Episode 023 - A Conversation with Brenden Kumarasamy

You remember that first time you had to public speak, whether it was at a live audience or on Facebook Live, or even if you were just recording a video for a piece of content, your very first time? I bet you, you know what, you were really nervous, you thought it sucked, but you had to do it. Well, in this episode of the Content Amplification Podcast, I had a great conversation with Brendan, who is the creator of MasterTalks, a YouTube channel that helps people overcome the challenges of public public speaking. We had a great conversation and I'm really excited to share that conversation with you on today's episode.

Welcome to the Content Amplification Podcast, where you will gain insight into real-life tactical and strategic elements to help you scale and grow your business. Now let's get started with today's episode.

So on today's episode of the Content Amplification Podcast, I am joined with Brendan from MasterTalk. Brendan, thank you for joining me today.

Of course, Shaun. It's a pleasure to be on.

So, Brendon, you know what? It's the end of 2020. We're rolling into a new year. There's a lot of things that business owners kind of have been through in the last year, professionals. I know what you're doing in your business, helping people overcome the fear of public speaking. And here we are in a platform that is us talking and speaking to each other and also to our audience. Tell us a bit more about MasterTalk and what it is that you do, and then we can get into kind of some more finite details about that.

Yeah, absolutely, Shaun. So MasterTalk is a YouTube channel that I started to help people with their communication skills. And how I got started was when I was in university, I used to do these things called case competitions. Think of it like professional sports but for nerds.. So while the guys my age were playing rugby or soccer or footy or something else, I applied that same competitive spirit but to presentations. So I presented a couple hundred times, coached dozens of people, and that's what led to MasterTalk because I realized a lot of the content on YouTube when it pertained to communication wasn't really good. You hear advice like, oh, you should like be yourself or get up on stage. And I said, well, this is not going to work. So I started making couple of videos in my mother's basement, and then the rest was history.

That's awesome, that's awesome. I know a lot of the clients that I work with, uh, you know, have dabbled a bit in, in YouTube, in videos, uh, and also, you know, some of them struggle with, with presenting themselves, um, you know, not only just online, um, but also when they were able to do it in person. You know, both the fear of public speaking— what do you think it is that is really holding people up the most?

Yeah, I would say for me, the biggest thing when it comes to the fear of public speaking is that most people have the wrong perception of the skill in general. And it's not because it's their fault, but rather the system in which they grew up learning the skill. So let's kind of summarize this for the audience. Almost all of the presentations we give in our lives were mandatory at school, at work. We don't wake up one morning and say, hey, Shaun, you want to get breakfast and present all day? Probably one or two people in Canada who says that, probably a handful in the States who would do that. But most people, when they present, it's okay, you know, Shaun, I need you to do a presentation on the Renaissance for your history class. And you're sitting there wondering, why do I have to give this presentation? And it's through these mandatory presentations that we're conditioned to believe that public speaking is a chore. It's like doing the dishes. Or mowing the lawn or doing the laundry. So whenever we think about mastering communication, we see this big uphill battle because our general impression is, oh geez, I don't want to do this. But if we start to reframe that perception from, look at the way that Brendon and Shaun right now are using communication to make their ideas heard, to make a difference in the world. If most people started doing that, Shaun, it would be a lot easier. For people to transition from a fear-mongering tool that public speaking is generally perceived as to something a lot more impactful that can really make a difference, not just in your business, but in your life, because everything you do is communication from the tough conversations you have with your family to the great ones you have with your best friends.

[Speaker:SHAUN WHYNATCHT] Absolutely. And reframing that thought process about what it is, I think is key. Now, Do you think there's a difference between people having a fear of speaking in a recorded fashion versus a live fashion? Do you see much difference in that? I know, and what I mean by that is more so I coach a lot of clients for presenting themselves to create video content, to present themselves in a podcast format, which in most cases isn't live, it's recorded, that can be edited, it can be rerecorded, but they still have a holdup about how to present themselves versus those that are standing up doing a live presentation or going to do a live stream. What do you think the difference between that, or is there a difference between that or the way that you should approach it?

[Speaker:JEFF_LERNER] Yeah, there's definitely a couple there, Shaun. So, I would say let's kind of bucket this into two key areas. So, the first one is you're in person, you're giving a workshop, you're speaking to a crowd. And the other side of the medallion is you're at home, you're doing a livestream, you're recording a show for a podcast, you're presenting yourself on a camera. Those instances are very different because of the energy that you bring to a room. So if you're speaking in front of 1,000 people or even 20 people, you're held accountable to those people. You're in front of them, you see them, you talk to them, you shake their hand. So you're a lot more incentivized to bring out your full energy. You know, it's great to be here, I'm really excited. But the opposite isn't true when you're in a live stream, when you're in a podcast, a video, especially in the context of this very conversation. I don't actually see you and we're not in the same room. I'm forcing myself to bring the same amount of energy as if we had just had lunch and we just met each other for the first time, right? So, so that's what— that's where I see the biggest differences. Is this idea of how do you bring more energy when you're sitting alone in your basement and you're still presenting to those same 100 people? It's just this time you have the added challenge of not being able to see them. So there's a couple of easy ways in how you can fix this. So for camera presentations and podcasting, I actually cheat. And the way that I cheat, especially for camera, is I actually never present camera videos on camera alone. There's always somebody behind the camera who's filming me. So that way I have an audience that I'm presenting to. So that's kind of how I hack that, that part of the equation. But the other part, when it comes to something like a live stream or even a podcast where you don't really see somebody in live streams, what I generally recommend clients do is you want to start to engage with people in the chat. And as they respond to you, it gives you that, that reassurance that they do exist. So for example, whenever I get on a livestream, I would say something like, oh, Shaun just joined and Jen just joined and all these. And then they start saying hi and I say, and I start asking them questions back even if they're not in the same room as me. And that builds momentum over time.

Those are some great tips. What do you find? You know, it makes, how to rephrase this, but When somebody's looking to get started, because we have a lot of people that are listening to our podcast who are just new to the idea of creating their content online. You know, they've been in their business many years, but they haven't been using the technology to get their voice out there or get their knowledge or expertise to the masses, not necessarily just to their clients, but to anyone who may be interested in their topic or area of genius., but the idea of getting started, what would be some tips you would bring from your experience about how somebody could get that momentum moving?

Yeah, of course. What I always recommend is two specific questions that I think will really help people figure out what, what they want to do, or if, if video sharing, video content is something they want to, they want to pursue. The first question is a simple one. How would the world change if you were an exceptional communicator? And the added question to that is, how would the world change if you went on video? So I've been coaching people for probably 5 years, Shaun. I never really wanted to be a YouTuber. My goal was to either start a business or to be a senior executive at a Fortune 500 company. I wasn't really looking to, to make YouTube videos in my basement, yet alone my mother's of all places. So I never had that ambition. I think what really made a dent in my thinking and what encouraged me to pursue it was when a lot of my friends were saying, well, Brendan, do you have time to coach the world? If the world waited in line and paid you $1,000 an hour to coach them, would you have time to get through all of them? And the simple answer is no. I would run out of time on Earth and I'd be gone by the time I got to everyone. So the only way for me to share my knowledge so that people around the world I'll never meet can learn is through YouTube. I don't really have any other choice. And once you realize how important your message is, then that's what pushes you to do it. That's part 1. Part 2 is now that you're starting to do it, how do you stay motivated throughout? The question that's helped me figure that one out is the following: who suffers from your inability to take action every day? Every single day that you make the decision not to start the YouTube channel, not to start the podcast, not to guest on the show, or to do the thing, You need to clearly articulate who is the person who loses that from you, who doesn't benefit because you're not, you're not creating content, who suffers because you're not posting as frequently as you should. And for me, it was very simple. You know, I started Mass Effect at a very young age, but the reason that kept me motivated was for the people who were younger than me. You know, let's say Julia's 16 years old, she's outta high school, she's super talented, but she's deathly afraid of public speaking. So she goes on YouTube and tries to find tips to help herself out. The only thing she finds is a bunch of 60-year-old white men that relate to. So it's either I create the videos because, you know, I'm probably one of the youngest people in the industry right now who's coaching executives. So I have that expertise. So it's either I do it or nobody does it. And so that's what really pushes me every day. And that's why I'm very focused on my content. I probably write my content now 3 years in advance on YouTube. That's how obsessed I am. About serving people like Julia who can't afford me at the end of the day. And I want people to find that for themselves. If you know exactly the person you're helping down to the, to the dreams and the aspiration that person has, then it, it slowly transitions from a passion project to a responsibility and duty that you have for those people to deliver. Absolutely.

So Brendan, let's talk about your, your journey through creating your YouTube channel and how that's evolved. How did you go about that when you first decided decided to take that leap into YouTube as a main medium for, for content? Was there research you did on, on how you should, you know, create your videos, that type of stuff?

Walk us through that. Yeah, for sure. So when I, when I always give advice on YouTube, Shaun, I always keep it very simple because I think for 90% of people listening, the issue is just staying consistent. It's not thumbnail strategy, it's not how to do keywords. All that stuff's important if you want to be in the top 1% of creators or top 10. But I would say for the most part, most people have trouble just staying consistent. So what I did when I started is for the first year of YouTube, I actually wrote it off. So what that meant is I actually didn't edit a single video. I think half of those videos were just with my phone. I just sat on a couch that we didn't even buy, then we found it somewhere in a dumpster and I, I just literally made videos. So one strategy I use is 5-4, so 5-4 being Every week you release one video on YouTube, but since there's 4 weeks in a month, if you create 5 videos, you'll always gain a lead. So that's what I call 5/4. So every month there's 30 days, you do 5 weeks worth of content. You do that every month, and after a year you'll be 3, 4 months ahead of schedule, which is exactly what you want for this type of medium. Cause you'll, you'll miss a week if you, if you're not consistent on YouTube, if you don't batch enough in advance. So that's what I did. I just started making videos every week. I tried staying consistent and after a couple of months of doing it, once again, I probably had like 50 subscribers, but I got really good on camera really quickly. And then after 6 or 7 months, I, I realized that the use case for my content was a lot bigger than I initially thought it was. So I, I took 25% of my corporate salary and I invested into the channel and then I went professional. But I don't recommend that for most people. What, what I generally recommend, my first piece of advice is figure out if YouTube is the right medium for you. That means post every week for 8 weeks, see if you like it, see if you can keep it up. And if you can't and you don't like the process, then try something else. At least you, you're saving yourself time. Like if it's a podcast or a blog, maybe that's better for you. But I realized after, after 3 or 6 months that YouTube was definitely the place where I needed to house my content. So I went all in on it.

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I'm looking at your channel right now. You got just over 5,500 subscribers. You've got some really great topics that are there. I know a lot of the headings are like 3 lessons for this, how to do that. I know that's a lot of the strategy that comes into getting people to click and watch those videos. One of the things that I find that I hear a lot from clients who are starting it is that they expect a lot more results than they get initially. I know that you got to get that momentum going. Did you find that when you first started that the subscribers were, you know, there wasn't a lot and then you hit a certain point where they just started to exponentially grow?

Did you experience that? Oh yeah, absolutely, Shaun. In, in the sense, especially on YouTube, it's a very, it's a slow grind. You know, the first 1,000 is the hardest by far and the next challenge is getting after you hit 10,000, you, you're pretty, you have a pretty solid growth at that point. It is, especially if your content's good. But, but I think the, the general idea that a lot of people miss with content creation is if you want 1,000 followers, you need to be ready to have 1,000 conversations. And I think a lot of people miss that because they go, oh yeah, I'm just gonna create content. But they forget this idea of you're competing against every single person in your niche. Why would they watch your stuff instead of somebody else's if you're not spending enough time promoting your content? Which I think is really where the point of improvement is for most creators out there. They spend too much time creating, not enough time promoting. That's what creates challenge in their content. I mean, my, my content strategy was simple. I got 1,000 subscribers my first 60 days of starting the YouTube channel. Is it because of some algorithm that YouTube helped me with? No, of course not. Why would they push up my videos? I don't bring any value to them until I have— I'm a bigger name on the platform. The way I got to 1,000 subscribers is I messaged 2,000 people. I said, hey, I have this YouTube channel. What do you think of it? Could you please subscribe to the channel? Most people aren't willing to take that extra step to win on the platform. And it's the steps like that that will really bring you ahead of your competition and really help you understand what type of content you should be creating for your niche. And if most people, if you're not willing to have those conversations, it, it's going to be really hard for you to grow. So that would be the advice that, that I have for, for people. And the other part of it is simple. Have a 10-year strategy. If, if you're not like the way I think about it, if, if you don't want to do a podcast for a decade, if you don't want to do a blog for a decade, if you don't want to, do a YouTube channel for a decade, then I, I would suggest not doing it at all because I think that the people who really have that 10-year goal, who have that vision, are the ones who really succeed. And the best example I can give you is Seth Godin, who's literally been writing a blog every single day since 1989. He's literally been writing longer than I've been alive and he still hasn't missed a day to this day, which is very impressive.

Yeah, it all comes down to that consistency. Absolutely. So, so let's, let's just kind of look behind the, the scenes here and kind of give away some of the, the ideas of what type of time commitment it would take to build a, a successful platform like YouTube for a channel. How much time do you spend, let's say, you know, a week to keep your channel going?

Yeah, so I'm very intense, so, so I probably shouldn't tell you exactly how much time all of my activities, or else because it'll discourage a lot of people. But I would say minimum thing, it really depends. So the first thing I would do if you, for creators who are interested in YouTube, is you need to start making a list of all your strengths and weaknesses. Like, what do you want to do on YouTube? What do you not want to do? And are you able to delegate that? So a good example is speaking on camera. Well, you can't delegate that, you're the face of your own company. Or of your organization, your ideas. So you need to be, you need to be willing to do that. But there's some things that you don't need to do. So I'm one of the few creators I think on YouTube who's had, who's had this much success, but who hates editing videos. Like I really don't like it. I've never edited a single video since I started. I, I literally went from not editing at all to hiring somebody else to do it for me. I never wanted to be a part of that artistic process because for me, the art is the content and the learnings that I share. On YouTube, and that's what I really want to focus my time on, cuz I want to be a thought leader, not really a vlogger. So in, in that, because I, because I outsource everything except my content and how I present it, I would say minimum requirement, if you want to do once a week, it's actually not that bad. If you don't edit your own videos, it's probably 2 hours a week, which means you spend an hour, an hour and a half writing your script.. And depending on how good you are on camera, and this will take time, you, you could spend 30 minutes to an hour recording that one video, which is probably a 5, 10-minute video. And then you have somebody else kind of do post-production for you. So, so what I usually do is I batch it every month. So every month it would be 10 hours worth of effort where you're, you're doing 4 or 5 hours to, to write the videos for the month and you're spending the other 4 or 5 hours just recording them with somebody else or yourself. But for those of you who do edit your own videos, I would say the average time it takes my editor to edit any single one is probably 3 or 4 hours. So, so you're really looking at a much bigger time commitment if you edit your own stuff. So that's generally what happens. But of course, like somebody like me, I, I probably spend a lot more than just that, uh, mostly because I guest on a lot of shows to promote the, the YouTube channel and I do other things like coaching or I do free workshops just to, just to get the word out. So, so I spend a lot more time. Than that because my end goal is being a media company. So, so yeah, but I would say for most people it's probably, uh, 2, 3 hours a week. Okay.

Now what about user comments, people engaging with the videos, asking questions? Do you have quite a, quite a bit of those over the, the, the years that are coming in?

Yeah, for sure. I, I think once again, I always like to keep things simple. For me, the strategy has always been respond to every DM you get. Respond to every comment you get. And when people message you on Instagram or on LinkedIn, never respond with a text, always respond with a voice. That's one way I do. And it doesn't take that long. You know, I think that's the thing. It's those little actions that you take that really helps you build an audience over time. That's really powerful. And I think Gary Vaynerchuk is a great example of this that a lot of us tend to forget. I mean, he built his following almost entirely on Twitter. He probably spent 4 or 5 hours a day. And I'm not asking people to do that. Even I don't do that. But he takes it to the extreme where he's always interacting with his fans. And I think that's how he's been able to build such an insane fandom. And in the context of business, he has the highest revenue growth of any marketing agency in the world because of his personal brand. So that's the way I want all of you to start thinking about this is how can you elevate the user experience? So that when people are able to connect to you, they don't want to go anywhere else for the same type of content. So for me, anyone who messages me on Instagram to this day, you know, I still answer with voice DMs, and I still haven't missed a message ever since. So I think that's really the key.

It's one-on-one jobbing. That's awesome. You know, Brendan, you seem to have got it really dialed in. Um, I'm sure there's been, you know, lessons you've learned throughout the years, uh, in, and you're always looking to improve. But, uh, where can people find you online if they want to? Um, obviously YouTube, we talked about that, so they can just YouTube and search for MasterTalks, correct?

Yeah, absolutely, Shaun. I appreciate you saying that. Yeah, the best way to get in touch with me is definitely the YouTube channel. So all you have to do is type MasterTalk in one word and you'll find me right there.

Excellent.

Perfect.

And people can, if they're looking to hire you for coaching, They can reach out to you there as well if they need some help.

Yeah, you got it.

My email, Instagram, everything's there.

Awesome.

Well, Brandon, thank you very much for joining me today and sharing your wealth of wisdom with public speaking and also the story of how you built your YouTube channel.

Of course, Shaun. Thanks for having me. Thanks for listening to the Content Amplification Podcast. If you have questions about how you can amplify your content strategy, go to AmplifyMyContent.com.