Are you reluctant to invest in YouTube because you’re already crushing it on other social media platforms? Don’t let short-term success blind you to the long-term potential of YouTube. While building a following and seeing tangible results may take time, the key is to stay patient and consistent with your content. With the right strategies, you can accelerate your growth and start seeing results sooner than you think.
Kristen is excited to bring Sean Cannell, a YouTuber, international speaker, and coach who helps entrepreneurs build their influence and income with online video. Sean is here to dish out all of the YouTube secrets and strategies to help you navigate all of the opportunities YouTube offers.
Listen in as Kristen and Sean dive into:
The importance of being patient and persistent because building a successful YouTube channel takes time and effort. Understanding the fundamentals and strategies behind YouTube Learning how to get out of your head and lean into the discomfort of learning something new
When we encounter something new, it’s natural to feel a sense of uncertainty or fear. But remember, a confused mind always says no. Don’t avoid YouTube because you’ve heard it’s saturated. It’s possible to start a brand new account and grow, but you’ve got to take the time to get educated, trust the long-term vision, and, most importantly, start.
Learn strategies and tactics for your YouTube Channel with Sean’s 3 Surefire Videos FREE web class.
Sign-up to watch it on demand Here
Video Ranking Academy is a course that teaches entrepreneurs, business owners, and content creators how to grow their YouTube channels and optimize their videos to rank higher in YouTube search results.
Learn more about Sean’s program: Here
I’m attending this virtual class to learn about the BEST videos for growing on YouTube – Join me!
Introducing the Social Selling Leadership School: A 12-week Advanced Leadership Certification program for Network Marketers. This program was designed to give you everything you need to be a confident and transformational coach for the people you serve and help your team get massive results. This is the ONLY Coaching Certification program built specifically for the social selling market. Find out more and join the waitlist here!.
Thanks for listening! Do you have a question about network marketing? Kristen can help! Drop your question here, and she just might answer it live on the podcast: https:/Kristenboss.com/question
Connect with Kristen:
If you’re ready to learn the simple process of running your social selling business online, you have to check out Kristen’s live group coaching program! The Social Selling Academy: www.thesocialsellingacademy.com
Transcript for Episode #163: YouTube Secrets with Sean Cannell
Kristen Boss (00:20): You are listening to the Kristen Boss Podcast. I’m your host, Kristen Boss. As a best-selling author and performance coach, I’m on a mission to share about sustainable and purposeful approaches to both business and life. Each week, I bring relevant topics that I believe are necessary to create a life of purpose, significance and meaning. Entrepreneurship is about so much more than growing your bottom line. It’s about who you are becoming in the process and building a life that is truly extraordinary. Entrepreneurship is really just the beginning. Hey, bosses. Welcome to another episode of the podcast. This week I have another friend, talented guest, my friend Sean Cannell primes with YouTube channel. And what’s awesome is Sean is actually going to be joining us to talk a little bit about YouTube secrets and strategies that I think you guys are going to find insanely valuable. So Sean, I’m so glad you’re here.
Sean Cannell (01:16): Kristen, I’m fired up to be hanging out with you and your community. Thanks for having me.
Kristen Boss (01:21): You are so welcome. I, it’s been fun. I’ve been having a bunch of Wellspring members that are in the Mastermind on the podcast, and by far it has been some of our highest rated episodes. I’m like, so my friends are cool. Let’s just what we’re going to go down. So I’m like, all right, we’ve got even more good stuff coming down today. So if my audience doesn’t know a lot about you, tell them a little just about your story and about you, and then we’ll kind of get into the goodies.
Sean Cannell (01:48): Yeah, so I’m a new dad. I been married 17 years, but now I’ve got a two and a half year old and a seven month old. And I’m trying to run a business with 2020 W2 employees, 10 contractors, multi-million dollar business. And so life is absolutely insane. I think over 4 million subscribers across YouTube channels, but I obviously didn’t start there with the business or the children. And if you take it all the way back to 2003, that’s when I got into video, before social media. Wow. Before Instagram, before YouTube even started, I was volunteering at my local church. The youth pastor handed me a video camera and some editing software and said, Hey, start making some videos for the youth group. And of course, your first videos are your worst videos. I hope that everybody listening to this, they’re a little bit nervous about video putting themself out there.
Sean Cannell (02:40): You’re in good company. We all are nervous at the start, and our first videos are going to be terrible. I kind of had the privilege of practicing in front of 16 kids at this youth ministry in a very different environment than we have today. But what was funny was the first YouTube channel then we ever started was 2007 for that same church. I mean, we had no idea what I was doing all, you couldn’t upload custom thumbnails. There was 15 minute time limits, and we were just dipping our toes into this whole video world and social media world. But the benefit of all of that was that I got into this stuff very early. So I’ve been doing video for 20 years now, YouTube for 16 years now. And I know that sometimes people hear, oh man, YouTube’s 16 years old. It’s kind of saturated. But actually the opposite is true. YouTube is the most generous algorithm on the internet, and I really believe that this next decade is going to be the best decade on YouTube. And so it’s a good time to still get in the game, learn the skills, and I think the opportunity for a podcast, I have made so many mistakes. Kristin, I think I probably have the reward for the most failures, most mistakes, most bad videos. And by just testing and experimenting that much, I figured out a few things that work and can help people.
Kristen Boss (03:56): I love that. So tell me, because this is a very compelling argument that you just made. You’re like, the next 10 years are going to be the most important for video. Tell me why you believe that. I’m like, I’m fascinated.
Sean Cannell (04:05): Yeah. So I think I specifically also, I No question for video. I don’t think you could debate video, but I actually think the next decade will be the best decade for YouTube for a list of reasons. It is the dominant number one video platform by far. Nobody else can come close. Now, TikTok is kind of making waves, but the substance and the depth isn’t there. Not only what may it get shut down, but there’s even a last year at VidCon, which is an event I’m speaking at this year. It’s probably the largest online video event. Grace Africa was an influencer who had millions of TikTok followers, did a meetup, and actually nobody showed up. Now, I’m not trying to call her out or that’s very sad. And eventually a few people came, but it went viral that nobody came. And what the unlock there was for years, people have been doing meetups with their YouTube audience.
Sean Cannell (04:57): The TikTok audience though, didn’t have the same depth. The short form vertical video across platforms is kind of like empty calories. YouTube is real protein that you need to survive for your brand, for your business. So there’s the depth piece. There’s the dominance that people, YouTube has established in people’s minds as the brand, the go-to crossover to the fact they just landed the Sunday Sunday ticket. Football’s going to be there, YouTube TV owned by Google, parent Company, alphabet as far as infrastructure and ability to distribute video. For some people that want, there’s a free speech thing, and Rumble is interesting and diversifying your platform is all interesting. But you sometimes think about who has the headstart when you start a new company. It’s about who’s first. Once industry is matured, it’s about who’s best. In both cases, YouTube is the one they were first, and they were still best in terms of the infrastructure backend, the staff, the amount of developers, the budget, all of this stuff compared to other platforms.
Sean Cannell (06:02): And it’s a search engine. So the cool thing about YouTube is it’s a content library. It’s not a feed. So all these other platforms are social media feeds where your content comes and goes. People know that YouTube is a place where they’re may be watching, oh, I want to show you this funny video and it’s five years old, or where you’re going for deeper conversations, longer form content, even documentaries are being uploaded there. And then two other reasons, I think the other thing that’s fascinating about YouTube is this whole podcasting thing. They’re now going all in on podcasting, which is already huge. But now as you upload videos that are a video podcast we’re doing right here, and you tag it and optimize it properly, it’ll be distributed to YouTube Music, which is a competitor to Apple Podcast, Spotify. So you have the podcast angle you look at, it is already the number one destination for podcasts consumed by more Americans in podcasts format.
Sean Cannell (06:58): When you think about shows like Louis House School of Greatness or Valuetainment, Patrick B. David, or different shows that people go to YouTube actually more than the podcast platforms. Now some people listening are offended. They’re like, no, I only listen to audio podcasts. But it’s actually a very small market compared to the bigger market. And then stats came out that more Americans are watching YouTube in their living rooms than other O T T platforms like Netflix, Hulu, and again, take it all full circle. The fact that my son and I are watching Gracie’s Corner and Blippy these days on the smart tv, smoking like a true dad. You know what I mean? And when I get off, I work at home, I’m in my home office. When I start to go down and cook dinner, I turn on a video podcast or I turn on some of my favorite YouTube news sources and different things.
Sean Cannell (07:47): So it’s like, it’s just such a dominant platform. And maybe the final thing kind of pivoting is as shocking as it sounds, it’s still possible to start a brand new channel and grow because content is judged. It’s based on the content interest graph, not the social graph any longer. What does that mean? It means that if you put out good content, it can go viral and you don’t need to go viral to grow your business. For your listeners viral meaning you’re at zero and all of a sudden you have 10,000 views. You’re like, oh my gosh, I just started. Because it’s not based on who follows you, it’s based on the metrics of the topic you choose, whether someone clicks on it, whether they keep watching. And we see this all the time because as coaches of YouTube and I got the book, YouTube Secrets, all this different stuff, brand new people that are starting YouTube in 2023 are starting from scratch and growing.
Sean Cannell (08:40): So when someone goes out, it’s too late, it’s too saturated, it’s not true. Cream always rises to the top no matter how many cups of coffee you pour. So if you could figure out how to make good content, it can rise to the top. And that’s why I said that YouTube is the most generous algorithm because it’s not really being throttled like an Instagram or a Facebook where they’re like, yeah, you’ve got these followers, but we’re not going to show ’em your post. Kind of the reverse is true, which each video is just being judged on its own merits, one video at a time. So if you’re talking about the right stuff, using the right strategies, there is unlimited opportunity for your listeners when it comes to YouTube.
Kristen Boss (09:15): I hope everybody just took note of that because that was, you made a very, very compelling case. And I know for me, one of my, we all tend to be locked into our own biases. So I’m on Instagram a lot. That’s where I hang out. I actually, when I first really leveraged social media, I was using Facebook groups and I think that that’s where I made my first half a million. And then I was like, all right, time to leverage Instagram. And that’s been fun. But at the same time, I’m like, I’m noticing more and more the limitations of Instagram. And I know my audience feels it too. They’re like, I’m constantly competing against the algorithm. I feel like I have to go viral and the viral going viral feels like the lottery instead of each video being judged on merit. And I had all kind of resistance to starting a YouTube channel to be totally honest with you.
Kristen Boss (09:59): I was like, ah, because I’m not a consumer of YouTube very much. So therefore that’s my own bias. And we tend to see the world as we do. So I’m like, well, I’m not on YouTube very much. Who else is on YouTube? However, I am married to somebody who lives on YouTube. Anything in the house that needs to be fixed. My husband has YouTube dick. He has put together so many things if something breaks it, he loves to watch the weirdest, longest, most boring YouTube videos on the planet. And so I just assume it that’s him doing his thing. So was with my bias like, nah, YouTube’s like not that great. And you had to be honest, I think I had stories of, yeah, but you had to start YouTube 10 years ago to really have a thriving channel. I realized they’re all stories. And so finally we hired a YouTube manager and she’s like, Kristen, we are taking your podcast on YouTube. And I was re resistance. Cause I’m like, but I like having my messy bond and no makeup and recording my podcast in my pajamas. And I like, no. And now I have to prepare. However, we are already seeing the benefits, the metrics, and I’ll never forget, I think it was at our business summit that we did, I think you were talking about what’s the average life of a YouTuber Eventually with time, you’re going to rise anyways because of how often people quit, right?
Sean Cannell (11:18): Yeah. Well, that business is kind of a game of attrition in general. And the truth is about YouTube as well, because especially for busy business builders, people that are doing this as a side hustle, they want to grow their company some more products build their team. There’s just so many things competing for your attention. So when you commit to something like YouTube, you get a couple episode episodes done, but I promise you life’s going to happen. And then we all experience that. So there is something about having the discipline, the systems, the commitment. And the good news is that I’ve noticed like 99% of people who start eventually stop. So if you’re kind of even discouraged about starting slow, you will win if you just stick with it because eventually the competition will disappear. It’s a discipline thing. It’s kind of a good, grit is probably the best word.
Sean Cannell (12:04): There’s that famous book on grit and it’s kind of just the sticktuitiveness. And at one funny story is Jennifer Allwood right from the Wellspring was similarly, she’s kind of been uploading her podcast but not doing it as you just locked in with actually getting on camera and thinking about it that way, which has a side benefit. Once we have this conversation and this video asset, there’s so many other things you can do with it beyond YouTube as well. Just turning on the camera is one of the most intelligent things you could do in your business because then you can cut out clips and put them everywhere else. But what was fascinating was I think she’s doing the same as she wants to lean into YouTube, and I believe her son has summer off, and so she’s going to hire em and he’s going to help with the channel. So she asked how, who could I point him to? Who are a couple female entrepreneurs that he could maybe follow? So I actually just thought that are on YouTube, and I said, I mentioned too, I said, Cody Sanchez and Layla Hermo. And she goes, well, that’s so funny. I love them. I’ve been following them forever. I didn’t know they had YouTube channels. I
Kristen Boss (13:10): Don, I don’t think I did either. I don’t think I did either.
Sean Cannell (13:12): To me, I’m still trying to process this and I’m still trying to figure out because I get to serve different communities in different audience. But the block you’re describing, the bias you’re describing, what it reveals to me is a couple things. One, that if you’re dominating a platform like Instagram, you might be just be crushing it at such a level that you don’t even realize there’s this much opportunity over here because Jennifer are the reels I’m seeing from them or the content I’m seeing from them as it’s great. So why would there even need to be? But that also, the projection of the bias is incredibly harmful because Cody Sanchez has 628,000 subscribers.
Kristen Boss (13:52): Holy smokes.
Sean Cannell (13:54): And Jennifer didn’t know that that channel even existed.
Kristen Boss (13:58): Same.
Sean Cannell (13:59): So what it reveals is that one of the things I like to say when someone says, oh, well, should I start a YouTube channel? I go, well, it’s not for everybody. If you don’t want more money, if you don’t want more impact, if you don’t want to build a bigger legacy, if you don’t want to diversify your income, in case one of these other social media platforms get shut down. So if you want to make your business vulnerable, if you’re content complacent and ready to settle, quit and give up. Of course you shouldn’t start a YouTube channel. It’s not. It’s a lot of work.
Kristen Boss (14:33): I have a, oh my gosh, my marketing guy would absolutely love this conversation because anytime I have hesitation for something, he can say one line to me that takes the bias off of my eyes. He goes, Kristen, do you hate money? And I go, do you hate money? No, you had to ask me that question. Why? No, I like it. Don’t want to make impact. But okay, here’s the thing that’s so good and so compelling. Here’s another shift I made too, because that was the first step for us. It was like, just turn the camera on, turn the camera on and upload the podcast. Take my reels on Instagram, repurpose them over to YouTube and something, I think it was after our time at the summit when you presented to us, I was like, holy moly, I am, there’s a whole different world out there that I have not tapped into even remotely.
Kristen Boss (15:25): And so I came home from, I was doing some content production in the studio. I came home, told my AV guy who’s the av, AV guy for Wellspring. So he was there watching. It was like, drew, everything I’ve just told you, forget that I just said it. We’re not focusing on Instagram. I’m just going to do my fun stuff on Instagram. I was from now on, this is our YouTube studio, and I had my YouTube manager. I was like, okay, send me the script of how I like, and I had her train my AV guy. Okay, all the things that it needs to be for YouTube metrics and all those things. This is our focus now. And you mentioned something that’s so key, and I drill this into my audience all the time. It’s like you have to have the long game in mind. I’m thinking about my YouTube channel five years from now, not the one that’s six months from now. So what are some of the biggest, I don’t know, obstacles that people have to just starting?
Sean Cannell (16:17): Yeah, the first is overthinking. Yeah, I was in the airport yesterday, Payne Field flying from Everett, Washington to Las Vegas, Washington with my son. We’re at Beecher’s Cheese and sandwiches, which cheese and bread are not fully aligned with my future vision, especially as I approach 40 years old and I’m working on the a d B plan, which is the anti-D BOD plan. But ultimately as I am distracted in rabbit trailing, that’s where I am regardless because that was the only option. So there I am and I’m talking in the and incredible woman that was helping me get my tomato soup and my salami. I was trying to go for pure protein on that one, but as she was giving me all the things, I did get a K Caesar salad. So I don’t know why I feel like I need to defend myself, but ultimately as I’m there, she goes, are you on YouTube?
Sean Cannell (17:13): She goes, are you? And I go, yeah. And she goes, thank you so much for your content. It’s very helpful. And obviously I share a lot of tips on YouTube. And she goes, I’ve been thinking about starting, but this one conversation and I was journaling about it this morning, is what a hundred percent of us feel. She goes, I’ve been thinking about starting for a long time. I’ve been overthinking it and I’ve been mainly dealing with my inner stuff. We could probably park here because this is the main thing that really holds us back is, okay, is the name, am I ready to start yet? I’ve got Invisalign scheduled, but until I actually do it, I’ll start. What is Sally from high school going to think? You’re 40 years old, Sally from high school does not even following you anymore. You know what I mean?
Sean Cannell (18:06): What are my parents going to think? Is it too late? Is this going to be a waste of my time? And you can just think over and over and it’s good to have questions to make a smart plan, but ultimately overthinking. And I’ve found that even as I’m more established in business, but I become more risk adverse, maybe I’m more risk adverse as I age too. And I’m now thinking, I just had some people from the Wellspring where on this little retreat with some guys from our prayer pod and he’s like, I was talking about some vision I have to do kind of the side project. And they were like, Sean, I was wearing a hat that says thank my brand is think media. They go, you’re overthinking. How did you start any of this stuff you did. You started messy. You started before you’re ready.
Sean Cannell (18:47): You started poop, your pants scared you started, you just had to start. And so I think that that’s a big one. I think that secondly is not getting educated. A confused mind always says no. Yep. So when you, if you haven’t taken time to plan on paper, you could find, we teach something called the five hour YouTube Work Week. You can find five hours to get this done in a week. And once you start to plan in your schedule and think about the resources you have and not make excuses that you need the best gear, your smartphone’s good enough, so you’re like, okay, I got a smartphone. Where am I going to shoot? I’m going to shoot in my office. I could order a little $12 microphone on Amazon if I want. All that information is there, but it’s making the decision of making the commitment, getting educated.
Sean Cannell (19:36): And sometimes we have partners and people in our life that also, same reason, a confused mind always says no. Sometimes if you feel like the person around you is not supporting your vision for your business, for what you want to do, for what you want to create, it’s because they actually really love you. And it’s not because they’re a hater, it’s not because actually it could be, but it’s not because they’re actually just being negative. It’s because you haven’t clearly articulated some of this information, which will help both of you. Because if they’re like, is it even practical? What are the economics of it? When could this pan out? What is the business plan? If you were going to go to bank to get a small business loan, they would want to see a business plan for you. I think the same could be true in starting an endeavor like this.
Sean Cannell (20:24): It doesn’t have to be complex. Do it on a page or a PA or a half a page or a napkin. Here’s my simple plan. I’m going to start uploading a video podcast once a week. I’m going to use Riverside to record it going to, and I’m just going to start and I’m going to see how it goes, and I’m going to do it for six months. So I think those are some of the things I think stop overthinking, invest in getting educated, doing a little bit of research. And as you go from confusion to clarity, you still have to step outside of your comfort zone and take a risk. But a lot of times we just are in repetitive thought patterns, but we’re not actually getting answers because we haven’t sat down to do a little bit of research. And I want to minimize everything I’ve just suggested because what people can do is they can go, okay, yeah, that’s right.
Sean Cannell (21:07): I need a research. So let me start my 10 year research plan. No, I’m talking about Saturday morning, one cup of coffee in 45 minutes. I’m not talking about, because you can amplify any of those things. And I do think that sometimes too, I think in the book, good to Great, they call ’em like cannon balls versus bullets. And it was for a business rather than a full on cannon ball, SpaceX, X, Elon Musk, rocket launch, just one bull. If you do little tests, you starting a YouTube channel, it’s going to take you 20 minutes to set up the Google account. You probably already have one, the Gmail, you know, uploading a video. Well, if you do a YouTube short, that could be done in another 20 minutes. So you’re from the very moment of listening to this podcast, 16 minutes away of getting a bullet into the marketplace, talking about your product or talking about whatever it is on a YouTube short, being okay with it being messy and being whatever, but get the bullets out there. You don’t have to commit to the full on, we’re moving to Mars. Let’s do one rocket launch. And knowing that rockets are going to probably explode on in the process ass part of the research process. And you have failures along the way, but failures are the stepping stones to success. So kind of embracing all of that, those things front, I think would be helpful to getting started on YouTube.
Kristen Boss (22:31): Well, and this is why people want to research because they think research will prevent the failure instead of realizing that failure is inevitable and let’s, for me, I’ve just always been a messy implementer. So I’m just like, Hey, the faster I implement, the faster I’m going to learn. And if it’s messy, I don’t care. That’s just always been my personality. It’s worked out really well for me. My husband and I, we used to build furniture before we had kids. And so for me, I just wanted the end product. So I started, I’m like, it’s square enough. And my husband’s like, no, the science and I’m so I can be like that in my business. It’s good enough. So the mental, not good for building furniture, fantastic for getting into business because I’m like, it’s good enough. Get it out there. It’s good enough. And if people are watching this or listening to this on my podcast, I’ve had three different iterations of my podcast, three different covers in three years.
Kristen Boss (23:21): First one, because I put something out there and someone was like, your name’s too close to mine. So I had to rename it. And you know what? I don’t think anybody cares. Nobody remembers. It’s not a big deal. And also my first, I think I’m on my third iteration of you too, but I’m like, it’s okay, we’re figuring it out. Because again, I’m just interested in getting started. And the highest resistance we have is often to just start, put one thing out and give yourself a deadline. In two hours I will have my Google account set up, my YouTube channel set up, and I’m just going to film something randomly on my phone. So you’ve done a lot of trainings for a bunch of people. And specifically I would just love to hear how you’ve trained people, because my audience are network marketers or social sellers, a alar, vast majority of them. So like, okay, I sell oils. Do I have an oil channel? Is that what I have to do? I think I can see them kind of getting in their head of do I need to have a YouTube channel about the product? I have my philosophy about this, but I’d love to hear your take.
Sean Cannell (24:24): Yeah, so I think the opportunity is, there’s more options, but I think there’s only two good ones. One is to brand the channel your first and last name. One thing that you’re always going to take with you is your first and last name. Again, I would defer to you, but the problem, if you ever, you wouldn’t want to name yourself related to a company because companies could change. You wouldn’t want. So, but your first and last name is you, your journey, the products you’re using, the lessons you’re learn using. The secondly is to do a brand channel. And that would be, and there’s three ways to name your channel, Sean, channel or Sean’s strategy and leadership, YouTube channel or leadership and strategy for you, first and last name, name and brand name in the thing you do, which you might be a category. So Heather’s health Tips, I would love that.
Sean Cannell (25:21): Because now it’s like everything health. And then maybe sometimes you talk about your product in your company, but you also could go or you could create something like our channels called Think Media. And it’s, it’s not a personal brand, it’s more of a media brand. And that’s kind of sounds smart these days maybe, but I just happen to name it that 10 years ago when I had no clue what I was doing. So any of those are good. But then I think the strategy is to think bigger than your company and to think bigger than your product to think about the problem you solve, to think about the people you serve. The two questions to ask for a YouTube channel is who do you serve and what problem do you solve? And bigger than if it is oils, you honestly don’t solve oils. That’s that’s something you do.
Sean Cannell (26:05): Because it may be if someone’s at a problem awareness, I need to get, I have breathe by doTERRA behind me, I need to get my breath. Well, I’m pretty deep in the funnel to be aware of that. Exactly. Yeah. I might be thinking like, man, I, I’m congested, or I want more clarity in the morning. And then you go at a bigger level, I want to feel my best. I want to live my best life. And so ultimately if you brand, it’s not bad to brand your YouTube channel around maybe even that something like lifestyle and health. And then understand that I think a lot of network marketers, I’ll use the word myopic, we just get so focused on just our product and just our team. Whereas I make, one of my favorite ways of making money on YouTube is affiliate marketing, which is similar to network marketing, but here’s how practically it could look.
Sean Cannell (26:54): You’ve got your oils company and you maybe do a review of the brand new holiday box they just reviewed. You’re like unboxing of, which is a really good video idea by the way. Cause it’s very easy to do. People are searching it, they want to see it. You could link directly to a product. And so you do that video, but then you also think about your three favorite books on the power of essential oils. And you talk about those in a video. And those are three Amazon links. You actually are now going to create extra income streams. Now, once your channel grows, you also could get paid YouTube bad revenue, so bigger than just your products. And then growing your team is now you’ve got affiliate income coming in. You could eventually have YouTube bad revenue coming in and eventually maybe a brand wants to sponsor your channel.
Sean Cannell (27:38): You could step into proper YouTube influencer, for lack of a better term, the world just by taking action. But as you stay focused on growing your company, you could generate more sales for products with videos as I described. Or you might title a video of my story of how I earn an extra $2,500 a month helping people have more energy. And then that video fits there too, because you’ve built a brand that’s big enough to encompass. And I’m not saying go general, it’s, it’s powerful to have a niche. It’s powerful to be specific. So I think your niche should be related to, if it’s Beachbody, it’s like I help people get fit and it’s fitness and it’s workouts and it’s anything related to that. I know some of these things could definitely overlap, but if it’s alternative health, maybe it’s kind of that direction. And so ultimately that’s how I would be thinking about branding and positioning on YouTube for network marketers.
Kristen Boss (28:35): That’s perfect because you bring up a really good point because this happened with one of my students. She had a YouTube channel, but it was all, and she’s in oils and her YouTube channel was all about the use of oils and how to use some oil. And I finally told her, I was like, and she was like, well, well, I said, how many people already have somebody they’re buying oil from when they’re watching your YouTube videos and how many people in the field who are distributors are watching your channel? She’s like, oh, everybody. I was like, this is the problem. Talking to people who already have the oil, they’ve already purchased the oil. We actually, you were totally right. The word myopic, it was just so myopic that she had, I was like, I need you to zoom out. What are they using a search engine for before the oils?
Kristen Boss (29:22): They’re not looking for like, Hey, how do I use the lavender oil? They’re looking for how do I sleep better that you have to get beyond that. And she ended up rebranding her entire YouTube channel. I was like, great. Now you have this YouTube channel that’s like a content library for your existing team members where they could just go to your library and they get that education from you. But you have to start seeing this as a top of funnel where you’re attracting people in, you’re nurturing them, and then you’re selling. And that’s like, that is the formula for it using any platform. But the fact that YouTube, another person had told me before you presented it, the summit was just like, Kristen, YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world just behind Google. I was, I just like you. So again, I just had to remove my own biases, get out of my own myopic world of Instagram or TikTok just because that’s where you tend to get focused to there. But now I’m like, all right, changing up the strategy. We’re doing different things. And so leaning into the discomfort, leaning into also feeling like, oh my gosh, I’m going to look like a noob on YouTube. I have Instagram figured out, but now I’m going to be on YouTube and I have a hundred followers. That doesn’t it. And you have to eat some humble pie and realize, yeah, it doesn’t like, oh, it doesn’t look good that I only have a hundred subscribers on YouTube, but who cares? You just have to get to that too.
Sean Cannell (30:47): Adding the humble pie to the earlier list is a big one for those that are established. And it is absolutely one of the big blockers I’ve noticed because not only with the few subscribers when you first start, YouTube’s growth can feel very sluggish. It is a marathon and it’s not a sprint. And I think that it also almost could be a little bit more honest at times too, because we just actually tracked this morning on our social media meeting, YouTube short versus TikTok versus real and Instagram real. And we were just tracking average duration and even the length of the same content. So it’s the same vertical video posted across each platform. YouTube was the winner by about double of what TikTok was, and Instagram was the loser. Now, this was just our data on our videos, but I think it speaks to the mindset of the platform as well.
Sean Cannell (31:40): So what can happen is sometimes people get into the feeling of, oh wow, my reel got a couple thousand views. And you go, great. Okay, well if you can follow up. And by the way, I’m pro Instagram, especially in this context because of the ability to dms and build relationships and comment back. You should be all in on Instagram for sure. But as far as we just think about, the thing with YouTube is it is more of a destination learning platform that people are going there, they want more depth, they are going to go deeper with you. It it’s a whole different level of accelerating, no like and trust. But I think committing to being, okay, when you said I’m committed to the five year vision, I about fell out of my chair with glee and joy because that’s the real vision and it compounds.
Sean Cannell (32:30): And what also can happen is just like other platforms, you post 10 videos. Not a lot happens, you post 25, but all of a sudden on video 33, a video breaks out and we call it vfm viral for me. Yes. Breaks out and gets 23,000 views, kick brings you 2000 subscribers who now start watching your back library of videos that happens less than other platforms or almost not at all. And then in year three, someone looks at you and like, oh, well, yeah, you’re already established. Oh this, you just got luckier. You started, you’re like, no, no, no. I’ve been at this. And I was willing to have the grit necessary when it kind of had that slow start for the long-term vision and the payoff and the compound effect that have is especially real on YouTube.
Kristen Boss (33:17): I definitely had to get over like, oh man, I’ve got this big brand and big business and now it looks like I’ve got this tiny YouTube and how’s that look? And oh my gosh, one of my biggest mistake was hiring a media company that was more about the metrics than was about the more about, I’m going to call it the vanity metrics than they were about the metrics that mattered. And I hence fired them. But they were just like, well, let’s just, I’m going to do this distribution thing and we’re going to get you. And suddenly I got 10,000 subscribers and they’re not good subscribers, no engagement, no watches, and they didn’t tell me this. So I’m like, you guys, I would’ve rather had a hundred diehard subscribers than a hundred thousand who didn’t care or 10,000 who didn’t care. And I’m doing something on my Instagram right now called the Great Unfollow, or I’m just like, listen, if you’re not here, get out.
Kristen Boss (34:08): I want the best followers. I want people that are engaged that want to be here, but we can get caught up in vanity metrics in a way that doesn’t serve us. And our YouTube strategist, she came to us, I guess there was a very big name that she was going to work with very big. Maybe they were a monk in the mountains at some time in their life. And she was like, I didn’t want to work for that individual because it was just about pushing the numbers more than the engagement and the actual, the viewership and the nurturing the community. And that’s for me, I want a community. I want people that enjoy the content. So always, I just like that you’re echoing the same thing I teach my students. It’s like you have to be in this for the long game. It’s small efforts compound over time until you hit the threshold where you’re like, okay, we’ve hit, what is it critical mass, so to speak, or the tipping point. We’re like, now we go. But it’s just a matter of the grit hard. My trainer recently called it frustration tolerance. He’s like, Kristen, you got to increase your frustration tolerance. I’m like, well damn, if that isn’t the best term I’ve ever heard, the ability to stay frustrated and stay in the game and not quit just because you’re frustrated.
Sean Cannell (35:28): I got to borrow that. That is a powerful, isn’t that amazing? Yeah, yeah. Frustration tolerance.
Kristen Boss (35:33): Yeah. And I realized when he said that to me because it was in relation to fitness, it was like he kicked me in the gut. I was like, how dare you, sir? I’m going to do a podcast episode just on this term, but I was like, how dare you say this? But I realized I had high levels of frustration tolerance in my business and extremely low frustrate levels of frustration tolerance in my fitness. And I’m like, and the results showed. And so it was like, oh, well, I’m just going to take this term to the bank,
Sean Cannell (36:01): So I need to follow you the same again on the countdown of my 40th birthday. I need to get the fitness thing a d b plan anti dad bod.
Kristen Boss (36:10): I’m on the BM b, I’m on the best mom bod.
Sean Cannell (36:14): Yes.
Kristen Boss (36:16): My husband’s been on the same journey too, and it’s been great. So yeah, it’s just again, the holistic picture of us as entrepreneurs being like, Hey, you’ve been in this for however many years. What? 20 years you said? So long.
Sean Cannell (36:28): It’s wild
Kristen Boss (36:28): Thousand three. That’s crazy. When did you graduate high school? I’m curious.
Sean Cannell (36:33): I graduated high school in 2002.
Kristen Boss (36:35): I was oh three. Okay. I was like, we must be close to the same graduating class
Sean Cannell (36:39): And then started video right then. So entrepreneur ship started a for over really the last 10 years in our business, about seven years old. Oh my
Kristen Boss (36:48): Gosh. We like making videos for MySpace. We like top top
Sean Cannell (36:51): Five MySpace. I had my MySpace was fire. Oh, and you got to put your favorite songs on there. Yeah, yeah. I was all, that was what we were doing right at that moment. Yeah, MySpace was so hot. It was the best.
Kristen Boss (37:07): And now here, now we have YouTube friends and anybody, here’s the thing, anybody can get started. I think I can just see someone in my audience being like, well, maybe when my business is further along, maybe when I have more success, or maybe when I have the time. But this just comes from a simple decision of how long do I want to put my future on hold? And everyone that has built something extraordinary, it started with a very small, yet very committed decision to, I’m just going to start even if it’s messy. And here’s the thing, you are building a personal brand and growing an audience is the single best asset you can have as an entrepreneur. Because once you build a solid audience with your raving fans and a brand where people can know and trust you, now you can literally make money doing anything.
Kristen Boss (37:55): You’re like, I can create a course, I can have an affiliate program. It’s just, and I always tell people, I’m like, listen, if network marketing were to go away overnight, do what you’re left with as your audience and your brand. And if you have a solid audience and you have a brand, you’re really never going to go hungry a day in your life as long as the internet is around. And I really believe that. I’ve just thought multiple times, I’m like, well, if coaching business is done, that’s okay. I’ve got an audience and I have a brand and I can pivot
Sean Cannell (38:20): Huge facts. And YouTube’s one of the big opportunities to do that. And as we were discussing, as you mentioned, once you have a brand bigger than your company, the ways to monetize that, there’s 10, 20, 30 different ways that can follow you over the years. And you’re just being so smart to position yourself. Now thinking about the future, but also to your point, I also, oh, once my business is bigger, then I’d start the YouTube channel. I would actually say starting a YouTube channel could be one of the keys to get your business bigger. Especially because many people, many people are having the same mindset as you. In this moment. You’re thinking, okay, yeah, but YouTube’s saturated. There’s other people talking about, and the truth is that it actually isn’t. But while most hesitate is because they’re in that mindset. If I use a different industry in niche are, we’re looking at real estate, especially in the Seattle region, Snohomish County, yeah.
Sean Cannell (39:18): Seattle’s about 2 million people. Snohomish County, I want to say is about a million. And it’s a very packed area. A lot of people want to be there. I think those numbers were wrong. I think Seattle’s like six, and Snohomish County’s like three or four. But regardless, we as I’m shopping for real estate or thinking about doing Airbnbs, I actually go to YouTube a lot, and the listener might not do this at all, but I’ll go to YouTube for market updates because I’d love to hear somebody just read to me, what are the market updates? Certain areas, no doubt about it, have more competition than others. But what is so fascinating, Kristin, is I will go to Snohomish County market update, and there is one person, it’s 2023. What are we talking about? His name’s Zach McDonald. I went to high school with him. There is one person who’s not even being consistent.
Sean Cannell (40:06): Zach is props to him, but he uploads here and there and he is just focused on some other things. Now, there’s a couple others to the fact that it takes grit, a couple others that uploaded one eight months ago and then another one that uploaded one three months ago and then stop doing it. I will challenge the listener. That won’t work if you upload a video today and then one in six months and then one in 12 months and then start talking about at some dinner with somebody, oh, YouTube doesn’t work. You are misrepresenting the opportunity. There’s something about giving it the adequate effort, the adequate amount of outputs. But nevertheless, Zach is dominating this industry. But how many agents are up there? Thousands. How many people? And so certainly there is a point of maybe saturation or, but we’re not there. And I would say for 99% of people listening to this, there is not that many people.
Sean Cannell (41:05): I just looked up May, 2023, young Living just since I’ve, I companies I know, and ultimately somebody was walking through May’s promotions and they’re going through, and there’s no one else by the way. So we’re only 10 days into May, but there’s the chance to reach people that are looking for a particular, they’re thinking about getting a certain, the monthly box, the monthly thing or whatever. And little by little, you could start building your in a strategy that I think is different than again, 99% of others are using. And who cares if there’s even five or 10? I would say there’s room for 50 people to be doing that in Snohomish County, but there’s literally only one. And that person’s not being consistent. So if you can get out of your comfort zone, and if you could punch fear in the face and press record, and if you can say, I’m going to be consistent, I will until, and I’m going to give this a good effort. I’m going to pace myself. There’s so much opportunity waiting for you by just starting messy and pressing record and starting to upload videos to you YouTube,
Kristen Boss (42:07): Boom. I want to throw my pod podcast mic across the floor and be like, Sean has said it, especially when you said, misrepresenting the opportunity. If you’re like, oh, doing it, and oh, I’m just going to put in a couple posts here and there, and I have called out network marketers, I was like, do not misrepresent the business opportunity because you’re posting once a month and saying, no, the business model doesn’t work. Everything works if you put at the time the effort, the energy long enough. And so that has just been my methodology the whole time. I was like, I don’t care how long it takes. I’m going to keep going because all I need to do is really just outlast my competition. That’s all that needs to. I don’t need to outwit them. I just need to outlast. That sounds like the survivor episode, like outwit, outlast, Australia, outback. But it’s true. You just need outlast.
Sean Cannell (42:54): Outlast is the dream and it’s hard. So I think that’s where we muster our strength. We pace ourselves. And I think that in today’s culture, I think that’s a great word. Our theme this year is called Built to Last. Every year we have a theme for our company and built to last, it’s actually based on the words of Jesus and Matthew 7 30, 24, 34, where he says, you know, could build on the sand or you could build on the rock. And when the winds come and the rain comes, you want to be built on something solid. It’s something about, when I think about built to last, it was like, I don’t want to burn out this year. Yes, or I don’t want to run so hard that we last two years, but then everything breaks down and that’s why we say it’s a marathon and not a sprint.
Sean Cannell (43:36): I’ve run half marathons. I’ve never run a full marathon, but I’ve run half marathons. And as a runner, I learned that what you don’t do is I did track in high school, you don’t bust out of the gates. It’s a hundred meter dash because it’s a marathon. So you’re pacing yourself. You also have nutrition along the way. You want to stay hydrated. You’re maybe taking a little jelly shot to get your electrolytes back up, and you are thinking about your form, you’re thinking about your pace. Again, I want to encourage, it’s all in the same theme. We’re talking about that. I think someone once said, people overestimate how much they can accomplish in one year, but they underestimate how much they can accomplish in three to five years. And we’re in such a world where we see people going viral around us and we’re comparing ourselves to others, and none of that’s he helpful comparison’s.
Sean Cannell (44:24): The killer of creativity. It’s the thief of joy. Joy. It is counterproductive. You erase your pace, and if you pace yourself, the compound effect does kick in. And exactly right, some people can be kind of flashy for six months flashy for eight flashy, and it’s the tortoise in the hair. I actually have it on my wall behind me. It says, slow and steady. It’s this cool gold leaf picture with at the end of slow and steady is a little turtle, and the message is the tortoise and the hair. It doesn’t seem very fancy to be a little turtle.
Kristen Boss (44:59): I literally have a chapter in my book about the tortoise and the hair. This is crazy. I said, and my say saying is, speed exhaust consistency compounds. And so it’s just like I play the game of consistency compounding over time because I will outlast my competition every time because I play the game of sustainability. So I just love that your messaging and your methodology just mirrors so much of what I tell my audience. And I think this conversation is so timely because I think people are looking for, okay, how the network marketing industry has changed quite drastically and rapidly in the last, not just in the last 10 years, but in the last three years, there was the pre pandemic business model, what was happening in the pandemic and now post pandemic, and people are having to pivot, and I think they’re having to be a lot more creative.
Kristen Boss (45:46): And so there is not nearly enough people in network marketing that are leveraging YouTube in a way that they can really powerfully to build an engaged audience, to build a following where you guys, I truly believe it becomes so easy to sell to people once you have brand trust. Once you have brand trust, people will literally throw their money at you because it’s like, Kristen likes it, I’m buying it. Sean likes it. I’m buying it because of how helpful this channel has been. So something super excited. I haven’t done this before on my podcast, but I have actually partnered with Sean and I’m an affiliate for his course on how to actually get your YouTube started. Because if you’re like, listen, the most expensive thing you could do is DIY anything, done learning with the expert, learning from the expert. If you got a leak in your house, you’re not going to spend hours fixing it.
Kristen Boss (46:35): You’re going to hire the expert. And I can’t think of a better expert than Sean. So we have a link in the show notes if you want to buy the course and get started. Let’s just cut out all the guesswork, make it easy, take the action. And for me, I’ve always been the person where I’m like, when I put money on the line, I show up differently. If I tell myself, yeah, I’ll get a round to it, yeah, I’ll prioritize audience growth someday. But honestly, it was me paying a YouTube manager before I had a YouTube where I’m like, well, I’m paying her crap. I better start making some content that held me accountable to be me saying, I think I want this. So just a little, can you give a little once over of what my audience can expect and because I really do want them to hear about this,
Sean Cannell (47:21): And I’m so excited about this because over the years of, as I said, I’m making mistakes and tests and trial and error, I really distilled down how to put out consistent videos that’ll grow your brand in a seven step system. And so we call it the seven Rs, and that’s taught inside of our course. And what’s been powerful about it is I recently just had a conversation with one of our students, her name is Mary. She actually just her channel’s called Mary’s Nest. She just got a book deal from a traditional publisher that reached out to her because she has a YouTube channel. And they said, that’s who we look for. Now, we look for people that have YouTube channels, that have established platforms. She does traditional home cooking videos. She lives with their sweet Hus husband in Texas. She started YouTube when she was 60.
Sean Cannell (48:09): She just turned 65. Oh, I love that story. She’s amazing. And she actually lives in a small town in Texas, and she said that kids will even come up to her and say, oh, you’re like a YouTube celebrity. And she’s like, what do you mean? That’s so weird. That sounds so funny. Well, she’s actually about to hit a million subscribers. It’s crazy stuff. You can look her up. Her. And she talked about it. She’s also said, she goes, I loved cooking. I was very passionate about getting the nutrients that you can out of making your own bone broth and how to cook a chicken and all this different stuff. And she’s like, I wanted to share that, but I was scared to get on camera. I didn’t know how to make videos. I didn’t know the steps. I was overthinking it. And I also wanted to just follow a system I wanted to just go through.
Sean Cannell (49:00): I knew there was this random free information out there, but that would be a waste of my time, a waste of my energy. I wanted to just go where there was proven results. So she joined our program, video Reiki Academy. Again, she had not even posted a video before, and that was five years ago, which is also, I think, a good picture. What this is not is this isn’t get rich quick. This is the education and the skillset of how to create simple YouTube videos that will grow your brand and help you make more money inside of your business. But the compound effect of years. And when people use your link and they can read many different stories from people of all different backgrounds, people that are doing network marketing, people that started with network marketing and their brand grew bigger than that, and now they have more options and still do some there.
Sean Cannell (49:45): It’s pretty wild. The different stories from all different industries of fitness kids, occupational therapists, we have pastors and ministers and churches like YouTube’s massive. And there is an audience for you. I talked to Expert recently, my friend Shalene Johnson was talking about how I talked about a thousand true fans. Yes, I love that concept. Yep. Who is the original, Kevin Kelly wrote an article. Yeah, a thousand True Fans will support anybody with this A six figure business. Yep. Which would be exactly true in this context, but as I was talking to Shalene about it, she goes, I think it’s more like 500 or less. She’s like, it’s the answer to all of, I think probably how the industry’s shifting for you to what’s happening and how noisy the world is and how much competition there are is the answer is community.
Kristen Boss (50:35): Yes,
Sean Cannell (50:36): It’s your loyal community. And the key is it doesn’t have to be a big community. The people you’ve built trust with, the people that, and that is so within reach. So it’s, it’s wild that Mary’s going to get a gold play button from YouTube for getting a million subscribers. Dr. Andrea Fur Furlan has a couple hundred subscribe, again doing medical stuff. She’s in Canada, she got a book deal too. They both got, they’re getting book deals that are actually cold reaching out to them. But all that to say is, it’s one thing to get a silver play button at a hundred thousand or a gold play button at a million, but we always say, you don’t need to get a couple thousand subscribers, 5,000, less than 10,000 subscribers. But if you know what you’re doing and things are set up and you’re making the right videos that are building the right community, then it can change everything for your business.
Sean Cannell (51:25): So yeah, I think people will absolutely love it. And of course we’re just meeting your audience, but what I mentioned we have, we’re so devoted to our customer success. We have 20 team members probably a lot more, almost guarantee you more than most of my competitors or peers because we are committed to student success. We have a faculty, we are here to serve people, and we back the product. So of course people, I mean people, it’s, it’s no risk. It’s so, just check it out if it’s not right for you. We have our total risk free guarantee. I am convinced that people that jump in will thank me later. And if they’re open-minded to give this a try, that YouTube can really make a difference in their business.
Kristen Boss (52:12): So good. I want to reiterate one time to somebody that’s like, okay, I know this is what I need. I know the audience growth is an absolute priority and necessity for growing, not just my, I want you to be very future focused when you’re viewing this, the link through this lens, and I want you to notice that when you are looking at acquiring the tools to grow an audience, what an audience is, is an asset. And when we buy an asset, assets, appreciate with time. So this isn’t about buying something and getting rich overnight. It’s not like, okay, I’m going to buy this and how quickly can I make my money back? That is the wrong question to ask yourself. The question to ask yourself is, what is my five year vision and why is this in initial investment going to appreciate with time and my consistency, and what is the future value of that audience?
Kristen Boss (52:59): Is it the future value of a potential book deal of, and like we’ve said, you only need a thousand raving vans. And I agree with Sha Shalene, I think it’s maybe closer to 500, but just building that and what the doors it can open up for you because that’s how I got my book deal too. And so it’s just like what is possible because you’re willing to invest in an asset. Just like if we were to buy real estate, it’s like, I’m not going to make money today on this real piece of property. It’s going to be five years from now, six years from now. It’s all about the appreciation of the asset. So I just want to challenge just our listeners, and it might not have to be with this YouTube course, it could be with any part where you’re growing your skill and your education to acquire what you need to advance yourself in the marketplace, you have to view everything you’re doing, every investment as an asset that appreciates with time and consistency and you putting in your compounded efforts with time. So I’ll just wrap up with that because I’m like, I don’t want people thinking like, oh, I can’t afford it right now. It’s like, okay, think of it as an asset that appreciates, right?
Sean Cannell (54:01): Yeah, 100% assets and liabilities. When I read Rich Dad, poor Dad around 2007 or eight, it’s kind of changed everything for me. And I like to think through that lens. And similarly, whether that is investing our money, the best investment we can make, which Warren Buffet actually affirmed was like, man, get more skills, become more valuable, especially in a changing world. In fact, if it’s not in there, we just did a recent challenge and we just created a brand new resource, which is AI for YouTube, and if it’s not in there, I’ll make sure that it’s put into that offer on the other side of your link, because we are also the cool thing about in, I know a lot of people are talking about that right now, but it’s getting even easier. You could now have the proper prompt prompts, prompts. There’s some video editing AI tools that speed things up.
Sean Cannell (54:51): It’s pretty wild. And so as far as from, I know people roll with you to learn all things network marketing and leadership and all that kind of stuff, you’re investing also in an asset because there is lifetime guarantee or lifetime access to the program with including updates. And we are obsessed. We’re like scientists that are like, what is the best stuff for you two? What is happening right now? What are the best tools to save time? And that’s a brand new thing that just came out that we’ve been working on as a team because we’ve been leaning into AI to really make it practical. Because whether you want to hang out with your kids, whether you’re working on something else, I know we want to do all the above, whether you want more leverage, this isn’t about just completely sacrificing the things that matter most. It’s about being really smart with your time, having the right systems and having YouTube support you and having YouTube serve you, not you serve YouTube. And I’m very excited about that just came to mind because we just launched it.
Kristen Boss (55:48): I love it. I’m very, very picky about any affiliate partnerships I do because they have to align with my core values and how I treat my students. Because essentially it’s like I’m lending my students to you. And we have the same philosophy with my company. I also have 20 people on my team because we care about the student fulfillment and the student success that much, where a lot of my competitors, they operate very lean and so they don’t have large teams. And so the fulfillment usually suffers in the name of higher profits for the owner. But for me, I’m like, I’d rather cut profits to ensure delivery and fulfillment for my team. And I just love that that’s you too. It tells me you have a heart of service and you genuinely care. The fact that it’s a lifetime program, you have a guarantee, you update it. It just tells me you truly care. And so I love partnering with people that care, and I think my audience just got so much value from this episode. I hope to see so many more YouTube channels like birthed into the world. Sean, thank you so much for being here. This was absolutely amazing,
Sean Cannell (56:49): Kristen. I’m so thankful for you, grateful for your community, and thanks for having me.
Kristen Boss (57:02): That’s a wrap for today’s episode. Listen, if you love what you heard here today, I would love for you to leave a real quick rating and a review. This helps the show get discovered by new people. Be sure to take a screenshot of today’s episode and shout us out on Instagram. We’ll shout you right back out. If you’d like to find additional resources or discover how to work with me, head to kristenboss.com.
