How to Monetize on YouTube From Day 1

I've been making thousands of dollars from my YouTube channel since I only had 200 subscribers, and I've helped dozens of other coaches and experts do the same. Like my client Jason, who knew nothing about YouTube or online business, but he landed his first $3,000 client at just 12 videos and 58 subscribers. And at just 19 videos, he had already passed 1,000 subscribers and made over $20,000 from his YouTube channel. Today I'm gonna show you exactly how you can do the same exact thing on your own YouTube channel, even if you're just starting out, and not even monetized yet. So to start, let's address a very common misconception. Most people think that more subscribers equals more money, but if that were true, then you wouldn't see broke YouTubers with 2 million subscribers. And the reason that these people are broke despite having millions of views and subscribers is because they're trying to make money on YouTube with what I call the entertainment funnel. So here's how it works. The goal is to post on YouTube and get as much attention as you possibly can. People do whatever it takes to get as many views as possible because the way that they'll make money is through ad revenue or what Google calls AdSense. Now in order to even qualify for AdSense, you need to have 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time on your videos within a 12-month period. And the way that you get paid is that the more attention and views you have on your video, the more that YouTube shows advertisements to people and if somebody clicks on one of the advertisements on your video, you get a small percentage, and a very small percentage, of that money. Now some people can crush it with ad revenue. I've seen creators making $30,000 to $50,000 or more in ad revenue alone. But the problem is that ad revenue is inconsistent. Sometimes you make a lot, sometimes you make little to nothing, and it's hard to rely on that to live on and actually build a business with. So I consider it as bonus cash. Now, the other way that people make money with the entertainment funnel is that they really try and get the biggest audience possible so that they can create bigger brand deals and sponsorships. Now, I'm not saying that you need to have a giant audience to have sponsorships and brand deals. What they really care about is that you have the right people watching your videos. But if you have a really big audience, then it's a lot easier to get bigger brand deals and sponsorships. The way that this works is that because you have so much attention on your YouTube channel, they can present their products in front of those people. You can do a call-out and say like, hey, use Squarespace because I use Squarespace and I like Squarespace, and you do a 2-minute segment promoting Squarespace. And then the people who sign up for Squarespace through you you end up making money. Now, yes, people make a lot of money with the entertainment funnel, but it comes at a cost. You think about MrBeast and how many views he has. He works so hard to get as many views as he possibly can because MrBeast's sole goal is to make the best video that he possibly can every single week. And he is obsessed about it. And he's obviously become very successful because of that. And most people would see MrBeast and see the numbers that he gets and think, man, I wish I had that much attention. Think about what I could do, how much money I could make, etc. But when you really see behind the curtain on how much work he puts into it, how much money he puts into creating a video, it's kind of crazy. MrBeast has said in interviews how he's actually stressed a lot of the time and he's constantly chasing for bigger numbers and trying to make a bigger video. Part of it is just his personal goal. But on the flip side, people can see that and not really realize how much work it actually takes. So the biggest thing with the entertainment funnel is that, yes, it can work, but it's inconsistent and it's not very sustainable for most people. So here's the easier way to make money on YouTube. I really want you to think about this. What if you could make money on YouTube without ever being YouTube monetized? You see, I used to post every day on social media and I was working hard, 60+ hours a week trying to be omnipresent on every single platform that I possibly could. LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, podcasting. TikTok wasn't a thing at the time, and I was posting onto YouTube, but I spent a solid year just aimlessly posting onto YouTube until I found out how online business actually worked for coaches and experts, people had real expertise. And then I applied that to my YouTube channel. Now, at the time I was a productivity coach, so I was talking about Google Calendar and different tools and strategies to help you be more efficient and save time. And at just 200 subscribers, I finally started making passive income course sales and getting random people booking calls on my calendar from YouTube that turned into $4,000 coaching clients at the time. The way that I was able to do that was by using what I now call the Authority Funnel. So here's how it works. You post on YouTube with the goal of getting discovered and solving a problem for a specific type of person. And then when they watch your video, inside of the video, you promote something that moves them on to your email list or your CRM. And then once they join, you present an offer. And then from there, the offer turns into a client. It could be booking a call, it could be picking up a digital product, signing up for an affiliate program, anything like that. Now, the biggest caveat with making the authority funnel work is in the name. You need to have some sort of authority, meaning that you need to be competent at actually solving a real problem. Because there's two types of viewers that go to YouTube. There are people who go to YouTube to be entertained, but then there's also a lot of people who go to YouTube because they want to learn how to do something. That's why it's called YouTube University. So if you make videos for a specific type of person trying to figure out how to do woodworking, let's say they watch your video, learn how to make something, and then you present some kind of offer that allows them to dive deeper. When they pick that up, they get onto your email list and then you can make another offer that is actually paid. And as more people discover your videos, build a relationship with you, and see you as the credible expert that you actually are, then they want to dive deeper. They're like, I like this person, I want to learn more from them. And then they see that there's a way to work with you in some way, and then they pay, whether through a digital product or booking a phone call with you. This is the funnel that I put into place at just 200 subscribers, and it started bringing in thousands of dollars every single month for me. And I was nowhere near being monetized. I didn't actually get monetized on YouTube until about 3,000 subscribers. So getting to 1,000 subscribers is a whole lot easier than the 4,000 hours of watch time that you also need to accumulate. So it took me a long time to get that 4,000 hours of watch time, and I make around $500 a month from my AdSense, which obviously we're not going to live on. But the other thing about the AdSense is that it fluctuates. Sometimes I make $250 or $300 or $400. But the most I've made was about $500. But I'm not going to live off of that. This is why if you're building a YouTube channel around your expertise, you want to teach people something and turn it into an actual business. You need to have the authority funnel and stop chasing the entertainment funnel. Now, as your audience grows, you can still incorporate pieces from the entertainment funnel if you choose to. You can do a brand deal with someone, you can do sponsorships if you truly believe in the product, and you can start making AdSense. And just have it as extra pocket change like I like. I'll take a $500 paycheck without doing extra work any day. And if you're thinking, James Allen, I don't even know what I would build a YouTube channel around. I don't know what my expertise is, but I'd love to coach people. Then I have a free 5-day training that's going to help you turn your knowledge, skills, and expertise into a profitable online business. This is something I call the Profit Your Knowledge Challenge. Right when you sign up, you're going to get access to day 1, and then every day after that, you will get notified that you have a new training unlocked. Plus you get a workbook that's going to help you implement everything that you learn. Now, by the end of this 5-day challenge, you will have a clear plan on how to get paid for what you already know and are good at. And the crazy part is it's probably something that you don't even think is that valuable. So if you want to start monetizing your expertise and implementing this authority funnel with your own life or your own business, then click the button down in the description or visit ProfitYourKnowledge.com/training. So now that you understand the difference between the entertainment funnel and the authority funnel. Here's the exact plan that I would follow if I wanted to make money on YouTube from day one. The first thing that I would focus on is nailing my niche. This is so important. You want your channel to be geared around solving a specific problem for a specific type of person. So for example, let's say that you are a man over 40 and you're very fit and you stay lean year round and it's just kind of what you do. You have a very simple plan on how you exercise, how you eat, etc. And it keeps you fit. Well, a lot of guys struggle with that. So your channel can be helping men over 40 get lean and stay lean year round. It's a specific problem for a specific type of person. They can raise their hand and say, "I'm a man over 40 and I want to get lean and stay lean year round." So just start by getting aware of your niche and what's working, what kind of patterns are working. If people like walking 10,000 steps a day is really crushing it, maybe you can make some videos about 10,000 steps a day. Especially if you actually do it yourself. The next thing I would do is create what I call a heroes list. Find 5 to 10 other more established creators with a similar audience as you that you can get inspiration from. Now, I'm not saying that you should just copy exactly what they do, but we want to learn from these people because if it's working for them, there's things that we can learn from that and then apply to our own channel. So when you have a list of these creators who have already made hundreds, if not thousands of videos, some of those topics are really working and then you can just bring in your own perspective. And that leads us to the next step, which is to just pick a video. Most people spend so much time ruminating on what's the perfect video, and I speak from experience on that. But what I would recommend is just pick a video that you see is working based on the data that YouTube is giving you. And then when you create this video, add in your own unique stories, insights, and ideas to it. So right now my top video is How to Create an Ebook in 30 Minutes with Canva Step-by-Step Tutorial. And currently Currently it's at 200,000 views. Well, most people don't even realize is that I found this video idea from another creator whom I deeply admire named Uralius. Uralius is one of my hero creators that I get ideas from. One of his most popular videos is How to Create an Ebook in Canva Step-by-Step Tutorial. So I just adjusted the title a little bit and figured, well, I think you could do it in 30 minutes. I didn't even watch Uralius's video. I just found an idea. That was working. It was popular, and I knew that it would serve my audience and that I had my own unique stories, process, frameworks, and ideas to help people do that. So from there, in your videos, promote your offer. This is something that so many people don't even do. Make an offer to the viewer that takes them off of YouTube and onto your email list or into your CRM. Once they join, then you can present your offer. You can follow up with people because you have their contact information. Of course they can unsubscribe. But the people who are really serious about solving this problem are going to be interested in what you have to offer and how you can help them. So ideally, you want to make this offer in the first third of your video because a lot of people will wait till the very end to make an offer, which can be okay because you will have more committed people who actually watch the whole video. But I think that in the first third of your video to make some kind of offer is the best place because they've watched the intro. They got some value from the first point or two that you taught. But it's not too late to where people naturally fall off in video. So you'll get more traffic in the first third of the video than waiting to the end. Now, another quick tip on top of actually mentioning and presenting your offer inside of your videos is to put the offer link at the top of your description and pin it as a comment underneath the video. This way, if people don't even hear your offer inside the video, they can still see it right under your video and when they go down to either leave or check out the comments, they will see it right there at the top. And then lastly, just rinse and repeat. Commit to this process for at least 90 days and keep refining your content. Keep trying to get better ideas, get better at your presentation in your videos, the storytelling and how you're actually presenting the offer and what kind of offers you're making in the videos. Test, test, test. That is a way that you're going to make this work. Now, the big question that you might be thinking is like, okay, James Allen, this makes sense, but what do I even offer in my videos? Well, the truth is you only need 3 offers to make $100,000 or more as an online coach or expert using YouTube or podcasting or anything else that you want to do out there. Watch this video next and I'll show you exactly what those 3 offers are and how you can use them in your business starting today. Hey, this video was helpful. Please give it a like and share it with someone that you think would benefit from it. If you have any questions or comments, leave a comment down below. All of this really helps to grow the channel and I appreciate you for it, and I will get back to you as soon as I possibly can. Other than that, take what you learned here, get out there, make something happen. I'll see you in the next one.