25 Success Tips With Evan Carmichael
Hey guys, its Marcus here and I just got back from a video marketing world in Texas. It was really great. Actually it was the first time I’ve been to a video conference. I met some really good people and had some time to sit down with some pinnacle business people in the video marketing space. I want to share an interview (something like a fire-site chat) that I had with Evan Carmichael.
Who Is Evan?
Evan started his YouTube business/channel from nothing and built it to over 1.5 million subscribers, and hundreds of millions of views. He’s got books, and a full-hedge business that he created from his YouTube by simply going after the tactics that I teach you-where you go through and find out what people want, what they are searching for and you build out some contents.
One of the things that I like most about Evan’s content is the fact that a lot of it is sourced together and picked from other places. He’s actually creating content based on what other people do. On his channel, you’ll see things like, “Top 10 tips from bill gates, Top 7 things an entrepreneur needs to know”.
In this interview, I had a chance to sit down with him and get real. I hope you’ll enjoy it. It’s raw, real, and we go through the struggles and what it takes to really make it in a business, whether its YouTube, search marketing, Affiliate Marketing or whatever it is you’re into. I’m sure you’re going to like it.
If you like this kind of stuff and you want to learn more on how to make money online with affiliate marketing, YouTube channels or any business in general, feel free to subscribe and hit the little bell notification icon so you can check out my videos to enjoy us live every Wednesday at 10 am.
Now, let’s dive right in into my interview with Evan Carmichael and the 25 success tips he shared with us.
Interview Session With Evan Carmichael- 25 Success Tips
Marcus: I have got Evan Carmichael, who is a YouTube legend. He has a lot of subscribers/following and he built it up from nothing (which is awesome.) That’s a story I really like because I can relate to that (having started mine from nothing).
Now, how do you go from just being a guy who wants to get subscribers and followers on YouTube or how do you build from nothing? How did you go through and say, “Hey, I’m going to reach this crowd” (which by the way, his crowd is filled with success-minded people which is the most-broad you can get, making it extra difficult). What are the steps you took to actually implement and grow?
Evan: I think the first part is just starting. When I first started, I wasn’t trying to be YouTube famous. It was an experiment. I think people don’t try enough things then i think I should try.
25 Success Tips From Evan
1: Try Something.
If you think you may be good at something, go give it a shot. My first video sucks, this happens to everybody. That’s always a journey, and it’s a process-just try. If you get an idea, just do it. My first video I have up is a profile for Disney. I was doing that with my website and having a success with it before I moved to YouTube.
I’m a visual learner. I have a successful website, it’s growing, and we’re making money. Since I’m a visual learner, I wished it was video content. Then I said to myself, ‘what if I just made a video?”. Then I made a video on Walt Disney and put it up on my channel (which was nothing) and my website and we got a bit of view on it. Though it’s not blowing up but it was fun to make.
- Find Something Missing In Your Niche Community
If I was watching that as a first-time entrepreneur, I’d like that so that’s cool. So, I thought to myself, the 19-year-old boy would love this video and I want to make more. That’s the starting point. It’s like, if you want to get married, then you go on some dates. You’re not going to get married on the first day.
- Use Your Pain To Help Others And Grow Their Business
Your purpose comes through your pain. My pain was struggling as an entrepreneur, getting started even when I don’t have any money and all those self-doubt.
- Don’t Expect Your First Try To Work Perfectly
So, that’s the mindset, I had a fun time doing the video and it took a ton of work. It was multiple days of research and filming and everything like that. The outcome was not anything to my standard, but I love doing it.
- Continue To Make Quality Content For Your Market
As it transitioned from hubby to business, I continued to make the content (I took breaks, maybe a couple of weeks), and the model was always- “get a couple of content, compile it, know what works”, which is cool. I’ve always been fascinated with quotes.
For example, the sites that have tons of quotes are boring as hell. No one wants to scroll through a thousand of quotes. So, when I look at that, I’d be like, “I can rank for some author and quotes, really easily”. I would just compile the video.
Marcus:
Are you looking at “okay, people are searching for this; therefore I’m going to make this?”
Evan:
- Start Before Having A Perfect Strategy
I think you need to start before having a strategy. If you get an idea, just start and try it and just see. For example, in affiliate marketing, I think too many people think about affiliate marketing for 2 years and then look for the perfect plan and strategy and they still don’t do it before they make it look like some big huge thing. Just start, be part of anybody’s lunch campaign and just see if you like the process.
- If You Love It And Keep Going, You Win!
Did you like the process; did you like going through the lunch sequence? Did you like trying to create content? If you love it and keep going at it, you’ll win.
Marcus: I totally agree because people get so stuck and they are like, “okay, I need to have this decision; I need to know this and that”. When I started, I was only like, ” I need to make money because we were broke and had kids on the way” and I was like, “I need to make a website for a limo company because they need them”, and I just tried it. I didn’t wait till I had this huge structure.
The idea is to get started somewhere. Put a post up, put a video up, get a webpage up. Just get something out there and get a feedback. It might suck, but you can go from there.
Evan: Every big persons and hero you look up to had a lot of pain in building their business. Their struggle led to their success. I’m a huge believer that “your purpose comes from your pains”.
- Focus On Serving Your Market
You gain by serving others. If you’re not happy in life, then you’re not serving other people enough. The best businesses are serving customers. For example, in affiliate marketing, you’re selling a product that you believe in that will help the customer in getting results, not just trying to get a commission. For me, I struggled so much as an entrepreneur.
I was making $300 a month, I turned down “dream jobs” that my friends wanted to do. The worst part is that my friends were making 6 figures and I can’t even afford 20 bucks. I was too embarrassed and ashamed to tell people that I wasn’t doing well. I just kept working hard and hustling, but I had nothing.
At a point, I told myself I want to quit, and then I came back. Because I struggled so much as an entrepreneur, now I want to help other entrepreneurs. That was my pain-free. I still feel the suffering of $300 a month and being embarrassing and shamed because I didn’t have anything.
- Let The Struggle Motivates You
Just put in work, I mean real efforts, not something like, “I think it’s going to be easy”. It wasn’t easy for me. I didn’t get results- because in other things that I worked on, I usually get results.
But here, it’s not happening. So I feel that frustration and know that most entrepreneurs don’t make it, and this became my purpose to help entrepreneurs go through those days. I got saved by bill gates by researching his company, like “how bill gates went from zero to one.” That’s all I want to do, not the next million now. How did that happen? What can I learn from it?
- Model Something That Works
I learned from him and I make it work on my business and within a couple of months, I had my first cheque for $39,000, and to me, that was money and ridiculous. At that point, I had a strategy that I can keep using (more like a one-off sales) that keeps working. That’s why I also love modelling success. Because, by modeling bill gates, I built my business.
How Evas is getting me to figure out my “stop drinking model of success!
Marcus: A lot of us have that drive for a while. For me, my dream was to do the affiliate thing. But my main dream is that I want to change the narrative of alcoholism in America because that’s what I went through and that was my pain-point. It was a very difficult thing because, for me, I was an entrepreneur, I was successful, had my money, no one knew what I want through but it was absolutely out of hell.
Evan- how did you get out of the alcoholism? How did you get sober? What were the tactics?
Marcus: I went insane. Alcoholism was really bad; you don’t sleep when you’re living on alcohol. Not getting sleep will make you insane.
Evan: how did you fix it?
Marcus: It fixed itself. Four years ago, I was drinking. I was like, “I can’t do this, and my identity was business”. I looked at my numbers and I was like, “hey, we only made 6 grand today, I’m a loser”, then depression sets in.
Then, when I went insane, I was actually taken out of my house (non-voluntarily), and then they take me to a mental hospital. As I was sitting there, I was watching this lady as she was having a conversation with no one. Then I said to myself, “I’m Marcus, an entrepreneur and I don’t belong here”. And then, something goes off in my head and tells me, this is exactly where you belong, you’re insane. And me being the control freak that I was, I realize that there is so little in my life that I control. I can’t control what happens with my kids, I can try, give them the best, but I can’t control it.
Evan: how did you realize that? Did you read a book?
Marcus: It came slowly. At first, I went into rehab and for me, I’m anxious. I churned out a lot of money to go to the rehab and its pretty ghetto.
I can’t even shower when I want, I don’t have my own room. To me, that experience was like, “all better off”. So that was my first realization of “I have no way to control my environment” and then when I got out, I started listening to inspirational audios and everything changed.
I used to be a street preacher and I came from that background. I listen to preaching from this guys and it just shocked my world. For example, they say, money is not real. I was like, ” I’m an entrepreneur and I work for money all my life, how do you mean, money is not real?” It’s a statement of imagination; it was all based on an agreement. I was like, “so all these things that I’ve been working on, and everything my identity was built on is a total fake. There is no Marcus”.
And I just came to this point that I was like, it doesn’t matter. There are over 8 billion people on the earth, what makes me so special. From then, I realize that I deserve what the least person on earth has. I wake up, and I don’t know why I was born in America. The kid in India that struggles to get food, that’s what I deserve. And looking at that, I’m not special; I’m just like everyone else.
I can go do whatever I want. I’m not living to what you think I am or what you want me to be or what I want me to be. And that works for me, because I looked at it like, so many people who come out of alcoholism are totally pissed off people that can’t drink. And for me, I don’t even care anymore. I don’t drink anymore because I can live with my anxiety and I can accept myself.
My life philosophy is that, “if I had your upbringing, and I was like you, I would make the decisions you make. If I had that exact path, I’d be you. Therefore, I can’t judge you or tell you what to do.”
- Find The Feeling In Your Pain That Others What To Avoid In Life.
How did you bring that into the business? Whether it’s strictly alcoholism or lots of people have things that do not really apply to alcoholism, the sense of being out of control. The sense of having a sense of addiction that they think it’s beyond them. I think, even that transition from where you said, “I just changed”. Here is what actually did the change: “I went in and sought help, listened to this and learn this”. That’s what you did. You can break down the process for other people.
- Find The Model Of What You Did To Get The Results Others Want.
I think it’s cool because you can do that with anything. Internet marketing is at the core, I think about just helping people.
- Have Integrity In Your Business
My goal is for people to build a brand. Even anybody in affiliate marketing, my goal would be to firstly recommend products that I use. A lot of people don’t do that and that’s why I think affiliate marketing gets a bad rap sometimes. What I’d want to do is to build a brand so that whatever I recommend, people will want to go in and give it a shot. So I’m not trying to find a new audience each time.
Marcus: This is exactly how I look at it. I look at it that you use the little stuff to build what’s going to build the brand. For example, if I want to do quotes or training on something, I’m going to do the little tiny bits because those are going to build up into the brand.
Evan– sure, as long as those “bits” are per the foundation!
- Have Laser Focus And Intent In Everything You Do
If you have the intent to build the brand, stay on top of it. Let them see your face, not just landing pages behind the scenes. Tell them your stories and everything. Tell them why you’re using this product.
- You Are The Value
My goal would be whenever you call up through your product; people want to buy it because it’s you. They’ll look at it just because it’s you, even if they don’t have the interest. So, that’s the building the brand part, where people are attached to you and your story and the reason why you’re doing things, more than search and intent.
- Play The Big Long-Term Game
Direct marketing is still amazing and it works, I just think it’s a small game compared to building a brand.
Marcus: for those that are looking for a small game too, what would you say, in terms of content creation.
Evan: I think it starts with the decision of do I want to be the “how to” kind of person per do I want to build a brand. If you’re doing a “how to” channel, you can talk about to sell affiliate cleaning product.
- Focus On A Goal That Fits Your Model
Don’t judge yourself based on subscribers, because they are just your model. You’re trying to rank and search for those keywords, get views on the videos, and put them into your funnel.
Don’t freak out when you’re not getting subscribers for your channels. Don’t freak out if you’re not getting tons of comments. This is not the business you’re building.
- Stick To Your Mission Statement Or Value Proposition
People come back to my content because they believe. Believe is the central theme of my business.
If you know what a message is, then you’ll find a way to inject that into the story. If you want to build a brand, do you want to build it forever?
For example, if you want to stop alcoholism, it’s never going to happen. Because every day you wake up, and there is a big ocean in front of you, and you try to empty the lake, but you only have a spoon, you can never empty it. If you want to do something bigger, build a brand. If you want to make sales fast, do direct marketing.
- Consistency
One of my subscribers started a YouTube channel. When he first started doing it, he’s doing almost daily content. I looked at his content and I’m like, “I really like this guy”, but nobody knows him. I really hope that he keeps going because if he keeps going, he will build a brand that people will get familiar with him and he can be a huge source of inspiration.
Me being in the entrepreneur world, I want more voices, I want more people to be creating content because they may not be able to hear it how I said it. So, I want more voices saying similar things in their own ways.
He kept going and now he has half a million subscribers. There are a lot of people that have genuine talent. If you think you’re good, and then you’re not winning, you’ll feel like it’s a waste of time. But, it takes consistent work.
- Progress Always Beats Perfection
I don’t consider myself talented at this: I did 350 videos public and around 700 before I inspired myself. 700 videos! That’s more than what most people have on their channel.
- Look For Shortcuts And Hacks To Get Out Of A Rut
Looking for hacks is great. If Marcus gives you an advice on how to get your way through affiliate marketing faster, you just learned something great. You want to look for shortcuts, but it’s still a journey you’re going on.
I think copying is great but it only takes you so far. People copy my stuff all the time. I also copied people when I got started. But if all you do is copy, you’ll be a junior version of that person. I spent zero time looking at people who copy me.
- Play By The Rules
You’ll get to a point where you break even, and pay your bills, just by copying as long as it’s ethical.
It’s a great idea to start with copying and then you adjust and figure it out how to inject your own specialness into it, otherwise, you’ll just stay a copy of somebody else.
Marcus: Any last minute things to people that are struggling and not getting it?
- Make Your Actions Match Your Ambitions
I think you need to make sure that your actions match your ambitions. What is your ambition? What is the life that you want? Not just affiliate marketing or any business, but in real life- what is your life? What is your schedule? What does a perfect week look like to you?
- Put In The Work
And then, you start filling out your calendar. The problem is people who have big ambitions are doing a lot of talking. The work is not been put into their schedules. If it’s affiliate marketing, great! Then massive action- Watch every single video that Marcus has ever made. When you said do something, try it, and stop thinking about it. It worked for Marcus, see if it will works for you.
- Spend 5% ON Planning, 95% ON Doing
People spend too much time planning. Planning is important, a strategy is important, but people spend too much time thinking and planning which doesn’t count as doing. 95% of the time should be on Doing. Even a poor plan executed well would crush.
Marcus: You can Find Evan Carmichael on YouTube. Follow it; it’s got a lot of good stuff on it. Go do something. Thanks for being here.
Excellent! Great info, but on top of that it is special to see that you are real, with real problems and had to work through your problems. Please make more !!