So how do you get a famous YouTuber to collaborate with you
if you just have a small channel?
Well, I guess that depends on what you consider "famous"
and who that YouTuber actually is.
In my case, it was a guy by the name of Brian G. Johnson
Brian literally wrote the book on how to growa YouTube channel.
"Tube Ritual, Volume one"
and he's respected in the YouTube community not only by his followers
but by his peers alike.
Brian is the kind of guy who gets requests all the time
to do collaborations with all sorts of people
and he works with some really well-known people in the industry like
Tubebuddy and Morning Fame
So, I am working with Nico at Morning Fame
I've had a lot of input on the Keyword Research Tool
as well as The Velocity Tab
and a lot of how morning Fame which is a tool for YoutTubers
really operates and it's so gratifying to be able to do that I also
I also work with Tubebuddy. I was contacted by Phil, the CEO
and he reached out and wanted to know if I'd like to stream on the Tubebuddy channel
and today I do a number of things with Tubebuddy. Amazing!
So how does a guy like me who barely has 500 subscribers on his channel
get a guy like Brian to say yes to a full-scale collaboration?
Well, I'll tell you how I did it.
First off, my name is Daniel.
I'm a 51 year old general contractor from the New England seacoast
I'm a single dad with a 12 year old boy and we have a channel named
Extreme Food Reviews
But that doesn't pay the bills...
this does.
I'm also a musician
...kind of.
Anybody who's ever played an instrument is a musician, I suppose... and my days of
And my days of playing professionally have long since passed.
I've always said, I'd love the music industry
if it weren't for the musicians.
In my experience, they're moody
and temperamental,
type-A personality...
egocentric...
sensitive...
delusional...
ultra-competitive
and I'm just talking about me!
I never really wanted to be any of that
All I wanted to do is to make music
I just liked making songs
I still get musical ideas a lot
and what I'll do is I'll carry my phone along with me and
and if I get an idea
I'll just sing into my phone
and in this instance
I had this idea for this musical number
and I actually sang it into my phone
*Phone recording* "We're gonna trigger the algorithm, trigger the algorithm..."
It needs work.
When I was a kid, they used to have these educational cartoons on
that were called "Schoolhouse Rock"
and they would do these short little musical numbers
that were filled with information
and I thought it would be fantastic if
I made some music
and Brian dropped some of his logic on top of it
and we could do our own version of Schoolhouse Rock.
Sort of a, "Tube-house Rock" if you will
I thought in my head that this could transfer over to YouTube.
it made sense to me
I somehow needed to convince Brian to be on board with this crazy idea.
So, the first thing I did was to ask Brian if you wanted to do a musical collaboration.
Big mistake.
Daniel first approached me about
doing the "collab". I think I told that story. I was like...
I'm not sure what you got?
He asked me to pitch it to him right then and there.
I wasn't ready to
I was not prepared properly
I don't know how good your music is
I know that sounds really complicated
He's not a musician
He didn't really know me
and I had a tiny channel on YouTube
where we ate tarantulas and hot sauce.
I know I can make my own videos
So, thank you for reaching out.
Maybe we'll do something in the future...
But right now I'm just... I don't see it.
So, it was a "No" because Daniel wasn't clear
and he didn't make it easy for me to understand like
like... what the heck
this thing was gonna be
Nothing that I was thinking in my head at this point
would make much sense to anybody but me
I needed to suss out my idea and get a proper presentation put together
if I were to have any shot at getting this thing to happen
There was a strong possibility I had already blown
You usually don't get a second chance at an opportunity
I'm not gonna take the time to figure it out
because I can already create and publish videos on my own
that grow my channel
So, you've got to be super clear
and you've got to come up with a really cool concept
for a video
I knew what I needed to do
I needed to build my song
Maybe not the whole song
but I needed to write and record just enough to show Brian what was in my head.
I was missing the single most important thing
The hook.
I had the idea but I didn't have that....
I didn't have the hook
So, armed with a drum machine and a cheap bass guitar
That still had the same strings on it from when I bought it in 1992
and a cheap acoustic guitar that I pretty much got for free
I started to work on that track
It took a while, but I came back more prepared the next time
and I decided to ask him again
Now, when he took the time
to actually make a little part of a song
when he got the chorus together
...and I dropped that chorus on him.
*Music Playing* "Trigger the algorithm..."
"Trigger the algorithm..."
"Take the advice he's givin'..."
"So you can Trigger the algorithm..."
I was sold...
BAM!!
Immediately.
"Ahhh!....What the?!"
"I just dropped the F-bomb!"
"Did you... did you make that?"
"That was the greatest thing!"
"Oh my God, that was so great!"
I got him.
That was crazy enough
but where it went from there is just insane
"What's up, rock stars!"
There is so much more to this story than I can fit in just one video
Do me a favor...
hit the subscribe button and the notification bell
and I promise you, we'll finish this conversation.
Peace.
drinking the album phone