The Truth About Growing on Youtube | Alex Hormozi & My First Million

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I literally look at YouTube like it's a high school. There's just classes to offer. Like yeah, >> I can go to David Senna and get the history of entrepreneurship. That's a an elective I decide to take. Totally. And like you're basically like business 101 or business whatever, you know, business fundamentals. >> Um and it's like great, I can go take business fundamentals with my professor, you know, Hermosi. And like I think when you start to look at YouTube as also a bundle of music and entertainment and education, then you start to think about how I might use it differently than the average person, right? Because like >> both you and I probably wish we started on YouTube 10 years earlier. Yeah. Uh, and it was the people who saw YouTube as more than what others saw it that actually got that advantage. >> Yeah. No, I think that's really good. Yeah. I think the it reminds me the quote that I like a lot, which is technology um democratizes consumption and consolidates production. >> And so it's like which means if you're the best in the world, you get to do it for everybody, >> right? >> And so yeah, I actually I think about that a lot when we talk about our channel, which is like how do we how do we just make this the best business content, you know, possible? Um, and that's I mean that's the whole goal. like if we just keep doing that then we'll be okay. >> I think you're doing a pretty damn good job of it. >> I appreciate it. >> The hard the hard part is is uh I'm curious how you do this cuz at one point in time I think I even talked about this on the podcast. I was like I think he's great and smart >> but then the problem with YouTube >> because the goddamn views are public. >> Yeah. >> Is they gave you an outer scorecard to use that may not be the one you want. Right. And it was like >> I remember once I looked at your channel and it was like if you're broke do this. If you don't have enough money for Chipotle do this. I was like, "Dude, he's just going to attract broke people." That's the opposite of what he kind of like wants, you know? Or like it's easy to optimize cuz guess what? There's more broke people who are more desperate that are on YouTube with a bunch of time to kill. You're going to get 2 million views on the broke guy video, >> but like I'm never going to click that and you probably want some people like me clicking some of your content. Totally. >> And so like I think that's the challenge with YouTube overall is like if you take their metrics >> as your metrics, you might have a big problem. >> It's 100%. It's a So yeah, it's a thousand% a problem. Um, and we it's like we just we put as many controls in place as we can and it's still tough. And so right now, here's where it gets like >> let's let's peel layer back. Yeah. >> So where it gets really interesting is that if I make six videos, this is our actual cadence. Five of them I want to be business first, business deep, whatever we want to call it. And then one out of six I say I'm okay to just like make it wide. >> Brutally honest truth about whatever. Right? >> That one video will get more views than the other five together. And so then how much does that actually weight the brand? So even if I actually think about my input >> production versus consumption, >> right? So if I actually put my inputs like I might have a 50% philosophy brand and 50% or you know motivation, whatever you want to call it, right? Like mindset etc. and then 50% businessy. But in terms of my production, it's 90% of my time is business. It just like doesn't get the reach. And so it's actually one of the things that frustrates me in some ways because like if I like if I get stopped on the street I'm always curious like what was the you know what was the thing and so but like business owners for me cuz like I see the people walk in the door and you have to be at a certain level to walk in the door anyways is like they are more more listening and reading uh in general and like we have the we have a whole series we do called cash cows which is kind of like what we did with the hormonia hotline but I have them in person and then I do the whole the whole thing and it's like an hour and those ones right now average like 150,000 maybe 200,000 views per video but like a brutally honest million like it's just like I could do like we could we could do one right now and like I know what like I know exactly what we're going to say and but the but when I ask who here likes those who shows up they're like please keep making those and so I have I keep asking them just because I need the reinforcement >> of course no because you need an inner scorecard I need something the outer scorecard is only going to tell you one thing so you have to like instrument like an antenna yourself to get the signal that you're actually looking for in a way that's not necessarily biased, but >> if I don't put up an antenna, there is no generic antenna for this. You know, like >> also a little a little tiny thing um that maybe may be helpful, useful, but um we actually just this quarter switched our metric. >> So we used views as basically the way that I did it before was like we will make content about these topics and then as long as they're within these topics, then we'll maximize views. So that's the that's the constraint and then maximize within that constraint. We have now switched to subscriber count uh subscriber growth even though subscribers matter zero it's just yeah it doesn't matter for distribution but it's a great loyalty exactly it's a quality score of like I thought this was valuable enough that so now I can still do the same constraints on um on the content but then use the subscriber because that gives us the because subscriber still has baked into it some element of reach >> but if you if I make a brutally honest video I'm not going to get the same amount of subscribers I am as like 13 years of business advice like one of my best videos ever That's but hardcore business. >> Yeah. >> So anyway, just something that we've switched to just this quarter. >> I um I have a I can't figure so I I I basically figured out what do I want which I can't measure. So first was what do I want? I was basically like I created a like you know you know in popularity they have the Q score. Okay. >> So I basically was like give me the Zcore. What's the Zcore? A Zcore for me is a trust score. So I was like, "All right, probably should have been a T-core I think about it." But it was the Zcore, which is basically I realized that all content, what you actually want is >> number of people reached times the quality of the person reached. >> Sure. >> Times the depth of their trust in you. >> Sure. >> And basically that's the equation you ultimately care about. So like you can reach a lot of people on TikTok, but if they're just like, you know, if they're not the people you're trying to do to attract. >> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. You know, it's you have to discount factor because you're not your second variable is not very good. And then the third which is like how much do they actually trust you? Not like they watch that piece of content or they like that thing or they hate watched it and you're like yeah I got views but like actually they're like this guy's an idiot or like you know I hate this guy right? >> So that's that's what I wish existed now that's never going to exist. So I had to back channel it and basically a shame metric. So I said >> if uh if I make a thing do I want to go put it in my favorite group chats. me myself being like, "I made this, guys." >> Because there's a lot of [ __ ] I make that can get po that's popular that I would be I would cringe putting it there >> because they'd be like, "Bro, what the [ __ ] is this? We don't need this or care about this." Like, "What is this for? Why did you put this here?" versus other things. Like I did this one thing that went nowhere viral virally. I did this like I spent like two months just studying the process of creativity. >> Yeah. >> I really realized with AI is like productivity values going down and creativity values going up. >> So I was like how do the most creative people in the world work? I've studied Elon and all those guys, but I actually have no idea how, you know, >> Seinfeld and all these other guys how they operate. >> So, I studied that. I put it together >> and I put it out there. Again, went nowhere kaput, but I've like internalized these lessons deeply, so it was still a win. >> But that was the one where if I put it in my group chats, >> yeah, >> my most successful peers were actually like, dude, this is actually sick. Like, I actually have >> I didn't know this. I took this. I needed this blah blah blah. Yeah. >> So, I've had to use basically like my own cringe factor of like, do I want to put this in there or would I feel like kind of stupid doing that? Would I would I feel like I need to soften it with some context and some excuses uh to put it in? >> Yeah, that's um I think I mean I think what you hit on is like such a painful part of of creating content is that the entire the reinforcement system leads you away from the actual business goal. I mean if you if you do this for business which I do like it leads you away from your business goal which makes it very you just have to have a lot of discipline of like >> this is the stuff I'm going to make and it will underperform and that is okay and it gets harder when you when you get when you know how to make the stuff that really hits from a views and all that stuff perspective >> the more you know. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean but you know it's I mean this has been it's probably one of the largest focal points that we have uh as for our brand and I I feel like it's an accordion. It's like, you know, if we we do just hardcore hardcore business content, um, and then we'll be like, "All right, let's let's make a little bit of personality stuff, let's show a little bit, and then it's like, oh, that did great." And we're like, and then we're like, "Oh, [ __ ] We're way too wide." And then like, so I think we just kind of oscillate. >> One thing I wish you did more of, just my personal request, was uh, you did something is like a short or something. I don't know who made this. Somebody in this room might have made this, but it was like >> you were just talking about your the gear you wear. You're talking about your shoes, >> right? >> And I bought those shoes and and so Yeah. So yeah, you hold your Darwin outfit. You're like, I can wear this in the rain and then the pool and then I can get out the pool, go to a restaurant. It works. I can go for a hike tomorrow. And um >> you know, I think that's great because first of all, it first of all, it didn't feel like I'm trying to be the Kardashian. So it didn't feel like you were trying to show me something. >> It was just like, oh, you want to know like something I do in my life? Here's something I do in my life. >> Yeah. >> Um what I thought was interesting about that was >> a it was a good find. You'd actually put real like your own nerdiness into like doing something for your own lifestyle. So it was like it meant something. Uh but B every time I wear those shoes >> I think of you and there's something to physical anchors totally in a digital world that like actually matters. >> I'm a huge believer in that side note like hugely. So I think this is like a little sauce there. And I think the other part of it was um I so my I like made a a mission for the year like a misogi for the year and like I thought it was like it should have been about you know business or like getting in great shape or whatever. >> But when it was like oh I know what I want to do. I I was like I want to learn to jam out on the piano. I was like and so I just made that my mission and I took it like incredibly seriously and like had a great time doing it. >> And so just yesterday I just turn on I've just turned on a live stream on Twitter. I was like I think they have this feature. I just live stream myself doing like a piano practice. Not even like a performance. I was just like [ __ ] around like trying to learn these songs. I'm not good. I've been doing this six months. >> Dude, I got so many DMs from like again the same thing like the people who I don't want to send my content to cuz I'm like you're a billionaire. What are you How to get rich, you know, from a guy 10 times less rich than you. >> But I got them being like, "Dude, I've been wanting to practice. I I love how you made time for this. Is that what did you which one did you get? What room is that? Who's that teacher? How did you find her? Do you think a teacher is better than the apps?" And I got so many of those that I was like, there's something to the lifestyle content when it's really like >> I could talk about gym equipment for example. Like you can probably see that I like I'll light up when I talk about it. >> Exactly. It if it if it genuinely lights you up and it shows it's like for other successful people who I don't like I've read all the books now. I don't really need a lot of like >> how to grow my business. I'm actually pretty good at that. >> And so like one cool way I thought your lifestyle stuff worked was >> it attracted me to that where I probably wouldn't watch like 10 of the other videos but that one I was like kind of interested in >> from a different angle. And I think you you kind of turn the speakers off on that I noticed. Uh but like my personal request is give me 10% of that back. >> Yeah. So this is the the dichotomy that has to be managed which is the the the thumbrint of the creator in my opinion should be the representation of their current life which means it can change right and so it's like I spend maybe it's like 10% of my time is fitnessoriented and so like maybe 10% of my content should be fitness oriented and then probably 80% of my time is businessoriented then maybe 10% of my time is philosophical and maybe five and this is now 105 but uh is is relationship whatever right and so it's like that that's my mix and maybe in a different season it'll And so the content should be I was think like should be glass. It should be like when someone meets me it's exactly as they expected. >> The only thing that [ __ ] that whole thing up is the algorithm. >> Yeah. >> Because I can absolutely make that that that thumbrint. It's just that this one will get 10 times the views. And so then if you're trying to manage the mosaic of your brand with all the little all the little shorts as tiny little squares, it's just that you can't control how big the square is in the middle of the [ __ ] face that you're trying to build. >> So >> that makes sense. No, that's what I'm saying. Like those that thing about your shoes didn't get a lot of views, but it made an imprint on me. And I would say like I would carry more weight than like say a thousand random views. Tim Ferris said this once. He's like, >> "Do I want 10,000 random people selected at random somewhere in the world to like my stuff or half of Davos to be like to really respect what I do?" He's like, >> "One's a big number, one's big, one's big value, right? Like which one do I want?" >> I think there's something similar there. And also like >> you know you were talking about like they have different wallets or different stomachs. >> Totally. >> It's like I only have a certain wallet or stomach for like >> educational business content. Me reminding myself I need to do more at work, [laughter] >> right? >> But I actually have other wallet share to give you >> interesting >> on another area. My fitness wallet share. You could get some of that. >> You could get some of my outfit wallet share or my relationship wallet share as an entrepreneur dealing with, you know, busy relationships, right? Like so think of it maybe with your own analogy. Yeah. No, I really like that. That's a I mean, it's always I we need to be reminded more than we need to be taught.