Zach Mitchem: 0:00

People are following you because you're solving a specific problem. They like your personality, like there's a certain value that you're giving them. And I don't know how successful it is for podcasts to have kind of that banter at the beginning, but it definitely doesn't work nearly as well on YouTube.

Dylan Schmidt: 0:13

This is the show for creative entrepreneurs who have a message to share and want to live a life of freedom. Learn how to grow your network and net worth. Hear from exciting guests and more. My name is Dylan Schmidt and Welcome to Digital Podcaster. Today, my guest is Zach Mitchum from we are video makers. Zach's main mission is helping leaders use YouTube podcasts to position themselves as an expert in their field. When I first started putting myself out there mainly on tick tock and made video content with myself like my own face in it because I'd been making like clients stuff for a while you were like one of the first actually the first people that I remember popping up in my feed regularly, your visual aesthetic stood out to me. But then like your messages stood out to me. I love how clear you make things on social media. With all that being said, welcome to the podcast

Zach Mitchem: 1:06

hack. I appreciate that diligence. And it's been good. I did I saw your stuff as well. And I wanted to start a podcast for a long time. But that wasn't as like as like, I just do video. So you helped me that way. I'm glad that the blue stuck out because I had a lot of comments like, um, is this just a bandaid on my change? And like, no, like, I changed at one time. I forgot to turn that to blue. Like, what happened? Where to go? I was like, Whoa, sorry. Okay, it's iconic. Now. I can't do anything to change. Okay,

Dylan Schmidt: 1:31

so many thoughts. One is this is the content creator in me, that always feels the need, that my background plays such a big role in what I'm doing. And I always have this desire that like I need to change the background. But I have data that supports both sides. I have data that there's plenty of creators out there who never change their background like yourself, like right, you always typically always have the blue background. And there's Josh Terry, who has a big following on tick tock and has been on the podcast and he never changes his background. But then there's a social media experts that are like, you need to change shots and all these things. Do you have any thoughts about that? I think about this way too much.

Zach Mitchem: 2:09

I think that's a great question. I don't know that I have an answer. I do have some thoughts. So first thing I when I was really growing on Tik Tok, probably why I showed up consistently for you is because you probably came in when my three month stint where I was posting three to four times a day, every single day. And I grew quick, I grew from 100 to 20,000. I was kind of goal, I wanted to see how how quickly I could grow in 90 days. But I would shoot like 30 tiktoks in the same shirt, same back same everything. And so people one comment I got was, I never knew if it was a different video or the same one. I was like, Oh, that makes sense. Like 30 videos over a week of all same shirt all same, like everything. And so it's like, okay, I get that. But the blue backgrounds become iconic, where people recognize me because of the background. I've changed my microphone. And I haven't gotten any comments about that. And I think maybe because I do content on a different microphone, here's a good one. Here's a bad one. But like, anytime the blue changes, like I changed it to red one time. Or he changed it to just white, which makes it just look a little less blue, kind of gray and blue. And I always get comments like, Hey, what happened? Why did it change my Okay, so I think if you're consistent in certain things, it puts you in this box of people's brains where they can remember, it's the same with your niche. Like, I used to be the YouTube guy. And now I'm trying to like you mentioned earlier focusing on YouTube podcasts for leaders, I don't know of another person that takes up that box, like, I'm the best because I'm only and the only person I know if that doesn't, there's probably other people, but it's so few that I'm remembered. And same with some of the elements that you use, your hair's gonna change, it'll change maybe some things on your desk. But if you have a couple of elements that can be familiar to people, and they can feel welcome. And this is something that I recognize and it's a safe place, and I can watch this content, learn and grow from it. I think that's important, but you need to figure out what those elements are. For me, it's the blue background. For you. It might be I mean, you might have like, little little figurines or something on your desk, where it's like, hey, like this is this person's video.

Dylan Schmidt: 4:09

So when it comes to like varying a background, it's not too much of a concern for you, then

Zach Mitchem: 4:14

no for me, no, I think if you change too much too often, then the person is not going to recognize you. It's why like on YouTube, I recommend find a thumbnail style that works for you. And emulate that style that it needs to be different thumbnails. But if you have a consistent style as soon as I see your thumbnail, I know Hey, this is Dylan's video, like every single time. If you're always changing it and there's not these consistent elements might you've built a lot of trust with me. Like for me anyway, I've listened to a lot of your episodes like you've built trust and then you're not building on it. You're not capitalizing on the work you've already done because there's nothing familiar or recognizable, but if I click like if I watch one of your videos, you have the background and that familiar element. Oh, I like my brain doesn't have to think too. Heart immediately I know Hey, like this is this is a video that I can recognize and know I'm going to gain value from I did a minor in psychology, there's all these little psychological elements where it's like, you don't recognize it. But if you can keep the person from thinking too hard before deciding whether or not they want to watch your content, you want to do that.

Dylan Schmidt: 5:19

I love that. I love that. It's something I don't do, because I'm constantly reinventing. Mostly because I love experimenting, you know, for one experimenting me more. So the better way of saying that would be like being creative of like, Let's do something else. Because I have so many different varied interests and things like that, which isn't the smartest approach to like branding, because I'll go like 80s. And then I'll go like a 60s design. And then I'll like, actually, let's go futuristic. What's cutting edge? Yeah. And those are like all clashing, you know. So that's interesting. So when like you're making, say, YouTube content? For example? How do you vary up what it is that's inside the video? So it doesn't feel boring? That's

Zach Mitchem: 6:00

a great question. I think YouTube is, I mean, it's like any other platform where you have to understand the psychology of your viewer, like, if you can understand, and it's not just the platform, I thought for a long time, it was just okay, if someone's on YouTube, here's what they want, here's what they're thinking. And they want a six minute video that's high paced, that really gets the point across quickly. It's like, well, that can work. But I have, I have a few YouTube channels, I've worked with a lot of clients, we have a hobby YouTube channel, and we review barbecue around Colorado. And the first video we did it was 40 minutes long, I didn't have time to edit it, we just wanted to get it out just like, hey, here's how the three of us got together, here's what this channel is gonna be about. We got a lot of comments like that was really long. But we also have, like, it's our second most viewed video, and people watch it for on average, like 15 minutes. And it's very, very slow paced. There's no high based editing or anything. But a lot of people watch that. I mean, we have over five times as many views on the videos, we have subscribers, that's like, okay, so that works. And then also my six minute video that I edited for 25 hours, that's super fast and crazy also works like it's it's not just about someone coming to YouTube, it's for this topic, what am I expecting, you know, give examples of like, if you're reviewing a pen, I do have some expensive pen. So I would watch a little longer, but like, I'm not gonna watch a 20 minute video and you're reviewing a pen, it's like, get a couple of points across read my mind, what questions would I asked three, four minutes. So I know whether or not to buy this, but you're doing a review on a camera $2,500 Camera, I want more than three or four minutes, because I'm about to spend a good amount of money. Or if you're teaching me how to build my business I want much longer, like I'll listen three, four or five hours, if you're really giving me value and you're really helping me build my business. So it's what mindset Are they coming to and that'll determine how you change things. So background maybe not as important how you paste your edits, you know, your jump, you know, zoomed in, zoom out your cuts, adding Biro whether you shoot your own, be really record things that aren't you talking or you get stock B roll, I have a couple of places that I like to get that to kind of storytelling, it's it's the pacing, it's the storytelling, but you have to understand the viewer in order to know what's appropriate, because one cut every second is what Mr. Beast does for the first couple of minutes. And his videos are really, really high paced really, really fast and really overwhelming. But they're not because they're short enough that it's like this is that's what his video is. It's a high adrenaline if I did that for a 45 minute podcast, you would be so exhausted by the time you reach the end of it. And where I can do cuts every 2030 seconds, and you're like, Okay, it's keeping it visually interesting, but I'm still getting the value.

Dylan Schmidt: 8:36

Yeah, so knowing the context for one of who your audience is what they're going to you to discover. That's an interesting way that you approach that and it makes a ton of sense. One thing that I guess I'm curious about is so you've just launched your podcast, which how has that been going by the way

Zach Mitchem: 8:55

pretty well, we're gonna have eight episodes out. I know in beginning downloads aren't usually I haven't really advertised too much we have like 120 download something like that. So it's, it's going well getting decent guests on we had Christo on have Evan Carmichael coming on a couple weeks and just kind of mixing it up with I guess the level of guests, just people I want to learn from what's

Dylan Schmidt: 9:15

been your top couple things that maybe you didn't necessarily know going into it. That's been kind of fun.

Zach Mitchem: 9:22

They don't realize how much I would like it. For one. I do a solo podcast each week as well as a guest podcast. And that first is like okay, I'll do like a half an hour because I love Graham Cochrane. I love his style. Like he doesn't do any editing. If you want to see someone that's like the same every single time. There's no editing, no change, but it's good content value. That's really what matters. And so me cutting it down to a half an hour thing I'm gonna try to plan the content better, but I can easily talk just random topics for an hour. And so I think it's that might be a little long and a little, you know, exhausting on your ears to hear one person talk for an hour without again asked me No, but I think that's interesting. I love I love podcast content. I love that type of content. And it's been for me, it's been really, really easy to get guests and even high level guests. And I have so many people reach out, like, how are you getting these people like, Well, why don't I just ask. And I have Asperger's, I've never had a problem asking people because the social cues of like, that's inappropriate, like, Well, why not? Like the worst you can say is no, like, if I get a no, that's fine, but I can't, there's no potential to get what I want, if I don't ask. So that's how my brain works. And then also, I give a lot without requiring anything or requesting anything back. So anytime someone needs help, or wants me to do a free training, things like that, I'm sure in the future, it'll be less possible. But like Christo, I've been in this group for a year, I've given a lot of free trainings in there a lot of value. And so when I asked him, it's like, well, yeah, absolutely. Okay, cool. That's all I had to do sweet. And that that's been unexpected, because I was like, I feel like this should be hard. And a lot of people act like it's hard. But I've developed a lot of skills. I think that's, that's made that easier to do. Yeah, that's

Dylan Schmidt: 11:04

something I do come across a lot of people that, you know, they're like, Well, how can I ask you, it's like, you can just ask, if you were, you know, someone trying to pick up a date that you're interested in, you know, it's like, you can't, psychically try to convince them. Like, I'm staring at it like that. That's creepy. You know, that's so cool. So it sounds like it's going awesome, then. And as far as like, from a content creation standpoint, have you found it to be less involved than creating YouTube content? or social media content? Or how's that been comparatively?

Zach Mitchem: 11:34

So my brain likes to optimize things. I like to find the best of things. And that's, I mean, I have 22 microphones right now, I'd say that a lot of contacts, I'm testing them, it's like, yeah, I didn't buy all of them. I have a lot of brands, send me them. But I'm like, Okay, I'll find the best ones. And I don't care if it was free. If I don't love it, I don't want to keep it. And so I do the same thing with platforms. It's like, okay, what am I doing, and I've heard this platform is really great. So let's focus on it for three months, see what it does, and see if there's a good potential to do what it is that I want it to do. And so it's, for podcasting, I think this is going to be something that I do long term YouTube as well, it is a lot less time intensive than a YouTube video. You know, I'm trying to do more podcasts style, short videos is what I call them, because it's 10 to 15 minutes. So if you'll sit and listen to a slower paced 10 to 15 minute video, you'll listen to an hour long podcast, typically. But if you're only there, if I have at six minutes, like I had a six minute video, I edited it for 25 hours. And it's like, if I have to do that many cuts in that much editing to keep your attention that long, you're not gonna watch my podcasts. And so I'm trying to one reduce my editing, upload. And then to really attract the type of person who wants my longer content. So it has been a reduction that way I was doing Amazon live for a while, same kind of thing. I went really hard going live for four months. And I think it went live 103 times in like three and a half months. So I learned a lot got a lot of good skills that actually transfer over to podcasts, which is good. But that was easy, because it was you went live, you couldn't edit it afterwards, once it was live as laughs was like, I love that it's so much easier instead of me hyper obsessing for 2030 hours on this short video. It's nice and same with podcasts like I, I can, you can edit more. But if you edit too much, it sounds weird. And the patient gets off. And it's like, it's really, really easy to over edit. So my brain is like, okay, you can only edit this so much just kind of take a minimal pass. And then I'll create clips out of it afterward that maybe are a little bit more edited. But again, I want that I want that pacing, I want you to want to listen to my podcast. So it's reduced a lot of the work that I don't want to do still may be doing the same amount of work, but I get more content done. And I don't have to do the stuff that I just I like but I don't love. Yeah,

Dylan Schmidt: 13:52

thank you for pointing out that about the editing difference, because oftentimes people may be new to podcasting. And I found this with myself is like, I want to make sure it's engaging. But there's engagement in the imperfections, I guess, you know, like, yeah, I edit it too much. Like you said, it just sounds unnatural. It's like, what am I listening to? Ever notice how I don't run any ads on Digital Podcaster. It's because I want you to have a great listening experience. No sponsors. This is completely self funded to do want to ask for one thing though, if you know anybody who could benefit from listening to the show, please please share it with them, message them, tag them in a post, take a screenshot of this, put it in your stories. Wherever you share your stuff with the world with people that you care about. I want to provide as much value as possible to as many podcasts as possible. So your recommendations go a long way in helping other people become better podcasters as well, which is the only reason I do this. All right. So appreciate you and let's get back to the show. I got asked you about the Amazon live thing. Can you tell me just a little bit about that.

Zach Mitchem: 14:54

So it's been around for a little while, actually and most people don't even know where to find it. It started out as like hey Ramzan, we won't have influencers, celebrities come on and talk about our products and sell them. They didn't do so well. syllabaries very busy, didn't have time to kind of do this. And so kind of sat for a little bit and they opened it up to influencers, I don't know who exactly first, but they would have live streamers Come on, just talk about products, and like, we're making sales with this. And so it's evolved. Now you do have to apply it, you can't just anybody can create an account. But it's not a huge barrier. I think it's probably different now. But when I applied, it was like 2000 subscribers on the they had four platforms, you could do tick tock, YouTube, I can't remember the other two Instagram and maybe Facebook and Twitter, I can't remember. But you apply. And if you don't get in, just apply again, like it's a human manually applying. So I've seen heard of people getting rejected with like, 20,000. But I got approved with two. So it's just kind of a, it's kind of odd. But once you get in, you can create shoppable videos, which are those videos, if you've ever sold out on Amazon and you see reviews. Above it, you see the string of videos like the not the reviews, but it kind of looks like there. You can create videos there, which if someone watches it clicks, you get Amazon commission. And then same with lives. If you go live, now they've moved it up. But if you scroll down on a page, you see this little box, if somebody's talking now and like a bunch of products next to them. Those are Amazon influencers. They're going live and you can hop in there and say, Hey, I'm thinking about buying this, can you answer my question, but it's so cool, because with YouTube, like $30 a month with Amazon, if you no commissions, it was so small. But my first month on Amazon, I didn't go live that often. I think I made like $350 And then my highest month has been like $1,600. And I've only done it for months, I've made almost $4,000. And over the four months I've been doing it I've been told my streams are much better quality than the average on there. So I mean, that might be part of it. But it's it's just another way to do content. And there's a Amazon podcast on their deal casters, they, I mean, just what we're doing now and they just do it on Amazon, they had they put a little skit not skipped but like section of their podcast show where they asked the guest. Hey, you know, you answered a couple questions before we hopped on here, they have an intake form. And you said you liked these three things from Amazon, tell us about them, like what camera do you use, they spend 510 minutes really talking about a couple of products. And then if anyone purchases anything after watching that or listening to that, they get Commission's off of it, which is awesome. So you don't have to do this QVC like, Oh, check out my, my phone or my camera, it can just be a podcast. And it can just be an add on to whatever live streaming you're doing. You do need to talk about products occasionally, like you can't just throw like streaming your games or you know, gaming something like that, like it does, they do want you to sell things. That doesn't have to be your focus, which is kind of cool. And I've never had a platform where I made $1,000 My second month on the platform just for creating content. So

Dylan Schmidt: 17:48

that's so interesting. So the videos on say, let's talk about it like this, see this microphone, this one, for example. The Shure SM seven B if I made a video about this, and I was in that program, someone looks at the SM seven B product page on Amazon, they scroll down they see my video and me making like a goofy face most of my faces, and they click that video. And then they buy the microphone. Whether or not I influenced them to make a decision or not. I get a commission of

Zach Mitchem: 18:18

that. You get the normal Amazon Commission, which is depends on the the category. I think the high end is like 6%. So it's low, but you get a lot of volume. Like I've sold maybe a quarter of a million dollars for the products on there, which is Yeah, which is absolutely crazy. And it may the reason I have so many microphones and have so much gear now as I can go to brands and say hey, last month, I sold $80,000 worth of product from Amazon, I would love to create videos on Amazon because you have competitor videos on your page, also a live stream and talk about them. And then usually ask them to let me give away one or like something like that. So that's I've gotten so much free equipment, it's not even funny, which is built my studio really nicely. Yeah. But yeah, it's it's a cool platform. It's kind of the Wild West. But if you want to practice live streaming, you already have a podcast that you live stream or something like that, I would add it, it's literally all you're doing is adding another stream destination. And make sure you focus just a little bit, maybe even at the end just be like hey, what's your favorite microphone, favorite camera? Favorite Books? Maybe you're interviewing an author or someone who really study something and is an expert just I mean, put the audio books in your carousel and talk about one or two books that they think are as important for someone trying to learn and do what they do. Yeah, I

Dylan Schmidt: 19:30

know. Yeah, I can think of a few people who that would be great for are you doing that for all of your podcasts now or is it kind of like select like sometimes you are sometimes you aren't?

Zach Mitchem: 19:40

Yeah, I think it's more select. If I'm going live on LinkedIn, like if I feel like it's one that I want to do that I am doing that now. I was doing my solo podcast episodes streamed live to Amazon, but I feel like what I want to start doing is going live maybe Wednesdays and doing like q&a for people so you can show up live ask your questions. And if that's the case, It's like, I feel like it's kind of a poor experience to not interact with the audience, especially if there are a lot of questions. And I don't like, I'm recording my podcast. And so I don't want to have this interaction where it's a distraction of, if you're listening to the audio podcast, oh, hey, Jay, like, and then I'll have to edit that out either. Like, it's just, it doesn't fit what I'm doing as well right now. But something like a q&a, like if you're doing an AMA style podcast, stream it everywhere get questions, because you will get questions on Amazon. And it'll add value that way, but I feel like it was it was good, but it was just not optimal. I'm really focusing on a plus quality content now instead of volume of content, which is a shift for me. So

Dylan Schmidt: 20:43

yeah, did people follow you on like, who was the audience? Or was it just people like, because I'm like, I never followed anybody? Yeah.

Zach Mitchem: 20:52

It's really weird how it works. If you go to amazon.com/live. That's where you can find all the lives or minus like, we are videomakers dot live, I tried to make it easy for people to find. But yeah, you can follow creators on there. And you can even set it up in the Amazon app to be notified when people go live. And so it is kind of a influencer following but your views don't really reflect your followers, I would get 1200 views with 80 followers and 2000 views of 500 followers like it's, it's really the products you're selecting, and who's happened to be shopping for what like, it's really weird. It's it is the wild west over there. But it's in that's another thing. When I talk to sponsors, you know, people I'm reaching out to I can say, hey, the podcast episode got 1500 views on Amazon. It's only gotten 10 downloads, but 1500 views on Amazon the first day like, so, it is also good. And I wasn't thinking about that one I just said to stop, so maybe I should keep going. But like my episodes have gotten like 20,000 views. Yeah. And like 95% of that is Amazon. And the rest is YouTube and podcast, like, you know, the different podcasting platforms. So yeah, that's fascinating.

Dylan Schmidt: 22:03

That is super cool, and insight that I haven't seen anywhere else. All right, so you are in the video world, and you are now also in the podcasting world. What are some of the things that you would suggest for podcasters? who are putting their content on YouTube? What are some things that they might need to be aware of that you might see other podcasters take for granted? Or that they just don't even do?

Zach Mitchem: 22:27

Yeah, I love that question. So, previous to me, starting my podcast, about 75% of my clients have been people that have video podcasts. And so I've had experience working with that I just, it took me a while to realize that I had that much experience. But for YouTube podcasts, what makes a good YouTube video works for video podcasts. And what I mean by that is if you have a countdown, like maybe you're going live and you leave a three minute countdown there, like people are gonna leave, or you're gonna watch it. Same. I mean, on your podcast, same thing, if you have a three minute silence or music people are like, Okay, what's going on? Introducing the content very quickly works really, really well with like, Hey, here's what we're talking about today. And I think the thing that doesn't work as well on YouTube, as maybe as it does on a podcast is sometimes hosts will take five or 10 minutes to kind of really get in, they'll recap things are kind of banter just like go back and forth. And that can work sometimes. But typically on YouTube, people are following you, because you're solving a specific problem. They like your personality, like there's a certain value that you're giving them. And I don't know how successful it is for podcasts to have kind of that banter at the beginning. But it definitely doesn't work nearly as well on YouTube. And so kind of still have your personality. Like don't don't be a robot. But get into what you're solving what you're teaching what what value you're giving quickly, because that's what people are used to on YouTube. Also, you do need to make sure your video quality is at least decent. You don't have to have crazy camera setup. It's nice, nice to have. You don't have to have it. You can use your smartphone. But you do need good lighting to make sure it looks decent. And you don't really have to spend a ton of money and that's that's one of the big misconceptions is people like oh, what camera should I get from a video podcasts? Like? Okay, let's back it up. Do you have a good microphone? Do you sound good? If you're already doing podcasts? I surely hope you do. But next, what's your lighting situation look like? Like What? What? Let's improve that. Because you can there's a couple of apps you can use for your smartphone, they'll turn into webcam and you can stream with that. And I had people with $4,000 Camera setups like what camera are you using? This looks so good. It's my iPhone. I didn't have time to set everything up. Like it's just you can make it look good. I teach people to have better looking better sounding videos. That's part of what I do. So that works. That's something that's helpful. So you know that I know what I'm talking about. But it's that's a misconception of like, oh, I have to have a camera or I can't do it. You don't have to you should have that as a goal. But I'll have to

Dylan Schmidt: 24:57

a strange transition. So most of the time when I have people on the show They have like, some program or service that they provide. I genuinely actually don't know. So normally want to ask people actually already know the answer to like, how can people work with you? Yeah, I actually don't know. What would you like people to do? You know, like, do you work with people? Do you just want them to like, consume your content? Listen to the podcast, do all of that move in with you crash on your couch? What would you like, you know?

Zach Mitchem: 25:21

Yeah, I appreciate that. I appreciate the compliments. Yeah, I do. I've been fighting with myself quite a bit for this lately, because I do work with clients. But typically, it's marketing agencies, fortune 500 companies like it's big clients, it's a big contracts. Now, in fact, I can't say what brand. But when the Super Bowl came out, I was able to optimize one of the ads for the Super Bowl on YouTube. So it was like, I've done some cool things, but it's their big contracts. And I really love working with people not at the very beginning, where you're like, Hey, I can't afford a camera can do this, but where you're like, I know I need to do this, I'm willing to invest. And I am driven to make this happen. But I just don't have the time to figure it out. And so I've been trying to figure out a way to scale and teach and work with those people. Because if you watch my content, you should be able to get going, like I give as much away for free as I possibly can. If you go to it's gift that we are ready makers.com that I have a 30 minute training on there where I just, I was editing it. I'm like, Man, I I could charge like 100 bucks for this, but just made it a little bit longer. And I've had so many people, they're like, Hey, why are you not charging for this? This is better than of course it paid $1,000 for, like, I just I want to help I want to give and I do want to work with people that way. But I haven't quite figured it out. I really want to make an impact I really want to help. That's why so much of my stuff is is free.

Dylan Schmidt: 26:35

And your podcast, which is newly launched, but maybe you're listening in the future where it's not literally brand new launch. But yeah, could you just share just the name and where people can find that as well?

Zach Mitchem: 26:47

Yeah, branding with video. And I do have the video version on YouTube, and its own channel branding video, and then also Spotify.

Dylan Schmidt: 26:56

Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today, Zack, I can't wait to listen to your podcasts. I can't wait to learn and grow from you. I'm going to look into the same sound stuff and make sure to check out the shownotes for all things Zack, because I think once you watch a couple of his things, you'll realize like oh, this is one of the good ones like this is this is someone you want to follow like this is someone you want on your radar. I can say that. I haven't done a full extensive background check on Zack but everything I've seen, never leads me to believe that he's he's so authentic and so awesome, and I know you'll love them. So thank you