mean, the video quality could not be worse. It's like a $50 webcam. Yeah. No fancy microphone like I have here. No studio like this. Echoey in the room. He was framed up wrong. He was like, down here, and his arms were by his sides. And this is it. And I'm not. I'm not putting them down, because here's what's wild. This video has almost 300,000 views. The video is five years old and is still getting views today. And I think what we need to realize is when people are clicking on that video, they're not expecting it to be the Mandalorian George Lucas Star wars quality. They're not expecting it to be a Jerry Bruckheimer film. They're looking for an answer to a question, like they're looking for information. So if people can see you and hear you and you add value and deliver on the promise you made on the title, then people's lives can be impacted. And so we get overwhelmed on the. Even the delivery. And fast forward to today. I love Andrew's story because now he does have the fancy studio and he's does. He has figured that stuff out and he's got more comfortable on tech with the tech and more comfortable on camera. But you kind of just got to start with what you have and realize that YouTube is such a powerful tool to add value to the end user. If you make a promise in your title and then deliver on that promise in the video, then you can start building a following, have it lead to new business, and then change lives in the process.

Bobby Richards (13:08)

Science of Scaling, hosted by Mark Roberge, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Mark's resume is impressive. He's the founding CRO at HubSpot, senior lecturer at Harvard Business School, and co founder of Stage 2 Capital. And on the show, he sits down with the most successful sales leaders in tech to uncover the strategies and tactics you can use to scale your company. In fact, in a past Q and A episode titled how do you solve for a siloed marketing and sales? Mark tackles one of the biggest challenges businesses face, misalignment between marketing and sales, and offers practical solutions to unify your team and ensure everyone is accountable for meeting revenue goals. Listen to Science of Scaling wherever you get your podcasts. And now back to the show.

Donald Miller (14:01)

I recently transitioned from DeWalt drills to Milwaukee drills and just got tired of my DeWalt drill running out of battery. I'd buy a new battery and it would run out too fast. I'm like, there's gotta be a better drill. I probably watched 10 different videos comparing the drills. Then when I finally chose the Milwaukee drill, I couldn't get the battery off it because I'm kind of dumb. I couldn't get the battery off it. So I found a YouTube video to just tell me to pinch these two things and pull it.

Sean Cannell (14:28)

That's all it did.

Donald Miller (14:29)

That video had half a million views. That guy's probably made, you know, $10,000 teaching idiots like me how to get.

Sean Cannell (14:35)

The battery off their drill.

Donald Miller (14:36)

You know, we don't have to overthink it. And I love that you talk about that. What do you say to a coach? They pull out their iPhone they put up some YouTube and, you know, 12, 37, 53 views, then they get disheartened and they turn away and they're not going to use YouTube anymore. How do we keep going and start to build some compound interest on our. On our familiarity on YouTube?

Sean Cannell (15:00)

Yeah. I think I would encourage a coach to remember where they came from. Remember the price you've paid to get to where you are today. Remember the years that it's taken and the time that it's taken. I think what's so funny in our modern social media age is there's just a lot of misinformation that you're going to post one video and go viral overnight because you heard one story of one person that got lucky and did that. Where ultimately YouTube is like anything else. I mean, the last stats I looked up for small businesses is it takes what, two to three years for the average small business to turn a profit.

Donald Miller (15:39)

Yeah.

Sean Cannell (15:40)

And so to have that mindset and to go, okay, I know that's what it takes, and I know that 99% of people watching us right now are. They think back, they're like, yeah, man, I had to pay the price for a lot of things. It always took longer than I thought. But then what we do is we approach YouTube and we think that four videos in and four weeks later, that all of a sudden we're just going to be, you know, blowing up and all over the Internet and build a platform like you have or anything else. And just great things take time and patience. So this is such a great point to make that, that you want to go in with the right mindset and the book Good to Great. Jim Collins talked about the flywheel effect. And so there is something about momentum building. I like to say YouTube is like a fine wine. It gets better with age.

Donald Miller (16:26)

Yeah.

Sean Cannell (16:27)

The more videos you put on there, the more consistency that you do just week after week, the more of a compound effect that you will experience, not just in three to six months. So we have all kinds of our, you know, community and our students that have actually rapid success. Because, of course, getting wisdom is the shortcut. Investing in your skills and leveling up, that's the shortcut. But having the mindset that I'm not just committed to this for three months, where could I be in three years? Where can my business be? Where can my brand be? And then I think that helps us reverse engineer. So we don't think we're going to get overnight results. We're just committed to the process that is the winning mindset. That I've seen that it takes on YouTube.

Donald Miller (17:09)

Let me ask you some practical questions about two things. One is the equipment that would help us up our game. Say if we only wanted to spend about a thousand bucks. And then I'm going to flip gears and talk about how to deliver content and be a little bit more polished. It looks like you got a great set there. I love that hammer hanging back there and the headphones. And you got your trophy back there. But that doesn't look like it's all that expensive. It just looks awesome, right? I mean, you didn't spend a million dollars on that set, did you?

Sean Cannell (17:35)

No way. And so we could definitely talk about that. So one way to make your video look better is realize that the smartphone that you have in your pocket or that's on your desk right now is more powerful than the greatest cameras of just 10 years ago. And so you don't need to spend $1,000 for around $100. I recommend accessorizing your smartphone. This is worth writing down. Avl. It stands for audio, video and lighting. And all you're gonna think through is, okay, how do I sound? You know, what's the, the sound here? And actually, with just your smartphone, if you set it up on some shoe boxes, sat in front of a window, and you're in a carpeted office or home office with maybe lower ceilings, you don't even need a good microphone. Your smartphone is good enough. We just talked about Andrew Finney. He got 300,000 views with a low quality camera and not the best audio. Now if you were trying to record a video on an airport tarmac or at the train station, like the audio, it's going to be a bad environment. You might need really pro grade microphone. Just think about the audio, think about the lighting. Can you shoot outside? Can you shoot in front of a window? Then your lighting could be better. And I think about the video quality. Well, your phone will already do it. And most of our phones are 4K. If you're an iPhone user, we can do a little trick right now. Open up your phone, go to video, and look in the upper right hand corner and it probably says HD. Might say 30. If you tap that, it'll switch to 4K one second. I just doubled your video quality right there. And you're like, sean, I have an iPhone 6. It doesn't do 4K. Well, HD is good enough, like Samsung, Android, whatever you have. But the video quality on your phone is great. But here's what I recommend. You can get like a tabletop tripod like this might be $20 on Amazon. You could get these, a lightning port or USB C port for your Android. That's another $20. Wireless clip it to your shirt. That's $20 on Amazon.

Donald Miller (19:38)

Wow.

Sean Cannell (19:38)

You could get a softbox lighting kit that will, if you want to look a little better on screen, kind of flattering. Soft lighting, $40 on Amazon. And so for under a hundred dollars, you could get the audio, you could get the lighting. And actually the fourth letter I'd put in there is avls, which is stabilization, which would just mean a tripod. So you're not like having your phone fall over on the shoe boxes, but just something that a phone mount and then having a tripod. And I think that, you know, it's not about your resources, it's about your resourcefulness and using what you have. And what's going to matter much more is the content you deliver. And so we could talk about.

Donald Miller (20:21)

John, what are. What are a couple of tips? And, you know, we only got a few minutes left, but what are a couple of tips on delivering really good, interesting content?

Sean Cannell (20:29)

Well, Donald, you know, they say that the camera adds £10. And so that's why you sometimes you put it a little bit higher and tilt it down the more flattering kind of angle. But here's another truth about the camera. The camera reduces about 50% of your energy.

Bobby Richards (20:43)

Wow.

Sean Cannell (20:43)

So you want to be authentic and be yourself. And you don't need to act super crazy or be some YouTuber that you may have seen like a Mr. Beast or somebody's energy, but you do want to crank it up. You kind of want to be you times two. You want to crank it up. Because what will come across if you just have more delivery of energy and more intentionality will just be normal. But if you actually just are normal, it might feel a little bit flat. So I encourage turn the be authentic, but turn the energy up a little bit. Secondly, plan ahead, even if that just means taking a sticky note writing the three points on it. And if you're going to extemporaneously communicate, great, but maybe clarify those points ahead of time. But thirdly, I would say really focus on the hook. Focus on the first few words. Whether it's YouTube or any social media platform, you want to really grab attention. And there's so much content out there, why is someone going to want to stick around? You don't want to waste time in the beginning. On YouTube, some of the biggest mistakes is starting with your logo or an intro or music like cut straight to the content. And even starting with, hey, welcome back. Sean Cannell here, founder of Think Media. And in today's video, like, none of that. Don't, do not start with any of that kind of stuff you want to start. One of the best ways is with a powerful question, like I might say, are you looking to start or grow a YouTube channel this year? Have you been frustrated and overwhelmed by the technology? On this video, I'm going to be sharing three tips on how to improve the video quality even with the smartphone that you have, number one. And then I plan the tips out. So while I teach extemporaneously, meaning I don't have a teleprompter, that's fine. If people want to lean into that, it's another conversation. But I do want to plan ahead and know my bullet points. But Donald, I do script my hooks a lot of time. I'll take some time to write it out digitally because those first few sentences are so important. And people aren't going to watch the rest of the content if you don't grab their attention up front and create some curiosity, create some clarity as to what are you even what's coming up and why should I listen? And those tips can improve everybody's next video that they put out there or their first video.

Donald Miller (23:01)

Sean, thank you so much. I recommend every single coach get into it right now, Just go grab your YouTube channel, own that territory, put five videos up. Sean, are there some resources where people can go to your website and download something that would be helpful?

Sean Cannell (23:17)

One of our resources, we have a book called YouTube Secrets. It's on Amazon and that's a great resource for people. But other than that, you can look us up. Think Media would be the YouTube channel. And to your point, this, this set up, you know, for a couple thousand dollars, eventually you could be in, in a studio with better lighting and whatnot. And that's one of the things we help people with on Think Media. We help them. Our mutual friend Michael Hyatt, we were dming once and he was like, what's the clip to the thing? And I was like, we got a video for that. So if ultimately you check out Think Media on YouTube and whether you're accessorizing your smartphone or you want to have fancier production, just search Think Media on YouTube and we're there to help.

Bobby Richards (24:01)

Man, such a great conversation. Sean is truly a powerhouse when it comes to actionable insights and how you can really, really make YouTube count for growing your business. So if you've been curious and you're wondering how do I break through that noise? How do I actually get my videos out there so that they're working for my business? Sean laid out a really, really great blueprint to get you started. And that kind of leads me into the plan of action, the part of every episode where we give you a main takeaway from the conversation that you can immediately implement to grow your business and become a better business owner. Here's today's plan of action. And in fact, I got a little bonus follow up for you too. But the first thing is start small, but start right now. You don't have to be perfect. Perfect is the enemy of progress. You know, Sean and Don were talking about that. Just use your smartphone, put it out in front of you, get a cheap mount, put it on your computer, and just start creating content with the tools that you already have. Identify a problem that you hear your customers struggle with, speak into that problem, and then have a firm CTA for how people can engage with you. Buy your product, whatever it is, so that there's no confusion on how this video is helping the viewer and driving people toward your brand. So focus on the problems that your customers are searching for and then create videos. Those are your first videos. Create videos that answer those questions. It's very much like Marcus Sheridan from they Ask youk Answer. That's his whole thing. Your main job as a small business owner is to educate your customer. Be the school of thought, be the place where they come to get the answers that they need around the problems that you solve. Then I want to elevate that idea of commit to consistency. Post regularly, even if you just are putting one video up a week. Consistency builds trust and momentum. Then finally, focus on that hook. What's that piece that you can use to grab the attention in the first five to 10 seconds of your video? You want to start strong because you want to keep the viewer engaged. You want to pique their interest because there's so many distractions that are vying for their attention. It's really what we do with this podcast. I call it our Cold Open Stinger. It's that thing that kind of perks your ears up and opens that story loop, as Don would say, for you to go, okay, that's interesting. I want to know more. So there's a fully loaded plan of action for you. Start small, but start now. Answer specific questions with your videos that you know your customers are having that they're reaching out to you about. Commit to consistency. Release. Post regularly and then focus on the hook. Grab your viewers attention. What a great conversation. Big thank you to Sean Cannell for joining us today. And if you were inspired by this conversation, do not wait. Take action now. Follow the steps Sean laid out, and then you will become a YouTube sensation. Well, I don't know. I don't know if I can back that up, but you never know, you know, you just gotta take that step now. Well, thank you, everybody, as always, for listening to the Business Made simple podcast, where we are obsessed, obsessed with helping you become a better business owner and grow your business. We'll see you next week.