TubeTalk: Your YouTube How-To Guide

A TV Journalist Explains How He Rebuilt His Audience On YouTube

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We talk with Jeff Ross about going from decades in network television to building a YouTube channel from zero and learning how brutal the early grind can feel. We break down the practical shifts that helped him turn solid reporting into clickable videos with stronger hooks, clearer packaging, and a tighter niche. 
• leaving a built-in TV audience and starting over on YouTube 
• why platform-to-platform audience transfer is so hard 
• early fear after uploading and seeing tiny view counts 
• learning the difference between subscribers and views 
• deciding to invest in VidIQ coaching to speed up learning 
• switching coaches and finding the right fit 
• fixing titles and thumbnails to improve clicks 
• shortening hooks to raise 30-second audience retention 
• using curiosity gap and “insider knowledge” to drive shares 
• picking lanes like Costco and retail rather than being a generalist 
• replacing “algorithm” with “audience” to stay grounded 
• staying consistent through videos that bomb and videos that spike 



The Reality Of Wanting To Quit

SPEAKER_04

You will want to quit 3,000 times. Can I tell you how many times I wanted to quit? It is dark, it is lonely, and it is embarrassing. And I'm just telling you, all of that is totally normal. I'll get 500,000 views on a video and then 10,000. And you're right. Right.

SPEAKER_01

It's like hey, welcome back to the only podcast that isn't afraid to have multiple people on the podcast at one time. I'm never afraid of these things. My name is Travis. I'm here always helping you grow your YouTube channel, as we do every single week. And today, I decided to pack this thing up and uh give you the information that you all need, but in a really interesting way, we're gonna talk story time with Jeff Ross and Ross and Reports is here. Jeff, how are you doing? What's going on, man? Good to be here. And for those of you who've been here before, you might have seen Coach David. He's here. He's part of this story as well. Back uh to talk to us. Hey, David. Hello, everybody. We have a story with these two, but before we get into that, if you're new here, we're here to help you grow a YouTube channel in multiple ways. Sometimes we'll answer your questions. Other times we talk to creators and to kind of see their story. And sometimes some of the things they've gone through might help you where you are. So if you're new here, feel free to sit back, relax if you like. You can hit that like button. I'm sure you'll like this one. Subscribe if you haven't. And if you're listening to the audio podcast, we'll have some show notes and you can follow everything there. Jeff, thank you so much for joining us today. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Um, not really about your channel yet. We're gonna get into that, but like who you are as a person and kind of why you started, what were you doing before YouTube?

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, absolutely. So I I've spent about 30 years. My God, I'm so old. I've spent about 30 years in broadcast network television. So I worked for local TV stations across the country as a TV journalist, um, focusing on crime mostly and breaking news and big stories. Then I worked for ABC News for a little bit, and then I worked for NBC News for well over a decade, where I was a fixture on the Today Show and NBC Nightly News and even Dateline. Um, so I was doing that for a while. I was covering the big stories, and then I noticed when I was at the Today Show that our consumer reporting was really lacking. I was looking around. There was a lot of boring people being like, here is the latest vacuum cleaner. And I was like, oh God, like this needs a refresh. This needs like who's exposing scams, who's being aggressive and edgy and trying to catch bad guys and save people money, you know, not just giving the best deals, which is important, but also we I find that a lot of people care more about not getting ripped off than they even do about getting great deals, right? So I was like, who's out there doing that? And no one really was at this time. You know, and YouTube was just kind of coming up. And but I was on, I was in the network TV world, and I went to my bosses and they're like, yeah, sounds fine, but like we need you doing the other stuff. So I started working seven days a week. I just started working on my off days on the consumer stuff. And eventually I got some pieces on the air on the Today show and they rated really well. People really liked them. And then I started doing more of them and more of them and more of them. And um, I was never home. My wife had never been happier in her life. I think it was the happy, I think it was the happiest time if you look back. Um, and for her. And so started doing this. It was started doing really well. And my boss eventually was like, okay, let's do more and more and more of this. And we did. And Ross and Reports was born. And, you know, I've been doing it for, you know, 13 years now, 14 years of consumer reporting. And it's been absolutely awesome. So I did that, left NBC in 2019, went to Hearst Television, where I was syndicated nationally on local TV stations across the country. And then one year ago, almost exactly a year ago, in January, early February 2025, I decided to go independent. My contract was up, and I was like, you know what? The future is digital. I'm gonna have to learn this stuff. And I didn't know much about digital. I'm gonna be honest. Like, so when you when you hear my story and you're watching this and you haven't uploaded a single thing on YouTube, that was me one year ago. I didn't know anything. Wow. Nothing about not only YouTube, but about digital. I was just a TV guy. You know, we had a built-in audience. I never built one myself just on my name. So um I decided to go independent and take the leap, and it's been a wild year.

SPEAKER_01

So, okay, you you go from uh so uh you bring up a good point about that. When you're on television and stuff, the audience is there and you kind of go into it. You like inherent the audience. And of course, if you're good at it, some of them can come with you. But for the most part, they're there for the thing. They're there for NBC, they're for the channel, they're for the show, whatever. And if you come or go, um, some people might try to follow you, but a lot of them stay where they were. So when you first started YouTube, uh tell us about like, if you remember the first video too, like what that process was like, because now you're your own director, producer, writer, actor, everything, you're everything for that. Uh, what was that process like? It was I you know what?

SPEAKER_04

It's so funny. I was, I think I was I was so excited that I was naive to how hard it would be. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I literally spent so much time literally watching YouTube videos about YouTube. Sure, yeah. Including this podcast, including, you know, VidIQ content about like, okay, like what I didn't even know what a frickin' thumbnail was. No drill. Okay. You know, like I I had written, I had gotten pretty good at writing titles because if you watch news, you know, like on the bottom, it has like the words, you know, we call them topic bars or banners. I got really good at writing those, which are pretty similar to YouTube titles. But um, my first video, I was like, I'm gonna continue doing the kind of video that I did on TV. So I did have experience in making content, so that was good. But it I uploaded it and I'm like, everyone's gonna watch because on NBC everyone loved me, so why wouldn't they watch me here? And then you upload it and it's like five views, and you're like, what?

SPEAKER_02

What?

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, and it was so I'm like, oh, did I make like the big like were you scared? Out of my mind, scared, terrified, terrified, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and then like I'll I'll never forget celebrating like, oh my god, that video got a hundred views. Oh my god, I'm up to 250 views. Oh my god, like I didn't realize that YouTube will it can do really badly the first few days, and then day five, I had a video go like this. And it it was a terrifying process, yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So if you're at home scared right now, I was too. Yeah, yeah. And that's that's absolutely it. And I think more so for you, because you left something that you very you knew um still in the same kind of genre. So it's different for someone who maybe has a full-time job at something corporate, and then they're doing YouTube as a passion, and then they they step off of that into this. You have a built-in expertise here, so you probably just expected success right off the bat. What did you think going into YouTube it was going to be like?

SPEAKER_04

I thought that more of my TV following would follow me. And one thing I've learned, one thing I've learned over the course of the past year, I've learned a lot. Um, but one of the things I've learned is getting people to move from platform to platform is even very hard. Forget about TV. Like TV is really hard because that's something like they have to actually go online. Yeah. I think it's even hard. And I've been able to really build up my Instagram as well and my TikTok. I have like 420,000 on Instagram now and four almost 400,000 on TikTok. But getting people even to go from Instagram to YouTube or YouTube to Instagram, people it's very hard.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. It's very hard. It's and we talk about that a lot here, actually, um, mainly because when you pick as a person, when you pick a platform, you're picking it to be there, not to be drawn away from it. If I go to Instagram, I want to be on Instagram, I don't want to be on Facebook or YouTube. I'll go to YouTube when I want that thing. So it is a lot harder. Some people might think, oh, well, if you have a big following here, then you automatically win here. And that's just not the case. I mean, you literally had a real big following across all of your over decade worth of experience. And then you had to pretty much start over from here. So, what was that first month like? Was it was that also part of the like, were you getting a couple videos that took off a little bit, or was it just like, oh my gosh, this is just all terrible?

SPEAKER_04

My early videos, um, I remember my first, I forget which one it was, but my my first ones were like doing okay. I was friends with an influencer who I'm like, can you pump this one up? And like that one day it went up and then it flatlined again. And I was just like, Well, I can't ask her for help every time. Right, right. You know, hit that well, that's done. Yeah, um, so it was a matter of like really fine-tuning. I became an expert at the analytics. And I really became an expert at even taking videos that were doing badly and retitling them and A-B testing and changing out thumbnails. And I just started doing that, and I'll never forget one of my videos that was sort of dead ended up after I made a bunch of changes. Like I was doing changes and it wasn't making any difference. And then one of them went up. And I remember like, just when you're about to give up, yeah, is when you have a breakthrough.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

You know, if you stick around long enough. I think Winston Churchill, there was a great line. I'm gonna butcher it. But it was along the lines of success is defined by bouncing from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. And I think that's probably the best advice on YouTube.

SPEAKER_01

Totally. Absolutely. You know, 80% of your views are gonna come from 20% of your videos, which means you're gonna put out a whole bunch of videos, either gonna be average or stinkers, which kind of sucks. Yes. Were you under the impression that and I love to ask people who this, but you're still kind of new, so it's a year, so you're probably still remember this. When you came into YouTube, did you think that if you had 10,000 subscribers, you were gonna get close to 10,000 views in every video?

SPEAKER_04

Was that a perception that you had, or did you kind of absolutely I didn't understand the difference between subscribers and views, and you're not actually paid on subscribers, you're paid on views. And YouTube is actually really kind of deprioritizing subscribers because and it actually makes sense when I've read about it why that is. It's because like one week, like think about it, forget consumer for a minute. Like, let's talk about like the automotive, right? Let's talk about cars. Yeah, yeah. If you're buying a car, you may watch a bunch of car videos and be like, oh my God, this is really cool content. Let me subscribe because I want to watch this more. I want to get it served to me as I'm buying my car. Then you buy your car two months later and you never watch a car video again. Right. And you it's a subscriber. That car comp that car content has a subscriber, but not a viewer. Yes. So I I've kind of realized that like people also really like subscribe a lot from my shorts and then don't necessarily watch my long form. They're just shorts viewers.

Why He Invested In Coaching

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're doing this for a while. Uh at what point do you decide to come to VidIQ and check out coaching? And what was your mindset then? What was happening on your channel to make you even look into that?

SPEAKER_04

I was I had some success. I think I forget, I forget how many, I forget how many subscribers I had, maybe a hundred something thousand? A hundred and something thousand. Okay. We should ask, we can ask David my coach. Yeah, yeah. Um, he may remember. But David, how many did I have?

SPEAKER_00

When you came into coaching, you mean? Yeah. Yeah. You didn't have more than like uh uh maybe 3,000 subscribers, man. Wow.

SPEAKER_04

Okay, well give myself. Yeah, you can do the difference. Yeah. Yeah. So um there you have it. So I was having some I consider that a level of success. I was like, okay, you know, at least a few. I mean, like to me, every viewer that watches, I'm like, hallelujah. Like, I got a human being to watch my content that they took time out of their day to watch my content. I'm really grateful for every view. So for me, when I was when I was at 3,000 subscribers, I was like, okay, like some people find this interesting, good, right? And I remember getting in touch with David, well, give it IQ first, because I was like, okay, I've I I've hit the maximum of where I think I can bring myself through self-learning. Yes. Right. Um, and I was like, unlike somebody, and you may be watching at home, being like, I have a full-time job, this is a side hustle, this was like my main income that I needed. You know what I mean? Like this was it. So I was like, I'm gonna have to invest in, and to me, it was a pretty low investment considering the the out the return that I could get. Sorry. Um and I reached out, I'm like, it's time to optimize, it's time to like find out really how to really better title things, thumbnails, how to read the analytics. I again brought myself to a probably a dangerous level of understanding in that I thought I was an expert, but I wasn't. And so that's why I reached out to VidIQ.

Packaging Fixes That Changed Everything

SPEAKER_01

So tell me about the first interaction, and then we'll have David's side of it. Let's talk for about your side. So you you sign up, uh, you get it, you get a you get a coach. Um, what was your first couple of interactions like and what were your what was your thought process behind that? And what did you experience?

SPEAKER_04

To be honest, the first coach that I got, I didn't j I didn't vibe very nice. I just didn't vibe with them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was actually about to cancel the program. Um, and then when I did that, I didn't realize you can choose at any time to change coaches. I didn't realize that. Yeah. Yeah. And so I literally just hit switch coach and they gave me David. And David and I hit it off like that. And we hit he immediately scheduled an introductory phone call. And he was, you know, writing down and taking stock of where I was. He had done his homework on my channel. He had sort of audited it. And that made me feel safe. You know, it made me feel like, okay, like they're it's gonna be customized. It's not like a factory. And David and I just hit it off, and we just got right to work on. I think David, we were like talking a lot about titles and thumbnails. It was about, it was all about the packaging because I I think David's opinion was like the content's pretty solid. We have ways of changing hooks, and we'll get we can get into that, but like how to change the top of it, how to change the, you know, the storytelling arc, but mostly we were focused on the packaging, which is where I thought I needed the most help.

SPEAKER_01

So, David, when you got assigned uh Jeff's channel, what were what was going through your mind and what did you see that was like, oh, I think I I think I know what's going on here.

Hooks And Retention In 30 Seconds

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so Jeff is just like any other guy that comes into a program, uh, except Jeff was a little more hype and excited and like I'm joking. He was a little frustrated because obviously, you know, uh we have different coaches and there's nothing against anybody. Everybody's got gotta find their own fit, right? It's like finding your best friend that's gonna understand where you're at and kind of help you kind of move forward, right? And when Jeff came in, he was a little frustrated with you know how things were. There was some miscommunications, and I was like, okay, let's let's just hop on a call, let's talk about this. And I was really able to hear him out, like where what was he really focusing on? What was his what was his struggle, the core deep struggle, right? And everybody comes in with certain expectations, you know, and and I think um I think obviously he had an expectation that he would be understood. Like, here is what I've been trying to do this, and it hasn't been working. You know, so I think I understood where he was coming from. Honestly, when I took a look at his channel, I was a little bit on a side of like, he's doing fairly good. Um, what is it really that we can and then I started taking deeper dive into the content, watching some of the video and stuff like that. And that was those the first thing that I highlighted on the call. I think if you remember, Jeff, uh, when we had a call, I was like, you know what, like packaging, I think it needs some work. Like I like this one, but you need to really kind of tighten things when it comes to intrigue and curiosity, make it less busy. And also one of the big things that I that I noticed was your hooks were just way too long. And it's like, how about this for the next few videos? I'd love you. Let's let's tighten the hook, send it to me, I'll read them through, I'll give you the what I think. And I think that was the moment that you know things started trending up. I mean, they were trending up slowly but surely, but then it was like when we tightened the hook up, you got some good content already prep, you know, he already had things prepared to film. It was like, okay, let's work on that. And and we worked on that together for the next month. And I think it was like a few months in the program that things just started turning for better, you know, when you started getting more into some of the topics, you know, like uh Costco, dollar. I think dollar video was the first one that that exploded. Dollar Tree video. And then it's just one thing after another. But yeah, it was it was uh it was a common struggle, just being stuck, you know, feeling that feeling of being stuck. Most people on YouTube give up at that point. I would say 90% of people that come into YouTube, they think it's gonna be easy and they feel stuck, you know, there's a certain amount of subscribers or views, and they just quit, right? And I think I told this to Jeff as well. It's all about consistency and patience, doing things right, not just throwing stuff at the wall, saying what's sticks, but actually, okay, let's look at the analytics. Why do people drop off? Let's figure it out, let's go deep down into the persona who we're trying to make videos for. And I think all those things, when you put them all together and you work at them, you can't really work at them all at once, but you know, little by little, you just change and iterate as you go forward, and uh you will see the success. So, yeah, that's that's where that's what was my perspective in the beginning when Jeff came in. And I remember that first month. It was literally like back and forth, nonstop. Throughout the day, I think Jeff and I went like 10, 20 times back and forth, back and forth, you know, and that's the beautiful thing about coaching. I tell people like, I'm available. You know, we just go back and forth, we chat. Uh uh, we were just texting. He's like, he likes texting, I text, you know, back and forth. And then if we needed to help on a call, we would do that. But yeah, it was very, it's like I understood, I knew where he was, I knew where he wanted to be. And it's like there was a gap. And it's like, okay, how do we get there? Let's let's start doing these things, right? And uh, because we know from our perspective, we've seen that success happen over and over and over again, right? And I think even the niche that he was in, it was all about saving money. And for those of you that go to check out his channel, like we live in that type, that type, that time that people want to save money and they want to look for a deal and they want to get they don't want to get scammed because everybody's sick and tired of getting scammed and you know, and getting ripped off. And when he started tapping even into that more over the over the months and and titling and packaging things that way, you know, don't get ripped off and you know, save money like that was just like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

You know, it's interesting. Um, because A, I mean, one of the things I've been I when I used to do coaching all the time, I would tell people if you can uh save people time or make them money, they'll watch your content like every single time. Like those are the two things that always work and always will for the till the end of time. But we talked about hooks here. So for anyone who doesn't know, hook is a thing when at the beginning of a video that makes you want to stay and watch more. It's this really important couple of seconds at the beginning that's like, okay, why am I watching this? Okay, I'm gonna watch more. And I call it buying time. Um, the way I talk about it is someone has clicked your clicked your video, right? They've seen your thumbnail and title, they've clicked in. They've they've invested a little bit of time into you, but they're looking for a reason to leave. And that hook keeps them. And for every couple of seconds that you do something that makes them stay, you're buying more time from them. So the longer you go, the more time you've bought. Um, and at some point you can get a little, you can kind of you know let off the hook a little bit and kind of be more loose. But at the beginning, you're like, you're trying to buy that time from them. So, Jeff, what were your hooks like then versus when you worked with David? Like, what was the difference that you guys kind of came up with?

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, I was coming from a TV mentality, which was, hey, they're already here. Right. You know what I mean? And now my job is to kind of retain them. So the hooks were long. I mean, like they were, you know, maybe a minute, minute and a half, where of like, hey, here's just kind of easing into it and all that. And David's like, no, no, no, no, no. We need like 15, 20 seconds of make the promise and then be into content at 30 seconds. You know what I mean? Because that big 30-second marker is big for YouTube, right? How many people are still watching after 30 seconds, and YouTube is going to make some decisions about how fast they push you out. So David was just like tighten it up, get right to the point with the main thesis, make the promise of what they're about to get if they stick around longer, and then get to it.

SPEAKER_01

And then did you see any kind of bumps in your analytics from like a retention standpoint? Uh, how long people were watching or the retention at the beginning of your videos? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04

I think I was like only like half the people were watching after 30 seconds when I came, maybe a little less. And David and I got it up to like, you know, I think my average now is like 70%. You know what I mean? That's 68, 70%. So, you know, and I want to go even higher. I'm I'm always kind of trying to figure this out. But um it definitely helped. It definitely helped. I mean, the thing about YouTube that I'm finding is a couple of things. One, it's very mysterious. Like, I don't think even the people at YouTube understand YouTube fully, right? Like I it's it's just a really hard thing. Like, and then just when you think you have it figured out, you're like, oh, that format's working. It's like, oh crap, like no one watched that one. Why? Right, right. Why? I did the same thing. I titled this so but then the other piece of it is there are certain unalienable truths, which is about like the packaging, the titling, and the hook, which do carry over. And like for me and my audience, what I have found is when I say things like, do this, you know, these deals are fake, you know, really call to action sort of things, and really letting people know very clearly specifics, it does well for me and my audience.

SPEAKER_01

Do you remember one of the first videos that you guys worked together on that actually like kind of went went really well? Do you remember what that video was, either one of you?

SPEAKER_00

Probably a dollar a Dollar Tree video. I think the Dollar Tree video was the first one that really went up. Uh, but before that, he did like the speaker video. That was One of the first ones we've worked on together. And it didn't get traction actually the first time. Yeah, I remember you really frustrated with the Bluetooth one because it was like it was a great video, but it just didn't get any traction in the beginning. It was like a few weeks until it actually started picking up and growing. And that's one of the things a lot of people understand about YouTube. They think, oh, I'm going to post a video and I'm going to get all the views. And if I don't, it's over. It's done, right? YouTube works different. I mean, people don't get it. Like sometimes you post a video and may even take a month for it to actually pick up, you know, because YouTube is trying to find the right audience. You know, obviously you can change things as you go and, you know, titles and thumbnails. That's a question that I have a lot of people ask me. It's like, can I resurrect my old video, you know, with just changing the packaging? Of course you can. I've seen it happen multiple times over. People don't understand that. YouTube will try to serve it to an audience again if you do, if there's interest in clicking, right? So YouTube is gonna do whatever they can do to get people to watch and stay on YouTube, right? And if you do that well with packaging, of course.

SPEAKER_04

One thing I've learned is um I was always like blaming the algorithm in the beginning. I'm like, the damn algorithm. But I was reading a book, I was watching a bunch of videos that were like replace the word algorithm for audience. If if if you can't say the algorithm doesn't like it, the audience doesn't like your video or the packaging. Because YouTube is just trying to serve people what they want. And if your stuff is what they want, they will serve it because it's a better business for them.

Picking Lanes Like Costco Content

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yeah, it's it is very difficult because I feel like um for from the creator standpoint, creator side, like you've spent all this time and effort making this video, you put it out and you hope for the best. And sometimes you expect the best. I'm especially when you're like, this is a banger, this one's gonna crush it. And then it doesn't, it feels like an offense. It almost feels like personal someone's holding you back specifically. We hear the whole, oh, I'm I'm uh, you know, I'm shadow banned and all, you know, you hear that a lot, right? So I and I get it, like sometimes there are little glitches in YouTube that keep things from working correctly, but a lot of times and most of the time, it's exactly what you just said. Um, but it is interesting because I feel like, and you guys talked about this, that sometimes your content is good. Like people would watch it, and you're thinking to yourself, this is a good video. And you're actually right, but you're not getting people in the door in the first place. What were some of the little tips and tricks you learned from David that was the difference between people not clicking and watching and then them actually clicking and watching?

SPEAKER_04

Um, one thing David taught me that's different about YouTube, again than television, because that's my classic training. In television, we're all about variety, right? Like we're we're about, like if I had gone to my bosses and said, Hey, I'm gonna do a Costco video every day, they'd be like, What? Like, what are you talking about? Um, whereas on YouTube, you are being served up. You're basically in competition with other people who are doing videos just like yours. So, for example, even to this day, uh when I was on TV, I am a trap, I am a travel like savings expert. I am like I know a lot about it. I I can save you money right now on your next trip. But I haven't done a million videos about it on YouTube. So when I've done some random travel videos here and there, they have not done that well. And the reason for that, I've discovered with the help through David is well, that's because when you do a travel video, it's like, okay, well, we YouTube is like, okay, we have your travel video. And then we have channels that are dedicated and do travel videos every single day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which one should we serve to the person who's interested in travel? Probably the people who do travel every day. That's a good point. And so one thing I learned is find lanes and dive into those lanes. And it's worked like for Costco, for uh, the reason I bring up Costco is because I've done a bunch of Costco videos. And when I do Costco videos, knock on wood, of course, like I shouldn't even say this out loud, but like they do pretty well because YouTube has been like, you've done a bunch of successful Costco videos. So when somebody's searching for Costco and we want to serve somebody a Costco video, we're probably gonna choose one of you.

SPEAKER_01

What was about it that you think connected with people? What was about that video that you think really people loved?

SPEAKER_04

On the Costco?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Um, I have a kind of a different way of doing things. I'm very like, you know, you can probably tell even from this podcast, like I'm pretty animated. Uh, you put me into the store, I'm walking around the store, I'm showing different things. I'm very excited about this stuff, as you can also tell. And I'm I'm really into it. I think people can probably feel that energy. It's me being authentic, me. And I think they can feel that energy of I'm like really excited when I'm in Costco, like showing you how to decode price tags, like how to read the price tag. Like that excites me. I don't have much of a life side note. Um, so you know, I think that was infectious. I also think, but more importantly than that, because we've all done videos that were like really good, I've done videos that I still do videos that bomb. Yeah, of course. Um and I think the consistency, I think not giving up. I think when I was like, okay, I believe in this, I believe in this category, and I do believe in it. And even though I'm not getting a lot of views, I'm just gonna keep trying it and trying it and trying it, adjust the hook, adjust the packaging, adjust the hook, adjust the packaging. But I believed in the actual content, so I just kept doing it. And eventually you have a breakthrough, which helps fuel the next breakthrough. And then you get another breakthrough, and then you got two breakthroughs. So it's that kind of thing, it was that kind of thing for me with the help of David.

SPEAKER_00

So David, um, if you for that video, just to add for that video, why I think from my perspective as a coach and looking at it from my perspective, um, I think uh Jeff is really good with like giving the secrets revealed and insider knowledge that people are really intrigued about, you know. And I feel like that video, one of the one from Costco that really broke out was he was giving what everybody, everybody, you know, some you in a room with people, everybody's thinking about this, but nobody's talking about like who's making Kirkland, right? That's the brand, Costco brand, right? Yeah, all the Costco people family, like we are big, we're big Costco guys. I mean, North America, Costco is a big, you know, big thing, right? We we replaced most of our most popular products with Kirkland because they're genuinely really good, like good quality, they taste good. But my wife and I, even until we saw your video, Jeff, we were still asking questions, like, who makes this stuff? Like, this is great stuff, right? And then he went into the insider knowledge, you know, Kirkland coffee. Well, guess what? Starbucks is making it, right? And that in itself, like that insider knowledge, that whole secret revealed, I think that's what really hit it off with a lot of people. And that's why even to this day I tell Jeff, yeah, you might have a Costco video that might not do as well. But listen, you are the expert now. You are the you're the authority because you have basically revealed the biggest secret that Costco, uh, that Costco has not shared with the audience who makes Kirkland, right? It's the actual brand that they serve their stuff besides. And and hey, listen, I'm gonna keep on buying Kirkland because I want to save money. Because and it's guess what? It's the same company making it, right? So that's what I think really did well with that one. And as you as you went forward uh doing more of like insider knowledge stuff, I think that really is for people as humans, we're all curious. We want to know everything, right? Like, how can I save money? What can I know that nobody else knows? And that just gets the like I'll tell you about that because my my father-in-law, Jeff, and Jeff is all the way down in you know South America, and I'm I'm in North, not South America, but like you were down, like completely two different objects of the world. My father-in-law sent me that video, like the Jeff did. He's like, Did you see this? Actually, who's making you know Kirkland? I was like, dude, I come from people want to share information with other people when they when they reveal something new, right? It's like the word of mouth. That's the best marketing in life, right? And when people re find something out that's sort of like that's why all the sharing is important, like people like sharing information. When you when you when you when I genuinely know something and I and I find out first, like I'm gonna tell my wife, I'm gonna tell my kids, I'm gonna tell everybody because I feel like this is important for them to know, right? I'm gonna tell my in-laws, I'm gonna let everybody know. So that's what I think Jeff does so well, not only with Costco, but other stores as well. He's doing, he's going into the insider knowledge, the secrets, how to save more money, how to, you know, if you see this, you know, you look at on the back of the sticker and you see this, this is what he means. These are the these are the things that we'll care people really care about.

SPEAKER_04

By the way, just to jump in there on what David said, one thing David taught me that was really important um is what he just mentioned, which is how important shares are, right? The stuff being shared for the algorithm, but also it helps you making content because now he's like, think of content that you would want to hit share on. Like, what are you, what what what do you do in your real life when you hit share and you're like, I gotta share this with my wife? I we share videos in my family group chat all the time. And instead of thinking of like the content like this is really good content, is it shareable? Right. Is this something that if you watched it, you'd be like, oh my God, I gotta share this? Right. And that has helped kind of in my head in the kind of ideation phase and the planning phase of videos, is this shareable?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yeah. And the the breakdown, the human part of that is people share things with other people because they want other people to feel the way they did when they first experienced it. So for example, if I watched a really funny video and I'm like, oh, I have to see, I have to see what my friend thinks about this, maybe he'll laugh too. Or if I see something inspirational, I want to see how they feel and compare it to the way I felt. That's why I share it in the first place. So what you're saying is absolutely true and absolutely critical to understand that if you want to have like viral stuff, which is difficult, let's be clear. Just because you figure this out doesn't mean it's gonna go viral. But this is one of the reasons that things get shared. It's that when you see or experience something, you want other people that you care about to see or experience it as well. And sometimes you're just curious to see if they're gonna say that, you know, experience it the same way you do. So yeah, absolutely critical. Um, and I think that things like this are some of the most shareable stuff. I've seen many videos about things like um, well, I think we've all seen videos about like McDonald's hamburgers not actually aging, you leave them out forever, or you've seen like the the I guess the Walmart um ice cream sandwiches don't melt, which is a mind-bending, which is crazy, right? But of course we've seen it. Like me saying that, and you guys have seen it, just goes to show that this is exactly what we're talking about. Yeah, what a cool niche to be in. Like to be able to do that. That's such a niche.

SPEAKER_04

I love I love going from like I used to cover stories kind of reactively. Now I like being proactive.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Like helping people on the front end. To be now you are at the front end. Now people go to you for that information. So then you become the niche, which is such a hard thing to do. Being in the niche and kind of sharing things is one thing, but being the niche allows you to have a little bit more uh uh room to do whatever you want to do, you know, in a way, within reason, right? Like you can't just go, oh, I'm gonna start sewing tomorrow, and then that's interesting. But but I mean you still have a little bit more freedom. Like you can talk about Costco, like even on your channel, like not everything is Costco. Like some people are like, Well, I'm in Costco. Well, no, you're doing Nordstrom Rack, you're doing uh you're doing uh Walmart, you're doing a little bit of everything, right? Uh Ross. So it's not like you're just doing Costco. You they all are under the same umbrella. So it's not just like super niche, it's like, oh, it's all the same.

SPEAKER_04

And by the way, one thing, I have like, you know, almost 350,000 subscribers now on YouTube, and I will tell you, even I am still learning stuff. So like I've done, I did a video, I think it was like Walmart versus Aldi, comparing prices on the groceries at Walmart versus Aldi, and it did really, really well. And I've done some other comparisons, like, you know, Costco versus Sam's uh grocery prices, Sam's versus BJ's, all that. Then I just did uh like two weeks ago, I did Whole Foods versus the grocery store, bummed. Yeah. Why? Why, yeah. That's something right, that's something I'm looking into. I'm I'm like, maybe Whole Foods, maybe for the Ross and Reports audience who are trying to save a dollar, Whole Foods is seen as too expensive and Whole Foods, so they don't give a crap. Right. You know, so these and that and that those failures are what I use to help decide so I don't have another failure like that. And then I'll make another mistake and I'll learn from that one.

Consistency Through Bombs And Breakthroughs

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And I feel like um to your point, it's actually good because we call Whole Foods whole paycheck out here in Seattle. So does everybody. They are at least. So essentially, um, something like a maybe a grocery outlet versus a regular grocery like a safe way might have been a better, uh, better pitcher. Or, or even like you could do things like the the non-brand uh you know, applesauce versus the the high-end applesauce. That you see a lot of those things. So you you get it. I mean, it's it's that same thing. I think that's a great analysis, a great analytical look at why that video maybe didn't do as well. And it absolutely makes sense. Now, having said that, that doesn't mean that video won't blow up in like five months. Right totally still can. And it still might. That's the thing about it. It still might.

SPEAKER_04

And I will say for the people watching right now who are just about to start a channel, I just want to tell you right now, just getting back to what we said in the beginning, just to jump in. Yeah, you will want to quit 3,000 times. I I cannot tell you how many times I wanted to quit. Yeah. And my wife being like, don't, don't, stick with it, stick with it, stick. It is dark, it is lonely, and it is embarrassing. It can be, yes. You know, like you're embarrassed. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm just telling you, all of that is totally normal. And I'm still like my numbers are different now. So, like, what embarrasses me now is different than what embarrassed me six months ago. Same. Yeah. But I have videos, I'll get 500,000 views on a video and then 10,000. And you're right.

SPEAKER_01

And it's like, what? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I just want to let anybody out there, it's just keep going. It just don't stop. That's who wins. David.

SPEAKER_01

What do you think the difference is between the Jeff that walked into coaching and the Jeff that's here now? What's the major change you think you've seen from him?

SPEAKER_04

Well, like I I have David in my head every single time I title title something, right? I think one of the other big and David mentioned it on this podcast, one of the huge things that he drew drove into my head was curiosity gap. And I think that I was giving a lot of stuff away because in TV, that's what we did, right? Um and on YouTube, it's more like they have to click. And they curiosity is the number one emotional driver that will get people to do that. Like, wait, what? Something that challenges a core belief, right? And that's one of the things I was trying to do in the Whole Foods video because Whole Foods was actually cheaper than my local grocery store. So, like, that was what I was really trying to get across, but I think the Whole Foods thing just blew it out of the water. But, you know, like that helped me title it. Like, what's the curiosity gap here? Like, people believe Whole Foods are expensive. How do we, without giving the whole thing away, tell people, wait a second, you're about to be surprised by this? So um, curiosity gap is a I I think that's maybe one of the biggest takeaways that I took from it, which is huge, by the way.

SPEAKER_01

David, what's the difference for you? What have you experienced?

Advice For TV People Going Digital

SPEAKER_00

For me, you know, Jeff coming in, obviously, being very frustrated, being stuck, being uh wanted to quit. I think a few times we had a few conversations where he was like, you know, uh at the edge of like, you know what, I don't want to do this anymore. I remember even at one time he sent me a channel of a guy who was also TV Network. He started a YouTube channel. And if you remember Jeff, I don't know who I don't know who the guy was. We were like, why is he doing so much better after a month of YouTube? And look at me here starting. Yeah, yeah, true crime guy. And I was just, you know, trying to speak sensing to Jeff and say, you know, you it's not the same. Don't like, don't compare yourself to anybody else. You are yourself, you gotta be yourself. So, in all this to say, like from Jeff coming in, being frustrated, comparing himself to everybody else that's doing good, not doing good, you know, why to now I see Jeff that's hopeful, Jeff that's like he understands that this, yes, it is a grind, and he understands that some videos are gonna bomb, that's normal. Don't don't beat yourself up over it. It's fine. Just keep keep looking at what works, capitalize on what works, and just keep moving forward. You will make it. Consistency and patience, those are two biggest things we teach teach all of our um creators that come in. You gotta be consistent, you gotta be patient. You know, I know you want to see a million views in uh within the first month or two or three months. Uh I we we're we're we're being very real with everybody. It may not happen the first three months. But listen, you keep going, you keep just keep going forward, you will see the success. And I just seeing Jeff right now where he's at, and he's having now the whole team of people helping him, you know. I love, I love, this is great. This is what it's about, you know. This is a test proof proving testament that that, yeah, you can come from a different industry, you can come from a different platform, think that things are gonna work the same way, but if you do the things, the right things, the right way, and you keep doing them, eventually there's gonna be a breakthrough, right? Uh, we all know and we all heard Mr. Beast, you're not gonna have attraction until you post 100 videos or whoever else, all these big guys, you gotta be just posting. You just gotta keep keep adding at it. A lot of people don't even get past 30 videos or 50, you know, they just give up too easily, right? And but having someone encourage you, like Jeff, you had your wife, you had me just pushing you, saying, okay, that's fine. Let's, I know, I know it's disappointing, I understand, but let's let's try it again. And let's try it again. Not a single athlete, not a single YouTuber, not a single person has ever made it in life without having someone in a corner supporting them and encouraging them to keep going.

SPEAKER_01

Jeff, uh, a couple more questions before we finish this up. And this one is gonna be super niche. It's not probably not even gonna be interesting to everyone, but I had to ask. Like, if if one of your friends from television was like, I'm gonna get into YouTube, I can't wait to crush it. What is your advice? What are the first couple things you're gonna tell them? I assume it's gonna be mostly mindset, but what are what are you gonna tell that person? Great question. Uh, and that does happen a lot.

SPEAKER_04

I mean, with the collapse of the TV industry where people are looking like, what's what what does my next 15 years look like, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um and my advice to them is pretty simple. One, you have to be all in on it. This is not a hobby. This is not something like you really, if you want to make it into a business, you know, it you really have to be all in. But I also say this I say, I think in my experience, YouTube works well when you have a point of view and a niche. Um, being up there and just being general that one day you're doing this, one day you're doing that. YouTube just doesn't know who to serve that to. So I just feel like if you're a generalist, it's hard. Figure out what you love and go deep. So think of like ice fishing. Instead of like cutting a big hole and looking for fish, cut a small one but go all the way down. And and to me, that is my advice when like I'm in, you know, a lot of my friends in TV or in news, and I'm like, figure out what section of your job that you love. Do you love covering covering politics? Do you love covering crime? Do you love covering entertainment? Do you love covering consumer? Pick one lane. Even within my consumer lane, you heard my story about the travel stuff. Even that, it's hard to like what you know, like my real big thing right now is retail. So I say don't be a generalist, pick a lane, pick a niche, and be an expert at it. I add value.

The Aviation Channel Thought Experiment

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So my final question, I get I pretty much ask every creator here, and uh some have an easier time with it than others, uh, is a challenge for you. You're gonna do this uh stream of consciousness as uh you answer it. Today, let's say that you have to start a new channel. It has nothing to do with the content you're already doing. You don't have access to the things that you currently have access to. So, like if you have better cameras and stuff now, you're starting with your phone, uh, but you do know what you know. So, in other words, you have your knowledge, but you don't have anything else. What's the channel gonna be about? And what are your first three videos? So it's something you can be passionate about. I mean, obviously you don't want to do something like, oh, I'm just doing this because I know it's gonna work, but something you also like.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. For me, I would make a channel about um, I would make a channel. I'm obsessed with aviation. I'm a I'm an instrument-rated pilot on the side for funsies. And um I think I would make a channel for people just like me who are like have full-time jobs but also love aviation. And my everything I've learned is I I've like gotten to bigger and bigger planes and uh and take people with me with like I sit there and I watch when I when I'm a YouTube, when I'm on YouTube, I sit and I what I'm getting served, what YouTube knows about me, is that I love aviation videos. I love these vlogs of these pilots who are just up in their small planes. They set up their GoPros and I watch them talk into air traffic control. I learn things, they tell me what their check, what they do for their checklist. So that's what I would do. My first three uploads would be about starting. Hey, so you want to be a pilot. You know, that would maybe that would be my first title. So you want to be a pilot.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

You know, and that's what I that that would be a channel that I would really, really like.

SPEAKER_01

So here's the thing. Uh, when when the Ross and Empire uh expands and it's time to make a second channel, I actually would recommend you do that for two reasons. Number one, you can go back to a more relaxed um uh kind of way because those videos are long. There's so many aviation videos. I happen to know about this niche because I've had other people uh ask me about it. I've had to research it. There are videos, there are live streams where you can just watch the taxiing of commercial airplanes that are thousands of people are watching. I'm sure you're right, right. You've and there's ones where people just rate the uh you know the experience flying, like the entire like there's all types, of course, flight simulator things. Hundreds of thousands of people watching these videos, and they're long, and the best part CPM RPMs are. Yeah. They're very high. So wouldn't be a bad second channel for a big in the future. Yeah. Could be.

SPEAKER_04

That's one thing I also struggle with, by the way. It's one thing I struggle with is I do a lot of live shows now. Um, is how relaxed to be versus like how not relaxed. You know what I mean? Like how professional to be versus how relaxed. Yeah. It's something I still struggle with.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Well, I think it's different for different platforms or for different uh formats. So live, you're supposed to be more relaxed because those are the hardcores. Those aren't your, you know, 90% of the people that watch your channel, or I should say probably closer to 70, are people who are new to your channel, right? That's that's for everyone. Um, so you kind of have to be not necessarily brand safe, but whatever your brand is. Live stream are just the people who like you. So they want to know more about you. They want to connect with you personally, they want to know the inside jokes, they want to have the cool things they can leave in the comments so they know that you watch the live, they I watch the live stream. Remember me, Jeff? Uh, I said this thing, you said this thing. Like they want that connection. So you should be more laid back, you should be kind of the more real Jeff. And um I think for creators, that's important. Now, if your primary thing is live streaming, and that's what you are anyway, uh that you know, pretty easy, right? But if you have a primary primary um edited content, the people the reason people are joining in live is because they want to see the opposite of that. They're like, I kind of already like this guy. I want to see more about this.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, I want to look deep behind the scenes, what's it really like? Yeah. So anyway, all that, uh, you see, I'm going to coaching right here.

Coaching Offer And Closing

SPEAKER_01

Right here. Look at it. I'm still in coaching. Absolutely. So people who listen got a little bit of coaching too. Everyone should be in coaching, always. Everyone should be in coaching. If you are interested in coaching now, you can actually, there's a link in the show notes and on uh the description here on YouTube. Uh, we do have a special deal going over there, so you should check it out. Great thing. Obviously, Jeff, uh, we greatly appreciate you coming through and telling us about your journey. And of course, uh, Coach David, uh, you guys seem like your friends now, which is great. And you can get your own friend if you come over to VidI.

SPEAKER_04

He's also my therapy, the cheapest therapist I've ever had.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that's another thing. Yeah, yeah. That's uh Dynakis. Funny you say that, because when I used to do coaching, that was 90% of my calls. So totally, of course. Totally a thing. Uh anyway, if you want to check uh uh check out Jeff's uh channel, uh, we'll have everything in uh the show notes and in the links in the description. So for all that, David for the Rossom reports, let's get it. And for VidIQ, we'll see y'all in the next one.