Stop Blaming The Algorithm And Start Serving A Real Audience

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We sit down with magician and creator Oscar Owen to unpack what actually drives YouTube growth, from communication and confidence on camera to audience-first strategy. We also get practical about monetization, calls to action, and the weekly commitment that helps new channels push through the hardest early phase. 
• Oscar’s origin story and how a magic tutorial channel reaches 1.6M subscribers 
• Teaching magic ethically by focusing on public domain fundamentals 
• Why YouTube rewards communication skills more than raw expertise 
• Getting comfortable on camera and letting go of fear of judgement 
• Replacing “algorithm” with “audience” to diagnose performance 
• Defining a viewer avatar and writing a clear channel vision 
• Using goals, pain points, and FAQs to choose video topics 
• Treating a channel like a business and choosing a niche with the four Ps 
• Understanding why quality views matter more than total views 
• Converting viewers into leads with clear calls to action 
• Putting the main link in the top line of the description and pinning it 
• The mindset shift of one video per week for 52 weeks 
• Focusing on packaging with ideas, titles, thumbnails, outliers, and CTR benchmarks 
• A quick detour into David Blaine, Derren Brown, and the Oz Pearlman debate 
If you're new here, feel free to hit that subscribe button. 

Transcript

The Algorithm Is The Audience

SPEAKER_01 0:00

If you make one video per week for 52 weeks and you improve one thing at a time, you will be successful on YouTube. I've never seen it not happen. I always tell people replace the word algorithm with the word audience because the work the algorithm just reflects what people want. It's not that the algorithm hated your video, it's that your target audience didn't like your video. They didn't click on it. On YouTube, you are as good as you communicate.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Hey, welcome back to the OnlyPodcast that gives you magical advice for your YouTube channel. I'm Travis, and I'm here today with a very special guest, Oscar Owen, who has Oscar Owen Magic. He has over 1.5 million subscribers with over 370 million views doing magic on YouTube. Welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Well, thank you very much. We actually hit 1.6 million subscribers yesterday. So Hey, that's that's amazing. Congratulations. Big milestone.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

If you're new here, we help you grow your YouTube channel with advice, and sometimes we do it through interviews like this. And if you're listening to the audio-only podcast, there'll be links in the show notes so you can watch the video.

Oscar’s Path From Magic To YouTube

SPEAKER_00 0:52

All right, Oscar, talk to us a little bit about how you got started on YouTube. What were you doing before you very uploaded you uploaded your very first video?

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Yeah, so it all started when I was about 13 years old. Um, my my channel teaches magic, so I'm a magician, part magician, part YouTuber is how I like to describe myself. And you know, when I was about 13 years old, I became obsessed with magic. I started learning every trick under the sun. Uh and then when I was 16, I decided, you know, just to randomly start posting some of the videos on onto YouTube. Now I wasn't trying to become a YouTuber or anything like that. Um, but I I really basically just started uploading content onto YouTube, teaching tricks in the way that I would want to learn them as a sort of as a sort of someone who learns magic himself. And one thing led to another, and the videos started getting views, they started getting subscribers. And you know, fast forward 10 years, uh, I'm 27 now and I'm still uploading magic trick tutorials to YouTube. And yeah, we've got 1.6 million subscribers, uh over 350 million views, and yes, it's been a very incredible magical experience in itself.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Yeah, I mean, almost a decade of uploading on YouTube is something that not a lot of people can say. Um, and a lot of people don't know this, but I actually was a magician too and a hypnotist. Uh I actually had a uh a magic trick that was published by illusionists. So I've done some things in magic. It was, you know, a couple years back. But uh I this is one of the reasons that I reached out. I'm like, I would love to have a magician on the podcast, haven't talked to one um on the podcast, and as something that was definitely a big passion in my life. I I think it's interesting. And I do want to just I want to get to the the big elephant in the room first, though. Um as a magician, as a former magician, I think any magician, I think the concern would be why are you exposing tricks? Because as a magician, that's usually like the the taboo thing. Now we live in a different world now than like five, six years ago when it might have been more taboo. I think things are more open now. But there is like the magician's code, which is like not to tell how the trick is done. Talk to us a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Yeah, of course. So so I actually learned magic from YouTube. So when I wanted to learn magic when I was 13, 14, 15, you know, magic tricks were too expensive to go to a magic shop and buy them. Magic books were really rare, and magic societies were very, very exclusive. You couldn't get into them. So I actually turned to YouTube to start learning magic myself. And that's one of the reasons I actually started posting there, because that's literally where I learned. And when I learned some tricks that I thought were really good, I almost wanted to give other people that gift and give other people that skill. Uh, the one thing to note on my channel, I only teach magic tricks that are in the public domain. Meaning, uh, you know, there's Wikipedia articles on these tricks. Most of the magicians who invented them are long gone because they're a hundred years old. You know, the tricks were made you know hundreds of years ago. New tricks that are marketed and you can buy on illusionists and other places like that. Of course, I don't teach them. But the fundamentals of magic, you know, sleight of hand, how to palm cards, how to uh do double lifts and all these different things, uh, they they're in the public domain. So there's nothing wrong with actually teaching them online.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

What's interesting about uh being a magician is understanding human psychology, which is one of the reasons why I like this so much, because I I really love human psychology, which is why I think I'm so deep into YouTube as well, because YouTube is a lot of human psychology. How much of what you learned in magic can apply to YouTube? And do you have specific examples?

SPEAKER_01 3:59

Yeah, so much. So much. So I always tell people on YouTube, if you could be the best in the world at something. Let's just say there's someone listening to this and they want to create a YouTube channel around whatever passion they have. You could be the best in the world, you could be a 10 out of 10 at that thing. But if your communication skills are a four out of 10, how do you think people perceive you on YouTube? Do they see you as the 10 out of 10 or do they see you as the four out of 10? They see you as the four out of 10 because on YouTube you are as good as you communicate. So for me, communication was something that I learned through doing magic. I've got to stand up in front of people, I've got to misdirect them, I've got to entertain them. And I think YouTube is no different. One of the most important skills on YouTube is communication. And I I really think I first learned those fundamental skills through performing magic to people, and then I just transferred that online to, you know, to my actual YouTube channel.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

I agree with that. If you're watching a video that's confusing, it's very easy for someone to just click away and not watch the rest. Or if you are you have the promise of something in the thumbnail and title and you're like, I'm gonna get this thing out of it, and you're watching it, and even a couple seconds in you're like, this doesn't feel like what I thought it was going to be, um, they might drop out, which of course is not a good signal to YouTube. So, what what's like a trick in communicating your your core idea about a video? Like, what's something that you do that would be really uh easy to understand?

SPEAKER_01 5:18

I mean, man, there's so many things I could say here. I think to camera confidence, because there's there's one side which is like what do you actually say in the video? But I think a bigger fear people have is they are when the camera turns on, they freeze up. This is especially true of new YouTubers. They they want to make a YouTube channel, but one, they're really scared of what other people think about them if people find their channel online. That's something I faced. You know, I've got a magic trick tutorial channel. That was really a fear that I had to overcome. And then the second thing is how to speak on camera and not sound like a robot, how to come across as authentic and natural. And they're kind of two different things. I can tackle them both if you want. Please, I mean, listen, this is a podcast. We want to get into everything. So,

Camera Confidence And Not Caring

SPEAKER_01 6:01

yeah, the first one, which is let's start off with the fear of what other people think about you. So, um, one thing that you might not know is my other business is I teach YouTube. So I teach people how to build and grow and scale their own YouTube channels. And probably the most common question I get asked by new YouTubers is I would love to do YouTube. I'm just really worried about what my friends or family are gonna think if they find out that I've got a YouTube channel. And just to share a little story with you, that was me. So I didn't tell anyone about my YouTube channel until I had 100,000 subscribers. And people don't know this. But like I was so terrified that you know, I'd be at university and someone would be like, oh, that's the guy over there who has a magic trick tutorial channel and take the mick or whatever. I was really, really terrified of that. So if you go on my YouTube channel, I didn't show my face till I think I hit 500,000 subscribers because I was just scared what other people would think about me. And the the day it all broke down was I was in my university room and I was filming a video there and I forgot to lock my door. And then one of my friends bursts into the room and he sees me with this full camera setup, microphone camera, and a card chip table. And he also saw at this point I had 100,000 subscribers. He also saw my 100,000 subscriber plaque that I'd taken out for the video itself. And I'd known this guy for like eight months at this point, and I'd never mentioned YouTube once in my life. Wow. And um, he looked at me, looked at the subscriber plaque, looked back, and then was like, you you never told me you were, you know, you were a YouTuber. And then I took him into the room. I was like, shh, don't tell anyone. So, you know, he goes, Oh, don't worry, I won't tell anyone. Of course, the next day I wake up, go to the uh the dining hall, and everybody knows. But here's the thing, and here's here's the lesson that I learned. I thought people would care. I thought people would be like, oh, that's and judge you or whatever. And the truth is, literally no one cared. No one cared that a YouTube channel, no one cared that I, you know, had followers or whatever. People, I almost wanted them care to care more because I'd had this sort of secret for so long. And there's a fantastic quote by David Foster Wallace, which is you'll stop worrying about what people think about you when you realize how seldom they do. And my sort of interpretation of that is people have their own lives. They've got their own problems, their own struggles, their own this, their own that. And they might think about your YouTube channel for five minutes, but after that, it's just a passing thought and they'll start thinking about what's for dinner or something like that. So, to anyone listening to this who wants to grow on YouTube, I really hope that the idea that no one cares about you nearly as much as you think you do is actually very liberating. Because when you really internalize that and when you really realize that, you realize that it gives you the freedom to actually post what you want. And if the content is terrible, no one sees it, so you don't have to worry. And if the content is amazing, well, that's fantastic because you can make a channel about what you're passionate about. But at the same time, people don't care that you're doing it. Your friends and family don't care. So that's the answer to the first one. I'd love to get your thoughts on that, though.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Yeah, you know what's important about what you just said is that that also carries on to your YouTube videos. People don't care about you when they don't know you. So you've got to make them care within your videos. So what you know, you take away this knowledge of like, okay, well, people don't are not gonna necessarily judge me. Some might actually think it's cool. Actually, a lot of people are gonna think it's cool. But more importantly, just because you put out a video, and it doesn't matter if you spent 20 hours putting this thing together, people won't care until you make them care. How do you do that?

SPEAKER_01 9:26

Well,

Build For The Ideal Viewer

SPEAKER_01 9:27

I always tell people you you don't want to make videos that you want to make. You want to make videos that your audience wants to see. Um, and it's it's a it's a sort of a mindset shift, which is if someone's listening to this, and again, they want to grow on YouTube, they want to, and they're, oh, I'm getting no views, I'm getting no subscribers. The truth is your audience already exists. Your audience is already waiting on YouTube. They're waiting to watch content around a particular thing, which is your niche. And the the gap between where you are now and them, you know, thousands of people watching your content is you need to make videos that deserve 1,000 views, 10,000 views, 100,000 views. And if your videos aren't there, don't blame the algorithm. I always tell people replace the word algorithm with the word audience because the word the algorithm just reflects what people want. All right. So it's not that the algorithm hated your video, it's that your target audience didn't like your video. They didn't click on it. Now there could be a whole variety of reasons for this. The idea wasn't interesting, the thumbnail, the title, the scripting, the pacing, the editing. We could talk about each one of them for a whole podcast in itself. But the point I'm trying to say is that bird's eye picture, which is you've got to understand that you have to make videos for your ideal viewer. And one of the best bits of advice I can give people is if you know people who are your ideal viewer, people who you want to watch your video, maybe you've already got, let's say, community and you're just gonna start YouTube, or maybe one of your friends is the kind of person you would want to watch your content. Show them your video and ask them to be brutally honest and be like, is this the kind of content you want to watch? How can I improve and get direct feedback early on? Because that's actually the fastest way to growing and really understanding who your ideal viewer is. I think the biggest mistake that people make when it comes to doing YouTube is they always worry about the how. How do I do a good thumbnail? How do I do a good title? How do I do a good script? But what they forget about is the who. Who are you actually trying to make videos for? Because you can make the best video in the world. You can make a video that gets a million views, but if it's seen by the wrong audience, then they're never gonna like you, follow you, and subscribe to you. And you're never gonna build like a loyal community of people who want to watch your content. So I always tell people the first thing you've got to do when getting started on YouTube is get crystal clear on your ICP or your ideal customer profile and really understand what their goals are, what their pain points are, what their frequently asked questions are, and go so deep into understanding who they are and what they want, and then actually making content that they want to watch becomes a lot easier. And the fastest way to get feedback on that is just literally find the people in real life, online, whatever it is, and ask them to watch your videos and then just get direct feedback that way.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

You know, one of the things you mentioned there is actually kind of a I would say intermediate to high-level strategy for YouTubers, which is to have your viewer avatar, which a lot of people don't know about. And for those of you that are newer, this is a strategy that's actually kind of important. Can you have a successful channel without it? Sure. You could do it accidentally, but let's talk a little bit about like a viewer avatar and how you come up with one. So, first of all, to define it, your viewer avatar is like your perfect viewer, the person who's gonna love your content and gonna want to come back for more. What you need to know about that person is really important because it helps you create content for them. Um, tell us about the viewer avatar for your channel so people can get an understanding. I mean, that sounds like uh that's an explain an explanation without really diving into it, but tell us about your viewer avatar so people can understand more about the concept. 100%.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

So I call this the $10,000 an hour work. It's the thing that no one does because it might be a little bit boring, but it is so important because once you know who your avatar is, that informs your scripts, that informs your titles, it informs your thumbnails, it informs what you talk about in the videos. Everything comes from this one decision. So what I always tell people is you you want to fill out this statement. I call it your channel vision, and I'll explain what my one is in just a second. But it's I help ideal viewer transition from pain point to a certain goal so they can have a particular outcome. And every single person who wants to grow a YouTube channel needs to be filled that out and be crystal clear on it. So on my magic channel, for example, I help beginner magicians become more confident by learning magic so they can become the life of the party. It can be something along those lines, right? Uh because my channel is so big, I do have a few different avatars, it's sort of gone to the next level. But generally speaking, that's what it is. And when it comes to like really defining who your avatar actually is, I kind of mentioned this earlier, but the first thing you want to know is exactly what their goals are. So, like your viewer avatar, where do they want to get to? Like, what is their dream outcome? And you've got to write all of those things down. And AI is also fantastic at helping you do all this stuff as well. If you just, you know, you can speak it into ChatGPT or something and it can help you refine this a lot better. But the next thing you want to do is also know what their pain points are. And you want to know like what they're struggling with, what they don't like, what they've tried in the past, but it hasn't worked. And one really important principle to understand for YouTube is people will do more to get out of pain than they will do to pursue pleasure. So if you're making a video and you make it around a pain point, that video often attracts people who are in a position where they really want like your help a lot more than making videos around the goals that people have. Now, there's nothing wrong, we obviously make content about both, but it's just something to bear in mind when you're creating content. When you make content around pain points, that content can resonate with your ideal bureau a lot stronger. So they're the first two things I recommend people write down on a sheet of paper. And then the final thing is just what their frequently asked questions are. So what are they typing into the YouTube search bar? What is keeping them up at, you know, nine o'clock at night, ten o'clock at night, going, damn, I wish I could just solve this problem. And once you write all of these different things out, before you ever make a video in the future, read through this sheet. And you know, you also ideally want to know if it applies to your niche, like their age, their demographics, and maybe even their geography as well. It's it's not always important, but it's sometimes just worth understanding who they are that way. And once you've got all of this stuff written out on a very, you know, clean A4 sheet of paper, before you ever make a video, you ask yourself, would my ideal viewer what like this video? And does it speak to them? And if the answer is no, then you've got to change the idea, change the title, change the thumbnail, change the scripts, and go back to square one. And if the answer is yes, you then proceed and actually go make the video.

SPEAKER_00 15:31

Yeah, it's interesting because I think some people will hear this and go, okay, that makes sense if I'm a tutorial channel, but not if I'm like a gaming channel. But that's not true because it actually applies to everything. Uh, can you give an example of like someone who doesn't have someone who's trying to teach a particular type of subject on YouTube, what they would how they would apply the same thing? I mean, it's really the same thing, but I I know I've seen this before in the comments. Like, well, but I'm a gaming channel, or but I'm a drawing channel, or I'm a vlog channel. How does this apply to me? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

So uh let's let's take the example of a vlog channel. It really depends on your goal of the channel. If your goal of the channel is literally just to upload videos for as a hobby, then sure you probably don't need an ideal viewer because it's just a thing you upload videos and nice. But if the end goal, most people I think who do YouTube, they either want to build a personal brand, um, they want to get views and subscribers for status or whatever. And often they also want to at some point monetize it. Now, that doesn't mean selling a course or anything like that, but it might be through Patreon, it might be through uh getting lots of views for AdSense, it might be through sponsorships. And every single person, if you want to make money on YouTube, advertisers don't just give you money. They give you money when they understand, oh, you're reaching this particular person here. You're targeting this person, and we as an advertiser also want to target this person. Let's make a deal. If you want to sell something, you can't just sell something to anyone. You've got to call out your ideal viewers' pain point. So even if you've got a vlog channel, and let's say you're uh you're vlogging about your travels around the world, for example. I've worked with people in this niche. It's like, well, cool. So you might be targeting one person I work with was a solo female traveler. And initially she was just making like, you know, vlogs in Bali and stuff, and it was kind of hard to understand what she was really targeting. It was just like a lifestyle vlog. But as soon as she switched and really started targeting other female travelers or other female people who wanted to travel and go around the world, suddenly her views went up because her videos were more specific, meaning YouTube knew exactly who her target audience was, so it could recommend it to more of those people. But then brands start to reach out because they also want to target, you know, female travelers traveling. Right. So it's one of those things where it's like, it doesn't matter what niche you're in, be it vlog, education, entertainment, whatever it is, if you choose an ideal viewer, if you choose someone you actually want to help, and there's also a fulfillment side, like, oh, I actually help this person, not just I make content. What even is content, right? I make content for this person here. Once you do that, you get more views, you get more subscribers, and you also increase the chances of you monetizing your channel a lot faster as well.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

Yeah, and I I I like that you went over the the monetization part because this is really important. A lot of people who want to become full-time can only do this if they get monetized because you have to obviously replace your normal income. And

Monetization Beyond Views

SPEAKER_00 18:14

not enough creators think about their channel as a business. Can you take us behind the scenes on your channel? Like, how do you treat it as a business? How do you figure out how to monetize? How do you keep things moving in a way that keeps you moving forward?

SPEAKER_01 18:26

That's a really good question. So I would say that I think most people should put on their business hat when it comes to doing YouTube. Again, unless you just want to do this as a hobby and upload videos, that's fine. But I think at their core, most people would like to make money from a YouTube channel. And if that's the case, I think there's no shame in wanting to do that either. I think it's absolutely fine to want to monetize your passion. But what I always tell people, let's just say they're starting out on YouTube and they go, okay, I want to build a channel, but I like can I even monetize this? When it comes to choosing your channel niche, I always tell people to follow the four Ps, which is passion, proficiency, perspective, and profit. So the first thing is whatever channel you make, you make, you've got to be passionate about the topic you're making it about, right? So you don't want to make something and you're just not passionate about it. A lot of people, they try and make money on YouTube, so they'll make a channel about like credit cards or something, but they're not passionate about credit cards or finance, but they've seen money there. The truth is, for me on my magic channel, if I wasn't passionate about magic, I wouldn't have done it for a decade. I wouldn't have made thousands of videos there if I wasn't passionate about it. So the first thing I recommend people do is choose a topic that they're passionate about. The second one is proficiency. So you've actually got to be good at the thing that you teach. Now you don't need to be the best in the world. I am not the best magician in the world. I'm let's say a six out of ten magician. But the wonderful thing is I'm better than everyone who's a one, two, three, or five, and I can provide those people value. That's why I specifically target beginners, and I don't target advanced magicians, probably like yourself, Travis, who might watch my stuff and be like, oh, I learned that stuff years ago. Let me go and let me go and release something on illusionist. So No, I'm I'm I'm rusty. I everything you do is great to me. But the point is, you you want to be you want to be proficient at the thing you do. If you're going to start a drawing channel, don't don't start it unless you're half decent at drawing. You can provide value to others. So that's the second P to tick off. The third P is perspective. And whatever channel you, whatever you create a channel about, you want to have some sort of unique perspective on that topic. So for example, let's say you've been really successful in business, then amazing. Talk about your successes, about how you sold this company. Or if you've had, let's say, failures in business, then maybe that's your unique perspective. But for my magic channel, it doesn't have to be like a money-wise. My magic channel, if you watch my very first videos, my unique perspective was I was very good at videography. I love filming and cinematic content. So I use that as a unique perspective. And all having a unique perspective means is you're just different from other people in your niche talking about the same thing. You don't have to be better, you just have to be different to stand out. So the third P I recommend people do is think about what perspective can I take that is different from all the other people on YouTube talking about this same thing. And then the fourth P is profit. So that's kind of circling back to what you just said, which is you want to make sure that other people in your niche are monetizing it in some way, shape, or form. Because that can then give you a path, be like, oh, okay, people tend to use Patreon, people tend to, in this niche, uh, you know, use sponsorships or they sell things, and you can start thinking about the early days. So, firstly, when it comes to choosing a niche and making sure it's the right niche for you, passion, proficiency, perspective, and profit are the four P's to follow. And that makes sure you're choosing the right thing, you're passionate about it, you're good at it, you've got a unique perspective, but you can also make money. The next part, though, to answer your question more directly about making money on YouTube. One of the biggest myths I think people need to break in their head is that more views equals more money on YouTube. It doesn't. I can tell you that categorically. I've got two YouTube channels. One channel's got 1.6 million subscribers, the other's got 25,000 subscribers, and barely cracks a thousand views per video. And the channel With 1,000 views per video makes and you know, sorry, the channel with 25,000 subscribers and 1,000 views per video makes more money than my channel with 1.6 million subscribers and you know 100,000 views on average per video. And the reason for that is there's just two very different monetization strategies behind both of them. The magic channel, because it's a lot broader niche, there's only so much you can sell magic trick tutorials and stuff for. So, you know, I might make a hundred bucks if I sell a course. But on my YouTube strategy channel, well, to the right person, you can obviously charge a lot more. And with a lot fewer views, you can make a lot more money. So I always tell people that it's not the number of views on YouTube that determines your financial success, it's the quality of your views and how you monetize those viewers on YouTube that's going to determine how much money you make.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

Yeah, that is so true. I I when I was coaching uh YouTubers back in the day, one of the I'll never forget this. There was this content creator in the UK who had a super niche type of channel. It was like, if I remember correctly, it was like real estate taxes or something like that. Something kind of obscure. Something about real estate and something about taxes or something. And I think when he came to me, he was getting he was averaging like two or three hundred views, maybe, maybe even, maybe two hundred views per video. Uh and we only had to work together for about two or three months. And we went from, you know, there's like 150 to 200 views to a little bit over 300 views per video. And I never forget, he reached out to me, he goes, uh, I don't need coaching anymore. I was like, Oh, really? And he goes, Yeah, I my business has exploded. Because the entire time that we worked together, we weren't worried about a big number, we were worried about the right viewers. And immediately, as soon as we started targeting the right viewers, even alone another hundred or so views doubled his income like in that short amount of time that he was like, I literally can't take any more people in because I'd have to hire people. And it's things like that that people don't think about. There's so many content creators out there that are making a decent living with like 5,000 subscribers. It's it's you don't see it a lot, but these are the people that are really being strategic and smart about how they're they're approaching their content creation journey. And

Calls To Action That Convert

SPEAKER_00 24:03

another thing about this is I've talked about this a lot recently. So for people who've listened to the last couple episodes, you might recognize that I love also the idea of first of all, love everything you make. Don't do uh a YouTube channel about content you don't like. It's gonna be miserable. That you might as well just get a job at McDonald's because you're gonna hate it about as much. But you can do something that you like that helps finance the passion project that doesn't get a lot of views. Like the things that you really want to be big for, the thing you really love but just can't get views on, but you just wish you could do it forever. Why don't you finance it with a a different type of uh content that works, that you still like, that's that does better? Like you're saying, like if your 25,000 subscriber channel can make more than your million, why not both? Is my question.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

But that's what I've done. So my magic is my passion, and I probably could monetize it more than I'm doing and sell super expensive stuff, but I don't want to. I just really enjoy making videos about magic, upload them once a month, and it and it's really good fun for me. But then my strategy side of the business, that is really what, you know, that that's the business, and that's what drives sort of my my primary income. But I also think this circles back to what we said at the very beginning, which is why it's so important you understand who you're targeting on YouTube, right? Because you can get, I always tell people that for one lead on YouTube, it varies per niche, but for one lead, you should be looking at around 500 or so views. So if you get a video with 500 views and you've got a business on the back end, you should be getting one person, you know, messaging you, hopping on a link, sending you an email, being like, hey, I'm interested in what you do. And if you're in a position where you're getting, let's say, 20,000 views on a video, but no one is reaching out to you, then you've got one or two, one of two problems. One, your videos are just reaching the wrong people. So they watch the video, they might enjoy it, but they're just not the right people. They're not buyers, they're not the people you really want to be targeting. You're making very generic content that people enjoy, and then they just swipe to next. So that's up, that's the problem one. And if you're facing that problem, then go back to your ICP, your ideal customer profile document, and get super crystal clear on who you're targeting, what their pain points are, what their goals are, and make more specific content around that. And then you'll probably get less views because the videos are more niche, but the video views are more targeted, which allows people to be in a position where they're ready to buy from you more because they're gonna be the people serving the content and YouTube's gonna be serving the content too, sorry. And then that's like sort of the solution to problem one. Problem two, though, and I see this all the time with business owners, is they don't understand how to convert viewers into buyers. And this is probably one of the biggest things that people can learn when it comes to building a YouTube channel that actually makes money. And if I can just summarize it very quickly, the there's a few hacks that I recommend people do to start converting viewers into buyers. Number one is every single video you make should have some sort of call to action. So telling people verbally to take the next logical step. Maybe that's join your newsletter, maybe that is to uh you know, watch your webinar or VSL or go and to your you know, book a call with your team, whatever it is. That's what you need to basically tell people verbally in the actual video itself to do the next step. And there's a Stanford study that came out and it said that when you tell someone to do something twice, they're four times more like to do the thing. So I always recommend people put their first call to action, and a call to action is simply what you say. It's like, you know, it could be, hey, like and subscribe, hey, leave a comment, or hey, you know, uh, click the first thing in the description to check out my offer. Whatever it is, that's what a call to action is. You put your first call to action within one to three minutes in the video so that people early on actually hear it and see it. And then the second call to action goes around 70% of the way through the video. And when you have two call to actions in the vid in your video, it can really increase the number of people who actually take action and do the next logical step, which might be buy your product. The second thing I recommend people do, and this this literally changed my magic business overnight, is when you have a call to action, put it in the top line of the description. So this sounds so, so simple, but I'll let you into like a very interesting stat here, which is on my magic channel, I can test everything out, everything out at scale. Because if I make a video, we get like four or five million views a month. If I take my channel description and if I have a link to my course and I put it at the bottom of the description, so I've got like the description, normal, maybe timestamps, and I put the link to join my program at the bottom, I get 70% less people clicking on that link. 70% less. If I move it to the top of the description, and it's the first thing that people see, I got way, way more people, nearly twice the number of people actually clicking on that link. So another just instant hack for people to take away from this podcast is put your call to action. The next logical step that you want people to take in order to join your business or do whatever it is, put it always at the top of the description and also leave a pinned comment as well. And if you do those things on your future videos, but also your content library of all the videos we've already made, you can literally start getting more sales from your content or conversions from your content overnight.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

Yeah. What do you think when you look at like smaller or up-and-coming YouTubers, what's the thing you see that they constantly get wrong?

The 52-Week Mindset

SPEAKER_00 29:04

Oh, that's the easiest one for me.

SPEAKER_01 29:05

It's mindset. It's mindset. Um I always it was harder for me to go from zero to one thousand subscribers than it was to go from one thousand to ten thousand, ten thousand to a hundred thousand. And the easiest part was a hundred thousand to a million. And the reason for that is once you have a hundred thousand subscribers, you already have momentum. You already know what works, you already know what doesn't work, you already have an audience of people watching you. So you've just got to do more of the same thing. And over time your channel grows and you hit the goal. When you're just starting out on being a YouTuber, you have to learn the craft of doing YouTube. And that's like another full-time job on top of probably your current full-time job, right? You've got to learn how to script, how to film, how to ideate, how to um, you know, how to set up the camera, how to talk to the camera, how to have the confidence to show your face on camera. You've got to learn all of these different things. And the craziest part is you won't get results on YouTube until your videos get past a certain threshold where they deserve those views. So you've got to spend all this time, money, any energy, effort building out this YouTube channel, probably for your first 10, 15 videos, maybe more, to get like five views. So there's this mental battle that goes on upstairs. And the reason most people quit is because they don't get, they can't get over that mental site. So what I always tell people is the secret to doing YouTube, the one solution to doing YouTube, the only guarantee you can ever make is if you make one video per week for 52 weeks and you improve one thing at a time, you will be successful on YouTube. I can't guarantee a number. I can't be like, oh, you get this many subscribers or make this much money or get this many, get this many views. But if you make one video per week for 52 weeks and you commit to doing that and you improve one thing at a time, YouTube will change your life and business in some way, shape, or form. I've never seen it not happen. So the the thing that most new YouTubers don't quite understand is the level of commitment they need to have to doing this thing before they actually get into it.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

What technical thing should a new YouTuber be most concerned with or most prioritized as far as like the content creation portion, whether it be script writing, audio, video, uh topic, like what's the I obviously you have to you know about all these things, but if someone's new and they're like, this is overwhelming, give me one thing to concentrate on that I can work on this week.

Packaging And Idea Research

SPEAKER_00 31:16

What's that thing?

SPEAKER_01 31:17

The idea of your YouTube video is responsible for about 80% of the success of that video. So learning how to come up with really good YouTube video ideas is such a high value skill. So what I recommend people do is if I had to just like get good at one thing, it would be packaging. So it's your idea, title, thumbnail, because your idea sets the video's potential, and then your title and thumbnail just determine how much of that potential you unlock. So if if I if I could sit down, and realistically, for me, when I work with people, realistically, all they pay me to do is sure there's scripting, filming, editing, all those things, you know, there's little tweaks you can make here and there. But the the one skill that separates a beginner channel from a pro channel is how good the ideas, tutors, and thumbnails are. I would say generally, that's like the biggest difference between beginner channels and advanced channels. So how would I go about doing this? Firstly, just to become really good at ideation, use tools like vidIQ's tools, which is you know, you can look up outliers. So an outlier is simply a video on someone else's channel that has performed exceptionally well. So, what I recommend people do, if you're just sitting down and be like, okay, cool, Oscar, how do I come up with a good idea? Um, sit down and you want to, when you come up with video ideas, you want to base them off data. You don't want to sit down and be like, oh, I'll just make a video on this, because you don't know if your target audience wants to watch that thing. It's what we said at the very beginning. You've got to make videos for what your audience wants to watch, not what you necessarily want to make videos on. So, how do you know what your target audience wants to actually watch? Well, you can find videos in your niche or adjacent niches, and if they've performed really well, you know that that is a video topic that your ideal audience actually wants to watch, right? So, tools on like the video IQ tool, you can basically do this, you can go through, find outliers, and um take those ideas of the video as a starting point. And then what you do is you come up with a title and thumbnail based off that idea, uh, that outlier that you can then make a video around. So I always tell people you want to you don't want to copy and paste someone else's video, you want to copy and taste. So you look at their idea, title, and thumbnail, you go, cool, I really like this, but what's my unique perspective on this? How can I take what they've done but make it even better? And um, I mean, I do this all the time. We literally just made a video uh yesterday on my magic channel, and it was like, you know, card through glass, and it's this really cool thumbnail of a card going through a glass. It was like, cool, we're gonna teach the same effect, the same magic trick, but we're gonna have our own unique way of doing it, a different method. And we've got this like a very similar title, because we know that title are ideal viewers like. We've got a similar concept in the thumbnail with a card going through the glass, but we've done it from a different angle. And then I'm teaching the same trick, so it's the same idea, but with a different method. So it's it's the same but different. Does that make sense? You're you're taking what someone else has already done, but improving it. Um, and then yeah, that's basically how I'd come up with uh ideas, titles, and thumbnails. Some quick rules uh with titles. I always recommend people try and keep them 55 characters or less any longer, and you get like a dot, dot, dot, and then the viewer doesn't even know what they're clicking on. Um, with thumbnails, the only goal of a thumbnail is to make someone click, right? So, how do you make someone click? Well, you've got to create curiosity and the cure and build a curiosity gap, which is the difference between what someone currently knows and what they want to know. So when it comes to making a thumbnail, you want generally speaking, these are not hard and fast rules, but you want bold colors, sometimes faces that have emotions in them, not necessarily over the top, but faces, the human eyes drawn to that. And then often some text in there as well that makes someone go, oh, I've got to click on that. And you basically want to create a thumbnail and title that your ideal viewer looks at and they just feel like, I'm gonna lose sleep at night if I don't click on this video. That's the kind of mentality you want when it comes to ideas, titles, thumbnails. So once you do all those three things together, um, that's when you sort of get a video that people actually want to click on. I generally recommend aiming for 5.5% or more click-through rates. Again, it varies per niche. But if it's less than 5.5%, then generally speaking, your idea, title, or thumbnail, something's not quite quite right there. And if it's above it, then generally speaking, it's a good idea, title, thumbnail. That's the benchmark I normally tell people to uh aim for. And uh yeah, that's basically the the one skill that I'd recommend people learn if they're absolute beginners on YouTube.

SPEAKER_00 35:36

I feel like uh we've given so much information in this podcast alone for any content creator that I can be a little bit selfish and just talk a little bit about magic because uh I I always try to make sure that the podcast is good for everybody. I think we've done it. Like all the stuff you've gone over. If you are at this point in the podcast and you don't have a whole bunch of things you need to do this week for your videos, you need to rewind because literally everything that you need to do this week on your videos to make them better has just been talked about. So I'm gonna be selfish for about five minutes. All right, let's

Magic Heroes And Mentalism Ethics

SPEAKER_00 36:06

talk magic. Uh, first of all, are there any magicians out there that you've uh done videos about or on and especially their tricks and stuff that have reached out to you, or have you talked to any like uh famous magicians or anything like that? I'm just kind of curious.

SPEAKER_01 36:16

Not particularly, no. It is funny. The magic world, I'm because I I I appeal to non-magicians because my stuff is all this. So I've had people take my programs. So I've got I run a company called learnmagic.com and it's the biggest magic school in the world. So we've had over 40,000 students go through our programs there. So I've been running this since 2020. We've had people go on to become professional magicians, gone Australia's got talent, America's got talent, and I've had people go through my programs who've become sort of magicians. Um, but generally speaking, no, not not really. I'm not actually in the magic world as much as you might imagine that I would be.

SPEAKER_00 36:53

Who's out there doing stuff that you're like, man, I I enjoy watching this guy or girl?

SPEAKER_01 36:58

I love David Blaine's content. I think that David Blaine is he what I I almost want to say he's not a magician because what he most of what he does is real. And he will do things like put a needle through his arm, he'll regurgitate frogs, and people always say, Oscar, what's the trick? Is he palming? It's like, no, no, no, he's he's he's genuinely doing it. He's doing it.

SPEAKER_00 37:17

He's doing it.

SPEAKER_01 37:19

They released this fascinating documentary on National Geographic recently. Yeah. Have you seen it? Yes, and he does all these all these crazy stunts and he goes around the world. Oh, Matt, I would love to do something like that. I don't know, I don't own the balls of uh David Blaine, so I wouldn't actually do the things he's doing, but you know, he kisses cobras, which is one of the most dangerous stunts in the world, smashes glass bottles against his head. It's just incredible, just incredible.

SPEAKER_00 37:42

David Blaine uh inspired me to get into magic when he first had his television show. I mean, I had already been into magic when I was young, but like to get back into it, it was a cool so when I was growing up, Magic was you went to the magic shop and you had these little like the thumbs and stuff like that, and the in the you know, all the little chinsy stuff. And then when you see David Blaine do stuff on the street, street magic started with David Blaine in so many ways. As far as I mean, it didn't start with him, but it became popularized through him through his original specials. To me, he's a goat. I would love to just talk to him on a podcast just because he's a fascinating person, has had a fascinating life. Uh, I totally agree with you. Um's Pearlman is another guy who's really on the come up. It's funny because I had talked to Oz when he worked at Penguin Magic. Uh, he was, you know, he was kind of, I don't know if he worked there full-time or whatever, but when I was originally selling my uh my original magic trick, I actually talked to him quite a bit, and now he's all over the place. Like he's he's doing things for the president, he's doing things on radio, he's he's predicting things that sound amazing, like he's on a level that is like a new version of uh Chris Angel, David Blaine, like those type of guys that are doing weird, crazy, outlandish stuff. What do you think about Oz?

SPEAKER_01 38:44

I I've seen all the controversy with him as well, which I find very interesting. Yeah, so let's talk about that for people who don't know. So, yeah, basically, there's Oz O'S has got this without sort of giving away too much, yeah. He basically is a mentalist, and mentalism is not magic, it's the idea that someone can read your mind. So I I could I could look at you, Travis, and you think of a word and I can get your word. And what the way in which you normally present it is oh, I you know, raise your chin, your body language, or there's this normally you present it in a way where I'm reading you as a person and I'm not actually reading your mind, I'm reading your subtle cues or signals. Right. And mentalism, mentalists have been doing this for absolutely years. So I do this exactly the same trick. I'll pretend to read someone's mind, and in reality, I know what the card is before. I there's just ways of getting this information. Yes. Uh, and that's that's the magic trick, essentially. Right. Um, the the controversy around him is he he's selling a book right now where he doesn't. I'm trying to think of the best way to explain it. He basically goes on big podcasts and does exactly what I just said, but people believe that he's reading body language and he's able to get someone's word, which is completely fine because magicians have been doing that for years. The problem is he then sells a book and he kind of and it's the book is called Read Your Mind. And people, there's been accusations that people buy the book thinking, oh, if I buy this book, I'm gonna learn how to read someone's body language and know what word they're thinking of. But he doesn't teach that in the book because it's not actually how he does the magic trick, right? So that's like the whole controversy. Is this false advertising or is this uh is this just like great showmanship and great magic? So it's a very interesting debate. Um what is he teaching in the book then? It's oh, it's not magic tricks. It's like uh, it's kind of like uh I'm I haven't read it, but I think it's I think it's like confidence and presenting. I might be completely wrong.

SPEAKER_00 40:37

No, interesting.

SPEAKER_01 40:38

But it's not it's not a magic book because it's sold to the general consumer, but under the guise of like he's it, he's the expert because he can read your body language because you see him do it on a live podcast. Therefore, consumer thinks, oh, he's really good at reading body language, I'll buy a book on how to read people, but he doesn't actually know how to read people because it's all magic tricks. He's got gimmicks and stuff that you don't see that allows him to do the thing. So that's the kind of big problem with it. Um, but yeah, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 41:06

But I also feel like what would he do? I mean, it's making him money and fame and everything. Why would he give that? Like, there's no one else doing it right now, really, on the level he's doing it in at the size that he's doing it. And it's so weird because like I said, I mean I knew this guy when he was doing much smaller stuff. So it's weird to see him in in like these large media uh events doing things, but you can't expect him to give everything away. Like at that point, then he wouldn't be special anymore. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 41:30

Yeah, I completely agree. I and also like he is an insanely good presenter. Like, even when you know how it's done, and you've he does super high risks risk stuff that I would never even dream of doing on live TV in front of you know the president or an NBA team, and even when things have gone wrong, he's so fast to like flip it. And he's a master presenter, he's he's like as good as it gets when it comes to showmanship and presentation, and I think that's probably the best argument on why he can make a book, even if it's not how to read someone, it's like he is very, very quick and very good at presenting himself. You know, if he had a book on that, let's say, and I'm sure that is part of the book, then actually I don't think it matters too much. But I can't read comics, I haven't actually read the book itself. But it's uh it's an interesting debate though.

SPEAKER_00 42:14

Another person that I really am fascinated by and love and would love to talk to is Darren Brown. I think he's in the in the States, no one really knows who he is, but if you know, you know. And the guy is truly special in so many ways. And one of the things I really like about Darren is that even when he messes up, he'll he'll let it he'll let it slide. Like he'll let it go. Like he'll show it in his videos, like television programs. He had the one where he tried, what was it? Um, he tried to go into uh a casino and he was gonna give this guy a big check, and he bet all of his guys' money, and he ended up not winning like on a live. It was hilarious, like it's crazy. And he is a phenomenally interesting person as well. Uh, it's very rare though that you'll see people in this particular industry that will embrace the mistakes or embrace the moments. As a YouTuber, I think it's important, but yeah, as a magician, maybe not.

SPEAKER_01 43:06

Yeah, well, the reason the reason they don't this is full magic chat now, but the re the reason they often do it is it's a principle in magic, which is like if everything, if I do a trick and everything's perfect, you think it's a trick.

unknown 43:17

Right.

SPEAKER_01 43:17

Whereas if you do a trick, so often, for example, they'll do like a prediction of an animal, and uh uh you think of a let's say any animal, and I will guess it's a you know, I'll draw a shape of an animal, and let's just say I guessed it was uh a mouse, but it was actually a rat. And I go, Oh, I was close. You as the spectator go, oh, we got it wrong, but he was quite close. You're pretty close, yeah. What he does. And Darren does this a lot. He does this in all his live stage shows as well, where he gets stuff wrong, gets stuff wrong. But then what he'll do at the very, very end of the show is he will then have like I went to one, it was like that example. He drew a let's say it was a mouse, and the person think of a rat or whatever it was. And then as you leave, he goes, Oh, one more thing. Everybody check the newspaper in this little city you're in uh when you leave. And he printed out advert in the newspaper, and it says, like, this person will think of a mouse and I will draw a rat, like in the printed newspaper. So it's a good part of the trick. And then you sit there and just go, what? And so is there all these different layers and games and stuff to it? Uh but yeah, he's the ultimate showman.

Vibe Check Key Takeaways Closing

SPEAKER_01 44:16

And and I think um I think with YouTube, if we circle back to that, I think one of the hardest, the hardest metric to track on YouTube, and the one thing that like you, there's no stats that can do it, there's no analytic, it's your vibe on camera. How do people perceive you on camera? And this is actually one of the things that not many people talk about, but I think it's one of the factors that make certain people so likable and so successful and other people not. And if you you could have the best script in the world, but if you read that YouTube script in a boring and uninspiring way, you come across as boring and uninspiring on camera, right? So it's that whole showmanship communication thing we talked about at the very beginning. And I mean, one thing I really recommend people think about at some point in their YouTube journey is how do you actually come across? Do you come across as friendly? Do you come across as direct? Do you come across and and is that also what your ideal viewer actually wants to watch as well? So it's another little bit of food for thought for people. But um, thinking about your vibe, I think is a very important aspect of being a YouTuber as well. Do you pass the YouTube vibe check?

SPEAKER_00 45:23

I don't know if I do, I think you do. I think you did an amazing job, Oscar. And if you want to know more about Oscar's channel and you're listening to the audio podcast, there'll be a link in the show notes if you're listening on YouTube course, links in the description. Oscar, thank you so much for joining us and sharing so much value here because I feel like um, unlike a channel where a lot of times where we just talk about uh the person's channel and stuff, which we did at the end, you gave so much value away for any content creator, and there's so many little nuggets. I highly recommend you go down to the timestamps, you find the parts that you connected with and re watch them and make sure you let Oscar know. Thank you, not just for the magic, but for the YouTube advice. If you're new here, feel free to hit that subscribe button. And I have another video that you can watch right here. See y'all in the next one.