How Mark Moss Made $1M in 20 days Without Paid Ads

0:28All right, Marketing School listeners. episode? My content really changed around the pandemic and I've sort of had different phases of content. When I launched the channel originally, the entire reason I started the YouTube channel was because I was writing a cryptocurrency research newsletter in 2016 and 2017, crushed it. But in December of 2017, Facebook and Google banned all advertising for crypto. Yep. I remember that. So now what am I going to do? And now I had spent 10 years in lead gen. So I was a lead gen. Me and my partner were the largest solar lead generators in the nation at one point.

1:04So I'm deep into call centers and data and avatar dialers and SEO and paid ads, whatever. So I was running this on paid ads. They shut that down and we had no way to sell the product. So my business partner at the time is like, hey, I'll just start a YouTube channel. I'll just do TA technical analysis live and we'll sell the product. It was a newsletter product and a trading product. Got it. And well, we launched the trading products and it was just like lightning in a bottle. It was right when the advertising shut down. 2017, Bitcoin had gone from a thousand to 19 ,000. And then all that shut down.

1:34We launched this trading product in December 2017 with a brand new YouTube channel, no paid ads and did a million dollars in 20 days. Wow. Boom. Just captured lightning in a bottle, right? I think we broke the ClickFunnels record at the time and that was on zero dollars of ad spend. Yeah. So then I started talking about more business and success stuff. Then when the pandemic happened, it went like heavy macro, sort of like macroeconomic and like freedom. Those are sort of like the two things that I kind of talk about there. And the reason why I'm saying this is because a lot of it is like news oriented.

2:04It's driven by the news cycle. And so it's not really evergreen. And just so people get a sense for it, like how much reach are you getting from the channels per month right now? For the social channels? Yeah. It's just been really the last six months we've started to kind of turn attention to Instagram as our main focus on Instagram. I think we're getting three or four million views a month. My team could tell you better. I think we're probably getting more in the 5 million range, you know, across those platforms. And then that, that includes YouTube or? Oh, no, that's without YouTube. Yeah. YouTube's another, you know, a million and a half, 2 million views.

2:31And then podcasts? Podcast is about a half a million, you know, but, and I don't know what the reach on the radio is. So I'm in 26 markets, I think. So that's like a weird deal. I don't know how that works. I would argue like your, your reach, like, like the YouTube shirt, it's like less views or whatever, but it's like such higher quality views. and maybe even for podcasts too, it's even higher quality. Yeah, so that's a key piece. I've been binge watching your content, I told you. Another one of our mutual friends, Blake, that you had on, I met him through Cody a couple years ago. He's Mr. Short Form.

3:04And as I was listening to that interview and I was just thinking, I only focused on long form. And I think what I've found is specifically, I try to focus on like high ticket items. And so with high ticket from the data that I've found, you typically need about an hour and a half with a person before they can buy. While I don't get as many views as Blake gets across social media, the views are so much better. Well, quality, right? So on a YouTube video and on a 25-minute video, I'll average 65 % retention. Oh, wow. Yeah. That's high. Well, I was just going to say, so when somebody watches you for 25 minutes and they've been watching 25-minute videos for months or years, I mean, they think they know you.

3:42So there's a lot of trust that's built. When you watch hours and hours of content, there's a lot of character that they pick up, a lot of personality. And so you really start to get it versus just a real short form. I mean, I'm not a fan of doing short form content. And the reason why is I think it's one of the bigger problems that we have in the world today, where everybody reads headlines and they don't get the context. And today we see so much, you know, black or white. People think very literally, but everything has nuance. And if you don't pick up the nuance, you're just never going to get it.

4:10And I'll do a 20 minute video on like a big subject, like George Gammon. He's one of my good friends. You know, he'll dive deep into like reverse repo. Yeah. Well, I'm left watching that going, what does that mean? Why do I care? So then I'll do a video on like, hey, if you want the technical, go watch George. But let me tell you why you care about this and what it means to you. Right? So anyway, I'll take these very complex subjects, make them super easy to understand. And I'll do it in like 20 minutes. And people will be like, dude, it's too long. Make it shorter. I'm like, then just read the headline.

4:39So anyway, I'm not a form of short form content because what can I really tell you in 45 seconds? Plus, I'll be honest. I don't know about you, but I don't remember anybody from short form. Anybody, actually. There's only one person, actually. Jenny Hoyos. One person. That's because I watch a 35-minute video of her getting interviewed. That's the only reason I know her. Yeah. I think the way that I'm seeing it and the way that I want to approach it is like top of funnel. All my content is top of funnel, but really the shorts would be super top of funnel. That's how we've been using them on Instagram anyway.

5:09And I think I've seen several people like Blake, but even in the crypto space that I know, they really used TikTok to build their YouTube channels. So I think the TikTok, you know, the shorts will be top of funnel for the other type of for the long form content. And the long form content will still be top of funnel for the products and services. I mean, I think this works out really well. Well, I've done podcasts for years, but I've never chopped them up. Like we're starting like literally last maybe 90 days or so. And I see the flywheel starting to work really well. and it's just like, oh, okay.

5:37Like you just, you roll with whatever organic channel is working well. Yeah. The problem is because like most of my content, as I was saying, is typically like a 20 minute, 25 minute like thesis. So it's not, I don't think it's super clip worthy because like you take a 45 second clip out of a 20 minute like teaching video, you don't really get the whole context of what it is. And that's why, you know, I know, like I listened to your video with Hermosi and he's like, oh, we're just pulling clips now. He doesn't do direct to camera anymore. but I think for what I'm doing, my type of content doesn't really lead to that.

6:08And I think that's part of the reason why it hasn't really been growing for us. And so that's where we're thinking about making just specific short form content for that. That's just short soundbites, snippets, and if you want the deeper content, then you come into the long form. Oh, got it. I like that. It's a preview to your long forms. Yeah. Yeah. 65 % retention is insane. Like, what have you done to do that? Good storytelling, right? It's copywriting. So I think it's all about the intro, right? So it's all about the hook. So I do a three-part hook. I mean, this is just copywriting. Like, who's it for, what's it for, and status change, right?

6:35That's what basically what it is. So like the who's it, so the hook is like, you know, the end of the international monetary order is coming. Watch out. So that's like the hook. And then I give the offer, right? So it's like the hook, the offer. And that would be like, as you know, the system's crashing, three banks collapsed this year. The banks could bail in your money. So in this video, I'm going to break down the three banks that are most dangerous. So then I'll kind of give the context, and then I'll tell you what's in the video. in this video, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this.

7:04And I'm going to show you this, this, this. And then the last part is the status change or like the testimonial having this information will protect you from whatever. Right. So I kind of like, I'll try to get that out in like 60 seconds. So like a really strong hook, the context of what it is, what they're going to receive and the status change that they'll receive the benefit. If they stay till the end. Staying to the end. Yeah. And then, uh, you know, through good storytelling, they need the journey, right? So it's like, we're gonna go over this, we're gonna go over this, we're gonna go over this, but we're also gonna say what you need to watch out for, the danger, this thing that you need to know as well.

7:38And that, and then I think just from years of doing it, you know, I think naturally I'll be like, and we'll come back to that in a minute. Okay, hey, we'll talk about that in a minute. And like hooks to the end, kind of things like that. I think it's probably second nature for you now, but that 60 seconds, that hook, and then everything you talked about, how long does that typically take you? To write it out? Yeah. So I know a lot of YouTubers, they talk about like creating the package first, right? The package for me consists of a title and like a paragraph. That's like, that would be probably the package for me.

8:07I would do the title, the thumbnail, because I usually put like a couple words on the thumbnail. So it'd be a title, thumbnail, and like a paragraph. That's like the package. So I'll start from there. Then I'll build it out to typically eight bullet points. And then of those eight bullet points, I try to put three to four bullet points under each one so that's like that's that's where i start and then i'll usually build the video out and then go back and write the intro you're not just like shooting from the hip and by the way there's like so many different ways to do this like i want to hook i want the intro to be good and so i'm pretty good at shooting off the cuff because i'm doing for five years now uh but i find it to be better when i when i do it and i don't go back and try to like seo optimize or i don't do any of that um i don't know how important it is for youtube anymore The thing is for what I'm doing, for the type of content I'm doing, a lot of the learning comes from the research process.

8:55So when I sit down to build that video, I'm going to spend four or five hours on that video. I'm going to start researching and pulling stuff. And then I'm learning more stuff as I'm going. So that's why I'll go back and do the intro after I've built the video, because I'm not exactly sure what the flow is going to be. So then I might end up with 10, 12 bullet points, and then I'll compress it back down. And then I just launch it. I don't know how long it's going to take me. I typically figure I can get through about eight slides in about 20, 25 minutes. I think your framework's amazing. Are you doing any crazy stuff?

9:26I use TubeBuddy, and TubeBuddy will allow you to A-B test the thumbnail. The problem with the A-B testing on TubeBuddy is that it's a 24-hour period. And so typically you come out of the gate pretty hot. And so we'll look at the click-through rate. That's kind of one of the big pieces for me. And if it doesn't seem to be taken off good, we'll go back and change the title or a thumbnail. but because the data has like that lag to it, like I haven't found a real good way to do that. I do know one of the big YouTube strategies and I've seen Russell Brand hiring for this role, but is a YouTube optimizer.

9:58And even going back to the back catalog, a year or two old and changing thumbnails and titles in that. So shout out right now, cause I'll throw it out a couple of times, but I'm hiring all kinds of people. OneMarkMoss.com slash jobs, OneMarkMoss.com slash jobs. If you want to be a YouTube optimizer, hit me up. Remote's good. Uh, remote's good. But back to the content part of what I want to do for next year is get off the news cycle. It's a hamster wheel. I'm done with the news cycle. I want to go back to more evergreen content. The news cycle is the hamster wheel. I mean, when you're doing like Ben Shapiro or like even Patrick, but David who I love, right.

10:28And I think it's just tough because every day it's like, it kind of feels like a job. Yeah. It's a massive job. It's two things that people probably don't realize. One, I have to be in the news cycle 24 seven because I come on to a couple of podcasts a week and I don't know what questions they're going to ask me. so I need to kind of know about everything. Like I need to know what's going on in the oil market. I need to know what's going on with the war in Israel. I need to know what's going on with the Fed meeting last week. I need to know what the CPI data that just came, like I need to know all that all the time.

10:54So there's hours per day of just staying in the news cycle. That's like the treadmill, right? Now, if I'm talking business, marketing, dude, I've been doing this for decades. I could just talk about that all the time. It doesn't really change, right? But in that news cycle, you have to be in it. And Patrick McDavid's more like on the politics side, but still, you got to know that. He's reacting, yeah. And then the second part is I've kind of sold my soul for the algorithm, so to speak. And so then what happens is, what should I talk about this week? What's the biggest story? Ooh, I don't like that story.

11:24Let me find a bigger story. Right? And so it's two part. I mean, dude, I've gone a whole day and then not decided on an idea. Like a whole day, six hours goes by, seven hours, and I'm just like, I still don't know what I want to do for a video. As opposed to, I keep one of the big hacks for me that I learned a long time ago, and it was actually through time management, is just capture every idea. And so I use Evernote on my phone, on my computer, and every idea I just write down. So I have pages of videos I want to do that are evergreen videos, and I just haven't been doing them because I'm always stuck in the news cycle.

11:57So anyway, it's a massive time suck. a couple hours a day of just staying in it and then trying to dig out that story as opposed to just doing something that you want. And then it doesn't let you focus on a business too. And it also burns you out. I don't want to say I'm doing videos just for views, but I do think about what video will get the most views all the time. It's stuff that I've been paying attention to for over a decade. And even if I wasn't getting paid, I'm still going to put all my time into it anyway. So I might as well talk about it. So iHeart said this, you can be bigger than Ben Shapiro.

12:27It was actually, well, Joe told me this, but he, it was Bob Pittman, the CEO is the one that told him that. So Joe was telling Bob, Hey, you got to watch this guy, Mark, whatever. And so apparently I haven't talked to Bob personally, but apparently per Joe, he said, he's like, yeah, Bob started watching stuff. And he's like, dude, this guy could be bigger than Ben Shapiro. He's like, I know I told you. Yeah. So that was like pretty cool validation. I didn't hear it firsthand. I heard a second hand, but got it. So I guess that's interesting to me because you know, who sticks out to me right now?

12:53I was talking to George Gammon a couple weeks ago. And so he has his YouTube guy. We're in a Zoom and his YouTube guy's like, yeah, your YouTube sucks. And I was like, Josh, yeah. Josh is like, your YouTube sucks. I'm like, oh, thanks. But it's true. And he's like, dude, it could be so much bigger, blah, blah, blah. And they're like, dude, you guys got to look at Russell Brand. Russell Brand to me is entertaining. It's every day he's reacting to stuff, right? And to me, I'm like, I think you can do even better than that. So not even you'll be bigger than Ben Shapiro. I think you'll just be like this massive brand.

13:18And so how are you changing, I guess, your content workflow moving forward? Because you talked about how you're spending six hours a week on it right now, but you want to adjust it. You know, there's a whole lot to unpack in that specifically, but I kind of got thrown into the world of content creation. Actually, I didn't want to with my old business partner that sort of forced me into it. And I've gone through many fates. So it's been, I just celebrated like my fifth year of, I guess, being a content creator. I started my YouTube channel five years ago in October. And, you know, you'll hear a lot from content creators or coaches that coach content creators.

13:48And they tell you typically like focus on one platform. So all I focused on was on YouTube. I didn't build TikTok or Twitter or Instagram, none of that. And really in the last six months, I've only started to turn to social media. It's been basically four and a half years of only YouTube. But through that time, my production schedule has changed as well as the content that I've done has changed. And I've gone from two videos a week to three videos a week to one video a week, back up to two videos a week, back up to three. So I've sort of changed that schedule. For the last, since the pandemic, really since like 2020, I went up to three videos a week, two and then to three, and I've maintained that schedule.

14:28So two main teaching videos per week, which are like a thesis. It's like a 25 minute video, not reciting news headlines like a Russell Brand or a Ben Shapiro, but like, here's like a thesis twice a week, plus one interview a week. So three of those a week, each of those videos take four or five hours to write, right? And you're doing like a, you have a whiteboard and everything. I got the whiteboard and all that. Then when I got the iHeart deal, which was, I guess in 2021, then I picked up an additional three hours of content a week. So they pitched me on a radio show and a podcast. So I record the radio and then the radio goes into the podcast, but I record for three hours a week.

15:06I do that every Thursday and I have someone helps me with the research and right and whatever. And then I spend a couple hours in advance getting it and then three hours going live. So it's a full day or even more. So this is more than six hours of work actually for a week. Oh yeah. Yeah. Right. So, so for the last two years, I've been pretty much doing three videos on my main YouTube channel, plus three hours of radio podcasts and secondary YouTube channel. So it's about six hours of final video at the end of the week. Plus, you know, I'm on one or two shows a week as well. So it's a, it's a pretty crazy schedule to keep up on, which has been fun.

15:44At one point I was kind of telling you, I don't know if before we were recording, but iHeart offered me to build out a network. And so I thought, you know what, I'm just going to build a media company. And so I was kind of like all in on that, but man, I'm a builder. I'm an entrepreneur. I spun up a whole bunch of businesses and try, I, over the last couple of years, going back to, it's not who you are, it's who you know, I have just opportunities just flying at me left and right. And we launched a couple of ventures and each one were like seven figure, seven figure, just like picking up money, right?

16:14Maintaining this media schedule that I've been running and trying to run businesses just doesn't work. It just doesn't work. And so, you know, as I said, like over, over the course of a career, but even over the course of five years, like what I'm doing, what I'm focused on changes. And I've gotten to the point where it's like, man, I'm a builder. I want to build, I need equity. So I'm going to probably slow the content side down a little bit and focus on that. Got it. Right now, like what percent of the week do you think you're dedicating towards content? And what do you think it will be moving forward?

16:41Well, as of right now, I'm still doing the three hours of radio pod, et cetera. That's a piece that I'm potentially going to renegotiate this month here at the end of the year. We're just entering the end of the year here, right? I typically spend the last month of the year on massive reflection. I do all year, but like, what did I like? What didn't I like? What can I do better? And what do I want for next year? So I'm thinking about changing that podcast thing, potentially cutting an hour or two out of that schedule and just bring it down to like a podcast. And then on my main YouTube channel, I'm thinking about going down to just one video a week.

17:12Less is more. Yeah, quality over quantity. And I think less is more. I mean, you know, there's a lot of people that do one video a week, like Cody Sanchez and her media side of the business crushes it with just one video. And then focus more on the social media side, kind of short form side. We've done no effort or focus on the short form side at all. Yeah, I was going to ask you, but because I was looking at your channel, I was like, yeah, like there's, you know, both you and George Gammon, very, very, very focused. There's like, I'm not going to touch anything else, which is, I think, great.

17:39But also I'm looking at everything. I was Like, so the question is no YouTube shorts. You stayed focused on, I guess, like, what are you going to open up to? Like shorts, TikToks, reels, anything else? So, I mean, in full disclosure, I mean, we have those being posted, but it's literally like a team in India that just chops clips and sticks them up. Right. So there's, we don't look at data. We don't look at analytics. Like we haven't done anything there. Yeah. So I think it's a, it would be a combination of going and actually creating short form content. We've started experimenting with it in the last month or two, sitting down, recording short form content.

18:08So I think it'll be a short form strategy, which will be including, right, creating content specifically for short form and hiring platform managers that will dig into the data, optimize it and start tweaking on it. Got it. So you mentioned, I mean, you came from lead gen, a lot of paid, a lot of SEO, and then now you've kind of evolved into, you know, creating content, right? Like, where do you see marketing going in the next, let's say, 10 years? Yeah. So, you know, I talk about, it's not who you are, it's who you know, and the benefit of having this audience and all these things. We know, I'm sure the audience knows, like probably the greatest asset you can own today is attention.

18:40That's what everyone's trying to get is attention, in addition to other things, but that attention piece. And so we have that. And I know how important that is. I talk about it, you know, but it's very interesting. All of a sudden, I'm having to live a life without it. And so, I don't know, did you ever see Undercover Billionaire? Yeah, I saw the one with Grant Cardone. I watched the whole thing. The first one was really good. It was just one guy, but the one with Grant Cardone was good. The Underdog Barbecue. Yeah. You know, they were basically dropped off in a town with no money, but they had no contacts.

19:05They couldn't use their name. And so here I am. So part of what I'm doing is I've been seeing all these people take big exits near me and I've had some big exits. And the last five years I've been doing this and I've been making a lot of money and it's been great, but I'm not building any equity. I can't sell my personal brand. And I have all this deal flow and I got brought up. I'm part of the venture fund and I launched another venture fund, Bitcoin opportunity fund. So now I'll pick that up, but I launched two different coaching programs. I had like a really high ticket coaching program and then like a mid tier coaching program, like 20 ,000 mid-year, like 50 ,000 high-end.

19:36And I had like 80 students across that. And that became sort of a nightmare. And we can get into that if you want. But what I did is I decided, you know what, instead of trying to work with, you know, you know, the saying, those who can do and those who can't teach. I'm like, why am I teaching all these people that never can seem to get it right? I can just go do it. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to take two or three of the best companies I see here. I'm going to take equity deals in them, and I'm just going to help them do the work. If you've ever built a website, you know how tough it can be to keep a strong design while ensuring site performance is fast.

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