Business Q&A + League of Legends Ep. #17 ft. @RishyCupTV

It keeps loading Twitch and then it keeps disconnecting from Twitch and loading Twitch and disconnecting from Twitch. Maybe we should do this on YouTube next time. We'll see. So J-Rise—

well, did you tell us what's in your—

what's in my cup?

Yeah, I know you, you got some vitamin water from Mimi. Nina.

Nini! I love that. I'm gonna have to tell her that one. Nini. I don't know that she's been— I don't know she's been called Nini before. I like it. It's interesting. Okay, are we back? JRise is saying it's back up. You guys seeing it?

We're back.

You're seeing it? Everybody's seeing it? You can hear me? Okay, let me pick my, my Teemo. Teemo mid, as requested by, uh, Rishi Cup. Okay, good, we're good.

Okay, uh, I'm just refreshing to see that you're— because I want to make sure that we're Yeah, I'm ready. It's still kind of frozen.

People are saying there's a lot of lag.

Mm-hmm.

I think it's the stream. I have a lot of lag too. Hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm. Let me maybe close a few windows, see if that makes a difference. I don't know if it's on our end or the Leakside. Close that, close that, close that, close that, close that. All right, let me just pop in here. How is it now, guys? Still lagging. Hmm. Can you hear us okay? Maybe fix now? Let's see. Only audio for me. Only audio. What do you think? Well, we only get to hear Rishi anyway. Maybe we should do an all audio version.

Podcast it up a little bit.

The podcast version, the podcast version. Listen, as long as the audio is going through, we can deliver some wisdom. J-Rise is saying it's working for him on the reload. Yeah, okay, here we go. So this will be a— this is, this is gonna be fun. Teemo mid again. I don't know why I keep getting mid. Mid is the hardest, uh, it's the most— it's the most— not the hardest role, it's the most, uh, popular role, so it's the hardest to get.

Well, that's the one that you played and you did really well this week on mid.

Yes, I did. I got lucky on that one. We did okay. OK, so let's— there's Trainer 6, I can hear. So let's get to the question. What do we got?

OK, first question today comes from Bradley. Bradley started a blog about 2 weeks ago, and his blog has gotten 1,300 page views but no followers. He wants to know, do you have any tips on how to get blog followers? And he says thanks. So you have a blog and getting a lot of traffic to the blog, but not able to convert to actual followers. I think this is a common problem. And I think that the most important thing I would, would say is that the content is king. That whatever people are seeing on your page content-wise isn't enough for them to become followers. I mean, that may not be the only reason, but that should be the main focus, I think, in terms of prioritizing how to start converting. Because at the end of the day, when the content is providing value, people will want to continue to watch and follow. Aside from that, I would say just make sure that it is super easy for people to be converted into followers. I remember Evan Carmichael, your channel, when you shared what a huge difference was made when you changed the annotation on your subscribe button. And it was previously, I think it was a logo before, and then you turned it into just the big bold words, "Click here now," or "Subscribe." I should remember this, but it's like— It was super easy for people to see on that subscribe button that this is where you go to subscribe. So whether it's a pop-up on your blog, or just something that makes it easier people to immediately, you know, keep following.

So the question was they had 1,300 page views but nobody subscribing to the blog?

Yep, no followers.

Got it. Yeah, so— oh, I can't pick, right? I'm playing mid. I'm used to my usual build here that I can't do because I'm playing a different lane. Super interesting. It means people are reading one article, but they don't like it enough to want to continue on, which is kind of harsh, right?

Yeah.

And so I'd be looking at— I would be curious to figure out, are people going beyond one page? On the blog? Like, are they just looking at one page and bouncing? Like, do you have some really good, um, do you have some really good SEO and some really kind of clickbaity titles, things that people would want to click on, but when they actually read, it's not, uh, it's not valuable? Like, they scroll and then, and then they bounce? Uh, I would suspect that people are not visiting multiple pages And so the content has to— the content has to get better. To Rishi's point, I'd be looking at how many people are sharing your content. Like, is it something that is Insta-share, that people, you know, are tweeting it up and emailing their friends? You know, are you getting any comments on the content? Blogs have kind of built-in comment features that make it super easy. Are you getting any of that happening, you know, or not? So I'm in mid here, fighting away. That's it. I just think that, you know, people are not engaging with your content enough and you're doing a good job of attracting people. So maybe you have some good SEO, but you're not keeping people. So it's worth examining not just building great titles and having enough, you know, keywords in there, but actually building something that people want to engage with.

Right?

I mean, think about your own experience. When I visit a blog and I really like one post, right? Like, I go and check out the homepage of the blog. Right? I mean, I don't know what you do, Rishi, but that's what I do. I go and check out the homepage of the blog and say, "Oh, you know, this guy posted about, you know, business, entrepreneurship, whatever. I really like this one post." Maybe he has some other stuff that'd be cool and interesting. I do this on YouTube all the time. There's a channel that I watch one video of and I think, "Wow, that's a really good video. I wonder what else they have." Because there is— with all of the different channels and content opportunities out there, there is still a lack of quality. There's a ton of middle, there's a ton of crap, but there's a lack of quality where you just Like, how many channels do you watch every single video that they put out because it's just so amazing? Probably not that many. And so, when you find something that you really love, you're going to be loyal to it and you want more of it. And so, I think that's a— that's a common challenge that a lot of people go through and a common browsing experience. And so, if you can fix that and, you know, make better stuff, then people people will want to subscribe to you. Like, you can have— you want to know what's up, right? Like, Rishi's point about better calls to action, it definitely helped, but I still had content that people wanted to interact with. And, you know, I was still getting subscribers before it. So don't worry so much about the conversion that you don't do anything, um, you know, on about the content to make it better.

I was just going to say what's fascinating to me as well is that even the content that I want to watch, I can't keep up with. So it's funny because even when the content is amazing and people want to follow every single thing that you do, you know, when you're just inundated with so many things and everybody's got families, busy lives, it's like, who, you know, Even, I don't know, that's my personal experience, that I can't even keep up with all the stuff that I want to keep up with. So when you're competing with other people whose value and content is actually that good, and, and even then, you know, those people, probably every single video or article is not able to be followed, then, you know, It's that much more important that your value and content is amazing because I don't know, I just, I can't even keep up with the people I want to keep up with sometimes.

Yeah, and yes, and people have, you know, people, it's true, people have busy lives and people have a lot on their plate and a lot to think about and it just makes the makes it all the more important that you are putting out amazing stuff, right? Like, I look at— I was having this conversation with Alex from Toronto Dance Salsa a couple of days ago, or maybe about a week ago, where we're looking at a Sunday class, and it was a beautiful sunny day, and not as many people showed up to the Sunday classes as, you know, they should have. A bunch of people were missing because they wanted to be out on the patio and be with their friends and go to barbecues and picnics and all that. You know, all this summer stuff you want to do. Toronto isn't as warm as Nashville, so we enjoy and we got to take advantage of our summer. But also what it means is that our classes weren't good enough. Like, we're competing with summer days, and we have to do a better job of creating not just content, but creating an experience, creating a product that people can't wait to come to regardless of what else is happening in the city, in the world, you know, on that day. And so that's, that's a big challenge, and you just have to get better. That's it.

I think this—

I think this is happening. I think it's my computer. I think something's up with my computer. Maybe needed to reboot it or something, because I'm lagging in the game, but it's not the internet connection. It's just the— the— I think it's related to the computer. Tomorrow I will restart my computer before getting into a game. Anyway, I died, so that's not a good start. That is not a good start. It was close, and then the guy who killed me died shortly after by my teammate, so that's some good teamwork there. But yeah, this is a— it's a fun— it's a fun and challenging start. It's hard when you're kind of lagging to— there's so many microseconds that you have to pay pay attention to. But anyway, we're here, we're having fun. I'm grateful for the opportunity.

Grateful. I'm grateful too. I'm grateful to be here. Um, shout out to, to, uh, Damasta. He's back.

Damasta back in the house. I love it.

I'm not gonna reveal who Damasta is because I don't know if he wants to be revealed, but Damasta is—

oh, you know who Damasta is?

Oh yeah.

Okay. All right.

I don't know why you— You know the master.

I know the master?

You know the master.

I do?

Okay.

All right. I'm curious now. Now you have everybody wondering who the master is. Uh-oh.

Yeah, well, we'll see if he says anything in the chat about wanting to be revealed.

All right.

Okay. Moving on to the next question. Claude Roy, and Claude says, uh, my ultimate passion is for the world to go vegan. And, uh, he wants to be able to have enough money to make a huge impact through education, raising awareness, seeking philanthropy. Um, you know, he just has a real heart for making sure that animals are— saving animals and All of this is going to require money. He actually spoke with a nonprofit organization as to how to best impact in this way. And one of the feedback that he got from this nonprofit was, "Well, really, if you want to make an impact in this way, the best thing is to just make a lot of money and then donate to organizations like, you know, like ours, I guess." And so he's wondering, because money is going to be such a key in all of this, you know, should I go back to my, quote, regular job as a programmer, just make a lot of money and use that to kind of help make the impact he wants to make? Or, you know, he's trying to get ideas of how he can make this happen. Business ideas he's trying to figure out for himself. So, but it sounds like beyond just giving donations, he just really has a passion for wanting to speak about it, educate about it, and impact the world about going vegan. So, but he needs money. So what are your thoughts is his question.

All right.

Well, I, well, I like this. I like the passion. I like that he is definitely, you know, you can tell he knows his why. He's passionate about it, and it isn't about the money for him. It's really about his passion. Um, uh, I think that a great place to start would be honestly on YouTube. Now, hear me now, that's not going to be the way that you're going to make money immediately, but it sounds like you're in this cause for the long haul, and it sounds like you want to be that person who, who teaches people why this is so important. And so that's one way of a lot of ways that you could start getting the message out and building a community and connecting with other like-minded people about why vegan is so important. In fact, I think I know another channel that has kind of a similar message. So it would be just a great way to start. As far as going back to your programming job, I think there are other ways that you can start making money without feeling like you're going to a job that you're not passionate about. I mean, it is an option, but I would say, Look for work that can not only bring in money, but something that you actually enjoy and feel like will serve this purpose. It doesn't mean you have to go work for a vegan or a nonprofit, but find, find a job that somehow will add value to your long-term goals. Yeah, and just talk to as many people as you can about possible opportunities, speaking opportunities, schools, organizations that are also interested, and just start getting yourself in the community so people know what your mission is. And you never know what other opportunities that could bring money could come. So I think that just try to knock on as many doors as you can, and if you're adding value, inevitably I think you'll get the money that you do need to do what it is that you are trying to do.

All right. This is a— this is a— This is a rough game being— I'm 0-2. I've died twice. It's hard when you're lagging. So a couple things. One, I believe every business should have a social cause. Like every— you should be in business not just to have a profit motive, but because you're trying to do good. Like the way you do good is the way you make money is by helping others in some way. And so, why does it have to be a nonprofit? Like, why can't you use what you're good at and what you're interested in to help others and further the mission? Like, if he's a programmer, you know, does he like programming? I don't know. But if he does, how can you use your programming skills to help people become a vegan, right? Or help people, stay vegan, right? Like, can you design a simple program that I can log into, or a website I can go to, to track my stuff, or to keep me motivated, or whatever? Think about the challenges you've gone through in becoming vegan. How can you use your skills to help further that cause, and also, you know, make money in the process? I think it should all be connected, not that, "Hey, you should go start a business, or just stay at your job just to make money." and then funnel that money to somewhere else, and that's the impact you're gonna have? I think you can do a lot better. I think, to the advice of just giving money to a charity, I think if there was a charity that you really loved and really respected and really wanted to be a part of, then you would have already been with them. You wouldn't have wanted to try to do your own thing. Like, the reason why you want to do something is because you're frustrated with the current experience. And so the answer isn't going to be just go out and give money to another charity. That's not going to make you feel complete or whole or part of your mission. So I'd be looking at using your creative talents, whether in programming or otherwise, to give back to the cause and make money in the process. That's what I would do. Like, I like helping entrepreneurs. It's a social cause. I went on a rant kind of about it yesterday.

Yes, you did.

It's a social cause and I make money in the process. The two are not mutually exclusive. And I think that will be your best bet.

Great.

Team is fighting. Team is fighting. Oh, Jryze got the first tower. Good job, J. Whoever gets the first tower gives extra gold for everybody on the team, so it's a big deal. JRise is dominating. What's happening in the Twitch chat? I see people chatting. Is there anything we need to— I'm not really paying attention to it, but is there anything we need to shout out? There's a lot of stuff happening there.

Yeah. Yeah, so I was kind of giggling. We're laughing about, uh, well, Damasta wants to remain mysterious, so we're gonna keep him unwrapped right now.

Is it, is it Alex? Um, is Alex Damasta? Is he trolling? No, he's over here. He's trolling me. All right, somebody's trolling me. Yeah, are you Damasta, Alex? I'm not. Are you sure? Yeah, but I made sure to drop drink my coffee in the other room right now. Oh yes, yes, Nina, Nina went on a rampage yesterday. I'm lagging. You're not on video.

Oh, I'm not? Oh, I was waving at the camera.

Okay, the video is, the video is down. Oh, we're lagging, so we're doing a podcast. Hi Alex! Yeah, I shut down the Believe Nation for a good 15 minutes. Yes.

With a little bit of love.

With some love. Alright, well, we're here. Damasta will remain anonymous. We'll figure out who's trolling me here. Alright, well, let's hit up our next question.

Okay, next question comes from Saint Jinx. Jinx? Saint Jinx. Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Saint Jinx says, I'm trying to improve my presentation skills, and when I recorded myself on camera, it was terrible.

Yeah.

And I need your, your in-depth advice. Please share experience with me. The reason I need to— some of the things that he wants to help improve is body language, fluency in speaking, less repetitious pauses, and just kind of the dos and don'ts of video recording. He was actually asking if you could make a video about it. So anyway, so yeah, let's, let's help Saint Jinx improve his presentation skills.

All right. Oh, I want to give a shout out to to our— yeah, our, uh, our ADC, the Six. Trainer Six, Trainer Six, Trainer Six just got a kill. Our, our extra guest here on the game, he's covering for me, uh, lagging and sucking in mid, so he just got to kill bottom. So good job, Trainer Six. All right, yes, yeah, sucking on camera or sucking in, in your presentations.

Okay, okay, so I'm definitely still learning in this area. I started my YouTube channel a year and a half ago. And so, you know, one of the things that is best is to do it over and over and over again, practice, practice, practice, and watch yourself and try to be really just intentional about correcting the things that you don't like. One of the things that I'm personally working on right now is my delivery, and I've noticed that I just have a little bit slower delivery, and it kind of drives me insane.

What does that mean? You talk slower than you want to?

Oh gosh, yes. It just— yeah, exactly.

Interesting. Most people do the opposite. Most people talk too fast when they're nervous. Trying to figure something out?

Yeah, well, for me it's like a couple of things. It's that I'm a very high contemplator, so I am— it's not natural for me to let anything come out of my mouth without having thought through it. And not just thought through it, but I'm weighing how will what is coming out of my mouth affect every single person who's listening. Because I also have this heart of like, I would never ever want to say something that is hurtful or makes someone feel bad. So because all of this process goes into my thinking before it comes out of my mouth, it causes there to be a longer delivery time. So yeah, and on the top of that, I have like all this experience in education and teaching, and so I'm used to communicating and thinking about how is everybody in the room going to understand what I'm saying, if that makes sense. So blah blah blah, I take a long time, like right now, to explain something. And I see that in my videos, and I I try to correct it. And I— so I pick one thing that I don't like about what I'm doing, and I practice, practice, practice, or I try to find someone who can teach a tip or trick on how to improve on that one particular skill. So I think, I think you're not going to be able to do anything beyond the practice that you put into it. And so You know, it's not a very glamorous answer, but practice, practice, practice, and try to research how to get better at the things that you specifically feel you're not doing well. I mean, there's tons of videos on body posture, body language. All you need is YouTube to probably correct every and every— anything and everything that you're trying to improve.

I love it. I saw in Twitch chat quickly that the master was giving Trainer 6 some love, saying good work, Trainer 6. So this is nice. I'm excited here. We got, we got something going. My team is definitely covering for me on this game.

So, oh, that's so great.

We are— we, we both have that 12 deaths on each side. Is it pretty tight game. I'm hoping I can do something to help my team out on this one. For me, it starts with expecting to suck. Like, expect to suck. You will suck. And I have made videos on this, and if you just want— if you want an example, just watch my first videos. They sucked. You know, the first time you try anything, you're gonna suck. And so to go in and think you're gonna be amazing, uh, it's not just unrealistic but not helpful. Oh, major fight breaking out here, major fight breaking out. What's going on? We're gonna do some damage. We're winning. Hah! I didn't do a lot in that, but we killed 4 of their 5 players. And the 6 got a double kill, so the 6 is doing damage and carrying this game. I love it.

Nice.

So yeah, like the first time you do anything, expect to suck. Anything. Like you're gonna sit down and play League of Legends, you're gonna suck. You're gonna try to Go salsa dancing, you're gonna suck! And to expect that you're gonna be amazing so soon is gonna really hurt your ability to grow, right? To get the results that you're looking for. Whoa, big fight! Another kill by the 6! The 6 is just stepping up. As this game goes on, I'm getting like more and more lag, so this is This is interesting. I'll have to just play super safe. Play super safe. And I feel like that hurts, that holds people back from doing important things in their lives. Like, I want to be a snowboarder, I want to be a public speaker, or whatever it is. And then you try it a couple times and, you know, and it's good practice. Like, it's great that he's, you know, filming himself. That's a great start. And I think the difference is— I forget who said this— there's a difference between your tastes and your skills. So the problem is he knows what good looks like, right? He knows what a good public speaker looks like. You, Rishi, know what a good YouTuber looks like. So you have taste, you know, you have good taste. But you don't have the skills yet to create what you want to create.

Yeah.

And that's frustrating. So if you know what looks good and you can't do it, then you're going to be constantly frustrated. But the— and it happens to me too. Like, I look at Les Brown and I'm like, man, that Les Brown is insane. I want to speak like him. And, you know, I want to keep modeling him and I can't, like, I'm not there. I'm not at that level yet. But to let that now discourage me from even trying isn't the answer. It's to keep on, keep on practicing, keep on hustling, keep on getting better. And I think the thing to compare yourself to is not not the ultimate. So like Rishi, I don't know who you look up to in the YouTube space, like I want to be able to speak like that person because right now I speak too slowly, or you know, our person asking the question, I don't know who you want to be able to speak like on stage. That's not the person to compare yourself to at the moment. That's good inspiration, That's where you can get, that's where you can model, but what you want to compare yourself to is you yesterday. Are you better than you were yesterday? Are you growing? Because if you're growing, those little steps every day quickly do add up. So as long as you're getting better, you keep practicing, that's the path.

Yep, awesome. All right, um, just got Zeno here talking about his, uh, I'm waiting to see if he says he's been on video because I was asking him when is he, uh, has he been on video because you know most of his videos are editing like but he's not in the video so I was just asking him is he ever going to show up in his videos Aha!

And what did he say?

Uh, he says, "I don't plan on being on camera anytime soon." Come on, Zaino!

We want to see you. The world needs to see Zaino.

Alright, next question comes from Star.

Star?

Star, mm-hmm.

Okay.

Star says, "What training did you take, if any, to grow your channel so fast?" I am subscribed to Video Creators. Oh, shout out to Tim Schmoyer.

Nice.

And that's where she basically first saw you and learned about your channel. So she just wants to know if you have any suggestions. What training did you have to grow your channel so fast? I can't answer this, Evan, because my channel ain't growing as fast as yours.

Yeah, but that's not a— again, that's not the comparison. That's not the comparison. Is it— is it— is it like your channel's ahead of other people's who haven't started?

Well, you're right. Like, I, I, I'm not as fast as I want to be, but I can definitely say that some people mentioned that my growth was, uh, maybe a bit faster for a smaller channel. So My feedback, I will say, is to just base it— well, I didn't have training. I can tell you that. But for me in particular, what I found as far as my channel growth was kind of a combination of putting a ton of love into the people who did come to my channel, because I genuinely love engaging in comments. And engaging in community. I love community. That's why I like hanging out with Believe Nation. I love community. I like engaging and talking and chatting. So people came to my channel and immediately knew that I was going to engage with them, and I think that that was part of it. But I also think another part of it was the advice that you gave me right in the beginning, and you said, you need to put more love into your videos. All right.

That's some harsh love there, some truth.

And also, you know, part of what you meant by that was, you know, I went from 1 video a week to 5 videos a week, and although I'm not— right now I'm not still at a 5-day-a-week schedule, I'm getting back to that, but when I was doing 5 videos a week, I mean, I definitely saw fast, fast growth. Because people were just seeing me more. I was in people's faces more, you know, there was— I was just showing up more. So those are two things that I could probably attribute to my faster growth.

Love it. Whoa, we're in a big fight. This is, this is insane. It's insane because you have to, when you're lagging, you have to kind of guess what's going to happen and then play to what's going to happen instead of like what is actually happening. So anyway, continuing on. Oh, big fight, big fight, big fight! I want at least one kill. I'm not getting anything here. Oh, I got a kill! All right, good job!

Nice!

First kill, first kill! Okay, I don't think you need to go to school, you know, in terms of formal training. I've learned a lot from Tim as well. When I was first starting up my channel, I was obsessed with Tim's content. I watched every video, him and Darryl Eves, and any, any, anything new that came out, I was all over. I had to digest immediately. Um, and that, that was good. Uh, I think what really helped me though was one, creating videos that I liked more. And so you need to be emotionally connected to what you're doing. You have to be super proud of the videos you're creating. It has to be something that you would would want to show your grandkids and something that you feel is really missing in your life. When I first started my YouTube channel, it was just for the sake of answering people's questions, kind of like what we're doing right here, you know, it's just answering people's questions. And then I felt like there was this— there was this hole of content around famous entrepreneurs and motivational advice, and I wanted it for myself. And so I started making videos that I would want to watch instead of only making videos that the audience, you know, like some people might care about. Like even this, I'm making this for myself too. Like I like answering the questions, it brings me joy. But I also want to train myself at being able to try to handle multiple things at once. I also want to I also want to give, you know, opportunities to my co-hosts to get some practice and attention and awareness. And I want to be able to answer the questions of people that are coming in. And so I felt like at the start I didn't even know really what I was doing. I didn't have like a grand master plan. And then when I started making videos that I really felt deeply connected to, that's where everything started to really take off. The Six just got 3 more kills, so he's— Six is on fire. The Six is going crazy here. I like it. And then on top of that, it's just making more. Like, making more to one, build momentum, because most of your views will come from— Oh, we're gonna win. We're gonna win! GG! All right, I got carried hard. I got carried hard on that game. I gotta put in the chat, thank you for the carry. It's, it's too bad that the people can't, uh, see the screen and what's going on, but, uh, there was major lag and I got carried hard by my team. Um, so you got to do more because of related videos. Most of your video views will come from views down the side, and so the more videos you have up, the more it helps you build momentum. And so it's really hard if you're making like a video a month. It's really hard to, to, to stand out. Or if you're practicing, you know, once a month, it's really hard to stand out. You got to keep it on every single day. And so Oh, I still got an S. I gotta thank my team. GG team, thanks for the carry. The other thing it does is the quantity leads to quality. Like, it helps you get better, you know. The more videos you do, the better you'll get. The more you practice your speaking, the better you'll get. The more you practice your editing, the better you'll get. And so those two combinations— I learned, yes, from Tim, I learned, yes, from Darryl, I learned, yes, from Les Brown and other people, but really it comes down to making something that I really love doing, that I feel proud of, and then putting in the work to continue improving my skills and at that craft. And if you do that, then you'll see your channel start to take off. Did they say the channel, what it was all about?

No, no information about channel.

Okay, well, that's good. I mean, it applies to every channel, just kind of curious to check it out.

Mm-hmm.

Well, thank you guys for watching. I will