Why I Ignore Most YouTube Advice
Most YouTube advice is built for views and not for actual income. I'm Jerry Banfield, I'm a YouTube coach. I've been on YouTube since 2011. I've made more than 20 channels and I deleted all my channels last year and restarted five new channels. And what I'm seeing is that I know how to make money even with tiny channels and hardly any amounts of views on YouTube. And what most everybody else is telling you is not going to actually work for you.
A Brand New Channel Already Making Money
Let me give you a little bit of an example so you can see what I mean. So I just did a video on this Jerry Banfield YouTube coach channel about how I got 51 000 views organically in 19 days on a brand new YouTube channel. And the way I've done this channel, this goes directly against what most YouTubers would tell you. It goes directly against the advice that they would give you. Because if you look at this, I got found in YouTube recommendations. I'm still getting found in browse features. I've got 97 subs. But this video was filmed in the same format that I'm filming this one.
I literally just hit record, talked off the top of my head and explained what I was doing. And there's a big difference with what I'm saying with what most other people are telling you. What most other people are telling you is showing you how to get 100 000 views. They're telling you to think about it. Think about browse features and optimize everything for viewer retention and try and package it, everything. Get your viewer down to their point of view. Launch with several videos. Crank out videos until you get your first 1 000 subs. But I have a channel. I didn't have to crank out. I just cranked out daily videos.
And I got 1 000 subs on this channel. And here's the channel. And this channel is already monetized and making money. Every day. But this is only in ad revenue. So this entire channel right now has only gotten 71 000 views. But here's what this channel does. And this is what almost nobody else is telling you. You click on schedule a call and you'll see that's almost a $200 Zoom call.
I walk through this whole small-channel income approach across my YouTube Coaching playlist if you want to see how it plays out video by video.
Turning Views Into Booked Calls
So what this channel does, this channel funnels people over into my website into Zoom calls. And this is what almost everybody is missing. They're trying to give you a whole bunch of quantity of views but you won't actually get much ad revenue. But if you can just get 10 000 views and get a few people to schedule calls with you, you can make thousands of dollars off of a lot smaller amount of views. And the way that works is totally different than the mindset of doing this. Because yes, I recognize what other YouTubers are saying that thumbnails matter. Yes, retention matters. Homepage distribution matters. And being clear about your audience matters.
And the packaging, the loyalty and all that. But that's not the whole game. It's only the whole game if all you can do is get views. But really, if you wanna be a small YouTuber, one of the biggest opportunities is to get people to go to your website and then schedule a call with you. Because there's so many people out there that are lonely. There's so many people out there that need coaching. There's so many people that if they watch your videos, I've had people, I've made a lot of crypto videos over the years and I've had people schedule calls off a single video I made several months ago and they come straight in and drop $200 with me on a one on one call.
I make $200 an hour on one calls. Like for example, that's with this channel, this Jerry Banfield YouTube coach channel, I don't need 100 000 views. And when I find almost all the creators are getting wrong is they're then selling online courses and making communities. But I personally find what's most helpful is to talk to someone who has what I want, who knows what I need to know, who've been where I wanna go. For example, I don't buy anybody else's YouTube course and I haven't for a decade. I've taught YouTube to tens of millions of people on online courses. I've taught YouTube to tens of millions of people on all of their platforms and videos about YouTube and all of that.
And what really helps is to talk to someone like me, who I think of essentially my brain as an AI that's been trained on 15 years of YouTube data. And when you run your unique situation by me, then I can process it and give it to you a customized instantaneous solution to address exactly what you're going through. Now, my opportunity is not unique. There are all kinds of you doing YouTube videos on all kinds of subjects. That if you can just get a few thousand views, you can pile up thousands of dollars in coaching income. If you want me to run your unique situation through that same process, you can book a one-on-one call with me and we'll look at your analytics together on our call and find the videos that turn viewers into income.
Coaching Income Dwarfs Ad Revenue
In fact, what I find personally is that my ad revenue versus my coaching income, my coaching income is usually 10 plus times my ad revenue. Now with crypto specifically, it's very seasonal. When prices are down, not many people will schedule calls, but the same amount of views I've got here is enough to generate around five or $10 000 a month in calls. And in fact, when the price goes up, I can go to YouTube, and when the calls start getting booked, I raise the price to $300 an hour. And during up times in crypto, where there's a little bit more traffic, but the ad revenue still sucks, I'll have months where I'll make a thousand or so in ad revenue and 10 000 in calls.
And that's what you want to do as a small YouTuber is think, how do I make a video that when one person watches it, it impacts them so much that they've got to talk to me. And you see, there's all kinds of niches you can make that on. You can make videos on anything you've been through that could help somebody else. For example, I have just a Jerry Banfield channel and I am making videos about dating. I'm making videos about weight loss and anything I want to, like life coaching, online dating, and the same call to action. And what's really cool, if you use a coaching setup and it doesn't even have to be coaching, sometimes you could just make a video and somebody will just want to talk to you to get to know you better or to ask you specific questions.
And then I can get coaching calls because I get bored just doing crypto calls. So now I'm set up so I can get dating calls. I had 250 000 on my main channel, but it was essentially shadow banned, but shadow bans are often more about low click through and bad viewer satisfaction. Well, this channel is ready at any moment for $200 an hour calls to come in. And the beauty of it is you can test a bunch of different kinds of videos and then you find which ones bring calls in. Like on my Jerry Banfield ICP channel, this channel cranks calls out. And this channel, the crypto reviews channel, this is a new channel with, and this is literally stuff like anybody can do.
Like you could essentially just look at my crypto videos, basically copy the same thing I do. And if you were into crypto, you wouldn't want to do this if you weren't into crypto, but you could essentially do the same thing and do the same setup. And if you wanted, you could even charge less money and people schedule with you instead of me.
The View-Quantity Trap Everyone Falls For
So most of this YouTube advice fails because they're all trying to tell you to do the same thing too. They're all thinking with this view quantity mindset. I went through and use Gemini to summarize a whole bunch of the top YouTube advice videos, not one of them, not one of them. Said that you should set up to have one on one calls with your viewers because there's huge monetization opportunity there. And then when you're going for this strategy, you're so focused on getting views, you often don't even think about actually having real interactions. Now I've just taken in a bunch of data from you. Like on my calls, I usually listen about 50 minutes.
So if you're a YouTuber, you would probably talk to me about 50 minutes, show me your analytics so I can really pull as much data about you as possible. And then from there, I crank out my ideas. And what I get out of that after the call, I'll often have three to five more video ideas for ultra specific things I can film. This allows me to really get to know my audience. And the better you know your audience, you don't need 10, 20, 50, 100 000 views to zoom in and laser in on a specific message that's so targeted that when someone watches that, they'll be like, I've got to talk with this guy.
Most people doing YouTube can easily afford to spend $200 an hour for a call. And there's so many other niches you can get in, weight loss, anything related to health or money or dating. There's so many of these niches. For example, I've watched some dating videos and these, I watched one coach, this guy charges, over $1 000 an hour for calls. And he keeps doing calls. It certainly seems like he gets it. So you can even come in and just be a cheaper option. Like I have videos about dating on here and I'm a cheaper option at only 200 for a dating call. And you could come in and make dating videos and put yours at $100.
And you can rack up immediate monetization before your channel is even monetized. Because with coaching, it's very cheap to set up also.
The Cheap Setup That Powers This
So if you're watching this, you're wondering, well, I don't know how to build my own website. How would I do that? Well, there's a tool to do that that's brand new and it builds it straight on the blockchain. It's absolutely incredible. And this is what I'm using. So I have an app called Caffeine AI that's on ICP. You just go to caffeineai com and you can build right directly on the blockchain. Just, I dictated in my iPhone and I was like, I told it what exactly I wanted and it literally cranked out this beautiful website, which looks so much better than the crappy thing I'd put together myself.
Now the reviews, I still need to go fix these because these are similar to what people have really said, but it doesn't match quite right. But like it has a link to schedule a call. It has a link to all my YouTube channels. It has, stories. It has all the different areas of experience. And this is something you can create. With AI, all I had to do is give it a picture of myself and tell it what I wanted. And Caffeine AI cranked out the entire website for me and it's on the blockchain. So it's secure. So you don't have to worry about it being hacked.
This is the same shift in thinking I describe in AI Can Make You a Millionaire If You Change How You Think.
It's cheap to host. And then all you need on top of that is you need Acuity scheduling. So I have Acuity scheduling right here and you sign up for Acuity scheduling and then you can have your calls and you can have it synced automatically with your Google calendar. So you have your Google calendar, Google calendar synced. You can automatically make times like on my calendar. And all you have to do is send people to your website and then send them to schedule. So if you look at the acuityscheduling com website, they have a code right now. You can even get on it. You sign up the pricing.
It doesn't cost that much. It's like $16 a month. So right now you have Caffeine AI like $30 a month. And then and that's to host and build your website. And that's cheaper than a lot of the other ones. Then you go in the starter on Acuity scheduling. That's you got less than $50 a month and you've got a beautiful website and you've got your appointments set up right here and you can start making hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, even with a relatively small amount of views. In some of my videos, I've even forgot to mention the schedule call with me. But what I do is I just get out there and test different videos.
I test exactly what I want to film and I generally crank videos out. I usually put out anywhere from like three to five videos. A day because what I notice most of the people I watch just grind out daily videos. The most watched YouTube channels in the world grind out daily videos. Believe it or not, Mr. Beast is not number one in views. But the channels that have more views than Mr. Beast, they just grind out endless amounts of videos. So if you can find something you can make a video about every day and then just crank videos out about it and then send people to go schedule a call on your website, you can immediately start making videos.
I go deeper on why this daily rhythm matters in One Video a Day: The Simple YouTube Strategy Nobody Wants to Hear.
It's a great money and what's awesome is you don't have to have a whole bunch of views. Almost everybody else is trying to tell you to get a whole bunch of views to build a bigger channel. But what happens, almost everybody's doing that. Like with YouTube advice, almost everybody's saying the same thing because they're all trying to make the same clickbait thumbnails to try and get views, to try and prove their authority and then they have to make their videos to do that. But there's so many opportunities to get found by very specific people who have very specific needs. And they're desperate to talk to someone. If you want help spotting the specific people your own experience could serve and building calls into your channel, you can schedule a private call with me and we'll map it to what you already know on our call.
I've seen coaches that charge in dating. I saw a guy, this guy charges, I already said the one who charges a thousand. I found another guy, he charges 500 an hour for dating. Like there's so many opportunities.
Why I Skip Courses and Stay Close to My Audience
Now, I recommend against a course where so many people you see are selling you courses. Because when they're selling you courses, everybody sets this thing up for passive income. I don't want to talk to my audience. And then I want to make people do it. And then I want to make people pay even more. The problem is courses take your energy away from filming videos that will get you straight into higher coaching and consulting services. I have a friend, he's been working on this course for several months. And he's so distracted, he's not putting out his YouTube videos that cranked in consistent income for him.
And he doesn't even like talking to people unless they paid him a whole bunch. But then he's disconnected from his audience. Then he gets frustrated about it. He doesn't get as many views. He doesn't get as much attention. But from my point of view, dude, you don't know your audience anymore. You're making videos for people that you don't understand anymore. You're out of touch. And then you're frustrated. And then you're making an online course. And then you're not making videos. It's just a negative spiral.
Search Traffic Is the Evergreen Advantage
So search matters much more than most of the people will tell you here because they're all thinking here. But my videos consistently get found by YouTube search. I watched a video, saying that YouTube search was, not getting much traffic. And on certain things, like, yes, if this particular video I did was how I got 51 700 organic views, this got mostly browse features, suggested videos. But, Google also can put in Google search traffic into your video as well. But some of my other videos, these videos actually get found a lot in search. And search traffic builds up over time. So you may not even see it coming as much.
Because when you are initially releasing a video, almost all everybody's doing is looking at browse features and the first 24, 48 hours first week. But here's what happens. So if you look at how views tend to pile up over time, if you're on the right search terms, what will happen is that, yes, you'll have this initial burst from browse features. But what will happen is you'll keep getting picked up in search. You'll keep getting picked up over time. So if you notice on this graph, the search traffic just continues to build up. It just continues to go up and climb further and further. While the browse and other stuff doesn't go up as much.
But the YouTube search traffic on this video tracked right here is 7%. But if you come back over here, YouTube search is attributing 16 to this. And then external, some of that is coming from places like Google search also. So what you'll find is certain kinds of content, especially content that can make you really good money, is still has this video, 9 traffic from YouTube search. And YouTube search is much more evergreen. This video, 18 of the traffic from YouTube search. And the YouTube search traffic will continue to pour in over time. And that's what you're looking for. YouTube search, 23 of the views on this video.
And currently this video is still getting 23 of its views directly from YouTube search. More than browse features, more than external. Same as my channel page. And same as suggested videos. So what a lot of other people are telling you is all one certain way of looking at and doing YouTube. Of trying to be famous in browse features and trying to actually just get these quantity of views and go add revenue and sponsorships or try and sell a course. But the problem is, it's hard to sell an online course if you don't have a whole bunch of views and authority behind you. And views don't matter.
Viewers and authority is difficult to build up. And most of you will never get here. I've been here. I've had hundreds of thousands of views on my gaming videos that made me almost no money. Like a few hundred bucks. And I'm grinding out videos and I'm getting tens of thousands of views on each video. But the ad revenue sucks because the audience is cheap. And a gaming audience is not going to generally pay to have calls with you. But even a gaming audience, you might need to put your price down. But I've got a gaming audience big enough at one point people paid $350 to play video games with me on stream.
So if you can go directly the route of paying directly for people to interact with you, there's a huge opportunity to monetize a relatively small amount of views. You could easily be making a few thousand a month just doing videos as a hobby. And what I average when I crank out views like I do, I average like 10 000 a month in calls. Now that can be seasonal. Sometimes not much. A few thousand. Other times like close to 20 000. Where I'm like, I'm tired of doing calls. Like I've had so many calls. I can't stand to talk to anybody else today. But the more calls I have, the better my videos get.
The more I know my audience and then people know me. And there's this positive reinforcement loop. So I hope I've showed you something that nobody else has showed you before aside of YouTube that's completely different than what you might expect. If you found this helpful, I will continue to crank out videos on my Jerry Banfield YouTube coach channel for you just like this on top of whatever is most interesting to me, most happening on YouTube. And if you want to talk YouTube, like one of the biggest things you can do is schedule a call with me because I am right here starting five new channels.
Already got one monetized. The second one's almost monetized. And you scheduling a call with me also proves that what I'm talking about works because it doesn't even if only 1 of you schedule calls with me, just do some math on how that adds up. A video with a thousand views that most people would scroll past and see nothing interesting. Then I make $2 000 on a video with a thousand views. Now, how would you like to make $2 000 on a video with a thousand views? You can do that too.