The 1,000 true fans concept demonstrates why you don't need a ton of views and subscribers to succeed on YouTube. The key is to focus on building the right audience, not just a massive one.

The "create and hope" approach of relying on AdSense and the algorithm is unreliable. Instead, the "build and sell" approach leverages your knowledge and expertise to create products or services to sell directly to your audience.

Even a small channel with 1,000 subscribers can make more money than a large channel with 100,000 subscribers, if they have the right monetizable skill and offer. It's not about the size of your audience, but the quality of your audience.

The key steps are:

1. Identify a monetizable skill that solves a problem for your target audience.
2. Craft a specific, niche-focused offer around that skill.
3. Create highly valuable, educational content that builds trust and authority.
4. Capture email addresses and nurture those leads through consistent communication and value.

By focusing on this system, you can turn a small YouTube channel into a passive income machine, without needing millions of views or subscribers.

The build and sell approach to YouTube only works if you have something to sell. This means before you even start a YouTube channel or can start making money with a small channel, you need to have a monetizable skill.

A monetizable skill is any skill that people need and would be willing to pay for. To identify your monetizable skill, ask yourself: "What problem do I want to help people solve?"

For example, if you're into web development, you could help people build websites who don't have the skills to do it themselves. If you're into video editing, you could help YouTubers edit their videos when they don't have the time. Or if you're into email marketing, you could ghostwrite email sequences for business owners.

If you don't have a monetizable skill yet, that's okay. But you'll need to get your hands dirty, figure out what interests you, and then get really good at it so you can help people with what you've learned.

Once you know your monetizable skill, the next step is crafting your offer. Your offer is how you present what you're selling to your audience. A good offer is specific, not broad or general. The more specific you get, the easier it is to stand out and attract the right people.

To niche down your offer effectively, ask yourself three questions:

1. What specific problem do you want to solve?
2. What specific type of person do you want to solve it for?
3. In what specific and unique way are you going to solve it?

The goal is to get really specific about what you do, who you help, and how you do it. This will ensure potential clients know immediately if you're the right fit for them.

For example, your offer could evolve from "I help people attract clients on YouTube" to "I write weekly scripts that help personal finance coaches attract clients on YouTube." Going narrow is what will help you connect with more of the right people and stand out from the competition on YouTube.

There's this thing a lot of people tend to do on YouTube, and that is go on the platform and search up solutions to their problems. Like just the other day, I went on YouTube and searched up how to cook rice in a pot because my rice cooker died and I did not remember how to do it. So I had a problem, I needed an answer, and I found a video to help me. And this happens millions of times per day.

YouTube may be a video platform, but it is also the second largest search engine in the world behind Google. People are constantly going to the platform to search up things like how to lose weight or how to build a YouTube channel or whatever else they need help with. And this is great news for any small channel, because if you create videos that answer the exact questions your ideal viewers are asking, then you make it super easy for them to find your channel.

For example, if you are a Spanish tutor for busy professionals, you make it highly likely the right people will find you by making videos around searches like "how to learn business Spanish," "how to sound professional in Spanish," or "how to learn Spanish in 15 minutes per day." These hyper relevant videos essentially act as a filter, where only your ideal viewers are the ones clicking on, watching, and engaging with your videos.

And sure, these videos may get fewer views overall, but that is actually what you want, since those viewers are going to be highly targeted. And since the YouTube algorithm has one job, which is to match videos up with viewers most likely to watch them, once it recognizes only one type of person is interacting with your content, it'll send your videos out even more to similar viewers.

So to come up with hyper relevant video ideas, all you want to do is target frequently asked questions, which are the questions your ideal viewers are going to be searching up on YouTube. And it is super easy to do. You can literally use a tool like ChatGPT to help you out here. So you can just give it a prompt like "my offer is [whatever your offer is], give me 50 FAQ ideas my ideal client is asking," and then you can just turn those FAQ ideas into video topics, where every video you create becomes an entry point for the exact type of person you want to reach.

If you want to make money with a small channel, having viewers finish the majority of your videos is a non-negotiable. The thing is, if people click off your video within the first minute, they aren't getting to the part where you help them. And if people aren't getting helped, they won't trust you enough to want to buy from you.

Additionally, if people click off your video, the algorithm assumes it's a bad video and stops pushing it out to new viewers, which doesn't help. So, you need to actually make your content good. And when I say "good," I'm not talking about crazy high production content where you record with a $5,000 camera or have crazy editing.

When I say "good," I'm simply talking about the value you provide. In a nutshell, a good video translates into a super high-value video. What makes a video high-value? In-depth, clear, easy-to-understand education that inspires someone to take action and change their behavior.

For example, if you make a video on how to become more articulate and you include five steps with exercises someone can do, and someone watches that video and then actually does the thing you told them to do and becomes more articulate, then that video was super high-value. Basically, when you help someone go from A to B with your video, you build tons of trust with them, and they start to view you as someone who really knows their stuff.

By doing that over and over and over again, that viewer will start to see you as the go-to person who can help them solve their problem, which will eventually have them thinking, "Yeah, this is the person I want to work with." So, you just want to focus on creating highly valuable, highly educational videos that help your ideal viewers overcome a problem or achieve a goal, because those are the types of videos they will actually finish, and those are the types of videos that will build a ton of trust and establish you as an expert and authority.

If you are able to convince somebody to click on your video and watch the majority of it, then they are essentially holding up a big red sign that says "I need help." This means you need to find a way to keep in touch with those viewers so you can continue to nurture them until they are ready to buy, without relying on YouTube.

This comes down to getting those viewers onto your email list. Email is extremely valuable for one major reason - it's the only platform you actually own. Even if you build an audience on YouTube, you don't own those subscribers. At any time, you can be banned from the platform and lose access to your audience, or the algorithm can change and your reach can just absolutely tank.

From video one, you want to focus on building your email list. It is absolutely crucial to your success in growing an online business. There are many email software options available, such as Mailchimp or ConvertKit, that you can use to get started.

You don't want to rely on the algorithm to push out your videos to previous viewers, as it is just so uncertain and unpredictable. Instead, you want to get first-time viewers who watch a video onto your email list, and then send them an email linking your latest video every time you upload it. This way, you get to always stay in front of your audience and also skip the YouTube algorithm.

Since the people on your email list are going to be some of your most interested and engaged viewers, once you send out a new video via email, they are going to click on the video, watch it all the way through, and hopefully engage with it. This will signal to the algorithm that it's getting a ton of early engagement and will signal that it's a high-value video, thus pushing it out even more to new viewers.

But of course, emailing your latest video is the bare minimum. What really makes email valuable is the ability to keep up with your subscribers, providing value and building trust over time at a much faster rate than YouTube. On YouTube, you're probably going to be uploading just one video per week, but with email, it is super easy to provide value three to five times or more per week, helping you warm up your viewers way faster than if you've relied on YouTube alone.

To get your viewers onto your email list, you can't just say "Hey, join my email list." That doesn't work anymore. These days, people's inboxes are absolutely overflowing. You have to give them a really good reason to add to their inbox, and that starts with creating a lead magnet.

A lead magnet is a super valuable resource you offer your viewers in exchange for their email address. Think things like checklists, cheat sheets, email courses, notion templates, PDFs, and so on. The goal with a lead magnet is to solve a really specific problem for your ideal viewer, so when you offer it to them, it is an instant "hell yes, take my email."

Once you start offering a lead magnet, you will eventually start collecting emails, and you'll be able to nurture those subscribers by providing extra value beyond YouTube, which will help build more trust and establish you as an expert.

But of course, email isn't just for providing value and education. It is also for promoting your products or services. Every single email you send is an extra opportunity to make a sale. Essentially, email lets you monetize your audience even if you aren't posting on YouTube, which is really nice.

The key to making money from a small YouTube channel is to shift your mindset from a content creator chasing views to a business owner building a system. By focusing on creating highly valuable content that solves specific problems for your ideal viewers, building an email list to nurture those viewers, and promoting your own products or services, you can create a passive income machine - even with a small audience.

The four-step process outlined in this video is:

1. Identify a monetizable skill or expertise that you can offer as a product or service.
2. Create hyper-relevant video content that answers the questions your target audience is searching for.
3. Produce high-value videos that build trust and position you as an expert.
4. Capture email addresses with a lead magnet and use email to nurture relationships and drive sales.

By following this system, you can leverage the power of YouTube and email marketing to generate income, without needing millions of subscribers or views. The key is to think like a business owner, not just a content creator.