09:38AlexanderTheCreate · Tutorial
$80k/month Creator's 3 Hour YouTube Video Workflow
A creator plans, scripts and films a full YouTube video from nothing in about two hours, on a bench by the sea, and narrates every step.
November 12thThe argument in one line.
Experts break through on YouTube by packaging their knowledge around people and topics the audience already cares about, using fame jacking, talkbacks and case-study breakdowns instead of textbook videos.
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
- A lawyer, doctor, accountant, coach or other professional who uploads expert videos and keeps getting a few hundred to a few thousand views.
- A small channel owner who has been told to just keep uploading and wants a faster, strategy-led way to find an audience.
- Someone building a business on YouTube who wants views to turn into clients, products and good hires, not just vanity numbers.
- A creator researching topics who wants a concrete method for checking whether a subject has real demand.
SKIP IF…
- You want editing, thumbnail or camera tips; the video says production quality is not the lever.
- You make entertainment or hobby content with nothing to sell; much of the framing assumes a business behind the channel.
The full version, fast.
Micro fame needs something to say and something to sell, and most experts fail at the first because of the textbook problem: they upload the curriculum nobody is searching for. The fix is to bridge what you know and what people will click by attaching to things they already care about. Anna shows three formats. React to or fame jack a famous show or person, as Legal Eagle did with Suits. Do a talkback that answers a bad take with a clear correction, as tax attorney Jasmine DiLucci did. Break down how a famous business or person rose and fell, as Michael Girdley does. Check demand with outlier tools before you commit.
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Create a free account →Where the time goes.
00:00 – 01:10
01 · Cold open and promise
Micro-famous experts, three video types behind 80% of growth, and who Anna is.
01:10 – 03:00
02 · Something to say, something to sell
Why followers only matter if some are potential clients, and the first stages of better customers and products.
03:00 – 04:20
03 · The textbook problem
Experts deliver curriculum nobody wants; content must teach without feeling like teaching.
04:20 – 06:40
04 · Dairy, Nike and Apple
How famous ad campaigns bridged boring products to icons, giving the micro-fame formula.
06:40 – 10:40
05 · Video 1: fame jacking
Legal Eagle on Suits and Dr. Mike on Grey's Anatomy; top-of-funnel and why view counts matter.
10:40 – 13:50
06 · Video 2: the talkback
Jasmine DiLucci's Montana car tax video, the one-sentence structure, and micro vs long talkbacks.
13:50 – 15:00
07 · Better people join you
Employee and freelancer attraction, from a law firm to Veritasium.
15:00 – 17:10
08 · Video 3: famous person case study
Michael Girdley's walk and talk on the Sphere and Victoria's Secret, plus failures.
17:10 – 19:20
09 · Researching topics with outliers
Using the Lululemon example and outlier ratios, with the vidIQ sponsor read.
19:20 – 20:52
10 · Wrap-up and who knows you
Dr. Joseph's pivot to the same format and the closing idea that success now depends on who knows you.
Lines worth screenshotting.
- The textbook problem: experts upload the curriculum they know, but viewers almost never want the textbook. They want to be entertained while learning.
- Entertainment in education is not jokes or dances. It is the choice of what you talk about.
- The algorithm is codified human interest, so a video about a show 87,000 people discuss reaches far more people than one about disbarment.
- Dairy, Nike and Apple all escaped boring commodity ads by standing next to icons. The same works for a channel.
- Micro fame formula: good content plus fame jacking, and you do not have to pay the famous people.
- Top-of-funnel content attracts a large audience with a weaker pipeline to paying customers, but you need eyeballs before you can get paying eyeballs.
- Big view counts work as social proof even if most viewers never buy. The crowd attracts the people who matter.
- A talkback is one sentence: somebody says this, but I'm saying that.
- A 60-second talkback gives the viewer the feeling of having you on their side protecting them from a mistake.
- Micro fame also attracts great employees, because great people want to work with great people.
- Before breaking through, Michael Girdley made years of textbook videos. He needed strategy, not more discipline or practice.
- To vet a topic, find enough high-view videos to prove interest but not so many that viewers are bored, and check each video's outlier ratio versus its channel.
- A 15x outlier from a plain, boring-looking video is a stronger demand signal than the video's raw view count.
Package expertise around what people already click.
WHAT TO LEARN
Expert knowledge only grows a channel when it rides on topics, shows and people the audience already cares about, not on a textbook they never asked for.
- Viewers rarely want your curriculum; they want to learn while being entertained, and the entertainment comes from the topic you choose, not jokes or editing.
- Attach your expertise to a famous show, business or person so the algorithm can show you to people already watching that subject.
- Top-of-funnel videos attract strangers, and large view counts act as social proof that draws in the smaller group who actually hire or buy.
- A talkback corrects a bad take in one sentence of structure, and it builds trust by showing the viewer a mistake you would protect them from.
- A famous person or business case study turns research into a reliable, repeatable video, and it works as a simple walk and talk.
- Validate a topic by checking outlier scores on existing videos: enough proof of interest, but not so many videos that the topic is stale.
- A growing audience also attracts better customers and better hires, so micro fame pays off beyond the product you sell.
Terms worth knowing.
- Micro fame
- A small but valuable audience, often tens of thousands of followers, where a share of viewers are potential clients, customers or hires.
- Textbook problem
- When an expert uploads the full curriculum they know, which viewers do not want, instead of content built around what people already click on.
- Fame jacking
- Making videos about famous people, shows or businesses so their existing audience finds your channel while you teach your own expertise.
- Talkback
- A video that responds to someone else's claim or bad advice, structured as 'somebody says this, but I'm saying that'.
- Outlier score
- How many times a video's views exceed the typical views for its channel, used to spot topics with real audience interest.
- Top of funnel
- Light, entertaining content that attracts a huge audience but has a weaker pipeline to paying customers.
Things they pointed at.
07:00channelLegal Eagle
08:40channelDoctor Mike
14:40channelMichael Girdley
Lines you could clip.
03:10
“Content basically has to teach people without making them feel like they're being taught.”
07:30
“The algo is essentially just codified human interest.”
12:30
“Somebody says this, but I'm saying that.”
20:10
“Success used to be based on who you know, but now it's who knows you.”
Word for word.
Read-along
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Some of the most successful channels on YouTube are people you've never heard of. They're not using fancy editing or filming setups. They're not using some complicated AI growth system.
Most of them don't even have a million subscribers. But their channels are thriving because of micro fame. And the one thing they all have in common is that they're just humans with valuable information who figured out how to translate their expertise at scale by uploading YouTube videos.
Now, a lot of people talk about how you have to make hundreds and hundreds of videos just to get good at YouTube, but that is 100 % not true. There are actually three types of videos that are responsible for 80 % of people's growth, no matter what kind of content they make. So today, I'm going to break down those three types of videos, explain why they work, and most importantly, show you real examples of YouTubers using these videos to actually break through and grow their channels.
If you're new here, my name's Anna, and I like to analyze YouTubers and pinpoint the factors behind their success. And if you're trying to become micro -famous, there's basically two things that you need. You need something to say and something to sell.
Something to say is the content part. It's how people are going to find you. And in this video, we're only going to talk about that part.
But the reason you need something to sell is because what makes micro -fame valuable is not the number of followers you have. If you have 80 ,000 followers and no business, you're probably going to be poor. However, if you have 80 ,000 followers and a percentage of those people are potential clients, you're going to be rich.
It's as simple as that. Because when you start to build up an audience, three things are going to happen. Stage one is you're going to start getting better customers.
People who watch your content and start to trust you are going to want to hire you or work with you. And when people start doing this, almost nobody thinks that's going to actually work. The Internet's favorite psychiatrist, Dr.
K, had a ridiculously low goal when he started out. So I was like, OK, if at the end of one month I've got five people, that would be great if five people are watching. And that was a win for me.
right so instead of working with one person if i'm teaching five people like great fantastic done like that but if you have something to say people are going to listen and if they listen they're going to want to work with you and you have no idea how many people that could actually end up being how many clients are being served uh about 3 000 a month wow maybe wow stage two is that you're going to create a product so that you're no longer selling your time for money You take one of the most popular lawyers on YouTube, he's got a bunch of businesses.
And there's actually a third thing that's going to happen when you become micro -famous, but I'll talk about that in a bit. Now, obviously, both these examples are pretty big channels, but they both started off with micro -fame. And more importantly, they use the exact same techniques that all of these smaller YouTubers used.
Before we get into the three types of videos, let's talk about the number one mistake that holds people back. Because if you can avoid making this mistake, you're literally going to save yourself years and years of time. And more importantly, it's what's going to prevent you from having to make hundreds and hundreds of videos just to break through and grow your channel.
So over the past year, we've worked with people from a bunch of different industries to the point that YouTube doesn't know whether to show me videos about blood pressure or videos about cybersecurity. And even though these people are all from completely different industries, they all make the same mistake when they start uploading content.
And it's what we call the textbook problem. And it's not just them. Most of the YouTubers I'm going to talk about today made the exact same mistake when they started uploading.
So what happens when you're an expert is that if you're at all competent, you know a ton of stuff. You went to medical school for years or you spent a decade giving people financial advice and you have a ton of experience. And so what happens when they go to upload content is that they want to deliver that textbook.
They want to share all that valuable information that they have with people. But the problem is, is that people watching YouTube almost never want that textbook. what they want is to be entertained and entertainment does not mean that they don't want to learn school makes us think that we hate learning but humans actually love learning it's in our biology our evolution so what that means is that content basically has to teach people without making them feel like they're being taught and that's basically the difference between entertainment and education okay so the content has to be entertaining but the way that you entertain people is not what most people think it's not about trying to crack a joke or do some embarrassing tick tock dance It's really not about what you say at all.
It's about what you choose to talk about. So there's basically eight types of videos that you can use to build micro fame, but they all work for basically the same reason. They bridge the gap between what you want to talk about and what people will actually click on because they think they're interested in it.
I'm just going to break down the easiest, most reliable one of those eight. And even though YouTube is not that old, the strategy that it uses has been around for decades. So we're going to talk about advertising because micro fame is sort of about making content, but it is also sort of marketing.
And one of the best ad campaigns of all time started out in an industry that had horrifically boring ads. So in the 60s and 70s, the dairy industry was putting up ads that looked like this. The thing is, everybody already knows that milk has vitamins and nutrients.
It's just a fact. You either believe it or you don't. But then they started making ads that looked like this.
And this. And it became not only one of the most iconic ad campaigns of all time, but the longest running. Nike's story looks the exact same.
This is what their ads used to look like. It's just a boring sneaker. You're either going to buy it or you're not.
But then they teamed up with an icon, and their brand went from being a commodity to one of the most well -known brands in history. And lastly, one of Apple's most famous ad campaigns copied the exact same strategy. I'm pretty sure none of these people have even used a computer before, but Apple put up their logo next to these famous people and basically let people do the math.
So this basically gives us a formula for micro fame. The easiest way to get famous is to... be adjacent to famous people.
Now, you do need one other thing. For micro fame to work, you need good content. You need something to say.
So for example, let's say someone watches a Dr. K video where he explains ADHD better than they've ever heard it be explained before. And then they go, oh, I want that dude to be my therapist.
That's the difference between micro fame and scrolling through a bunch of rando therapists on BetterHelp. but the reason millions of people actually know dr k is not just because he had good information it's because he picked the right topics to cover so the formula for micro fame is basically good content plus fame jacking and lucky for you you don't even have to pay the famous people so let's get into the three types of videos people talk a lot about hacking the algorithm and 99 of it is however the way that legal eagle broke through is that he did actually figure out how to hack the algorithm So in the beginning, he was making pretty, no offense, but boring content.
And I mean, he was trying to sell his law school prep content. So I actually do understand why he was making videos like this. But the problem is when the algo goes to show your video to someone, the way that they know who to show it to is that they show it to people who have watched videos about a similar topic before.
And the number of people who come home on a Friday night and want to watch videos about commercial supplements and outlines in law school is about a couple hundred to a couple thousand. And I'm not saying you should never make content like this. These types of videos do actually play a role in developing micro fame.
But the fastest way to actually break through is to do what Legal Eagle did here in this video. You know, most firms would put you in front of the bar and have your license stripped. You lied to a client and he figured it out.
Yes, exactly. Don't lie to a client. You should not lie to a client and defraud them.
So even though he's reacting to the TV show Suits, over the course of the video, he actually gets into all kinds of technical legal things. As a subpoena to the other side and signs it, he has effectively pretended to be an attorney, which would get basically all of them disbarred, especially except maybe witness tampering if that is an actual criminal crime.
No normal person. cares about disbarment or witness tampering just as an example here are the results for disbarment on reddit these are the top results however if you look at the reddit results for suits it's actually one of the most popular tv shows of all time 87 000 people want to talk about suits that's crazy So this is what it means to teach people without being taught.
Even though people have no interest in disbarment, they absolutely want to hear someone break down their favorite show. So the way that he hacked the algorithm is that the algo is essentially just codified human interest. So when Legal Eagle makes a video about suits and Fainjacks that, The algo goes, oh, I know who I'm going to show this to.
I'm going to show it to all of the people who have watched stuff about suits before. So the fastest way to get eyeballs is not always to talk directly about whatever it is you're making content about. It's to talk about stuff that everyone is interested in and then other people come over and they see it and they go, oh, this guy could actually help me with my law school prep or my legal case or whatever.
And by the way, Dr. Mike used the exact same strategy. because i was someone who never watched grey's anatomy it always made me mad so why would i watch that that's it's inaccurate i'd be fueling more misinformation and then i had a med student rotating with me and he said you got to do that did my first grey's anatomy video and it exploded like absolutely exploded the channel completely changed trajectories actually like a month before that i got fired by my mcn so if you watch any social media guru content at all you've probably heard about funnels before and there's basically three types of content you have top of funnel middle funnel and bottom of funnel and these are basically just three different tactics for developing micro fame top of funnel is the easiest way to find people it's what legal eagle and dr mike were doing it's pretty light it's heavy on the entertainment it attracts a huge audience but it does have a weaker pipeline to actual paying customers who want your help so a lot of experts will tell you that you shouldn't make top of funnel content that you know you should niche down and find your ideal customer and that view counts are just vanity metrics etc but realistically you need eyeballs
before you get paying eyeballs. The vast majority of people who watched this Legal Eagle suits video do not need law school prep and they probably don't need a lawyer either. But that's okay.
Because the thing about YouTube is we spend a lot of time focusing on packaging strategy and how to make as good a video as possible. But that's just because those are the things that we have control over. But the view count actually communicates a lot to people.
If I go outside right now and I see this. i'm gonna look up it's just psychology and so that's what a view count does for a channel micro fame does need some big view counts even if most of those viewers are never going to become your customers because the crowd itself is basically what attracts the people who matter but back to our list of videos so this is now one of the most popular accountants on youtube but when she started out she had no faith in youtube at all i was already practicing for over a decade And then I look up online and there's just like these hooligans saying the craziest, most illegal things online.
And I don't know, I just couldn't believe it. And so I started posting videos that I really didn't have a plan when I started posting videos. Like I don't even practicing for 10 years.
You know, I didn't think it would, I literally didn't think it would realistically attract good clients, you know, but. And this is the video that completely changed the trajectory of her channel. Here's something I found out.
Last summer when I bought my years sales tax. Now the sticker price is nothing compared to the final bill of sale because the sales tax is super expensive. It cost me an extra $20 ,000.
Now something I found out through that lesson was if I could purchase a vehicle in Montana. Why? Because there's zero sales tax.
Here's something I found out from being a tax attorney. If you buy a car in Montana and then drive it back to your home state. You owe use tax in your home state at the exact amount that you would have paid had you just paid the sales tax in your home state.
So the next time this guy recommends tax evasion, he shouldn't document it on social media. And for more accurate tax advice from a tax attorney, subscribe. When you walk into a public arena and say that someone's dumb, that's a baller move.
And Jasmine here did that again and again. We call this video a talkback, and it's one of the most effective ways to not only grow your channel, but to find people who actually want your help. It basically comes down to two reasons.
Number one, it's entertaining. There's a huge WWE component to watching someone completely obliterate someone else's dumb ideas. But number two, it establishes trust.
In this video, she becomes someone who's protecting the viewer. Here's a mistake you could have made, here's why it could have hurt you, and here's how to avoid it. So in 60 seconds, she's basically giving you the feeling of what it would be like to have her on your side advising you and helping you.
And that's why a talkback video is one of the best ways to not only grow your channel, but to find the right people. Jasmine here did a micro talkback, but you can also do 15 minute long talkbacks, you can do hour long talkbacks. This YouTuber here did a talkback to an entire subject, skincare videos on YouTube, and it became his most popular video of all time.
I'm a dermatologist, and what I'm about to tell you regarding the skincare industry is probably gonna shock you. 99 % of the skincare world is absolute . In this video, I'm going to explain to you why there's almost...
So whatever you talk about, the simple structure of a talkback comes down to a single sentence. Somebody says this, but I'm saying that. We're actually building a course around how to write your own talkback video.
And if you want to sign up to the beta round, there is a waitlist link below. So what's cool about Jasmine is that when she became micro -famous, she not only got better customers, she got something else that was even more valuable. Because of social media, I would say what's even more important than the clients it's brought in is the people, the employees that I've been able to attract.
And that's been critical. And when I look at it today, it's like, it's crazy. We have such an amazing team.
And it's like, so I have so many people that just like are all in. like, do whatever it takes, are just experts in their field, like, move with such speed. And, you know, it's one of those limiting thoughts you have when you're an earlier firm.
You think, you know, no one's going to care as much as me. Like, no one really, I don't know, no one really cares. They're not going to be as good.
The same thing happened to Veritasium. Animators Ivy and Fabio, I got through cold emails. What did you say?
I said, are you looking for someone to come to the animations? Ivy sent me an email saying, I've seen your animations and I think I can do better. Your animations are the best.
I was like slightly offended reading the email, but I was also like, well, if you think you can do better, let's see it. We also got our first intern, Casper, through a cold email. And we said, yes.
No, you said no. We said no? You were like, we can't do that right now.
but would you like to research, write, and produce a video as a freelancer? And this is the third thing that happens to almost everyone who becomes micro -famous. Great people want to work with great people.
The next strategy is what we use to grow our channel. It's what allowed us to get 100 ,000 views on our third video. It's how we monetize our channel later that month.
And it's how we found all of our clients. The formula is ridiculously simple. You pick a famous person and you explain.
how they became famous, what they do well, etc. Now, the downside is that it does require some research. But it's such a great way to break through because even though nobody had a clue who we were, they watched Veritasium, they liked Chris Williamson, Diary of a CEO, Theo Vaughn, and so that's why they clicked.
So let's break down someone else who was even more successful with this strategy. Before Michael broke through, he was grinding. For years and years, he was making a ton of videos.
this is why i hate the just keep uploading advice michael did not need discipline or consistency he was good on camera from basically day one so something i learned when i was running a business is i thought i had pretty unique problems as i did more and more business i discovered people have already gone and solved all of these problems he did not need practice he needed strategy he needed to go from making textbook videos to making something that people would actually click on which is exactly what happened in this video here.
Do the math there. 17 ,000 people times that amount of money per ticket? That's pretty fast.
It's a shit ton of money. And the problem is the sphere isn't making any money. In fact, in its first year of operation, it lost over $100 million.
Not good. The story to explain why... This is an incredibly simple video to make.
It's basically just him doing a walk and talk, explaining the rise and fall of a business, which is something that he's super knowledgeable about because he's a guy with years and years of experience in this industry. Now, he still had failures. The Victoria's Secret video here did not perform nearly as well.
And this is where fame jacking does get a little bit more complicated. You can't just talk about anything, even if it is... famous.
You gotta pick the right TV shows, the right businesses, the right influencers to talk back to. And one of the best ways to research this is to just look at what other videos have been made about topic.
So you want enough videos with strong enough view counts to show interest in a topic but not so many videos that have been made that suggests that people are probably getting bored with it. Personally my favorite way to research this is to install an extension that tells you the subscriber to view count ratio because the problem is when you look up a topic there'll be a ton of videos with high view counts but you don't know if it's just a big channel that gets large view counts on a regular basis or whether this actually indicates that people are especially interested in this topic.
So for example, let's take Michael's most popular video in the last month or so. It was the rise and fall of Lululemon. So the question is, would there be a way of telling whether people were actually interested in this topic before he even made this video?
So if we type in Lululemon business to YouTube we can start looking at the results This video here came out a month before Michael's video and it looks like honestly a pretty boring video. However We can actually see that it was a 15x outlier Which suggests that it might have been a topic that people were more interested in it could mean that it was just an exceptionally well -made video as well But this is starting to form a data point for us.
And then we've got another video here similar vibe pretty technical looking. However, it was a 5x outlier for him.
This guy had a 3x outlier. If you want to replicate this yourself, the extension that I use is vidIQ. They were actually kind enough to reach out and offer to sponsor today's video.
I've actually been using vidIQ for years now, but a couple of months ago, I connected vidIQ to my chat GPT, and now I can just type in and basically ask, were there any outliers about this topic in the last month or three to four months? And it's become the simplest way to research any topic I think about making. So vidIQ is offering you a 30 -day membership for a dollar.
i guarantee you it will be the best roi on a dollar you ever spend on your channel link below so this psychiatrist here did the exact same thing he was making textbook content and i don't want to sound like a broken record here but this is how pretty much everyone starts out so he was getting a thousand views three thousand one thousand nine hundred seven hundred so you can literally save yourself hundreds and hundreds of videos and years and years of time if you just skip making this content and make one of the three videos or all three of the videos that I talked about here today.
So in Dr. Joseph's case, the way that he actually broke through is by using the same fame jacking case study breakdown technique that Michael used. And if you look at his most popular videos, almost all of them fall into this format.
So even though these videos are packaged around the celebrity, he gets out all of the same information that he was trying to get out in his textbook videos. These are not superficial videos in any way. These are densely packed with information and ideas, but instead of trying to get people to click on the technical components of a drug, which is what he was doing in his earlier videos, he meets people where they're at, which is, I'm interested in this celebrity and the recent challenges that they've had, and so then they click to watch.
For most of history, if you wanted to move up in the world, you needed to know the right people. The fancy school where you networked, the publisher who gave you the book deal, the boss who finally recognized your potential. Success used to be based on who you know, but now it's who knows you.
Your mom probably thinks influencer is some 19 -year -old trying to sell you face cream. But influence is not actually a superficial word. It's one of the most honorable traits a person can have.
It's the power to shape other people's opinions. And some of the most notable figures in history have been influencers. And today, some of the most influential people in every single field are the people with YouTube channels.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
Some of the most successful channels on YouTube belong to people you have never heard of, and Anna says three video types drive 80% of their growth. The promise is that you can skip hundreds of practice videos by avoiding the textbook trap.
Named ideas worth stealing.
06:30model
Micro fame formula
- Good content
- Fame jacking
Good content that you can back up, plus attachment to people or topics the audience already follows.
Steal forany expert channel
06:40list
Three growth video types
- Fame jacking / react
- Talkback
- Famous person case study
The three formats responsible for most breakout growth in the examples shown.
Steal forplanning a channel's first ten videos
12:30concept
Talkback structure
Somebody says this, but I'm saying that.
Steal forshort corrective videos
09:20list
Funnel layers
- Top of funnel
- Middle of funnel
- Bottom of funnel
Three tactics for building micro fame, with top of funnel the easiest to attract strangers.
Steal forbalancing a content calendar
How they asked for the click.
VERBAL ASK
12:40product
“We're actually building a course around how to write your own talkback video. Sign up to the beta round, there is a waitlist link below.”
A brief mid-video mention right after the format is explained, plus a vidIQ sponsor read around 18:36.
MENTIONED ON CAMERA
Visual structure at a glance.
