How Joe Robinet Bought Two Houses From Making YouTube Videos
You’ve probably never heard of Joe Robinet.
But Joe has 1.3 million YouTube subscribers as of this writing in January 2020.
Joe’s a Canadian outdoors enthusiast who took his love for the outdoors onto YouTube and built a brand for himself that generates enough revenue to sustain a great life for him and his family.
As Joe shares during this interview conducted in a fort he built by hand, he has been able to use YouTube revenue to fund the purchase of two homes for his family.
You might think you have no interest in a story of a guy camping in the woods, but trust me, there are lots of people (myself included) amongs his 1.3 million subscribers who never would have thought they’d spend their time watching camping videos.
So give Joe’s interview a watch and you might learn something about how to use video to build your own revenue-generating brand, as well as learn something about yourself that you didn’t know.
Here’s an index of some of the parts of the interview you may find particularly interesting:
17:40 - Discussion of YouTube monetization
20:50 - Talks about buying his first house with YouTube money
25:30 - Talks about the springboard that really launched his channel
27:10 - Discussion of YouTube restrictions and how they can affect your revenue
56:00 - Talks about the importance of making the show that YOU want
Make Whatever Show You Want
Many people will be turned off by the length of the interview.
That’s okay. You’re not the audience for it.
Joe has 1.3 million subscribers who are the audience for it to the tune of him being able to buy two houses from YouTube revenue.
That means there is an audience for long-form videos.
Joe has experimented with making shorter videos and found that his fans prefer the longer format.
Joe routinely posts two-hour videos that half a million or more people watch from start to finish.
Another Joe on YouTube (Joe Rogan) posts two-hour to four-hour interviews every single day! And he has over 7 million subscribers.
So this notion that nobody has an attention span anymore is just a fallacy.
YouTube Respects Your Time
If you make a quality show for a niche audience, your show can be as long as it needs to be and your audience will watch every minute of it.
There are plenty of people like me for whom online shows are better than television shows.
Online shows just respect my time in ways that television never has and never will.
The TV Hour
An hour-long online show is an hour of content.
And hour-long TV show is 42 minutes of content and 18 minutes of commercials.
18 minutes of commercials!
The overwhelming majority of online videos are nowhere near 18 minutes long.
But on television, you have to sit through 18 minutes of commercials to watch your favorite show.
And you have to do it on the schedule of the TV network.
Truly On Demand
Online shows are available 24/7/365 and you don’t have to create a separate account to watch this channel and another account to watch that channel. One account gets you access to everything.
And I can watch part of it now and watch part of it later.
So, as Joe said, create the show you want.
There are millions of people who share your interests and they will tune in, if you create a quality show and publish it consistently.
[RELATED: YouTube is the new PBS]
Talk Show In The Woods
They are doing a talk show in the woods!…under a shelter that Joe built by hand!
That ought to eliminate any excuses you have for why you can’t get started with video marketing for your business.
If you run a services-based business, you can use your own weekly talk show to start attracting your ideal clients immediately.
And you don’t have to build a fort by hand to do it.
[RELATED: Talk Show Economics]
Passive Income
Joe has built a real business, meaning it generates revenue while he sleeps.
Once each video is made, it becomes a passive income generator, indefinitely.
Additionally, Joe has created his own merchandise that he provides links to in the video description.
Selling merch is a tried and true passive income strategy.
Joe also gets sponsorships, from time to time, which is an opportunity that becomes available to anyone who puts the work in to build a niche audience.
Sponsors will pay you to get in front of your niche audience.
You just have to build your audience.
Joe Literally Built His Audience
Here’s the complete series where Joe built the fort they’re sitting under for the interview:
This fort-building series is a compressed example of how Joe was able to build his revenue-generating brand.
He did it over time, one video at a time.
Consistency is Joe’s strategy for success.
That’s the same strategy that you’ll find in all successful people.
Consistency can be your strategy for success, too.
You just have to (1) get going and (2) keep going.
Consistently.
You Don’t Have To Be Good
You just have to start.
Joe made lots of mistakes and got much better over time.
That’s how it works.
You can’t get better unless you get started.
Experience is how you get good at something.
Waiting is how you get good at missing opportunities.
If you’re waiting until you feel like you can make a perfect video, you will never make a single video.
If Joe had waited until he could make a perfect video, he’d be somewhere working a day job instead of being out in the woods living his dream life.
