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YouTube Creators Hub
From Hobby to 1 Million Followers: Brandon’s YouTube Journey
00:37:22
In this episode, Dusty Porter interviews Brandon Whiteleather, a successful content creator with multiple YouTube channels. Brandon shares his journey from experimenting with various topics to finding his niche in freeze drying. He discusses the...
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- [00:00]
A
You just catch yourself just getting sucked into it. But even if I'm going to lose out on views because a lot of those videos, they don't. There's no spoken language, so anybody speaking any language can watch that. So for me, I would prefer to provide some kind of value and do my very best to set myself apart.
- [00:17]
B
Hello and welcome back to the Creators Hub podcast where we help you either start, grow or monetize your YouTube channel. My name is Dusty Porter, the host of the show. Just really quickly, we have no advertisers, we have no sponsors for this show. We are brought to you today solely on all of the resources that we provide to you, the creator. Number one, we have the creator's Mastermind group. Five bucks gets you in. You get access to the Mastermind calls Record exclusive podcast each and every Friday, that release to that group. Secondly, we do channel reviews. So I'll go in, take a look at your channel for about six to eight minutes and tell you things that you're doing well and things that I can see that you can be doing better. Probably some of the best bang for your buck in the creator space. And then if you decide that you want to take that even farther, I do offer creator coaching where I sit down with you for 30 to 60 minutes. We can do this on a regular cadence or just a one off. And I walk you through and answer any questions that you have regarding your content and how you can be the best creator you possibly can be. And recently we've released the Entrepreneurs Toolbox, which is a spreadsheet where I'm keeping a running list of all of the tools and resources that have been mentioned on this podcast ever. So if you're looking for a one off of where you can go and see all the books that have been mentioned, all the AI tools and everything in between, the Entrepreneur's Toolbox is just a Google spreadsheet where I'm curating all of that. And then if you'd like to keep up with me, the Entrepreneur's Minute is my email newsletter sent once a week on Fridays, where I give you an update on what's going on in my business and a little bit of a behind the scenes of what it means to be a creative entrepreneur. With that said, let's jump into this week's conversation. I'm joined today by Brandon WhiteLeather. Brandon has two YouTube channels. His main YouTube channel is called White Pepper Farms with 272,000 subscribers, just under 500 videos up, uploaded in a wonderful community. Another YouTube channel called White Pepper Farms Homestead with almost 75,000 subscribers. And so he's got tons of folks watching him each and every day. Let me tell you a little bit about Brandon. He is a content creator, husband and dad of five, which as a future dad of five myself, that's, that's cool to see who has built an audience of over 1.2 million across platforms, including 270k subscribers on YouTube. He posted his first video back in 2013 and spent years experimenting with different topics. Topics he created videos about sand dune riding, skydiving, fly fishing before moving into growing hot peppers, gardening, backyard chickens and homesteading. That journey eventually led him to where he is today and he talks a lot about that with his current channels and his current content. Brandon, how are you doing today?
- [02:58]
A
Doing all right. Thanks for having me.
- [03:00]
B
Absolutely. I read that father of five and I don't know if you know this, but we are expecting triplets in, in the next, I would say three to four months. And so we are going from a family of four to a family of seven. So I'll be right there with you. But I do want to ask you what is the origin story of your YouTube? So I say your YouTube because you have multiple channels. Give us the origin story of how this whole thing started for you.
- [03:24]
A
All right. It started back in 2013. I've always been interested in creating content in some way, shape or form. When I was a kid doing things on like the camcorder with my friends and just fun little stuff like that. And then I learned what YouTube was and I just wanted to post videos. So the first video I ever posted was, was me and my friends at the sand dunes just having a good time at the sand dunes with a GoPro. I pretty sure I had a hundred copyright strikes on it cause I just threw whatever music I wanted to and it was a lot of fun. And then I started, I started getting into fly fishing and so then I wanted to make content about fly fishing. So I was doing that. And briefly I started skydiving and so I wanted, I posted a video or two about that and then I got into growing peppers and that's when everything really started to pick up. Because it wasn't just like one little video here and there. It was like at least every other week or so I was making a video, putting a video out, teaching people how to grow peppers in their basement in a little grow tent. And from the basement getting em started in the winter, bringing em outdoors, how to keep em all healthy, stuff like that. And that morphed into I would just eat really hot spicy things like the Spicy Challenges. I'll do that on the channel. I started getting into growing other things when I was doing that. Different fruits and vegetables and just gardening in general. So my content kind of naturally morphed into that. And then I remember when the fir. I have two big inflection points and the first one was one time I had no video to post for the week and I just randomly decided to post a video about the chicken coop that I had. It was like I'd made it DIY out of like a garden shed and posted this video and it just took off. And you know it right now it's probably has over a million views at this point and it's a long form video. And it just took off. And so I made another chicken video and another backyard chicken video. And I was making these videos and people were watching and I was watching my channel grow for the first time, which was incredibly exciting. I was still doing gardening stuff here and there. And while this is all happening, I was slowly making money through AdSense and some affiliate marketing. And I wanted to. I've always wanted a freeze dryer and I was making this money and I was like, you know what, let's reinvest it into the channel. Let's get a freeze dryer, sign up for the affiliate program and hopefully we can make enough money to pay for the freeze dryer. And I posted my first freeze drying video and was on that original channel and it just exploded. And then I did a short form video on it and it exploded. And I didn't want that channel turning into a freeze drying specific channel because I had this backyard chicken audience on that channel. So I created the new channel which was just. All I did was drop the homestead. So it was White Pepper Farms instead of White Pepper Farms Homestead. And man, it just exploded. And it was probably the busiest time in my life because I was trying to keep up with it because I was doing so well. And so I just wanted to get as much content as I possibly could out there. And the channel just. Yeah, within a year it was well over a hundred thousand subscribers. And then I had to find a way to do this while being a dad and while being a husband and having a busy kind of life. And so I started doing a lot of short form content. And that primarily took over what I was doing. And there's definitely more money in long form. But I found my way with short form, which was awesome. And then that led me. I was still working full time and My wife was telling me, like, hey, you need to quit your job. You need to quit your job. And I kept moving the milepost on that.
- [06:52]
B
Yeah.
- [06:53]
A
And the channel kept growing. We kept seeing more income coming in and finally it was. Yeah, in February. Yeah, February quit my job, went full time and now 100% of my focus, at least during the daytime, is on the channel. So it's been great. Yeah, we're sitting at 270 some odd 1000 subscribers there. And then we also post to Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. And between all of them. Yeah, well, over a. So it's been busy, it's been fun.
- [07:18]
B
So you went through all those different phases of the channel and now you've landed on what you want the channel to be about. Can you explain to the audience just briefly of what type of stuff you do on the channel? Now? If they were to go to the channel today, how did you niche down and what. And who is your target audience?
- [07:39]
A
All right, so we do freeze drying. If you don't know what freeze drying is, it's similar ish to dehydrating, but it keeps more nutrition, much longer shelf life. If you think of like a mountain house meal for backpacking, that's what freeze drying is. So you're taking food, removing the moisture, making it shelf stable. And so I'm primarily teaching people how to do that or at least introducing people into that. A lot of my videos are very broad, so it brings in an audience that has never even heard of freeze drying. But then on the other hand of that, I also make content that kind of shows people different recipes or different things they can do with their freeze dryer. I've definitely paved my way in the freeze drying space of doing things that weren't really talked about before. So instead of just, hey, I'm gonna freeze dry these strawberries, I'm making powders out of my freeze dried strawberries and then putting that into pancake batter and then making pancakes with that. So just getting creative with how I use the machine as well as teaching people how to use their machine when they get one.
- [08:35]
B
You mentioned milestones that you and your wife were talking about. Goalpost of. You had five kids, you were a provider for your family, but you were a creator. Now you were a real creator doing this thing, making real money. What were those milestones, do you remember? And what was the one that you guys finally set on?
- [08:52]
A
It was, at first it was, I wanted to go six months with making what I was making at my job before I would quit my job. And then we started looking into it and we realized that when I quit, there goes the insurance. So we had to add insurance to that cost. So then we moved the milestone again.
- [09:08]
B
And then can you tell me, can you tell me like a. Just a ballpark number of what that might have been?
- [09:13]
A
The how much we were trying to make?
- [09:15]
B
Yes.
- [09:15]
A
Yeah. So at the time, so I was, I mean, I was making $65,000 a year, so whatever that is split up into. I forgot what I was even making a month. But yeah, so I was making $65,000 a year. So it was. I wanted to make have or x many thousands. I'm terrible at math. For six months to where I knew that, hey, if you know, this has been consistent enough, let's do it. And I knew that once I quit, I'd be able to extend that income a little bit because I'd have much more time. But then we learned insurance costs. We have a kid that's he's special needs, so he needs some higher tier insurance. And so that played a big factor. So we added that into the costs and extended the goalpost even more. And then it got to the point where I told my wife, I was like, all right, so this year, if I can double my income on social media, then I'll do it. And January came around, I more than doubled my income. And she was like, all right, quit. And I was like, ah, I don't know. And it got to the point where she was just like, no, you're doing it. Like, I was definitely cold feet. She pushed me to do it and yeah, here we are. And I'm happy she pushed me to do it because it was the right move for sure.
- [10:20]
B
So if there's folks listening to this and they're creators and they're wanting to make the jump to full time, maybe they're not there yet. Maybe they have their milestones. What advice would you give them?
- [10:30]
A
I think the biggest thing that threw us for a loop is so plan it. If you have a way to get insurance, I mean, if you need insurance, really, but insurance is a big one for us. That was something that was unexpected. I don't know why we didn't think about it, but I think the big thing is once you're doing this full time, it's much easier to raise that income because you can, you're putting all of your time into it. You can make more videos, you can start creating income and other avenues. Right. You can get different buckets of income coming in through affiliate marketing or through Brand deals or digital products. There's so many different ways to do it. And as soon as you're doing it full time, that kind of opens up all this time to do it. So if you get to a point that you can pay your bills, then really at that point, don't wait, just jump in and do it because the money's there. It's just a matter of having the time to be able to get it.
- [11:24]
B
What's something that you wish you would have known sooner, like about the whole YouTube thing? Now that you're this far into it, you're doing it full time. Things be.
- [11:33]
A
I think one of the biggest ones for me was all the gear and fancy stuff doesn't really matter. Like right now, most of my content, the short form content that I post, I'm filming on my iPhone, I'm filming on my iPhone. I have a little Hollyland magnetic microphone. And then so yeah, it's not focusing on all the gear and having to need. You don't need everything to look perfect. You just need to make quality content. You need to give focus more on storytelling. Then as long as your audio is good and your camera's decent, which an iPhone is decent, then yeah, I think I just spent way too much time trying to find. I always thought it was one camera away from that big jump in my content.
- [12:11]
B
All right, so with all of that said, what does actually matter on YouTube currently in 2025 and beyond being as.
- [12:19]
A
Different as possible and just telling a good story? One thing I've noticed with my content is it's very repetitive, right? So I'm talking about freeze drying, specific types of food. And as I'm doing that, it was feeling very repetitive. So I tried to start interweaving some storytelling in there so that just to make it a little more entertaining, a little more fun. And especially like with short form content like what I'm doing, the first three seconds are incredibly important to grab as much of that attention as you possibly can. Because if you can keep somebody there past that, it's going to spread it through the algorithm and you're going to have a better performing video. So one thing I've been doing is stop worrying about all the fancy stuff and start worrying about telling a good story, having a good hook, especially because freeze drying is boring, right? It really is. So just bringing something different to the space. When I got into freeze drying content, a lot of it was older people doing the content, older people making freeze drying videos, nothing bad about them, but it was monotone and slow and that's just what the, what it was at that point. And so I came in just making fast content, trying to spice it up a little bit, make it as fun as possible. And it just, it worked. It just, yeah, start focusing on, on making different and better content.
- [13:32]
B
How did you improve at storytelling? Because I work with clients all throughout the week. It's a hard thing to really talk about because it's sometimes it can be vague, but it can be very specific of, hey, you need to improve the cadence at which you speak or you need to improve the way, the intrigue and the curiosity. So how did with your content improve your hooks and your storytelling?
- [13:56]
A
I've used ChatGPT a lot to help me and I know like AI isn't something that I really care to use in my content, but it does help me with. You know what I'll do is I will write my script and I do a lot of voiceover because dad of five, I had to find a way to make content to that fits my schedule. I do a lot of voiceover stuff. So I will write out my script and then I'll toss it in chatgpt and be like, hey, where can I add an open loop in here? Or where can I add some kind of conflict or something? But I make sure it's always true, right? But there's always micro conflicts. Like with freeze drying, I can, while it's in the freeze dryer, I can look at it and might look a little bit off. So I can bring up the fact that it looks weird or that I don't know how this is going to turn out. Because if I say I don't know how this is going to turn out, people want to wait until the end to see how it does turn out. So opening up a loop and then closing it at the end. And then one thing I'm realizing over the last week or so, because I've been diving into my analytics and looking at it, but what I used to do is I would taste the food about 10 seconds before the video would get done. With short form content, 10 seconds is a very long time. So what I could see is I would taste the food, say it was good or say it was bad, and then people would just completely tank and drop off right there. So now what I've been doing is I'm trying to bring that payoff to the very end of the video before I drop that off. Opening and closing loops, bringing up mini conflicts, just as many using the word but. Right. I was doing this, but this happened just Bringing diverting their attention as many times as you can without making stuff up. It's at least with me it's gotta be true. But I can take something that is a very minute detail and focus in on it. So people want to wait to see what the outcome of it is.
- [15:42]
B
What does a normal workday look like for you now that you're a full time creator? This is a fun question and I've allowed our premium group, the Creators Corner group that I've curated here through the podcast. I'm letting them submit one question a week and this is one that we get a lot is what does a normal workday look like for creators who do this full time?
- [16:03]
A
So for me it might be a little bit different because of dad life stuff, but during the summer I've got most of the kids here with me. I'm waking up, I'm on my computer by 6 o' clock in the morning because I post my videos at noon every day so I have everything filmed. But I'll wake up and start working on my script that morning. So I'll wake up, I'll say, okay, this is the video. I have all the footage from freeze drying in this thing. So I'll start working on the script. The kids will wake up at about 8, 9 o', clock, so I'll get them fed, get all that handled and then jump back on, get my video done by 11 o'clock hopefully so I can get it scheduled out for noon as soon as that happens, at least for me. So now I'm a co owner of a freeze drying supplies company. So a lot of times it's jumping on meetings with those guys or trying to plan out stuff with that, sending emails back and forth. And then I'm trying to dive back into long form as well. And then it's planning a long form video. What's my next video? How can I make it more entertaining and then filming those things. And usually I like to have my day done by the time my wife gets home from work. So she's home by 3:30 and I feel like I do a pretty good job of as soon as she's home, it's like a cutoff. She's getting home, kids are getting home from school if it's during the school year and I'm shutting my day down at that point, which is nice. I'm sure I could grow a lot faster and do a lot more things if I was working insane hours. But for me the whole point of doing this was for one, spend more time with My family and for two, just freedom to do as I please. And then. But there's the fun stuff right here. In a month, I'm going to VidSummit. So going there and meeting creators there. I met a creator there last year and I still talk to him every single day. And it's amazing because we can just bounce ideas off of each other. He does similar content. So just it's a lot of freedom. But if you don't have the discipline to sit down and do it, it can definitely get away from you if you're not. If I was to get sidetracked and be like, instead of working on my content today, I'm going to go over and go fishing or hang out my friends. It definitely. I've caught myself just sitting there scrolling on TikTok when I should be filming. And I'll have to check myself and be like, okay, what videos are we doing next? So yeah, I call it.
- [18:06]
B
I call those guardrails is what I had to learn to put into place early on working from home. So I completely understand, especially when the kids are at home, my wife's teacher. So everybody's home in the summer and so it gets a little chaotic. Now you mentioned posting same times of the day every time. What is that consistency provided you as far as beyond just knowing yourself, that you setting yourself a deadline so you have that. Have you found that to be helpful on a creator side of things?
- [18:35]
A
I think. I don't necessarily know if it matters what time, but I think showing up every day. So I post five days a week, Monday through Friday. Sometimes I'll sprinkle in on one platform or another some picture posts or stories or something like that. But for the most part, I think just showing up consistently on a consistent basis is gonna bring people back to you as well as, especially when you're full time, just giving yourself that schedule. For instance, like this Friday, I'm going camping, right? So I know that I have to make two videos on Thursday because I cannot miss my Friday video. So I need to have it scheduled and ready to go. So when I don't have service on Friday, my video is still going out there. So a lot of it is just for myself, holding myself accountable to these videos need to be out. But I do think that just showing up every day, it plays a big part of it. So that was what led me to my format now is I wasn't able to post enough. So I was posting like twice a week and. But it was the videos where I'm standing in Front of the camera and I'm talking and I had very limited time and space to do that. So doing it now where I can just film all the B roll. So I film all the B roll and then I can go through and edit it or do the voiceover later, that's what led me to be able to do five videos a week. Is just changing the format that I was doing to better fit my being a dad and being busy. Yeah, yeah, no, it's. I definitely like my five, five day a week schedule.
- [19:59]
B
And you mentioned you do a lot of cross posting. So you post on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Explain that process. What. How do you tailor it for specific platforms, if at all, and how do you manage it all?
- [20:12]
A
So honestly, I don't tailor it at all. It's something that I want to do because there's some videos where as I'm making the video, I know what platform it's gonna work better on because each of the platforms have different audiences. So I know as I'm making it, it's probably gonna perform better on this platform or the other. But I don't tailor it at all. I take the same video and then in the morning when I'm scheduling it out for the day, what I do is I use Instagram and I post my video to Instagram, but then it automatically cross posts it over to Facebook as well. And I can schedule that to post and then I get into the TikTok Studio app and I can schedule the video to post through there. And then I upload it to YouTube and then do all my SEO and hashtags and stuff in there and then just schedule that out today. My video will post it in 25 minutes, but I won't even know that it posted until I start getting comments and stuff like that. But it's. I wouldn't be full time today if I didn't start posting to every platform and not just YouTube. YouTube is king. YouTube is my home base. I love it. But I also had to utilize these other platforms because on Instagram I've got. I think Facebook just took over Instagram. So Facebook I have 347,000 and Instagram I have 346,000. Right. So there's a lot of stuff happening there. And even though Instagram doesn't pay me, I still get exposure there and I can still drive affiliate sales. There's. So if I was just focusing on YouTube, there's no way I'd be making the money I am today, and I'd still be Working at my job, I.
- [21:44]
B
Interrupt the conversation for just a few seconds to tell you about our newest offerings for creators. We have the Channel audit or review service where I record a six to eight minute screencast video while I take a look at your channel, tell you things you're doing well and things that I believe you can improve on. 50 bucks. I believe it's the best value for your money as a creator. If you don't quite know if you want to get into coaching yet. And then lastly, we have our Entrepreneurs Toolbox and the Entrepreneurs Minute. These are resources for you. I'm curating everything ever mentioned on this show into a Google spreadsheet and that's called the Toolbox. And then our email newsletter, which is the Entrepreneur's Minute, releases every Friday where I give you a behind the scenes look of what it means to be a creative entrepreneur.
- [22:27]
A
Let's get back to the show.
- [22:28]
B
And I think short form content kind of plays itself for those platforms like Instagram.
- [22:32]
A
Right.
- [22:32]
B
And obviously TikTok, now Facebook, you can do long form and whatnot. Can you talk about that for a second before we start talking about how you make money from these various avenues as a creator, can you talk about briefly short form and the art of creating short form that people stick around? Because the more I watch myself consume and other people around me consume short form, I don't know. And maybe you can convince me that I'm wrong about this. I call it a digital Dorito. It's just digital junk food. Right. I feel like that people are so robotic when they're viewing it. I watched my wife the other day and she was just sitting there in between waiting for something to cook and she. I don't think she was watching anything. I think it was just an initial reaction of just flipping her thumb upwards to where she would go to the next video. How do we get these people's attention in vertical format?
- [23:26]
A
Definitely not easy. And I agree with you, 99% of short form content is just like brain rot watching it. And not even. I think people honestly just watch it to not think about anything because you can just watch it and go blank, right? Yeah. I've done my best to create content where it is educational and fun at the same time and serves some kind of purpose. Right. So if, if I was just making a video, I don't want to feel like I'm saying anything bad about anybody. But I have seen some freeze drying videos where it's just freeze drawing something. It looks really cool, but it's like a 10 second video and it just shows like a time lapse and then it's done. And to me like, it looks really cool and it's one of the videos that I'd catch myself watching. But it's not something that I want to make when I do my videos.
- [24:13]
B
It's kind of like when those guys are, when. Sorry to interrupt you, but those guys that like cut, cut grass or cleaning those old ladies lawns up, there's something mesmerizing about it. So I just wanted to say I agree with you.
- [24:24]
A
Yeah, there, there really is. You just catch yourself just getting sucked into it. But even if I'm going to lose out on views because a lot of those videos, they don't. There's no spoken language. So anybody speaking any language can watch that. So for me, I would prefer to provide some kind of value and do my very best to set myself apart. So yes, I will try to be entertaining and I will try to bring in a big hook that will hook somebody in and then once they're there and they're watching, I would hope that I can keep them there and give them some information about freeze drying that maybe they didn't know before. So just trying to be, trying to be different than the usual brain rot stuff and just providing some kind of value in whether that's entertainment or for me, educational and sometimes try to do both.
- [25:08]
B
I've tried to be intentional in the past of what do I stop on if I'm doing doom scrolling or if I'm scrolling, what are those videos that I'm pausing on? And can I figure out or decipher what they all have in common? And I've taken some notes but I'm not ready to release the research yet. You mentioned that, that you're doing a deep dive into your analytics recently. What are you looking for? And when you are doing the deep dive into your data, what are some kind of things that now you're maybe making some pivots because of that.
- [25:39]
A
Yeah. So with short form it's, with long form you can really dive deep and see every. It's just so much more data and information. So with short form, Instagram just changed up their analytics a little bit to show you a little bit more. So I'll look at the same video across four platforms and see what the initial three seconds did across all four platforms. And if I can see that I have a hook that worked on all four platforms, then I'll try to continue that hook. One that I've, I have recently is if I have an Adverse reaction, like a bad reaction to something that I'm making if I put that reaction in the first three seconds of the video. So I'll have my verbal hook of something that I'm saying and I'll have it going along with me just like making a face or you know, something. I've noticed that my 3 second retention is higher on those videos. So I'll start doing that a lot and then just experimenting with as many things as possible. There's. I don't like doing things sometimes I. Here's an example, the best way to explain it. So the other day I made a video where. Do you know like the Sriracha hot sauce?
- [26:45]
B
Yeah.
- [26:45]
A
So a lot of people call it Sriracha hot sauce. So I purposely like really pronounced the R in Sriracha. And I used to not do that, but my wife was like, no, it's pronounced Sriracha. So I literally, I say that in real life but I knew people were going to latch on to the way that I said that. And so in the very beginning of the video I said I was going to freeze dry Sriracha. And I said it just like with the pronounced, every little syllable there. And the amount of comments of people like arguing back and forth of. No, he's saying it right? No, that's not how you say it. And so anything you can do to bring in comments of people arguing back and forth or say something like that where I knew people were going to come in and either tell me I'm right or tell me I'm wrong and then people are going to argue with each other. And then so I was watching that, I was watching the, the analytics on that and my retention was higher for the first three seconds. So I made another video and it was a follow up video to that one and I purposely said it in the first three seconds again. And sure enough, the second video ended up doing, I don't know, it was quite a few hundreds of thousands of views if I remember right. But yeah, I. Cause I had already proven it out once and I kind of was able to prove it out again. So just experimenting with short form. It's so short lived, right? So if you make a mistake, leave it up, let it go because nobody's gonna be watching it six months down the road. And with how often you can post short form content, it gives you so much more time for experimentation to just quickly iterate on what you're doing. So experiment with your hooks and then watch your analytics so you can go into your analytics and see where everybody's dropping off. And then once you can get your hooks down, that's when you start working on that storytelling. So you, what you want to see is just like a little bit of a slight drop off at the front end of it and then watch it either flatline after that or even if you have a slow downward hill right there. But yeah, hook and then storytelling. And in short form content, it's just, it's so fast that you can just iterate so quickly. As long as you're doing it intentionally and you're not just like throwing everything at the wall and hoping that it works, you want to really pay attention to what you're doing.
- [28:47]
B
Let's talk about money now. What are the different buckets and avenues that you are able to monetize? Because I do know we've mentioned it so many times here. I hate. People probably get tired of hearing me say this, but short form content monetizes way differently because the ad revenue is. I looked at my channel the other day, it was so much lower, it's abysmal. I had a tutorial that, that I did. I got the kids a new Nintendo Switch 2 and I do technology tutorials. And so I did a handful of tutorials for that. I had one take off and it got almost like 800,000 views. And I remember thinking, I'm going to make some decent money on this. And I didn't. I made more money on the Amazon affiliate link for the SD card than I did for the ad revenue. So with that being the case, talk about how you're making money and then maybe at the end of the answer, give an estimate of what you may make now on a normal month.
- [29:35]
A
Okay. Yeah. So with short form, if you're, if you come from the long form world, it's so different to see how much less money you're making for how many views. But at the same time, it's also much easier to get views of short form than it is with long form. So I have, yeah, I've. I have the. My highest ever viewed long form video is probably like 1.2 million, which is, that's a. It's a good number. But then on the short form side, my, my highest viewed is probably like 20 million. So it's a very different number. And when you average that out and you're posting five videos a week instead of one video a week, it can add up. So I get ad revenue from, from YouTube, Facebook and TikTok. I do affiliate marketing.
- [30:17]
B
Can I ask you a question?
- [30:18]
A
Yeah.
- [30:20]
B
On that what are the requirements for Facebook and TikTok in comparison to YouTube? I know YouTube right now I believe is 4000 watch hours, a thousand subscribers to do the ad, the partner program. What is it for the other platforms?
- [30:35]
A
I honestly don't remember because when I started this kind of format of video, everything exploded so fast that I was pretty much instantly monetized I think.
- [30:44]
B
But there is requirements, right?
- [30:46]
A
Yeah, yeah, I think it might be like on TikTok, I think it might be. I don't want to say a number because I sure honestly don't remember.
- [30:52]
B
Okay.
- [30:53]
A
But yeah there are requirements. But so yeah, I'm Instagram doesn't pay me anything unless I get like gifts or something, which it's pretty much non existent. But then I do affiliate marketing and really I don't do a whole lot of it. I have an Amazon storefront that I have linked in my bio and I have some gardening stuff and some freeze drying stuff over there. And then I do, I have these raised beds that like my garden is beautiful. I have an amazing garden. So when I make videos out there, I've got a link for those garden beds in my bio as well. Depending on the time of year, that one can be pretty good. And then my big one is the freeze dryer. The freeze dryer is, I mean it's a pretty good commission percentage for a freeze dryer. On the low end you're looking at $1800 and on the high end you're looking at $5000. So it's a higher ticket item. And honestly those are most of my income sources. And then now that my kids are back in school, I'm working on some digital products, working on a complete freeze drying guide and different things like that. And then more recently is when I became co owner of Crunch Co. Which is a free drying supplies company. And so that one's, that's a long haul one, right? Because we're reinvesting everything for that one. I think the big one, next one for me is going to be digital products. But right now it's just the affiliate marketing and ad revenue and it, it actually does really good for the ad.
- [32:10]
B
Revenue side of things just so people can get a perspective. Like how much are you making on an average month? And can you break those down for like per platform?
- [32:18]
A
Yeah, yeah. On TikTok it always depends, right? Because if you have a video takeoff, you're gonna do much better that month. But I will say that. So each one is a roller coaster. Every month you're going up and you're going down. But when you're on all the different platforms, you pretty much. You're on four roller coasters at the same time. So while one is up, the other one's down, and vice versa. Let's say Facebook can do anywhere between. It's probably. It's my lower one. So anywhere between the $800 a month, all the way up to $3,000 a month, maybe. And then TikTok has actually been pretty good lately. So I can do anywhere from $2,000 a month all the way up to 4,500amonth on that one. YouTube, I still get affiliate or I still get ad revenue for my other channel as well. Right. So I have two right there, and that kind of averages around $3,000 a month. And then Instagram, nothing. So between all those, we're looking at, give or take a few thousand dollars, $7,000 a month on average. Probably between those.
- [33:20]
B
And then with the freeze dryer, what would you say you might make on a month, like for that. For the. For those sales?
- [33:26]
A
Yeah, so that's. Historically, that was my big one. So my best month ever. I did between everything. I did $27,000 and it was $22,000 just with that one. But that was. I had a ton of really viral videos that month. And it was just. It was pretty crazy. It was about a year ago. It was pretty wild.
- [33:44]
B
And is that just you talking about as you're going in your shorts and your videos, you just have that freeze dryer? Because it's obviously a main component of what you're talking about. And so you're just putting that link depth down below or you mention it mentioning it in the videos or how are you.
- [33:58]
A
There's a few different ways I do that. I don't want to tell everybody to do this because I don't know if it's the right thing to do, but the last three seconds of every video I make, it kills my retention, but I still do it because it makes me. It's what keeps the lights on. Right. So last three seconds of every video, I say, if you're interested in freeze drying, I have links. I have links in my bio or go watch some of our other videos. So last three seconds, I call to action. Hey, I've got some links over there. Go check them out. Another thing that is actually pretty cool with the meta platforms is if you share a story on Instagram, you can add a sticker, and that sticker can have a. You can add a link to that sticker. And so if I'm posting a story about freeze drying. I can add my link and somebody can open up the story and just click straight through to my harvest link right there. And that's one that's been, it's done extremely well for me. So I try not to overdo it or anything, but it's one that definitely helps a lot is because they don't have to go anywhere, right? It's just right in front of their face, they can click on it. YouTube doesn't let me put the link. Like nobody really looks at the descriptions and even then I don't think they actually come through as links in short form content and I can't put em in the comments either. So I have to send people to my bio on that one and that's why I add that three second call out at the end of each one.
- [35:14]
B
I'm so excited that YouTube and the Internet exists for content creators like you, right? Your story of you have five kids, you're able to spend more time with your family, you're able to provide for them. That is just such a cool thing. And it's why I love doing this podcast. Now I'm gonna give you a final platform to what advice would you give to creators? Our tagline here is we want to help you either start, grow or monetize a YouTube channel to get your message heard. What final advice would you give to creators as they're listening to this episode?
- [35:42]
A
Is it a creator that's just starting out?
- [35:45]
B
It can be any, they could be anywhere on that journey.
- [35:47]
A
As I talk to people, I when people come to me and they're like, hey, how do I do this? The biggest thing that I see people doing is they get stuck in their head of what am I going to post about? Because everybody's telling you to niche down, right? You need to niche down. You need. That's how you be successful, that's how you do this, that's how you do that. But honestly, I think that's what gets people struggling to just post in the first place. So for me it's if you don't know what to post about, but you want to start creating content, start posting about anything and everything. Because at some point as you're going through that process, you're going to get better at making your videos. Because it took me 10 years to get 70,000 subscribers on my YouTube channel. I built that skill set and then I was able to start my new channel and within two years I'm almost to 300,000, right? So I was able to build that skillset while doing all these other things. So don't let the. Don't let yourself get caught up in what to post. Just start posting.
- [36:38]
B
I love that. Brandon, you've been such an amazing guest. I'm so excited and happy for your success again. You can find Brandon's channels over at White Pepper Farms and White Pepper Farms Homestead. I will link to all of his socials in the show notes of this episode. And Brandon, thanks again for joining us today.
- [36:55]
A
Thank you. It was a lot of fun.
- [36:56]
B
And that's it for this week's episode of the podcast. Hopefully you enjoyed it. Don't forget to subscribe wherever and however you listen to the show, or if you're watching it on YouTube, you can subscribe there as well. Don't forget to check out all of our creator offerings. We have the Creator Mastermind Group. We have the Channel Audits and Reviews. We have the Entrepreneurs Toolbox and the Entrepreneurs Minute, which is our email newsletter. All of those pertinent links will be in the show notes down below. And until next week, talk to you later.