Jerry: It was real slow in the beginning, but then it took off and I ended up being able to build a business around it. 

Spencer: So I was like super excited. I made it to the program and I was like, oh, I don’t get the money. 

Jerry: You know, looking back, had I not made that commitment, I probably would have quit after, you know, five, six videos. 

Spencer: Hello and welcome back to another episode of Creators Uncut. Again, super excited for another episode. Like always, we’ve got amazing guests for you. So you can learn new experiences and hear new stories. Our guest today is Jerry Potter and his channel is Done by Lunch. Jerry, thanks for being on the show with us. 

Jerry: Yeah, I’m always excited to talk about YouTube and meet new people. So excited to be here. 

Spencer: Yeah, definitely. Like I always say, I love meeting new creators and kind of getting to know their stories. But for viewers who don’t know you, why don’t you go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself and maybe like what your channel does? 

Jerry: So my channel is for entrepreneurs. I always say there’s two paths on YouTube. There is the creator or influencer path and there’s the entrepreneur path. And a lot of times I think creators end up being business owners anyway, right? You build a business around it. But but I primarily talk to entrepreneurs that already have a business. 

They’re already selling their own offers and they are trying to generate leads for their business. And what I found was, you know, like creators know how amazing YouTube is, right? It’s just this incredible platform. Crazy to think that it’s been around for over 20 years. And business owners also know that, but they tend to look at it as like, yeah, it’s next year. 

Next year, they kept putting it off. And so the primary focus of my channel is to get people to start their channel sooner rather than later. And so overall, the idea is how to grow a channel in 90 minutes a week so that they don’t have to keep thinking about it as I’ll start it next year. Because almost nobody starts on YouTube and then a week later, they’re like, well, that was worth it. This is amazing. Like you’ve got to be ready to start putting the weeks, months and potentially years in before you’re going to go. Wow, I’m so glad I did this. 

Yeah. So I just really focused on, I call it ROE return on effort, really focused on what are the parts of YouTube that we can do that give you the highest return on effort and got it down to where you can do it in about 90 minutes a week by just focusing on those things. So that business owners could stop saying next month, next quarter, next year and just start publishing videos so that in six months they can go, wow, I’m so glad I did that. So I’ve been a creator in a sense, almost, you know, my entire adult life. I for years, I worked as a radio personality. My wife and I hosted a morning show in different cities around the US. And so we were the people you’d listen to in the car on the way to work. And, you know, we worked in different formats and it was, you know, lifestyle discussion stories, you know, things that were supposed to be funny, different things like that. And as radio sort of started to become a dwindling industry, we got basically fired three times in five years. No scandal. 

We didn’t do anything wrong. And when you lose both of your salaries, your health insurance, everything on the same day, it gets all real fast. And the last time we had two young kids and it was like, okay, something’s got to change. And I didn’t know what I was going to do. I was like, I don’t know what am I going to do? 

Get a job at a restaurant. And a friend of mine said, dude, you have been a content creator your entire life. Everybody needs content now. 

This was 2015. And everybody is like, so why can’t you do something with that? And I was like, oh, I guess I am a content creator, you know? And so I ended up getting a job at a startup agency. A couple of years later, started a YouTube channel, honestly, just to learn about it more for my clients. And it was real slow in the beginning, but then it took off and I ended up being able to build a business around it. 

Spencer: That’s awesome. That’s a great way to get into YouTube, I guess. And I like what your channel does. I think that’s one of the reasons we were excited to have you as a guest is, you know, we kind of have similar audiences. You know, our audience is people who are starting a YouTube channel and you focus on like the business side of things. So maybe you have some good insights. 

If any of our listeners are entrepreneurs. So I’m excited to kind of dive more into that. And being a radio host, I think I’ve actually talked to another person who is a radio host. Oh, yeah. I think that’s a great way to kind of segue into YouTube. So how long have you been doing YouTube? I can’t remember if you said that. 

Jerry: I started my channel in 2017. 

Spencer: Oh, OK. Cool.

Jerry: So it’ll be, I mean, it was August, so it’ll be nine years this summer as of this recording. And then yeah, 10 years next year. 

Spencer: Cool. So let’s go ahead and just dive right into maybe some advice or tips for people who want to start a YouTube channel. So you’re pretty successful now. You started in 2017. But say you had to start over from nothing. You had a brand new channel, zero subscribers. What would you do first? Or like, how would you get started? 

Jerry: Well, I will say one thing I wouldn’t do is I wouldn’t delay over and over again, thinking that there’s some level of perfection. And maybe it’s because I came out of, you know, media before, but I originally had my channel ready to go in May of the year that I launched. And like multiple videos, I was like, all right, here we go. And all of a sudden I went, oh, nothing’s good enough. And I had to refilming all the videos and delaying for three additional months. 

And the only reason I even launched in August was because I was speaking at a conference in Mexico like a week later and I wanted to be able to add the conference say and subscribe to my new YouTube channel. You know, like I thought I’m going to get, I’m going to get people this way. I’ll have this room full of people. So don’t do that because there is no perfection. You know, YouTube is not a place for perfection. 

But if I was starting at you at zero, the first thing I would do is, you know, in addition to getting going is I would get like real small in terms of like a not, not just like a niche, but a micro niche. Because what’s working on YouTube right now, whether you’re a creator or otherwise, is channels that are very specific to a specific person. And so this shift that we’ve seen the last couple of years, essentially YouTube’s algorithm got AI and got better at AI and it got really smart. So once upon a time, YouTube was this game of keyword research and having the perfect title and description and tags and all this kind of stuff. And now YouTube knows exactly what your video is about. It knows what, you know, it knows that you’re wearing a white shirt and a hat, right? Right now. 

Yeah. You know, so it’s, it’s so smart and it just wants to match the video up to the right people. So once upon a time, you could have started a channel about dog training, for example, or marketing or something like that. And it’d be like, Oh, we’re going to recommend these videos to people like marketing, but those are massive categories. So the first thing I would do is I would come up with something really small and specific that I wanted to speak with people about. And the way that I do this with clients and this applies on the creator side as well is first think about who’s your who. There’s three parts of this. 

Who’s the who that you want to talk to. And the more specific that you can get, the better. So if we used our dog trainer example, if you got down to like one breed of dog, now it’s, you know, gray hound owners, or maybe it’s senior gray hound owners, or maybe it’s gray hound puppy owners, you know, like the more specific you can get, the better. The second thing is, what are they chasing? So what are they wanting to get? What are they wanting to get from, hoping to get from watching your channel, watching your videos? And then, at least in the entrepreneurship, we also talk about what are they escaping? So if I use my channel as an example, I am talking to online entrepreneurs, which is way too broad. 

If I was starting over, it would be very specifically like whole food plant based health coaches or something like that. And then what are they chasing? They’re chasing a lead generating YouTube channel. What are they escaping? They’re trying to avoid it taking all their time. 

So the more narrow you can get, then on the back end, YouTube is able to essentially go, oh, we know exactly who these people are. They are gray hound owners. And we already know that about them because they watch videos about gray hounds and taking care of gray hounds. 

And then what are they chasing? They’re trying to have a well behaved gray hound puppy. So we know that because they’re watching videos about how to train the puppy. So that alone all of a sudden, when you put up a video about that, YouTube is going to start suggesting that video to gray hound puppy owners that have been watching videos about training gray hound puppies or what food should I feed a gray hound puppy or things like that. And so when you do your job as the creator to make it very clear to YouTube, then YouTube wants to match your videos up to the right people. Now, if they don’t watch, then YouTube will stop recommending that video, right? Because they’re not satisfied. But it will try. 

It will keep going. And for people, if you don’t believe this, I know a lot of people think, oh, it’s so hard to break in when you’re new. If you go to, I didn’t believe it when I heard this. 

I was like, nope, that’s a lie. You go to YouTube.com at any, on any given day and you start scrolling down, you don’t have to scroll that far where for any user of YouTube, you’ll see a video from somebody that just has like a handful of subscribers and a handful of views. And that is YouTube giving smaller and newer channels a chance. 

And every once in a while, I’ll go test it again. And I’m like, yep, there’s that video they thought I would like. And it’s not even like, oh, like sometimes it’s four days old and it’s got like 11 views. 

And here it is on YouTube frigging homepage. Like that’s huge. Yeah. So that’s, that’s the whole thing though, is you’ve got to be very specific. So YouTube knows who you are talking to. 

And it’s not about adjectives. Like I had one client, she was like, oh, I work with badass female coaches. And I’m like, YouTube doesn’t know which coaches are badass. They, they know who are, they know they’re female probably and they may know they’re coaches, but they don’t know that other part. Yeah. Yeah. 

Spencer: I think that’s really, really good advice. Um, I don’t know if you have opinions on this, but I feel like there is kind of like a fine line between, between being too niche and being too, too broad. Um, like, like it is important to niche up. Um, but I feel like if your niche is too niche, then like there, you can only grow a certain limit. I don’t know. What are your, what are your thoughts on, on that? 

Jerry: I think if we’re starting at zero or we’re still small and we’re not happy with where we are, I don’t know if there’s anything too niche. As long as there are peep, that’s funny. I, I was listening to one of your other episodes and, and you guys were talking about as it, you know, niche or niche. And I usually say niche, but I just reflected back what I heard you say. Um, if, if you are, if you are small enough that like, but there’s still interest in it, I don’t know that you can go too small in the beginning. I think when people go too small, I think sometimes they’re just assuming that it’s too small. Uh, one of the things I talk about in marketing is, uh, you know, I say, um, you want to hear a not so fun fact. If someone believes they’re the only problem in the only person in the world with a certain problem, they won’t go look for a solution because they assume it doesn’t exist. 

And so a lot of times in marketing, it’s just like validating. Hey, you’re not alone. You know, you’re not the only one with this. And so I, I would start small because you can always expand later. And if you start broad, then YouTube is not going to be able to, uh, like you almost have to start over. So I know you have your, you have a channel that is about a video game that’s not Minecraft. What’s it called? It was like Minecraft. 

Spencer: It’s called terraria. 

Jerry: Terraria. Okay. It was easier to say, I probably would have remembered it, but, um, you know, so it already knows who those people are. Right. But you could get more, you know, niche with that if you talked to people of a certain age group. And so you had more pop culture references of people in a certain age group, for example, different things like that. So that’s where I really don’t think, or it was, you know, you could start where it was all about a certain level of the game. And it’s just people who are currently looking. So let’s imagine I start playing this game and I, does it have levels? It has levels? 

Spencer: Uh, not, not really. Okay. 

Jerry: I only know based on what I heard about it on your show, because I don’t know this game. But if it had levels, imagine I’m trying to get through levels to boss or whatever it is. And it’s, I’m looking for videos on that and your channel is just for helping people get through level two in the beginning. 

Of course it’s going to match you up. But then later you could make it be for all the levels. So one of the things right now that I’m just playing with like crazy is Claude and building like tools and apps and things like that. And I thought about it. I was like, Oh, I could start a second channel helping, you know, entrepreneurs build apps to help themselves in their business or build like I have a YouTube script writing app. That’s for my, my clients and students, you know, different things like that. But I was like, Oh, if I started, I would probably get even more specific. Like it would specifically be app building with Claude for this demographic because later you can expand. So that’s a long answer to your question. The answer is pretty much if there’s some interest, no, I don’t think you can get too small when you’re starting. 

Spencer: Yeah, I like that. I don’t think any of the other creators I’ve talked to have kind of explained it that way. But it makes a lot of sense. Like you can start small and when you grow, then you can expand your life. like niche, that makes a lot of sense. 

Jerry: Yeah, easily. You can easily expand. But the whole goal in the beginning, or even if you’ve been publishing for two years and you are not getting YouTube recommend your videos, the whole goal is to make it just so easy for the algorithm to go, oh, we have people that want this, let’s suggest it to them. 

Spencer: That’s really good advice. I guess kind of going along with, if you had to start from zero, what would you do? This is similar to that, but what skill do you think creators should learn or businesses should learn to, that would like give them the most advantage when starting a YouTube channel. Do you think it’s like learning to talk to a camera? Do you think it’s like editing? What is your kind of thoughts on what people should learn as like their first major skill when creating content? 

Jerry: It’s definitely not editing. I think that we are entering an era where editing is not as nearly as important or even expected as it used to be. And I don’t just say that because I know editing is a friction point for people, but I heard, there’s a creator named Greg Priest and he primarily teaches AI video. 

And I heard him on a podcast recently and I loved the way he put it. He said, editing is only there to make sure that your message gets out. And so editing is there to remove your mistakes, to remove pauses, all these things that we do when recording hurt our message from getting out. If you add a lower third graphic, yeah, maybe that helps somebody consume the content, but in general, all of the fancy editing that we imagine when we think of YouTube videos, it’s really not necessary. I think it’s more about focusing on what you’re actually saying in the video. 

Now, if you’ve got unlimited time and budget and whatever else, then yes, fancy editing can help. But YouTube did this big study a couple of years ago where they actually connected sensors to people’s brains to find out what led to viewer satisfaction. And they found out that an emotional connection with the video or the person in the video is more valuable than any production techniques, like 10 times more valuable. So making what you say in the video is the most, I think one of the most important things. And so that could be developing skills around storytelling, where you are drawing people in and making them feel something as they watch, as opposed to being very clinical. 

But the other one that I don’t think gets enough attention is one of the best skills that you can have is the ability to explain things in the simplest way possible. So a lot of times when people are showing something in their video or they’re talking about something that is maybe at a higher level of academics or it’s a complex thing, they feel like, well, I’ve got to use the big words and I’ve got to say make it fancy. But the thing to keep in mind is even if you are talking to doctors, lawyers, or even literal rocket scientists, if we assume rocket scientists are the smartest people in the world, for example, they’re still on YouTube and they’re just trying to get their entertainment, get their problem solved, get their question answered, whatever it might be. And so I think when you can do that, and this is something that AI can help, I’ve actually advised some people where it’s like, take your script and run it through AI and ask it to dumb it down to a fifth grade level. The person watching, it’s not an academic paper, the person watching doesn’t go, oh my God, this is so rudimentary. Their brain just goes, oh, I can consume this, I’m going to keep watching. Because the moment you lose somebody because you got too complex, they’re gone. And it doesn’t matter what you say after that. 

Spencer: I like that a lot. And like going along with that, maybe they are doctors, but maybe they’re watching a video that they don’t know that much about. And so it makes sense to kind of dumb it down and make it simpler. I think that’s a great skill to learn. 

Jerry: Yeah, and you have to know the audience, right? If you’re talking to doctors, you should still talk to doctors. So you’re not going to be like, a stethoscope is a such and such, right? 

Spencer: It’s just in the way that you’re presenting the concepts or teaching the concepts. It’s not about dumbing it down to somebody’s intelligence level. It’s about, and I don’t even like the phrase dumbing it down, I just haven’t come up with a better way to say it. It’s about presenting it in a way that the brain does not have to work hard to absorb it. Yeah, and I think also if you make it too simple, then that also might turn people away because they might get frustrated, like come on, get to the point, you know? 

Jerry: Yeah, and that’s knowing your audience. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So Jerry, thanks for your advice. This has been really insightful. I’ve got just a couple more questions for you. The first one is more, I guess, about your personal experience with YouTube. Has there been a moment through your career that has stuck out to you as the most memorable or 

Spencer: the most enjoyable or anything like that? I love to hear creator stories and moments that kind of stuck out to them. Or maybe it’s a video project that you did that blew up, or do you have anything along those kind of lines? 

Jerry: Yeah, well, I would say the most memorable moment. I mean, YouTube is always, in some ways it’s the most predictable platform out there, which is great. But in some ways there’s lots of surprises. And probably the most memorable moment, when I started my channel, I didn’t expect anything of it. Like it was literally gonna be, let me learn about YouTube because my clients are asking about YouTube. 

This is when I worked at an agency before I really had anything. So I was like, let’s see what happens. And actually, like a couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine sent me a message and he’s like, yeah, I see everything you’re doing, congrats. I remember when you just said, I’m gonna publish 52 videos and see what happens. And I screen shot of that message because I was like, that’s right, that’s is how it started. And that was my whole thing. I decided I’m gonna try YouTube. 

I don’t like to do anything just a little bit either. And I think we all need to do this. Like our time is valuable. So decide something is important or decide it’s not. 

And if it’s important, give it what it needs. So I said, I’m gonna put up one long form video. We didn’t even have shorts then, but one like regular YouTube video a week for a year and see what happens. And believe me, I wanted to quit a bunch of times. Looking back, had I not made that commitment, I probably would have quit after five, six videos. 

But I kept going. It took me six months to get to 100 subscribers. But then a month later, I had 1000 subscribers and a year later, I had 10,000 subscribers. So when YouTube goes, it goes. But I remember probably the most memorable moment is when I qualified for the YouTube Partner Program, which at the time was 1000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours in the last 12 months. Two things happened. 

First, I felt like I was days away and they raised the standard. And I was like, oh, how could you? Dang it, you know. But it’s okay, I kept going. And then I hit that new standard, which was that 1000 and 4,000. And I was like, oh my gosh, I can’t believe this. 

You know, this was just sort of a hobby on the side. And this is amazing. And YouTube’s gonna give me money. 

I wonder what it’s gonna be. And I found this online calculator where it would estimate how much you would make per view or based on your views. And I put in all my information and said, you’ll probably make about $17 a month. And I remember going to my wife and I’m like, well, I’m not gonna be able to buy that new car quite yet, but your man’s got $17 a month coming your way. 

And when the first deposit came in, it was like $335. Oh wow. And I was just blown away. And I think it’s because between the time I did that and the deposit came in, the channel had continued to really grow, but it also has to do with how valuable your audience is. 

And because my audience was business owners, a lot more people were trying to buy ads targeting business owners. So that was probably the most memorable moment because it was just like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. Like that’s, it’s not quit your job money, but is at the time especially, 300 bucks a month was pretty awesome. 

Spencer: Yeah, yeah, I love that. I also remember with my gaming channel when I hit the YouTube Partner Program, something I didn’t realize is there’s a threshold. You have to hit like $100 before they actually pay you. And so I was like super excited. I made it to the program and I was like, oh, I don’t get the money yet. 

Jerry: Yeah, it’s gonna take a few months. Yeah. 

Spencer: Yeah, yeah, but that’s a great story. I love hearing stories like that. And I think it’s a real motivator for people, you know, and I don’t know if it’s a good or a bad thing, you know, sometimes money can like change people’s passions, which is not good, but you know, I do like that, you know, with the YouTube Partner Program, you can kind of make YouTube a career. So thank you for sharing that story. Yeah, yeah. So I’ve got one more question for you. 

And this is one that we kind of ask all our guests on the show. It’s more advice related, but throughout your YouTube career, has there been a mistake you’ve made that you’ve learned from that maybe our audience could benefit from if they’re starting a YouTube channel or currently have a YouTube channel? 

Jerry: Yeah, so the biggest mistake that I made was not looking at my numbers. And it’s, you know, I think I probably had some mindset challenges with it in the beginning. I do remember early on like, oh cool, I got some views, but then again, I wasn’t getting many views, you know, that like that first six months, there’s this graph I show in my analytics for the first six months, there’s a lot of days with zero views, zero new subscribers, like, and that’s when you go, why am I even doing this? And I remember at one point, I remember YouTube would send out, I don’t think they’d send out an email, but I clicked in the analytics to the point where you see how many people have unsubscribed to your channel in the last 28 days. And I was like, oh, I don’t ever want, but like, don’t tell me that, I don’t wanna know that. You know, because it’s vulnerable to put yourself out there. 

Yeah. And now I know that a lot of people unsubscribe every single month, hopefully more people are subscribing. And when you look at your main analytics overview, it just shows you like, what’s your big, basically what’s your gain. So if you gained 100 new subscribers and you lost 20, well then you’re plus 80. But that might have been part of it, but I just, I avoided looking at my numbers for the longest time. 

And I think I was just kind of afraid to do it. And what that leads to is a couple of things. One, problems get worse before you know about them. So if you don’t look at your numbers, let’s say that you avoided your numbers and your retention was not good and you didn’t know, and you put out five more videos and then you’re like, gosh, why aren’t my videos performing very well? Well, the answer was sitting there five weeks ago, you just chose not to look at it. And the second thing is it’s hard to really optimize for anything unless you know your numbers. 

So for example, if you are only, like let’s say you only look at your main, your public numbers, right? Views are right in our face. How many views did it get? 

How many views did it get? But if you are, you know, most interested in being a creator, for example, then maybe views is a really good number. But I can tell you at some point, if the brands come along, they’re gonna start looking at your comments. 

So maybe you should be focusing more on your comments as well. However, if you’re a business owner, then it’s about how many leads that I get, which YouTube doesn’t track. You have to be able to, you have to track it in a different way. 

It’s getting easier these days. But then I don’t, you know, if I got a video with a hundred views, but I got five warm leads from it, that’s more valuable to me than a video with a thousand views that got one warm lead from it. So the best thing I can say, and I learned this from one of my mentors, Justin Brown, who runs the channel Primal Video, he said, there is nothing bad or good in your analytics. It’s all just interesting. That was such a mindset shift for me. So if you go into your analytics and you go, there’s nothing bad, there’s nothing good in here, it’s just interesting. 

I’m just going in to find out what’s happening. That was a big unlock for me. And then you can make much better decisions going forward with your channel and making sure you’re working toward your actual goals, as opposed to whatever YouTube puts on the overview page or whatever is standing out the most. 

Spencer: Yeah, I like that a lot. That is really good advice. One of the other creators I’ve talked to on our show, he called it iterating. So like you look at, you know, maybe retention, for example, like you see where the drop off point is, then on your next video, you kind of iterate on that, you know, have a similar style, but you change at that point to kind of improve your content. And so like you said, it kind of depends on your goals, but you know, I like that. Looking at your numbers is important. And I like that quote too, that it’s, what was it again? It’s interesting. 

Jerry: It was paraphrasing, but there’s nothing good or bad in your analytics is all just interesting. 

Spencer: Yeah, that is a solid quote. I like that a lot. So, Jerry, thanks for sharing that. Thanks for sharing your advice and your stories. Really appreciate it. If our viewers or listeners want to reach out to you, what’s the best way to do that? 

Jerry: Well, easiest place to find me is on YouTube. If you search my name, Jerry Potter, or Done By Lunch, it should come right up. If you want to reach out to me personally, if you go to any of the social platforms, I’m at Mr. Jerry Potter, so MR, J-E-R-R-Y-P-O-T-T-E-R. Feel free to DM me on Instagram or wherever.

Spencer: Okay, awesome. Well, thanks again, Jerry, and thanks to our listeners and watchers for checking out this episode. Make sure to like and subscribe for more content like this. And just a little plug for ourselves. If you need help making your videos, feel free to reach out to us at creatorluxe.com, and we’ll see you in the next one.