424: I Hit 100k YouTube Subs Making $20K/month – Here’s What I Learned

00:00
You’re listening to the My Wife Could Her Job podcast, the place where I bring on successful bootstrap business owners and dig deeply into the strategies they use to grow their businesses. today I have my partner Tony on the show to talk about my two and a half year journey making YouTube videos. Recently, I hit 100K subs and the channel is making about $20,000 a month just on AdSense revenue alone. And in this episode, I talk about what it took to get to this point and what you have to do to actually build a YouTube channel. But before we begin, I wanna thank Postscript for sponsoring this episode.

00:29
Postscript is my SMS or text messaging provider that I use for ecommerce and it’s crushing it for me. I never thought that people would want marketing text messages, but it works. In fact, my tiny SMS list is performing on par with my email list, which is easily 10x bigger. Anyway, Postscript specializes in text message marketing for ecommerce and you can segment your audience just like email. It’s an inexpensive solution, converts like crazy, and you can try it for free over at postscript.io slash Steve. That’s P-O-S-T-S-E-R-I-P-T dot I-O slash Steve.

00:59
I also want to thank Klaviyo for sponsoring this episode. Always excited to talk about Klaviyo because they’re the email marketing platform that I use for my ecommerce store and it depends on them for over 30 % of my revenue. Now you’re probably wondering why Klaviyo and not another provider. Well Klaviyo is the only email platform out there that is specifically built for ecommerce stores and here’s why it’s so powerful. Klaviyo can track every single customer who has shopped in your store and exactly what they bought. So let’s say I want to send out an email to everyone who purchased a red handkerchief in the last week. Easy.

01:27
Let’s say I want to set up a special autoresponder sequence to my customers to pay on what they bought piece of cake and there’s full revenue tracking on every email sent. Klaviyo is the most powerful email platform that I’ve ever used and you can try them for free over at klaviyo.com slash my wife. That’s K-L-A-V-I-Y-O dot com slash my wife. And then finally, I want to mention my other podcast that I released with my partner Tony. And unlike this one where I interview successful entrepreneurs in e-commerce,

01:52
The Profitable Audience Podcast covers all things related to content creation and building an audience. No topic is off the table and we tell it like how it is in a run entertaining way. So be sure to check out the Profitable Audience Podcast on your favorite podcast app. Now onto the show.

02:13
Welcome to the My Wife Could Her Job podcast. In this episode, we’re going to talk about my two and a half year journey on YouTube to 100K subs. So let’s start with, I mean, I think we’ve talked at length about how important it is, how important video has become in the last two or three years. But you made the jump from, you’ve had your podcast for a really long time. You’ve had your website. You decided to jump into YouTube about two and a half years ago. What was the catalyst for

02:43
moving in that direction. Because I know you don’t like to take on a lot of new things. Well, I don’t mind. I just don’t take anything on unless I feel like I can maintain it forever. And that was the problem with me for the longest time with YouTube. Right. Like I had attempted making video in the past, but it would take me 20 to 30 minutes to set up a stupid lights. And then the editing is a major pain. Yeah. And so.

03:10
I would like make a couple videos, edit them and say, there’s no way I can sustain this forever.

03:16
So you had videos on your account before? I did, yeah, my account is actually old, I never, none of the videos were public. Okay. They were all unlisted. So you didn’t make and publish any videos for the public before you two and a half years ago? I don’t want to say any videos. had a couple. Okay. And mainly because here’s how I used to operate. Like I have an autoresponder sequence that has a six day mini course and that mini course is video. So I’ve made video before.

03:46
And then they were all unlisted on YouTube because I didn’t want them to just go on YouTube and binge watch them all. Right. But then I talked to our mutual friend Colin and he was like, Oh yeah, just make them into a playlist, make them public and let them binge watch it because you want them to watch it. And so that’s when I made them public. I can’t remember how long ago that was actually. I think that was the last time we saw Colin. was definitely pre COVID. Definitely pre COVID. Because I can remember the last FinCon that you and I attended.

04:15
which was, I think 2019, and we went to all the YouTube sessions. Because you were about ready to get started and you wanted to educate yourself more on YouTube in general. And so you and I sat through a bunch of the YouTube sessions and I was surprised, I guess, that there were a lot of people that we listened to that were making, you know, 10 to $20,000 a month on videos that

04:45
seemed very, I don’t want to be critical of anybody because there’s a niche for everything, but the videos were not highly produced or one guy was talking about making videos in his car on his phone. I don’t remember who that was. Do you remember that guy? I don’t, but I think if you pull that off, you have to be really charismatic, I think, on camera, right? Would you say? Yeah. Oh, for sure. But there were some people on the panel, like my friend Jordan Page, who

05:12
I think her site is fun, cheaper, free. She might have rebranded, but she just does videos about her day and what she feeds her kids. I mean, it’s in a structured way, and she’s got a great personality, but she’s doing six figures a year just in ad revenue on YouTube, not to mention everything else that can come of that, which we’ll talk about in a little bit. But I think that was the biggest shocker for me, is that these people that were making videos that were not like

05:40
production level like NBC News could still make a good amount of money creating these videos. Yeah, I agree with you. Production value isn’t that important as clearly indicated with my videos. But you have some edit. So you have an editor now. I do. And part of the big hurdle was figuring out a way to quickly make the minimal amount of edits to make it acceptable to my liking. You know what I mean? Yeah.

06:09
And how did you come up? Because you kind of have it. I mean, I’ve watched a lot of your YouTube videos. You definitely have a structure to them. Your edits are you have text coming on the screen and images and there’s some quick cuts and things like that. How did you decide that that was going to be your I just studied a whole bunch of different YouTubers and I found which which style I’d like that kind of matched my personality. And then I.

06:35
It started out with a lot of edits and then I was like, okay, we gotta cut this down because it’s taking forever. And then I came up with, okay, just moving the camera is actually really easy. You can do that really quickly. So basically, if you’re just moving the camera and shifting it and zooming in and out, you can probably edit a video maybe 20 % longer than the video length itself. Then captions are important, I think, just to maintain someone’s attention.

07:03
That takes a little longer, but you only have to do that maybe every, I don’t know, 15 seconds or so, let’s just say. So you jump cut every five to 10 seconds, and then every 15 or so seconds you have some captions. And then the last step with that was just having some B-roll mixed in. And that was easier because there are these free places that allow you to have, they give you free B-roll that you can use in your site, which meant that I didn’t have to fill my own B-roll.

07:33
Right, yeah, that’s probably a big one if you don’t have a lot that’s a big one, yes. So the combination of those things, think, I don’t want to say this because my video editor, she does all the work now, whereas I did in the beginning, but I got it down to the point where I could edit a video probably in 2x the length of the video. Okay. Right? So meaning like if it was like a 15 minute video, might take me, 2x is generous actually, probably 2.5x.

08:03
OK, yeah. So let’s talk about this. When you first got started, I know you did a ton of research before you got started. You sort of found the format you wanted. You worked on a, you know, formula for the actual video, like the jump cuts, the text overlay, the B roll from like the very first video you filmed to today. Like how long did it take you to film the first video? Because I know you use a teleprompter or do you still use a teleprompter? I do. Yes. OK, so you have a teleprompter. That was the other thing.

08:33
That was the first. Sorry. OK. When I first started editing videos, I didn’t have a prompter and I just had this outline. And it would take me 10x the amount of time to edit the video because I would screw up and then I to say something again and then I have to go back and cut it and then redo all the animation to line it up and everything. You know what Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. That was a huge missing piece. Yes. The teleprompter huge because then it’s all smooth. It’s like one long cut, which makes the edits a lot less.

09:02
Okay, that’s a huge factor. Yes, that’s a huge factor. Yeah, should have mentioned that. and what do you, I can’t remember, you’re using an iPad with like a mirror, but it’s, you actually bought a kit. It’s not Jen holding a mirror over the iPad. No, I don’t use Apple products. So I have a Samsung Galaxy S5. You use a tablet. I use a tablet. Yes, I use a tablet. Come on. Potato, potato. Apple will never sponsor me, but that’s okay.

09:28
You use a tablet and what do you put on the tablet? Is that basically like a full script or is it the outline? Sometimes I have the full script. Like I almost always script the beginning because that’s important. Right. And then after that, certain sections have outlines, certain sections have text. It just depends. Okay. Yeah. And so you, did you buy it off Amazon? The kit? I did. It wasn’t a kit. It was just a teleprompter and

09:55
They’re super cheap now. Actually, I paid $250 for mine, but now you can get one for like 80 bucks. Yeah, but you have to have the tablet to slide into it. That’s why it’s kind of… That’s great. You need to have the tablet slide into it and you can get a cheap Amazon Fire tablet for $60. Yes, yes you can. Okay, so that helped you a lot. from the day, let’s just say from the day you started using a teleprompter to today, are you any quicker in the actual you filming the videos or is that… quick.

10:22
Okay. The teleprompter was a game changer with that game changer. I’m done. I can film a video in like 25 minutes, less than that maybe depending on the light. And you talked to about your setup and how it was a pain to get everything set up and you kind of have your setup all always set up now. It’s always set up. All I got to do is slide my chair back and hit record. Okay. And how much of that? I, I know. I don’t know how you fit stuff in there. It’s not a big room. It’s not a big room. It’s literally an 11 by 11 room here. Yeah.

10:52
And how much of a game changer was that for you with the whole process of having the teleprompter, the script, and the setup? That’s all of it. Okay. You wouldn’t be doing this today if you weren’t doing this. If it takes me 15 minutes to set up the lights and everything, I’m not doing it. Yeah.

11:13
I can remember when I lived in my old house and we started filming videos for profitable audience and the lighting was just really strange where in my office, it was well lit to work but it wasn’t well lit to film. And I have all these lights and I couldn’t get them positioned correctly. And finally my brother who’s a tech came over and positioned them and I literally told everyone in my family, I’m like, not touch these lights ever. They are exactly where they need to be.

11:39
Because once they were set up, I never wanted to touch them again because it was such a pain to get them in the right positionings where it didn’t reflect, and then my glasses, and the window, and all this other stuff. So yeah, I can remember that. was like, nobody touches it all. Here’s what, mean, probably real YouTubers will probably… You are a real YouTuber, by the way. They probably won’t like what I’m saying here, but lighting matters, but I think the audio matters way more in the video.

12:06
Like I don’t spend much, I just have two ring lights, one from the side and one in front of me when I film. And that’s good enough. I think it’s good enough. I mean, I at it I don’t say, oh my God, this guy’s production quality is horrible. It’s good enough. And those ring lights were super cheap, but the audio, I think you should pick up like a wireless lav mic, which is actually what I’m using right now. And then you can just, if you want, you can walk around the room and whatnot. Like preaching? Are you preaching around your office?

12:36
You know, I might start doing my videos standing. Okay. I feel like I have like more lively. You more energy when you stand. I’m going to save that for the next iteration. Okay. And when you got, so when you started like actually doing this for real, we’ll say, how many subscribers did you have on YouTube? Shoot, I don’t remember. I don’t. was it like? zero. No, I had enough to monetize. Yeah, I had enough to monetize. But was it like 10,000?

13:05
It was probably around that, I’m guessing. yeah, probably around there, let’s just say. Yeah. So you just had that as like a natural growth of having the other videos on there over time? Yeah, correct. never, actually, you know what? The channel was stagnant. I didn’t produce any videos. It was literally just my six day mini course on there. Okay. Yeah. So you did that. You had, I would say that’s a good amount of subscribers. It is. 10,000. Yeah, I agree. Yes.

13:32
But you had also been creating content in another space for a really long time too. So that’s definitely an advantage, although you can start with YouTube and have zero. So what were the things that you did? Now yours is gonna be a little different because you did have the website, but what did you do specifically to drive people to YouTube? I know you send an email out every week with your video. How else? Did you run some giveaways when you launched initially? Yeah, I did a giveaway when I launched where I gave away a console, I gave away courses and whatnot just to get a jump started.

14:01
Yeah, basically. And did that was that effective? Did you see like a big jump in subscribers or was it? Yeah, I think I got like a thousand something like right off the bat. But here’s I don’t know if I would recommend that. Well, I think I would actually. It just depends. Like if your audience is on on YouTube, then I think that’s a good way to launch a channel. Yeah. But if you’re getting a bunch of subscribers who just subscribe for the hell of it, but they’re not on YouTube and they don’t watch your videos. I’ve learned since then that that could actually hurt your channel.

14:31
Right, right. Because you have a bunch of these subscribers that aren’t watching anything. And then did you, since you had, said earlier that you had enough subscribers to monetize, did you monetize immediately? I did not. Okay. Until someone told me, you know, I was in this YouTube master, and he was like, oh yeah, just monetize it. Like people expect ads and I guarantee you that you’re not going to see any drop off. If anything, YouTube might show you a video more because then they can make more money off.

15:01
Interesting. So when I thought about that, I immediately like open your phone and turn on the ads. Yeah, I did. I just turned them all on. And it was, you know, a little trickle of money. It wasn’t wasn’t anything. But, you know, at least I could take Jen out like once a month. You get to the wind McDonald’s. Wendy’s is too highbrow. Yeah. You had to go to Taco Bell. some nuggets. The chicken sandwich. OK, so now so two and a half years later.

15:30
you’re bringing in a pretty decent amount of money every month. You have how many subscribers today? I am as of this recording 98,000. You’re so close. Everyone listening to this go subscribe to the MyWifeCutterJob channel. Let’s get them to 100K. I’m going to hit it in two weeks because I’m getting almost 5,000 subscribers a month now. I should hit it. then I don’t know what I do when I hit it. guess I just want that plaque. It’s funny. It’s just a stupid plaque.

15:59
that YouTube sent What is the plaque for people that don’t know? It’s a silver plaque that YouTube sends you when you hit 100,000. OK. It’s a silver one. You get a gold one, I think, at a million. OK. Right. So but, know, it’s just like an achievement. It’s cheap plaque, I think. I’ve actually never held one before, but I want it. But we will be seeing all the photos of you holding your silver plaque. It’s just like when I got my patent, I was so excited. Yes. Because that thing took like 10 years to get. Yeah.

16:27
So it had some- So you’re telling me that a patent that you got a master’s degree to be able to produce that you worked for 10 years on will be the same level of satisfaction that two and a half years of making videos on YouTube equals? I think the YouTube one will be more satisfying and let me tell you why. So just a quick update here because this episode was recorded before I hit 100k. But just two weeks later, I’m at almost 100k.

16:56
20,000 subscribers and this channel is now making over $20,000 a month in just AdSense revenue alone. So I think something magical happens once you pass 100K and YouTube shows your video to a lot more people automatically. When I tell people about my patent, they go, oh, what’s it about? Is their first question. And I tell them and they’re like, okay, well that’s the end of the conversation right there. Cause they don’t know what you’re talking about. Right. They have no idea what I’m talking about. But when I say, Hey, I got a YouTube plaque. like, Oh, okay. Oh, I know YouTube.

17:25
My nieces and nephews and my friends’ kids, they’re all into YouTube. In fact, a lot of them want to be full-time YouTubers. So like the last time I went out to dinner, they were talking to me. And they were like, and I was like, hey, what do you want me to take this? Should I tell them how much the channel generates? they’re going to not want to go to college and everything. You’re to be banned from your friend group. Exactly. They were like, yeah, let’s keep that on the download. Just tell them how hard it is and how much of a slog and how much it sucks. I was like, OK, fine.

17:55
Now, we talk a lot on the blogging side and the content creation about how you and I both slogged away for a couple of years before we saw any meaningful revenue. You’re at two and a half years, you’re doing six figures on YouTube now. That doesn’t seem like much of a slog. It’s a slog. Think about it. If someone said you weren’t making six figures on your blog in two and a half years. It took me three years to make six figures. Yes.

18:24
I guess, well, it’s the same slog. It feels quicker on YouTube to me. Yeah, because I started with something. So you’re right. It’s six months quicker. Three months minus three years. I hate math. I hate you. Which is significant, right? Six months is a long time.

18:43
But think about how much time, so here’s the other thing. Think about how much time you spent writing on the blog and all the things you did to grow that versus YouTube where once you figured out the teleprompter and the lights, you just told me it takes you 25 minutes to make a video and then you’re having your so what’s not fair about that statement is that I take my blog posts and I turn them into videos. Yes, that’s true. Right, so the guts of the content is kind of written. It just needs to be rearranged for video, right? Because video needs to be more concise.

19:12
Yeah. So let’s talk about that because a common, I don’t know if objection is the right word, but a common theme that we hear is, well, people know about my blog and then I’m just supposed to put that same content on YouTube. Yeah, it’s a completely different audience. I think most people who are on, who like to read blogs aren’t on YouTube. Yeah. Right. And I think, yeah, there’s a big difference in people that want to read blogs versus people that want to watch a video versus people that want to listen to a podcast.

19:40
Like personally, I don’t like watching video. Well, I know, guess it depends on what, if I want to learn something. do. I have access to your channel. know all the videos you watch. Okay. Well, NBA, fine. That’s different. Michael Jordan highlights, Kobe Bryant highlights, Curry highlights. You like watching videos. to cut you off of that channel. I think when it comes to learning something, I’d much rather read a blog post. Interesting. However, the blog, the blogosphere now is so full of

20:09
crap now with people gaming Google with worthless information that I think you choose better now. And ironically, TikTok is pretty good too. Have you tried TikTok search recently? I haven’t tried TikTok search. It’s so funny. I love, I love algorithms. I don’t like, I love to see what algorithm I get, get in.

20:29
Because I always wonder, like for some reason on Reels, I’m in wedding algorithms and I have no idea why I’m in wedding algorithms because I never would search for that. would not like, I I watched one wedding video. Okay. And I’m also, so I’m in wedding algorithm and I’m in Taylor Swift algorithm.

20:46
Now I love me some Tay-Tay. So like I watch every video that shows up in my like real feed of Tay-Tay, which then is of course increases the amount of videos that I see, but the wedding one I can’t figure out because I don’t watch any of them, but they’re literally it’s like Taylor wedding random, Taylor wedding random. So it’s interesting to me with the algorithm of like what’s going to show up for people, what’s in their feed. And so on TikTok, I actually, before I took my trip, I was in the travel algorithm, which I loved. I learned so much about, you know,

21:16
packing and just kind of doing like what we, not exactly the same of what we did, but I found TikTok to be super educational. Yeah. What were we just talking about? We were talking about the content, right? educational content, which to me, you said you want to read it. I almost always go to YouTube if I want to figure out how to do something because I want to see someone do it. Especially when I was working a lot in the Shopify side and learning how to

21:44
implement some things that weren’t necessarily like standard. There’s always a YouTube video of someone who’s done it. And so I liked it because you could go watch the video and then when you got to that section where you’re maybe like inserting a piece of code or you have to remove something, you can pause the video and like watch those directions like three or four times and then implement it yourself. Just like I just watched a video the other day from Ezra who was talking about this feature on Zipify pages where you can

22:12
change the button to where when someone hovers over it, the button becomes super dynamic where it pops out with an outline. can do all this, which we had been doing. And I was like, that’s actually pretty cool because people could accidentally hover over it and it immediately gets their attention. But unfortunately, he did it super quick. He was demonstrating how to do it. And he’s like, just click this, da, da, da. And I was like, slow down, Ezra.

22:35
But I ended up pausing that video and rewatching it like three or four times to figure out like, that’s where that setting is, because it wasn’t super obvious. so I use YouTube all the time for that reason. Yeah, what I don’t like about YouTube is like I got to watch at least five minutes to get something out of it. Whereas a blog post I can scan in like 30 seconds. I guess it just depends on what you’re trying to do. I that is definitely the downfall of YouTube. If especially if people are trying to get you to watch longer, so they spend the first two minutes just blabbing.

23:01
It’s kind of like a recipe blog post where they talk about their grandmother for 16 paragraphs and then I’m like, I just want to know how to make the roast in the Instant Pot. I don’t care about anything else. It’s not only to be successful, you got to stop doing that. You just jump into it. On YouTube? On YouTube, because you don’t want people to leave within like the first 30 seconds or so. So you got to in the beginning, you just got to tell them what they’re going to get. Yeah. And then you just hop right into it. And you can you can. Yeah. So that’s interesting. Is that what did you start that way?

23:30
You know what’s ironic is I started YouTube creating content that was more inspirational, I guess. And I was like, OK, this is I can’t keep this up because then I got to write new content all the time. You’re like, I’m not inspiring. I don’t have anything to offer. I’ve given my three inspirational speeches. I’m done. It’s funny, though. It’s hard for me to come up with that content. Yeah, because I think it I think.

23:58
telling me this? think Jen told me this. was like, stuff that you find inspirational, people might not find inspirational, but the stuff that you don’t consider inspirational, people like really like. Yes, but I just don’t have the eye for it, I guess. So it’s just like videos of you being like, do your homework, study harder, flashcards, suck it up. Yeah, those are all my videos.

24:21
Walk to the bus stop. And all the Asians are like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, this is good stuff. You had a very narrow, had a very small channel. Very tight niche on that one. Okay, so have you, so that’s like the question is, since you’ve been doing this for a while now and you have a huge database of videos, now you’ve been doing one a week, so you have well over 100 videos, have you modified or changed what you’re doing based on videos that perform well, videos that flop? I know we talked a couple weeks ago in the course about how, you know, sometimes it can take

24:51
a while for a video to pop. And so you were sort of watching videos really, and then like if they weren’t popping really quickly, then you were like changing the thumbnail and doing some, I think you were making some changes, but now you’ve pulled back on that. Like what are some changes that you’ve made?

25:22
It contains both video and text-based tutorials that go over the entire process of finding products to sell all the way to getting your first sales online. Now this course is free and can be attained at mywifequitterjob.com slash free. Just sign up right there on the front page via email and I’ll send you the course right away. Once again, that’s mywifequitterjob.com slash free. Now back to the show.

25:47
I haven’t really pulled back. what I’ve discovered is that the title and the thumbnail is almost everything. Sadly enough, I mean, if you can get someone to watch your video, then that’s like 80 % of the battle. I mean, of course you got to keep them on the video. Presumably your content is decent. I mean, it just has to be decent. Yeah. And then you just get people to click. So I started reading Buzzfeed again. I even like pick up Cosmo when I go to the grocery store.

26:15
Oh no. Because they’re really good at these catchy headlines. Am I going to know 10 ways to lose belly fat if I go to your channel now? I I have a certain image too that I like to maintain like as not spammy too. So it’s like a fine line for me. Yeah. You know, but I think I’ve gotten, I wouldn’t say I have the formula down, but I’ve made the titles more enticing now so they’re more clickable. So my click-through rate has actually gone up dramatically, would say. Ever since we met Jake Thomas, quick shout out to Jake Thomas here, who specializes in YouTube headlines.

26:46
Creator Hooks, right? Hooks.com is his site. Go check it out. Yeah. Awesome dude. Awesome dude. Really. What I like about Jake is if you guys ever have a chance to meet him or like we had him at our seller summit this year, people will throw him out with their videos about and he literally will come up with like three really catchy titles in like 30 seconds off the top of his head. Like he’s so good. Yeah. He’s the one who actually inspired me to change all of this stuff. Like I think the title is arguably more important than the thumbnail.

27:16
Okay. At least for me, like I read the tunnel, like, oh my God, okay. I’m to watch that video. Even if the thumbnail is just like a static picture of the guy. Yeah. So, then what have you learned about thumbnails in general? For me, like I want someone to see my thumbnail and go, okay, that’s a Steve Chu video. Okay. So your face is on everything. No, not necessarily my face, but like the colors, like you’ll notice mine, there’s a bright blue. Yes. In the background of all my thumbnails. So like, even if like,

27:45
you start squinting your eyes and you looked at YouTube and you couldn’t read any of the text, you would instantly know that’s my video. So that’s me just looking at my phone without glasses on? Yes, exactly. Yeah. OK. We farsighted people. Just pretend you’re. Yeah. Welcome to the over 40 world, people. So so thumbnails. So you you kind of have this brand on the thumbnail. Correct. And then title and then, you know, what’s your what’s your video length? You have a you have kind of a system. You stay within a certain.

28:15
I do. Anything over 15 minutes has not done that well for me. OK. And I can understand. Like who wants to listen to me for 15 minutes straight? Nobody. We should have cut this podcast off 10 minutes ago. I would say like make your length at least eight minutes so you can insert mid-roll ads if you want to monetize with ads. But I’d say eight to 15 minutes is generally my sweet spot. So I just watched a Neil Patel video and he told everybody five minutes, which I was surprised about because I had always heard

28:44
a little bit longer than that. I don’t know. I can’t comment. I can only comment on what works with me. I mean, I can see like some other people who are doing other forms of content. Five minutes might be the attention span of their audience. Right. But for me, the people who watch me, they want to learn e-commerce. And so they’re willing to watch a longer video. So then so you’re doing videos that are under 15 minutes focusing on your title and thumbnail. You have

29:14
You’re using content from your website. Right. you know, you’re still that educational content that you do on my wife quit her job. What? So you have ads running. Now, I’m assuming that your ads are probably a little more profitable because of the niche that you’re in. I would say they’re like 10 to 20 x more profitable than your average entertainment site. Yes, for sure. I compare notes with some of my friends in my YouTube mastermind group. OK. What I talk about is by far the most lucrative. Yeah. Right.

29:45
And are there the same types of, I know, I’m thinking of Facebook ads where you can’t say, here’s how to get rich quick. And I know you’re not a get rich quick person, but is there anything with YouTube where you have to watch some of the things that you say in order to be able to have ads, or does not even matter? I can’t really comment on that, because I just make sure I don’t curse. Yeah. And I don’t say anything. I’m not a controversial.

30:15
You guy. Yeah. But you’ve never had a video that wouldn’t have an ad playing because of something. Because sometimes it’s inadvertent, right? It’s not. Oh, I guess if you like talk about sex, drugs or gambling, is that what you mean? Well, I wasn’t saying you were talking about that inadvertently. there so there are stipulations. So if you’re talking about those three things, you cannot run ads on YouTube. I don’t know the rules. I’ve never crossed those rules before. So I don’t know. I do know that you have to be very careful about music clips.

30:44
and video clips, even if you have two seconds, I don’t know what the exact rule is, I can’t remember. There’s a grace period, but if you use too much of licensed audio, you get a copyright. It’ll say, hey, you’re not gonna make money on this video at all because you’re using this. Yeah. What would you use that’s copyrighted music? You don’t have a lot of music in your videos, No, but one time what I did is I played an ad just as an example of a really good Facebook ad.

31:12
and that had music in it and that was copyrighted music. So I got dinged for that video. So I stopped doing that. Oh, okay. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, because I like to pull examples, right? To show people like what’s great and what’s bad. yeah. I’m trying to think of a way you could do that without, I guess you probably could. You’d to turn off the sound somehow, but the sound makes like this is one of my presentations. I always play this Apple. This is like my all time favorite Apple ad. I love that Apple ad. It me cry. It does. Yes.

31:40
but unfortunately, it uses music that’s licensed. It’s interesting because it sounds like initially, you did a lot of things that streamlined the process of creating and producing the video. Then after that, you worked on honing your skills as far as thumbnails, titles, catchier, I don’t want to say catchier content because the content is the same but how you’re presenting it in maybe a catchier way.

32:09
I think the hardest part of this whole thing was not necessarily like the honing and all that stuff. The hardest part was finding a system that I knew I could maintain for a long time. Yeah. Because it’s just a matter of time when it comes to any content, right? Like it might take you longer, it might take you shorter depending on that. But if you’re consistent and you go on for a long time, eventually you’ll be successful. It might take a year, it might take two years. In my case, was, guess hitting six figures took me two and a half years. Yeah.

32:39
Right? I’m sure some people can do it much faster. I’ve seen some people make that amount of money in less than a year. Yeah. So is it, so let’s talk about money a little bit, because I know that’s what people really want to hear about. Is the money tied more towards your subscribers, your views? what would you, know, where would you put that?

33:01
Like, was it more important to have more subscribers to make more money or just have those videos that get a lot of views? I don’t know if I’m the right person to answer this because I never did it for you. I never did it for the ads. I did it for like the leads coming to the blog. Right. Yeah. Like the ad money is just gravy. Like Jen’s like, OK, great. Let’s go on vacation. I’m like, well, no, no, this is funny money. Take me with you. I think the most important part is to get real subscribers who will watch your videos whenever they come out. I think that’s the key.

33:31
And I think YouTube just wants people to stay on YouTube, right? So the longer you get people to watch, the more successful your channel will be. And the ad revenue, I mean, it just just it just tracks that really. Yeah. Now, you said, you know, YouTube wants people to stay on YouTube, which obviously is the same for everything. Facebook, Pinterest, all the different channels. But yet you just mentioned before that it’s gotten you a lot of leads, which is what you cared about.

33:57
Yes. what do you do? Like what’s your strategy to get leads? How are you doing it in a way that YouTube’s not like penalizing you for wanting people to go somewhere else? Like what’s your strategy there? Yeah, actually for the first, I want to say year and a half, I never tried to guide anyone off of YouTube. Okay. Just to establish a channel. And now like I have links at the end to my six day mini course, like to a landing page. And then now in the middle of the video, you’ll say, Hey, if you liked this video so far, you know, sign up for my free six day mini course link is in the, you know, show notes below.

34:27
Okay. Yeah. And, um, it actually converts pretty, uh, I haven’t checked recently, but it probably generates, you know, maybe 30 subs a day. Really? Which isn’t bad. No. So there’s some, they’re going to your email list from YouTube. Yeah. And then they’re, they’re going into the six day mini course funnel. Correct. Okay. I I might need to redo that for YouTube because like my six day main course is right there on YouTube. Right. can literally just binge it. But it’s actually really a 30 day mini course.

34:57
I tell them it’s six days so that’s not intimidating, but really you’re on there for a long time. Join me for seven years as I walk through my journey as an entrepreneur. Psych, you thought it was six days, you suckers. So, and you said you waited a what, a year and a half to put that in there? and a half, yeah. That was some advice I was told, like you got to establish your channel first, get a viewership, and then you can start guiding people off.

35:23
And what about comments and that sort of thing? You know me in comments, right? I know. I’ll watch your videos sometimes, but I don’t ever scroll to the comments. do you get a of comments? Are comments important? What do you do with the hater ones? How does that work? See, I don’t like to look at comments. OK. I don’t either. Because I get my share of negative comments, so I don’t want to ruin my day.

35:51
Because people will call me a get rich quick scammer whatever. But in reality, I don’t talk about any of that stuff. So I don’t think they’re watching the video. But they haven’t watched the seven year journey mini series. mini series. But if there’s a thoughtful comment, like occasionally I’ll get an alert. If it’s a thoughtful comment, I’ll reply. OK. But comments And are you personally replying? Yeah, I’m personally replying. Yes, that’s correct. Yeah. I don’t get that many comments on videos. OK. So.

36:19
If I do, it’s someone who’s asking a question and then I guide them over the six day mini course. Subscribe for my FAQ page. And then, know, part of the mini course is hit reply to the email and I’ll reply. Right. Yeah. So I’m much more likely to reply if you reply to a mini course email than if you just randomly reach out. Yeah. I guess your content doesn’t necessarily lend itself because comments tend to come in controversy. Controversy and storytelling.

36:49
Yes. Right. And you don’t necessarily do that on YouTube. So I can see why your comments are probably more questions. Although I’m going to start I’m going to start implementing more like story stuff. It just takes me longer to create that. Like right now, I’m literally when I film, it’s literally 20 minutes and I’m out. But if I were to tell stories, it would probably take me a while to draft. It kind of reminds me of my last podcast episode. I kind of like chronicled my journey of getting this office building.

37:19
Okay. Right. And stuff that happened. And then like I detail like the tax benefits and what else has been going on with my company, stuff that you might not even know. Actually, maybe you do. I don’t know. But that took me like a good hour to just draft, you know, 18 minutes. Just me talking to a mic. Really? Yeah. So you had an outline for that. I had an outline. Yeah. And then I screwing up. I guess I’m just not. It’s your story. How can you screw? Well, because.

37:49
When it’s not live, I get self-conscious about what I’m saying. Oh yeah. You know what saying? If it was like we’re recording this now, I don’t care what I say. Yeah. Because it doesn’t matter. But for some reason, when I’m doing a solo podcast, it matters a little more. Yeah. I can see that. Anyway, I’m going to start doing more of those, but maybe I’ll just do them like once a month. Because there’s this one video I have where I give a tour of my office.

38:16
And that’s done really well, surprisingly. All I do is I just give a tour and I joke around about like crying into my handkerchiefs and stuff. I mean, I think that just adds another dimension, right? Because usually I’m pretty dry. I mean, I’ll be honest with you. I’m dry on my YouTube videos. know? Yeah, you’re just presenting information. Exactly. Whereas if I just occasionally mix it in with little humor and like something candid, I think that works well.

38:43
So obviously in the dashboard of YouTube, we’ll kind of wrap it up with this. You can see what videos do well. You can see what videos tank. mean, don’t think it’s probably not the right word. How does that affect what you do next? How does that affect your day with Jen? No. Well, OK, how does this how much does that guide your content? Like for the next couple of months, if you see that, because I know you had that one video early on about like how to get.

39:09
wholesale clothing or something? don’t remember exactly. suppliers and then all of a sudden I felt like I was pigeonholed into that niche and then. Yeah, because that’s not really what you talk about. You don’t not talk about that, but that’s not your focus. And that ended up being what everyone cared about. like, how do you use that to guide you, but yet still stay within the niche that you are you have? Yeah, for a while I was like, OK, every time I put a video out like this, it’s a hit. So I started doing that.

39:38
And then finally I was like, I’m tired of talking about this. Yeah. And then I talked about other things and I took the hit. Right. But if you continue on a trail, a different trail long enough, eventually people like you for that. I wouldn’t. Here’s the thing. Like, I think YouTube, when they determine the metrics, when they share your video out to your own subscribers and if it does well, they’ll send it off to more random people. I think that’s how it works. So if you have subscribers that

40:08
have diverse interests. Like let’s say someone only wants to know about wholesale suppliers, like that’s like 70 % of your audience. Right. And then you talk about this other stuff, which is kind of related, but not having to do the wholesale suppliers, but it only appeals to 30 % of the audience. It’s not going to do as well, right? Cause only that small fraction is going to, you know, watch it to the end and like and subscribe. So in a way, YouTube kind of forces you to focus on a topic for how to content.

40:38
I would say. Gotcha. And then you just said, you you want people to watch till the end. I’m assuming the longer people watch, the more money you’re making because they’re going to see more ads. Yes. And then the more YouTube will share that video because it’s watch time. It’s all about watch time. Right. OK. So what does YouTube want for watch time? Like percentage of video? Do they say? I don’t know about those guidelines. All I can say is like for me, the videos that do well, I get between 40 to 50 percent of the people watching all the way to the end. That’s high.

41:08
Seems high. For the ones that do well, yeah. But I would say no video of mine gets less than like 30%. Okay. Yeah. So 30 % of your subscribers are willing to watch. No, 30 % of the people who watch the video people who watch the video are willing to listen to you for the full 13 minutes. Yes, crazy, right? Does your mom know that? I was just about to talk about my mom because I was like, hey, mom, I just hit six figures on YouTube. She’s like, oh, I didn’t even know you had a YouTube channel. I tell you this all the time. What are you talking about?

41:36
And she’s like, okay, send me a video. Let me take a look. And she said, oh, okay. People are paying you this much for this video. And she’s like, this is amazing. Like, I don’t get it, you know? Your mom would be a rock star on YouTube. She would, because her reactions are hilarious. They are. It’s funny. So a kid that my sister used to babysit.

41:59
ended up, he’s a PhD cellular biologist or something. Like, and it’s like, if you would have known this kid as a toddler, you’re like, I’m surprised you made it through high school. But anyway, he started a TikTok channel when he was getting his PhD, just talking about all this stuff. Like he basically took science and broke it down into like really under, he did a lot of cancer research, I think. So he broke it down like, hey, this is what we’re looking at this is what we’re looking for. But he made it like, he’s got a really great personality.

42:25
And he just left wherever he was working and he’s starting his own research company. And so he’s making YouTube videos about it. I’m not a I like science, but I’m not one of those people that watches a bunch of science stuff. But he’s so fascinating with how he breaks it down. I watch all his videos, even though I don’t know anything about cells or, you know.

42:48
So I think if you can take something complicated and make it interesting or easier to understand or take something boring and make it interesting, you have a lot of potential on YouTube because people will watch it for, like, I’m never gonna be a cancer researcher, but I’m like, he’s so entertaining and I feel like I’m learning stuff. I’ll binge watch his videos.

43:10
So I think if you’re thinking about doing YouTube and you think you have the ability to break stuff down for people and make it an interesting way or tell a good story, I think it’s something you should think about as well as don’t get discouraged because I think, I mean think you’re better on video than you were when you started. Oh yeah, for sure. But I’m gonna lower the bar on what you just said. Okay. I don’t even think you Lower it, what? Lower the bar. No. Because what you said sounds a little intimidating, right? You have to up with good stories and whatnot. Well, either or.

43:39
I don’t even think you need to. I think you just need to be concise in what you if you’re if it’s like how to content just be concise and teach someone something. Yeah. This is why don’t do YouTube. I’ve never been concise a day in my life. And this is different advice than like if you’re like a vlogger. It’s like if you’re that type of YouTuber then you could be interesting. Right. Yeah. But for middle aged Chinese folks like myself I don’t think you really necessarily need to be interesting.

44:09
But if you can come across it, what’s so funny? You’re like middle-aged. I was like, where are you going with this? was like, oh, you’re talking about yourself. Talking about myself. Then I’m like, wait, we’re middle-aged? We are, unfortunately. I was at a K-pop concert last night and I think I was easily the oldest one there, but you can’t tell in an audience of Asians, right? They could be like 90. No, you can’t. They’re all like 80, but they look 15.

44:39
But I felt really old at that concert. I mean, the things that you for your kids, right? Well, my daughter went to a movie with my mom when I was out of town and she did not, no one liked the movie. was not, it was not a good movie. And so she was telling me about it and she’s like, and the theater was filled with like middle-aged couples who were all in love. Apparently that was like a huge detriment to her. So further on in the conversation, I was like, well, how old were these people? She’s like, I don’t know, like 27.

45:06
was like, that’s middle-aged, I’m dead. So anyway, for middle-aged Chinese guys like you, what? I think all you need to do is just teach and be concise. You don’t even have to be that interesting and you can do well, as long as you’re trustworthy, as long as people trust you and what you have to say, that’s all that matters. Of course it helps if you’re a little bit more exciting, but it’s a low bar, I’m telling you, it’s a low bar.

45:38
So that’s the call to action. Everyone needs to go buy a ring light, a decent microphone and make a video and see how low the bar can actually be, right? Teleprompter. I’m just going end with this example. Yeah. Go and look up our mutual friend Rob Berger on YouTube. OK, yes. Doe Roller. His videos do really well. He doesn’t do any editing at all. Zero. It’s just him sitting at his desk dealing out financial advice.

46:09
He’s not funny. Sorry, Rob, if you’re listening to this, you’re not funny. And he just gives out the facts and he’s very, like if you ever meet Rob and you look at him, he’s got gray hair and he’s distinguished. Right? He looks trustworthy. He is trustworthy. But he looks trustworthy. And so he does really well. His channel has grown super fast. Zero editing. Go start a YouTube channel. Hope you enjoyed that episode. Now, if you’ve never watched my channel, it’s all unique content.

46:38
Just do a search on YouTube for My Wife Quitter Job and then just hit the subscribe button. For more information about this episode, go to mywifequitterjob.com slash episode 424. And once again, I want to thank Klaviyo, which is my email marketing platform of choice for e-commerce merchants. You can easily put together automated flows like an abandoned cart sequence, a post purchase flow, a win back campaign. Basically all these sequences that will make you money on autopilot. So head on over to mywifequitterjob.com slash KLAVIO.

47:05
Once again, that’s mywifekotodobb.com slash KLAVIO. I also want to thank Postscript, which is my SMS marketing platform of choice for e-commerce. With a few clicks of a button, you can easily segment and send targeted text messages to your client base. SMS is the next big own marketing platform and you can sign up for free over at postscript.io slash dv. That’s P-O-S-T-S-C-O-I-P-T dot I-O slash dv. Now I talk about how I use these tools on my blog and if you are interested in starting your own e-commerce store.

47:34
Head on over to mywivecoderjob.com and sign up for my free six day mini course. Just type in your email and I’ll send you the course right away. Thanks for listening.