Some YouTubers I think should stretch themselves and not just be thinking about making your own videos or your own Vlogs but like do client work it's an unconventional path to what full-time on YouTube could look like my big thing that I love doing on the side was shooting concerts eventually I got into a post Malone show you never know what's on the other side of your courageous yes my video production agency I was running Simultaneously to getting these different positions until I started actually doing some freelance work for think media produc seen some content which
led to then opportunity to work full-time for you guys I started off my video career by working with clients shooting concert films and working in a professional video production environment eventually this led me on a journey to becoming a content creator and making videos around What I'm more passionate about specifically cameras and vide Tech so I'm going to share my journey of learning the skills of Photography and video the route that that took me on and hopefully Inspire those watching to punch fear in the face and pursue what you love you got to just press
record so we're going to be talking about the unconventional path to building a YouTube career or going full-time in YouTube but also really just kind of the skill set of video because video can be monetized in so many different ways business uh video production that can lead into content creation and listeners in this episode can walk away with ideas for making more money going full-time faster today I'm with Craig puit who is a content creator husband father of two with Over N years of experience in video production and we're going to be going through your
story pulling out lessons That listeners can learn and you have kind of an influencer timeline you have a video professional timeline and I'm certain that listeners can learn from all of that about how they might reach their goals faster thanks for having Sean excited to be here in Las Vegas and just uh be chopping it up a bit Yeah so let's dive into your story we have eight pillars of your journey and each pillar is something we all could apply and learn from and it goes all the way back To starting with laying a foundation
of freework networking and building up a portfolio now freew work's kind of controversial people think oh you should have do free work don't sell yourself short don't sell yourself short but this is similar to my journey and it was instrumental with skills and relationships that led to where I am today so what year was this that you kind of started to lay a foundation and build your portfolio so this was back in 2015 so about nine years ago that I started my video creation content creation journey and it started with Stills Photography in particular so
at the time I didn't even have any portfolio to present a client so if I wanted to start making money it was like well you have no leverage you don't have anything you can show to clients so really it started this journey of who can I find in my circle of influence who I can start making cont content for so I Started in particular with since I was at the time in college I still had a lot of friends who were in high school so they all needed senior portraits done so I started just right
there was just like hey let me take your senior photos and with that started to build a network and more and more people were like hey Craig like you do senior photos can you do mine and I would just do as many as I possibly could for free and even would do like Lowlevel uh like family photo sessions for people and I was just trying to build a portfolio and really just shoot anything that I could which really honestly set me up for success to then quickly after building you know a portfolio of 5 to
seven photo portfolios than be able to dive into more of paid gigs how did you did you like learn on the internet how did you originally learn photography skills uh one of my favorite YouTubers even to this day Still is Jared Poland fronos photo you know.com we all know Jared um love his stuff but he's really who taught me a lot about photography and actually during this time in 2015 I was studying athletic training in school so I I was playing college football totally thought I was going to go on this career path for like
being an athlete working with athletes and something happened in me where I was like I felt this career [ __ ] of God taking me a completely different Direction of just like I want you to pursue video in fact and at the time like I was just taking photos I just thought like maybe I could be a professional photographer go on tour with artists and be their you know tour photographer or something but I felt something stiring in me of like hey like this video thing it's very similar it's kind of like Photo adjacent and
you can learn a lot of the same uh skills that you're learning right now with photo you Can learn and take them into a video career so I actually pivoted in 2015 my um my major in college from athletic training and shifted to video production and um animation so I got kind of dual concentrations in those you know this idea of building skills and the fact that once you become a content creator or do YouTube shot composition thumbnails photography you know I took actually in sophomore year black and white photography where I developed Photos in
a dark room it's awesome and uh it was that foundational class was again starting to help me with shot composition I also did internet radio cross rock radio at Kings high school and I was using Adobe Audition to mix mix like sports events from the school and songs so it was kind of a foundation for video editing so by getting into just the game of YouTube skills in any way possible of course is so powerful and did you ever get paid for those Family photos or senior photos yes eventually I mean and that kind of
goes into our first strategy for making money with video or photo is is to start doing low-level freelance work So eventually if you start building a portfolio and you have that leverage you and that's why I think it's so important to post your work and publish your work even if you're a little bit embarrassed at first because then people can start seeing that you actually produce stuff and you Never know who's watching and might want a photo album created for their family or something so eventually yes like it's just natural that people see you take
photos uh what do you what's your rate that's the very first question they usually ask you is what do you charge and So eventually the light bulb kind of went off for me it was like I can I can charge for this like this is great I just like doing it as a passion thing and so that was basically all of the Free things that I was doing just very quickly turned into paid gigs very lowlevel dollars I mean for some people it's live changing it was you know 200 here 300 here but it starts
to multiply as you do 5 10 20 of those you start actually making a pretty good side hustle so that was the first realm for me and at the same time I was also uh beginning to study video production in school so I already sort of understood photography composition shutter speed The exposure triangle and then I had to apply that all to video and then start making kind of on I was sort of two different Journeys I had the photo journey and the film Journey that was kind of lagging behind slowly so I had to
catch up to my photo knowledge and so I was doing some of the the video projects for free working for nonprofits um they often don't have a lot of money so they want you to do stuff for free for them um so yeah that That was kind of the journey there yeah skills are more valuable than money because if you actually develop skills you can print money in the future but if you only get money in the short term you can't reproduce it and so I always loved getting paid to even if it was a
small amount to like practice more photography practice more videography similar to my journey so number one was lay a foundation of free work and building a portfolio which led to paid work number Two freelance photographer videographer when was the first time you got paid to do video and you didn't do video for free oh man the first time probably well the first time I got really paid like actually I considered it a solid payment for a photo gig was a wedding this and this is a very interesting story it was the day before this person's
wedding and their photographer got pneumonia and I was out with a friend bowling and this this it was just a friend of a friend Kind of situation and they're like oh Craig takes photos like you should go do this wedding and I'm like what like I don't I've never shot a wedding before I know nothing about this um so I went and I hired my mom as my second shooter okay and there's some funny story there behind that like the bride wanted some particular stuff for her husbands so my mom's taking photos of the Bri
it just it it was some crazy stuff did it turn out okay no I mean I mean it was okay Like looking at the photos now I cringe and I would do things differently now now that I've shot you know 20 30 40 50 weddings um but that was kind of the first photo gig the first video gig probably was a nonprofit I think working for a church would have been my first kind of paid gig somebody needed like a church promo video for the website so I produced that for them and I'm sure it
was like $300 or something you know and and I mean building your network a Friend of a friend they're getting married is so critical and I think like the courageous yes can change your life the day before because someone else canceled because someone else got pneumonia you know when I um was living in a small town in the Pacific Northwest and also doing like kind of nonprofit video work I met a guy named Benji Travis at the YMCA and we both had a similar interest in YouTube and his wife was already a decent sized Beauty
YouTuber but he I want to say text me the day before he was going to propose to her and said hey can I hire you to film and it that willingness to have a courageous yes am I ready for this do I even know what we're doing you know but it was just like yeah I'll show up and I'll shoot of course I would do a lot of things differently but that video was a kickoff video of them then hiring me for an entire series you know today we wrote a book together YouTube secrets you
Never know what's on the other side of your courageous yes and you never know uh what's on the other side of doing it messy because it's funny you look back and I think it's a tension you know I think we get scared if we step out and the quality the work I mean it's a risk you know but RIS but the tension between just working your way up doing projects making mistakes I've had SD cards fail for clients and stuff and just had to work me too dude that is that is the Worst feeling like
it happened to me one time where the guy looked at me after it failed and he just like he gave me the look of like I thought you were a professional and I just felt awful like I could like the rest of my day was just completely ruined I'm like I just I don't even know what happened to this day like I just hit end and I saw it loading and it just nothing happened I uh I actually only I lost an a critical angle the episode with this uh Amy K Hutchins who hired me
uh the episode had to become audio only with just like a picture because we had multiple angles but like the critical angle of her died because the battery died and because the battery just died it didn't capture right the SD the recording at like 45 minutes just turned off and so um this this is the pain of it and this is that unconventional path to how do you learn resilience how do you learn all this different stuff so by doing freelance Video freelance photography and not everybody listening to this there's some business owners that are
doing YouTube um but some YouTubers I think should stretch themselves and not just be thinking about making your own videos or your own Vlogs but like do client work and of course ugc is kind of that and sometimes vloggers could go start making ads and commercials for local businesses like they're you know it's maybe different you you could also be the Talent and the video and a lot of people actually have created those kind of careers that's like one of the big takeaways I want people to have is it's an unconventional path to what full-time
on YouTube could look like and it's like everyone just wants all the AdSense and wants to keep it simple that would be nice but even right now what we're experiencing and think media mind you we make a ton of money and AD Revenue but compared to the size of our team if We're not doing other stuff like there's you know and so for most people it's interesting to think about client work as a way of making money well and for a video creator too if you wanted to be a YouTube Creator about camera products Tech
it's a little bit difficult to do that unless you can speak from a place of authority where you have worked with clients and you've been on video shoots and so I think for me I'm really thankful for the journey that I had Which was I didn't really start YouTube until the last couple years of my life and now I work full-time for a YouTube channel which is sick love the job but I wouldn't be able to to help educate Learners and and people who are earlier on in their Journey unless I went through that journey
and was able to shoot a ton of stuff which I'm thankful I've had that opportunity there's another bomb and takeaway and that is that in the competitive landscape of YouTube desending on what your industry is obviously it's meta for us to talk about this because you and I both have background as photographer videographer editors and that's what th media does and so we're compound in those skills and not everybody listening to this that might do client work wants to do that but saying so like out of 10 20 30 competitive channels who do you think
is going to have the most depth most trust most Authority most longevity the person Who is a camera reviewer who only ever did camera reviews about reviewing cameras or the person who's been on the wedding shoots done Church video production done the different stuff and I think that's a big case to why I think media has the authority it does that was true about Omar true about everybody like we actually all have like Divergent skills and other industries we' use case studies even from client work to tie into product reviews I think it's helped Us
build trust I think maybe more nonlinear for listeners man just the deeper you can go in Mastery Mastery always leads to Money And so there's something about just getting more experience developing more Mastery which number three you you start doing freelance video editing yeah yes this was honestly this was a huge light bulb moment for me because I all of my my freelance video and photo projects were really just me maybe I would hire a Second shooter to come help me but they weren't really at a large scale and so the reason I started editing
freelance was because um I was I was actually shooting Church camp promo videos and I would make them like as lit as I possibly could like just kids love these things and so I would pull pull out all the stops that I kind of learned from my producing concert films so these things would be really edited really nicely and so a a dad of somebody saw this video And they were like hey this is amazing like who is this person making these Church camp videos and so he hired me as an editor so I edited
for his company for about two years when I finished out college so I was I was still finishing college and it was a great side Hustle season for me to produce some extra income and I didn't have to be out in the field shooting as much I could be you know studying at home but then editing on the side but what it let me Do is seeing insight into the business model that this guy was running I could learn from him watch him direct clients watch the way he interacts and positions cameras and does multi-
camera shoots and so I got the experience of like what it would be like to run my own video production company by just editing and I didn't have to you know front all the cost to like be out in the field and try to get that experience by being the boots on the ground I could learn that Through the computer screen which was a huge thing for me and then I realized like hey like I'm learning a ton here I can probably do this on my own if I just invest in some equipment and a
little bit of just you know more learning so there's another one hot off the fish scales is what am I even saying ultimately though the that's a big Insight uh because um you know I think what a lot of people listening to this they're like I want to be a full-time YouTuber you know or I maybe want to be a full-time content creator and I just want to make videos but what they don't realize is that as things grow you have to become a CEO mhm and it's overwhelming it's super overwhelming and and you could
think about like like sometime people are worried about what happens if I fail honestly you know what's harder than failure this could be offensive to some people oftentimes success can be a lot harder than failure I've seen success crush more people than failure ever has because it starts getting complex it starts getting hard More Money More Problems and and you also it's one thing to try to figure out how to do video it's a whole another thing to figure out how to like you said and so if you getting time on the journey that's why
this is the unconventional path to fulltime on YouTube I I'm I'm excited because some people I mean if you learn a lot I hope You're reading books listening to audio books I hope you're investing in yourself these skills are figure out maybe it depends on some couples do this together and one person's maybe more of a manager and you got to decide what your skill sets are um but you know even recently uh Tim P kind of a conservative news guy was talking about how he's just kind of burnt out and he is just done
with being an operator Talent with being an operator content creator I Can relate I'm like yeah it's it's like gets really hard as you start having to wear the CEO hat and even on a small scale because now you're also kind of being a manager and that's not just about thumbnails videos but now it's about p&l and emails and a lot of different things all that to say is I love hearing you know putting yourself in the environment where you can learn new skills I think a takeaway could be that a lot of people that
want to do Full-time on YouTube should go work for somebody that is a media company yeah absolutely and even if it's something you have a vision like I want to be there one two three four years like what you will learn will be so invaluable to maybe the longevity of your career because a lot of times people that have a breakout viral video too get crushed by it they have 15 minutes of viral fame or not Crush 50 minutes viral Fame but they can't sustain it no there's no Business Acumen underneath the foundation of like
what it is that's very interesting which leads to number four that then you launch your own video production agency yep yeah so I mean it's actually still active it is in LLC it's called prospective media if I could go back though the way it's spelled is p r u s p e k t i v so prospective with like a k and a p because of my name it's like kind of connect to your name yes it's like why did I do this this is a Big Insight yes it's clever weird wording don't weird YouTube
names weird names weird unspell websites five people listening to this are in big pain right now they're like wait a minute but I love the creativity no no Clarity is is more important than creativity every time I would tell a client like they like do you have a business card like and they're they're trying to look at it they're like what is this what does this mean I wish I Would have just like perspective just say the word like spell it normally so anyways it is still active though um so I take on maybe a
couple clients a year and it's it's grown over time I'd say it's probably been this business has been active for about five years real istically and over the last year or so I've tried to scale back and focus more cuz now I'm a dad I'm a husband my wife doesn't live if I'm gone all the time so I get that and I think by doing that Freelance editing for a season really taught me a lot and about how to scale and so this past year was a huge win where we we did a a wedding
for a client and it was a big wedding where our team was doing both photo and video stuff but this was the first time that I was not even involved I just built a whole team send the team out and trusted everybody to do their thing I wasn't even there and it was a huge success the film was incredible the photos were incredible And so it just brought me inside is like you don't have to always be as you're talking like an operator Talent OR in my case like an operator and also boots on the
ground operating cameras you don't necessarily have to do that you can just work in the back and be more of a Producer instead of being the director on set so yeah I've learned a lot through through running my own prospective media over the years and uh it's still active but I'm just trying to Scale back as I'm trying to focus more on stuff here at thing media I think some people listening to this too is like truth is client work people facing work um is going to have one giant problem people themselves they're the worst
aren't they yeah you know like cuz people got problems people got opinions people got revisions video editors know dude the revisions if you don't put a revisions clause Max two Max two revisions like you you got to learn your Contracts early on you're like we're on V revision 22 because I didn't say ah can you change this like non so what's interesting is you know on the one hand there's like this dream of like make a video rank a video connect it to affiliate marketing I mean if you could scale that up it's like the
Ultimate Dream because you're actually really not dealing with people you're not even dealing with Brands a brand deal or a brand sponsorship is still really a Client then that you have to please um and so saying that at the same time I think that there is so much opportunity for people listening to this to be willing to get into the trenches with people and obviously I'm joking a little bit you know it's like it's just the nature to to do the work to jump in to maybe start an agency and I've seen a lot of
people it's one of the best moves you adapt your YouTube channel you start thinking about it's not just maybe Making a digital course that's an option it's not just affiliate marketing that's an option but it could be starting services um of some kind freelancing on the side or realizing that your YouTube channel is a marketing arm it's it's a mini Media company that could then feed into other places I think about like for example Gary vaynerchuk who oftentimes talk talks about this he'd say you know like client work sucks but I decided to go into
a client services business and Try to scale that into a global advertising company where a lot of people would accuse you know Gary Vee of being a grifter or something like that because he talks on social media when it's like dude he's got 2,000 employees and is like running and gives away you know most of his information for free of course write some books and stuff whatever bottom line is a lot of not just not a lot of people want to do that work no and and if you're going to be Anti fragile Recession Proof
that kind of foundation that you might have as a part of your business because again things can EV and flow in the creater economy 100% brand deals might come up they might dry up for a while Affiliates could be crushing one season they might go down ad Revenue could be all over the place and so having an aspect of maybe some type of an agency could be a strategy for people absolutely and I think that's a big hack for people I Mean I know I have a lot of friends who want to become they want
to be YouTubers and they're in the camera creative Niche but I think it's a a big hack where you're able to tap into different markets you can make video reviews and product reviews and work with Brands but as you said it es and flows there are high months or a low months so if you can uh leverage the fact that you have these creative skills and you can go produce content for other companies then You're able to tap into these different markets to generate Revenue in multiple ways which is just can give you peace of
mind knowing you sort of have a fallback if your AdSense isn't coming through or brand drops you or something you can go produce some content for other people so your next move number five is full-time video production for organizations you what why did you move beyond the agency did the agency not uh earn enough did you want more Stability cuz then and then there was a church as well as a college so what year is this and now you went and got a job doing video production and even kind of leadership in these organizations so
my video production agency I was running simultaneously to getting these different positions and so I never went full in on the video production agency model frankly probably just because of stress it's very stressful to try to constantly be acquiring clients and it's A lot easier to work for an organization who it's already established and they already have system and processes and people in place so um I worked as a communications director for a church for about three years um and that I mean that taught me a lot and that was part-time employment while also building
up my agency part-time so I did these things simultaneously but what the the job at the church did for me was I handled all internal and external Communications for the organization but also did video announcements and this was the first time really that I went from always being behind the camera managing talent to now having to be in front of the camera and it was wildly stressful like I I didn't want to do I still don't love being in front of the camera like I'd way rather be behind the camera working with these tools but
I learned a lot in that season as a communications director which then led To another role at a university where I was the director of video production for a digital Department of this University um which that was that was a really kind of a culmination of everything that I had learned at that point in my career so I was managing teams I was managing budgets and just producing hundreds and hundreds of videos for this University for multiple years and until I started actually doing some freelance work for think media producing some content which Led to
then opportunity to work full-time for you guys man uh Church video announcements are the secret of success for so many successful content creators today it's actually funny because in 2000 I started video in 2003 YouTube in 2007 uh for my small Church in a small town um and unfortunately and most of the stuff is lost there's a few episodes out there on I I burned them to DVRs uh early on and I wish I I could have and should have been uploading to YouTube even if only for my own archives sure just wasn't even the
mindset you don't really think about that I uh I uploaded this episode that's on the think media channel called Classics and it was my friend Spencer and I doing a a church video announcements for our youth group and we we kind of only thought about this is just like a way to entertain ourselves and like the kids in youth group and like do really dumb stuff and then be like hey you know Summer tours coming up get your you know new t-shirts we're going to do an Outreach event but what's so funny is again that
is super fascinating that being a director of communications and then getting on camera finding a place that's going to put you into like The Crucible of having to learn communication on camera yes because I know a lot of people are scared about getting on camera they're scared about you know in that to a not just going Full-time on YouTube and being a good communicator on camera um but even being a better Communicator because everybody listening to this man if you upped your communication skills you're going to make better videos that hold attention better if you
storytelling all of that and so it's super interesting uh Church video announcements I know a lot obviously it's kind of a niche within a niche but it is it is something that it forces you to to go through all of the Uh the steps of a video creation process So pre-production the plan planning the scripting making sure that everything is laid out properly and then the production you got to film the thing and then post- production so and it's a weekly Rhythm too so Sunday's coming there's deadlines so it kind of forces you into this
Creator Rhythm that we now see here at think media we try to kind of stay at a weekly Rhythm where we have content we're pre-produced and then Filming and so it's a very similar format honestly a a church announcement video to a YouTube video very similar workflow honestly that's so true and what's so what's so funny about that is I would actually say that in 2003 I posted at least 52 videos forgive me I didn't post them they played every night at youth group 52 pieces of content that had a deadline and then the senior
pastor was like bro uh you should do these on Sunday and I did it as a Volunteer so back to like lay a foundation of free work someone could be like dude why are you you know working so hard for you know uh you know a church and you're not getting paid or whatever and I was like well one because of my commitment to making a difference and my faith and my but two like that was the most priceless thing I could have ever done developing the skill set of a 104 uploads or not uploads
you know they played Sunday they played Wednesday In 2004 with archaic equipment compared to today what were what camera were we using uh a Canon hv30 mini DV tapes firewire cable out of that into firewire card in a PC Adobe Premiere Creative Cloud CDs right you install the CDs to install the software opened up adobe first day Zero video editing training and like no YouTube tutorials no think media and it said it opened up and it said uh you had to select the you had to build out the Project and it said 20 uh five
or 30 or no yeah pal I believe right 25 frames a second or ntsc and I remember looking at all these options and all these numbers and I even though I was in America in Maryville Washington I selected pal because it sounded more friendly literally I was like I was like I don't I have no idea what ntsc is pal that sounds just sounds better I'll pick that one and so for that entire first year and if you're listening to this and Not an editor that is the European frame rate and on YouTube it kind
of doesn't matter because most monitors can handle it and then it could take almost any frame rate so you had the Jitters but we had Jitters cuz when you would play it on American TVs or an American projector and I by the way I would capture so I would have to download the 50 minutes of footage I shot which was very excessive for church video announcements throw it into the timeline edit and then I would Capture the final product I'd export it back onto the mini DV tape put it into a VHS converter and then
in our sound booth we'd put it into a VCR and it played it on the projection screen that's how we play the uh weekly video announcements and it was Jitters like crazy format was wrong didn't know about white balance didn't know about camera settings it'd be like turn it on do we see it all right press record put it in Premiere pow sounds good and uh and then Learning and then being like what I was doing it wrong for a year there's been so many times in my career where I've been like bro I've been
doing it wrong for a year smaller things too but like oh you can actually make the skin cones look different like some days I feel like we got lucky like yeah it just looks good I don't know why other days like why does it look yellower I don't know why and uh and that actually I mean a huge light bulb for all of us Listening on the podcast you're living in a really blessed time oh yeah sure there's increased competition but literally you have this podcast you've got incredible videos on YouTube you've got the main
th media channel other great creators the education the knowledge the tools sure competition is rising but you can either also look you can focus on the challenges or you can focus on the opportunities cameras are better than ever it's easier to create Great content than ever the learning curve is still real and that's what our company is for but but uh I mean the the archaic workflow that I was do 20 years ago bar the barriers to entry that were there in 2003 to put out a video announcement or a YouTube video that are now
totally reduced to if you have a cell phone you can run an entire YouTube business through a phone with get high quality 4K video you could start a video podcast honestly the microphones in These newer iPhones too are fine enough that you could just literally just have your phone camera microphone and then upload everything to the YouTube studio app and you're running a YouTube channel off your phone the phone is a super computer yes it is it do at all design Graphics editing okay so um number six and I we will kind of get to
the think media season but you um you did start securing some brand deals on Instagram that was kind of the next move where if We're talking about the path to making money the long road to YouTube success um but she did start making even additional money besides freelance work do you remember your first brand deal and Instagram was the first place yeah Instagram so as I'm continuing through this kind of professional video production Journey my big thing that I'd love doing on the side was shooting concerts so I would shoot concerts for anybody that came
locally I'm from kind Of the Portland Oregon area so we would you know there's many many concert venues around there so I would shoot as many concerts as I could eventually I got into a post Malone show in Portland which this is also not an endorsement for for post but uh anyways sh dude what level was he at at the time uh he was he was big so this is 20 19 so he's he's kind of just coming out of um people his like dreadlock white Iverson was his first song yeah it's post white Iverson
Post post goodness gracious okay precount postmalone PR he's had a lot of phases preop postone it was his Hollywood's bleeding album okay that's that's that's mid Journey mid Journey for sure so and he was popping off I mean so I I was thankful there was another Creator who we followed each other on Instagram he wanted some help so went out to to the show shot it and then he loved the work so he ends up asking me to come on tour to assist for A few weeks with posty so made a bunch of content did
him oh yeah yeah he really nice dude really hang out with him yes did he have a cigarette and a Budweiser in his hand most of the time budlight budlight budlight he is a budlight connoisseur yeah but uh yeah and a cigarette always yeah just kind not I I will say he seems super chill and kind he's so chill very nice always a a yes ma'am thank you sir kind of person anytime he'd be around people any Interaction I had with him really polite um what else did you learn from that trip the main thing
I learned was I do not want to be in touring I do not want to tour um and it was cool to see it at the the tippy top highest level of Excellence did you get like a hotel room uh we were on the tour bus so we were just that's that was it you were on the tour bus with post Malone uh not with post Malone he's got his own separate to but so I was with another artist that Makes sense he's doing well he doesn't have to exactly he doesn't need to ride one
with Craig so uh yeah so there was there was a whole team of us so I was kind of like the management team with another artist who was one of the openers whereas the other other videographer managers and stuff were on the bus with you yes yes yeah so I was one people like drinking and smoking weed oh my goodness yes it was hor like the managers and stuff oh yeah were they Like hot boxing and stuff on the bus yes 247 dude I had to go were you married no I I had my wife
at the time was just my girlfriend have you ever smoked Wei before never but did you get kind of a contact high see I don't even know if that's real yeah I don't know if that's real or not I mean is it real I mean could you tell me I well I mean I mean you might have been like I don't know this is sort of weird but uh I'm I'm kind of giggly right now or something Yeah no I never felt that way at all what I would do is there was all these bunk
beds and they're like three tiers and they of course put me on the bottom bunk that's like impossible to get into but there's like these little drapes that you just kind of close and they sort of lock a little bit so I would just close myself in there well that probably was helpful a little bit of a barrier yes that's I was helpful for the contact high and for many other reasons Was it ever was it ever weird they like brought like girls on and stuff they did yes that team the managers oh yeah yeah
oh yeah absolutely and that's when craigy would just close the door we're gonna I mean as a faith-based Creator on tour with post Malone just out there just just just doing it yeah it was great I mean and it presented a lot of great opportunities to share my faith with people the person who invited me on the tour his name is Chris he's now Directing huge music videos for all sorts of artists he's awesome uh he's very talented but we had many conversations we were in New York City at Madison Square Garden but we had
a cab ride in New York where we just kind of got to share our hearts with each other which was so cool and I just got to ask him questions about just his life and where he's at and just a really cool opportunity and I think I really think God let me go on tour to have that Conversation but also one of the openers this guy was trying to get me to drink every night and I just I I just haven't drank I just don't drink it's just not a thing that I do and so
he would always ask me like Craig just take one shot with me before you go please just take one shot and I remember I was walking out of the tour bus to get my Uber to fly home and he's just like one more time he's like please Craig just one shot with me and I'm like I'm not I'm Good like I don't need to and he just I remember him just saying like man Craig is just like the most straight edge like person he doesn't compromise his values and I just really respected that like and
later down the road his name is Tyler his artist name is Tyla Yahweh wow so that's a you know that's a I'm not I wouldn't I wouldn't make that my artist name if I was you but so anyways he um we had some great conversations and later down the road actually helped Chris film a music video for him about a year later yeah and he remembered me and everything and it was a really good uh just healthy healthy conversation that I got to have with him then and he just realized something's different about this dude
bro you were like Daniel in Babylon that's a great a great analogy yeah just like just standing strong there's something powerful about being straight edged there's a straight edge wave right now like a lot of people are Just giving up drinking completely or cutting it almost way way way down if you start watching some of the Andrew huberman videos and stuff it's like there's actually like something to really think about our view of alcohol of course uh all these different things so that that is interesting and uh man what a story okay so but let's
bring it back so you you did start securing brand deals on Instagram how who paid so it was your friend and you were paid be you Consider it with working with post or it was so so what led to me building up that I was building up a following because of the concert stuff got it and so as I built up that following 5,000 10,000 followers on Instagram Brands start to reach out they think you got some influence and so the first brand deal that I got was with a company called Cove audio and so
it was kind of I think they saw that I was in the music realm maybe some of my audience would Like a nice speaker and they're kind of a a budget competitor to JBL so they reached out and we're like hey let's we can we send you some products we'll do a simple brand deal for lowlevel payment and I did that and that's actually where we can maybe Dive Right into our next one which is affiliate marketing too so this was my first brand deal but also my first affiliate and I didn't really understand the
power of Affiliates on Instagram on Instagram so um you just You know people DM me and I actually posted a YouTube video so I had no I had I had no platform really at the time and My First Youtube upload was actually an igtv video that if for those of you who remember igtv such a weird little kind of a couple minute vertical video exactly yeah so I made a review about this this micro or this uh speaker that they sent me and so I decided I guess I could just upload that to YouTube as
well and then publish the link that was Like my first real upload as a Creator and did amazing and for like three years straight I got affiliate revenue from those speakers selling and people I was the top search result ranked in search people were like Audio headphones or Cove audio speaker so then Cove sent out like five different products and I did reviews of all of those and so I was just kind of the guy that like if you want a Cove speaker also not an endorsement for Cove like the the Speakers are decent they're
fine but like I wouldn't probably if I could go back I'd be like is this really in alignment with what I'm doing like I'm a kind of a create like a a camera Creator not a I'm not selling Bluetooth speakers Bluetooth speakers right and yet your first like the found like they be like this is the Cove audio Channel cuz I was like your only First videos CRA he's like the speaker guy it's like no I didn't I didn't want that at all but it It did work out where I was able to generate thousands
of dollars in affiliate sales from just that speaker deal that's super powerful obviously we love affiliate uh marketing stuff at think media we we recently did a thing called uh tub money.com where we went really deep on that because it's my story as well and a huge takeaway from that is why it can be so alluring to like I want to get free product I you know I could get affiliate Income and there's different brands that maybe want to work with me but your principle of like knowing who you are is this on brand where
do you want this to go and I think it's really fun on the journey to just kind of say yes to a lot of stuff that was my journey I did the Rand the most random stuff but I look back and it's like even on think media I want to say and there is in the history there is like there's a luggage carrier uh little it was back in Fame bit days So F bit would pay like 250 to connect you with the brand and a product and then like the affiliate link so it was
a luggage scale and uh and I remember and this was on think media still there we'll watch it after this podcast uh there was like LED video Light review and then uh my worst one was this video on the human charger which was this little iPad looking thing that supposedly uh you know killed jetlag and you you you put these little ear pods in That shined light into your brain um and you tried this out well yeah so listen I I I didn't just like read a script I had this trip coming up to South
Africa with another videographer producer friend John medana to like paid gig and I was like yo let me take human charger there's GNA be time zone changes because it'd be the idea like to overcome jet lag like when is it sunny or like when is the sun come up so why not just shine light to your ears but There's like scientists that are like yo that's not how it works good but I and maybe it was Placebo I was like I tried it and man I felt great the next day I mean I don't know
if it was the espresso or whatever and so anyways wow uh I like I have learned I certainly made mistakes along the way and whether that's again I I will say I had great good intent I really tested it I talked about my experience I talked about what it is um but I also look you know back in Hindsight uh it's like you know stay on solid paths yes like don't you know don't try to like avoid Brands like you know it's kind of that tension like don't sell out or and and and I also
got distracted because there's so many Bluetooth speakers is what inspired me on all this there was weird Niche things where I would do on every headphone company what wanted to give me a free pair of headphones every Bluetooth speaker I think we'd also go to CES in Vegas and that's what would happen and I'd be like I wanted some free headphones and it'll be like well how many headphone videos do I need on think media and it's and that was offbrand because at that time even it was tools for creators and it was like yeah
I mean headphones like maybe why you're editing but is that the real tool like you have to review a 100 pairs of headphones it's much more of an audio Channel which is a great niche in and of itself but was Offbrand for us but I I hit all those windy Paths of distraction as well yeah I mean it's like our audience is coming for us for for us to solve a problem for them and I think for me like initially my YouTube channel was it was nothing so I was like I don't sure I'll post
this video here but later down the road now that I actually have an established Channel and now that I work for think media there's you got to have integrity with the kinds of products that you're G To put your endorsement on yes um you know we my my wife laughs at me because she wants me to take like these brand deals that are like for like an espresso machine or like a pelaton bike but there's like no alignment at all for my users it be dishonoring of them but uh but P selfishly it's like we
want to I don't want to pay for a pel I think about starting like new channels every day cuz I'm like man it would be cool to like get stuff you know that I'm Side passionate about Fitness stuff biohacking stuff's another one for me like red light panels and stuff could be so expensive I'm like dude I want to start a little niche biohacking Channel which speaks also to the power of focus because there's just so many good that's a good idea you just can't chase every good idea Niche down think about what your brand
is what it isn't um okay so number five was full-time video production for organizations you did a You did a college number six was Secure brand deals on Instagram and then that kind of drifted over to YouTube you also number seven started to do affiliate products and then when did your channel get monetized you remember what year and and your own channel so yeah my own channel in Spring of 2023 got monetized and the reason I got monetized and I I don't recommend this to people is I did a reaction video to an NF music
video in which I as a filmmaker responded to the Film making techniques of the video and so that video got me all the watch time I needed and the subscribers that I needed with one upload and I had been trying to build a channel around film making for about six months and I was at I think like 800 subscribers and it was just kind of a slow Journey for me I wasn't getting anywhere and then I post one reaction video which again is offbrand like my brand was not reaction videos to music videos I was
like I'll Just try it and that's what got me monetized and I immediately started making money that way and I'm like should I just become like a music reaction Channel maybe I should pivot my niche and my wife graciously redirected me of like Craig that's not you don't want to become a reaction person for NF um yet she's trying to send you down the pellaton route it's keeping you safe over here but where is she redirecting you exactly yeah so but I did get Monetized spring of 2023 and um just started doubling down on the
things that were working which were as I was building on my Instagram I saw a lot of these budget cameras people wanted to hear about like these neex series cameras that Sony produced that at the time people hated those NX cameras they thought they were kind of a gimmick and dslrs were still the thing and so I just started buying every single cheap Sony camera that I could Possibly find off of eBay bringing it in the studio and doing a review on it and that's what really grew the channel I think right now we're almost
to 19,000 subscribers which is a is a is a big win for me because it happened all within about 18 months or so which I'm very thankful for man there's two big insights for me there is one you really are one video way from getting monetized yes you have to weigh that like if you really step into a trend or a video goes Viral or microv viral what kind of audience does that attract but if it pushes you over the watch hours like yeah all you need is one like 4,000 I know it's could be
very discouraging you're listening to this you're like I've been grinding trying to get the I was overwhelmed I was like dude i' I've made like 30 videos and I'm at like 500 hours of watch so much time and the fact though that like one video could get 10,000 watch hours 20,000 watch hours And I'm not trying to you know Flex like easy for you to say think media but it's like just we post videos that get 4,000 watch hours independently all the time and and and well easy for you to say because you have a
lot of subscribers actually no like in 2025 like subscribers don't really matter um they they can it's helpful but it's the it's predicated on the content it is predicated on um the algorithm is interest based based on the quality of The content that's why there's so much opportunity for new and small creators and the Right video on the right Topic at the right time you making a video about uh reacting to one of nf's music videos literally got your channel monetized that is for listeners that that is an opportunity for you the question is you
know what when is it going to happen What video is it and you probably you weren't even really planning that no not at all but that Speaks to staying commit committed staying resilient and realizing that success could just be one or two moves or two days one or two weeks away yeah um with how quickly that can happen and then I think another interesting Insight is like I think that almost any channel we've seen that builds momentum in what you would call like a competitive Niche and like cameras competitive Health competitive cooking competitive usually though
they find Their thing they find some kind of subcategory like when I really was coming on best camera for YouTube actually was not saturated and it was actually more filmm channels and it was not like tools for YouTube channels so I was like really a thing I built momentum on I think about co-author of YouTube Secrets Benji Travis his wife there was a lot of beauty gurus at the time but people hadn't really done hair and so her just that aspect of yes Beauty gurus But she started doing hair that was kind of an edge
you find that these cameras that in a very crowded world of billions of people and a lot of content creators out there nobody is focusing on on the NX cameras no that stuff happens all the time you're listening to this it's like 2025 we going into 2025 like there's opportunities everywhere and what is Wild is you might have a 100 competitors a thousand competitors there is like your neex there is your reacting to a Certain music video there is your hair hair tutorials or Sean's best camera for YouTube opportunity for you it might not be
easy to see but especially I think if you develop the lens you know there's some books we can put in the show notes kind of like the Blue Ocean strategy type of a lens where you're just looking for like non-competitive markets it could be something small you develop the lens of we have a series on this channel it's pretty deep and it's pretty Advanced but it's on the book positioning which is a classic marketing book we'll link up that playlist in the show notes if you kind of develop that way of thinking you are kind
of one video but also like one strategic campaign one video series one theme that you don't have to even stick with forever but it becomes your breakout because that's really all you need once you start to break out people get to know you you could drift into other Topics but it was it's it could be that one series that changes everything yes absolutely we were just at the Vault conference and Patrick B David one of his quotes I think might even be from Blue Ocean strategy but was you are one Innovative campaign away from an
explosion in your business and that's exactly what I saw on my Instagram and my YouTube channel with this neex series I posted one video about the nx5 went viral on Instagram which then Led to people searching it on YouTube and I happen to have a YouTube video for it right there it was the answer to the question they were looking for and that was the little campaign and the campaign began or became doing the whole NX series which was really cool well that's incredible well as we land the plane um you know we covered eight
things here number eight was you monetize your content it's a windy road and I want to acknowledge listeners for hanging out With us um because you might be thinking how does exactly does this apply to me if this feels unconventional it's because it is we are Paving our own paths it's Unique to us and the crater economy but the future is bright there's so much opportunity Goldman Sachs research says the next three years are going to be the best three years in the Creator economy it's basically get a double between now and 2027 in terms
of how much money there is in the system It's true though competition is higher than ever before but you're one Innovative campaign away from an absolute explosion in your online business and your YouTube channel and you know when I think about we have seven core values that think media and two of those core values are the pursuit of Mastery and resilient spirit and Mastery Robert Green says it like this to achieve Mastery in any skill you must develop a deep understanding of the Fundamentals and then relentlessly practice and refine your Technique Mastery is a journey
not a destination it's a lifelong pursuit in excellence if you were to give final words to listeners um about the pursuit of Mastery I think that marks your life your career your the discipline you've uh built and want to just acknowledge I'm super grateful you're part of what we're doing at think media part of the team um and I really have seen that that Was a foundation you laid all the way back with photography and some family portraits into like the true master of your craft that you are today for those that are maybe just
starting or on the journey what are just some final words of encouragement to them yeah I'd say um it it does take time I think by the nature of that word Mastery it means practice you practice whether it's Athletics content creation being a husband being a father I mean I'm a Father of two young young baby boys so I have a lot to learn and I think our My Hope too for even those little boys is just to show up day in and day out and just try to be the best father possible and I
think the same thing applies to being a Creator just showing up day after day and working as hard as you can and trying to stay focused on um what it is you feel like you're called to do
