#097 - How to Blow Up on Social Media with Brett Clur I The Corey Ganim Show

#097 - How to Blow Up on Social Media with Brett Clur I The Corey Ganim Show Speaker 2: All right, welcome back to another episode of The Corey Ganim Show. Now we're approaching episode 100. So for those of you guys that have been with us from day one, thank you for continuing to support and continuing to tune in, especially as we widen our reach and interview some folks outside of the Amazon space. So the guests that we have this week, This guy is super interesting. You guys are going to learn a ton from his journey and what he's working on. His name is Brett Clur and he's not an Amazon seller. He's not an e-commerce. In fact, he's not really in the business space at all. He is a professional drummer. This guy is an incredibly talented drummer. He's worked with some really cool people. He's got a huge audience on YouTube. I think he has about 90,000 subscribers on YouTube. He's got over 100,000 followers on Instagram. And this guy is a very talented drummer and knows a lot of cool people in the industry. So we're going to get into his origin story, how he got started, where he picked up the drums and how him and I got to know each other because he actually works on the back end of some of my YouTube and some of my short form content. So we've got a really cool way to tie that into the conversation as well. So without further ado, Brett. Thank you for joining us, man. Looking forward to hearing about your journey here over the next 40-50 minutes or so. Speaker 1: Yeah, man. Thanks for having me. Speaker 2: All right, man. So let's jump into it. You are based in South Africa. You actually currently work for Grant Farmer, who is the brains behind my YouTube and my podcast and my social media. So before we get into how you got hooked up with Grant and how you and I got together, let's take it back all the way to day one. How did you get started with the drums? How did you get started in music? And how did that get you to where you are today? Speaker 1: Sweet. Yeah, so I live in this small town called East London in South Africa. And my dad is a musician. So he's like a really good blues guitarist. And he has a band. And when I was a kid, the band would always rehearse and just music runs in my family. So I picked up the drums when I was like three years old and then just went from there. So I was like one of those little child prodigies, like playing drums at like seven on stage and like everyone going crazy and stuff, which is which is funny because I stopped practicing when I was like a teenager. And when you're a child prodigy and you stop practicing, you stop being that, which is like a really interesting growth point for me. But yeah, so then I started teaching, when I was in my final year of high school, I started teaching the junior year people how to play drums and the school was employing me to do it. So that was how I kind of, my first job basically was teaching younger kids how to play drums. Kept doing that, like left high school and then started teaching full time and then eventually started teaching online. And in South Africa, the currency here is really weak compared to the dollar. So in teaching online, I realized shucks, I can do a quarter of the work I'm doing and earn the same. So like, what are the possibilities of that? So then COVID hit, I'd like was just at home. And then I started just doing drum stuff online. So that's when I started posting videos, started actually trying to monetize my drumming, educational skills somehow, and then things just went from there. Speaker 2: I love that, man. So there's a lot that we can dig into there. So your origin story reminds me a little bit of my sister, actually. Now, she's a golfer. She's an assistant pro at a golf club here in North Carolina. And similar to you, she started off playing golf really young and she was really good. But she took a long break. I mean, a multi-year break between... I want to say she took a break between maybe like early high school until the beginning of college. A critical four or five years of development. She pretty much stopped playing, but then she picked it back up going into college and actually got a division one scholarship as a result and now is an assistant pro. So like similar to you, super talented starting out, kind of burned out for a little bit and then picked it back up and is now crushing it. So yeah, that was kind of like a relational point that I wanted to make there. And also for you, I love that you noticed that, well, hey, the currency here in South Africa isn't as strong as the dollar. How do I earn in dollars and then spend in my home country's currency, right? My aunt does the same thing. She lives in Egypt. She's a translator for people there in Egypt. She gets paid in dollars and she gets to spend in whatever the currency there is in Egypt. And she lives like a queen on a salary of like four grand a month, right? Something like that. What is the currency called in South Africa, out of curiosity? Speaker 1: Yeah, it's called rand. So it's 18 rand to the dollar. If you're getting paid $1,000, it will be R18,000 here, which in South Africa, $1,000 would be like a pretty decent teacher's salary or like a junior electrician or like most kind of entry-level jobs around that. Speaker 2: A thousand a month? Speaker 1: Yeah. So if you study like a four-year degree, that's probably where you're going to start with between like $800 to $1,000. Speaker 2: So, are you telling me that if you're making, let's say $3,000 a month in South Africa, you're considered wealthy? Is that fair to say? Speaker 1: You'd definitely be. So, the poverty to like wealthy gap in South Africa is massive. So, there's actually about, like I've just spitballing statistics here, but I'd say like 80% of the country earns less than $300, $400. A month? Yeah, dude. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's just a very poor country and the divide is huge. So then the top 1% are earning well, between 10 and a hundred K a month, like no, no shot. Like, so middle class, which is where I would put myself and like everyone I interact with would be in that area. So I'd say like, like three K a month would be middle class in South Africa, but definitely well above most people. And you could live very comfortably on that. Speaker 2: So 80% of people are earning less than $500 a month in US dollars. It sounds like in South Africa. Sounds like middle class is somewhere between a thousand a month and 10,000 a month. And then the top 1% are earning, like you said, an upwards of 10,000 or more per month. And what are those, like, what are the top 1% in South Africa? What do they do? Like, what are their professions? Speaker 1: Bro, I have no idea. Either they're investors or they run multiple companies or they do some sort of, it would have to be entrepreneurs and stuff. Because like an actual qualified doctor here would probably make Depending if they're a specialist or not, if you're just a, like a GP, a general practitioner, you'd probably make under a hundred K, which would be between four or five K a month. That, that would be what a doctor would make. And that's like top tier in terms of actually having a degree. Everyone over that, entrepreneurs, business owners. Yeah. Speaker 2: I mean, you could say the same in the States for the most part, right? I mean, most of the middle class here is working for somebody else. I mean, they're, of course, for the top 1% people in the US. You know, some of them are employed. Some of them are executives at companies. They're in the C-suite or they're, you know, co-founders of certain companies. But same here as it sounds like they're the top 1% in the US. As in South Africa, our entrepreneurs, our investors are really adding a lot of value to society more so than just working for somebody else. So that's an interesting observation. I really did not know that the wealth gap was that large. And I mean, it makes sense because I've seen people like, for example, there's people on Twitter like Nick Huber, right? Sweaty startup on Twitter. He owns a service called somewhere.com, which is a recruitment agency for remote employees. And actually, I hired his firm to find my assistant who lives down in Jamaica and he is very publicly said that they're making a big push. To hire people out of South Africa. They're finding a lot of really really talented people in South Africa Yeah, you can hire for a thousand to fifteen hundred a month which for them is a fantastic salary. They're making a ton of money Yeah to then do you know certain tasks for the US business owners anything from admin all the way to I mean the person that took the sales call with me for his company was based in South Africa and He was a great salesperson. He followed up. He was professional. He asked great questions. And I would be shocked if Nick is paying him more than $1,500 a month. There's no way. Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it helps that South Africa English is very prominent. So there's no English barriers. There's no like we're good communicators. We fund people. So yeah, for most people like getting that salary, that's like, that's fantastic. And then Amazon even did a huge push a few years ago. I had a friend working for them where he was on. He was like a call guy for Amazon. So people have like customer service issues and stuff. He was just there. Amazon bought him a computer and they did a big push. We've got a whole bunch, like thousands of people from South Africa to do that role. So yeah, I mean, remote work is getting, it's getting there. People are realizing, I realized around 2020 that remote work is like so powerful, but I think over, like people are slowly starting to realize that like you can find remote work online. Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the way I see it, unless you need an extremely specialized role or you need an operator with boots on the ground for your business, there's really no reason to hire in the U.S. I mean, we've got a handful of U.S. and I guess one Canada-based employee, but they're doing very specialized role, right? Coaches in our coaching business, they are the operator integrating all of the businesses together. But I'd say half of our staff is either in the Philippines. My executive assistant is in Jamaica. I mean, shoot, you're on my content team and you're in South Africa. So yeah, lots of really good opportunity to find some super qualified people at, I mean, typically probably 15 to 20% of the cost of someone in the US. So I love it, man. Speaker 1: Yeah, 100%. Speaker 2: Okay, so let's talk about, so you said that during COVID, right, things are locked down, you're probably stuck in the house. And is that when you really started to kick up the content creation and the teaching other people how to play drums? Like how did COVID really amplify your social media presence and your push to make content? Speaker 1: Yeah, so I've just played video games for like the first two weeks. Speaker 2: I played video games the whole time. Yeah, dude. Speaker 1: And then I was like, shucks, I've been playing Assassin's Creed Odyssey for 20 hours a day. Yeah. Five days straight, I need to do something. Let me just go online, see what I can do. And then I found Upwork. And I was like, okay, let me type in drums or music. And I actually got into blogging. So at the time, yeah, at the time, drum blogs and music blogs were quite successful. So for like 2020 to 2022, 2023, I was writing for a few different drum blogs. If you just type my name into Google, you'll see a whole bunch of stuff. Like it'll be articles that are like best jazz drum kit or something. And then I was writing those for clients and that was my business. And in doing that, I was able to quit my teaching job because I had an in-person teaching job. And then that took over because it was obviously the dollars coming in. And then when COVID kind of eased up and, and like things are back to normal, then I started posting content. I was kind of posting before that, but I really knuckled down around 2022. So 21, I got married, they were like busy. And then 22, I really started posting a lot. And that's when like, IG had just brought out Reels. They were kind of new at the time. So I posted a few. All I did was film myself playing drums and then put a voice over it. And then it blew up. Suddenly things were getting like 20,000 views, 50,000, then 100,000, then a million. And I was like, shucks, cool. I'm like, this is working. Let's do it. And then posting, posting, posting. So I grew from like 10,000. I had 10,000 followers in COVID. So I had posted up to that point. And then once I started doubling down on reels, I grew to like 100k in like a year, which was cool. So it was all just, it was hard drama education. Like just here's a cool thing. Let me play it. Here's how you play it. That was every video. And I was posting two a day. Speaker 2: So it sounds like very informational content, like more so teaching people, Hey, this is how you maybe do this particular beat or this is how you play it. Cause I have no knowledge of drumming. So that's what it sounds like to me. And I saw on your YouTube channel. So you've had the channel since 2013. Yeah. But you just, you really started posting in 2022. It sounds like. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. So I posted a few around 2020. I launched my YouTube channel. In 2020, so I had a drum studio set up at the place I worked at. And then once I was allowed to go there again, I was like, let's start a YouTube channel. Let's try this. So I started posting from then. Speaker 2: And it's funny, I pulled up another tab here. I'm looking on Google. I just Google search your name, Brett Clur. First thing that comes up, your YouTube, 90,400 subscribers, your Instagram, 112,000 followers, your LinkedIn, 120 followers. But I mean, I doubt there's many people on LinkedIn that are really searching for drum education like there is on Instagram or YouTube. Speaker 1: Yeah, LinkedIn would have just been my network in working online. So like clients I've worked with and that type of thing. Speaker 2: And I see you've got, you wrote a good bit for Roland articles, is that correct? That was one of the first results that comes up and then Museversal. Speaker 1: Yeah, Roland is my biggest client I've ever had, which is cool. So Roland's like a big music brand where they do like pianos, drum kits, a whole bunch of electronic stuff. So I was able to write a few blogs for their website. Speaker 2: That's cool, man. Yeah, I've heard of Roland before. Again, I'm not super familiar with the music space, but I know they're a big name and I'm sure that was a great client. So when you say that they were your biggest client, right? I always like to talk numbers. I like to talk details. If you're open to sharing, what did that look like? I mean, if they say, hey, Brett, we want you to write an article on XYZ drum or XYZ strategy, what was the deliverable on your end? Like what did you have to produce and how much did they pay you for that? Speaker 1: So it would be a thousand words and they paid $350. So it'd take me like maybe two, three hours. And, and it would be the, the ones that I did for them. Some of them were like educational. So it'd be like, here's the song. Can you just break down five different drum parts in the song and then just put them in like a essay format just so someone could read it on the internet. And then the other ones were more copywriting and trying to sell their products on a landing page. Speaker 2: That is a great way to just monetize your expertise. Would you consider yourself a good writer? Because I feel like a lot of people out there, they think either, oh, I'm a great writer or people hate writing. Some people despise it. Has that always been a natural strength of yours? Speaker 1: Yeah, natural strength. Actually, what happened is when ChatGPT came out, Google updated its algorithm. And tanked like personal blogs. So most blogs that were thriving before AR were doing really well. And then ChatGPT launched, I think at the beginning of 23. I think that was when it launched or it might've been 24. Speaker 2: It was because I remember the first time I ever heard about ChatGPT was I was home for Christmas and I think it was Christmas of 20. I want to say it was 2022 because I remember my sister was still in college. She comes home and she was like, hey, have you ever heard of this ChatGPT thing? I was like, what are you talking about? My mom was also like, what is that? And she was like, well, I've got to write this research paper. Let's type in the topic and see what it gives us. And I remember we typed it like, hey, write us two paragraphs on this topic. And it gave us a result and I was like, Oh my God, this is going to change everything. Like how, how are more people not using this? Like it blew my mind. Speaker 1: So I was chilling, dude. I had a thriving blog writing business with musicians and drummers, but then Google didn't want AR content to rank high. So they updated their algorithm so that personal keywords and stuff ranked higher. So if you typed in something like a drumming question, instead of that blog popping up that answers the question, it would pop up like Reddit or Quora, just so that it knows that that's a real person answering that question. And then what that did is it dropped all the drum blogs down. And then they all, because they're not ranking as high, don't get as many monthly clicks. And then they stopped making as much AdSense. So My blog writing career kind of just dipped around then. And then I actually shifted to YouTube script writing. So that was where I went from there. So I was like, I'm good at writing. I can do that. And my first ever script writing client, weirdly, was this YouTuber named Jeremy Ethier. He's one of the big fitness guys. He's got like 6 million subs. I saw him post a thing. I applied and he liked me. So I started working for him for a while. Having no idea how to write YouTube scripts because there's like an actual science. Speaker 2: Take it till you make it. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think he just enjoyed, he enjoyed like my personality or whatever. And he was like, Oh cool. Let's work together. So I worked with him for like maybe three, four months and I dove into the deep end of YouTube strategy and analysis and scripting and everything behind it. And then from there I started Actually understanding why my own YouTube channel does well or doesn't do well. Before that, I was just posting. I was like, let's just post a video. This is really fun. This is cool. But from the first script writing client, that was when I understood that social media is like a strategy game. If you play it well, you win, that type of thing. As a good writer, I've written scripts. That used to be my main thing before I joined up with Grant. Still doing scripts now, but just within the Integrity Media company. Speaker 2: No, we'll get into more about your partnership with Grant and kind of how you and I linked up. But before we do, I mean, again, this is just out of my curiosity. So when you're writing for these, you're basically a freelance blogger for lack of a better term back in sounds like 2022. And they're paying you, what, $300, $350 per article. Each article is about a thousand words. Speaker 1: I mean, at the time that Roland would have been the highest paying. So it's not if you think about it like today, I'm like, yes, that's not very high paying because some some clients would pay like $50 for 1000 words. So Oh, wow. Yeah, you'd write like 3000 words and make 150. At the time, I was like baller. I'm so rich compared to all my young friends in South Africa. Nowadays, I'm like, shucks, I'd never be able to do that. Like what a waste of my time. So it's just kind of like growing into it and growing online, realizing how much money I can actually make, like what separates me from a US person if I have the same skills. That's kind of, yeah, back then it wasn't, Roland was high paying at the time, but no one else would have paid like 300, 4000 words. Speaker 2: Then how much, so, and then you transitioned to the YouTube script writing. How much was that big business? So you said he had about 6 million subscribers. How much more was he paying you to say, write a YouTube script for one video compared to like a Roland article? Speaker 1: Yeah, that was great, dude. So that, that was around, um, I'm not sure if I can actually like, publicly say how much it was, but it was under NDA. There was contracts and stuff. So it was a lot more, um, it was probably like, like a lot more based, but it wasn't per script. It was per hour based on, so it was like a monthly retainer. Speaker 2: Okay. Got it. So would you say over under a thousand dollars per video? Speaker 1: Probably under yeah, okay, so that there's in the script writing space for YouTube There's not many people that would pay over a thousand unless it's a massive business. Speaker 2: Right. And unless I'm sure you had a track record of just writing insane scripts that did crazy numbers, right? Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Script writing is a bit weird because when a YouTuber hires a script writer, the script writer is not actually responsible for how well the video does. They just kind of save time, but they can be responsible for how well the video does, but it's not an expectation. It's like this weird gray space, whereas if you hire a thumbnail guy, Like he's responsible for how well that video does based on how good that thumbnail is. Speaker 2: Right. Because, yeah, because you're saying like, for example, you write my YouTube scripts, right? Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: Intro. And then you kind of script out like, hey, these are the. We're going to talk about five main points that we need to hit. And then these are the kind of the sub points that we need to touch on. And you're right. I, you know, if one of our videos that you wrote the script for me flops, I don't sit there and I'm like, Oh, Brett ruined this video, right? If anything, it's like, well, what do we need to change about the thumbnail? What do we need to change about that? Usually it's title and thumbnail, right? The two biggest predictors of whether or not a video does well. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. So on YouTube, it would be title, thumbnail, hook. It supports what the thumbnail is doing and that adds curiosity and then the hook reinforces that curiosity. Then that will up the CTR, the click-through rate, which is how many people see it and click on it. Speaker 2: And if my understanding is correct, the higher the CTR and the higher the, the, let's say the first 30 to 60 second retention, the more YouTube is going to put that in front of more people, which in turn, if the CTR is high, more people are going to click on it. And it's kind of like a flywheel, right? Is that kind of how it works? Speaker 1: Yeah, a hundred percent. But then the more people that watch the CTR goes down. So it's like, there's so many, there's so many aspects to it. You basically like, There are people that sit and obsess about those metrics, but it's the CTR, the average view duration and the Yeah, it'll be those two and then just looking at like on a surface level, how effective are the title, the thumbnail, the hook? Where are people dipping in the video? So as a script writer, that's what you're mostly responsible for. Speaker 2: It's like where are people falling off? Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. So a good script writer will write a script where people dip a lot less because they're writing it in a way that grabs attention. Speaker 2: Sure. No, that makes a ton of sense. And obviously you used what you learned in writing scripts for The Fitness Guy for three to four months and really diving in and learning that process. You then, I'm sure, took all that knowledge and then applied that to your own YouTube channel, right? Which in turn caused that to grow. Got you plugged in with Grant for the role that you're in now. Is that fair to say? Speaker 1: Yeah, 100%. So I actually started trying on my YouTube channel. And what's weird is that it didn't really help views as much, but it did help And we're here to build a better audience where people interact more and actually like the network of people watching my YouTube channel are a lot higher quality because I've targeted a lot better than what I was doing. Speaker 2: So then on that note, would you say that comments are more important on YouTube? Are views more important? Like what's, aside from CTR and aside from let's say view duration, what is the metric that a YouTuber should be focused on? Speaker 1: Yeah, so it would be views and comments. Those are the two. So subscribers don't matter anymore. They used to. They don't matter. But views and then a good indicator to a growing audience would be repeat views. So you can see in the metrics how many people watch the video who have watched your previous videos. Speaker 2: Interesting, I didn't realize that. Speaker 1: That's good to know. But then on the flip side, it's also good to know how many people are watching this that have never seen your videos, that aren't repeat viewers, because that means you are growing, like expanding, which is... Speaker 2: Reaching new audiences. Speaker 1: Also important, yeah. Speaker 2: So why is it that subscriber count doesn't matter anymore? Is it because that YouTube is just pushing... They're not necessarily pushing your videos to your subscribers. They're pushing them to kind of anybody that has an interest in that topic. And then as long as your title and thumbnail are optimized, again, subscribers don't matter because more people are going to see it. Like, is that accurate? Speaker 1: Yeah, 100%. I think it's just audiences either dip over time or something happened where you got a video blow up for the wrong reason. People subscribe but don't watch your other videos, but they still subscribed. On my actual channel, when I blew up on Instagram, I also just reposted those videos to YouTube. Unknown Speaker: And that... Speaker 2: As shorts? Speaker 1: Yeah, as shorts. So that blew up my YouTube channel faster than it needed to blow up because I didn't understand long form, but my channel was growing. So I actually gained about 50k subs just from shorts, not actually long form. So now someone will see that I have 90k subscribers, but they'll be like, so why does he only have like 3000 views a video? That makes no sense. But a lot of channels are skewed like that. So that's kind of why you kind of just need to ignore subscriber counts these days with different channels and stuff. Speaker 2: I have noticed that, like there are some guys that I watch in the real estate space or in the fitness space and they've got, you know, two, three, five hundred thousand subs, but then you look at their uploads, primarily the longer form videos, and they're getting three thousand views a video or five thousand views a video, right? Or like, it's consistently less than ten thousand views a video. And is that just because Is that because, like you said, maybe they got a ton of their subscribers came from maybe, you know, a couple of videos and those subscribers aren't as engaged? Or is it because they just, their content isn't as high quality? Like what is the reason for that? Speaker 1: It'll be a multiple, a number of reasons. Either someone blew up from one video. Some people buy subscribers, like people like do that more than we think. Speaker 2: I'm sure they do, like they do on Instagram, right? And on Twitter. Speaker 1: Yeah, they could have also posted shorts and those shorts brought in subscribers. So shorts, they've kind of fixed them a little. But when shorts first came out, they would inflate YouTube channels massively. Because they were very, like when TikTok first came out as well, it was very easy to get views. When shorts came out, the same thing happened and then people would just click subscribe once they watch the short that they like. And I think that a lot of channels suffered from that happening in terms of skewing the viewership. Speaker 2: And I've heard that that effect on like first, specifically on LinkedIn, right? I know we haven't talked about LinkedIn and I know you're not super active there, but I have heard big LinkedIn creators say, That actually having a one-off post go super viral can actually hurt your reach and hurt the amount of followers that you get. I think it's something about the LinkedIn algorithm that maybe they want you to consistently have posts that do well and that one one-off banger post actually kind of suppresses your profile. I don't know. Is there any reasoning behind that that you can think of? That's just what I've heard from a few. Speaker 1: I have no idea. I can understand how that could happen, but I could also understand how I'd still, even if that happened, I'd still want that viral post because the effect on your business and how many leads can come in and how much money you can make from that happening is still, I'd rather have one video go viral than like, you're still going to have that core audience anyway. So like the general strategy about all social media platforms is to keep your core audience, but then try go for viral videos because your core audience is still going to stay there. Speaker 2: Yep. And we've definitely noticed that, right? I feel like with, you know, you working on the back end of my Instagram and my YouTube and even this podcast, right? I feel like we have a pretty solid core audience, people that tune in week after week and really resonate with the type of stuff that we put out. But then, I mean, literally by having you on this podcast, right, we are looking to go a little more broad. I mean, maybe we attract some people that We are musicians, but they're interested in the business side of things and they see you on my podcast and now they're more likely to tune in week after week. So we've definitely seen some of that effect. I feel like in our business for sure. Speaker 1: Yeah, a hundred percent. Speaker 2: So, and I have a question for people that, so we talked earlier about like you, you feel like you're a good writer. So you naturally fell into the space of writing for other people's blogs. And that was kind of your foray into content creation and building a name for yourself, which then snowballed into your YouTube channel and your Instagram audience. So the question that I'm going to ask is more so for the audience here who Maybe they're on the sidelines, but they have some sort of business expertise or not even business expertise. They have some sort of expertise, whether they're a musician, whether they're a business person, whether they know a lot about stock trading or crypto, anything like that. Would you recommend that they start, if they're interested in building an audience, would you recommend they start on the written side, maybe on like a Twitter or LinkedIn? Or would you recommend they start with video Let's talk a little bit about what you do on like the YouTube or Instagram side. Speaker 1: Yeah, I would do both. I think it's if you're doing like Twitter and Expose, it's easier to get your thoughts out. Getting them out there. And then yeah, if anyone wants to go audience, the best thing to do is start posting videos right now because your videos are only going to get good like 100 videos later. So a lot of people get like analysis paralysis trying to wait to see what should I do? Should I do this? Just like just do it. Just put on a camera, film some stuff as you're doing it. Buy some lights, buy a microphone later. Like it's just put it out there. That's what I did. That's what we recommend everyone does. Um, I just like the first hurdle that everyone has is actually talking to the camera, which is the, it's like the hardest thing ever. Like I'm pretty chill now in front of the camera, but if you go and watch my first ever YouTube video where I actually speak, I was watching it the other day. I was like, yes, that sucks. Um, so yeah, if anyone wants to grow an audience, teach people how to do something, make an impact, just start posting like right now. Speaker 2: And I, first of all, I agree a hundred percent. And we're, I'm going to dive in to that specifically on, well, how do you start and why video and kind of get some of my thoughts on that here in a second. But would you say the reason that you recommend video is because just the trust factor? I mean, anybody can sit behind a keyboard and type and with AI these days, it seems like 70% of what you see online is just, I'm not a big fan of ChatGPT garbage, but when it comes to video, I mean, me personally, I trust Brett more if I see him talking to the camera on video every day than I would if I'm just seeing him writing on Twitter. Like, is that one of the reasons why you recommend that? Speaker 1: 100%. Personal brands in 2025 Top quality. It's what everyone should be doing because like relational people want connection these days and connection keeps getting less and less and less. So the more you put yourself in front of camera as a real person giving your real And this is where you can find your real thoughts and opinions and people either hate them or love them, but that connection is there, which is so valuable these days, no matter what type of content you're posting. Speaker 2: For sure. And again, just to give the audience kind of my two cents on, first of all, like I said, I agree with Brett's take a hundred percent that if you're going to start putting out content or start looking to educate people and building your personal brand, video is definitely the way to go. And I mean, that's how I really grew. I feel like grew my Twitter and grew my influence on Twitter specifically. It was actually with video. Now I wrote a lot on Twitter starting out, but there was a period For about six months where every single day when I go to the gym in the morning, I'd always go on a walk afterwards. And on my walk is like a 20, 25 minute walk, just whip out the phone. And, you know, I'd be pouring sweat, right? Like hair completely disheveled, like looking like a maniac. But my goal was to record a 40 second or less video. And the reason I chose 40 seconds or less is I wanted practice really making my thoughts more concise. So I would just choose a topic, like, for example, what should I say to a wholesale supplier? And I'd say, all right, you know, blah, blah, blah. And like, talk to the camera for less than 40 seconds, add captions to it, and then upload it to Twitter. And did that every day for about six months. I still do that. I miss some days, but in general, that's how I feel like I built my brand on Twitter and built a lot of trust quickly and got more comfortable on camera in the process. Literally 40 seconds a day, but the hardest one to post, the hardest one to do is that first one. And nine times out of 10, it's hard because you're like, Oh, well, what is my friend from college going to think? Or what is my girlfriend going to think? Right? Like Brett, would you say that's like probably the biggest hurdle that people face is what are other people in my life going to think? Speaker 1: Yeah, dude, you post that first video, you just think your family's gonna judge you or your friend. Speaker 2: So it's gonna be like outcast instantly. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. So that's what everyone thinks when they post like YouTube videos. Or you think people are gonna think you're cringe and they might. Speaker 2: And it is. It is. But like, you're trying to make money. It doesn't matter. Speaker 1: But yeah, like three years later, the people that thought you were cringe are now gonna be like, yo, how did you do that? How did you like grow an audience? Because now I wanna grow an audience based on my plumbing business or something. Speaker 2: Totally. Speaker 1: Just is what it is. So I actually posted my first long form video and it took me like three hours to form it. And I was filming it and I was like, really trying to do it so well. And then I like, I even afterwards went and edited it. And then I went to show my wife. And I was like, Carrie, like, what do you think? And she was like, dude, like, you're not in focus. Like your face is, is blurry. And I was like, Oh, no, so I have to go do it again. So then I went and did it again. And now I still go back and I watch it. And I'm like, that was my second take. And it's so bad. But if I never did that first video, I wouldn't have posted any videos after that. And you just slowly get better over time, it gets more comfortable. And that's just what making videos is. And the more you do it, it actually makes you more confident as a person as well, just to be able to, to actually chat to a camera and be confident with it, you practicing those abilities. Speaker 2: Dude, totally. Like I could go on, I could give a whole speech on just the benefits of Again, 40 seconds a day. That's all it takes. I heard a great quote last week. Somebody said that podcasting is the new public speaking. Just by you and I having this long form conversation, you get better at talking, you get better at making your thoughts more concise. One thing I'm really trying to get better at, I suck at right now, but I am getting better, is storytelling. I listen to people. One guy that I love and I follow religiously is Pace Morby. He's in the real estate space. Basically coined the term creative finance. He's probably worth a hundred and hundred and fifty million dollars and accumulated that entire net worth in the last five years alone. And one thing this guy does better than anybody I have ever seen in my life is tell stories and use analogies. I will watch one of his videos or one of his podcast episodes. And I swear to God, every 20 to 30 seconds, he's like, oh, so it's kind of like, you know, X, Y, Z. And he'll just make a comparison to something totally out of left field. But it makes a ton of sense. And it just really helps you to understand the topic. Because he takes a complex real estate topic and just compares it to like riding a bike or swimming, right? Something like that. And that's a skill that I'm trying to get better at and I'm trying to work on. But it just takes putting in those reps every day, right? It's exactly why when we started our YouTube channel, I mean, anybody could go back and look at my channel started in March of 2023. Me and Grant, we were putting out, I think five videos a week, one video every weekday. And Grant even told me, he's like, dude, let's maybe like focus on quality because these kind of suck. And I told him, I'm like, no, I want to put out as many as we can for as long as we can just to get comfortable in front of the camera, just to get better at speaking, just to focus on my tonality. I mean, watch those videos. I kind of talk like this the whole time and it was literally like the most boring thing in the world. Yeah, right. We wouldn't be here if we weren't putting out those five videos a week for the first, you know, three, four, five months. Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. And then just on the storytelling thing, YouTube scripting is a lot like that. So if you're purely giving info, it depends on the audience. So like with Amazon stuff, you're not really going to get a cold person watching your video, like watching a wholesale video, it will be someone who's doing it that's interested in watching it. So for them, it's not as important. But if you're doing like, I was writing a script the other day, and it was like, it was teaching people about selling info products and the mistakes that you're making. So a lot of people, like millions of people try to sell info products. And it was basically the one point was, well, like stop making your checkout process so flippant, complicated. Like we don't need four different upsells. Like the person just wants to buy that product. So then to, in a storytelling sense, to make that more appealing to someone watching and to actually grip them, you'd be like, look, if you go to a supermarket. Speaker 2: And you just want to buy exactly the analogy I was about to use. Speaker 1: Yeah. If you just want to buy milk, man, like, and some oak comes up to you trying to sell you apples, you're going to tell him to go away. So like, why are you trying to add on all these things that your audience doesn't want to buy? When you could just do a one-step checkout, they buy it, they're done, they like you, they like your info product. Whereas on the flip side, if you're buying a car and they offer you like a comprehensive tire insurance plan, that upsell makes so much sense because that makes sense. So it's the same way if someone's trying to buy an info product that's like 10K, there's probably some upsells there that are like really going to be valuable. Whereas if you're trying to sell an info product for like $30, Just leave it alone, dude. Just let them buy it. You don't need to upsell them to like $200 from there. They're going to be like, stuff this oak. I don't want to buy from anyone because there's too much going on here. So in the storytelling, that's how we'd script it to give those examples so that someone could really understand it in like a relatable sense. Speaker 2: And the reason the storytelling works so well, whether you're writing a YouTube script, whether you're doing a podcast interview like this, regardless of what you're doing, I mean, storytelling works because it's the way that humans learn best. It's what resonates with us the most. I mean, you could give a two-hour talk on the most complex topic in the world, and even if the person you're giving the talk to understands it, It's going to stick with them much more so if you use analogies and if you use stories. Somebody that I've followed for a long time and I love listening to is Russell Brunson. He probably is the king of storytelling and he calls it the epiphany bridge where you're telling a story And maybe you're giving a breakdown of a complex topic, but then you use the words, it's kind of like. So he might say, you know, well, hey, if you're selling an info product and you've got 10 different upsells, it's kind of like when you're at the supermarket and you're just trying to buy bananas. And the cashier is trying to sell you apples, milk and broccoli as well. You're just not going to be as likely to go back to that supermarket because you were just trying to buy bananas. You're just going to go to the supermarket that has the best bananas and lets you buy the bananas and leave, right? And using those words, it's kind of like, And today, we're going to be talking about a topic that is kind of the bridge that takes you from complex topic to simplified story version of that topic that's going to resonate way deeper with the people that you're teaching. Does that make sense? Speaker 1: Yeah, 100%. I fully agree with that as well. Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. Now, so one of the things I wanted to talk about too, so I was kind of digging through your Instagram before we jumped on here. And I noticed that Justin Bieber actually follows you on Instagram. He's got, I think when I looked this morning, he's got like 230 million followers. He only follows like 800 something people. So the question is, how do you get on the Biebs radar? How did that happen? Speaker 1: So back when I was posting two reels a day, just cool drum stuff. They were pumping, their Instagram was really pushing them. Justin Bieber plays drums himself. So I would assume, yeah, I would assume that like he'd probably enjoy watching a few drum videos while scrolling or whatever. So what I actually did was I posted a post where I was like playing some cool thing and then I just put a banner there saying like, who's your favorite drummer? Like as a question just to like get engagement and comments and stuff. So he commented on that and he tagged his drummer. Yeah, his drummer's name is Devon Taylor. He's like really one of the best drummers around and then From there, he followed, but I think that he accidentally followed me and just has never realized, like since that point, but it's been three years since that happened. So I use it as like a, you know, when people play like two truths, one lie, when you're like in a new group of people. Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I bet that's a good one to use. Speaker 1: It's always one of them. Like, you know, Justin Bieber follows me on Instagram, especially the fact that like we, we live in South Africa in like a small little coastal town. So the most famous person anyone knows around us is like. Speaker 2: Trevor Noah? Speaker 1: Probably Trevor Noah actually. No one actually knows him. So like, yeah, it's quite a fun fact. And I always, every now and then I'll go check if he's still following me and he is. So I'm like, okay, cool. But I'd like, what's crazy is the fact that Jason Bieber follows me on Instagram has led to, I kid you not, probably 1000 to 2000 messages of people messaging me to get to him. Speaker 2: Really? Because they think that you know him. They're like, hey, I see that Justin Bieber follows you on Instagram. Can you put me in touch with him? Is that kind of what you're asking? Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's not even... Speaker 2: A thousand to two thousand? That's insanity. Speaker 1: Over the past like three years. But they know that I don't know him. But they know that if I were to message him on Instagram, he'd get the notification. He would see it. And it would be there. Yeah. Speaker 2: Right. Speaker 1: So, so then people are like trying to sell him artwork. They're trying to sell him jewelry to like get him to wear it so that their businesses can like grow and whatever. And yeah, dude, it's just been a, I eventually like replied to all of them, but then eventually I was like, I'm just going to leave this view. I'm not going to like entertain this. Speaker 2: Have you ever slid into his DMs? No. Speaker 1: If I do that, he's going to unfollow. Speaker 2: You probably try to stay low key, hope that he doesn't notice that he follows you. Speaker 1: I don't want him to know that he follows me so that he stays following me just so that I have that as like a, yeah, that's a cred. Grant even uses it when he's like trying to get clients into the company. He's like, yeah. Brett's the creative director. Justin Bieber follows him. Yeah, we know what we're doing. Speaker 2: Dude, he used that on me. I was already working with Grant and he was like, oh yeah, we got this new script writer. He's the man. He's going to do great work for you. Justin Bieber follows him on Instagram. Actually, I think when he introduced you to me and Slack, that was the first thing that he said. He's like, yeah, Brett's legit. Beaver falls in, but I was like, oh, that's sick. Like, yeah, he must be legit. Speaker 1: Yeah, dude. It's an asset to our company. So that's why I can't message him. Just wanted to stay there just so that we have the like bragging rights of that being a thing. Speaker 2: Yeah, no, as you should. I love it. Well, on the topic of working for Grant, right? So for those in the audience, I mean, some people in the audience might know who Grant is. His name is Grant Farmer. He was a very active Amazon seller for a couple of years. Him and I met on Twitter back probably three to four months into me posting on Twitter. We've probably been, you know, hanging out and been good friends for about a year and a half now. But he then pivoted to starting a social media content agency, right? His company is called Integrity Media. And Brett currently works for Grant as a YouTube script writer. Now, Brett writes all my scripts. And he works for Grant. Grant's growing a crazy good business there. It's actually impressive to see how much y'all have grown as a company in the last, I mean, it's been less than two years. It's been like a year and a half. So first question is, what is it like working for Grant? And the second question is, what is your day-to-day really look like as a full-time YouTube script writer? Speaker 1: Yeah. So the role, the role is actually a creative director. So it's, it's, it's, it's script writing. Like handling video editors, thumbnail guys, strategy, handling all the short form, long form. So it's like everything. So it's like, So, I have a pod that includes you and two other clients and I basically need to make sure that we're hitting your retainer. So, whatever you have paid for, we need to hit that, but then also over deliver so that we're getting results, get views. So, I have an editor under me that helps me with all the short form and then I have a long form, a few long form editors and a few thumbnail designers that will do like YouTube stuff. And we're here today to talk about how to create content for different clients. So the day-to-day would be like scheduling out, it would be first researching like what's going to do well, sorting through all the footage that Sir Grant comes to film with you most of the time. Well, you're the one client that likes to film your own stuff, which is great. Speaker 2: Well, I would love for him to come out, but I mean, it's expensive for him to fly up to North Carolina every once in a while. Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of other clients he'll film and then we'll use that footage for like three, four months and then we'll repeat the process. So it's using whatever footage we have and then just making sure. So for you, it's the short form, the podcast, the YouTube, other clients that might just be YouTube or just short form. And then we basically, we strategize what's working, how can we apply what's working to you guys and then just get it going so that we're getting views and driving leads to your business and Yeah. So yeah, basically strategizing, script writing, getting like videos edited and like reviewing those and pushing them across the pipeline and just keeping that going. Speaker 2: And one of the things I really like about working with you guys, you know, you and Grant specifically is that every week or every other week you hit me on Slack and you're like, Hey, these are the four videos we need to record. Here's a script for them. Record them, right? Basically go and you guys make it super easy. So that way I don't have to sit around and think like, oh God, what are we, what topics are we going to record? What's the title going to look like? What's the thumbnail going to look like? I just have to show up and hit record, which is really how I want my content engine to be because the more involved I am in the process, the worse it's going to perform. It's pretty much that simple. Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the main role is to save you time and make you more money. That's like the two, the two to make things convenient for you so that your business is growing and then just growing it with you. So that's cool. But like the best sort of partnerships are the ones where you also like very active in it and like understanding what we're doing and stuff, which is, it's worked really well. I mean the video we posted yesterday, which people should definitely go watch, And yeah, it's like paid off. Yeah. Speaker 2: And guys, that's the for those listening, right? This episode, I think, will come out this week. So, yeah, if we post this podcast Wednesday of this week, the video that Brett's referring to will have been come out two days ago, which is the first episode of the Wholesale From Scratch series on YouTube. So, guys, I pretty much sat down and over the course of four episodes, we documented We're building an entirely new wholesale business from scratch. So all the way from, well, how do we identify which brands we want to talk to, to calling them, to what do we say to them, to analyzing their products, to then placing purchase orders and all of the denials and slam doors and all the nonsense in between. So like Brett said, I mean, that episode, we posted it yesterday. It has already, already, I mean, we're 20, well, I guess 26 hours in and it's already one of the best performing videos on my channel ever. And it's only been one day. So definitely check that out. Now, Brett, I have one last question for you. Very self-serving for me. But you're more familiar with my content really than I am, right? Because I don't spend a whole lot of time consuming on social media. I don't really look at Instagram aside from posting stories. All I really do is just write Twitter and LinkedIn content and then hit record on YouTube and then record stories. But the question is, so you're familiar with my content. What are the main things that I could do to improve? And what are the things that you think we've done well thus far? Speaker 1: Yeah, so just a side note with the From Scratch series, I sat through like 60 hours of that. Speaker 2: I apologize for that. Speaker 1: So me as this cool drumming musician from South Africa, I learned how to run a wholesale business, which I probably could try fool myself through now that I've watched that, which is crazy. Speaker 2: Well, that was the goal. So that's good. Speaker 1: Yeah, 100%. So yeah, things that do that do well, when you talk about Filipinos, that that's like, there's actually a psychology behind that. And it's, it's if you post something on social media, and it makes people feel a certain type of way. It will pump. It will get views. So when you say that you are paying Filipinos $10 an hour, you're going to get like four different groups of people watching that and feeling different things. So you're going to get Filipinos either thinking that is fair or like that's amazing. You might get a group that think like that's not cool. Then you're going to get people like on the left that think you're hiring slaves. Speaker 2: Oh my God, I love those people. They put so much money in my pocket. Speaker 1: Yeah. Then you're also going to get people on the right that think, why are you outsourcing outside of the US? Like make America great, hire Americans. So they're going to get pissed off with you because they want you to hire people locally. And then you're going to get a whole... So there's all these people that are either getting pissed off by that or they're getting like, they agree with you and whatever. And that's why that goes viral because it's caused such an emotional reaction. To people watching it. And that's where we're kind of aiming to go with social media and especially short form. Long form is different. I would say YouTube is like the best driver of the most authentic leads that you can get. So with wholesale, all the people that are like very likely to work with you. I'd give a YouTube like view like a 10 out of 10 score where I'd give a short form view like a 1 out of 10. Maybe like 3 out of 10 for Instagram and 1 out of 10 for TikTok. Right. Speaker 2: Yeah, TikTok views are worthless. Speaker 1: Yeah. So if you post things that make people feel things, they tend to do better. So like we posted one of your And I saw one of your Twitter screenshots the other day as like a reel. And it was that one where you're saying like, it's not like luck, like you did all these things and you listed it out. And it's actually showing people that like you do the hard yards, you do the work. When people see that, they're going to like feel an emotional reaction to it. And that tends to do better than like straight info. And then it also just depends, like Amazon's not a very big market to bring viewers to. Speaker 2: Yeah, people don't care about Amazon anymore. I mean, that's the fact of the matter. Nobody can argue that, unfortunately. Speaker 1: I mean, it's the same with my drumming. So like what used to pump doesn't anymore. It's very technical when it comes to driving. I like technical stuff. But if I post something technical, the viewers are smaller, as opposed to like beginners who who will like like something So basically, what I managed to crack with the code of actually getting views on my drum channel is it's simple. I just go play a cool thing, show them how to play the cool thing. So any person will see the cool thing and be like, oh, that sounds cool. Like, how do I do it? And then you just show them. Whereas if I used language that says like, yo, this is called a paradiddle. If you play it like this, it's going to sound like this. That's going to get like a thousand views. Whereas if I just played it, like here's a hook, the visual hook is me just going around the kids. People think that's cool. Then you show them that's going to get 10,000 views compared to the 1000 views of that. So the goal with like businesses And my question to you is how can you capture that essence and apply it to the info that you like providing based on what you're trying to get across to your audience and basically, and then you've got to get the hook right. With short form media, it's all about hooks. If the first three seconds don't capture someone, people scroll. And then on YouTube, I would say it's completely different. I'd say like, like the Amazon stuff is really helpful to people. So like this from scratch series is like incredibly, incredibly helpful. We're short forms getting more personal, personal branding stuff. So if you give opinions, and if you give like, like, real authentic, Delivery of whatever. I mean, speaking of George, I've literally got one in the pipeline of you talking about George. And I know that that's going to get more views than like an Amazon wholesale explanation. Speaker 2: For sure. Because he's, I mean, he's gorgeous. Like, look, I can't see it. He's just sitting here looking so cute. Like, I love it. Speaker 1: People love golden retrievers. So the total addressable market for that is bigger. And I suppose the goal is for people to follow you as a personal brand, But then in that it funnels down to people that would be interested in wholesale and and it's if you're interested in wholesale. You've got you kind of got like a few people to choose from. So try be the most relatable person. I mean, you don't have to try like other people like you or they'll think you're an asshole. But right, you kind of, as long as you make people think a certain way and feel a certain way, like an authentic audience will grow. And then as long as on our side, we are we are making those videos in the best strategic way possible. Which is a thing, like it is a strategy. There's like logistics behind what makes a video go viral and what doesn't. But just putting on the camera and talking personal stuff and anything that you think someone is going to care about or lots of people are going to care about. So in terms of like, you could talk about like the one you're chatting about buying a house and how you want to pay that off. Like people are going to care about that because everyone wants to buy a house. That's like what everyone wants to do. So the more you talk about that, the more like wider your market is when you are talking about stuff like that. Speaker 2: Well, and also even on the topic of buying a house, right? Like I think that was a reel that we put out where I just talked about, Hey, I bought this house. My plan is to have it paid off in a year. And then you've got, you know, maybe there's six or seven comments and three of those comments are like, well, why would you ever pay off a house early? That's stupid. That makes no sense. And then four of the comments are like, well, that's great. Like that's, I love to have a paid off residence like that, even if it doesn't financially make sense, like I'd love to have that. So what I'm kind of discovering and you and I were talking about this before we hit record is that information alone, there's always going to be somebody out there who's better at your craft than you are. Like I will be the first to admit when it comes to Amazon wholesale, I'm not the best wholesale seller, not even close, right? My business is one tenth, one twentieth the size of some of these guys out there doing wholesale who are also educating about it. But where I'm going to win and where I think we are winning is on personality and saying things that I authentically believe are true. But when people hear it, they're either like, oh, I hate that guy or I love that guy. Cause the worst thing you could be in people's mind, worst thing, worst opinion people can have about you is indifference, right? And I think about, I think about the guys that I really, that I love, that I follow like Pace Morby, like Nick Huber and other guys like them. I love them, not because they have the best information, although a lot of times they do, but I really like them and follow them because they're no nonsense. They tell it like it is. There are no excuses. It's like, you know, if you do what I say, you are going to win. And I'm like, it makes like, yes, like it makes sense. And I, I try to come across the same way because authentically, I think that's how I am. It's like, I see things the way where it's like, if you literally just do what we say, you're going to win. And if you don't, you're either lazy or you just don't care enough. And I think, I mean, I've seen it. You see some of the replies where people, it's the same people who are like, yup, like I love it. And then it's the same people who are like, oh, you're a jerk. And it's like, whatever, you're just stupid. So yeah, that's how I feel. But no, I love it, man. I think, I think we're on the right track for sure. Speaker 1: Yup. Speaker 2: Well, Brett, we've been at it for almost an hour. This is an awesome conversation. Where can people find you or follow you or find out more about you? Speaker 1: Yeah, so Instagram, my name on Instagram is BrettClurDrums. And then on YouTube, it's just BrettClur. Those are the two main places that I'd like. Instagram, I love talking to people on there. Whereas YouTube is more of like a watch the videos. Speaker 2: Yeah, and guys, that's Brett B-R-E-T-T, Clur, C-L-U-R. We're going to put all of his socials in the show notes below because Brett's probably going to be the one posting this episode. Speaker 1: Yeah, it's going to be me actually putting those there, so I'll make sure to put them there. Speaker 2: Awesome. And guys, if you enjoyed this episode, if you resonate with what we're doing here with the show, we're almost at episode 100. We've got a cool episode in store for that hundredth episode. You guys will hear it here soon, but guys follow the show, subscribe to it, leave us a five-star review. If you're watching on YouTube, subscribe and like the video and we'll be back next week with another episode. Thanks guys.