Stop Chasing Views: The Real Secret to Building a YouTube Business

Summary

YouTube Creators Hub Podcast: "Stop Chasing Views: The Real Secret to Building a YouTube Business"

Host: Dusty Porter
Guest: Jackson Wilkie, Co-Founder of Channel Junkies
Date: September 5, 2025

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Main Theme

This episode dives deep into the secret sauce of building a sustainable, lead-generating YouTube business by sharply niching down, focusing on strategic long-form content over viral views, and building authentic relationships. Dusty Porter interviews Jackson Wilkie—leading real estate agent and creator of multiple successful YouTube channels aimed at local real estate markets—about his journey, strategies, and actionable insights for creators seeking real business results from YouTube.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Jackson Wilkie’s Origin Story

[02:07–06:21]

• Background: Jackson started as a blue-collar worker, transitioned into escrow sales, and began experimenting with video for realtors.
• Early YouTube Experience: Initial attempts focused on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, with YouTube as an afterthought. He didn’t see early success on YouTube but noticed its potential with keyword-focused videos (e.g., "pros and cons of living in Portland").
• Discovery: Inspired by creators like Brian G. Johnson and Nick Nimmin, Jackson learned to leverage keyword research tools (Switching from Google-based research to YouTube keyword-focused data for far greater search volume).
• Turning Point: Realized local real estate search terms had huge audiences on YouTube; started vlogging local neighborhoods, which unlocked growth.

"There was literally zero real estate agents doing it with keywords. It was just listing videos and random, like, day in the life of a realtor video... and I discovered there’s a lot of search volume coming about what it’s like to live in Portland."
—Jackson Wilkie [05:00]

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2. Evolution & Strategy Behind Channel Junkies

[06:42–08:36]

• Documenting the Journey: Created Channel Junkies not only to teach real estate YouTube strategies but to document his own learning.
• Naming for Discoverability: Pivoted from personal branding to highly searchable, keyword-focused channel names like “Living in Portland, Oregon,” which resulted in more organic reach and higher rankings.
• Template for Success: His “Living in [City, State]” model has been widely replicated and is now commonplace across real estate YouTube.

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3. What Works in 2025: Trends & Tactics

[09:15–11:09]

• Hyper-Niche Focus: Only produce content tailored to your target audience— for Jackson, that’s people relocating or considering a move (not general interest, like local food spots or market updates).
  • Don’t dilute channel with unrelated updates or "chasing views" videos.
• Video Length is Key:
  • Jackson advocates for extremely long-form content—hour-long or longer vlogs focused on relocation, and tailoring release schedules to maximize attention.
  • Over 80% of his channel’s traffic now comes from television viewing, reflecting how audiences are consuming long-form real estate content in a “TV” way.

"I’m anti YouTube Shorts, I’m anti sharing my YouTube channel, I’m anti ads. I only want organic reach and it’s very niche... My videos now are typically anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half long."
—Jackson Wilkie [09:15]

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4. Why Long-Form Works & How to Improve Retention

[11:09–16:33]

• Competitive Edge: The landscape is saturated—basic 10-12 minute videos no longer stand out. Long-form allows him to provide real value for big life decisions (relocation/home buying).
• Changing Approach: Removing old, low-performing videos and extending new content length improved channel health and rankings.
• YouTube Algorithm: Longer average view durations shift traffic sources from “search” to “browse” and “suggested,” unlocking exponential organic reach.

"When I can get those average view durations up, that's when suggested and browse flips my YouTube search on traffic and that’s when I start getting all that explosive growth."
—Jackson Wilkie [13:57]

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5. Crafting Killer Hooks & Sustaining Retention

[14:52–17:21]

• Hooks First: Develops story and hooks on-location, shooting intros after gathering footage for authentic, compelling openers. Hooks (and re-hooks) are used throughout to maintain curiosity and promise valuable reveals.
• Editing Out Dropoffs: Careful retention graph analysis; removing call-to-actions/trailers from intros because they cause immediate drop-off (spikes in fast forwarding).
• Structured Teases: For vlogs with multiple houses, he teases interesting features at the start to keep viewers wanting the reveal.

"Really good hooks. That is like my baby... I’m always looking for that one thing. What's that one thing that is different about this one."
—Jackson Wilkie [14:52]

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6. Example of Great Hooks

[17:34–20:00]

• Evolution: Gone from quick (“Hey, you’re moving to Portland?”) to longer, story-driven hooks—about 1:30–2:00 minutes, tightly tied to the unique value in the video.
• Avoiding Boring Branding: Eliminated branded intros because retention data showed they were actively skipped.

"If I now do a hook that's two minutes, two and a half, I've actually seen a little bit bigger of a drop off. So I try to do them like a minute and a half to two..."
—Jackson Wilkie [17:39]

• Quick Teases: "I always try and throw, 'You're going to hate these. You will not believe this stuff.' And those are ways that I can hook people quickly." [19:23]

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7. Monetization: Beyond Ads

[21:00–24:04]

• Sales, Not Views: Main revenue comes from real estate commissions, not AdSense (though the latter adds about $2,000/month for his Houston channel). Emphasized that his model is designed for selling homes, not racking up views.
• Branching Out: Now leverages audience attention for affiliate partnerships (e.g., hard money lenders for his house flipping series).

"We make our money on selling the homes... Over 800 home sales from these free YouTube channels and our program in total channel junkies with these living in channels. It's like well over 2 billion in sales from these."
—Jackson Wilkie [21:57]

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8. Lead Generation & Conversion Rates

[24:04–26:06]

• Volume: His Houston channel generates 98 leads/month, with conversion rates at an industry-leading 17–20% (compared to 4% for typical Facebook/Zillow).
• Slow Burn: Teaches realtors to view YouTube leads as long-term relationship building vs. quick sales—quality > quantity.
• Long-Term Value: One inquiry can lead to multiple future transactions.

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9. Lessons Learned: Authenticity Over Mimicry

[27:09–28:48]

• Biggest Challenge: Early struggle was trying to be a “top local realtor” rather than himself. Once he leaned into his own story (“I’m not a local here, but I understand your move”), connection and results improved.
• Authenticity and Scripting: Warns against heavy scripting and imitation; success comes from genuine voice and opinions.

"For me, it was a long struggle of not being myself, not knowing who I am, not talking my niche..."
—Jackson Wilkie [27:55]

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10. Overcoming On-Camera Nerves

[28:48–32:01]

• Customized Coaching: Identifies each creator’s comfort zone (on location, screen share/map videos, or studio), then builds to their strengths.
• Map Videos as a Gateway: Suggests map videos as an approachable format with high view durations and less on-camera pressure.

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11. Community Question: The Biggest Mistake Creators Make

[32:48–35:30]

• Chasing Views: Most creators ruin their channel by sacrificing niche focus for virality, attracting the wrong audience, and tanking channel metrics.
• Niche Discipline: Hyper-niching and resisting the temptation to chase trends or massive sub counts is key, especially if you want business results.

"In my world, the biggest mistake a creator can make is trying to chase views, go outside of their niche, and do different videos just because they're trying to chase views and grow that channel. ... But if that view count is coming from a niche and an audience that has nothing to do with what you personally want to sell or do, it's hurting you way more than it's helping you."
—Jackson Wilkie [32:48]

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Notable Quotes

• "The discovery of, like, your ideal niche audience through search first and then browse suggested later is the most important thing.” —Jackson Wilkie [33:23]
• "Out of that we've literally helped tens of thousands of real estate agents. We've sold thousands and thousands of courses. And every time I try to branch out and do something different... everything just shrinks." —Jackson Wilkie [34:46]
• "Know your audience. And that really is the way to reverse engineer everything." —Dusty Porter [35:35]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Jackson’s Background & Early Struggles: 02:07–06:21
• The “Living In” Model & Channel Naming: 06:42–08:36
• Current (2025) YouTube Strategies: 09:15–11:09
• Why Long-Form Content Wins: 11:09–14:20
• Retention, Hooks, and Structure: 14:52–20:00
• Monetization & Multiple Revenue Streams: 21:00–24:04
• Lead Generation & Conversion: 24:04–26:06
• Authenticity & On-Camera Coaching: 27:09–32:01
• Biggest Mistake Creators Make (Community Q): 32:48–35:30

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Memorable Moments

• The realization that YouTube search volume for “Beaverton, Oregon” was ten times higher than on Google, triggering his deep-dive into YouTube SEO. [05:37]
• Jackson’s strategic pivot after analyzing audience retention graphs, removing branding/trailer intros for stronger performance. [17:34]
• Emphasis on building a 7-figure business with “only” hundreds of views/leads per month, challenging the myth of viral numbers. [26:06]

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Episode Takeaways

• Niche Specificity > Viral Views:
  Sustainable YouTube business comes from targeted, niche-specific content that solves a real problem, not by chasing trend spikes.

• Long-Form & Retention:
  In-depth, story-driven content that answers the big questions of your audience (especially in high-involvement niches like real estate) delivers more valuable leads—and YouTube rewards it.

• Authenticity Wins:
  Audiences want genuine personalities, not cookie-cutter scripts or generic experts.

• Monetization is More Than AdSense:
  Build your channel to drive leads or sales for your real business—focus on outcomes beyond YouTube paychecks.

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Jackson’s Channels:

• Living in Houston, Texas
• Channel Junkies

Connect with Jackson and learn more in the show notes. If your goal is business growth—not just vanity metrics—this episode offers a blueprint for real YouTube success.

Transcript

[Jackson Wilkie]

Really good hooks. That is like my baby. So I'll go out, we go out every Monday, my, my partner here and I and we'll shoot the video and I actually develop the story as I'm out there. So I'm never like pen to paper script. I want to go out and see it. I want to see what we're going to show.

[Dusty Porter]

Hello everyone. Welcome to this week's episode of the YouTube Creators Hub podcast. Dusty here. As always, we have a wonderful guest for you today. I want to encourage you to do.

[Podcast Host]

A few different things.

[Dusty Porter]

Number one, subscribe to the show if.

[Podcast Host]

You'Re not, whether it be on our.

[Dusty Porter]

YouTube channel, your podcast player of choice.

[Podcast Host]

Doesn'T really matter to me.

[Dusty Porter]

Number two, leave us a review if we've helped you out along the way. Reviews really help podcasts grow. And number three, go check out any of our services. We have our YouTube channel review service where I audit your YouTube channel for about seven or 10 minutes in a recorded video. I offer one on one YouTube coaching which I really have been enjoying the coaching calls I've been having recently. And then number three, five to $10 get you in our mastermind group. That group is now over 150 people strong and we have monthly mastermind calls. We have our Discord server which we treat like a forum and you have the ability to listen to exclusive podcast episodes that I record every week that I release there on that feed for.

[Podcast Host]

Those people who support the show.

[Dusty Porter]

So with all of that said, let's jump into this week's conversation joined today.

[Podcast Host]

By Jackson Wilkie, co founder of Channel Junkies, the number one training platform for estate agents who want to generate free leads with YouTube. After building multiple seven figure real estate businesses from scratch using YouTube for real estate, Jackson created the Living in City State YouTube system that helps agents dominate their local market with video. Jackson, how you doing today?

[Jackson Wilkie]

Doing pretty good man. You?

[Podcast Host]

I'm doing fantastic. I apologize about all the back and forth but we are here on the interview and I can't wait to pick your brain about not just YouTube but real estate, YouTube and just how to grow a business utilizing free long form video. Can you tell me kind of the origin story of your YouTube journey? Like how did you start on YouTube? How did that, how did it happen?

[Jackson Wilkie]

The coolest full circle story is you were one of the podcasts I was listening to like back I think 2017 maybe. Love it. So it is crazy to now be on here but I like long story really quickened up. I'm actually blue collar Worker guy from Idaho, got tired of working power lines. So I quit and moved to Portland, Oregon, and got into escrow. So I was like a sales rep for escrow officers. And our goal was to work with real estate agents and get their business. And I started learning that every real estate agent. This is like 2016, 17ish, whatever, was like talking video, but nobody was really doing it. So I, like, picked up a cheap little MacBook. I was pretty broke, started helping them shoot videos, and that's what launched me into doing videos. And again, with no experience. So I decided to get licensed as a realtor. And I'm like, I'm going to kill it. And I shot videos every day. And did your Facebooks back then. A lot of Facebook, some Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok wasn't out. And I would randomly just put them to YouTube because it was. It was really like, in the real estate world, there's a lot of, like, kind of gurus who just tell you what they think works, but nobody was really doing it. And so to me, YouTube just never worked. I was like, whatever, I'll stick with this Facebook stuff. But after about a year of, like, literally thousands of videos, nothing was really working. And then started going down this rabbit hole. This one gal was a blog writer, and she found out that by putting a video in her vlog or her blog, it helped rank in Google better. And she was like, I might as well make my own video. And it had success by having a YouTube video in there. So she was the first person I talked about who did it. And from that point, I was like, I need to look into this a little bit. So that's what took me down the path of, like, really trying to figure out YouTube. And there was literally zero real estate agents doing it with, like, keywords. Like, it was just listing videos and random, like, day in the life of a realtor video. And that took me down a pretty long path. I started listening to your podcast, and then I really started watching Nick Nimmin, Brian G. Johnson, those dudes. Cause I was like, man, everything that these real estate marketers and people are talking about, it doesn't work on YouTube. I did my first, like, pros and cons of living in Portland, Oregon, right? And like, I went. I remember I searched one day, Portland, Oregon, and YouTube. I just wanted to see what videos popped up. And there's a big YouTuber called, like, Briggs World. According to Briggs or something, he does all these, like, top five worst cities around the country. And that was one of the video And I'm like, man, I think it's these top five neighborhoods and all that. So that was the journey of thousands of videos on other social media to. To actually learning, wow, there's a lot of search volume coming about what it's like to live in Portland. And we like the very first video we did, I think was a top five neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. And like pros and cons of living in Portland and they didn't go off too quick because they didn't truly understand SEO. Descriptions, thumbnails, all the. The starting point of any YouTuber is kind of don't know any of it. But after a while, just to finish this up, what really catapulted was when I was listening to Brian G. Johnson, Nick Nimmin, they were like, you need to be using keyword research. You need to really understand how many searches. And I downloaded tubebuddy. Really wasn't good back then. I can't remember the one I used.

[Podcast Host]

Might have been Vidiq or it was.

[Jackson Wilkie]

Pre that it was like yellow.

[Podcast Host]

Huh.

[Jackson Wilkie]

And it was the first one that I really used that when I typed in like Beaverton, Oregon for instance. So I had, I had keywords everywhere. But I learned that kind of back in the day only pulled Google traffic. Google was on Google. Beaverton, Oregon was searched 31,000 times a month. And I went to YouTube and pulled it. It was TubeBuddy and another one, but it was 370,000 searches a month. And I'm like, holy shito. I was like, Beaverton's getting searched 10, 12 times a month, more on YouTube than Google. So I was like, I told my business partner, I'm like, hey, we need to go out and vlog these areas and show it. It's getting searched like crazy. And we did one and that's what just took off. So that was really the origin story of YouTube for me.

[Podcast Host]

I love that. And since then, you have helped countless realtors with their business on YouTube and really built the model that a lot of creators that are real estate agents use today. Now, channel junkies, explain to me what that is. What is that channel? Who is your audience? What are your kind of business strategies and plans there on that channel?

[Jackson Wilkie]

Yeah, so I have multiple. I probably have 15 YouTube channels at this point of all different stuff. But channel Junkies was like my parallel of, wow, I figured something out Here with this YouTube for real estate thing. I'm gonna document it too. And so it really just started as me like figuring out YouTube. There was nobody more obsessed with YouTube than me when it came to real estate agents. And I think I have that origin story as many youtubers of. I got obsessed. And so I started documenting it with channel junkies. And that in turn got the attention of a lot of real estate agents. Fast forward to today. I don't know how many thousands of videos I've put on channel junkies, but it's basically all just teaching the evolution of YouTube. And in that you cannot search a city across the country that doesn't have a living in like, Dallas, Texas, living in Phoenix, Arizona, living in Coeur d', Alene, Idaho, YouTube channel. And I developed that whole system, which at first my YouTube channel was just Jackson Wilkie. And then we changed it to like our team name, like the Real Agent now group. And one day I had this epiphany. I'm watching Nick Nimmin. As soon as I went to his YouTube channel, like, you knew exactly what you were getting. It was how to create a YouTube channel. And I'm like. And then I noticed when I would search other things, like YouTube channel name, they would name their channel like the keyword, and it was ranking. And I'm like. I told my partner again, I said, hey, I think we should name our channel Living in Portland, Oregon. It's a huge keyword. He's, no, that's dumb. We want to keep our team name, our brand. And I'm like, no, I think I'm up to something here. So I changed it to Living in Portland, Oregon. So that was the first Living in channel. And then, man, it ranked number one. And you can actually look if you type in Living in Houston, Texas now or any, the channels are like ranking up there with videos. So I documented this with channel junkies, and I still do it to this day. Just the evolution of YouTube.

[Podcast Host]

So let's talk about what you've learned over time. I've been hired by many real estate agents to help them grow their YouTube channels. And I've helped a bunch of creators. There was a person who was a big part of me growing my brand early on. Her name was, I believe, Christina Smallwood. I don't know if you know who she is. She does housing videos on YouTube and her channel has exploded. She went on to become one of the larger creators in the space. I do want to ask you, though, what would you say are the things that work now in 2025, if you were to say, only pinpoint maybe two, one or two things, what would it be?

[Jackson Wilkie]

So today, what we teach, like in our elite program is really not like the changes of the algorithm. I don't know if it's really changed in that sense. It's such a competitive landscape now it's video performance and length. So I'm anti YouTube shorts, I'm anti sharing my YouTube channel, I'm anti ads. I only want organic reach and it's very niche with real estate because it's not about overall views and subscribers. I do earn some adsense minimal but we sell homes. So I only want my videos going to people who move and relocate to our areas or want to sell their house. And so the number one like I get a lot of students come in agents and they got channels with just random stuff. And so today's day and age is literally focus on that niche that people move and relocating, buying, selling and nothing else. Don't do top five taco spots, don't do market updates, don't do the market's crashing. If you want to generate leads the way we do it and two is length of video I only release. We, we bumped it up to two. But for years once I got my channel established, I do one video on Saturday mornings and my videos now are typically anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half long. And I've even experimented with two, two and a half hour videos. And over 80% of our traffic comes from the television set. We generate upwards of 250 to 300 leads a month from our YouTube channel. So long average view durations, long form content and just really honing in on that niche.

[Podcast Host]

Why do you think video length plays a part in this success or what do you think? Let me rephrase that. Yeah, doing videos that long, why do you think that works for what you're doing in particular on YouTube?

[Jackson Wilkie]

A couple of factors and one is the competitive landscape. So back when I started and the craziest thing Dusty I once I figured it out, I started traveling the country to all the best relocation markets and I could fly in for two days, shoot 20 videos and upload those things and automatically rank and just dominate the market. Now I've been teaching it so long and I get there's so many agents that kind of the just go shoot 68 minute, 10 minute, 12 minute videos doesn't work anymore because there's so many good videos out there and agents really putting in a lot of effort. So when my Houston channel, which is where I live now and one of the biggest relocation markets was the dominant channel and then I noticed it really started to fade and drop off mainly because Dude, I'm running 13 channels across the country. I'm coaching agents and it was so easy for a while. I noticed that a lot of my students were kicking my butt, outranking me. Their videos were better, they're longer. And that's when I like, I did one of two things. One, I looked at my channel, I had a lot of old videos that weren't doing anything anymore. So that was bringing my average view durations down, not ranking my whole channel. And two, I was like, I gotta go out there and make better videos and in our niche. So the second part of this, think about it. When people are moving, buying a house, it's literally the biggest decision of their life. And so this isn't something they're just going to Starbucks and wasting time in line or sitting on the toilet, which is the big misconception in real estate. Buying a house and moving is something that people plan for 30 days, three months, nine months. And we've had people five years out planning this stuff and they watch at length and they're just like dying for that information. So once I started getting our channel back going longer videos and longer, 20, 30, 40 max. And, and one day we went, we were out pretty far and this video was pretty long and I was going to cut it into two and I was like, you know what, if they don't like the first one, they ain't going to the second one. I'm just going to let it go. And it was an hour and four minutes and it just exploded. Why that works in ours again, people are watching it, they want that information. But two, when it comes to major keywords like Houston, Texas or Katy, Texas, YouTube's also looking for what's the best performing video, what's getting the most engagement, what's keeping people's attention the longest. And so what I've learned over time and what we really teach our agents now too is to try and extend those videos and even shoot for those 15, 18, 20, 25 minute videos. And you gotta do them a certain way. But we flipped. We used to get the majority of our traffic. If I went to traffic source from search and that just meant. And that's what I teach my agents now. If I look at your channel within 10 seconds, I can tell you where you're going the wrong direction. And a lot of times it's YouTube search is their number one traffic source. And this works with many niches. I've done a lot of different stuff. When I can get those average view durations up, that's when suggested and browse, flips my YouTube search on traffic and that's when I start getting all that browse and suggested traffic and you get that explosive growth.

[Podcast Host]

So how do you get the average view duration up? So if you're having these really long videos, it's really a mute point. If the video is 50 minutes and they're only watching 30 seconds, that only is a detriment to the channel. So the only reason that it would be a positive thing to do, videos of this length is if people are watching a long time. And again, not only is that increased watch time for your channel, YouTube loves it because time on platform is increased and they love that metric. So what do you do and what do you teach to keep people watching the videos longer?

[Jackson Wilkie]

Really good hooks. That is like my baby. So I'll go out, we go out every Monday, my partner here and I, and we'll shoot the video and I actually develop the story as I'm out there. So I'm never like pen to paper script. I want to go out and see it. I want to see what we're going to show. I want to see the. Because sometimes we vlog suburbs or master plan community, sometimes we're just showing homes and I got to go in and I got to walk them all. I got to see it all because I have to develop that story. And I'm always looking for that one thing. What's that one thing that is different about this one. And it could be like, man, this house is crazy big, nice, but it has a hundred thousand dollar price reduction. I learned. So when I'm all done shooting, that's when I actually shoot my intro. And so that's one thing that I'm teaching my agents is you're going to shoot this hook, this intro and then you shoot a video and it could be completely different. Do all your work, the hard work, figure out something really cool and unique and then leverage that not only in the hook, I want to hook them with that. And then I'm going to get right into the video and the meat of it. But maybe two or three times throughout that video, I'm rehooking them. I might visit that spot again and hey, wait, you're not going to believe this. You know, this house, we've seen this house before. But what they have upstairs behind the wall, you've never seen that before. But first I need to show you X, Y and Z. So it's hooks and re. Hooks are the way that I'm able to stretch these out. Because yeah, we get agents who shoot 2030 minute videos, but their average view duration is two minutes. And they're like, I did a longer video. And I'm like, look the graph. They didn't like it. And so we really, we study retention graphs of every video, where people drop off, where they, you know, where you pick them up at, retention gain, all that kind of stuff.

[Dusty Porter]

All right, guys, I want to interrupt the interview just briefly to tell you.

[Podcast Host]

About our YouTube channel review service.

[Dusty Porter]

If you're looking for someone to take a look at your channel, I record 7 to 8 minute videos screencast on your channel, watching your videos, reviewing the different things on your homepage and hopefully giving you some advice that can help you move the needle on your YouTube channel channel. Also, I'll have a link below to our email newsletter where you can keep up with me throughout the week. And I release those every Friday, as well as our new creator, master spreadsheet, where everything that's been listed or talked about on this podcast from any of my guests, I'm curating those into a spreadsheet. And so you just click on the Google sheets link there and you'll get to see and have access to all of the links. And you're like, oh, what was he talking about? That will be there in that spreadsheet. All right, now back to the show.

[Podcast Host]

Can you give me an example or another example of a good hook and what would be as far as do you have a specific time that you're trying to hit? Say 12 seconds, 8 seconds, whatever it may be?

[Jackson Wilkie]

Yeah, with mine, my hooks are more in that minute and a half, ish to two minutes. And when we first started it was very quick. Hey, you're moving to Portland, Oregon and you want to know the pros and cons of living here. I'm going to tell you all that and stay tuned. And it was easy, that just worked and it answered the question. And then we went to this 10 second little like video clip of us playing like scootering in the city, drinking a beer. And it established brand. And that was the recipe, like it just worked. And then we came out and hit him with a call to action. If you're moving, give us a call, shoot us a text, all that stuff. Well, as time evolved and I my Houston channel was diving. When I went to all my retention graphs, what did I notice? These just massive drop offs and then it would spike back up. And every time I went back to the spike, they were fast forwarding through all that. And so I'm like, man, I gotta get rid of the Calls to action, the little trailer video, all that. Because that's whether they even if they watch it beyond that they're still skipping through that first section and you're losing that, that view time, it's a bad metric. So if I nowadays do a hook that's two minutes, two and a half. I've actually seen a little bit bigger of a drop off. So I try to do them like a minute and a half to two and with me and then I do studio videos too. So I've learned really quickly how to hook people in a studio and it's hey dude, you're moving to Houston, Texas. I've actually got a. What I'll say is all right on this video. This is the most objective or least objective video you'll ever see in your entire life about moving. I'm actually went through and I found what you guys are searching about. Going to talk about some of the best areas to live in Houston, but most importantly, a bunch of areas you're going to hate to live in Houston, Texas. I always try and throw. You're going to hate these. You will not believe this stuff. And those are ways that I can hook people quickly. And so with my new vlogs that are an hour long, I've got this new strategy that I actually if I'm going to show three different homes, I actually do a little 20, 30 second segment in each one and then I pop out then a 20, 30 second the next one. And I only give them enough to where they're curious of what's going on. And each one I'm going to point out, you'll never guess what's behind here. And oh, the price reduction on this one. So it's just that constant action. Now I've given them three things and they're just like, okay, I got to buckle in. But I always resort back to. But first you need to know that let's get after this.

[Podcast Host]

It's interesting a channel that my daughters both have watched a kids channel. It's called Adley's World or Adley's Something. It's Shonduras is the father of the family.

[Jackson Wilkie]

My daughter on that for years.

[Podcast Host]

He's a really big YouTube creator. But what they do is exactly what you're talking about. They give their intros about a minute and a half. They do these 45 minute vlogs of their family's day doing really fun things that would entertain children. But they give you just enough in that first minute and a half and it's really quick Hitting it's a few seconds of every activity they're doing through the day and it gets you just interested enough to where you're oh, I want to see that part. I want to see that part. So it's exactly what you're saying is your old adage of the radio teas of you're giving them just enough to get. Get them to stay the duration. And people do that with podcasts on YouTube. I'm doing it with mine now is give them the little snippets and make them want to consume the entire thing. I love that monetization. Making money. How are, what are the different buckets that you're making money from? YouTube.

[Jackson Wilkie]

So ours is different because I have probably the biggest living in ch if I do have the biggest living in channel now. Not like there's other real estate agents who have bigger subscriber counts and what they leverage is the adsense. So they do more of the the hot topic stuff the market crashing. And I actually know a guy who's got one of the biggest ones and met with him a lot. He does those videos every day. And the. So the difference between what I do and how I make my money and them is they're very focused on that adsense and they're in the real estate industry. So CPMs all that. It's one of the highest paid because of all the financial stuff that can be the ads that can be put on it. But you'll notice their videos go straight up and die straight up and die straight up. And so they have to repetitively do it every day. And I'm a pretty happy dude. So one, talking about negative stuff like eats me alive. But two, I want to sell as many homes as I can. So what we figured out was people were now watching these videos and then we, after a while we didn't get calls until I started saying, hey, we actually love when people reach out to us. We help them move here and buy a house. And they were like, oh my gosh, you're a real estate agent, that's great. So you gotta get your calls to action in there. And they started calling and then they move and buy a house. And as a licensed real estate agent, we get the commission on that. So total to date we're over just my YouTube channels alone. Over 800 home sales from these free YouTube channels and our program in total channel junkies with these living in channels. It's like well over 2 billion in sales from these. So we make our money on selling the homes. Now what I'VE done from that is I've got channel junkies. So I teach agents obviously how to do this stuff. And then from there I've branched out and I've built. I wanted to learn how to house flip and of course there's a million gurus out there and there's all these courses and I saw this like huge gap and I'm like there is not one person documenting starting one. So I started ground up house flipping. And I'm like, it's day one, I have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm going to look at this house to buy. And I drug the camera with me. And so for the past year I've done five house flips. I've documented it all. I got my ass kicked, I've lost money, had the city red tag me and I have vlogged that whole stuff. And from there that has turned into a pretty cool partnership with hard money lender companies and cause the hard money lenders want all the loans and I drive all the traffic. So I really monetize all of mine by getting attention. Like I just want all the attention for the house flipping stuff. Few other channels that I have and then for the real estate side it's on the sales. But I do make, I think I, I think my Houston channel in total actually I have it right here. If I look, I make about 2,000amonth in the 77,925 bucks on my Houston channel that's almost five years old.

[Podcast Host]

So how many leads would you estimate you get per month?

[Jackson Wilkie]

Right now we're actually seeing the real estate markets actually hit like a bottom. I do feel like we're coming out a little bit. My Houston channel gets. Last month they got 98. So that's really low for me. For 99.9% of agents that would be like ungodly. Our students typically like we really. And this is not a quick thing. That's real estate agents want like that pay for Zillow leads, Facebook leads, get them immediately. But the conversion rates slim to none. We're like hey, this is 401k. If you follow our method, our training and stick to the program, within a month or two you're gonna start getting reach outs. So like a good healthy channel could easily start producing 10, 15, 20 leads a month. And that can easily turn into 10 to 25 million in GCI a year which is 250 to $500,000 a year in commissions, all free.

[Podcast Host]

Out of those 98 leads a month that you got last month. How many of them would you say would be converted?

[Jackson Wilkie]

Probably, and we have the actual number. It's difficult because if you look at it, some of those people might be three years out. But I would like we convert. If you look at the total amount of leads per month or year, close to 17 to 20%. So interesting. In the world of real estate, it's just ungodly amount of conversion. Right. Because the average conversion on Facebook lead Zillow is like 4%. And it's, it's total different game where this is literally people calling you fanatical. Can't believe I'm talking to you. But there's a lot of people, you know, that they call who are renting or just want some information. And then you get people who love your videos, love you, but they just don't call. I think there's type A personality people who just, oh, I can go straight to this other agent or straight to the builder or whatever and get a better deal not knowing that we actually negotiated. Yeah, yeah.

[Podcast Host]

You as a realtor, you're in the people business. So even if they're calling you about renting, this could be a relationship that leads to two or three listings down the line. Or you get that like one call doesn't necessarily equate to just one call. One sale, One call in the real estate business could be a relationship for the next decade that could produce three to four, you know, transactions. So completely understand. And it's very lucrative what you're doing. And as you mentioned at the top, you don't have to have a billion views to see this success. This is the type of model and it's not just real estate. And there's a lot of models on YouTube. I worked with a dentist, a local dentist in the South Florida area on his YouTube channel. We cleaned it up a little bit and he had to shut down new clients because he was getting so many people coming through his doors and reaching out to him from. He became the dentist that was famous and everyone wanted to use him. And so that's the power of what YouTube is. What is something that you wish you would have known sooner in regards to YouTube. Maybe it's packaging, maybe it's SEO related, maybe it's about the channel, but just YouTube specific. What's something that you wish you would have known sooner?

[Jackson Wilkie]

Man, a tough one. It's crazy to go down this path because I'm somebody who's in, in the trenches too. It's not like I've gotten to a place and then I stopped and I just coach it. So with me, like, early on, like, knowing who you are is the hardest thing to get across on YouTube. And so when you talk about this dentist or people, my. And to be honest, my toughest real estate clients are just those who get in their head or try to sound like somebody else. So it. A lot of the struggles I had early on with YouTube was because I'm new to Portland, Oregon. I'm new to real estate, and I tried to be this, like, top realtor. I tried to be this local Portlandia guy, and it just falls on deaf ears, blind eyes. And so if I knowing that now, it's me, and I go right into these cities and the first thing I do now is talk about being not from there. I'm not a local. I don't know the. I'm just like you. I'm helping you move. I love this stuff. And it just tells those people immediately, you're my person. For me, it was a long struggle of not being myself, not knowing who I am, not talking my niche, and then what the other issue with that is, it leads to scripting and it leads to, like, making stuff up, bullet pointing to where you're just reading stuff. And it's not authentic. So I think YouTube is one of the most authentic, like, authentic platforms to have your own opinion, voice. And yes, there's SEO, there's thumbnails, there's all that. But when I talk about video performance, like, the number one thing is having that authenticity and just standing out. And that's the hardest thing that we coach.

[Podcast Host]

So how do you coach someone who doesn't like the way they look or sound on camera?

[Dusty Porter]

Because that's what a lot of people.

[Podcast Host]

Listening to this would say. Man, I just. I get it.

[Dusty Porter]

Jackson, you're right.

[Podcast Host]

I need to be myself, not try to imitate, be authentic. All the buzzwords. But I turn that camera on and I just freeze. What? How do you teach that?

[Jackson Wilkie]

Yeah, I like to be like, I'm at a point now to where I'm more honest with people because they. A lot of people have bought our program and then they like, maybe open up the first page and that's it. Or don't open it at all. Inevitably, there's a lot of people who won't do it. So what? I use that as my advantage too. Like, I can tell them how many people don't go through with this. And one we have. We've got a system now to where we can give them title, description, tags, your hooks, and do that and again, we're talking about people who are going to actually shoot videos. The other thing is just practicing those hooks. But one of my favorite things to do and how I've been able to, like, work with agents across the country and actually start my own channels in markets I don't know is I act like we're not even on the camera. And a lot of times this isn't on camera. They'll be nervous. They'll be talking about this. I'll just switch the subject and then I'll just start asking, hey, man, like, if you were moving here again, what area would you move to? Or, hey, I always ask, do a lot of people move here, relocate for work or jobs or what? What are they moving here for? Dude, they switch. They're like, no, actually, there's a new Amazon plants over here on that. That west side. It's right in between these two lakes. It's it. They got crazy homes over. That's this. They can talk all day. They can go. And so those are the things that I'll actually help them with. But our number one strategy is really like, what I've learned. Map videos work amazing. They're like on my top performing videos. So that's where you can open up a map, share your screen, go through these areas and really just tell stories about what it's like to work, eat, sleep, live, play there to the top areas, the different neighborhoods. Where's the Costco? It acts as a natural vlog, natural B roll. And that camera's really not on you, and you're focused more on the map and talking. And those are ways that we can quickly get those average view durations up, too. Because what I've learned, even though I got these crazy vlogs and all that now, some of my old map videos, they have the longest average fee duration. If you think about your niche audience, they're moving, relocating, and you're going through the map and telling them everything. They're. They're just don't leave that thing. There's ways. What's crazy Dusty is I get both worlds. It. It seems as if everybody would be scared to go out in public with a camera on because they're. People are looking at them and we have to do that. As real estate agents. I get like a 50, 50 world. There's some real estate agents who cannot physically go outside. They're so scared of what people are thinking and they forget everything. And then I have the other half and they're like, I like going outside. It's easy I can see stuff, talk, but when I'm sitting in a studio and that camera's looking at me, I just freeze up. I freak out. And so that is one of our things. The first question I ask him is, what are you most comfortable with doing? Because we can shoot in studios, on screen, record, or out in the public. And once I can learn what their style is, then I can carve them a direction to. To go, to lean on their strength.

[Podcast Host]

I love that. I love the map videos. I did watch one of your map videos before we got on the call. And so I do know you're basically just doing a screencast. You have a webcam up on you, and you're just talking through the different communities, schools, things of that nature. It's a genius idea. And they perform long tail. They're evergreen. They last for forever, really. You know, you could redo them maybe five, 10 years once the area changes. Final question for you as we close out. It's something I'm going to start doing is getting a question from our group. We have a group called the Creators Corner, where people can pay five bucks to be a part of that group. They get exclusive podcast episodes, they get Mastermind calls, and they're now going to get to submit questions for our guest every week. The question this week is this. What is the biggest mistake that you see most creators doing.

[Jackson Wilkie]

In our niche, and actually a lot of different niches, is like chasing views is what I call it, right? So it feels good when you get that video to pop off and you get a lot of views. But if that view count is coming from a niche and an audience that has nothing to do with what you personally want to sell or do, it's hurting you way more than it's helping you. The discovery of, like, your ideal niche audience through search first and then browse suggested later is the most important thing. So I have a multitude of realtors, and I'm talking agents who've had channels that have 3,000 subs, 10,000, all the way up to 45,000 subscribers who get zero leads on their channel. So in my world, the biggest mistake a creator can make is trying to chase views, go outside of their niche, and do different videos just because they're trying to chase views and grow that channel. And next thing, you do a video about moving to Houston, Texas, but your last few videos were about a new sphere coming to Dallas, or the market's crashing, or Tesla video. I've seen the gamut or YouTube shorts in our world are terrible, too. Then you have all of this new traffic who like that one video. But you release a new video on what you actually want to preach and they don't watch it, they click off of it. Your average view durations wash times. So if you can hyper niche and really focus on that, like my channel junkies one I've been doing for 7 years now, I still only get like maybe 30 to 50 views like every 48 hours on my top performing videos. That's thousands of videos I put in. That's so much effort. Let's. It's like mirroring how much effort you put into this podcast for how many years. But out of that we've literally helped tens of thousands of real estate agents. We've sold thousands and thousands of courses. And every time I try to branch out and do something different, Instagram, whatever, nobody wants to watch it, it brings in the wrong traffic and everything just shrinks. So for me personally, I've just, I've worked so hard at this like real estate industry and to generate leads and work with a niche that I am so focused on. Like just good long organic videos that are in your niche, in your keywords that you focus on and branching outside of it is just gonna hurt you. And to finalize that, you've probably heard it a million times. I've heard it a million times. People come in with this perception of you gotta get to a thousand subs or a hundred thousand subs as quick as possible and they will literally do anything to do it, they will pay for em, they will share it everywhere. But your channel's never gonna grow.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. What good is it? Yep. Yeah. No, it really boils down to knowing your audience.

[Jackson Wilkie]

Yep.

[Podcast Host]

Knowing who you're speaking to. And that really is the way to reverse engineer everything. The video ideas, the thumbnails, the way you edit everything. It really boils back down to that main point again, guys, we've been joined today by Jackson Wilkie. You can check him out over on his many YouTube channels. But the two that I'm going to mention and link in the show notes are going to be living in Houston, Texas as well as the original channel, the og the original.

[Jackson Wilkie]

It actually says that because there's so many of them now, but you'll see.

[Podcast Host]

It and channel junkies as well on YouTube. Jackson, you are killing it. I know this episode is going to crush as well because so many people ask me how to grow a business on YouTube, how to grow things that you are just so articulate about in this episode. So really appreciate your time and we'll talk to you later.

[Dusty Porter]

That's a wrap on this week's episode. Don't forget to subscribe. That way every Friday we go live. You'll know that we're release the new episode. You can listen on Spotify, Apple, podcast, all the normal places, and you can watch us on video if you want to see my face.

[Podcast Host]

Don't know why that would be the.

[Dusty Porter]

Case, but if you do, you can watch us on our YouTube channel.

[Podcast Host]

You just search for my name on YouTube and you'll find all the episodes recorded there as well.

[Dusty Porter]

Don't forget all the offerings. We have the Creator Mastermind group, our YouTube channel audits, one on one coaching and our creator Master Spreadsheet with all of the links to everything that's mentioned.

[Podcast Host]

Here on the podcast.

[Dusty Porter]

With that said, talk to you guys next week.