How a Motor Oil Niche Built a Million-View YouTube Channel

so have you ever heard riches is in the niches or niches uh I can tell you that this is true especially when it comes to YouTube but you have to approach it differently you actually actually know to understand exactly what the niche is and how narrow or wide it is and I'm really excited for this live stream today because I'm talking to someone that I really really admire someone that is a go-getter but also found a

niche that kind of blew my mind like at the end of the day I my mind has been blown by this Niche and to be able to see how he was able to capitalize on this Niche but also get millions and millions and millions of views that I didn't even know existed on YouTube and he was able to do it in a way that was able to not only benefit his own personal life his family life

but actually create a business a sustainable business off of YouTube in a way that I've I'm really excited to share with you so for me if you're new to me I'm my name is darl EES I love YouTube been on YouTube for almost 20 years 20 years in October and I love growing on YouTube helping content creators Brands and businesses and I've generated over 110 billion video views it's kind of kind of really shocking to see

over the course of my career to be able to do that and I've worked with some of the biggest brands and businesses on the planet and what I usually do on these live streams is I bring someone in that is crushing it is someone that you can learn learn from or my goal is for you to kind kind of connect the dots of where you're at of where you need to go and I love it through

conversations and I love uh helping people um and for me this is a way for me to give back uh to you so that you can connect you can learn you can be a be able to digest from people that normally don't have a platform to teach so um grateful that you're on the live stream with us here now and then ultimately I'm also going to give away some tickets to uh to uh uh vidsummit it's

a conference that I put on every year it's our 12th year where people all around the world come to Texas and learn all about the creater economy and then to be able to synergize so you want to stick around for that uh also we're going to uh take some Q&A uh from some of you so if you have this question you're just dying to ask you know at the end of this live stream we're going to

be able to open it up so really excited so riches is in the niches okay I I I've heard that phrase so many different times but it's true I actually have my degree in marketing and advertising and for me it's really understanding who you're communicating with and then also what value they actually uh are looking for and that's why I love YouTube so much is because YouTube can help us find the viewer and give them that

right video that they're looking for and is able to take all this unstructured data and structure it in a way to predict what the viewer wants to watch and for me I've seen every Niche that you could possibly have on YouTube and when I uh saw this one Creator come on he kind of came into my my radar and I'm like okay this is a very interesting Niche and I I was questioning how many views how

you know how many uh how big was the audience and I was blown away because he was getting millions and millions and millions of views around one thing motor oil okay like I I was Bown away I'm like how can motor oil get millions and millions of views and so I decided you know what I'm gonna have the motor oil gate come on and literally start to share strategy with you today so how are you doing

Lake I'm doing great darl I appreciate the Tesco havlin there I like that you know it's my dad was actually sponsored by them at one point in time yes that's that's good I don't know they're not that's one of the one of the bought this on Amazon after a recommendation of yours so there you go but anyway um yeah so why don't you kind of introduce yourself and and let people know the type of content you

create sure I'm Lakes spe Jr and for some people that happen to have been NASCAR fans maybe back in the 80s and 90s my my dad is Lakes speed senior the former NASCAR driver so I kind of grew up in racing my whole life and then like you mentioned Daryl I ended up going to work for Joe Gibbs Racing and we started an oil company so I've been involved in the oil industry now for 20 years

just kind of you've been with YouTube for 20 years I've been in the oil industry for 20 years and about five years or so ago I I left and went to a adjacent industry because my real love is tribology so tribology is the study of friction where I didn't even know that it wasn't like I thought you were making up words trol I'm like what is a chologist like I don't even know what these things are

I'm like are you inventing words here now like but what let everybody some people might think they are it's a madeup science but it's actually kind of a blend of physics chemistry and mechanical engineering the term tribology was actually coined by Dr Peter yast uh over in the UK they they realized that know all pieces of equipment you know they're they're lubricated there there's friction and friction is a loss of energy and power and of course

power is a it's a resource and it costs money and it has to produce it so if you can save energy if you can reduce friction if you can reduce wear that's a good thing so the British government a long time ago said hey we need to figure out how to make our industry more efficient because if we're more efficient then we'll win so that's the science and you know you know darl there's so many parallel

between what I've done professionally before I joined Channel jump start and started doing YouTube stuff that you know the the channel jump start method you know um plan execute analyze adjust that's exactly what we do with a race car when you go to racetrack you plan out what you're going to do you go out there and you run your laps and you measure what you did then you come back and you make adjustments based on the

data that's been my whole life is that same pattern and you know funny enough this whole idea of going on YouTube and talking about what I know this was not my idea it was actually my wife's idea oh do tell do tell this one so my wife Elise um also known for people that that watch our Channel because you know what it's funny we there's been this weird intersection Daryl between my wife's Channel and my channel

because a lot of my viewers or men right older men their wives and their daughters watch my wife's Channel because my wife Elise Rose crochet has over 300,000 subscribers and has been on YouTube longer than I have she's the one that one handed me your book and said you could read this this number two she convinced me to go to vidsummit which I heard you mention that earlier about vidsummit yeah if you win a ticket you

should definitely go if you don't win a ticket you should definitely go vidsummit will change your life as a Creator and we we it was at vidsummit that I kind of had this Awakening of wait I've been doing this all wrong that I needed to double down and focus on what I could be unique at what was my I've been on YouTube doing some stuff I made some videos but once I had that Awakening is that

what is unique what can I uniquely talk about motor oil and that's where the idea was to focus on being the motor oil geek and literally once I made that pivot and focused and started creating content for the viewer not for myself not to try to push anything but to help the viewer to answer the questions that people are asking it just blew up it was crazy well I wantan I want to talk about this because

like when I met you um it wasn't you're gonna promote the the motor oil geek in fact you're you're making a decision because you're like hey I'm buying this or I'm I'm I'm going into your mentoring program and and I have two options and um and and you were trying to to weigh out which direction to go because I will not allow anyone to do two channels at once because it's just like way too intensive there's

too much work and if you dilute the energy that you need to put on it you're going to probably miss the opportunity that that's in front of you and so you wanna you want to talk about that a little bit because I think that was that was a really big moment for you I think the first moment was listening to your wife that's always a good thing I I I'm telling you that's always a good thing

especially how smart your wife is great the the second thing was that you took the opportunity you went together to vid Summit and it started to connect the dots but ultimately it was I think this next uh decision which is what do I do when I'm I'm learning the system of what you teach darl so would you mind just taking a second there sure because what really led me in to doing this you know wasn't to

do my own channel that wasn't my initial thought I've been on YouTube making videos for my employer I I worked for total sealed piston ring I mentioned before I I worked for Joe Gibbs we had our own oil company I did that for you know 15 years and then I left and I went to work for one of our um we call affiliate company somebody we work really closely with they were actually one of our customers

total steal piston rings and so I was doing marketing for them we were making videos and we were doing all this dinno testing and things stuff that I love it's really super cool right and we had seen some traction with our audience you know professional engine builders by by doing that we recognize that okay that's a pretty small group there's probably a larger group out there we could reach so that's why we decided to you know

join the mentorship program was we need to get better at making videos so that we can reach a larger audience for our customers now the the thing that I don't know I even mentioned this before but the reason I started my own channel was because you know total seal have been business at that point for 67 years wow you know we were doing stuff for Formula 1 we were doing NASCAR and you know vintage cars we

all over the world so from as a marketing person it was really hard to tell what was moving the needle yeah you got this feedback from some customers but those customers you've also known for a long time so it's kind of like you know showing the video to your mom right it's like yeah they're going to say it's good because they're your buddies and you known for 20 years you they're not going to tell it's crap

so you had to kind of take that with a grain of salt so my idea was you know I've got this oil analysis business that I've been kind of doing on the side for several years if it does anything if I move the needle at all with that I know 100% where it came from so it was my R&D it was on my little lab project to see I I had no idea I had no idea

because I just thought it was hey I only have so much time in the day and and I don't want to risk the other one but it was like no I I want to know I want to know where if it's gonna work I want to be able to track it right I I had no idea was I I wanted visibility I wanted to be able to know if we put in X kind of resource we're

gonna get something back I that's why I love you because you love to analyze everything and you're like literally I think we're we're Kindred Spirits because okay if I'm going to do this that's the reason why you know then quates did that right um so you made a choice and you decided to go on your own personal channel for this and I want to I want to I want to talk about this because I think that

was kind of a bold move but now I understand why you did it because it's like oh it makes more sense to do it over here because if it's trackable then I can put the energy and time over on this other channel right that's that was kind of that was my hesitation right because when I first talked to you I was like well we signed up this for total seal because that's what the thing was yep

and you're like you can't do both y you you you got to pick one of the two and really what you're seeing from the data now I can look back now what you were seeing is there's well I call it lightning in the bottle but there was a more of a response to the oil content than piston ring content and I actually kind of knew that and distin because I can look at all our videos and

know that whenever I did a video even on the total seal Channel there was that involved motor oil it did better than the ones they were just about piston rings right so like d testing and motor oil those are the two topics that would perform above average well din test is just cool in general like that's one of the coolest things ever in the history of all mankind like I if there's ever absolutely it's just like

it it's great right but but you're talking about uh this massive you know engine going you know you can hear the exhaust you can smell the exhaust all this other stuff to this like this is like the most boring thing in all of mankind when when you really break that down and so like for me I was like wait wait is that is that really the case but um but you knew this audience like you you

grew up around it and you knew how important uh uh good performance like like really understanding good performance and it's really around what you put in your car right what you put in the engine and and then two your analytical mind of like well if we're going to be a performance-based company and we're racing right this is kind of I I think ingested In You by just being surrounded by your dad and the team and all

that other stuff it's like we need the very best it's worth it to to find out what the very best is to test it because we can't cannot have failure failure means loss right and so I I love that and so um would you would you just share why I tell uh my students only to focus in on one channel and not to do two uh because I think it's twofold um but would you from your

perspective I love why you couldn't just do both at the same time well two channels is two different audiences and you really need to learn and understand your audience you have to get very well acquainted to the patterns all those look there's so many I don't want to call them um intrinsic details the best way of saying it with within an audience within a niche that you have to basically be fully committed to that to really

understand it and I I don't know if if you just I don't know but what what it was but choosing the oil Channel versus the Piston Ring channel was actually more intuitive for me actually and the re the reason why have people do one is because there's just too much to consider and and I need I need extreme Focus like like once you get it then you can do it you can do 10 channels at once

because like once you understand how I see YouTube and what I want want you to see on YouTube once you get it then it's then you're going to see it regardless like I I was uh getting up early I I I jumped in my pool it's really cold did a little cold plunge then went into the hot tub for a little while and I was kicking watching YouTube and that's when I saw Nick nimons live stream

video and I'm like oh like live stream so I'm watching from the hot tub you know the the the live stream but the the reality is this and this is what I love is there's so much about YouTube that that a lot of people don't consider and and once you start to see it I'm instinctually whenever I watch a video on YouTube I'm already pre-programmed oh this is good this is bad whatever and and my tolerance

level is really really teeny right um and so for me you know uh watching YouTube isn't necessarily entertainment as work um but but when I do when I do know what good content is it's good content like you just know it instinctually because of set patterns that you're able to see and that's that's why I say hey once you come in you need to be laser focused to understand so you can see the patterns and then

two if you're bringing other factors in which is multiple audiences or multiple things that you're trying to do then you're not going to see clearly what the patterns are right I'll say one thing that kind of you were just talking about that that kind of came to my mind is that creating that good content I mean that's you talk about in the book you know it's the problem is the content right it's like okay you got

to make better content one of the most powerful things that I took away from that first vid Summit that I attended was a talk Roberto Blake gave and he said you know you YouTube is not too crowded there aren't too many people even in your nie whoever's watching right now in your Niche that you're thinking about it's not too crowded here's why because what most content on YouTube is low quality low effort yep when you when

you really push yourself to make high quality High effort content you will instantly stand out and really that goes back to when you made me make a choice between piston rings and motor oil it was a tremendous blessing to focus on motor oil because it was going to be easier for me to make high value High effort content for oil than it is piston rings because Dino testing is really really hard to do it's not like

you can just go turn around and do one of these things all the time unless you have your own Dino and of course we didn't have our own dno so for us it was better to learn there you know cat's out of the bag here it's already left but we did turn around and apply everything that I learned in Channel jumpstart that helped make the motor oil geek Channel successful we applied that to total seal as

well and it made total seal more successful it's just that the total audience for motor oil is much bigger than piston rings even though pretty much everywhere there's motor oil there's piston rings the reality is no one's changing their piston rings but everyone has to have their o changed so actually have a much larger audience than you would think at first and I guess we're trying to do a good job of making something that's pretty boring

otherwise actually there's a really cool science behind it but no one knew that until we showed up and started telling them how cool it was do you know do you know what's funny is um I I own a lot of YouTube channels and I've partnered with a lot of creators where um I'm their business partner and we go through it so one of the channels out there is Matt's off-road recovery and I was having a conversation

and I'm like dude like there's this guy that his J uh come on to channel jump start and and he all he does is talk about motor oil and he goes is it the motor oil geek like you know you know that channel he goes yeah I just saw I've been watching all his stuff I'm like are you kidding me he's like yeah because your videos are not short either like some of them are 20 30

minutes long and I'm like yeah he goes yeah I ge out about it all the time I'm like oh my gosh it it was so cool but it was like okay I I'm starting to understand the audience and like I I I kind of play it up like I I know there's an audience for everything I really do but once I understood why they're getting into detail and then two when when you post a video um

every one of the the viewers are opinionated like they're the most opinionated audience in the history of all mankind and you literally basically say you might have this opinion because it was taught to you by this but here's the data the data doesn't lie and you like literally start going into it like how how are you supposed to like how are you supposed to debate that you know like who who goes who goes that deep into

the analysis like you're pulling out charts and doing all this other stuff and it was like wow that that's really cool where yeah they are opinionated but their opinions start to deflate a little bit because you show exactly side by side through the data on it and so would you um would you talk about um just a little bit the importance of understanding the audience and the importance of picking the right type of video for your

audience yeah I think that's everything is that you when you make that switch and again we've talked about this all the time in Channel jumpstart is that it's about the audience the video needs to be for the audience well if you don't know who that audience member is like if you if you've not created that Avatar in your head of who that person is whether they're your core fan kind of a casual fan or someone just

new coming along if you haven't really thought about who they are if you don't understand who they are you're going to have a hard time making a video that speaks to them that helps them would you say would you say that most creators think that they are the audience and they're just basically saying if I like this they're GNA like that is that a good thing to do or is it is it literally looking different um

maybe going a little bit deeper into the audience yeah you can't look in the mirror and make a video you really have to look outside yourself and not make the video that's interesting to you I mean it's I'm making a lot of videos now that are not necessarily interesting to me like I already know all of this stuff but what I see is the the audience has a desperate need that they they they want me this

morning Dar I was looking at comments I'm like there's a video that I know I have to make and I know I need to make it sooner rather than later because everyone wants to know the answer to this question right already know the answer yeah you could you could probably just put it in comments and be done with it but no it's like no let's don't do that let's use that as a data point saying hey

they do it and and now what's the best way to explain it and bring a story in and go deeper into answering that question right yes it's all about bringing the data it's like I can give you my opinion right I can I can give you an answer and say no don't do that okay that means I'm everyone else on the internet with their random opinion that's not why you come to my channel you come to

my channel because I'm going to give you the science it's science not speculation we are G to do real testing and we're going to show you the real results so that you can make the decision for yourself it's the whole hey I can just give you a fish that's not nowhere near his value teach you how to fish that's right and that's my whole goal I want to teach you to fish not just hand you a

fish I like we're spot on like we we're so Kindred Spirits when it comes to that that's the same thing with YouTube like I I don't want to do it for you like that that's too too encumbering and plus I'm bored because it's so easy for me right but but I I'm more I find more value in helping you learn how to fish and then once you get it um I like how to fish is one

thing but the key that I want to do is teach you where to fish like like once you understand how to fish that that's great and I think a lot of people will succeed but where to fish is what I love about your story um what I love about you because uh you came to my house just a couple weeks ago and and we sat down and good lws you figured out where to fish like you

you know exactly where to fish and and you created a lore that is very appealing to a certain type of fish so I I want to kind of jump forward and talk about your oil analysis because what you have going on here is is really cool and I think it's transformed the way that you see YouTube uh and and just just share with them on that because that is is kind of sometimes the the missing component

that a lot of uh content creators have is they're really good at creating content they know how to fish but sometimes they don't know where to fish to actually get the bigger fish so do you want to take a minute yeah sure yeah that was one of the I'll call it surprise to this whole thing that when I shifted my focus away from you know creating content that was you know me looking in the mirror type

stuff and started to really focus on my audience understand the a audience in providing value to the audience they did something that I did not see coming they went and found the product that I already had started buying it that and going back to my time at Joe Gibbs Racing one of the tools we used to know how the engines were doing and how things were working was used o oil analysis and at one point in

time we had somebody that did a really great job for it and then things changed and we couldn't use that resource anymore and we really couldn't find an alternative that was as good so one day the head engine builder looked at me said Lake you're my oil guy you figure it out I'm like okay and I'm like I I'm going to figure this out and so I went and created my own company that could provide that

service to Joe Gibbs Racing and that's how it started and for years it went along this small little side thing taking care of people that I knew right there was I literally knew every single customer we had because they were somewhere within our community of engine builders and people like that other enthusiasts people that I know and it was there then all of a sudden with the success of the YouTube channel the M geek people started

finding it and they started buying it so now I have people that I've never met in my life but they've come to know me like me and trust me because I'm showing up on a regular basis on YouTube giving them value I'm I'm answering their questions I'm giving them data and they're like hey wait I trust this guy I see that he's using this tool in the videos that's one of the things that he's using to

be able to tell me the truth about these things and discern from Brand a and brand B or whatever it is I want that and while I could go buy that from anybody because it's not like I'm the only one that makes this thing they're choosing to buy from me because I've given them value and that's and you're not you're not the cheapest option either out there there's cheaper options exactly no yeah yeah but here's here's

here's the whole thing um I remember very vividly the call in Channel jump start and we we we get to really do some analysis on channels and we got to yours and you're like Daryl I'll be honest with you I'm drowning and I'm like oh crap look what's going on I know that you have another job and you know there's other things that's going on you're like I'm literally drowning and I go we'll do tell and

he goes you go I think I need to quit and I'm thinking you're gonna quit Chanel jump I'm like what the heck you're like you got millions and millions and millions and millions of views like you can't quit now you're like no I got to quit my day job because like I can't even keep up with all the the oil analysis like it it is like literally I can't sleep like every little moment is there and

I'm like oh my gosh like this this is great right and and and and then you did you're able to to quit and and be able to focus in even more so because it freed up time that you're able to do the analysis but also do the videos um but you found a way to monetize um because you you already had it set up you already did it you just you you thought oh okay I'm able

to track it somehow they I mean you didn't even push them to hey if you want an oil analysis come here you made videos like that no not not at all you actually just analyzed it and and then two you had it a link in the description you had a link on on your channel that was it you didn't really push it you just said I'm a geek I'm a fist this is what I do um

and then they're like oh I'm interested in mine and they click it and and they come to your website right like when and I'm going to pull this up so here's the channel coming to the website so come to the website right here oh order your test kit today you know I come right here I see it's 59 bucks and um I I might say oh I need it expedited does it it kicks on oh $119

I go to order and there we go it's like like you had it all set up you had everything ready to go and you started to see the volume and then the more views you got the more orders you got and and you got to the point where how did that change your perspective of YouTube how did that change your perspective in the business as a theologist like how did that change your perspective in the industry

like how did that how did that change well it really went from being oh these videos are come from a marketing background right these videos are about communication D now it's Community because I'm having interactions you know offline with my viewers because my viewers you could you say that one more time I want everyone everyone to stop what you're doing and listen exactly what he just said um and I'm going to follow up with something so

would you say it one more time please sure the transition was going from a video being about communication to being Community I am interacting I stop right there because he could have said it went from viewer or you know the information to a customer he never said that never said it because most business owners people see the opportunity of oh I'm getting viewed and now I got customers he never said that he said about community and

so like really talk about that because that right there is literally the missing component for a lot of people on the call right now because they're trying to make it transaction and transactions are cold and callous right but when you build a community and they want to go deeper with you in the community and sometimes that that is a way for them to get value then it becomes personal and they now enlist to do what what

uh community members do which is oh my gosh I watched Lakes speed JR's video on this oil I actually got an analysis and I didn't know this you got to try it out and they actually become your social Army of getting new people to be aware of your video and also your community oh yeah and these guys love it it's there is nothing more satisfying than interacting with you know one of our customers right that is

they're part of this new tribology community like they didn't know that tribology existed you know a year and a half ago but they started watching some of the videos they got interested in it they're super excited about it now so they can't wait to get their oil analysis kit get their results they watch it and then they send me back questions you're like well what about this and I get answering back like this I was answering

questions this morning because a day doesn't go by that I'm not interacting with the viewer and as we're growing this community the people that really want to see and think about TR ology and recognize that it's the coolest of all the Sciences out there that they're just as passionate about it as I am that means the world to me yep to see that trans transformation so let let's let's talk about this so Community Building um and

you're building a community about oil you mentioned prior that when you see a comment and there's a pattern of the same comment that oh that would make a great video well what stops you to comment on that um um do do you comment hey do you want to see a video of this or do you just reply with the answer or you know how do you how do you start gauging it when it's good to leave

a comment versus make a video okay so my my comment rule number one rule is I'm here to teach not to give in terms of give you the answer right there are people that want me to just tell them what oil to use for their vehicle and I'm not going to tell you what oil to use for your vehicle at the end of the day as an oil analyst my job is to be independent my job

is to analyze your oil and tell you what I see based on that I'm not here to promote you know vene or shell or Exon Mobile now do I have friends that work at all this companies yeah they're all great companies all make great and if shell came to you and says here's here's a couple hundred thousand dollars if you just promote our oil and Lead everybody to it bye no I wouldn't do it yeah I

just to to me that that stuff already exists what doesn't exist out there is someone that's an independent advocate for the consumer that's me I'm the educated someone that knows all the inside stuff but I'm here to advocate for the consumer right the brands gotta do their job so that that's a big deal because that's a big deal because you're an independent data uh scientist in in that regard with you know and and you're going to

go way in depth on that however every Situation's different right um You have a video that's out $5 versus $10 synthetic oil real engine results you're not you're not giving them you're you're you're explaining what what's good for what right you're not really saying oh this is like never use this you know well maybe you might want to use it on certain types of things I don't know you don't know their situation right right there's that's

the thing darl there's too many variables to be able to tell someone hey you know what's the best oil for my05 solado I don't know I I don't know where you live I don't know what fuel you're using I don't know what you're using to do there's all these very I can't tell you now yeah I can give you I can tell you that if you just use what's in your owner's manual it'll be okay you'll

be a c student if you just do what owner's manual says because they've already figured that out for you'll get performance but you're a c student there we go right but if you want to be valid atorian you're gonna need to do more work you're gonna need to do oil analysis to figure out for your engine where you live what kind of work you do with that engine what works best because there's not one size fits

all best oil engines are different operating conditions are different so when it comes to community when it when it comes to community then like like I I I think what you just said is I am going to help the community but I'm not GNA tell the community what to do right it's just more Absolut I I'm independently going to just bring and benefit but the community is going to ask and there's certain questions I'm never going

to answer because you can't give a good answer there's too many variables for it however you can educate them oh if you're thinking this then that's going to bring value and they're going to go oh I can actually go through this process my own I can do the oil analysis you know and and then two it it's it's more about environmental too than anything else too it's like the Environmental you might have some issues that you're

concerned like if you're if you're in negative 50 degree weather versus you know where I'm at in triple digit weather you know there might be different breakdowns I don't know that's that's where you that's 100% true yeah yeah if you're operating in Canada you know if you're up in Winnipeg versus you know Winter Park Florida in January you have the same vehicle doing the same kind of driving there's going to be a difference in what happens

to the oil in Winnipeg versus Winter Park Florida big difference so so um so how often do you start replying to comments I think a lot of creators do it differently some people don't look at comments at all but how often do you look at your comments I'm I'm in the comments every day I mean um so when I put out a video the day it goes out I will be more engaged in comments the the

first day that it comes at that first 24 hours than I am normally but I'll probably spend an hour or two a day just reading through the comments because yeah I want to if I can help someone I will but you realize you realize that that you have a very opinionated viewer right because they're like oh he's yeah he's not telling like like does that demotivate you to get defensive like when they're like did you even

watch the video like I pointed it out at this minute marker how do you how do you approach comments because I think a lot of people um at least it was true for me when I first was trying to help somebody I'm like I'm just trying to help you and you call me a fat you know lunatic or whatever it was I'm like dude I'm trying to do is help you like why why are you being

so mean you know how do you approach comments oh man you got to have thick skin right it's a it's a cross to bear in your life you're gonna be out there it's a cross to bear no doubt uh you know I look at it this way like already knew going into this after being in this industry for 20 years that people were extremely opinionated and you weren't G to change everyone's mind there there's no way

like I've got a video coming out in the future that's going to be really controversial because I'm taking on a um pretty popular idea and I'm going to Dethrone it because it's it's just it's just wrong scientifically like from right it's fundamentally wrong but we're going to tackle it and I know it's it's going to be topic it's going to be kind of touchy and I and I'm handling it that way that I'm being very like

hey I I know that this is kind of SE cow that I'm about to kill but you need to understand that it's not the real thing it's just an idol right it's it's wrong um but in doing that I know that the people that some people are going to be very thankful because they've had the truth revealed to them other people are going to be very defensive and they're going to be very negative about it because

I've killed their sacred cow and but I had to right if I couldn't be intellectually honest with my audience and not address it now people have asked that question darl in the comments for over a year and a half right right and I wanna I want to just say this because I think you're hitting Community Building 101 which is you know uh one you want to benefit the community by giving data and your perspective in a

way that they can take the data for themselves and make good datadriven decisions okay okay great I love that right and and then two secondarily um you're taking on topics that some people wouldn't dare to do because of the polarization of the topic right but you're going to do it because you're true to to bring value to the community and educate the community in a way that they if they'll watch the video and see the data

they can draw the conclusions themselves however there's people in the community that will just basically disagree because you killed their sacred cow and and they can't handle that right um and and I I would say uh the other thing that um that why comments are really important and when I celebrate trolls um is for anything to succeed you have to have someone hate I'll say that again for anything to succeed you have to have someone hate

they might be a hater because they just hate the way that you look or they hate that you're getting a you know 100 views or a thousand views or 10,000 views 10 million views that's just a natural thing but the moment that you cross the board and call them out as a hater you lose every single time okay what you want to do is is celebrate the interaction and let your community come back back and defend

you because the moment that there's a hater there's a lover and the lover will always respond to the hater and they'll they'll create that that Dynamic and I can tell you some of the most uh committed communities are are people that love so I'll give you an example of a community that's polarized but swifties like like there are swifties that will go to when she comes on they'll spend tens of thousands of dollars to go to

her concert in whatever whatever whatever right right because they just love that right but there's people that hate but yet they'll defend no Taylor didn't mean that right they're all defending the community in that regard and so the same thing with motor oil like hey you might make that comment but but Lake made a video about this that you need to check out they're they're doing that for you right however you gota you gotta uh present

it in a way um uh one of the uh projects that I started uh seven years ago was uh a TV show called The Chosen and my my uh business partner he's a writer director his name is Dallas Jenkins um when we started the campaign there's a person that uploaded a video onto YouTube it was like 19 minutes 20 minutes or something around there and they were just hating what we were doing call us the Antichrist

or whatever it was like that and I called him up I says we arrived and he goes what are you talking about I go we got our first Hater video like this is like a big deal for us like literally if there's ever a time in hisory that we should celebrate it's now because someone hates us and he goes that's odd I go but the reason why it's odd is because I want you to start watching

the comments because they're bringing awareness to our project and people are going to make the decision for themselves and realize oh is she really saying what's true or not what is this going on and then two there'll be this natural con conversation and then two part of our DNA for the show is to celebrate the ridiculous comments we we black out their names so that nobody can see their name you know and and we just show

it and we respond to it okay you know we just we're more playful in that in that in that way that is our brand for it so for me um you addressing comments and not being afraid that that people are going to have opinion but realistically they don't have the data that you have or they're not seeing the things that you're seeing and it's okay to have opinion right and they might be aggressively coming at you

and that's okay you know you're going to treat it for what it is someone one that didn't have anything better to do with their life you know try to rip you down because they can't dispute the data and so they're going to find something else to say right or ultimately they're taking this old wives tail of what they think motor oil is and they didn't really take it through the process of you spent you know 20

plus years learning what to do right and so for me uh I I love it I love it that you're able to do that then two how do you know when you should like take that idea for a video like when you a comment you're like oh this is really good to respond or we should really deep dive into that well so what I've try to done now we has a little more experience with it is

when you see that pattern right it's all about pattern recognition when you when you start seeing this thing same thing showing up over and over again that's a pretty strong sign hey they they want to see this and sometimes what we'll do too is just go do some research right go to Reddit or whatever start start taking that comment and throw it into Google and and see are people talking about this outside of YouTube and I

mean I mean I'll tell you right now the most successful video I have is one that I did just that there was this comment or know a pattern of comments on a video that were like I can't believe that people are asking this question like that that's really a question I couldn't I didn't even know that a question right yeah whether or not you should put oil in like it's like a bad idea to put oil

in your filter when you change your oil I'm like that's like dumb like really and went read it the thread was insane been on there for years and was still interacting I was like this is absolutely nuts that people this is it I can't believe this is a question so we made a video about it like I can't believe people are saying this is a bad idea right is it a good idea I mean it's not

going to hurt anything and in some cases it is a good idea other cases it doesn't really matter but to say it's a bad idea is just stupid and yeah I made about it I I love this example because like people are bringing value like whenever you see a thread so this is a thread so you have someone make a statement or a comment right and and they went pretty in depth look at this thing like

like Utah DEA Cruz right um three months ago um he even edited so he's put some time in thought into this right and you had 191 people give it a thumbs up but then you have the replies and they're like literally bringing value to each other or and or debating each other you know which is what a community really is so like you know at the end of the day even though that you thought oh this

is a below me this is like the easiest why would they even have this question you're like no okay maybe we need to kind of widen our understanding of where people are coming in to learn about this and what's the best way that I can bring this this education to them the data to them so that we can we can answer this question right and and then two I mean you have like 12,000 was it 12,000

12,361 comments and they're not slowing down you just you're still getting people commenting today on that right yeah every single day it's it's but that's the thing it's like back to the if you're going to make content for yourself or you make it for your audience if you're just going to make it for yourself then you're you're not paying attention to what they need but if you pay attention to to the comments they're going to tell

you what they're looking for and then you can f find a way to come up to provide value back if you really focus on providing value your to your audience you need to listen first and then respond yeah I I would say um and and you you know this because you've you've uh been mentored by me but it's like the best way to understand your viewer is to understand what value they got out of it or

how they they perceived what you were trying to do right and so you can say did it hit the mark did it not I think a lot of people look in the data like oh my retention is not good or whatever I I like to look at that for sure but then I'm like okay for the people that are actually committed to leave a comment because there's a lot of people that will watch will never leave

a comment they just never do and you'll always see oh I don't nor I watch all your videos but I never comment but I'm G to comment here that's a really good sign like oh there's something we need to know about this audience of what triggers them or what they brought value right but to know hey this video has a abnormally High viewer to comment ratio there's something in there that that's happening and then too people

are leaving comments and even giving more value where people are having a dialogue in between like why don't we pause what we're doing for a little while and learn from this and I mean I I I only went through and I I I I went and found two other videos you could make based off of this topic because of oh yeah I've seen this but I've had this question but this other one is is more in

common right and so they were talking about oil filters together and you know how two whatever whatever two two uh let's see two oil filters together can hold uh one and a half gallons I'm like I don't even know what you're talking about right but it's like there's all these other ideas that could lead to videos but then two um like my my favorite one is this uh and I'll pull it up here because this is

one of my favorite comments of all time um I'm 70 years old okay they're telling you exactly how old they are I've been pre-filling filters since I was 18 so it says dude I've been doing this since I was 18 years old on a tip from a friend this is the first time I've ever heard it questioned it blows my mind that people think that new oil out of the container is contaminated okay 341 replies okay

right exactly great point do you think people also use a filter for new milk from the grocery store before drinking it like come on now you know um you you def I grew up on a farm you you always want to filter your milk by the way especially if your hand your hand do it trust me I grew up on a farm um but those are some of the most killer questions and replies but it's like

this one has 116 um you know thumbs up you know I'm a couple years younger 61 he's telling your age again so it's like literally helping you understand who that viewer really is and then two you know you're you're probably wondering well why are why are they watching a video with an with uh to a question they already understand that's a fair point great question but the thing is I think that car people in general not

just guys cars and guys and gals they're pretty passionate people and they're interested in almost anything related to it and so when they see a cool car they see someone car related that's where their eyes go to and if you and if you throw something at him that makes him curious that that little bit of curiosity right that the I should I I gotta give credit right so the my wife is who took the picture and

basically art directed that thumbnail for that video and I do believe that the success of that video is largely the thumbnail that uh there's there's no doubt that the more that you listen to your wife the better your life is going to be and and this is just proof like this is proof in in the pudding um and it's good sometimes when you have someone that's been on YouTube for a while and understands what a good

thumbnail is because when we come on oh no this is going to perform because everyone wants to know this well they're never going to see it because your thumbnail sucks right so you actually had a really good thumbnail out of the gate but but realistically um this is the moment where I thought oh wow um can you replicate this and you did like when when I come to your channel and look at you know just your

most popular videos or even your latest videos like they're they're performing really well like like realistically well right and so when you when you break it down it's like all you're doing is community building and and you're communicating with them in a way where like hey I just want to help them be able to make their own decisions and then two I want to be able to take on top ICS that that the community will find

interesting but also have an opinion like you're you're about ready to drop a video that is going to kill the sacred cow for a lot of people and you know you know there's going to be probably a really high engagement on comments because everyone's gonna have an opinion on something and you're GNA take a bold St stance because that's the value that you're going to bring your community you're thinking about the Community First when you take

on a sponsor when you take on uploading a video when you're really replying to comments um is like oh no I care about the community I lived in the community I I know the people in the community I know these Brands and all that other stuff I'm very well known in the community and all I want to do is help educate them to see how I see the data and the reason why data is important when

it comes to Performance when it comes to oil you know that's why I'm the mo motor oil geek you know okay great and and I think when you take that approach that is when you're going to win 100% of the time um you know from from me and and I I want to I want to just ask you you don't need to give numbers I I don't think we need to give numbers but how has your

life changed having a you know an oil analys company and also talking about oil and and that transaction you know we saw it 59 up to you know 116 bucks or whatever it was uh per oil analysis how's that transform your life your business the way you you're seeing things it's incredible I I I call it my Red Sea moment right like literally the Red Sea parted and like what what happened here uh you've gone from

a place where yeah I've spent my whole career and I've worked for really great people so don't no one take it the wrong way I've been very fortunate to work for somebody like coach Gibbs uh who's a phenomenal leader you know great man of integrity and wonderful organization uh you know total seal was great and you know but I've always worked for somebody else and this enabled me and my wife that we're now we work for

ourselves and that's a big change and that would not have happened you know without YouTube without doing Channel jump start we would have never had that moment that opportunity to make a decision do we stay in the corporate world and there's nothing wrong with that if people want to do that um but they gave me opportunity a chance yeah to do something and um what what I was blown away is just on ad Revenue alone you

would have probably thought hm maybe yeah no it's been real iffy on AdSense alone but AdSense alone maybe this is just something we need to do and I think everyone uh will look at that right but the X Factor was holy cow I'm drowning because all the demand of when I'm bringing value to this community of people that want their oil analysis and it's not it's not a small thing I mean when you came to my

house and we were running numbers and and we're talking about the future of this like like I don't think people realize how powerful YouTube is until you see it and then honestly like you've seen it enough that you realize oh there's more because you're just barely getting started like and how are you gonna keep up with it and I think that was our conversation how are you gonna keep up with it how are you gonna streamline

it you know in a way that they can still get the data and the quality but you can handle the volume because the more like you every time you drop a video you know your cell spike it does every single time right and then two when we get done here we're building o analysis kits and shipping kits today yeah but but the thing about it is some of these people that watch this is what uh most

people don't think oh how many vehicles do they have okay they might have three or four vehicles okay great no your audience might be uh maintaining a fleet of cars like right thousands of cars and so they're like you know and so it it's it's much bigger than than what you what you perceive and that's why you know you're you're drowning in oil I think that's what John P was saying it's like I'm drowning in oil

analysis drowning in oil but it it gave you an opportunity to build something bigger on your own even though that you've been a part of the community in so many different ways but then two it's your own unique value proposition to offer the community that there is there is a high demand you know and so it's called a win-win from my point of view because like realistically in your AdSense seriously you most people would have to

say this is really good money and I I can see where it's like hey I can do both and I get both incomes and the bigger that you can go it's great but the moment that you said hey darl I'm drowning I'm gonna quit I'm gonna quit and I'm like oh and then you decided to go all in on this other opportunity and look at what that's done uh not only for you for your family uh

but also for the future because like the conversations that we had um you had probably one of the coolest ideas ever that I've heard uh at least in the last you know I'd say 14 months um because it was like very thought out and and you were thinking so far ahead and leveraging the right things because ultimately it doesn't matter on who's sending you the traffic it could be you it could be someone else it could

be the community it could be all this other stuff you have that opportunity in the system and the process and U the product which is which is beautiful so it's you you read the book right the first the forward you know that Jimmy wrote for the YouTube formul of the book he kind of lays it out it's like literally if you if if you don't ever read anything else just read the forward to the YouTube formula

book and realize that's not hyperbole yeah yeah it's not it's a literal game plan it's just it does it take a lot of work and effort to do it absolutely but and you have to be so focused too because it's like if you're if you're thinking oh I can just do it you know by not focusing on it but it's like focusing on the intent of the viewer how are you gonna bring value to the viewer

like you got to be obsessed with that and how like when when I say viewer there's a community of viewers but we we look at one type of viewer how are we going to be value to them but then two the moment that we can get the viewer to share that's game over because that viewer just now multiplied right they're they're actually going and finding your ideal viewer for you YouTube's seeing that that uh transaction in

the sense of oh new person new viewer coming on I'm see able to see their watch History right here and then they're going to go out and find all the other similar type of people with a similar type of viewing history to to test oh is this title thumbnail something they want to watch oh they're clicking on it and they're they're getting through the video they're going deeper they're getting more watch time then let's get it

out to more people like that and that's why you see what is it 3 you know four million views on a video that you made and it's still getting views still getting comments it's still getting sales every single day which is crazy wa well it's cool is like you that that thing you just explained I can think about a real world example of that here very recently that I was contacted by a guy out in Kansas

that is in charge of a a fire department and he saw one of the videos and decided that oh you know what we want to do oil analysis for our vehicles here we've never done that before we we've been doing things a certain way your video is making us question if we're not if we're doing it right so they ended up you know buying some kits from us and we've done the analysis he's got a very

interesting uh last name and I saw the other day that his brother placed an order too right he literally he literally did what we want to do in community building right you brought value he saw the value and in in every aspect humans always have to share y we have to and we only share we only share what we find valuable and we only share it with the people that we love right and and whether it's

a friend family you know colleagues it's like when there's a sense of oh this connected with me they're going to like it too or I found value here they're going to like it too that is community building 101 that is like if you ever want to to extend your tribe in any aspect it's like bring consistent value consistently and people will know what to do with it it's like okay I know it I'm going to share

it and and it needs to be in a way where it's it's inclusionary and I think that's what you do a really good job and I've never really said this to you but um like you've done a really good job uh uh uh being a part of the community but also contributing the community more so than just uploading videos right and I think that has to a lot to do with your upbringing you know being around

Racers bring around engines being around your dad but also where you've worked uh because when when I think of oil analysis I'm thinking oh like there's oil tycoon in Texas that's drilling for oil they just want to analys you know do the analysis there and yet no that's not what it is it's more well why is oil important for us well you already told us why that is but you're like you're thinking ahead where you're you're

willing to take on topics that that people aren't because you don't have a horse in the game it's not like you just want you want the best results but you're not going to tell them what to do you're just going to the results and then they're going to internalize it and realize oh this is good for me this is not good for me or oh I didn't know that or I might disagree with that because of

my knowledge here and they're going to put it in the comments and you're not like oh you're dumb why are you even living comments no you're like oh okay you know did you you know you're having your community response so for me I think you've done a great job at not only cultivating the community but making it a welcoming Community where where people can have opinions that's different than yours and then ultimately you know uh lead

to more knowledge more ways to give them information that they haven't considered you know even though that it might be simple for you because you've been doing it for 20 30 years um but more importantly you know you're you're you're finding the value of how to bring more value to the community every single day I appreciate that it's I I'm following what's in the book right I've read the book more than one time and and I

need give my mom a shout out I gotta give my mom a shout out I find Value in you Daryl hey Mom awesome that's my mommy we love my mom my mom called while we were talking too by the way I'm trying I'm actually trying to convince my mom to get on YouTube I think my mom watches my live streams every once a while when we kick on it doesn't matter if I'm on the chosen or

whatever she's always doing it but yeah I I I don't think I've ever called her out I mean I called her out but not necessarily in a um in a in a comment like that so Mom look look you're famous mom look oh wait I was like going to it's awesome well um okay so let's uh let's uh switch gears and um like I want to be able to ask a couple more questions so what is

your process for videos like like I'm looking it looks like um you know what's your consistency of putting out videos and what's your process to actually create content so I'm trying to do two videos a month kind of targeting uh the first Saturday and the third Saturday I ended up pushing back today's video uh till next week for a couple reasons one uh to do this I knew that if I was doing this I wouldn't really

have the the focus but also this week I was traveling uh to make a future video and we did a live stream at the lab where we were visiting on Thursday yep so I didn't want to step on that live stream and because it people will still watch the the recording the live you know days afterwards so I chose to move back one week this time but I'm that schedule is you know twice a month and

I kind of try to Target a video that somewhere probably in that 15 to maybe 30 minute range depending upon what the topic is and how engaged it is uh you again a lot of the stuff that I'm working on I was taking the comments trying to understand things and like you said trying to teach so a lot of times it's a pretty long process of trying to figure out okay I see this commonality of this

question right it's obvious that there's this disconnect where there's the the general knowledge level and what's there well what's that teaching opportunity where's a great analogy a parallel where I can go do something that will reveal that so as opposed to trying to answer that question every time in a comment can I make a video that broadens everyone's perspective and shows them something they didn't know so I look around for those kind of opportunities and fortunately

well double fortunately one having the racing background and everything already had a lot of connections that I can leverage to do this but now with the success of the channel it's pretty easy for me to call someone like for example this week I went and did a video with one of my clients that I do Consulting I I do Consulting work as well and so one of the engine manufacturers that I consult with I said hey

you know we we got this project we're working on I need to come visit you anyway about this would you be willing to make a video about this part of your engine and they were like sure now this is really patented stuff they're working on Military applications so I would have expected them to say no and Alec was like no come on let's do it we'll show it I love that so those are the kind of

process we kind of go through is is try is trying that and normally I'm usually working a couple of months out right now and do you do you actually uh do your own editing like who edits your video you have a team like what what is that process for you so yeah I film everything um I have my my camera my mics and my tripod and they travel with me everywhere I go so I film everything

and then I rough cut to get the story to get the pattern and then I have an editor that does the rest and he he's great uh he does he's known him for a long time he actually works at one of the places where we do testing he was he was the he was the shipping guy when I first met him and and the editing shipping guy or whatever yeah editing guy that also does shipping right

and um it was one of those literally passing comments where I I walked in the in the the shop one day he was like hey uh that video y'all just did on the history of piston rings he said who edited that said I did said oh that was really good I said a thank you appreciate that I said I hate editing my least favorite thing in the whole world he said really I'm like yeah he said

well I edit videos I said well send me your real me see what you got and I might hire you and he did and he's like dude you're hired man and so he's been it's great to have a team you know because it helps you like I said it helps who does your thumbnails do you do your thumbnails do your wife do thil I do I do my thumbnails and my wife is my uh art director

on them she she tells me terrible not very good do it again is that what it is okay list my my oldest son too he's he's my biggest critic and so if I can get both of them to approve it I know it's good that's great that's great um so let's let's kind of Dive Right In so you're building a team um but also um you're a little hesitant to release like you only do it twice

a month and and it sounds to me that you're you're at a place where you have to focus in on the other side of the business and get it get it going before you really ramp up like do you see yourself going weekly do you see yourself going more frequent or is this the pace that you like I'm comfortable right now because I do have these kind of three balls that I'm juggling right obviously I have

content creation which is driving the train in terms of making everything else happen I've got the oil analysis business that takes time that's important but also have Consulting that I do because I I'm an engine guy I'm the motor oil geek right I love so I've got a couple of opportunities that I get to work on uh for you know private clients we don't disclose who they are typically um on related to their engine stuff and

I love that stuff that's really fun so I want to be able to keep all three of them going if I was able to do more uploads and still manage the other two and keep them healthy that'd be great but right now I can juggle those three balls pretty easy with consistency right I know that's a big thing it's you got to be consistent not just a flash in the pan so I I love that um

so um percentage of Revenue so your AdSense is really good because Like Anything Automotive guys is just cpms are just like through the roof they they just are there's a lot of advertising dollars that come through that what would you say the percentage of the income that you're making uh per month or per year is AdSense like is it like 88 % 60% 20 20% 20% so so uh I just want everyone to know that is

when when you want to warm my heart um it's like when you can make 20% of your Revenue in ads like I I like to be closer to 15 but it's like if 20% of the income that you're bringing in because the opportunity YouTube is is uh through ads you're winning every single time because the other one can be scaled even higher right and so here he has the oil analysis and would you say um are

you just looking at the oil analysis as the other other percentage I forgot about the uh Consulting if you add in cons yeah because analysis 15% yeah yeah yeah Consulting add that to it it probably is closer to 15% is what that sense is yeah so so here you have both opportunities and then two does your Consulting now get to put is there more demand so that you're able to actually ask for more money or how

do you yes how do you approach that I mean well the biggest thing right now is back to you know I'm almost at that same point with the Consulting thing that I was you know overall last year I'm like hey darl I'm drowning I I I have more people contacting me about doing consulting projects then I have bandwidth to take on had to tell someone this this week I'm like I'm not saying no I'm just saying

not right now it's like let's talk about in maybe a year from now or six months from now and maybe I'll have some band with but I can't take on what you want me to do right now yeah no that that's so good that's so good so I I'm gonna just say this I'm gonna just say this okay um there's another time that you're like oh I didn't know this is whole thing so people are now

contacting you to be the keynote speaker so they're paying you money to go speak at a conference like like like like did you ever think that you would be the keynote of conferences and then also the demand of your Consulting I mean it makes sense if you're the you know you're you're going in this and people you're creating awareness they're like oh he knows his stuff he's going through the process you have your oil analysis but

they want you to take on projects now but did you ever think that you would actually be the keynote speaker at some of these events no no I've been to all these events and I'm like you know you watching someone talk and you're like oh that's a nice talk stuff you like like maybe one day I might ever get to do that then like next thing you know like no yeah I'm the guy they want me

to come do that and I'm like okay I can do this you know I can do it well would you speak at viin it then I guess so yeah I just put myself out there right I've rope myself into a yes again I I had to I like I had to set that up man because it's like you're telling me man lured me right in there man who who wants to see him speak at vins put

it in the comments because honestly be the vote right there right they all say yes I guess I have to yeah yeah if if you say no I'll just ask your wife to tell you to go do it because she's like yes but um but seriously like um if there's ever a case study that needs to be on stage at vidsummit CH uh because it it will prove uh to people that hey if 15% of your

ad Spin and all the other stuff like you can build it but then two you're not actively pushing it like you're not it's more about community building right and so come on now come on like that that is like the most epic case study but then two um you're drowning in all the demand like like we we sat in my house and you were going through and I'm like oh my gosh like you got to get

it to this point and then two if you're able to um kind of disclose hey you know you got to create processes and systems and opportunities but then also partnership because like that that's kind of your key thing you know of getting the right people there to help you build your Empire like you are building a a you know a motor oil data analysis Empire uh from my point of view and then two you're becoming that

guy that guy which is the mot motor oil geek like people are in high demand or they're asking you in high demand to come have a presence it's because they know love and trust you and you're a part of bringing value to a community so I would love it you know as the founder of vidsummit if you could benefit our community at vidsummit and share your case study because like these interviews we can only do so

much I I I know I I I know that you're going to blow their mind when you're able to show data and get very specific on on saying hey this worked for me it can work for you too and then two what I what you said at the earlier of this interview was um you know like the vids was the game changer you you you saw it and now I want you to since you received that

that game changer moment I want you to give that game changer moment for somebody else so yeah I'd be happy to do that I love it love it um what like if you were if you were starting today and and approaching YouTube what would you do differently how would you how would you like navigate it what's important to you wow the biggest thing were the things I didn't know right I didn't know that the business part

was going to take off I didn't know that the Consulting part was going to take off and and those kind of things so I guess if I was doing it if I well I would wish I knew then what I know now I would have started working on making those things more scalable earlier and I think also it's important to learn to say no to the things that are not aligned with your core value your core

Mission I think it's pretty easy just to say yes to everything that comes along because if nothing's ever come come along before it's easy to just say yes to everything but every time you say yes to something you're taking away time and energy from something else and what's around the corner may be a lot better uh and you just need to kind of I and I don't I haven't got this figured out yet by any means

on what that right blend is for evaluating opportunities but I do know that it's really easy to say yes to everything and when you spread yourself too thin you're not valuable to anybody yeah and I I think um that's part of the conversation we had in my house um was just that it's like how do you how do you do more with less right um and and one thing that we all value the most is our

time you know and and right now I know as soon as like you're you coming on and sharing this value with people is really important like like I know that you could be fulfilling um you know fulfilling orders uh for your oil analysis analyzing the oil that's coming in you know giving the feedback of what people are paid you but you paused it for a second to come bring value to the viewers here today um and

and I'm glad that you didn't say no um I I'm just glad because you know if if all we do is in inspire people to to approach it more intentionally because I think that's what you've done you're like intentionally taking um and uploading videos that would benefit the community um and you're willing to put your reputation on the line because you have the data um that that's great that's great and so really grateful that you that

you said yes so oh happy to do it and the reason I back to you say I've received so much I have to give back I can't just keep it for myself like I want my life to be a conduit of you know Grace flowing through me to others and not just being a cup or I'm just trying to cap capture all that I can I want to be able to give back where wherever is possible

and I would hope that someone watching if they're wherever they are in their Journey could see that they're probably their best source for growth in in the path they want to go is kind of with within their own experience that the the gold mine of value is your lived and shared experiences and by putting taking down that barrier and it's hard right me kind of mentioned my mom earlier um my mom has incredible value she's been

a property manager for like 40 years wow she's like when she she's the I want say right now right she's my mom but my mom is the best property manager you know residential property manager in the Nashville area and there may be another somebody like her somewhere else but you know she builds Community right that's probably again one of the things where it kind of comes from is my mom is great at not having a property

people just pay rent and live she builds Community which is why her properties are always sold out they're book solid and people take care of things and they're not dirty and that kind of stuff because people care they're living in a community it's not just transactional and I'm trying to convin her that listen you you know things about this industry that are very valuable to people that they need to know how to understand these things and

there's a lot of value but she's too afraid to put herself out there yet right right you know and so there's there's a big step I think someone could take to do this and but the reality is where's her where's her value to that Community it's within it's her experience and I hope someone's watching they realize that you don't have to go find that place that well to bring value to a community where you share a

passion and experience with it's in your own experience where you can find it I love it I love it and and I think that's the experience and the willingness to put yourself out there um is is is a big deal so um we're we're going to be giving away a couple uh tickets uh to vidsummit so you can actually hear lakes's um uh presentation I can't wait for that um and and uh we'll be doing it

here in a second but uh would you be willing to do some questions would you would you do okay great so what we're gonna do is uh just do a little push for vidsummit so if you haven't heard of vidsummit vidsummit is a conference I put on this is the 12th year and the whole reason why we did it is I wanted to uh create an opportunity for like-minded people to come together and where creators can

help other creators learn the insights learn the details learn um you know the business side learn all this opportunity of what the Creator econom is all about and what I love in starting it was I saw a lot of my friends that were really talented creators and they're artists um but they didn't understand the business side or they didn't have someone that was looking out for their best interest on the business side and so I thought

would there be a place to create this this opportunity and honestly you know that's where I looked out there and there was always this the uh creators and Fan Experience but there was no creators just hey this is just all about creators we're not fans uh we're colleagues is there a place for that so not seeing that I decided to start for it but I'll be honest with you Lake the reason why I did it is

I would love to learn and I wanted to be able to have a platform for people that I wanted to learn from and give them that platform so when I put someone on stage like you I want to learn from them there's something about them that I want to internalize so it make me better and so the whole reason why I started vidsummit was I wanted to learn from people and then give them a platform to

teach me and and that's what we're doing here so if you're interested in vidsummit go to vid summit.com it's October 7th through the 9th and if you're not not familiar with what that is I'm going to just show you a quick video and then we're going to come back and we're going to do some questions and some uh giveaways so let me go ahead and show you all what vidsummit is and how amazing you want to

you know how amazing it is and the the community and the culture and why you should consider coming October 7th through the 9th [Music] [Applause] [Music] he [Music] h [Music] [Applause] [Music] there we go I couldn't get out of that so look I I get excited at for vid Summit every year it's it's our 12th year um what I what I love is the culture and the community and the willingness of people to come uh you

never know who you're going to sit by you never know what you're going to receive you never know what but I can tell you we intentionally put the right people on the stage that that that you need to learn something of what's going on now and they're willing to open up and share so really grateful that you're able to come on uh Lake and uh be a presenter at vidsummit and then also um you know show

the business side where where you know you can come in and maybe only 15% of your incomes coming from AdSense the rest is when you build out a process and a system which I love so go ahead head over to vids.com get your tickets believe it or not we we um sell out every year uh it's getting faster every year um we actually sold out of two hotels already so it's like go there really get your

like it's it's it's March we're already sold out at two hotels but we had um the best vid Summit of all time last year and a lot of people that went last year already bought their tickets and so um they already went and locked in um it it looks like probably next week we're going to sell out a third Hotel um trust me now is the time to get it we are going to give some tickets

away um after the Q&A but honestly don't wait seriously this is something you need to be a part of I'm really really excited so it changed my life I mean there's there's three transformative things in my YouTube Journey one was reading your book The YouTube formula second was going to vidsummit and then third was 20 General jump mean I mean V Summit was huge in in that process there's no there's there that is where I had

the idea of changing the name to the motoro geek yeah that was it was pitiful and so I couldn't tell anybody if if you're serious about this it is worth making the journey to vid Sumit it you won't regret it you won't regret it well I I'm excited so let's uh let's Dive Right In so if you have a question uh go ahead and leave Q in the comments so we know exactly you have a question

put your question in there as well um I I had a few people kind of uh you know I've been kind of pulling them in as questions come in uh very specifically and we'll we'll kind of drop that in um but let me let me pull in here um uh and this is one that I want to I want to tackle because I I get this question a lot um and uh so uh when when I

give you answers to this please um really he for for what what I say but when is it smart to promote via you uh YouTube ads and I would say there's not a world in the history of Worlds that i' ever run ads to grow my YouTube audience there's not there's not and trust me I look for every way to grow audiences and the moment that you tell YouTube ads who your viewer is you're literally shooting

yourself in the foot of letting YouTube discover who your audience is because it's never the same thing it just never is so there's not a world that I would I would actually do that at all um and so um definitely uh um let me pull this one uh driving with Miles he's put a lot of great questions in here here's one uh what would you suggest first a book bid Summit or his training oh well I

mean I think everyone needs to read read the book right if you've not read the book that's like 101 you need to read the book and the great thing is yeah go ahead go ahead there's plenty of time between now and October to read the book before you go you need to do both yeah miles just put in there that you want the book Chantel will take your information we'll send you a book uh you'll have

to pay for shipping uh but we'll send you a book come on now come on like we'll make it really easy for you and then two um if you don't want to read it and you want to do audible like it's on Audible but I'm not buying your credits for that that's how I did it I I if I start reading I fall asleep you know I can I can read like maybe five 10 pages then

then I'm out so I a everything love it okay so Maddie saying I'm trying to bring more value to my videos oil painting vids uh but the vids aren't performing that well I'm a new channel so should I stick to the same content uh till I have more data so what would you give Maddie what what advice would you give her yeah I would definitely go go spend that time looking at the videos you've already created

go look at the comments from from those videos look at the analytics and really try to understand you know what's going on then also go look around say if if you're doing oil painting go see all right who's being successful on YouTube doing wh painting what are they doing what what pattern and model what you're doing after what works that's the that's the best way to start and you can go from there and you may iterate

and find your own little flare based on that but you need to see what's actually working within your Niche and especially if what you're doing right now isn't working they need to look and see what else is going on and adapt and try something different yeah and and don't don't view is your channel not or your video is not working because they're not getting a lot of views don't don't don't view that um what what we

want to do is look at is it easy to want to click the video and what's the value when someone comes to watch the video now I want I want you to understand this that the value proposition might not be what you think that it is you might think oh I'm teaching them how to oil paint and I'm saying no that's not necessarily the case uh maybe there's a small select few people that watch your video

to learn how to do a specific technique but maybe it's more therapeutic so one of the best creators of all time in the history of the world is Bob Ross Bob Ross would start with a blank canvas and in 20 minutes he would actually have a finished product and there's so many people that watched it for therapy they would come on and you just had happy little accidents the whole time and he had all these just

amazing content so I'm here to tell you go on Netflix binge watch Bob Ross you probably might have already done that go on Twitch like he is one of the biggest uh when when he they do the Bob Ross series he's like the most watched ever and it's more therapy but people will lean in so like my sister-in-law Shannon she watched Bob Ross's videos and loved it she goes I want to try I want to learn

how to paint and so she bought Bob Ross's products he made billions of dollars selling products think about that for a second on public television so now with the accessibility of YouTube hey that's great but don't always look at hey um they're coming for this but you might Inspire them to go create right and that's what he was trying to do inspireing to go create but he made the same dang video every time over and over

and over again but it was just that much different but it was always landscape and he always had the little puffy little clouds and he would always put the little you know trees in there so like for me hey Maddie really look at that and then what I would do more than anything else is ask what is the value proposition you're going to bring okay is it going to cheer up their day is it gonna is

it going to go into it for Me Maybe it's even around another genre too so like hey I love oil painting but I want to oil paint anime okay great maybe that's the whole vein I don't know man you would like hit this this uh you know pop culture thing that might bring in another audience they would just love to see what you're creating you know starts with a blank page you never know what you're going

to get out of it so love that love that okay um uh Radiology True Crimes Radiology uh okay so you have a radiologist here um a pig is struggling over low views and low retention so what would you [Music] um what would you how how would you like approach that radiology True Crime wow see that I'm already fascinated I'm like I want to watch like you know because I would think because that kind of that CSI

kind of approach so one of the ways I kind of model my videos is I try to each of my videos I kind of think as an episode of Mythbusters yep that's kind of what's in my head is what I'm trying to do so I would think Radiology True Crime is like this is like CSI you know and there are people that really like that detail that forensic detail I would think there's an audience for that

you know would really want to know okay maybe it's kind of like the legal eagle guy right yeah yeah that here's what it is in TV but here's what it really is in real life Y and especially if the real life is actually kind of Cooler you know maybe a little different than what you see on TV I mean to me that kind is that data that behind the scenes is really great stuff so let me

let me um give some different advice um so let's just use Lake as the example so Lake grew up his dad was a a race car driver been in the industry forever but if Lake would have started channel for Formula 1 racing oil uh that works uh or or NASCAR racing oil um do you think Lake you would have the response that you have currently nope why why why not too narrow okay so Radiology True Crimes

too narrow um True Crimes with a focus in on the medical uh you know the medical side and Radiology is one of those things is a little bit more broad so hey you're saying look we're going to look at True Crimes but we're going to look at Through The Eyes of a medical examiner and or a medical professional that is totally different and so there might be a whole thing where you're like hey I'm going to

prove it through radiology and I'm like okay you could do that in like literally 10 seconds and say oh this is proven right here and this is the reason why and it's through radiology and I'm like uh I I don't know if it has as much legs as hey your you're painting the picture and it's more CSI and and Radiology might be a Vain and there might be some other things that's more interesting So True Crimes

uh really through the lens of of someone that's analyzing the medical data 1,000% that would perform I think you're probably a little too uh Niche nich Niche Niche Niche down when you need to take a couple steps back and go say okay it's true crime but we're really focusing in on the medical details and that is our value proposition so that's that's the way I look at it so no I think you're you're spot on there

D because the parallel to me is the initial videos the the the first iteration of the channel was just used oil analysis yeah yeah so it was too narrow now when used oil analysis became a character it was part of the tools but we're looking broadly at at motor oil that's when it took off I think you're you're spot on with that yeah Power of trend analysis used oil sampling F1 technology for your car you have

five five 5,000 views on that one and then you have 100 400,000 when it was more of a general uh you know oil problem when should you use mobile one uh you know 40 you know whatever whatever whatever so yeah yeah that's that's exactly right exactly right so um Radiology True Crime you are coming to vidsummit okay I want to teach you uh from the stages vid Summit so I'm going to go ahead and uh reach

out to our team um either myself on on um uh I would say x uh would probably be the easiest or Instagram I took a picture my team will be looking for your email uh and we're GNA get you a ticket to vidsummit so really excited for you to come on that one there you go um um and and and I I think this great advice by K uh and Jay Lumber tell story tell stories of

how Radiology solve past crimes that's great I love that but it's more tell them how medical has proved it like I want to know DNA testing because there's a lot of people that were convicted for crimes and then 20 years later they're uh you know they didn't do the crime because of DNA evidence and so that's interesting too so love that okay um let's see uh Milan gaming where's the companion course for Ft or YT formula

can't find it on the website anymore I don't know that's a good question um I don't handle my stuff I have a team that that does it I know they were moving that over so I'm going to literally find that out and we'll get that activated in the two um where you know who Justin uh Smith is I would just ask Justin uh but I'll I'll I'll make sure we can we can go from there um

okay next one is coming in um oh we have R Swiss doctor uh coming in as a super chat um what advice would you give someone with 250,000 subs and millions of views but no earnings on the verge of quitting YouTube wow I mean that's that's surprising scenario like if you've got millions of views then I you've got to have an audience I mean so you've got to be able to connect to them I would say

you need to find some what what what can you provide to them as a product that would be valuable to them yeah because they're showing up I'm very familiar with his channel so just to give you some context it's all in Arabic and a lot of his um content is distributed in Africa and other countries that don't have a lot of adverti advertisers on it so it's very very low cpms because there's no competition on it

um and so he gets a lot of views because the demand of the value of of what he's providing um however the advertising functions not as High um but I I would say look for a way to monetize your current audience in a way that would be bring value that's very synergistic to your content so one of the things that Lake did was he has an oil Analysis company and just be because of the nature of

it people are going in deeper so for you being a doctor that is is giving natural um uh advice around nature and and so on around about uh nature healing type stuff maybe there's something laterally they can buy for a few dollars that could lead to an opportunity so I I would go that route uh for me it's like the reason why you started the channel was to help people if that's the main reason now let's

figure out how to monetize and and that's what I would do for sure so yeah my wife on her Channel she has digital products she makes patterns yeah you know and there are people that make a lot of money with digital products just selling patterns yeah yeah no I I love that I love that um let me pull in another question this is a really good one right here um Tiffany's saying what's your thoughts on the

state of vlogging in 2025 it seem seems to we have a Resurgence can it work for if a Creator is providing value answering common Avatar problems or being relatable what's your thoughts on that in my wife space there's a lot of people who are bloggers um and I guess there's been a lot of change in that I know that when Google changed the search algorithm about a year ago that caused a lot of stuff with that

and really upended some things and some for good some for bad I guess but yeah I don't I don't know that that's that's outside my wheelhouse yeah so I'll answer it um because it's not outside my willhouse um it's never gone out of style it's always been a great way to bring value I think the difference would be is how often that you're looking to connect with your audience um there was like in 2007 uh when

when YouTube started to share Revenue there's a lot of people that says oh I'm going to document my life and put it online and so it was kind of like a reality TV show for people and then and then it created this false facade of what reality is or what they're performing on camera and so there was like some loss of that um some families would coming in and showing some family things and then you has

some crazy family moments that have happened over a period of time but I would say that the value's always there the difference would be is what type of community do you want to create what type of community do you want to supp support um like like it's a style of content like like I can I know for a fact that Lake could actually start vlogging in one of his videos of saying hey I'm going over here

and we're going to do this and the community would love it it would just be a style of video that he's able to go because maybe they're they're doing some dyo testing and it would be really better you know in a vlogging format than than than the format that he does in a studio so like for me it's just more of the style my whole thing would be what type of community is there um if it's

like I Vlog my life I think you're going to need to do more than that because um people you might get some audience that that loves to see it and they want to connect and they have that however to take it one uh Notch up would be what is the other community that's around in that and and can you can you see examples is there a way that you can kind of look from there so that's

that's what I would do I would say um try to if it's self-help okay vlogging works really well answering common questions that people have vlogging works really well um being more relatable that works extremely well but what's the relatability is it to help them with their mental health is it to have them connect on something that you love I think you have to go a little bit deeper on that so um really really great question uh

another one uh Art Channel tutorials also talk about art um for neurod Divergent people how to make your better I also illustrate books and want people to buy books on Amazon should I start a next Channel okay uh a second channel uh yes I would um I I think uh what I like about Lakes uh ability is he's not saying buy my oil analysis or buy my stuff here he's not doing that um it's just more

bringing value and and then two uh having it available where people that want to go deeper will go deeper er uh but if you want you know to to divert from your value proposition to another value proposition you would be building a split audience that would be very hard to do I'm not going to lie um because if I only like these types of tutorial videos and then you talk about art over here then I'm like

maybe I only like the tutorials I don't like the other and then you're building two audiences so I would naturally skip videos you don't want that you want people to want to watch every one of your videos and so if you have different value proposition I would probably do a different channel so uh let's do one more um and then we'll give one more uh vid Summit passway how's that sound sounds good okay bus Grease Monkey

okay there you go uh what steps would you take to raise AdSense Revenue per video I have no idea how that works so if I just make video and whatever happens happens right okay yeah yeah I'll I'll take this one um look we're always looking to increase our ads okay uh Lake actually seen an increase of his ads but he probably didn't know how it happened okay okay and I want I want to teach you how

the ad system works so you have an an understanding so if you start a brand new channel you are the lowest TI of of of where YouTube's going to put ads because you you don't have any audience they don't know who that is and so when the ad fires it's just going to a general type of audience and there's no one bidding on uh their ad to be on your channel okay now the moment that you

start getting Authority and the first Authority that usually um YouTube looks at is um certain types of people so if you have like 65 plus females from the south is more valuable than just 65 plus uh male and female and the reason why uh it is from the south because there might be advertisers to say hey I only want to be uh in Nashville but I only want 65y old women uh watching my ads and so

YouTube would actually know oh here's a a you know a a channel that has videos that come out and videos that have come out that that has that specific type of demographic okay and and you're going to naturally do that because as soon as they start uh buying ads it now is in an auction and there might be somebody else that's trying to compete for the same ad dollars and so before you know it it rises

that bid so that you can do it now the other way and this is where Lake was able you can go back and look at your RPM cpms everything which is hey I want people talking about Automotive okay great that's a certain um uh dollar amount and then when it's more special I Automotive it's like oh no I'm talking about oil hey I might want to advertise to the people that want to know about oil and

I'm going on to that type of content you're going to see it raise in cpms now where Lake is at is when he's gained enough Authority in the space that someone says I want to advertise on lakes speed's Channel and I'm putting that in my ads I know he has my audience and I'm gonna do this because he is going to do that that's the moment that they're out bidding all this other stuff coming in and

that's when your RPM's raised now the only way to go higher than that is when you're getting into Google preferred okay you cannot say I want to go into Google preferred they'll say Okay join the waiting list no you they hand select certain types of channels and it's not based on audience size it's not based on views it's based on diversity of their advertising portfolio so their advertisers are looking for specific type of of content and

viewers and there there's a few people on the call I'm not going to call them out but I know that they're a part of Google preferred and and I know that they're getting anywhere between you know 19 to sometimes $80 per thousand video views okay it's a lot of freaking money when it comes to that it's even higher on some of that but I know where where this person is and so they're kind of within that

range and so ultimately YouTube isn't letting anyone advertise on it outside of their preferred list of advertisers that want to hit this main main demographic that's the easiest way uh to get in the highest ratio of of Google preferred and then two um Google preferred has tiers um there is a top tier of Google preferred and and that top tier is nuts it's when an Advertiser says I want to buy uh my ad space on this

Creator and this message and this is what I'm willing to pay and and uh Google and YouTube comes to that Creator says hey do you want it if it is it's this dollar amount so they're basically bidding saying yeah I want it or not and then that way they just they're the only ad that's being seen on that channel instead of having it be bit bit out so that's the way it works and I can tell

you uh the highest CPM I've ever seen was $1,400 uh per thousand and and they were getting uh tens of thousands of views but is a very specialized product for a specialized viewer and the average ticket item was1 million so it's like when you're buying a $100 million product that's nothing like that's droing the bucket but you're talking to the right person because nobody else would want to watch that video they don't even know what the

heck you're talking about and that's where it is and I I've seen I've heard of hire I've heard of you know 14 you know $15,000 per per uh thousand but honestly I have haven't personally seen it and I I've just heard it third party so like that's the way it is but um here's here's the thing um I really do appreciate it bus uh bus geek monkey G is that is that what it is uh you

are coming to vidsummit you'll learn all about RPM cpms we're going to do it all you got to do is reach out to me on social media uh more on X um or insta uh or my team can get your information but we'll get you a ticket uh and you can save some money there because now you're coming so uh first off I really want to thank you Lake for coming on can't wait to hear your

presentation at vidsummit October uh 7th through the 9th um any last words of wisdom like is there any last thing that you would love to give them before we go yeah I I've been thinking about this this week um in preparation for this is like you know kind of that channel jump start mentality of of you know plan execute analyze adjust I realize that you know a lot of these you know call The Banger ideas you

know that you know it's your success is probably going to be 90% iteration 10% inspiration and where that inspiration really forms is from all the trial and error that's where it comes comes from it there aren't just walk up hit a home grand slam your first time at bat you you have to be committed to doing the hard work the showing up and grinding eventually you're going to hit that moment where it does kick off but

you got to iterate and you got to grind but if you keep iterating keep grinding that it's going to click I've seen it over and over again in so many things not just on YouTube but I have seen it on YouTube but that that's really the best advice I could give to anybody and and I'd Echo it it's like my biggest Joy um in what I do here with the Creator economy is seeing it when it

clicks for creators and there's a lot of you here that are my students that have gone through Channel jump start and they're crushing it but um my my um most fulfilling moment is is what I call my my um you know my father moment it's like I'm proud of my students when they actually get it and it transforms their life in ways that they never even imagin I knew it could happen for them if they would

put in the hard work and put in the time energy and effort and really be focused right and believe it or not the first thing that I do in channel jumpstar is I we go through vision mission purpose and goal setting and the reason why I do that is because that's transformed my life and it's the most valuable information I could actually give someone in a mentorship right and so I need them to think big dream

big but also create a plan for it and then what they need to do is commit to do the system because the system works I've seen it work in every Niche including motor oil okay but um like like be honest would you even imagine the type of money that you're making right now and the opportunity because of YouTube when you first started YouTube no not at all it's is no if You' have told me I'd have

been like yeah yeah yeah yeah that's but it's like no obious when you live out one of these case studies and you're like no this is real yeah and then you realize that the case studies aren't just cherry-picked that no it happens every day yeah because people are doing this because this is an incredible platform that can change your life in ways you can't even imagine I mean I just got to say it thank you for

everyone of my viewers that that watches like the people that show up and watch my videos thank you so much and for the ones who've then gone on and and bought oil analysis and built this community of people who love tribology that didn't even know that existed two years ago I am so thankful for every single person it's great to see it but it it's also changed my life in ways I couldn't have imagined so I'm

just blessed and very thankful well I didn't tell you this either uh now that I invited you to be on stage at BSM but I got to tell you the other thing so I am rewriting the YouTube formula not in the sense of uh the information I I want to change some case studies and then and then also I want to address shorts and AI but the formula is Formula we still teach it today it works

but brother you're a case study and so I I'm like literally in the middle of it it's it'll probably be in like two weeks that I'm gon to be reaching out uh because your story needs to be told in a way that that that people need to see because like there's a lot of Brands and also um creators out there that should become their own brand uh but the moment that you decided to become the uh

motor oil geek and you became your own brand and you create that opportunity I just can't wait for people to read about it but also learn about it at vid Summit so guys thank you so much Lake I I appreciate you coming on and for the wisdom and list I learned a lot today too so I appreciate you teaching again right this is I got to spend two hours at Daryl that that's very valuable I'm just

telling you right now there we go come on now but thank you everyone we'll see you on the next one thanks everybody