Building a Business vs Building a Channel | Ep. 6

Are you building a real business or just building a YouTube channel? This is is one of the hardest questions I had to tackle years ago when I was learning what building an online business really meant… and spoiler alert: a YouTube channel is only PART of a business. Let’s dive into episode 6!

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Transcript

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Meredith  0:00  
just how big of an audience do you actually have to have on YouTube before you can start making money? And what keeps content creators broke? Because YouTube is the most powerful way to build your audience online. Of course, it's one of my favorite topics. But YouTube is really only one piece of a bigger business puzzle. And if you want to make revenue from your efforts on YouTube, don't make the mistake of thinking that a business is going to build itself out of your channel. So are you building a business? Or are you just building a YouTube channel? We're gonna talk about it here on episode six of the video brand infusion podcast. My name is Meredith Marsh, and I'm here to help you infuse the best video marketing strategies into your business for consistent revenue without paying for ads or constantly selling or cold pitching in the DMS. does that even work because every time I get a cold DM from somebody, I'm like, oh, anyway, I have a special guest. And here's my disclaimer, I interviewed this guest a couple of years ago. And I'm cutting to a few key components from that interview that I did with my business mentor, James Wedmore. And I know that I mentioned James, in the last episode briefly. This is not meant to like be the James show or anything like that. But when I was putting the ideas together for this episode, and what I wanted to talk about, I know, I knew I can't leave out some of these more critical components to how my business generates consistent revenue with YouTube. And James teaches one of these components in a way that I could never even come close. So there's just no way that I could talk about business and YouTube and keep these key critical components hidden from you like that wouldn't make sense. I want to be extra clear here. If you're watching this video, rather than just listening to the audio, you're going to notice it looks a little bit different, because I'm interjecting this into the episode while I'm editing it. So my lights aren't on or anything like that. This is going to be a few snippets from a conversation I had with James three years ago. But I went back and listened to that conversation. And there are some things that he said that are so relevant to this conversation that I want to make sure I include them here. So it's not really a back and forth conversation that you're going to hear. But you'll hear a little bit of me, and then you'll hear a little bit of James, and then I'll come back in at the end. First, I want to talk about how big does your YouTube audience need to be in order for you to start generating revenue with your own courses, programs and digital products? Because I think the answer might surprise you. Here's James,

Speaker 1  2:57  
yeah, great question. That I want to dispel that people think that there's supposed to be this milestone that you hit before you can or should be making money or selling thing. And I really want to dispel that because the trap that we run into so many of us. And I found myself here was we operate from a permission based paradigm, which is we're waiting we want to see if we are a lot of people are I was we're waiting for permission for someone to tell us to follow our dreams, and do the thing that we want to do or monetize our idea. And until that happens, we're just sitting on the sidelines waiting for someone to come by and say okay, and that's really understandable. Because if you look at the majority of our life, that's kind of how life set us up for. You can't ask a question unless you're called upon. You can't go to the bathroom until the teacher tells you to, you can't get to the next class until they say okay, you've passed this class. And on it goes for a predominant amount of time in our life. But entrepreneurship the moment we say I'm gonna do my own thing and become an entrepreneur. You can't be operating from that permission based paradigm because you'll be sitting around waiting forever. And so that's, you know, that's the first aspect is how much have you not getting the results you want is simply based on you're waiting for someone to tell you it's your time. It is your time. But as always was your time. And now is the time and the time is now. So what are we waiting for? And so when people say I don't have a big enough audience, or maybe I need to build my thing first or more, whatever, you can if you want, but you don't need to.

Meredith  4:38  
There are so many different business models that include YouTube. Right? And I think there is there some overlap here. But I think what I keep running into myself what I've been running into really honestly for the last nine years Is the allure of having multiple revenue streams. Passive in quotes revenue streams is pretty strong. When it comes to YouTube, you have AdSense revenue, you have affiliate revenue, you have the ability to work with brands and get paid to do that you have other opportunities that may come your way. And for some creators on YouTube, their business really is YouTube, it really is their YouTube channel. And the job of the channel is to generate as many views as they can and grow the audience as big as they can. So that they provide more value to the platform, which means they get more AdSense revenue, and they provide more value to brands that want to work with them. And so they get paid more for their brand deals. And they get, they provide more value to the audience and to the brands. So brands, send them products to do their product reviews when they have new products that launch and that type of content, at least in my world. And from my perception, that type of content creator is everywhere, to the point where it seemed when I first started my channel, like that's the only way to generate revenue with YouTube. Even though in the back of my mind, I also wanted to create like a course or a program or something like I knew that was something I wanted to explore. And, of course, everyone wants to have 17 streams of revenue. That sounds amazing, right? But then you have 17 different bosses, if you will, you have 17 different strings that are being pulled every which direction and the fact that you're creating content, and you're putting so much time and energy into your videos. And then waiting to monetize waiting until somewhere down the road a couple years from now deciding that you're going to start figuring out how to generate revenue. I think what I'm trying to say is, you don't have to, if you thought that's how you had to do it, you don't I kind of thought that's how I had to do it too. When I first started, if you're creating videos, because you have experience and expertise to share, then you can create a course or a program or a digital product that you can charge money for. Would that same experience and expertise that you are sharing. But if you're going to buy the time and the effort into creating videos, I think you should also think about how you're going to have some ROI from that. And not just oh, I'm gonna grow my channel, and then figure out how to make money and how to monetize it. What kind of steps could somebody take who like they know they want to create content, they know they want online business? How can they speed up the process? Or avoid landmines and hurdles that might slow them down or trip them up along the way of building their business, when they're literally just trying to figure out what all the pieces of the puzzle are at this point. Let's not

Speaker 1  8:37  
avoid the landmines let's just step on him get blown up and move on through as fast as we can. Because that's really I mean, that's the way the eye of the needle. You know, and that just brings up a whole nother thing. I will answer all of your questions. But like I think people make business, their business strategy is one of survival. And it's like how do I avoid failure? And that's, that's the recipe for failure, right? There is like how do I? How do I avoid it because then it becomes about playing not to lose versus playing to win. And there's a very different energy between the two. So it's like the whole what do you do when you fall off the horse you get back on but most people say I know what I'll do, I just won't fall off the horse. That's that's, you got it, you gotta fall. It's like hurry up and just effing fail already. So here's the thing, going back to what you were saying about like, can we just create content and worry about the rest later? That would be like this. Remember when we used to go to the mall, and the mall had food courts, remember food courts, Meredith way back in the day. And that would be you know, like those people that stand out there in front of their little food court saying and they have a little taste tester. And they got a little toothpicks on the tray. And they say, want some orange chicken or kung pao chicken or whatever it is from Panda Express. And you taste it and you're like, Oh, this is amazing. And you go and you order from pancakes. brass or whatever. But that's like saying, you're going to stand out in the food court with the tray of food and be like, it really doesn't matter what I put on this plate. And what we sell and what our store is, we'll figure that out later, let's just put anything on the plate and see. And that's what I was doing for a long time. There's no strategy there. It's very safe to play there. And so it's fine if people want to do that. But understand you could be like putting out like, oh, let's do cupcakes. Because people like so you have this free taste test center of a cupcake in someone's like that, wow, that's amazing cupcake. Where can I get more and you're like, Oh, we don't sell cupcakes. So that's like, we want to understand that our free content is, is the magnet that attracts our customers, it's to us probably a derogatory metaphor. It's the bait. Like when you're going fishing. So if you went to a bait and tackle shop, and you go, what's the best type of bait, they probably come back and say, Well, what type of fish do you want to catch? And not that we're baiting anybody, but it's a really great metaphor, the type of bait that you use is going to attract the type of fish you want to catch. So the type of content that you create is going to determine what type of customer you attract. And for what, you know, for what purpose for what's the solution, what are they coming to you for. And this is where you're like, I'm a business owner, first, I'm a business owner, which and what that means is you're not really in business until you make a sale. And, and I want people that are following learn from me, I want them making money, I am all about that. I want you guys making tons of money. And not because money is going to make you happy. Money. If you're not happy now and you think money is gonna make you happy? No, it's just going to amplify your unhappiness. And that's going to lead to depression and burnout, I actually went through that that was very scary. But it won't fill any mirage of a gap or a of a hole you've created for yourself in your life. But it will give you as a tool, access to more more resources, more team, more content, more impact, bigger business, better business, better life, like in those regards working less and stuff like that. So as a business theorist, you're not in business until the sale was made. And so I always like to follow Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Habit number to begin with the end in mind. And the end in mind is the sale. And so what I really like to do there is say, Okay, so what's what's the sale? What, what, what, what needs to happen to make the sale happen? What is it I'm selling? What is it? What is the problem I'm solving, and then work backwards and say, what type of content do I need to create that would create demand and desire for that sale. And that's a big difference. And I want to bring this down into one simplistic difference. There's a lot of influencers out there. And I don't mean anything like wrong or disrespect. But I started doing all this research on these influencers that are out there. And there's a lot of them, they have millions and millions of followers or content creators, that's great. But they're broke. They don't make any money. And there's all these articles and stuff, you can go Google us and stuff, like they're trying to sell T shirts, and they can't do it. And the thing is, is if you're going to be a content creator, it's a lot of work. Making a video, I mean, I have hundreds of videos on my YouTube channel back in the day, it is so much work, right? You're gonna put that much work in that much love into it not much time in your life into it. Why not? Make it be something that you don't need to go have another job on top of it, that's completely separate? Why not combine it to where the thing that you love is the thing that also pays you so that it perpetuates you doing this? And when I see a lot of the influencers that are broken my retinas how are you? How do you keep up all that content? And then somehow you have to concern yourself with getting a job or making a living? That seems like it's making things so much harder. And to that I say one of the fallacies I see with the today's influencer you know what I mean? Like these Instagram influencers and the vloggers and stuff like that, and again, no disrespect. I wish I could do more of that. I'm living my best life. I'm out here in Sedona, Arizona, I'm building a camper van in my spare time. I go on all these fun little adventures and hikes and mountain bikes and you know, it's like me I could just like daily blog all this. But we also run a big company and I keep myself oh, we're going to Airbnb business. We're building all these homes and stuff like that. And it's like man, it'd be really into seem to share all the adventures. But I always want to make sure it's like, Well, is it going to tie back to, you know, making it worth it for me. That's so good. It's so good. So we got to begin with the end of mine. Let's start with the sale. And then when we go from there, we want to find the lowest hanging fruit. We want to start with the lowest common denominator, the easiest thing and so for a lot of people, it's like just getting a one on one client. And so what we noticed with a lot of our students, as soon as they start putting any type of content out there, there's already people coming to you asking you for more. Like, Wow, I love how you're making your videos, like can I ask you a question about this? Or can I ask you about this? Or how are you doing this? And it's very important that you're observing who is coming to me? And what are they coming to me for? And is there something here, right. And that can be happening when you have no one on your email list that can happen after your first video, right that your first podcast, your first whatever. And we want to pay very special, very special attention to that, because that may be the opportunity that's right in front of him, we didn't even notice it. But we've had people, we we teach a process called the monetize before you make a process, which is all around running a beta launch, which I can go into more detail if you'd like. And we have people start out by saying, hey, just start with your 10 founding members of your program. And let's fill that out. And people that don't have the list don't have the following don't have the platform that are filling out their programs, getting their first 10 members in pain members into a program that they create live, like on a weekly group coaching, training, create and build out the whole program, they're getting paid upfront, the proof is in the profit, not the pudding, the proof is in the Prophet. And now they're getting paid upfront to launch their business. And then they're off to the races. So I always love to challenge these ideas that these notions that you have to be somewhere, obtain something before you can get started in business. I think that's very, very dangerous, because people will just keep chasing that saying I'm not ready yet. My list isn't big enough, my authority isn't where it needs to be my credibility, I need more certifications, I need more courses, I need more of this. And the reality is, is you can get started helping somebody right now and you can get paid for it.

Meredith  17:20  
You have a really great training on a free training on attracting your first 100 leads, so that you can make your first sale and create your online business. I put a link down in the description to that. So people grab that for free. Real quick, what exactly are people going to find in that free training? Yeah,

Speaker 1  17:40  
I want you guys to make that that sale, get that client, get that customer. And so by putting your content out, you're going to start attracting the people that actually want your stuff. And so this is a 14 video course step by step. And it's designed to help be intentional with the type of content you're putting out there, how you're putting it out there and where you're putting it out there to attract people that want to work with you that are ready for the next step. You guys need to understand there is a massive difference and social media and all this stuff that's going on right now, with advice and you know, all those social tools that exist, it's very easy to lead people astray, that there is a difference between audience and leads. And people have collapsed the to an audience is somebody who's sitting in the audience watching you. And a lead is someone who already wants to work with you. And there's a big difference between the two. So how do we not just get more audience? But how do we turn more of the audience you have into people that want to work with you and take that next step? And that's what that's what this course is, is going to help you with walks you through the whole process. Yep, this part is free. I've had people tell us, many people tell us that this had more value for them than the $997 courses that exist out there. For sure. I think that is great advice for all of you is focus on quality over quantity always put the best darn stuff out there that you possibly can and then go and make it even better. And I've I've built my company and our business on that simple Foundation, which creates a reputation people know when James put something out there, it's gonna blow my frickin mind. It's gonna help me and I it's not just reserved for me, but we are content creators. Let's not put out crap, let's not put garbage. Let's put out stuff that produces results. Let's put out stuff that helps people that makes a difference that gets them from where they are to where they want to be quicker, easier, faster and more simple. And that's what we're all here to do. Yes, help people.

Meredith  19:57  
So I'm going to link up the 100 Read leads the your first 100 leads free course down below that James teaches. This is the thing that I was saying. The reason why I wanted you to hear this from James is because this is so, so good. I go through this 100 leads course every year when it comes around, it's completely free. And even though I have James paid program, I have his paid stuff, this free thing is insanely valuable. Don't discount it, because it's free thinking, Oh, it's just like some PDF you have to download? No, it's not. So I'm going to link to the 100 leads training down below, I think it's going to blow your mind if you've been listening to this podcast or wondering for a while, like, how am I creating free content on YouTube and selling a course or a program? And growing my email list? And how does this all fit together? And where do I start? And what do I do? I want you to know that leads are the link leads are the link between your free content and your paid program, digital product. Of course, whatever it is, your leads are your link, you can have an audience as big as you want over here. If you can't get those people to become a lead. If you can't link those people to your paid programs, then you're not going to generate revenue from the audience that you're building. Because once you have those leads, then building a set it and forget it YouTube funnel is the simplest way to generate consistent sales of your offer. And you have to have those leads there in order to make that happen. So in episode one of this podcast, I broke down exactly how my YouTube funnel system works, what it looks like how you can set it up for yourself, so that your course sells itself on autopilot with the simplicity of evergreen organic YouTube traffic. And you can say goodbye to launching and waiting for somebody to just happen to find your course somewhere on your site or even having to do those cold DMS that nobody likes. So that's an episode one and since this is a brand new podcast if you haven't left a review or a star rating for me in your favorite podcast player or even just left a comment on the YouTube video for this podcast, I would greatly appreciate it