How I Made $290,000 Making 1 Video a Month (Full Breakdown)

Last year, I made the most money I've made in my entire life. And I did it while only publishing 10 videos. And I

know those numbers don't seem to make any sense because when I was starting out on YouTube, I thought the only way to make a living was by posting at least one video a week, if not more. But last

year forced me to rethink basically everything I thought I knew about YouTube monetization. So, in this video,

YouTube monetization. So, in this video, I'm going to break down the seven income streams that brought in over $290,000 last year, what they were, what it took to build them up, what they cost to

maintain, and everything you need to know before starting them yourself.

We're going to cover all the nitty-gritty details that most people leave out of videos like these. And

while not every income stream will apply to every creator, my hope is that by being transparent with you and sharing everything that I can, I can give you a better sense of what's possible and what some potential options are as you build

out a YouTube business of your own.

Let's get into it. First up, we have YouTube AdSense. And when most people

YouTube AdSense. And when most people think about making money on YouTube, this is the first thing that comes to mind. If you're not familiar, AdSense is

mind. If you're not familiar, AdSense is the money you can earn from the ads that YouTube runs on your videos. Once you're

monetized, YouTube will actually give you around 55% of the revenue those ads generate. But in order for that to

generate. But in order for that to happen, you need to be accepted into the YouTube partner program, which for long form content means hitting 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours. Now,

exactly how much money you make from AdSense is dependent on two main factors. Your views in this metric

factors. Your views in this metric called RPM, which stands for revenue per mill or revenue per thousand views. So,

if you make a video that got 1,000 views and your RPM was $5, you would make $5 in AdSense from that video. Pretty

straightforward, right? The tricky part, though, was that RPM varies a lot.

Anywhere from under a dollar to over $20 per thousand views. This variation

mostly comes down to how valuable an impression is to advertisers. But while

your overall RPM range will typically be determined by your channel's audience and niche, there are some things that you can do to help maximize your RPMs. regardless of what you make videos

about. For one, you could upload longer

about. For one, you could upload longer videos. Videos over 8 minutes long

videos. Videos over 8 minutes long unlock the ability to have midroll ads, or ads that run while your video is playing. The longer your video is, the

playing. The longer your video is, the more ads can run and the higher your RPM can be. Additionally, some creators I

can be. Additionally, some creators I know increase their upload frequency in the last quarter of the year, specifically in December. This is

because RPMs tend to be higher during that time of year when advertisers are trying to spend the rest of their annual ad budgets. Something I started doing

ad budgets. Something I started doing last year to increase my own RPMs is to manually increase ad slots. In YouTube

Studio, I'll add manual ad slots every 2 to 3 minutes at natural break points as I'm transitioning between sections or after I finished a thought. I just make sure to avoid putting any ad slots

directly before or after any sponsored integrations in my videos. Because if a viewer sits through an entire sponsored section only to then be hit with an ad from YouTube, it can frustrate them and cause them to click away, which can hurt

my video's overall retention. Manually

placing an ad slot doesn't guarantee that YouTube will place an ad there.

YouTube actually has their own algorithm for determining whether or not to run an ad. But the increased ad slots gives

ad. But the increased ad slots gives YouTube more opportunities to serve ads.

And many creators, myself included, have seen an increase in the RPMs after adding in more ad slots. If you are trying to maximize your RPM, the one thing that I would really avoid doing is

dramatically changing the type of content you make for the sole purpose of chasing a higher RPM. YouTube is hard enough to post consistently on when you're making videos you like. And if

you start boxing yourself into a certain type of content you don't particularly care for, you'll find yourself on a fast track to burnout. Besides, unless you're consistently bringing in an absolute

boatload of views, it's unlikely that AdSense alone will be enough to fully support you, even with higher RPMs. Take my channel for instance. My videos tend to have RPMs ranging from $4 to $11,

which is slightly higher than average across all of YouTube. My average RPM last year was around $6.25. And my

channel brought in around 2.2 2 million long form views, which meant that AdSense as a category made me just over $14,000 last year. Now, that's

definitely real money. I'm not denying that. But that's before taking into

that. But that's before taking into account any costs. For instance, last year I hired a full-time producer with a base salary of $5,000 per month. If I

wanted AdSense to carry my business, I'd have to consistently pull in 10 times the number of views I'm currently generating, which at my current upload frequency means that every video I uploaded would have had to hit over a

million views. Now, that's not

million views. Now, that's not impossible, and many creators have done it, but it is very, very hard. And even

if I did manage to crack a million views with every video I uploaded, relying on AdSense alone to carry my business would still be significantly risky. You see,

of the 2.2 million views my channel brought in last year, over half of them are views on my back catalog or videos I uploaded over a year ago that are still being watched today. So, let's say that

tomorrow YouTube an algorithm update that prioritized videos that were uploaded recently and my back catalog stopped bringing in new views.

Overnight, my AdSense income would be sliced in half and there would be nothing that I could do about it. Now,

that scenario might sound dramatic, but it's actually not too far off from an algorithm update that absolutely tanked short form views for Shorts creators last year. There's a brilliant write up

last year. There's a brilliant write up about it from Mario Juice on Twitter.

I'll link it in the video description below for those interested. Now, don't

get me wrong, YouTube AdSense is real money that I am impossibly grateful for, and I genuinely believe that YouTube's partner program is the most fair and creatorfriendly monetization program out

there. But because of its severe

there. But because of its severe dependency on the algorithm, along with the fact that I don't upload very frequently and my videos only average around 100,000 views per video, it's clear that I can't rely on AdSense alone

to run my business. That realization is what pushed me to explore different monetization options outside of YouTube AdSense, which brings us to income stream number two, affiliate income. And

this is a revenue stream that surprised me most last year. Affiliate income is the money you earn when someone purchases a product through a special link of yours. So, when I put a link to a product in my video description, those

links are often affiliate links. If

someone buys the product through that link, they'll pay the exact same price, but I'll get a small cut for driving the sale. Now, I've always viewed affiliate

sale. Now, I've always viewed affiliate income as bonus money. A couple bucks here and there that were nice to have, but that would never really add up to a real income stream. But this was the

year where that changed. You see, when I first started out on YouTube, I did what most people did and signed up for an Amazon affiliate account, linking my gear and equipment at the bottom of my video description boxes. But the problem

with those links is that Amazon's commission rates are notoriously low at around 3 to 4% of the sale price. So,

even if someone were to purchase a $75 microphone, I'd only receive around $3.

Additionally, because I was scared of sounding too salesy, I never actually mentioned that those affiliate links existed. Even so, I'd still get a couple

existed. Even so, I'd still get a couple hundred clicks a month, but even with a conversion here and there, it never added up to anything exciting. Things

started to change, though, when I branched out of Amazon and started seeing if individual brands I liked had affiliate programs of their own. Some of

them offered 15, 20, or even up to 50% commission on sales made through affiliate links, which got even crazier for subscription-based software products because then I could get paid for every

month that someone stayed subscribed.

All of a sudden, instead of a random one-off $3 commission, I could start earning $15 per month for a single conversion. Those specialized affiliate

conversion. Those specialized affiliate programs were what pushed my affiliate income from the dozens to the hundreds.

But what really changed the game? What

took this income stream from the hundreds to the thousands was incorporating an affiliate deal into my sponsorships. We'll talk more about

sponsorships. We'll talk more about sponsorships later on in this video, but the most basic version of a sponsorship is offering to promote a product in your video in exchange for a flat fee. That's

the model I started with. But as my channel grew and I started developing closer relationships with certain brands, I started experimenting with different deal structures. One of those models involved adding an affiliate

component on top of the flat fee. So,

when I link to the sponsored product in my video description, that link would actually be an affiliate link, and I would earn a commission on every sale I was able to convert. This bundling

strategy is what skyrocketed my affiliate income, driving a large portion of the over $7,000 that affiliate income earned me last year.

For an income stream that I had previously written off as chump change, that's pretty darn significant, especially considering that it's one of the most truly passive forms of income that I make. The hardest part of

affiliate income is actually figuring out a natural way to incorporate the links into your videos. So, if you're thinking about trying out affiliate income for yourself, here's how I'd approach it. First, choose products that

approach it. First, choose products that you already use and have previously mentioned in conversations with friends or family. If you've already naturally

or family. If you've already naturally recommended it or been asked about it before, it's going to be a lot easier to authentically bring it up in a video.

Second, make sure that the product actually makes sense for your audience and niche. I may love my bed sheets, but

and niche. I may love my bed sheets, but it definitely wouldn't fit into a video about YouTube strategy. After you decide on the product you want to link to, make sure you actually verbally mention that

the link exists within your video itself. You might feel a little weird

itself. You might feel a little weird about it at first, but remember that linking to certain products can actually be a service to your viewers. A great

example of this is interior design creator Carolyn Winkler. When she does a room makeover, she'll make sure to include links to all the products she used. So, if a viewer sees a certain

used. So, if a viewer sees a certain piece they love, they don't have to hunt for it themselves. And finally, above all else, make sure you protect your

trust. Affiliate links only work if your

trust. Affiliate links only work if your audience trusts your recommendation. And

if your videos start to feel like a barrage of different links, your content will start to feel transactional and your viewers will notice it, too. But

while my affiliate income last year was a lot higher than I thought it would be, it still came nowhere close to supporting my cost of living. So, for

the big bucks, we'll have to move on to income stream number three, sponsorships. Sponsorships, also known

sponsorships. Sponsorships, also known as brand deals, have the power to bring in enormous amounts of money as brands are more and more frequently allocating ad spend into the creator economy. This

is the income stream that many creators rely on for their livelihoods. And last

year, my channel was no exception to that. In fact, this is the income stream

that. In fact, this is the income stream that drove by far the most revenue for me. But there's a lot to sponsorships

me. But there's a lot to sponsorships that no one really talks about. And the

easiest way to tell you about it is probably just to go step by step through the process of landing and executing a brand deal. Starting with step one,

brand deal. Starting with step one, initial contact. The first contact you

initial contact. The first contact you have with a brand will either be inbound, meaning the brand reached out to you, or outbound, meaning you reached out to the brand. While you can see a lot of success pitching yourself to

brands, it does take a lot of work to get right. Some agencies can do that for

get right. Some agencies can do that for you, but I don't work with an agency and I did not have the time to do any outbound outreach myself last year. So,

all of my brand deals were inbound, typically through Instagram DMs or through the contact email address I have listed in my bio. After receiving an inbound message from a brand, you can

move on to step two, due diligence. And

this step is where about 99% of offers will get filtered out. Typically, my due diligence process consists of three checks. Is this a real company? Is this

checks. Is this a real company? Is this

a real representative of that company?

And is this product good enough for me to comfortably recommend? Those first

two checks will help you filter out scams, which unfortunately are way more common than you might think. Here's what

to look out for. First, look at the email address of the sender. A real

brand's legitimate email address will almost always follow the format of name at brand website. So, if the email domain is different from the official brand website, it's typically a sign

that something fishy is going on. I'll

also always look up the email sender on LinkedIn to verify that they are who they say they are. If they're claiming to represent a brand and yet can't be found on LinkedIn, they're probably not

the real deal. On some occasions, a marketing agency might reach out to you on behalf of a brand. I actually prefer working directly with brands, so I personally don't accept those, but if

you choose to do so, just make sure that you research the agency first to make sure that they're legit. If the company seems real and the person sending the email seems to be a real representative of company, that's when I'll start

looking into the product itself.

Similarly to affiliate links, I'll disregard anything that isn't directly relevant to my audience or my niche.

That'll filter out a lot. Then I'll try to judge the quality of the product.

Sometimes all it takes is one glance at an email or one quick scroll in a landing page to know that a product isn't up to my standards. But in other cases, especially when dealing with more advanced software or physical products,

the only way to know if a product is good is to test it out myself. And that

takes time. And this is one of those things that no one really talks about when it comes to sponsorships. Depending

on the product, it can take many hours of time testing it out to determine whether or not it's even worth responding to the initial email. This is

hours of work that is done without pay.

Hours of work that goes without any return on investment. if you determine that the product isn't up to snuff. And

even if you do like what you see, you're still not in the clear yet. Because

after due diligence comes step three, negotiations. Typically, after you

negotiations. Typically, after you express interest in working with a brand, they'll ask you for your rates.

And the question of how much should I charge for a brand deal is a very, very big question, much bigger than I could cover in a small section of a bigger video about overall monetization. What I

can do, though, is offer you some resources. I'd highly recommend Justin

resources. I'd highly recommend Justin Moore's book, Sponsor Magnet. He also

has a great YouTube channel and a helpful newsletter, both of which I'll link in the video description below. But

ultimately, the biggest thing I did to land the biggest brand deals of my life last year was understanding the different elements that could be bundled together. I'm going to use fake numbers

together. I'm going to use fake numbers here because I'm contractually not allowed to share my real numbers, but it should be enough to give you an overall understanding of the concept. So, there

are two main types of video sponsorships. sponsored integrations,

sponsorships. sponsored integrations, where you spend between 30 and 90 seconds talking with the brand during your video, and dedicated videos, where you design the entire video around highlighting the brand. You can

typically charge double the price of a sponsored integration for a full dedicated video. And that's where most

dedicated video. And that's where most people stop, but there's actually a lot that you can add on to beef up a sponsorship. There's paid usage, or the

sponsorship. There's paid usage, or the right for a brand to cut up and repurpose your video for their own advertising efforts. There's exclusivity

advertising efforts. There's exclusivity or the right for a brand to block you from working with their competitors.

There's affiliate or the ability for you to take a cut of the conversions you generate. There's even additional

generate. There's even additional deliverables such as short form posts or newsletter integrations or even community posts. All of those are

community posts. All of those are elements that you can and should charge extra for. I've even been paid to be

extra for. I've even been paid to be part of live events that brands run. But

regardless of what you pitch, negotiations will be hard. Sometimes all

it takes is a single email to get a green light from a brand. But sometimes

it could take weeks or even months of back and forth to nail down a larger deal. Sometimes you can spend weeks

deal. Sometimes you can spend weeks negotiating only for the deal to fall through at the very end. And all of that is done still without being paid a dime.

But let's say that you negotiate well.

You agree on a price and deliverables and you sign a contract. Great. Now

you're on to step four, deliverables.

Now it's time to actually make the content that you agreed upon. But

unfortunately, it's often not as simple as you make the video, post the video, and then get paid. Usually, you'll have rounds of revisions where you send your video to the brand, the brand sends you notes and things to fix, and you fix

them and send it to them again. So,

that's what sponsorships are really like. And the goal of sharing this all

like. And the goal of sharing this all with you isn't to scare you away from doing that, but rather to give you a more accurate representation of how much additional work it is to make a

sponsored video versus an unsponsored video. Last year was a year that I

video. Last year was a year that I really leaned into sponsorships and the results are pretty astounding. $133,500

brought in from sponsorships alone and that is just mindblowing. That's a full salary. That's that's two full salaries.

salary. That's that's two full salaries.

It's absolutely insane. However, in

order to get there, every single video I uploaded last year was sponsored. That

means that every single video had a ton of back and forth, and every one of them had very strict deadlines. Those

deadlines were helpful to keep me accountable to uploading on time, but they were also stressful beyond belief, especially when I got sick or fell behind on a video. If one video was

late, that mean that I had less time to get the next video out, and I felt like I was constantly in a state of catchup.

But the single biggest downside to sponsorships, and the reason why, despite how lucrative they were for me last year, I'm actually not focusing on them quite as much this year, is that

they are highly volatile and directly correlated with your view counts. Just

because a brand paid you a certain amount for one video doesn't mean that they'll pay that amount for the next.

Maybe it's because your integration with you underperformed what they thought it would. Or maybe it's for reasons

would. Or maybe it's for reasons entirely outside of your control.

Budgets change, marketing strategies change. My biggest brand partner from

change. My biggest brand partner from last year closed down public access to their tool in the middle of a campaign we had going. They handled it well and made good on their promises to me, which

I am impossibly grateful for. But that

whole experience taught me that ultimately sponsorships are not under your direct control. If your channel goes through a dip or you experiment with some new video ideas that end up

underperforming or you need to take a break from uploading, your sponsorships can dry up. And if your income is solely dependent on sponsorships in order to pay rent, that can put you in a very

fragile place. That's why last year I

fragile place. That's why last year I started exploring income streams that were less reliant on hype view counts in order to make money. Which brings us to income stream number four, digital downloads. digital downloads or

downloads. digital downloads or resources that can be downloaded online like templates, guides, PDFs, infographics, and other online resources. These resources can be

resources. These resources can be offered for free, usually in exchange for an email address, or sold for a fee, typically in the range of $1 to $100.

Last year, every video I uploaded contains some sort of digital download in the form of either an infographic summarizing the content of the video or a template that would help the viewer implement what the video covered. Each

resource took me between a few hours to a few days to put together depending on the complexity of the resource. And the

reason why I decided to invest that time into developing those resources is twofold. First, at the end of the day,

twofold. First, at the end of the day, my job and my biggest priority is to create the best viewing experience for you. So, if an infographic you can print

you. So, if an infographic you can print out and put on your desk or a template you can fill out will help you better retain and apply the information I share, that is an absolute win in my

book. And second, and this is the

book. And second, and this is the business case for it, it helps me better own my audience. You see, the problem with building an audience solely on YouTube, is that if anything were to

ever happen to YouTube or if an algorithm shift suddenly stops sending out your videos, you would have no way to reach your viewers. That's called

platform risk. So, by offering up something in exchange for an email address, I now give myself the ability to reach out to my viewers in a way that is more reliable and under my control

than hoping that they'll be served, decide to click on, and watch one of my videos. Because the goal of these

videos. Because the goal of these digital downloads was to help me own my audience, not to make money, I wanted to make these resources as easy to access as possible. So, I offered them all up

as possible. So, I offered them all up for free. But despite that, something

for free. But despite that, something really interesting happened last year.

You see, I put some of my resources on this platform called Gumroad. And

Gumroad has this super neat feature that allows people to pay what they want for a particular product. That allowed me to list the resource for free, but also put

a suggested price of $5. As a result, these free resources actually ended up bringing in almost $1,500 last year, which absolutely blows my mind. That

means that there are people out there who saw that I offered a free resource, but who valued them so highly that they willingly chose to pay me for them. If

you are one of those people, thank you.

Genuinely, thank you so so much. It

truly means the world that you would think so highly of the resources that I create. But apart from the surprise

create. But apart from the surprise income stream, the main result of a year's worth of making digital downloads was my email list, which I was able to

grow to over 15,000 subscribers. Now, I

know that in a world with YouTube channels with millions of subs, an email list with 15,000 subscribers might not seem like much, but your email subscribers are your super fans. And

when you nurture that relationship with a regularly sent newsletter, each email subscriber is worth 10 YouTube subscribers, if not more. And in fact, the growth of my email list was one of

the biggest contributors to a truly massive launch that I was somehow able to pull off last year. We'll get to that later in this video, but for now, regardless of what type of channel you have or what kind of content you make, I

would highly recommend starting an email list. The easiest way to do that is by

list. The easiest way to do that is by including some sort of free resource to accompany your videos like I did. And

then once people start joining your email list, don't be afraid to actually send them emails. These could be anything from a tip of the week to book recommendations to reflection prompts to

a random thought of the day. Whatever it

is, just make sure that it's easy to execute on and it's relatively relevant to your audience. Then commit to a publishing schedule and start sending.

And believe me when I say that when done correctly, a healthy email list is one of the most valuable resources that any YouTuber can have. Because while an email list itself won't drive direct

revenue for you unless you end up bundling them into your brand deals, which is a separate story, the emails that you send are the perfect vessel for testing and pitching offers of your own.

Which leads us to income stream number five, consulting. And this is the first

five, consulting. And this is the first income stream we'll talk about where view count stops being the main limiting factor. Fundamentally, consulting is

factor. Fundamentally, consulting is when someone has a problem that you can help with and they pay you to help solve that problem. Consulting tends to be a

that problem. Consulting tends to be a done with you or done for you service.

Meaning that you'll either use your wisdom experience to assist the client in solving the problem themsel or you'll completely solve the client's problem on your own. And consulting can be

your own. And consulting can be delivered through anything from one-off one-on-one calls to monthly retainers to fully built out packages with structured deliverables. As long as some of your

deliverables. As long as some of your audience shares a problem they're willing to pay to solve, you can offer consulting. A travel channel can consult

consulting. A travel channel can consult on travel plans. A home improvement channel can consult on planned home improvements. A productivity channel

improvements. A productivity channel could consult on ways to procrastinate less and live a more optimized life.

However, not every channel will lend itself well to having a consulting offer. And more importantly, not

offer. And more importantly, not everyone is a fit for being a consultant. Take me for instance,

consultant. Take me for instance, YouTube strategy channel. I have an audience that shares a problem they're willing to pay to solve. I literally get DMs all the time asking for one-on-one

support. So, consulting would be a

support. So, consulting would be a no-brainer, right? Well, not exactly.

no-brainer, right? Well, not exactly.

Yes, logically would make sense for a channel like mine to offer consulting, and I have done it in the past, but unfortunately, it's just not something

that I enjoy doing. You see, from the outside, consulting can look deceptively simple. In its most basic form, it's

simple. In its most basic form, it's just being paid for an hour of your time, right? But in practice, there's a

time, right? But in practice, there's a lot more to it than that. There's the

initial back and forth with the client to make sure they're the right fit. Then

on the day of the call, there's prep work I do to feel prepared for the call.

If the call's later in the day, there's the mental stress of knowing that I have an important call coming up, which grows in intensity the closer I am to the call. And then afterwards, I need at

call. And then afterwards, I need at least an hour to decompress after the call. Because showing up at 100% for a

call. Because showing up at 100% for a full hour really takes a lot out of me.

When you start to add up all of those little extra costs, your effective hourly rate starts to drop. At this

point, I have to charge very high rates in order to make one-on-one consulting worth my time, which then ends up adding even more stress because I want to make sure that my client gets their money's

worth. That being said, different people

worth. That being said, different people have different experiences. One of the huge upsides of consulting is that you really don't need to bring in a ton of views in order to make a pretty decent

income. Let's say you offer consulting

income. Let's say you offer consulting package priced at $1,000 a month. If you

post four videos a month and each video brings in 500 views and just 0.5% of your viewers convert to clients, you're making $10,000 a month. And you can do

that before you even get monetized through YouTube AdSense. Ultimately, the

only way to know if consulting is a good fit for you is to try it out for yourself. And if you decide to do so,

yourself. And if you decide to do so, here's how I'd start. First, get to know your audience. Ask them questions. See

your audience. Ask them questions. See

if they have any problems that they tend to share. If you start seeing some

to share. If you start seeing some similarities, develop a mini test offer, something that would be really easy for you to execute, like a one-off call.

Then mention your test offer in the PS of one of your email newsletters. See,

your email list matters. Price it

relatively low the first time around.

The main goal is to just see if there's any demand. If someone's interested,

any demand. If someone's interested, deliver your mini offer, grab a testimonial from them, build your offer out a little bit more, increase your price, and then repeat. If no one's interested, there's something wrong with

either your understanding of your audience's problems, your understanding of the solutions they want, or your price. Continue to pitch more mini test

price. Continue to pitch more mini test offers until you find your fit. The one

thing I avoid doing when trying out consulting is overcommitting yourself from the very get- go. You want to build in set end dates or offramps for yourself. So, if you're going through it

yourself. So, if you're going through it and you realize that it's actually way more work than you thought it would be, or you don't actually like it as much as you thought that you would, or you're actually way undercharging, you have the

opportunity to get out without burning any bridges. On my side, last year, I

any bridges. On my side, last year, I actually didn't end up publicly offering any one-on-one consulting. I did bundle some one-on-one sessions into a larger offer that I'll talk about later on in

this video. But apart from that, the

this video. But apart from that, the only real consulting I did was for a referral from a friend, which ended up bringing me $4,500 last year. So consulting wasn't a main

last year. So consulting wasn't a main driver of income for me last year. But

don't let that deter you. Some people I know have built massive consulting businesses using their YouTube channel as the foundation. However, your

consulting revenue can only scale with how much time you have available. So, if

you're not into live calls or you're looking for something with the ability to scale far beyond an hourly rate, you might be interested in income stream number six, online courses. Now, online

courses are tricky. They don't have the best reputation in the world. And yet,

if you're in any sort of educational niche, you've probably been asked at least once before, >> why don't you just start a course? So,

what's the deal with courses? Well, for

the sake of this video, we're going to talk about self-paced courses, which is a collection of lessons, typically video lessons, sometimes paired with worksheets or templates, that aim to guide a student through a specific

transformation. They're usually sold for

transformation. They're usually sold for a one-time price, and after purchasing the course, the student can move through it at their own pace without any live interaction required. And on paper,

interaction required. And on paper, having a course sounds incredible. It

seems to be the epitome of make one sell forever. All you have to do is push

forever. All you have to do is push together a few video lessons, packaged up nicely, slap a price on it, mention it in a few YouTube videos, and then just sit back and watch the dollars roll

in. No life commitments, no limit to how

in. No life commitments, no limit to how many sales you can bring in. You can

make money while you sleep. And that's

exactly why online courses have such a bad reputation. Because when something

bad reputation. Because when something sounds that good, that simple, it attracts a lot of people who are much more interested in the idea of selling a course than the concept of actually

building out a great learning experience. As a result, the majority of

experience. As a result, the majority of courses out there are lowquality, rushed, and just generally disappointing, which in turn gives the overall category of online courses a bad

rap. On top of that, having a course

rap. On top of that, having a course isn't actually as simple as it seems. You can put in an enormous amount of time and energy to creating a genuinely

useful, high-quality course only to launch it and get crickets. No traffic,

no sales, and no payoff for the extraordinary amount of effort that you put in. Ultimately, in order for an

put in. Ultimately, in order for an online course to be done well, it needs to follow four main phases. Phase one is conceptualization and validation, which is the single biggest thing that you can

do to avoid the dreaded post-launch silence. Before you start working on any

silence. Before you start working on any actual lessons, get in touch with your audience first to make sure that this is something that they actually want. You

could do this by sending out a simple interest form, but the shest way to verify that real demand exists for your course is to run a pre-sales campaign.

Soft launch your closest fans first by sending out an email newsletter with details of what you're planning an estimated launch date in a way to collect payment on a significantly discounted price. If not even your

discounted price. If not even your closest fans are buying at a discounted rate, it's highly unlikely that your broader audience will buy at a higher rate and you should go back to the drawing board now before you invest any

more time and energy into building something out that no one actually wants. If you do receive interest, you

wants. If you do receive interest, you can move on to phase two, course development. Please don't rush this. You

development. Please don't rush this. You

don't need to be a world-class educator, but your students should feel like what they've learned is more than worth the investment that they put in. Promise a

specific learning outcome to help set expectations and then overd deliver on that learning outcome. Don't promise

anything you can't guarantee. After

you've built out your course, that's when your work shifts to marketing your course. At this point, you would have

course. At this point, you would have already done your pre-sales so you can launch to your early access buyers first. See what their experience is, and

first. See what their experience is, and if they're liking it, you can launch to your broader audience through more emails, community posts, and YouTube videos. As you market your course, keep

videos. As you market your course, keep in mind that most people will be skeptical. Avoid making entire videos

skeptical. Avoid making entire videos into sales pitches. Deliver so much quality free value that your audience wants to look for what sort of paid offers that you have. And finally, as

you keep making sales and time starts to pass, make sure you go back periodically and update your course. This is

something else that they don't really tell you about online courses. For most

topics, it's not really make once, sell forever. It's make once, sell for a

forever. It's make once, sell for a while, make updates, sell for a while, repeat. As time passes, best practices

repeat. As time passes, best practices will change, and your own knowledge will change, too. So, you should periodically

change, too. So, you should periodically go back to your course and make sure that it reflects those changes. If you

don't do this, you risk your course becoming at best outdated and at worst misleading. When it comes to my own

misleading. When it comes to my own experience with online courses, phases one and two went fairly smoothly for me, but things fell apart at phases three

and four. I developed my course nearly 3

and four. I developed my course nearly 3 years ago, but after my initial launch, I was way too scared to talk about it.

My channel was still new and I was afraid that people would think the worst of me and assume that my only motivation for making these videos was to coers

people into buying from me. As a result, pretty much no one even knew that I had a course. I've mentioned it maybe once

a course. I've mentioned it maybe once or twice and I buried a link to it in each of my video descriptions, but that was about it. And then as years passed,

I outgrew it. In the three years since I initially made that course, I have learned a ton. My thinking has evolved.

My standards have changed. The overall

YouTube industry has changed and my course no longer felt representative of my best work. So last year, I decided to take it down. But before I did that,

despite me almost intentionally hiding the fact that I had a course, I still somehow managed to make 10 sales, which brought in $2,772.

Ultimately, and this is just my own personal take, I feel like the learning experience of taking a self-paced course feels too similar to simply watching a

YouTube video. The goal of my videos has

YouTube video. The goal of my videos has always been to drive real impact. And as

a result, I do the very best that I can to make my free YouTube videos just as tangible, actionable, and useful as any course that someone might pay for. I've

realized that if I wanted to charge money for an educational program, I needed the experience of taking it to be fundamentally different from simply watching a video. there would need to be

something more like touch points or feedback loops or accountability or community that added real value beyond just information. And that realization

just information. And that realization is what led me to the final income stream of this video. The income stream that I am most proud of. Income stream

number seven, Creator Crew. Creator Crew

was my big swing last year. It was

something that I had been thinking about doing for a while, but had been too scared to actually attempt. But at some points in your life, you just have to swing for the fences. So that's what I

did. Creator Crew was a six-monthlong

did. Creator Crew was a six-monthlong cohort-based program designed to help intermediate creators level up their YouTube channels. The main difference

YouTube channels. The main difference between a cohort-based course and a self-paced course is that a cohort-based course has a set start and end date, meaning that everyone joins and finishes the program at the same time, leading to

a more shared experience. Additionally,

instead of having video lessons that you could watch at your own pace, the majority of creator crew sessions were delivered live. I know. You see, I

delivered live. I know. You see, I wanted to design an entire program around the concept of feedback loops.

So, instead of someone just learning something themselves and moving on, they'd be able to learn it, implement it, get real feedback on how well they implemented it, and then repeat that

cycle over and over again. As a result, almost every weekday for six entire months, there was some sort of live touch point. Sometimes those were office

touch point. Sometimes those were office hours or title and thumbnail reviews or co-working clinics. Sometimes I

co-working clinics. Sometimes I delivered full workshops or brought in guest experts. And on top of that,

guest experts. And on top of that, students could submit their videos every other week for dedicated in-depth feedback from a team of content strategists. And as you might imagine,

strategists. And as you might imagine, this was a very ambitious program to run. And this is the first income stream

run. And this is the first income stream that I truly could not do alone. My

producer Joelle was deeply involved helping run sessions and helping me manage the operational side of things. I

brought in team of three content strategists to support the students. And

over the course of the program, I brought in 16 different guest experts to come in and teach specialized workshops.

I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that planning, launching, and delivering Creator Crew was one of the single hardest things that I have ever done. I

spent months planning the logistics. I

conducted over 80 sales calls, which was way out of my comfort zone, by the way.

And for the entire six months the program ran, I spent almost every weekday morning and many entire afternoons either in live calls or in the community answering questions,

giving feedback, and just doing my absolute best to show up fully for the people who had put their faith in me. I

was doing all of that on top of trying to keep up with my own upload schedule and fulfilling commitments to my sponsors. So, if I felt a little MIA

sponsors. So, if I felt a little MIA towards the end of last year, now you know why. So, was it all worth it? Well,

know why. So, was it all worth it? Well,

I ended up launching Creator Crew with a full cohort of 30 students, 25 of which joined the base tier of 3500 with the remainder joining the $7,500 executive

mastermind. Added together, that means

mastermind. Added together, that means that Creator Crew was a $125,000 launch.

What? for any program, but especially for a beta program, that number is just unfathomable for me. And that was just on my side of

for me. And that was just on my side of the equation. For these students, over

the equation. For these students, over the 6 months of the program, they collectively generated over 14 million views and gained over 241,000

subscribers. If you combined all of

subscribers. If you combined all of Creator Crew into a single channel, that channel would have started at 481,000

subscribers and ended with over 723,000 in just 6 months. And those were just the external wins. We also had students gaining more clarity, direction they had

felt in years, students breaking through burnout, students launching their own businesses, and even students forming lifelong friendships. And for all of

lifelong friendships. And for all of those reasons and many, many more, I will always cherish Creator Crew. But

also, holy smokes, it was so much more work than I thought it would be. And I

also learned a metric ton from the experience. For one, 6 months is way too

experience. For one, 6 months is way too long for your first offer. When you're

doing something for the very first time, most of your learning will happen towards the beginning of that experience. And if you lock yourself

experience. And if you lock yourself into too long of a time horizon, becomes very difficult to apply those learnings without disappointing people or breaking promises. 6 months is also a big

promises. 6 months is also a big commitment for your students to take on too. It's relatively easy to picture

too. It's relatively easy to picture what your life might look like a month or two from now, but 6 months out, that's much harder to envision, and as a result, it's a much more difficult time

commitment to pitch. Another big lesson I learned is that more does not equal better. I built out such a rigorous

better. I built out such a rigorous schedule because I believe that the more guidance, information, and feedback the students got, the better experience they would have. But in practice, doing too

would have. But in practice, doing too much can actually have the opposite effect. People need time to digest and

effect. People need time to digest and implement what they learn. And everyone

also has their own lives outside of the programs that they take. So there needs to be enough flexibility built in that they can stick with it when life inevitably happens. But by far the

inevitably happens. But by far the biggest lesson I learned was the importance of setting crystal clear expectations from the very beginning.

Because Creator Crew was a beta program, while I did have some idea of what I thought I could deliver, I didn't want to overpromise anything to the students.

But in trying to not overpromise, I ended up being too vague. As a result, different people came in with different expectations, which meant that different people wanted different things. So

whenever I asked for feedback, I would get a lot of conflicting answers, which led to it being very hard to implement any new changes without letting someone down. Ultimately, I learned that when

down. Ultimately, I learned that when you're running an offer, you are the expert. Take in all the feedback you

expert. Take in all the feedback you want, but only implement what you believe will genuinely improve your program. At the end of the day, it's

program. At the end of the day, it's your job to be the trusted leader. I

took all those lessons and more into consideration when deciding what to do next. You see, after the completion of

next. You see, after the completion of any offer, you have two main choices.

You can refine it and run it again, or you can retire it and start something new. And for me, there's a lot of

new. And for me, there's a lot of Creator Crew that I love. However, there

are also things that I know that I can do better. So, as a result, Creator Crew

do better. So, as a result, Creator Crew is getting a makeover. In the spring, 90-Day Breakthrough will launch and it's going to be absolutely epic. It'll be a combination of everything people loved

most about Creator Crew with everything that I've learned about what makes for a great learning experience, and I am so incredibly excited for it. So, if you're interested in working closely with me

and my team over the course of 12 guided weeks, there's a link with more info in the video description below. So, those

are the seven income streams that brought in over $290,000 last year through only 10 videos. And

before anyone pulls out a calculator, yes, there is a chunk missing. That's

because the channel also brought in around $4,000 from miscellaneous sources like speaking opportunities, paid meetings, and a random assortment of one-off events that weren't big enough

to merit their own category, but that still contributed to the overall total number. a total number that by the way

number. a total number that by the way only represents topline revenue, not profit. As you might imagine, there are

profit. As you might imagine, there are a lot of costs that go into running a business like this. And the bigger that I grow, the more money that I spend.

There's payroll, software, equipment, travel, not to mention the huge chunk that will go towards paying taxes.

Topline revenue does not equal take-home pay, and I never want to imply that it does. That being said, when I first

does. That being said, when I first calculated that number, I genuinely just stared at that spreadsheet for a very long time because it didn't feel real.

I've been on YouTube for around 4 and 1/2 years now, but this channel is only 2 and 1/2 years old. And to go from making around $30,000 in my first year

to nearly $300,000 just a year and a half later is honestly still so wild to wrap my head around. Of

course, the money has been life-changing in all of the practical ways like the overall quality of life and the ability to build a team and just overall more stability. But what I wasn't expecting

stability. But what I wasn't expecting was how last year would affect me internally. Whenever you take a big risk

internally. Whenever you take a big risk like leaving a traditional career to bet on yourself, there's always this quiet question lurking in the background of was this the right decision, even if you

believe in yourself, even if you love what you do, there's still this feeling of waiting for the world to confirm it back to you. And for me, after 4 and a

half very long years, last year was that confirmation. hitting certain milestones

confirmation. hitting certain milestones financially professionally and creatively lifted a lot of pressure I didn't even know it was carrying. It

made me feel like this whole dream of being a YouTuber not only could actually work, but was actively working. And

oddly enough, this confirmation is what I needed to let go a little bit, to say no more, to stop hustling quite so hard,

and to dare to build a type of business that supports the life that I want to live, even if that means making less money in the future. So, if I had to

leave you with one final takeaway, it would be this. There is no single right way to make money on YouTube. It really

is a choose your own adventure kind of thing. And the only way to know which

thing. And the only way to know which adventure is yours is to try them out for yourself. Notice which income

for yourself. Notice which income streams fit your strengths, your risk tolerance, and your ideal day-to-day life. And don't get distracted by what

life. And don't get distracted by what looks good on paper or what might work for somebody else. Because at the end of the day, the goal isn't just to make money. The goal is to build a life you

money. The goal is to build a life you love, making videos you love. If you're

curious about how different my income was during my first year on YouTube, check out this video to compare the two.

But otherwise, thank you so much for watching. Like and subscribe if you can.

watching. Like and subscribe if you can.

Keep creating and I'll see you in the next video.