- I had been in authority.
I had made this course about permaculture chickens.
And now I'm gonna go through a challenge
and start showing our real life.
All of a sudden we had a sick chicken
and I remember posting this video
this very early on, made me sick, made me so sick.
I had to take a nap.
The expert is not supposed to make mistakes.
It blew up, and you know what happened Tim?
That became our first viral video
and that launched our full-time career on YouTube.
(upbeat music)
- So many of us will just sit down, myself included,
we'll just sit down and we'll just be like,
"Okay, here's what you need to know.
Step one, step two, step three."
And there is a place for that on YouTube.
It's an okay way to make content
if you're just trying to go after views.
It's probably the most competitive way to get views
'cause there's a lot of other people
who are just doing the same tutorial,
how to content than you are.
But if you can take that same educational content
and wrap it in an engaging story
that don't only gives someone the right information
but delivers it in a way that actually start
to feel something and is wrapped around the core beliefs
that make people really revolve around community,
'cause the strongest communities
revolve around core beliefs.
Like shared beliefs that we have in common, right?
Not just come interests.
It is so much more powerful for your channel
and this guy does it amazingly well.
He has a homesteading channel.
His videos could easily just be about how to raise chickens
and plant a garden and he could have some success.
But instead he's doing something very different
where it is working for him to the change
of closing in on millions subscribers,
hundreds of thousands of views per video.
And he is rising above the competition
by wrapping his education in a very warming, engaging,
heartfelt stories on the education he provides.
And today I wanna dig into this with him
and hear his process for how he does that.
So people like you and I can learn from him and do the same.
- I'm Justin Rhodes from Western North Carolina,
happy family growing a lot of our own food.
We've taught and inspired millions
of people at this point to do just that.
- So when you are making some of your videos
what does that look like for you?
Are you intentionally trying to craft stories?
Especially for this person who's like, you know what,
I'm just doing Photoshop tutorials,
or I'm just teaching people how to change the alternator
in their lawnmower.
- When we came into this game
it turns out that everybody else on YouTube
at that time in homesteading was putting out instructionals.
We happened to end up being the first bloggers.
We weren't even on YouTube, as we entered it,
we weren't even really consuming it,
except find something out here and there.
You had consumed one of our first products,
permaculture chickens.
We had produced this film
and we knew that to continue growing our business
we wanted to continue growing our audience
and we wanted to nurture who we already had.
And so I was blogging.
I was blogging to do that writing and with our homesteading.
So yeah, homesteading, just like anything can be very,
can a chicken lay an egg without a rooster?
It can be very, you just wanna find the information.
But there is a lifestyle behind it.
There's a story behind that answer.
And so we started just saying,
and I had been in authority.
I had made this course about permaculture chickens
and now I'm gonna go through a challenge
and start showing our real life.
Incorporate Rebekah, incorporate the kids,
and taking blogging to the homestead level.
And our goal from the very beginning, we had two goals.
We want to make people laugh and learn.
And every single episode
we actually had an email list going into it.
And we actually sent our email list.
Our first show, our pilot show, before it ever went public.
Did you laugh?
And did you learn something?
Were the first two questions on our survey.
And they happen to do that.
- Do you feel like that's something
that any educator just like, hey,
just focus on making someone laugh and learn
'cause some people are funnier than others.
So is that something that you feel
like every educator to just take and run with?
Or like the principle of having some goals
to the content beyond education?
- It's probably gonna be personal
and I don't want somebody to try too hard
to make somebody laugh.
I mean, I don't want you to try to be a standup comedian
and come up with a bunch of terrible dead jokes
just to try to get- - yeah, some people are like
you should just stop that part right there.
- Our intention for people to laugh
isn't even me trying to make people laugh.
- So when you are going out, like through your day,
do you think like, "Okay, here's the video I'm gonna make,"
and you go make that or you're like,
"Let's just see what happens today
and then see if I can turn that into an educational."
Like what's step one that Justin Rhodes' process
for making a video?
You start with a concept or you just go through your day
and then figure out the concept at the end
or what does that look like for you?
- I do feel better the days that I can,
that we have something that could be a story
almost in and of itself, usually that's a project.
'Cause I mean on homesteading
we're milking the cow every day.
How many times can I shoot that?
How many times can I make a story of that?
But if this morning, for example,
I can see that this morning
our little project was replace these old gates
that just weren't working the way they were opening
and they weren't allowing animals to get around nicely.
And so we got ahold of some new gates
and we pulled those old gates off
and hung those new gates in.
And that is a story.
Now, if I just did that, that might be a three minutes.
It might end up being three or four minutes.
I could turn the camera on and say,
"Oh, here we got a six foot gate,
step one, step two, step three."
I can do that.
Now that would take me back to blogging
and that's just blogging, that's just not as fun.
And that you're missing a lot of the point of a story.
And I get tempted to do that Tim.
I get tempted to go out there
and just get the good bits of me hanging on this gate.
And me just looking like a champion.
But to get this gate going, we gotta get the measuring tape,
we gotta get to drill, we gotta get the bit
and it turned into a whole drama.
It's a mini drama.
I have kids, I have four kids.
And if ever I get organized, and I'm not the best,
but if I have any organizational moment,
where I did good, I put the tool back,
the problem is my kids know that.
And then they know where that tool is,
and then they'll put, they get it and put it back.
So we document it, where's this drill bit?
I had a nice drill bit.
Oh goodness, we don't know where that is.
Okay, what can we do?
We're gonna get this one drill, but it's not as long.
So it can't go all the way through the six inch posts.
So we'll have to measure on both sides and do that.
You're attempted to leave that out.
But that's the goal, that's the obstacle.
- Yeah, Justin is explaining the story
but these principles do translate
into whatever content that you're making.
Which is one who is a character.
Two, what do they want?
Three, why can't they have what they want?
And then four, and you didn't tap into this one,
in this example, but I've seen you
and others in your channel.
Is four, what's at stake
if the character doesn't get what they want?
If I don't fix this, like the cows are gonna get out,
we're going to lose them
or like they're gonna wander into the street
or they could get hit by a tractor
or lots of other things.
And so you don't really have to be interested
in permaculture and in gardening and animals and chickens
in order to start getting engaged with this type of story,
which I think is part of what's contributed to your growth
of going from like you're getting close
to a million subscribers, 800,000 or something,
last I checked.
And so I'm sure of that, probably a small portion
of those people are actually homesteaders.
But you're reaching a broader audience
'cause people are falling in love
with the stories and the characters
even though they're learning things along on the way.
- I think it comes up naturally
'cause I'm thinking about it.
I didn't have to think through my head this morning.
Oh, I should make sure I tell them,
what's gonna happen if I don't do this?
Because it naturally occurred,
we got the first gate off and now we have nothing.
So now we're like, and I said it to the camera,
now we're committed.
Now we have to get this new gate up and it's gotta work.
We gotta measure it right
or else we're not gonna have a gate here.
- Right, it's creating tension in the mind of the viewer.
Will it happen?
Will they get what he wants?
And so now the tension in the brain
of the viewer is what's holding their attention
giving you that watch time you want,
getting them to the end of your content
to hopefully click can watch another good story.
- People are learning something
they might not even know they're learning something.
It's just classic immersion learning.
- What's also happening
is they're building a perceived relationship.
In fact, last summer I had to buy a zero turn lawnmower
to take care of some stuff on our property
and I needed to change the alternator on it,
but I am not mechanically inclined.
And it took me a while to figure out
what was even wrong with in the first place.
When I did, I went on YouTube, I found the perfect video.
It was exactly undo this bolt, undo that bolt,
take this part off, this part off,
and then, and I was exactly what I needed
for my model lawn mower.
And then I watched it in reverse
and put it all back together and it was perfect.
But if you would ask me about three hours later,
like, "Hey, Tim, whose channel was that on?
Who was that guy in the video?"
I would have been like, "It was a good video
but I don't remember who that person is."
There was no relational connection that was established.
He gave me exactly the info I needed.
And, but he's forgettable.
That is a really critical piece
that a lot of educators are missing,
is they're trying to position themselves as the expert.
And that doesn't get people to emotionally engage
with you because a character,
any hero that we follow in any story,
the hero has some flaw.
They have some weakness and every single one of them
in a good story needs a guide who comes along
and equips them with that proverbial sword
that they're going to use to go finally
get the thing that they want.
And I think your business is a great example
of show your weaknesses, show your mistakes,
show your struggles, that actually is what builds the trust.
I guess people would be like,
"I'll make a transaction with Justin because I trust him
and I identify with him, he's human."
- I hope somebody can watch this and be like,
"Yeah, okay, I'll be more vulnerable, it's gonna be okay."
I was that lawnmower and guy who knew everything.
And then we got into this YouTube game
and all of a sudden we had a sick chicken.
We talked to Mr. Google Pants,
finding out this this chicken must be egg bound.
So harvest her earlier
than you might have because she's miserable.
And that was a tough decision.
We ended up putting her out of imagery and we're blogging.
This is what happened to us today.
Here's the apron wearing permaculture chicken ninja master
and a chicken dying perhaps before it should.
And I remember posting this video.
This very early on, made me sick, made me so sick.
I had to take a nap.
Why did it make me so sick?
Because apron wearing permaculture chicken ninja master
is not supposed to make mistakes.
The expert is not supposed to make mistakes.
I woke up from that nap,
way more comments than usual, thank you.
Thank you for showing that it happens to you too.
That's what it was, it blew up.
And you know what happened Tim,
that became our first viral video
and that launched our full-time career on YouTube.
- Oh, awesome.
(laughs)
- I mean that replaced average American income.
We've put the farm- - So it's from video.
- In our abundant history.
Because I was willing,
because the expert was willing to swallow his pride and show
that we're not perfect, that we don't know everything,
and we don't always have the answer.
And that video did so well, I ended up doing a sequel to it
after we knew more and could speak to that.
- That's great.
Yeah, so you're regularly showing mistakes,
you're risking vulnerability,
that's like when someone wants to follow a hero
that is what gets us to care.
So one, who's a character?
Two, what do they want?
Three, why can't they have what they want?
Four, what's at stake if they don't get what they want?
Five, who or what comes along
and helps the character do what they couldn't do before?
In your case, it was Mr. Google Pants, right?
There's someone who comes along
and helps this character and equips them.
And then six, how do they ultimately get what they want?
And that's where most people then end the story as,
"Oh, the character got what they wanted."
But you do actually number seven too, Justin,
which is really important.
The difference between a story that people like
and a story that people love, is they like a story
where the character gets what they wanted.
But they love a story where number seven,
how is the character transformed by this process?
They wanna see that transformation.
The character at the beginning was like,
"How am I gonna do this?
I'm stressed out.
I might lose my cow tonight if I don't get this gate fixed."
And at the end, they're like, "Oh, I'm satisfied."
And it's you with your wife.
And you can see that all is right in the world.
There's one thing, mistake a lot of educators make,
they think it's actually about the lawnmower
or it's actually about the thing I'm trying to teach.
But it's actually what people really want,
is to experience transformation in their own lives.
That's why they're coming to you for education
in the first place.
And that's what people will say, "Oh, he makes good videos."
The words we would put to that
is it made you feel something.
- You hitted the nail on the head.
It's about the transformation.
I didn't know it at the time.
I didn't know the art of storytelling
and I know the words for it,
but I think I remember right in that video,
it's been so long, the fat hen video,
at the end, I think Rebecca and I are sitting on the swing
just giving our best guess at what happened.
That little recap was that.
I think it was, you can see our transformation in that.
In the least you see that we're learning.
And that's the transformation.
- Wow, thank you, Justin.
I had so many good takeaways
from that conversation with Justin.
Number one, show the human side of yourself
and what you're doing,
don't make it just about the how to process
for bringing other elements outside that process as well.
Number two, he does a lot of risk vulnerability
and he's not afraid to show that he's not an expert
and sometimes does get something wrong.
And in fact, that actually increases the human connection
that people feel with him and his content
and they will with you too.
Number three, he's talked about just starting his content
in his videos straight with the desire and the obstacles
and then getting into those stakes
like as soon as possible.
Now we didn't about this with Justin in my conversation
but one thing that Justin often does
is he teases the desire and the obstacles
of the story inside his title and thumbnail.
So people are already feeling that tension.
They're already curious, that element of tension
in the brain is already there even before someone clicks.
And then when they click,
they may all get right into the story
as already right into the obstacles
that he is a character is facing.
Number four, is follow a proven storytelling structure
like Justin did to make this up.
I didn't make this up.
This has been something
that's been effectively holding people's attention
for hundreds and hundreds of years,
maybe thousands of years.
So see if you can answer those seven story questions
in order, even before you hit record on your camera,
if at all possible, if you can't at least start the process
and look for the opportunities
to record the obstacles as they pop up.
And now hopefully if you follow that framework
you'll know what to look for
and how to craft a better story
from your content as a result.
A little tip for me also
that goes a little bit beyond all of this
is to take your education and turn it into a challenge.
Instead of it just being how to build this dresser
maybe instead of make it,
my wife thinks our current dresser is really
outdated and old.
She showed me this picture
of what she wants our new dresser to look like.
And I just wanted to see if I could build it, right?
So now you know who the characters are.
The wife, there's transformation that she wants
in her bedroom or wherever this thing is.
And now you see, like, this is what the guy is trying to do.
The husband is like now you know what he wants
and he's teasing like, "I don't know if I can do this."
And now you're more curious to see how does this happen.
And you might, you'll learn how to build a dresser
in the process, but turning it
taking a normal, how to build a dresser,
and turning it into,
let me see if I can do this.
It creates a lot more intrigue,
a lot more attention to hold people's attention better.
A great example of this would be the channel,
Fix This Build That.
Justin is a great example of this too.
And just thinking about more,
like not just straight up the facts,
but how do I humanize this so that people actually connect
to me and the story that we're telling here
through our educational content.
If you wanna see more of that,
how Justin does this, there's a link to his channel
in the show notes of this podcast episode.
Go down there and click it and learn a lot from him.
I know it will blow you away
even if you're not in the farming
you're gonna learn a lot about how to crack good stories
and how to turn education into amazing
engaging stories that actually engage people
and converts in his case, my case, and other people's too,
into good transactions that grows a business as a result.