- Behind the Brand with Bryan Elliott
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- How I Built Mr Wonderful's Youtube channel to 1 Million Subs
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Hi everyone,
I’m opening the kimono [as they say] and my goal is to help you build your brand [or personal brand], similar to what I’ve done for clients of all shapes and sizes...
Here's how I built Mr Wonderful's Youtube channel from 6,000 subs and a bunch of old videos collecting cobwebs, to setting it on a path to nearly 1M subscribers today grossing 6-figures as a lucrative media asset:
I first met Kevin O'Leary in 2019 when he came on my podcast to talk about his origin story of how he became the Shark we love to hate on ABC’s show Shark Tank.
One of my favorite quotes from that interview is,
"A salary is a drug that [they] give you to forget your dreams."
This is classic Kevin with all the theatrics of his super villain persona, but he's actually spot on with this one in my opinion.
Now, I don't believe everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur but "a salary is a drug" sentiment resonates with me because I do feel like I am hardwired with certain traits that give me an unfair advantage over others when it comes to being a self-starter and my own boss.
They key to winning Mr Wonderful's business and getting this project wasn't rocket science or even particularly original. Kevin asked me for help with a Youtube strategy and it evolved from there. It was a simple formula that I use with everyone.
I simply ask prospective clients what's important to them. In Kevin's case it was obvious--money.
I told him we could invest a little time and budget into growing his channel into something big. The strategy and KPI's were as follows:
1. Create a Youtube series that gave the audience what they expected: advice about money, investing, finance and entrepreneurship.
This seems obvious but it wasn't at first to Kevin. You see, Kevin is a multi-hyphenate:
—He's a classically trained chef.
—He collects some of the most amazing and coveted watches in the world.
—He plays guitar and has a collection that would rival Clapton.
We settled on Kevin's core strengths in making money and building companies. The Ask Kevin series was a huge hit and grew the channel quickly.
2. Use the channel to explore partnerships and collabs with brands and partners Kevin wanted to work with.
The watch series started to take off and we used the popularity of Kevin's persona Youtube to open doors with luxury watch/pen brand OEMs like Rolex, Audemars Piguet, Montblanc, Grand Seiko Corporation of America and more.
3. Use the channel to promote and spotlight Kevin's investment companies from Shark Tank.
I spoke how to build a brand using Youtube and other social media at Kevin's private conference with his Shark Tank investments in Miami and taught this same model to the biz owners in his portfolio.
4. Use the Ad Sense money (example $30K per month) to pay for costs of our travel, production etc. and still have plenty of $$ left over to be profitable. We continued to reinvest the money into growing the channel.
5. Use the channel as an amplifier and social proof of Kevin's ability to give high level keynotes worth $100k-$250k per hour.
Want to know more inside baseball on this project?
Reply here and let me know!
For those of you who want more brand marketing wisdom and advice, check out my other podcast
👇
We talk about: VW turns trash talk into eco effort | Is a $2500 luxury business chair worth the hype? And much more!
What’s this new show about?
A billion is at least 1,000x better than a million. This is a podcast for anyone who is trying to build a brand -- especially a billion dollar brand.
Marketing and advertising industry veterans, Bill Harper (aka BrandBossHQ) and Bryan Elliott (from the acclaimed Behind the Brand podcast) team up to brainstorm new business ideas, interview business professionals who are building really great companies, analyze what's right and wrong with brands, ad campaigns and more so that you can take what you learn here and apply it to your biz.
If you’re curious about what I’m up to beyond podcasting, here’s a snapshot of what I’m doing for clients via my production company, The Goodbrain.
If you’re an individual or company with a budget that needs help with brand strategy, marketing or creating original content [video, audio, photography], feel free to reach out.
My production company, The Goodbrain has offices in Irvine and West Hollywood but we have clients in Seattle, NYC, Tokyo and wherever the project takes us.
If you’ve read down this far, I love hearing from readers and I’m always looking for feedback. How am I doing with this newsletter? How about the podcasts and Youtube channel? Is there anything you’d like to see me do more or less of? What do you need? How can I help?
Hit reply and say hello.
The secret to growing on LinkedIn in 2024
There's a rising demand for high-quality video content on LinkedIn, creating a major growth opportunity.
How can you capitalize? Just grab your existing videos, and use OpusClip to turn them into clips and schedule them to post on LI.