– So what does it really take
to go full-time on YouTube? Over the last couple of
years, I've had the privilege of interviewing over 200
full-time YouTube creators through our channel
called Video Influencers. But I really discovered out
of that process of diving deep as well as building
YouTube channels myself six unmistakable traits of
full-time YouTube creators. So if you want to get more views, if you want to write your own checks, make YouTube your career or your job, then you're gonna love this video. You got to just press record. Some new data has come out
about the creator economy.
And right now, there's actually
50 million content creators and 13 million of them are on YouTube. Over a million of them are
earning six figures plus. Thousands of creators are
earning seven figures a year, over a million YouTube creators are earning six figures per year, and millions more are earning anywhere between $100 and 100,000. So I've got a question that we need to ask when it comes to full-time though is what does full-time mean for you? Like how much money do you
need to earn from YouTube? I find that when talking
about this topic of what does it really take to go full-time, if you don't define full-time, then it's gonna kind of be
hard to decide what it takes.
So reverse engineer from a target like what is your monthly
basic needed expenses that you would need to
go part-time at your job or quit your job completely? If we're just meeting,
my name is Sean Cannell, and we're gonna be talking about
the six unmistakable traits of full-time YouTube creators
and I have a huge disclaimer. The topic for today is
not about like the 1% super superstar unicorn creators. For example, David Dobrik's
monthly AdSense checks have been as much as 270,000
views for 60 million views. Across platforms, there's
people like Charlie D'amelio. On TikTok, she surpassed
100 million followers and is estimated to be worth
four million at age 16. More power to them, but what
I'm really talking about is what's kind of becoming
known as the creator economy middle-class and this is
people that are really earning 10 grand, $25,000 a year, $32,000 a year, $50,000 a year doing what they love working from home and in this case, doing it on YouTube.
I'm gonna be talking about these traits that are of the kind of
practical every day creator just like you that's hustled,
that's put in the work. I've learned from talking
to so many of them like what did it really take
for you to go full-time? What went into you building your career. And again, if we're just
meeting, my name is Sean Cannell and I have built a couple of
different YouTube channels, one to over a million subscribers, a couple to over 100,000, but I'm most proud about our students. We've seen so many get
that silver play button and if you want to learn about
growing YouTube channels, hit the subscribe button
if you haven't yet. And we've seen so many different students. In fact, our mission at Think Media is to help 10,000 purpose-driven people create a full-time living
doing what they love while making a difference in
the world through online video. And a huge question lately is been like is it too late to start YouTube though? Because sometimes you might feel like it's only the superstars, unicorns, those who started back in 2008, excuse me, that are going full-time on YouTube, that's not true at all and
I'm gonna share some data and then get into these traits.
Number one, this is a letter
from the CEO of YouTube that revealed that the YouTube economy is incredibly healthy and strong despite challenges of 2020. And now that we're in 2021, they revealed that the people joining
the YouTube partner program more than doubled over the year before, more than doubled in just
a year, that's super cool. And then creators are
building the next generation of media companies and
that here in the U.S, YouTube's creative ecosystem contributed approximately $16 billion to the U.S. GDP in 2019, supporting an equivalent
of 345,000 full-time jobs. So what I want to encourage
you with is it full-time? This is happening for a lot of people. I'm not trying to overhype it. You might feel stuck like you're not getting views
or like you're trying to grow, I get that, but like massive
people are doing this. And if you feel like it's crowded, every day in fact, I think about I help people with their YouTube channel. And lately, every day I'm
discovering like 400 new people that are also helping people
grow their YouTube channels.
I actually think that's a great thing. It speaks to how big the world actually is and how different people like
to follow different styles, different backgrounds,
different teaching styles, maybe different ethnicities or ages. There's room for you and
the data supports that. In the UK in 2019, they saw approximately 1.4 billion pounds contributed to the British GDP, which was the equivalent
of 30,000 full-time jobs and France saw 15,000 full-time jobs. So the global impact of the
creator economy is massive and here's what this
report is not reporting. It's not reporting other income streams. In fact, a little bit later on, I'm gonna be sharing some resources about how small channels
are going full-time so stick around for that. And here's another big
data point when it comes to what it really takes to go full-time. E-commerce has helped
uplift retail in 2020 and it could be the key to
merchant success in 2021. Well, what does that
have to do with YouTube? It has to do that because
of the Coronavirus pandemic, there's been a massive
surge in online shopping which is likely to remain post-pandemic.
Speaking of other income streams, how are people going full-time? They are reviewing products. They're doing affiliate marketing. They're tying their channel into online shopping, online brands. Traditional brands are being disrupted by Dollar Shave Club, online razors instead of going to the
store to get your razors. People are getting their coffee online, they're getting their sleep aids online. Like I just saw my friend,
JP Sears post about, they're getting their blue
light blocking glasses online, they're subscribing to subs… Like e-commerce is just growing which means there's another revenue source so that you can work from
home and go full-time when you position yourself
right in the creator and YouTube economy, and
there's the e-learning market. Now, this is people
creating online courses. This is people that
are teaching something. When I talk to some of
the people at Thinkific, which is an online course hosting program, they said that YouTube
creators are their most successful course creators and sellers, people earning a living from
packaging what they know into an online course. And since the year 2000, the market growth rate of
e-learning has been 900%.
And listen to this. Every dollar spent on e-learning, companies make back $30 in productivity, which is a side note, it's a super smart move to
invest in online courses. That's a 2900% ROI to invest in e-learning to accelerate your
skills, how to do things, how to go further faster,
like whatever it is. But here's what I'm saying is have you ever thought
about creating a course? The global e-learning market
will reach 325 billion by 2025. So over the next four years, there's gonna be this massive move.
We're talking about YouTube AdSense, e-commerce, affiliate marketing, e-learning, creating a digital course or selling some kind of a digital product. This is a massive industry and my friends, it's just getting started. You're not too late. It is a momentum and the
next wave is here now and so let's buckle our seatbelts and talk about these
six unmistakable traits, but I have a question for you and that is what is your goal on YouTube? Tell me in the comments, like are you trying to go full-time? Is it a hobby for you? Maybe do you know how much
you need to live on per month? Like what does full-time mean? Do you have seven dependents or are you a single
person that rents a room and you actually only need
like two grand a month and you could be full-time.
Let me know what your goal on YouTube is and let's talk about the
six unmistakable traits of full-time YouTube creators. Number one is they have
posted over 100 videos. Most YouTube creators
that have gone full-time have posted over 100 videos
and probably 400 or more. Does that intimidate you, smash the like for if you've posted your first video and let me know if you've posted 100. Have you posted 400 yet and
where does this data come from? Well, TubeBuddy actually did a study of 3.5 million of their users and they revealed how many subscribers YouTube channels have
compared to their uploads. So channels that have reached
1000 to 10,000 subscribers have uploaded 152 videos. Channels that have grown
anywhere between 10,000 to 100,000 subscribers
have uploaded 418 videos. If you go from 100,000 subscribers to one million subscribers, it's over 1,000 videos and channels with one million plus subs are
nearing 4,000 video uploads. It could be that you just have not uploaded enough videos yet. What does this tell me? It tells me that what it
really takes to go full-time is patience, persistence, grit, tenacity, focus, discipline, and uploading videos to YouTube.
The secret to success on YouTube is uploading videos to YouTube. I mean, obviously there's more
that goes into it than that, but if you're just like
watching this video and hanging out on the
Coffee with Cannell show and you're not posting videos, well it's gonna be hard to grow if you don't actually post videos. Let me know how many
videos you've posted yet. And huge key. Is there such a range cause
this doesn't even indicate if they're full-time or not. I know some channels that
are over 100,000 subscribers that are still struggling to pay the bills and I know channels
that have gone full-time at 10,000 subscribers so this is just one aspect
of really going full-time, but trait number one is they
have posted over 100 videos. I think there's something
magical about what you've learned especially if you've got a strategy. Trait number two is they
don't rely on YouTube AdSense.
Those that are going
full-time and I actually DM'ed a couple of friends or
some of our students, some different people
that have gone full-time, I DM'ed Jen from the
Sewing Report and I said what are your streams of income? She says she has three
monetized YouTube channels, Amazon affiliates, Etsy shop,
she has a realtor client that she does video production
and social media for that also gives her her YouTube AdSense. My friend Rooslawn, I said hey, what are your streams of income? He's been full-time, he
just built a new studio. AdSense, Patreon, music bed streams. He's an artist, hip hop artist, as well as kind of a commentary in the Christianity and faith space. Distrokid which would be
Apple music, merch Shopify and of course e-learning,
he's finishing it now his second course that he's working on.
I asked Cass Thompson who just
DM'ed me one of our students. She said I'm quitting my job in January like a couple of weeks ago of 2021. I've got at least five income streams that was able to help her do that. Simply Sherry said last year, the majority of my income came from brand sponsors and affiliates. I didn't hit a couple of
months of my highest AdSense, she had her highest months of
AdSense for a couple months and her goal this year is
to build out e-commerce and courses while maintaining others.
Chris from Flyride, listen to this, like these are all his income streams and he's been full-time and even scaling his business and whatnot, YouTube AdSense, his creator fund, brand deals, POD merch, physical goods, digital affiliate products,
physical affiliate sales, Amazon, Patreon, and YouTube memberships, digital courses, private
group memberships, one-on-one coaching and
professional service. And that's it. So here's the deal friends,
you want to go full-time? Yes, there's some people who
do it off just YouTube AdSense but you need a massive
audience to do that. Number two, traits of
highly successful full-time YouTube creators is they
don't rely on YouTube AdSense. Number three, they have created
multiple streams of income. That echoes what I just said there. And that was some examples of they have created multiple
different streams of income. Now I want to encourage
you to not think oh shoot, I'm just starting, I
have one video posted.
I need to be thinking about
my 10 streams of income. No, you actually should
focus on influence first and realize that income comes second. And if you spread your
focus too thin too soon, it can actually be harmful. But just to encourage you that you want to build
out the most synergistic and aligned income streams
related to your niche. And eventually you might have
one, two, three, four, five that are all synergized around your niche that will help you get
to that full-time mark. Number four, they work really hard. This might be obvious, but I don't know if you realize how true this is.
Over the last years of building
up to writing our book, YouTube Secrets, my friend Benji and I co-authored the book, we interviewed, we had a weekly interview
show, we still do. He does it called the
VI Show on Saturdays. We've interviewed over
100 YouTube creators before we wrote this and
another 100 since then. And one of the common traits I noticed from every single creator I talked to, back in the day when we
could go to in-person events and I would sit at Vince Summit and talk to somebody or
our event growth video live or social media marketing
world is I would hear the real hustle that went into things.
This takes real work. And I think when we also juxtapose
the middle-class creator, this is just your average everyday creator that turns this into a
really awesome business that gives you economy that does allow you to work
when you want, do what you want, but it's not without the hustle
and the grit and the grind. The top 1% may be because
of their personality or their timing or how
they hit the algorithm. Show off a life that
may or may not be true and they might not work very hard. It's possible, but I'm telling
you that a common trait of full-time YouTube
creators is that they grind. I'm not saying they have
to sacrifice the things that matter most in life,
but without a doubt, they have endured through
a sacrificed season.
They have put in the hustle,
they have put in the grit. In fact, let me know if
you're doing that right now. They've worked late nights. They've got up early mornings. They've shot videos when
they didn't feel like it. They've cracked Red Bulls when
they needed that extra push to get a project done. They have gone through
the ups and the downs of their personal finances
and their relationships and their marriages and their things and they have stayed consistent to say I know that consistency is king so I'm gonna keep posting videos. Full-time creators work really hard. Thomas Edison is famous for
saying opportunity is missed by most people because
it's dressed in overalls and it looks like work. Don't ever think being connected to the Think Media
community that we propitiate some kind of a pipe dream of just it's just this easy
opportunity, just post a video and you're gonna see a million dollars transferred to your
bank account, no friend, this takes a real grind and a real grit.
You can work smarter and not just harder, but without a doubt, it takes hard work when
you are really growing and making this your full-time income. And it's a common trait that I see across full-time creators. Number five, they keep learning. I mean, lifelong leaders
are lifelong learners. As I've been around especially at events like
our event Growth Video live and I get around full-time creators. One of the things I notice is
they have a particular type of personality and that is
they're listening to audio books, they're reading books. And by the way, not everybody reads books, they're listening to podcasts though, they just purchased two online courses. They're studying YouTube channels. They're hanging out in
the right Clubhouse rooms like they keep learning. They get connected to mastermind groups, maybe not a paid mastermind
group or maybe it is, but they want to get
to around other people. They're getting feedback on thumbnails. What's the algorithm doing? What's the latest things that's happening. Just like you obviously if you're connected here on Think Media, but they keep learning.
Lifelong leaders are lifelong learners. And these traits, many
of them are also shared behind those who don't just
have a moment of success, but are building a sustained legacy. So number five is they keep
learning and leveling up. So they don't just get ahead,
but they can stay ahead. Number six, let me know
if you're getting value and hit the like button, they build systems for sustained success. So what do I mean? They build marketing systems. Like you've probably noticed
as you're trying to build up your YouTube channel and
there's really three seasons. There's the side hustle season
when you've got a day job or school or another responsibility, there's the solopreneur season where you're full-time but it's just you and there's the scale season
where you're full-time but you have other people helping you.
And in every season you need systems. In the side hustle season,
it's maybe software that helps you get
video ideas more quickly like a VidIQ or something like that. It could be social media software that helps you schedule
and automate your posts. It could just be
understanding YouTube systems of uploading your videos or
scheduling posts on Facebook just with the native scheduling features. That's like a marketing system. They are building an email list
and using an auto responder so there's automation to
their messages going out. They're leveraging systems. They're using systems in their
personal day, day planners. Don't get it twisted,
this takes real work.
And if you are scattered, if
you're all over the place, if you can't personally manage your time before trying to build a YouTube empire, it's gonna get very difficult when you're trying to manage your time and life and responsibilities and also build a YouTube empire. So they use systems. This is also business systems. Business systems, they're using BenchDot, which is a book keeping
service or I don't know, you use H&R Block or
TurboTax or whatever you use, but they're using systems. They're finding ways to save time because if you're gonna
kind of juggle it all and how do you do it all,
you got to work smarter and not just harder.
You're putting in the work, but you're not just going pure grit, you're thinking about man, what systems can I use
to make this sustainable? And then they're thinking
about teams and systems. So how am I eventually working with a team and then eventually building
systems for that team so as you scale, these days we use things
like Slack and monday.com, you might want to check out
even a service like Sean. One of the biggest
things that takes my time is video editing and that's
why we talk about vid chops and we'll drop a link
to our resource page.
It's called thinkmediatools.com and I'll put that in the
description down below and thinkmediatools.com, we
talk about different tools, software, systems, things that will help you go further, faster, but when you get something
like a vid chops, you just Dropbox your footage, eventually get a synergy
going with your editor, and then they turn around your video and send it back to you two days later and now you have a system. My friend Tanya Eliza,
one of our students, not only full-time with less
than 100,000 subscribers, but she has a multiple
seven figure business. She shoots three videos at a time, that's a system it's
called batch producing. She sits down, shoots three videos. She puts those three videos into Dropbox. She has an editor, those
videos are now being processed. They eventually go to her YouTube channel and they're put out into the world. You are maybe pioneering
your systems right now to where I created a system.
It's called Video Ranking Academy and we talk about the seven R's of our seven R YouTube system. This was how I was able to stay organized, consistently ranked
videos, consistently grow. But now Tony Areola on
the Think Media team implements the seminar system. If you really want to go full-time, there's something super powerful about maximizing and creating
systems for sustained success. Now we're gonna talk
about the seventh trait. I know I told you six traits,
but this is the seventh trait and this trait actually
many full-time creators have actually ignored
this one and suffered it. Maybe I don't know, 50, 50, maybe half the creators
I've interacted with, many are missing the seventh trait but I believe this is a key trait that you absolutely want for
sustained success on YouTube.
Some have it, some don't, we'll
talk about that in a second, but smash the like if
you've been getting value and today's Coffee with Cannell is actually brought to you
by Full Time Influencer. I'm excited because on this
theme of going full-time, I did just release. This is actually only
available for a few more days and I talk about how I got
fired and started a new business with YouTube and replaced my income. If you're curious about my story and the exact business model because I was able to go full-time at 16,000 subscribers with Think Media. So not a huge audience. And if you're curious about monetization, different ways of building your income with a small audience and it's
just my story step-by-step, check that out, free class,
Full Time Influencer, new class and actually coming
down soon so definitely RSVP. The replay is available to watch instantly but that's coming down soon but let's talk about this seventh trait. I don't know if you've
noticed, but a while ago, there was a whole bunch
of articles about burnout.
Are YouTube's algorithms
fueling creator burnout? CNN, YouTube burnout is real. Creators are struggling to cope. Study Breaks, why are so many creators suffering from burnout? When it comes to burnout,
YouTube is failing its creators. And then even on Medium. Instagram, YouTube, Tiktok are
burning out their creators. It's not funny, but I
actually saw a Clubhouse room which is a new social
media app, audio app, that already had a title how
to avoid Clubhouse burnout. Clubhouse is only two months old and people were burning out
already, which is not surprising because that is a whole another story of how intense that app can be. The reason I bring that up is it really brings up the importance of the seventh trait,
which is highly effective full-time YouTube
creators sharpen the saw.
What does that mean? Well, Stephen Covey in his book, The Seven Habits of
Highly Effective People, which I highly recommend. The seventh habit is sharpening the saw, what does that mean? It means they seek continuous
improvement and renewal professionally and personally. Highly effective YouTube creators seek continuous improvement,
that's not just learning but also renewal, rest, getting refreshed. Sharpening the saw means
persevering and enhancing the greatest asset you have, which is you. So it means having a balanced program for self-renewal in
the four areas of life: Physical, social, mental, and spiritual. So people that are sharpening
the saw are eating right, exercising, resting, they're making social and meaningful connections with others. They're getting off of social media, setting down their phone,
getting off of Clubhouse and talking to somebody face to face.
I'm not trying to hate on Clubhouse, but it's intense over there. They're learning, they're reading, they're writing, they're teaching. They're spending time in nature. They're praying, they're meditating. They're listening to
music, they're doing art. They're doing acts of service
and they're helping others. The reason I bring this up,
not to get somber for a moment, but this is serious is
now being in this thing for over 10 years, interviewing people that are in this book. I've seen people come and go. I've seen people blow up their marriages. Seeing people get crazy,
not know how to handle fame. I've seen people get money and lose it. I've seen YouTube creators
here one day and gone tomorrow. They haven't been able to
handle sometimes the success or the pressure or they went
so hard and were so driven.
So this is not to be
confused with the fact that I believe we need to
work hard and be ambitious and have drive to break
through in the industry. But my friends, this is so important to me and why I think this is
the most important trait, you need renewal
professionally and personally. You've got to pace yourself. YouTube is a marathon and not a sprint. You've got to have a long-term
vision to realize yes, there is time for short-term sprints, but any athlete knows that
you can't continuously grind, you need a recovery day and
that's your recovery day or days are just as critical as your days when you're
grinding and hustling. So if you really want to go full-time, not even just reach that mark, but actually sustain
this over the long haul, you got to make sure
you're sharpening the saw.
So I want to encourage you, don't get so wound up in
anxiety or drive or pushing to where you're sacrificing
massive amounts of sleep, you're sacrificing friendships. You really don't want to get
to the top and be all alone. Have you ever heard somebody
say it's lonely at the top? If it's lonely at the top,
it means you did it wrong because you can experience massive success while at the same time
not losing your soul. In fact, our mission
statement like the asterisk is helping 10,000 purpose-driven people create a full-time living
while making a difference in the world with YouTube and online video and experience that success
without losing their soul. And that's not possible if
you don't sharpen the saw. What good is it to climb
to the top of the mountain only to realize that you
climbed the wrong mountain which would be reaching some
kind of YouTube stardom, but hitting a wall of burnout.
And there's no shame for
those that have burnt out or that get tired or get fatigue. But I do think that it's
possible to build a life and a business and be
intentional and smart that we don't have to go that way. That doesn't have to be the model. We don't have to grind eight
days a week, 26 hours a day. There's some things that are not possible and there's something
powerful about pacing yourself because YouTube is a
marathon and not a sprint. Smash the like if you are
pumped about sharpening the saw and let me know, when's the
next day you're taken off? When's the next day
you're taking some me time and getting refreshed. Hey, if you're interested
in more content like this and want to check out our free class that's available for a few more days specifically on how to become
a full-time content creator, fulltimeinfluencer.com, link
in the description down below, today's episode of Coffee with Cannell is brought to you by
fulltimeinfluencer.com.
And I want to pass the
question off to you again. What is your goal on YouTube? And would you say you have
been sharpening the saw and you're running a good pace? Have you been running too hard and maybe you feel a little
burnt out or a little drained or are you actually maybe
not even really hustling or have you noticed that maybe
you're just kind of dwelling and just hanging out online
and kind of watching stuff but you're not putting in
the grit and the grind.
We all find ourselves at
different places on the journey so I'd love to hear from you
in the comment section below. (upbeat music).
