Imagine having to dial phones for 8-10 hours a day just to meet ends meet. Our guest, Levi, shares his captivating journey from humble beginnings in sales to forging a successful career in real estate, with detours including a stint in the military and an 18-month deployment in Iraq. As someone who initially resisted the lure of real estate, he offers profound insights into his return to the industry and the challenges he faced.
What if you could harness the power of YouTube and other online platforms to supercharge your learning and business growth? I share my personal journey of hyperlearning, detailing how I built a successful YouTube strategy using the Ready Fire Aim approach. I underscore the importance of consistency, the power of compounding time, and how one can potentially profit if your videos achieve positive watch time.
Finally, brace yourself for thought-provoking insights from Marcus Rilius, who discusses his experimentations in the real estate arena, the lessons he learned, and the value of video content for businesses. He walks us through the importance of laying a strong foundation before launching a social media strategy and offers an in-depth look at his book 'Passive Prospecting.' So, buckle up for a conversation packed with nuggets of wisdom, compelling stories, and practical tips to thrive in the ever-evolving digital landscape.
Imagine having to dial phones for 8-10 hours a day just to meet ends meet. Our guest, Levi, shares his captivating journey from humble beginnings in sales to forging a successful career in real estate, with detours including a stint in the military and an 18-month deployment in Iraq. As someone who initially resisted the lure of real estate, he offers profound insights into his return to the industry and the challenges he faced.
What if you could harness the power of YouTube and other online platforms to supercharge your learning and business growth? I share my personal journey of hyperlearning, detailing how I built a successful YouTube strategy using the Ready Fire Aim approach. I underscore the importance of consistency, the power of compounding time, and how one can potentially profit if your videos achieve positive watch time.
Finally, brace yourself for thought-provoking insights from Marcus Rilius, who discusses his experimentations in the real estate arena, the lessons he learned, and the value of video content for businesses. He walks us through the importance of laying a strong foundation before launching a social media strategy and offers an in-depth look at his book 'Passive Prospecting.' So, buckle up for a conversation packed with nuggets of wisdom, compelling stories, and practical tips to thrive in the ever-evolving digital landscape.
All right, welcome to another episode here of the Stoic Agent podcast. I got a super cool guest on here, a member of our tribe here with EXP, but none of it is going to be no talk of EXP. We're going to be talking about YouTube and time. So, levi, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me, alex. Yeah, absolutely man. So just to the audience we always like to. You know you're a legend amongst us, but maybe not a legend amongst others, so give us a little bit of background on you kind of and what kind of led you here.
Speaker 2:Well, excuse me, you know we've got a mutual friend, michael Reese, right. So the funny thing is is I sold Jim memberships with him back at Bali Total Fitness before he got into real estate in 2002. And he was my introduction into sales and took me to my first, you know, speaking event, which was Brian Tracy. And that was just really funny because I had.
Speaker 2:I grew up in a small town in Texas, about two hours south of Dallas. You know, if you're not milk and cows or riding bulls, really not much else to do there and extremely poor growing up, or I would say lack of money, I wouldn't say poor. We had a lack of money and my parents always said you can't afford that, we can't afford this, we can't afford college. So they didn't go to college. My two older brothers didn't go to college and after about working a year after high school mopping floors, stocking shelves, I was like, okay, this isn't going to work for me and I joined the military so I could get some college money. I thought that would be the easiest way and I went through. You know, I went through a couple of years and then got home, came back to Dallas and met Michael Reese. You know he started teaching me about sales and and Bali's Total Fitness was not a gym, it was a, it was a sales organization, so they were hardcore closers there. We used to phone call dial every single day, probably about eight to 10 hours a day. The whole goal was to get five appointments the next day, get five people in the gym to tour them around the gym so you could sell them a membership. But that took eight to 10 hours of phone calls the day before to do that. So I just learned how to pound the phones and be very aggressive because you only got a you know a two or three, you know chance, that you know two or three out of five chance to close a deal as well. So it was very, very sales driven.
Speaker 2:And then in a Michael got licensed 2002, he finally talked me into becoming a real estate agent by 2004, because I never really wanted to be a real estate agent. But then I did get licensed technically in 2004, but literally one week later, before I even really did anything, I got a call to be deployed to Iraq. I was still in the reserves at the time and so I got a notice. A four day notice got sent to Fort Hood, and then I was gone for 18 months and spent 12 months of that over in Iraq and in 2005,. And whenever I, you know, came back home, my license had already expired. I wasn't interested in renewing it because I was never really interested in being a real estate agent. Anyways, michael just talked me into it and we kind of we went our separate ways, right. We kept in touch over the last, you know, 20 years, but again, I never wanted to be an agent and I think that's where I met you was in Key West, right.
Speaker 2:And 2019, I wasn't even in the business. I was running my financial services company which I was working with all the teachers at Dallas Independent School District on their retirement planning so very lucrative had a great time. I was making the most money in my life, but I only worked about eight months of the year, so I had a teacher schedule, but like five times the teacher's income, and so I was traveling the world, taking summers off, two weeks off for Christmas, a week off for Thanksgiving, every four day holiday, you know, every four day weekend. You could imagine I was like loving life, you know. And then 2020 happened and the world shuts down, and so and school shut down and my business shut down and travel shut down.
Speaker 2:And there I was, at 41 years old, going, okay, how do I start over without starting over? Like, what am I going to do? I didn't have any clue if schools would ever open back up, so I didn't know if my business was going to come back. Nobody was really thinking about investing. They were asking me how do they pull out money? Because they were scared to death and you know. And then, of course, I wasn't going to go anywhere. So I was like, well, what's the next move? It's probably not going to be that. And I've been building that business over the last five years just to watch it kind of go poof overnight.
Speaker 2:And so you know, and whenever I spoke at that mastermind event in 2019, that was November of 2019, I wasn't in real estate, I wasn't thinking about it, I was perfectly happy. And then you know what, four or five months later, complete, you know, change in the world that we never, ever even saw coming. And so that's where I sat there over the summer of 2020. And I just started to research a lot and try to figure out what's my next move. And here comes Michael. You know, after 20 years. He's like hey, man, now's the best time to get into real estate. You know, you know how Michael is. And then he's talking about. He was talking about exp and everything and I was kind of like, all right, that sounds cool, but I still don't want to be a real estate agent. And the reason being is because I know how hard they work.
Speaker 2:First of all and I know I didn't I was not looking forward to starting over prospecting. Number one, because that's what really scared me to death was I was like Holy cow. I've been prospecting my whole life, you know, to generate sales business. It's just a part of sales. I was always the best salesperson because I was the best prospector. I was willing to put in more work, more hours, more dials, more door knocks, whatever the case may be, to generate more business.
Speaker 2:So you know, I just came to a point where, at 41, I was like I don't want to do that anymore. I'm tired of prospecting, I don't want to build from the ground up. But I'm at the ground again, I'm a ground floor. So what, how do I do that? Is there even a way? And you know he kept talking to me about this agent attraction thing through the brokerage and I just kept hearing that word, attraction. You know, I was thinking attraction, okay, that sounds cool, that's a good concept.
Speaker 2:In a started to make me think About real estate or business, and I thought attraction, attraction, okay. Well, if that's the case, you know, if I were to get into real estate, is their way to attract business versus being, they know, on the pursuing and are doing what I've always done, which is chase people down until they, until they, you know, run out of breath or die, and they just give up, right, and then I can sell them something. But I was just like Could I actually attract business versus chasing it all the time? So that's what really got my wheels turning and that's something that michael's always been really good at, I think is making people think a little differently or just consider more options. I would say so when he was just using that word. Attraction just got me really thinking. So I started to research and I was like how can I attract business? Well, in 2020, first of all, everything shut down. There's 30 million layoffs, but real estate is starting to kind of is really starting to grow.
Speaker 2:It was one of the only industries right, other than toilet paper cells. So it's like, okay, go on a cell toilet paper. Or do I want to be a real estate agent? I think I'll probably go the agent route. But again, you know, there's no meet and greets going on, you're not networking, you're not, you know, shaking hands with your spear of influence, you're not meeting people at Starbucks. So it's like, okay, that's out of the picture anyways. So social media, right? Okay, social media, let's, let's. Let me look at that.
Speaker 2:Even though I had been anti social up to this point really, I was again. If you're like me, at that 40 year old age range or above, you probably have this love hate relationship with social media. And I was that person where I didn't grow up with it. It wasn't there in high school, wasn't there in college, didn't come around until my late 20s. And then I thought it was silly because everyone's bragging or posting their lunch or silly cat videos. So I wasn't really interested in social media, wasn't? I just had accounts, because my friends and family had accounts, right. So I thought, well, maybe there's something to the social media because you also start to watch these 20 and 30 year old start making a lot of money way earlier than than we ever did right. So I'm like okay, well, maybe there's something there, but which platform? There's so many platforms out there.
Speaker 2:I didn't want to get caught up in every single platform, and that's a mistake. I think that most people make, whether you're in real estate or any business Is people will tell you okay, great, congratulations, you're an agent. Now make sure you get a Facebook page and Instagram page, a Twitter page, a Tiktok page, you know. And they start telling you to do this across all these platforms. They usually don't even mention YouTube, by the way, which is why I still believe it's an untapped market, and so people do that. They go out and they open up all these accounts and then they're like I wait, I've got to make content, I've got a post, I've got a schedule, I've got a right copy. You don't. And they get overwhelmed and even if they keep up with that from the very start, they start putting 20% effort across five different platforms instead of investing 100% effort into one. So I didn't want to get caught up in that cycle.
Speaker 2:So I said you know what, if I'm going to go to social media route, I'm going to choose one platform, pick that platform, go all in. I'm going to go as deep as possible and if I can generate business from that platform, maybe I'll branch off into other platforms down the road, but I need to be able to generate a significant business from one first, but which one? Which one? And so I sit there and most people told me Tiktok, Instagram, especially Tiktok. Like in 2020, every agent seemed to wake up with 10,000 followers on Tiktok.
Speaker 2:So they're like you got to go hard on Tiktok, but I didn't really hear a lot of people turning over business from that, or a significant amount of business, or you know, I'm watching everybody do these pointy videos and dance around and I'm kind of like I don't know if that's me. You know I don't think that's a good fit for me, so I just kept looking. I kept looking. I didn't want to do it on Facebook, instagram and you know I'm not going to do that.
Speaker 2:Youtube was really the last choice and when I discovered YouTube was a search engine, not a social media platform, that got me thinking differently again and I was like oh, people are searching their intentional on YouTube. They're actually looking for information on neighborhoods and suburbs, and I started to figure out key words and neighborhoods that they were searching for and I thought you know what? I'm not a good real estate. Actually, I've never been a real estate agent. I'm not a great real estate agent so I didn't want to fake it on Tiktok and Instagram like I'm this master agent who's been in the business which you know.
Speaker 2:That's what I felt like I would have been doing, but I realized, well, I've lived in Dallas for 20 years. I know the neighborhoods in the suburbs. I can probably just go out and show these neighborhoods and suburbs and talk about them and not even mention I actually didn't even mention I was real. I still don't even really say I'm a real estate agent videos. And I just became, you know, the tour guide around town. And then, all of a sudden, I started phone calls and then that just led to a lot of phone calls and then, you know, just one thing after another completely snowballed into a crazy, crazy business.
Speaker 1:Man, there's so much done. Pack there. I love the way your mind works, sticking on the time thing I saw you on at build and one of the things that you said was and I forget exactly what you said, but it was something to the effect of I don't know if it was hyper learning or you know really diving deep hard and you did a lot of research. Can you speak a little bit about that? I think you know people get a little. We talked about distraction last week at one of our team meetings and so what do you think you think that? That that valleys thing and maybe you know being without money when you're younger, like really give you an appreciation of time and you know within that, like talk to us about that deep learning that you did in the beginning.
Speaker 2:I don't think I had the appreciation of time until I really started to generate significant business from YouTube, and what I started to learn was that YouTube did not take me time, it made me time. And not only did it make me time, it compounded my time so that I didn't go into it knowing that. But what happened was, if we rewind a little bit and go back into hyper learning, I believe you can hyper learn any subject in 60 days. Really, this day and age, like Jay Shetty says, if you read five books on one subject, you'll be more proficient than, like, 99% of people on that one subject. So think about that If you take five books, you watch 30 YouTube videos. You read 10 different blogs. You I don't know you could probably take online class right now on some particular subject, it doesn't matter what it is and you focus everything you can to learn over the next 60 days. Which means, yes, cut out some Netflix, don't watch five hours of Netflix on Saturday. That means watch five hours of YouTube videos on that subject. If you immerse yourself into one subject, which I just chose YouTube it's like once I decided YouTube was going to be for me. Then I went all in. I studied it for 60 days. There's a book that's called like Ready Fire Ane, which I think you know makes sense.
Speaker 2:But at the same time, I do believe in building a business plan first. I think that's where a lot of people go wrong on social media is they just start social media. They don't build out a plan and treat it like a business. And if you treat these platforms like a hobby, they'll pay you like a hobby. If you treat them like a business, they'll pay you like a business. So I looked at YouTube as a platform and studied everything I could for 60 days. Meaning I went on to Amazon and I typed in YouTube marketing and guess what? It popped up 20 different books on YouTube marketing. What did I do? I bought half of them. I bought like eight or nine YouTube marketing books. I just looked at ones with good reviews, things like that, or there's a couple with real estate as well and I was like, oh, I'll buy those eight books, cost me 50 bucks maybe, and you've got eight books. And I was like, okay, I got that. Once I read through those eight books, of course they talk about channels or YouTube channels in there. So that led me to YouTube channels to start looking at and researching, and then I started to see there, and then I started to find people that taught YouTube literally just teach YouTube the algorithm, the videos, content, how to and so that got me to start building out a plan. So I just did that over 60 days, immersed everything during summer of 2020.
Speaker 2:Instead of watching Tiger King like everybody else did, I watched and learned about YouTube over 60 days. Once I built out a business plan for that and I took a lot of notes. Okay, this person says post one a week. This one says two a week. This one says three a week. This one says posted 8 pm. This one says posted 7 am. So I tried to find the happy medium, because you'll get a lot of different answers, but I just looked at everything and I said what's going to work best for me, what can I do, what can I commit to, when can I post? And so that's what allowed me to hyper learn over 60 days.
Speaker 2:You don't want to get caught up in analysis, paralysis, so you do need to plan, I believe, study and then take action, which is what I did, and so, once I was ready, I also learned from my studying that you don't want to just publish a video and then sit on your channel for the next month or two. So I understood consistency was really key. So I filmed an entire month of content before I even published the first video. So I said I'm going to publish three videos a week, and so I just filmed 12 videos and I was patient. So most people will film one video, get all excited, post it and then life happens, health happens, relationships happen, anything happens, and then they start making excuses of why they can't film the next video. And then, all of a sudden, a week, two, three, four goes by and you'd talk yourself out of making any more content. So I knew that would be a trap.
Speaker 2:So, based on my research and I was like all right, well, I'm going to film the first month. Whenever I film the first month and schedule them. I had a month's worth of content scheduled out. So I filmed during November, release the first video December 5th, 2020, but I already had all of December's videos scheduled and ready to publish. Guess what that allowed me to do during December Film January's videos. And then in January, I was filming February's videos, and so I started to stay a month ahead until something happened, and then if something happened, you could get sick, kids could get sick, wife could get sick, whatever Something happens and it takes you out of filming for a week or two, it doesn't matter, because I was scheduled out for four weeks so I had a buffer and then all I had to do was regroup and recoup and I just had to stick on my plan.
Speaker 2:So you can do that different ways. You can try to film the exact amount of content every single week, same time a week, or you can film it in one day for once a month. I mean, there's so many different ways you can structure filming your content. But it has to become a non-negotiable in your calendar, it has to become part of your schedule, it has to become a turn of value on recording that video. And that gets into making and compounding time, which, if I make a video and it takes me 30 minutes to make, first of all, as soon as that video is watched 31 minutes I made a profit of 1 minute of my time. So all I need is the watch time to come back positive and I've made a profit of my time.
Speaker 2:Now here's the other aspect is that, you know, one video took me 30 minutes to make 11,600 hours actually way more than that, but the last time I took the snapshot, 11,600 hours. So that's like making a profit of 11,595 hours off of my 30 minute investment. So let me ask you this you know, if I offered you 11,595 hours which, by the way, is equivalent to like 1.3 years if I offered you 1.3 years more time with your family, with your friends, with your spouse, with your parents, with you know, vacation time, whatever the case may be would you trade that for 30 minutes sold? Yes, absolutely you would. And that's where the compound effect comes in, because in 2022, our channel was watched 104,600 hours. You divide that by 24 hours in a day, that's equivalent to almost 12 years of prospecting, and so that's why we call it passive. Prospecting is because I make a certain amount of content. I didn't make 104,000 hours worth of video, but it returned that time and that's why I love YouTube, because the analytics tell me this, the data, it's right there and that's what I started to look at and I was like holy cow, look at this watch time. And if I'm getting that much, that's a very good return of my investment, of my time.
Speaker 2:If you invest money, look what does everybody love. Everybody loves passive income and compound interest, right, and so why, if you invest anything, whether it's stocks, real estate, crypto, whatever you're putting your money in I would assume your number one question is always going to be what's the return of my investment? You know what am I going to make, and then it's probably going to be how long is it going to take for me to make that back? So those are usually the top two questions. If we're investing our time, and if time is really considered the most valuable asset, why are we not asking ourselves Well, if I invest 30 minutes over there, what am I going to get back? I don't know. It's hard to measure that on a lot of tasks, except for video, and especially on video on YouTube, because if it takes me 30 minutes to make a video, I know what I invested and as soon as I start getting that watch time back, I know I've got to return.
Speaker 2:And then the monetary effect comes after that, and for me in 2022, we did 2.3 million in commissions off of 156 videos. So that's equivalent to $15,000 a video. So do you think you have to motivate me to make a video? Do you think you have to convince me to make a video. No, because I know every video I make is worth about $15,000 in commissions, and so you don't have to motivate me to do that. I know the value and I know the return. Now the funny thing is is the year before that each video is worth about $6,200. But still, if I offered you $6,200 to make a video, would you make a video? Yes, yes, you would. But it compounded it, doubled it more than doubled the next year, and I actually made less videos in 2022 than I did in 2021. And so that's the compound effect. Not only can you compound your time and get that back the income, and the commission can compound from that as well, because once I release one video, it goes to work for me not just 24, seven, but innate multiples and a compound effect.
Speaker 2:And if you've ever said, hey, I wish there was more of me, well, guess what? Make a video. And now you've just doubled yourself. Make two videos. You've tripled yourself, make three videos. You've quadrupled yourself. And imagine if you make 10, 20, 50, 100 videos, there's 100 of you not prospecting one to one, but one of those videos could be watched by 100 people at one time. It could be watched by a thousand people at one time. So one video out of your 100 could be reaching another 100 people. That's a compound effect. That's a return you can't even fathom sometimes. So that's the value of video.
Speaker 1:That's awesome man. So, in the nature of time, marcus Rilius would say, you're wise if you learn from others, so we're learning from you here. Talk to us a little about other than the biggest mistake that people make doing too many different platforms. Talk to us about maybe some of the mistakes, because I know you're not infallible and you're a humble man. Talk to us about maybe some of the mistakes that you made that you could impart on the audience. That would help them not make those mistakes and save them time.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't know. Work with us, because we'll save you a lot of time. Any time you can work with a mentor or somebody. It's a huge shortcut. It's a huge shortcut. So that's an opportunity. I don't know Because I took so much time to study, and I say so much time like I said, 60 days. I don't think most people do that before they launch their social media strategy. You could say Now, if you hired somebody, they might do that for you. But it also depends on your budget and I don't think there's really not a lot of people that do this in the real estate space. But I know we're near perfect. I've had a lot of learnings, but I'm not sure if there's much I would change. I think I'm still experimenting to this day on the channel. So I think you want to build your foundation.
Speaker 2:When I started, shorts weren't a thing. They didn't exist at that time. So I might have gotten into the trap because shorts have this virality tendency and can get a lot of views, but I don't believe they're good for conversion. The jury's still out on that. I've tested shorts, played around with them. I'm still up in the air. But the thing is, is that now? I think people look at the shiny penny and they're like, oh, shorts are going viral or I can get a lot of views. But you have to ask yourself does that equate to business conversion, selling homes? And I just don't know a lot of people that can tell me they've sold homes off of shorts. I mean, I know people that have done well from Instagram or TikTok, but not the amount of volume that we've done from YouTube. So I've definitely learned a lot over the last couple of years. It's hard for me to say that I feel like I've done something wrong.
Speaker 1:I think it's just Maybe what could you have done a little bit better? What have you fine-tuned that you could share with us?
Speaker 2:I mean, I think now it's just understanding the audience as much as possible. So I say typically in the beginning you optimize for the algorithm and then, once you establish your audience, you optimize for the audience. But audience really does mean algorithm, or algorithm means audience on YouTube. So it's one of the same. But we built a lot around search and that was the thing. I didn't have an audience when I started on YouTube. Nobody knew me, who I was, I had zero brand, so I depended upon search and I don't think that's a bad thing at all.
Speaker 2:Now we're looking at do we broaden topics a little bit, Do we expand a little bit? Do we try to capture a little bit more of an audience? But I'm not even convinced that that's good for conversion. We've been super hyper focused on Dallas, texas, real estate and when we do that, we just try to go as deep as possible, and I think for me, I've stayed consistent. I haven't had any major hiccups. I haven't done anything to bomb the channel. I've done a lot of experiments but none of them have bombed out the channel, and I think that's a big myth people get caught up in as they think, well, if I do this or that, I could tank my channel and I'm like I don't think that's the case.
Speaker 2:The main thing is that monitor, watch, learn, grow, expand or get rid of. So if you try something, it doesn't work, it doesn't mean it won't work. Maybe you need to try two or three more times. So I think just being curious, trying to understand a little bit more I'm not saying that you have to be completely obsessed with YouTube. I mean you need to sell some real estate, right, but I do think you want to be mindful of what you're doing, why you're doing it, how it works, those types of things. So it's it's it's just a work in progress, like anything else, and you just have to try to get better every single day.
Speaker 1:So you know it's funny because you know, I started my YouTube channel. I, you and and some of the other guys inspired me to do it and you know I one of the things that I did you mentioned mentors. I chose the wrong mentor, looking back, and I didn't go to somebody who actually had done it. And you know, one of the things that they had mentioned to me was to share on to social and I just was looking. We're analyzing our analytics the other day and my audience is like 25 to 34 year old Indian men in India, so somehow it, yeah. So you know I'm trying to go.
Speaker 1:Oh man, I'm wondering if I and I'd love you to take a look at my channel, I'm wondering if I get a burn it down. You know, and start over, because I will, I'll start over, I'll do it again. It takes me six, nine, twelve months. Whatever, this time, I'll start and learn from that mistake. Unfortunately, I have to learn my own mistake rather than, you know, come into you in the first place. But you know, talk to us a little bit about that, do you? Do you not do? You don't do ads, you don't do hosting on social, you're just straight YouTube and you're researching the keywords in that.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. In my research I found that that that didn't seem like a good play. I've run ads with other channels. You know we have a different channel that. You know we run ads too and I and I believe that that's completely killed the organic reach on there, you know, and so and the subscribers and the views you get from that, they look great for vanity metrics. But again, if we stopped running ads on that channel, it's probably and that's for a separate business, it's not for real estate. I haven't seen real estate ads really Convert and I've known other people that run those. I haven't seen it really do anything for him, for business. So I do think organics the best way.
Speaker 2:I started to think about platform psychology. So you have to think about these things. I always joke around, not not to knock the other platforms, but hey, you know why not, it's, it's a funny. I always say look, when people Go to buy a home, do you think? Has anybody ever said, hey, honey, it's time to find a house. Let's go on Facebook and see what's on the market? Or, hate, honey, it's time to buy a house. Let's go on Instagram and see if we can find a really cool agent posting market reports? Or hey, honey, it's time to buy a house. Let's go on tiktok and see if we can find the best dancing real estate agent. Okay, so that's not where people are likely starting their search.
Speaker 2:I think about short form content for me. Is I go there to kill time or because I'm brain dead at the end of the day and I just want to watch some funny stuff? Right, I sit there with my thumb and just and scroll. You know, I just scroll. I'm not. I'm not there researching. I'm not trying to solve a problem, I'm not trying to find my next home. But people that are Researching and trying to solve a problem or find their next home, guess where they're going? They're going on YouTube. So, if you think about that, now I share my video on Facebook or Instagram. Okay, well, I'm in my feed, I'm scrolling and I'm like, oh okay, oh, a YouTube video. Okay, well, I click on it. What happens? If you haven't noticed this, you will notice it now.
Speaker 2:If you click on a YouTube video from any other platform, it doesn't open it in the app. It opens it in the browser on the phone, right? And what happens? If you try to take it off a mute or hit the like button. It says please sign in right, or it says open this in the app. So then you got to do another step and you got to sign in and you got you know.
Speaker 2:So it first of all, most people won't even do that. They're like, oh well, I got to go sign in or I got to open this in the app so they'll stop. Well, it's in a, it's in a, basically an incognito window. So YouTube doesn't know who's doing that, who's watching it. And then you sit there and you go oh, this is a 20 minute video. I'm just sitting here trying to watch silly cat videos. You know, that's all I'm interested in watching right now. I'm not trying to watch a 20 minute Dallas Texas real estate video. So what?
Speaker 2:There's a little back button at the top to this is like go back to Instagram. What do they do? Click and then they watch your video for like 10 seconds, jumped off of it. Youtube's like oh, here's somebody we don't even know who's watching it, but they only watched it for 10 seconds, you know. And that starts to bring down view duration, things like that. So I think about platform psychology as far as why, why post it on these other platforms? You know people are not likely on those platforms Because they're searching for homes or in the mood to watch long-form content. If you're in the mood to watch 20 minute videos, you're probably just gonna go straight to YouTube, right? So it's just those types of things that that I think about.
Speaker 2:I'm maybe I'm a little weird, but I'm kind of like okay, what's the next move? Anytime I hear something or somebody says something, always like say okay, let's, let's stop and think about that and I'll, I'll sit on it for a day or two or three. And whenever they release shorts when shorts came out the first time, I Went back and forth for like 30 days on. Am I doing this? Am I not doing this? Could I find the answers I'm looking for? I went on to clubhouse. You know I'm like talking to all as many youtubers as possible. I'm on youtubers live streams and I'm asking questions, and so, even if something new comes out, I'll stop and research that first and say, okay, our shorts for me. And so finally I decided you know what I'm gonna. I'm gonna test it for 30 days. I'm gonna do a short, one short per day for 30 days, and I stopped after 22 days the first time because I didn't like what I saw, so you know. But it didn't tank my channel. You know I still. I still grew from there and still turned over business.
Speaker 2:But I think that's where you want to stop and look at things and and not just okay, if somebody says something, I always go Okay, that's interesting. Let me look at it in context of my channel and my business and see If I can, if I can see a way that that could possibly work, because Everybody is their own anomaly as well. You know what. What works for you and your business may not work for me in my business, and what works for my youtube channel may not work for your channel. And whenever I help people, I always say look, you got to use our channel as a model or as inspiration or as a as a Strategy, but it doesn't mean you will get the exact same results we get. We've had people do way better, way faster than us. We've had people that it it's taken them twice as long to get you know the results we got. So it's always a Situation, it's always an anomaly with every single person. So if you're in it for the long run, it won't matter. It's the people that are impatient that sit there and go.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, I posted a video. How come I'm not getting any phone calls, you know. So it's like well, hey, it may take you 12, 24, 36, 48, 56 videos. You know, I mean it, that it just may be the case. But so you just have to look at those types of things and and I don't recommend sharing YouTube videos on other platforms just because I'm thinking about platform psychology Are these people likely to watch? Is it my target audience? Is that where I want my video to live? Plus, these other platforms hate it. When you share content from other platforms, they will also suppress it, so you're not even really going to get a decent reach likely anyways and so I'm at video 68 and it's tough to say because I do a lot on Google in that.
Speaker 1:So I wonder if people watch it and then they Google me and then they come through my Google business profile. I've thought about that. I don't think about things quite as I think intricately as you, and you're really inspiring me to do more of that. You know what would you say? And now I'm just trying to get a little free coaching from you here. You know I'm at video 68. I literally have not had anybody say, you know, and we didn't have the call rail, we didn't have the number, we didn't have in the description, and that get on my calendar and that kind of stuff which I've.
Speaker 1:You know, again, I wish I'd. You know I'm not gonna wish away time, no regrets, only learning. But like, what would you say to me, for instance, if I came to you, which I may end up doing? You know I'm at 68 videos and I don't have a call out. Hey, we've been watching your content for however long the 60, I have, 68 videos the longest, though the most views is just under 5,000 views, so none of them have gone. Bazookas, you know, on a tertiary level here, you haven't looked at it or whatever. What would you say?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we'd have to look at it. I mean, every situation is different we. I have a.
Speaker 2:One of my favorite stories is a guy named Chris snow in Jacksonville, florida. He had a channel for five years with 22 subscribers and was still posting consistent content, was posting every single week. Never got past 22 subscribers. After five years I was like man, you're a rockstar, because I would have quit a long, long time ago. Never got a single call and we kept the same channel, just tweak some things. Showed him how to structure video, different calls to action you know optimization, seo six within six months. He now he has over 600 subscribers. He's got 60 clients that he's working with. He's already put three to five under contract. He's got another. He says he's got 20 people that are if interest rates adjust just a little bit. He says he's got 20 people that are gonna pull the trigger like that. He's got another 40 just kind of that have already reached out touch base to him, sitting right there on the sidelines, want a contract within the next year. So you can change. You can change that channel.
Speaker 1:Okay, so this isn't selfish. I mean, there is somebody out there that's listening to you right now Not right now, but when we post this, that's going. Man, you know, I love that. Five years I would have quit so you can save a channel?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think so. Unless it, unless it has like 50 of your kids soccer videos on there, then then that may not be a video or a channel we save.
Speaker 1:Let's go. Do you ever have people D-list?
Speaker 2:certain videos I never have and and I've heard that kind of going around lately as far as that's a strategy, but I don't know about that because I know of other youtubers that have 700, a thousand fifteen hundred videos on their channel and They've never delisted a single one and you can go back and still see their original one. I mean even like think media think media has over thing has a thousand videos on their channel and you can still go back and see, like Sean canals, first video he's ever posted. Mr Beast, I mean, has a ton of videos and look, mr Beast said it took him seven years to get a thousand subs. So think about that seven years to get a thousand subs. So and I find other channels now that sometimes they I've got.
Speaker 2:I know a guy, a wine guy. I mean this guy things got the cool and he's he's. He's who I want to grow up and be, because he travels all over Europe. He's an American but he's like all over Europe. He just goes to every vineyard in Italy and Germany and France and Spain and drinks wine, makes a YouTube channel about it for five years, like five years. Hundreds of videos, hundreds and hundreds of videos. And I think he you know, we talked so many times and he had like 400 subscribers or something over like five, you know, and it wasn't till recently like all of his videos just started to blow up pop, pop, pop, pop pop. Now he's getting 15, 20,000, 30,000 views every video.
Speaker 2:He's, you know, like 10,000 subs now, and when I was talking to him it was not even two years ago. He was extremely discouraged and he had been for years. But he was just like you know what I'm, I'm doing what I love. You know I'm drinking wine all over the world. So you know what's the big deal. I might as well video it anyway. So he did. He had this never quit mentality and sometimes that maybe that's what it takes.
Speaker 2:So I don't know. I mean, I hear about this and I'm like I, I don't know. I don't know if I'm willing to test it, because if I look at all my videos, every single one of them is still getting views. And and does that mean? And I talked to YouTube employees as well and they say that every Video lives individually on YouTube, which means it's really not a combination of everything. And if you, if you make the Crappiest video, it's not gonna take your channel. It also means if you get a video that goes viral, it doesn't mean your, your whole channel is gonna be viral. Every single video now, every single video, lives on its own and it doesn't mean you can necessarily Duplicate everything.
Speaker 2:I mean, the more I learn about YouTube, I think, the less I know sometimes, and, and as much as I Coach and train towards certain things, I could find the exact opposite on a channel you know. So if I tell you, do these keywords and these tags and and has, I could find a channel that does none of that and they've got, you know, a thousand views, I could. I could find somebody that writes Two words in there tie. I mean I can just find all different scenarios of whatever. Anytime I think I've got something nailed down, I can find a channel that completely blows that theory out of the water.
Speaker 2:So I think for me, I'm just always Working on Improving my channel and anybody I work with. I'm like look, first of all you got to start. Second of all, you got to stay Consistent. And then, third, you have to really kind of you know, learn from your own, your own, you know, your own videos and kind of how that works and I can look at things and help people too. But it's hard to say, okay, this is exactly Thought, it's going to work, you know. But I mean, we've got a pretty good framework. We've duplicated it over and over and over and over again, but it's not the exact same results.
Speaker 1:So it's enigma.
Speaker 2:Something like that, yeah.
Speaker 1:So there's an algorithm which you can learn some things. There are some principles that obviously apply and you universally, because you have multiple channels that or you know, I know you have multiple channels within you. You've helped folks, so I guess I'll leave you on this. On this last question, you know, if you were to say to somebody, ultimately, I'll actually ask one more tactical question. So it's Michael Reese's about this, russell Brunson's about this, dan Kennedy, in that, build your list, right, I'll give you. Ask you a tactical question. So if they go and build that list that they can then go and market to, do you suggest sending the videos out to the email list? So this could be somebody that's watching it or a real estate agent out there. They've got a bunch of, you know, email addresses. Would you suggest doing a templated email out with that has the YouTube in there?
Speaker 2:I mean, I think it's worth a shot. We've actually been testing over the last maybe 30 to 60 days. We've been sending out a weekly email to our list with because we post the blog on our website. So we post a blog on our website with the video embedded, because that also helps with SEO, and on the backend, and then what we've been doing is taking like a portion of that blog, almost like a teaser, just a paragraph or two, and sending that in an email and then with the video, what I've learned over the last I don't know. We've been trying this video a week for, let's say, the last two months.
Speaker 2:I haven't seen it move the needle really at all. So I haven't seen external traffic or anything really drive much on that. I think so. Can it help? Sure, I think so. I mean, I think there could be incidents where that could be the case. I haven't seen it really do much in our business. It hasn't heard anything. Some people will say, oh, don't ever do that, that's gonna kill your channel. I just I don't believe that because people like Think Media or some of these other big channels, I mean, they email out their YouTube videos all the time, all the time to their database. So again, same thing. I could see where it works with some people, doesn't work with some. Is it gonna tank your channel? Not likely. It's something I think you should test and work through and see if it's a good fit for you and your business.
Speaker 1:Okay, so will tank your channel. Very much makes sense. Social media, don't do that. That totally makes sense. People are there to watch the cat bat in the ball. However, the email list you think that that could work because if somebody's there and they open it and they see that it's a YouTube video, they're probably gonna know that it's a YouTube video and won't have more prone to watch it. I know that view duration is so critical to the algorithm. Hey, we're at our time here. I know how valuable yours is. How can folks reach you, man? I know you do some coaching. You just recently came out with a book Congratulations, thank you. Talk to us about how people can reach you and maybe enlist your services to help them out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, passive prospecting. It's on Amazon. Really really proud of this book. I mean it's really I don't know, it's just.
Speaker 2:One of my biggest fears was I've always wanted to write a book, but I was like, could I make it a thick book? I was like, is it actually I'm not talking like a 50 page ebook. I was like, if I write a book, I wanted to sit really nicely on the shelf. And this one came out over a couple of hundred pages, which, once I started working through it, I just kept putting in all the information. But this is really good for any business owner and because we use real estate as examples, this isn't just for real estate agents. If you're a plumber, electrician, financial advisor, you can pick up this book and it'll help you understand how to monetize your business.
Speaker 2:And here's another thing what's funny is that Sean Cannell actually posted a reel about me yesterday. I didn't know it, but I got tagged by somebody and they're like hey, and he made up this whole reel about me, which is really cool. But this guy posted in the comments and he said I've got 35 million views on my shorts, I've made $2,000 in ad revenue and I got 26,000 subscribers. I've never made a penny off of my. It was like a lighting business. I never made a penny off of my lighting business.
Speaker 2:He's like I'm not hating, I just have no clue how you're monetizing off platform and that's the thing. So that goes back to. Also those shorts may get you a lot of views. Think about that 35 million views, that's a lot, but he's never made a penny off platform. And so if you don't understand how to have the right calls to action, how to monetize, how to get your long form content found, then it could be a difficult path. But that book Passive Prospecting I think it's a great place to start. You can also go to passiveprospectingcom. We got a lot of great information there, and you can find me on Instagram, of course.
Speaker 1:Awesome man. Well, you delivered massive value. Kudos to you for everything you've done. Levi as well. Thank you for your service to our country. Genuinely man, thank you. Thank you and thank you for coming on. I know how busy you are and we'll probably see you next in person in VDX Picon. Yes, sir, I'll be there, right on man.