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October 6thThe argument in one line.
An expert grows on YouTube by committing to one topic that builds returning viewers, a format they can sustain for years, and packaging each video around a proven idea that few others have covered.
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
- A consultant, coach, or operator with 10+ years of expertise and almost no public audience, deciding whether YouTube is worth the time.
- Someone with several topics they could talk about (marketing, AI, filmmaking, business) who keeps stalling on which one to build a channel around.
- A creator who posted for a while, fell out of rhythm, and now feels real anxiety about hitting publish again.
- A business owner who tried short-form, built a following, and has nothing to show for it in sales.
- Anyone currently uploading talking-head videos with no thumbnail and wondering if that is hurting them.
SKIP IF…
- You already run a channel with a working idea-title-thumbnail process and consistent weekly uploads. Most of this is foundations.
- You want tactical detail on editing, gear, or retention graphs. The conversation stays at the strategy layer.
- You are building an entertainment or vlog channel rather than an expertise or education channel.
The full version, fast.
YouTube is the best place for an expert to become known because it shows your videos to strangers and then holds their attention for an hour, which builds trust that short-form never does. The method is to pick one topic for the channel, even if it is not the one you have the most experience in, and go specific enough that the same viewer returns every week. Post more than feels comfortable at first to build a library, then settle into a weekly rhythm. Choose ideas where an outlier proves demand and supply is thin, write the title and thumbnail before shooting, and make several options for each instead of settling for the first. The offer can come after the audience.
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Create a free account →Who's talking.
00:00hostJesse Delgado
00:20guestNolan Moult
Where the time goes.
00:00 – 01:38
01 · Cold open and who the guest is
Host frames the episode as a complete YouTube playbook. Guest introduces himself: strategist for Cole Gordon's channel, formerly on the Think Media team, now coaching the host through a 30-day daily posting challenge.
01:38 – 07:07
02 · Why YouTube: new viewers and time spent
YouTube does two things no other platform matches. The homepage pushes your videos to strangers, and long-form holds attention for an hour. YouTube leads US streaming watch time ahead of Netflix. The Farrah story: 100K TikTok followers and no sales, then 3K to 100K YouTube subscribers posting as little as once a month.
07:07 – 10:58
03 · Pick the format you can do forever
Two circles: what you enjoy and what your viewers watch. Cole Gordon paid $225,000 for advice to go broad with edited talking-heads, hated it, nearly quit, then posted an unprepared two-hour podcast with a friend and found the format he could sustain.
10:58 – 18:44
04 · One topic per channel
Do not judge views until thirty videos are up. Mixing niches on one channel fails because nobody knows you yet; they click for the topic. Saying no to ideas is the hard part. Host lists marketing, media, storytelling, AI, and business; the guest pushes him to choose one and shows how Gary Vee went wine first.
18:44 – 22:27
05 · You do not need to be the most experienced
Guest's own story: a camera guy at Think Media who posted about YouTube growth, not as the expert but as someone sharing what he did. A video on getting 1,000 subscribers in nine days passed a million views. Viewers want someone a few steps ahead who speaks their language.
22:27 – 29:12
06 · Finding a lane inside a crowded niche
Ultra-specific often grows faster. DSLR Guide earned a weekly superfan by using the same Canon T3i as the viewer. Tool-anchored channels work the same way, but the host switches tools every few months, so the alternative is anchoring to an outcome or a people group, like tech for seniors.
29:12 – 34:21
07 · Niche now, expand later
Host worries about getting stuck. Guest pulls up Chris Do's channel: today it covers pricing, sales, marketing, and personal branding, but the oldest uploads are logo and graphic design. Dan Martell is the same pattern. Start narrow, earn the right to widen.
34:21 – 37:40
08 · What serving your audience actually means
Reduced to third-grade language: be helpful. Guest never pitched anything at Think Media and clients found him anyway. The highest-value help is condensing time, whether twelve years of business lessons or the AI tool research you already did.
37:40 – 40:24
09 · Long-form first, then everywhere
Short-form burnout is real. The case for long-form first: one weekly podcast becomes clips, written posts, and carousels, and rapid-fire questions at the end of the recording feed short-form directly. Busy owners cannot run that pipeline in reverse.
40:24 – 45:08
10 · Why a coach is posting every day
Guest grew a 40K-subscriber faceless basketball channel and posted twice weekly for years, then fell out of rhythm after starting his business and developed anxiety about posting. The daily challenge works because it is black and white. A $1,000 bet with a friend, renting a studio, or prepaying an editor all create the same forcing function.
45:08 – 51:14
11 · Consistency, the algorithm, and the three things that matter
Phase one is quantity: two or three videos a week for thirty days to build a library and get at-bats, then settle to weekly. YouTube does not penalize gaps; your lead flow does. Upload time, tags, keywords, and pre-uploading as unlisted do not matter. Clicks, watch time, and returning viewers do.
51:14 – 1:00:36
12 · Titles, thumbnails, and high demand low supply
Match the packaging to the video; no thumbnail on an unedited talking-head is fine. Think idea, title, and thumbnail first, which produced a 40K-view podcast on Cole's channel. Every breakout shares high demand and low supply: find an outlier, keep the topic, change the title format and thumbnail format so it stands out.
1:00:36 – 1:05:07
13 · Unfair advantages and the title brainstorm doc
Unfair advantages create low supply: the guest's brother made a video about being on Jubilee. Filter ideas against the niche and the ideal client first, so government contracting gets scratched. Then write out ten titles and thumbnail concepts in a document to pick one, borrowing proven formats like School of Hard Knocks.
1:05:07 – 1:08:43
14 · Content versus offer: audience first
Host has no AI offer to sell. Two cases: if you already have an offer, align content, lead magnet, and landing page to it. If not, build the channel around your interests, add a 'want to work together' link, and let the community tell you what to sell.
1:08:43 – 1:15:05
15 · Three thumbnails, AI tells, and the close
Make three titles and three thumbnails per video and pick the best, the way the Think Media content team voted on titles weekly. AI thumbnails are not flagged, but if anything reads as AI, viewers assume the video is too. Guest plugs a free Skool community for business owners; the hosts debate penalties for missing a day.
Lines worth screenshotting.
- YouTube is the number one streaming platform by watch time in the US, ahead of Netflix, so starting a channel is starting a TV show with distribution built in.
- A thousand people watching a long-form video is worth far more than a thousand people watching a reel, because trust is a function of time spent.
- People with 100,000 TikTok followers regularly show up with zero sales; the same expert posting once a month on YouTube can outsell them.
- Do not judge a new channel on views until there are thirty videos posted.
- You cannot post every video you want to post. Returning viewers come from topic discipline, not from range.
- You do not have to pick the topic you are most experienced in. Documenting what you are learning right now beats lecturing on what you mastered ten years ago.
- Viewers want someone a few steps ahead who speaks their language, not the furthest-ahead expert in the field.
- Anchoring a channel to one tool, one people group, or one outcome makes every upload relevant to the same viewer, which is what drives fast early growth.
- Start narrow and expand later. Gary Vee started with wine and Chris Do started with logo design before either talked about business.
- Serving an audience means being helpful, and the most valuable help is condensing time: sharing what you already tested so the viewer does not have to.
- A single long-form recording per week can produce all of your short-form, written posts, and carousels. Short-form first cannot be reversed into long-form.
- YouTube does not penalize inconsistent posting. Your business does, because new leads stop arriving the week you stop publishing.
- Upload time, tags, keywords, and whether a video sat unlisted for two weeks before publishing do not affect performance.
- Only three things matter: getting the click, getting the watch, and getting the viewer to come back.
- A no-thumbnail, unedited talking-head video is fine as long as the title and thumbnail do not promise a highly produced video.
- Every breakout video shares one trait: high demand, low supply. Find a topic an outlier proved, then make it in a format nobody has used for it.
- Your unfair advantage is the cheapest source of low supply. Few people have worked inside prisons or won government contracts, and fewer make videos about it.
- Write ten titles in a document to pick one video. If the title and thumbnail concept are weak, the video is not worth making.
- You will get more views just by making three thumbnails and three titles per video and choosing the best, even without split testing.
- If your thumbnail or voice reads as AI-generated, viewers assume the video is too, and credibility collapses before they press play.
One topic, one sustainable format, packaging built on proven demand.
WHAT TO LEARN
An expert with no audience wins on YouTube by narrowing to one lane, posting enough to learn, and choosing ideas where demand is proven and supply is thin.
02Why YouTube: new viewers and time spent
- YouTube reaches strangers through the homepage and holds them for an hour, which no short-form platform can do for an unknown expert.
- A follower count on TikTok or Instagram does not convert; one expert went from 3,000 to 100,000 YouTube subscribers posting as little as monthly and started selling.
- Trust scales with time spent, so a thousand long-form views are worth more than a thousand reel views.
03Pick the format you can do forever
- Find the overlap between what you enjoy making and what viewers actually watch; neither circle alone is enough.
- Highly edited talking-heads nearly made a $30 million founder quit; an unprepared two-hour conversation became the format he could do forever.
04One topic per channel
- Do not evaluate a new channel on views until thirty videos are posted.
- Nobody knows you yet, so viewers click for the topic; mixing unrelated topics on one channel kills returning viewers.
- Saying no to ideas you love is the real skill; park them for a second channel rather than diluting the first.
05You do not need to be the most experienced
- Pick the topic you are most excited about or most actively doing right now, not necessarily the one you have the longest resume in.
- A documented result beats credentials: a camera operator's video on reaching 1,000 subscribers in nine days passed a million views.
- Viewers in a fast-moving field want someone a few steps ahead who speaks plainly, not the furthest-ahead expert.
06Finding a lane inside a crowded niche
- Going ultra specific often grows faster because every upload is relevant to the same returning viewer.
- If anchoring to one tool is too volatile, anchor to an outcome or a people group, like AI for content creators or tech for seniors.
- Avoid competing head-on with the biggest channels in your space; study how they started, not what they post now.
07Niche now, expand later
- Starting narrow does not trap you. Channels that began with logo design or wine now cover business and personal branding.
- Your early audience has more interests than your first niche, so new pillars for the same crowd expand naturally later.
08What serving your audience actually means
- Serving an audience means being helpful in plain terms, not fancier editing or better cameras.
- The most valuable help condenses time: lessons from twelve years in business, or research on tools you already tested.
09Long-form first, then everywhere
- Record long-form first; one weekly recording yields clips, written posts, and carousels, and the pipeline does not run in reverse.
- Add rapid-fire questions at the end of a long recording to produce short-form on purpose without a separate shoot.
10Why a coach is posting every day
- Falling out of rhythm breeds anxiety about posting; a black-and-white rule like daily for thirty days removes the decision.
- Create a forcing function: a cash bet with a peer, a prepaid studio day, or an editor paid in advance for the month.
- One hour per video is enough to get started, whether that is daily or once a week.
11Consistency, the algorithm, and the three things that matter
- Phase one is quantity: two or three videos a week for thirty days to build a library, learn on camera, and test topics.
- After the library exists, weekly on a fixed day is the baseline for an education channel.
- YouTube does not punish gaps, but leads stop the week you stop posting, so publishing is how a business breathes.
- Upload time, tags, keywords, and pre-uploading as unlisted or private have no effect; clicks, watch time, and returning viewers are all that matter.
12Titles, thumbnails, and high demand low supply
- Match packaging to the video; an unedited talking-head without a thumbnail is fine as long as the title does not promise a production.
- Decide the idea, title, and thumbnail before shooting when the goal is new viewers; a podcast planned this way reached 40,000 views in a small niche.
- Every breakout video has high demand and low supply; an outlier proves the demand, and a different title and thumbnail format creates the low supply.
- Take a proven idea and swap in a reusable title format such as 'We did this so you don't have to' rather than copying the original.
13Unfair advantages and the title brainstorm doc
- Unfair advantages like rare access or unusual experience are the cheapest source of low supply.
- Filter every idea against your niche and ideal client first; interesting but off-topic ideas get scratched no matter how good they are.
- Write ten titles and thumbnail concepts in a document to pick one video; a weak title means the video is not worth making.
- Borrow proven formats from other niches, like asking ten founders their tech stack instead of asking millionaires how they got rich.
14Content versus offer: audience first
- If you already have an offer, align content, lead magnet, landing page, and offer to the same person.
- If you have no offer, build the audience around what you enjoy and are good at, add a contact link, and let the community tell you what to sell.
15Three thumbnails, AI tells, and the close
- Make three titles and three thumbnails for every video and pick the best; volume of options alone raises views.
- AI-generated thumbnails are not flagged, but anything that reads as AI, including voice filters, makes viewers assume the video is fake and costs credibility.
Terms worth knowing.
- Returning viewers
- A YouTube Studio metric counting people who watched one of your videos before and came back for another. Treated here as the strongest signal that a channel is building an audience rather than renting attention.
- Outlier video
- A video that dramatically outperforms its channel's average or its niche's norm. Used as evidence that a topic has proven demand before you invest in making your own version.
- Title format
- The reusable structure of a title with the specific subject swapped out, such as 'We did this so you don't have to' or 'I asked ten founders their tech stack'.
- Packaging
- The combination of video idea, title, and thumbnail that decides whether someone clicks. Distinct from the content of the video itself.
- Ideal client profile (ICP)
- The specific type of customer a business wants to attract. Used as the filter for which video ideas belong on the channel and which should be cut.
- Skool community
- A paid or free online group hosted on the Skool platform, commonly used by coaches and course creators to gather members, host courses, and run discussions.
- Faceless channel
- A YouTube channel where the creator never appears on camera, typically built from stock footage, clips, or screen recordings with voiceover or captions.
Things they pointed at.
07:32channelCole Gordon's YouTube channel
1:03:12channelSchool of Hard Knocks
1:14:00linkNolan Moult's free Skool community for business owners
Lines you could clip.
03:34
“There's more people watching YouTube than Netflix. There's more people watching YouTube than Disney Plus, Hulu, all these things.”
04:27
“I have people who come to me with massive TikTok Instagram followings. And guess what? They aren't making money, bro.”
10:58
“I almost wouldn't even worry about views until you got 30 videos posted.”
12:40
“If you want to grow on YouTube, you can't post every video you want to post.”
20:47
“I want someone just like a few steps ahead of me who can speak my language.”
34:49
“If I were to dumb it down to third grade reading level, it's being helpful.”
48:19
“Posting content, it's breathing. Your business is not breathing if you are not posting.”
50:43
“What actually matters is getting people to click, getting people to watch, and getting people to return back to your channel.”
54:40
“All the videos that do well on YouTube have something in common. It's high demand, low supply.”
1:11:55
“If people think you're AI, you lose a lot of credibility.”
Where the conversation goes.
01:38 – 07:07denseWhy YouTube for experts
07:07 – 18:44denseFormat and topic selection
18:44 – 34:21denseExperience, lane, and expansion
34:21 – 40:24steadyServing the audience and long-form first
40:24 – 51:14denseConsistency and the algorithm
51:14 – 1:05:07denseIdeas, titles, thumbnails
1:05:07 – 1:15:05steadyOffer alignment and closing tips
Word for word.
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Have you ever thought about growing a personal brand? Well, there's no other better way to do that than YouTube. And today on this podcast, if you stick around to the end, you will have everything that you need to succeed on YouTube in 2026 and beyond.
And I have a very special guest to help us walk through this today. Nolan Moult. Thank you so much for the conversation.
Yo, bro, I'm so excited to be here and yeah, excited to break down YouTube and what's working right now, what's not working for people who don't know me. I've helped some of the top educational YouTube channels, a lot of seven and eight figure business owners. Currently, I'm Cole Gordon's YouTube strategist.
He's got a $30 million a year sales company. We're growing his personal brand through podcasting, which is interesting because YouTube just said they're the number one. podcast platform for viewers in the US.
So that's definitely an untapped opportunity we could, I'm sure we'll talk about in this episode, but also worked with Think Media, 3 million subscribers, helped grow their podcast channel. And over the past two years, just been working with a ton of entrepreneurs, just like you, Jesse, coming in and helping them grow their brands, grow their business with YouTube.
So excited to share everything I've been learning. Awesome. Well, I didn't mention this in the intro, but Nolan is not only an expert strategist, but he's also my coach, somebody who's coaching me through a process.
We're actually going through a 30 -day YouTube challenge of posting every single day on YouTube, and that was by his advice. One of the questions I first wanted to just ask you is, from your opinion, your perspective, why YouTube?
The thing is, it depends like what's your goal, right? So a lot of the people that I'm working with, like you, are looking to maybe they're in a certain career and they're an expert and they're actually looking to build a personal brand, whether they want to write books, they want to get on stages, they might want to launch their own course or coaching community.
A lot of people come to me either wanting to do that or they've already done it and they're like trying to get more traffic. YouTube's awesome because it does two things really well. So number one, is it pumps your videos out to new viewers.
So people who have no idea who you are, like if you open up your YouTube homepage, a lot of people don't even realize they still have like a subscription page. I don't even check my subscription page. I just open up the YouTube homepage and I'll see people that I watch, whether I'm subscribed to or not.
I'll just see people I've watched before, but I see a lot of new people based on the topics that I watch. So if I'm watching like some business stuff, I might see, oh, this person posted about... how they're growing their school community or how they're building a high ticket.
Like I'll get recommended videos like that from people I never heard of. And so there's that opportunity for just exposure. Like for example, if you're doing an audio only podcast, that's like the stupidest thing you could ever do is just post it to like Apple, Spotify.
It's like, you're getting no exposure. You got to promote it somehow. So if you just post it to YouTube, put on a camera, film it, it will.
you'll get impressions whether people click on it or not. That's what I help a lot of people do. You know, that's a whole nother story, but you get new viewers.
And then the second thing that's, um, super powerful is, well, to actually add to that first point, YouTube also just announced that they are the, they're number one and they've, they've been this way for, um, three years, but number one in streaming watch time in the, in the U S. And so they're like, There's more people watching YouTube than Netflix.
There's more people watching YouTube than Disney Plus, Hulu, all these things. And they're actually like – if you look at the graph, like they're significantly ahead. And it's a really cool opportunity because like we don't have to start a TV show.
Like we could literally just start a YouTube channel and start building an audience. And then through that – There's so much opportunity.
So if you don't even know what you want to do yet, you're like, I think I want to do a course or coaching community. I think I want to write a book, do this. It's like, if you just, this was my story.
If people just know who you are, then you have the opportunity to do it. And so number one attracts new viewers, but number two, people are going to. watch you and spend a lot of time with you versus like short.
You could build a TikTok up. And I have people who come to me with massive TikTok Instagram followings. And guess what?
They aren't making money, bro. And they come to me and I helped one amazing lady named Farrah. She's an expert.
She worked at Google. She's a recruiter. She knows what she's talking about.
And she got like, I think she was over 100 ,000, whatever followers on TikTok, but like not making sales to her courses, her coaching programs. Comes over to YouTube. Over the year we worked together, she didn't even post that much.
Like sometimes it was once a month, but then she started doing once a week. She went from 3 ,000 subscribers to 100 ,000 subscribers, started making a ton of money. She got her plaque back.
I got one back here for reaching $100 ,000 in sales from Stan's store. She got one of those. She's gotten crazy job opportunities.
She wasn't even looking for a job. CNBC, I think is what it was, reached out to her to do a course on their platform. She's getting just awesome opportunities.
And she'll tell you this from YouTube. And she credits it to YouTube. And I think it's because it builds massive trust.
And there's a difference between 1 ,000 people watching your long -form video and 1 ,000 people watching your Instagram reel. Those are some of the reasons I love YouTube. I know that's quite the rant, but dude, there's still a massive opportunity on YouTube and it's definitely like anyone can still grow.
And so that's what I love about it. And that's why I love helping people with it is like, it's an even playing field for anyone. So if somebody's thinking about YouTube, right?
And obviously I think most of us watch YouTube. So we know. kind of what we go there for, right?
Sometimes there's shows or series or documentaries or behind the scenes or entertainment. There's all these different categories. For the business owner, for the entrepreneur, is there certain categories of video creator styles that we should think of?
Like, okay, I'm going to be talking head news style, or I'm going to be... Podcast interviewing style. Like, is there a core content type that we should be thinking through for the entrepreneurs?
Yeah. So, I mean, I think your question too is like, what would work? Because people want to make it work, right?
So should I vlog? Is that what's working? I see some guys, you know, vlogging.
Should I do talking? Should I do a podcast? The truth is any of these formats could work.
The honest answer is you got to find one that you enjoy. But there's this overlap, right? So you can't just focus on what you enjoy.
It's got to be – there's two circles, right? So you have what you like and then you have what your viewers like. You got to find that centerpiece where if you like doing vlogs but like nobody is watching, you got to consider what does your audience actually like watching.
They might like watching a podcast format. They might like watching screen sharing tutorials. They might want short videos.
I don't know. It depends on the niche. But like – so I'm working with Cole Gordon, for example.
When we started working together, he went to Alex Hermosi. He paid him $225 ,000 to like go there in person, got to meet one -on -one with Alex and he was talking to him about content and YouTube and what he should do. And Cole left and he came back.
He was like, dude, I want to go like super broad and make viral videos. I was like, let's try it. It's like he just hired me.
I was like, all right. Well, sure. Let's try it.
And they were talking head videos, highly edited. He hated making them, bro. And he called me one day actually and was like, dude, I can't do this anymore or whatever.
He was like, I need to take a break. He was like ready to quit on YouTube. And we did one podcast with his friend and he did no prep.
They just loved talking. It's like you and I do. We could just talk like all day long about this kind of stuff.
They sat down. They started chatting.
He just was like, let's just post it, whatever. He was like, I was going to have this two -hour conversation anyways. He posted it.
It did super well. He's getting all these texts from like high -level entrepreneurs. Dude, that was actually really good.
Love what you're doing with the channel. And it led us to like – try doing more podcasts and as he started doing more podcasts he goes dude this is what he goes i could do this forever this and so part of it is figuring out like what could you do long term but you and i right now we're like we're doing a 30 -day challenge this isn't like we're not going to do daily uploads like we're literally uploading every day we're not going to do that forever but i at least for me i don't know about you i'm starting to figure out like Oh, I kind of like the podcast style.
I kind of like the less edited style. Cause I'm like, dude, I could do that forever. Like I, I like just sitting down and sharing valuable stuff without it being over the top and focusing on like crazy animations and editing.
And so you got to find something you enjoy and then make sure like, does your audience actually. will they watch that content too? And you won't know unless you do it.
So let me ask you this because this is like real time right now where I'm at is I am showing up every day and I'm sharing things that I either know or that I'm passionate about. That's kind of my rules to myself. Like, hey, if you're going to show up every day, don't fake the funk.
You know what I mean? Show up, be yourself and share something that's really valuable. And so I've been challenging myself and truthfully, I really enjoy it I'm like dude I could do this all day long like I love talking I love ideating I love doing all those things and so I've been enjoying it but where like where's the runway how long do I give it until I figure out if this is actually enjoyable to my audience or you know because in the beginning there's just nobody there anyways right so no matter what you do it might and I don't know I could be wrong on that but where's the the the, the, the line, the finish line or whatever to, to say, okay, people actually like that to keep on going or, you know what, man, maybe you should get a little more structured in the videos you're talking about because they're not really landing.
Yeah. You know, it's a good question. It's like, yeah, I work with some people and, and they're posting a lot.
And like, they're not getting views. And so, and it could be a wide variety of things. I think for you, you know, you were, you're on day, what are you on?
Cause you started maybe a day or two before me. Yeah. So it's like, I almost wouldn't even worry about views until you got 30 videos posted, whether you're like, even if you're posting twice, like there's a certain level of just, you got to get enough out there.
But to answer your question too, as you keep posting, you do really have to consider, there's a few things on YouTube that work. So as you're thinking about video ideas, if you just go, here's what I'm interested about here, I'm gonna post this, you might end up kind of being like all these different niches on one channel.
And that doesn't work very well on YouTube right now. And people will look at these like big YouTubers that are doing that. But the thing is like they've built up a brand.
And so people are clicking on it for them. But like people do not know who we are yet. And so we're getting them like even on this video, there's probably people who've never heard of either of us.
But we hook them in because we're talking about a topic they're interested in. We're talking about YouTube. We're talking about personal branding.
And so knowing that, if you can choose topics that you know. The people you're wanting to attract, they're talking about it, they're thinking about it. Maybe chat GPT dots is on their mind.
If you made a video breaking down like five use cases for chat GPT dots for business owners, like that might be something they'd be interested in potentially. But then if tomorrow you talk about your faith and family and it's completely different, maybe they're not interested in that. There has to be a balance of...
The hard part with like creative people like you and I is saying no is hard. And so the truth is if you want to grow on YouTube, you can't post every video you want to post. So there's going to be certain videos like, man, I want to talk about this so bad.
But it's like you probably should start a second channel and post it over there because we're trying to build returning viewers that come back again and again and again. That's how you get like skyrocket growth on YouTube. Okay.
So let's walk. Yeah. Let's walk through this in real time with me, right?
Because you're spot on about being creative. The ideas just keep on flowing, right? But help me walk through this live on how do I find the overlap?
For example, I love to talk about marketing. I love to talk about media. I love to talk about storytelling.
I love to talk about AI, business, right? Um, those are just a few of, I would say like my main, obviously I'm a filmmaker by trade. I do media and marketing by trade.
I'm getting more invested into AI and doing more. So that's kind of like a current journey that I'm on that I'm learning in real time. Um, and I just really got a ton of like marketing storytelling type of experience.
So are those all different? Do I need to refine that more or? How would I think through what you just said right now with those kind of topics?
Yeah. So those are a lot of different topics. And if we look on YouTube, I could give you examples of channels that have niched down in each of those.
There's channels that just talk about AI. There's channels that just talk about marketing. There's channels that just talk about video or personal branding.
So sometimes it's easier because I... you're thinking about a person and you're like, I'm making content for this person, but people have multiple interests. So sometimes that does lead people astray.
It's easier to, in the beginning to go, I'm going to talk about one topic. And that's really hard for people like us because we want to talk about all the topics. You know what I'm saying?
So, but the truth is like, if you want to take YouTube serious, bro, you want to choose one topic. And it's the one that you're probably most passionate about right now or it's the one that you have the most experience in. Or it's the thing you're like doing.
Because we could get into this, but there's different ways to create content, right? One of them that would be really easy for business owners is that they just documented things that they're doing. I just posted an hour -long video on my channel of me making thumbnails for Cole's channel.
And it's like – that didn't feel like me shooting a YouTube video because I was just documenting what I was already doing. And so for you, it's like, how can, are you using AI?
If you want to do the AI niche, you know, it's like, that could be one kind of question to filter. It's like, are you already doing the thing? Are you already having conversations about the thing?
Are you already, you could just be researching the thing and using it in your business. And you could reflect on like, oh, this week, dude, I built out this thing. I built out this agent.
It does this thing. I'm just gonna make a video showing it. So I truly believe – like for you, Jesse, I think you should – because here's the thing.
You can expand as you go. Like Gary Vee started talking about wine. Yep.
Just wine, bro. Like a niche in a niche. He was just talking about wine and then he expanded and it was marketing and business and now he's talking about happiness and whatever else, right?
It's like, man, he can talk about whatever. People know who he is. And so it's like right now, can you become the expert in a micro niche so people know who you are in the AI space or they know who you are in the marketing space or in the content creation?
Like you literally could choose different avenues. But for YouTube, you got to choose one.
And that's hard though. So let me ask you this then, because this is what's going through my mind as you're saying that. Yeah, tell me.
I'm in my mind thinking, this is how I'm trying to come up with the answer, right? And maybe this will be helpful for someone else that's in a similar situation, is I'm trying to weigh, okay, what topic do I think will work the most? What topic do I love the most?
And then what topic do I have the most experience in? And not all of them are the same. For example, I have the most experience in filmmaking.
But what I'm trying to do is not necessarily filmmaking. And the people I want to serve are not filmmakers. But my filmmaking experience leads to all of what I know about storytelling.
Marketing, psychology, sales, all these other things, right? So it's deeply impacted me, but I'm not my end user or whatever, right? Like the person I'm trying to actually help is not that.
Now, on the other side, with AI and technology, I'm least experienced in that. I'm growing, but I'm probably most excited and most actively. involved in what i'm learning like i'm learning things all the time and i run a community and meet really cool people that are doing cool things and i would love to sit them down and and do podcasts and that that's part of what i want to do as well as podcasts you know tell me what you're building and tell me what tools and where you're going so that's that's like but that's that's where i'm most excited but but i lack the least of experience and then so and then what i think will work It's like, okay, anything making money, you know, like if I just focused on just building up, but then it's like, you get what I'm saying?
Like there's all these trade -offs in my mind trying to figure out what that one thing is. What is some advice that I can help to kind of sift through that and kind of organize that? So you do not have to pick the thing you're most experienced at.
Okay. And I'm going to prove to you too that like, you could choose something that you're even not very experienced at and how that could work to your advantage on YouTube.
Because, you know, I'm going to take you back to when I was working at Think Media. I came on, we were like 500 ,000 subscribers. There was a few different creators on the channel.
I ended up as like a vlog. I was vlogging Sean, following him around events, editing videos. And then he was like, hey, can you make videos?
So early on, I just started making stuff about what I knew, what I was kind of most experienced at, which was. video, lighting, audio. I was a camera guy.
I started making editing tutorials, but then I started talking about YouTube growth and I, I was way more experienced in filmmaking videography. I knew way more about that than YouTube growth, but I started talking about it, not as the expert, but as just sharing what I've done. So one video that like blew up.
on Think Media got over a million views that I posted was like, I started a brand new channel and I got to a thousand subscribers in like nine days or something like that. So I made a video, how I got a thousand subscribers in nine days. I just documented the journey.
I wasn't the most experienced YouTuber. There was other people that knew way more about YouTube than me, but I was like, I did this thing. Here's what I learned.
And it was valuable to people. But it doesn't, you don't even have to have also, by the way, crazy achievements. you could just put in the work like uh like i could make a video which was like i've made you know 200 youtube videos here's what i've learned um so for you if you're most excited about ai i would lean into that because you all you got to do is overcome that belief that dude there's other people who know more than me that actually so this is where it comes into your advantage is Dude, I get overwhelmed.
Like I'm trying to learn AI and I don't know a lot about AI. I want someone just like a few steps ahead of me who can like speak my language and isn't talking about – I don't even know like half the words they're saying. Sometimes they're like speaking stuff.
It's going over my head and I'm like they're moving too quick. But like if someone is like, hey, I just set up this ChatGPT. It does these things for me and I'm going to break it down.
dude, anyone could make that video who's done it and could just show what they've done. And so I think like, and you clearly have experience in this. You're getting invited to talk about AI.
You have certain connections with this. And so I think if you're most excited about that, I would encourage you to lean into that a little bit more. And like over these next 30 days, as you keep posting, this is an experiment.
So my advice is like, dude, make some more videos, just kind of, talking about AI, reacting to AI, showing what you're building, what you're excited about, maybe just like a thought about what people are making mistakes that are wrong. It could be anything.
But I would encourage you to lean into that a little bit more, especially because like, dude, it's a trend. It's like on the rise just in general, but also on YouTube.
Viewership is crazy on some of these. on some of these channels uh for for ai stuff talking about ai use cases or tutorials you know so let's kind of um go into something else with that and then first of all i appreciate this because this is all real -time coaching for me i'm taking notes i'm writing everything down and i'll be able to reference this video later for some of the advice you're giving me but one of the things and i know you know we we got a chance to spend some time together at a mastermind in arizona has it been a few years now?
Uh, dude, yeah, I think it's been two years. Okay. So a few years.
I was just talking to Alejandro though. And I was saying that we got to do it again. We got to do it.
We got to do it again soon. It was so, but during the time, one of the sessions when we were, I think we were, it wasn't even a session. We were just kicking it in the kitchen and you were walking me through how to find topics to talk about within your niche.
So say let's go with this AI thing. I'm super, um, you know, obviously AI is once again, that's a big niche too, right?
You even got to go niche further into AI because of like, are we talking robotics? Are we talking healthcare? Are we talking, you know, like it's such a big niche, but, you know, specifically if I was to say AI for entrepreneurs, right?
Like, or brand building or something like that, marketing, where would the next step for me to go? How would I think through finding unique ways to show up and create conversations around this topic?
It's a great question.
There's two things I want to share here. So number one, We're talking about returning viewers.
The goal is to build returning viewers. AI is super competitive. There's a lot of videos, a lot of people talking about it.
And so you need to find like how can you stand out? But a good question to ask is how can I come onto the scene and get people to return back and back to my channel? And that's probably by going really specific in the beginning, like ultra specific.
And you'd be surprised. Sometimes when you go really specific, it actually explodes your views even more. There's a few reasons why that happens I could dive into, but I'll give you a great example.
My favorite YouTube channel when I was in high school was this YouTube channel. It was a filmmaking channel called DSLR Guide. Yeah, I know that.
Dude, I watch – like every single video – or every single week he posts a video and I was like – I knew what day he posted and it was like my favorite day. Like it was like – for me, like I watch Survivor every week. I'm like, bro, Survivor is on.
That was like DSLR guy posted. I was stoked. And the reason – one of the reasons that I think I was so hardcore super fan, like ready for his videos to drop on every single Tuesday morning was because – He used the same exact camera that I had, the Canon T3i.
And because he had the same exact camera I had, it was the most relatable video I could ever see. Because not only did he have the tool that I had, but he also was creating better images. It was aspiring.
I was like, he's making it look like a Netflix movie. I'm like... how do I do that?
I want to learn from this guy and he has the tools that I have. And every video he's using the same camera, the same camera, the same camera. And I think how you can do this with AI is if you just hone in on like one AI tool, there's people who have like Claude channels.
And the reason that is so powerful and does fast growth is because returning viewers, someone goes, cool, I have Claude. I'm a little bit familiar. I want to use Claude.
So then the next video is about Claude. next video is about cloud. The next video is maybe about something else, but they're using cloud.
Every video is relevant to them. And so I would start there. You could always expand and like things change so fast.
You might like ditch one thing to go to the other or whatever, or like test it out, but you could like, I'll ask you, like, are you using one? Like, do you have one key kind of AI tool you're using right now? Yeah.
So as you're saying that, what I'm thinking about is, is there a, I get what you're saying and maybe, um, Maybe there's another way to help me think through it only just because being so connected to the tool is kind of what you don't need to be right now. You know, like I do see how that is blowing people up, but the fact that they change so much and I change right along with it.
Like I'm now back on Claude. I was using Astra. the last three months you know um and before that i was on fable i left fable to go to astra now i'm back on fable like and and i just anticipate that that's how it's going to be like that's actually normal if you've been in it long enough so i'm curious is there another way that i can still find a way to niche down that necessarily doesn't have to do with the tool but maybe a thought or an idea an outcome or something like that yes 100 so um I mean there's people who are – the thing is you don't want to look at the biggest people in the AI space and try and copy what they're doing.
You want to look at like how did they get started would be a better idea or to look at some like smaller channels that are up and coming and like what are they doing. The key then – if it's not a tool is you want to make sure why else are they coming back?
There's probably a shared goal or shared mission of like, they're using AI for something. It could be to save them time to grow their business. Maybe they're using it for content creation.
Like you could be using, uh, actually I can think of a channel and it's like just AI, but for, for, uh, content creation. And so he, he tests different tools. He'll, he'll mess around with Hicks field for this and chat GPT for that cloth for this.
But the common theme and the people come back because he's using AI to create images, videos, written copy, et cetera. And so you can definitely do it in that way. And so you could think about like a person or a group, right?
Like I haven't looked. There's probably some channels. And if not, I imagine they would grow pretty fast.
If it was like – well, actually, I know there's a channel about tech for seniors.
And they like dumbed down like how to screenshot on your iPhone, how to FaceTime. But it's like explained for seniors. It's explained for older people.
And so it's like you can choose kind of a people group. You could choose an outcome or a specific topic. And AI is like AI for this or AI for these people.
That's maybe another way to think about it. Because what you don't want to be is you don't want to be competing with the top AI channels just doing like. Because the question people will have is why should I click on this video and why should I listen to you?
Okay, so I'm thinking one step further now. Okay, let's say that I just go AI for content creation, right? Let's just use that as an example.
How committed do I need to be to that? Because I know people get worried about this too, and this is a concern that comes up is like, well, I don't want to just do that forever, right? eventually, like I'm imagining that this is a stepping stone, but how do you prepare for, so you don't get stuck because I've, I've heard stories of people that have started channels over one thing and now they're locked in.
And when they try to do something else or I don't know, is that, do you get what I'm saying? Like, how do you not stay, how stay stuck on this one little small thing? And for how long do you use it to just grow?
Well, let me ask you this. What are you thinking about pivoting to eventually? Or is it just that you might pivot eventually?
Yeah, so no, for sure would pivot. So ultimately, ultimately, the high level coaching that I'm doing is for executives and entrepreneurs who are basically, like you said in the beginning of this video, they're not visible. They're amazing at what they do.
They have tons of industry experience and knowledge, but nobody knows who they are outside of. a very small circle of people. And if they want to have opportunities to speak, to impact, to teach, to raise up the next generation, to do all the stuff that we start thinking about when we get older, right?
How do we like make our lives count and, you know, all that kind of stuff, then they need to become more visible. And so that's kind of my, and I do that through content creation, through marketing, and through, you know, through branding. and helping basically like the the beginning stages of entrepreneurship you know how to actually get things up and going so for example there are parts of like the ai where i could even do like ai for solopreneurs or something like that and it's all about just like ai for one -man bands you know hey you don't need a team here's how you can do it or whatever but eventually i'm just thinking there's other components that i would want to work in there And I'm just trying to figure out like what would that path of progression look like?
The nice thing is what you just explained seems like it's not a it's not a whole different like lake. You know, it's a stepping stone in the same pond or whatever. It's like so the expansion to that makes sense.
Like I'll just show you an example. I feel like sometimes the best way is just to look at like someone else. Let me share this with you real quick.
So. Let me know if you can see my screen here. This is Chris Doe, the future.
So almost 3 million subscribers. When you look at him, what's the first thing that comes to your mind? What's he talk about?
Artist, design. Design. Yep.
Okay. It's funny. When I think of him, I think of like personal branding, but I think he talks about a lot now.
So if I just look at his most recent videos, he's talking about pricing. So I know he talks a lot about like business for creatives, why you're failing at sales. This is marketing.
Two brands have the same marketing problem. Personal branding, getting clients. So it's like business, personal branding, marketing.
It's a lot of different things. If we look at it, and so not that you would be doing this, but I think in the future, no pun intended, in the future, you could cover many, like you could cover AI and we could look at Dan Martell's channel. It's the same thing, like many different things.
that he, that he covers. But if you look at his early days and I'm just going to sort by the oldest, he was not talking about this stuff in the, in the very beginning. It was, it was more niched.
Let me see. I know he did it. He ran it with somebody, but like there's, it was, it was a lot more on design.
So like UX. Yeah. I'm trying to find his like solo videos when he came on doing some of these solo videos.
But it was more tailored. for like right here how i became a graphic designer uh i wish i knew this when i started logo design it was much more about design and now he could just talk about like business and personal branding and so he started niche and expanded so for you thinking about like well i don't want to pigeonhole myself you you won't you're going to be known for this and those people like we talked about earlier have more interests than just using ai for content creation and so i think You should just kind of like right now you're in a 30 day experiment and I think you should, you're going to build an audience and you might, you could serve the audience in different ways.
And in the beginning it might be like AI, like you, you, you could test different things, but, uh, AI for content creation could be like one pillar on your channel. And then you might do something else that like is still for that same crowd, but it's a little bit different. That's okay.
Okay. Let me ask you this because you said something right now that I think is kind of just industry jargon in a way, right? Like we hear it a lot, but we're not really sure what it means.
And I would love to hear your thoughts on what does it mean to serve your audience?
Serving your audience.
So to me, serving your audience is, I was going to say providing value, but. That word is so – like what does that even mean? Right?
It's like – so I would say it's – if I were to dumb it down to third grade reading level, it's being helpful. When I was posting content at Think Media, dude, I was just posting stuff that I – It wasn't groundbreaking to me.
I was like, how to edit an iMovie or how to edit in Final Cut Pro or how to set up your Sony camera settings. These are just things I knew, but it was helpful for somebody. And I never once asked anybody to work with me.
I never asked anybody to follow me on IG. I would get people DMing me on IG and finding me and being like, can I work with you? How can I pick your brain for an hour?
And it's like, dude, I was just trying to be helpful. And all of these opportunities came from me being helpful. So when I think about serving or providing value, building a YouTube channel around that, it's like, can you just be helpful?
And now there's different ways to be helpful. One great way to be helpful is to condense down time for somebody. So you've been running a business for how many years, Jesse?
Over 10. How many years has it been? Yeah, 12 years.
Over 10 years. You probably like, could save me so much time, dude.
If you could just share with me some of the things you failed at, some of the things that worked well for you, things you'd do differently. Like I'm on year two, you know, I'm going on year three in business. It's like, that would be so helpful, valuable, serving, if you just shared some lessons.
Another way to condense time is you doing all this research on what's the best AI tools to use right now. Dude, I don't want to, I don't want to go do all the research and test everything. And is dot better than this?
And that it's like, you could, you're already doing that. You're, you could condense time by just sharing the answers that you've already found out. So those are a few different ways to like serve your audience, be helpful, provide value.
And, and I will say one last thing on that is like, when people think of like providing value, that doesn't mean having the fanciest editing. or the craziest camera quality. Um, it, it, it's more than that.
Like the people think they have to have an editor and they have to do all these things. And the truth is, it's like, no, you just need to be helpful and, and have something to say that would be helpful to somebody. Got it.
Yeah. That's a great point. And I, I'm curious on just your experience.
Cause you've been around YouTube for a long time. And I know that things kind of just go in waves and we're kind of like, I feel like kind of coming out of that, the short form hype where people are kind of just like burnt out with a lot of the short form. And even from a business perspective, you're seeing a lot of people going like, man, I got sucked into doing that.
And I'm not even, it's not even that profitable for my business, to be honest with you. So I feel like a lot of people are kind of like leaving. There's like a mass exodus of the short form wave.
Are you seeing? more value in uh the long form kind of content and also to the yapping kind of content you know i mean i've been seeing like people saying that like and i've even heard people like they just put on things for like background noise and just listen to people talk and podcast like what's your thought on the state of long form content yeah i mean and so the state of long form content in contrast to short form content.
First of all, I think you should eventually be everywhere. I'm not trying to be contrarian or just extreme for like only long form. I think you should be everywhere.
I think one of the powerful things about doing long form first, Cole has talked about this on his YouTube channel. It's like we have an hour to two hour long podcast every single week. And That turns into written copy.
It turns into short form. Like he doesn't have to shoot any short form. He used to spend hours shooting short form.
Doesn't have to now because we have a long form podcast that clips great. And then now what we started doing is at the end of the podcast, we rapid fire questions to the guest specifically for short form. It might not ever make the long form podcast, but we're taking that like two hour shoot time and we're knocking out literally so much content that can be redistributed.
Everywhere. And you just can't do that if you focus on short form first. So that's a big one, especially for people who are busy.
And a lot of the people who I work with are actually running businesses. They don't have time to be a content creator and to post like, you know, like short form videos that are just native to TikTok. And then they got to make something that's, they got to write something out for.
Twitter, then they got to shoot a, they don't have time for all of that. And so though you should be everywhere, that's why I think it's best to focus on long form. And then, cause eventually you can hire the short form editor to just start clipping.
You can hire, and even did their AI even now can do a lot of this stuff with like turning, taking the transcript written posts. I know Alejandro was talking about making some like carousels and dude, it's getting crazy, but it all stems from long form. You're right.
You're right. No, that's that's good. So let me ask you this kind of like moving in now.
We're both doing a 30 day challenge where we're challenging ourselves to show up. My question to you is being a coach and being somebody that has been doing this for a number of years. Why are you specifically doing it?
Yeah, dude, because I haven't been posting on YouTube. And it's funny because like I. You know, I posted twice a week for years at Think Media.
And even before that, I had my own channel where I was posting. I was trying to post every week. I want to post every single week.
But, you know, I built up some subscribers. I was talking about like filmmaking and video stuff. And then I started my own basketball channel where I'd be posting these faceless basketball videos.
And some of them would be getting millions of views. And like it was exploding. I got like 40 ,000 subscribers on this faceless basketball channel.
Like I've always, I've always, not that content's been easy, but I've just enjoyed it and I've been able to make content. And then starting my business, something happened to me, bro, where, which I think it, I think I'm, I'm very looking back. I'm glad I've been able to experience this because I can relate now to who I serve, which is business owners.
It's like, dude, I'm busy. I'm trying to deliver for my. clients I'm trying to do a good job for them I'm trying to you know I'm putting them first I want to have awesome material inside of my school community I want to make sure that like the video ideas I deliver to Cole and the thumbnails and stuff they're top -notch and and it's like I'm I'm trying to balance now being a business owner and posting content and so I fell into One, I fell out of rhythm with posting.
And so I lost a lot of momentum. And then what happened is I got all sorts of just like fear and anxieties around posting content again. And I'm kind of an extreme – like usually I'm more of an extreme guy.
Like I think my wife would say that. I lost like – it was like 30 pounds a few years ago and I did keto. And I think it worked because it's like just – don't eat carbs.
And I was like, okay, cool. If I eat carbs, like I'm out of ketosis. And so I can't do that.
And I just like, it just works for me. Whereas like, I don't know. I just, it made sense in my head because it was so black and white.
And so doing this challenge where, um, post every day for 30 days, I'm just like, it's so black and white. I have to post every day for 30 days and it's going to just help me get my momentum back. Is that the best YouTube strategy that everyone should do?
No. But if you're not posting like I was, And you know you should be.
You have to do something. I don't care what it is, if it's daily, if it's you force yourself to do once a week. Alejandro and I set a bet.
If I don't post, I give him $1 ,000. If he doesn't post, he gives me $1 ,000. So it's like find a way to be consistent.
Dude, he sent that text at 12 .01 a .m. I don't know, bro. That might be $1 ,000 right there.
But no, I checked the video. I was like, no way he posted at 12 .01. And it did say it was posted October 1st.
So he must have posted that thing at like 11 .59. Dang. He was that close.
He's kind of too close, dude. Super close. He's kind of too close.
But here's something that people can do though is you don't have to post daily. You just need something to get you in front of a camera. And by the way, like my videos, I probably spend like an hour a day making my video.
each day so if you do once a week like you could do it in one hour yeah it might not be the best video in the world but if you could just get started in one hour per week making a youtube video like that is like just get started number one and that's why i'm doing it and it might not look like doing it daily another thing you could do is rent a studio literally go rent a studio i did this a few months back and i was like I got to show up to the studio tomorrow.
I already paid for it. And so I'm going to, I prepped some scripts. I shot like four videos.
So you could rent the studio. You could hire a videographer and pay them in advance or an editor, hire an editor, pay them in advance for the month and be like, I'm going to pay you, you know, 500 bucks per video. That's I'm going to do one a week.
And so you're going to send them $2 ,000. And now you got some money on the line. You know, now you, I got to do this.
I'm just burning money.
That's why I'm doing it, dude. You mentioned a little bit about the rhythm falling out and things like that. How does that affect a person if they're trying to grow a channel, they're trying to show up, and they're not consistent?
How does that impact the algorithms or their growth? And what is the level of consistency that they at least need to... Obviously, maybe it's not daily, but...
How does the consistency work in trying to grow a YouTube channel? Yeah. So, you know, there's people who post once a month and they crush it on YouTube.
There's people who, Casey Neistat back in the day, posted daily and crushed it on YouTube. If we look at educational creators, people who maybe are business owners or selling a digital product, a course, community, whatever, the generic best answer is just post once a week. Get people excited that you post on the same day every single week and they get excited for your episode, for your video to drop.
That's bare minimum. Now, if you're not posting at all and you haven't posted. I like to think of it in different phases.
And phase one is build up your library and actually post more. And you're not going to focus on quality. You're going to focus on quantity.
And that's doing the quantity and posting instead of once a week, you're going to post two or three times a week. You're going to spend the same amount of time that you would. posting once a week, but you're going to do it in two or three videos and you're going to get more at bats.
You're going to learn a lot faster. You're going to get better at talking on camera and you're going to try out different ideas because someone like you, they're not sure if they want to talk about AI with this or they want to talk about that or they want to talk about business. Cool.
You're going to post two to three times a week and you're going to do all of it for 30 days and you're going to get a little bit of data. You're going to start to talk better. You're going to get a little bit of the momentum going.
And really overcome the fear of just like getting yourself out there. And then you could start to move into, like a lot of us could get by with one video a week. If you know what you're doing and you know how to find good video ideas and produce a video that is valuable.
That word that we don't know what it means, right? But you said something else there that I feel like I didn't touch on. It's more like do you get penalized?
Does YouTube penalize you if you're inconsistent?
No. No, it doesn't. But I'll tell you what will happen.
Your business will stop growing. Yeah, that's a fact. Now, there's a lot of people who they rely on ads and just like converting cold traffic.
But most people who end up doing organic, whether it's TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, whatever, or even just like LinkedIn or X, They know that they want to like nurture their existing leads. And what happens is if like in my case, I had this big launch when I launched my business.
I made $100 ,000 in the first 74 days. I was posting consistently on Think Media. I got fired.
I then post a video. Hey, I'm starting a business. I got fired.
I'm starting a business. Posted a few videos and there was this like warmth. We're excited.
Oh, something's new happening. They've been watching my stuff every week. Now I'm just over here.
So it's different. But then I'm like, dude, I'm making courses. I'm trying to like get my clients, my students amazing results.
So I stopped posting on YouTube. Well, guess what? Leads stop coming in when you stop posting, whether you stop running ads or whatever, like posting content, it's breathing.
Like your business is not breathing. If you are not posting, you have to be out there. And back to what I said at the beginning, when you're posting, you're doing two amazing things.
You're bringing in brand new people into your world. Every time you post, I guarantee you, you're going to get new viewers and I can look in your YouTube studio and show you that. And I'm getting returning viewers, which is even more powerful because that means someone watched a video, they're watching again.
And I'm just building up that time bank of them spending more and more time with me. And so when you stop that, you don't get any new people who know about you. You also aren't nurturing any of the people who do know you.
So they just forget about you. And so that's what happens when you stop posting. Does YouTube algorithm punish you?
No, it doesn't. But will some people maybe forget or whatever? Sure.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
That makes sense. And for some reason, and I don't know why I believe this, and there's no documentation or proof that I have for this, but I felt like if I uploaded a video that I didn't post, like let's say I uploaded three in a series that I was going to. you know drip out the next month or something i felt like somehow that that would hurt me having them uploaded but not live and scheduled it does that hurt you or no no there's there's no issues with pre -uploading a video and making it do you just make it um unlisted or do you make it private or does any of that matter none of that stuff matters uh like i've had videos up on a channel for sometimes a couple of weeks before posting it.
Especially like I think media, you know, I'd be getting ahead and it's like, I might upload a video. It's like, it might not come out two weeks later or something, but never affects performance. And I'm going to just tell you right now, like a lot of people, when they don't, when they don't know YouTube, they, and I'm just saying this because they just don't have the information.
or the experience. It's like, they think the upload time matters. They think that keywords matter.
They think that the tags matter. And if you should private it first and then publish it, should you go unlisted and get a few people to watch all bro? None of that matters.
I'll tell you what matters. What actually matters is getting people to click, getting people to watch. And then the third one, if we're going to get fancy, is getting people to return back to your channel.
That's good. Those are the three things that matter is that. And what I do with all of my stuff, with all of my students, clients, anything, we just schedule.
We put the video up. It might go unlisted if we need to have someone watch it, review it, whatever. Then we just schedule it, whether it's going out next week or tomorrow.
So let's talk about some best practices for titles and thumbnails because I know that this is a huge – part of actually what wins the click and i know just from my time around you and other folks there's a lot of time that is spent on thinking through the title and the thumbnail if not in many cases more than the actual video that is being delivered at least from the things that i've seen uh how what are the best practices if somebody's just getting started because i'll truthfully in my 30 days so far i am spending very little time thinking through titles or thumbnails.
Most of them don't have a thumbnail because I'm just trying to load it up there. Right. But part of it is also too, is like, man, what are the best practices that can just help me make those decisions quicker than leaving it up to just chance?
First of all, I want to, I'll screen share this real quick because actually what you're doing is a great strategy and you probably don't even realize it. you not having a thumbnail on a lot of these videos is totally fine because they are unedited. So one of the core principles on YouTube is you want to match expectations of the title and thumbnail to the video.
And I'll tell you like with this one, it's a good thumbnail, but it feels a little bit more like an edited type of video. And I don't know if this video is just you talking, but you got to think like, If I were to make a video and it looks like a Mr.
Beast type of thumbnail, it's like people might expect crazy storytelling and editing and all that. Whereas like, dude, I've seen videos, especially in our niche like this, that get thousands and thousands and thousands of views. And it is someone just sitting there talking to the camera.
So that's okay. That just means we're going to lean more heavily on your title. Okay.
Because like this might catch their eye. They're going to read the title. Then do they want to click?
So if we look at like best. practices. You want to match expectations.
But what I like to do and what I tell my students is to come up with your video idea, title and thumbnail first. Now this is if in our daily challenge, we don't have the kind of luxury to do this every time. Some of my videos are like, what can I talk about today?
I'm going to talk about that. I'm going to post it. Boom.
That's fine. But if we're like, I need to attract new people into my world, you want to think about your video idea, your title and your thumbnail first. We did this on Cole's channel many times, like on the podcast.
And we would think about what I would come up with ideas. This is what the thumbnail could look like, the title. And then they would shoot the podcast to align with that.
And so that's the best case scenario. And that got us 40 ,000 views on this podcast. And in our niche, you know, that was great.
So the thing is with your thumbnails, with your titles, think about them first. But I'll give you something really practical, okay? Let's talk about video ideas first.
And then I'm going to answer your question about titles and thumbnails. Okay. Video ideas.
What video ideas should you look up tomorrow or, you know, going into next week? Ideally, the ones that are going to take off for you. They all have one thing in common.
All the videos that do well on YouTube have something in common. It's high demand, low supply. High demand is like you find an outlier.
And I might see on YouTube, oh, someone in my niche just covered this video about like Claude, how to set up Claude in 2027 complete tutorial. You might think, cool, there's high demand because it got a million views. A lot of people like that video.
And so you might try and copy it and make it on your channel. But if you don't do any research, you might see there's like 100 videos on that thing. And a lot of them don't have a lot of views.
And so that means that there's high demand. Yeah, but there's high supply. We want high demand, low supply.
Low supply means making it different, standing out, being a bit unique. And so that's why I like to think it's like go look at outliers in your niche, Jesse, and find like what are some of the big outliers and what are the topics? they're talking about, whether it be around Claude, personal branding, whatever it is, try and identify, oh, when they talk about personal branding with AI, like that got a ton of views.
Take that topic and make it in a fresh new way. Don't copy the title and the thumbnail exactly. So high demand, low supply.
You can see what is in high demand by just looking at... what gets a lot of views on YouTube? What are the out, um, the breakout type of videos.
And then the tricky part that most people aren't very good at is making it different enough where it actually stands out and you like reduce the competition by making it different. And very practically how you can do this then is by using a different format for a thumbnail. You could, um, you could like, actually, I'm going to show you this real quick.
So this is, exactly what I did on, if I go like to Cole's channel.
Oh, hold on. I'm looking up. Let me go here.
Cole. So we took an outlier down here. Let me scroll down to this.
So like right here, we took an outlier that I found about like spending money on business gurus. But I made a different format. No one titled it like, we did this so you don't have to.
That's what I call a format, a title format. And so you could take your own topic and be like, I tried every AI tool so you don't have to. You're taking the format, applying your own topic.
Do you see that? So I knew that this was a good angle because there was an outlier about like, I spent 750 grand. buying courses.
Here's what I learned. I took that idea, that same idea. I was like, Oh, there's high demand here.
This got a ton of views. I applied a slightly different title format and then a completely different thumbnail. And this thumbnail format is very similar to like the seven levels.
If you've seen that trend of like the seven levels of. AI or the seven levels of personal branding. And I took a thumbnail format, a different thumbnail format, a different title format, but I applied this like interesting idea that was already proven on someone else's channel, on someone else's video.
And I did that to make it unique, make it new, make it different. So high demand, low supply is like, that's the method. And then you got to get creative with how to actually accomplish that.
Yeah. You know, so help me, help me walk through this one because, um, I was thinking about, and this is something that I coach other people on in creating content as well is what are the things that are unique to you that nobody else has access to. Right.
And I'll tell you right now, um, there's, there's two big things. There's really three, um, the AI stuff. I'm very connected to the larger tech community in San Francisco, which is an hour away from where I live.
And that is the tech capital of the world. I'm in close proximity to these hackathons, to these meetups, to these new AI startups. And I'm in a community where I can reach these people.
So that's kind of unique, right? Is trying to figure out ways to leverage that. So let's just kind of stay on that example.
What would be a way that I could leverage that with a high demand, low supply? Maybe I could even do something where it's like I interviewed five tech startups and found out the number one tool that needs to be used or the number one skill you need to develop for the future or something. I don't know.
How would I think through leveraging? Just to spit them out there, too, is obviously, in addition to that, I also do storytelling and journalism media inside of prisons, which is pretty trippy, right? That's different, to say the least.
And then also, too, and this is where a lot of people have expressed a ton of interest in this area that I can talk on for a lot as well. is government contracting, working with the government. I have a big background in doing that.
I know how to do that. I know the different things. And I've done that.
So not a lot of people have all those kind of things. How would I think through some of those unique scenarios that I have access to that I could create in a way that is high demand, low supply? Okay.
So first of all, Thinking about your unfair advantage is a great way to create low supply because it's like not a lot of people work with the government. And then how many of those people are making YouTube videos about it, for example.
Right. So. And naturally, like my brother actually posted a video.
He went on Jubilee and like he was one of the Christian pastors debating the atheists. And he made a video. He ended up having to take it down.
They didn't want him talking about it. He made a video that he was like, I went on Jubilee. Here's what actually happened.
It's like how many people, not a lot of people have even been on Jubilee. And then how many people actually make a video about it? Dude.
low supply and then high demand because it's like a lot of people know Jubilee. So you thinking about your own experiences, your unfair advantages is like a great starting point to come up with fresh ideas that literally have, maybe we will make sure they have high demand, but that have low supply. The first question you got to do, because right now you got all these video ideas popping up.
Okay. So first thing we got to do is we got to filter out some of those. Some of those aren't going to be in your niche.
The government contract ones, scratch it off, bro. It's not AI. It's not either in your niche or it's not attracting your ICP, your ideal client profile.
Scratch those ones off. Okay, now you got a few still in there. You got some opportunities.
You got this event coming up. What we do now is we open up a Google Doc and we start writing out titles and thumbnail concepts. of what would it be titled?
Because if it's not even a good title or a good thumbnail concept, it's not even worth making if the goal is to get a ton of views. So when I had my basketball channel, this is me. brainstorming different video ideas uh i found this video it was just a random video but i was like oh i can make a video about like nba players weird health hacks or like taking weird supplements um and i never made i didn't make all these videos I was coming up with video ideas to pick one.
I came up with 10 to pick one. I found this video is like why this bra was banned at Wimbledon. And if I zoom in, you can kind of see like, I was like, how would I make a thumbnail?
That was kind of like the same concept. And this was just like a mock -up, right? Why now this would take two seconds AI to do.
So anyways, what I'm doing is I'm finding like. different video ideas i'm thinking off my head what are some different stuff so you should actually write them out as titles and then see is this gonna work and then as you start thinking like you you made me think someone's done this before right school of hard knocks he's made a ton of videos about like asking millionaires how they got rich so then you what if you took this same concept we go okay this is a proven format what if we take this title format apply it to my niche asking AI founders how they got rich.
Asking AI founders their tech stack. I don't know. You have to make it relevant to your audience.
Yeah, for sure. I get it. So that could be one idea.
And then guess what? You got some thumbnail inspo. It could be you interviewing like, I asked 10 AI founders their tech stack.
And then you just like, that's the video. And you can, there's some like good. It's like proven format, proven thumbnail concept, proven title format.
I was going to share one other thing on your unfair advantage, but I'll just share it with you real quick. Like Kylie Jenner, for example, dude, she posted this video. What's in my Birkin?
Like, I don't know how much a Birkin costs. I'm pretty sure it's a very expensive bag, but it's like, she's using her unfair advantage of having money and using it in her title. And so it's what you're talking about.
It's like, I have this unfair advantage where like, I might, you could do like, there's this one guy, like I know we could make a video. If I just interviewed him for 10, 15 minutes, like post that on YouTube and title it like how he grew his, his startup to X, Y, Z, like that would probably crush like those connections you can use.
Um, so you gotta, you know, you thinking about your, your unfair advantage is great. Every, every creator, big creator does that. Um, and so anyways, that was.
one example. No, that's good. That's really good.
I had another question off of that.
So as you're talking and I'm thinking through and I'm getting the ideas, I'm continually asking myself, how does this go back to the service that I offer? If somebody was to hire me, are they going to hire me to build out AI tools? No, not really.
At least not. in the way that I'm seeing through it right now, I'm doing like brand strategy and, you know, personal branding, content creation, you know, those sorts of things. And so part of me is like, do I then, would I then like have to figure out, re -figure out another offer then?
Because if I'm doing a bunch of AI stuff, which I don't mind, I'm very passionate, I'm very excited. I just, what I'm saying is I don't have an offer to match that. Or does that matter?
Or does that now exclude it and go, no, you have to now create, you either have to change your offer or change what you're talking about? Or how do you balance those two things, what you offer and then what you talk about? So there's two types of people.
The first type of person is someone like me who has an existing offer and I'm using YouTube to get more clients. If I'm me, that's a different, thing I'm going to say of like, Hey, make sure there's alignment in your content, who you're attracting and the messaging aligns to your lead magnets, to your landing page, to your actual offer should all be in alignment.
Now you're in, I think in a little bit of a different scenario where it's like, you're not necessarily trying to get more people to come. like into your video production business, right? Like that's not necessarily your goal with this YouTube channel.
So you just need to look at your YouTube channel right now is I'm going to build it around my interests and the, the, the things that I want to, the community I want to build. And eventually when you, like me, dude, when I launched my coaching community, it was successful because i had the personal brand i had the community there it was built around something i enjoyed that i was good at and so i launched a business around something i enjoyed and i was good at so for you build a channel build an audience around something you enjoy something that you're good at and it's just going to open up tons of opportunities and you'll never like You don't need to launch a business or like you're doing kind of some like one off consulting stuff.
If it leads to that, like just have a link in your description, which is like want to work together, email me here and then you could just see what comes of it. But like eventually you'll probably be you'll probably launch like a group coaching community. You'll probably launch all sorts of stuff.
And then when you already have that audience and all this goodwill that you've given through all the content you've shared, it'll be so easy to fill up spots. So what I'm hearing you say is that unless you already have an established offer that you're driving towards, it's okay to build the audience first and the offer later.
Is that right? Yeah. I mean, what's the alternative?
Are you going to hurry and try and create an offer right now that you could, but also you don't have to do that? you you might actually be better off just like building a community and then the community tells you what they want and you're like maybe they want in -person events maybe they want uh maybe they want consulting maybe they want a like a community online community and then you could build it from there yeah no that's a great point any last thoughts tips tricks for those that are really trying to like dive dive into youtube building on is get started Really just like, and what I'm looking for is not necessarily the high level things, but the things that matter the most that anybody can do.
Any last thoughts on that? Yeah. I mean, just one thing that comes to mind is like a very practical tip someone can take, run with, and have awesome results is if you, instead of just coming up, whether you come up with your title and thumbnail first or you shoot your video and come up with it later, it doesn't matter.
If you can come up with three different thumbnails, Even whether you ABC test them on YouTube or you just create two bad ones and one's decent and you pick the decent one, you will probably get more views on YouTube by just creating more thumbnails. And this is what I've been doing with like I just use chat GPT.
to help me create like thumbnail concepts. And so really easily I can create three, four, five different thumbnails. I'm like, Oh, that's, that's the good one.
I'm going to use that one. Um, or it's like, if I just would have picked the first one that I came up in my head and I'm looking at this one, like this one's way better now. Um, and so just by creating more thumbnail concepts and title concepts, you'll just find a better way to package that video.
And that matters a ton for getting people to YouTube. So in your case, if you're not going to do a thumbnail, just talking head, no cuts, whatever, just come up with three different titles and, and then you're going to read them like, Ooh, that one's really good.
And just like choose that one. But just getting in that practice of like when I was at think media every single week, we'd have a meeting with the content team and we'd look at all the videos going out. It was like four or five videos coming out for the week.
And we, everyone would comment down titles that they, just come up with titles for that video. And then we'd all vote on like the best one and we'd start by testing that one.
And so just the sheer volume of like, I have a video, but it could be portrayed in this way or this way or talked about in this way. Working that in your brain is going to help you come up with better ideas in the future and how to title things better in the future. But just, it'll help you come up with better packaging for sure.
Is there any negative effects of using AI generated thumbnails?
Uh, you know what? I wonder if I know that YouTube is flagging AI video, but I don't think that's happening for, uh, the thumbnails. I don't think you're going to get like a tag that says like AI or whatever.
I think you'd be fine. The thing though, is if it looks AI, people are going to think your video is AI. And I know a lot of people that don't want to watch AI talking head videos.
I don't. I don't. I wouldn't.
And so I was actually, I actually just had a student on a group call yesterday and his thumbnails look a little bit AI. And so I was like, let's make him look not so AI. And then when you clicked into his video, I actually at first thought he was AI.
I was like, is this, but he was using like a. He was using a voice enhancer thing, but it almost was auto -tuning his voice. And I'm like, dude, you got to buy a mic and put it right here because if people think you're AI, you lose a lot of credibility.
And so I think that's more so the – it's not like a shadow ban type of a thing in your thumbnail. It's like I'd rather it just look real and raw because people want that. Yeah, that's a great point.
And I think something that's even more prevalent in today's day. Right. The trust, the issue with the trust.
Yeah. Yeah. Good stuff, man.
Well, I appreciate you taking the time to chat with me. Always appreciate the work you're doing. If you're in the market looking to grow a YouTube channel or really, I mean, I don't even say it's just a YouTube channel.
If you're just trying to grow your business. I mean, I tell this all the time to the executives and to those that I coach. It's listen, if nobody knows who you are.
then how can they hire you? Like, how can you create opportunities for you? And YouTube by far is one of the best places for you to just be discovered.
And I love what you were saying earlier, Nolan, about, you know, just building that community around your interest. Because I think so many people like myself overthink that. And they think that they got to have the offer and the audience and the message and all these things.
And then what happens? They just don't show up. And so if you're just showing up, sharing your stories.
sharing your thoughts like right now that's what i'm doing every single day on this challenge i'm not taking all this time but i'm showing up and i'm getting some views and some views are better than no views so if you're an executive or you're an entrepreneur and you're looking to go deeper and get a structured support on this i would highly recommend nolan and his coaching he's been phenomenal i've known him for years the credibility is there the proof is in the pudding like this guy's got the results he's doing amazing work and he's just an overall great dude so be sure to contact nolan how can people uh find you get a hold of you or or link up with you Yeah, man.
Well, I deleted all my social media. So go follow me on YouTube, comment on the video. Actually, by the time, I don't know when you're posting this, but I'm launching a free school community for business owners.
So if you're a business owner and you're like wanting to learn YouTube and I'm honestly doing it to, I want to connect with other business owners looking to build their personal brand and grow on YouTube. And so I'm excited for that. So if you go to my YouTube channel, you can find a link to the school group.
But yeah, man, YouTube. Well, you better believe this. This thing is getting posted either today or tomorrow because I got to make my quota.
All right. So it's going up. Hey, you know what?
Last thing, you know, we got to we got to find a penalty, though. Did you ever come up with like, you know, I'm going to lose a thousand dollars. Alejandro, what's on the line for you, bro, if you don't post?
Oh, man, that's a great question. You know. i don't know how about you got to shave your head i'm good i'm good uh yeah i don't know bro i don't know but i started before you guys so i feel like i'm kind of big brother in this i'm waiting on you i'm ahead of the game right now so dude you are we'll figure it out all right we'll find it we'll find it i appreciate you brother all right dude
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
The title promises everything you need for 2027 and the first twenty seconds deliver the reason to stay: by the end you will have it all. What follows is less a lecture than a live coaching session. The host is on day eleven of posting every day, the guest is the coach who told him to do it, and every question is the one a real person with real doubts would ask.
How they asked for the click.
MENTIONED ON CAMERA
