Starting and growing a business can be hard, and sometimes you might feel stuck. Our weekly newsletter, Unstuck, gets delivered to over 100,000 people each week to help them get unstuck. We'd love to help you, too.
A $5,356 “investment” that didn’t even matter…
THE STORYOn Halloween day 2021, Brady Brandwood published what would become one of YouTube’s most popular videos that year:
If you watch the initial video of Brady going to the grocery store to rescue and rehabilitate Leon, you’ll notice that it was simply filmed on an old iPhone. At one point, you can actually see it reflected on the glass of his home aquarium. The audio quality isn’t perfect, and the shots aren’t cinematic at all, but when you watch, you can’t help but stick around to see what happens. If you are like many (including myself), you subscribe to get updates over time because you want to know how Leon is doing. Brady has since published dozens of updates, including this one:
Half a million people were interested in a lobster moving to Georgia. Every single video performs well, but you know what? The quality hasn’t changed. It’s still filmed on an older camera, shots are blurry, and there’s no doubt Brady could take his camera work to the next level. But that’s not important. In fact, it wouldn’t feel the same if it were filmed on a fancy camera with better music and fancy shots. Leon the Lobster is about story and curiosity, and he’s largely inspired elements that have worked so well on my Pokémon channel, too. I’ve learned to tell better stories and create challenges that keep people on the edge of their seats. If you look at several frames in the Deep Pocket Monster videos, you’d probably think the quality was crap… And in many ways, it kind of is. But the audience becomes so intrigued by the story and what’s going to happen next that there isn’t even time to judge the quality of the shots. If you’d like to see how the quality of the story drives the viewer — not the quality of the camera work — I invite you to watch Leon the Lobster, or one of my Deep Pocket Monster videos. This one has over 11M views and has generated over $55k in ad revenue alone. Wild stuff, all because quality story trumps quality camerawork. So get out there and obsess over story. This is the way. |
Get UNSTUCK by Pat Flynn
Starting and growing a business can be hard, and sometimes you might feel stuck. Our weekly newsletter, Unstuck, gets delivered to over 100,000 people each week to help them get unstuck. We'd love to help you, too.
Hey Reader, Wow, what an electrifying live training session today — the energy was through the roof! So first, a massive thank you from the bottom of my heart. Whether you were able to attend or not, you can watch the replay from today’s workshop and take advantage of the special offer I announced: Sign up for the All-Access Pass and unlock our brand-new Level Up: Email Marketing Pathway, where you’ll learn how to optimize your email campaigns and refine your funnels. Register before...
Ages ago on the Internet—so like, 5 years ago—my SEO strategy was simple: Put the most information about a topic on a page about that topic, and make sure it’s good enough for others to link to. And for all intents and purposes, it worked! Until it didn’t. Why did it stop working? Because the way people consumed content, and where people consumed content, began to change. More and more people started to consume videos and podcasts, and less read blogs. Stories became more interesting in video...
Hey, it’s Pat! 👋 It took me several years to discover this secret, but once I did, I unlocked more shares and exposure for my brands and businesses online. If you’re feeling stuck, like you can’t grow as fast as you’d like, or like you just keep creating content for the same audience over and over again, then this is for you. If it helps, then you can thank my son, because it was last week at Disneyland that he indirectly reminded me about it. Let’s get unstuck… QUOTE OF THE WEEK “The miracle...