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- [00:00]
A
Yeah, I always want to be testing different things, finding out what I enjoy doing, what I might or might not be good at doing. The long form content, what would just, you know, we'd call the video on demand. Like those are the things that actually produce the most consistent views and revenue. And so I want to prioritize that.
- [00:19]
B
Hello everyone. Welcome to this week's episode of the Creators hub podcast. Episode 499 one away from 500. I cannot believe that our guest today is Josh Summers from the all all things secured YouTube channel. That's one of his many YouTube channels. But a bit about Josh. Josh is an entrepreneur with, as I mentioned, multiple YouTube channels, podcasts and online communities. He lives and works remotely in Asia where he loves basketball and riding his motorcycle through the mountains. Josh, how are you doing today?
- [00:53]
A
I'm doing well, Dusty. Hey man, congrats on almost reaching 500. That is like consistency is huge. And that is just. That's a testament to how long you've been at it. So well done.
- [01:04]
B
Yeah, it's, it's something that early on I preached a lot of and to be able to have that to look at and say, hey, I'm not just telling you this, I'm also living it. I'm not going to lie. It's something that I'm very proud of. I appreciate you saying that. So we're going to be talking about your YouTube journey. Just want to mention quickly before we get going, if you are a creator listening to this, please go check out the services that we offer for all creators in the show notes of this episode, everything from YouTube coaching, YouTube channel reviews. We have a creator community where I release exclusive podcast episodes there every single week. Go check that out. I really think you'll find something on your price range or budget that can really help you take your channel or your creative process to the next level. So, Josh, All Things Secured is your main YouTube channel. Tell us a bit about the channel and how you got started.
- [01:54]
A
Yeah, I mean, I think origin stories are a great part to have in any, you know, brand that you begin. And All Things Secured has its own origin story. Like I, my family used to live in China and you know, out there, it's a crazy world in terms of, you know, what you can do online. Lots of censorship and I was constantly having to get around just even to access my own banking or email. Right. And knowing that I was being monitored in a lot of ways. Long story short, we were eventually kicked out of the country and they thought I was a spy. They took me in they interrogated me. It was probably one of the scariest moments of my life. But that exit is kind of what initiated the, the true, kind of like spending time building this as a brand because I realized just how much they had been surveilling me, how much of what I had done was known to the authorities and just like how important it is to have basic online security, hygiene, privacy and security stuff that we kind of just take for granted. That doesn't have to mean that you're a tinfoil ha type of person. And, and so that's what I wanted to do. I'm not an IT guru. I didn't grow up and you know, study cybersecurity. It was just something that I had experienced personally and realized, hey, I want to make sure that my parents aren't scammed out of their life savings and I want to make sure that, you know, my kids are protective of their digital identities because that's becoming more and more important nowadays. So that's kind of where I started from and what got me into this whole thing.
- [03:29]
B
So the channel now has 431 subs, 431,000 subscribers. 444 videos uploaded. That's long form videos. You did the video nine years ago called what is a VPN. That video now has over 1.2 million views and that kind of started the journey of this channel. But you mentioned that You've had other YouTube channels in the travel space. If you were to point at maybe one or two things that you've done over the lifespan of this channel, all things secured, what would those one or two things be that have made it so successful? Because you are in the.01% of creators that have grown a channel to almost half a million subscribers. So with that being said, what are a couple of things you can point to as far as the success that this channel has seen?
- [04:21]
A
Yeah, that's a great question. I think like just that first video is probably a lot more important than I realized at the time. Like just getting started and getting going. One of the things that I felt like as I was, I mean because I. Dusty, I remember listening to your podcast like for years, like years and years and years ago. I mean it's been around for so long and watching other people that, that I admire and look up to and nobody ever said this but there was always this feeling that like maybe at some point I'm just going to hit that hockey stick growth and it' just going to like it's going to take off. Like I'm going to figure out that thing. And I think what I've realized and that I think you're a great example of as well. Like, when people ask me what my superpower is, I think my superpower is the fact that I started and then I just didn't stop. Like, if you were to look at a graph over the past, I think it's now six or seven years that I've. I've had this particular channel. There are moments where certain things took off, you know, and I learned this kind of format I enjoy doing. And, you know, it. It actually resonates. Those are the type of things that, you know, you might see a little bit of bump, but overall, it's just the consistency and then getting that 1% better every single time. And sometimes that 1% really makes a difference. I distinctly remember putting out a video. It was, oh, gosh, this is years ago, but it was a video that performed fairly well. It was about, like, security devices that I used and I thought were really interesting. It fairly well. Like, let's say by the end of a year, it had 30,000 views, which at the time was just phenomenal for me. But then I started ab testing the thumbnail, and that one went up to hundreds of thousands, like, a year later. And that, like, it's those type of moments where, like, unlock this idea of there are other things that I can do 1% better but might have exponential impact, even if it's not immediate, even if it's not. Not a hockey stick growth type of scenario. But, yeah, I just keep going back to the fact that any channel that I've done, it's just been pretty slow and steady, and I think that's a good thing. I don't think I would've been able to handle massive growth at an early stage, if that makes sense.
- [06:39]
B
No, it does make sense. And that's the very unsexy thing to talk about as a creator coach and on these podcasts, is that people want to hear, you know, what's that thing I can do with my thumbnail? And what's the thing I can do to make money or to monetize? And yeah, these things are great and we're going to cover those. But I think that if I could instill one attribute into the creators that I work with, it would be the fact that they see this as a long game, that they understand that there's not going to be that instant gratification now. There will be certain channels and certain creators that see that meteoric rise, and that's fine. There's outliers for everything, but for the most part on YouTube and for podcasting. That's why the podcasting thing. And you're a podcaster as well. The thing about listen, you need to upload an episode every week. If you say you're going to upload a video every week or twice a week, do it and stick to it and set up your life and set up your systems to where it fits to where you can do that. Even if things were to go crazy. And you know, for me, I don't think there can be many more crazier things than having three babies at once. And one of the things that I'm proud of is that leading up to their birth in early December last year, I was working my tail off to make sure that I had these episodes ready to go. And I didn't miss but one. And I was very proud of that. I normally miss one anyways around Christmas. So I completely agree with what you're saying. Now let me ask you a follow up question. What do you do to make sure that you don't miss an upload? Because I think that's the hard thing that creators realizes, oh, no, I've got to upload again next week and then the next week and the next week. What have you done to set yourself up for success?
- [08:20]
A
Yeah, One of the things that has worked well for me is when I've built, and I haven't built a huge, I don't have a huge team. I do have people that work with me. I've got an editor, I've got some guys that help me out with ideation and kind of at the beginning of the month, kind of thinking through what we're going to do for that month. But having some of that in place creates a, an accountability for me where, you know, if I have, if I know that my editor's waiting for, you know, me to provide him with assets, that in itself is super motivating. Oh, gosh, I have. I've got to get this done because he's waiting for me. Right. Or I've got to make sure that I'm ready for this meeting that's happening later this week with, you know, my team that's we're going to think through, you know, the month of June. Okay, well then I've got to make sure that I'm ready for that. And I've got to be able to report back on how the month of April went. And so like having those people around. I know it's a luxury for a Lot of people. But, but even if there's, you know, a friend that you, you know, I remember for a little while it was just like a small mastermind. We were all, you know, we wasn't a paid. It was just all of us getting together once a month and me having to report what I was doing. And if, you know, here, here's, here's what I plan to do for this next month and having to report back to them that, that level of accountability really helped for me because without that, it is, it is super easy to just not do it for a week. And Dusty, can I just say this real quick because this was, this was huge for me in, in both good and bad ways. I told you about my experience in China. One of the things that happened to me. This was an older channel that I had, okay, so this is a travel vlog style channel. And I, we got, my wife and I got taken in. We were interrogated and all this stuff. And it lasted for weeks. And then we went back to the US did counseling for like a couple months because it was traumatic, like super traumatic. So I didn't have time like you did with your triplets to prepare videos and all this stuff. And there was a part of me that was like, oh my gosh, what is going to happen? Like, I'm going to get messages from people that are like, where are you at? What happened to you? And it was this sobering reality that when I got back online, nobody really cared. Like, I don't know how to. Like, it's. People care. And I like you. And I agree consistency matters for the viewer, but also for us just to maintain that consistency. But I was like, I had to. I also have to realize that I have to do it because I want to do it. Because the reality is if I go, if I. My channel ends next week. The only people who really care about me are the people in my actual real life circle. The people that follow me on YouTube might, might think about it for a moment, but not for the rest of their lives. Like, they're not gonna miss me that much. That was a wild tangent. I'm sorry I went that way. But it was a weird kind of realization for me, if that makes sense.
- [11:26]
B
Yeah, it's kind of like if you don't go to the gym for a while, you miss one week. It's so much easier to miss week two. And then it's way easier to miss week three. You know, that's. Most creators are worried about kind of the backlash or what's going to happen when they come back. And they never come back at all. And so that's why people just start channels and just let them die. And same thing goes with podcasting. I can't tell you how many podcasts I've started and how many podcasts other people start and they get to about episode maybe 11 and boom, they're done. Right. Because the work involved and they're just afraid of what happens when they come back. I think for me, on the flip side of what you said, doing the podcast for so long, early on year five, six, when I missed a couple of episodes because of, you know, whatever it may be, I had people emailing me and you know, I realized, I realized that yes, there were the, the crucial few. I call those your, your raving fans, whatever you want to call them, they're going to miss you. But for the most part, it's exactly what you said. It's like, hey, listen, people don't care near as much about you as you think they do. Right. That's a general life lesson. Right. As far as the channel and the programming, I see that you mix in live streaming, you do vertical content, so you have some YouTube shorts. You haven't done that in a couple of months. What is your strategy? And all out just thought process and how has it evolved over time to get to where it is now as far as the types of content you put out there?
- [12:42]
A
Yeah, well, I, I always want to be testing different things, finding out what I enjoy doing, what I might or might not be good at doing. The long form content, what would just, you know, we'd call the video on demand. Like those are the things that actually produce the most consistent views and revenue. And so I want to prioritize that. You know, I had, I've had one video, let's just say as an example, I've used this as an example with some people. Like one long form video that went viral, hit, you know, a few million views and then one short form video that also went viral hit a few million views. And it was interesting to show they weren't at the exact same time, but just kind of show for myself the analytics back to back. And a viral video that hits a couple million views on a long form content could, you know, it made five figures I think think is up to 20, 30 thousand dollars. Like it's, it's good. It's not fantastic, but it's good. The short form video, it made $350, I think on a few million views. And I think that's about Average. So unless I was really killing it on the short form content, you know, I, I do think there's value in creating that short form content and I haven't been great about being consistent with the short form because I want to make sure that I've got my long form consistency before I try to break my focus to phone. But it was about, I think it was about two years ago that I decided I wanted to try a monthly live stream. And that ended up being a lot more fun than I realized. I mean it provided additional spaces where I could offer sponsorship which, that was a, you know, downstream benefit, but really just finally being able to connect with the audience and have conversation and just a little more personality because I script a lot of what I do. I don't feel like I'm really good off the cuff. So I script most of the videos. So livestream isn't, isn't scripted and it's just me getting to connect and those have, you know, it also gives me an excuse to reach out to people within my industry and say, hey, you just want to sit down and have a conversation. I mean, I think that's the power of having a podcast like this Dusty is you probably get to meet so many people and you know, you've got an excuse. It's like, hey, you want to come on the podcast? But in addition, you also, you know, get to connect with that person and if you like them, you can kind of develop a little bit of a relationship there and it's same thing happens. And that's one of the reasons I've really liked doing live streams. So my cadence in a perfect world is I've got a monthly live stream and I've got a weekly long form video and then the short form content. I haven't cracked that nut, I'll be honest. Like I, it's just, it's a hard one for me use.
- [15:21]
B
I use it as like supplemental, you know, doing tutorial videos, you know, being strictly search based on my main YouTube channel. I've tinkered around with short form and when I have time I like to do them because I've found that they do push. I can do the same tutorial. I can do like a 60 second rapid pace version of it and then do the more long form video. And obviously I'm going to make way more money on the long form just like you mentioned, whether it be through a paid sponsor or ad revenue or whatever it may be. But I found that if I can do them, the short form do add value. They do Provide value. And so figuring what that value is for you and how it fits for your niche. Have you found that the live streams have helped you be a better creator? You know, being that you do script your long form videos, being live and having to kind of be off the cuff, what have you learned about yourself as a creator?
- [16:12]
A
Yeah, and, and it, it adds an element. There's another creative side to that where most of the time when I'm creating long form videos, I'm sitting there, I'm recording, obviously there's mistakes. I'm sending it off to an editor. One of the things about Livestream is that most of the work comes on the front end, not the back end. So I'm preparing all the screens and everything. I use ecamm. I used to use another service before that. I can't remember which one. River. No, we're using Riverside now. I can't remember what it was. Streamyard. I think I used streamyard for a little while but like preparing all of that ahead of time and knowing how I wanted to do it and then being intentional about okay, I'm going to flip to this screen at this point. I want to talk about this. It did. It forced me to be really organized and it did it. I'm a little bit better. I won't say I'm great, but I'm a little bit better at speaking off the cuff and talking. And live streaming itself is just its own beast. It's not the same as standing on a stage and giving a talk in front of an audience. Like it's still its own little weird thing where I'm still alone in my, my studio, but I am communicating with people and there is a conversation happening instead. Just a one way speaking. And, and so I do like that. So yeah, like I've, I've definitely grown a lot. I think if you were to look at the first what is a VPN video and see me now, hopefully you see a much improved difference. And if you look at my first live stream to what I just did, you know, last month, hopefully you would also see an incredible improvement there.
- [17:43]
B
I interrupt the show just for a few seconds to remind you that we have a ton of different offerings for creators. Everything from 5Dol, which gets you in our mastermind group. You get access to our exclusive podcast that I record for that group each and every Friday. We also have channel reviews and audits where I record a screencast video talking over where I think you should be spending your time on your channel. And then we have one on one coaching where I sit down with you for 30 minutes, all the way up to 90 minutes, where we can go over strategy, we can talk about specific questions that you may have, whatever it may be, just check the show notes and I think we have something that might fit your needs. With that said, back to the show. Yeah, absolutely. I go back to my first video 16, 17 years ago. I mean, I was just a kid and I was staying at my grandmother's house and I had a microphone in her closet. And I sound like a different person, you know, I didn't have any confidence, I didn't know how to use my equipment. I. I was so far from where I am today. And I'm so thankful that I can go back and watch and listen to that and see, okay, there is that 1% better. Every time I'm doing something, trying, improve, trying to get better. What does your video process look like now? 20, 26, beyond what does it look like for you when you're doing a long form video? Give us start to finish.
- [19:03]
A
Yeah. There is a lot that has changed over the past year. Mostly because what I found when I got into the process was that I used to take and create the video first move into the edit and then try to figure out the thumbnail and title. And I'd heard a lot of people talk about, I mean, everyone has their own process. And I'd heard a lot of people talk about packaging in the fat in the past, you know, and thinking through that packaging. But it didn't really hit home for me until more recently when, you know, this past year when I had a video that I was just, I was super proud of the end result, right. I thought it was a banger video. And then when we would try to come up with packaging, the packaging that I felt best represented the video, we did not have an appropriate payoff in the first 15 to 30 seconds of the video. So in other words, if you saw that title and thumbnail and went straight into that first 15 or 30 seconds, you might think, wait, am I watching the right video like this? What we're talking about, what I saw in that thumbnail doesn't necessarily isn't reflected, you know, it's something that I talk about five minutes into the video instead of, you know, at least teasing it in the first 15 to 30 seconds. And so better understanding my angle is the way that I like to think about it. Like what is going to be my angle? I just did a video recently about government surveillance. You know, it started off and it was more of kind of this documentary style, just talking about government surveillance, how it's happening, how it's legally, like all the legal loopholes, and then at the very end talking about the legislation that's going to be coming in that could potentially fix some of that and the things that we can do. But I didn't tease that at all. The video flopped bad and I wanted to change the thumbnail and the title packaging, but I didn't. And I wanted to then focus on the legislation. And I might still try it, but I don't talk about that legislation until like six, seven minutes into the video. So it's like it, it's super hard when there's that disconnect between the packaging and the end result. And so I'm focusing a lot heavier now. Like, the meeting I'm having with my team later this week is to talk through, okay, what is the angle of the videos? Like, I already know the, like, video that I want to do for, let's say, the first week of June. But what is that angle that we can focus all of our packaging on that we think is going to have the best possibility of that? We can, you know, a B test multiple thumbnails or multiple titles around that angle. And so now I can, you know, I can still write out my script beforehand, but if I don't nail that first, then I have. It's just harder to change things later, if that makes sense.
- [21:49]
B
I love to hear you kind of talk your way through that because I can tell there's been iteration, like for myself. I mean, I've iterated so many times of. I can't tell you I have a bad. I have a problem, Josh. I gotta admit it here on the podcast, when I see a new shiny tool, like, for me, I'm pretty organized digitally. If you would have looked at my computer or my phone. I'm very much just an organized person. But in general, you can ask my wife out and about just. Normally I'm not that organized. But what I do, I have a problem. It's switching apps. So I'll have an app that does this thing for my YouTube process and I'll keep notes in Apple notes for a couple of weeks and then I'll move to notion and then I'll move to. It's. It's just. It's an addiction. It's a problem that I have and I trying to remedy that issue. So hopefully there's some folks listening that can resonate with me. But it sounds like you, you're pretty strict about your systems and that's it's really good to hear you talk about kind of how that process has evolved over time. I want to talk about money now for a minute. Let's talk about monetization. All things secured. Your YouTube channel that we talked about here from the beginning is the main driver of that. You do have other channels and we'll link those below for folks who want to check those out. But what are the different buckets of revenue that you have for your channel? And as a creator, and then I know it will ebb and flow, but on average, how much could you make in a month? On a good month?
- [23:13]
A
Yeah. So it has changed over time and the percentages have changed drastically over time and my view on it has changed as well. So I've got, I'm going to just compare two different channels and two different monetization strategies on that. So. So first I'll start with all things secured, the security side of stuff, because we're dealing with software that can be used globally. So it's not just US based where, you know, there's a lot of times where you're dealing with products that can only be sold in the U.S. but what that means is affiliates is actually really attractive because VPN can be sold to somebody in Lithuania in the same that it can be sold to somebody in Mexico or in the US and the commission is pretty much almost the same either way. So there's, there is some benefit to all of that. And so affiliate used to be, I would say, gosh, over 50% of the revenue at least. And that was combining both the website and the YouTube channel. So anytime I would upload something on the YouTube channel, I would create content on the website that matched that. And then, you know, I would get kind of the best of both worlds in terms of SEO. And, and then sponsorships really wasn't a thing for me at the time. The channel was probably, I felt like it was too small, even though now I know that that's not true. But it felt like it was too small to worry about that. Fast forward about two years ago, I really started focusing on sponsorships because affiliate revenue was starting to go down. And now sponsorships really make up the bulk of the revenue for all things secured now, you know, I, one of, you know, I had my best month for affiliates was, you know, $50,000 in a month. And that was. But that's combining both website and YouTube channel together. And then now it's roughly the same, but now it's mostly coming from sponsorships. And so when I'm creating a sponsorship package for. You know, I just wrote up a contract this morning. I'm trying to combine a lot of different elements. So it's not just how many videos do you want to sponsor, but it's like, hey, can we. Let's create a marketing package that works for. You're trying to do here that includes email sponsorship. I've got an email list that I've built around all things secured. It includes, you know, a short form if that works for you, live stream, and either an integrated or a dedicated sponsorship. And so I've really built that out and I think I'm just speculating here, but I think part of the value of what I offer or anybody offers on a YouTube channel is not just the numbers of how many views that you get or how many subscribers that you have have, but it's actually the amount of trust that you have with your audience. And if that is high, that's something that advertisers or partners can realize very quickly. Did we get ROI on this? And thankfully it's gone really well. That scares me at the same time because now I feel over reliant on sponsors in a way. And now I'm on the YouTube hamster wheel where, okay, I don't have anything that I'm selling myself on the all things secured channel. So I'm just, just, you know, having to make sure that I'm constantly creating content and I'm constantly, you know, I've got sponsors in the pipeline that I'm making sure that they're all happy. I say all that to now bring you to the other side. I've got a Bible memory YouTube channel that's all about Bible memory. And on that side I've decided it's much smaller, right? So 40,000 subscribers. And on that side I've decided, all right, I'm not going to go the sponsor route. I want to actually create something that, that I could. Not that I'm wanting to sell people on, but, but like I'm creating value instead of renting the value, if that makes sense to a sponsor.
- [26:55]
B
It does.
- [26:56]
A
And so now, you know, very similar. Dusty. I've seen a lot of the stuff that you do and I know this isn't a novel concept. People do this all the time. But like, you know, a paid community, a book that I can sell, you know, a course, like I've even got a live event that I do every year in Dallas now where that community can come together and you know, meet together and paid, you know, for a ticket to join Together. And I've actually really. That has brought me a lot of satisfaction. I'm not saying that that's a better model than the sponsorship model. I can, you know, the sponsorship model has paid my bills for many years, and so I'm grateful to the Lord for that. That has been great. And I love the sponsors and the companies that I get to work with, but there are trade offs in the way that you monetize. And I've seen the pros and cons of both of those sides, whether I'm just promoting somebody else's stuff, affiliate sponsorship, otherwise, or. Or am I creating my own ecosystem where a Mark Rober type of thing, where the content that he does is really just pushing his thing and it's just part of his marketing department is the YouTube channel, as opposed to that being the entire business.
- [28:02]
B
I think that you had a similar kind of revelation. Revelation that I had early on. You know, a few years back when the tutorial channel, I realized that it was pretty simple. You know, the more tutorials I uploaded, the more, the bigger my catalog got, the more ad revenue I could make, which then means that more software companies would reach out to me. And it's just a circle of knowing what works, knowing who to connect with, but it's really outside of your control, right? Am I getting the email? Am I landing the pitches when I'm pitching these, these software companies, but on the podcast and what I'm doing here, working with creators, you know, a couple of years ago, I. A light bulb moment went off and I said, I want to own it. I want the Creators Hub show to be mine. I want to work with creators. And, you know, I kind of launched my coaching and the private community. And although it makes a fraction of what the tutorial channel makes, it's getting closer, it's continuing to grow, and I get a lot of satisfaction out of that. I still love technology. I still love doing the guide videos. But if I were to tell you, if you and I were going out to eat for lunch and you and I were talking, well, what gives you, what motivates you? What gives you the most pleasure? It would certainly be these conversations I'm having with people like you and the one on one work I'm doing with creators and the private group that we have, these are the things that fuel me. They give me momentum to do what I'm doing now. With that said, there are a lot of creators listening to this now and they may be saying to themselves, man, that's really good money. Can you give A walkthrough of how you would recommend creators start working with sponsors. Because a lot of times we'll get these random emails, hey, person A, I'm with company B and I'd love to work with you. What is the right way to build a relationship with a sponsor? And can you just kind of break that down for us?
- [29:53]
A
I mean, there's guys that. You probably have a lot of great material on this as well. I've my friend Justin Moore, you know, I've learned a lot from him. He does the sponsor magnet stuff. He's the one that I originally learned from. I think the best, if possible, like this is an ideal scenario, but if you're able to naturally come into or relationship with a company, that would be what I would want to do. And what I mean by that is, you know, let's say I used, you know, I'm in a security channel and I'm not trying to promote this. Like they're not even an active sponsor at the moment. But like I use these Yubikeys, right? These two FA keys to lock down my accounts, right? And I think they're phenomenal. I think they're fantastic. I love them, I use them. And so like I would talk about them in my videos even before they sponsored my channel. And then being able to send them, like just send them those links or tag them on social media, it wasn't immediate, but that organically came up. And it also helped me because, you know, early on I'm a little bit worried about doing a sponsored ad read, feeling like my audience is going to feel like I sold out on them or something like that. But if I'm doing a sponsored ad read for a product that I've already been talking about, they already know that I use it. It's not something that's like, like, and suddenly there's face cream, you know, and like, where did that come from? I don't, I don't get where, where that came from. It's organically made sense for the channel. It's something that I was already using. Now I can actually, any link that I put into my description, I'm tracking how many clicks come through that anyway. And so I, you know, they may not be able to know how many clicks went from me, but I can now show them to. Hey, just so you know, I've already been mentioning your stuff and it's already gotten this number of clicks. I'd love to work together. And I think it took me a long time. You know, it felt like for me to ask for a thousand dollars for a video just felt like, this is ridiculous. Nobody's gonna pay me a thousand dollars to just talk about their video. Especially when you get all. Everyone, we all. If you're a creator, you've gotten this email, hey, we'll give you a free. We'll give you five free products if you'll just mention this. And it's like, oh, wow, someone's willing to, of course I'll do it for that. Or they're going to give me $200. Being confident in what I'm worth or what that the value of what I'm providing would be worth. It takes, it takes a little bit. Like, it took me a little bit to get to the point where, you know, I'm about to put a proposal that has $20,000 on a single video. And you asked me that two years ago, and I would have just. That would have blown my mind. You talk to somebody, like, maybe, maybe somebody else listening with 400,000 subscribers, you know, goes, wow, 20,000 is small. What you could be getting, like, I think there's, there's still a lot of wiggle room in what's possible there. But I think just getting your foot in the door organically and then building that relationship. One other thing I'll say real quick, Dusty, that I think was really valuable. I built those relationships and at one point I decided and I did it on my own dime. I was like, you know what? I think it would be really cool to just do like, like a trip around Europe, right? I'll just make it like it'll be a business trip. I'm going to hit the three biggest companies that I really want to work with or that I've already worked with. Meet, you know, tell the. The I'm. I want to interview your CEO or I want to interview somebody on your team. I want to go visit. And I did it on my own dime. That alone was huge. I know not everybody can do that. It doesn't always make sense. And it. I only did it after I had established myself and established some connections with these companies, but that they know me now because I went and sat in their offices and had lunch with them and said, hey, I'm a real person. I genuinely like your product and I want to continue to work with you. That, that was another huge thing for me that happened. That was a couple years ago, but it's paid dividends.
- [33:57]
B
Couple of highlights there that I would say that I a hundred percent agree on is, number one, the first thing you open with Having a relationship with the product, service first, I think is a big deal because you're coming at it from use this for free anyways. And I already know the things that it can bring to me. And I know what it can bring the audience as well, because you know the audience because they're you. And so there's a reason why I haven't brought on a sponsor on this show for almost a year and a half now. I've had some rather large offers, but it's with services. With the AI world booming like it is, I've had some fairly lucrative offers and we're talking thousands of dollars to promote something. And I would test that product and they would say, oh, yeah, we can provide you with a service that will clip up your long form video and turn it into short form. And I would use it for about a month and I'd realize this is garbage. This is not what they're promoting. And so I was not going to promote that to an audience that trusts me that I've almost done 500 episodes. A lot of these folks have listened to me for hundreds of hours. I have an audience that is very reactive to what I pitch. And so if I have a, that I talk about, it normally gets a good bit of traffic throughout, not just the first seven days, but throughout the history of that episode, living on the feed. And so I want to make sure that I'm promoting things that I love and I want to use myself. So I agree with that. And then the second one and most important is don't undervalue what you're worth. And I think Justin and I had a conversation about this here on the podcast, privately. We had a conversation. You know that for you, right, Josh, you have the, the newsletter, the website, the podcast, the live stream, the videos. $20,000 might be low for what these companies would pay you. So I always tell people that if you're pitching something and you're putting out a pitch to five sponsors and four of them accept it, it was too low. Three of them accept it is still too low. If you get to where one accepts it out of the five, you're probably living right where you need to live. Live. And I've had to learn this because you're right. Writing a proposal with $20,000 for one video, that seems absurd to Josh back in 2012, but not Josh now. I really appreciate you walking us through that, Josh. Your time has been so valuable. I'd love to bring you back on the podcast like I always do, to do kind of follow up episodes here in a year or two, but you've been such a great guest. Again, it's all things secured over on YouTube. I'll have his other YouTube channels that are active linked below. Below. Don't forget, if you haven't already, check out the services that we provide to creators. And with that said, Josh will talk to you later. That's a wrap on this week's episode of the Creators Hub show. Again, my name is Dusty. If you haven't already subscribe to the show, whether you're listening to it through your podcast player or over on our YouTube channel. If you'd prefer to watch the video version. As I've mentioned earlier, we have a ton of different offerings for creators. At least go down there and see if there's something that might fit your needs, whether it be joining our Mastermind group to hang out with other creators. The $5 entry fee is nothing, it's just to keep the bots out. And then we have YouTube channel reviews where I take a look at your channel. And then Lastly I offer one on one coaching which is a more in depth 30 to 90 minute session every time where we discuss different needs that you may have, different things you're going through on your channel, and it's just a great way to get another set of eyes on your channel. We also have an email newsletter and a running list of tools that are mentioned here on the show. All of those things are down below and with that said, we'll talk to you guys next week.