Using Video For Profits & Income With Sean Cannell

Video is one of the coolest ways to get your message out there, build your brand, and boost your biz.

But I get it, starting out with video can be intimidating. That's why I brought on my good friend Sean Cannell, CEO of Think Media, to share his expertise and help you overcome your fears.

We had an insightful conversation about everything video - from Sean's journey to becoming a YouTube expert to the importance of using video to build your personal brand and stand out in a crowded market. 

We also talked about how he started with a simple video camera and editing software and the crazy path that led him to where he is today - an eight-figure business owner with millions of subscribers on YouTube and a best-selling book. 

We covered a lot of ground, and I'm confident you'll find some great tips and strategies in this episode that you can use to grow your business. So, grab your notepad and tune in!

IN TODAY’S EPISODE, I DISCUSS: 

• Sean’s unique journey to becoming a YouTube expert
• The best practices for creating successful videos
• The longevity of YouTube videos and how to get started

CONNECT WITH SEAN:
Visit Sean’s website: https://www.seancannell.com
Subscribe to Sean’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWWFavn3ym0w3myTD5OX59g
Learn more about Think Media courses: https://courses.seancannell.com
Listen to Sean’s podcast: https://courses.seancannell.com/multi-page-sean-podcasts
Get a copy of Sean’s book, YouTube Secrets: https://courses.seancannell.com/multi-page-sean-books

RECOMMENDED EPISODES FOR YOU 
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• Building Legacy & Wealth Through Podcasts with Travis Albritton
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Take this free quiz to see where you are on the path to financial freedom and what your next steps are to move you to a new financial destiny at http://www.YourFinancialFreedomQuiz.com 

OTHER RESOURCES:
7-Day Money Plan Workshop: https://www.TheMoneyPlanWorkshop.com
Affluent Entrepreneurs Private Facebook Group https://www.melabraham.com/group/

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Transcript

Mel Abraham  0:00  
While I just had an incredible conversation with a dear friend of mine, Sean Cannell about video, YouTube, building a business, why this matters, why it's important how you can get into it, getting over the obstacles, but the keys that you need to stand out in a marketplace and how you can use video to make that happen. Go check it out. Welcome this episode of the afternoon entrepreneurship. See the episode. This is the Affluent Entrepreneur Show for entrepreneurs that want to operate at a high level and achieve financial liberation. I'm your host, Mel Abraham, and I'll be sharing with you what it takes to create success beyond wealth. So you can have a richer, more fulfilling lifestyle. In this show, you'll learn how business and money intersect. So you can scale your business, scale your money, and scale your life while creating a deeper impact and living with complete freedom. Because that's what it really means to be an absolute entrepreneur. Hey there, Sean, so good to have you on the show. Finally, it's been years since we met and we're finally just getting around to this.

Sean Cannell  1:09  
Now I'm so fired up to be hanging out with you. It's always a pleasure. And thanks so much for having me.

Mel Abraham  1:14  
Yeah, yeah, this is this is cool. I mean, in the intro, I kind of gave it a little bit about you. But I think that it's your journey is is somewhat of a unique journey in the sense that you really didn't start out looking at, hey, how am I going to build this? YouTube Empire? The this this positioning as the YouTube expert, and this following doing the things that you're doing? Can we can we kind of just start like, how did you end up here?

Sean Cannell  1:42  
Yeah, you know, it's a wild journey, because today, we just on boarded a couple of new people, I think we're at 20, w two employees, almost 10 contractors, eight figure business, a couple million subscribers on YouTube, in different products, programs, best selling book. And it's super weird, because I'm a small town kid college dropout. And I'm trying to figure out how to be a CEO. And life is just bizarre to add on top of that, that we are now I turned 40 This year, and I've got a seven month old and a two and a half year old and my wife is the CFO and operating is the ce o although I relate much more to the term founder. Because what do I know about being a CEO and all that to say is we're just trying to figure it out, life is really crazy. And it all just started actually all the way back in 2003 when I was just volunteering at a really small church an hour north of Seattle, and the youth pastor handed me a video camera and some video editing software, and said start making videos for the youth ministry. There's like 16 Kids, I would make these terrible video announcements for Wednesday nights at youth group. But it actually got me early into the content creation game. Before all these social media platforms, I made a video a week, that was terrible, like most of us start your first videos or your worst videos. But it just got me going. And then by 2007, we started a YouTube channel for our small church. And again, did everything wrong was very early days of YouTube. But I was blessed to be into this stuff early. So by 2010, I started a freelance business, doing wedding videos, videos for small businesses, doing some YouTube consulting and all that stuff early on. And then many windy paths throughout the journey following that, but they talked about the 10,000 hour rule. I'm probably 40 or 50,000 hours when it comes to video, YouTube video marketing video ads on camera scripting, communication, just kind of being obsessed with you know, how do you get your message out there in video and now today my passion is helping entrepreneurs, business owners leaders maximize the power of video and specifically YouTube because that's the number one video platform.

Mel Abraham  3:56  
So good, so good. i We just recently started a and I may be totally off base here but but but we just recently started to really think about leaning into YouTube and primarily because I see YouTube I see I see Facebook as a social platform I see Instagram as an information education platform but I see YouTube as a solution platform and if we're providing solutions the place anytime I'm trying to fix something on the sink or something where I do let's do I want to figure out how to program the I almost said VCR which would have been horribly aging for me but I go to a YouTube video so it's a how to portal for me and and so and with the stuff that we do I thought that it was a great place there plus I do like video I rather to do video because I think we can connect at a deeper level because we get a chance to even see people's eyes see what they're doing. See what their emotion is

Sean Cannell  4:59  
exactly. Right. And actually the data backs that up 75% of people go to YouTube trying to solve a specific problem. And the CEO of YouTube released a bunch of data about the educational power of YouTube. Of course, there's entertaining content on there and some content for comedy or escaping ism and all kinds of I mean, there's everything. Yes, you definitely has everything. But you're absolutely right. It holds the mindshare of people that that man, I go to YouTube to learn, I go to YouTube, to discover how to reach my ambitions or solve my problems. And so for the entrepreneur, that's a big deal because entrepreneurs solve problems for a profit. It's a great place to one of our key frameworks is ASQ. answer specific questions. What video should I make first, answer specific questions. Well, how do I stand out? It feels like all the questions have been answered, answered. Well, no, not even close. Especially I think about some of your expertise. You know, there's always things changing in finances, there's always things changing in tax opportunities. There's always things changing, and entrepreneurship itself. So of course, there's kind of like the general questions. But the reason our framework is ASQ is that word specific is a big deal. There's always like, for network marketers. This month, new products just dropped, there's a new video needed. It nor peloton versus NordicTrack. You know, there's always there's a trend in fitness, but there's always maybe a competitor trend, you could click funnels 2.0 versus high level, you know, and latest software opportunities. There's endless opportunities for people listening to this to answer specific questions, which is a way to get discovered, start being platformed building know, like and trust. And so what are some people struggle on YouTube? Using? We have like 16 different things, strategies we teach, but that's one of our favorites to start with, is thinking about, man, what are the specific questions? The person you help your your avatar your target audience is asking, what are the pain points that keep them up at night? What are the ambitions they want to reach? And then when you go really specific, that's how you get found. I mean, that when someone's at a buying decision? Do I want to go with Click Funnels? 2.0? Or do I want to go with high level or Kajabi? What are the pros and cons? Not those videos are a great way for people to get discovered that are a little bit maybe that are separate from what they would normally think about creating. But that's where the opportunity is that can bring in people that have the entrepreneurial mindset. And there's some affiliate marketing opportunities and all kinds of stuff there as well.

Mel Abraham  7:32  
It's so so cool, because I think I think this forces you to answer a question that I think a lot of entrepreneurs and businesses are reluctant to answer. And that is, what is the specific problem you solve? And who are you solving it for? I was literally I just came back from speaking a big event 2000 people and and I ran into someone who wanted it. He had a question. He says, he built this platform. Now he's he was from he was an international, so he wasn't us based. And he built a platform to create a kind of a trading, if you will. And I didn't really understand exactly what he was talking about. And I said, what problem are you solving? And he couldn't articulate it. And I said, Who are you solving it for? And then he said, I put 100 100 over $100,000 in to build on the platform. But I have no customers. I don't know your customers, but you don't know who your customers are. You don't even know if they have the problem that they want to be solved. And I think what you're getting at is, is not just the video, it's a it is imperative, especially in in the market in the in the current economic state to get really clear on what you're solving, who you're solving it for, and how how you solve it. And one of the great ways to get that out there. Is this this vehicle of video.

Sean Cannell  9:08  
Absolutely, and there's some slices on that too. I think that when people feel like it's too competitive, they just probably haven't niched down enough or niche down enough. And where maybe is a lot of people helping people learn marketing or a lot of people helping people learn personal finance or fitness. But where it really gets interesting is can you niche down by male or female? Can you niche down by a certain age demographic, some of our most successful students will are teaching fashion tips to women in their 40s. That makes a lot of sense to me as opposed to just fashion tips. And the problem with that is people got all different flavors ages, you know, in fashion. Can you even talk about region A lot of our service providers regional distinction of loan officers or real estate agents. Once you niche down it's a smaller pool but now you become a big fish in a small pond. You know I'm in Snohomish County right now. near Seattle where we spend half our time up here around family because of our young kids. And what's funny is I'll go to YouTube looking up, Snohomish County market updates, I'm looking for real estate, we're buying Airbnb and stuff up here. In a 2023 world, it's shocking how very few agents or investors are making content. In fact, the only person I can discover is named Zach McAllister, I happened to go to high school with him. And what is wild is people are like, Oh, that's too crowded. You know, I'm the agents that are up here, you know, much competition, you know, destroyed inventory is like there's a blue ocean for people who, if you Why can't compete with the big real estate channels, you shouldn't be trying to, you would niche down. And so regional is an opportunity. And then if you get into, you know, if you're doing financial solutions for Baby Boomers and Gen X, really good target, because number one, they actually have actual money to manage or whatever. And then to it all of a sudden makes sense, because they're in a different life season than a young millennial or Gen Z. And so yeah, I definitely think for anybody listening to this, maybe you're already having some success in business, I think the next level can definitely be getting clear on who it is you serve Exactly. Some of the best offers are for crafting an offer, right is for like, for me, I do some private coaching, very exclusive, it'd be like you already have employees, you probably already have some chaos. With people editing video, you need to start managing them, you want to invest, you probably invest five to $10,000 a month already in content creation. And you need to level up your systems and you either don't have or you need money.com, or you need slack or Asana, you're trying to figure out how to do that better. And what are the systems so then repurpose content and distributed that everywhere? Well, that's and you're, you're an entrepreneur that's probably doing high six, at least six are high, six figures. And now the offer of my consulting is for a very narrow, specific group of people and maybe have other offers, like I know, you have multiple books and whatnot, where it's much more accessible, you have free content. And so to the nuance of the perfect person, you can help, I can change everything.

Mel Abraham  12:07  
So good. They know when they do this, we're not just putting videos out, just to put videos out there, there is a strategy, there is a process that you follow, there's a recipe for lack of a better word, right?

Sean Cannell  12:24  
Yep. Yeah, we have what's called the perfect video recipe. And for this is kind of cool, because anybody using any platform can use this. But it's it's specifically tailored to YouTube. So it's four ingredients. It's the big idea, the hook, the content and the transition. And the big idea is your topic, title and thumbnail, the hook is the first 10 seconds to a minute, the content is the meat in the middle. And then the transition is actually what YouTube wants most from you. That's a transition to another video and might have it might be kind of jarring to direct response marketers. Because we a lot of times think, yeah, the end is the call to action. And we could talk about where I think you should include the call to action. But if you want to play by YouTube's rules, best case scenario is to and we've probably all seen this, when your video ends, you point to another video. If you've ever watched a news clip on YouTube, or a comedy clip, you'll have you know, someone at the end of Jimmy Kimmel will say, Did you like this click or tap the screen to watch the next one. And that's what the transition would be. And so those are the four ingredients, we could break them down. But the point of learning them is, it's like cooking a meal. I'm not a very good cook, but then I subscribed to HelloFresh. And then I started to get these boxes. And the key was not only the the ingredients, but add a little card that told me what ingredients to do in what order. I still burnt the chicken a few times, I still made some mistakes. But it was a lot better once I had the recipe. And I learned that if I just keep showing up to into the kitchen, and I keep cooking, that I can get better over time. So the perfect video recipe has helped people, they just keep using it even though it still might be like what did all those things mean? You just kind of learn them and you get 1% better with every upload, just don't leave the kitchen, you're gonna be shocked where you're at a year from now, three years from now, how big your brand can be how much momentum you have, because you commit to continue to show up in the kitchen and cook up some good videos on YouTube and across platforms because you can intersperse the transition to the call to action on an Instagram reorder somewhere else What do you want the person to do next? Maybe the best case scenario is leave a comment below or let me know what you thought or perhaps you know a call to action to your lead magnet or something.

Mel Abraham  14:43  
So keep in this theme. I want to I will come back to a couple of other questions that I wrote down but keeping the same is there because I know that this is something that probably get asked all the time. Is there an appropriate length is there a you know we know the recipe but it's Is there an appropriate length that that matters to YouTube or matters to the person using YouTube?

Sean Cannell  15:08  
So this will be frustrating, but the answer to what is the ideal length on YouTube is the answer is yes. Absolutely. What do you mean? Well, right now 10 Second, YouTube shorts are doing incredibly well. So our 62nd Youtube shorts and to be clear, a YouTube short now is a vertical video similar to an Instagram real or tik, Tok 60 Seconds or Less vertical, not horizontal or landscape. If you upload that to YouTube, anybody can do it. It's considered a YouTube short, two to three minute clips, those are doing great. Five to eight minute videos, those are doing amazing as well. 12 To 18 minutes, it's highly recommended 30 minute trainings or 55 minute trainings incredible. fascinatingly enough, my friend Evan Carmichael, Lewis Howes, their best performing most viewed YouTube videos are approaching three hours long. So depending on the content, and extremely frustrating to the listener, I recommend videos between 10 seconds and three hours long. I think that that's the sweet spot is anywhere in there. And the bigger key is that you are adding value to the viewer. And that the videos are as long as they need to be but as short as possible. You have incredible frameworks you teach and you got your whiteboard, second angle, and you're teaching on your iPad. Well, if you're breaking down a concept like that, then that necessitates actually learnings of that kind. However, if it's just a quick nugget of video that is inflated to five minutes when it could have been consolidated to less than a minute and put out as a short, it's going to do a lot better if it's not wasting people's time. And so what is the intent of the listener, the viewer when Lewis Howes and Evan Carmichael are doing those long form episodes, there are a lot of times compilation of their other interviews, or 50 rules of success from somebody that's known. And someone's probably on a commute, they're listening to it like a podcast. So if you start a quote, that'll serve everybody, when it comes to video is the Creator who understands the viewer best wins. When you understand who they are, where they are, what they want, what their life. And you also might have multiple viewers, but when you understand, like you're not copying viral tactics of channels that are reaching a Gen Z audience and getting getting distracted, when you know you're talking to professionals that do like to listen to even YouTube videos as a podcast platform. So they may listen to certain podcasts even on YouTube. Maybe they pay for you to premium and shut down the screen. Android lets you do it, I think without paying and they might change it in the future. And so if you listen to Lewis Howes School of Greatness, you just turn the YouTube video on you just let it play in the background. What's the intent, it's longer form really long conversations, Joe Rogan, he happens to only be on Spotify. He's got his clips, though. What is the intent of the viewer I like? Value tainment. Patrick bet, David, Dave Ramsey two hour Colin show, he does a two hour call in show. And then they cut clips out of it. So you know, he's education on personal finance is built a great brand. But there's not a lot of fanciness or fireworks in terms of editing or anything. But they've developed their formula because they know who it is they're reaching and arguably, Dave Ramsey is is relatively simplistic. And you know, relative is financial advice. You probably have stronger opinions on this even than me, but it's kind of like it is kind of a one size fits all, for the undisciplined person who can't control their credit card use. He solves a great problem in the market and is built an incredible brand because of how well he understands who his conservative, probably Christian kind of middle America, he understands who he's reaching. In fact, you could somebody who could critique him could say is his advice is terrible. It's I don't even know why people listen to him. And that critic is actually revealing their ignorance. Because they could probably take a page from really having a market message match as opposed to Yeah, because he's not for you. So if you're over here trying to like cost segue bonus, depreciate some property, leverage debt, and you're incredibly disciplined and you just got $30,000 cash back like we did, literally from doing paid ads on credit cards. I'm like, Listen, I'm gonna use credit cards all day long. We always pay the balance off and oh, you can't get rich using credit cards. I don't know about that. I mean, $30,000 obviously, that's not the main income source. That's some serious money back that's literally cash back Whatever David critique that the big takeaway, though, man, when you really understand who it is, you're reaching there, they got to commute. Are they on a commute? Are they you know, John Lee Dumas used to talk about this? Yeah, like when he really dialed in the original show, he was like 25 minutes. I wanted something to listen to seven days a week. A lot of that under says cuts all the way back to man. Who are we creating content for? It's a big deal.

Mel Abraham  20:27  
It is a big deal. It's interesting. Someone asked me the differences between Dave and I and I said, Dave digs you out of the hole. I help you build the mountain.

Sean Cannell  20:37  
Yes, that's true. Right. Yeah, he is. He's, he has the needed voice. Yeah, too.

Mel Abraham  20:42  
He serves a good. Yeah. Yeah. So but there's a point. So and but I think that you're right, the bottom line is, it goes back to the original point, this this whole idea of, of knowing who you're serving, the problem you're solving and how you're going to articulate that.

Sean Cannell  21:00  
100% Yeah,

Mel Abraham  21:01  
so we might have some viewers listeners sitting back on I don't I don't, I don't want to get on video. How how do you how do we how do we take that person that has not done a video or? Or is thinking about it, but is unsure how to start? What are the what are the some of the first things that we need to kind of get them across to move on? Because I can see a lot of people they spent like the last week, what's my setup? Setup doesn't matter. That's not what's gonna get you what you need to get. I mean, I can give you the setup, and then you're gonna say, Oh, God, it's complicated. Can't do it.

Sean Cannell  21:42  
Yep. Yeah, I think the biggest opportunity for everybody that's thinking about doing video is to start with vertical video, we're living in a good opportunity. Where to define vertical video, YouTube shorts, tick tock Instagram reels, Facebook reels, Pinterest vertical video, it sounds like a lot. But you can just pick your favorite platform. And I know I'm over here saying YouTube is the best, but probably for a lot of your community. I imagine they're heavily active on Instagram. And so start wherever you're comfortable with even a better place to start his stories because they expire within 24 hours. And and you just got to start, you know, the

Mel Abraham  22:25  
evidence goes away,

Sean Cannell  22:27  
the evidence goes away and challenge yourself to take your phone, get on camera, press and hold down the button and record for 15 seconds. These days, Instagram stories are 60 seconds. So you could go full 60 What's nice about this too, is that actually kind of helps you talk in sound bites. And it actually is a good way of educating and kind of learning how to get on camera, but to speak to some of the mindsets. You do have to literally just punch fear in the face and punch perfectionism in the face and press record you got to start practicing. Tap into, you know, I would say for two different objections. One, Shawn, why do I need to get on video? You know, I would say, one, if you have enough customers, if you would say, Shawn, I have way too much money.

I want to build my personal brand. But frankly, my personal brand is too big. My following is too big. I my inbox is flooded. I have too many customers, I'm stressed and I'm overwhelmed. Because I have too much money. And even Mel can't help me manage it fast enough. Well, then why would you need to get on video like you get you don't need more reach more. But But this goes into reasons come first results come second. If you would say I know I have a message that I need to get to the world. But it's I'm not getting known. I'm not building the following I want I know that my product can change lives. But leads are kind of going slow. And I'm not really I know that I also want to build a brand that is anti fragile, I see the power of building a brand like you building a brand like Dave Ramsey, I could see that vision for my future Marie Forleo. Well, you're not going to be there in 10 or 20 years if you don't start now. So it's reverse engineering back from the vision to where the vision you're aspiring to is bigger than the discomfort you feel right now or the few fear you feel right now. And you do just got to do it accepting that your first videos are going to be your worst videos. That's true for me. It's true for you, your early podcasts, your early videos, terrible, your early reels or whatever that and our stuff still needs to grow. But we're just on the journey like you practice in public. And the good news is that what setup do you need it is now been proven that phone only no microphone actually can outperform fancy setups where you see some entrepreneurs with like a locked down crispy camera and the perfect captions Those don't necessarily perform better than just the phone, you can use captions that are built into the platform. Now you like record it, you tap the button. And now it's just like does auto captions and you can post these things. So that the gap between creating and posting, it's got to be less than 60 seconds to do a real or YouTube short. You could challenge yourself to at least do one of those a week. Or to potentially even do one a day you block some time and, and give yourself like we've done maybe a seven day fitness challenge, or you've done a 14 day finance get out of debt challenge, or you've done a 30 day set your year challenge. What if you did a 30 day vertical video challenge where you post one video a day shot? What do I talk about? answer a specific question, use the little green screen feature that you've seen people do where you take a screenshot of an article in your industry, and you react to the article, Shawn, I don't know how to do that. That is an excuse. It is going to take you five minutes to go to you can write this down. G o g l e.com. There's a brand new website, you don't even need chat GPT or AI, just go to google.com and be like how do you do the green screen on Instagram. And you can just figure it out. And even in doing that your confidence will grow. Your following will grow. Even if you do this at a year, like I'm not gonna sound good on camera. Probably true. I might look not good. Hey, that's probably true, too. You'll get better, you'll get more confident, be more aware as you watch it back. But to land the plane on all of this. A friend of mine herons to homeless County, Anton who's a real estate investor, he committed to daily vertical video. And that was the whole thing that was it. And he is works for Keller Williams, also invests on the side, he actually bought a second phone eventually, he didn't start with that he had a Samsung Galaxy something. And then there was so he was doing it every day. So he's like he upgraded and kept his old phone dedicated to the last version. He has paid his son to help him post the videos, and one of his assistants. But to destroy all excuses, he also did like the first month by himself, you know, and he would just record not inside of one of the video apps, he would just record a video so that he could then post it vertically across Tiktok, YouTube shorts, Instagram reels, which auto posts to Facebook page if you connect them. And after the first couple months, not a lot happened in terms of actual dollars. But he started notice his following went up dramatically. And I mean, he was at maybe a couple like he's at like 2500 followers on Instagram, or less. And so he starts now getting consistent followers. But then what he said, what I could measure is the phone started ringing more, which is how his deals work, the phone started ringing more people back because I was top of mind, that's our goal. And in a noisy world, you want to be top of mind. And so then he noticed deal flow was coming to him. But then that was like the first three months, not a lot to show and check this out. He was I think he was spending about $1,100 a month, once he was paying either his son to edit because eventually he started to have them do captions, like a headline and some captions or as assistant. But what you of course, realize in real estate is that one transaction, it's not uncommon to sell a million dollar home up here at 3% is gonna be a $30 commission. So theoretically, he could go negative. If you've got the capital for two years, he could pay for his little mini vertical video content production business, he would break even two years later, but what's the byproduct? But already at about six months, this vertical video leads to a development deal. That to that is something like $350,000 profit for him and his partner, Tony, in terms of a project that again was opened up because of vertical video, and the amount of leads and whatnot, because he does have a whole Team at Keller Williams and everything else. And the other point is he's still only seven or eight months into this thing. Again, more followers. And this is what he's telling you. He's still terrible. He doesn't have he hasn't mastered the perfect video recipe. He hasn't cracked the code. He's just experimenting, but he just committed to the process. You know, you're like an all time martial arts expert, right? Well, you didn't become that in seven or eight months now. And so so where Anton is at is it's already he he can already measure the financial ROI. He can already measure that his confidence has grown. He also it's also starting kind of a new business for him. Because now like every agent in the region wants to learn what he's doing. So he now sees the opportunity to probably do a paid workshop. Maybe bring me in to speak pretty so it just starts it's like kicking open doors of opportunity. Following his growing DM boxes filling up, there's the 350,000 is a pretty good deal that that led to, but then now he's they're tracking the leads and how many leads they're getting. And one of the problems is the inventory is frozen. So it's good to start asking other, you know, other business opportunities and whatnot. So that was a lot. But just to encourage the listener to this 100% of people listening to this could do this vertical video challenge. 30 days might sound like a lot, but if you wanted to establish a new habit, a new pattern, like if you also accept the fact that even if it doesn't lead to any business opportunity, it will literally change you and make you a better leader. It'll make you a better communicator, make you a better leader, it'll build your confidence. At first, it also might hurt your confidence. And you're like, I even I hate this so bad, I want to delete it. But But overcoming that uncomfortability we all know that everything good in life is waiting for us outside of our comfort zone. And the last thing I would say is that this is the language of the future. It's actually the language of the now but it's the language of the future. So if you keep putting this off, 1234 years from now, you're just actually going to be so far behind. Yeah. But if you bite the bullet of having your uncomfortable videos, you know, for Anton, he's wrapped his mind around it, that this gets really interesting to three years later, and it's already seeing the bright spots, but you kind of are treating online video, I think you should treat it almost like a new company within your company. Like you're starting a little media company, you're starting a little publishing company. And if the average small business is not profitable, for you know, 18 to 24 to 36 months, you should invest in your media company, the video side of your business, especially if you've got you have money coming in elsewhere to be like, I don't even need this to be profitable for two years. I'm building my brand I'm investing in the future. And everyone knows that people like you can write their own checks can can kick open doors of opportunity because of the media, your media you've invested in yesterday. The only way to start is to start today as uncomfortable it is it is everything is figured out double. Its grab it started with vertical video. Well, what about the fancy studio and eventually doing a video podcast one step at a time, you can do that as well. We have a channel called Think Media. I mean, this is literally our brand. Every year we're talking about answering specific questions. If you have a question, there's probably a free youtube video we've created that has an answer to it. So it's buying into the why and the vision and I know that waiting on the other side of your community taking bold action, to embrace video is massive opportunity leads customer sales, brand awareness, relationships, JV partners, doors of opportunity, Pure Lead masterminds, maybe a spouse, like somebody, you're you're single, you're listening to this. And like, the other side of you creating video is your future spouse. I'm telling you, you better press record.

Mel Abraham  32:59  
Yeah, dude, this is a look. But isn't it this way, in everything in life? It's Darren Hardy's compound effect. It really is. I tell people, I was just like I said, I was just speaking. And one of the things I talked about is this idea of the wealth flatline. And that there's this portion of building wealth, where you're putting money away, you're investing, but you're not really seeing a lot of results. And what happens is that people will stall out, they'll say, this doesn't work. This doesn't work. Well forget it, forget it, and they're out. They cash out and they say, but what happens, that resets you back to day one. The only way to get past the wealth flatline. Is time staying in the game? Well, it's the same thing. Like you're saying, the only way you're ever going to prove on videos, do video. There's no other way you can't read it. I mean, we'll talk about your book in a second. You can read it from a strategy standpoint, but at some point, reading a book on swimming isn't gonna make you swear, you gotta you're gonna have to get wet.

Sean Cannell  33:58  
Yep, yep. 100%. And here's the cool thing about YouTube. All these other platforms I highly recommend and they probably have better direct response opportunity. Like sometimes in our entrepreneur community. People love Instagram, because they can follow back engage with see who's commenting see who liked social selling, connect in the DMS and do that kind of stuff. Well, that's great. Problem with Instagram and all the other platforms is if you do post a vertical video there today, call it an Instagram real chances are no one not only chances, nobody is going to watch that in six months, probably in three months. Definitely not two years from now. On Facebook, the same is true on Twitter. The same is true. On LinkedIn. The same is true nobody goes back in your activity post in your feed. But on YouTube. YouTube is a content library whereas all the other social media platforms are content feeds Instagram feed Facebook feed. YouTube is a library. What does that mean? It's like when the student is ready, the teacher appears when someone has a question, they search for something. And the longer you do YouTube, the the chances go up and I almost everybody I talked to, like, even if they don't know why they go, there's this there's like three videos in my YouTube library that are like five years old that people still watch. That is ultimate leverage. For the five year the financial expert when you start understanding, compound interest and or you know, real estate appreciating, it's like video estate. So on YouTube, when you've post videos, some of them will keep getting views for weeks, months and years to come. The reason that becomes that like nail in the coffin, as far as motivation for me, is I'm always looking for leverage, what activities can I do today that will give me more time tomorrow, if I can create a YouTube video today, and do it in such a way and this is ultimately what we teach. It's our favorite type of video to make. We call it a ranked video, a video that people can create at once, but it's continued to be viewed for weeks, months and even years to come. I've got a video from 2010 To be clear, that's 12 and a half years ago, right? It's like 13 years ago, it just in this last year, last three or 65 days, it gave me two subscribers. Now, that's really unsexy. And there's only two subscribers. It's like not that cool. However, it's 13 years old, it actually earn $20 in YouTube ad revenue again. $20. Like that doesn't even move the needle in my business. Yeah, fair enough. But it's 13 years old. And keep in mind, I don't even know what I was doing back 13 years ago. But that is a fact that in the last 365 days, a 13 year old video grew might got 4000 views $20 to subscribers, I know have 1000s of videos like that now, as you know. So the compound effect that I've created is outrageous, we get like 3 million views every two days, our channel grows by like 30,000 subscribers a month. But the only reason we're experiencing that is NS unlocking that key that most people don't understand is that YouTube is the only platform where your content lives forever. It's the only platform when we're when you do it, right. It's like a fine wine. It gets better with age. And so ultimately, you're the compound fact becomes real. When this is true for YouTube shorts as well, we have found that YouTube shorts can continue to get views for weeks, months and years later. And sometimes they break out sometimes our videos start getting views at day 155 At day 200. But the of course learn the strategies. But more than that, just commit to the process, rather than like over analyzing and like trying to watch grass grow, keep planting seeds, because then you pop your head up a little bit later. And all of a sudden you're like, oh my gosh, you know, I've got some momentum. And the cool thing about this is it's not just about size, I mean, I'm throwing out some big numbers. But for a lot of your audience. It's about the right videos being found by the right people, Jen DeVore, one of our students was that 546 subscribers sent us an email and said, Hey, I'm one of your vra students. And I just had a record week, I did $11,000 in new business in one week, from my YouTube videos, she didn't even have 1000 subscribers, she had 546 Her videos, we're getting 14 views 44 views. So what I'm describing it the opportunity is if you're creating the right videos that are attracting the right person, and you've clarified what your offer is, and what those those nice conversations, of course, we all want to go viral and have that stuff happening at scale. But I think the bigger opportunity is what happens when over the next 52 weeks you have 52 YouTube videos posted or whatever. And now you just have a consistent stream of leads coming in, which could be to the tune of like 16 a month, but they're coming in from that bulk of videos. And you know that two or three of those will convert and the way that you follow up. It's like Game Over like define your business model, define your you know, funnel define what it is for you. And then that becomes I think the opportunity to I get it the allure of like going viral hits us as entrepreneurs too. We all want that. But it's not needed. I think the key is understanding you have the right viewers, the right people, you know, watching your stuff. You know you have a video, I'm on your channel right now. That's four years old. That is getting point three views in our right now about how to create a framework that moves people to action. And point three vPH one of my favorite terms vPH Stan is for views per hour. So point three though, times 24 is 7.2 views a day, times 365 is 2628 views a year, still not a huge number compared to Mr. Beast, a nobody doing the Mr. Beast numbers. But it's a four year old video that essentially, if anyone is a Star Wars fan, it's it's the Mel Abraham clone army, you have duplicated yourself, filmed yourself on video, you're at the beach, you're hanging out with your family you're working out. But this video, you know is being viewed every three hours one person watches it on autopilot, like you're not doing anything. And that video is generating views for you. And then the opportunity right is best people getting to know you get into like you get into trust you and who knows where they go from there to because of course there could be the direct call to action. But I think the bigger opportunity too, is just the relationship build, you know, and what that could relate to people following you elsewhere, or then watching another video on the channel. And so this is why I love YouTube the most, it creates the most leverage out of any platform, once you start getting some videos like that better write it in your views. 24/7 365

Mel Abraham  41:16  
So cool. The it's a long term game, I think we need to play the long term. Because what's gonna, what you're doing is you're creating a momentum in your business that is going to create the traction without the left is it is like you said leveraging. Yep, you know, that asset there is going to perform for you without you having to be on the treadmill. It's not done and gone.

Sean Cannell  41:48  
100%. And I'm noticing to dig in deeper, you've got a great call to action to a Kajabi page for and a framework formula to stand out. And so then I would say the listener, right, you think about that, create YouTube videos. In the video, let people know how they could go further with you. You know, and that would be probably a free gift, a lead magnet. For some of our students, though. It's book a call with us, you know, give us a call book a call, leave a message, join a discord group join a facebook group join. So you just and then you put the video out and then you just do it again. And you just do it again. And does every video perform? Well? No, that's just part of part of the discipline. But every once in a while one breaks out. And then of course, as we continue to study and level up and master best practices. And I want to add value to your community because people might be wondering, if if I do the perfect video recipe, I figured out what's a good topic, my audience cares about good title and thumbnail, I really focus on the first 30 seconds of the video. Because I need to hook the viewer to make them want to watch until the end. Give them some reasons to watch to the end agitate the problem, let them know they're in the right place. Really grip their attention, then the content be brief, be bright, be fun to be done. And then the transition. Well if I transition to another YouTube video, when do I give a call to action in my freemium? Here's my favorite way to do it. Let's say you have three points, I prefer to teach off points, it's also good for retention. I'm going to teach I'm gonna teach you three six secrets, I'm gonna teach you three tips. I'm gonna teach you four tips, I'm gonna teach you five tips, probably not more than five in a YouTube video. Unless it's like a deeper dive training almost like a webinar of some kind. Okay, so let's say it's three tips. So you go you know, number one, you create a video. Number one, clarify your audience. So that's because before you even know who you're talking to, you don't know, you know what to do. Number two, galvanize or simplify your knowledge into a framework. And so this is what you teach. And you're like, now, here's a couple of tips on frameworks. This, this video doesn't go into depth of it, if you actually want check out my free resources, the link in the description down below, and grab that. So So make your lead magnet, one of the points give a little bit of value, but then and then go number three, you know, tap into the power of Facebook ads, it could be anything right? So you're like clarify your audience, galvanize your knowledge into a framework. Number three, or maybe it's speak on stages or something or like communicate, like figure out a supportive story yet. So if you're like who is this message for? What framework? am I teaching them? What is the supportive story, three tips every entrepreneur entrepreneur should know about? You know, getting their message out clearly, or something like that. So not saying that any of that was good, but saying that's my favorite place to do both. And then after number three, you go and hey, by the way, if you want to learn more about how to turn stories from your life into business illustrations, click or tap the screen because I have a whole video about telling stories more powerfully. So you've accomplished everything, we've got the perfect video recipe, maybe somebody doesn't want to download your lead magnet, great, they're still watching. If they do and it stops the session, that's fine because you're also getting the chance to follow up with that person. And that's my dream scenario right there that the listener can take away. Make great YouTube videos that hold the viewers attention for as long as possible transition at the end to another video because if they made it that far, don't send them off platform and you could have it be a win win, maybe they're not ready to give you their contact information. Fine. Tip one, Tip two Tip three transition to another video agitate the next problem and if if if we break that down number two is a call to action to the lead magnet you give them a little but you go I have a whole free thing on this. And then number three here's a little more but I actually have a whole video on this might be frustrating because you go well I don't yet I'm just starting well then that's this is why we teach don't make solo videos but create series. And you may give a call to action sometimes before the next part in the series even exists. But eventually you'll have a library of videos where you can constantly because you know kind of as we land the plane. This also is the ultimate trust accelerator. There's a good book from the guy wrote influence. I just don't know you know Robert Kitson Delaney Shalini Chow dini. It's called pre suasion. One of the reasons why YouTube creators have so much greater ease in sales situations is if there and true for podcast creators as well, video podcast is the ultimate and 2023 is, is you've just spent so much time know like and trust before the sales conversation even happens. And so it makes me think of Levi lassic living in Dallas on YouTube he his first six months of committing all into only organic YouTube marketing. He had zero sales, some leads, but zero sales zero real estate transactions. However, in the following 12 months, no joke, they did $90 million in top line. Not quite, but it didn't you know at 3% commissions, they profited him and his partner Travis 2.8 million in 12 months. No billboards, no bus stop, benches, no paid ads, just organic YouTube marketing. And so it took time, it took commitment, they committed to the process. But what would happen is, he's like I would get calls, hold deals went through on DocuSign without ever meeting up in person, like massive levels of trust, and relationship was built up when they did meet up in person with some people that are like, I already trust you because of that video content. They're hearing your voice, they're seeing your eyes, they're getting to know you. And by the way, if they don't like you, it doesn't matter because they already excluded them. So they already just as a so filtering system. Yeah, they're not calling you. But the good news is, it's like people get to filter because they're watching your content know, like and trust, trust you enough to get on your email list, whatever. Now when it finally comes to sales, like sure you still need to learn all those principles, but like, it makes that whole thing a lot easier. Yeah. Why? Because you committed to video content. Yeah,

Mel Abraham  48:37  
God, this is this is something that I think we all need to start to think about everything that we do in our business, or our wealth creation. And even I mean, every aspect of our health, our relationships, all of that. The actions, one of the things I say is that the choices we make with our money today need to serve the financial future we want tomorrow. And it's the same thing. I mean, I can go and gorge myself on horrible food, and I'll pay the price later, or I can eat healthy. And I'll reap the benefits later. And for a longer time. And so, you know, when we take that type of disciplined view to the things in our life, the things in our business, the things in our bank account, it's all gonna be better. And I don't know y'all might want to listen to this and thinking thinking about they spent 12 months doing videos regularly, and they ended up with $2.8 million. If I told you, let's just let's just be concerned, if I told you that you would make 25% of that. But you had to invest 12 months. Yeah, you put $700,000 down on the tab, and you go in, is it worthwhile? I hope so. I mean, that's the way we have to think about this. You. You don't you don't it's not a rocket ship to Mars. It just doesn't work that way. But now, what happens? And this is the thing that that I know, Shawn, you haven't haven't said, but they're now at 2.8 million, well, what's the next 12 months? Because it's, it resets and they don't go, they don't go to zero because they have that momentum you're talking about with these videos that are there all the time, and doing the heavy lifting while you're off vacationing, or doing something else.

Sean Cannell  50:42  
100%, it's, I definitely don't want people to get the wrong idea. Not suggesting it's easy, not suggesting it's going to be without pain. Not suggesting that it's going to it's going to take risk. And one of the things that Levi and Travis Travis realized is, again, you you reap from what you invest in. Yeah, right. And so, at some point, I definitely encourage everybody listening to this to dabble with video. But at some point, you do make the leap and you decide I'm going to stop dabbling, and I'm going to start dominating. And that is when you mount the TV and get the fluid entrepreneur graphics and get the nice kind of blueish LED lights and get this camera set up and get the mic set up and build the studio. And, you know, invest time as the other one, like put the putting the time on the calendar to to book the interviews. You were just talking about, you know, getting a staff person devoted to this. Obviously, I understand it's very meta for us, because we are a content infobusiness. But I mean, I invest probably close to $2 million this year and human resources. I mean, what are we talking about, like so. So we're doubling down? And we do we do 328 pieces of content a week right now. Wow. And that's sounds insane. But we also can track every dollar in ROI. We can reports pretty sophisticated these days. monday.com Wicked reports, editor's content, we just onboarded a content admin. I'm not suggesting anybody needs to do this. But But what I'm suggesting is that, once you start to reverse engineer exactly what you described, the people when the light bulb goes on, they go, oh, wait a minute, $3 million, top line, let's go conservative. If I can only do 10% of that, that'd be 300 grand in 10 months, 12 months. And so let's go conservative on that if I was investing in team and systems and some gear to break even on that, but for the accolades and the brand of the awareness, because in the first year, I'm reinvesting just like a startup, it's the media startup within your business. Or you definitely don't got to spend 300 grand to get off the ground on any of that. But let's say you profited 100, but you spent 200, outsource, some editing had got an admin person to help, it would be the bitter pill to swallow. And it's not helping me sell it, but I want to sell it for what it really is, is actually probably one of the best ways to succeed is to count the cost of building the Tower, like Jesus taught us that he was like, Hey, if you're gonna build a tower, you would first see if you've got the budget to do it, if you're gonna go to war, you would see if you've got, like, the military force to do it. And so it's just, it's saying, Okay, do I really want to invest in this for my personal brand, for my sales for my future, because I want to get my message out because my message deserves a bigger platform and bigger reach. Because I you think about the person you help and the problem you solve, and the pain in the world. And the the need of the message, you have to get out into the world when that fires let you go, yeah, I want as many people to hear this as possible, well, then you definitely want to embrace video, and then you go, Okay, then I'm going to put some coin behind this, I'm gonna put some dollars behind this, I'm gonna put my time behind this and some of my mindset behind this. And so yeah, it's gonna it can be a challenge, and you don't have to take it to that level. But why is why are people like you? And people like Brendon Burchard. And people like Alex and Leila Hermoza, who spend $150,000 a month on organic content. What does that money go towards people? Basically, people in some software software would be the lowest amount, it's probably not even five grand, it's probably, maybe it is. But it's it's people. So So who not how, Shawn, how am I going to do all this? It sounds pretty stressful. Well, you definitely have to have buy in as the leader, but it's really who not how, which is a great book by Dan Sullivan. And Benjamin Hardy, which is saying, is there just a content admin, a social media manager or kind of like a CMO I could hire that could help me with this. If I commit to doing one video podcast a week is there somebody I can hire or an agency I could hire that chops this up and kind of helps me do this. You Don't go from zero to 328 pieces of content like we did. From the start like that is a multi year. I am the author of YouTube secrets. Who lives this? 20. But but plenty of people are doing the models out there. Yeah, answers are out there like you're doing it, like the answers are there. And so you build the team team and systems around your media empire. With note with the clear conviction is anything guaranteed of entrepreneurship isn't. That's why in the definition of entrepreneurship is the word risk. However, it's a calculated risk. When you say, Oh, I get it. Okay. Yeah, if I make nothing in the first six months, but I can do 700,000 In 18 months, and I can figure out how to just have a burn rate of, you know, Anton is like, it's like 1100 bucks a month. And he's got the capital, he was willing to, like, bless that money as it went away. He wasn't stressed about the money. He's like, No, I get it. I'm playing this over the long haul. I don't care if this doesn't financially ROI. For even the the 20 Grand it costs me this year and the 20 Grand and cost me next year, what if I diverted those funds from somewhere else so that I can multiply my brand, multiply my reach, you know, invest in my brand. And then the compound effect to your point, would I invest 1020 grand this year, 1020 grand next year, so that I can have a dig your well before you're thirsty, unlimited ROI and your 345 and be on stages like you are and be and have built my brand up because I had enough foresight to see into the future that like you don't get there by accident, you get there by strategy, calculation, investment, sacrifice, getting uncomfortable, seeing the clear vision, and then just putting in the one brick at a time Darren Hardy compound effect, you'd be shocked where you are on the other side of pressing record and starting to post video.

Mel Abraham  56:56  
I love that. The very feeling that is pulling you to to and stopping you from doing is the very reason you need to do it. Because the majority of people are going to let that stop them, which gives you the upper hand to get out there and go do it and set yourself apart. And I think Shawn, you've given us a lot to think about. But here's the other thing I'd love. I'd love people to know, tell us a little bit about YouTube secrets, you have a book out, it's the second edition, it is like the Bible, on on on YouTube. So I mean, for some of you that are sitting back saying I don't even know where to start well, and maybe just start with Sean's book. And, and walk through that. And, and, you know, you're not syncing a whole lot of dollars into a book, you're gonna sync a lot of time. And you're going to learn and you're going to grow, and then you're going to put one foot in front of the other. I mean, heck, it wasn't like, you know, you didn't start walking and running when you were born and your parents, thank God and look at you and go, Well, okay, you're not a walker, I guess you're just gonna crawl the rest of your life. I mean, we try to start there.

Sean Cannell  58:09  
Yeah, and I appreciate it. And so grateful for the chance to hang out with you and the community. Yeah, YouTube secrets. As I've learned from you, it is built around a lot of hard work to build out the framework of the seven C's of YouTube success. So in part one of the book, you're going to learn the seven C's of YouTube success, an unbreakable framework that we just repeat through, it's like a circle. Because content creation, ultimately, more than a one time event is a habit and a lifestyle. And when you see the benefits, just like working out, or eating healthy should be a habit and a lifestyle, content creation in a slow and steady and healthy pace, because you understand the flywheel effect of just continuing to go around the seven C's of YouTube success. And then in the second part is a bunch of very specific tactics for getting views growth. 10 different ways to monetize. The cool thing about starting to create YouTube content is you can create additional income streams, even if your core business is probably a product or a service. You have you're tapping into the crater economy, which there's multiple other ways to diversify your income. So yeah, YouTube secrets. And then the second edition, completely rewritten new stories, new stats, deleted a chapter, a couple new chapters, everything's current, and that just came out. So that's, that is available on Amazon. There's only the one listing of the book, either ebook physical, and then the audible edition two recorded by myself and the co author at a professional studio. And so if you're an audible user, you can get YouTube secrets on Audible. Or you can get the physical or ebook it's only on Amazon. It's a couple other places too, but it's probably the best place to get it. You got prime or just Kindle. And yeah, it's over 3000 reviews and I think it's the number one best selling YouTube strategy book in the world. So, definitely a good resource to get educated. And I recommend everybody not only check out the book, but I also want to speak to entrepreneurs. Yeah, where you should definitely read the book. But my question for you is, who in your world? Could you ask to help you build this? Or who do you need to hire? Because when an entrepreneur right is building their business, they do think who not how, who is going to run the YouTube channel? For me, you're not you're not it's delegate don't dump. So you do need to probably read the book, listen to the audiobook, because you want the big vision, you want the understandings, you want to know how to identify if someone's even qualified. But the highly leveraged thing is, there's probably something you're doing as the entrepreneur for 99% of entrepreneurs I speak to, I'm like, Yeah, our online course or our book, or whatever, you need to be familiar with, like the 30,000 foot level. But you probably want to hand this information to the who that is going to support this eventually. And so YouTube secrets is the book out on Amazon.

Mel Abraham  1:01:06  
Sweet. And if they want to follow you and the work that you're doing, because it's amazing out there. Where do they find out more about, about Shawn and think media and all the stuff you're doing?

Sean Cannell  1:01:20  
Yeah, appreciate it. Sean, Sean Cannell rhymes with YouTube channel that's on Instagram, and everywhere. And then think media is the brand and it has all the accounts as well. And the YouTube channel, there's also the Think Media podcast. So a podcast devoted to learning video marketing, and video if if podcast listeners are interested in that, and that exists not just on the YouTube, but also on all the audio platforms. And so I appreciate it.

Mel Abraham  1:01:53  
Thank Thank you, Shawn. And just one last thing that I want, I want to just I want the listeners and the viewers to understand you mentioned something in passing, and that is that you can get additional income streams. And I said you all that have listened to me for any length of time. Know that I I believe that multiple income streams is no longer a luxury, it is a necessity for your wealth for your financial freedom, and creating content, putting things out there, building that platform, using something like YouTube and some of the strategies that Shawn talks about, can give you that pathway to additional streams of income which will accelerate your wealth accelerate your path to financial freedom. So go check out Shawn stuff, go check out what he's doing. SEAN Thank you so much for taking the time. It's been too long since since we've had a chance to chat so good to chat with you and thank you for for being with me on the show.

Sean Cannell  1:02:49  
Thank you pleasures all mine I really appreciate your kindness and I look forward to the next time we're together in person my friend.

Mel Abraham  1:02:56  
Same here. Thank you for listening to the Affluent Entrepreneur Show with me your host Mel Abraham. If you want to achieve financial liberation to create an affluent lifestyle, join me in the affluent entrepreneur Facebook group now by going to melabraham.com/group and I'll see you there.