Evan Carmichael warns creators about seven-year MCN contracts that lock you into deals you can't escape. MCNs offer music and brand connections but strip control over your business. He recommends keeping that control yourself unless you need help with partnerships, and only if the contract has clear exit clauses.
What do I think about MCNs? I'm going to answer that question in today's episode of Lunch and Earn. Hey guys, greetings from Hollywood, California. I recently got asked a question from one of my YouTube fans, love you guys, the Yuck Mouth Family, who wanted to know about MCNs. They wrote in to say, here's a topic you should talk about.
I've never heard so much feedback, positive and negative, about this topic. Is it worth having a network for your channel?
So much hate around the topic.
People argue the fact that networks don't do nothing but take your your money.
As for me, I look at it as agents in Hollywood.
They're going to give you as much attention, as much money as you bring in for them. I'm networked by TGN, a gaming community, but thinking of applying for someone else since I have no contract policy. I was approached by Machima, but I know there's a 7-year contract and when you leave, they keep your channel. Give us your thoughts on the good and the bad.
So as a general principle, I'm a big fan of surrounding yourself with people who complement your weaknesses and you having the self-awareness to know what you're good at and what you could need some help with. Applying that to MCNs, I'd be thinking, do you have the business skills to go out and get the partnerships and get the advertising revenue and build up your channel and do the marketing, or do you just want to be a gamer? I'll share my personal opinions, and this is just highly personal, and hopefully that helps you in your decision-making. For me, I'm not with an MCN and I don't see myself going there anytime soon. One of the big reasons is I don't see that as a huge weakness for me. I'm good at the business stuff, right? I like closing brand deals. I'm good at the marketing, the promotion, and that's not kind of being arrogant. That's just understanding what I'm good at and what I'm not good at. And so I don't see them being able to provide a lot of value to me, and so that's why I haven't signed up with anybody. I've been approached by a ton of them, the big ones, the small ones, but I haven't gone with anybody, mostly for that reason. The other thing I'd be thinking about is a lot of these guys have a hard time delivering value to the small players, right? If you have a million subscribers Fybers Plus, then it's easy, right? Then you get the dedicated managers, then the brands are interested in you. Where a lot of the MCNs, they have a hard time delivering value to this little guy, right? They can't assign you a dedicated manager, so they're trying to give you resources en masse, they're trying to give you royalty-free music, they're trying to give you a lot of stuff that's kind of easy to give to anybody. But that's why a lot of people complain about the value, because they're not getting personal attention. And it makes sense because the MCNs aren't making enough off of you yet to be able to give you that more personalized attention. So that's why you see a lot of the haters around the MCNs. One last thing that I would add to this is I see a lot of change that's gonna happen in the industry. One of the reasons why, you know, I'm hesitant to buy a Tesla car is because I feel that the technology is gonna be changing so much. You never want to go out and buy the newest computer because you're paying a premium price for it and the technology changes so quickly. Where I feel like the YouTube Space and the MCNs, they're so new that a lot is gonna change in the next couple years, in the next 12 months, next 24 months, and if you're there signing signing up with the wrong MCN and they're, they're locking you in for 7 years and they're not the ones that keep up with the trends and you're going to be left behind and you have no control over it. I hate losing control over decisions that impact my business, especially once if you're trying to go all in on YouTube and make it a full-time income. So I mean, those are my reasons. I am not— again, I don't see myself signing up at any point with an MCN, but who knows, things may change, agreements may change, the marketplace may change. To give you feedback and advice in most practical way possible, I would summarize by saying if you feel like the business side is not something you're good at, not something that you want to be good at and learn, and you want to focus on your niche, gaming or otherwise, then it might be worth looking at an MCN. I would look at a company where you still have some kind of control, where you have some kind of outclauses, where you're not tied in for years and years and years and years. Because if you blow up and make it big and you want to make this your full-time income, I would hate to have given up control to somebody else. My throat is very dry. I've talked a lot. It is It's insanely hot today in Hollywood, so I'm going to end it there. Thank you guys for watching. I'm curious to know your experiences using MCNs. Are you with one? Do you like it or not? Pros and cons, leave in the comments below and I'm going to join the discussion. Thank you guys. Continue to believe and I'll see you soon.
