Copy these 5 steps to unlock your early wins on YouTube

Your first $1,000 on YouTube is the absolute hardest milestone to hit. Most people quit before they ever see a single dollar from their channel. They get discouraged after a few weeks or a few months, and they give up completely on their dreams. But if you follow these steps that I'm about to share with you, you will shortcut months or even years of trial and error and painful mistakes that kill channels. My name is Shane Hummus and I have helped hundreds of creators succeed on YouTube. I've seen over and over again what works and what doesn't work in real time. And today I'm going to be giving you a clear road map to your first $1,000. And this is not theory. These are proven steps that hundreds of YouTubers have used to have success on YouTube. And once you get the first $1,000, everything else is significantly easier after that. So if you appreciate me doing this type of content, gently tap that like button and let's jump into it right now. Okay. Step one is to stop listening to most YouTube gurus. And what exactly do I mean by that? Well, first of all, I don't think most YouTube gurus necessarily give bad advice, but they give advice for a certain type of channel. You see, most YouTube guru advice is designed for entertainment channels. And the way you make money with an entertainment channel is you get a massive amount of views and then you typically make money from AdSense and sponsorships. But the problem with entertainment content is it's incredibly saturated on YouTube and it's very competitive. If you're making entertainment content, you are literally competing with Mr. beast. And that guy is a YouTube genius. Plus, he spends millions of dollars on every single video and has a team of hundreds of other YouTube geniuses working for it. So, I don't know about you, but I don't want to be competing with Mr. Beast. And so, what I highly recommend you do is instead of making entertainment content, you make educational content. Content that solves real problems for real people. Now, I'm not saying by any means that you can't make your content entertaining as well. You can make educational content entertaining, but the advantage of making educational content is that you don't need millions of views to make money on YouTube. There are dozens of different ways that you can monetize educational content outside of AdSense and sponsorships. See, YouTube is the largest social media platform by watchtime. But the thing that makes YouTube different than every other social media platform out there is that it's also a search engine. It's the second largest search engine in the world and it's owned by the first largest search engine in the world, Google, and they share data with each other. So, when someone searches on Google how to get into the trades, just as an example, first of all, your YouTube video might pop up at the very top, but regardless, when that person goes to YouTube, they're going to get served a bunch of videos on how to get into the trades. So, as an educational YouTuber, you're not just getting views, but you're getting highly targeted views from people who are actively searching for solutions to their problems. And this is why a YouTube view is worth more than a 100red views on any other platform. And this is exactly why my 50-year-old brother, Zach, was able to blow up so quickly on YouTube. More on him later. Now, the other thing that's amazing about educational content is typically people don't really care about the production quality of your videos. Whereas Mr. Beast spends millions of dollars to make all of his videos because he's trying to entertain people. Most of the best educational content channels out there make relatively simple videos that don't take very long to create. And so it's significantly easier to grow with an educational channel. There's way less competition and you don't have to spend nearly as much time making the videos. Now, one thing that I'll say very quickly, if there's somebody watching this who was thinking about making an entertainment channel or you already made an entertainment channel, you can actually make the shift pretty easily. you can pivot to more educationalbased content. And I've seen many people do this and I've actually helped many people do this as well. All right, quick break. This Tuesday at 9:00 PM Eastern time, I'm hosting a free live workshop called the YouTube content advantage for making money. If you've been struggling to find your YouTube niche or you don't want to spend months or even years building a channel around something that isn't profitable or just doesn't work for you in general, then this workshop is for you. Because for everyone who shows up live, I'll be giving away the hidden nichefinder 2.2. This is the most advanced version of my GPT powered niche validation tool yet, and it's designed to help you instantly test and uncover profitable YouTube niches before you invest your time, money, and effort into the wrong one. And it's the most refined, datadriven version so far, and I'll be giving it away completely free, but only during this live workshop. So, attend the free live workshop by clicking that link down the description and the pin comment below to grab it. You'll also be able to ask me questions live, so I look forward to meeting you. Oh, and just a heads up, this will be probably one of the last times I'll be giving away a version of the niche validator for free. So, make sure you click that link and show up to the workshop. Make sure you put in your calendar, and I look forward to seeing you there. Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming. That brings us to step number two, which is you need to turn lemons into lemonade. And what I mean by this is problems you've had in the past, pain that you've experienced in the past, and your failures or tough circumstances can actually fuel your channel growth. You see, a lot of creators think that they need perfect lives to succeed. They need to be the worldrenowned expert on whatever subject they're talking about. But the truth is, your struggles make you relatable and real. And people connect with raw, honest stories more than polished, perfect ones. So, just as an example, let me tell you about a creator named Varb333. This guy is 22 years old and he's been posting recently about living in a storage unit. Yes, you heard that right. He basically went homeless and he had to live in a storage unit. and he started his YouTube channel basically just to document this entire process in the hopes of being able to cover his basic living expenses. And most people would hide that fact or feel ashamed about it. But Var did something completely different with his tough situation. He made his raw reality the unique angle for his content. And he did not pretend to be someone he was not. He showed people his actual life and his daily struggles. And guess what? People absolutely connected with that authenticity and honesty. Just as an example, this video right here, I'm 26 and I live in a storage unit. Got over a million views and made over $5,000 according to view stats. Now, it's a bit of a longer video, so chances are it probably made more than that. I'm guessing around $10,000. And that's just counting AdSense alone. That doesn't count the money he likely made from the links in his description. So, the lesson here is powerful. Even your struggles can become great content. Your tough circumstances can be flipped into stories that deeply connect with your audience. So don't hide what makes you different or what you're going through. Use it as fuel and let it become your unique perspective. Now you might be thinking, "Well, Shane, I'm not really going through any struggles right now. So how do I do this?" Well, a very simple way to do this is to imagine that you had a time machine and you could go back to any time in your life and you had 15 minutes to tell the younger version of yourself something that would save them a massive amount of time, effort, and money. What would you tell that person? Whatever that is, make a video about it. Because the truth is, we're not that special. If you've had a problem in the past, chances are millions of other people right now are having the same exact problem and they are looking for someone like you who can help them. Now, this brings us to step three. Decide what type of content you're going to make? Just as an example, are you going to make faceless content or personal brand content? Now, I've worked with a lot of people who have started off with faceless content. I actually started off with faceless content myself. And generally speaking, I do recommend showing your face cuz I think there's a lot of advantages to that. With that being said, if you do decide to make faceless content, there's a certain way of doing it that I highly recommend that you do as well. And that's exactly what my client Moo Wiz of Ecom did. He started off making faceless content. And he basically had an animated or AI avatar that represented him. And I highly recommend you do this as well because people watching the content will basically feel like they're talking to a single other human being. And that will make them connect more than you. and it will lead them to know, like, and trust you, which is extremely important and it makes it much easier to grow. Think about it. Most of the channels you follow on YouTube are likely personalitydriven channels. Now, the cool thing about Whiz is eventually he did a face reveal. So, he actually started a sevenfigure brand with his faceless content. And then eventually, he did a face reveal and now he has a personal brand channel. And again, if you have any questions about how to do this or which one is going to be right for you, attend the live training this Tuesday, 9:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Click that link in the description in the pin comment below and I will personally answer any questions that you have. All right, step number four is to essentially copy and paste the best ideas for content using what I like to call the hot dog method. Now, you might be wondering what the heck is the hot dog method. Well, I remember growing up, and you can probably relate to this as well, seeing a bunch of restaurants open, and the restaurants were pretty good. I would go to these new restaurants and the food was really good, but then a few months later or a year later, the restaurant would close down. And I would always wonder why. Why did this restaurant that's perfectly good, they serve good food, they had good service, why did the restaurant closed down? And then I had a friend during college who started a hot dog stand and he had absolutely no experience doing it. And he only worked about 2 hours a night on this hot dog stand and he made a full-time income from it. How did he do it? Well, he would place his hot dog stand right outside of bars after they would close at night. And he would sell out of hot dogs every single night and make hundreds of dollars. Now, let's be honest, hot dogs are not the best food ever. They're pretty mediocre, but it didn't really matter because everyone walking out of the bars was starving. They were hungry and they wanted something to eat. And so, he would sell out every single time. Now, the crazy thing is you could open one of the best restaurants in the world, but if you open it in the middle of the desert, no one's going to buy your stuff, and the restaurant will fail. Additionally, you can open up a pretty good restaurant, but if there's a bunch of other really good restaurants around it, then you're going to have a ton of competition, and it will also likely fail, or it just won't make that much money. But if you open up a restaurant or even a hot dog stand where you're serving mediocre food in a place where there is a starving crowd of people, you are going to succeed. You're going to sell out every single time. And this is the exact thing that I want you to do on YouTube. Just like the location is everything when it comes to opening a restaurant or some sort of food business on YouTube, the idea is everything. If you have a good idea, you can make pretty mediocre content and you're going to get a ton of views. And if you have a bad idea, you can make worldclass content where you spend 50 or 100 hours on a single video and it completely flops. So what you want to do is find videos that did very well. They got at least a 100,000 views, but they were produced by a smaller channel that doesn't already have a massive following, a maximum of 100,000 subscribers. And you want to make sure the video itself has at least five times more views than the channel. So, if it was a 100,000 subscriber channel, you would want to pick a video that got at least 500,000 views. And you want to pick videos that are either mediocre or preferably bad, right? You don't want to try to copy a video that has super high production quality. So, let me give you a real example from my channel that we recently did. We found this video right here from Tim Richard. 12 incredibly simple service businesses that you can start today. Now, at the time we found this channel, he had less than 100,000 subscribers. And at the time he posted this video, he had far less than 100,000 subscribers. And the video ended up getting over 3 million views. So, there was pretty close to a 30 to1 view to subscriber ratio. So, I made my own twist on the exact same topic. I made the video top 10 best simple service businesses that no one is talking about. So I stole the main keyword simple service businesses and I had a slightly different title and what do you know the video did exceptionally well and it actually got over 400,000 views in the first 30 days. So that's a perfect example of the hot dog method. Now I already have a big channel and so I don't actually need to follow this method exactly. There's a lot of types of videos that I could make not following the method. But if you have a small channel you absolutely must do this. You must find ideas where there's a massive amount of demand and there's not very much supply and those are the video ideas that you want to make your videos on. All right guys, for one month only, we are accepting people into our coaching program, Content Growth Engine, where we help you to grow and make money from your personal brand. Now, this can apply to people who are just trying to get a better job, just grow their personal brand to get a better job. literally the best way to do this. For instance, one of our clients, Josh, was able to get an offer from two different fang companies, which are the hardest companies in the world to get into, even harder than Ivy League universities, uh, using his personal brand or just as a side hustle, right? Just as a way to make a little bit of extra money on the side. We teach people how to do this or people who are already making money to make more money or people who already have a full-fledged business and they're crushing it and they're, you know, already have a successful YouTube channel and they want to optimize their YouTube channel and make even more money. So, we've worked with literally every one of those types of people. And what makes our system so good is that we combine all of the best practices of building a personal brand, but we use AI to scale things to make it 10 times more efficient. This is something that no one else has ever discovered. It's an amazing opportunity and that's why I'm so excited to share it with you. So, we are accepting three to five people into the first cohort. You need to be very dedicated, right? Do not apply if you're not super dedicated to growing your personal brand. So, you have to be serious. You have to be dedicated. You have to be willing to put in the time, effort, and money that it takes to grow a personal brand. So, if that's you, go ahead, apply in the description in the pen comment below, and hopefully we get to work together. Have a good one. Bye. Okay, now we're going to get to the fun step, which is step five, and that is monetize effectively. So, the most simple way of monetizing is AdSense revenue. This is when you get to a,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time, and you join the YouTube partner program. Now, AdSense revenue is slow and it takes forever to actually build up, but you can land deals and make money before a thousand subscribers, and I've done it myself and I've helped other people do it again and again and again. Now, most beginners think that they have to wait until they get monetized, but that is completely wrong and it leaves money on the table. Let me tell you about my client, Guy, who runs the Hearing Care Channel, just as an example. Now, Guy was pretty close to retirement age, and he basically wanted to make a few extra thousand a month so that he had some extra money in retirement. That was his goal. Guy has tenitus, which is ringing in the ear that never stops. And he reviews hearing care aids and tests them for his audience. And he warns viewers about what products to avoid and what actually works and which products would work best in their particular circumstance. And he also just gives them really good tips on how to manage or treat tenitus. And people trust him because he has the problem and he uses these products daily. And with our help, Guy landed a sponsorship deal with less than 500 subscribers. Yeah, you heard that right. Less than 500 subs and he got paid. And it was a $1,500 a month brand deal sponsorship. Now, the sponsor did not care about his subscriber count at all. They cared about his niche audience and the trust that he built. And the lesson here is that monetization is not just about YouTube AdSense revenue. You can use affiliate offers, sponsorships, partnerships. You can make your own digital products. You can offer coaching. You can even start an agency and get clients with a tiny audience because relevance and trust matter significantly more than big numbers. And it's very easy to monetize your channel if you're making niche educational content. And I did the same thing before I hit 1,000 subscribers. I started making money from affiliate marketing. And I'd offer one-on-one coaching sessions where I got paid at least $100 an hour. And I've had students who have made it from zero to $10,000 in 18 days doing this exact method. And on my second channel that I started last year to show people that this is possible, I made $30,000 in the first month after starting the channel. And much of that money was made before I ever hit 1,000 subscribers. Oh, and you remember my brother that I just talked about? He got monetized 21 days after posting his first video. But those videos that he posted already made sales from affiliate marketing. So, don't wait until you get monetized to make money. You can start monetizing in many other ways right away before you even get to a,000 subscribers on YouTube. And again, if you want to learn how to do that and you have more questions on how this works, attend my live training Tuesday, 9:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Links in the description in the pin comment below. Now, I totally understand that 99% of you out there are going to consume my free content, my free YouTube videos, as well as my free live trainings, and you're never going to end up actually working directly with me. And that's completely fine. I want to give at least 10 times more value than I ever received. With that being said, if you're somebody who wants to grow faster on YouTube, if you want extra support and you want a team that works with you one-on-one to make sure that you have the absolute best chance of success, then you can go ahead and apply for a one-on-one call down in the description and the pin comment below. On this call, we'll figure out where you are right now, where you want to be. We'll make a plan to get there, and we'll see if we're a good fit to work together or not. Only apply for a call if you're very serious about growing and monetizing on YouTube and you really want to take that next step to get to the next level. If not, just enjoy the free content like I said before. And also check out this video right here where I talk about how I help somebody in the cyber security niche start a channel that makes them more money than they ever made from their career. And you can check that out by clicking right here.