546: How This Mom Built a $2 Million Business on YouTube

0:00Hey, quick thing before we jump in. If you are a business owner and YouTube isn't bringing you clients, but you don't have hours a day to fix that, this is for you. I'm running a live three-day workshop called One Video Away. Small group on Zoom, Nathan S. Wein and I are going to walk you through building one client getting video live. Not a whole channel, not going viral, just one video that turns views into leads and leads into sales. It's coming up September 15th through the 17th and it's only one hour a day because I know you're busy. The cost of the workshop is just 47 bucks, so grab your seat at myytplan.com. Again, that's myytplan.com. All right, let's get into today's episode. The more I'm nervous to hit record, the better the video does. My best videos are the ones where they're garbage quality. If you own a business, YouTube can help

1:02you get customers, but you probably don't want to spend your life filming, editing and trying to become a full-time content creator. Jenny Hansen Lane is a mom of three whose business has crossed over two million dollars and she says that some of the videos that bring her her best customers actually get the lowest views. It will often be your lowest views that bring your best students. Jenny breaks down how she's using YouTube videos to build trust, attract customers, and grow a real business without chasing views or turning every video in this major production. What does your business look like today? Like in what role does YouTube play in it? Maybe just give us like a 30,000 foot view and then I'd love to go over some details. Yeah, so every business needs a traffic source to survive. YouTube actually has the most traffic in the entire world. I've been using YouTube as a traffic source for probably five years, but it really took off three years ago when I started focusing on books. I also use Facebook meta ads as a traffic

2:04source, but the YouTube traffic is different because you're building a relationship and that leads to a lot of trust and even humor, there's just a lot of fun things where you kind of get a little family going. Okay, there's several things that I'm so stoked to talk about. Number one, can you clarify like what is the business that YouTube is supporting? Is it like, is it just books? Is there any other income streams associated with it? Yeah, that's a great question. So my background is in internet marketing. And so I learned how to create and offer many years ago and I never really thought about YouTube playing a part in that. But then when I learned about this thing called a webinar, a webinar is a transformation presentation that you take one to many people through. Your job in a webinar is to get people to like, know and trust you and then give you money in like 45 minutes. And so when I was building that webinar and producing it and selling from it, I realized,

3:06what if I could get people to like, know and trust me before that? And that was YouTube. Just spending time on YouTube where people could know I'm authentic, I appreciate vulnerability. And so from there, it made a great traffic source where people are already spending 40 minutes with me a week. Getting on a webinar call wasn't another extra step for them. Powerful. Okay. And so you kind of got your start with webinars. Like that would be the first sort of kind of content that you were making, even though it was happening in a different part of like a sales process. You were like, oh, there's something cool that's going on here. And you're like, what if this sort of stuff happened beforehand? Like, what if it happened years at the idea? Exactly. And to take it like a step further back, because I uploaded videos based off of my journey of trying to make a book profitable, my audience saw everything. They saw like, okay, I published 200 books in 30 days to see what would happen. And so from that process, like YouTube really became this

4:11source of like, I'm going to document and come what may. And so people saw that I cross six figures because I documented on YouTube. So it built social proof. So then I had all my internet marketing friends that were like, you sold six figures on Amazon KDP. Like you need to teach people. And I was like, I am on my YouTube channel. Like, no, they want to hold your hand. And so I had a friend she walked through the webinar process with me. And I made $42,000 in four days. And it changed my life. But also it showed me the power of just stepping into helping people in a deeper level. And I think that speaks to the power of YouTube. And what I learned in video ranking academy is that people want to be led. And they need someone that they trust. And so I already had the social proof. And I was just taking another level to say, let me show you how I did this step by step. My best videos are the ones where like, they're garbage quality. I'm a real person showing up.

5:19They're real things that happen to me. And there's been this new thing Nathan that's happened probably the last 90 days in my business with YouTube. Yeah. The more I'm nervous to hit record the better the video does. And I think it's just because I'm focused on vulnerability. I'm focused on like, okay, I made a mistake with my KDP book or my student lost their KDP account or something's not going well. And I have to talk about it. And oh, man, I wouldn't have ever done that. If I hadn't of just, I had a coach that was like, just do it for 30 days and see what happened. That spoke to my language, my background. I played soccer in college. I'm used to like kicking a ball a lot to see what happens. And so I needed that outsource. So YouTube has been that outsource for me of like, let's just publish and see what happens. You mentioned garbage quality. What does that mean to you? Like what were you like, walk us through your setup for this video that did over 600,000 views. Yeah. So I'm the type of girl like I've had four iPhones in my whole life and I'm like a mom of

6:23a teenager. So I'm like, and I'm a millennial. So like I change. I'm like, if it's not broken, don't touch it. So I had an iPhone 13 and I just decided, you know, I don't want to edit. I don't want to edit a YouTube video. So I just put it on a little tripod stuck in my desk and my basement and just talked about a problem that I had that I was that I had gone through. And I didn't even look at the camera. There's all these comments of people who are like, you don't even know how to film. I'm like, you're right. I didn't. And that's how I respond to comments too. So there's this newality of like being vulnerable online, but then also accepting the consequence of going viral, which like we've talked about virality a lot and Sean's talked about it a lot, but there it's a double-edged sword in terms of everyone knows that this girl made a mistake. And then the other side of that is like, you're finding people that are not a good fit for your business. And that was a good lesson for me because I have filmed 1,100 long-form videos. And I know YouTubers that have

7:29a million, you know, I just signed up for I'm going to Vid Summit next month. Like I just I'm doing these things of like, when's my big break going to come? But I'm kind of glad I didn't go viral because I have a business that YouTube is serving. Like and virality is something different. It's the entertainment niche. And I'm not that's I'm a dancing monkey for education, not for entertainment. So I recorded this video nine minutes long. I'm looking like this direction the whole time thinking that's the camera. And you know, I did plan some pattern interrupts. I have a piece of paper. I crumble up and I throw it the camera, but I don't even hit the lens because I don't know where it's at. But I'm just I'm just letting people know like I'm a real person. So that that was a really good example to me of just taking action. And you just never know what's going to hit with your audience. Now I will tell you from that video, it's very clear that I'm talking about a topic that a lot of people want more content on. For sure. So that's kind of created a pillar for me, whether I like it

8:33or not, like the YouTube is demanding me to fit that market gap of like, be vulnerable about book publishing and we'll find your people. I love it. A couple thoughts there. So the title for this video, if you're listening and you're not on the video version of the podcast, the title of this video is this copyright mistake or the copyright mistake that cost me six figures on Amazon KDP, over six and a thousand views. So I got to say, like that's a killer title, by the way. But to your point, I know you're saying like, I didn't really know what I was doing. I just turned on the camera. And I'm like, that should you that should just freed somebody listening right now in this podcast who is overthinking who was already thinking about 2027 and who's already like, what's the gear, what's the whatever. And who is like for maybe the sixth or seventh time attempting to step forward towards this thing. And what I would just want to share is like, man, rewind and listen to that because your ability to just turn on the camera to share something that's vulnerable to talk about something that's real and to just do it regardless is inspiring to me. I'd like to talk about this

9:35kind of duality that you mentioned here. You have this video that pops off and yet you have your YouTube channel that really is serving a business like you're just not trying to be a YouTuber for a YouTuber's sake. Like you have this other asset that's over here. What was the translation between this kind of viral video and like a business results? Like do you remember like, I don't know, like what were you measuring like opt-ins anything like that? Like did you see any results from that big video? Yeah. So that's a great question because I had the foundation laid for a webinar style business. I already had a link in the description to come to my free training. So I believe I had about 900 people that signed up for that free training and I'm able to take them through the webinar process and see if they're a good fit for the program. It's 997 and it was an effortless launch because people knew that I walked the walk and I talked the talk because of those videos. So once I saw that, I it was just another validation piece that

10:42this is a traffic source. There are people who will pay for my expertise and I should serve them at the best level that I can. What have you noticed? Because you've been to that video. You've been, like you said, you've over a thousand videos. But that most popular one, the biggest video that your channel's done was just a year ago. So like when you're thinking, when you see a video like that and then you also have videos on your channel that that aren't doing that that are performing, I would say very well, like tens of thousands of views. But then even you can have videos just like all of us fluctuate. You can even have like thousands, like low thousands potentially. And so you, all YouTube channels have a mixture of this. The things that are the peaks, things that are valleys and then all of us have a baseline. What have you noticed about putting out a video that does a fraction of what that big viral video did for you? Are you still noticing, like do you still have a system in place to get people into your world? Like regardless of if the video gets a whole bunch of views, have you still seen business results because you posted something? Yeah. And I would

11:43say for anyone listening that wants to use YouTube as a traffic source, it will often be your lowest views that bring your best students. And low views can be a result of really niching down into a problem that you solve. So for example, someone asks me like, I've turned on an Amazon ad and I'm not getting sales. What do I need to do? That's literally my video. What to do when you turn on an ad and you're not getting views? And I tell them like, you've got to increase the bid amount. And so those little quick wins, people are, I know they're actively trying to make money from KDP. So I want to be there BFF because I've already scaled the six figures and I can tell them all the mistakes. So I think that's an important aspect of publishing for a business is that views don't always equate to monetization in that way. I'm going to see more trolls online, but I can bless and release because of putting in the reps. And like, my favorite response just comes from Gary Vee. Like, if someone

12:48doesn't like the video, all my kids know this because I've trained them. I'm sorry, it's not for you. It's not a big deal. I'm married to my favorite person. I raise my favorite people like, I don't need the validation of someone else online to tell me that I suck. I can tell myself that I suck. So I think that's an important aspect for those of you that are like, what about the comment section? Like, it's okay. You're not for everybody. And there's a lot of power in just like embracing that. And to go like one step deeper is like, imagine you never started because you were 10 pounds heavier. Like, I feel like that after having babies. Imagine you never started because you were so worried about what other people thought of you. Like, there's so much ego wrapped up in not creating content. The quickest way to be confident is just hitting record. What would you say to that person when it comes to something like upload cadence? This is a common question. Like, what, what, how often were you uploading when you first started and when what does it look like today? If you could look

13:52at my Google search, my YouTube Google search in 2024, 2025, I was ferociously trying to be validated in terms of what if I do 1000 YouTube videos? What if I do 100 YouTube videos? And there really wasn't anyone out there that had a clear answer. And so for me, lack of clarity gave me permission to be like, okay, I'm going to be that person. Let's go see what happens when I actually publish. And so we've talked about this a little bit, but my business just crossed it crossed two million dollars in revenue. And I would significantly say it was from just making the decision to show up. So some of Jenny's lowest view videos are bringing her the best students. It's proof that you don't need a huge following or a viral hit. You actually just need the right video reaching the right people. And if you want help to build that video, you can go to myytplan.com. Again, that's my ytplan.com to learn more about one video away. It's a live event that Sean cannell and I are

14:54putting on just for you where we're going to build a client getting video together. And to be clear, this is not some generic content workshop. It's designed to give you just more ideas and more homework. We're actually going to help you build the video and then hand you our one video away system. So that you can then create a repeatable pipeline for getting your next 10 clients from YouTube in just a few hours a week that is our promise of this event. So Jenny is built trust with these simple videos with not really editing. And she's created a clear path from viewer to student. And that kind of path, that sort of bridge is what Sean and I want to help you build. Not just a lucky video, no more just winging it, but a system that you can run upload after upload to reach client after client. So again, you can head to myytplan.com to learn more. Take it start at $47 and registration is open now. So go ahead and grab your seat at myytplan.com.

15:55All right, let's go back to Jenny. I had to let go of perfection. And before I started publishing books, I was a wedding photographer for 12 years. So like I have been in a fine art space where people tear apart your craft and you have to defend it. And so I know that I'm breaking a lot of video editing rules by just uploading. I know that I'm breaking a lot of audio rules by sometimes just shooting from the hip from my camera. But if I gave myself those restraints, it would be harder. The friction to start would be harder. And so that's something that I really had to let go of. And I had a lot of friends that had like a viral video while I'm like, oh, I've filmed 20 videos and you've done one and you're ahead of me. I had to let go of that. That like, oh, it's actually not a competition. It's just between me and myself and what I said I was going to do. So I don't know if that answers your question. But I think we all have our own

16:55resistance that we have to face as part of our mindset. But then we can make a lot of excuses. And I recently took a picture, I'll have to send it to you, of my basement where I cross two million dollars. It's Cinderbock. It probably looks like a prison gel cell. There's more padding in a prison gel cell. I just threw a photography backdrop up. The video that went viral, it's just a red photography backdrop. And so like I'm actually really proud of that concrete space because it gave me their guard rails to say, this is all that I have. So it can only be up for here. And I think that's an important aspect of starting a YouTube channel. It's literally only up from here. What are you doing in these videos? Like when it comes to a call to action, you mentioned you have a link that's always in the description. What does that for lack of a better phrase? Like what does that conversion process look like for people? I love this idea of repeatable wins. And a lot of times for those that are listening that might have a paywall for content, it's kind of permission to get overdeliver in ways that you normally would charge.

18:00And so like it's not actually normal for someone that teaches people how to scale a book on Amazon to do a video about it. They would prefer maybe to be hired to teach them and get on Zoom calls. But like I'm a mama three kids. I love time freedom. My business has to serve that. And so that was my way of showing up. It's like drop your questions and I'll give you feedback. So there's this asynchronousity that's happening with my audience where even if they don't pay, they still find value in what I'm putting out. And you have to you have to get to that mindset of, wouldn't you, I've bought a YouTube course before where the YouTube channel was more valuable than what I paid. And it was very discouraging. And I will never buy from that content creator again. That lesson really helped me see, you know what? Let's let's take some of the best stuff and put

19:02it out there. So people know that I know my stuff. And then they pay for the transformation. They pay for access. But there's no reason why we can't over deliver that when it's a traffic source for us, right? So like if I'm on the corner of a street with a bunch of other people that teach books and someone drives by and I'm like, increase your bid on this thing. Like they're like, she just gave that nugget for free because in reality, I'm the one that's blessed by it because I get more views. I find my people. I'm able to help people that fills up my bucket. So if you're a business owner and you're using YouTube as a traffic source, I really do think it's important when I went back to saying be vulnerable. Sometimes it will be painful to give away free content. And that's how you know it's good. Like that's how you know it's kind of good when you're like, this should cost money. That's a good word. And if you think all of it should cost money, we got to do some ego stuff, right? Create something that belongs on YouTube to strangers that

20:06they can like no one trusts you and know that you bring value. So I think I know the answer to this. But I want to say like, so the age old advice, which I do think is slowly dying out, but some people still really cling to this is a little more old school, which is like don't give everything away. And especially as a business owner that starts to turn on a YouTube channel, starts to create content, this is something that sometimes I it's like pulling teeth if I'm working with someone as a strategist where it's like, no, no, no, like do like you give it away. Like give me your best stuff in this video so that you actually stick out from everyone else in this niche and that you actually can go get somebody a win. And I think there's this misconception that just because I if I give it all the way, no one will buy. If you found that to be true, I think it is a myth created from the dark side. And I see that I see that because name one person who gave everything away and they're homeless now. Think of your business like a bowling alley and a bowling ball. And you roll the ball down. It strikes all the pins and they all fall apart. Now look at those pins and

21:08create a piece of content based off of that that no one can ever figure it out without you. It's like, do you want to create a customer? They're almost a customer, but they can't get it without you. I would rather create a customer that can get it. And then like I want everything Jenny sells. Give it to me now. Yes. Yes. Like I would never even do that to my own children. Oh my goodness. Okay. This is the last part of tying your shoe. I'm not going to give it to you. Tell you you figure it out. Like there's just a little bit of scarcity in that that just reminds me of like let's actually give it away and see what happens. Now this comes from someone that actually has paywalls. I have little courses. I have $33 content. You know, so it's that balance of like, but I'm still willing to do a thousand videos to ask someone for $33. Do you mind if I, if we hang there for a sec? Like how do you, so you know, you, and you manage this tension really well of I'm going to, I'm going to give away game in these videos, right? Like I'm going to give people

22:11and talk to them real. I'm going to be vulnerable. I'm going to be honest about my mistakes. And I'm going to, I'm going to like share the exact things that I could charge people to learn about. I'm just share right here in the video. But then you do have this, you have these smaller offers. There's so many different words for them, right? But like a tiny offer or something 20, 30, something dollars. What's what is your for lack of better phrasing? Like what does a funnel look like for you when you're navigating this tension? Like is it where people usually start like to go front? Like if we were to like, what's the customer journey or viewer journey found you on YouTube, probably watch several of your videos, then took you up on something that you said. And is that where most people go is like, you see people going from a YouTube video to paying 30 something dollars for a lower ticket thing? Here's the data. People will say, why would I pay you for this when I can go on YouTube and get it for free? And my response is, actually, yeah, you can go to my channel. I have 1,100 free videos. This offer is for people who want to learn from someone who

23:17has sold three hundred and forty thousand dollars in book sales and want the step-by-step lifetime access to do it on their own terms. I'm still going to teach people how to put a book on Amazon on YouTube. Like I'm still going to put that on there. But people who is Tony Robbins said people pay people who pay pay attention. So there is this mechanism where transformation happens when there's some type of investment investment of time or money. And so your YouTube channels essentially just built to help prepare people for that transformation. If you can give it to them for free, then they will want to buy more from you. I've created so many different type of books, right? And so the funnel starts out at $33. If they want the templates that I used, they can upsell to that. Everything's optional. If they want to learn how I did a prompted journal with AI, I do that. I've taken YouTube videos and turned them into a course. It's called the YouTube book system. And so I, and this really came from the place. There's an author, his name's Daniel Presley. He wrote a book called 24 Assets. And one of the assets in a business is content. And so when I think about

24:24uploading, I think about each piece is a is a piece of content. And it's an asset. So how valuable do you want the asset to be that you're creating? That really changes the type of content you put out. Because if you're so stuck on like, I'm only going to give so much away because people have the penny that actually devalues the piece of content you put out. Some of the best transformation you'll get is like when people actually pay you when they're ready to do it. And so everything else is just a primer. But that book really reframed for me, even though I don't have a sellable business because I run a personal brand, it really empowered me to be like, you know what? Every video I put out is an asset for my business and all assets generate income. And so that, that really was the marker for me that like, if someone doesn't buy it, I still made 20 cents on it. And maybe in two years, it will be $2,000. But it's an asset that I'm proud of because I brought value into it. Another reason why it's really important to give value on YouTube is because the nature of YouTube.

25:27And I say that from a marketing standpoint, it's intent based. So on Facebook ads, I literally have to be a dancing monkey and interrupt people and try and convince them to give me money. Like, they're busy and it's patterned and they're like, hey, hi, who did you know Amazon can pay you for journals? On YouTube, when people are typing stuff in, they're already at another level of awareness. And when you go through levels of awareness, that is also a really smart way to create your content where you're meeting people where they you're you're coming to where they're at. And so when someone's googling something and then they find your video and it is not answered, that does not create trust. And so just remember like YouTube is intent based and people search because they want something solved. And so that's another reason why you should put more of good content on YouTube versus any other platform. That's a good word. Hey, I would love to hear about how how are you using AI? You mentioned AI a little bit earlier and it's cool how like obviously

26:31AI, these AI tools are scrubbing YouTube scrubbing YouTube videos like aware of different things. And the audience sentiment is like a real thing. And so it's no wonder that we've actually tested this about Think Media and Sean Canal too. And it's cool. There's an overwhelming positive sentiment. You know, so like that's the thing that the AI is referencing. I would like to hear more about your process though as a creator, how you're using AI. So like, are you using any tools? How does the show up in your workflow now? Yeah, so I'm getting ready to do 30 days on YouTube long form. And yeah, I've done it before. And when I had that viral video, it was number eight out of 30 that were viral. And the second biggest one was a hundred thousand and it was that same month. So I'm doing this for my business because I believe videos are assets. I'm not doing it to go viral or anything else. So my workflow is I film on ecam live because it lets me pause, it lets me share my screen. Those two aspects have wiped out editing for me.

27:35If people on my channel don't like it, I still love them. The video just might not be for them, right? So that cuts out that workflow. Once I save that, I upload them to loom because loom is free and it gives you a transcript. I then put that transcript into chat GPT and say help me come up with a description and a timestamp. And then it's done. Most recently, I downloaded the app whisper flow. It's an audio AI. And so you're able to push about in and just speak. I've been testing instead of the step of going to loom and getting a transcript quickly. I've been writing my own transcript for my own voice. Hey, this is a video about this. This is what I'm teaching. And the jury is still out because for my testing purposes, I'm going to have to do 100 videos to really get the data of if that worked. I just needed to figure out something that allowed me to go really fast. And so I literally think anyone that just heard that should test it out and

28:36you'll be able to get a video out in a day. Which I don't know people's workflow. For me, I'm like, I want six or seven. I want to see, like, and I will say the less you consume, the easier it is to create. I know we didn't talk about that. I get bogged down if I get in a doom scroll on TikTok. Oh, me too. My content sucks because I don't even feel like creating anymore. Yeah, there is who there is a real thing out in the universe that I think we can only handle so much. And so I make a rule like I create content before I do anything else. So then I know that it's done. So practical and it's so common sense, but like common sense isn't always common practice, right? That's so true. You I'd like to let's let's maybe if you don't mind, let's distill a little bit of your wisdom that you even that you do on your YouTube channel. You help people create books. You help people get published stuff on like Amazon where other people can buy it. You you you have this claim correct me from wrong, but like that you believe every YouTuber should have a book.

29:41Could you walk us through the power of someone who's listening right now, deciding to create a book next year or shoot this year? Like why should someone who has a YouTube channel write a book? I went through this experience where when you googled my name, I had like 500 videos. When you googled my name, my book came up first on Amazon and I was like what? Whoa. Like Google dismissed me as a YouTuber and then I was like, no wait, this is perfect. So Amazon, no one talks about this, but Amazon takes their SEO game incredibly serious. Like they're not Google, but they are a competitor to Google for data. So you can bet your bottom dollar that like if they want to outrank Google, they can. And they do. When you use your name or your YouTube channel and you put a piece of asset on Amazon, like a notebook or a journal, scuba dive resource, like whatever your channel is about, that elevates your channel for authority,

30:44but then you start ranking on Google. So when people type in your YouTube channel, they find a book first, like you have a listing on Amazon. So there's a lot of really really great powerful search engine optimization that can happen on Amazon to increase the authority on your YouTube channel. And unfortunately, my audience is really small when it comes to YouTubers because that course is kind of slept on. There's a couple people like this course is amazing because I take those resources and let them know like you want to establish your channel with authority, launch a book, especially because you already have the audience, right, built in. So that's a really powerful thing to use your channel on your book listing just to raise the SEO and establish more authority. That is, that makes complete sense, but you're right. I don't think I've heard that before. Okay, so what would be the simplest way that someone would step towards that? Like, I mean, I know you have like literal products that help people do this thing, but like,

31:47yeah, what's just like birds eye view? What's that? Yeah, so I would say like the most important thing for it to do, for it to work well, because there's many ways for it to happen is kind of survey your audience, your YouTube audience, like, hey, I'm thinking about having a line of journals or a step-by-step process. I'm going to put it in book format, get kind of market feedback from them. There's so many resources too with Canva, like I've given my students templates that I build in Canva and so I just give them a link. So you literally can grab a link and have your own branded fitness journal for your fitness channel. And then when you're just typing in the data, when you're adding the listing to Amazon, under the author name is where you put your YouTube channel name. You can still put your original name, you could have up to nine authors. And so once that book goes live, now you are a key word on Amazon. That means when someone is searching for your YouTube channel, oftentimes Amazon will outrank it. I had to like publish another 500 videos to outrank that link because I was like,

32:50that's more important to me to get more customers than it is for people to buy a book or whatever. Yeah, yeah. So that's a really simple thing is just taking that step to have an asset on Amazon. And you know, there's a misconception that you need to write a book. I know Sean wrote a book. It's a great book. Yeah, yeah. But like, there's all different sizes of the books. There's worksheets you can put together in book format. There's, you know, crossword puzzles. My kids did trivia books. They've made $1,000 and they're under 10 years old. There's like, there's a lot of like things you can do just to take your channel another layer deeper. Jenny, where could people hang out with you? Yeah. So my name, my brand name, Jenny Hanson Lane, any platform. I'm really focused on YouTube because I want to get that little metal of 100k subs. There we go. But I'm on Facebook. If you Google anywhere. But I will tell you like, come to my channel. Write a thoughtful question and you'll probably get a video out of it because that's where community is. Like, let's just grow together. Give me your background on your channel.

33:52Tell me how you, you know, how you want to increase authority with a book and we'll just, we'll have fun. We'll spryf and have and spin off of it. Let's go. Jenny, thank you so much for your time podcast. There's no way to get back out of this episode like, rate, share, review wherever you're watching or listening. This is the Think Media podcast. I'm Nathan S. Fine and I can't wait to connect with you in a future episode.