Welcome And Why YouTube Gets Misused

Leroy te Braak 0:00

So uh yeah I'm Leroy ter Braak. I'm uh 32 years uh old. I live in uh Austin, Texas, and I'm a YouTube strategist, meaning that I work with a wide variety of creators, uh brands on YouTube and help them get more organic views, make more revenue, and make more of an impact on the platform.

Chris Norton 0:25

Leroy Ter Braak, welcome to the show.

Leroy te Braak 0:28

Appreciate you. Thank you guys for having me.

Chris Norton 0:31

You when we spoke before, you said there's a lot of people that misunderstand how to use YouTube. Is that is that fair? Does that what you is that what you believe? And are people out there, marketing people as well and podcast hosts, getting YouTube wrong?

Leroy te Braak 0:47

Oh, absolutely. Um, this is something that I uh that's a that's a hill I'm willing to die on, um, for sure. I've worked with uh a lot of brands around the world, like not just only creators, you know, individuals that that build up a YouTube presence, but also, you know, multi-million dollar brands, even billion-dollar brands that kind of use YouTube as their, I call it like a um is like a like a family scrapbook. You know, they just put everything on there that they think should be on a YouTube channel from uh the latest manual of their newest oven to uh an HR um celebration, um, like no real strategy behind it. And then they come to people, they turn to people like me and they're like, Well, why is this not working? Well, you know, and then I always tell them, Well, where do you want me to begin? Do you want me to make you cry about your your current abilities, or do you want me uh to sugarcoat it a little bit? Um, so absolutely, I think, especially in on the the brand and business side of things, a lot of businesses do not know how to approach YouTube.

Will Ockenden 1:44

At risk of asking an obvious question, how should they approach YouTube?

Leroy te Braak 1:49

Um, as its own entity, as its own thing that deserves its own strategy, um, that should have you know its own team almost, um, if possible, of course. Not all brands uh have budgets for that, but um, YouTube can be a great amplifier of whatever your brand or business may be, but you need to respect it as the platform that will, you know, that that will need that own dedicated time and effort to get those organic views in.

Chris Norton 2:16

Yeah, because most people, I think brands, there'll be a lot of people listening that have got YouTube channels, and you see it all the time, like YouTube channels that have got, I don't know, um, and actually it's one of the reasons when people apply for the show, if I apply to be on the show, I'll look at their profile and they're like um YouTube strategist, and they've got like 200 views on one of their videos. And I'm like, I know you're not meant to be an influencer, but if you're gonna be a strategist, whereas you've got 75,000 subscribers, you know what you're talking about. Clearly, some of your clients you can't even talk about because they're quite high profile as well. Um, but I there's a lot of people out there that will be that struggle. Um, as in if you're a business, you might have, I don't know, 10, 15 videos on your YouTube channel. You stick it the the classic thing is they spend, I don't know, two or three grand, do an amazing video, company video, slam it on YouTube, maybe they look at the title, uh, they slap it up there, they've got maybe some interviews with CEO, and they've got like 64 views and 57 views, and and they're like, I'm just a million miles away from getting 2,000 views for per video. So how how do you how do you like deconstruct to get it to get it started? How how do you get someone from nothing to something? Do you know

Audience Targeting And Search Intent

Chris Norton 3:30

what I mean?

Leroy te Braak 3:31

Well, it so it depends a little bit on who I'm working with, right? Like if it's a if it's a brand, then it's a different conversation than if it's a creator, you know, someone who wants to become a YouTuber and someone who wants to make their full-time gig being a YouTuber. When it comes to brands, I always go back to like, okay, the ultimate fundamental beginning is understanding who you're targeting, like who's your audience, who do you want to target? Um, and if it's like, oh, let's say that you, I don't know, let's let's come up with something creative here. I just said an oven manual. Let's say that you are an oven manufacturer. I don't know, you make ovens. You know, like the easiest thing to do, of course, is you know, make the how-to videos on how to replace certain parts or how to install or how to do X, Y, and Z. Like search intent-based videos is the easiest way to you know get views over time that you know is not seasonal, um, and that will always you know have a place on your channel. But if you are after, like, hey, we want to build a YouTube presence and I we want people to know that we're the coolest oven brand in the world, you actually need to go back to the drawing board and be like, okay, what makes people think that? Like, what makes your customer think that you are the most interesting um brand in the world and I want to buy that one over that one because um I love their brand and I love what they're what they stand for and I love how they you know create content. I see them everywhere. Um, so I always go back to like the ultimate fundamentals of like what audience do you want to attract and how do we attract them? Because YouTube essentially is a it's a discovery platform, right? Like it's not, I mean, saying it's a video platform is too one-dimensional, it's a platform where people discover videos. Like if you open YouTube now, you will see a certain set of videos that are kind of tailored to your watch behavior because YouTube is like, hey, Will and Chris are on YouTube. Let's let's see, you know, like let's put these videos there. So you need to understand like who you're targeting and how can we get in front of those people with content that resonates with them. And that is not not like um like come a come work with us video or a uh, you know, um it was uh 20th year 20th year at the oven company, uh here's the birthday video or anniversary. You know, it's it's going back to like the fundamentals of like who's our customer and how do we reach them with content that is genuine and content that is organically interesting.

Will Ockenden 5:46

So, how do we um what sort of process would you go through to to kind of discovering what would interest them and and what kind of content to create for them? Is that just down to audience understanding?

Leroy te Braak 5:58

Well, I of course, like it's it starts with understanding like the audience, you're like the ICP, so to say, like of who do you want to uh attract? But another part is like understanding yourself, so understanding your business, understanding

Unfair Advantages That Brands Ignore

Leroy te Braak 6:10

your company. One big thing that I that I always say to every uh business that I talk to is like you need to understand your unfair advantages. So unfair advantages are simply put, like, what can you do that another person can't do or another brand can't do. Now, um, I had a uh discussion here in a South by Southwest here in Austin um some time ago with a very big publicly traded brand and like one of their uh like board level members, and they were like, Yeah, like we we want to work with you because we don't understand um like what we should make. And this is a good example of it. Like these people were making videos that they were also paying influencers, other creators to make. So it's like you're kind of cannibalizing what you're doing here. Like you are paying someone $10,000 to make a video on your product and reviewing it, but now you're also making that same type of video yourself. So what you're not doing is using your unfair advantages. The unfair advantage of that creator is established, like they know what makes their position in the market like work well. You guys are trying to do the same thing. Well, whereas you guys have access to all your products, you guys have access to larger budgets than that creator. So make videos that that creator cannot make. Make videos that strengthen whatever you're spending in other places. And that's where um like that, like understanding those unfair advantages is a very, very big thing for me. Is like, let's just write down what makes us unique, what can we do that other channels can't do? Um, you know, what can we ship faster than anyone, and really focusing on like having that ICP connected to those unfair advantages?

Chris Norton 7:43

Is that what you do then? You'll analyze like a channel. Is that how you would analyze a channel? You look at the ICP of who they're trying to attract, and then you go in and what slash down, look at look at all the videos they've done, break them down, and then say, actually, you should be doing this, this, and this. And if so, what are the things that you usually find that basically the biggest, I know it shows about mistake, the biggest mistakes that most people make.

Leroy te Braak 8:09

Yeah, so they yeah, that's pretty much how how I work. And it's like it's a process, right? It's a gradual process. Like these are the first fundamental steps that I would take with anyone I work with. And that's like I do the same with creators, you know. I also want to know their unfair advantages. That's where I've had talks with people. Like every year I do one day where I open my calendar to anyone and it's first come, first serve. So it's like, hey, you want to talk to me? You want to have a free one-on-one with me, 60 minutes? It's open now, and it's like it's always gone within a few minutes. And a lot of people that I talked to then are like early, early stage creators who can't afford to work with someone like me, right? These people are like, Well, I I will never forget one conversation I had with someone that said, you know, I want to be a YouTuber so bad, but I'm 31, I feel like I've kind of thrown my life away. I've just been, you know, playing video games, like I still live with my parents, like I'm a failure. I was like, okay, what kind of video games do you play? And he kind of looked at me odd. He's like, what does that have to do with anything? I was like, uh, well, you know, I I I'm like I was top 100 or something in World of Warcraft at some point. I was like, okay, there's a channel. He's like, what do you mean? It's like, well, listen, if you're that good at a video game, you probably have a lot more knowledge about this game and understanding of the lore and everything around it than 99% of people in the world. You were literally in the top 100 of a very, very popular game for a long time. Instead of seeing that as a waste, like the beauty of YouTube is that you can kind of make a living with a lot of very niche hobbies and a lot of very niche products by just understanding who you're talking to and how to package videos that are interesting for that audience. And that's a cool thing, in my opinion, about YouTube. Like you can be into short wheel model trains and still make a few thousand dollars a month on YouTube making videos about those short wheel model trains.

Will Ockenden 10:07

So obviously, you work with creators, you work with businesses. I I can normally I can see the commercial model with creators. I mean, ultimately, um in a lot of cases it's about selling advertising, I would imagine. When it comes to businesses, what's the commercial opportunity then on on being on YouTube? Is it are we just talking about visibility and brand awareness, or should we expect to you know ultimately convert customers, drive web clicks? You know, what are you seeing are the are the most compelling commercial benefits of businesses investing time and effort into this?

Commercial Value From Awareness To Sales

Leroy te Braak 10:40

Yeah, so I always say like it's it's almost a tiered model. Like let's say that you're top of the pyramid are the the biggest brands in the world that you that we all know, like from a Disney to a, I don't know, like uh from a car brand like Ford, whatever, right? Like those the biggest brands that we all know um through many, many different layers of marketing. Then you have the layers below that that are companies that are a little bit bigger, um, that you know might have a like an office and a team, etc. etc. And then you have solopreneurs. Let's just tier it that way for now. For the the highest tier, 99% of doing YouTube well is visibility. And just like it replaces the billboard on the side of the of the freeway, right? Like it's it's it's that where people see your brand so many times that they the next time they have to buy something where your brand is, one of the options, the chances of them choosing your brand is higher, right? That is for the the highest tier brands, like what I always say, like you guys should go for visibility, making content that resonates with people and that still fits your brand. Now, when it comes to smaller companies under there, like I've worked with with people who had a I'll give you one example. There's a there's a um a channel I work with, and they're called John and Bob Smart Soil Solutions. They might make soil products, and I remember that he emailed me, I think now six, seven months ago, something like that. Um, being like, hey, you know, I would love to work with you. And you know, I've kind of been fool over the past year and a half, but I saw his email and I was like, I know absolutely nothing about landscaping and gardening, like nothing. So they excited me. I was like, that's cool. Like, you know, I get to learn something while I help that person. And he has, you know, his smart soil products, so you know, how to make your soil healthier and better garden, like thriving, etc. etc. Um, and they had a web shop, like has his like local places where he sells. Um, and I was like, you know what? Yes, I want to work with you. This man is in his early 70s. I was like, this is the coolest client I'll ever have in my life. Like, I never get to work with people like this. Um, and I started working with him and his uh editor and videographer, Brendan. Um, and within a few months, we went from 30,000 subscribers to over 100,000, but also his sales increased 60% month over month. So, this while we made videos about like, you know, the 11 landscaping myths most people still believe, don't do these, you know, those kinds of videos, the awareness for his brand became bigger. People started, you know, like trusting him uh with his like from his advice, and they started buying his products. So when you are one of those businesses that does, let's say, a million a year in revenue, YouTube can be an amazing place to amplify that without having to spend you know five dollars uh to get you know two dollars back in like a mark in an ad campaign or whatever. Like, this is all organic. The only cost that he has is paying me and paying his editor that he was already paying before he worked with me. So I would say for like those mid-sized businesses,

Smart Soil Growth And Revenue Lift

Leroy te Braak 13:40

the opportunity to actually increase your revenue on YouTube is immense.

Chris Norton 13:45

But what difference have you made there though? Because obviously he had he this the soil guy, let's call him the soil guy. Bob was it? I love I love Bob the soil man. Uh so Bob in America. Um, I like the idea that you've looked at what he was doing and he's on 30,000 subscribers, and you've gone, right, that's great. So what did what what what strategically and tactically did you do to change from 30,000 to 100,000? Because you already had somebody helping him do that. So you've come in and you've gone with a complete cold pair of eyes, if that's an expression, um, uh, and assessed it. What what did you what did you change to make that happen?

Leroy te Braak 14:26

So, like again, like of course this changes channel per channel, right? Like what needs to change. But I always see myself as someone like when it comes to a channel of that size, like I I still call them early stage, you know, 30,000 subscribers is you know, you can get to 30,000 subscribers pretty easily if you have a few videos that accidentally do well. Like that, you know, there's still a way to accidentally get to 30,000 subscribers. Yeah, um, but I come in and I I kind of see that as like an the first prototype of a race car. I can kind of look at the channel and be like, okay, that doesn't work. Like, we should probably get other wheels on that. Like, this is not aerodynamic, and the engine is not properly tuned. Um, with with John and Bob's, what it was is like I I said his name's John, by the way, John Valentino. Great guy. I said, John, uh, the biggest problem you guys have is that John Valentino sounds like a gangster. John Valentino. I know he's he's quite the opposite. He's the nicest man ever. Um, but what I saw with them is their just their I their ideas were pretty solid, but their packaging was just not good, and their hooks weren't great. So everything was just a little bit, it was kind of stuck in YouTube 2017. And I just came in, revamped pretty much the whole process of like, how do we come up with ideas? How do we validate if an idea is a good idea or not? Um, if we have an idea that's good, you know, how do we ensure that the hook also fits that, that the package or the thumbnail and the title reflect uh what viewers are gonna get in that video? So I kind of used my framework and my ideal framework that I've developed over the years, put it over their channel, and yeah, it was just a matter of months before we unlocked those

Packaging Titles And Thumbnails Defined

Leroy te Braak 16:05

like few things that was kind of blocking them to getting those videos that would consistently do above 50,000 views instead of you know 2,000 to 5,000.

Will Ockenden 16:15

Well, you you talked about packaging then. Um, do you do you want to kind of elaborate on on what you mean by that and and also talk about how to package a video up? How you know what we need to think about when it comes to the thumbnail, thumbnail, the description. I mean, is it is there a formula for that? What you know, from your experience, what works?

Leroy te Braak 16:32

Yeah. No, of course. So when I say packaging, I want you to think of like you're going to a store and you see your product on a shelf, right? Like it has the packaging and it has the name on it. That kind of gives you an idea of like what am I going to get when I buy this product? Packaging for YouTube is the same thing, but now see it as the title and the thumbnail of the product. So when I say packaging, I mean title and thumbnail combined. Um, best practices, well, first and foremost, the most important thing on YouTube is understanding what dominoes need to fall for a video to get 100,000 views or a million views. You know, like some of my clients get sad if we get less than 5 million views. So it depends what stage you're in, of course. Um, but you need to understand like what domino needs to fall first. First domino is the idea. If you can validate on YouTube that a somewhat of a similar idea that to what you're planning to make has done well before, you're taking a higher risk because you have no data that you know that this idea has done well before, something that we want to do has done well before. So you want to kind of research that. It's like, hey, we have an idea to make a video about, I don't know, let's say uh fidget cubes. And that's like what we're into now. Like, we're gonna make a fidget cube video, or like the in your guys' take, it might be a documentary on like how fidget cubes took over the ADHD marketplace, whatever. That's the title I just came up with. I want to see like, have there been any videos like that on the platform before? Something about a product that connected to like a neuro kind of thing. Like, is there anything that's on the platform? Now, let's say that I see multiple strong signals of you know, a channel that had 50,000 subscribers, made one of these videos and they got 500,000 views. That's an outlier. You know, it's it it outperforms that channel's subscribers. So we know for sure that it has gone to a cold audience. Great. Now let's say that I find 10 of those examples. Now I know my risk is decreasing of making a complete dud of a video. Next step is okay, we know that the idea can work, but the next step is the packaging. Before we even start thinking about writing a script or recording anything, we need to make sure that we know how to package this. We need to make sure that we have at least three to five titles that we feel very confident about based on formats that we see on YouTube. And we need to have at least three to five thumbnail concepts that we know based on what we see on YouTube could work well. So that is like the process. Absolutely.

Will Ockenden 18:56

You've got five five thumbnails and five titles for one video.

Leroy te Braak 19:01

Yeah, I mean, with some of the bigger um channels that I work with, sometimes we have 20 variations per video. Okay, and I was like, when when it when YouTube is your main income and you're making, you know, let's say between 200,000 to 500,000 per month on that platform, you know, you'd be crazy not to try and optimize for the tiniest things, right? So that's where you have a you know a team of two or three thumbnail designers that are only repackaging older videos and that are only working on you know testing older videos that have already been out because it's worth you know, the juice is worth the squeeze. Now, when you're a starting creator, don't do that, but definitely get three to five thumbnail concepts done because you want to increase your chances of hitting a bullseye. So that is how I think about the packaging, you know, and that is like the dominoes that need to fall. If the idea inherently is flawed and it's just an idea that we can't find any proof for that something similar has done well before, then domino is not gonna fall. The next domino is packaging, then the next domino is the actual script, right? The hook, you know, the the storytelling, etc., the pacing, um, you know, optimizing for the retention of viewers. All these things need to fall to get to that end point being like, okay, this was our goal. Our goal was to get 100,000 views or to get 500,000 views. Those dominoes need to fall first.

Chris Norton 20:20

This is a purely selfish question, uh, because we'll we'll I I look

Podcast Research Before You Hit Record

Chris Norton 20:25

at YouTube every day, and I I let we'll ask the next question after this. Well, it's just because this is purely for the show. Uh so our our channel's like six and a half thousand subscribers, so we're nowhere near 30,000, 380 videos, right? And um the problem is, I think, is with what you're talking about there, is you're coming up with the title and the idea for the video before whereas we filming a YouTube uh like for instance, this show now we'll we've come up with an idea for we're gonna be talking about YouTube, we'll come up with a title afterwards and we'll come up with some thumbnails. Are you saying that we should research our ideas for podcasts? Um, and I know podcasts are a slightly different type of video, um, and do it that way where we look at the outlying videos and then maybe think, right, we'll do a podcast on that. Is that how you would do it to maximize YouTube success for any particular podcasting people out there?

Leroy te Braak 21:22

Yeah, so of course, like with podcasts, there is there are a few nuances that you have to keep in mind, right? Like if you are, let's say that you are an early stage podcast, like you can't get all the guests in the world. Like, not everyone will give you the their time of day. Um, so you have to work with what you can get. Um, but I also work with one of the biggest podcasts in the world. I'm also working now on a podcast that is early stage that I'm you know a co founder in. So um I I'm in this space and I understand like what the limitations are. But if you know that you can get a guest, let's say, for example, you know, like, hey, we're getting Leroy on, before you should even talk to me, you need to understand like what kind of you YouTube strategy interviews are out there. And you know, you could look at um a good friend of mine, uh Grayson, his name's Fexian. He just did a podcast that did, like, I think is now like 60,000 views or something. Uh, you have a bunch of uh Paddy who also lives here in Austin, um, that that did well on YouTube. You should always do the research beforehand, you should all always know, like, okay, we can we can get Leroy. Leroy is okay. He's keen to to do this podcast with us. What has worked in this niche before when it came to YouTube strategy content? You want to have an idea of like what is our framing going to be because your questions might change based on that. So, what happens is, you know, like if I talk about like you know, one of the biggest podcasts in the world that I work with, like we get the biggest celebrities on, right? Like the biggest people in the world. It's that's a different game. The game's different because you know, there are a lot more people interested in in what Will Smith uh was doing on the set of his latest movie than there are people that are interested in hearing me blabber about YouTube, right? So it's a it's a different, it's it's a different market, um, and it's a different um type of video. But with that early stage podcast that I'm working with right now, like we knew we were gonna have a political scientist uh on uh for next week. So that's when I know, like, okay, I want to do research, like let the team do research into that person, but I also want to know like what other similar types of of content are doing well around the topics that that guy covers. So I have an idea of like how I want to frame my episode before you know the podcast host starts actually like even interviewing the guy. I give him that and be like, hey, this like I want to make sure that we can frame it around these subjects. So make sure that you talk about these subjects. And for him, it's great because it's like awesome. So I have a thorough line that I can follow through the through the episode, and then you can go even deeper. You know, I I also think about short form. So I want to have make sure there are a few questions that are specifically there for short form content that I know, like, hey, there's probably gonna be a a chance that this person will answer this question in a way that will do great for a 60-second max clip. So, you know, like a lot of research happens beforehand.

Chris Norton 24:09

Um with that in mind, uh, what do you think about the moon base that was built by aliens uh in the pyramids on the on the dark side of the moon?

Leroy te Braak 24:17

What I think about well, the first dark side of the moon, I'm a I'm a big fan. I'm gonna know this is only for the people who know. It's only for the people who know uh absolutely, yeah. Uh I'm a big fan and I believe it happened. It happened somewhere. We just don't know yet.

Chris Norton 24:33

Jokes. We'll we'll uh by the way, I think for that.

Will Ockenden 24:36

That was a peak note. I'll let you two catch up after the show on the dark side of the moon. What I was gonna say, Leeroy, was and this this might not be a straightforward

Predicting Breakout Videos And Effort

Will Ockenden 24:45

answer. You sort of talk about these these bullseye videos or these super high performing videos. I mean, you know, we used to call them viral videos. I don't think that's a popular a popular term anymore. But do you see certain similarities in those super high performing videos? You know, is it an amazing hook? Is it you know what what's your view on that, or is it impossible to predict what's going to be one of those videos that just absolutely flies?

Leroy te Braak 25:10

I mean, there's definitely like you know, I've done this for so long now that you know I have developed a gut feeling that I can trust like 70% of the time when it comes to this. And that's also why I made you know my my frameworks to make sure that I also understood myself what my gut was telling me and that I could write it down on paper. But I would say in in in most cases, if you're experienced at making YouTube videos in a wide variety of niches, you can you can pretty reliably predict like this is probably going to be a great video. Um, and it's not necessarily the hook, it's not necessarily one thing, because what you need to understand is that YouTube itself doesn't even look at one metric, it doesn't look at like, oh, your CTR is 15%, so now I'm going to pull it in front of a hundred thousand more people. That's not how YouTube looks. YouTube looks at all these metrics individually and puts them together and looks at something that they call viewer satisfaction. If your video shows high signals of fewer satisfaction, YouTube will cluster it to more of those types of people. And that's what I always say. Like, you know, you either can win on um effort. So if you make a video, like a great, you know, school boy example of this is when MrBeast came up. You know, he made a video, for example, say like uh Logan Paul 500,000 times. It was a video that was like, I I don't know, it was I think it was like 27 hours long. He sat there for 27 hours saying the same word over and over again. He just won, not because he was the most charismatic, because he absolutely wasn't, not because he was the best looking. I'm like, I'm not here to judge, I can't be one to judge about that, but you know, I'm just stating the facts here. He won because he just did things that other people weren't willing to do. So when it comes to a podcast, for example, you either need to be able to get the guest that no one else is able to get, or you need to make an episode that a viewer is like, I can't stop watching this, and it's this is just so good. I need to send this to my friends, like this is so valuable, or this is so interesting. Um, so it's like most of the time it's effort that wins, and it's then now how can you package that effort in a way that you know you're increasing your chances of making this a viral video? And viral is still the way that we talk about it. I just like to use it.

Will Ockenden 27:23

You talked about effort there, and I've seen you've um written about this in the past. To

AI Content And The Authenticity Fight

Will Ockenden 27:30

what degree is AI um gonna influence YouTube? And I saw you, I saw you giving this example of a um, it was basically like a kind of an elderly American man giving um giving recipes, and and and and they dropped about 50 episodes and and you said, Look, I can tell it's AI, but 95% of the audience can't, and it's probably a way of some kid getting five, ten thousand dollars a month. So how how kind of prolific is is that, you know, people using AI, and and is that going to be an issue for for genuine creators, or is that genuine creation in itself?

Leroy te Braak 28:05

Well, it it is already an issue for genuine creators, and it's it's like we're in an interesting time, and it's and like it's um it's going to be a tense time for a lot of creators as well in the coming five years, because I've I've seen creators fall off simply because um AI-driven content has taken a lot of their market share and their demand. And and you know, some types of viewers do not care if they watch an AI video or an actual human. Luckily for most creators, a lot of people still care. And a lot of people like will actually I I've had this with documentary channels that I've worked with in the past where you know we needed to have a scene that we just couldn't find in the archives. So, you know, at some point you're like, okay, let's just use C dance, you know, an AI video generator to get that scene so we can at least paint the picture of what we're talking about. And people went nuts in the comments. Like, you use AI, I'm unsubscribing, I don't want to watch anything that has AI slot in it. The question is, how long is it going to take before that switches? Because if I look at my daughter, you know, who is now turning four this month, she is growing up in a world of AI. Like she's growing up in a world where AI is normal. Like, I can can't fathom the idea like that we would have grown up with AI, whereas like, you know, we were in in you know, in primary school, be like, I have to do homework, I'll just ask ChatGPT about it. Like, would have been great. I would have done better in college, probably, but you know, it's it's a wild thing to me um what's happening, and and YouTube seems to have a a bit of a finicky stance on it. It's it's just not really a straight line that they're taking. They're demonetizing and banning channels that they call inauthentic, but at the same time, they are releasing AI tools for their creators to make AI videos of yourself. So it's uh I think we're in a we're in a dangerous timeline when it comes to YouTube videos and content creation as a whole. And I think the only thing that is kind of keeping us from going to a very dystopian future is if these companies like Google, so you know, the mother company of YouTube, taking a stance on like we want to reward authenticity and real creators versus you know, we just let the algorithm surface whatever you know it people are interested in, regardless of human-made or AI-made.

Chris Norton 30:21

Um, I've got so I just want to take you back to your, and we'll get on to your mistake in a minute. I want to take you back to your five titles and your five thumbnails, right? So you've got your idea, you you come up with your outliers. I love this idea, uh outlying idea. So you look at your outliers, that gives you an idea for what you want to do your your show on or your video on. Off you go,

Thumbnail Testing Umbrella Method Explained

Chris Norton 30:40

you come up with five titles, um, and then you get five five thumbnails. That's potentially 25 variations. How do you then test that stuff? Because I know on YouTube, for those people that don't use YouTube that much, you can test your thumbnails, it allows you to upload three. So we do that, we upload three. Uh, not on our old videos, which because some of them are just yeah, not so great. The newer stuff we do that, we'll test and you know, three and then we'll see. And then we get the famous message thank you for testing with uh your thumbnails. Unfortunately, your test didn't receive enough impressions to have a winner. So that's basically saying you're not even interesting enough to get enough clicks, even though we've got like 500 views or something. So, yeah, what so what how do you test them? How are you testing? Are you creating five separate videos with five five separate thumbnails? So like 25 different videos, and then just deleting the ones that don't work.

Leroy te Braak 31:33

No, no, no, no, no, no. So, um, in in a case where it's like your channel that is, I would say early stage where you're still trying to get like you know, crack a thousand views, I wouldn't test from the get-go. The reason why is like I want to start with the title and thumbnail that I feel I have the most evidence for it will do well because you're fishing in such a small pond. Now imagine that you there's th there's this massive pond with three fish in it. It's like you you can you cannot even find them if you would like hover over the pond. Like it's so big, then there's only three fish. I'm not gonna put out like multiple tests to to get these three fish to be interested. I just want to know with one lure, like, does this work? No, it doesn't work. Okay, let's change the lure. Does this work? I don't want to do multiple, like the chances of that even garnering me data, aka what YouTube is telling you, like, hey, I'm sorry, but we can't give you like a definitive answer on this. Um, I would start with when it's a channel like yours, just start with your, you know, like this is what we feel most confident about. Like we've seen proof on YouTube, like you know, we've documented like this is a thumbnail concept that does well, this is a text on a thumbnail that does well, that this is a title format that has worked many, many times before. Start with that. Don't start with a test. Now, if you're a little bit of a bigger channel, or you're let's say that your video starts gaining traction. Now is what I want to do is I call umbrella testing. So an umbrella test is three very different thumbnail concepts that are not the same. Like I'm not saying like one where I look like smile, like one where I'm smiling, one where I'm serious. Like, no, I want to see very three very different concepts. Maybe one where I hold a you know, I hold a paper with like the new rules of YouTube and they're blurred out. And maybe the other the second thumbnail is uh just a podcast thumbnail where you have my face and a quote next to it, like this is why your channel sucks. Uh and then the third one might be uh me um uh showing uh the the secret to YouTube success. You know, like they're very different concepts, they look different. That's what I call an umbrella test. I want to first start with three very different concepts. Now, if one of them works, that's when I'm like, okay, that one did better. Let's start making variations of those. Have we tried making that box uh like a more contrasting color, you know, compared to my uh our very coordinated um, you know, shirts right now. Yeah. Um just no, like figuring out like the more the details of that thumbnail. Let's try a different text on it, let's try a different expression. Um, that's when you start testing like more granular things in that thumbnail, and that's when you start optimizing for point percentages. You start optimizing for like the little things and squeezing everything out. But the most important thing that any beginner creator should do is always have three thumbnails that are very different ready to test. But in your case, just start with the one that you're most confident about, let that run for some time. Maybe after a week it starts gaining, and then at some point you say, like, okay, now let's set a thumbnail test now that we have some traction and see was this actually the best one for

The IDEAL Framework For YouTube

Leroy te Braak 34:35

the audience that it's pulling right now.

Chris Norton 34:37

Great tips. And so cheat you you've given, so you said ideal. You said you have the ideal framework, and I'm gonna call it the YouTube cheat code. So, what is uh we've got ideal. I'm guessing that ideal, I'm gonna guess this because I haven't read it fully. Ideal, I is the idea, right?

Leroy te Braak 34:56

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Norton 34:58

Oh, that's right, okay. D is come on, Will, help me out. Development. Nope, nope, nope. Delivery, delivery.

Leroy te Braak 35:08

No, no. I'll give you one more. Distribution, one more. No, no. We're getting closer.

Will Ockenden 35:21

Data, data. We were losing our audience there, weren't we, Chris? We're about to live everyone's about to switch off. Yeah, these for data. Yeah, go on, talk talk through the rest of it and rather than us guess it.

Leroy te Braak 35:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the E is uh for execution, uh, A is for analysis, and L is for longevity. Simple as that. Yeah, of course. So, like the ideal framework is again like this was me over the past few years trying to understand my own thought process better because you like at some point you start taking for granted that you just kind of know certain things and have a gut feeling about certain things. And I was on a call with a um a big YouTube agency owner um and his co-founder, and he told me this was a light bulb moment for me. He told me, He's like, Yeah, I I I was on a call with another strategist, uh, and we were talking about you a little bit, and I told him how fascinating it is to see you work because we've had calls in the past where you kind of say, like, okay, wait, hold on one second, and you're sharing your screen, you go to like seven channels in five minutes, you mumble something under your breath, and then you come back with a title and thumbnail concept that outperforms anything we've ever done with that client, and we still don't understand why and how. And that's when I realized, like, oh, I don't really know either. Like, I don't, I if I would have to verbalize it, like I don't know what I did. Like, I even thinking back at it, it's like, I don't know, it's just that gut feeling that you know my mind is connecting dots based on something that I'm seeing. And it's like, okay, this is the one that we need to go for. So that's when I started like really thinking about how I could I need to write down my thought process because this is probably going to help a lot of beginners on YouTube. Um, instead of me putting it behind a massively overpriced course, I should probably write a book about this. You know, probably probably anyone that starts a YouTube channel can afford like a $20 book. Um, so I started writing my book around my framework that's coming out later this year. And ideal stands for, like I said, idea. That's simply audience first ideation. So, again, it's kind of what I already said in the beginning. Like, that's the first domino. You need to come up, like if you're a creator, like an actual YouTube creator, come up with 30 to 50 video ideas per week. And once a month, you're gonna choose out of the 200 that you have, you're gonna choose your top four, and those are the ones that you're gonna make. The rest, screw them off. Start again next month. You know, you want to get good at becoming a master ideator. You want to become very good at understanding what are good ideas for YouTube. The D is then data. So once you have that idea, you want to understand with data, you like, okay, is there proof that this is a good idea? So that's where you do the data analysis. Like, can I see on YouTube that similar ideas like the one that I've written down right now has done well before? Now then you get to the E, and E is execution. Execution is simply okay, well, if there are all these great videos on YouTube that you know show that this is a great idea, what can I do to execute it different or better? Can I twist it? Do I have an unfair advantage that I found five steps ago when we talked about unfair advantages? Like, can I spend a lot more time and money on this idea than the outliers that were already there? You don't want to make the same video. If you make the same video, you're gonna get you know diminishing returns of that original outlier. Simple as that. You might siphon off some views, but nothing big. So that comes like to the execution layer. Then you have analysis. So that's now we've executed the video is up. Now we need to analyze. After a month, look back at that video and understand like what are the metrics that I should be looking at? Like, what is my retention saying? Where are people dip in? You know, come up with 20 reasons why, you know, in at minute three, uh, people went from 40% watching to 20%. Like, what did I do in that part? Did I load something up wrong? Like, really obsess over the right analytics that you get from YouTube. And then you have L, the most important thing is looking back on that video. I always say, ask yourself, is this a video that gets me one step closer to my grand goal? And the grand goal doesn't have to be just saying a million subscribers on YouTube. It could also be like if I talk to you and you say, Oh, in five years, you know, I want to uh have five million subscribers, have five supercars and seven houses and three wives. I might give you a different strategy than someone says, like, I don't really care, I just want to, you know, be able to do this full time and make the best videos possible. So understanding, like, does is this video you know really there for longevity of that goal and helping that goal?

Will Ockenden 39:47

Fantastic. And and this a lot of this is going to be covered in your book, is it? So, what's the book called? And what when when are you planning on um on on launching it?

Leroy te Braak 39:56

Yeah, so it's called the the ideal framework. That's the title that I'm going for now. It's and I'm trying to get it out before the holidays and at like end of this year. That's my goal. I'm I'm almost done. The manuscript is done. Um, but I want to make sure that you know everything is in there, it's like accurate, and YouTube changes like so much. Yeah, it's uh you know, I want to make sure like I keep updating things. So it's like, oh man, I need to like redo part of this, or I have a new, you know, case study that I want to add in. So at some point I have to tell myself, okay, now's enough. Now it's done.

Chris Norton 40:25

Definitely come on the show when you've launched when you're about to launch your book and you can give it a big plug because I think that you come on and talk about how things have changed. Um, we need to get to no, I'd love to, guys. Thank you. I could literally grill you all day. And we've literally I need to I need to ask you about your mistake because you've been very mysterious about a mistake that you've made. So do you want to let us in, Leroy, and tell us what what's gone wrong in the world of YouTube?

Leroy te Braak 40:49

Well,

The Mistake Of Not Testing Enough

Leroy te Braak 40:50

it's not even like this this mystery wasn't even to make it mysterious. I've made so many mistakes in my career that it that it's hard to pick one. You know, like I think that's the the biggest uh thing that I was like, I don't I don't know. Like I've made so many mistakes as as both a strategist, as a business owner, as someone who is at multiple businesses. But I think the most the biggest mistake that I've made when it comes to the work that I'm doing now is not testing more and not testing consistently. This is something that early in my career, uh, I can give you 10 examples of this where a video did great and you kind of like keep your hands off. It's like, oh, it's doing great, you know, like oh net, let's not touch it because you're almost like superstitious to you know screw something up. Where it's like, okay, well, it's getting a hundred thousand views now uh every month. Let's not touch it. I think the biggest mistake that I've made early in my career that has I think this has cost me I think this has cost me like over like a hundred million views if I would trace it back, but it's just not testing more and not like even testing on a video that's doing great, add new thumbnails, do more variations. Um that's the biggest that when it comes to the work that I'm doing today is the biggest mistake that I've I've made. Absolutely.

Chris Norton 42:15

Have you ever done a video where you've done all the data, you've done all your analysis, you've done everything that you've talked about there? Because there'll be people out there that have everyone's tried to do to follow this best practice strategy, they just can't get it going, like I said. And have you done all this research, you've and you've come up with the idea, you've executed the video, you've done it to the you've done it, and it's just gone. Has that happened as well? Because you must do, right?

Leroy te Braak 42:37

Listen, I always say this. I'm I'm I'm not a huge fan of the state of the um industry that I'm in, and especially the strategist industry. Reason why is a lot of people pretend that they know everything. Like, you know, I'm the all-knowing strategist, like I know everything, I can make everyone go viral. I have my uh my magic wand and I do poof and now boom, you go viral. What I always say is I get paid very well, very handsomely, and I'm very grateful for that to be right more on average than the average person. You know, I don't I have videos where I was sure that it would it would do amazing. And for whatever reason, we missed that one thing and it did not do amazing. Like that still happens to me, of course. You know, I'm I'm human, I don't know everything, I'm not all-knowing. Um, but it's the same as like, you know, the the best coaches in the world, as in like, you know, let's say managers, you know, like even Pep Guardiola has it wrong sometimes and they lose, you know, and that's what it's the exact same in my industry. I sometimes still have it wrong, but people pay me because I have it wrong less than most people.

Chris Norton 43:44

So so from that, I'm taking that you're the Pep Guardiola of YouTube strategy.

Leroy te Braak 43:49

Yeah, I think I should have gotten a better no, I should have been a better example. I'm not bald. I don't think bald would look good at me either.

Will Ockenden 43:56

Yoda and Pep are both bald, actually, aren't they?

Leroy te Braak 44:00

I'll take it. I'll take Carrick then. Michael Carrick, why not?

Chris Norton 44:03

You have your football knowledge down out in Austin, Texas.

Leroy te Braak 44:07

Hey, listen, I'm from the Netherlands. You know, I moved here just like uh six months ago, so I'm a big football nerd.

Chris Norton 44:13

Do you watch the Premier League out there then?

Leroy te Braak 44:16

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the funny thing is here, I actually get to watch the Prem for free here because it's not behind a paywall. Because in the US, they're like, well, we can't monetize that. Like, people are not going to watch it. So I just I have YouTube TV. Of course, I have YouTube TV. Um, so it's like I can watch all the Prem games that I want for free. It's not behind a paywall at all here.

Will Ockenden 44:35

Happy Day, but are they aren't they on at like some mad time of uh so what's three o'clock on a Saturday afternoon then? Um in Austin, Texas, is that it's now, isn't it?

Chris Norton 44:45

It's about eight o'clock, isn't it?

Leroy te Braak 44:46

Well, yeah, a three o'clock Saturday is uh uh well uh most like a lot of Prem games would already be going on at three o'clock here. So I get to if I want to watch Premier League games, I watch it like a lot in the in the mornings. So it's like you know, Saturday morning, like 10, I can watch like live games uh happening or nine. Um so yeah, I I love uh I love watching that. But I'm also getting into the NFL. I I need to assimilate, you know. Now living here, I'm getting into a few ND NBA games, uh college football. So uh I'm trying to become a uh a good hybrid between a European and American.

Will Ockenden 45:23

And what's the um what's the tech scene like in Austin, Texas? Obviously, you've got South by Southwest festival every year, and that actually started as a music. Is it is it right that that started? Did it start as a tech festival and became a music festival? Or did it start as a music festival?

Leroy te Braak 45:37

I think you're right. I think it started more like culture music, and and it became more of an like an everything festival over time because you also have uh like a bunch of like movie industry stuff happening around South by Southwest. So I think it's like pretty much all pillars of like big things that you can imagine, right? But I didn't even go to South by Southwest really this year. I just had a few dinners that I was invited to, but you know, I I have like three, four, five calls every single day, so I don't really get out of the house that much. Uh, and I don't tend to uh to change those plans for uh for a conference if I don't have to, because I don't really like conferences, to be honest.

Chris Norton 46:13

What's your what's your view on like segments then? Um if you're doing so because a lot of brands will do it, like you say, do videos, they let's say they've they've done the video, the video is about their company, they they've got the packaging right. What else what else can you do to grow your channel? Is click-through rate imperative? What are the sort of tricks that the what else is there other than the packaging? Or is it all as simple as the packaging and the title, the title and the thumbnail? Is that it now?

Will Ockenden 46:46

And a great video, of course.

Leroy te Braak 46:47

Yeah, the cool thing about uh

Make Great Videos Ignore Vanity Metrics

Leroy te Braak 46:50

doing YouTube at the level that I do is that you realize like at the level that I'm working at is that the I I saw I see this meme all the time where you have like the like a almost a bell curve. It's like you know, a beginner is like, Oh, I need to optimize for AVD and CTR and like to optimize for this and that, and then the curve goes up to like someone who's in the knows, like kind of like the Dunning Krueger effect, where it's like the more you know, the more you understand that you don't know everything. But the basis of it all is just make fucking good videos. That's it. Like make videos that people want to watch. If you make a video that people want to watch, YouTube is now at a point where the algorithm is so sophisticated that it will find an audience. YouTube doesn't give up on your video. You'll see it on your own podcast as well. It's like maybe, yeah, it might get 50 views on YouTube, but you will see over time that the impressions they still trickle in because YouTube is not like, wow, that video shit. Like, you know, never mind, put it to the side. Like it will still revisit that video. So as long as you make videos that people are actively enjoying or they're actively learning from, or it's actively inspiring them, YouTube will find your audience. And like looking at CTR, especially if you're an early stage creator or even AVD, I always say like just AV focus on two things average, average view duration. Duration, yeah. So, how long do people actually watch uh you know your video? Don't look at that. The only thing that is important to you is impressions and views, like just look at those two, and that's it. If you see that the video is getting no impressions, YouTube is probably not finding an audience of interested people for it. And that's what you need to like keep in mind is that there's no lie in those two metrics in views and impressions. CTR gets very murky, AVD gets very murky, because if you have a video that goes out to uh let's say that your video goes viral, I have many, many videos that have done tens of millions of views, hundreds of millions of views, and the CTR is 1.4%. Now, if you would show that a quote unquote YouTube guru in isolation, they would say, like, oh, horrible, this video is gonna do bad, like you need to change your thumbnail. Then you show them, well, this video got 104 million views. Never mind. So that's why I always say like these metrics in isolation don't say anything.

Will Ockenden 49:10

You said a soundbite there, which I think might be the title for the video, just make fucking great videos. I love it. I mean, yeah, it's true. As simple as that.

Chris Norton 49:20

What's the sort of one piece of advice you get? So is that it? That is your one piece of advice, just make fucking good videos.

Leroy te Braak 49:27

Uh well, it's hard to give one piece of advice because again, like everyone is so different, right? Like, everyone has some people have a natural knack for knowing what a good video is, you know, like making a good video, others don't, but they might have great ideas, but their ideas get severely limited by their execution, right? Like, so everyone is so different, and like part of my job is is figuring that out. Like, what are your strengths and where do I need to like really help you out? Um, it's not always like across the board, especially when it's like really established creators that have bigger teams. But my my advice is if you are a beginner creator, if you're a like a beginner business owner that wants to start on YouTube, is study the platform, study what like why are people on YouTube? Well, people are on YouTube to either learn something, to like, I don't know, uh how to uh how to get bigger, bigger muscles, or they are on YouTube to pass the time, right? It's like that is like the main two things of why people are on YouTube. Well, where first understand where do I fall? Like what content am I making? And two, what are the rules of that category? Like what are what is working right now? Just study the platform because YouTube is a very, very different beast than Instagram, then LinkedIn, then TikTok. I know nothing at all about LinkedIn. I suck at it. I post on it because I kind of like, well, I post on Twitter, so I'll just repurpose it there, I guess. But I I hate it, I don't understand it, I don't know what to post there. Same for Instagram, I don't pretend I'm an expert there. I've never made anything go viral on Instagram, and same for TikTok. But I know YouTube, and YouTube is a beast on its own that you need to treat as it's be like you know its own being, and like really study that platform if you want to become a better creator on that platform.

Chris Norton 51:13

And if I so obviously, if I was to say to you, right, Leroy, we have we've got we've had 300,000 views on our channel, we've got six six point seven thousand uh subscribers. How do we make money from our channel? And how if we had if we worked with you, how long would you think it would take to get some sort of return on what we would do together?

Leroy te Braak 51:39

Well, first and foremost, it depends because like again, like your guys' podcast is not just reliance on YouTube, right? Like it's it's bigger than YouTube, like you you you're I I would say like most of your lit listeners are on another platform, right?

Chris Norton 51:52

Yeah, that's that's fair. You we've got some on YouTube, but different platforms, yeah.

Leroy te Braak 51:56

Yeah, so let me you want want me to do you want me

Live Audit Fixing Podcast Titles

Leroy te Braak 52:00

to be like super super honest here? And like let me just open your oh yeah, I'm not gonna call out individual videos, but I'm just gonna open I'm just gonna open your channel and I'm gonna tell you, like, okay, what do I see first and foremost? Oh my god, this is gonna be horrendous. I'm I'm gonna do this like it's you guys are gonna love it, and I think this is good for the people who watch and or listen to this. So if I look at I'm I'm not gonna call out individual videos because I don't want to like make anyone feel that I'm calling out a specific person or guest that you had on the episode, but the main thing that I see from the get-go is that some of these topics are just not interesting at all. We're just not. And I'll tell you why. If if I think about a podcast, like why why would do I listen to podcasts? I either listen to get in like informed about something, like to understand something. Let's say, I don't know, um uh a guy comes on uh Joe Rogan to talk about like a like a very credentialed guy talks about like our alien sightings. We were talking about different planets just now. Let's say that I'm interested in that. And the title might might be uh of of someone who clips it, um number one alien expert, I don't know, extraterrestrial expert. You know, we we have seven confirmed sightings. If that is something that's interesting to me, I will click that because I want to hear like, oh, what's this about, right? If you do not give me any promise of a transformation of where I'm now to where I'm getting to after listening to this podcast or watching this podcast, I'm not gonna click it. It's let let's just let's just be I I kind of have to single out certain ones, but I'm gonna put the disclaimer this is not about the guest, this is about the packaging. So the get look, I hope if this guest that was on sees this, this is not about you.

Will Ockenden 53:49

We can always edit this.

Leroy te Braak 53:51

This is no, no, no. I'm gonna say it like this. This is their fault. This is not your fault, this is Will and Chris's fault. This is our fault.

Chris Norton 53:58

This is our fault. Um, this is our mapping mistake.

Leroy te Braak 54:02

Another one. Yeah, um, let's say, for example, uh, let's take a recent one, right? Uh, how challenger brands win without acting like challengers. Yeah, if I would see that in on my homepage, I have no fucking clue what I'm gonna watch at all. I have no idea what is a challenger brand, first and foremost. And win without acting like a challenge, like I the only thing that I thought about was a like a car, the challenger, a car. I don't I don't know why, but that's the thing that I thought about. I don't understand what I'm getting. So if I if you are competing with with 12 other videos on my homepage, that's not the one I'm gonna click because I don't know what I'm gonna get out of this. I don't know what's gonna like how my life is gonna change after watching it, and I don't know if there's anything that I'm gonna learn. So, and it's it's a pretty big commitment to see 49 minutes and 53 seconds to kind of go on a whim, be like, maybe people don't do that because we have to understand that people on this homepage don't give a and pardon my friends, but this is just how I talk, they don't give a flying fuck about us, they don't care about how cool we are. They like they they don't know us, they just want to spend time on the platform, right? So, another example when clever marketing confuses customers and kill results, another recent one, right? Yeah, it doesn't promise me anything, it just tells me that like something is gonna happen when it comes to marketing.

Will Ockenden 55:30

So, uh to to reframe that, you know, uh we would it'd be better to say something like you know, the the UK, the UK's number one B2B marketer. I mean, this is gonna be too long, shows you how to avoid killing your brand. Or something that's that there needs to be some sort of benefit articulated in in the title. Is that is that what you're saying? I eat why would I commit? Yeah, yeah.

Leroy te Braak 55:55

I don't like again, like I don't know this video, right? Like, so I don't know what what this this specific segment is about, but when it comes to the sub like I saw also like the subconscious triggers behind every purchase decision, I know that like from the top of my head, I know that there are videos on YouTube about pricing psychology that have done really, really well. Um, I'm just I'm just gonna do the we're we're doing this live. Why not? Pricing pricing psychology. I'm gonna look this one up.

Chris Norton 56:22

Um this is uh yeah, Oren.

Leroy te Braak 56:24

So Oren, uh, this is someone like uh an agency that that I'm an advising strategist to. Uh they work with this guy, and he had a video that did 92, 91,000 views uh in two weeks now. Um, and the title is What Actually Makes People Buy Things? Pricing Psychology Explained. Now, this if I see this title in thumbnail, and I now understand, like, oh, I'm probably gonna learn like like what how does this stuff work on me? Like, why do I always buy the highest tier of something? Right? Like that, I understand now that that is what I'm getting out of it. So it is a more, I would say it's a more primal way to package something that like I now know understand within two seconds what I'm getting. And the thumbnail, like you can't see it, of course. So I'll I'll just explain it. Like, we see one bottle on the left and it says $27. Then we see a bigger one, and that's $97, and then we see a whole gift basket, and that's $374. And then the text above is pricing psychology, so it's a visual ex escalation of like seeing pricing psychology in in um in action.

Will Ockenden 57:31

So a title like the pricing psychology tricks that work on you every day, something like that would be massively more compelling because it's it's intriguing, that it articulates value. I think we've got some words too, Chris.

Chris Norton 57:47

When he says we, he means me. Uh yeah, I mean, yeah, I'll I'll take that one on the chin. I don't mind, everything can be improved at all times, and that's your point, isn't it? You can literally open up your videos and amend, amend, check, change, look at what's working. Fascinating.

Leroy te Braak 58:05

Um, yeah, and again, like I just want to prep like say this as well, Chris. Like, make you not like go out of this feeling completely useless. Even if you work with someone like me, after we've made a video together, there's always things to improve, even if we were together. Again, like you know, I I look back on videos that we've released a week, like I work with 12 channels a week, so I get to see a lot of videos every single week that that gets released. Um, I look at a video, be like, ah, we should have done this differently. Like now, looking back at it, like I think we should like this, could have been a little bit tighter, or I would still want to change that thumbnail and test it with this. Like, that still happens, you know. It's not just that as a beginner you should feel like, oh man, like I'm making so many mistakes or whatever. It's they're not mistakes, they're data points. But now I gave you a data point of like, hey, I knew from the top of my head because I do this, I'm chronically on YouTube. It's somewhat sad when you're in your 30s, but you know, it's my job, so I have an excuse. You know, I I saw that that packaging and I immediately went to something that was like buried somewhere in my brain, like, oh, I've seen a video on this recently that did really well. And that's what again, like that's what people pay me for, you know, like helping them be right on average more times than being on their own.

Chris Norton 59:15

And so back to my question, which were and we've we've probably got one more after this. We've got the final question, which I'll let Wilder. But like, how long do you think it would be if someone like you worked with someone like us or a a channel that you could make a difference where they could

ROI Timeline Contact Details And Guest Pick

Chris Norton 59:30

get a return on what they're doing with you? So, because I know when we spoke initially, you said I'm always I aim to get the the so the client gets an ROI a return, not an ROI, but a return on what they're doing pretty much very quickly because that makes you feel like actually I can sit back a bit now and take more because you want to feel like you've made a difference, right?

Leroy te Braak 59:51

Yeah, yeah. No, of course, like my my aim is always like the fastest aim is and this is also why I don't work with beginners as much because it's a lot more of a finicky beast. Um, but I always say like I want to make sure that we work towards a point where like what you're paying me a month for my retainer is offset by the increase in revenue that you've gotten, you know. Like that's like like then I at least feel better about myself. Like most people won't give a crap about it, but it makes me feel good. It's like, okay, well, you're paying me, but it's not hurting you because this you're making money you had didn't have before we worked together. Um, but it it's it's hard to give like a straight answer to this. But when I would focus like purely on what you guys are doing, I think just focusing on better packaging, like more ideation before a guest comes on. I think within two to three months you would see a significant difference in in like views that you're garnering. But again, it depends a lot on you know how fast are you moving with the tools that I'm giving you, because ultimately you still need to do it yourself, right? Like I help, but if you're like, well, oh yeah, we just kind of like afterthought, we just put on a thumbnail and title, and that was it. It's like, well, that's not what you're paying me for, but fine. You know, it's it's still like the ball is still for a big portion of it is in your court. So I'm always a bit cautious to say, like, oh, you know, like this is what I would say for everyone, because some creators work, you know, have one session with me and they go up 200-300% in views in a month, where others, you know, with with I would say, like, for example, the the example that I gave earlier with with John and Bob's uh smart soil solutions, I think it took three months because we had to get out of YouTube 2017 and get into YouTube today, and that takes time. But he was understanding of that, and he knew like, you know, I uh this is gonna pay off at some point, and yeah, he's making more money than he than he's ever made.

Will Ockenden 1:01:43

So this has been a great episode, um, Leroy. Absolutely packed with value, and I think our listeners will be absolutely loving this. So they will be wanting to get in touch with you as well. And I know you're booked up and I know you're busy, but um, if people do want to reach out and get in touch, um, how do they contact you?

Leroy te Braak 1:01:58

Yeah, so I have my website, it's uh LeroyCreates.com. Uh, you can always send an email to me through there. Uh but I've heard I need to do more with LinkedIn. So just look me up on LinkedIn, send me messages there. I don't understand the platform, but I try to read my messages there for sure. Uh, the the platform that I'm most active on is X Twitter. It's still the biggest platform uh for people nerds like me in our industry, crazily enough. I don't know why, but it's where most of the creators still hang out. Um so if you have that, you can follow me there, just my full name. Um, and I have my weekly newsletter uh that you can also find on my uh on my website where I give out like free tips and tricks.

Will Ockenden 1:02:36

Fantastic. And the final question that we ask all of our guests, just to put you on the spot, who if you could invite anybody onto the show next, who would you recommend we invited on? Ideally, someone with um a few mistakes under their belt.

Leroy te Braak 1:02:49

No, I I know him, I know him personally, so I I know he's probably not gonna do it, but I would really want to see uh Brett Malinowski. He's the uh chief marketing officer of Whop, and they are making the next generation of internet entrepreneurs, and and it's a really, really exciting platform, in my opinion. And they are I think that he can give insights in into how marketing is working in 10 years, and I think that's really really interesting.