Steal This YouTube Channel Strategy Before Everyone Else Does! with Jake Thomas

Episode Summary

You can find Jake Thomas at:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jake-thomas-creator-hooks/
Twitter: https://x.com/jthomas__?lang=en
Newsletter: https://creatorhooks.com/

Jake Thomas Podcast Transcript

[00:00:00] Kris Ward: Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of Win The Hour Win The Day, and I am your host, Kris Ward. And today in the house we have Jake Thomas, who describes himself, his title as a YouTube Title Nerd. Okay. Welcome to the show, Jake. 

[00:00:16] Jake Thomas: Thanks Kris. Thanks for having me back. 

[00:00:17] Kris Ward: Alright, so today, yeah, we don’t do this a lot, but we’re having you back.

[00:00:20] Kris Ward: We’re gonna talk about the psychology of YouTube videos. So where do you wanna start with that? 

[00:00:28] Jake Thomas: So the first thing I think people need to know, if you just wanna simplify, like, all right, what makes a good YouTube title? What makes a good YouTube thumbnail? A good YouTube intro. Okay. It’s three emotions. I call ’em the clickworthy emotions. 

[00:00:41] Kris Ward: Okay. Of 

[00:00:41] Jake Thomas: curiosity, fear, and desire. And most of the time you’ll, you mix curiosity plus fear or curiosity plus desire. But if you read your intro, if you read your title or your thumbnail, ask yourself like, does this spark curiosity, does this spark a question or [00:01:00] concern or intrigue in somebody’s mind?

[00:01:02] Jake Thomas: Or does it does it leverage fear? Or does it, is it, does it pull out a desire or a hope or a dream? If it doesn’t, ans does, if it doesn’t get one of those emotions. You probably want to go back to the drawing board and see if you can improve improve that.

[00:01:16] Jake Thomas: And this goes for titles, thumbnails, intros, email, subject lines, blog post headlines Twitter threads, LinkedIn intros. Just any, really any content. People are all the same. For the most part, psychology hasn’t changed in thousands, millions of years. Yeah. So all this stuff you can, you can apply it to pretty much anything in your business. Also when it even comes to naming your products. So just real quick, one thing that works well for a couple months ago, a trending t title was like I’ve, 20 years of sales experience in 20 minutes. Or 10 years of photography experience in 10 minutes.

[00:01:55] Jake Thomas: So just that, in a short, in a timeframe was going super viral. [00:02:00] Everybody was using that. Okay. But also. The Four Hour Work Week is the most popular book, Four Hour Energy is, or sorry, not the most popular book, but a very popular book. 

[00:02:08] Kris Ward: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:02:09] Jake Thomas: Four Hour Energy is a really popular, or Five Hour Energy is a really popular product.

[00:02:13] Jake Thomas: So people just love timeframe. So that’s one of those things where it works for energy drinks, it works for book titles, it works for YouTube titles. It works for so many things. And that’s the beauty of psychology and studying psychology, is that once you understand those principles, you can apply them to so many parts of your business.

[00:02:31] Kris Ward: When I talk to you, it’s inspiring, and then there’s also impending doom and guilt. Okay, so here’s the thing. I think I’ve heard this, and I can’t remember if I heard it from you, but I do think if you’re really treating this seriously. People will say we know how important the hook is. We know how important is to get.

[00:02:51] Kris Ward: That’s that’s where a lot of people say we should be doing that first before we write any content. And I think we, I don’t know if I need a tattoo or [00:03:00] something, but you get sucked into I have to write this content. So then it’s okay, I promise I’ll write the content and then I really promise this time.

[00:03:10] Kris Ward: I promise I’m gonna work really hard on the hook afterwards. And I do know when. It’s oh, this could be better, or I’m putting more effort into it than I used to. But still, you get to the end of the content and you’re a little fatigued, and so then you try to slap on a hook and just please read the whole thing.

[00:03:23] Kris Ward: Please just read it. Here’s my hook, and I believe that I’m doing that backwards. I would agree. Okay. All right. So with those these elements, can you walk me through your process? So do you say, okay, I’m gonna spend 15 minutes coming up with hooks, and I’m just gonna go hook, and then you’re gonna write it?

[00:03:43] Kris Ward: What does that look like? Because we are, we’re not doing it. And we’re not doing it well. 

[00:03:48] Jake Thomas: All let’s go back to do you do an outline or do most people do an outline? 

[00:03:52] Kris Ward: I don’t know what most people do. I would say I have an idea, especially if I’m mostly I just go with something that happened or a question somebody asked [00:04:00] me, or we pull it from a question bank, or I got different places where I have notes.

[00:04:03] Kris Ward: I’ll say, you know what? I got this question again today, or This happens all the time. 

[00:04:08] Jake Thomas: So what I would do is the best way is to think about are what does my audience want? Okay. So we have a question that gets asked all the time, and that’s in our question bank. Okay, the audience wants to know this.

[00:04:22] Jake Thomas: And then we think alright, how how popular is this question? Is this just a super niche question that only one person is gonna ask? Okay. Or is this like something that everybody asks? But like at a very kind of specific time. Okay. So maybe someone’s how do I file an LLC for my business?

[00:04:41] Jake Thomas: Everybody asks that question and it’s a great search question because you want to know how to file an LLC for your business. At that specific time. 

[00:04:50] Kris Ward: Okay. So that’s an american thing, registering your business, what you’re talking about? 

[00:04:53] Jake Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:04:54] Kris Ward: Okay. All right. Got it. Yeah.

[00:04:55] Jake Thomas: Or, or any kind of specific thing.

[00:04:57] Kris Ward: Okay. So let’s go, let’s get something a little bit more general. So [00:05:00] we find, hire and onboard virtual assistants for clients and we put them in our leadership program and all that stuff. So sometimes, a big part of what we do is leadership. And there is often people who’ve burned through several VAs and they think, oh my gosh.

[00:05:13] Kris Ward: And then I have to explain to them that it’s really them. They’re not set up for that. So in, and even in that argument, that’s not even a question. It’s observation I’ve made, but it happens a lot. They’re like, they start paying for more and more VAs or a higher paying VA or try different agencies. It’s not working out, but they’re the problem.

[00:05:30] Kris Ward: So if I have that concept of an idea. Again, I should be starting with the hook. Okay.

[00:05:36] Jake Thomas: So what is gonna get, okay, I know I have this idea. I have, I know who it’s for. What’s gonna get them to click? 

[00:05:42] Kris Ward: Okay.

[00:05:42] Jake Thomas: And I’m gonna think like, all right, is this and ideally we’re thinking about this beforehand alright, what is the big promise that we want to make in this piece of content?

[00:05:52] Jake Thomas: Okay. And that should, okay all right. The big promise is they are gonna know how to… There’s a lot of different ways to do it. Yeah. But they’re [00:06:00] gonna, they’re gonna keep their VAs and they’re gonna be happy with their VAs. That’s our big promise. 

[00:06:03] Kris Ward: Okay. Okay. 

[00:06:04] Jake Thomas: So then from that, we think like, all right, what’s gonna make them click?

[00:06:07] Jake Thomas: We could think about a pain point. We were talking about fear earlier. How to stop wasting money on VAs. 

[00:06:13] Kris Ward: Okay. 

[00:06:14] Jake Thomas: We can talk about a desire might be like this the. I, my, my ideas are curiosity based. And we’ll talk about curiosity in a second, but okay here’s how to hire a va.

[00:06:25] Jake Thomas: If you’re doing over a hundred over $10,000 a month or something. Oh, okay. Maybe we wanna call out a specific person. And if it’s, here’s how to hire a va. If you’re doing over $10,000 a month. The content is gonna be very different. Okay. But pe but calling out a specific audience and making them feel like, oh, wow, like this video was made to me.

[00:06:44] Jake Thomas: And could we also do, if here’s how to hire a VA if you’ve been in business 10 years? 

[00:06:48] Kris Ward: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

[00:06:49] Jake Thomas: Yeah. Any so one, the thing about desire is that if you are telling somebody they won the lottery. That’s awesome. Just tell them they won the lottery. 

[00:06:59] Kris Ward: Okay.

[00:06:59] Jake Thomas: If [00:07:00] your video is not about them winning the lottery, if it’s just not that exciting, which sometimes hiring a VA maybe isn’t that exciting.

[00:07:07] Kris Ward: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:07:08] Jake Thomas: Then we need to spice it up a little bit. Okay. We need to add some curiosity. We need to talk about the fear of wasting money on VAs, or we need to call out a very specific audience. If you’ve been in 10 year, if you’ve, if you burned through 10 VAs, like here’s how to hire the right one.

[00:07:21] Jake Thomas: Or if you’ve been in 10 years, here’s how to hire a VA and or this, or even can we say even if you burned through one VA. 

[00:07:27] Kris Ward: Okay.

[00:07:28] Jake Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. You, or even if you’re scared or hiring your first VA , okay. Or if you’re scared. So calling out a specific audience is a great way to do that.

[00:07:36] Jake Thomas: But let’s say we do decide on that that content is very different than how to stop wasting money on VAs because we need to call out that person and and call out, we need to deliver on the promise that we made and the title. And life is a lot easier. If you start with, okay, here’s a big promise, here’s what the title is going to be.

[00:07:58] Jake Thomas: And then that my content [00:08:00] is going to deliver exactly on that title. So just, okay, just trying to think. Okay. Promise, specific angle and then delivering on that specific angle. Because that’s how you kind.

[00:08:12] Kris Ward: Okay. Hold on, clickbait. Hold on. I just had, I think I had a breakthrough. Here we go.

[00:08:16] Kris Ward: I think when we’re kids, God love it, or at least just me. It’s like they’re asking you to write a essay and it would be like, oh, let me write the title page first because I can color it, I could title it and I, the thing was, no, write the essay. We can do the title page later. That is the last thing you need to do, right?

[00:08:32] Kris Ward: Because it doesn’t have the same weight. I know it was school and it was different, but I think the way I’m hearing it from you now is, or even just anything we write, it’s sort like we think that, like in a movie or something, sometimes they do the whole movie and then there’s a one line in the movie becomes the title.

[00:08:48] Kris Ward: So we think it’s going to ev show up itself or evolve, and we’re gonna magically see these words in the middle of it. Which is not necessarily a title is different than a hook. So I think what you are saying to me [00:09:00] now, I finally saw it differently, is you are giving me, where are we going, Kris?

[00:09:04] Kris Ward: What are you plugging into this GPS When you get into the car first we’re gonna say, where are we going? Plug that address in there, then we know where we’re going versus a story of where we’ve been. 

[00:09:15] Jake Thomas: Yes. Your teacher is. She has they have to read your essay. It doesn’t like your title.

[00:09:21] Jake Thomas: Doesn’t matter. They’re going to read it. Yeah. Yeah. A movie like movies are exciting. People love to watch movies. You got Brad Pitt in there yes. Like peop, people can’t wait to watch it. If it’s a video about VAs, you gotta make it more exciting.

[00:09:34] Jake Thomas: Yeah. And for many people like that is the most exciting thing going on in their life.

[00:09:38] Jake Thomas: ’cause they can’t wait for the freedom and, all the all the growth possibilities that a good VA will give them. We need to make sure that we’re calling out the right person. We need to make sure that we’re highlighting those benefits or, coping at the fear. 

[00:09:50] Kris Ward: Okay, so let me jump in here.

[00:09:52] Kris Ward: So then I you’re really right in all your points. I don’t need you, you need to come on my show so I can tell you. You’re right. You the expert on this [00:10:00] subject. I always love when I do that. Oh, you’re right. Thank you. Is your day complete? So then if we’re following this back to my original question, do you sit down?

[00:10:10] Kris Ward: What does this look like? If it’s going to take you, let’s just break it down into a half hour to keep it simple. Or an hour, if you’re going to take a half hour to make a piece of content. Is 20 minutes on the hook Is, do you write out 10 different hooks? Where, what does that legwork look like? 

[00:10:27] Jake Thomas: Yeah, I’ll write 10 to 30, I’ll try Toll, try to get Oh, take that.

[00:10:31] Jake Thomas: Okay. I’ll try to get 20. Okay. AI is great for this. Okay, so two, two ways to actually write 20 titles is first ask AI to write Yeah. 20 different versions. Curiosity, Fear, and Desire. Write a title from each of those different emotions. Okay. Each of those different angles. If you write. Five curiosity based titles.

[00:10:49] Jake Thomas: Five Fear-Based Titles and Five Desire Based Titles. That’s 15 right there, right? Once you get 15, I’m pretty sure you can squeeze out an extra five because now the juices are gonna be running. Okay. And then you’ll [00:11:00] you’ll, after you get 20 on you’re gonna start to see okay, I actually really like this, or this is horrible, and then you’ll figure out what, okay.

[00:11:07] Jake Thomas: Sounds best. I think Ed Sheeran described it as you turn on like a tap and like at first, like a bunch of muddy water comes out and then it’s horrible. But then like eventually clear water comes out and it’s oh but you have to get all that muddy water out. And for the most part there’s no real way of getting all that out unless you write 10, 15, 20 titles.

[00:11:26] Kris Ward: And I don’t need to tell you this, but I would say 95% of us are doing this wrong because we write the content and then we go into and I think I’m getting better and I’ll use chat and I’ll test it in different apps. That’s to contest your title, but if I’m being ambitious, I might come up with five.

[00:11:44] Kris Ward: And I’m just randomly coming out with five, not based on curiosity, fear and desire. I’m just like I do know some elements. Oh, that’s a good title. ’cause it’s got cur I, there, I do actually probably lean on curiosity more than anything. So I am looking for that, something that intrigued you to open the post.

[00:11:58] Kris Ward: But I, I think more [00:12:00] you talk, the more I realize we’re doing this upside down and backwards. 

[00:12:03] Jake Thomas: Yeah. And so ways to do this is have a swipe file. Yeah. Okay. Or a list of your favorite titles. Yeah. So having that having AI and then also triggering either yourself or a AI or prompting yourself or AI to write it from different angles is gonna help you think out of the box.

[00:12:19] Jake Thomas: And then it’s okay, cool. Now I have all these 20. I know it. I feel way more confident that people are gonna like this. And now I can, I have a very clear direction of exactly where my content is going. So now I can write my intro because I know the big promise I’m gonna make through my title.

[00:12:34] Jake Thomas: I’m gonna write my intro and then I’m gonna write the rest of the content that delivers on that intro, which delivers on that title and now you have a direction and you can move much faster. Okay. You’re more confident because you know where you’re going and you know that you’re starting with something that your audience is already interested in.

[00:12:50] Jake Thomas: And that just, that makes things a lot easier. 

[00:12:53] Kris Ward: It sure does. I don’t know how I’ve been working so hard on doing this wrong for so long. And then also, I know we talked about this [00:13:00] before, but then that’s the thing where I could be it, in my swipe file, looking at your videos, I have a very different audience, but it doesn’t take much to go.

[00:13:09] Kris Ward: Oh. Whatever. This is a bad example. I’m gonna give you a hook. Hello. And it’s not gonna be right ’cause you’re the master at this. But let’s say you said, the seven mistakes people make in writing hooks, I could say, oh, that’s seven mistakes in hiring your first VA so I can be going to people like yourself who are out there, that’s all they do is talking to us about these hooks and just reframing it and inserting my information there. So there are resources. If we stop treating this as almost like when you’re cooking at the end and throw some salt on it, it’s no, really, if you’re making a recipe, the seasoning starts at the beginning.

[00:13:42] Kris Ward: What it’s gonna make this chicken taste different than everybody else’s chicken or a chef making chicken is all the blends and spices they put on the beginning, not on the end, right? 

[00:13:50] Jake Thomas: Yep. Okay. Yeah, and I used to do exactly what you were doing. I I used to manage a Fishing YouTube channel.

[00:13:56] Jake Thomas: Okay. And so we, I would be, I would have to write a title about, like a fishing [00:14:00] lure review. And this was my 

[00:14:02] Kris Ward: God, that sounds not interesting. 

[00:14:04] Jake Thomas: Okay. Exciting. I’m sure there it was. It was wonderful.

[00:14:08] Kris Ward: I’m sure there’s a rollout. There’s job where that is interesting to somebody, but to the masses, I cannot think of a more specific mundane thing.

[00:14:16] Kris Ward: Not just fishing, but a fishing lure. Oh my gosh. Okay, go ahead. 

[00:14:20] Jake Thomas: So I will say it, it was my dream job. Okay. So my couch and watch fishing videos. And but I would look up like I like. When I was first starting I don’t know where to start, like how, what’s gonna make this interesting. So I would look up like vacuum cleaner reviews.

[00:14:36] Jake Thomas: I would search into Google or search into YouTube vacuum cleaner review or like laptop review. And it’d be like, oh, five best laptops for students in 2026. 

[00:14:45] Kris Ward: Okay. 

[00:14:45] Jake Thomas: So I’d be like, okay five best trout lures for fish for Florida fishermen in 2026. So I would, so that’s. The, think about what type of content you’re making and then try to go to a try to go to a [00:15:00] more competitive, or a very competitive e ven if you’re in a competitive niche and the competitive niche is obvious the only, the best titles and thumbnails and ideas are gonna rise to the top.

[00:15:09] Kris Ward: Oh, that’s a good point. Okay. So even like weight loss, ’cause that would be very competitive. Okay. Exactly. Yeah, that’s a good point. Finance. That is a very good point. Loss. Everybody write that down. So what you’re saying is go to, and I think by default we would tend to avoid it, or it would seem like it’s unrelatable, but computers or software or AI or that kind of technology or weight loss is so competitive that they, their titles have to be so good.

[00:15:33] Kris Ward: Okay, that’s a really good point. I don’t know if this is off topic, tell me. But with YouTube. What with these titles do you wait to see? Reels don’t have titles, so that’s that. When do you start taking the time to say, okay, I’m gonna invest in doing short term? Short term? Short term. Oh my gosh.

[00:15:53] Kris Ward: Short form. That’s the big word I was looking for everybody. Short form content videos here’s me explaining the five biggest mistakes [00:16:00] that people make when hiring a VA. And it’s a three minute video. When do you decide to cross over from reels, or do you do those first end reels? What would be your strategy for getting more serious about YouTube? 

[00:16:13] Jake Thomas: So I am a big fan of nailing one format at a time. Okay. Okay. And I think most people listening to this, they could reach all of their business goals if they just dominated one platform. 

[00:16:27] Kris Ward: Okay. 

[00:16:27] Jake Thomas: I’m sure that. All of the potential money that you want is on Instagram or on YouTube shorts. Okay. Or on YouTube. Long form. And probably TikTok and probably Twitter as well, right? Or X. YouTube is hard.

[00:16:41] Kris Ward: Yeah. 

[00:16:41] Jake Thomas: It’s a job in itself. Yes. And it’s worth it for sure. Yeah. But it’s not one of those things where you outsource and you repurpose. Yeah. And then it just happens.

[00:16:52] Jake Thomas: You need to go you need to dive in deep and it is really any platform. Okay. So yeah, I’m, I’m a fan of figure, [00:17:00] picking one platform and dominating that first. 

[00:17:01] Kris Ward: And, but even in that platform, there’s with YouTube, it’s one platform, but then are we talking, are we counting the reels as a platform and then the long form videos as platform?

[00:17:10] Kris Ward: So that’s one platform, but they’re two very different approaches. 

[00:17:13] Jake Thomas: Yeah. E even then, I would probably pick one format. Okay. And so when you’re, when we’re talking about like China channel strategy. A big mistake a lot of people make is they’ll have their podcast interviews. They’ll have their podcast clips.

[00:17:28] Jake Thomas: Yeah. They’ll have their 10 minute talking head videos. They might have their a kind of a tutorial Yeah. Or like a review or something, or just throwing

[00:17:36] Kris Ward: spaghetti at the wall.

[00:17:37] Jake Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. A term I heard from, I think it was Jamie Ross Thorn was it’s a content dumping ground.

[00:17:42] Jake Thomas: Just putting everything on there. Yeah. Yeah. That’s a big mistake. The reason that is, is ’cause YouTube wants people to binge your channel. And if the more more different types of content you have on there makes it harder to binge. So for the most part, if I [00:18:00] listen to your podcast, I only wanna listen to your podcast like, yeah, , and that’s because I listen to your podcast when I drive to and from work.

[00:18:07] Kris Ward: Yeah. 

[00:18:07] Jake Thomas: So it has to be a 30 minute or 45 minute podcast. Yeah. I don’t wanna watch a 10 minute video of you talking because it, it doesn’t fit into my routine or I only want to watch a 10 minute video of you talking ’cause it’s about one specific thing and I want to learn that right now. Yeah. I don’t wanna hear a podcast where they’re meandering and talking about a bunch of different things.

[00:18:27] Jake Thomas: For the most part, if you have one format. On your channel, that’s gonna make things a lot easier. Make growth a lot easier for you and it’s gonna make the audience or make it a lot easier for the audience to binge your channel, which is

[00:18:38] Kris Ward:  okay. You brought up a couple of good points ’cause I think you’re right.

[00:18:41] Kris Ward: I think for so many of us think, I have this, I’m putting this on LinkedIn, or I’m putting this here. YouTube’s there. I’ll just throw it up there in case somebody trips over it. Like it’s not costing me anything. So we’ll do that. And you’re right, it’s like a flea market then. So I think to your point though, is even whether it’s reels or long form, you’re [00:19:00] saying what is the format?

[00:19:01] Kris Ward: If the format is for me to teach, here’s how to have leadership are the biggest mistakes. I think what you’re saying is the, what is the driver of that content, even before I decide to make short form or long form. 

[00:19:15] Jake Thomas: Yeah. Just getting really clear on your strategy. Okay. And I think you could probably meet all of your business goals through shorts.

[00:19:23] Jake Thomas: Okay. Through long form. And yeah and I’m talking for, even experts if you have a million, if you get a hundred thousand views or 500,000 views on your video, on every video that you put out once a week, do you need any more business than that?

[00:19:38] Jake Thomas: For some people they don’t like, that’s all they can handle or that’s all they need, and then if you start to, okay, let’s figure out our shorts strategy, then you’re taking time away from optimizing your long form content, optimizing your delivery on your business or, to your clients optimizing, some other stuff. I think it just, it really depends. But I’m just 

[00:19:56] Kris Ward: okay, that’s a good point. So imagine you’re a bakery and you’re like, all [00:20:00] right, so then I’m making a lot of sales on these cakes, so whoa, the cakes are going so well, should I make muffins? You’d say no, let’s keep selling more cakes. Let’s have more inventory, let’s do better on the cakes. And I think they’re making us crazy out there, Jake.

[00:20:14] Kris Ward: So they’re having us try to, wherever you are, you just feel like, oh, we should be shuffle, run over here because Jake’s doing really well on YouTube, so I should be over there. And I think even to your point is I would’ve thought, sure, if I’m on YouTube then I better have shorts and I better have long form content.

[00:20:30] Kris Ward: And you’re saying like, do one, do well, do it well. Worry about the hooks. Stay there. And then just ’cause you’re good at it, then don’t start di diversifying your portfolio here. Get better and better. 

[00:20:43] Jake Thomas: If you’ve maximized everything on YouTube right in your long form, then sure. Go for shorts.

[00:20:48] Jake Thomas: Yeah. If you’ve maxi maximized your strategy, your intros, your titles, your hooks, everything is just like as good as it can be, and you just need, and you have extra time and you’re like, we need more traffic. How are we gonna [00:21:00] get more traffic? 

[00:21:00] Kris Ward: Okay. 

[00:21:01] Jake Thomas: We can’t do any better on YouTube.

[00:21:03] Kris Ward: It’s an evolution, not a diversification. 

[00:21:06] Jake Thomas: I, yeah, I would just go all in on, on one thing in terms, okay. Do it really well. 

[00:21:10] Kris Ward: Okay. Oh my gosh. Time flies with you, Jake. Dear heavens. Okay. Alright. I don’t know where it went. Okay. We just have a couple minutes left. What are some final thoughts you want us to know about?

[00:21:22] Jake Thomas: Oh alright, so 

[00:21:23] Kris Ward: you may have to come back for part three. I’m not sure, but 

[00:21:27] Jake Thomas: I don’t, I can’t remember if I mentioned this last time. Okay. It was just. You don’t need to be original. Never start from scratch. Okay? Always start from, okay this worked for somebody else. Now let me, okay. Do, let me modify it to fit my channel.

[00:21:42] Kris Ward: Okay? 

[00:21:43] Jake Thomas: I like the biggest time suck and the, honestly, the biggest risk. If it hasn’t been proven, then 

[00:21:49] Kris Ward: so what do you mean by that? 

[00:21:50] Jake Thomas: Okay. All right, let’s go back to your favorite, the fishing L review. 

[00:21:54] Kris Ward: Yes. Alright, so I’m gonna be looking that up before you even get off this call. I’m gonna have that up my computer. Okay. 

[00:21:59] Jake Thomas: All right, [00:22:00] so I’m doing a fishing lure review. I could do two things. I could one, think of an idea, write out let me just think of how could, what would people be interested in this title? You’ll never believe what this fishing lure can do. Okay. Okay, cool. That’s, I think, all right.

[00:22:13] Jake Thomas: I’m adding curiosity. It sounds like maybe some desire. But you’re coming up like from scratch. You have pretty much no proof that’ll work. Or you could be like, all right let me actually look up laptop review. Okay. The best laptop for students in 2026. Alright, actually instead, maybe let’s do the best fishing.

[00:22:31] Jake Thomas: We refer Florida fishermen in 2026. Okay. The first the first strategy is I want way more likely to fail than the second strategy because you’re not basing it on what has proven to work. Okay. If you were a genius at YouTube titles and psychology, then maybe you have a better shot if you’re not even if you’re in intermediate.

[00:22:51] Jake Thomas: I was talking to this guy who’s just absolutely killing it on YouTube and he was like, dude, he’s I. I’m just really good at pattern recognition. He’s I [00:23:00] never come up with anything new. He’s like, all I do is look for what has worked in the past and then tailor and modify that for my channel.

[00:23:07] Jake Thomas: And I’m like, dude, you’re like, you have five channels. Like you’re making millions of dollars a year, getting millions of views every month. That’s all you do. That seems like simple. He’s pretty much it is. 

[00:23:17] Kris Ward: That makes so much sense. And you know it like like also like sometimes you’ll see something you’re saying in the grocery line, you read a title, you’re like, that is one good hook.

[00:23:26] Kris Ward: ’cause that is very like, even I don’t believe that whatever, Elizabeth Taylor’s still alive, but you’ve convinced me that I need to know. I think also to your point, not only are you leveraging what already works, but I feel then by doing that with the swipe files and looking at other titles, you’re also developing a skill of reading it.

[00:23:45] Kris Ward: Like now I know how to read hooks, and one of the things we talk about all the time with our signature super toolkit and streamlined processes is, businesses not run a memory. So don’t look at the ceiling and say, oh, what do I do next? And that’s what we’re doing with [00:24:00] hooks. Okay, maybe ask chat, for five hooks and here’s what I have.

[00:24:03] Kris Ward: But there’s endless resources. It’s a plenty when you could go into YouTube in five minutes and just start doing it there. Oh boy. We are making this a lot harder for myself. I think you finally got through my thick skull. I think. I think, God, I hope this is the last time. I think I really got it all.

[00:24:19] Kris Ward: My Evans. Okay. Jake, you’re a blast. Time just flies by with you. Where can people find more of your brilliance? I would assume some of it’s gonna be on YouTube. 

[00:24:28] Jake Thomas: So all right. So I am a writer. I’m a behind the scenes guy. Okay. There you go. Okay. And I’m also a writer. I’m not. Okay. So I have a newsletter and I write on LinkedIn and Twitter.

[00:24:37] Jake Thomas: Okay. Gotcha. So search Jake Thomas on LinkedIn and Twitter. Okay. If you look up Jake Thomas on YouTube, you’ll see a lot of my interviews. Okay. And then creator hooks.com 

[00:24:46] Kris Ward: Okay. 

[00:24:46] Jake Thomas: Is where you’ll sign up for my newsletter. It’s free. So a lot of what we talked about today is like, hey, just find something that’s worked and then try to model that for your channel.

[00:24:55] Jake Thomas: Yeah. That’s what the newsletter is I will send you five proven videos every week. I’ll tell [00:25:00] you why they worked so you can okay. I like that. Bring your brain on that psychology. Okay. And then I’ll also tell you some, or give you some examples here’s how we could use this use the same title for different niches.

[00:25:09] Jake Thomas: So I’m trying to do the work for you. That’s what the newsletter is. Oh, I like that. It goes out every Monday morning. 

[00:25:15] Kris Ward: And I do. I have spent a lot of time with you on LinkedIn and that’s how you got here. So yeah, absolutely. Okay. We will make sure to have all this in the show notes. Please share this episode with a business buddy because it is just chockfull of takeaways and content and value bomb, and we do not need to be suffering on this anymore.

[00:25:31] Kris Ward: I have suffered too long. Jake, thank you again and everyone else, we will see you in the next episode.