This is the full transcript for Episode #208 of the Wild Business Growth Podcast featuring Roberto Blake – Creator Economist, Create Something Awesome. You can listen to the interview and learn more here. Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.
Roberto Blake 0:00
There’s no situation that isn’t enhanced by you having good character, good judgment and being prepared
Max Branstetter 0:22
Welcome, welcome. Welcome, welcome. Welcome back to the Wild Business Growth Podcast. This is your place to hear from a new entrepreneur every single Wednesday morning, who’s turning Wild ideas into Wild growth. I’m your host, Max Branstetter, Founder and Podcast Producer at MaxPodcasting. And you can email me at to save time with your high-quality podcast. This is episode 28. If you put a zero in the middle 208 and today’s guest is Roberto Blake. Roberto is one of the most helpful and creative in healthfully creative people you will ever come across. He is a creative entrepreneur, a keynote speaker and the author of Create Something Awesome. And his YouTube account has over 500,000 That’s over half a million subscribers. And he’s created over 1500 videos, as well as over 1000 live streams and he’s been featured in Forbes entrepreneur and the Wall Street Journal. In this episode, we talk all things creator economy, meaning what what is the creator economy? How do you succeed in the Creator economy? How do you build an audience Roberto’s favorite tips and tricks he’s learned along the way? And of course, some questions on Star Wars because Roberto happens to enjoy Star Wars. I know crazy, right? It is Roberto and this is the creator economy. Enjoy the show.
Alrighty we are here with someone I’ve been looking forward to interview for a long, long time and in a galaxy far, far away it see how quickly I gotten to the Star Wars refernce I couldn’t resist. But Roberto Blake, one of my favorite creatives and creators and entrepreneurs, and I’ll even be damned to say creative entrepreneurs in the space. who at the time of this recording just came out with his book, Create Something Awesome, congrats on that really, really cool. Thank you so much, Roberto. Thanks so much for making time today. This is this is surreal already. How you doing today?
Roberto Blake 2:36
I’m doing awesome. I brought my own cheering section with the soundboard so it’s it’s a good day here in Hotlanta.
Max Branstetter 2:44
Always a good day, Always Sunny in Hotlanta. There’s a show about that, I believe. But we you might hear some special sound effects during this recording because we actually were experimenting with something and Roberto offered to record this on StreamYard and he’s got a hell of a setup in our end and full audience with them. So it’s just incredible all around. But we’re gonna get into kind of the main topic of succeeding in the Creator economy. But before we do that, Roberto, you started somewhere along the way, working at a Sears Portrait Studio. Am I correct in that’s like, you know, at the department stores where you go take the family pictures, like you’re kind of running that.
Roberto Blake 3:23
That is the department stores where you go take the family photos back at good old Cross Creek mall when I was living in North Carolina. I was doing that in my early 20s As one does, right. So that was before I started working as a full time graphic designer. So yeah,
Max Branstetter 3:44
most people have probably experienced taking pictures in some form, or getting their picture taken in some form and in that situation, but I’ve never really I’ve never really spoken to anybody who’s who’s had that job and actually being the photographer there. I mean, obviously very early in life and in your creative career. But what did that teach you from day one about being a creator?
Roberto Blake 4:03
Well, there was a lot that was very interesting there and I’d done photography before as a freelance photographer doing headshots for business people aspiring models, club promoters, things like that, but I also had done photography in the mall before doing the shots with Cherry Hill photography. They did the at the mall I worked at Cherry Hill photography was the company that did Easter Santa’s all of that stuff. And so I had done photography doing that, but I’d also done mascot work doing that whether it’s being the Easter Bunny, or being an elf, I’d actually that necky to so with Sears portrait studio, it wasn’t even close to my first photography gig. But it was interesting, doing a lot more of the setup, the breakdown and the staging the props and working, you know, with the families in coordinating that and, you know, even either getting the kids excited or calming them down and I had some background with that I was a bit older brother three times and, you know, so it’s like, there wasn’t a lot. That was a new learning curve experience. The thing that’s always a new learning curve experience is learning to navigate your co workers, your managers and things like that.
Max Branstetter 5:14
The three time defending undisputed older brother champion, that’s something that’s what stands out about the resume. It’s a half, it’s a half, it’s a heck of an experience. Working with people firsthand like that. It’s not like you’re just filming yourself. And it’s not like you’re just, you know, working kind of remotely as you’re so used to. But you’re actually interacting with people. And as far as like, working with mascots, or family portraits, things like that. What tips do you have for getting the best out of people and like, making people just look vibrant? And like their happiest selves over photography?
Roberto Blake 5:49
Well, it’s a it’s an interesting question. Photography is still something I do just on the side for, for myself to this day, aside from the grind of doing the YouTube channel working with creators and my coaching clients, I still actually do photography from time to time. In fact, actually, I also do a favor for my friends, when we speak at conferences is I’ll take shots of them on the stage, because sometimes the events are not good about doing that for them, or getting them copies of the photos to be able to use in their own promo. So I’ll walk around with my very expensive, older, overly priced gear and will do you know, headshots or candidates for my friends at events, my fellow creators and speakers. And so what I can tell you about getting the best out of people is sometimes it’s looking for those very unguarded moments. And getting that freezing that moment in time, where they’re just they’re perfect selves. That’s a matter of timing, observation and patience, in terms of bringing that out in people, especially when you’re working with families and with kids, is you have to be very observant, and you have to be very patient. I’m an introvert. So there are things about me where it’s not that I’m not a people person, or that I’m antisocial, as much as I preference situations, and people that are less draining on my energy. And that’s what people don’t understand about introverts. Introverts can be a silver tongue, they can be sociable, and they can be somewhat outgoing. But it’s more exhausting and more effort on our part. And so for me, the people watching aspect, and then figuring out via observation, you know, taking that time to get to know people even from afar, by looking at the dynamics, when you are working with like families, you can kind of start to see and tell how people interact with each other. And you can use that to your advantage to understand how to communicate to them, and who pairs off better together, or who can help you to communicate something to the right person in the family and everything like that, you start to figure out who might be the manager in the family, you can figure out whether that’s the mom or the dad, or whether there’s a sibling paying, playing Peacemaker. And then you can use them and you can team up with them. And that makes things go a lot simpler. That also even works in office dynamics of if you’re working with a group and a team, and whether you’re doing consulting, or whether you’re doing videography. If you pay attention, and you look at the group, and how people interact with each other, and who how people treat each other, and how people talk to each other in tone, you can start to see who you need to partner up with, to manage and take control the room.
Max Branstetter 8:22
And I extra appreciate you right now because I know already these first few questions, I’m probably draining everything out of you. And you’re like, Man, can we just just hop off any moment? No, you’re fine. So let’s get to the creator economy. And this is something that you’ve really, I mean, you’ve literally put in your bio, and like creator academy around it and like you’re really championing how to, you know, teach others and, you know, teach individuals and so many people how to succeed in this creator economy. Yes, there’s a ton here. And that’s it. So we’ll go to the next top now. I think a lot of people have heard the term crater economy, but I’m not sure if everybody knows exactly what it is. How do you define it?
Roberto Blake 9:04
So the way I think of it is this. That’s a great question Max. Like, what is the creator economy? Well, if you think about it, the world’s dramatically changed over the last 25 years. But that change has been come really pronounced over the last 15 to 10 years with regard to online platforms. And more importantly, I would argue more importantly, online mobile devices. I would say that the smartphone, especially in particular, the iPhone changed everything. I think that’s undeniable and people realize we live in a mobile first world for some people. We live in a mobile only world. So how does that deal with the Creator economy? Well, the ability to create and distribute content for most of our lifetime, and certainly lifetimes anyone older than us. I’m 38 people can remember there are a lot of adults who can remember a time before the internet was a daily force in our lives. And before cellphones and smartphones were normalized cell phones in general were a bastion of the elite and rich people for a very long time, we saw the beginnings of cell phones in the 80s and 90s in in films, and that was for very, very wealthy people. Now, you can be very working class middle class, you can be from very underprivileged background, you still have access to more or less the same phone as a multimillionaire. And there’s not really a better phone to have, like, you know, so there’s not that much that gets better. So that’s really interesting. And the same thing is true for, to some extent, your laptop, if you are working class and you have a 500 to $800 laptop, the $3,000 laptop that a millionaire is on is only so much better than that. It’s only so much better than that. So that’s something you need to understand. And where does that relate to the creator economy? Well, if you go back to Steve Jobs and Apple and think different Apple devices originally, and the Apple computers were made for who writers, graphic designers, musicians, people making music, people editing and making film, aka, the creators and Steve Jobs, like emphasis was on them, the creators and that geek culture, the beginnings of the programmers, and so on so forth in the 80s 90s 2000s. Now, that elite bastion of the exclusivity of creating through that and let alone earning through that is no longer exclusive. And the ability to even build and reach an audience is no longer exclusive. If you want to do live broadcast video. That was something that cost massive production at scale. And it was the exclusive bastion of millionaires and billionaires that power set in the hands of like point zero 1% of people. Now it’s been democratized where almost anyone in a first world country has the ability and the opportunity, you may not reach millions, but you have the same broadcasting capability. I make cases you’re sharing the same platform, as these media companies, and these millionaire elites. And you’re doing that as an individual, the ability to publish a book like I’m publishing, I’d have to go through the gatekeeping of the Czar’s of taste I could have went to and I had an I had offers for publishing, I decided that I wanted to, to some extent, set an example for my audience and say, I can publish my first real book without a gatekeeper. And without a publishing company approving me, and I can sell 120,000 of this on my own, which is something that’s unheard of no one’s ever been able to do that before. Now, that’s something that Amazon and Kindle Direct Publishing as a platform, I can sell it in digital, and not only digital, I can sell it as a trade paperback. And that’s something you couldn’t do before I couldn’t live broadcast before. That was not something that was the these things were for elites. These things were gate kept. They were for millionaires, and now they can be for anybody, even in the working class, if they want to put the time into it. Your point
Max Branstetter 12:51
on the iPhone, I’m continually amazed when on a flight these days, and looking around. And sometimes this happens even when there are screens to watch movies and shows and do trivia, whatever you do. Yeah. And the seatbacks. The amount of people that are watching full length feature films on their phone, on their tray table in front of them is unbelievable. And it makes you think, okay, if people are willing to, you know, spend a few hours watching a movie on this device that can fit in your pocket, if your pockets bigger enough. What can’t you do with that phone as far as consuming content and as far as creating content. So it’s, it’s really fun to think about, and I think you’re spot on, like the iPhone, in particular change so much. And so it’s fun thing. And back to that point,
Roberto Blake 13:33
the iPhone by itself right now is a better device, in terms of its power and capacity for video editing, then the computers that edited Jurassic Park in 1996. This is better than what George Lucas had when he made Star Wars in the 1980s. This is in your pocket. It’s
Max Branstetter 13:53
unbelievable, which is why I’m working on Star Wars Episode XIV right now now. But that’s kind of laying the base level of what is the creator economy. So now for the extra hard question. How do you succeed in it?
Roberto Blake 14:09
Let’s define levels of success. And let’s define what success is because success is a very open ended vague thing. And then that makes it easier to challenge. So let’s start before we get to there, I talked about like the what the crater economy is from a technological and somewhat stamp platform standpoint, let’s talk about how people make money in the crater economy. And then we can move to how they succeed if you don’t mind.
Max Branstetter 14:29
Of course, yeah, but you have to do everything backwards. Just messing with, you know, let’s do it. Let’s talk about the financial side of things.
Roberto Blake 14:36
Sure, absolutely. So how do people it’s like, okay, Robert, that’s great that we can make things and that like, you know, it’s not just for geeks and for rich people anymore. Okay, but how do people make money doing this? Is there any money in it? And the answer is, yes, of course. There’s money in it. But how? Well, typically speaking, the business model that people have had up until now always has really come down to you sell a product or you sell a service. And so we understand In that, but in the late in the late 20th century, there was a new paradigm that computers, you know, Apple Windows, Microsoft did create. And it was called software. And so now in terms of well, what is a service software is a product and a service. That’s why we say software as a service, because we utilize it in such a way. And sometimes it’s supported as a service. But it’s also a product that we can license have access to and have ownership. So it’s this hybrid model. And that’s why software is both a product and a service. And it’s something that we can purchase, in a way is consumable. And in a lot of cases, it’s a service because we set up recurring bills with subscriptions to our software. So anybody who’s familiar with paying a subscription for a piece of software, let’s say you have an Adobe Creative Cloud license like me, or some people, they have other software that they require for their work, they have auditing software, they have all these tools, and they have to pay access to it every month, or they pay a yearly fee. Sometimes streaming software is like that for broadcast. Sometimes that’s your editing software it’s like and there are other businesses, even auditing software really talks about and financial services, you can even have accounting software that you pay a license for that might have a service component in it that you upgrade to. So Software as a Service is something most people can understand, especially people in your audience, they all are paying for some software as a service right now. What people haven’t considered is that, with the advent of services, such as Netflix, and Apple Music, and even aspects of like Amazon, and Amazon Prime, and so on, so forth, we already got used to the idea of something else, content as a service. And so when you subscribe to Spotify Premium, when you subscribe the YouTube premium when you subscribe to Netflix, you’re subscribing to a subscription model, you have a paid a monthly subscription model, but it’s not really software is it? It’s content that you’re paying for its content, that’s the commodity content is a product, it’s a consumable, and then when you tie that to a subscription model, or a purchasing model, or it becomes a gateway to a sales funnel, then its content as a service. And no one uses that phrase, I should probably trademark it.
Max Branstetter 17:18
I was gonna say I’m like writing this down and like double underlining. It’s in Comic Sans. But besides that, it’s
Roberto Blake 17:25
like I probably actually, to be honest, I was talking about the phrase creative economy probably in I think I want to say 2014 2015. You know, everyone’s talking about the gig economy. GaryVee, wrote a book a long time ago called The Thank You Economy. And as a content creator, as a creative entrepreneur, I was like, trying to find a phrase that that we did, and like, okay, gig economy, but that’s not really what creators do. And I believe, I mean, I can’t absolutely definitively prove this, but I believe I coined the phrase, the crater economy, when I was a daily YouTuber back in 2014 2015. Talking about this stuff, and I think I said at a few conferences or events that early, it’s been popularized now, and that doesn’t bother me. It’s fine. That’s why I’m writing books about it. Now, to take some credit. But content as a service is something I’ve not heard people talk about, but something we’ve been experiencing for years, since things like Netflix, things like Spotify, music, and so on. We’ve been there are some of us who have been paying for content as a service for a decade now, whether we realize it or not, individual creators monetize through various different means in terms of content and service, it’s just that that content is a service isn’t always necessarily business to consumer. With a YouTube ad revenue, it’s ad revenue is one of the primary factors. So you’re monetized and subsidized by ads that run across your youtube content that you’re producing. So you are creating inventory for advertising, just like television, just like radio. This is programmatic content, and there’s a media buy against it done by the advertisers. It’s facilitated by Google and their ad platform through YouTuber YouTube. And this is how content creators get paid no differently than TV and radio, except our stuff can be tracked and confirmed and validated in terms of the actual numbers, engagement and revenue generated. So our stuff is much more transparent on the digital side. Yeah, that’s for video there. Same thing, if you run an app, and there’s advertising within the app, you get paid the same way. And so the Google Adsense publishing model has been around for more than 15 years. It was introduced into YouTube early, I want to say it was running a beta for you to creators back in like maybe 2008. But it wasn’t given to most or all creators until about 2012. So that’s over a decade of YouTube Advertising being normalized. But Google publishing has been around for maybe as far as AdSense and AdWords publishing. It’s been around for maybe 20 yours so it’s not exactly new. This is now two decades old. And with YouTube, it’s over a decade, terms people earning from that with other things you can do because you have a platform and an audience you can directly sell, you can sell your own products that’s called eCommerce. Shopify is the biggest eCommerce platform in the world. They just partnered with YouTube to let people directly sell through Shopify through their YouTube channel. In YouTube shopping in the bottom of the video. If you have monetization 1000 subscribers 4000 hours of watch time, you can directly sell so now every business should every ecommerce business should have a YouTube channel now and should be doing that because it’s a direct sales channel out direct sales channel. And YouTube doesn’t take a cut of that when they do the ad revenue. YouTube splits 4555 45 with the Creator creator gets 55 creators also get direct donations from their audience, which is called YouTube super chats. 70/30 Split 70 goes to the creator, you can set up your own subscription service for premium exclusive content members only content 70/30 Split 70 goes toward the Creator. So there’s all of these different business models they exist even within the YouTube paradigm. And YouTube’s not the only one you can have YouTube Instagram, Tik Tok a podcast and you can do sponsored ship sponsored content is endorsements that’s no longer for celebrity elites. That’s no longer for successful athletes in the NFL, NBA and MLB and NHL. Now, it’s people that represent this lifestyle ambassadors that represent the brand’s values have the right look have the right face, even people with 1000 followers, 10,000 followers, those are called micro influencers and nano influencers. People with 50,000 to 500,000 are called mid tier influencers. People with 500,000 to a million in a platform are called macro influencers and anyone over a million is called a mega influencer. Now you’re
Max Branstetter 21:51
getting Yeah, well, you’ve finally gotten to where I am on where I am on MySpace, and oh, yeah, my AOL email account.
Roberto Blake 21:59
Right. So I mean, so the business model here is usually subsidized by ad revenue, brand deals and endorsements, direct to consumer, whether that’s physical products in ecommerce or digital products in E commerce, memberships and subscriptions, but also the ability to promote your own product and service. And then also, excuse me, the affiliate to work again, with brands through affiliate marketing. If you don’t have a direct, upfront payment contract for endorsement, you can just do commission sales on a brand’s behalf Amazon influencer program being probably the biggest one, the primary one that people use, and taking a percentage, if you do software as a service related things like I do, instead of getting a two to 8%, commission from Amazon, you get a 30 to 50% commission on software as a service that you recommend. And that could be recurring revenue. And then of course, there’s obviously fan donations fan funding, that don’t have to be a membership subscription, it could just be one time payments. So there’s basically six or seven primary business models. And then you could drill down into most many of those and come up with sub business models or sub business categories. But there’s primarily about six or seven streams of revenue that a content creator can typically generate using their platform because they have access to an audience. And so that’s the business model that
Max Branstetter 23:16
you read my mind. I was gonna say revenue streams, but I think we’ll accept streams of revenue as well. But you just list off several revenue streams. And I know in your business over the years, you’ve built up several, you know, for your own business, which is really, really cool. I mean, lots of different areas there. What is your personal favorite revenue stream that you look back on? And you’re like, wow, I’m really glad I created that.
Roberto Blake 23:40
I would definitely say recurring affiliate income on software as a service software as a service, in my mind, is one of the most practical, it’s also easily one of the most ethical. I know a lot of people like to give affiliate marketing a bad rap. But that’s because most people are very uneducated, and they conflate affiliate marketing with MLM and multi level marketing and pyramid schemes, when what they should be completing it with is commission sales. And they should think of it similar to real estate in that regard. And what they should also consider is this, would they be happy right now, if they could say that they got 10 to 30%, of every dollar that they ever made for their employer? And the answer would be, they’d probably be a lot more successful, they’d be a lot healthier, they’d be maybe they’d be rich for all the money they’ve made for the company, because they’re not keeping 10 to 30% of the value they created in direct sales and direct provable attribute of sales, to their labor to their work ethic. They can’t say that. So they know that they’re getting less than 1%, a fraction of a percent in most cases of the value that they created for the company. But they’re doing that in exchange for the security of a salary. What I did, I think was smart was in my platform. There were software and tools that I use every day to make my content to optimize my content to make myself efficient to turn what would be an eight hour day into a three to four hour work day. And so I used ice, my productivity Wheat and my productivity tools in terms of here’s the software I subscribe to. And yes, it costs money. But I’m doing that in exchange to buy back my time because I value my time more, how much is your time? How much is your energy? How much is your labor worth? Then you divide that over the 30 days and go, you know, what is worth saving two to four hours, every time I do something, my time is easily worth hundreds of dollars more in the time that I’m wasting and not being efficient. Whenever I do the dollar to effort ratio for people, what is the cost of not doing something? What is the opportunity cost of not doing something? How much do you value your time, every time you spend an hour longer to save a few dollars more? Okay, and how much time is that that you could have given to your kids? If you have a family? How much time could you use that to build relationships? How much time could you have been doing something else? How much more sleep is that? It’s ridiculous that people do not prioritize time over money. And they don’t consider that investing in any tool that literally shaves even 30 minutes a day, if you’re going to do it. Monday through Friday, 30 minutes a day, ends up being two and a half hours a week, two and a half hours a week ends up being over 100 hours in a year, what could you do with 100 more hours and how much is the value of 100 more hours, the affiliate revenue was the best thing I ever did, because it’s recurring. And the reason it’s ethical is because if someone cancels a software, I don’t make any money. So I can only make money if people are happy with the product that they bought.
Max Branstetter 26:25
Money makes a lot of things possible. But time makes like anything possible, like time is so valuable. You’re spot on with that, I mean, just the fact of like, imagine if you could use a different service or system or something. Or it’s who you partner with, or maybe you’re working with some freelancers that free up hours in your day, like the thought of that. And the possibilities that can come out of that is so exciting. So that’s really cool that this revenue stream ties back to that
Roberto Blake 26:53
monthly recurring revenue. To be transparent, my two biggest are probably TubeBuddy and Kajabi combined, they do a bad month is 5000 to $6,000 every month that I do not have to wake up and hustle for I did not have to wake up clock in hustle, grind, and give value to somebody else in exchange for basically the ability to, you know, make the median income in America. Because what I did was I produced, you know, about maybe 100 pieces of content that facilitated
Max Branstetter 27:27
that. And shout out our, our mutual buddy Rob Balasabas who I always I always mispronounce his name, but he was at TubeBuddy and kinda Mr. TubeBuddy at the time of us on this podcast. But he He’s amazing. But that aspect of of hustling for your money and putting in a crazy amount of effort. That’s something this is a terrible segue. But that’s something people do and think of with building an audience. And I think building an audience is a huge part of this puzzle. And it’s a huge part of the Creator economy. Because everything that you’ve talked about so far, if no one’s watching, or no one’s listening are no one’s you know, flying on a plane watching you on their phone. It’s very hard to make much money. So it depends on you’ve built this. Well. Okay, let’s start right there. So you say it depends. So what some, what’s the difference there between those that are able to build an audience and those that aren’t.
Roberto Blake 28:19
So people misconstrued success and they have been sold a delusion that they need millions of followers and a platform that they need a million subscribers, or they don’t mean anything. That’s false. And those numbers don’t work out. People don’t realize that if you have 10,000 subscribers in YouTube, just 10,000 and you are a small creator, and you’re thinking yourself like, you’ve beat 90% of people on YouTube as a platform, there are 100 million creators estimated worldwide globally rather 100 channels rather worldwide globally. 90% of them never hit 10,000. And people don’t know that. Because what they all do is they watch the 100 success stories every year of people who got to a million in a year. And those are all outliers. And the thing is, they think that they’re overnight successes, and I’ll tell you the truth, there are no overnight successes, but there are his people who move in silence like a true Shinobi there are people out there that move in silence like a true Shinobi. And then you don’t know about the 1020 3040 50 100 failures under the iceberg. And you don’t know that the truth is some of them this is their sixth YouTube channel and this is the and this is the lessons of six years of understudy and 10 years of effort and failure behind the scenes that they’ve been doing since they were 15 years old. And now at 22 They’re older wiser more mature and they’ve gotten expressing themselves maybe more of their system have doubled down into what’s efficient now started from scratch with six years of understudy almost like a grad a like a college degree in internet marketing a college degree in video production. college degree in YouTube in a connoisseur put in 1000s of hours that you never knew about. Because they now scrubbed and deleted like all their old channels and all their old twitch and all their old Instagram. And now that they’ve polished themselves and refined themselves and reinvented themselves, they’re showing up from out of nowhere. And they’ve moved in silence, instead of building in public, because what we all do now is we all have subscribed to this idea, which I don’t bother. I’m not bothered by it. I love the transparency of building and public I built in public, I built in public. But the thing is, if I didn’t, and what I did was I spent the last 38, if I had spent the last 15 years, behind the scenes, maybe I worked for a big YouTuber behind the scenes for years, maybe I was a protege of somebody like Mr. Beast, or airac. And I thought it was their protege, their apprentice waiting in the shadows. And you never knew that you don’t know that I have this unfair advantage of ridiculous knowledge. Somebody who has my back, somebody who’s mentored me, somebody who’s groomed me for success, that I’ve had the ability to cut my teeth and experiment on somebody else’s dime, built up savings to be able to take risk that you can’t have put myself in a position to have time freedom that you don’t. And then I come out of nowhere, like a true Shinobi like a ninja from the shadows emerging. You don’t have any clue about that. Because you have no idea about my backstory, all you see is my results. And so people don’t realize that sometimes. That’s what the secret is to the overnight success is it’s people who move in silence instead of people who build in public. And there’s a difference. And we’ve seen people build in public like MrBeast, MrBeast made 100 videos, he didn’t even get 1000 subscribers, he wouldn’t even be eligible for the YouTube Partner Program. With those first 100 videos, he had to make 460 videos to study every one, he had to make 460 videos to get to 10,000 subscribers on YouTube. And now he’s at 100 million, and no one knew who the kid was six years ago. And he had actually done like for YouTube channels before this one, he had tried YouTube multiple times. And so he put in work from like age 12. And no one knew who he was or cared until he was like 18 and dropped out of college to try to do YouTube full time. Remember, this is that time freedom I talked about. And he had an argument with his mom, she was gonna kick him out of the house and said, I guess I’m getting kicked out because I gotta go to YouTube full time because that’s what I have to do. Because this is all I care about. And I’m depressed doing anything else. And I don’t want to do anything else. Now, that’s a level of commitment, and passion. That’s not practical for most people, he made it practical. And not everyone has the situation and can have that level of risk tolerance. So again, you’d have to know better. But he also had a reason because he was making better money than he could make with a minimum wage job at the time. So it wasn’t practical for him to go work amendment job, a job he doesn’t like when his dream is already doing better. And the thing is when he has six years invested, and is on the precipice of saying I now know what it takes just like a business owner, traditional business owner takes five to six years to be profitable in the traditional world of brick and mortar. And even online, people don’t realize that that’s still true, it takes five or six years, he was like, Okay, it’s my time. And I’m not delusional, I’ve done the work. And I have more than what more than 90% of people competing for this have already I do have some understanding, I do have some proof of concept, I have some proof of success. And then as they like to say the rest is the rest is history. But he was willing to fail his way up for six years, most people are not. And he did in public, he embarrassed himself in public in that regard. Most people do not have the capacity for
Max Branstetter 33:50
it. One of my favorite things to do is like these huge, like larger than life seemingly figures that you alluded to, on social media and in the podcast world in the YouTube world. Go back and look at their early videos, listen to their early podcasts, look at the early posts that they did in social media, and see what they look like. And it is fascinating to see, you know, before they had a huge audience what that looked like, and also it’s inspiring and more relatable than to be like, hey, you know, everybody start somewhere. And this is this kind of a half good example half not because Tim Ferriss is obviously larger than life figure one of my favorite podcast hosts. If you go back and listen to the first episode of the Tim Ferriss show now obviously he had a huge audience by then he had millions of subscribers to his blog. I think he probably started five bullet Friday, his email list before that, but that this foray into podcasting, like he didn’t know how it’s gonna turn out. He didn’t know he, at the time of this recording was, you know, having gonna create a podcast that would be listened to nearly nearing a billion times. He was drunk for the first episode of the Tim Ferriss show like he was literally drunk for it and he’s like Look, I don’t know what this is going to do. But I figured, you know, I’d start with a bang and get drunk and just he was kind of just casually playing around with it. And I think if you look back now he would, it would be like, I can’t believe I did that for the first episode. But obviously, the quality has come a long way. And he’s interviewed some of the most amazing people in the world. So anyway, shout out Tim Ferriss. Tim, you’re welcome on the show. Anytime. Thanks for listening. It’s so inspiring to see that everybody starts somewhere and can build something up. And it’s it’s these tools that you speak about, it’s these revenue streams and business models that you speak about Roberto, that have given people the ability to unlock kind of these next phases of their life. In today’s day and age,
Roberto Blake 35:38
indeed, I mean, people don’t realize all success starts at level zero. And the real challenge is level zero to level one. So everyone starts with zero, even if you have resources, even if you have resources. Okay, what good does it do? People don’t know who you are, and you haven’t put those things to work? So yes, you have some unfair advantage. It’s like, okay, well, you’d still have to have the confidence to be on camera. And then you have to learn to not suck on camera. So which is super easy, right? Yeah, it’s actually wildly difficult, which means, okay, someone who’s broke, but is charismatic, because like they’ve been good with people, they’re extroverted, they have a silver tongue. They have a wonderful spouse or partner, and they had to have the confidence for that. That person has an advantage over someone who’s rich when starting out on YouTube, because that a rich person who is insecure, doesn’t like their appearance, you know, struggles to communicate well, is not good with people has a poor temperament, that rich person, they can have all the fancy camera gear in the world, they can have all the employees and staff behind them and they will lose to some broke college kid that has the confidence and charisma has the love and support of their boyfriend or girlfriend has always had a silver tongue in a way with people and relates to people understands people, and has the right temperament, personality, temperament, confidence, charisma, communication skills, that wins on YouTube, there are people who are not as clever as me do not have as much camera or audio gear as me, they will always be able to start from zero and surpass me, not only because of my subject matter is very exclusive. I don’t reach a broad audience by subject matters exclusive, but because they have the right temperament compared to me, I don’t do bad. But I work that I had to work. I’m an introvert. I’m a real introvert, I had to work at this and hated public speaking in school, I was bullied in school. So I didn’t have the confidence. YouTube improved my confidence over time, by learning to express myself and realizing there would be some acceptance that I never had, in my previous life, in these platforms, and in the world of the internet, those people in them becoming a public speaker, but people who naturally had that, and were more confident, more charismatic, they for whatever reason, whatever experiences they had, like they will always disproportionately have an advantage resources are not the only unfair advantage, natural inborn confidence, charisma, your demeanor, literally just being tall. If you have to take like being born rich and short over being born poor and tall, if you could be tall, handsome, tall and pretty, or you could be, you know, moderately
Max Branstetter 38:18
attractive, and rich, here we go. Now you’re talking about me choose
Roberto Blake 38:22
these things that you can’t do anything about. Because you can always make money, you can always make money, you can’t necessarily become taller, you can’t necessarily become more naturally attractive, you can work on yourself, you can work out, you can, you know, get hair implants, you can put on makeup, you can do any number of things. But yeah, there are certain things you just can’t do anything about, there’s certain struggles you just can’t overcome. So if you’re going to pick a struggle, making money is probably the one because like universally, you can do something about it. So I would take the natural advantages over the resource advantages. Every time I would take the natural, inborn God given advantages over the ones that if you’re going to start from nothing, I would take those over the other ones the resources every time.
Max Branstetter 39:04
And everybody has the ability to choose how they spend their time and what they do for a living and how in how they create. There’s so much exciting in this creative economy. I just thought of a new term content as a service. I think I’m gonna trademark it now. But there is no, I’m just kidding. No, this it’s totally yours. I’m just messing with you. But there’s so much exciting in this space. And I really appreciate how you’re, you’re kind of leading the charge with helping more people to do to do so to do to, to do so themselves. There’s so much you can do yourself including starting a podcast, but you might not want to do it all yourself because you might want to free up some of those hours to work on other aspects of your business or aspects of your life because podcasting, like being a YouTube, creative entrepreneur, like Roberto is can be extremely time consuming If you are interested in launching a podcast or if you have a podcast already, but you’re looking for ways to offload some of the crazy time consuming tasks, you can go to MaxPodcasting.com and sign up for the Podcasting to the Max newsletter. That is your key to unlocking more time for your podcast or outside of your podcast. And it’s full of podcasting tips, as well as behind the scenes insights and stories and puns, that it’s not really behind the scenes from the Wild Business Growth Podcast. That’s the Podcasting to the Max newsletter. Now, let’s get to the bottom of just how you can create so many videos or pieces of amazing creative content, without just like sleeping for days and days and days and days and days straight. Let’s switch gears a little bit, let’s get to you more on the personal side terms of inspiration and creativity, I would venture to say you are a very prolific content creator, I think now you’re somewhere around 1500 videos on YouTube that you’ve created on the main channel, and on the main channel. So all the silence, all the things you do in silence, like lasagna is even more than that. But you’ve also built up your audience has increased over to over half a million subscribers on YouTube right now. So the point of this section is just to say congrats. No, it’s not. But congrats. But thank you very much. We could keep that going in the background. But being a prolific side and being consistent with content, what’s what’s your biggest tip for somebody that inspires to create a breadth of helpful content like you have?
Roberto Blake 41:51
There are a couple of things I can talk about, I think it’s important for me to define value quality quantity. But before I get to that, I would say that people’s biggest thing I would say is they tell me that they lack motivation. And I think to be successful, and to be a productive person, you have to always be M.A.D., motivated, accountable and disciplined. That’s my acronym I came up with that always if you want to be successful, I actually came up No, see, I can’t stop. Now. If you want to be successful, if you want to be productive, you must always be mad. And again, it’s my joke of like, just yeah, I’m always M.A.D., that’s my secret. It’s like no, by that I mean, motivated, accountable, and disciplined. So your motivation is an overarching goal of something that’s bigger than yourself that you’re in service to that helps you from the external and pulls you out of pulling, you know, pulls you out of yourself and pulls you out of it’s like you know what I’m gonna and then the accountability, the accountability could be when you do start to have an audience, it can be the accountability that these people even if it’s just, you know, even if it’s just 100 people, these are my people, they show up for me, I’m not going to like just ditch them, I’m not going to tell them that they’re not enough reason to keep doing this. And so that helps. And it’s humbling and it grounds you, it’s humbling, and it grounds you to say, those tent like not, oh, I’m small, why keep going. It’s like that’s kind of spitting in the face of the 100 people that really care as if 100 people in the real like, it’s very difficult in the real world to get 100 people to care about you, it’s very difficult in the real world, to get 100 people to show up to anything, it’s really difficult in the real world to get 100 sales for anything to do. Like it’s like, it’s very difficult. It’s very hard. Anyone who’s ever worked retail job knows how hard it is to move 100 units, even if you work in a big box store, moving 100 units is massive effort. So if you build an audience of 100 people, it’s kind of disingenuous to write that off is not important or not valuable or not meaningful if they’re real people. And once you get that first 100 comments of people who reacted and responded, again, attention is free, it’s cheap. So it’s not the same thing as when people buy something that’s really when people show you that they’re committed to you and that they’re loyal to you is when they will make an effort, even if it’s $5 $10 Well, that 100 people, that’s a big deal. You know, 100 people give you $10 That’s $1,000. And this is why I don’t think people understand that they don’t have to be a starving artist loyally serving 100 people, oh, a week is $1,000 a week if they give you $10 If you have that value proposition, or if you deliver for them, and there’s a lot of ways to create $10 in value that’s meaningful to someone that says, hey, it’s more important for me to give you this $10 than to spend it on a six pack of beer, it’s more important for me to give you this $10 than to squander it across various vending machines or microtransactions this week, so that is a connection and relationship with an audience so an audience holds you accountable. Beyond that later, your inner circle can hold you accountable. If you develop networking and peer relationships. Your team can hold you accountable. Your family members can hold you accountable to pursuing your dreams. So you need to have an overarching goal that motivates you beyond yourself. Then you need people in your life in your community and around you that hold you back. accountable to your dreams, but also to good character. And then you need the discipline to continue to do things in spite of difficulty. And regardless of whether you have an emotional motivation and drive to do it, when motivation fails, you discipline will not. So it’s the I’ve made a commitment and I am a person, I’m a man or woman of my word, I’m a person of integrity, I will do the things I said, I’m going to do, how I feel is immaterial to the fact that I have a duty to perform. That’s what discipline is, discipline is, regardless of how I feel, and regardless of circumstance, regardless of obstacle, I have a duty to perform, and I will do so that is discipline, discipline is integrity to oneself. So you have to be motivated by a higher purpose and cause accountable to the people that you serve, and that want the best for life in you and that you want the best for. And then you have to be disciplined, so that you can overcome obstacles, difficulty or even your own emotions, and hold to what it is that you are bound to do.
Max Branstetter 46:02
You have met, and we’re sponsored by MAD Magazine, this point, I’m all for acronyms. And those three like are very cleverly chose words because motivation, I mean, intuitive, everybody understands that. Same thing with discipline. On the accountability note, this is what you’re saying makes me think of how I advise podcast clients, like if somebody is like, Oh, I don’t have an episode for the next week. You know, should I take the week off? Or what should I do some and I always say that, obviously, there’s, there’s personal life reasons or, or you had a crazy string of guest cancellations, or you just have too much going on in your life right now. Of course, every now and then it’s okay to take a week off, it’s okay to take a little bit of a break where needed some people take the summers off. Yes. But it’s also important to keep in mind that let’s say you have 19 listeners to your podcast every week, if you don’t give a heads up, that you’re not releasing an episode that next week, the next week at that time, and probably multiple times checking throughout the day, or later in the week, if they really really liked you. You’re leaving those people down, because they’re they’re looking at your phone, and they’re expecting something from you. And they they want to hear from you. They want to learn from you. They want to see who you have as a guest maybe. And there’s kind of just an empty feeling that comes with that. So obviously there there are moments when it’s important to take breaks, but also that, that accountability in that relation to a relationship with with your audience, I think is so huge in it being consistent and putting out content in a crazy amount of episodes. Like you have.
Roberto Blake 47:33
I agree. And I think that and this is why like for the reason I have 1500 videos over the last eight or so years, eight or nine years is because yeah, it’s been like nine years now. Geez, there was a period for almost three years where I was a daily content creator. And then for several years after I was a near daily content creator. And that’s actually how I grew. A lot of people don’t realize that part of my story is a July August of 2013. I had been on YouTube before but I hadn’t been making content and then not with any kind of consistency. So I went to weekly regular uploads, doing tutorial videos, software tutorials, for creators, you know, video editing, photo editing and graphic design, Photoshop, Premiere, pro illustrator, that sort of thing. The Adobe suite was my main thing. So I did that for like two years, and I got to 20,000 subscribers in two years. Now that’s actually really good, even though I didn’t know that at the time, because I said most people don’t realize 90% of people never get 10,000 subscribers on YouTube. So by 2015, February of 2015, I have 20,000 subscribers, the end of 2015 December of 2015 of 70,000 subscribers. How did I go from 20 to 70,000. I basically went daily, I basically went daily, and I was making evergreen, searchable content, I did not go viral. I did not go viral. I did not have any videos blew me up. I had evergreen content. And because I took 365 swings at it. My top 20% of those outliers meant I had 60 something 70 something really good videos in terms of videos that performed and grew me and they weren’t massive, but individually, I had 70 videos that individually brought in 500 new subscribers to 1000 to 1500 to 2000 in that time period. So again 20% of my content did 80% of the work so the volume scaled the results. And they also scaled my learning curve in terms of I became in that one year. Much better on camera much more confident. A faster video editor a better producer. incrementally improved things with lighting and audio still use the same crappy camera all the way to 100k then I upgraded to a 4k video camera for $700 It was just $700 and it was a Panasonic g7 at the time still a great value. There’s Now a new Sony camera that’s much better, better autofocus better everything for about $800 that you can get. I now shoot on the most expensive gear. No, no man. Well, no, no, that’s Marques, he shoots on the most expensive.
Max Branstetter 50:11
You’re second most expensive.
Roberto Blake 50:13
I shoot on the budget version of being a baller being a baller is $30,000 on a camera. I’m on the budget version of that. So my cameras are like, like $3,000 instead of 30,000 like Marques, for every $30,000 camera he has I have like a $3,000 camera. So it’s like, um, it might seem like a flex to a beginner and I was a beginner I love cameras I shot on in the early part of my career, everyone’s iPhone, everyone’s iPhone is better than the cameras I use to get to 100,000 subscribers, y’all. Every smartphone today is better than the cameras I was shooting at when I had a quarter million subscribers. My cameras are trash compared to your phone. As far as the cameras that got me to a quarter million subscribers, trash compared to your phones. And the experiments I had to do with audio to get audio right? Every $100 or less microphone today in 2020 to 2023 is better than microphones I bought when I started even if they cost twice as much. So it’s like the technology curve of don’t be too impressed by that. I’m trying to stay bleeding edge now because of the level that I’m at my audience deserves the best I can offer them, it’s not a flex, I reinvest 50% of every dollar I make back into get back being better quality, everything and paying my team behind my business. So it’s not a flex I’m not out here driving the Lamborghini or anything
Max Branstetter 51:34
this is I thought I heard some like a skrt skrt in the background with the turns you were making. But ya
Roberto Blake 51:40
know, it’s just I believe that the audience deserves a quality experience. So if I define quality, quality is not Oh, you get a bunch of views view quality has nothing to do with views. Views have nothing to do with quality. So what happens is, let’s talk about that early growth and success I have because it’s a framework for people going forward is the evergreen content strategy I had was like these are videos that will be valuable to people not only now if they have a problem to solve, but later if they still have that problem down the road. These videos take years to become outdated. These videos have a lifespan of three years. That’s my secret. My secret is evergreen content that has a lifespan of this topic will be searchable. And it’s not that I’m only getting search traffic. people mistakenly think that my strategy is only search. It’s that search is a guaranteed outcome. And almost no one wants to compete with search content. Because everyone’s an entertainer now. And even people who do education, they’re now doing edutainment, and they’re watering down their education, the buying audience, the people who take things seriously the people who will buy and commit to things and software and stuff like that they want straight information. They don’t want memes, they don’t want this, they want straight information, they want a lack of fluff, they want actionable, accurate advice. And so I will get less views but the potency of my audience and their buying potential is much higher than someone who gets more views or goes viral than me. And I know that also because the difference in my ad revenue is entertainers have a two to $5 CPM rate if they’re lucky, I have a 25 to $50 CPM rate consistently. So that’s like a 10x difference of how advertisers value my brand. And advertisers wouldn’t value my brand in that way. If it wasn’t connecting, and delivering and serving and more importantly, converting to sales. And that’s a huge difference. So value proposition is kind of the first thing you start with is like who you serve, why would they watch? Who is watching? What do they care about? What are their priorities? When are they available to watch so topic title, thumbnail and timing, topic title, thumbnail and timing the 40s these four quadrants are all about the indicators of interest for your audience. You know, this is part of that a Ida part of marketing and advertising and traditional business you know, so we start with those four quadrants title topic what really starts with topic share ideas first of like qualifying the viewer and their psychology in the audience. title that resonates is easy to understand easy to read communicates them and titles are about solving a problem or catering to an identity a K outcome is get 100,000 subscribers outcome is get 1000 subscribers outcome is get monetized identity is small YouTuber, new youtuber full time YouTuber. So that’s like so it’s getting its outcome or identity play, at least when you’re trying to do service based content or education based content. And it can win in everything it can win in search suggested YouTube homepage, it’s all about triggering the right engagement. And so then it’s the thumbnail to get attention. So that’s the attention part. You know, the topic and title is about interest in you know, so on in the ai ai da thing, and so you’re getting them to you’re getting their attention, you’re also getting them to decide and act with the thumbnail because that’s the storytelling. That’s the convincing. That’s the intrigue. That’s the emotional part of it in a way, the title and topic kind of help them with rationalization. And so then after that, there’s timing. Is this relevant to the situation that I, the viewer am currently in? Is this relevant to my curiosity and interest at this time? Is this relevant to current events? Is this relevant to the people that I’m interested in serving, or the people that I’m curious about, or the people that I’m upset with, or so on, and so forth. So those are aspects of desire, need, identity, circumstance, desired outcome. So those are the the emotional components of the timing aspect. So this is extraordinarily valuable. This is literally things that I can charge people hundreds or 1000s of dollars for this is why I talk about events. And I put this out in my channel for free. This is like, but the problem is going through my 1500 videos, yes, you will find every $500 YouTube courses I’ve ever sold is just basically taken my content, and then organized and curated. And I’m not mad, because it’s actually more practical for people to take, steal my content, organized and curate it, put it in the right order, package it make it convenient, make it what the timing needs to be not cater to the YouTube algorithm and then resell it for $500. And save somebody hundreds of hours of time of research. Yes, that’s a valuable service. So people stealing my content and making courses I’m not even mad at it. I should only be mad that I didn’t do it first. Because I do coaching. I’ve been sold, of course yet. So that’s the next venture probably is just to oh, I can finally benefit from my own content now. But I mean, so much, facetious. When I say steel, it’s like, you know, anyone can obviously figure this stuff out for their own. But I have seen some of that. So now that’s how we start with value. And then I can tell you about Yeah, like, I know, I want you to ask some questions. I don’t want to take over the entire show.
Max Branstetter 56:56
No, I have. One of my favorite things to do as a host is listen and learn. And you are like putting on an incredible course here. But I do have to correct you because you say you’re not mad, but you are mad, motivated, accountable and discipline,
Roberto Blake 57:11
discipline, you’re right, I’m very motivated to start to extract that value from my own content. I’m accountable to my audience to give them a better course than everybody else. And I’m disciplined enough to follow through and do that. So you’re right, I am mad. Alright, so when it comes to quality, and explaining what quality is, I think that a lot of people and creators confuse value with quality. Value is about again, what we value what we’re interested in, that’s what gets us to click on a video, the experience we have of watching a video or listening to a podcast, that’s what the quality is. And we can measure that in production quality, performance, quality, and then also the quality of the personality. So that that’s where there’s Alright, so now it’s the three P’s, we added the 40s. And now it’s the three P’s.
Max Branstetter 57:53
I have to say. Because for my business, MaxPodcasting, I say I say the 3Ps are podcast planning, production. and promotion. So 3, I’m very friendly with any 3Ps you want,
Roberto Blake 58:04
actually have 4Ps as a framework for content creation. So I have four for content creation outside of quality. And so it’s actually plan, produce, publish, promote,
Max Branstetter 58:14
Oh, perfect, very similar. See, well, we’ll just share all the trademarks anyway.
Roberto Blake 58:20
And then just reverse engineers actually, for content creators, it reverse engineers, basically the fundamentals of a marketing mix, if you really think about it, but teachers get because my My thing is my secret is I want to sneaky ly trick content creators into being entrepreneurs. So creative entrepreneurs, I want to sneakily trick content creators into building actual businesses. So I’m going to have to sneakily teach them actual business principles and give them an MBA in business without them knowing it. production quality is actually really straightforward and simple is that you need to create a quality experience when someone clicks on video, because if they click on a video, and the audio is really bad, it’s harder to watch. It’s hard to get retention. YouTube is about response and retention. Everyone thinks it’s about reach. Now, it’s not just about reach, it’s about reach, response and retention. So you know, three R’s. So there you go, and then you could add a fourth revenue, reach response, retention revenue, right. So when someone clicks on a video, they’ve already kind of responded to that video, they’re like, Okay, I’m going to click on this and now you have about 15 Eight to 15 seconds before they’re like I’m out. And so in that eight to 15 seconds, if your video has very poor audio, they have other options they can spend that time with someone who has good audio and put in the work there because it’s just a bad experience it’s hard to watch the video can be okay in terms of video visual quality, but it can’t be too bad and can’t be hard to watch can’t be drifting in and out focus all the time. Like you know it has to be look like a some effort was put in here attention to detail was put in here. So the video production has to be on point the audio production and editing has to be on point. There can’t be errors and omissions. The editing has to be accurate. If the lighting is bad. That is a huge Lose distraction to making the video less watchable. So that is something that we have to take care of. And the thing is, that’s the easiest thing to fix with money, and a little bit of training and tutorials. And you can maintain that. So when people think, oh, quality over quantity, it’s like, well, remember the variables of good audio, good camera, autofocus and lighting don’t have to change if you have a setup all the time. And as long as you’re using the same gear, and you understand how to use that gear properly, okay, the production quality is not going to drop. So then what about performance, performance is how you present on camera. So a lot of that’s your clarity of communication, your confidence on camera, and charisma there. And then your ability to connect emotionally with the audience. That is the performance. And what a lot of people is when you start you suck at that, unless you naturally had the talent and the temperament. So you have to work on that. And that’s trial and error. And just like getting good on the technical production side that trial and error. That’s why you make your first 100 crappy videos, if you’re going to build in public, some people make their first 100 crappy videos on another channel, and then move in silence and don’t really promote it. And then they come back and rebrand now that they, as someone new now that they’ve gotten that under their belt, and they got season, they got some practice, they’re like, Okay, I’m not a rookie anymore. And then you came back from your summer vacation of training with your growth spurt. And now you’re like, you know, so like, you know, and now you’re out here crushing it going up for varsity, right? So, so then there’s personality, personality is the one that you can probably do the least about. But you have to understand your audience and your community and who you’re making videos for. So the thing is, the authenticity with regard to you have to be authentic, you have to be approachable. And I would say you have to be aligned to the audience, you have to be authentic, approachable, you have to be aligned to the audience. So that’s your personality, it’s you have to know who that is. And isn’t four, which means you don’t budge on your authenticity in terms of you don’t cater to a vocal minority, you don’t make changes arbitrarily, because of your response you hold firm. And that’s going to help because if you are aligned with a specific group or audience, they’re going to appreciate and respect you for that. But then you also have to be approachable because you have to make content where you have the capacity to build a community around those people you’re aligned with, you can’t be inaccessible to the people that you’re trying to form a community around. And you can’t just sit in your ivory tower above them. Yes, you can create healthy boundaries, but you know, so this is you know, so that’s where quality is. Because when we have those things, as a viewer, as a viewer, when you see someone put an effort into the production, and then they’re like, performance is amazing, and it resonates and you’re like, Oh, wow. Like they’re clear in their communication. While they have so much confidence. They’re, you know, hitting me and then they’re emotionally connecting with me to get me. And then it personality says, Yeah, I agree with that. I align with that. It’s like, Wow, there’s so approachable. And then wow, they’re authentic. They don’t, you know, pander, they don’t virtue signal to me, they don’t patronize me, they don’t condescend, like you certainly knew. When you have those things, you feel good. As a viewer about that. You want to support that person with your wallet, you want to subscribe, you want to follow them on social media, you want those people to succeed, and you want to play a role in their success. So this is how we become successful. And this is why quality does matter. Quality Matters. And then quantity is like okay, you you know your value proposition. You’ve been thoughtful, you’ve been intentional, you planned on that you’ve produced good stuff. And then in terms of quantity, it’s like, if you have something that people value, you understand the demand, then you’re delivering and supplying something that’s wonderful and great, and is a cut above. Going ahead and supplying more of that can only increase and enhance your results and outcomes and scale it. So that’s why value quality and quantity all matter and you have to pay attention to all of them and balance them correctly as a content creator, and they evolve at different points in your journey and they improve over a period of time.
Max Branstetter 1:03:55
I am ready to run a marathon maybe an ultramarathon that was incredible you’re you’re super charging me This is fantastic. So speaking of mad and the 40s Let’s get to a fan favorite segment that is a little less pretty of an acronym the Wild Business Shoutout of the Week the WBSOW which I’ve never said that before really rolls off the tongue Wild Business Shoutout of the Week thank you, thank you thank you you’re far too kind but Wild Business Shoutout of the Week this is where we talk about a creative marketing campaign or buzz approach or just some something that creators are doing that really is cut through and out of the box. So Colin and Samir, what is it that they’re doing that got you really fired up?
Roberto Blake 1:04:49
Colin and Samir are doing everything right they’re my they’re probably my favorite YouTube channel to watch right now they’re almost to a million subscribers. They talk about their by creators for creators essentially They do a show The Colin and Samir Show, it’s really great. It’s one of the highest quality productions that there is on YouTube. And they started out doing very simple breakdowns of content creator stories, shooting out of Collin’s car, because it was a good way for them to isolate audio and make the audio better by just being in his late car. So they use the cars, their YouTube studio, until Samsung sponsored them and help them build out their dream studio. And they are great. They’re great. They do these wonderful interviews, they do creator breakdowns, they mastered a great YouTube short strategy as well. So they’ve done I feel they’re the most holistic, and one of the best storytelling channels on YouTube. And I think that they’re the only, quote unquote edutainment, that’s not really the only edutainment that’s not watered down, they’re one of the only ones out there that one of the best in the game, their branding is on point. It’s amazing. And they’re one of the only YouTube channels that really has prioritized growing an email list of their own. They’re almost 40 50,000 subscribers to their email list. They, they’ve done very well with that they branded as a media publication called the published press, they even get sponsors for it. So I imagine they’re making six figures just in sponsored content only from the email list entity itself as a publication. And they’re doing tremendously well. When I sell a course I’ll buy into being a sponsor and just reach their list, like because that’s the most practical thing I could do. And I really love their energy. They’re very authentic. They’re very thoughtful, they don’t take themselves too seriously. But they take the work very seriously. They’re respectful to creators, they offer real value constructive criticism, they think and put themselves in the place of the viewer. And I really love everything about what they’re doing.
Max Branstetter 1:06:47
Sounds like you’re not really a big fan of them. I mean, there’s nothing they’re really doing. That’s, that’s exciting, or we can learn from it. Now, if you had to pick out of there one thing or one approach that Colin and Samir are doing, that people should learn and can apply back to their own creative output. What would that be?
Roberto Blake 1:07:05
I would say how intentional and thoughtful they are about every single aspect of their content, there’s not a single thing that they do that is random, or that is purely oh, we’re doing it because we like it. Or we’re doing it because we want to Oh, I’m doing it just because our No, they make completely thoughtful, intentional decisions that put the viewer first and any creator, any business owner that puts the viewer firts puts the customer first. You know, we’re in constant as a service our viewers, our customer, they’re our avatar, and even when they’re not our paying customer there are they’re part of our brand story. They are, you know, our tribe, so to speak. So any body who wants to be a thought leader, anyone who has to be a content creator, anyone who wants to be a creative entrepreneur, if you put your audience first if you put the community first, if you put the people first, you are the one who will win, someone who pursues their own selfish desire and wants to put their need to express themselves before everything else. Someone wants to put their artistic integrity or what they think their artistic integrity is before everything else. So he wants to put the art first, someone who wants to do that at the expense of the consumer, the expense of the consumer, if you do not put the consumer first you will lose to someone who will. You will lose to someone who will you have to value them more than you value anything else because we will only if we have to choose between someone who’s putting us first and someone who’s putting a second or third, we’re always going to choose selfishly, whoever puts us first. Whoever values us the most. We’re always going to go where we’re treated best. So if you’re not the person in your niche that treats people best. You’re going to lose to whoever is
Max Branstetter 1:08:47
all right, you ready for some rapid fire? Let’s do it. All right, let’s get to some rapid fire q&a. Let’s get wild. What is your top camera recommendation like webcam style camera, under $200
Roberto Blake 1:09:02
under $200 I’d probably say the elgato Cam link which is really good gamers streamers use that and go you know 60 P It’s really good. It’s affordable and it works with all your elgato products like you know the stream deck and those things so it’s really cool. Other than that anything Logitech makes is probably good with it and there’s probably an option for anybody’s budget either up or down from there. So I would say elgato and Logitech are probably my go-tos
Max Branstetter 1:09:31
what is your favorite creative hobby/way to unplug that has nothing to do with creating content.
Roberto Blake 1:09:38
It’s probably still photography in my case, wildlife photography. I live near near enough to Zoo Atlanta. So I like to break out the super telephoto lens by 200 600 millimeter lens or my 100 to 400 G Master Sony and I like to take wildlife photography I like especially the challenge of shooting the birds the Eagle cage, they do a show sometimes where somebody actually brings them out of the cage so that you can get really clear shots of them in flight. So I like the challenge of that. I like shooting the apes, the apes have, like really fascinating. You get some once in a lifetime poses and shots out of them. They’re very animated, very expressive, especially in the eyes. So I really my passion, I wanted as a kid to be published in National Geographic. And so as an adult, and not really monetizing my photography, I really enjoy doing the wildlife stuff. And it’s still a dream of mine, to travel and go on safari and go and shoot wildlife on all seven continents. So
Max Branstetter 1:10:41
we love wildlife at the Wild Business Growth Podcast. And actually, we have the hippo on our cover artwork. So very, very close to heart. Your father spent many years in the Marines. Yes. You know, people talk about like military families and having to move around as a kid. I know you’ve lived a lot of that. What’s the biggest thing that your father’s experience in the Marines and kind of what it meant to your family? What’s the biggest thing that that taught you and your childhood,
Roberto Blake 1:11:08
I would say the values of the Marine Corps and being in a military family teaches you duty, discipline, integrity, good citizenship, accountability, and also sacrifice and also, crisis management, crisis management, and military families know and understand that your service members, they’re not perfect people, and they have one of the most difficult jobs in the world, it’s a strain, and you won’t always understand certain things. And you won’t always appreciate certain things, or they may even cause conflict or stress for you, but you respect the sacrifice being made you respect that there’s things you will never understand and you’ll never experience. It teaches you a lot about how to handle conflict, how to cope with stress, and also about a tremendous amount of patience and empathy. And it’s something that I think a lot of people, if you don’t have the background, and you haven’t been around people that are service members, or part of like law enforcement or emergency services, my father was a Marine, my mother was a nurse instantly. So understanding sacrifice, long hours, stressful jobs, and that a family has to act as a unit and that sometimes people are in a leadership role. Sometimes people were in a support role. I was the oldest child, there were times where I was a sport. And there’s times where I actually had to step up and lead. And so I think that duty integrity, honor, leadership sacrifice, I think basically, the core tenants of the United States Armed Forces ends up being instilled into the culture of military families. And I think every single member of my family embodies those
Max Branstetter 1:12:48
values. You know, it’s going to give you some softballs now, beautifully said, appreciate you sharing that. And there’s something I mean, the word discipline keeps coming out. But I think so often with the, with the creators, you see that are really, really progressing and succeeding. There’s that discipline there and the ability to motivate themselves and stay focused on what they’re doing and who they’re teaching. So really appreciate that.
Roberto Blake 1:13:12
There’s hard days, you won’t always feel motivated, you won’t always feel like finishing a project, you won’t always feel like meeting a deadline, you won’t always feel like taking the meeting, you won’t always feel like it, it has to be done anyway. There’s a duty there’s a commitment, there’s being the ability to honor your word or a promise that you made to somebody that has to get done. You cannot rely on feeling like it, do you have the discipline to follow through and make the quality of the thing that you love the best that you’re capable of. discipline matters in order to achieve quality. This is what matters to achieve consistency and discipline matters to show up and give people value whether you feel like it or not.
Max Branstetter 1:13:48
And we’ll wrap up with a couple extra hard ones. So strap into the Lamborghini, you know how it is in the original trilogy? What is your favorite Star Wars scene of all time,
Roberto Blake 1:13:59
it’s probably the monologues of Emperor Palpatine. Because I like one he’s a very charismatic character. And I think that he’s the embodiment of having to overcome like the voices in your head, and the temptation that comes with that. And it’s a real thing for people in their life for one way or another, whether it’s your vices, whether it’s your self loathing and self hatred, whether it’s being led astray or peer pressured or anything like that, or whether it’s just succumbing to your own anger. So like when Emperor Palpatine is like, good, good. Powerful, that strike down your father and take his place at my side. Like it’s like, I love these. I get chills thinking about it’s like, it’s like, use your aggressive feelings Boy, that the hate flew through you. It’s like you when you hear it and you see Luke struggling, resisting. It’s what you have to do. In life, you have to overcome the easier path, giving into that emotional energy that’s going to have consequences. It’s going to feel good in the moment, it’s not going to the consequences are it’s things you can’t take back, probably. And so the throne room scene in Star Wars is an allegory for the crossroads in life at every single turn about era vocable decisions that will forever dominate your destiny. And I don’t think people have a healthy appreciation for consequences, they reduce things down to luck. The reason I don’t like luck, or I don’t believe in it is because I believe luck is just a lack of accountability. I believe luck is just us foregoing our accountability, because it’s not that I don’t believe they’re things they exist outside of our control. People hit me with that when they say, Oh, you don’t believe in luck, or you have all this survivorship bias. It’s like, No, I’m a realist. And the realistic thing is, okay, good thing happens to you. That good thing can’t be escalated if you have bad judgment, cuz you may not recognize the opportunity. So you can have all these good opportunities. You could have all the good luck in the world, but you’ll miss it because your heads down and you’re depressed and you don’t have the judgment, the mindset, the frame for people hate mindset. Okay, you missed the opportunity, Mr. Blessing, so good luck doesn’t matter. Okay, you recognize the opportunity, but you’re unprepared for it, no execution, good luck doesn’t matter. You had the opportunity. Let’s say you had the judgment. Okay. Let’s say you’re prepared, but you’re lacking in character, well, then the you don’t get more opportunities, or the opportunity goes away anyway. So because you got found out on your bad character, so that now if you have a bad luck, if you have bad luck, which when I was growing up, that’s called Tuesday. Yeah, bad luck. And then you compound that with bad judgment, bad character, or no preparation to confront bad luck. So it’s very hard to survive. If you have bad judgment, bad character, and you aren’t prepared, and then a bad thing happens. So those three fundamental aspects of who you are and how you make choices, still determining the outcome more than the good luck or the bad luck themselves, because they’re irrelevant, you will still be reduced, regardless of a good circumstance being put in front of you, or an obstacle or challenge that has to be overcome your character, your judgment, and your preparation will still ultimately determine the outcome more than anything else, no matter what it is. So you there’s no situation that isn’t enhanced by you having good character, good judgment, and being prepared. There’s no and there’s no bad thing that happens that isn’t made worse by the absence of those things. So luck is irrelevant to me. So you know, that’s a philosophical thing.
Max Branstetter 1:17:31
And now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for, if you discovered a planet, what would you name
Roberto Blake 1:17:37
it? I would name it whatever sponsor I would auction it off to whatever sponsored by the payments, most I would name it, whatever they want.
Max Branstetter 1:17:45
The most practical, practical and practice for coal plants. I just invented a new word of all time. Roberto, this has been out of this world. Wow, can’t believe that was the space one space segway worked in without even thinking about it. This has been incredible. You’ve officially fired me up, you’ve made me M.A.D. capital M.A.D. with with periods there as an acronym. And I could seriously listen to you and watch you all day. And fortunately, I think you’ve created enough content that you can do that for a number of days on end right now. So but this has been something I’ve looked forward to for so long, and you somehow over delivered so thanks so much for making the time for sharing all you do even a Palpatine impression Palpatine impression which we’ve never had the podcast so far somehow. Where is your favorite place for people to connect with you soak up your content and also to buy your new book Create Something Awesome.
Roberto Blake 1:18:44
So you can purchase Create Something Awesome in Amazon by typing it in or typing in my name Roberto Blake. So you could definitely do that you can visit me on youtube.com/RobertoBlake2 like the number 2 to subscribe, watch all of my content. Right now. We’re pumping out close to daily videos yet again, we’ve come back from my pandemic hiatus. And also you could if you have questions you can build in public with me by following me on Twitter @RobertoBlake in Twitter, and I basically reply to any on all your good faith questions. Any good faith questions, I reply to all those I do a lot of ask Roberto so you know you can follow me over there. We can build in public together. If you have something that you want to do like a true business opportunity. That’s not a scam. We can move in silence in the shadows together. My DMS are open
Max Branstetter 1:19:35
with perfect, so much in silence and so many impressions that you can now ask Roberto to do but last thing here final thoughts. The stage is yours. It could be a quote and impression take us home
Roberto Blake 1:19:46
here. There’s no downside that I could possibly think of for committing yourself to making 1000 pieces of intentional content on the internet that allows you to have a read dictation allow you to reach people and allow you to generate revenue. These are all monetizable opportunities through the seven streams of income that talked about for creators, the seven streams of income for creators actually sounds like the title of something. So the seven streams of income for content creators could be extraordinarily valuable to you, you can implement three or more of all these streams of income across every one of those 1000 pieces of content scaled, those can be links that create 1000s of links that are revenue channels, and reach channels and reputation channels for you, all across the internet. So you have the opportunity to reach people that resonate with you that you can create value for, that you can build with that you can network with, you have the opportunity to build a reputation that matters through the value that you create. And then you can be paid just to literally market yourself and build your own brand and to create that value, and generate revenue. So you can have reach, reputation and revenue. That’s what building a personal brand is all about. When you do it the right way, when you do it thoughtfully, and there’s no downside. Over the next three to five years of your life. There’s no downside, the time will pass anyway, there is no downside zero downside to making 1000 pieces of content over the next three to five years of your life, intentionally. For the purposes of reaching people like you or people you want to serve, building your reputation that you want to stand by, and generating revenue that will help support you and your family and give you time freedom and financial freedom to be able to create even more value and to live your best life. So that’s what I want to leave people with. Create Something Awesome today. Go out and get the book. Follow me on YouTube, follow me on Twitter. And that’s all I got.
Max Branstetter 1:21:46
Round of applause to Roberto for Creating Something Awesome today. Thank you so much Roberto for the podcast epic sharing all your crazy ly helpful tips. I just invented a word if for creators in the creator economy, and for all you do, and thank you Wild Listeners for tuning in to another episode. If you want to hear more Wild stories like this one, make sure to follow the Wild Business Growth Podcast on your favorite app and tell a friend about the podcast. And then check out some of Roberto’s YouTube videos because he he’s made 1 plus 1500 and they’re awesome. They’re like he lives he lives what he preaches with Create Something Awesome. You can also find us on Goodpods where they’re good and fantastic and awesome podcasts. And for any help with podcast production, you can learn more at MaxPodcasting.com and sign up for the Podcasting to the Max newsletter where you’ll be Podcasting to the Max in no time. Until next time, let your business Run Wild – Bring on the bongos!
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