Brand Yourself so Perfectly People Beg to Buy (w/ Caleb Ralston)

So if you're feeling overwhelmed by most content advice out there, post less, post more, niche down, don't niche down, I get it. You're probably feeling like you're being pulled in so many different directions right now. But here's the truth. Most content looks the same because the strategy behind it is the same. My guess today has worked with some of the biggest entrepreneurs online today, people like Alex Ramoze, GaryVee, and we're about to dive deep on what's actually going to work to stand out in 2026. This is 17 years worth of knowledge in 50 minutes. So before we get into the strategy today, we're going to have a ton of tactics to share with everybody. What is the first thing you think about when you're advising a content creator entrepreneur on how to stand out in 2026? I actually have something that I want to hit that I think is a little interesting and not really talked about much, which is that I believe the potential of your personal brand is actually predicated on the success or lack of success you've had in your career or life. And so the point being we need to do epic shit so that people want to follow and actually listen to what we have to say. I think so many people are trying to force a personal brand in Instagram, YouTube, whatever. And they're wondering why people aren't listening to them. And it's because maybe we haven't done the thing that the people who should be following us want to do. And so I believe that there needs to be a focus on doing epic shit, right? Like you mentioned some people that I've worked for in the past. I believe that is a big reason why we have had the success in building my personal brand the way that we have in the first year. Like the fact that we have almost 90,000 subscribers on YouTube within the first year or 53,000 people on our email list. This comes from the fact that I have the credibility in my background and then I continue to do epic shit. We released a six and a half hour free course. I don't know if any wild characters in here have seen that, but we put out a free six and a half hour course on YouTube in I think month three or four of making content. And the number one thing that I get asked on almost every podcast is about that course, that crazy thing that we did, right? The majority of the industry is selling that behind a paywall. We put it out for free completely for anybody to consume on YouTube. And then that thing generated 53,000 leads. Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, it's still cranking today. Like right now, if we looked at it, I think Trevor and I noticed in the last 48 hours, it still has gotten 3600 views. Like it's almost a year old now and it's still just cranking for us. Yeah, it's like the ultimate VSL. He's teaching everything that he knows. And then if you'd like to learn more or you want to work with them, you can do it in the comments. Now, I know the skeptic in the room or watching or listening online is going to be like, "Nil, or Caleb, I haven't done epic things. I've only been in real estate for 10 years. I've only been in finance for this many years." And I'm like, "Okay, hold on a second. Only." So you survived like all the ups and downs. You have done well. Maybe you make six fears, seven fears. Oh, you're in the top 1% or top 2% of the industry. And you've done. So I would argue that somebody in the room was like, "Well, that kills my content because I haven't done epic shit." You are doing epic shit. You have done epic things. You've done better than many other people. If you've gone from A to B, you are qualified to help people go. You're actually the most qualified to help someone go from A to B if you've just done it. And so don't discount your knowledge. But I think what you're saying is you do need to have done something. Like you can just be showing up talking about things that you don't know about. And you can chunk up or chunk down. You can pond up or pond down. Like if you haven't done anything super-crate, like what you just described, that's amazing. It's going to be tough to compete with you, right? And so what I think a lot of people need to recognize is maybe you're trying to compete with the top dog in your space and you're trying to exist in a pond that is just a little too big for you right now. And so I think a lot of people need to recognize the level that they're at and understand that that is where your personal brand can go. And so I believe that a lot of people. Because the number one question people are asking with educational content is, "Why would I listen to you?" Right? "Why would I trust what you have to say about the subject matter?" And your credibility, the success, the wins that you've had in your career are the thing that is going to cause them to trust what you have to say. And so the point is that you need to, one, we need to always be getting better results and doing more epic shit. But two, you need to be sharing with your audience the things that you have done in your career that give you credibility to speak to that specific subject matter. We talk a lot about this. It's called contextual credibility. Right? If you make a video on marketing, right? I would love to hear your credibility statement be something more around the amount of money that you've spent on advertising over the last 10 years on meta or something of that nature. And so we just believe that credibility and really honing in on what your credibility is is incredibly important because this is the number one thing that is going to cause people who have no idea who the hell you are to actually listen to what you have to say. Yeah, that's huge. So think about making sure this is one of the things you talk about is answering that question, "Why should I watch or why should I listen?" And so this is a big on YouTube. It's just one line, just a tactical. Should I put that in the beginning of every video? Yes. So we have an intro framework that we utilize. It's called the Four Seas. You have your call out, your credibility, your compass, and your core learning. And Neil was hitting on this earlier, which is really important, actually completely off-script, but it's really important to hit. Your intro is insanely important. And more than ever before, you need to get to the learning. To your point, so many people are doing these bullshit montages in the beginning that nobody gives a shit about. If you make educational content, the one thing that people are looking to do is learn. And so if you give them a learning in the opening 30 seconds, you get right to the action, that indicates to them that they are going to continue to learn. And so they're more likely to consume it. Okay, quick break. I hope you're enjoying today's podcast. We've been putting a ton of effort into these episodes to bring you the most value this year, and I hope that's coming through. But I do need your help on this. This podcast grows through word of mouth only pretty much. And so it would be a huge favor. And it really helped me out. You would tag me on social. So take a screenshot of your screen right now if you're in the car or on the phone and post this on IG tag me @Neilhome and I will share it. And also would love to connect with you on IG and get any feedback on what's helping you. Maybe what you want us to talk about in a future episode. So do that. And I will see you in the DMs. And for now, we'll get back to the episode. But credibility, yeah, we typically like to put that. Sometimes you can even just get away if we're talking to YouTube video with it in the packaging. But ultimately, you want to be providing the reason why the random person who clicked on your video is going to actually listen to what you have to say. And so you need to show them the background that you have, the chops that you have, the wins that you've had that give you the information, the knowledge, the experience to be able to speak on that subject matter. Yes. And this is what you're talking about is YouTube. The same can be done on Instagram, but it's a different, you know, a little bit different. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, are going to be, and these are based on your surveys and submissions is Instagram. And then some people on YouTube, long form, social form. I think Instagram, a lot of people are also taking some of that content for TikTok and maybe repurposing it. But a lot of people prefer Instagram because of the DMs and the messaging and how you could use that to grow your community, build your brand, and also get customers. So for somebody who's watching or listening or in this room, like, and they feel like their personal brand is broken. Maybe like it's just not working. They've tried content. It's not connecting. They're not getting the views. Maybe they were in the past, but it's not working as well as it is, you know, as it used to it last year. But do you have a framework or something you could teach on how to fix a personal brand? Because I feel like a lot of people are just stuck right there. Well, I think one thing that we have a real problem with right now online is everyone looking the same. And nobody really standing out. And I'm sure a lot of you probably feel like, man, my shit is not pop and it's not standing out. I look like the person to my right and my left. I think of it kind of like, I love Coca-Cola. I'm a big Coca-Cola fan. I've been this way since I was a kid. Now I've transitioned to Coke Zero. But I really like Coca-Cola. And if you go into your local grocery store, there's typically an off brand or grocery brand version of it, right? I grew up near an Albert Sins. And so their version was big cola with a K, I believe. And if you look at it, right, it's seemingly very similar to Coca-Cola. It costs a little bit less. And sales are dramatically though, heavy on Coca-Cola. Everyone wants Coca-Cola. No one wants big cola. Unfortunately, I think the majority of you guys and everyone making content is acting like big cola, not Coca-Cola. You're listening to the individuals online who are telling you to just go find the top 20 videos in your niche, rip the transcript, and then re-record it exactly for yourself. And I get why people preach this. This is a very good way to get started, right? It's kind of like learning how to ride a bicycle with training wheels. We got to start with the training wheels, right? I learned to ride a bike, I think, in kindergarten or first grade. If I was still riding my bicycle with training wheels right now, it'd be a little weird, right? And so I think a lot of us need to start. Super weird. What? That'd be super weird. It'd be super very strange. Yeah. I mean, me on a bicycle is funny anyways. I'm taller, you bro. Like, 6'7. I'm a little big. So, me on a bicycle is a little hilarious. Anyways. believe that so many of us, we make this very strange mistake. When we start to make content, and when we're building our personal brand, we start with our competitors in mind, not our customers. And it makes no sense to me. And when I say it out loud, you're like, yeah, obvious. But we're all doing this. And what I want people to flip the script on is I want you, instead of starting with your competitor in mind when you're making content, I want you to start with your customer, okay? I'm going to give you actually an exercise that I'd love for you to do within an hour of this ending before you get on the plane, before you go home. I want you to write out five problems, five painful problems that your ideal customer faces, okay? And then with those five painful problems, I want you to pair each one with your unique solution. These are your content ideas. This is what you're going to make content about. I want to be very clear. I'm not the guy that's going to teach you how to get millions of views and go viral. This is not the recipe for going viral. This is the recipe for actually getting customers and getting people to trust you. I believe that trust is purely a measure that people believe that you are going to meet or exceed expectations based on what you've done in the past. So the way you build trust with your customer and your base is you set the expectation of a problem that they face and then you give them your unique solution and make it easier for them to solve that problem. And if you do that over and over again, guess what? They are going to believe that you are going to solve their problems in the future. So when you make them aware of an offer that you have, they have a higher belief that your offer is going to be worth it for them. They're going to get a better return on their investment, okay? And so I really think it's a big thing right now. I understand, but for anyone who has been doing that for more than two months, you need a transition. You need to start thinking about the customer first, not your competitor. And then, okay, so now you're thinking about this. You've got problems that they face, how you solve them, and you said the word in there unique. Okay, now a lot of us do the same things, but maybe we have a unique take on them. Yes. So how? Thank you. Okay, we have a lot of people who are offering similar solutions. We have similar products and services. How do we stand out from the guy or gal sitting to two chairs down? Yeah, I think this comes down to even just your silly little quirks and isms and how you operate, right? So I think there's the human element, but I think all of us, even if we're doing the exact same things, we go about it slightly differently, right? You're hilariously funny. This is something we were talking about like a while ago, like your approach and the way that you make content as you inject a lot of humor into it. What I want you to do another exercise for you is if you feel like, okay, there's no way for me to differentiate between me and Sally or me and Sarah, well, there's a little simple exercise that I want you to do. You draw lying down a piece of paper and you're going to have two columns, okay? A left and a right side. On the left side, I want you to write out everything that your competitors, everyone else in the space that they do or say that you would like to do differently or you disagree with, right? Maybe it's not what they're saying, but it's the actions they take, right? Maybe if you're meeting with a client, for example, you know what kind of beverage they love and the snack they prefer. And so every time you meet with them, you show up with the beverage and snack. That's my favorite go to, right? All of these tiny little details. On the left side, you're going to write out what they do that you disagree with or would do differently. And then on the right side, all you're going to do is write out the exact opposite, your approach, what you're going to do with this. Something that I like to use as an example is like agencies, right? A lot of like video editing agencies, they are notoriously horrible with communication and they're wildly slow. And so on the left side, I would say slow with communication. And on the right side, I would put, we respond within one hour every time. Or something of that nature. If you do this, this is the way that you can stand out. This is exactly what I did when I first started making content. I posted my first video February 28th, 2025. And the first thing that you'll notice, if you look at my YouTube channel, it's the video that's like 16 years of building brands to 30 million plus followers. There's no crazy shit going on with the thumbnail. It's very simple. I don't have photos of people that I've worked with that I'm leveraging in the thumbnail. These were all very intentional decisions. Why? Because I looked at what the majority of the industry was doing. And I wanted to do the opposite. And by doing that, you stand out so much more. Yeah, I think it's kind of tough because I do hear the advice of I just was on a podcast with somebody and they told me use validated content. Right? I think everybody on YouTube, even on Instagram, is like, okay, yeah, I saw this this concept did well for Caleb. Maybe I could make my version of that. And that's what you talked about in the beginning where people do get lost. So what do you have to say about that? Because it is a tried and true principle. And I'm seeing this all the way up to the top personal brands. I'll see a video come out from Alex or Dan Martell. And then I'll see that same packaging on like 17 other videos over the next month, which kind of sucks. It's disgusting. Yeah, it's kind of hated. Yeah, it's gross. But like it works for them maybe, I don't know. I think it works to a certain degree. I think there's a difference between having attention and having a brand where people actually give a shit. So if you are no longer being served in the algorithm, the people that are just getting attention, they fade. They disappear. The people who build a strong brand once my content stops being served to you for whatever reason. Hopefully I've built enough trust with you that you're searching my name out to consume more of my shit. And so I think in the short term, it works really well because you get all this attention. But I don't think you build a brand that is actually distinguishable from other individuals in your space. You just are at most second best. And I love validated content. I just want you to look outside your niche. That's all right. What a lot of people don't talk about is these top personal brands, the top top ones, that's what they're doing. They're creating these new formats or new formats. They're formats from gardening YouTube or from tech review channels or from camping channels. That is the way that you want to do this. You want to look at what is working really well in other niches. And then you want to layer on top your opinion, your subject matter so that you're able to actually stand out and not look like every other person. Yeah, I think I love being in our industry when it comes to media because I feel like there's something to be said for go where the competition is weak. And from a content marketing perspective, our industry is very weak. It's very salesy. People don't really get creative. There's a small group growing over the years. But I think they don't really do this one thing. And I'll give you guys a practical example. I saw conferences that were boring. And the same old thing. I went to a conference that wasn't real estate mortgage related. And I saw, wow, they had these, they had these amazing speakers. And this guy was, this marketing guy was there and this motivation and then this person was like, and then there was energy in the room. I was like, whoa, well, why can't we take that packaging of that conference or event and apply it to my industry? So when we did that, unique. So you take like, it's just something stale and you apply new life to something stale. So if some of the content ideas in this room are stale, we can apply new life from something else. You know that trend of like 15 years of marketing and advice in 15 minutes, that didn't start in the business world. That started in the video game niche. Okay. What 30,123 hours of Call of Duty gameplay looks like in 13 minutes. I'm telling you this is what you need to be doing. If you are going to just keep regurgitating what everybody else is doing, you are not going to stand out. Okay. So practically how would we apply this on Instagram? Okay. So I'm scrolling Instagram and I see, you know, what's weird is if you start watching content on how to get views, it's all these people who are going viral teaching you how to go viral so that you could teach other people how to go viral who are talking to people who want to go wild. It feels weird. It's just like this. Like I feel like we're in this thing. We're all in this spiral. And so I'm always looking at, okay, people who are talking to an actual audience, not just creators, even though that is a niche that can work for you. But like people are talking knowledge. And this video took off. And maybe it's something about a totally different topic, like what case teaches. And so what's talking about case and he's talking about viral content, and he's meeting the customer where they're at, making them feel seen and heard. So then I took that hook, applied it to our stuff. And it was our top performing in terms of views. But then also in terms of how many leads we generated in it. Yes. You know that little save button on Instagram? I want you guys to create a new folder. Call it your wrapping paper library or whatever you want to call it. Don't. Yeah. Whatever you want to call it. I'm a Christmas guy. I love gift giving and wrapping paper is my favorite thing in the world. It's called WRAPS. WRAPS. Thank you. And anytime you see a video that one caught your attention, you started consuming it. Anytime you see a carousel that you suddenly realize, holy shit, I'm on the third slide and I've been reading this for the last, you know, 60 seconds. Anytime that you have one of those, I want you to save it into that folder. Now preferably, it's not from somebody else in your niche. It's from something else, which means a lot of you are we're gonna need to reset your algorithm or set up another account entirely. I sometimes go as crazy as to get a new phone and set up an account on that phone. - Well, you have a burner? - Boom. - Oh, yeah, like, team Gary Days, we had probably like 10, 15 different burners. - Yeah, all kinds. - You can reset in IG. There's a thing you can do, it's an option to reset your algorithm. The other thing you can do, which is kind of easy, the algorithm is so quick at re-adapting. If you've ever gotten into politics for a minute, it sends you like deep in the rabbit hole, on one direction or the other. But I noticed if you go to the explore page, tap on something and then it'll take you down that highway. - Yeah. - And you can rewire it. So like, for example, somebody posted a video, they said, "Hey, if you ever get into a death spiral "on your phone in negativity, go find a positive video "about gardening about this, about this." And watch what happens. Every second or third video is going to be that thing. So you can quickly refresh your thing. But I would encourage you to hit the magnifying glass go to the explore page. Some of you might be shocking what's on your explore page. Some of you may not want to do that publicly, if anyone's around. - Yeah, nobody else around. - Yeah. But yeah, you go to the explore page. I've done, the reason I said that, I did that live with somebody on a call and it was embarrassing. But that's a terrible thing to bring up right now. But I will just tell you, you should look at some of these ideas and then save them in your wraps folder. And then we can review these. And like, now I want to teach something on what's happening in the market, the biggest opportunity in Las Vegas right now. And I can look at those wraps, see if I could apply this wrapping paper to my content. Is that the strategy? - 100% same thing works for LinkedIn, literally any platform anywhere. But what you want to be looking at is two things. So I'm going to share it with YouTube and then I'll translate it to Instagram. On YouTube, we believe that there are actually two different formats that you're looking at. There's packaging formats and then there's content formats. Packaging is your title and thumbnail. And the content format is the structure that you share the information in, okay? We believe that packaging formats fatigue faster than content formats. Now let me translate it to Instagram. It's basically the same thing, but you have your hook structure or hook formats and then you have your content formats. How you're going to go about the structure of the short. I want you guys to be saving things based on either one of those two things. Either you loved the hook and you want to save that so that you can utilize it later or you loved the structure, how they flowed through the information and you want to come back and recycle or redo that in your content. Those are the two things that you're looking for. The same thing real quick, I'll just hit on with LinkedIn. It's the same exact thing. You just screenshot a buddy of mine, Sinan Heaz, probably an I photo album of 800 to 1,000 screenshots of top performing LinkedIn posts. And I'm fortunate enough that he added me to the album. And so whenever we go to write a LinkedIn post, I know back to what we talked about earlier, my concept, what is my concept? It's a problem, a painful problem that my customer faces plus my unique solution. I call that a gift. That's why I use the wrapping term because it's a gift that I'm giving my audience. So I want to wrap it correctly. Then I look at all the screenshots and I see what structure do I like the most to convey this information? And so all it is, every single platform, you need to be saving. Now, here's the key. What a lot of people might do is just start screenshot and start to make sure that you're not using your own or saving random things. The better version of this is you actually are only taking note of things that outperformed the average. There's tools out there that you can utilize to do this. But usually I'm scrolling through and see a random creator on my phone. And so all I want to do is I'm just going to go onto their page, look at their last 15 posts. And if their average is 1,000 likes, they're going to be a lot more accurate. Cool. I'm going to screenshot it. That's a 2.5X outlier. I'm going to want to utilize that in the future. And so there's a tool you guys can use this. It's 1 of 10. It's great for YouTube. Yeah, 1 of 10 on YouTube. And you can put-- I think it's an add-on in Chrome. So when I pull up YouTube, it tells me the outlier. And I look at like a 5X 10X. You can make the category of whatever you want to see. But it shows you anything that's an outlier thing for tracking. I noticed this guy, Sam, he works with Dan Martell. And he was talking about-- Gangster. Yeah, I love Sam. He has great guys. He's always sending me something like-- it has like a VPN or something category. And is that another outlier thing for tracking? I think that's like a vidIQ. VidIQ. OK, you think that's-- So you can use vidIQ. There's a lot of tools. There's view stats. That's Mr. Beast's tool. All they are is they're basically-- they're showing you very easily. Hey, this is how much this performed above or below the average for the channel. So you know there's something there because it did better than average, which means if you do it, it has a higher likelihood of doing better than average for you. The unique way of applying this, which is different than what everybody else is telling you to do, is just taking something from outside the niche. Exactly. In applying it to your niche. Yes. Same packaging. Yes. Different content. Start getting upset. Like, what Trevor and I do? Trevor, the mysterious man who I'm mentioning, he's walking around over here. He's my content director. We spend probably-- it's usually a little bit more than this, but let's just be conservative here. An hour every single week scrolling through one of 10. Not when we need a video. Not when we need packaging. We just scroll through to see what catches our attention. We screenshot it. And we save it. We use like a notion board. It's very simple drag and drop. It's very, very basic. But we are just grabbing this when it catches our attention. Not when we need it. So we're developing-- it's why I call it the wrapping paper library-- we're developing this wrapping paper library. So when we do have a video that we do know what the problem and solution are, we then look at what wrapper is going to wrap this best to make it most appealing to my audience. Yes. This is awesome. Okay. So this is packaging in terms of hook on Instagram, title thumbnail on YouTube. And then you get into the structure. You're delivering the content. I've noticed this, and maybe you can help the audience with this. There's certain people when they speak the audience listens. And there's other people who are-- I don't know what it is. And it's hard to put your finger on this where they're not magnetic. They don't have that delivery. And so what do you say to the person who's maybe not gifted on camera when they're talking? They speak in a way where-- is there certain strategies or tactics you would advise that? Because I know you help entrepreneurs all the time with their content. And when they're talking to you ever see the guy who's kind of dead behind the eyes and monitor on it, and you're like, who is going to watch this video? Yeah. I have an interesting take. One, I think the thing that causes people to be magnetic towards you and want to listen to you the most is the shit you've done in the past. It's what I said at the top. It's the credibility that you have. All these characters that you're mentioning, I guarantee, they did something fucking big in their past, right, or recently. So that's one big one. I just realized I didn't ask you. Can we say the F word? You're OK. [LAUGHTER] Roll, ask if he could curse. Seventeen curses in. Yes. You're allowed. We did have one complaint, but it's OK. That's so funny. The other thing that I do think about is I think so many people think the delivery is creating this caricature, right? It's putting on a performance. And again, I'm not the guy that's going to teach you how to go viral. I'm the guy that's teaching you how to build real trust with your customer base. I think if you try to put on all these tactics of how to communicate, you're less likely to stick with it. So I actually encourage people to figure out who you are, who you truly are, and how you communicate. And proper delivery is just removing all the things that keep you from showing up that way. I truly believe more than ever before, who you are as a human is the number one reason why you're going to stand out more and more. As we go further into all the AI-generated content, right? Everyone's talking about building a personal brand. More and more people are going to be making content online. The information is the interchangeable commodity, but the thing that actually makes somebody stick with you is you the human. And so if you are monotone, maybe you're not going to have as big of an audience, but I would encourage you be that because it's the thing that you're going to actually stick with. The only way you win the game of personal branding is if you actually play the game for a long time. And so many people, I believe, aren't building a personal brand. They're building a prison. They're becoming a prisoner to this thing that they, this character that they've made online talking about things they don't care about trying to be charismatic in a way that they normally aren't in everything. They normally aren't in everyday life, and they hate it. Like, I'm sure some of you probably see a content day on your calendar and get a pit of anxiety or stress. You're like, "Ugh." Right? I have met with thousands of people who are tired of what they have built. And so I think there's little tactics that you can get to improve your delivery, but the number one thing that I encourage people to do is lean in fully to who you actually are. I am a nervous kind of anxious character, and I bring that out in my content. I call it out all the time, right? Like, I will always address that. And I make sure that I share that because what a lot of people would think is that's going to make people listen to me less And sure some people maybe but the people who relate to me who are also like yeah I too am anxious about being in front of the camera. That sounds awful They actually double down they get closer with me. They're more attached to my brand not less So obviously not in the hook but you would if you hate making content or you're anxious about doing it Would you actually say that in the in the video? 100% so you're like Whatever your hook is you know if you're feeling like this I'm with you actually have a solution for this by the way Actually don't like making these videos, but I'm doing it anyway to help people like something like that You could say something like that The way that I usually do is I try to inject it organically So maybe my first point is around you know There's actually a video on my YouTube channel It's called if you struggle with making content please watch this I would recommend if you struggle with watching content please watch it It is really I think very useful But in that video one of my points is you know overcoming the fear of showing up on camera And I immediately call out the fact that like I'm terrified Trevor is filming me at a chevron gas station right now I filmed it out in the wild in the real world and I'm literally like Thinking the clerk as I'm buying a red bull and then turning to the line or to the camera and delivering a line And my line is like talking about how scared I am doing this right and so I believe that like you could do it Very on the nose you can also have it be a little bit more Integrated into your outline or whatever, but I like calling those things out. I like sharing Let's go here for a second. I believe that the best way to build proximity to get closer with your audience Is to give them more at bats to connect with you? There's a podcaster out there that people either love or hate, but he's huge Joe Rogan and he has done an incredible job about Talking about so many different subject matters. So he gives his audience so many different ways to connect with him Right if you like MMA if you like politics if you like conspiracy theories if you like human optimization You're probably gonna like what he has to say if you like all of those You're probably a super freak fan right you care about anything that he has to say and so a big thing that I'm always trying to do is bring out The little personal details of myself my interests my fears my values my preferences So that the audience can connect with those things anyone who is anxious making content hearing me talk about that They're gonna relate to me more if they then hear me talk about how obsessed I am with my three Harley David Sins Or the fact that I love to go to hardcore shows and get punched in the face if they're into those things They really fuck with me after that, right? And so it's just it's stacking values and interests so that your audience has more ability To get closer. Yeah, and I think I you know one of the best ways to stand out on short form today is to just insert the thing That you are interested in in the content, but they are completely unrelated. They're disparate So like for example you love cooking But you see the person teaching personal brand while cooking there's a gal. I can't remember her name right it's Sarah's no Sarah's no fucking love her. She's the best everyone should follow Sarah's snow on Instagram. Yeah, she's so into cooking But she included cooking in this well her videos are cinematic and it looks cool because she's also a filmmaker But like okay, let's get a more practical example. I was talking to Chris yesterday and Chris is golfing and I was like bro He brought a video I'll go for with you and I was like dude you need to teach some of these topics about real estate and Investing and buying these properties and the the programs available in Texas while golfing so like I was like you're literally picking up the clubs and You were like you could tie the two together with a with this drive that you have to make and then you know What this is also kind of like this program or it's like you can connect the two and I noticed people do this at the gym So whatever the thing is and it has to and the more unrelated the better Yes, the most interesting people in life have to completely unrelated things like contrast Yes, it makes people very interesting Here's a couple of things on this point so yes It makes the content interesting also for the viewer, but here's what I would argue is the more important point I believe Walk with me here. I believe branding is just simply a pairing of things and good branding is an intentional pairing of relevant things consistently So many of us are Branding content creation in a negative way because we film it in an environment that we hate We have a videographer behind the camera that we don't like that makes us frustrated that makes us feel self-conscious that doesn't make us feel like what we're saying is actually good and so by Filming on the golf course or for me that video I just mentioned I'm writing my Harley Davidson during the video I Loved making that video you're pairing Content creation was something you love and if you do that consistently the byproduct is a brand the Association of content creation changes you suddenly start to enjoy it So we need to pair things with our interests. Yeah, like I I am really crazy with this one like this is what I optimize like everybody that I've worked for every client that we work with This is what I actually optimize almost more than Brand positioning is number one. I'd say this and then content strategies number three is the film environment Like we make sure that this is an environment that you get energy from not drained We make sure that the person running the camera you actually really like a Great example of this is Wednesday this last week. I had an insane day I had back-to-back all freaking days during at 8 a.m. All the way until the end of the day and then Trevor and I were gonna go film a video afterwards Which was insane and I could tell he was nervous like yo Are you gonna have enough energy by the end of the day and I told him I was like dude? That's the thing that's pulling me through the day. I love filming with Trevor with Trevor specifically not just filming videos But I love filming with Trevor. I love just shooting the shit with him just talking for fun and because of that when I see a film session on the Calendar I don't get anxious or stressed I get stoked. I'm building the brand of filming We bring my favorite beverages and snacks on set every time it sounds silly But it is wildly useful. I've done this for every single person that I have filmed with and It has changed the game in how they look at film sessions. They start to look forward to it Yeah, sour patch kids. Don't there you go. Boom. There you go So little gnarly though because you know, you might be given the yeah So these are just a ways to make it remove the friction from creating content We're gonna get into some questions from you guys to know We got a little bit of time here We're gonna do questions and then all afterwards if you want to come Jam with kill you'll hang around for a little bit before we go to lunch here But I want to get into a few things with interests I have found and you could tell me your opinion on this that Most people have interests obviously they're not just a one-dimensional person and they're hiding the thing that would honestly connect them with the most people So geo you remember last time we had Pat Flynn here and if you look at Pat Flynn's videos He's got like back to the future the background the Chachkes on the thing and like all these nerdy things and and that's why geo's a fan Like the Pokemon all those kinds of stuff somebody else may not be and they don't even notice that but the guys who notice it become like your best fans They share your stuff. They become evangelists because and the thing has nothing to do with the content So I'm just thinking like if you are in discate boarding Now I guess one way to do it is like actually skate while you're doing this while you're teaching But that's tough. You might injure yourself and it's noisy What if the board is just in the background like on the wall, you know while you're teaching that your brand is now unique So you you're teaching the same thing So I just think one way to differentiate in the sea of sameness is not necessarily Burdening yourself with man. I can't come up with the really really unique solution my solutions only kind of unique and the way I'm saying it is not that different than where Neil or Susie or Sally said it but I got skateboard in the background I got like so packaging could just be the setting or you are the biggest Dallas Cowboys fan like my brother What if he wears the doubt? Dang bro. He got one person here tough life tough life. Go Hawks. Go see Hawks bro See ox. Yeah, right. I made a big bet on the sea ox this year made a lot of good. Do it again next year. Yes so Dallas Cowboys. Oh, yeah, so Dallas Cowboys. What if you wore the hat in this content like Some were references. Yes, some you can reference it. Yeah, it's something weird about guys Especially made and this is probably for women to like They're like really cool with people who like the same teams Like you just instant friends. So you just bypass a lot of the trust building by just including that in the content 100% or the music you like the books that you like to read You know if you're reading those trendy smut books or whatever and you want to bring those into your content What hold on say what's a smut book? I'm not gonna describe it. I'm gonna let you guys look it up. What is that? It's a big thing right now. It's a big thing. I don't even know. I'm Yeah, you got to listen to Alex Cooper talk about it. Oh dang bro. So you guys ever see the get ready with me all these different things Those influencers are are into certain things and they're doing they're teaching while doing it Talking about something totally different while teaching. So this is great packaging ideas So we're gonna get into some questions, but I want to make sure that everybody here just feels more empowered It is a personal brand right here. We're leveraging our interest. We're leveraging standing out from people this whole theme of the weekend Kill and in our event coming up is escape the middle. I feel like average is just kind of dead and And being punished and excellence or intention is being rewarded And so if you just do a few things Like it doesn't have to be like oh, I'm gonna become a whole new person and do this like no Just like start making some intentional tweaks with the way you Package the content you will stand out. This is it's not as far fetch as some of you might think so How many in the room have a question or something about your specific contestragity that you want Caleb to answer? We can do it live right now. That'd be cool for Q&A. We can get into it. We'll go with Aaron first over here. Let me get a mic over to Aaron and then we could film the question as well. So talking about filming in your environment that you like, how do you keep that from draining what you love? Great question. Great question. Not overdoing it. So I am fortunate and I think a lot of people in here have multiple environments that they enjoy, right? I love being on my Harley. I love being out in nature. I also am one of those weird characters who gets wildly excited by cool Airbnb's. And so I'm constantly like if you go to my YouTube channel, you'll see that we're always in a different setting. It won't always be that way. But I'm in my first now entry my second year of making content. So I'm optimizing for actually sticking with this, not for anything other than that. Like my main goal is just to keep doing it. And so I'm constantly booking cool new Airbnb's in new locations, because I know that that's something that I enjoy. And so I think there's that part. You're booking an Airbnb for the purpose of batch creation. Or like to work. And for most people, they would do batching. We're psychotic and we do a lot of three hour, four hour, five hour, six hour long videos on YouTube. So it's batching but for one video. But yes, to that point, essentially same content. 100% yeah, exactly. So that's something where I know myself and I know what I get out of that. What I would say is to Neel's point earlier, you don't always have to be skateboarding. You can have the elements in the background. You can mention them, right? You can figure out I don't know skateboarding very well. But I know there's wheels, trucks, and other things like that. Maybe you can use it as an analogy, right? I'm always trying to inject these things. The majority of my videos, you don't see a Harley in the background. I'm not wearing a Harley shirt. But I almost always somehow figure a way to mention it, right? And so that's the way that I'm trying to get my interest in. Great question. Thank you. Who had another question over here? So you say to package your content with something that you love. But what about package it with something that you're maybe doing a journey of like a 75 day hard or training for a marathon or something like that? Do you think that would still work the same? I love doing it. Here's the key. I think a lot of people-- and actually, I'm so glad that you said this so I can clarify-- a lot of people may hear what we're talking about here and think they need to make an entire piece of content on their interest. The big thing that we're talking about here is injecting the interest into the content. So I have a ratio that I talk about that I think a lot of you should do. 75% of your content should be niche wide. 20% should be niche. And then 5% is going to be personal content. But it's not that 5% needs to be a solo piece about it. It's just that you're injecting it. So for example, whatever you're teaching or educating your audience on, I think that absolutely could happen vlog style, Casey Neistat style, throughout your day, as you do 75 hard. If you guys study Casey Neistat, if any of you do vlog style content, I really recommend looking at Casey through this lens. What a lot of people don't realize is Casey is communicating one core message throughout his whole video. But it takes place when he's in his office, then he goes for a run, then he's at a meeting, then he's in the back of a cab or something like that, right? Traditional vlogging would just have all of those be their own moments. But the best version is taking the one core message or problem that you're helping people solve and carrying that throughout your day. And if 75 hard is something you're doing, then when you're going rucking or whatever, you could be having an Osmo camera and do a selfie moment like that. That could be something very interesting. I love things like that. And this is the thing, people had the question before. We brought this up in the intro. Should you niche down and only talk about this? Or there's other people like, you are the niche. You should be whatever you want to be. And then it turns into a variety show sometimes. I think the majority of hardcore black and white advice is wrong. Because all of this has so much more nuance to it. So I believe that you want to be making really deep content. So 75, I said it wrong earlier, sorry, rewrite it. 75% of your content should be deep content. 20% should be niche wide. 5% should be personal. Neesh wide is it's going to service my ideal customer and customer adjacent individuals. Let me give you an example. The content, the video that I mentioned earlier, if you struggle with making content, please watch this. That is a niche wide video. All of my ideal customers struggle with this. I'm talking like the big dog CEOs that are making the big videos that are getting millions of views, they struggle with making content. And so the video serves them, but it also serves a much wider person in my niche. It also serves the dad and mom who are posting photos for their friends of their family. And they're afraid about that. And so it's clearly going to serve my ideal customer, but it also serves more people within that niche. That maybe aren't going to be customers right now, but I want them in my world for when they will be. Does that make sense? That was a great question. Thank you. If we're making, like, semi-YouTube channel is four buyers and sellers in Toronto, then I'm making a vlog style of coming to the forward event where maybe that would be more agent-centric focus. Does it need to be niche towards like-- That is a great question. So many people make content that attracts more of the people doing what they do, not your customers. And so again, it comes back to always thinking through what are the problems that they are facing and how do I help them solve it? I will just keep repeating that until the day I die. That's all we do when we make content is literally thinking, what are the problems that you guys are facing with your brand positioning, with your content strategy, with your media team? And then how do we make it as easy as possible to solve? I'll give you guys a little golden nugget here, but this is very heady. So please walk with me here and then ask me for questions on this. I make educational content. Is a statement that a lot of people make. But the reality is, is that education is a byproduct. Education means behavior change. They took action. So what we're actually saying is we make content with the goal of behavior change. I make a video that for Neil might be educational and for Sarah might be entertainment. 'Cause Neil did something different afterwards and Sarah didn't. And so if you know this to be true, it tells you what to do in your content. All you need to do, literally the only thing that you need to optimize for is making it as easy as possible for your audience to understand the actions they need to take to solve the problem. Which means that half of the bullshit graphics that you guys are doing or seeing in YouTube videos makes it harder because it actually distracts the audience from knowing what they need to do. Okay, and so every decision you make in your outlining, in your filming and your editing, whether it's a short or a YouTube video, needs to be, does this make it easier for the audience to understand what they need to change afterwards? In their thinking or their actions. If you do that, you will make content that is actually useful, (laughs) that actually helps people, not just makes you sound smart, but actually gets people real results. When you think about putting it out there in terms of, okay, I wanna come up with these things and like a lot of this, I feel like for the average person is gonna be like, well, okay, practically Neil, how do I do this? So when you're working with a new client, and just so you know, when Caleb keeps saying, hey, I'm not the guy who's gonna tell you to go viral, I'm the guy who's gonna help you make content that actually gets you clients. That is important. I think everybody here wants to make an impact on their business, but I also know that for their, whether it's ego or even just a practicality, we are also optimizing to reach more people. And incidentally, you're not trying to go viral, but you accidentally go viral. You know, like if you look at Caleb's content, I don't think you meant to go viral, but you do. It's like Phil Jackson's philosophy with the Chicago Bulls and LA Lakers. They did not optimize for winning. They optimized for brotherhood. And if you have true brotherhood on a team, winning takes care of itself. I don't optimize for going viral. I optimize for solving your problems. And by doing that, you're more likely to want to consume my content in the future. And that makes it go viral. - By accident. - Get views. Yeah, get views. Yeah, he just didn't like the term. Okay, I got you. So, and I get it, 'cause I don't like that either. It's just clickbait almost at this point. Okay, so practically, you're working with the client. They have some ideas. They have knowledge to share. They don't understand packaging at all. They've been, they're an expert. They're a thought leader in their industry. And they come to you, Caleb, and they say, "Help me, bro. What do I do?" And they're thinking about, I want to start with Instagram. I want to start with short form content. I want to put it out. And I want it to be packaged in a way where people will receive it. What is your process that you take that client through? Because I know it's a big, long question, but like, how does that person start? Because I think some people here maybe went down the wrong road or they're restarting their personal brand right now and they want to know, "Hey, could you tell me the right way to go so that I don't climb this mountain and then realize they climbed the wrong mountain?" Yeah. Well, to be clear, that's never really the case with our clients 'cause I'm very self-aware and I know I'm not a fire starter. I'm gasoline on a fire. Even if you bring me a little lighter, I just need a little flame and then I can get it going. So I rarely take people from zero to one. It's usually like the posting content, but they're not getting results essentially. Yeah. And that's what they came to you. Well, if they're starting from zero and they're literally beginning, I'm actually not going to try to optimize anything other than them showing up. I'm going to do what I did with myself, right? What I did in the first year is we did not have any single number in mind for views or subscribers. Like in the back of my head when we put the course out, I was like, God, if we get 10,000 views on this in two or three years, I will be like ecstatic. It has 850,000 plus views right now on YouTube. It's crazy. It's insane. I never could have imagined. And so I think so many people are, they're like getting into, it's like getting into lifting, right? I don't know if you guys know who Chris Bumstead is, but he was, I think he's one of the Mr. Olympia like six or seven times. It's like crazy. He's jacked out of his mind. And if I go into the gym tomorrow and I try to do Chris's routine, I'm going to break every limb imaginable, right? And I think so many people who get into content look at the top dogs, the people I've worked for, other amazing individuals, and they try to replicate what they have done. And that is a losing formula. And so I would encourage you pick one primary platform that you're going to focus on. Okay? This is your main platform. For us, it was YouTube. I just wanted to build an insane amount of trust with you on. I believe the trust is expedited by the amount of problems that I can help you solve in a short amount of time. And so I'm trying to do that. Instagram was going to be our second and LinkedIn was going to be our third. Very quickly. And this is coming from the guy who is, you know, Ben on the teams and led the teams that are the highest volume out there. And I told Trevor I was like, we're not going for volume at all. We're going to do one YouTube video a month. And we're going to try to get an Instagram post and a LinkedIn post out a week. And that's it. And I was like wanting to put all of my effort into the pieces of content. The point being, I picked a number that felt realistic, stuck with it. And the moment that I had capacity to increase it, we're increasing it. We're going to double our output on YouTube this year. And guess what we'll do in the next year? We'll probably double it from there. The biggest thing that so many people get hung up on is they think that they need to start at the volume that they aspire to be at from day one. It doesn't matter where you start as long as you every month, every two months, every three months, whatever your cadence is, are increasing the amount that you do. So I think that's a big one. I also would say that in the beginning, you want to do a lot of volume. Contrary to what I just said, you should do volume. This is a moment where it's like, you know, listen to what I say, not what I do. I've been making content for other people. It had been 16 years when I started making my own content. So I understood this. I had met in just 2024 alone, over a thousand business owners that were asking me questions and sharing their problems. I knew what I needed to make, but a lot of you don't know what you need to make. And so you need to utilize what I call the accordion method. You need to use the expansion phase where you do way more volume. It's like an accordion, an accordion, right? And so you're going to expand it, do more volume, not to show up everywhere and bug all your friends on Instagram, but to get data. You need data on what your audience wants more of. So if you post more, you're going to get that data quicker, right? And in the beginning, what this looks like is every video averages 103 views, and then one video gets 417. And that's your data that your audience wants more of that one. And that's what you have to go off of in the beginning. And then over time, you can start to add in all the optimization. But whenever I meet with somebody, I am telling them, keep it as simple as possible. It's just like fitness. If you try and track every macro calorie, and you do all the crazy workouts, and you do the red lights on it, and all this shit, it's just overwhelming. It's like, let's just get the habit of going into the gym first. Yeah, we did once a month, then biweekly, and then now we're on weekly. That's incredible. I'm going to try to catch, but it's hard. Oh, so hard. Like, you think, oh, once a week, no big deal. It is a lift, and we had to bring in someone to help on the team. So if you're trying to start with weekly, it's like, oh, that doesn't sound like what you will fall off. So I think what Caleb's saying is like, hey, let's pick something more sustainable, and then stick with it. I would rather see someone continue to show up for two weeks a year, than come go hard for two months, and then we never see him again, which is what happens normally. That's the majority. Yeah. Yeah. Or you build something, and 18 months, 24 months later, you're like, what the hell have we been doing? I don't even know if this is working or not. Yes. Chasing the wrong metric. Okay, so we'll do one question from Cap. And then, guys, is this helping you? Content wise? Awesome. Dude, thank you again for being here. This is awesome. Thank you. Caleb, thank you. So I feel like my YouTube's like this mixed bag of tricks. I've tried a bunch of stuff, and I was doing shorts, and I got really good traffic with it, and got a bunch of subs. But now it's like, what do I do with it? Did I go back and hide those, delete them? Should I, or just keep plowing through it? It's like a dead audience, basically. Yeah. What is your goal? My goal is to go direct consumer, is what I'm trying to do. Teach wealth tips, debt elimination, tax advantage. And are you wanting to do that via long form? Yes. Okay. So a big trap that we see a lot of people fall into, and I'm going to give a qualifier in a second. Please wait for the qualifier. A lot of people make shorts on YouTube, and I've seen channels who get, and I know you've seen this too, a million, two million, three million subscribers. It's crazy. And then they upload a long form video, 13 views. I'm not, here's the qualifier. I'm not saying don't make shorts on YouTube. I am. We do it. I think it's great. But I would highly encourage you to take a break for a second from shorts and focus on long form. The thing that we have started to notice over the last couple of years is people just want more of what they consumed. Whatever brought them into your world, they just want more of. This is why I don't like chasing virality. Because when you chase virality, you talk about stupid shit that you don't care about like your Starbucks order. Unless you're really into it, talk about it by all means. If that's an interest of yours, right? But a lot of people will do their, you know, fast food order or whatever, not because they want to actually share it, but because they've been told by some agency that it's going to give views. But guess what all those viewers want more of? That. Exactly. And so it's the same, not only in topic and subject matter, it's also in format, right? If they're consuming short form, like have you guys ever like actually scrolled through YouTube shorts before? A lot of people actually haven't. It is a totally different psychology. I don't even like to think of it like it's YouTube. I literally like to think of it like it is a separate platform. I'm sure this will change. I remember back in the day, everyone was saying, don't make shorts. Buh, buh, buh, buh, buh. I do think shorts are important. But for you with what you've articulated, I would say you need to focus on long form for the next three months. And then when you can, cool upload shorts, but that needs to be what you optimize around. That's what I've done. I optimize around long form all day. And I believe it has led to a lot of really good results. Awesome. Thank you. Yeah, this is great. So guys, if you're watching or listening, I'm going to talk to YouTube audience now. Okay. So if you're watching or listening, hoping you got value from this, let us know what questions you have from things you brought up because I read every single comment and I want to inform me for the future videos that we put out on this channel. If you want to connect with Caleb, his links are going to be in the description. If you want to get that crazy lead magnet, we'll put it in the description. And also, do you think, like, I've noticed this, this is a problem and this is a great question to end with. I see a video takeoff on YouTube. I see a video sometimes takeoff on Instagram that doesn't lead to follower growth or subscriber growth. And this is a maybe unique problem now. It used to be like a year ago when one took off, you would see your count grow. And now, like, I don't feel like people hit the button. Should we be asking? Like, should I be like intentionally asking in the video, hey, I noticed most of you guys don't subscribe to the channel, but you're watching. Please hit the subscribe button, you know, or like, do you even care about doing that? I think you can. I think this is one of those things that it's like, it's, it's not good or bad. I never will do it because I just always want my, my work to do the talking and the asking for me. If I did a good enough job helping you solve a problem, you're going to subscribe. I look at these things, the followers, the subscribers, not as something to optimize around, but as an indicator that they want more. So just because a video got a lot of views, it may have solved a problem, but maybe they didn't feel like they want you to solve their future problems. They were just like, I just needed this and that's it. So if you do want to optimize, because people will come to me typically by, hey, I want to double my accounts. I'm like, oh, followers don't matter. Remember we said that. They're like, yeah, I get it, but I still want it. I'm like, okay, well, you know, you don't, you just need, you just need this. Like, no, I still want that because it's a vanity metric and it does get you in certain conversations and stuff like that. So I'm like, okay, fine. How would you create a piece of content that's optimized for follower growth? I think so. I don't do that, but I think what I do is I almost said do do. But what I try to do is I try to preview future things that I can, or future problems that I can help you solve. Right? So I'll be sharing, for example, we're probably at some point this year going to, this is something we've been doing behind the scenes with clients that maybe I'm going to bring out into the public, which is a whole thing around world building. I think the most, one of the most important things that you can do is build a strong world that you invite people into. And so I will do, like what I just did right there, right? I will tease future shit. I literally just actually did it, like without realizing it. I'm constantly going really deep on my content, but the thing is, is I've been in this shit for a long time, and so there's so many levels to it that I can preview something that I'm going to help solve in the future, and I do tend to believe that a lot of people subscribe so they don't miss that if I mention their painful problem that they're currently dealing with. So if you're feeling stuck in this sea of sameness, I'm going to be doing future videos on how to position yourself to just stand out and more importantly dominate the competition, optimizing for more customers, creating content that actually brings you clients. So stay tuned for that, and we'll see you on the next video.