Your Notes Are Uncashed Checks: A Real System for YouTube Leads

You’ve built out a batch of videos, watched the leads start coming in, and then logged in one morning to find half of it gone, an account flagged, a video pulled, months of work wiped out overnight. If you’ve spent any real time on YouTube as a marketer, that whiplash is familiar, the sense that the platform giveth and the platform taketh away for reasons that never quite make sense. The instability is real. But it isn’t random, and once you see the actual system underneath it, the platform stops feeling like something happening to you and starts feeling like something you can run on purpose.

Why does YouTube feel like it’s playing favorites with your content?

It’s easy to develop a genuine grudge against this platform. Videos that were generating leads and conversions one day just disappear the next, entire accounts shut down without warning. It’s tempting to write the whole thing off as unpredictable and move on to whatever platform feels friendlier this month. But YouTube is still the largest video platform on the internet, and abandoning it because of a bad stretch means abandoning the traffic that comes with being there. The instability usually traces back to specific, avoidable mistakes, not bad luck, and the accounts that survive long-term are the ones built around a repeatable process instead of guesswork.

Where does the content even come from when you feel like you have nothing to say?

The most common reason people stall out isn’t a lack of skill with a camera. It’s not knowing what to talk about in the first place. There’s a specific fix for that, and it starts with something most builders already have sitting untouched.

Because what’s going to happen is those notes, if you just go put them back on the shelf, it’s like leaving uncashed checks.

Every note taken at an event, every idea scribbled down and never used again, is exactly that: value sitting on a shelf instead of being turned into something. Beyond your own notes, there’s an almost limitless second source hiding in plain sight, the questions people are already asking in industry forums. Whatever a market is confused about and typing into a search bar is a ready-made topic list, since the content only has to answer a question that’s already being asked out loud.

What actually gets a video ranked instead of buried?

Once there’s a concept, the process from there is deliberate rather than improvised, and it runs in a specific order for a reason.

• Find a keyword three to five words long with real existing search traffic, rather than guessing at a single broad term
• Keep videos short, especially before you’ve built an audience willing to sit through something longer
• Say the keyword out loud in the first ten seconds, since YouTube reads the words in your video and uses them to understand what it’s about
• Say your own web address out loud on camera, so that even a stolen, re-uploaded copy of your video still sends people back to you
• Give people an actual reason to comment, since comments and shares carry more long-term ranking weight than backlinks alone ever will

There’s one avoidable mistake worth calling out directly, because it’s cost real channels entirely: loading a main channel with make-money and MLM-heavy keywords is exactly what draws coordinated flagging from people who make a habit of reporting anything associated with this industry. The keywords aren’t the problem. Putting them on the one channel you can’t afford to lose is.

How do a handful of people create a real head start for each other?

Video is described plainly here as the strongest version of a concept covered earlier in the weekend: “Think of a video like a bridge to whatever you’re selling. That’s all it is. It’s the ultimate bridge in my opinion because it’s a video of you.” A written post or a slide can bridge someone to an offer. A video does the same thing while also letting a stranger hear your voice and see your face before they’ve decided anything about you.

Getting that bridge actually seen, especially early on, doesn’t require buying fake traffic. A small group of people who agree to genuinely watch, comment on, and embed each other’s videos before posting their own creates real engagement signals from day one, the same signals a platform is already looking for to decide what to show more people. It isn’t a shortcut around the work. It’s a handful of people trading a small amount of real attention so that nobody in the group is starting from zero alone.

The full session walks through the complete five-step framework with real video examples on screen. Watch it in full, free, when you Create your free account.

The full session transcript follows below.

Transcript

Please stay standing for our next gentleman. Please put your hands together and help me welcome Mike Hobbs. What is going on? Wasn't that awesome?

Give her a hand. That's awesome. One, two, three. Yeah.

Guys, Periscope is powerful, so definitely implement what she said. In fact, I've been doing a lot of that lately with what I'm about to cover today. So we're going to cover the beast, YouTube. All right.

Well, I kind of have a love-hate relationship with YouTube. You know, it's kind of like that, you know, when you had that girlfriend in college or, you know, high school that, you know, would be happy one day and then bipolar the next day and completely break up with you, right? And then she'd come begging. You know, hey, can you come back?

And then I forgive her and come back again. That's kind of how YouTube has treated me because one day I'd have 300 videos on there. I'm getting leads. I'm getting sales.

My conversions are super high. And then the next day, they're gone, right? And then I was like, dang it, and I just, like, hate YouTube forever. And then I realized, you know, going through personal development, you've got to let go of the grudges, right?

Right. And then you come back and you realize that YouTube is still, no matter how much you have the love-hate relationship, it is still the number one video sharing site on the Internet. Does that make sense? So there's traffic there, you know?

So whether you like it or you hate it or they've treated you bad, if you can learn how to, you know, do it right or you can learn how to treat it right, right? Treat your wife or treat your… your spouse right, you can do it and you can make money with YouTube. Cool.

So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to pull up the slides and right here. So we're going to talk about the five steps. I got five steps for you for promoting your epic content.

You guys excited for the epic content? Yeah. So I want you to promote your epic content on YouTube. And if you didn't hear my story last night, I have lots of practice, right?

I've had three YouTube accounts shut down. So I know what not to do and I also have still YouTube accounts going that gets me leads today. So step number one, and I'm going to just go through this because this is a training, you know, I'm not going to be here to motivate you, but I'm going to do like Tracy said, I'm just going to give you the content and so you could take action. So number one is the concept.

So before you even shoot a video, you got to know what you're going to do. So let me give you a little bit of an example. So let me give you a little bit of an example. I'm going to give you some tips on concepts.

So tip number one, book reviews, okay? Tip number two, notes. I'll just pull them up right here and then I'll talk about each one. Notes, uncashed checks.

You guys have some notes from here today? All right. You know how I called them uncashed checks before, right? Because what's going to happen is those notes, if you just go put them back on the shelf, it's like leaving uncashed checks.

I mean, who does that? Who goes home and just has a check sitting there and just leaves it there? You cash it. So you want to definitely use your notes and forums.

This is a big one. So this is how you come up with concepts and ideas to do your videos about. Another thing I want to add to this is Tracy did an amazing job, a periscope, right? That's another way to, you can actually do two things at once and get the same results.

So what you could do is I've actually been doing is I've been doing periscopes and doing my notes. I've been doing my content on periscope. So now I'm in a live audience. I'm tapping into that and I'm doing this.

I'm doing books. Like I'll review like books I'm reading or I'll do notes that I got from the event or I'll do a forum. So here's the cool thing about forums is you can go in a forum. And did you know an internet marketing forum, what do they do there?

They ask questions. Do you notice that? Yes. So what's the best way?

To find out what your market wants is to go into a forum and see what questions they ask. And guess what? Your content can be answering those questions. So now you are tapping in to an unlimited supply of content that your target market wants.

You don't have to do forum marketing. You don't have to post in there. You don't have to do anything in the forum. You just need to go in there and see what questions they're asking.

And then create your content around those questions. And now you're tapping in to an unlimited supply of content. Isn't that cool? All right.

So and first of all, let me just ask, who's here does videos anyway? Anyone? All right. So this is great.

Cool. Anyone want to do more videos? All right. Good.

So this training is definitely for you. So this is just some concept ideas. So once you have that concept, so go ahead and name out one. What training topic that you may do after this event?

How to Periscope. Anyone else? Okay. Keep naming them.

Pinterest. A couple tips. There you go. So think about that.

You can shoot a video, three Pinterest tips to get more leads on the Internet. And then you can target keywords like that. Right? And you can do everything else that we talk about today.

So just think about that. You have notes, you have training, you have things, you have concepts, you've learned. You can go out there and do this strategy. It's literally today.

And then do a hybrid model with the Periscope. Do a Periscope, give a tip, and then download that. It goes to your phone automatically. Or if you use things like Catch.me or something, it goes to the Internet automatically.

And then you can just download that and upload it to YouTube. So pretty cool. So anyway, step number two. So once you have the content, you can go ahead and download it.

You have the concept, the idea. You haven't even created the video yet. You have the idea in your mind. Okay, this is what I'm going to train on.

This is what my tip is going to be. Step two, you go find a keyword. Isn't that interesting? Normally, you can do the keyword first.

But I'm telling you, you're going to do a much better video if you have the concept first. Okay? So then you're going to go look for a keyword. So let me give you some keyword tips.

Okay? Keyword tip number one is use Google Keyword Planner. That's the site. It's an easy one.

Everyone knows that, right? Just go to Google and look for the Keyword Planner. Type in the concept and then look for keywords that are three to five words long. Why?

Because if you try to go for one-word keywords, two-word keywords, and they usually call this a long tail, but I'm just going to keep it in plain terms for you guys. Three to five words in your keyword. Does everyone understand that better than long tail? So what does that mean?

And I'll give you an example, but so, like, for example, if you're doing a review on something, so the Traveler's Gift Chapter One or something like that, you know what I mean? Or the Traveler's Gift Review, you know, you have the book. That's three words, right? Or Top Lessons I Learned in Traveler's Gift or something like that.

But you want to look it up in Keyword Planner, see if there's even any traffic. So make sure it already gets some traffic, right? Because if you just go for random keywords, I mean, you can still do that, but it's, you know, you're going to get more leads if you have actual traffic going to it. And here's a big one.

This is why I got shut down on three accounts. I used a lot of MLM make money keywords in my main channel. So if you're going to go after MLM, network marketing, make money keywords, you can do that, you just have to not put it on your main channel. There's nothing like losing.

All of your videos, okay? And I kid you not, I did a video about Empower Network a couple months ago. And last night, I was logging in to do a screenshot. And sure enough, the video, I logged in and the video said, this is inappropriate content.

You know, we're putting like a rating on it or something, like kids under 18 can't watch this, you know? I'm like, really? It's just stupid. Like, I mean, YouTube is crazy with me.

Make money keywords. And it's not YouTube, by the way. It's haters. You guys get that?

And you're fueling them because all they do is they type in Empower Network in YouTube and they go down and they flag every single video. You see what I'm saying? Or they'll type in the MLM company and they'll go down and they'll flag every single video. So, and YouTube has an automated system for wiping it off, you know?

Everyone's flagging this video. Let's just kill the account. Now, I've had, I know people like Ray Higdon in the industry who got their YouTube accounts back. You got to fight for it and you got to send support tickets and stuff like that.

But I'm telling you, just avoid it on your main channel and put it in new channels. Because that channel didn't matter. I got a flag, you know? But it didn't matter because it was on a different channel, okay?

So, now that you have your keyword, and if you don't know how to do that, there's other keyword research trainings out there, you know, on the internet. It's really easy, okay? So, again, this is not going to be super technical because we don't have a lot of time. So, step three, shoot video.

So, now that you have the concept, it's time to actually shoot the video. So, let me give you a couple tips on videos. Three-minute videos. One, low attention span.

And if you're not established in the industry, they won't watch your videos. Like for me, I could do a 15-minute video because I have a following and people will watch it. That's why I like Periscope and things like that because people will watch it, right? But if you're brand new and you're just building your audience, three-minute videos, maybe sometimes less.

You know, keep it short. This is the formula. A lot of marketers have taught this. Intro, value, call to action.

Intro, value, call to action. There are some YouTube marketers, there are some other people out there that say you don't even need the value. All you got to do is do a video and then go into where you want to send them. Now, that will get you leads but I'm going to tell you this.

The more black hat you do or the, think about what does YouTube want? Exactly. So, think about this. Do you want to be on YouTube long-term or do you want to be, you want to make her mad and break up with you the next day, right?

You want to be on YouTube long-term. So, I've been changing my, you know, a couple of things up. Think about it from the platform. Ask yourself, what does YouTube want?

Valuable content. So, value. Put value in there. So, how would this go?

You could just say intro. Hey, this is Mike Hobbs from, you know, wherever you're from. And then I know Paul Hutchings, he does, you know, from pipeline whatever dot com, you know, whatever his website is, website dot com. And you can do that too.

But I'll tell you this. Just a quick intro of who you are, your name, and what the video is about. Okay? You're about to learn the three Pinterest tips to generate more leads on the internet.

Right? And then you say tip number one. So, you go into the value. Right?

And then once you do tip number one, tip number two, tip number three, call to action. Where do you want them to go? The epic blog post. By the way, you know, there's, I actually did a blog post or there's a, you know, however the blog, whatever the blog post is about, you know, if you would like more training from me, go ahead and click the link in the description or go to yadayadayada.com.

So, let me pull this up. So, you want to say your keyword in the first ten seconds. Why? Does anyone know why?

Good. YouTube reads your video. Do you guys know when you click on transcription in YouTube, they actually see the words that you're saying? You know that?

So, they see the words that you're saying so they can tell what your video is about. So, you want your keyword in the very first ten seconds because that's what your video is about to them. And the cool thing about this is if someone searches Pinterest tips on YouTube and you say, I'm going to give you Pinterest tips in the video in the very first ten seconds, you think they're going to watch your video. That's what they're looking for.

You see what I'm saying? So, that's another reason to say it in the first ten seconds, okay? Like some people overcomplicate this, but it's really that simple. Okay?

Say your URL and tell them to click on the link in the description. So, you actually want to say your URL. Why? Some people rip off your video.

Some people take your video. But if you say your URL, then they're giving you free traffic. Take my video all you want. You know?

You can swipe it. You can take it, post it all over YouTube. I'm saying my URL in the video. They're going to go to my URL.

So, there's free traffic for you if someone steals your video. Another one. This is a big one. No one does this.

Give people a reason to like and comment on your video. Why? This is the long-term solution to ranking. Everyone else tries to just throw tons of backlinks at their videos and they have to keep maintaining that.

But did you know the most highest ranked videos online are the ones that have comments and likes and shares and things like that? You know, embeds and stuff. And we'll talk about that here in a minute. Did you know that?

A lot of people don't know that. So, how would you get comments? Let's give you a couple tips. If you do, like I did a video, like Afformations examples was the video that I did.

And I basically talked about Afformations, which is asking positive whys. And then I just said, hey, what are your top five Afformations? You know, post them below. And that gets people putting their top five in my comments.

Right? Get people to comment. Give them a reason to comment. And that'll keep your video sticky.

Okay? That'll keep it going. All right? And then also create a thumbnail.

You can use, you know, what Anna talked about with Canva and stuff and create a cool thumbnail that sticks out. And you have to have a verified account if you do that. So, you have to have like a phone verified, things like that. All right.

So, let's get into step four, video optimization. The technical term for like the SEO gurus would say SEO, like on page. But I like to keep it simple. Video optimization.

So, let me just give you a couple tips. We only have five minutes. So, keyword and title. And we already, a couple trainers already talked about this.

So, I'm not going to emphasize it too much. It's the same concept, guys. It's the same concept for like the slide share. Right?

So, keyword and title. Link to your epic content or whatever your call to action is. Okay? Just like John Oak said on Facebook.

It doesn't really matter what it is. You can link to anything you want. It's like bridge. Like a video.

Think of a video like a bridge to whatever you're selling. That's all it is. It's the ultimate bridge in my opinion because it's a video of you. You know?

So, it's the ultimate bridge. Link to your epic content at the top. At least five paragraphs. And I'll show an example here in a minute.

At least five paragraphs with your keyword and other relevant keywords. Where do you find relevant keywords? Google. Type in your keyword in Google.

Scroll to the bottom. And there's like it says relevant keywords. Bam. You got relevant keywords.

So, use those in your description. At least five paragraphs. Link to your own video. Why?

Because people again steal your video and they have scrapers on the internet. So, then when you have a link to your own video, they're giving you backlinks. So, free backlinks. Link to a competitor video.

Now, this is where people are like, what? If there's a video that's already getting a lot of traffic and you link to their video, a lot of times you show up as the related. Did you guys know that? A lot of times you'll show up as the related.

And it also shows YouTube. And it shows YouTube that you're not selfish, you know? So, to me, it's good. So, link to competitor's video.

Link to a relevant high-ranking article on the same subject. And this is just putting a link in the description. Link to other social sites. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google.

Your profiles. Use time stamps. No one's doing this. I'll show you an example here.

And keep it to five tags or less. Using the relevant keywords I talked about from Google. Okay? So, you scroll to the bottom.

Use those relevant keywords as your tags. At least five of them. Here's an example. And I blurred out the things that I don't know.

You know, I don't actually use this tool anymore. And we have cooler tools in power now, right? Or are coming. So, anyway, so I just have the link at the top, as you can see.

Five paragraphs or so. Link to a competitor video at the bottom. See? I just basically put his headline there.

Link to the video of his. And then this is scrolling down. I couldn't fit it all in one. You see how I have links to my social media profiles at the top?

Then I said for more tips, go to my YouTube channel. So I put another YouTube channel. So I'm actually linking to a YouTube channel. Gaining the authority on my other channel.

And look at the time stamps, guys. Another opportunity for you to throw keywords in there. And YouTube loves time stamps. Why?

Because people can click on them and go to that spot in the video. You guys know that? They can click a time stamp and go right to that spot. So if you tell your viewers what you're talking about, it gives you more opportunity to throw your keywords in there.

And also tells your users where, you know, if they want to fast forward. Now, why does YouTube love that? It's user friendly. They love time stamps.

Nobody does this. And it just gives you more opportunity to put your keywords in there. This helps me rank really, really awesome. So time stamps.

Then I do a call to action at the bottom as well. And then I put my own video. Watch the replay of this video here. So I make it make sense.

And so if someone scrapes the video, I have a link back to my own video. Okay? So that's what an example of a description looks like. Pretty cool?

You guys following? Alright, good. Video promotion. This is the last step.

Only got a minute. Here we go. What you're looking for. You're looking for people to thumbs up your video.

You're looking for people to embed your video on their blogs. You're looking for people to comment on your video. You're looking for people to view your video to the end. Not just five seconds.

To the end. They track that. And you want lots of social media links. Why?

Because it looks like someone's sharing your video all over social media. That looks good to YouTube. Those are the things you want. Okay?

So how do you do that? Create a syndication group. In the beginning. So, and have everybody that wants to use the syndication group.

Thumbs up. Full views. Watch your video to the end. Comment on your video and embed it on one of their Kalatu blogs.

You have ten of them. Send it to the syndication group. Embed people's videos in your blog. And then they do the same for you.

Right? So I'll show you one example and then we'll kind of call it a wrap here. Buy Fiverr gigs for social media links. I normally don't do a lot of black hat stuff.

This is kind of borderline. But you're buying social media links. To me, whatever. Basically they're just posting it all over social media sites.

Links to your videos. I haven't had any issues with that. Other stuff you can probably get issues in. You want to avoid.

But social media links. You can buy Fiverr gigs for that. Let me show you one example. This is a syndication group I created.

And I basically said post your videos below. Follow the video. So I did a video showing them what to do. And I just basically said a couple rules.

Thumbs up. Comment. Embed and watch the video as long as you can. For three people's videos.

Before you post your video. And then. Let me see if I can read it here. Yeah.

So then. And then. Let's see. Yeah.

So a hypothetical example. Your topic. Your video link. Syndicated for those three people.

And then you're done. And basically so this group. Every time someone posts a link in the chat. They had to have done it for three other people.

First. And this is natural. Linking. This is natural.

People watching it to the end. And if you don't want to watch the whole video. You just pause the sound. Let it play to the end.

Right. You do that for three people every day. And then they do it for you. This gets you a head start.

And it's real. It's not fake traffic. It's real traffic. It's from your little syndication group.

Even if you had five people doing this. You'd have five comments on every video. Five embeds on every video. You'd have five likes.

And five people watch it all the way through. It gives you that head start. Does that make sense? And the head start is all that really matters guys.

And guys I ran out of time. But I wanted just to say. I appreciate you all. Hope you got value.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen. Give it up for Mike Hobbs. Mike Hobbs.