All Things Fitness and Wellness

YouTube Monetization Secrets Every Fitness CEO Should Know – with David Sherman-Presser

• Krissy Vann

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What does the future of fitness content look like—and how can CEOs and marketers turn video into real revenue?

In this episode of All Things Fitness and Wellness, host Krissy Vann sits down with David Sherman-Presser, Founder of Structure Creation Consulting and former YouTube strategist, to unpack what fitness executives really need to know about YouTube, content monetization, and building a personal brand that drives business.

With nearly seven years inside YouTube developing monetization tools, David now advises top brands in fitness, wellness, and sports. He shares exclusive, behind-the-scenes insight into how the platform works—and how fitness businesses can use it to grow revenue, expand influence, and stay competitive.

In this episode, we discuss:

  • How YouTube is evolving as a business tool for fitness brands
  • The 90-day roadmap to monetize content—without chasing trends
  • What most fitness execs overlook in YouTube analytics
  • Shorts vs. long-form: what’s actually worth your time
  • How to repurpose video content across YouTube, LinkedIn, and podcasts
  • Personal branding for CEOs: what works now—and what doesn’t
  • What fitness businesses can expect next in content strategy and consumer behavior

Whether you're a CEO looking to step into the spotlight or a fitness company building out a media arm, this episode delivers tactical, insider-level insights that go beyond surface-level advice.


#fitnessbusiness #fitnessindustry #podcast 

Unknown:

YouTube's biggest asset is its size. It's 2 billion daily active users. It's the number one podcast platform in the world. It's the number one streaming platform in the world, ahead of Netflix. Its biggest liability is also its size. There's a lot of products. It's very confusing. It's overwhelming. And as I tell everyone, there's only two metrics on YouTube that matter to do the platform. Well,

Krissy Vann:

this is all things fitness and wellness, uniting industry thought leaders and fit influencers on the mission to inspire innovation and encourage people to live a life fit and well. On today's episode, we welcome a rare find, someone who brings true insider knowledge from deep within the engine room of YouTube itself. David Sherman presser, founder of structure creation consulting isn't just another strategist. He's worked behind the scenes shaping how creators grow, monetize and scale on the world's biggest video platform. Now, typically we're talking about the business of fitness, but this episode is a gold mine for CEOs looking to elevate their personal brand, like I'm seeing many of you do on LinkedIn and CMOS, aiming to drive meaningful member growth through content that actually moves the needle. David brings a strategic perspective. Most never get access to Insight born from working with the platform and its top performers, from personal branding to lead generation and long term engagement. This conversation is a must listen if you're serious about growing with purpose in the digital age. Before we get to it, be sure to hit like and subscribe. We have new podcast episodes weekly featuring industry thought leaders and influencers. I'm your host, Krissy Vann, and this is atfw, okay? David Sherman presser, now this was a name that I had not had in my sphere, in my time in the fitness industry, until this past March, going around the HFA. And I have to say, David, you were working hard and fast, and it's because at the time, you were on the cusp of bringing a new venture to life. So tell a little bit about your history and what has brought you to the fitness industry?

Unknown:

Thank you, Krissy, I'm excited to be here. Yeah. HFA, that was my first time at the event in Vegas. I was actually still working at YouTube at the time, and I was getting ready to launch my own company. So as I tell people, I was at YouTube for almost seven years, I built half of the Creator monetization products there. So there's few folks in the world and know about as much about monetization on YouTube as I do. And you know, YouTube is a great platform. I grew up with it, and there's so much opportunity for the health and fitness space. And everyone who knows me knows that that is my passion in life. So my mom, I tell everyone, she's going to be 75 in June. She still bikes cross country, she still works. She's a nutritionist, big inspiration for me. So basically, I'm taking my platform knowledge and my work experience. I've been in marketing for 15 years. I've been to business school. I was at YouTube for seven years. I'm passionate about health, longevity, mindfulness, and so I'm taking my YouTube knowledge and I'm bringing it to this space to help people up level on

Krissy Vann:

YouTube. And I know for yourself, David, you know, in this audience, we speak a lot to this enterprise level of the fitness industry. And you would think, you know, why is it relevant to them? Well, one thing that I'm noticing more and more are C suite executives that are really not just looking to build their businesses, encourage their marketing teams to play in these places and think differently, but in addition to that, they're building their own personal brand. So through the conversation today, I know you're not going to give us all the secret sauce because you have a job and a business behind it, but you are going to help enlighten us with some of these tools, which I feel a are always evolving, and B are often very misunderstood. So we'll dive right in here. As you mentioned, you've seen the inner workings of YouTube. So what's the number one thing that you notice fitness brands get wrong about monetization mechanics?

Unknown:

Yeah. So the number one thing that fitness brands do wrong is they don't do the best practices. I tell everyone, YouTube's biggest asset is its size. It's 2 billion daily active users. It's the number one podcast platform in the world. It's the number one streaming platform in the world, ahead of Netflix. Its biggest liability is also its size. There's a lot of products. It's very confusing. It's overwhelming. And as I tell everyone, there's only two metrics on YouTube that matter to do the platform. Well, you gotta get people to click on your videos, and you got to get people to watch them. So I'll tell you in two minutes, basically how YouTube works. So most videos on YouTube are watched and what we call home feed or watch next so they're served algorithmically. This is not a surprise. Everyone knows this, but YouTube wants to know if they put a video in front of you, Krissy, are you going to click on it? Click through rate is very important, which means your title and thumbnail are one of the most important things on YouTube. I still talk to a lot of clients, creators, fitness brands, that view their thumbnail as like a kind of silly title, small image. I tell people, it's basically packaging. You would never create a product with bad packaging. Title and thumbnail are the packaging for your content, and if that's not compelling, people aren't going to click and they're not going to watch. So that's the first thing. The second thing is, people forget this. YouTube is literally 20 years old. This year, they just celebrated their 20th birthday. Wild. It's in I grew up with the internet and YouTube. It's been a, you know, an amazing two decades. People also don't know this. YouTube started as a dating platform. I'm not making this up. You could look it up. YouTube launched Valentine's Day 2005 because the founders thought that people were going to upload dating videos of themselves, and this is how they were going to meet. Oh

Krissy Vann:

my goodness, I did not know this. I'm loving this. YouTube tea. Funny

Unknown:

story. And you know, again, I grew up with the internet, with YouTube. Video in 2005 was so bad. YouTube was an amazing product, and people started using it for all sorts of video upload. And then Susan Wojcicki, who at that time was at Google, she was actually Google started in her garage. She was a visionary that saw what YouTube and video could become. And she convinced Larry and Sergey, the founders, to buy in 2006 but the reason I tell that story is because for many years, YouTube had a click bait problem where you could say, here's the five best tricep exercises to do, and you click on it and it's a bunch of cats dancing on the piano, and that is not a good user experience. And YouTube needed to solve that, which they did through what they call AVD, or average view duration. So YouTube wants to know, when you click on a video, what percentage of that video are you watching? If you watch 5% YouTube says this is probably not a great video. They're going to down rank it. If you watch 90% that's a quality signal, they're going to say this is good. The Creator delivered on the expectation of title and thumbnail. So these are the only two things that really matter on YouTube. The last thing I'll tell you is there is a formula for retention on the platform. And so when brands that I work with or clients think about creating content, they need to think about in four separate chunks. You need to hook people, you need to have storytelling, you need to re engage them, and then once you get them past 50% of a video. They're in the back half, and they're mostly bought in. But I would say the number one thing people are not doing outside of best practices and not enough storytelling. Video is about storytelling and getting people invested in what your your message is and your video is. You mentioned

Krissy Vann:

the thumbnail, and obviously that's a great metaphor. It is the packaging. But in the YouTube universe, is there a specific formula for that packaging? What works? Well,

Unknown:

yeah, I would say so less is more what you know, all my clients I work with, I tell them, Go look at what Mr. Beast does. Because literally, he is a billionaire on YouTube. And this is because he knew all these things about 10 years ago, and they do not deviate from the formulas and from the science. So, you know, it's bright colors, it's high contrast, no more than three words. Like, I've talked to a lot of creators that take their title and they put it as copy on the thumbnail. And I say, you are out of your mind if you are writing an essay on your thumbnails. Like, thumbnails are visual assets, you know. So keeping it simple, the other thing that I see a lot of faces drive clicks like we are wired to like humans and to respond to them. So you look at Mr. Beast, you look at Jeff Nipper and some of these other folks like it's their face zoomed in with some type of emotional expression. So, you know, I tell clients, don't do things that would make you uncomfortable or like would are not true to your brand, but faces, emotions drive clicks.

Krissy Vann:

No, that's a wonderful advice, and it makes a lot of sense when people play in other social media spaces. YouTube does have differentiators, so some of those thought processes where they're like the thumbnails and afterthought, my titles and afterthought, I can see how that happens, but it's great that you reiterate you're missing the boat if you're not investing in either of those. When a CEO says that they want to grow on YouTube, we know. I mean, you said you've worked in marketing, so sometimes there can be pressure of like, why aren't we getting views? How do we grow? What key signal do you look for at first to assess if the opportunity is real? Is it there or just wishful thinking. Is it worth it?

Unknown:

Yeah, that's a great question. I would say the number one thing to look at is how loyal is your community, and the metric or signal to understand that is what percent of your views are coming from subscribers. So if you have the majority of your views coming from subscribers, it means that people know you on YouTube. You have a community. They care about you. They watch you on a week to week basis. And if you want to launch products or memberships or do other things with the channel, those people will follow you, kind of wherever you go. So that's a really important thing to think about, is how loyal is my community? And how do I continue to build community on the platform?

Krissy Vann:

Now monetization, obviously, I know a lot of the clients that you work with, and you're just in the infancy of expanding and already busy. But bodybuilders, for example, I know that was something that was really fascinating to you, and it makes sense those independent creators have a yearning to grow their platform to ultimately make money. We deal with a lot of boutique fitness operators, HVLP models in the. Luxury gym side, and so there may be less attention spent on the fact that this could be another revenue generator for a business. So I'm just curious beyond AdSense, what monetization levers should fitness and wellness companies be thinking about pulling on YouTube? And almost never do. And you may or may not know this, but are there any players in boutique or HVLP, that are doing YouTube Well,

Unknown:

yeah, so YouTube likes to say that they built the Creator economy. You know, Facebook and Tiktok will tell you they have a billion dollar creator funds, and they pay out a billion dollars every year. YouTube has true revenue share products. YouTube has paid $70 billion to channels in the past three years. I mean, it's apples and oranges, and there are 10 ways to make money on YouTube. And so a lot of my clients and I talk to smaller creators, because, again, to be a channel on YouTube is to be a small business, and you want diversified revenue streams for your business. So I would say the number one product to think about outside of ads on YouTube is channel membership. And again, it it ties back to what we were talking about with community. If you have a lot of really loyal fans that want more content from you, want access to you want to see behind the scenes, you know, one to ask you questions or get recognition from you. Offering a membership product where you're charging five or $10 you know, on a monthly basis for exclusive content or a members only live stream, is something that works extremely well. And again, that's recurring revenue is less variable, typically, than ads, because, as we all know, kind of CPMs and ads can go up and down

Krissy Vann:

now from a data perspective, because obviously, if there's a marketing team behind us or a smaller team, they want to know what's working so what are some of the overlooked indicators inside YouTube studio that executives should actually be tracking weekly if they want to improve performance and retention? And I know you kind of touched on some of those important ones at the beginning there, but if they're in the studio, what are they searching for?

Unknown:

Yeah, I mean, it's, I sound like a broken record, but YouTube is having success. On YouTube is kind of like going to the gym. It's boring. There's no secret sauce. It's literally just, you know, consistency reps. I mean, you know, you and I are both gym people. You just gotta go in every day and do the reps and the sets. So click through rate and average view duration are the things to look at. And people ask me all the time, you know, we, as someone who worked in marketing for a long time, you know, what's the benchmark? I tell people, there is no benchmark. Whatever you are currently doing is your baseline. Drive it up over time and your channel will grow. So just know what your click through rate is, know what your average view duration is, and drive those metrics up over time. I

Krissy Vann:

know YouTube, when we initially thought of it, it was long form content, and that still exists to a large degree. But shorts came on the scene. And as you mentioned before, there's other players there. We're familiar Instagram reels, Tiktok. I see a lot of fitness brands utilizing Instagram and Tiktok to drive basically personality so people can understand what their gym is all about. And ultimately, it's a great funnel to get members in the door. YouTube shorts less so. Are there opportunities there, and is that also something that could be another revenue stream if it hits?

Unknown:

Yeah, it's a good question. So YouTube will tell you that the name of the game in 2025 is multi format and multi product. So to have success on the platform, you have to be doing, ideally, shorts, long form and live stream. But really shorts and long form are the key to success. And I would say, even though there are monetization opportunities with YouTube shorts, it is more at this point of a kind of awareness driving tool for your channel. So you want to do shorts that are quick, compelling, still their storytelling, even though people forget, even though you know shorts and reels and tick tocks can be as short as you know, 1015, 30 seconds, you still need to tell a story, and there needs to be a reason to watch. But mostly it's you know. You're using those formats to get people more familiar with who you are, drive search and discovery and then have them, you know, subscribe to your you know your channel and watch your long form content, because, you know, it's hard to build really kind of a relationship with your audience in that very short format, you know, and when you're getting people to watch you for 510 minutes, or, you know, their videos on YouTube that are four hours long, if someone's sitting down to watch you for four hours, they really get to to know you and understand you. So that's really what you want to do is use shorts to drive traffic and awareness for your long form videos.

Krissy Vann:

Obviously, one of the other elements that we've seen on YouTube Evolve is podcasting, and I mean podcasts in general are just becoming more and more mainstream. I feel like before it was the subset of the population, and now everyone's tossing them around, made a lot of sense for YouTube to get in the game. And I think this is something that's hyper relevant to a lot of fitness brands, because they're already kind of playing in this space. What are the best practices to win at podcasting on YouTube? Because, for example, I know even I had a passion project podcast, so you can easily on. The back end, flip the switch and just have it push your RSS feed up there. But are, is there more that we should be doing to get visibility on the platform?

Unknown:

Yeah, podcasts are really interesting space. And to your point, it's so everyone has a podcast these days, and I think a lot of it stems from the fact that podcasts are repeatable content formats. You know, it's very easy to sit down and have a conversation with someone. Conversation with someone. It's hard to be, you know, a Mr. Beast and spend $5 million and travel the world and get eaten by lions like, that's, you can't do that more than, I mean, none of us can do that, but he can't do that more than, maybe, you know, once every couple of years, it really goes back. And I know I'm going to sound like a broken record to the fundamentals, like, if you are doing a podcast on YouTube, making sure your thumbnail is really strong, your packaging is really strong and compelling. You know, you know what your value proposition is. And you're getting people to watch, you know, to click on it and watch. And then it's, you know, storytelling. And it's thinking about, how do you hook people begin storytelling and then re engage them throughout that episode. So, you know, I don't know if there's a secret formula. I know that YouTube is the number one podcast platform in the world, and there is a lot of focus on making those that product and features work better at YouTube. But I think again, a lot of the success there with the folks that I see, whether it's, you know, Peter Attias, the Andrew hubermans, the Joe rogans Like I mean, those are very established podcasts, but they are doing they have great guests, they have great storytelling, they ask great questions, and their thumbnail and packaging are very strong.

Krissy Vann:

I mean, we know that there's a lot of fitness CEOs that are playing in the LinkedIn space right now. In a big way, LinkedIn has had huge shifts and niching into the video side of things and really growing into a social platform where a couple of years ago, it was just your online resume. Is there merit to them bridging over to YouTube? Is there things they should be doing differently or on top of that? How can they grow loyal audiences on LinkedIn using some YouTube best practices,

Unknown:

yeah. So, you know, every platform operates very differently, but I think the fundamentals are the same, you know, understanding what your value proposition is and why you are unique, and why people should care. So the name of the game these days, and I do this with a lot of clients, is what, you know, what I would call niching down, and I'll give you a story. So I'm working with she's a friend of mine, and she said, David, I want to be a content creator full time because I don't like my job anymore. And I say, okay, her name is, her name is yo yo. And yo yo goes, I want to be a tennis creator. And I go, Yo Yo, you can't be a tennis creator. There's a million tennis creators out there like you're not going to stand out. You're not even that good at tennis, no offense. So yo yo goes, Okay, so how do I pair this with something else? I want to be tennis plus fashion, and I go, yo yo. That's still too broad, like there's a lot of tennis fashion creators, you're not going to be able to stand out. So we did this niching down exercise, and where we landed was, yo yo has twin boys that are about two months older than my daughter, and yo yo has a really cool story, because she used tennis postpartum to get back in shape and to feel kind of really good and energetic. And that's a story that only yo yo can tell. So now we are building a channel where yo yo is a tennis fashion creator who also talks about being a mom and how she used tennis postpartum like that's a story no one else can tell. And so it's thinking about, you know, whether it's LinkedIn or Tiktok or Instagram or YouTube, what is your niche? What story can you tell that no one else can and you start with kind of like telling that story appealing to, you know, a small target audience, and then it grows from there. Yeah,

Krissy Vann:

fair enough. And it's really, I know it's such an overused word. I think it was word of the year one or two ago, authenticity, but that hasn't gone away. And I truthfully feel in this AI era, we're so much we're starved for it to a different degree than we were before, because it's hard to sift reality versus what isn't I

Unknown:

mean, the world is already weird, and it's going to get a lot weirder as AI becomes more ubiquitous and gets

Krissy Vann:

better. Yeah, absolutely. Well, even from the podcast front, there's already tools that could take your voice, my voice. They could have prompted this whole conversation. Why are we even here? David,

Unknown:

scary stuff. Krissy, don't put that out there. We don't want that the world that to become the world we live

Krissy Vann:

in. It won't. It won't. I honestly feel like nothing can replace a creative heart. But for some people that are feeling inspired to maybe start biting into this or adding this to their strategy, what would you say is a good 90 day 90 day monetization roadmap for a fitness brand? Is that even possible to get yourself to monetization in 90 days in the 2025 YouTube era? It is if

Unknown:

you are very strategic and very rigorous with your approach. So what I like to do with clients is I typically start with what I call a Content Market Fit exercise. And it's a very simple kind of marketing, 101, 3c, kind of who you are as a creator, what the competition is doing, and then what kind of users or cost. MERS are doing on these platforms, then moving into more of a strategic phase. We do some segmentation. We look at it demographically, psychographically, behaviorally, we choose a target. This is the most important thing. People come to me and they say, Okay, there's a million people watching football. I want to do a football channel similar to my story about yo yo. It's like, if you are not offering anything better than the competition. That could be the biggest segment in the world, and no one's going to care about your stuff. So it's finding the target that will care about you. You have a story that is unique and will resonate with them that no one else can tell. And then it's just figuring out how to tell that story, you know, classic four piece, price product promotion in place, like how to execute, you know, through content on the on the platform. So that's what I would suggest starting with. And then in 90 days, if you have a really clear target in mind and value prop, it's okay, getting the foundation right, your packaging, your retention strategies, understanding, you know, content formats, shorts, VOD, live, and then kind of starting to think about monetization in maybe the so that's maybe the first 30 days. Second 30 days is okay. You're up and running your season, seeing some success. YouTube is a test and learn platform. All these platforms are test and learn what's working, what's not working. How do you make adjustments? And then the next 90 days, it's like you're off to the races. You continue to, like, iterate, and hopefully you're having a lot of success. And you know, you can start monetizing on these platforms in 90 days with a lot of strategy. But again, it's consistency. It's like going to the gym. You gotta the only way to build muscle is do the reps, do the sets, and do them every day.

Krissy Vann:

And there could be some people listening. I mean, as you mentioned, YouTube's been around for 20 years, so there could be teams that, back in the day were like, we're gonna do this YouTube thing that we've heard of, and then their channel goes dead, and so they have kind of old content that maybe doesn't look super great. Can those be revived? Is it better to just start again from scratch? What should they do? If they're like, this should be a place we were playing, but we've messed it up previously. Yeah, that's

Unknown:

a really good question. I don't think there's one right answer. I think both scenarios could work. I think you can restart your channel, as long as you have a very clear target in mind and focus for the content. And I would say if you're restarting the channel, reintroducing yourself. So the first couple of videos that you're putting out there say, hey, you know, if you're if you've been on this channel for a long time, here we are again. We're doing something new. Here's what you can expect. I think it's also fine to start a new channel. If you are starting a channel from scratch, shorts have to be a part of that content strategy, because that's what's going to drive awareness and kind of get the ball rolling on people seeing your content, discovering it, and then you can drive that audience to the main channel to watch more of your long form content.

Krissy Vann:

Brilliant. Well, lastly here, David, what is your final piece of advice? If you're think about the fact you are speaking to boutique operators, big box gyms, these big brands, what would be your final piece of advice for them, especially for this space in 2025

Unknown:

Yeah, everyone who knows me knows the two things I say the most. We don't overthink things and we don't sweat the small stuff. It's okay if your content strategy or your idea or your videos are not perfect, put it out there, publish it, test and learn. This is what you know, social media and these platforms were designed for. You test things, you learn what works, and then you make adjustments. So don't sweat the small stuff. Don't think it needs to be perfect. I know, you know, it just sounds cliche. Just do it. Kind of get out there, but that's really the best advice. And make improvements as you go along.

Krissy Vann:

Sometimes the best advice is the simplest advice. David, where can people connect with you?

Unknown:

Yeah, so structure creation consulting is my company. You can find us@structurecreation.com We're also on LinkedIn. You know, I'm mostly focused on the health and fitness space. This is my passion. I'm working with athletes, brands, podcasters in health and fitness, typically on the smaller side. So I say under a million subscribers, but yeah, I love this space. I'm also working with a bunch of nonprofits, American Heart Association, fit America, and HFA. So I'm just excited to get out more. I'm going to athletech, I'll be at VidCon. I'll be at a couple other conferences later in the year. And Krissy, as you know, I'm just so grateful for you. And people like Emma Berry and Erica Weiss and Eric Mazon, you know, people that have, like, embraced me in this industry and are so kind. Because, as I tell folks, there's a lot of big egos and big tech half the people I worked with I'm going to be best friends with forever, the other half bad energy people. I don't want to be around them. And what I have seen in the short time of being in this space is how warm and welcoming and smart everyone is.

Krissy Vann:

Yeah, honestly, I told you when we met as well, I had been on the consumer side and switched over the last couple of years. And I have to agree so much with that sentiment, and I think it's because we all. Are built on that same foundation of understanding what it means to move and maybe, just maybe, it's because exercise gives us all those good endorphins, and that's why we're kind people. Thank you so much, David, for your time.

Unknown:

Thank you, Krissy. It was great to talk with

Krissy Vann:

you. You've just listened to the All Things fitness and wellness podcast hosted by Krissy Vann. Be sure to hit like and subscribe. We have new podcast episodes weekly featuring industry insiders and influencers. Together, we're on a mission for everyone to live a life fit and well you

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