Matt Hughes:

Hello, welcome to YouTube Success.

Matt Hughes:

My name is Matt Hughes, King of Video.

Matt Hughes:

And I'm here with Louise Brogan.

Matt Hughes:

Louise, that is how you say your name, right?

Louise Brogan:

Yes.

Matt Hughes:

Okay, good.

Matt Hughes:

I just had to check for a minute there.

Matt Hughes:

My brain went, Matt, you've just pronounced the name wrong.

Matt Hughes:

Always does this to me.

Matt Hughes:

So I'm here with Louise.

Matt Hughes:

Louise is, well, I'll tell you what we normally do Louise, is we get our guests

Matt Hughes:

to introduce themselves and then I'll add a bit of padding around it if I don't feel

Matt Hughes:

like you've sold yourself well enough, but I'm sure you're good enough at doing this.

Matt Hughes:

You know, a lot of people when I asked them to introduce yourself, they just

Matt Hughes:

don't make out that they're amazing.

Matt Hughes:

And I'm always disappointed about that.

Matt Hughes:

So go for it.

Matt Hughes:

Tell us what you do and we can talk about why we got you here.

Louise Brogan:

Okay.

Louise Brogan:

So I run a LinkedIn marketing agency.

Louise Brogan:

We are based in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Louise Brogan:

However, we don't have any Northern Irish clients.

Louise Brogan:

We work with clients from all over Europe and North America, a few from Australia,

Louise Brogan:

New Zealand, and we help people.

Louise Brogan:

My goal really is to help people understand how to

Louise Brogan:

use LinkedIn for business.

Louise Brogan:

That's everything it's about, and that's from my free content to my

Louise Brogan:

paid services that we offer, training workshops and done-for-you services.

Louise Brogan:

I'm in business 11 years this year.

Louise Brogan:

And I switched over to LinkedIn about 5 years ago.

Louise Brogan:

So it originally was social media management across all social media.

Louise Brogan:

I actually had a great relationship with Facebook at one time where I was hosting

Louise Brogan:

business breakfasts on behalf of Facebook and Instagram in Northern Ireland.

Louise Brogan:

And then I decided to niche down to LinkedIn for a couple of different

Louise Brogan:

reasons, but mainly because being niched down in social media,

Louise Brogan:

it's just a good idea really.

Louise Brogan:

And allowed me to focus on it.

Louise Brogan:

And yeah, I'm also a small business champion in the UK, which I love.

Louise Brogan:

I get to go to the House of Lords and swan about having canapes and champagne

Louise Brogan:

with other small business owners.

Louise Brogan:

And a year and a half ago, Matt, I got invited to meet the King because of that.

Louise Brogan:

So I was invited to Buckingham Palace to meet King Charles in recognition of

Louise Brogan:

my work with small businesses in the UK.

Louise Brogan:

The small business work is all voluntary stuff that I do, and the main business

Louise Brogan:

is LinkedIn, whether it's done for you or teaching you how to do it yourself.

Matt Hughes:

Wicked.

Matt Hughes:

Well, I mean, there's definitely no padding I need to add there.

Matt Hughes:

I think that all sounds very impressive enough.

Matt Hughes:

So small business champion, is that a role that you're given?

Matt Hughes:

How do you end up doing that?

Louise Brogan:

Yeah, so in 2017, I entered the small business Saturday Top 100.

Louise Brogan:

It's not an award as such, but basically they focus on 100 businesses every year

Louise Brogan:

in the run up to Small Business Saturday, which is the first Saturday in December.

Louise Brogan:

So I applied to be in that and I was successful.

Louise Brogan:

So that was in 2017 and they liked me and they asked me

Louise Brogan:

to do some webinars for them.

Louise Brogan:

And then they asked me, would I be one of their champions?

Louise Brogan:

So I've been a champion for them since definitely since before the pandemic.

Louise Brogan:

And they made me their business, Small Business Of The Year during

Louise Brogan:

the pandemic, which was hilarious.

Louise Brogan:

So I was at home, I'd just been out like with my son horse riding or something.

Louise Brogan:

So it was whenever we were all allowed to be out and about,

Louise Brogan:

we weren't really traveling.

Louise Brogan:

So I was sitting in my house in my like, you know, sloppy trackies type of

Louise Brogan:

thing, and there's a knock at the door and there's the Small Business Saturday

Louise Brogan:

guys, live streaming and they'd see me as their Small Business Of The Year.

Louise Brogan:

And I was like, better, better,

Matt Hughes:

Give me a minute.

Matt Hughes:

Better

Louise Brogan:

nervous that it'd be good.

Louise Brogan:

I was like,

Matt Hughes:

I mean, I don't watch TV anymore, but it's like those shows

Matt Hughes:

that they do on the Saturdays and they get people and they're always

Matt Hughes:

in the gyms or the ones or whatever.

Louise Brogan:

Oh my God.

Matt Hughes:

And it gets some lippy on or whatever it is that you do.

Louise Brogan:

Hilarious.

Louise Brogan:

It was hilarious.

Matt Hughes:

Wicked.

Matt Hughes:

Well, that's

Louise Brogan:

were lovely.

Louise Brogan:

And luckily, it was only live streamed to their community.

Louise Brogan:

Thank heavens.

Matt Hughes:

Good.

Matt Hughes:

Well, I mean, you know, and I hear that story and it just, although it

Matt Hughes:

sounds really impressive, actually the way you describe it sounds

Matt Hughes:

really just like it's normal.

Matt Hughes:

And actually, it's not normal at all, all of these things that you've achieved.

Matt Hughes:

And I think, you know, I asked about the small business champion thing

Matt Hughes:

because I think all of the people that I speak to on this podcast

Matt Hughes:

are champions of small business.

Matt Hughes:

So not necessarily they maybe have official title or they've not got that

Matt Hughes:

backstory really, but the great thing about the creator community in general

Matt Hughes:

is for the most part, we're all doing stuff actually that we really love doing.

Matt Hughes:

And so it kind of feels weird that we get paid to do it as well.

Matt Hughes:

And so therefore everyone I speak to in the creative community

Matt Hughes:

is really happy to be doing it.

Matt Hughes:

It's not like you're stuck in a corporate job that you hate.

Louise Brogan:

No.

Matt Hughes:

So, good.

Matt Hughes:

So, thanks for sharing that.

Matt Hughes:

And just like some of the other guests I've had, we've had Judi

Matt Hughes:

Fox, who's LinkedIn as well.

Matt Hughes:

It feels weird having a LinkedIn person on YouTube, but we've got a

Matt Hughes:

really nice YouTube journey to share.

Matt Hughes:

You're a speaker at TubeFest as well for the same reason.

Matt Hughes:

And so what I really wanted to do is dig into this.

Matt Hughes:

And what we just talked about backstage was how people like you and me,

Matt Hughes:

who are classed as small creators.

Matt Hughes:

So there's a guy whose name I forget right now, who started

Matt Hughes:

the hashtag, no small creator.

Matt Hughes:

I think a small creator is defined as like less than a hundred thousand,

Matt Hughes:

which seems ridiculous to me anyway.

Louise Brogan:

Oh my Lord.

Matt Hughes:

but, or maybe it's less than 10,000.

Matt Hughes:

So maybe you've gone past that.

Matt Hughes:

But the point is we are in a position where we can be great examples for

Matt Hughes:

people that are getting started, people that are thinking about this.

Matt Hughes:

And in your case, YouTube wasn't the focus.

Matt Hughes:

Actually LinkedIn was the focus, like you say, and you've

Matt Hughes:

grown to 10,000 subscribers.

Matt Hughes:

So can we talk about then your YouTube journey and how that all came about?

Louise Brogan:

Love to.

Louise Brogan:

So it's, and I'll cover a little bit about this at TubeFest.

Louise Brogan:

So I love that I have a YouTube channel and I have all these people who message

Louise Brogan:

me and ask me questions on YouTube.

Louise Brogan:

It's like a wonderful part of my business.

Louise Brogan:

And it actually has ended up bringing leads to me, but during the pandemic,

Louise Brogan:

it was 2020, I started this.

Louise Brogan:

So I was in a little mastermind group with five people.

Louise Brogan:

It was five of us all together.

Louise Brogan:

I called it my English mastermind.

Louise Brogan:

So there's three guys in England, a woman from Australia

Louise Brogan:

and me in this little group.

Louise Brogan:

We had actually formed a mastermind before the pandemic.

Louise Brogan:

So when the pandemic hit, we were like a lifeline to each other.

Louise Brogan:

And in that group, there's two guys who are really big on YouTube.

Matt Hughes:

Who are they?

Matt Hughes:

Can you name them all?

Louise Brogan:

Yeah, absolutely.

Louise Brogan:

So Tom Martin, who started the BBC's YouTube channel and Luke Sharon who does,

Matt Hughes:

Well.

Matt Hughes:

Yeah.

Louise Brogan:

Yeah.

Louise Brogan:

So Luke's on a video marketing agency.

Louise Brogan:

His personal YouTube is all about fitness and Marvel characters.

Matt Hughes:

Yeah.

Matt Hughes:

Yeah.

Matt Hughes:

Really fascinating.

Matt Hughes:

Actually, I dunno if I've told you this 'cause you must have told me

Matt Hughes:

about Tom before, but the first time I went to VidSummit in the US, the

Matt Hughes:

first session I saw was Tom Martins.

Matt Hughes:

And he was a British guy and I was like, Oh, there's a British guy here.

Matt Hughes:

And it blew me away.

Matt Hughes:

He did like a keyword thing.

Matt Hughes:

I did ask him to speak at TubeFest actually, but he said he wasn't

Matt Hughes:

really doing that stuff anymore.

Louise Brogan:

No, he's not doing that now.

Louise Brogan:

Yeah.

Matt Hughes:

But it blew me away and he built like this whole

Matt Hughes:

channel around a barbecue food.

Matt Hughes:

And he was like, I'm going to give away this channel.

Matt Hughes:

I've done all the research.

Matt Hughes:

It's going to get loads of subscribers, but I don't want it.

Matt Hughes:

It's just for the presentation.

Matt Hughes:

But oh, that's fascinating that you were in that together.

Matt Hughes:

And then of course, Luke, Luke's channel is growing massively as well, isn't it?

Matt Hughes:

So

Louise Brogan:

Yeah.

Louise Brogan:

Yeah.

Louise Brogan:

So Luke actually was in the, he does a lot of YouTube Shorts and he was in the

Louise Brogan:

Shorts programme thing that they did.

Louise Brogan:

I don't know the proper terminology for it, but yeah, he's made a

Louise Brogan:

ton of money from his channel.

Louise Brogan:

It's amazing.

Matt Hughes:

Yet?

Louise Brogan:

Yes.

Louise Brogan:

And then they said, Louise, you should do a YouTube channel about, you know

Louise Brogan:

about LinkedIn and I'm like, oh, well it turned out, Matt, that I actually had

Louise Brogan:

done, I had tried YouTube previously, and I'd done some videos about Facebook

Louise Brogan:

and I got an email from YouTube one day to say, your video has passed, I don't

Louise Brogan:

know, like a thousand views or 2000 views.

Louise Brogan:

I'm like, what video?

Louise Brogan:

And I said to Tom about it, and he went, Louise, you've got a YouTube

Louise Brogan:

channel and you didn't realise.

Matt Hughes:

Do you know how many people I hear that they say that and

Matt Hughes:

they're like, oh, let me just have a look and they log in and they're

Matt Hughes:

like, oh my god, I've got 70,000 views on this video from seven years ago.

Louise Brogan:

So he said, I think you could really give this a go.

Louise Brogan:

So it was a pandemic.

Louise Brogan:

I've got three teenagers.

Louise Brogan:

They were at home and you know, people with little kids during

Louise Brogan:

the pandemic had to do a lot of handholding, but when they're

Louise Brogan:

teenagers, They are kind of getting on and doing their own work themselves.

Louise Brogan:

So I'm like, I might as well give it a go.

Louise Brogan:

Sure.

Louise Brogan:

What else am I going to do locked up in the house all day?

Louise Brogan:

So I started making videos and it was hilarious because I had no

Louise Brogan:

idea what the heck I was doing.

Louise Brogan:

And then people started to comment on it, on the videos.

Louise Brogan:

And it was always, I've always come at it from how can I create a video to

Louise Brogan:

answer a question on how to use LinkedIn?

Louise Brogan:

And the comments I get, Matt, from people are things like, I love how

Louise Brogan:

you explain that so clearly, Louise.

Louise Brogan:

Lots of people say, I don't like those other videos where people are like jumping

Louise Brogan:

around and waving their arms in the air.

Louise Brogan:

It's just, we watch your video and you literally answer the

Louise Brogan:

question that I wanted to ask.

Louise Brogan:

So I started, I was getting, I was getting a buzz out of it, right?

Louise Brogan:

It was fun.

Louise Brogan:

It was fun.

Louise Brogan:

And then I thought, Oh, I need to hit this 1,000 subscriber thing.

Louise Brogan:

And then I need to hit this 4,000 watch hours thing.

Louise Brogan:

And then I started to like get some serious traction.

Louise Brogan:

And it was really funny.

Louise Brogan:

I spoke at Uplift Live, which was the UK's first LinkedIn conference.

Louise Brogan:

It was in 21st of March, just only a few weeks ago.

Louise Brogan:

And all the other LinkedIn speakers, there's seven other speakers.

Louise Brogan:

They were all like "Louise, how have you cracked this YouTube thing?"

Louise Brogan:

Like, you know, they're, half of them are posting videos on YouTube

Louise Brogan:

and they're getting nothing.

Louise Brogan:

They're getting nowhere.

Louise Brogan:

And I'm like, well, you know, maybe it's my personality.

Louise Brogan:

I like to learn how to do things.

Louise Brogan:

And it's still, like I said to you, Matt, it's a baby channel.

Louise Brogan:

You know, I've got 10,000 subscribers, which I know is tiny, compared to

Louise Brogan:

most YouTubers, but to the other people who are in my space, they

Louise Brogan:

are all looking at me going, how the heck did you make that work?

Matt Hughes:

Okay.

Matt Hughes:

Well that's fascinating and I'll come back to that in a second.

Matt Hughes:

Can we just talk about your strategy?

Matt Hughes:

What?

Matt Hughes:

You said you started in 2020, or you got serious about it in during lockdown.

Matt Hughes:

What was, did you have a strategy?

Matt Hughes:

Did you think about it strategically or did you just think I'm just

Matt Hughes:

going to post some videos?

Louise Brogan:

Well, I did think about it strategically.

Louise Brogan:

I did think how do I, I wanted to learn how to do it properly.

Louise Brogan:

I did outsource thumbnails to people on Fiverr for a while.

Louise Brogan:

And then I thought, I'm sure I can do this myself.

Louise Brogan:

So I think while the channel wasn't making any money, I wasn't

Louise Brogan:

prepared to put any money into it.

Louise Brogan:

And I did meet Austin Armstrong in San Diego when we were at

Louise Brogan:

Social Media Marketing World, who is one of the other speakers.

Louise Brogan:

I'm really like, I'm so excited to see the other speakers at TubeFest because I feel

Louise Brogan:

like I'm gonna learn so much from them.

Louise Brogan:

And he said to me, I said, you know, this is where I'm at with the channel.

Louise Brogan:

It's really small, but I am getting business leads from it.

Louise Brogan:

And he said, well, Louise, the channel could be your whole business.

Louise Brogan:

And I'm like, I don't think so.

Louise Brogan:

I don't think that's really, I don't think that's possible.

Louise Brogan:

And he says, absolutely.

Louise Brogan:

It could be says, you know, if you start to invest, you know, in

Louise Brogan:

getting professional editing, help prevent, please don't pitch me.

Louise Brogan:

Anybody watching this?

Louise Brogan:

And I thought, yes.

Louise Brogan:

So, you know, I can see that being the case in the future.

Louise Brogan:

But right now I'm building a LinkedIn business.

Louise Brogan:

and we do, and you can't focus on different things.

Louise Brogan:

So the strategy for the channel turned into 'here is somewhere to send people,

Louise Brogan:

who don't want to pay for our services.'

Louise Brogan:

And that's genuinely, that's what I see it as, because you think about

Louise Brogan:

the small business champion work that I do, a lot of those webinars I do

Louise Brogan:

for the small business community.

Louise Brogan:

Those are small startups.

Louise Brogan:

They are what Americans call the mom and pop shops.

Louise Brogan:

They don't have the money to spend to outsource their LinkedIn work, but they

Louise Brogan:

want me, they want to ask me questions and I want to help them, but I don't

Louise Brogan:

want to spend, you know, I don't want to say, Oh yeah, you can get on a call with

Louise Brogan:

me and pick my brain for half an hour for free, you know, three times a week.

Louise Brogan:

I don't really have time to do that because I have a

Louise Brogan:

team and a business to run.

Louise Brogan:

So instead, I thought, well, why don't I just answer all their

Louise Brogan:

questions and make videos out of them?

Louise Brogan:

And because I know these are the questions people have, then more people

Louise Brogan:

are going to watch those videos, right?

Louise Brogan:

So that's kind of been the strategy.

Louise Brogan:

It's been like a resource that I can send people to.

Louise Brogan:

But then about a year and a half ago, it changed it, but it changed a little

Louise Brogan:

bit for me because I started getting what I call a different level of

Louise Brogan:

followers on YouTube, a different, like this senior people at the big

Louise Brogan:

companies, like the head of venture capital for one of the big accountancy

Louise Brogan:

firms in the UK found me through YouTube.

Louise Brogan:

A client found me through YouTube because he was in China and he was looking for

Louise Brogan:

answers to questions about LinkedIn.

Louise Brogan:

The head of security for one of the big, what do you call, it's a

Louise Brogan:

gang, the Google, Apple, whatever.

Matt Hughes:

Yeah.

Louise Brogan:

Like the head of, one of the head of their

Louise Brogan:

security found me through YouTube.

Louise Brogan:

And I was like, oh, this is interesting.

Louise Brogan:

Somebody who was then the head of LinkedIn advertising in Dublin

Louise Brogan:

found me through, you know.

Louise Brogan:

So these bigger power players, I guess, in industry were starting to

Louise Brogan:

connect with me and they would all say, Oh, we find you on YouTube.

Louise Brogan:

And I thought, Oh, there's more to this than me just answering questions

Louise Brogan:

and sending my lovely small business friends this content for free.

Louise Brogan:

So I need to take this a bit more seriously.

Louise Brogan:

So I'm starting to do more strategic content on the channel that is around

Louise Brogan:

how to use LinkedIn company pages and how to use LinkedIn from that

Louise Brogan:

larger corporation point of view.

Louise Brogan:

But of course, Matt, that doesn't get as many views.

Louise Brogan:

So it's like you're in a juxtaposition here because if I create lots of videos

Louise Brogan:

on how to write your LinkedIn profile, how to write a LinkedIn post, how to

Louise Brogan:

message someone on LinkedIn, how to post on LinkedIn, those videos get thousands

Louise Brogan:

of views, but don't bring me any business.

Matt Hughes:

Okay.

Louise Brogan:

Whereas,

Matt Hughes:

Yeah, well, look, there's so many things I've got to dig into.

Louise Brogan:

Sorry, I will stop.

Matt Hughes:

It's all right.

Matt Hughes:

It's all right, because it's really important.

Matt Hughes:

And I've been just making notes to talk about these things because I feel

Matt Hughes:

like I'll talk to you for hours if I don't ask some of these questions.

Matt Hughes:

I want to talk about the first thing, which is here's where to

Matt Hughes:

send people who can't afford me.

Matt Hughes:

That is such an abundant way of thinking, and it is so hard for a lot of people

Matt Hughes:

that are not in an abundant mindset.

Matt Hughes:

And I just assume everyone knows what I mean by that.

Matt Hughes:

For anyone that doesn't know, your mind is in one of two places most of the time.

Matt Hughes:

It's either in lack or abundance.

Matt Hughes:

And if you're in lack, it's in a position where I've been

Matt Hughes:

before, where I've been in debt.

Matt Hughes:

And I always describe it as this cloud over me, that this financial

Matt Hughes:

cloud that stops me being thinking about things in a really positive way,

Matt Hughes:

because I'm always worried about money.

Matt Hughes:

When you get into abundance and you don't think about that.

Matt Hughes:

And I'm just talking to this from a financial point of view.

Matt Hughes:

You suddenly start to see the world in a different way.

Matt Hughes:

And the way you described that, here's where to send people who can't afford me.

Matt Hughes:

The reason why that's abundant is because you're giving away your stuff for free.

Matt Hughes:

And it's probably one of the biggest objections people have

Matt Hughes:

with YouTube is like, what happens if I give away all my stuff?

Matt Hughes:

Will people just not hire me?

Matt Hughes:

And actually you recognise that you couldn't help those people at the lower

Matt Hughes:

end, lower financially, not as people.

Matt Hughes:

I want to make that clear.

Matt Hughes:

So you just gave them the content and so you delivered value to them fast.

Matt Hughes:

And of course, a lot of those smaller businesses, those mom and pop shops.

Matt Hughes:

Some of them end up big businesses.

Matt Hughes:

And so you help them in 2020 in the pandemic, when they can't open their shop.

Matt Hughes:

And in two years time, when they can afford you, because things have opened

Matt Hughes:

back up again, they go, I remember Louise.

Matt Hughes:

Louise is the one that helped me when things were really bad for us.

Matt Hughes:

Yeah,

Louise Brogan:

Yeah, and I think as well, um, there's, you know, when

Louise Brogan:

you, I've said to people, people say, if I'd had a sales call a week and a

Louise Brogan:

half ago, Matt, with an organisation, it's quite a big organisation and

Louise Brogan:

they were talking to me about LinkedIn training and doing several sessions of

Louise Brogan:

LinkedIn workshops for them and their staff, you know, like from senior level

Louise Brogan:

on, so there'd be multiple workshops.

Louise Brogan:

So it'd be a really good contract to win.

Louise Brogan:

And I just said to them, everything I will teach you, you can learn

Louise Brogan:

for free on my YouTube channel.

Louise Brogan:

So, you know, and that actually won me the contract because they

Louise Brogan:

were like, well, it's, it shows integrity and honesty, I think.

Louise Brogan:

And companies who have the budget don't want to sit and

Louise Brogan:

work through YouTube videos.

Louise Brogan:

They want you to come and deliver it bespoke to them.

Louise Brogan:

And that's something I learned as well.

Louise Brogan:

You know, Gavin, the guy in China, and I've checked with him, he's

Louise Brogan:

going to be on my presentation.

Louise Brogan:

He's okay with that.

Louise Brogan:

You know, everything that I have talked to him about, he could sit

Louise Brogan:

and do on his own, but he is busy off building this global business.

Louise Brogan:

And didn't want to have to do that.

Louise Brogan:

He wanted to outsource and pay for our services and he did for a year.

Louise Brogan:

But he could have sat and did it all himself, but that's not his thing.

Louise Brogan:

It's not that it's not his skillset cause he could have learned it.

Louise Brogan:

He is just on a different level of the business.

Louise Brogan:

And that's, I think, I've been in business 11 years.

Louise Brogan:

And when I started out, if I think about the clients that I started working with,

Louise Brogan:

they were a Pilates instructor, a local businessman who owned three kebab shops,

Louise Brogan:

really fabulous, fabulous businesses.

Louise Brogan:

And now I'm working with global learning and development companies,

Louise Brogan:

you know, my clients turnovers are in the 7 and 8 figures.

Louise Brogan:

And I think when you start out in business, if someone had said that

Louise Brogan:

to me 10 years ago, I'd be like,

Matt Hughes:

No way.

Matt Hughes:

Yeah, yeah.

Matt Hughes:

I'm gonna get a call from China to go and deliver some training.

Matt Hughes:

No way.

Louise Brogan:

Yeah, exactly.

Louise Brogan:

It's like, what?

Louise Brogan:

It's crazy.

Louise Brogan:

And you learn, you know, and I have the luxury of being in business that

Louise Brogan:

long that it has come incrementally and with the YouTube journey, I think I

Louise Brogan:

started off thinking, could I do this?

Louise Brogan:

But also Matt, you know, I'll be 50 this year and I get a real kick

Louise Brogan:

out of being a woman who's going to be 50, who's a YouTuber because I

Louise Brogan:

don't think we're in the majority.

Matt Hughes:

Uh, I think it's a growing area is older people.

Matt Hughes:

But still nothing towards what the gamers and a lot of

Matt Hughes:

the younger people are doing.

Matt Hughes:

That's kind of a natural area for them.

Matt Hughes:

and again, I get that as an objection quite a lot as well is like, why

Matt Hughes:

would I start a YouTube channel?

Matt Hughes:

I'm like, I'm 40, you're almost 50.

Matt Hughes:

And I think that's why I want to see us as like inspirational or

Matt Hughes:

aspirational people, because we're doing it anyway, you know, like you

Matt Hughes:

can sit and complain about how old you are, but actually from my perspective.

Matt Hughes:

And actually from your corporate client's perspective, age brings

Matt Hughes:

experience and you're, you say 11 years.

Matt Hughes:

So if you're almost 50 now, you was 29.

Matt Hughes:

Hold on.

Matt Hughes:

That's my wrong.

Matt Hughes:

39 when you started, right.

Matt Hughes:

And again, in the way you described it as like, I couldn't have imagined

Matt Hughes:

getting those kinds of contracts at that point, but there was someone else

Matt Hughes:

that was 35, who was doing that already.

Matt Hughes:

So it's just experience and the experience can be, you can have it in your twenties,

Matt Hughes:

if you're fortunate enough to have made good decisions in your twenties, I was

Matt Hughes:

too busy having kids and getting drunk.

Matt Hughes:

Or you can get it a bit later on.

Matt Hughes:

And I think that's massively important is understanding where the value is.

Matt Hughes:

And actually the other thing about your clients now is they understand the

Matt Hughes:

value of having the person in the room.

Matt Hughes:

They know that the quick route to success is not learning by yourself.

Matt Hughes:

It's a route to success if you've got no money and you can't make the

Matt Hughes:

investment, you can learn anything now.

Matt Hughes:

Everything is out there.

Matt Hughes:

And you can just get on the ladder.

Matt Hughes:

But if you're further ahead and you've got the money and the funds to invest,

Matt Hughes:

you want to get the best people to give you the best strategies right now.

Matt Hughes:

I need to do it now.

Matt Hughes:

And I want to pay somebody to give me that shortcut to success.

Matt Hughes:

So, that's what you get.

Matt Hughes:

And it's great to see that that's happening.

Matt Hughes:

And I love what Austin said to you as well.

Matt Hughes:

I've made a note of Austin's point because Austin is a fascinating guy.

Matt Hughes:

Again, when I'm

Matt Hughes:

playing down our roles on YouTube that when you meet somebody like Austin.

Matt Hughes:

So if anyone that doesn't know Austin Armstrong, he's got something like 6..

Matt Hughes:

700,000 subscribers across every platform, pretty much.

Matt Hughes:

And he's the kind of person that you meet.

Louise Brogan:

So unassuming.

Matt Hughes:

He's not only is he a very humble guy, he

Matt Hughes:

will sit and drink with you.

Matt Hughes:

Like he's a great person to hang around with.

Matt Hughes:

I expect to see him in the bar at the after-party.

Matt Hughes:

But he doesn't have any limiting belief about content.

Matt Hughes:

And I think a lot of the time when people look at YouTube, perhaps you

Matt Hughes:

experience this a little bit at the start as well, is thinking like it's

Matt Hughes:

not for me, because why would I do that?

Matt Hughes:

I'm the LinkedIn person.

Matt Hughes:

I'm doing this thing like YouTube's not for me.

Matt Hughes:

Actually, the thing you had, the benefit you had right at that point is Tom and

Matt Hughes:

Luke, because they were the, they were your people that, that were through that

Matt Hughes:

glass ceiling that said to you, shut up, Louise, come on, get on with it.

Matt Hughes:

This is for you.

Matt Hughes:

This is absolutely for you.

Matt Hughes:

So you need that mentor or somebody to help you power through, right?

Louise Brogan:

Yeah.

Louise Brogan:

And do you know what's the funny thing about it is, when they look

Louise Brogan:

at, when they look at Tom, you know, cause we're good friends.

Louise Brogan:

When they look at my, the money, the rate, what's the rate

Louise Brogan:

called for a thousand views?

Matt Hughes:

Cost per click.

Louise Brogan:

Yeah.

Louise Brogan:

Like it's phenomenal compared to what they're..

Matt Hughes:

Yeah.

Matt Hughes:

Yeah.

Matt Hughes:

Your niche is the right niche.

Louise Brogan:

Because of the niche I'm in and I got a message

Louise Brogan:

from, so Mark Williams is a Mr.

Louise Brogan:

LinkedIn in the UK.

Louise Brogan:

He has had the LinkedIn Informed podcast now called Informed

Louise Brogan:

podcast for six years or something.

Louise Brogan:

And he messaged me and he said, Louise, you have got the most

Louise Brogan:

desirable job in the world.

Louise Brogan:

It's what all the kids want.

Louise Brogan:

You're a YouTuber.

Matt Hughes:

Yeah, absolutely.

Matt Hughes:

And

Louise Brogan:

I thought it was hilarious.

Matt Hughes:

The other great thing about it as well.

Matt Hughes:

And another thing that people fail to recognise is right at the start, you

Matt Hughes:

talked about, you know, I needed to get to that 1000 subscribers and the

Matt Hughes:

watch hours and that kind of thing.

Matt Hughes:

People really focus on the numbers.

Matt Hughes:

And again, you talked about it, like those corporate numbers, a much lower

Matt Hughes:

when you're doing the content for those corporate clients are much lower,

Louise Brogan:

Oh yeah.

Louise Brogan:

So much lower.

Matt Hughes:

But there's two things there.

Matt Hughes:

The first one is that you realise that you needed to get to 1000 subscribers,

Matt Hughes:

but you know it's compounding.

Matt Hughes:

Everything you do is compounding.

Matt Hughes:

So as long as this channel is growing, it's not dead, it's not flat lined.

Matt Hughes:

Even if it's growing by a little bit.

Matt Hughes:

Over time, as you've demonstrated for years, you've got to 10,000

Matt Hughes:

by being consistent across that.

Louise Brogan:

Yeah.

Louise Brogan:

The growth is literally just like that.

Louise Brogan:

It's not, you know, cause even my husband, you know, he's like, my family are

Louise Brogan:

also supportive of what I do and always have been, they don't quite get it.

Louise Brogan:

And, you know, he, I said to him, the growth is going like this.

Louise Brogan:

And he says, Oh, I thought it'd be like that.

Louise Brogan:

I said, no, no, it's not.

Louise Brogan:

It's more like that.

Louise Brogan:

That curve in math and I'm not a mathematician, but it's, yeah,

Louise Brogan:

the growth is just, it's very different to anything else.

Matt Hughes:

Yeah, it's because of the compounding..

Louise Brogan:

the way it grows..

Matt Hughes:

if you look at like, okay, if you look at your LinkedIn

Matt Hughes:

connections, your followers and stuff, that would do the same, it has the same

Matt Hughes:

sort of growth because it's compounding.

Matt Hughes:

But if you look at, I think a lot of the views and stuff on other

Matt Hughes:

platforms, it tends to go up and down.

Matt Hughes:

But I wanted to talk about the corporate thing, cause she said something as well,

Matt Hughes:

like, and this is, we talk about vanity metrics and valuable metrics, or at least

Matt Hughes:

I do, don't really like the word vanity metrics and the way you described it,

Matt Hughes:

you described it in a vanity way, cause you were like, well, I do these profile

Matt Hughes:

review things and they get loads of views.

Matt Hughes:

And then I do the corporate strategic stuff and they get

Matt Hughes:

less views, which is vanity.

Matt Hughes:

But I wanted to just say, which I know, you know, so I apologise for saying

Matt Hughes:

it, but you know that those videos that get less views are more valuable

Matt Hughes:

to you, because you only need one corporate client for that view to be

Matt Hughes:

worth 20 grand, compared to a profile review or something that it might be

Matt Hughes:

a someone that joins your membership.

Matt Hughes:

Have you got a membership?

Louise Brogan:

No, I haven't, haven't, I haven't gone, my book, I'm writing a book

Louise Brogan:

at the minute about LinkedIn and my book coach said, Louise, you need a, a smaller

Louise Brogan:

level, entry level, but I haven't got one.

Matt Hughes:

Well, well, even, you know, yes, you should have one.

Matt Hughes:

Definitely.

Matt Hughes:

Everyone should have a membership.

Matt Hughes:

But those people that do the,

Louise Brogan:

They don't buy anything from me.

Matt Hughes:

They'll come in at a membership level, it might not be

Matt Hughes:

as valuable to you in financial terms, but they're also, a lot of

Matt Hughes:

those people are also big advocates.

Matt Hughes:

The corporate people are not going to sing and shout about you as much, of

Matt Hughes:

course, they'll recommend you, which is great, but the other ones engage with you.

Matt Hughes:

They're so delighted to be around you and all that kind of good stuff as well.

Louise Brogan:

Well, that very thing happened today, Matt.

Louise Brogan:

So on LinkedIn today, a coach friend of mine in America, who's in, I want to

Louise Brogan:

say North Carolina or Virginia, maybe.

Louise Brogan:

She literally, out of the blue, I didn't ask her to, she's just posted

Louise Brogan:

about people ask her about LinkedIn.

Louise Brogan:

You know, does she get business from LinkedIn?

Louise Brogan:

And she said, I just want to direct you all to Louise Brogan.

Louise Brogan:

She's my go-to for everything LinkedIn.

Louise Brogan:

She has a brilliant channel and you just go learn everything from her.

Louise Brogan:

And that happens regularly now, which is wonderful.

Louise Brogan:

So other people send people to it as a resource as well.

Louise Brogan:

So it's not just me saying here's a free resource.

Louise Brogan:

Like people in my network are also sending people there as

Louise Brogan:

well, which is really cool.

Matt Hughes:

Yeah.

Matt Hughes:

And it has so much brand equity and authority equity, actually, because if

Matt Hughes:

you think about that scenario normally, and you've been in lots of events,

Matt Hughes:

like I have, you meet someone, they might say, we talked about it when we

Matt Hughes:

were at the airport that time, I was talking to about you, book coaching.

Matt Hughes:

He was like, oh, it's this person going, follow them and chat to

Matt Hughes:

them and that kind of thing.

Matt Hughes:

So I would naturally go to LinkedIn and connect with them or wherever.

Matt Hughes:

The difference with sending someone to a channel is this loads of

Matt Hughes:

valuable content there straight away.

Matt Hughes:

And what you do with that then, if I went to someone's LinkedIn profile, I

Matt Hughes:

probably wouldn't go, Oh, I've got to tell loads of my friends about this.

Matt Hughes:

Just send them the profile randomly.

Matt Hughes:

If I went to a YouTube channel, I'd be like, Oh, this is really valuable.

Matt Hughes:

Or I've learned loads in this, you know, 10 reasons why you should do this thing.

Matt Hughes:

I'll share it with my friends.

Matt Hughes:

So the way, the natural way of people sharing your content and therefore

Matt Hughes:

adding to your compounding effect of growing your channel, it's just huge.

Matt Hughes:

It's just so different to you know, tagging someone in a post as it might be.

Matt Hughes:

Not that that's not valuable as well, you know.

Matt Hughes:

Okay.

Matt Hughes:

So I want to just, to sort of wrap this up really.

Matt Hughes:

As I said, I could talk to you loads about this.

Matt Hughes:

What I want to try and understand then with TubeFest, if people want to come

Matt Hughes:

and see your session, are you talking about a bit of this strategy stuff?

Matt Hughes:

What else are they going to get from you, Louise?

Louise Brogan:

Yes.

Louise Brogan:

So I'm going to cover, I'm going to tell a little bit about my story,

Louise Brogan:

but how those leads actually have turned into business from YouTube.

Louise Brogan:

So it's not, you know, it's the people who connect with me because they find

Louise Brogan:

me on YouTube and how that has actually changed into business and the way that

Louise Brogan:

has developed in a really quite an organic way, but there is strategy behind it.

Louise Brogan:

But I also want to talk about, I do a lot of video on LinkedIn and I have

Louise Brogan:

this Methodology, I guess, called COPE, which is how to cope with video,

Louise Brogan:

because actually Matt, a lot of people are terrified of doing video and I've

Louise Brogan:

seen people say, how can I do a YouTube channel and not be on the video?

Louise Brogan:

And yeah, you can, of course you can.

Louise Brogan:

So the COPE strategy is Create Once, Publish Everywhere and how I'm taking

Louise Brogan:

the video content and kind of putting the two together because it is, my

Louise Brogan:

audience is a B2B audience and how do I combine YouTube with LinkedIn?

Louise Brogan:

That gets me more business as a result.

Louise Brogan:

So it gets becoming a lot more strategic around that stuff.

Louise Brogan:

So I'm going to talk about that as well as how, you know, the lessons I've learned,

Louise Brogan:

the mistakes I've made, things I've bombed, things that, you know, advice

Louise Brogan:

I've taken and ignored and advice I've taken and followed that hasn't worked.

Matt Hughes:

Yeah.

Matt Hughes:

I think

Louise Brogan:

So yeah, all of that good stuff.

Matt Hughes:

Good.

Matt Hughes:

And I, and I'm really excited about that and I love COPE

Matt Hughes:

(Create Once, Publish Everywhere).

Matt Hughes:

I've written that down as well.

Matt Hughes:

I think that you've benefited definitely from having good people around you.

Matt Hughes:

It's helped.

Matt Hughes:

So I'm always a big advocate of that.

Matt Hughes:

We've got our own community called The Creator Meetup.

Matt Hughes:

We had our first virtual networking event today, which is amazing.

Matt Hughes:

And I think one thing that I will say to kind of wrap up is that, I know

Matt Hughes:

from spending time with you, Louise, you're so giving with your time.

Matt Hughes:

And I think your YouTube channel is a testament to that.

Matt Hughes:

You know, you describing it as a place where people can go and get this

Matt Hughes:

content, especially if they can't afford me, it's a really core value for me.

Matt Hughes:

It's like making sure that everything you do is inclusive

Matt Hughes:

regardless of people's circumstances.

Matt Hughes:

And it's so nice to see that actually, what's come off the back of that

Matt Hughes:

is the reward of getting to 10,000 subscribers, the people come into you

Matt Hughes:

time and time again, now referencing the fact that they've consumed this

Matt Hughes:

content and wouldn't it be so sad, you mentioned faceless channels there.

Matt Hughes:

And we do talk about that a little bit in my community, but wouldn't it have

Matt Hughes:

been, would it have had as much of an impact if your face wasn't on there?

Louise Brogan:

No, and you know, you can't be precious about yourself either, Matt.

Louise Brogan:

You know, I'm not, I'm not a bubbly 25 year old.

Matt Hughes:

I

Louise Brogan:

Not anymore, but actually it lands with my clients,

Louise Brogan:

you know, because they feel like I'm somebody they could work with as well.

Louise Brogan:

So it works, you know, it, yeah, I'm going to talk a little bit.

Louise Brogan:

I think a lot of people are like, I want to make, I want to try this.

Louise Brogan:

I want to make this work.

Louise Brogan:

And actually one of the things you said earlier about being a bit

Louise Brogan:

older, I actually think, I'm trying to convince a couple of my family

Louise Brogan:

members to consider doing this because I see it as a way to consistently

Louise Brogan:

earn money, you know, even after you want to take early retirement, like,

Matt Hughes:

Yeah,

Louise Brogan:

you know, to me, it's a really, it's not easy, but once

Louise Brogan:

you learn how to do it, it's a really nice income, extra income stream.

Matt Hughes:

Yeah.

Matt Hughes:

And you know, it takes a while to get to that.

Matt Hughes:

I mean, you know, I talk to people, there's a few unicorns I know in the

Matt Hughes:

YouTube space that blow up really quickly.

Matt Hughes:

But I'd never sell.

Matt Hughes:

It is like, this is the route you should take.

Matt Hughes:

But really the only way you're gonna get to that income stream is to start now for

Matt Hughes:

your 5-year-old later journey, you know?

Matt Hughes:

I watched a session.

Matt Hughes:

It was Ali Abdul, do you know, Ali Abdul?

Matt Hughes:

Ever come across Ali?

Louise Brogan:

Is he a doctor?

Matt Hughes:

Doctor turned YouTuber.

Matt Hughes:

Yeah.

Louise Brogan:

Yeah, I think so.

Matt Hughes:

So I'm trying to get Ali on the podcast.

Matt Hughes:

It will be very hard.

Matt Hughes:

I tried to get him to speak at TubeFest, but it didn't work out, but hopefully

Matt Hughes:

a future TubeFest we'll get him there.

Matt Hughes:

I went to a thing with him and Daniel Priestley the other day and Ali

Matt Hughes:

talked about the fact, I'll make it really brief, but he basically said

Matt Hughes:

he spent 350,000 pounds on a house in Manchester and his yield on that.

Matt Hughes:

His return for that was 10 grand a year.

Matt Hughes:

So in order to get his money back, it's going to take 35 years.

Matt Hughes:

Obviously there's creative ways to get your money back, but that's

Matt Hughes:

one of the things, of course, it will appreciate in value and all

Matt Hughes:

that kind of stuff, hopefully.

Matt Hughes:

But he said one of his videos earns more than that every month.

Louise Brogan:

It's not bad.

Louise Brogan:

Yeah.

Matt Hughes:

And his affiliate review talks about he's got a

Matt Hughes:

course on skillshare and it earns him like 3 or 4 grand a month.

Matt Hughes:

He was like, these digital assets that you create on this platform are just,

Matt Hughes:

you know, huge in terms of income stream.

Matt Hughes:

So, yeah, I don't see why anyone would not want to do it.

Louise Brogan:

I, it makes me laugh because I do, I get approached by

Louise Brogan:

people for affiliates for software and a lot of it is like lead gen software

Louise Brogan:

for LinkedIn, which I disagree with.

Louise Brogan:

So I won't take those on.

Louise Brogan:

I regularly get an email from Canva, telling me that somebody

Louise Brogan:

oh you've got a reward Louise and it's the reward is a free image.

Louise Brogan:

I'm like, I pay for Canva anyway.

Louise Brogan:

That's just rubbish.

Matt Hughes:

I don't like Canva.

Matt Hughes:

I started a YouTube channel with Canva.

Matt Hughes:

I called it Canva Collective.

Matt Hughes:

And they tried to sue me.

Matt Hughes:

They said I had to, their legal team told me I had

Louise Brogan:

Their affiliate programme, Matt, is rubbish.

Louise Brogan:

Like, honestly, I get like one or two a week and I'm

Louise Brogan:

like, just send me some money.

Matt Hughes:

Yeah.

Matt Hughes:

Yeah.

Matt Hughes:

They used to have a great affiliate programme they just killed it.

Matt Hughes:

And like I said, I started this channel.

Matt Hughes:

It was a community-based channel.

Matt Hughes:

It was just to advocate their products and their legal teams that

Matt Hughes:

I couldn't use the word Canva in it.

Louise Brogan:

oh.

Matt Hughes:

Let's not do it then.

Matt Hughes:

Bye.

Matt Hughes:

Anyway, that's on record now on the podcast.

Matt Hughes:

So sorry, Canva, but we won't be friends ever, even though I love your

Matt Hughes:

product, I absolutely love the product.

Matt Hughes:

Thank you so much, Louise, really appreciate your time for this.

Matt Hughes:

I really, really, Louise, just so you know, everyone that Louise was

Matt Hughes:

the first person I asked to speak at TubeFest, because when I was looking

Matt Hughes:

for speakers, the only person I could see speaking about YouTube in such a

Matt Hughes:

positive way all the time was Louise.

Matt Hughes:

And so I was delighted when you said yes at the start and you immediately

Matt Hughes:

said yes, there was no conversation.

Matt Hughes:

You just, I assume you was like, yes,

Louise Brogan:

Oh, I can't wait.

Louise Brogan:

I think it's going to be so brilliant.

Louise Brogan:

Can't wait.

Matt Hughes:

This episode will go out about 5 or 6 weeks before two fest.

Matt Hughes:

There's plenty of time to grab a ticket.

Matt Hughes:

And we've got The Creator Meetup.

Matt Hughes:

You can come and join us in our community as well.

Matt Hughes:

So thank you so much for your time, Louise.

Matt Hughes:

Looking forward to seeing you on May 23rd in Birmingham and have a

Matt Hughes:

great rest of the week, alright.

Louise Brogan:

You too.

Louise Brogan:

Thanks

Matt Hughes:

Bye bye.