Based in Canada, Brandon Cubitt has created a YouTube channel that is gaining traction through reviews of golf tech, golf clubs, and golf instruction.
"Behind the Golf Brand" host Paul Liberatore talks to Cubitt about the channel's growth and how he has become a go-to source about golf gear, and how he has grown his YouTube channel so quickly.
Based in Canada, Brandon Cubitt has created a YouTube channel that is gaining traction through reviews of golf tech, golf clubs, and golf instruction.
"Behind the Golf Brand" host Paul Liberatore talks to Cubitt about the channel's growth and how he has become a go-to source about golf gear, and how he has grown his YouTube channel so quickly.
Today we play golf.
Speaker 2:Let me show you how we do it in the pros. Yeah . Welcome to Behind the Golf Brand podcast. I never missed with the seven nine , a conversation with some of the most interesting innovators and entrepreneurs behind the biggest names in golf. My
Speaker 3:Friends were the golf clubs . I lived on the golf course, I lived on the driving range
Speaker 2:From Pro Talk . You should learn something from each and every single round. You play to fun from on and off the green. Why would you play golf? You don't play it for money. Just let me put the ball in a hole. This is Behind the Golf Brand podcast with Paul Liberatory.
Speaker 4:What's up guys? Welcome to the Behind the Golf Brand podcast. I have my good friend Brandon Cubitt from New Nine Golf, and I'm really excited to have him on the show. Uh, he's been blowing up on YouTube and um, you guys probably have seen a lot of his videos. He does a lot of head-to-head stuff lately with drivers, which has really done really well. But he's been around the game for a while and I'm really excited to have him on the show, talk to him kind of about his life and how he got to where he is at and how he's been growing his brand. And welcome to the show.
Speaker 5:Thanks Paul. Thanks for having me, man. Yeah , I appreciate it. Good to be on.
Speaker 4:So I've, I told him earlier, I'm like, I've been a fan from afar because he had really good, like, even like two years ago I was watching a lot of your old videos, like you had good video production, even though it , I felt like it was way better than mine. Um, you know, like you'd be outside the course and I'm like, oh, this guy's got something going on. But I feel like, you know, as a new YouTuber, it's hard, right? Wouldn't you say
Speaker 5:So hard. YouTube's a beast, man. People get their toes wet on, you know , uh, Instagram, TikTok, they have some success. Maybe a video does, you know, 20, 30, 40,000, a hundred thousand views and they're like, oh, I could do the same thing on YouTube. They are so different. It's not even funny that these algorithms are running the game. And it's funny, man. But yeah, YouTube is a grind, so I appreciate you saying those nice things, but I, I can totally relate to what you're doing because it is, it's hard and it's a science, but it's uh , it's been fun at the same time and you can never stop learning. That's kind of what we're trying to do on our channel.
Speaker 4:So when did you start your channel?
Speaker 5:I think our YouTube channel's been up for maybe just over two years, maybe two and a half years. We started, we thought we wanted to do a podcast. So we started, I think our very first video we released was a podcast that I did talking about relating kind of like golf to business or golf to life. And we started to dip our toes in that and we thought, Hey, why don't we try to do some reviews? So we started reviewing products and those started to get momentum and then we kind of just kept with the videos that were performing well, we didn't want to keep doing, you know, so my podcast views had, you know, 50 views, 40 views, and they're my aunts and uncles and I wasn't really growing a golf following. And then we got into the golf product side. And that's just such a huge niche in itself that since these videos were doing good, we kind of doubled down and continued to do product review videos. And we still do those. They're still some of our, our highest performing videos. So that's kind of , uh, how we started. So yeah, about two years ago we started and yeah , we're still going today. I
Speaker 4:Guess my first question is like, where are you located? So
Speaker 5:I'm in Calgary, Canada, which is not the best place in the world to have a golf YouTube channel because why not ? We are covered <laugh> . We're co , we're covered in Snow for six months of the year, so I'm sure a lot of your , uh, listeners are American . So we are, we're kind of like the Colorado of Canada. We're in the Rocky Mountains. We're a couple , uh, a couple hours north just of Montana. But uh, we have some crazy weather here. The summers are amazing. Our golf season's probably only from middle of April to maybe October , October 1st to the 15th kind of thing. So for us to have a golf YouTube channel where we're recording inside a lot, we have to travel, which is amazing. But yeah, it's, I would love to be where , where you are in , in Arizona so I could have , uh, golf at my fingertips year round .
Speaker 4:Do you need to come visit man ? We need to do some stuff together .
Speaker 5:I'd love to. I'm in, I love that area.
Speaker 4:Are you , are you a professional golfer or are you just a normal guy or what's, what's your deal?
Speaker 5:So I am not a professional. I carry like a scratch handicap or the lowest my handicap was was like a plus two . So I was shooting in the sixties almost regularly. Holy crap. I compete, yeah, I compete in like a lot of amateur stuff and I love playing amateur events. It's like I'm a member at a golf course and to play in like men's night and the club tournaments, they don't offer it to professionals. You can't be a pro to play in there. So I've kept my amateur status cuz these events I love to play. We have a lot of really good , um, Canadian amateur events that I play in. I've never placed anything. Like last year I made the , uh, I qualified for our , our men's MidAm, so the Alberta MidAm Alberta being the province. It was similar to like a state. It was a big deal for me to qualify into the MidAm and then I got injured, I had to withdraw. So that was , uh, really unfortunate. How'd you get hurt ? I was, I had kind of some weird injuries for the last two years. Golfers would know right in my groin, like kind of right near my hip flexor. I just, it was just flaring up nonstop. I couldn't get it under control. And I got to the point where I couldn't walk. I was on like the 14th hole and I had to limp off of the course. It was , uh, oh my God. Yeah. Really frustrating. But to this year, knock on wood, the body's feeling good. Golf's feeling good already.
Speaker 4:You've been swing a lot of clubs. I know that
Speaker 5:<laugh> tons of drivers. Yeah, for sure. It , it , it helps to swing all those clubs throughout the winter to, to keep my swing in form . I've had a lot of people ask if I want to go pro right now, I just don't see the benefit. Like I think as a kid I always wanna be on the PGA tour, like how cool would that be if you could play any professional Exactly . Sport , like PGA a golf would just be unreal. And then the reality sinks in that you watch guys. So we have a Canadian golf tour, so like guys like Tony Fee now have come up from there. Um , a lot of guys, Joel Damon played on the Canadian tour. These guys are so good and they're, you know, they're shooting 61, 62, 63, sleeping outta the trunk of their car, driving across the country, playing in these minit tour events with the hopes of qualifying to get into Q School at the hopes getting on PGA tour. And I'm nowhere near that good. So I'm happy to just keep my amateur status, win money off my buddies every now and then. But , uh, I think I'll probably, probably just , uh, stay amateur.
Speaker 4:So did you grow up in Canada then? Are you from Alberta?
Speaker 5:Yep . Born and raised. Grew up here. Canada's obviously a huge hockey country, so I grew up playing , uh, pretty high level hockey my whole life. So it was like hockey in the winter and then golf in the summer. So my parents golf, my brother golfed. It was one of those things that we could do as a family that summertime we would travel to the Rocky Mountains, to British Columbia, some beautiful golf out there. And that was like our summer. So we would just golf all summer and then , uh, winter came and we'd, we'd play hockey. So. All
Speaker 4:Right . So you grew up in Canada. Did you play like golf as a kid and like, is that how you got good? You know, did you put your dad or how'd you get into golf?
Speaker 5:My parents were like, they didn't get , uh, into golf until later in life. They never really had lessons or anything, but they enjoyed being outside. I didn't really get into golf until I started working in golf retail. So one of my first jobs as a kid, I was like 13, 14, I got a, a retail job at a Nevada Bob's, which is kind of like , I'm a
Speaker 4:Nevada Bobs. Yeah, yeah .
Speaker 5:So, so I worked there for like two, three years and then like my best friends came from working in that store. We were all young in high school together and to just be around new golf equipment, cuz you're 13, 14 years old, you can't afford the newest title Esther Taylor . I mean , you can't afford it and you
Speaker 4:Want , and you can't even ask your parents. They're like, get the hell outta here, you're gonna get these .
Speaker 5:Exactly. Yeah. So being around that, being around a ton of golfers, the , our bosses were better golfers. So we, I just learned from them. It was always a competition we're doing, you know, if the store is empty in December, we're doing putting challenges or chipping challenges, long drive challenges. So that's where I really like found a deep love for the game of golf. And it's, it's been like that ever since.
Speaker 4:So then did you go to college or like after you got out or what'd you do?
Speaker 5:Yeah, so I went to college for broadcasting. So this kind of ties it all into what I'm kind of doing now. This is
Speaker 4:Why you're so good at what you're doing,
Speaker 5:<laugh> , I appreciate you saying that, but it almost has nothing to do with, to get into this point a little bit, I played high level hockey and I had this pipe dream that maybe I could play professional hockey injuries again, kind of got the best of me and I, I wasn't able to continue playing hockey and I didn't know what I wanted to do. I was never a great student. I was good at gym hockey, <laugh> and Jim , Jim and music were kind of my two decent subject, big math guy, wasn't a science guy. So , um, I thought how cool would it be to be on like sports center to , if I can't be a professional athlete, maybe I could talk about professional athletes. Yeah. So I went to college for broadcasting, so radio, television, broadcast news and that helped me get in front of a camera. So that definitely helps me with my camera presence, being able to talk to a camera, talk to the audience.
Speaker 4:Yeah , you have really good presentation skills, dude.
Speaker 5:I appreciate that. Thanks man. Thanks Paul. So kind of a side story, while I was going to school for broadcasting, I landed an internship in Los Angeles working for Nicki , six of Motley Crew , Motley Crue , the the big band. Yeah. Right . So he had his own radio show syndicated across the entire US and Canada. And I ended up working on that show doing his video production. So he had a show five days a week that, you know, Ozzy Osborne would come in or kiss would come in, or all these big rock stars would come in and wow . He would do interviews and then these guys would sometimes play like an acoustic set. So I'm like fresh in broadcasting school, I knew how to work a camera, I knew how to edit. So I would film all of this stuff with Nikki six and the radio show, and then I would put it up on their YouTube channel. So that was kind of my first real life introduction into filming, editing, posting. And this is like the very p like the infancy of media, I guess . Two 11 , this would be like 2012 , 2011 , 2012 . Oh yeah. So like Twitter had come , the baby years started that
Speaker 4:YouTube and like no one, I mean people were doing YouTube, but they weren't like, this is not a job.
Speaker 5:Totally. Yeah. So that was my first real look at doing this type of stuff. I'm like, oh my God, I've made it, you know, I'm 20 years old, I'm living in Los Angeles, this is like my dream come true as a huge rock fan. And Mickey six was like an idol. It was just like super surreal. And then being Canadian, they couldn't hire me full-time cuz they wouldn't give me a , a working visa. So they sent me back, oh man, sent me back home. So I had like the absolute best couple months of my life working on this show, then sent back home and without a job. So , uh, so then I <laugh> So Alberta, this , this is such a long story, it's got nothing to do with ,
Speaker 4:Okay , we got time, man, I'm gonna hear this story
Speaker 5:<laugh> . It's like, let my , my life in a nutshell, I came back to Canada and I thought maybe I could finish my degree. So the broadcast news was only a two year diploma, but I could do two more years and get my degree in like communications. And I thought having a degree would help me get a job in the real world so my school could transfer to Australia. So they would recognize my credits, I could go to Australia. I'm like, that would be a cool life experience, you know, I'm not married, I'm not dating anyone. How cool would that be to go to Australia? I could bring my golf clubs, I could probably golf year round in Australia. I got the bill for tuition for a, it was 18 months, a year and a half in Australia and it was like $80,000 US . And I'm like, well I don't really want to go into debt, 80 grand to go to school for a year and a half and probably not even make 80 grand a year in , in doing something communications. But I still want to go to Australia. So where I live, Alberta's a big oil and gas province. So we're kind of like Texas in that sense that we, we supplies the majority of oil in Canada or worldwide even. So I tried to get a job or I did get a job working on like an oil rig because that was did you really easiest way to make a whole , to make , to make a whole bunch of money. So I went out to like the middle of nowhere, I was working on a drilling rig and I am not like a labor intensive guy. I didn't know what I was getting myself into. I'm a sales guy, like I , I can talk, I can talk to people, I can sell stuff. Yeah. But, but to be like young and naive and I didn't have a fantastic work ethic. I'm working on this drilling rig that drills for 12 hours a day for 14 days in a row. So from sun up till sundown, you are doing physical
Speaker 4:Labor . You're like, this is like the worst place I could actually be at right now.
Speaker 5:I, I think I , at the time, I would've rather have been in jail than working on this drilling rig. So I lasted, I lasted one
Speaker 4:Rotation . Did you stayed in 14 days?
Speaker 5:I stayed 14 days. I think I cried myself to sleep at least , uh, seven of those 14 days. It was hell man. So respect to those guys that do it, it's just not for me. I got outta there, came back to where I was living at the time in Calgary, got a job in the bar, I was bartending, I met my wife there. So everything kind of , everything happens for a reason and, and I'm glad it did. But yeah, kind of in a nutshell, that was my , uh, couple years, my early twenties. Yeah.
Speaker 4:That those are the best times of your life, but you still have like, no idea what you're doing and you're just like waiting for like the thing to happen and figure out like, oh , what's that path gonna be? And then, I mean, I did the opposite. Like I went to law school and so like I took in like a ton of debt for going to law school and like now I'm not even doing that anymore. So it's like, okay, well I just tell kids nowadays and my kids are like, I'm like, what do you want mean when you grow up? And they're like, I wanna be a YouTuber. I'm like, all right , cool, whatever you guys need help with, I'll, I'll help tell you whatever I've learned, I'll teach you guys, let's start a channel. We'll like figure it out, whatever. And then I've other friends parents who'd be like , that's a stupid thing I've ever heard in my entire life. I'm like, okay, well you enjoy being a cpa. That sounds like a lot of fun . Totally. Like nothing against CPAs. There's so many, but yeah , like it's not, it's not the same world that we grew up in. It's a different world now . No,
Speaker 5:And it's so true. You know , I think our parents grew up, you know, all those baby boomers knowing, you know, you gotta get a degree, A degree is a good paying job, secure benefits, all that stuff. And then I saw my parents do that their entire life and they're commuting my parents two hours each day to work and they're, you know, cranky when they get home. And I think it was just a life that I didn't wanna live. And I think young kids are so impressionable by their parents that their parents says, you know, you , you need to go to school, you need to get a job. And if you have deep down you don't think that that's what your future looks like, you should definitely shoot for the stars. So we could both be probably further along if we didn't commit to school for those years, but I guess better late than never . That's
Speaker 4:Crazy, man. Yeah, cuz I like started this like a couple years ago and you know , I just did it for fun. It was just fun. It was enjoyable. I never thought in a billion freaking years I'd be doing this like full-time ever, ever. And then like to leave my firm, I mean it was just like when I tell people that like, wait, what'd you do? You sure like why'd you do that? That's stupid. I'm like, yeah, but it's different. Like it's , this is , it's a different world. It's a different time, you know, I get to go play golf, I get to review cool products before they even come out. Like that's cool. Like I've been having people fighting all the time about money. Oh thanks . Yeah .
Speaker 5:No kidding. No, good for you.
Speaker 4:When did you start New Nine? Was it two years ago or did you already have kinda like a new nine thing happening before the, before the show?
Speaker 5:So New Nine was never Suppo supposed to be a media channel. New Nine's pretty much turned into my own personal, brand New Nine was always supposed to be a clothing company that I, I walked into a pro shop, I saw Travis Matthew's hat, there was a hat and a patch and I said I could do that. Like I, I love golf stuff. I think I have decent taste.
Speaker 4:You're like literally like that. You're like, I could literally do that like that. Not just you talking out loud, I mean much . And I'm chatting to Matthews right now and I'm like, I mean I like what they do, but I can , I can make this shirt like, come on a hundred
Speaker 5:Percent. No , you could for sure. So I started back , I've done it 20 20, 20 17 I think is when I, I started to start like building or like making clothes. I had no experience in doing any type of clothing, styling, designing, manufacturing, any of that. But I found Were you
Speaker 4:Graphic a designer or do you have that kind of background where you can like come up with glass designs or what? Nope,
Speaker 5:I just outsourced. So I kind of, I was in my kitchen, I was drawing logos. What I thought I could, I liked, I liked the idea of alliteration New nine and n I thought I could tie that all together. I thought I was so clever. Cool. And New Nine, new Nine was something that I would say all the time on the golf course that I'm notorious for shooting like 50 on the front nine and 34 on the back nine. Like I do it all the time and that's my new nine. So if I played like absolute trash on the front nine, I would say, okay, new nine. Like let's forget about what happened . That's a
Speaker 4:Good motto. I mean is how you came up with the name too, is like, that's kind of like, that's really cool. That's more , yeah,
Speaker 5:So I would say that all the time. And then Lamar , I thought about New Nine is that it's not necessarily just a golf term, like New Nine relates to Life. New Nine is learning from mistakes, trying to make ourselves better, you know, keep moving forward, looking ahead, positive vibes. So it , it doesn't only relate to golf, but it also relates to life. So it's now kind of a model that I live by in life that if I up, I make a mistake, I, you know, I don't like the way things are going, we just try to make ourselves better in the future. And that's kind of new nine on and off the golf course. Cool .
Speaker 4:That's really cool. I had no idea how you came up with the name. That's awesome. So you , so you started the , you started the clothing brand 17. And then were you doing like, what's it called? Like , were you like getting it made there in Canada or were you doing like online, like people buy it and it gets made online or
Speaker 5:Whatever. It's funny what you learn after you make mistakes and go over hurdles,
Speaker 4:Bro . I know I've done all this , everything you're saying, I've done the same thing. So I'm just like, I'm like hearing this . I'm like, oh my God, do the same thing. But what , what'd you , what , what how'd you
Speaker 5:Do? Yeah, so I found like, so I found Blank hats from a supplier in Canada. They were flex Fit . I think everyone sees Flex Fit U Pong . So I was buying blank flex fit U pong hats. I found a patch, I found a patch manufacturer overseas. They were sending me the patches. I had the hats. Then I had to get someone to assemble them. I dunno , do you have a
Speaker 4:Whole garage of those things?
Speaker 5:<laugh>? So my hats a lot of them , like I do a lot of , uh, rubber, rubber PVC patches. And I had , I had to find like a , a shoemaker to put them on because you needed a certain machine that you could get the needle through the rubber into the hat . Oh , pretty glue. Glue. Oh my
Speaker 4:God. You were like , you tried to use
Speaker 5:Use the glue. Yeah,
Speaker 4:I didn't . I went to a seamstress and I was like , uh, how do I get this on here? And they're like, oh it , and then the sea and I went to all these like little seamstress around the area and they're like, one lady's like, I can't do that. My machine can't do that. And I was like, okay, fine. And then I went to one, they say , I'll do it for you , but it was like $8. I'm like, $8 is so a patch on a hat. Like I'm make like no money on this hat. I'm like, no , this isn't gonna work,
Speaker 5:Go ahead. No. So yeah , so we started with hats and I, I kind of started a feel for hats. Guys locally would see my hats. They'd like my hats. And then they'd be like, oh, I have a , I have a buddy golf tournament. We , there's 40 of us. Can you make us hats? So then I kinda had this side business just making hats for friends, but I wanted to keep it still new nine. Like I didn't want to just be like behind the scenes. I wanted it to still be a brand. They're not white lady . These guys later down the road. Yeah, exactly. So hats were kind of a big thing. And then shirts were just so hard for me. I'm kind of like a clothing snob. Like, I like nice clothing, I like nice materials. There's so many brands out there. Maybe not even golf related , but any type of brand you get a t-shirt and it's like a high school gym quality t-shirt. You put it in the dryer ones . Yeah,
Speaker 4:Yeah, exactly. Like 40 bucks
Speaker 5:Really good fit. Yeah. So I was just like, I was, I had the opportunity to print stuff like that, but I was just not happy with the quality. And if it's my name behind the brand, I want it to be something that I would buy myself. And at the end of the day, we wanna make money too. So you want there to be decent margins in it. So I just wasn't comfortable selling what I was able to physically get my hands on. So then I thought I need to , I need to go straight to a manufacturer. I can't just keep buying like a gilian shirt, gilian hoodie, put my logo on it, and then sell it and call it my own. I want my own new nine tags. I want everything new nine. I don't want anyone to think that this is like a relabeled product .
Speaker 4:You labeled Gilian shirt or new level, what's it called? New, new level or
Speaker 5:Whatever. New level or American Apparel. There's a whole bunch of
Speaker 4:American apparel and anyone
Speaker 5:Can buy blank stuff. Yeah, right. So anyway, so it took me a long time to kind of, you know, and it costs money too, right? So it's, I still have a full-time job. I'm still trying to pay my bills and this is like my side, my side hustle.
Speaker 4:Wait, what were you doing before all this? What was your, what was your full-time job?
Speaker 5:So I I , I actually still have a full-time job. So I work for a chemical. So I'm in chemical sales. Really ? Yeah. So I've been there, this is gonna be my 11th year working in, in chemical sales. In sales. I've built up a big enough customer base that I wake up and get sales. So I'm not saying that to brands .
Speaker 4:Yeah , you've earned it like residual sales , more
Speaker 5:Time to put to new nine .
Speaker 4:That's cool.
Speaker 5:Exactly. So it took me five years of busting my. Yeah , yeah. Work
Speaker 4:Your
Speaker 5:Off the , to the side. I'm like, I need to build up this business. Exactly. So I'm still there, basically because it keeps my lights on and it allows me to focus on turning this into my full-time gig, which we're so close. I probably could leave it, but it's just, it's, I have it too good right now with my full-time job to just like leave. So I'm kind of just gonna keep that tap on until it runs dry.
Speaker 4:Smart man. I mean, I like, that was me too, man. So I know it's like, you know, you probably double, you're , you're , you probably work like 16 hours a day right now. I would probably say, if not more. And with a baby you'd probably get like no sleep. I know, right? Am I right or am I wrong? Yes . Like baby's asleep, <laugh> . All right , now I'm gonna go work on some script or figure out my, you know, what the hell we're gonna do or you know, whatever.
Speaker 5:Yeah. Well to , to tie it back into clothing, what we were just talking about is now I have my own manufacturing, so I'm so excited. I have a huge drop coming in May that I finally have all my hoodies, my new hats, shirts, golf shirts, like I finally have my line of clothes that I've been working on for two years. Backstory, when Covid happened, all these suppliers shut down. So instead of reselling stuff, I went directly to the manufacturer, took me a year to find a good manufacturer or a couple manufacturers, and then Covid happened. So for two years I couldn't get anything over here. And that's why we started the YouTube channel is that I said, okay, if I can't sell clothing or I can't sell this golf brand, I need to build a community. We started this YouTube channel to build a golf community. So I'm hoping now that we have this golf community, they would be interested in the clothing brand Supporting it .
Speaker 4:Yeah . Supporting
Speaker 5:It , right. So we're kind of just trying to tie it all together. But what you were talking about not sleeping at night is my manufacturing's overseas and they don't start working until like 3:00 AM at night my time, right? Yeah . So I'm, I'm constantly on WhatsApp talking to my manufacturer at 1, 2, 3, 4 in the morning up again at seven and doing it all day every day . But I definitely have a good work life balance, but you just can't get ahead in what we're trying to do. If you just put minimal effort into it,
Speaker 4:There's no way. I mean, so what, how big is your team? Like who is New Nine? I mean, you're the face obviously. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . I was , I see you's a camera person right with you. I see it in your videos. Like who, what's, what's the deal?
Speaker 5:There's just two of us. So my best buddy is Felix. He is my best friend, producer, editor. He is the quality behind New Nine him and I compliment each other. Him and I compliment each other very well. And we both see things differently. He's extremely analytical and he'll study and he'll learn new tasks. And I'm out there trying to get business and trying to talk to manufacturers and trying to build relationships. And we, we both wear different hats. We compliment each other , uh, very well.
Speaker 4:Are they new ? Nine hats trying <laugh> . I was trying to plug your hat
Speaker 5:<laugh> . I appreciate it. But no, so we're, we're just a two man team right now. We're, we're hoping to grow very soon because we've just, we've, the list has gotten so big of the duties that need to be done and we just, we're starting to need help. We're starting to bring in revenue. So it, it , it's, it's been a really fun journey. But he is the, the, the brains behind everything YouTube related . Um, at least from a quality standpoint, he's gotten so good and he had no, no video, no editing experience. Two years ago he on , he learned it all really,
Speaker 4:Like he just taught himself how to edit and
Speaker 5:Nothing. He, he dabbled a little bit to maybe some like Photoshop and maybe some illustrator, like just like for fun. Yeah . Like, just like very, very, very minimally. And he started to learn, he took courses on how to become a filmmaker , how to edit, how to light, how to do audio. He's putting in so much work to get to where we are and we're only getting better that I, I really think that he's one of the best editors and shooters in the YouTube space. And we just need YouTube to recognize that.
Speaker 4:I , I mean , I can see that in your work in the last, I would say probably nine months, you know, like I can see the level . It's gone up a lot. I mean, you , you were not even , I appreciate that that before, but I can see like the quality level of the shoot is completely different than it was even six, nine months ago. You know, the shoot , the editing, even your thumbnails have changed a lot too, which I mean I'm assuming is probably helping a lot now with Yeah . Your ctr
Speaker 5:It's hard to say. Like, we have some videos. Our best C t r videos are videos were released two years ago. It's just, it , it's kind of a guessing game.
Speaker 4:Well , we gotta talk offline about stuff like this cause we can talk hours about it.
Speaker 5:Yeah. But yeah, it's, it's, it's kind of a copycat world, especially in our niche right now. But , uh, I appreciate you saying that. So thanks Paul.
Speaker 4:It's hard, it's super hard in our niche . I feel like there's about, I mean, let's just be real. There's probably 20 good channels, like not even that many, maybe even less than that. Like I'm saying good, like high quality, you know, and we can name 'em, we can go through the list if we wanted to, but everybody knows who they are, right? Yeah . And any of the top dogs, the Rick Shields, the good goods, you know, and then it starts breaking down. It depends on what category you're in too. And I really honestly believe that YouTube treats creators and they put you in silos. I really feel like that. And then they go, oh, you're instructor dude. You're gonna go on this silo. And if you're review guy , you're in this silo. And if you're on course you're in this silo. And it's like, if all of a sudden Brandon started doing videos on instruction and then did the next day , did a video on a course review, like they're not gonna , those video are gonna do terrible. Am I right or am I wrong? It's so
Speaker 5:True. No, you're a hundred percent right, because that's exactly what's happening to our channel, which frustrates the hell, Kevin ,
Speaker 4:To my channel.
Speaker 5:It's so annoying man's everybody.
Speaker 4:I had the same conversation with David Maxfield, I don't know , with David Maxfield from Australia. But like, we talked about this like two weeks ago on the phone. We're like, same thing. It's like, you know, you spend a lot of time on a new style of video, you're really, really proud of it. You're like, wow, you know, we aerial drones and all this . And then it's like, it gets like 40 views and you're like , what the hell? You know? And then so I do another product review and it's like, oh, it's 5,000, you know, or something.
Speaker 5:What I've learned about YouTube, and this is good for your knowledge, you probably already know it. Or anyone that's listening that's maybe aspiring to do any type of content, is that subscribers or pretty much obsolete? They, yeah , it's
Speaker 4:Advantage Metric
Speaker 5:Subscribers are , subscribers are clout subscribers is just a number that you can say to a company that wants to work with you. Or if someone says, how many subscribers do you have? They're like, wow, I got 20,000, 30,000, a hundred thousand subscribers. If you look at the metrics of who's watching your video, 75% come from YouTube suggestions. They're people that aren't
Speaker 4:Subscribe
Speaker 5:To your channel .
Speaker 4:Channel, right?
Speaker 5:They , they open up YouTube, they watched a club review yesterday, they're gonna see my video. So if in , in , in a video that I just released, they got 10,000 views in a day, only 800 of 'em are my subscribers. 9,000 of them are suggested. Uh , what viewers,
Speaker 4:What percentage do you think, I mean I can tell you mine, like what percentage of your videos, cuz you, I mean you probably look at your metrics every day like I do are, cause you know, there's like two metrics, right ? I shows you like, subscribe and not subscribe. What, what percent would you say on average as your subscribed view percent? Mine's like, like less than 5%. It's good .
Speaker 5:It's a good question. Yeah, it's probably right around there. And I have, I have more new viewers than I have returning viewers. And in a perfect world, you'd have the same line of returning viewers and new viewers. But someone might have to see your channel 6, 7, 8, 9, 20 times before they hit the subscribe button. Or they may never, there's channels that I watch for 10 years and I'm not , I'm not subscribed to the channel. I don't know why that is, but it , it's just, it, it's kind of YouTube works. So subscribers are becoming way more obsolete and you just have to make content that you think YouTube is going to suggest to your ideal viewer question . Getting back to putting people in a box. You're talking about YouTube, putting you in a box. If it was up to me, I would never review a product I don't like doing . Well I, I , I can't say I don't like doing product reviews because I do, I, I'm , I'm , I'd love golf products, but I would way rather shoot golf logs on a golf course. I would way rather shoot day long golf than do any , than do any of their type of content. But yeah , like good
Speaker 4:Ads are perfect vlog.
Speaker 5:Yeah. Well, and their quality is like the absolute best. Like we've studied so much. Good, good. We've talked to Colin Ross to try to get in some secrets and some tips on how he does tracers, how he uses a camcorder. Like it's, we're gonna try so hard. We're putting all of our, almost all of our eggs in our basket this year and shooting really good high quality golf , uh, vlog content to hopefully move into that lane successfully because to just shoot, I mean , there's only
Speaker 4:A cell phone
Speaker 5:Shoot on a tripod behind
Speaker 4:You. Yeah. It's not gonna work. I mean,
Speaker 5:And the problem is need , I
Speaker 4:Mean , look at Rick Shields
Speaker 5:Need , you need a team, right? He's like, you
Speaker 4:Need a team. He's a unicorn. Well, that's it. You need a team. Like I saw Rick at the p g A show and he had like five dudes with him, you know what I mean? Like he , like two were filming. Um , like he had the full entourage of Yeah . Content creative around him, which Rick's the man and we'll ,
Speaker 5:We'll , we'll definitely get there. We'll get there. You and I both, we'll have a team in no time.
Speaker 4:I mean, I have a small team, so right now tell I do it, I shoot it myself. I used to hire somebody to help me shoot it, but then I learned that like you lose all creative control if you just let somebody shoot it that doesn't do this, like for a living. Like I'm telling you guys right now, don't go be like a wedding photographer or a videographer to shoot your YouTube video because they don't got a clue. And like, you're not gonna get a YouTube video. It's gonna be a nice, it'll look pretty, it'll look cool. Even if you do it for a brand, it'll be like , oh, it looks so great. You put on YouTubes in a tank. Lemme tell you that. Yeah . So I mean, I've been shooting myself and then I had like an editor and a graphic designer that worked with me and that's it. But don't I , I wish I had, you know, somebody shooting me. But it's expensive. I mean it's cool You have like , it's not your
Speaker 5:Partner. Oh yeah. And like the uh , like equipment is not inexpensive. Like we probably have close to , we probably have like 30 grand of equipment that we've bought ourselves just to run this channel.
Speaker 4:When you're shooting, I notice like in the sim you're shooting with three cameras, right? Looks like you're shooting with three cameras. You have like a side straight on a side, the two sides and straight on. Is that how you're doing it ? So
Speaker 5:We , we have , we have a down the line cam switch is behind the mat facing the simulator. So you can see my swing. We have a face view that I can talk to. And then we have a third camera that is kind of like a 45 degree angle. So I can , I can talk to both.
Speaker 4:Um, and then how are you lighting it up? Are you guys bringing in lighting into the room because you're in a sim ?
Speaker 5:Yes, unfortunately the lighting in that simulator sucks so bad. Oh it's terrible. This film at a local golf store, it's so bad. So it's, it's called Mo Modern Golf. They have these string LEDs on the ceiling. We bring in one of our own lights that I can light myself when I do my intros and when I'm talking close up to the camera. But we're really at the mercy of these string l e d lights and sometimes they flicker, which is annoying.
Speaker 4:So do you have to turn off the mercy , your main light then when you're shooting, like you're shooting your shots, is the main light off? Does it like, does it, does it , uh, oh what's the word? Like ,
Speaker 5:That's a good question. No , I think we
Speaker 4:Leave . Make the screen not look as good. I mean your light looks good today, man. The
Speaker 5:Lighting. Oh no , I appreciate it. Yeah , I only got one, one spotlight on me and then these two behind me and I have my pot lights on above me. But this is kind of like my studio set up time . I review something in the studio. No, I appreciate it.
Speaker 4:Well that was the first thing I noticed like a year ago when you did your studio set up , like you just , you did a review and you used that table and I was like, what a good angle he is using. Cause you had like right here, right in front of your face, I think you did the blue tees range finder and it was like right there and I was like, oh that's a really good angle . Cause that's a hard shot, right? Because you can probably do a top down with the camera and a straight on . Now. Are you
Speaker 5:So we have a couple tripods. I right now ,
Speaker 4:Oh , go ahead. Go ahead. Have tripods in there too.
Speaker 5:Well , yeah, so I have one right above me. You can't see it cause my camera won't pick it up, but I'm touching it right now. Yeah , so it's my overhead cam. I have a backlight attached to it. I have a boom mic right here, but I have this mic. Nice . I could have used either mic , but I thought this would be better for the podcast. We have a <laugh> , we've, we've slowly it started with one light. No, I know.
Speaker 4:It's
Speaker 5:We went on Amazon. We went on Amazon and bought one light and then we're like, maybe we need two lights and then we've got another camera and a third cam . Like it's just you, you just, you don't start here now. Right. And it's only gonna get more a year down the road. It's all the progress and it's all part of the journey. But um, yeah, that's, that's Felix. Felix always comes over with something new. Hey, check out this. Yesterday he bought a new , uh, we , we got a camcorder to try to do vlogs so we can really zoom in on balls. And he picked up You have a
Speaker 4:Really good camp porter ?
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah . It's a good camper kinda
Speaker 4:Camp . Yeah . Oh nice.
Speaker 5:I'm not the guy to talk gear with. I know that we shoot, it's fine primarily on Sony, but uh, we have one's icons I think still in ro rotation. I think we'll probably switch everything to Sony. It's just so much. But you're
Speaker 4:Gonna blow up this year. I have a feeling because you look at what you did, I was telling my editor this, I was telling, I had you on my show today and I was like, bro, like a year and a half ago he was at like 5,000 and now he's at 22, 23, something like that. I'm like, and it's not like you're playing the shorts game either. We're just publishing a bunch of shorts and trying to, you know, do that thing. It's like he's getting real subs from his content, from his long form. And I mean that's, I appreciate that's a , that's hard. Like I don't think people realize how hard that is. Like yeah, you can blow up a channel if like. It's pretty easy. But I mean if you want real community, that's, that's the hardest thing to do.
Speaker 5:Totally. And it's so hard to like compare yourselves to other viewers cause you don't know what they're going through, what they're doing, how they're getting all these things. I came across someone on Instagram the other day that has a YouTube channel and he posted a picture with his , uh, platinum plaque or a gold YouTube bat , whatever you get for a hundred K subs . Yeah . I'm like, how have I never seen this? How have I never seen this guy on YouTube? Like I think I know everyone on YouTube. I go to his page, he's got 104,000 subscribers. I'm like, how, how have I never seen this guy? So I go to his videos and I populate most popular, his most popular video had 800 views. So I'm like, this doesn't make long form sense. Yeah , yeah. Long form video. This doesn't make sense. And his shorts weren't very big either. I go to TikTok, it's got 3 million TikTok followers. Oh . So, so I would guess that he ran some type of contest promotion that you had to leave TikTok go subscribe and then you get this little plaque. So it's like, that's why to me, subscribers are just so clout the substances in that community that will watch all your videos and that's the hardest thing to do. Well
Speaker 4:That's the thing, right? Cuz you could have like, you know, 200,000 subscribers and you go to a channel and it's all shorts, right? And then you look at the dude's long form and they have like 400 views and I'm like, no brand is gonna want to pay for that. Like, like that's, that's not real. I mean, I'm sorry I'm not trying to like a jerk. But I mean like well there's no ,
Speaker 5:It's there's no longevity.
Speaker 4:There's no longevity. It's right. Like, you know, and I was watching this YouTube video last night where this guy was saying, I was like, I didn't even think about it this way, but really like the hard as a, as a company, how it's so hard to monetize shorts. Like there's not enough time there for a company to pay for an ad to be put in that thing cuz it's like switch, switch, switch. And I guess like Facebook or least that , cuz like last year I guys in my , in my notes like Instagram was like paying people to like to publish reels, right? And it was like a bonus system. And like they said that eat , last year they were losing 200 million a quarter just in reels be on lost ad revenue because they couldn't, and they , they , they stopped the bonus program cause they're realizing that reels are not paying like they had to compete with TikTok but they're losing money to do that. And that's not because the bonuses, it's just because company can't really run ads off of that. And I think like, I think, I think TikTok , I think YouTube and Instagram we're trying to kill TikTok but I think at the end of the day it's about long form and a real commu , it's all about community and long form . That's what I really think it is. But the , I guess the problem I guess may ask this question to you is how do the hardest part as a YouTube creator is how do you get people to find you, right? Because it like that's the hardest part I feel like. Like what do you think and how do you try to think ?
Speaker 5:It always changes to be honest. At first we really wanted to get into search. We wanted to get into search based content. So we did some, some research into what are golfers searching. So if you Google, and I'd be interested what would happen on your end if you google beginner golf lesson? I have the number one video on Google.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I saw that. I was like, what the.
Speaker 5:Yeah . So that was our, that was our number one video for a long time. It just got surpassed by a club review, which I'm happier about cuz we're doing a lot less golf instructional stuff. But that was purely from a search engine strategy that we found. What's the most popular search terms and beginner golf lesson is like number one by a landslide. So we made a three-part series. So now we own the space on Google, which is the first or the second Google search . I
Speaker 4:Mean Google search or on YouTube search?
Speaker 5:No, Google search. If you Google beginner golf lesson, we're the first video that comes up. So that's like a huge funnel of traffic for people to see my stuff. The problem is a beginner golfer, let's say they've golfed three times in their life. They see my video and then I'm reviewing these two players drivers. They're like, where's the correlation? Like it's this, that type of content .
Speaker 4:I can afford that. I'm new .
Speaker 5:Yeah. But so in order for people to find you , there's Sony some tricks how to do it. The search bar is amazing. If you turn on incog needle mode, you go onto YouTube and you just search like golf keywords, search golf, and then see what the next thing that comes up is. It'll probably be golf lesson for beginner. So to get people to find your content, I would make videos based on what you are finding in that search bar. Then what you would do is you would watch a high performing video. So watch a video that's doing really well. So, so filter it by views then you have to come up with a plan to make your video better than that video.
Speaker 4:Yep , true.
Speaker 5:Right? So the the , the substance of the content still has to outperform the thumbnail, the title because that's what people are watching. You don't want people to click your thumbnail, be like, oh this is click bait or this guy socks or this guy's shooting on a, you know, a Nokia cell phone or a mobile . I
Speaker 4:Mean the first 30 seconds is the most important. Yeah.
Speaker 5:And even mine, like some of my best videos, I only have like 66% of people watching at the 32nd mark. And that's just, that's gonna happen for growing channels. Where those guys that are Rick Shields , you know, guys are , are
Speaker 4:You getting like hockey, a lot of hockey stick on your, on your retention, you know , um, like not Hugh Hockey stick, but like, you know, first 30 seconds you get the about 20 or 30% drop and then it flattens out and just stays at that. I mean I've about , that's a , I've always seen, I've never had , I mean I've , I've had a couple people who went , had a small hockey stick and I was like holy crap, right ? But
Speaker 5:Like that's gonna happen. It's inevitable. Like our, our channel average is yeah like 66% are watching at 30 seconds, which is normal. And I, I don't know what it is because we've spent so much time learning hooks, learning different visual cues to put in the first 30 seconds to get the point across right away that you would think on all the work that we've put into, we would have a 95% retention market, 30 seconds. And it just, it doesn't happen that way. And I think that's just YouTube. So it's, we're still learning. We're hoping to get that perfect a hundred percent line straight across. I never , something
Speaker 4:That we
Speaker 5:Just experienced recently. We had a video sponsor I'm sure that you saw in our driver bracket series. So it's funny to see all these videos that good retention and then here's my ad, it drops and then they fast forward and then they keep going. So we'll , we'll have to test some other videos of similar quality without an ad just to see if it gets pushed even more. Because I would assume they're not doing as good because there's a dip in our video. YouTube doesn't like dips but at the same time we were compensated for our work . So you kind of have to play that game on making this a full-time job, a living that you need to still make money and doing this to fuel the next video. Right.
Speaker 4:That's a , here's a good question for you cuz I think like, you know, when did you start making money, you know, outside of ad revenue? Like I know I look at your old videos which are similar to mine , like, you know, people send you products like obviously you probably were not paid for that product, they probably just gave it to you and you're like, all right cool, it's one new product, we'll talk about it, we'll be part of the conversation, you know. But like does it, is it hard as now that you've started a game momentum to, it's like dating a chick, right? Like you have like the friend category and you have a good chance of hooking up, right? So like, you know what happens is you get a lot of friends in the friend category but now you wanna like get paid on stuff. People are like, yo wait a minute. You know like don't you just want the new whatever? And you're like, well no I need to pay for this cuz we're buying new cameras and we're doing this and you want quality, right? So like as a new YouTube, somebody coming into new to YouTube, like what do you recommend or how do you kind of bridge that gap?
Speaker 5:That's a really good question. We've probably been getting money or asking for money for products review for probably about a year. We have to build a enough value in our channel that someone would want their product on our channel. So to get into reviews, we've reviewed some pretty expensive stuff outta the gate. And what I would do if, or how I would recommend people getting into it if they wanted to do product reviews is to buy the product and then return it after you've reviewed it.
Speaker 4:That's
Speaker 5:Smart. So you could go, you could go buy a $2,000 electric push cart, use it for a week obviously find out what the , I thought
Speaker 4:They gave it to you .
Speaker 5:Make a video. Well they did. Those guys did. But that's just an example right off the top of my head. Yeah.
Speaker 4:I was like holy crap. Um ,
Speaker 5:We've had some amazing stuff sent to us right now. Like we're getting to the point where we can be pickier with what we want and a lot of times, like a lot of the products that I reviewed, the, I wasn't even on the radar of these people. I'm a golf nut and I want golf stuff and I would use my channel as leverage. So like these push carts, so let's say mgi zip navigator. Yeah. Did we get that from them? Yeah, we did. So I went to them, I said Hey, I'm looking at doing a review series on electric push carts. Would you be willing to send us your best push cart to be in this review category with this stuff? We do one to 5 million views a month. We have this channel, here's an example of one of our reviews. So I'll send them whatever I thought was my best product placement or ad or review of a product and if they liked it , they'd respond. And if they didn't I wouldn't hear from them and move on . 80%, 90% of companies I would hear back from and they have no problem sending me product because so many more companies are putting money ad or money spend into , um, influencer marketing as opposed to old school marketing. Cuz it was not cheap to take out a newspaper ad, a TV ad, a pop-up ad. It's way cheaper for them to send me a free product to review the longevity of that video is gonna make their money back in days. I've probably sold more zip navigator electric carts than I even know about cuz I don't even have an affiliate link for them. That was still at the infancy for our channel where I didn't have enough leverage tasks for money to ask for a promo code to make any type of , um,
Speaker 4:Well you might not even know too. Like they , you might not even know , like as a new YouTuber, like, oh we do have a a program. You'd be like , oh, you know, I have a lot of links like that too where I'm just like, well whatever sales have gone through I have no idea. Hopefully it worked out.
Speaker 5:Yeah. And then they're, they're more willing to work with you, long time to send you new products. And then you can start saying, Hey, how many zip navigators were sold on my promo codes? So now we're getting to the barn where we can ask for affiliate links because we wanna track the metrics on what we're selling. So like a good example of a very well-known brand would be Blue Tees , rangefinders. Do you have Blue Cheese Link? Do you promote them? Yeah, so they have been, we made one video for them a year and a half ago, and we sell like 50 to 60 rangefinders a month just off of that one video that we did. Video,
Speaker 4:Yeah . Video crushes. I did a video of a similar video like a month ago, and it didn't really get picked. I mean, it's, it's in the , it's in search, but it's not like 20,000 views like yours. Like probably 2000. Right?
Speaker 5:Yeah. So that's just like one example where now we can start to track. Okay. Like our, our video is extremely valuable because do the math on whatever, 12 months times 50 range finders , you know, is that I 600 I think off the top of my head, 600 rangefinders a year. Uh , rangefinders, 300 bucks, like that, that money adds up. So if there's something not coming, good . Yeah.
Speaker 4:Back
Speaker 5:To us. We're, we're the, the sales force and to have to , to be in professional sales and business to business sales, like there has to be something in it for me. And that's kind of how I've tied my background into professional sales to now working with these companies to at least , um, compensate us at the same time being a product reviewer, is it , you walk an extremely fine line on taking compensation from companies if you don't believe in their product. So there's been instances on the channel where the money sign , some , some , sometimes looks better than the actual product. And the last thing that I want to do is lie to my audience. I want, I don't want to deceive them. I don't want 'em to think I'm a sellout. So now we've gotten to the point where we will only take on products that I would use myself and if they're willing to compensate me or compensate us or give us an Excel affiliate link. Yeah . You know, there has to be, it's gotta be a win-win for the both of us. So it's taken us a year to get to that spot and I'm excited for what the future holds. The one thing that we don't take any compensation from is the big OEM manufacturers.
Speaker 4:Sorry , talking to you.
Speaker 5:We talk to a lot of 'em actually. Yeah . We, we do talk to them. Um, some are a lot better, some are a lot better to us than others. Some won't return. Some don't give up. No . Talk
Speaker 4:About , I was told once, I'm not gonna say who it was. I , I was , I swear to God, that's what they said to me. Um , they said, it's not you, it's us. That's why we can't work with you. And I was like, are we like in junior high? Are we breaking up? Like, what's happening here? <laugh> ?
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's, well, you know, they'll , they'll come back around . You know, you make a , you make enough noise. I had that exact same conversation with someone when we were smaller. I, I don't know if I'd be okay to say it. Maybe you can edit it or put a bleep over it. But it was Titleist . I went to Titleist and I said, I'm looking for a new driver for this year. We have this channel. I'm trying to use my channel as leverage to try to get some stuff. And they, they kinda wrote back to me, they said, you know what? You're not quite our demographic. Something along those lines. Then we had some product reviews take off and they came back to us a year later and said, we wanna set you up with the title is fitting and that video has crushed it on our page. It's done really good. We talk to 'em all the time. They'll send me a driver like it's, I I wouldn't take no as a no forever. Right.
Speaker 4:Just keep, can't dot do that . Yeah .
Speaker 5:You keep your head down, you keep doing good stuff, people are gonna notice you. Um, I talk to people, we talk to almost all manufacturers. They've all been really good to us. Some manufacturers have been a lot better to us. They, we went to , uh, uh, I don't mind saying Cobra. Puma invited us to an exclusive , uh, tournament to go play with Ricky Fowler and Kago in Miami. And this was like a year ago when we were still like super up and comers . We were there with like , uh, Matt from T x xg and they obviously pretty much own the club review space. And this is something that every manufacturer does cuz we're talking with Matt. Matt was just in Mexico with tailor-made . You know, they're, they're all trying to get on your good side because at the end of the day, they understand how valuable our videos are in selling products. It all comes down to money. Right.
Speaker 4:Do you feel, so what is your niche right now? Are you trying to figure out where you lie? Because it's like, I feel like that's the hard part too in product review. Like you could do a million different things, but like, you know, back to the whole silo thing, it's like it really gets siloed, silo siloed down. So like, oh, you're the guy. YouTube treats you as the guy that does this. Like if TG did a , a range finder tomorrow, that video would tank. It'd probably get like 400 views and you can go to any YouTuber's channel and you can see when a YouTuber's tried something outside of their norm and it always does like a third or half as good as, so are you starting to see where you're starting to fall, like in the eyes of the algorithm?
Speaker 5:Yep . So what we're considering doing, and it's funny cuz Felix is right here behind me, EEAs dropping on our conversation and have him
Speaker 4:Come in. I want have him wave. Have him wave. I want to see him . He wants to
Speaker 5:See you. Do you wanna come wave really quick? He'll come over. Here's the face behind all of the amazing quality that we've done. What's up
Speaker 4:Dude? What's going on? <laugh>?
Speaker 5:That's Felix .
Speaker 4:Nice . Nice meeting you .
Speaker 5:He says Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you Paul. He says vice versa. He doesn't love being in front of the camera, but he's so good behind the camera. I I need him there and I can't let him leave me. <laugh> . No .
Speaker 4:Yeah . Don't talk cannot not leave.
Speaker 5:Yeah, don't leave me. But talking about , um, content going into considering doing is is is making a couple channels. So, we'll we could keep new nine as new nine reviews. We could have new nine vlogs. There's, there's no right answer. I
Speaker 4:W yeah, I tried that. Like I split off and I did like shorts channel only and then I did like a podcast channel. But what problem is, this is what I've found is you start diversifying your, you're not big enough. You know what I mean? And no , this is not to you, but it's like me saying it to myself like, you're not big enough now you have to run three separate things to try to get three, I don't know , like until you're at a hundred thousand or at a million, then you can start doing it . Cuz those people come over. Some of them will. But it's almost like you're starting from scratch each time. You know,
Speaker 5:You are and you are and you aren't. I think if, if we were to try it, our , our quality's gotten there. Some people have come onto the scene. Like there's those guys, the name is falling off the tip of my tongue. They do those skits on Instagram, on social media, they're like super dry. What are they called ? Andre? They're
Speaker 4:Funny people. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They
Speaker 5:Can't seen Andre Golf. They came onto the scene now they were each all can eat , uh, comedians each had their own following , but the quality that they put out was so good. They didn't have to figure anything out. You put out banger content, the subscribers, the views, it's all gonna come. So I think we have a big enough skillset that if we just made a vlog channel and only did vlogs and you're only following new nine vlogs to watch our vlogs, I would hope that we get put into the box of the vlog channel. We're , we're trying, we're trying to build a big enough loyal subscribership that we're kind of taking the Rick Shields route, if you will, that Rick Shields did a ton of club reviews. He did a ton of lesson series that's he
Speaker 4:Started
Speaker 5:And now he can do whatever the he wants. Right. So we're kind of just seeing what we can do, seeing what takes off. Yes . Because at the end of the day, you just have to double down on what's working. So these club reviews are working, product reviews are working. We can't leave those behind because we're starting to build trust in an audience that if someone wants to buy something, they might search new nine, golf blue tees , new nine, golf , whatever. I see it in the search history. So I can't let those people down and only do other content. But if we make the , if we're gonna make the content anyway, we're just uploading it under a different YouTube studio is kind of how I look at a rating .
Speaker 4:Somebody recommended to me once they said like , what you can do is like two to one, right? So you like two your normal stuff and then one the test, right? A vlog or whatever. And it's like, so that it's always the same kind of pattern. So like if it does do, doesn't do well, it's okay cuz you're still getting a get a chip at that, right? You can get to that to start creating content that you might want to do that otherwise might not perform well. Um, but I mean it's smart. I mean it's always worth trying what's the worst case scenario? And that's ,
Speaker 5:We do so much trial and failed that we only know what we know now because we failed at a whole bunch of stuff and we're gonna continue to fail at things because we have a goal that we're gonna get to. And if it takes us a year, two years, five years, 10 years, that we're, we're kind of just gonna enjoy the ride.
Speaker 4:So what's your plans this year? Like what do you , what do you plan on working on this year?
Speaker 5:So golf season just started, we played our first couple rounds this week. So we are going full guns a blaze and trying to perfect or try to get a lot better at shooting course flogs. We, we kind of break it down into two categories, shooting course flogs. One is the technical aspect that we need to get our camcorder work because the bar has been set so high by good, good as far as like a quality
Speaker 4:Perspective. Yeah, it can't be garbage. You can't be filming on a phone.
Speaker 5:So we need some
Speaker 4:Blurry.
Speaker 5:I can put a camera behind me, I can shoot it and I can put a shot tracer on it. No problem. I've done it to my current course Flogs. But what you can't see is the ball landing at the green. So we need another videographer by the green that can watch that because people have learned in watching Good, good that that's what you should expect in scene . A golf match. So there's the technical aspect . So right now Felix and I are gonna go out, shoot a couple rounds, he's gonna play with the camcorder. We're gonna play multi shots . We're gonna understand the process better on how we can technically shoot a good course flog . The second part of it is the substance. What , how do people gravitate towards good, good . So they have , and Bob does sports or spit and chocolates . I don't know if you've ever seen any of their sandbag or invitationals. They're hockey guys that do golf content. But these guys, the substance of the personalities of the guys that are golfing is kind of the core on how people are relating to these guys. So someone watches good, good , they might not be a Matt , but they might, you know, be a Steven and they relate to Steven or someone might hate Steven and they'd love Matt or however, however it all works out, right? So we're trying to come up with maybe a team or we might try some guys I golf with some hilarious guys. I golf with guys that if it was recorded we'd be a million views I think. Right? But the second you put a camera on them and say, okay, be funny is so different. So introducing people onto my channel that haven't been on before will be extremely new. But , um, moving forward this summer where we're really trying to bang out a lot more encore stuff.
Speaker 4:Would you hire more videographers so that Felix can like direct more people? Like if that was what needs to be done. Yeah , that's , you're at that point where you're gonna gonna be like , okay, we can hire a second shooter. Yeah,
Speaker 5:It's gonna get to that point. It's , it's definitely gonna get there. And I can direct too, like we have, we , we also run a media company. This is a side thing where he'll shoot and I'll direct. Like if I'm doing like a corporate video, I'm kind of directing everyone. Yeah . So I can still , I can still direct people. It's still, this is still our baby and we can tell people where to go. But to get a case , cause
Speaker 4:You guys know what you're doing. That's the , the key is like, you know what you're doing, you just have to go and do it and like learn from the little mistakes. Like, oh, next time we should have a second shooter down there. We should have a guy, two people following us, whatever it is. But until you spend a couple months, you know, doing it, you're not gonna know. Really. No, I think you guys have the editing down the editing's off the hook. You guys doing a really good job editing. You're like, I mean the multi-camera shots are great. Um, it's entertaining. Your videos are longer like, you know, like over 10 minutes, but like you're engaged the whole time. It's not like, oh my god dude, this guy's going on forever about this thing. It's like, no. It's like you're still always kind of engaged with what's going on. So I think you guys have all that down for sure.
Speaker 5:Well
Speaker 4:Thanks. I think you're cool with the encores .
Speaker 5:We're gonna , we're gonna get there. It's funny, those videos that come out to 12 minutes, they start us , you know, an hour and a half <laugh>. Oh yeah . And I was like, okay, how can we get this to a half hour and then what can we trim? We're constantly trimming stuff and we, we both watch, we're like , oh , we should have cut this should have cut this should have cut this. But one of our, our number one performing video is like 40 minutes.
Speaker 4:Really? Yeah. Was it like the instruction video?
Speaker 5:No , we did game improvement irons, game improvement, iron reviews.
Speaker 4:So I saw that like five best game improvement irons I think blew up.
Speaker 5:Yeah . So I think, I can't remember how he did if it was eight, but
Speaker 4:It's , uh, you know what I wonder, I'm actually gonna have another YouTuber on the show on Monday. Raking 80. I dunno , have you seen his stuff too? Yep , he's , yep . Um ,
Speaker 5:Yeah , we
Speaker 4:Talk and so like, I, I know it's like live his videos too, like is done like the guides, you know what I mean? But well , like you're , you're it Improvement Irons video is the same kind of same kind of thing where it's like a very well shot guide, you know, like the best stuff. Not like a stupid like, you know, B roll city with some guy talking in the background and it's like bake , you know what I mean? With techno music playing, it's almost like cutting to the chase, right? Like cutting the chase where people just want the information. Like what do I buy right now? Not, I feel like there's two different kinds of buyers, right? The guy that wants to know more about the new product and there's a guy who's like, I wanna buy today. I don't know what to buy, so what one do I buy? Oh, this looks pretty cool. I'll buy that one. So I guess one last question for you before we go. If you were a new YouTuber or new to this world, what would you recommend to somebody to , to how to start?
Speaker 5:Hmm . Good question. There's so much you can do with your cell phone and everyone has a cell phone , so you can get by , you could get your first thousand subscribers shooting on a cell phone . I think for sure. What what I would also recommend is to learn. So how do you learn YouTube? That's a good question.
Speaker 4:Ask Felix
Speaker 5:<laugh> . Yeah, well so , so I'll , I'll tell you Felix, I'll tell you exactly. I'll tell you exactly what we did. We bought a course called Full-Time Filmmaker . I shouldn't even be plugging this. It is from Felix Isn't here. Is
Speaker 4:That guy? Is it that guy who you always see the ads running? Probably . It looks like he's talking or whatever. Yeah, yeah .
Speaker 5:What's his name? It's gonna bug me anyway. He's Okay . We bought a , we bought a course for beginners to learn videography because if you wanna have a successful video channel, you're, you're gonna have to do a lot of this stuff yourself before you can hire a bunch of people. Right? That's true . So I would, I would do research online on like YouTube courses, filmmaker courses, editing courses. I would buy those courses and fully er immerse yourself, commit, commit to learning this stuff cuz it'll teach you from A to Z how to do everything it is that we do. And you're gonna constantly get better. You're gonna learn and then apply, learn, apply, learn, apply, learn, apply, learn, apply. There's so much free information out there on YouTube that eventually you're just gonna overwhelm yourself because one person says go left and the other person says go right. And they both have 500,000 views. So how do you know which person to listen to exactly? Um, I would, I would invest in a course, do some research and just , uh, and commit to that course. The hardest thing is the first 30, 90 days, the first day you're so excited. You're like, I just started a YouTube channel. I'm gonna shoot, I have all these ideas, I'm gonna do it. They film it all and then they're like, well I don't know how to edit. So then you gotta learn how to edit. You're gonna learn, you have to learn just so much stuff. But if you just stay committed, if you have an end goal in mind, just understand that all your failures are gonna be part of your success. Like to just do it to quote Nike is, is kind of the best advice that I could do. That we failed so much and I could just keep doing what I was doing five years ago or three years ago. But , uh, being involved in this industry to, to talk to people like you, you know, like-minded guys that have similar goals and aspirations and you can pick, pick each other's brains. Yeah. Share.
Speaker 4:Yeah, exactly. Like maybe this work , this work , yeah.
Speaker 5:Try to try to be friends with people that do stuff or reach out to your favorite content creators and see how they got into it. Like I think the majority of us, I'll check our dms, the big guys, the small guys. Like, I've been amazed at the people that I've been able to talk to in this industry. I'm sure you have as well. Like the worst thing you could do is shoot your shot because, you know, the worst thing that they could say is no. So if they say no, you move on to the next thing. So I would just say stay hungry, stay motivated, learn and just keep doing.
Speaker 4:Well thank you so much for being on the show today . I mean, like, honestly like I said, I've been a fan for a while . You guys have to check out noon nine . Like he's, he's blowing up. I mean I bet you're gonna hit 50,000 by the end of the year. That's what I think
Speaker 5:Personally . I appreciate it. That's the goal. It's , that was our goal. Yeah ,
Speaker 4:I can see it. Cause I mean you have the momentum, like you found the secret sauce. Like, you know, I think that's the hardest part for a YouTuber is to find out what that sauce is and what do I need to work on. Right. And get better at that. And I think you guys have really hit it in the last, I don't even say like nine months. You can see the progression of the content gotten so much. I mean, I'm not saying it was bad before, but like, it's like it's gotten so much better. I
Speaker 5:Appreciate you saying that. Thanks Paul.
Speaker 4:And your thumbnails are really good too, by the way. Who's doing that? Are you Felix? Felix? No . Crap bro. You got like, Felix is like the man over there. He's behind the camera, like whatever.
Speaker 5:Yeah . But he
Speaker 4:Is . That's Well thank you for being on the show today. Where can people find you?
Speaker 5:So you can find me majorly on Instagram at New Nine . So it's spelled n i N e New nine Golf . You can find me on YouTube under the same name, new Nine Golf . Um, that's usually where I hang out. Our website is new nine golf.com . Our big drop is coming in the middle of May. Um, you can sign up to my newsletter on my website to get the notification when that drops. Cause I don't think the stuff is gonna last. High quality stuff. But , uh, anyone new that's never heard of me before. I'm looking forward to uh, getting to know you guys.
Speaker 4:Great. Well thank you so much for being on the show. I appreciate it.
Speaker 5:Thanks for having me, Paul. That was a lot of fun. I appreciate it and you keep doing what you're doing. You're killing it too. So hopefully we're , uh, we're at the finish line together. Looking forward to golfing
Speaker 4:For sure. Sounds good, man. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Thanks for listening to another episode of Behind the Golf Brand podcast. You're gonna beat me a golf stay connected on and off the show by visiting golfers authority.com. Don't forget to like, subscribe and leave a comment. Golf is always more fun when you win. Stay out of the beach and see you on the Green Green .