June 27, 2025 • 33 mins
In this conversation, Swavy Curly Courtney shares her journey from a passion for curly hair to becoming a successful content creator on platforms like YouTube and Instagram. She discusses the importance of niching down, overcoming fears, and building a community around her content. Courtney also delves into her monetization strategies, including AdSense, sponsorships, and digital products, while sharing her future aspirations of opening a curly hair salon. Her insights provide valuable lessons for aspiring creators on how to turn their passions into a sustainable career.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
It's incredibly easy to get inyour own head when you're doing a
(00:04):
solopreneur type venture like this.
YouTube is very only youuntil it expands out.
The biggest tip is to think aboutthe person watching your videos.
You're showing up for the personon the other side of the screen.
That's why you're here.
Hello and welcome to this week'sepisode of the YouTube Creators Hub
podcast where I sit down with wonderfulcreators each and every Friday
(00:27):
morning, and I chat with them abouttheir journey on YouTube as a creator.
Their business and everything in between.
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If you're a new listener.
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(00:49):
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(01:10):
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(01:33):
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(01:54):
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With that said, let's go ahead andjump into this week's conversation.
Hello everyone and welcometo this week's episode of the
YouTube Creators Hub podcast.
(02:15):
Dusty here.
As always, join today by Courtney.
And Courtney is a content creator,educator, and founder of the Uaee Curly.
Courtney YouTube channel and brandwhere she helps women embrace the hair.
They were fearfully and wonderfully madewith through honest, relatable education.
She empowers wavy and curly hairedwomen to build confidence in
(02:36):
their natural texture no matterwhere they are in their journey.
And Courtney's mission is to makecurl care simple, joyful, and rooted.
In Grace.
I love that.
It's a great little explanation of whatyou do now over on your YouTube channel.
The last time I checked, and I'mgonna check now, as of recording,
you had somewhere of around 185,000subscribers, is that correct?
(02:56):
That's about right.
Awesome.
And you're also over on TikTok.
You have a website, you'redoing a lot of things, so you're
doing some really cool stuff.
You've grown a great bigcommunity over there.
Courtney, how are you doing today?
I'm doing wonderful.
Thank you so much, dusty,for letting me come on today.
Really looking forward to it.
So give me the originstory of the channel.
Like how did it start?
Give me the whole thing.
(03:17):
Tell us, don't leave any stone unturned.
Absolutely.
It started with hyper fixation andannoying everyone in my personal
life because I simply could notstop talking about wavy curly
hair and how to care for curls.
I may not look like I have curls today,and that is because I am actually in
cosmetology school and the studentsget to practice on each other.
(03:38):
So I had a student practice a blowouton my hair today, but usually I
have decently wavy, curly hair.
How this all started was,is I was teaching preschool
about six to seven years ago.
I don't remember exactly because I'veslept since then and I have small
children, but there was a coworkerwho always had the perfect blowout
(04:02):
when she would come in to work atthe preschool gorgeous hair, always.
One day she came in and she had.
Ringlets, like perfect spiralcurls, and my jaw hit the floor.
I thought it was the mostbeautiful thing I'd ever seen.
And I asked her, whatcurling iron did you use?
And she very sweetly laughed at me andsaid, no, these are my natural curls.
(04:23):
And there was a whole handbookthat she had just got done reading,
and she gave me the handbook.
I became.
So interested in seeing if my ownhair was actually wavy curly, because
honestly, anytime I'd let my hairdry, naturally it looked like I'd
stuck my finger in a light socket,and that's not the look I'm going for.
(04:45):
So I started teaching myself differentstyling techniques, different
products that worked well for meand what didn't work well for me.
And I was loving talking about itto anybody who would listen and.
Very quickly.
All the people in my personal lifegot very tired of hearing about
scrunching gel into your hair.
(05:07):
So I created an Instagram account notonly to talk about this subject that I
was really interested in, but also to.
Document my own progress with getting myhair healthier, because oftentimes, wavy,
curly hair is wildly unhealthy when itis being heat styled super frequently.
(05:30):
But the more you care forit, the healthier it gets.
So I wanted to documentthat process on Instagram.
This was a long time ago, and inInstagram they didn't have video form.
Longer than 60 seconds, andit was that cute, tiny little
square and you had 60 seconds.
After a while, my curls startedto look better and better, and I
had more and more people askingme, what are you doing exactly?
(05:53):
I need to know step by step, everycritical detail of what you're doing.
So I thought, okay, I am gonna move overto YouTube, where long form content.
It's more functional and Istarted sharing long form videos.
They were terrible.
I filmed on my iPhone, resting my phoneon the side of my bathtub, edited it
(06:14):
on my phone, and just went from there.
I. So over on the Suey CurlyCourtney YouTube channel.
I'm looking at it now.
You just have 639 videos uploaded185,000 subscribers, and you have
a little campaign going rightnow where it says you're 89% of
the way to 200,000 subscribers.
(06:36):
Good for you.
That is so cool.
So you obviously didn't.
And are not just focusedsolely on YouTube.
So you are a creator that is onTikTok, that does Instagram, that has
YouTube stuff and now has a website.
So we'll certainly tackle those kindof as we continue the conversation.
I wanna ask you, when was the momentwhen you thought to yourself, okay.
(07:00):
This thing might go from just moreof a hobby or more of something I'm
really passionate about to beingsomething that could be a full-time
gig or a full-time job for you.
Do you remember when that might be?
I do.
It was when the channel gotmonetized in June of 2019.
I started uploading consistently inJanuary of that year just for funsies,
(07:22):
just for kicks and giggles to see whatwould happen, and I made a commitment
to put three long form videos up.
Per week, Monday, Wednesday, Fridayat 10:00 AM Central Standard time.
I did not know what I did not know, andthat is a very aggressive upload schedule,
but it was a schedule that I was able tomaintain for an extended period of time,
(07:42):
and I got really lucky in the beginning.
A couple of my first few videos reallygot grabbed by the YouTube algorithm.
Really got pushed well.
And that gave me an inkling of hope,but it was when the channel got
monetized in June that I was like,okay boys, we're now off to the races.
Let's go.
(08:03):
I love that.
That is such a cool story.
And just out of curiosity, I havea lot of listeners and people who
approach me weekly who ask me, howdo you handle the early phase of.
Being a creator or trying to be acreator when you have a job or you
have a family or you have things thatyou're juggling, and this isn't the only
thing you can commit time to, right?
(08:24):
Because you and I both know this, whenyou can wake up and this is what you
do, you're allowed so much more freedom.
You, you, your life just opens up.
But when you actually have another nineto five or something to do, what were
some things that you put in place to makesure that you had enough time to do the
upload schedule that you wanted to do?
Absolutely.
(08:44):
My son was very young at the time and Iwas working from home as well, so I was a
little bit spoiled in the sense that I gotto work from home and could do a meeting,
run to my bathroom, wash and style myhair, and film it, and then run back to
my computer and continue working for theday for somebody who is working and wants
(09:05):
to become a full-time content creator.
The passion is what drives it.
It's the thing that youcan't stop talking about.
You can't stop driving your friendsand coworkers crazy about, because
you keep talking about it constantly.
It's being really excited about the stuffthat you're filming that will carry you
(09:25):
through until it becomes a full-time.
Financial gig.
Yeah.
I think that oftentimes when I thinkback of that season of my life, it
was that it was the passion of knowingthat I love what I'm doing and I
would do this even if there wasn'ta paycheck on the other side of it.
(09:46):
That's an important thing, isthat you have to ask yourself.
Is this something that I would talkabout or do and not get a dime for?
Now, obviously if you're a businessand you're getting into YouTube
or creation to help promote thebusiness, that's a little different.
And that's a different story.
So we're not really talkingabout those types of people.
But yes, I love that youanswered that question that way.
(10:08):
Now you knew you were gonna talk aboutcurly hair, wavy hair, when it comes
to niching down and talking to youraudience, what did you discover about?
How important that was of knowingthat, hey, you are talking about this
one thing, even in within hair care,you're talking about curly hair.
So talk about how important youthink niching down is and talking to
(10:31):
a specific audience in demographic.
Like I said, I got real lucky that afirst few of my initial videos grabbed
really well, and I do think it'sbecause of how far niched down I was.
And at the time there weren't anyother content creators uploading
the same type of content.
(10:52):
There had been people who had doneit a few years prior, and I had
of course watched their videosand learned from them about how
to care for waves and curls, but.
When I really started pushing hardfrom January to June of 2019 there,
there wasn't anybody who was Caucasianwho had a looser curl pattern.
I don't have tight curls, looser curls,behaved so differently than tighter curls.
(11:15):
There were so many things about mycontent that were so niched down.
So yeah, it was CRI critical,and I got lucky that.
The thing that I got hyperfixated on was so niched down.
Is there something that youwish you would've known sooner?
Like looking back now that you'realmost 650 videos into this thing,
(11:38):
years into it, doing it full-time,is there something that you look back
at and you say to yourself, man, ifI just would've known that sooner,
if I just would've done that sooner?
Is there any, anything of that nature?
I was so cripplingly, scared and afraid ofsaying or doing something that was going
to make the internet mob angry at me.
(12:01):
And I didn't say a lot of things.
I didn't do a lot of videos that I wantedto do because I was scared of people.
Revolting and hating me turns out thatno matter how perfect you are, there
will always be somebody who hates you.
No matter how nice youare, how kind you are.
There will always be hate comments.
If I could go back and tell babyYouTube, Courtney something.
(12:24):
It's that the hate comments don'tmatter and the your people are gonna
find you and stick around with you.
The best thing you cando is just to bring.
The best version of yourself thatyou can, and don't water yourself
down because you're afraid.
(12:44):
How do you handle comments?
Not just negative, butjust comments in general?
Has it evolved over time and doyou answer all of them or do you
dedicate a specific amount of time?
What are your thoughts there?
Oh gosh.
I don't think I have theright answer on this one.
I'm not sure I'm doing it right.
I do my best.
As for negative comments, I. I'mvery sensitive and I have a block
(13:06):
button and I'm not afraid to use it.
So if you even remotely hurt my feelings.
Thank you.
Come again.
Actually don't blocked.
You're gone.
Yeah.
But as for other comments, peoplewho are genuinely being kind.
YouTube's gotten real niceto content creators lately,
we have automated replies.
You can click a lot of automatedreplies, and that fits like you approve.
(13:31):
Which of the replies sounds most like you?
If somebody's asking avery specific question.
I tend to answer that question asbest as I can in a YouTube comment.
I don't hit all of the comments, butI do allow myself roughly 30 minutes
a day to sit down and comb throughcomments, answer as many comments as
I can, but that's not I definitelydon't get to all the comments.
(13:54):
Where would you say youfoster the community the most?
As far as, YouTube has tried to dobetter over the past couple of years
of giving us a community tab and makingit more kind of community focused.
But sometimes the comment sectionof a YouTube video can be a void
for education creator like myself.
I use it as like a jumping off pointfor new videos and stuff like that.
(14:16):
Yes.
Where people are asking questions.
But for a creator like yourself, yeah.
You have your fans downthere commenting, but.
Oftentimes you're better served reallytaking them off site, whether it be
an email newsletter or a Facebookgroup or like a Discord server,
like what I've done over on Patreon.
There's a lot of things that you can do.
How have you fostered your community?
I. I used Instagram for that.
(14:36):
I really enjoyed doingInstagram lives in 20 20, 20 21.
And a lot of people from YouTube wouldcome over to my Instagram specifically to
sit and chat and hang out, live with me.
I tried doing lives on YouTube and didn'trealize you had to have a moderator.
(14:56):
Oops.
That was a little traumatizing.
So I don't tend to go liveon YouTube as often now.
But I was able to really foster agood community over on Instagram.
I think the thing that alsopushed that besides the live
was you Instagram stories.
People really like seeing you show upand just talk to the camera real quick.
Chatty, so that's where I fosteredthe majority of my community.
(15:20):
Do you think if someone's growinga YouTube channel already has one
that's established, do you think it'sa good idea to maybe branch out to
Instagram and give a more, I don't know.
I don't know if you would call ita more intimate place to connect
with their creator of choice, butwould you say that's a good idea?
Bad idea?
I went the other way around.
I started on Instagram andthen branched out into YouTube.
(15:41):
I don't think it could hurt.
If you have the time and theresources and the bandwidth to start
another thing, absolutely do it.
Instagram's kind of becomeits own beast at this point.
Like the quality of uploads that youhave to have is a tad bit exhausting.
It's not like it was.
Five years ago.
Five years ago, you could snap a photo andwrite a really sweet caption and people
(16:05):
would feel like they were engaging withyou and you could show up on stories.
But now the production quality ofthe video on Instagram is a lot.
Maybe something like Snapchat would be.
An option?
I'm not sure.
Sure.
I don't think it's absolutely necessary.
I think there are other betterways to do it than I am doing it.
It's just how I did it becauseof the timeframe when I started.
(16:25):
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(17:11):
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Now back to the episode.
And we all go about it different ways,but that's why I love this podcast is
'cause I can chat with people like youand we can just talk about the different
ways that we've done it and compare notes.
And it makes for a reallyinteresting conversation.
I wanna ask you now somemore technical questions.
So let's start with packaging,with thumbnail, title, description.
(17:34):
What is your process there?
Give us the details of how you create.
And optimize your packagingfor all your videos.
Usually I start with the video idea.
Every Sunday I sit down and I really.
Think through what video Iwant to do for that week.
Monday is my filming day, sothat's why I do it on Sunday.
(17:55):
I don't think I do this correctlyeither, but I tend to go video topic,
film video, edit video, then createthumbnail and come up with a title.
I know a lot of content creators havea lot more success going in reverse
order, coming up with the thumbnailconcept and the title concept, and then
filming the YouTube video afterwards.
(18:16):
I start so topic based becauseof the type of content that I
do that's how I work that flow.
Do you do all of it yourself?
And as far as the thumbnailgoes, what tools are you using?
I love Canva.
Who doesn't?
Everybody and their grandmother is usingCanva these days for YouTube thumbnails.
It's just so easy.
(18:36):
The background remover tool, the abilityto adjust different levels and color
correct and whatnot makes it really easy.
So I like Canva.
Yeah, when they released thatbackground removing tool, I don't
know, it was a couple of years ago.
I was already paying for Canvaanyways, and when they released it
I was like, I remember, 'cause Ido tutorial videos on technology.
I remember one of my more popular videosover 14, 15 years ago when I first started
(18:59):
when I was in college was how to removea background from an image on Photoshop.
It's got over like a million.
Now, maybe more than that now views.
And I was like, man, thisis just so much easier.
You just put a picture in here and boom.
It just removes the background.
So I do utilize Canva myself.
So it's it's encouraging tohear other creators do as well.
As far as the ideation, you talk aboutdoing some kind of ideation on Sunday and
(19:21):
then Monday's kind of your filming day.
What do you do as far as, where do youget your ideas from for the videos?
If you watch a few of my videos, it.
Is subtle, but you probably already know.
I am a Christian and my whole purposewith being here on the internet is
to be as helpful as humanly possible.
I want.
(19:42):
To serve the Lord by servingwomen who hate their hair.
Nobody has bad hair.
Nobody should feel like they, they suck.
Like their hair is just bad hair.
No, it's not.
It's wavy, curly, and it has very specificneeds and I wanna show up for you.
So usually sitting in church onSunday, I'm praying and asking the
(20:02):
Lord, this is your YouTube channel.
What do you wanna do with it this week?
And.
He hasn't not answered yet.
So that's how I do that.
That is awesome.
That is awesome.
As far as SEO and your website and emailnewsletters, like what are other ways
that your audience who finds you onYouTube is able to connect with you and
(20:25):
how have you enabled that I do have anewsletter, which I am terrible at using,
but usually it's just still a sweet littleemail saying, Hey, thinking about you.
I filmed this video.
Would you like to watchthis YouTube video?
Okay, great.
Bye.
I have also back in 2020,launched an online course with
(20:45):
all the minutiae of detail.
All in one place brokendown into bite-sized videos.
That made it a lot easier than tryingto search through 500 different
YouTube videos that were varyinglinks from 15 minutes to 30 minutes.
I, I took all the information and putit into a very pretty package and we had
a really nice community and that onlineplatform, but I did take that down 'cause
(21:08):
it did become a little outdated and Iwas terrible at keeping it up to date.
We have the.
Newsletter.
Let's see, what was theother part of your question?
No, that was it.
You really tackled it.
I do want to transition intomonetization and how you're
making money, so we'll do that.
But before we do that, I do wanna askyou about when Monday gets here and
it's time to film, it's recording day.
What does your process look like?
(21:28):
Can you walk us through that?
I absolutely can.
I, again, I am a mother of two smallchildren, so usually the morning is
spent wearing the children out reallynice and thoroughly so that I can
put them down for a nap and then havesome time to run into my bathroom
and wash and style my hair on camera.
That is awesome.
And as far as I, I ask youif you outsourced any of the.
(21:52):
Packaging.
Does any part of your YouTube workflowget done by someone other than you?
Or is someone in your family?
Is it all just internally done?
I do everything.
I am a horrible delegator.
So I, I do all the editing,I do all the thumbnails.
I do all the SEO and titles and tags.
I know we don't do tagsanymore, but I still do.
(22:13):
It makes me feel good to puttags on my YouTube video.
Me too.
I don't like leavingthat box empty myself.
As far as that goes,people always talk about.
Delegation and outsourcing, and I'ma big fan of it, a big proponent.
But with that said, I don't think there'sever been a easier time than now to do
it all yourself, because not only isthe equipment more budget friendly than
(22:34):
ever, we all have phones with extremely.
Great cameras.
You can get a nicelittle tripod on Amazon.
You can get some decentlighting, and if you find a good
recording space, you're good.
You're golden, you're good to go.
It's really about, the creativejuices flowing and getting the
ideas and things of that nature.
So I don't think there's ever been a lowerbarrier to entry of doing it yourself,
but I do believe someone in your.
(22:56):
Place as successful as you've been,the delegation of the things that
you hate the most, might encourageyou to have some more time.
And so that might be somethingthat you think about going forward.
Always encourage guests that come on thepodcast that, that don't do that yet.
It's hard to let go ofsomething, especially when
you know how you want it done.
And someone's never going to be ableto do it the way that you do it.
(23:16):
So completely agree with that.
Now, as far as, oh, go ahead.
Sorry.
I have worked with videoeditors in the past.
It was actually something that JimmyDonaldson said Mr. Beast, he said
that they're not gonna, I know thehardest part of YouTube is turning
over your editing to someone else.
They're gonna edit it better thanyou would have, just turn it over.
(23:36):
I have worked with editors in the past.
Unfortunately, I am not able toprepare enough to be able to work
with an editor because they needsome time to know, eat and sleep.
So the turnaround time onYouTube videos tends to be,
really fast, would be 48 hours.
I don't work that far ahead.
So I found working with video editorsto be difficult because I just couldn't.
(24:01):
Get on my game.
Yeah.
And oftentimes too, you've got togo through a few until you find the
one that is right for you as well.
So it's not just that initial conversationor relationship, it goes beyond that.
I could not agree more.
Now, as far as the way you're makingmoney, the monetization buckets,
before we talk about the amounts andthings of that nature, let's talk
about the ways that you make money fromall of your content across the web.
(24:24):
First things first.
AdSense from YouTube.
Very nice.
You have to have, I believe it's four.
Thousand.
Yep.
Watch hours.
Yep.
And a thousand subscribers.
We totally gamed that systemfor my YouTube channel.
I don't know if it actuallyworked, but we think it did.
My sweet husband found out that youcould make money on YouTube, and so
what he would do is he would actuallyopen up about 15 tabs with all my
(24:47):
videos and play them on a loop.
And it did actually push meover the 4,000 watch hours mark.
And then because.
I was now monetized.
All of a sudden YouTube grabbed mywhole channel and flung it out on to the
internet and my reach got a lot better.
So I would have to say, knowingYouTube of today, I would
(25:08):
discourage listeners to do that.
Tactic.
Back then it was probably it probablydid work and it probably did propel
Courtney in a position to whereshe was able to get monetized.
But I just don't want anyone listeningto this think that it might work
and then happen to get reprimanded.
Because I do know that some peoplea lot of folks can get disqualified
for invalid clicks and invalidtraffic and stuff like that.
(25:31):
So I don't want someonesaying that is funny to hear.
Like you, my, yourhusband really loves you.
You got a great relationship.
He did, and I'm it's such a cool thingthat does, he would do that for you.
So the AdSense is phasebucket A, what's next?
Sponsorships, because I am in avery small niche, I often get the
opportunity to work with incrediblebrands that create curly hair products.
(25:52):
And so I create sponsoredcontent for them.
I drew a very hard line of notworking with any companies that I
didn't actually like the products of.
The hard part of sponsorships, if youare a smaller creator or you're starting
to get into it, the thing that really.
I had to work through was the commentsof people getting irritated when
(26:13):
I would have sponsored content.
The thing is that the viewers don't seethe hundreds of thousands of dollars
that content creators turned down.
Anyway, so sponsored content.
I did have an online course for a while.
I don't currently have one, but I did.
Now I am selling online digital productsand product guides downloadable PDFs.
(26:36):
I also offer virtual curl coachingsessions so I can sit down with
somebody who needs help with their hairand just wants to talk face to face,
virtually about their hair texture,the products they've tried, what's
working, what's not, and sketch outa really good game plan for them.
(26:56):
I just it's so cool hearing creators talkabout their monetization methods because
it makes me so proud and thankful forthe platforms that are available to us,
like YouTube and Instagram and TikTokand places like that, because now as
an influencer or creator, whatever youwanna call it, there's so many avenues.
To think that.
You are able to digitally sit downwith a person and chat about their
(27:20):
hairstyle, and it makes them feel good,and it allows you to make some money for
your time, is just such a cool thing.
Now as far as the amount of moneythat you're able to make I know you
can't tell me exactly what it wouldbe, but with everything total, what
are you able to make as far as likeon average for a monthly income?
Yeah, there was one more revenuestream that I did forget to mention.
Oh yeah, sure.
(27:40):
It's similar to sponsored content, butit's also affiliate links and commissions.
So a brand will give me atrackable link and a coupon
code specific to me, and I get.
Commission from every purchasefrom that code being used.
And if you have enough goodrelationships with brands, that can
actually become a sizable income.
(28:02):
I also make sure to use monetizable linksanytime I talk about a product in a video.
YouTube's affiliateprogram is really good.
It just launched fairly recently,but if you link a product through
YouTube, the commissions tend to be.
Wonderful.
They're not the two to 3% commissionsthat we were getting from Amazon.
(28:23):
They're like 10 to 12 regularlythat I have been seeing.
Love that.
Yeah.
Yeah, the YouTube shopping programis really good in the way that you're
able to, they're, they partnered withmultiple retailers to allow creators to
do that, so that's, you're exactly right.
But as far as with all ofthose added together, what
might you average in a month?
I have a personal goal of hitting$10,000 a month, and I usually hit that.
(28:49):
Yeah.
That's awesome.
It's nothing crazy.
It's I tell you, there's peoplewho've got mad at statements like
that when I'll have guests on andthey'll say I make 25 grand a month.
And then the guest will just casually say,they'll just say, that's not that much.
And then I'll have angrycomments, mad at me.
They're like, oh man, where I'm from.
The, this X amount of dollars.
So it's just amazing that creatorsare able to do that, and you and I
(29:11):
obviously are thankful for that, that,that are able to make money from videos
and podcasts and the different thingsthat we do to bring value to the people
that are in our specific audience.
Which is a really cool and unique thingthat we get to do as far as go ahead.
The viewers, I totally understandwhat, where people are coming from
with hearing a number like thatand then somebody dismissing it by
(29:33):
saying it's not really that much.
It's 'cause there are alwayscontent creators that are knocking
it outta the park, quadruplingthe number that we just said.
Also, there are aspects of runninga business behind the scenes.
So while that does sound like adeliciously high number, you've
got taxes, you've got businessexpenses, there's things that.
(29:55):
Drastically reduce that number,that make it more like a oh,
that's like a normal living.
Yeah.
Yeah.
People just don't, they don'tthink about that though.
They don't think that, yeah that'swhat you may make in a month, but
then after everything's taken outit's, it sounds a little more re not
reasonable, but it sounds a littlelower than even what we're saying now.
So I just appreciate you being honestwith me and I ask you all fair.
(30:16):
If we could discuss that.
And so I just really appreciate that.
As far as your channelgoes, what's next for you?
What are you looking to do in the future?
To grow the channel andjust grow your brand?
I am so excited because of YouTube.
I'm actually getting topursue a lifelong dream.
I am in cosmetology school atthe moment, and I plan on, I.
(30:38):
Opening up a curly hairsalon in my hometown.
I live in sweet little oldWest Texas and there is not a
curly hair specific salon here.
While those are getting in popularityacross the country, we don't have one.
And you know what?
We need one.
So I am actually going to cosmetologyschool and we'll be documenting some of
(30:59):
that on the YouTube channel for fun, butalso just sharing more tips and tricks.
On how to care forcurls on a head of hair.
That is not my own.
That is so cool.
I can't wait for you to open that.
That's gonna be so neat to hearthe origin story from YouTube as
a creator and now you're gettingyour own store after school.
That's so cool.
As far as a final question I wantto ask you, there's people who
(31:23):
are listening to this along thejourney that haven't even started.
They've just startedtheir creator journey.
They're trying to grow a channel.
They're trying to monetize andmake money from their content.
What would be your partingwords to these people listening?
What would you say to them?
It's incredibly easy to get inyour own head when you're doing a
(31:44):
solopreneur type venture like this.
YouTube is very only youuntil it expands out.
The biggest tip is to think aboutthe person watching your videos.
You're showing up for the personon the other side of the screen.
That's why you're here.
That's why you're even able todo this because of the people who
choose to watch that show up and maketheir day better, make their life
(32:07):
easier, show up with a service heart.
And I think that'll carry you alot further than anything else.
Very well said guys.
You can go check out Courtney'sYouTube channel over at Sue.
Be Curly Courtney.
And that's Courtney with a c. Andhopefully you might could assist her
in her pathway to 200,000 subscribersthat she is so close to getting.
(32:31):
Courtney, thank you so much for joining usthis week and we'll talk to you next time.
Thanks Dusty.
And that's a wrap on this week's sessionof the YouTube, a Creator Hub podcast.
Thanks for sticking aroundfor this conversation.
Don't forget, there's a few differentways you can connect with us.
I offer one-on-one YouTube coaching.
We have a mastermind groupthat gets you basically you the
ability to rub elbows with othercreators all throughout the week.
(32:51):
Mastermind calls exclusive.
Podcast recordings, five to 10 bucks.
Check that out as well.
And then now we areoffering channel audits.
If you're looking for a inexpensiveway to get another set of eyes on your
YouTube channel, I record 15 minutevideo reviews and audits of your channel.
You can do it all throughout the process.
You'll see a link in the shownotes called Channel reviews.
(33:11):
Check that out.
It's a new thing that we're offering andwe're also working on our new cohort.
That's something that's gonnabe coming around the line.
And if you're looking to be a partof a cohort, which is a weekly.
Mastermind or hour and a halflike call with other creators.
I'm working on gettingthat out the door as well.
Don't forget to subscribe toour email newsletter to be
notified when that goes live.
(33:32):
Thank you all for everything that you do.
All the listens, all the downloads,all the positive reviews, and
you know what, any feedback.
And with that said,we'll see you next week.
It's incredibly easy to get inyour own head when you're doing a
(00:04):
solopreneur type venture like this.
YouTube is very only youuntil it expands out.
The biggest tip is to think aboutthe person watching your videos.
You're showing up for the personon the other side of the screen.
That's why you're here.
Hello and welcome to this week'sepisode of the YouTube Creators Hub
podcast where I sit down with wonderfulcreators each and every Friday
(00:27):
morning, and I chat with them abouttheir journey on YouTube as a creator.
Their business and everything in between.
So welcome back if you are alongtime listener and welcome.
If you're a new listener.
We're receiving a lot of newlistens lately and downloads,
and I really appreciate that.
We don't have any sponsors for this show.
We're just supported byour listeners like you.
A couple of things wehave to offer for you.
(00:49):
I do offer one-on-one YouTube coaching,so if you're looking for a coach to
walk alongside you, I do offer that.
I do that all throughout the weekand I have a few slots available,
so if you're interested in that,check the links out down below.
The Best Bang for Your Buck thoughmight be our creator's community
over on our Discord server for fiveto $10, you get access to exclusive
(01:10):
private podcast recordings eachand every week that I record my.
Self.
You also get access to ourmonthly mastermind calls,
the private discord server.
Just the overall ability to rub elbowswith other creators all throughout
the week and bounce ideas off of eachother is worth the five to $10 alone.
So go check that out if you haven't.
Already.
And then we have a email newslettercalled The Entrepreneurs Minute,
(01:33):
where it's a behind the scenes lookof things that I recommend, whether
they be tools, websites, books,resources, whatever they may be.
And a little bit aboutwhat's going on in my life.
So if you're looking to followan entrepreneur and the journey
they're on, I will not spam youremail inbox once a week on Friday.
Go check that out if you haven't already.
So with that said, don'tforget to subscribe.
That way you get notified everyFriday when we go live with a new
(01:54):
episode, wherever and however youeither listen or watch to, this
podcast, you can do it on any.
Of the audio outlets out there,like Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google
Podcast, and then you can watch usover on our YouTube channel as well.
With that said, let's go ahead andjump into this week's conversation.
Hello everyone and welcometo this week's episode of the
YouTube Creators Hub podcast.
(02:15):
Dusty here.
As always, join today by Courtney.
And Courtney is a content creator,educator, and founder of the Uaee Curly.
Courtney YouTube channel and brandwhere she helps women embrace the hair.
They were fearfully and wonderfully madewith through honest, relatable education.
She empowers wavy and curly hairedwomen to build confidence in
(02:36):
their natural texture no matterwhere they are in their journey.
And Courtney's mission is to makecurl care simple, joyful, and rooted.
In Grace.
I love that.
It's a great little explanation of whatyou do now over on your YouTube channel.
The last time I checked, and I'mgonna check now, as of recording,
you had somewhere of around 185,000subscribers, is that correct?
(02:56):
That's about right.
Awesome.
And you're also over on TikTok.
You have a website, you'redoing a lot of things, so you're
doing some really cool stuff.
You've grown a great bigcommunity over there.
Courtney, how are you doing today?
I'm doing wonderful.
Thank you so much, dusty,for letting me come on today.
Really looking forward to it.
So give me the originstory of the channel.
Like how did it start?
Give me the whole thing.
(03:17):
Tell us, don't leave any stone unturned.
Absolutely.
It started with hyper fixation andannoying everyone in my personal
life because I simply could notstop talking about wavy curly
hair and how to care for curls.
I may not look like I have curls today,and that is because I am actually in
cosmetology school and the studentsget to practice on each other.
(03:38):
So I had a student practice a blowouton my hair today, but usually I
have decently wavy, curly hair.
How this all started was,is I was teaching preschool
about six to seven years ago.
I don't remember exactly because I'veslept since then and I have small
children, but there was a coworkerwho always had the perfect blowout
(04:02):
when she would come in to work atthe preschool gorgeous hair, always.
One day she came in and she had.
Ringlets, like perfect spiralcurls, and my jaw hit the floor.
I thought it was the mostbeautiful thing I'd ever seen.
And I asked her, whatcurling iron did you use?
And she very sweetly laughed at me andsaid, no, these are my natural curls.
(04:23):
And there was a whole handbookthat she had just got done reading,
and she gave me the handbook.
I became.
So interested in seeing if my ownhair was actually wavy curly, because
honestly, anytime I'd let my hairdry, naturally it looked like I'd
stuck my finger in a light socket,and that's not the look I'm going for.
(04:45):
So I started teaching myself differentstyling techniques, different
products that worked well for meand what didn't work well for me.
And I was loving talking about itto anybody who would listen and.
Very quickly.
All the people in my personal lifegot very tired of hearing about
scrunching gel into your hair.
(05:07):
So I created an Instagram account notonly to talk about this subject that I
was really interested in, but also to.
Document my own progress with getting myhair healthier, because oftentimes, wavy,
curly hair is wildly unhealthy when itis being heat styled super frequently.
(05:30):
But the more you care forit, the healthier it gets.
So I wanted to documentthat process on Instagram.
This was a long time ago, and inInstagram they didn't have video form.
Longer than 60 seconds, andit was that cute, tiny little
square and you had 60 seconds.
After a while, my curls startedto look better and better, and I
had more and more people askingme, what are you doing exactly?
(05:53):
I need to know step by step, everycritical detail of what you're doing.
So I thought, okay, I am gonna move overto YouTube, where long form content.
It's more functional and Istarted sharing long form videos.
They were terrible.
I filmed on my iPhone, resting my phoneon the side of my bathtub, edited it
(06:14):
on my phone, and just went from there.
I. So over on the Suey CurlyCourtney YouTube channel.
I'm looking at it now.
You just have 639 videos uploaded185,000 subscribers, and you have
a little campaign going rightnow where it says you're 89% of
the way to 200,000 subscribers.
(06:36):
Good for you.
That is so cool.
So you obviously didn't.
And are not just focusedsolely on YouTube.
So you are a creator that is onTikTok, that does Instagram, that has
YouTube stuff and now has a website.
So we'll certainly tackle those kindof as we continue the conversation.
I wanna ask you, when was the momentwhen you thought to yourself, okay.
(07:00):
This thing might go from just moreof a hobby or more of something I'm
really passionate about to beingsomething that could be a full-time
gig or a full-time job for you.
Do you remember when that might be?
I do.
It was when the channel gotmonetized in June of 2019.
I started uploading consistently inJanuary of that year just for funsies,
(07:22):
just for kicks and giggles to see whatwould happen, and I made a commitment
to put three long form videos up.
Per week, Monday, Wednesday, Fridayat 10:00 AM Central Standard time.
I did not know what I did not know, andthat is a very aggressive upload schedule,
but it was a schedule that I was able tomaintain for an extended period of time,
(07:42):
and I got really lucky in the beginning.
A couple of my first few videos reallygot grabbed by the YouTube algorithm.
Really got pushed well.
And that gave me an inkling of hope,but it was when the channel got
monetized in June that I was like,okay boys, we're now off to the races.
Let's go.
(08:03):
I love that.
That is such a cool story.
And just out of curiosity, I havea lot of listeners and people who
approach me weekly who ask me, howdo you handle the early phase of.
Being a creator or trying to be acreator when you have a job or you
have a family or you have things thatyou're juggling, and this isn't the only
thing you can commit time to, right?
(08:24):
Because you and I both know this, whenyou can wake up and this is what you
do, you're allowed so much more freedom.
You, you, your life just opens up.
But when you actually have another nineto five or something to do, what were
some things that you put in place to makesure that you had enough time to do the
upload schedule that you wanted to do?
Absolutely.
(08:44):
My son was very young at the time and Iwas working from home as well, so I was a
little bit spoiled in the sense that I gotto work from home and could do a meeting,
run to my bathroom, wash and style myhair, and film it, and then run back to
my computer and continue working for theday for somebody who is working and wants
(09:05):
to become a full-time content creator.
The passion is what drives it.
It's the thing that youcan't stop talking about.
You can't stop driving your friendsand coworkers crazy about, because
you keep talking about it constantly.
It's being really excited about the stuffthat you're filming that will carry you
(09:25):
through until it becomes a full-time.
Financial gig.
Yeah.
I think that oftentimes when I thinkback of that season of my life, it
was that it was the passion of knowingthat I love what I'm doing and I
would do this even if there wasn'ta paycheck on the other side of it.
(09:46):
That's an important thing, isthat you have to ask yourself.
Is this something that I would talkabout or do and not get a dime for?
Now, obviously if you're a businessand you're getting into YouTube
or creation to help promote thebusiness, that's a little different.
And that's a different story.
So we're not really talkingabout those types of people.
But yes, I love that youanswered that question that way.
(10:08):
Now you knew you were gonna talk aboutcurly hair, wavy hair, when it comes
to niching down and talking to youraudience, what did you discover about?
How important that was of knowingthat, hey, you are talking about this
one thing, even in within hair care,you're talking about curly hair.
So talk about how important youthink niching down is and talking to
(10:31):
a specific audience in demographic.
Like I said, I got real lucky that afirst few of my initial videos grabbed
really well, and I do think it'sbecause of how far niched down I was.
And at the time there weren't anyother content creators uploading
the same type of content.
(10:52):
There had been people who had doneit a few years prior, and I had
of course watched their videosand learned from them about how
to care for waves and curls, but.
When I really started pushing hardfrom January to June of 2019 there,
there wasn't anybody who was Caucasianwho had a looser curl pattern.
I don't have tight curls, looser curls,behaved so differently than tighter curls.
(11:15):
There were so many things about mycontent that were so niched down.
So yeah, it was CRI critical,and I got lucky that.
The thing that I got hyperfixated on was so niched down.
Is there something that youwish you would've known sooner?
Like looking back now that you'realmost 650 videos into this thing,
(11:38):
years into it, doing it full-time,is there something that you look back
at and you say to yourself, man, ifI just would've known that sooner,
if I just would've done that sooner?
Is there any, anything of that nature?
I was so cripplingly, scared and afraid ofsaying or doing something that was going
to make the internet mob angry at me.
(12:01):
And I didn't say a lot of things.
I didn't do a lot of videos that I wantedto do because I was scared of people.
Revolting and hating me turns out thatno matter how perfect you are, there
will always be somebody who hates you.
No matter how nice youare, how kind you are.
There will always be hate comments.
If I could go back and tell babyYouTube, Courtney something.
(12:24):
It's that the hate comments don'tmatter and the your people are gonna
find you and stick around with you.
The best thing you cando is just to bring.
The best version of yourself thatyou can, and don't water yourself
down because you're afraid.
(12:44):
How do you handle comments?
Not just negative, butjust comments in general?
Has it evolved over time and doyou answer all of them or do you
dedicate a specific amount of time?
What are your thoughts there?
Oh gosh.
I don't think I have theright answer on this one.
I'm not sure I'm doing it right.
I do my best.
As for negative comments, I. I'mvery sensitive and I have a block
(13:06):
button and I'm not afraid to use it.
So if you even remotely hurt my feelings.
Thank you.
Come again.
Actually don't blocked.
You're gone.
Yeah.
But as for other comments, peoplewho are genuinely being kind.
YouTube's gotten real niceto content creators lately,
we have automated replies.
You can click a lot of automatedreplies, and that fits like you approve.
(13:31):
Which of the replies sounds most like you?
If somebody's asking avery specific question.
I tend to answer that question asbest as I can in a YouTube comment.
I don't hit all of the comments, butI do allow myself roughly 30 minutes
a day to sit down and comb throughcomments, answer as many comments as
I can, but that's not I definitelydon't get to all the comments.
(13:54):
Where would you say youfoster the community the most?
As far as, YouTube has tried to dobetter over the past couple of years
of giving us a community tab and makingit more kind of community focused.
But sometimes the comment sectionof a YouTube video can be a void
for education creator like myself.
I use it as like a jumping off pointfor new videos and stuff like that.
(14:16):
Yes.
Where people are asking questions.
But for a creator like yourself, yeah.
You have your fans downthere commenting, but.
Oftentimes you're better served reallytaking them off site, whether it be
an email newsletter or a Facebookgroup or like a Discord server,
like what I've done over on Patreon.
There's a lot of things that you can do.
How have you fostered your community?
I. I used Instagram for that.
(14:36):
I really enjoyed doingInstagram lives in 20 20, 20 21.
And a lot of people from YouTube wouldcome over to my Instagram specifically to
sit and chat and hang out, live with me.
I tried doing lives on YouTube and didn'trealize you had to have a moderator.
(14:56):
Oops.
That was a little traumatizing.
So I don't tend to go liveon YouTube as often now.
But I was able to really foster agood community over on Instagram.
I think the thing that alsopushed that besides the live
was you Instagram stories.
People really like seeing you show upand just talk to the camera real quick.
Chatty, so that's where I fosteredthe majority of my community.
(15:20):
Do you think if someone's growinga YouTube channel already has one
that's established, do you think it'sa good idea to maybe branch out to
Instagram and give a more, I don't know.
I don't know if you would call ita more intimate place to connect
with their creator of choice, butwould you say that's a good idea?
Bad idea?
I went the other way around.
I started on Instagram andthen branched out into YouTube.
(15:41):
I don't think it could hurt.
If you have the time and theresources and the bandwidth to start
another thing, absolutely do it.
Instagram's kind of becomeits own beast at this point.
Like the quality of uploads that youhave to have is a tad bit exhausting.
It's not like it was.
Five years ago.
Five years ago, you could snap a photo andwrite a really sweet caption and people
(16:05):
would feel like they were engaging withyou and you could show up on stories.
But now the production quality ofthe video on Instagram is a lot.
Maybe something like Snapchat would be.
An option?
I'm not sure.
Sure.
I don't think it's absolutely necessary.
I think there are other betterways to do it than I am doing it.
It's just how I did it becauseof the timeframe when I started.
(16:25):
Alright guys.
I interrupt the podcast episode thisweek to tell you about a new thing
that I have to offer all creators.
I'm doing channel audits now.
They're 15 minute recordedvideos that I provide to you.
You purchase the order and I goto your channel and I do an audit.
Of your channel.
I watch a couple videos.
I look at your channel homepage, yourdescription, all of the different things.
(16:49):
So think of it as a channel review.
So if you're looking for a channel review,there will be a link in the show notes.
Very 50 bucks gets you one of these.
Think it's very inexpensive and itcould get you started or may lead into
something, whether it be YouTube coachingor down the line, figuring out something
that you never would have seen yourself.
So if you're looking for another set ofeyes on your YouTube channel for a very.
(17:11):
Good price.
Go check that out now.
It'll be under the channelreview section in the show notes.
Now back to the episode.
And we all go about it different ways,but that's why I love this podcast is
'cause I can chat with people like youand we can just talk about the different
ways that we've done it and compare notes.
And it makes for a reallyinteresting conversation.
I wanna ask you now somemore technical questions.
So let's start with packaging,with thumbnail, title, description.
(17:34):
What is your process there?
Give us the details of how you create.
And optimize your packagingfor all your videos.
Usually I start with the video idea.
Every Sunday I sit down and I really.
Think through what video Iwant to do for that week.
Monday is my filming day, sothat's why I do it on Sunday.
(17:55):
I don't think I do this correctlyeither, but I tend to go video topic,
film video, edit video, then createthumbnail and come up with a title.
I know a lot of content creators havea lot more success going in reverse
order, coming up with the thumbnailconcept and the title concept, and then
filming the YouTube video afterwards.
(18:16):
I start so topic based becauseof the type of content that I
do that's how I work that flow.
Do you do all of it yourself?
And as far as the thumbnailgoes, what tools are you using?
I love Canva.
Who doesn't?
Everybody and their grandmother is usingCanva these days for YouTube thumbnails.
It's just so easy.
(18:36):
The background remover tool, the abilityto adjust different levels and color
correct and whatnot makes it really easy.
So I like Canva.
Yeah, when they released thatbackground removing tool, I don't
know, it was a couple of years ago.
I was already paying for Canvaanyways, and when they released it
I was like, I remember, 'cause Ido tutorial videos on technology.
I remember one of my more popular videosover 14, 15 years ago when I first started
(18:59):
when I was in college was how to removea background from an image on Photoshop.
It's got over like a million.
Now, maybe more than that now views.
And I was like, man, thisis just so much easier.
You just put a picture in here and boom.
It just removes the background.
So I do utilize Canva myself.
So it's it's encouraging tohear other creators do as well.
As far as the ideation, you talk aboutdoing some kind of ideation on Sunday and
(19:21):
then Monday's kind of your filming day.
What do you do as far as, where do youget your ideas from for the videos?
If you watch a few of my videos, it.
Is subtle, but you probably already know.
I am a Christian and my whole purposewith being here on the internet is
to be as helpful as humanly possible.
I want.
(19:42):
To serve the Lord by servingwomen who hate their hair.
Nobody has bad hair.
Nobody should feel like they, they suck.
Like their hair is just bad hair.
No, it's not.
It's wavy, curly, and it has very specificneeds and I wanna show up for you.
So usually sitting in church onSunday, I'm praying and asking the
(20:02):
Lord, this is your YouTube channel.
What do you wanna do with it this week?
And.
He hasn't not answered yet.
So that's how I do that.
That is awesome.
That is awesome.
As far as SEO and your website and emailnewsletters, like what are other ways
that your audience who finds you onYouTube is able to connect with you and
(20:25):
how have you enabled that I do have anewsletter, which I am terrible at using,
but usually it's just still a sweet littleemail saying, Hey, thinking about you.
I filmed this video.
Would you like to watchthis YouTube video?
Okay, great.
Bye.
I have also back in 2020,launched an online course with
(20:45):
all the minutiae of detail.
All in one place brokendown into bite-sized videos.
That made it a lot easier than tryingto search through 500 different
YouTube videos that were varyinglinks from 15 minutes to 30 minutes.
I, I took all the information and putit into a very pretty package and we had
a really nice community and that onlineplatform, but I did take that down 'cause
(21:08):
it did become a little outdated and Iwas terrible at keeping it up to date.
We have the.
Newsletter.
Let's see, what was theother part of your question?
No, that was it.
You really tackled it.
I do want to transition intomonetization and how you're
making money, so we'll do that.
But before we do that, I do wanna askyou about when Monday gets here and
it's time to film, it's recording day.
What does your process look like?
(21:28):
Can you walk us through that?
I absolutely can.
I, again, I am a mother of two smallchildren, so usually the morning is
spent wearing the children out reallynice and thoroughly so that I can
put them down for a nap and then havesome time to run into my bathroom
and wash and style my hair on camera.
That is awesome.
And as far as I, I ask youif you outsourced any of the.
(21:52):
Packaging.
Does any part of your YouTube workflowget done by someone other than you?
Or is someone in your family?
Is it all just internally done?
I do everything.
I am a horrible delegator.
So I, I do all the editing,I do all the thumbnails.
I do all the SEO and titles and tags.
I know we don't do tagsanymore, but I still do.
(22:13):
It makes me feel good to puttags on my YouTube video.
Me too.
I don't like leavingthat box empty myself.
As far as that goes,people always talk about.
Delegation and outsourcing, and I'ma big fan of it, a big proponent.
But with that said, I don't think there'sever been a easier time than now to do
it all yourself, because not only isthe equipment more budget friendly than
(22:34):
ever, we all have phones with extremely.
Great cameras.
You can get a nicelittle tripod on Amazon.
You can get some decentlighting, and if you find a good
recording space, you're good.
You're golden, you're good to go.
It's really about, the creativejuices flowing and getting the
ideas and things of that nature.
So I don't think there's ever been a lowerbarrier to entry of doing it yourself,
but I do believe someone in your.
(22:56):
Place as successful as you've been,the delegation of the things that
you hate the most, might encourageyou to have some more time.
And so that might be somethingthat you think about going forward.
Always encourage guests that come on thepodcast that, that don't do that yet.
It's hard to let go ofsomething, especially when
you know how you want it done.
And someone's never going to be ableto do it the way that you do it.
(23:16):
So completely agree with that.
Now, as far as, oh, go ahead.
Sorry.
I have worked with videoeditors in the past.
It was actually something that JimmyDonaldson said Mr. Beast, he said
that they're not gonna, I know thehardest part of YouTube is turning
over your editing to someone else.
They're gonna edit it better thanyou would have, just turn it over.
(23:36):
I have worked with editors in the past.
Unfortunately, I am not able toprepare enough to be able to work
with an editor because they needsome time to know, eat and sleep.
So the turnaround time onYouTube videos tends to be,
really fast, would be 48 hours.
I don't work that far ahead.
So I found working with video editorsto be difficult because I just couldn't.
(24:01):
Get on my game.
Yeah.
And oftentimes too, you've got togo through a few until you find the
one that is right for you as well.
So it's not just that initial conversationor relationship, it goes beyond that.
I could not agree more.
Now, as far as the way you're makingmoney, the monetization buckets,
before we talk about the amounts andthings of that nature, let's talk
about the ways that you make money fromall of your content across the web.
(24:24):
First things first.
AdSense from YouTube.
Very nice.
You have to have, I believe it's four.
Thousand.
Yep.
Watch hours.
Yep.
And a thousand subscribers.
We totally gamed that systemfor my YouTube channel.
I don't know if it actuallyworked, but we think it did.
My sweet husband found out that youcould make money on YouTube, and so
what he would do is he would actuallyopen up about 15 tabs with all my
(24:47):
videos and play them on a loop.
And it did actually push meover the 4,000 watch hours mark.
And then because.
I was now monetized.
All of a sudden YouTube grabbed mywhole channel and flung it out on to the
internet and my reach got a lot better.
So I would have to say, knowingYouTube of today, I would
(25:08):
discourage listeners to do that.
Tactic.
Back then it was probably it probablydid work and it probably did propel
Courtney in a position to whereshe was able to get monetized.
But I just don't want anyone listeningto this think that it might work
and then happen to get reprimanded.
Because I do know that some peoplea lot of folks can get disqualified
for invalid clicks and invalidtraffic and stuff like that.
(25:31):
So I don't want someonesaying that is funny to hear.
Like you, my, yourhusband really loves you.
You got a great relationship.
He did, and I'm it's such a cool thingthat does, he would do that for you.
So the AdSense is phasebucket A, what's next?
Sponsorships, because I am in avery small niche, I often get the
opportunity to work with incrediblebrands that create curly hair products.
(25:52):
And so I create sponsoredcontent for them.
I drew a very hard line of notworking with any companies that I
didn't actually like the products of.
The hard part of sponsorships, if youare a smaller creator or you're starting
to get into it, the thing that really.
I had to work through was the commentsof people getting irritated when
(26:13):
I would have sponsored content.
The thing is that the viewers don't seethe hundreds of thousands of dollars
that content creators turned down.
Anyway, so sponsored content.
I did have an online course for a while.
I don't currently have one, but I did.
Now I am selling online digital productsand product guides downloadable PDFs.
(26:36):
I also offer virtual curl coachingsessions so I can sit down with
somebody who needs help with their hairand just wants to talk face to face,
virtually about their hair texture,the products they've tried, what's
working, what's not, and sketch outa really good game plan for them.
(26:56):
I just it's so cool hearing creators talkabout their monetization methods because
it makes me so proud and thankful forthe platforms that are available to us,
like YouTube and Instagram and TikTokand places like that, because now as
an influencer or creator, whatever youwanna call it, there's so many avenues.
To think that.
You are able to digitally sit downwith a person and chat about their
(27:20):
hairstyle, and it makes them feel good,and it allows you to make some money for
your time, is just such a cool thing.
Now as far as the amount of moneythat you're able to make I know you
can't tell me exactly what it wouldbe, but with everything total, what
are you able to make as far as likeon average for a monthly income?
Yeah, there was one more revenuestream that I did forget to mention.
Oh yeah, sure.
(27:40):
It's similar to sponsored content, butit's also affiliate links and commissions.
So a brand will give me atrackable link and a coupon
code specific to me, and I get.
Commission from every purchasefrom that code being used.
And if you have enough goodrelationships with brands, that can
actually become a sizable income.
(28:02):
I also make sure to use monetizable linksanytime I talk about a product in a video.
YouTube's affiliateprogram is really good.
It just launched fairly recently,but if you link a product through
YouTube, the commissions tend to be.
Wonderful.
They're not the two to 3% commissionsthat we were getting from Amazon.
(28:23):
They're like 10 to 12 regularlythat I have been seeing.
Love that.
Yeah.
Yeah, the YouTube shopping programis really good in the way that you're
able to, they're, they partnered withmultiple retailers to allow creators to
do that, so that's, you're exactly right.
But as far as with all ofthose added together, what
might you average in a month?
I have a personal goal of hitting$10,000 a month, and I usually hit that.
(28:49):
Yeah.
That's awesome.
It's nothing crazy.
It's I tell you, there's peoplewho've got mad at statements like
that when I'll have guests on andthey'll say I make 25 grand a month.
And then the guest will just casually say,they'll just say, that's not that much.
And then I'll have angrycomments, mad at me.
They're like, oh man, where I'm from.
The, this X amount of dollars.
So it's just amazing that creatorsare able to do that, and you and I
(29:11):
obviously are thankful for that, that,that are able to make money from videos
and podcasts and the different thingsthat we do to bring value to the people
that are in our specific audience.
Which is a really cool and unique thingthat we get to do as far as go ahead.
The viewers, I totally understandwhat, where people are coming from
with hearing a number like thatand then somebody dismissing it by
(29:33):
saying it's not really that much.
It's 'cause there are alwayscontent creators that are knocking
it outta the park, quadruplingthe number that we just said.
Also, there are aspects of runninga business behind the scenes.
So while that does sound like adeliciously high number, you've
got taxes, you've got businessexpenses, there's things that.
(29:55):
Drastically reduce that number,that make it more like a oh,
that's like a normal living.
Yeah.
Yeah.
People just don't, they don'tthink about that though.
They don't think that, yeah that'swhat you may make in a month, but
then after everything's taken outit's, it sounds a little more re not
reasonable, but it sounds a littlelower than even what we're saying now.
So I just appreciate you being honestwith me and I ask you all fair.
(30:16):
If we could discuss that.
And so I just really appreciate that.
As far as your channelgoes, what's next for you?
What are you looking to do in the future?
To grow the channel andjust grow your brand?
I am so excited because of YouTube.
I'm actually getting topursue a lifelong dream.
I am in cosmetology school atthe moment, and I plan on, I.
(30:38):
Opening up a curly hairsalon in my hometown.
I live in sweet little oldWest Texas and there is not a
curly hair specific salon here.
While those are getting in popularityacross the country, we don't have one.
And you know what?
We need one.
So I am actually going to cosmetologyschool and we'll be documenting some of
(30:59):
that on the YouTube channel for fun, butalso just sharing more tips and tricks.
On how to care forcurls on a head of hair.
That is not my own.
That is so cool.
I can't wait for you to open that.
That's gonna be so neat to hearthe origin story from YouTube as
a creator and now you're gettingyour own store after school.
That's so cool.
As far as a final question I wantto ask you, there's people who
(31:23):
are listening to this along thejourney that haven't even started.
They've just startedtheir creator journey.
They're trying to grow a channel.
They're trying to monetize andmake money from their content.
What would be your partingwords to these people listening?
What would you say to them?
It's incredibly easy to get inyour own head when you're doing a
(31:44):
solopreneur type venture like this.
YouTube is very only youuntil it expands out.
The biggest tip is to think aboutthe person watching your videos.
You're showing up for the personon the other side of the screen.
That's why you're here.
That's why you're even able todo this because of the people who
choose to watch that show up and maketheir day better, make their life
(32:07):
easier, show up with a service heart.
And I think that'll carry you alot further than anything else.
Very well said guys.
You can go check out Courtney'sYouTube channel over at Sue.
Be Curly Courtney.
And that's Courtney with a c. Andhopefully you might could assist her
in her pathway to 200,000 subscribersthat she is so close to getting.
(32:31):
Courtney, thank you so much for joining usthis week and we'll talk to you next time.
Thanks Dusty.
And that's a wrap on this week's sessionof the YouTube, a Creator Hub podcast.
Thanks for sticking aroundfor this conversation.
Don't forget, there's a few differentways you can connect with us.
I offer one-on-one YouTube coaching.
We have a mastermind groupthat gets you basically you the
ability to rub elbows with othercreators all throughout the week.
(32:51):
Mastermind calls exclusive.
Podcast recordings, five to 10 bucks.
Check that out as well.
And then now we areoffering channel audits.
If you're looking for a inexpensiveway to get another set of eyes on your
YouTube channel, I record 15 minutevideo reviews and audits of your channel.
You can do it all throughout the process.
You'll see a link in the shownotes called Channel reviews.
(33:11):
Check that out.
It's a new thing that we're offering andwe're also working on our new cohort.
That's something that's gonnabe coming around the line.
And if you're looking to be a partof a cohort, which is a weekly.
Mastermind or hour and a halflike call with other creators.
I'm working on gettingthat out the door as well.
Don't forget to subscribe toour email newsletter to be
notified when that goes live.
(33:32):
Thank you all for everything that you do.
All the listens, all the downloads,all the positive reviews, and
you know what, any feedback.
And with that said,we'll see you next week.
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