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Welcome to the Revenue Rebels podcast, hosted by Alan Zhao, cofounder of Warmly.ai. We feature B2B SaaS sales and marketing leaders who have challenged traditional methods to achieve remarkable results. In each episode we cut through the fluff and dive deep into modern tactics used to achieve success: intent-based outreach, social selling, B2B Netflix, video marketing, warm calling, customer led sales, influencer marketing and more.
Jaimie McCauley: [00:00:00] 50, 000 views or something like that over the course of, um, it happened quite quickly. The algorithm kind of took off with it. It was within maybe Two weeks, we did try SEO based videos as well. And some of those still generate a monthly income for us because, uh, it's a video that is helpful to people.
Jaimie McCauley: And it answers a question four seconds long. It got us. It got 25 million views, which is crazy, crazy amounts of views, you know, on Instagram is a little bit different with their short form content, you know, as a, but regardless, it, we went from, I think we had like eight or 9, 000 followers on Instagram to like 75, 000, which was a crazy dopamine hit.
Jaimie McCauley: We got to launch some products to sell like this is crazy. Um, but the problem was.
Alan Zhao: Welcome to the Revenue Rebels podcast brought to you by Warmly. On [00:01:00] this show, we cut straight through the fluff and dive deep into the specific tactics that B2B revenue leaders across sales and marketing are using to find success in today's environment.
Alan Zhao: I'm your host, Alan Zhao. All right, today we have on here, Jamie McCulley. He's the founder of AI Hustle Podcast, a top 100 podcast on Apple for entrepreneurship. It's a weekly podcast that brings on the latest in AI news and AI tools that you can use to make money. It's for the everyday listener. Jamie also has a YouTube channel with a hundred thousand subscribers called Jamie and Sarah about real world hacks and how to make some side income, most notably flipping Amazon return pallets.
Alan Zhao: Today, we're going to talk about how Jamie grew his audience on YouTube and podcasts. Thank you for coming on, Jamie. Thanks for having me on. Appreciate it. Excited about this one. So how about we start off with a quick background about yourself and how you got into this business?
Jaimie McCauley: All right. So my name's Jamie.
Jaimie McCauley: My wife and I started a YouTube channel in 2020, um, based around, uh, flipping houses at the time. So I've been married about [00:02:00] 11 years and we started, uh, With wedding photography. That was our first business we owned together. We did that full time for about eight years, but then 2021 rather, uh, COVID happened and all of our weddings got.
Jaimie McCauley: Canceled or postponed for the year. Uh, so we, um, had been doing real estate as well at the, at the time. And we. Kind of made the natural transition into creating content around our house flips. We had all the camera gear, uh, and so it was a pretty easy transition. I just had to learn video editing. Um, and that's how the YouTube channel was born.
Jaimie McCauley: So, um, the, the interesting part about that is that that's not what our YouTube channel is about anymore, but we didn't have much viewership on those first videos. Uh, one because I didn't really have the skills or, or talent to make good videos or videos over, you know, four minutes long. And then also I think the content wasn't super relatable to people, you [00:03:00] know, uh, the average person's not able to go.
Jaimie McCauley: Buy a house and flip it and make money on it. So, um, even though we enjoyed the DIY side of things, it wasn't that helpful to people. So, um, in November of 2021, we, we decided to start, um, flipping things from thrift stores, uh, and that content took off. Like in a crazy way, because a lot of people were struggling financially at the time and needed, you know, a few extra hundred dollars a month.
Jaimie McCauley: And it was a great way for them to do that. So, um, that's kind of what, uh, blew up our YouTube channel. That's phenomenal.
Alan Zhao: I mean, it's a really big Testament to go from, to at least find things that didn't work in the beginning and realize why it didn't work. And I feel like you can only find that if you see success once, but you have to see success.
Jaimie McCauley: Yeah. I mean, you gotta, you gotta try stuff. And to be honest, we didn't know if it was going to work at the beginning, but, um, we kind of suck it out and changed our strategy in the moment when we were making the house slip content, we didn't realize we thought it would be [00:04:00] entertaining because, you know, you're kind of doing the HGTV thing where you transform a space and, um, you know, you're making money.
Jaimie McCauley: And we've, we'd always been passionate about real estate because it changed our life in a big way. Yeah. Um, but, you know, getting other people excited about it was the, um, the challenging part.
Alan Zhao: Right. Was there one video that really took off or did it happen slowly over time? Like, how did, how did it suddenly blow up?
Jaimie McCauley: So, so there was one video specifically that kind of helped, uh, launch, you know, phase one, I'd like to call it every YouTube channel. Uh, and that was, It's one titled how we paid our mortgage flipping furniture. So we bought, we went out and we bought furniture from, uh, thrift stores and then we, uh, took a nice picture of it or sometimes we painted it, fixed it up and then relisted it on Facebook marketplace and, uh, our mortgage at the time was like, I think 1200 bucks and, uh, we were able to pay it, uh, uh, [00:05:00] So that kind of curiosity factor also combined with the factor of like, Oh, they, they were able to pay their mortgage payment through this strategy.
Jaimie McCauley: You know, how can I do the same? So I think that's kind of what kind of blew up. And then I think that video ended up getting around 50, 000 views or something like that
Alan Zhao: over the course of,
Jaimie McCauley: Um, it, it happened quite quickly. The algorithm kind of took off with it. It was within maybe, um, two weeks it got that many views.
Jaimie McCauley: So
Alan Zhao: 50, 002 weeks, that's wild. So it's natural SEO on YouTube. I picked it up. People were, or it was a discovery. You think, I
Jaimie McCauley: think the algorithm kind of pushed it, you know, a YouTube is an interesting beast, um, because they take into account, you know, what percentage of people click on your video. Um, so that's called your click through rate and then, um, the average view duration.
Jaimie McCauley: So how many minutes are they spending watching the video? That's how they determine if it's good. And then it's pushed out, uh, [00:06:00] based on that. And you know, that, that part of YouTube is, is difficult as well because. You're relying on the algorithm. Um, and that's how you get like the Mr. Beast type videos now, where it's all completely dependent on hype and engagement and, um, that's kind of a, that's a tough race to run and, and to do as your job, because, uh, if you have a video that doesn't perform well, you know, that really sucks, but, um, we did try, um, SEO based, um, uh, videos.
Jaimie McCauley: Um, videos as well. And some of those still generate a monthly income for us because, uh, it's a video that is helpful to people and it answers a question. So, um, that's kind of the other side of YouTube is more of the education or help helpful side, um, versus like the entertainment side of, of Mr. Beast. So, um, I think where our, our channel really hit its stride as we were both.
Jaimie McCauley: Entertaining through, you know, the [00:07:00] flipping of the furniture, but it also was helpful to people because they could learn to do it too.
Alan Zhao: Yeah, no, you, you got two things got going for you guys. So, uh, the entertainment, I never actually heard about that distinction. Between entertaining content that blows up and an educational and you guys have the best of both worlds.
Alan Zhao: So no surprise there, but. Tell me more about the entertainment piece.
Jaimie McCauley: Yeah. So the entertainment piece, you know, I, and the best example is to, is because Mr. Beast is, is basically pure entertainment. It's a, it's a exciting title and thumbnail that, um, makes you. Just want to watch and click on it and, you know, a lot of people aren't necessarily going to YouTube, uh, to learn something.
Jaimie McCauley: They're going to, uh, just turn their brain off and be, you know, entertained. So, um, you know, it's, it's, it's a tricky balance and you kind of, when you start a YouTube channel, you kind of have to decide which one you're going to be. Because, um, that kind of changes your strategy for, for your video as well.
Jaimie McCauley: So, [00:08:00] um, some of our, some of the SEO based videos we have that are helpful. There's one we, we, um, released called how to paint wood paneling the right way. So isn't really that entertaining, but it's, it's searched by people. And so that one, um, it never really, it didn't gain 50, 000 views in a month, but it's gained 50, 000 views over.
Jaimie McCauley: Two years, you know what I'm saying through search. So.
Alan Zhao: Yeah, it's the evergreen content that people come back for. Probably more high intent anyways, but it's like a quick hit that you can see instant results that you can show back to your marketing team and say like, Hey, we did a thing that it produced results.
Alan Zhao: So,
Jaimie McCauley: Oh, I was going to say, I think, you know, for the, the business owner or the marketer, I personally still think the evergreen searchable. Content is, is where it's at because, um, you know, you're not going to part of the, and that kind of leads me into the AI hustle side, uh, AI hustle podcast that [00:09:00] we do is that if we did just news or, and never really talked about the tools and ways to be helpful to people, we're never going to be established as like an, an expert in that area.
Jaimie McCauley: Um, we're not going to be, you know, seen as someone who is an expert. We're going to just be the entertainers. So, um, you know, if you're doing, if you're starting a business or you're, you're running a business and you want to, um, become like an industry leader in that area, I think you're, you are better off going the.
Jaimie McCauley: Helpful route, uh, or educational route with your videos, then entertaining, although entertaining content will get you temporary eyeballs on your, your, um, business. So it kind of depends on what your business is.
Alan Zhao: Let's talk about that overall strategy then. Cause I know for myself, it's really difficult to, if you don't have eyeballs, then it almost doesn't really matter how educational the content is.
Alan Zhao: So many people like myself might think let's go for virality first. And then transfer some of the audience into a long [00:10:00] tail people who stay on and are real subscribers.
Jaimie McCauley: So that's really an interesting topic because Sarah and I's Instagram, we have an Instagram and that's a perfect example of why, in my opinion, you shouldn't necessarily go for that strategy.
Jaimie McCauley: So we had done some furniture flipping, but had kind of gotten out of it. Um, on our YouTube channel, we are more into the other side hustle stuff that we do, the reselling. Um, but we decided to post, there was this one clip we had of Sarah painting, uh, a hutch. Um, it was just like a four second clip. And it was, she was waving a paintbrush and it was unpainted.
Jaimie McCauley: Then all of a sudden in a split second, it was, you know, the finished product, um, four seconds long, it got us, it got 25 million views, which is crazy, crazy amounts of views, you know, on Instagram is a little bit different with their short form content, you know, as, uh, but. Regardless, [00:11:00] we went from, I think we had like eight or 9, 000 followers on Instagram to like 75, 000, which was a crazy dopamine hit, you know, crazy.
Jaimie McCauley: We felt like, you know, we got to launch some products to sell. Like this is crazy. Um, but the problem was because that's not what really what we were doing anymore for our, our YouTube channel. We, we basically did that. To get views. And it did get views now, every time we post content on our Instagram, unless it's a furniture flip, which we don't really do anymore, we get minus followers.
Jaimie McCauley: So our engagement rate on our Instagram is horrible because. It's not furniture flipping, you know what I'm saying? So, so if you, if you make something super viral for your business, if you don't figure out your, I guess, call to action or some way to if it's purely for the virality, then it's not going to benefit your business.
Jaimie McCauley: It might, it [00:12:00] might actually hurt your business. So
Alan Zhao: if the two are aligned, that's the dream case. Have you found that to be the case in something that you've done where it went viral and it leads into
Jaimie McCauley: Um, yeah, so that, that brings, uh, me maybe to our next phase of our YouTube channel, which was, um, the Amazon return pallets that kind of took our channel from, I think we had maybe 50, 000 subscribers to 140, I think we're at now over the course of a year.
Jaimie McCauley: Um, just because. That content, it was almost like another perfect combination of entertaining and education. So basically if you're unfamiliar with Amazon return pallets, it's where you would buy a pallet or a skid of return merchandise, um, from amazon. com. A lot of people think that it's. You know, restocked somehow, but logistically they just, they can't do that.
Jaimie McCauley: It costs too much money. So they put it on these pallets and then [00:13:00] resell it, um, or liquidators buy it and then sell it to random people like me. Um, so we would buy these pallets, open them. Sell the items on them and then show how much profit we made. Um, so, but we didn't even realize at the time why it was so engaging to people.
Jaimie McCauley: But, uh, if you remember, I don't know if you remember the show storage wars back in the day. Yeah, exactly. Like storage wars where you don't really know. What's in the storage unit, or you don't know what's on your palate until you open it. So people love the mystery. And so that was like the entertaining part of it.
Jaimie McCauley: Um, and then the educational part or the helpful part was that you can actually sell this stuff and make a profit. It was kind of the. You know, again, the combination of those two and we kind of got, um, I don't want to say stuck for a little while on the, we kind of fell back into the entertainment piece too much where we would just [00:14:00] unbox the items and not show our, our actual profit.
Jaimie McCauley: And I think people got tired of that after a while, because it's like, well, wait, I want to. I want the helpful part too, if that makes sense,
Alan Zhao: that makes sense. I love this. You have to have both.
Jaimie McCauley: I mean, that's kind of, that's kind of what's worked for us. I think, yeah, I mean, uh, you know, I don't know how that translates to a lot of different businesses, but if you're, you know, if you're a marketer person, if you can have that.
Jaimie McCauley: That combination. I think that's, that's really gonna, gonna work for you. Even in today's world where people are swiping, um, you know, we, we built our channel before any of the short form stuff came out before tick tock or, uh, YouTube shorts or anything like that. So, um, it's a little bit different now, but I think the same.
Jaimie McCauley: Uh, principles apply.
Alan Zhao: Are you on YouTube, shorts
Jaimie McCauley: and TikTok? Um, we, so we've tried, we are, um, the YouTube shorts thing is very interesting because, um, our audience that watches our YouTube channels, actually, [00:15:00] uh, most of them are, or I should say most, I think 60% of them are 50 or older. Um, and they watch on a TV.
Jaimie McCauley: So when we started posting shorts, it was kind of the same thing, uh, as our Instagram, where it's like, what is this crap? I want to sit and watch something on the TV. I don't want to watch these little five second clips. And so we got really bad engagement and even some unfollows from that. So that's kind of.
Jaimie McCauley: Uh, something we've been not struggling with, but I, I am, uh, considering starting some new accounts this year because I want to more talk, uh, about making money online this year rather than we're going to keep those channels running, but I would like to kind of break into a new niche or category so that the strategy would be to start a new account rather than posting on the old one because it's, uh, it's not going to be engaging to those, that audience, that audience.
Jaimie McCauley: So. [00:16:00]
Alan Zhao: If you're a fan of the Revenue Rebels podcast, please leave us a review on Spotify and Apple podcast. Your support goes a long way in helping us bring on more amazing guests. Can we talk a little bit about how you have everything set up? What's the process that day to day look like you talked about?
Alan Zhao: Like, you know, I noticed a drop in my follower counts. Sometimes I don't notice why that's happening. So how do you know, and then when you produce, how long does it take? Can we talk through that process?
Jaimie McCauley: Yeah. So, um, things have definitely changed, um, because in the past, um, four years we've had, um, Um, two more children.
Jaimie McCauley: So, um, you know, things are definitely busy for us. Um, right now we have a filming day blocked off. So every Tuesday we have a babysitter and we will film the content for the week. Um, and then from there, um, I'm kind of like the office guy. So I'll do all the editing and posting of the, of the things. And, um, to be honest, it is, it is [00:17:00] very time consuming.
Jaimie McCauley: Um, and so that's kind of like my, my week to week is my days are spent. You know, in the office editing and, and posting the content. Um, and then if I want to branch out and continue, like, uh, for example, we started the podcast. Now I have Mondays as my podcast day. So I have that kind of blocked off there, um, as well.
Jaimie McCauley: So that I'm, I would like to say I'm super organized and on, on schedule, but it definitely is tricky. Um, especially when you work from home to stay. To stay on the schedule, but
Alan Zhao: got it. And then how about like the telemetry, the analysis, the, how the content strategy like has that all happened?
Jaimie McCauley: Yeah. So, and that, that kind of comes into, I'm talking about some AI tools, but I, I try to, you know, when it comes to YouTube thumbnails, it's actually pretty scientific.
Jaimie McCauley: Um, and thumbnails is the thing that [00:18:00] you see, the picture you see before you click on it, if you're not familiar. But, um, I've actually been using, uh, Claude AI. Um, they just came out with their, I think it's called the Opus or, yeah, I forget what it is, but, um, Uh, you can upload an image and I'll actually ask it, say, how could I make this thumbnail more engaging?
Jaimie McCauley: And usually, you know, I'm pretty familiar now with a good strategy as far as, um, invoking curiosity and what colors to use and things like that. But it, it does give you some good reminders sometimes. So, um, that's a nice tool because remember when it comes to, um, getting your video seen, you have to have Um, your entertainment piece and your curiosity piece to get people to click on it.
Jaimie McCauley: And then they have to stay and watch it. So um, so that clot is, is, is a helpful tool for me. Um, and then I also try to use a chat GBT for all my descriptions. [00:19:00] Um, and I usually will give it, um, a list of keywords that I. Want it to include in the description just so that it matches, um, what the subject of the video is and it's, and you know, I do have to make tweaks, but it's, it's, it is a big time saver because you know, not only do you have to film and edit the video, but posting it, if you just, if you just throw it up without much thought into the title and description, um, you're not going to have the potential to, to rank for like a search term, like back to that.
Jaimie McCauley: Um, how to paint paneling the right way. Concept, you know, so, um, so there definitely is some, some research that goes into it. Um, YouTube has really great, um, analytics tools as well. I haven't, I have yet to see another platform with such in depth analytics. So, you know, I can look at a video and see exactly when people clicked off.
Jaimie McCauley: Um, You know, when it became less interesting, or if there was a [00:20:00] peak as well, an interesting moment, people maybe wanted to rewatch or see, so you can really see, um, inside YouTube what, um, what people want to watch essentially. So I can tweak future videos based on that engagement graph of when people clicked off.
Jaimie McCauley: So, uh, the goal again. You know, is to get people to click on the video and then watch for as long as possible. So
Alan Zhao: that's really interesting. That's
Jaimie McCauley: the
Alan Zhao: portion of it where you can see that, Oh, this is the second where they were like their, their ears perked up. It's probably when they figured out finally how much the whole thing was worth.
Alan Zhao: And like, yeah, I have to agree that
Jaimie McCauley: right. Or like on the, a lot of the DIY type stuff, they'd click forward to the final reveal, you know, for example, or, um, if we ever did a sponsorship, you know, you could see about a third of the people. Either click off or fast forward to the end of the sponsorship and then start watching again.
Jaimie McCauley: So, and then there's usually a 5 percent drop off in viewership when we add a [00:21:00] sponsored bit. So some people just click off and stop watching. So
Alan Zhao: how do you know if you should continue doing the YouTube channel? Like a lot of us in B2B marketing, I'm trying to figure out, like, do we start this? It sounds like a lot of work, takes a lot of time.
Alan Zhao: When do we start seeing payoffs? Or is it all at once? It's like a bamboo that you water for days and it finally grows all in one day.
Jaimie McCauley: Yeah, no, that's a good question. I mean, I have, um, I've changed my, Strategy or my thought process recently, um, with all the short form stuff that has come out as far as YouTube shorts, you know, tick tock and Instagram reels.
Jaimie McCauley: If you're a company and you want to establish yourself as an expert and get the word out about your company, I feel like, um, a lot of times a podcast really is the best way Best option because you can establish yourself as an expert. I think there's something about listening to someone for more than five minutes that you, you trust them more and, um, you can kind of see [00:22:00] inside their brain where, you know, if you're just swiping after five videos, you forget what the first video even was.
Jaimie McCauley: And so, um, I think really. Your impressions and views are going to be higher on a, a tick tock or a short YouTube video, but you're not going to, I think, get as many warm leads, at least in your, in your business. Um, rather than if you just go deep, deep with a podcast, you know, and really, um, dive in, I think, you know, before we hopped on this call, I told you about my cohost who was able to raise, you know, almost a half million dollars for his.
Jaimie McCauley: Start up through a podcast or through three podcasts. But, um, I guess what I'm saying is there's a lot of, um, trust there and, and really you're going to reach exactly who you want to reach, um, through the longer form content podcast specifically. Um, and then you can actually. If you want to take it a step further, get clips made of your podcast to post, [00:23:00] um, on tick tock or, or do the short form thing.
Jaimie McCauley: So I feel like, I feel like it is absolutely worth it. Um, nowadays, um, especially, you know, with all the noise on the short form stuff, I think it's, it's absolutely worth it. And, but I think a podcast or at least a longer form YouTube video is going to be the best bet. I mean, but again, then it depends on your business.
Jaimie McCauley: If you're making little, uh, trinkets. do something funny, you know, for an e com store, you might, you're probably going to want to do tick tock over a podcast. So it really depends on what your business is.
Alan Zhao: Make sense? Like a t shirt. Like, Oh, I know that it is. I don't need to five minutes on it. So how do you grow a podcast audience?
Alan Zhao: Some of us might start with five or 10 subscribers and that's not justifiable for marketing budget of however much it takes to produce. So
Jaimie McCauley: yeah, so the, the podcast thing, um, is really interesting because a lot of people think. Yeah, I think I forget what the status, but most podcasts don't make it [00:24:00] past, you know, five to 10 episodes before it quits because it does take a lot of effort to, you know, produce to come up with the interview questions.
Jaimie McCauley: Um, and then it is hard to gain traction. So I think, um, you know, back even when we did our wedding photography business, my wife and I, when we first got married, one of the things that set us apart is that everyone at the time was trying to get their clients. on Facebook. Uh, but we were doing SEO and really trying to hit that heavy.
Jaimie McCauley: And so we ranked for Google search for Grand Rapids wedding photographers. And that's how we got. I would say 90 percent of our business. So when it comes to podcasts, I think SEO is, is an overlooked thing as well. Um, you know, I would fill out, I would use as many characters as they allow to fill out keywords in a description for, for your podcast.
Jaimie McCauley: And then I would also, um, Experiment with different variations of titles. We [00:25:00] do three podcasts a week, which sounds crazy, but they're all 10 to 15 minutes short, little podcasts. Uh, they're not, it's not like a two hour podcast. So that way we're able to put out more content and kind of beta test what is working and what.
Jaimie McCauley: People are interested in, in searching for, um, for example, in our, you know, after AI hustle in our title, we mentioned a few different companies that are kind of hot topics like NVIDIA right now. So NVIDIA is in our like secondary description of our podcast. Does that make sense? It
Alan Zhao: makes sense. Yeah.
Jaimie McCauley: So,
Alan Zhao: so you're, you're relying probably less on like newsletters or redirection of traffic.
Alan Zhao: It's just purely actually SEO for podcast discovery.
Jaimie McCauley: Yeah, definitely. And, um, Um, you know, more so than just thinking about the subject matter of your content, think about what people might be, be searching for. Um, so, and that's where the news piece really is [00:26:00] pretty integral, pretty necessary, um, in my opinion for our podcast growth, because, um, you know, news articles pop up on tech crunch every single day.
Jaimie McCauley: Um, but people might want to hear a more in depth analysis of it. And so in, in podcasting, there's not a lot of up to date, at least if you can come up, if you can release a podcast quickly, the same week as something comes out, um, and you use correct keywords, I think your chances of getting new eyeballs on your, on your, um, podcast are a lot, a lot better.
Jaimie McCauley: So
Alan Zhao: that's great. Yeah. Our best performing SEO piece was when sales loft acquired drift, we wrote like an analysis on it. And then that was by far and away. Okay. Yeah.
Jaimie McCauley: Where, where was that published? Or was that on LinkedIn?
Alan Zhao: It was just on our site.
Jaimie McCauley: Okay. Yeah. So, I mean, yeah, I think along the same lines as podcasts, if you can, you know, if you're having one guest a week, for example, on your podcast, if you can work in one extra short, little, even podcast a [00:27:00] week, that is news on that topic or on your, your topic, I should say.
Jaimie McCauley: Um, I think that'll help with growth a lot, honestly. So.
Alan Zhao: Fantastic. Jamie, I think we're out of time here. How can people find out more about you?
Jaimie McCauley: Sure. Yeah. So you can find, uh, me and Jaden every week. We do three AI hustle podcast. That's probably, um, the best place. But then, uh, Jamie and Sarah is the name of my current YouTube channel.
Jaimie McCauley: So you can find, uh, my wife and I's, uh, shenanigans over there.
Alan Zhao: Please check them out. Thank you very much, Amy.
Jaimie McCauley: Yeah. Thanks for having [00:28:00] me.