[00:02] channel in 2026, this is the exact sevenstep system that I would follow. using this system for years now to get their first 100, a thousand, even a 100,000 subscribers on YouTube. But I have a disclaimer for you. This system
[00:18] isn't some magic pill, right? You actually have to upload videos. You're the face, press record, and commit at least a few hours a week to your YouTube
[00:30] channel. But here's my promise. If you followed this system, you might be surprised by how quickly your YouTube channel grows, by how quickly you reach your YouTube goals, and also by how quickly you're able to start generating
[00:44] money from your YouTube channel. So, if you're serious about growing your with me because I'm going to break down this entire system for the first time ever on YouTube like this. And for a new year, there's actually an eighth R. So,
[00:58] stick around until the end of the video because it really is there's some new rules to YouTube success and we're going to be covering those. So, let's jump into number one, which is reverse engineer. Now, this is a framework not
[01:11] just for your YouTube channel, but also for individual YouTube videos. So, we start out and we start with reverse engineer, which means start with the end means that before you start really posting videos, before you just jump out
[01:26] there and upload your first video, you want to answer a few questions. Some of those questions include who is your YouTube channel actually for? The mistake a lot of people make is that if you try and reach everybody, you'll end
[01:39] up reaching nobody. And so you think about who's my channel for and then what what problem does my YouTube channel solve? Who and what? And so if your
[01:51] channel, it's for people who love fishing or want to start fishing and get into fishing. And what problem does it solve? Maybe it's how to catch fish, how to catch bigger fish, what lure is the best lure. So who and what? That's
[02:05] reverse engineer. Now you also want to ask at this stage you know how is my YouTube channel going to make money. [snorts] Now a lot of times again the problem is people get too far into content creation and they go huh I
[02:19] not even sure. They upload the video and maybe hope to get approved for the YouTube partner program eventually. But what we've discovered with our students is that actually a lot of people are making money much earlier even before
[02:32] they get approved for monetization. Why? because they start with the end in mind. They work backwards and say, "What is my plan for growth on YouTube? Who am I trying to reach? What problem does my YouTube channel solve? How am I going to
[02:46] make money? Okay, I'm going to make a video and I'm going to review the top video and I'm going to review the top five lures for catching bass fish." And then in your YouTube description, you could link up affiliate links to those
[02:59] lures. And therefore, before you even start, you're making a plan, right? You start, you're making a plan, right? You may have heard if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. And so reverse engineer is the first R. And what we're going to see
[03:12] here is that this is a system that you want to do every time when you're thinking about uploading a new video. So before I press record, I'm thinking about, okay, who's this video for? What problem is this video solve? How's this
[03:24] video going to make money? And we talk about lots of different ways. We're not going to get into all of those here, but that would be number one. Number two is then research. This is now where we get into research, which is going to include
[03:37] a couple things. This could include keyword research. Now, what does that mean? That means kind of like what are the terms people are searching for or what are the topics and the language people are using when it comes to what
[03:51] videos they want to watch. And so, in the research phase, we're going to start the research phase, we're going to start crafting our title, right? So maybe we are using some keyword research tools. I like to use Vid IQ. We'll link up some
[04:05] this YouTube video. They have a good keyword research tool. You also can go to the YouTube search bar and you could just start typing and you could type just start typing and you could type best fishing. Check it out. You type in
[04:19] best fishing and put a space and it'll start finishing your sentence for you. Best fishing boats, best fishing poles, best fishing. So, what we're actually crafting in the research phase is we're kind of like, okay, what's the title of
[04:33] this video going to be? There's also the ability to look into how much search volume, like how many people are actually interested in this topic? What is the language that people are using when it comes to the video that I'm
[04:45] creating? And so, the research phase again, you're looking into how interested are people in this particular topic. Another way that you research is you're going to research your competitors. So, if I have a fishing
[04:59] channel and I'm looking for I'm going to make a video about different fishing lures. At the research phase, I'm going to go see what other videos are out there on this topic. How long are they? What are their thumbnails look like?
[05:12] What are their titles like? What is the content inside of the video? What can I learn from these videos? Again, we have we're just in the planning phase, but one of the things that we've learned at Think Media is every battle is won
[05:28] before it's even fought. What does that mean? That's actually a quote from SunSu, the famous military general and the author of the art of war. And if you think about that quote, every battle is won before the battle even starts,
[05:42] before the battle is even fought. Okay? So our time spent in strategy in making a plan in reverse engineering and then of doing some research. Okay, what are
[05:54] the competitors doing? How's my video going to be different? Our time spent in research and reverse engineering is our time spent winning the battle before the battle even starts. So when we actually
[06:09] record the video, we're doing it with more intentionality, with more insight, with more knowledge, with more strategy. And this will change everything because again, as you begin to master this system, you you'll really discover that
[06:22] ultimately it works if you work it, as you learn it, because it becomes the seven steps that we do over and over and over again to get millions of views. Our you know, growing their channels. So number one, reverse engineer. Number
[06:36] two, research. And I also want to recommend a re a resource that we have at freethinkclass.com that specifically goes deeper into the money vertical. If you're specifically wanting to know how do I reverse
[06:50] engineer not just my channel, not just my videos, but my money plan, freethinkclass.com specifically goes deeper into the money side. If you want that. Also link it up in the
[07:02] description. But let's get to number three. So number three is record. So now that we have a plan now that we we know what our title is. We know what basically the outline of our video is at
[07:15] through all right, how's my video going to be different? What do I want to say competitors are doing. I've thought about how I'm going to put out my unique take on this particular topic. I I know what the purpose of this video is, who
[07:30] what the purpose of this video is, who it's for. Now I'm pressing record. And when you record your video, this the opportunity here is what we call the perfect video recipe. It's making sure that we have a strong hook. It's making
[07:42] sure that we have a strong big idea, good title, good thumbnail, like we really have a strong concept. And and then there's little things like how do going to do video editing? What kind of camera are you using? Um what's the
[07:55] beginning, middle, and end of your video? Uh we won't go too deep into it here, but ultimately you want to record your video with strategy. One of the things is once you press record, if you forget to say something in your video,
[08:08] to maybe turn the camera back on or whatever. So the planning you've done here is going to help you record a strong video that holds the viewers attention, that ultimately is pleasing to watch. And one of the things that
[08:25] people make as far as a mistake when it comes to their videos is they don't plan. So they just ramble on and on and on. There's no structure, right? Like I even took some time obviously in this video to plan out seven points, draw our
[08:39] entire seven uh our framework. So there's a structure that you can follow along to. So your preparation going into record can ultimately be super helpful when it comes to delivering a great video. You want to be brief, be bright,
[08:53] be fun, and be done. Turn the video off. And now you have the video ready to edit and ultimately upload. Which brings us to number four, which is release. Here's what release is. Let's title it, fill out the description, fill out the tags,
[09:09] but what are some other things? Fill out the time code and chapters. That's definitely a modern feature that helps people skip around. It could be a very utility- based thing to to serve people. Upload your thumbnail. select is it for
[09:21] Upload your thumbnail. select is it for kids, is it not for kids? Um, and go through all the different settings on the back end of YouTube. Another way to think about this is your video optimization. Okay, so I've planned my
[09:34] I'm making sure my title's good, my thumbnail's good. I'm filling out that description line by line, uploading tags, you know, time codes, chapters,
[09:46] description that I want people to know about. Is there any information down there? Um, these days, you know, you can tag other channels, hashtags, adding your video to a playlist, and then eventually making your video public.
[10:01] Essentially, once it's fully optimized, make your video public. We like to pin a comment. You may pin a comment on on there so that you can uh engage in the conversation, maybe give a link somewhere else uh that you want to send
[10:15] people to. So ultimately, release is just that key component of getting that the time to optimize the video. Now, here's the mistake people make.
[10:27] One of the things I've noticed is that people get lazy right about here, right? You already might be like, "Dear God, Sean, we've gone through so much, you know, like I'm already exhausted. I'm new to this." And listen, I get it.
[10:39] You're learning a new skill. Like, there's a lot that goes into basically becoming a media company. You're communicating on camera, doing doing market research, understanding marketing in terms of writing titles, graphic
[10:55] design. If you're designing thumbnails, there's a lot to learn. And if you're definitely subscribe because that's what we're here for is to help you learn, help you understand how to make money in the creator economy and learn the skills
[11:08] necessary for building a successful YouTube channel. If you're also getting it if you hit the like button and even share this with somebody. But we've done a lot up until this point. Do not cut corners here. You want to make sure that
[11:21] your video is is findable, meaning it's discoverable, that you have put some thought into just making sure that your video is optimized properly. So that's
[11:33] number four, and that is release. Which brings us to number five, which is brings us to number five, which is Rocket and Rank. So, this is your opportunity now. Your video is public. Congratulations. You've released your
[11:48] video to the world. It's out there now and it's sitting on YouTube. And now your goal is to, of course, get your video view. The best way to rocket your video is to do the prior steps. Well,
[12:04] what do I mean? The best way for your video to grow on YouTube is not to use some other social media platform to try to get views. It's to actually trigger the YouTube algorithm itself. Meaning this, if you have done the first four
[12:17] steps properly, then in a way, number five should take care of itself. However, there are some actions we can do here to reinforce basically launching
[12:29] your video and getting your video views. Now, the reason we call it Rocket is of your YouTube analytics, and you're going to see that YouTube kind of gives you a picture of your video's performance. And sometimes when you
[12:44] release a video, it's really flat. It's like, it's like launch, it's super flat. That's not our goal because what is a rocket? What do we want a rocket to do? We actually want a rocket to blast off, shoot into the atmosphere, and then take
[12:58] off into outer space. And so if we rock it properly, we literally want that thing to to shoot up and never stop getting views. That's the dream of YouTube. That would be a viral video. How much can we rocket this video and
[13:12] get the YouTube algorithm triggered so that browse features and and YouTube's features really take this video to the next level. So what can we do? Here's a checklist of things. Eventually, after you get 500 subscribers, and I think the
[13:26] the number is lower now, you eventually have a community tab. You can share your video on the community tab an hour or two or three after the video comes out to maybe get a few more views to your video. You can actually cross-promote
[13:40] from another video and actually link to your video on an end card. What are we talking about here? We're talking about driving as many views as possible to your video once you release it. Now, there are off-platform opportunities
[13:53] here as well. If you have an email list, you're a business owner, you've been smart creator and you've been thinking about building an email list, you could send out an email newsletter, an email blast, and say, "Hey, I just released a
[14:05] brand new video. Go check it out on YouTube." My friend Neil Patel has found that he's able to rank his videos because he's built a big email list and when he releases a new YouTube video, he sends an email and YouTube loves the
[14:18] fact that he sends all these people over to YouTube that weren't on YouTube to watch his YouTube video and then they watch, they learn, they love it and it helps the video get more views and ultimately rank. Now, what does rank
[14:35] ultimately rank. Now, what does rank mean? Rank is our dream of not just views. Not just releasing a video because we have some subscribers eventually and and getting some views on that video. Rank would mean that as
[14:49] that video. Rank would mean that as people search for this video or they go to YouTube and they they're looking for something, let's say fishing, they start like, "How do I get started fishing? What are the best lures for fishing?"
[15:02] What are the best lures for fishing?" that a ranked video would mean that your fishing video now starts showing up on people's homepage or when they type in what are the top five lures for bass fishing, your video shows up in those
[15:15] fishing, your video shows up in those top search results. Again, what we're trying to do here is rocket our video, add as much jet fuel as possible to add views to the video, and then we're also trying to rank the video. And so again,
[15:29] if you've done the first four steps well, you may just like go to lunch and video is great. You recorded a great video, you optimized it proper, you you optimized it properly, and you did your due diligence to plan ahead and come up
[15:43] video well. So, this might take care of itself, but why not do both? And when you send it to your list and maybe share it on social media and do whatever you can to get as many views as possible and then the video holds people's attention
[15:58] and uh average view duration, all that kind of stuff, then boom, your video what we experience at Think Media. And Video Ranking Academy, is you want to
[16:10] create a video today that gets views a month from now, six months from now, a year from now, and even beyond. And we now have hundreds, I think thousands of videos that are a year old,
[16:25] five years old, eight years old, 10 years old that still get views. And so we get hundreds of thousands of views every two days. We get a couple million views a month because we have ranked videos. How? Because we follow the seven
[16:38] because we're going to go through all these steps. And as you master this system, right, you ultimately uh will master ranking and be able to build a YouTube channel that doesn't just experience 15 minutes of fame and then
[16:53] experience 15 minutes of fame and then fizzles out, but consistently grows rocketing towards success. So number six now is we've released the video and now it's about review. What gets measured gets improved. Review. So review is all
[17:09] gets improved. Review. So review is all about analytics. Now disclaimer as you go through the seven R system, I will recommend that you may want to post five, 10, 15, 20, 30 videos
[17:24] before you worry too much. Like when you're just starting, you're not going to have a community tab. So don't worry about it. Like you can't share your have one yet. Just keep posting videos. Use what you do have. And when you're
[17:38] just starting, you can study your analytics, but you haven't done that many videos yet. So, I wouldn't recommend getting stuck in reviewing your analytics until you've posted 5, 10, 15, 20 videos. So, you really have
[17:51] like some momentum to actually study. If you judge your first video and you gather around your first video like hm like your first video is going to videos are your worst videos. I know mine were, right? So, so like your first
[18:05] few videos, spending too much time reviewing them is is kind of discouraging. It's not even super helpful, but eventually this is a key step because what gets measured gets improved. We look at the video and we
[18:19] say, "Okay, what do we learn from it? Did the video take off?" And and what your analytics will tell you is one out of 10. That's good. Or your analytics, 10. That's the worst. That's like the worst out of your last 10 videos. You
[18:33] go, "Okay, what was it about this video that uh that that didn't perform well? Was there something wrong with the topic? Was the idea weak? Was the title this video? What what was wrong? What can I learn from it? How long was my
[18:49] people drop off?" You could see your audience retention curve. You can see, rate on this video? And you can look at these different metrics. And then not these different metrics. And then not only that, remember the 7R system
[19:04] only that, remember the 7R system isn't just about individual videos. The 7R system is about your entire channel as well. So it works for both. So you can review your analytics on a individual video level, but you also can
[19:18] review your analytics on a channel level, right? And so this is a step that you don't just do once that becomes a habit. like this is a routine. This is a system that you work over and over consistently. And so you study your
[19:34] analytics and then the key is you say how can I improve and get better next time? We like to say how do you get 1% better with every upload? It's not a matter of, you know, trying to make giant leaps, although you may make some,
[19:48] giant leaps, although you may make some, but it's a matter of saying, how can I uh, you know, take one aspect of my video and next time I want to communicate a little bit clearer, next time I want my editing to be a little
[20:00] bit tighter or something like that. So, that's number six, and that is review. Now, remember, we actually have an eighth R and this speaks to the new to get to that in just a second. And then also a reminder, if you haven't
[20:13] seen our free class at freethinkclass.com, check that out because that goes into the money side of things. When you get views and of course eventually you can get your channel monetized. But one
[20:28] the fact that there are multiple different ways to earn money on YouTube, even if you don't qualify for the YouTube Partner Program yet. So, if you're interested in going part-time or full-time on YouTube, I highly recommend
[20:43] watching this class because I actually break down a case study of how without program, you can start making money immediately and even more so when you follow this 7R system in the process. But let's get into number seven, and
[20:59] that is repeat. Repeat. Now, this is a little bit deeper than it sounds, but ultimately you can see now that you start here. You want to reverse engineer, research, record, release, brocket, review, and then
[21:11] repeat the process. Meaning, we go back to reverse engineer. We take the information we learned from studying our video and we say, how can we begin again more intelligently? But there's some smart things that we like to do here at
[21:24] Repeat, which include things like, can I batch produce next time? How can I how can I maybe not just shoot one video, but shoot four videos so I save my energy? And I think and I ultimately am
[21:38] more efficient with shooting next time. The other thing we ask here is after we've reviewed and remember at some point once you've posted 10 20 30 videos we start saying what are the themes here? What are the winners? What are the
[21:53] videos out of the last 10 videos I've posted? Which one or two videos did the best? How do I repeat? And we say it this way. Success leaves clues. make this way. Success leaves clues. make part twos, right? So, if you've got 10,
[22:08] 20 videos, there's maybe a couple videos where you should follow up and say, "Okay, what can I learn from my video library that I now make a follow-up video, a part two or a different a series or something related that I spin
[22:21] series or something related that I spin off? I had no idea that YouTube and now my subscribers were going to be that interested in that particular topic. But because I'm studying it and reviewing it, okay, that's going to influence
[22:34] the videos that I make next. So ultimately then we repeat the process and we go through lots of different strategies about again how to go deeper inside of that. But I want to get to the eighth R, which is repurpose. So it's
[22:48] really not just repeat, but it's also repurpose. And this is a huge kind of an overview. I'm I'm obviously flying over this system. We teach this system in depth inside of our program called Video Ranking Academy. But here's
[23:01] what what the opportunity with repurposes. I'll give you like three examples. So one of our favorite things to do right now at Think Media is to encourage people to do video podcast. We have a video podcast. It's called the
[23:14] about YouTube, I think you'll love that podcast. But typically those episodes are about 20 minutes long. Maybe they're 15 to 30 minutes long, right? Great. So
[23:26] there's one YouTube upload is the 30 minute podcast. But one of the things you can do with content that a lot of people are missing this opportunity is you can cut clips out of that longer form content. Okay? So I upload one
[23:42] video. I reverse engineer it. What's my video podcast going to be? I do some research. How am I going to title it? I record my video podcast. I optimize it. I release it. I got the title good, the description, all the different things.
[23:55] tell my Instagram stories, "Hey guys, new episode of the P." It's we call it the Tuesday ritual. So, you'll see me on my Instagram stories, Sean Kel rocketing. You know, I'll be like, "Hey, new podcast is out." Send that traffic
[24:09] to the podcast. Maybe tell the community tab, you know, hey, new podcast is out. I'm rocketing it. You get what's happening. Eventually, review it. Okay. had the podcast do, but now I can repurpose content out of that podcast.
[24:22] So, if it's a 30 minute episode, there may be seven minutes that are worth uploading as a clip. Now, you may have seen this for a lot of video podcast shows. You may see someone like a Patrick Bet David um or like a Joe
[24:38] does not live on YouTube, but he has a whole channel called JRE Eclipse. So, you're starting to work smarter, not just harder. And you're getting more
[24:51] uploads because not everyone's going to watch 30 minutes or an hour or two hour podcast, but now you can go back through with just one clip and reverse engineer what's the title of the clip, what's, you know, research the clip. You don't
[25:03] recorded. you just trim it out, re-release it, rock it that thing, review, and you might be able to get multiple clips out of your longer form way to repurpose. Another way to repurpose is what we call content
[25:18] about it right now. The third one would be um now repurposing on other social media platforms. There is an opportunity to of course upload vertical videos and clips of your videos on Instagram reels, Facebook reels, Tik Tok, LinkedIn,
[25:35] horizontal clips across those platforms, vertical clips across those platforms. vertical clips across those platforms. And so YouTube is the top of the pyramid where you upload quality content. But as your brand evolves, as you grow your
[25:51] your brand evolves, as you grow your creator business, as you evolve in your as you strengthen your content creation muscles, then repurpose becomes a muscles, then repurpose becomes a critical R of this system. And so that's
[26:06] the 7R system. If I'm starting a YouTube channel from scratch, I'm starting slow. perfectionism in the face. I'm pressing record. I'm not getting overwhelmed with all of this, but you do need a system. You need structure. And I'm going to
[26:20] follow this system step by step. And I'm going to master each of these Rs as I continue to upload videos. Now, as a reminder, if you specifically want to start making money from the start and you want to figure out the shortest path
[26:36] YouTube, even if I have a small channel, then I highly recommend checking out freethinkclass.com. that goes deeper into this and it's an entirely free class. And then finally,
[26:49] go a little bit deeper into some YouTube strategy. I just put out a brand new video that really breaks down some of the strategies you need to know right or tap the screen to watch that. My name is Sean Kel Rhymes with YouTube channel.
[27:03] Hit like and I will see you in the next video. Peace.