In this week's episode I interview my good friend and fellow YouTuber Matt Fryer who shares his story of how he went from 0 - 215,000 subscribers, and over 32 million views in just a few short years.
Matt has been involved in golf for over 20 years, and he has seen all aspects of the market, from playing professionally for 4 years to running a professional shop at a leading resort in the north of England. His passion has always been the game of golf, how it has been played, and how to improve it. With the guidance of his father, Adrian Fryer, a Fellow Member of the P.G.A., Matt has now embarked on the same route, hoping to become a great coach and further his already vast knowledge of the game and help golfers of all levels play to their full potential. With an easygoing yet informative and driven approach to coaching, Matt is quickly establishing himself as a coach anyone would enjoy improving with.
In this week's episode I interview my good friend and fellow YouTuber Matt Fryer who shares his story of how he went from 0 - 215,000 subscribers, and over 32 million views in just a few short years.
Matt has been involved in golf for over 20 years, and he has seen all aspects of the market, from playing professionally for 4 years to running a professional shop at a leading resort in the north of England. His passion has always been the game of golf, how it has been played, and how to improve it. With the guidance of his father, Adrian Fryer, a Fellow Member of the P.G.A., Matt has now embarked on the same route, hoping to become a great coach and further his already vast knowledge of the game and help golfers of all levels play to their full potential. With an easygoing yet informative and driven approach to coaching, Matt is quickly establishing himself as a coach anyone would enjoy improving with.
Today we play golf. Let me show you how we do it in the pros. Welcome to Behind the Golf Brand podcast. I never missed with the Seven Iron , a conversation with some of the most interesting innovators and entrepreneurs behind the biggest names in golf. My friends were the golf clubs. I lived on the golf course, I lived on the driving rein 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 if 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 Libert tore . What's up guys? Welcome to the Behind the Golf Brand podcast. This week I have my good friend Matt Friar , if you guys dunno who Matt Friar is. And you're probably not on YouTube. He's one of the biggest YouTubers in the golf space. He's grown tremendously over the last couple of years. He makes awesome content on golf products and some instruction. And I'm really super excited about him on the show today because I've been a fan for a long time. And be really cool to hear how he kind of got to where he is at and what he's doing on his channel. So welcome to the
Speaker 2:Show. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me, Paul. Looking forward to it.
Speaker 1:So Matt is eight hours ahead of me right now, so like it's eight o'clock at night there and it's only noon here. So I feel kind of bad 'cause it's such a late I I'm going to sleep if it was me. Um , but thank you for being
Speaker 2:Here, here . We'll , we'll be up till midnight <laugh> . Yeah,
Speaker 1:That's fine . Minutes do it. No , I'm just kidding. So where do you live exactly?
Speaker 2:So, live in a town called Warrington in England, which is in the north of England. We're , we're slapping between , um, Manchester and Liverpool. So Manchester's 20 minutes from me, Liverpool's, 15 minutes from me, 20 minutes from me. And yeah, just , uh, born here, grew up here. The golf club where I film a lot of the content is , um, about 2000 yards from my front door. So that's nice and handy. And I grew up Oh wow. Like across this ? Yeah, really close. And then grew up like , um, across the street from where I'm as well. So lived in the area for ages and yeah, it's , it's brilliant. And then my office is another 10 minutes into the center of Warrington . That's where the studio is and where all the editors and , um, everyone works.
Speaker 1:I'm so jealous. Um , <laugh> , I wish I had it . Like my, so my team's like all around the world really. And like they're in Europe and Asia . Some people are in Asia and it's like, it's like we have our meetings, but I wish my, I wish my whole team was here so that like we could just be like, we have our Zoom call . We , we goof around. Have a great time. I'd be , it was so cool to be in the same like space together and like, I don't know , like do stuff together instead of like,
Speaker 2:Yeah .
Speaker 1:I don't know . I think that's neat <laugh> . Um, so did , so I always ask this question, but it's obvious. So are you a golf pro? Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. Um , PGA Golf Pro <laugh> . I was very much
Speaker 1:So
Speaker 2:Think I always , we were trying to figure it out there . I couldn't even figure it out . I think I've been qualified for four years, five years now, but been , um, since , since I left school when I was 16. Um , I'm 35 now. I've worked in golf. So I literally worked in the American Golf , which is a big retailer over here. Um , oh yeah. Then worked in pro shops. Um, and then like, yeah, just, just done that. And then was coaching full-time before I made the jump to go full-time YouTube.
Speaker 1:So like, how'd you get into golf? Was it like your dad or your mom or your grandfather or what's
Speaker 2:<crosstalk> ? Yeah , so, so my dad's APGA pro as well. Um, and the Club Warrington where I'm a member at and where we film , um, a lot of the stuff. He was the pro there for a couple of years. And then in the center of Warrington was the first multi-tier range, like what you see at a top golf now or anything with like two or three tiers to it. The first one that was in England was actually in Warrington. Um , might've been the first one in Europe, actually, I can't remember. Um , so dad used to run the coach in there, run the shop. Um , so he introduced me when I was 10, but I was really small up until I was 16 and I had a massive growth spurt. So he joined me down at the golf club when I was 10. I didn't really know anyone. Um, I played a couple of times. I couldn't really hit the ball very far. And 'cause I didn't know anyone, I wasn't very good at that point. I quickly said like, it's not for me not interested and, you know, full credit to my dad . He , he didn't say, well no, you've, you've joined, you've gotta go and play. I'm a golf pro. You've gotta go and play golf. It was, okay, no worries if you, if you come back to it, fine, we , you know, it's always there for you. But go in and go and do what you want to do . Um , and then I think it was one summer holidays when I was 15, 16 going into the last year of school. I went to the driving range where my dad was working and running , um, with a group of friends. I think they just took me 'cause they could get free golf balls. And , um, I started hitting someone and periodically between sort of 10 to 16, I would go to the driving range. Um , it was like a form of babysitting. It was either go to my nana's with my three sisters and um, and go there or I could go to the range and sort of play pool, hit balls and just watch football on TV all day. So I'd go there now and again, so I'd always maybe like hit the odd ball, but wasn't that interested. But when I went back when I was 16, I just started hitting a few, I was hitting wedges and just literally like hitting the first one was rubbish hit the second one, rubbish. And then third one was like, oh , that was all right . And then did it again. That was decent. And literally just like a bucket of 50. I was like, this is really good. And that, that night , um, as, as my dad came home was like, I wanna join the golf club again. I was like, oh , I don't think it's that easy to get in. Like I said, well , you are like the, you are the pro, you know, everyone just, just get me in. Will you ? And luckily the , um, yeah ,
Speaker 1:Let me on. Come on. You know?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the secretary at the time , um, the great bloke , he was , he , um, he just said, it's , it's fine. Well you just pay your membership. He's a back in sort of thing. And that was it. Then from 16 I've pretty much been there , you know, not, not, I've had a golf club in my hand pretty much every day since. That's
Speaker 1:Crazy. I , in the United States they had APGA schools and all that stuff like that. Is , is that how you kind did it too in, in England or was something different there for your training? Or like how did that all work?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so over here it's, it's , I think it's similar in, in America like the U-S-P-G-A , um, PGA over here you do a, a three year university degree. So you, you work and then study alongside it, and then you do a residential week at the rie , which is where the head of the PGA is. And you go in and take like practical classes there. So it was coaching , um, like shop management or business management , um, club repairs. So we like used to build clubs , um, like resha in woods and irons , um, like , um, sports science as well. So you did all those things and then at the end of it, you came out, I think it's a diploma you're getting like , um, sport and, and, and golf management. So
Speaker 1:Then when did you do that? Like, how long ago was that?
Speaker 2:That was , yeah, that was about five years, years ago, I think. Four years ago maybe. So yeah. Yeah. It would've been five years ago. I think it was like , I , so I start , started it , uh, eight years ago and then finished it five years ago. So
Speaker 1:Then what were you doing? So like you got , you graduated from school and then you were like, were you teaching at the , at, at at the course or how'd you, how , like what was that?
Speaker 2:<crosstalk> ? No, so, so from from 16 I went to working in the, working in the local American golf and then worked at the golf club. And then I was trying , I wanted to be a tall player, so , um, I was playing in all amateur events, got down to plus two, was playing sort of like county stuff , um, national stuff . Um , and then there was like a , an order of merit thing that I played did okay. Nothing fantastic. Um, and then turned like playing pro . Um, so from probably about 20, 21, 22, that's when I, I sort of turned pro as it were, as a playing pro. I hadn't done my PGAI was trying to compete. There's a , a tour over here called Jamaica Tour, which is like a mini tour. Um, and then you a pro, I played a few of those, but they're quite expensive. And it was like hard funding it. And at that time then I was working in the pro shop as well, playing wasn't going to plan. After sort of two or three years of trying it , um, it was, you know, costs were racking up. So I thought of it
Speaker 1:Was
Speaker 2:Falling out of love with playing and decided , um, you know , the best thing for me, I'm probably not good enough, not dedicated enough to it. Um, and at that time I was starting to help a few friends with , um, with their games. They were asking me, oh, can you like look at my golf swing or when we're out playing, or even a few members , um, because they , they knew I was a good player. They'd sort of listened to you anyway. Um , so I started doing a bit of that and found that from all the lessons I'd had with my dad and my coach, and been around coaching all the time, like through my dad, I , I like, I took to it quite easily and really enjoyed it and saw my clients having quite a lot of success. And I got a really good feeling from seeing them progress. And , um, when, when my golf wasn't going to plan and I wasn't getting that feeling of like playing a good round or progressing, you know, through a tournament when they were doing, you know, our text and me saying I've had my best round. Oh , that chipping tip that we did and that lesson we had, I just shot my best score. It was like, oh, I got that satisfaction from there . So that's when
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah . You're , it's fulfilling to you like, you're like, oh
Speaker 2:Yeah ,
Speaker 1:Like , not like the grind and you're like, I'm never gonna get this, like
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. Yeah . Yeah. The realization was there that, you know, I , I wasn't gonna be on the European tour of the PGA tour, but I still got the same satisfaction from seeing my players do it. So that's when, you know, I entered into the PGA and started doing my training and sort of just hung playing up then I , like now. Yeah , I think I played open qualifying once in the last three years. Obviously with Covid and stuff we , we've not had it, but um, prior to that sort of competitions I've maybe played three in the last five years. I'm just, just doesn't entrust me. Really . All
Speaker 1:Doesn't do it . Yeah, it doesn't do it for you anymore. Like no , I just been there, done that. I don't want , I don't care. Yeah . Like whatever. Yeah , like it's neat, but it's not like the be all end all to what you
Speaker 2:Wanna
Speaker 1:Do with your life.
Speaker 2:Yeah , exactly.
Speaker 1:It's funny, got had Taylor Crosby on the show last week and he's a big , he's instructor here in the United States is pretty big. Mm-Hmm , <affirmative> and like he was saying the , almost the exact same story, right? Yeah . Like
Speaker 2:He
Speaker 1:Was on college, like he was on the team and like went here to the United States and like, and uh, I can't remember , I can't remember he was on his team, but it was like they're all PGA players pretty much now. And yeah , he said that like the exact same thing happen where like you just kinda get burned out because you get tired of like spending your money and spending all your time and you still play good golf, but it's not amazing golf. And like, you realize that like, yeah , maybe I'm not that, maybe I'm not at that level, right? Like maybe I'm not, yeah,
Speaker 2:And
Speaker 1:I'm close, but you know, it's like that , you know , when you miss that putt or whatever it is and it's like, I don't know , I couldn't even imagine the stress of that. But
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's, there's a lot of , lot of guys who, you know, credit to them. They're still out there trying it. I think it's, if you've got the realization and you, you like, you understand and say , well you know what, at least I tried it. At least I gave it a go. Um , and realized that
Speaker 1:Yeah , you did it. Yeah .
Speaker 2:Yeah. It didn't work out that there are other avenues. You know, you've got coaching and then obviously what I'm doing now with the , the social stuff, there's things like that you could go and be a great manager at a golf resort or, you know, be a good head pro. It doesn't have to be, you know, the , I want to be on tour. I think a lot of us , um, who are pros have been decent amateur players and then have sort of had that aspiration to play and it doesn't, you know, if it doesn't happen, it doesn't have to be the end. There's still lots of other stuff that you can still do in the game and get great satisfaction from it.
Speaker 1:You , so you were teaching and you became a pro, and then what year did you start your YouTube channel? 'cause this is the , I love this part. So like what, like what happened? Like what made you decide to do YouTube? What year was it? Like,
Speaker 2:So I've had my channel now for eight years, so Oh crap. That'll be 2000 2017. Yeah.
Speaker 1:15,
Speaker 2:But , uh, 15, sorry. Yeah, 2015. I, for the first three years, it was just like a , a play thing really. I didn't really know why I'd had that . Was it rubbish,
Speaker 1:<laugh>? Oh , you ever picked your old stuff and you're like, what the hell was I thinking?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I , yeah . Well , yeah, you got , you gotta start somewhere, but,
Speaker 1:And you gotta go Are you like archive, archive, archive. I don't want that general anymore .
Speaker 2:Get rid. Yeah. Um , a lot. I don't think I've done like it . If you go back there, they're all still there. But I was at the club I was at , um, myself and Rick Shields were assistants together, so we grew up
Speaker 1:I didn't know that.
Speaker 2:That's crazy. Yeah , so we, we, we worked together I think for three years and he, he then , um, went onto to traffic center , uh, to go and coach and he just started it as he was leaving. So , um, I used to like
Speaker 1:Daily , oh , it was like early for both of you guys. Like you guys were just like doing it like no one.
Speaker 2:Yeah . Yeah. So he , he did that and I was like, oh, I'll do it too. Then like, I didn't know why I was doing it. 'cause I was still trying to play at this point. I was still trying to compete events and things. So I, I , I used to watch loads of YouTube. I actually sort of remember the first channel that I I got into is the thing called SB tv , which is like smokey bars tv, which is like grime music over in England. So I used to listen to a lot of music on that and then would like go down the rabbit hole of YouTube and watch other things on there. So I liked YouTube anyway. I used to watch it. Um , so I was like, oh, well you can have a channel, that's cool. I've got a channel, but didn't know what it was meant to be or what I wanted to do with it . And then when Rick had left 2015 ,
Speaker 1:Right. So
Speaker 2:Yeah,
Speaker 1:So like, you're just like, what were you putting , what were you, what were you posting on there initially? Like lessons,
Speaker 2:The odd lesson, a course, flog a behind the scenes , uh,
Speaker 1:Whatever, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just there was no, there was no sort of, this is what it is and that's what it, you know, is four As where then, you know, fast forward three years, I go to Traffic Golf Center . Um, and at that point Rick had been there, Pete Fin had been there, Andy Carter had been there. And I took Andy Carter's job when he went to Dubai. And Rick said to me at this point, you know, and I owe a lot to Rick for , for , you know, sitting me down and helping me with it. Um , use your YouTube now as a way of just , um, marketing yourself for lessons because it's a mega busy range. You pay quite a high rent and you've got to fill it to fill your diary to make any money. And there was eight coaches when I went in. So if you just sat at your desk hoping that lessons would come through the door, you probably wouldn't last very long. But , um, with like what Rick told me to do, then all I did for the next two years was every single week, three videos a week were all coaching tips. So I just , uh, like it was a way of this is gonna get, like, I didn't look at it in any terms. It
Speaker 1:Was your marketing, right? It was your, it was your advertising to keep Brita on your table for your family.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Yeah. I didn't look at it as a , a way of making revenue. The way I would make money off YouTube was that if Paul saw my video on fixing his slice, he then booked in a lesson with me and then booked in a course of lessons. So like that was my way of trying lead generator.
Speaker 1:Yeah,
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So then it got to the point when I left Trafford , um, that , you know, my diary was full. I had people, you know, seven or eight, 10 emails a day coming in saying, you know, can I
Speaker 1:<crosstalk> ? So how long, so like how long did you start seeing? So , so what year did, so you started at 17, but when did you start like going full bore? Like three a week? When was that? What year was that? Do you know?
Speaker 2:That was when I start , yeah, when I started at traffic center . So , um,
Speaker 1:Wow. And then like how long and until like you, when you started publishing, that's a lot. You guys, like, you have no idea three videos a week is a lot of work.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Like a lot
Speaker 1:Of work and teaching, right. So it's like on top of
Speaker 2:Teaching ? Yes . Yeah. Teaching 45 hours probably of lessons at the range from , um, I used to get in at like half eight in the morning, leave at 10 at night. Um , would do that on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, half day Friday. Um, and then like nine till three on a Saturday. And then I would film all my videos on a Monday morning up at the golf club, go up there, shoot five videos every Monday. So I would always be staying ahead and then I would edit them in between lessons or when I got home at night. And so what
Speaker 1:Were you filming with? What camera were you filming with back then? Do you remember? Oh God.
Speaker 2:Um , I probably still got them, actually. I had a <laugh> .
Speaker 1:Canid?
Speaker 2:No, Panasonic. I had a Panasonic like handicap. Uh , no , no . I'll tell a lie. I had a nick on to start with. I remember having a nick on D five , 200 rings a bell, and then I went to a handy cam 'cause it was like better flipping the screen. The battery was longer then I got the same one. So I could have like face on and down the line angles two . Yeah. Um , yeah. And had those for quite a while.
Speaker 1:So were you
Speaker 2:On that iPhone
Speaker 1:Yourself or did
Speaker 2:You No, up until , um, gosh, 2019 maybe. I , uh, yeah, 2019 I got like, just probably six months before we went into like our first lockdown over here. I got an editor, like a freelance editor who's actually , um, Pete Finch's brother-in-Law. He'd been doing some stuff for Pete Finch . My bad
Speaker 1:Small world.
Speaker 2:Yeah . Yeah. It's
Speaker 1:Crazy . I had no , I , I didn't even know , I didn't know, like I met Matt through another way and so I know , and I was already a fan of Matt, but like, I didn't know, like, the connections with all the golf, British golf YouTubers. I knew that they're all pros, right? Majority of
Speaker 2:'em .
Speaker 1:Yeah . I'm like, how do they all know each, but like now it's like, oh , they all know each other. They all work together. Like
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is like the
Speaker 1:OG of u This is the OG of YouTube golf. This is what this is right here.
Speaker 2:<laugh> . Because like,
Speaker 1:Because nobody was doing it back then. I mean, 17, it was Rick, Rick was like the first one to break out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Mark . Mark Crossfield and me and my golf were the other standout ones . Yeah .
Speaker 1:Yeah. Me and my golf. Yeah. Mark Crossfield and yeah, that's right . But I , but like, I feel like, I mean, me and my golf team got a million now, aren't they? They gotta be getting close and
Speaker 2:Yeah , Danny Mo's overtaken them. Um , what's
Speaker 1:Up with that? How did Danny , like, where'd Danny Mod come from? I don't even know. Danny Mo . Does he another one ? Danny , does he know one ?
Speaker 2:Yeah . Yeah . Good friend Danny . Yeah, well, Danny's from, that's so cool. Danny's from , uh, Leeds , um, which is like an hour and 20 minutes from us, but he lives down south now. So he lives in Canterbury, which is about four and a half hours from us. But , um, dude ,
Speaker 1:Everyone of his videos get like a million views. Have you noticed that? Yeah . Like everyone was , he's like the king of instruction, I think. Like seriously.
Speaker 2:Yeah. He's he's very good. Simple. Very, very easy to understand. Great storyteller as well. Um , yeah, I've got a lot of time for Danny . We , I I've been away with him a couple of times filming. Really? Yeah. Oh my God , he's good . He's a good friend now. Nice guy . That's
Speaker 1:Awesome . I , I , I just , I , I, I'm fans of different guys for different reasons and I don't like have any connection to him . I just like, I know why I like them. I think Danny MOD's a phenomenal instructor and like
Speaker 2:He's crushing
Speaker 1:It. Like
Speaker 2:He's crushing. Yeah , he's very well , like ,
Speaker 1:Everyone's videos is like, you know, I think he hit a million too, didn't he? Or he or was about to like
Speaker 2:Recently ? Yeah, I think , uh, yeah , either has, I think he has done, I'd have to check on . I'm pretty , I'm
Speaker 1:Something .
Speaker 2:Yeah , I'm pretty sure he has. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. We can, so like, who are you friends with then? Or like who do you I , yeah , I'd call him friends. Like who would you say are friends that you would consider a friend of the YouTubers that are out there from England right now?
Speaker 2:So there's, there's me, me, Carter, Rick and Pete who yeah .
Speaker 1:Have
Speaker 2:Like grown up together. So they, they all went to college together. Then I met Rick and then , um, I met , I met, I already knew Carter as well through another mate. Um , so there's like us four who are mates, you know, go out together for a beer and stuff . Call out . You're your
Speaker 1:Boys. Yeah. You're definitely boys.
Speaker 2:Like in St . Andrew's last, I got back last night and was , um, in the pub with Rick the other night. 'cause he is up there filming with Bob does sports at the minute. So , um, yeah, had a beer with him the other night. So yeah, they're , they're like good friends. I know, like I say, Danny Moore's a a good friend , um, golf mate . Liam Harrison is from a , a club where I used to work. Know Liam. He's, he's a good Ladd. Chris Ryan as well. He's a nice guy. He is from Birmingham. And then, and then the lads from me and my golf. Um , Andy and Pears have been good , um, to chat to as well as like , um, the channel's grown and I wanted more advice on what to do on YouTube and, and things like that. They've always been, you know , really generous with the time and, and help me out. Uh , that's
Speaker 1:So cool to hear that, like, to know that there really is a community there. Like I don't think people understand
Speaker 2:That.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah . Like,
Speaker 2:Yeah , like ,
Speaker 1:Like the YouTube, whatever niche it is, it's like, you're not competitors. It's like, what do we do? Like there's no, there's no directions for what we're doing. There's zero, right? It's like trial and error. How much money do you wanna spend the trial and error or ask somebody, Hey, does that work? No, don't do that. Okay, I won't do that.
Speaker 2:Like , yeah , I mean, none
Speaker 1:Of us know, like, yeah ,
Speaker 2:Only
Speaker 1:Google knows.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know. Um , Zach Radford from over in the States as well. He is a good friend. Um , cool . Love his , love his stuff. He's, he's really good. Um , yeah, that's , that's about who I , I would generally sort of chat to , um, as it were.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Like you can go to these guides and be like, Hey, what do you think about whatever, not like content, but like, direction in your, in your brand, right. Or what you're trying to accomplish or not. Like,
Speaker 2:Oh ,
Speaker 1:If you do a video on this, like, don't time for that, but like, hey,
Speaker 2:Like ,
Speaker 1:Should I do a brand deal or not? Or should I do this or that? Yeah. That's so , that's so important. I feel like. Yeah. That's crazy. I didn't know that. That's nuts. So you started going full bore in 18, right? Yeah .
Speaker 2:Three
Speaker 1:Videos a week. And then how long would you say before it really started that you could see the pick it picking up?
Speaker 2:Um, so like, it was, it was going okay then was doing okay, starting to make money on it. Um , was seeing loads and loads of lessons off the back of it , um, and was getting some success with like, and again, they're all just teaching videos, so, you know, they're not super sexy. Um , but it was getting some good ones. And then obviously , uh, lockdowns happened and things like that. And then as we came out of our second lockdown , um, in, I don't even know when it was now, 2020 , um, in the march time , uh, it ended, it went ballistic. It , uh, yeah . What are we now ? 2021 .
Speaker 1:Were you in lockdown when it went ballistic, or was it right after lockdown ?
Speaker 2:Right after lockdown . Because in between the orig , like the , the one and two, a lot of people took up golf in England. Yeah . So we saw a massive, massive boom in it. And like after the first one I saw like a big growth or like a big spurt on it. And then after the second one, a lot of pe like again, golf was the first thing that you could do over here. So it seemed like every, everyone who had ever played any other sport that was banned or um,
Speaker 1:Set of golf clubs already, they ,
Speaker 2:They got a set of like, they got it off the internet or whatever. And then it was like, right, I need to figure out how to hit these. So I'm just gonna look at every YouTube tip that's out there there
Speaker 1:Instruction . Yeah. And
Speaker 2:You million
Speaker 1:In the VI videos at that point on instruction.
Speaker 2:Yeah . You just did . Yeah , exactly. It was just like, yeah, we , I saw like , we had one and it was just like, oh my God, what happened there? Like, I think it went to, you know, normally at that point we were seeing after a week they would get maybe 15,000 , um, 25,000 if they were, you know, a good video. Um, and one just went to like 155, 150,000 over like three days. And it was like, what is going on? And then I released another one quickly after it , and that hit hundred thousand in , um, the space of like three days. And it was like, oh my God,
Speaker 1:That's a lot of money too. Like, that's a lot. Like, I , like, I mean, I don't know what the, I dunno what RPM is, but I mean, like, that's pretty good money. A hundred thousand on a video that fast. Like
Speaker 2:If it pays
Speaker 1:For the video, right? Like I pays for all that time and
Speaker 2:Yeah . You know ,
Speaker 1:It's like, I try to explain it like my parents, like YouTube is like compound interest, right? It's like you just have a bunch of it out there and you don't know, like, it could done really bad. I got a video right now that did like, mediocre, terrible, like the first three months, and then all of a sudden it got picked up in the algorithm and it like, exploded. And I was like, what the frick dude? Like,
Speaker 2:You know? Yeah . Yeah . Control . Yeah. It is crazy. That was one of the things, like me and my golf said to me when we were talking about coaching a lot of the time. And I think when I, when I transitioned into going into full-time YouTube, I was lucky that I'd seen , um, Rick and Pete and the success they'd had. And then on the flip side of the coin, my dad's a very successful golf coach, but even now he's, he , like, he's obsessed with the golf swing, obsessed with coaching, but he is still doing it. And he still stands there for, you know, 60 hours a week in his bay , loves doing it, you know, and that's why he can still do it. But in October when it's cold over here, or November, it's, it's not ideal at eight o'clock at night, but your video on the internet, they're still, you know, ticking away and churning away. And that's what the guys a
Speaker 1:Penny , me and Penny a penny, a penny, a penny, a penny. Like times however many pennies times however many hours, like it just adds up like really fast.
Speaker 2:Yeah ,
Speaker 1:Like really fast. I, it's not easy, right? It's like people like , oh, it's just really easy. It's like it , I'll tell you right now, it's probably the hardest thing I've ever done. Like, honestly, like it's,
Speaker 2:Yeah .
Speaker 1:And I've done a lot of stuff in my life and um, like I feel there's so many layers to it that we don't know if it's gonna work or not. Like even if , if you think of it as a good idea to make a video on whatever product, whatever it is, and it could be the best video that's ever been made, but if you're thumbnail your title's garbage, like no one's ever gonna see it. Like, and like, there's so many factors and I don't know , it's Yeah . You can get lucky.
Speaker 2:Yeah,
Speaker 1:I guess, but
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. I think, yeah, it is , is I think like, as you say , from the outside looking in, think, oh, you just make a video and you're like, oh, you , like, you just go and play golf and you just hit, like, that's, that's an easy job. And you think you Yeah , there is, you know, it is , we're very lucky to do what we do. 'cause I'm just playing golf and, you know, get to hit different clubs all the time and go to beautiful places, meet great people, but underneath, you know, it takes a lot of planning, a lot of organization, a lot of, you know, blood, sweat, and tears have gone to get it to where it is at this point,
Speaker 1:But
Speaker 2:So
Speaker 1:You , you might be able to really , really supportive wife. I know, I do.
Speaker 2:Yeah . She's, yeah. She's not my wife. Yeah . She's , she's a fiance, but yeah, we Oh yeah . But you Yeah. Getting married too .
Speaker 1:That's cool. When you get married.
Speaker 2:Uh , 2025. We just booked it the other day , uh, in May.
Speaker 1:Is it gonna be in England or is it gonna be somewhere else?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's in the late district, like this big national park area up here.
Speaker 1:Oh , that's cool. It's
Speaker 2:Beautiful.
Speaker 1:Um, so you blew up, right? So you , so you're filming your own stuff. And when did you hire the editor? Like in 19, you said, is when you first hired your editor, like , I don't have time to edit, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. But that was before
Speaker 1:Covid, so it was like, I'm already getting busy. Like I'm already at my max. I can't spend another six hours editing every week. I'll just make the content and spend the whatever it costs and have somebody quickly edit for me. Right? Yeah ,
Speaker 2:Exactly. Yeah. I was sick . Like I was seeing that the, the, the videos were making revenue and it was like, well if you take a , you know, a third of it to then pay for an editor, then at least that takes some time off my plate. I could maybe then go and fill a few more videos or, you know , spend
Speaker 1:More time doing
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Whatever. Right ? Like you're, it's not, it's not a matter of can Matt do it? It's matter of Matt have time to do it. Really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Mm-Hmm .
Speaker 1:<affirmative> or is Matt always gonna be at this level right here? Yeah ,
Speaker 2:Well,
Speaker 1:No, I do my own stuff. And it's like, well, you're never gonna grow because you can't do these other things 'cause you're too busy editing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So who was doing your thumbnails then? When did you get , when did you get an editor or your a graphic guide ?
Speaker 2:Thumbnails. I , I still do them now. Um, shut up.
Speaker 1:You do. Really?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've had
Speaker 1:Different
Speaker 2:People in and doing them and things like that. And like , I've had a couple of five or had a guy off , um, another website, had one recently who's , who's good. But , um, with like timings and stuff , um, it's been hard to sit down and like have the, you know, our conversation about what the thumbnail needs to be. I was always struggling to do that. So I do actually enjoy making them. Um , and I think, you know, that's with also with our channel, that's one big focus that we're really pushing hard on at the moment that we want to improve them. Like you say, we're , I think the videos that we make are pretty decent in terms of like, if you
Speaker 1:Benchmarked
Speaker 2:Them against a , you know, a Rick or Pete , we're not quite there, but they're not a million miles away. But when you look at some of our thumbnails and titles, that's where I think we've lacked . You feel like then ,
Speaker 1:Then you're like, oh yeah, I'm a million miles away from that. That's what I feel
Speaker 2:Like , yes .
Speaker 1:I'm like, but it takes so much time to even know that you're a million miles from that. Like, you don't know, right? So you're like, you're trying to get that video out, let's say, and you're like, well, I'm gonna make
Speaker 2:Traffic ,
Speaker 1:Whatever. And then like, but to spend that time to figure out what's working over there, why is that working? Right? Yeah . And then make your own concept of that, test it and if it, and then do that over and over again . It's so much time. It takes so much
Speaker 2:Time. Yeah . Yeah. I think, you know, one of our, one of our next hires that we, we have will be, that'll be part of their job role will be thumbnails that they will on solely. So it free , you know, they can spend that time looking at other people. And like , after
Speaker 1:The show, I'll show you what I do. I'll show what we do as a team to make it easier. And I , we came up with this process like two months ago and it , it helps a lot. 'cause I , I was like jumping around 'cause you don't know, right? Like, not only conceptually what video are you going to shoot, but then it's like, okay,
Speaker 2:I'm
Speaker 1:Gonna make this video because it did really well for somebody else, so this could probably can do well for me. But then it's like, what, what were the competition in terms of thumbnails? What's ranking like? I don't know. Like we do all that work ahead of time now so that we kinda look at it as a team and be like, what are we gonna do? Right. Like,
Speaker 2:Not like,
Speaker 1:I don't know . Before we weren't doing that. I was just like, go make a thumbnail. And then I'd be like, I don't like that. And it just <crosstalk> .
Speaker 2:Yeah. I used to make them an hour before we'd put them out. Like, oh , I just need to put something on. I'd like, I remember <laugh> , uh, when, when I used to make them, like, when we were starting out, I used to think that the title, whatever you'd put in the title had to be on the thumbnail as well. Like you couldn't Oh gosh . I did too . You're like , how you've got like one word on it now and it's like catching and , and things like that. If it was like, how to hit your three word straight, my thumbnail would've said that.
Speaker 1:Oh , across it .
Speaker 2:Yeah. And you're like, oh , glad you look back now and you think, God , well that's part of the learning curve and you're
Speaker 1:What I do, I , I had all my, when I started, I had all my thumbnails look alike, like a , like a PowerPoint presentation. Like every thumbnail had the same like blue with a picture and words.
Speaker 2:I know . Yeah . We were gonna do that. Just have like my face and it would just say Matt Reul on it. And you're like,
Speaker 1:Like, why is nobody watching this? And like, because they don't know it's in there
Speaker 2:<laugh> Yeah. And they're not gonna spend the time an figuring it out . Yeah. It's an amazing, like it is an amazing platform. And , and then you start obviously as you, as you get it in into it more and it becomes your business, and then you start to look at like why people click things. The , you know, the, the way the human brains Yeah . The
Speaker 1:Way running and eyes .
Speaker 2:It's amazing. Like the , the mentality, the psychology of it all. And you're like, oh, I'm just making a golf video. But there's like so much more to it . It's like, I really do love, actually in a minute, like reading all these things about it and trying to, oh , I , I geek out on that. Figure it out. I like ,
Speaker 1:I totally geek out and I get, like, I was, I was DMing back and forth with Ed last night and I like, and I was, I said, oh, my CTR is not great on something. And he's like, well, what's your whatever, what's your , uh, your , uh, impressions? And I'm like, oh, it's whatever. He's like, dude, that's really good for impressions. I'm like, yeah, but my CTR is like lower than it normally is. He's like, yeah, because you're gonna a wider audience than what you normally do because you're not, you're getting pushed to a bigger audience than what you normally would be like here . And I was like, mind blown , right? I was like, oh
Speaker 2:Yeah ,
Speaker 1:That makes sense. You know? So it's, it's not always about CTR, it's like
Speaker 2:Yeah .
Speaker 1:How many people are having a chance to actually see it, you know? Yeah. And like, I don't know, it just, you can definitely get into the down the rabbit hole like you're saying, I'm , what am I doing wrong and is that the right color and blah, blah , blah. Yeah .
Speaker 2:So , yeah , I think that there has to be a balance. I think, you know, if you look at, I think that's where, you know, when we transitioned out of , when I stopped coaching, I was doing YouTube to push my coaching as where I don't coach as much now. I still, you know, for , for me, like our sort of mission statement of, of Matt Friar golf is that we want to help every golfer or new golfers improve and enjoy golf in any way, shape or form. You know, whether it's buying a new club or they want some advice on it, whether it's learning how to stop top in your three would , or they just wanna see a pretty golf course and watch some golf. That's what we wanna do. And I think, you know, if you, you could get totally into the analytics and trying to make everything fit, and you might lose sight of that a little bit. So I think if you , you know, you blend both things, you'll, you'll have a , a good connection with your audience. And you know, like us , like I say, we're just striving to get more people playing, get the people who are playing and join it more so they play for longer. And not just solely like doing everything to make sure every video is an absolute banger. You know, if it's a three word tip that I found helped with one of my mates who I was playing with at the weekend, I'll , I'll share it. 'cause it might help, you know, could help you, it could help another person. Even if it, you know, gets mediocre views, it doesn't matter. It might have helped another golfer. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, I , I, it's cool because like, your content is like, you're not pigeonholed, you know what I mean? Like, it's not like, oh, Matt friar's , it just instruction. Right. Or Matt is just product. It's like,
Speaker 2:Yeah ,
Speaker 1:You have, which was smart because like, and you know, Rick's doing it now too in Pete or Finch's as well. Like, it's, it's all a bunch of different types of content within the same thing. Yeah . Like, I think like YouTube wants to keep you in your lane, right? Like you are the instruction guy and that's the kind of people we're gonna send over there because we know it'll stay on platform. Yeah . But like,
Speaker 2:You're
Speaker 1:Doing this, so it's like you're able to get all of it, you know what I mean? Yeah. Instead of being like, oh, I'm just purely instruction at this point. Yeah .
Speaker 2:Purely
Speaker 1:Golf product review. Yeah . Or whatever it might be. I think that's really cool to like, and that's a hard thing too, isn't it? I mean, what , when did you start doing like a , a bunch of different stuff?
Speaker 2:So I, I sort of, we , we came back to coaching after, after that last lock , that last lockdown. And my diary was just jam packed . Um , so I ended up dropping a load of hours just to then start making more content because I'd seen it kick on , um, quite well. So I was like, well actually , you know, I , I know what Rick does, I know what Pete does. Uh , you know, I've seen the success of them. I wanna give this a go. I wanna , you know, spend a bit more time. Yeah.
Speaker 1:What's the worst case scenario, right? You go back . Yeah ,
Speaker 2:I can always go back coaching . Yeah, exactly. Um , so yeah, we started when , when I, when I stopped coaching , um, fully in two years ago , um, I then, I then had made the decision that the channel was gonna have some playing stuff because as well at that point through, you know, teaching nonstop, putting three videos out a week, I'd fallen outta love of playing a bit because I was playing bad golf and not playing any golf. So it was like, ah , you know, I'll just make a video on coaching and get out of there . I'm not gonna play, I'm not got time as well. I was like, well now I'm gonna go and do full-time , um, YouTube, we could do a playing series, you know, I wanna get back to actually playing, you know, let's see what that looks like. And, you know, I might find some stuff along the way that this worked for me to get better and get back to, you know, what I used to play. Like it could help you. And then , uh, the , the entertainment of the challenges, I really enjoy that. I love nothing more , um, than like playing with Pete or Rick or Carter or whoever it is and just, you know, talking trash when we're playing with your buddies.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's not
Speaker 2:Like you're
Speaker 1:Intimidated by playing with these guys because
Speaker 2:No , it's
Speaker 1:Don't guys forever . And they're like, yeah ,
Speaker 2:You're
Speaker 1:Like, whatever dude. Yeah .
Speaker 2:It's , it's just what a lot of golfers do around the world as well.
Speaker 1:We do anyways .
Speaker 2:Yeah. You just , you just talk trash with your mates whole time. Yeah . The whole time. And that's , yeah . It's just the best thing ever. So yeah, I love, like , love doing that on the channel. Um , and that's when we sort of said, right, well, you know, what are we , um, and you know, what do we want to do? And that's where Yeah .
Speaker 1:Who are you? Right? Like who,
Speaker 2:Yeah .
Speaker 1:What's my, I what's my identity in this whole thing?
Speaker 2:Yeah . Who
Speaker 1:Am I?
Speaker 2:Yeah . You know ? Right . I'm a golf pro. I want to give you advice on all the, you know, like I say , I was 16 when I started working in the golf shop. So 15 years of knowledge, like spending time with golf products, with manufacturers, with other pros.
Speaker 1:Plus you're a pro, your dad's a pro. Yeah . So like,
Speaker 2:You know,
Speaker 1:The game inside and now like, you know, yeah .
Speaker 2:You're
Speaker 1:A , yeah. Like it's a huge advantage over anybody, right. Who's not a pro, I think. And
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. You know,
Speaker 1:You already have the authority, I guess a good way of saying it to the audience, like, oh yeah, this ,
Speaker 2:Yeah , yeah . You know, I've , you know , sort of hone a craft as it were. And I want to share whatever things I know. If it can help someone, great, you know, let's get it out there. Let's, let's hopefully, you know, help someone make a better choice when they, when they buy a club instead of just buying one for, oh, I think it might work. You know, do you , do you really need to go? That's the
Speaker 1:Golf industry.
Speaker 2:Yo ,
Speaker 1:That's like , that's why I started my website. I was like, dude , no , all this stuff doesn't work. Come here a break. Yeah ,
Speaker 2:<laugh> , we don't
Speaker 1:Like, we don't have time. That's the problem with golfers. I feel like, like we don't, like most golfers don't have time to figure out whether or not that thing works or not. They just,
Speaker 2:Yeah .
Speaker 1:Think it works
Speaker 2:For
Speaker 1:Whatever reason.
Speaker 2:Yeah .
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Buy it, try it out. Didn't work. That's another $500 gone. Let's go and change it. Um , so, you know , it's like expensive stuff, like all the golf things now. So you may as well know what you're getting and what works for you .
Speaker 1:So then when did you get a , a photographer to film you or a videographer?
Speaker 2:Ooh , uh, so my first proper videographer was 2020, I would say. Yeah. 'cause Joe's worked for me for a year. 22 . Yeah. He would've been 20, 21. I got , um, like a full-time
Speaker 1:Night . You film , you , you stopped filming yourself pretty much. You know , somebody .
Speaker 2:Yeah. 'cause we started doing like course flogs and things like that. And I couldn't do it like on my own when I was doing stuff like , no ,
Speaker 1:You're not playing golf. It's impossible.
Speaker 2:Yeah . So
Speaker 1:I've tried that. It's like almost impossible, like try to do a , like when you do a product review on the golf course, good luck playing golf that day. You know, you're like looking at your iPad to make sure you talk about all the whatever things and you do all the
Speaker 2:Things on
Speaker 1:Camera. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It sucks.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's , uh, yeah , 21. I had like a , a freelance again , um, videographer who came to work for me. Um , he was , he was doing some other stuff like , um, other marketing things and things like that. Yeah . Real estate or <crosstalk> . Yes , I think , yeah. Yeah. Um , I think he did like 15, 20 hours a , a week for me, stuff like that. Um , and then he started doing some, he then transitioned to doing both , um, to his videographer and editor. And then he, he stopped working for me last year, and then I , I made like my first fulltime hire . So , um, we, we got , um, Joe in who's like , um, the first full-time video editor and videographer who's done all the stuff since August last year. And then we've now we save you
Speaker 1:A lot of time.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Because we're still, like , we're still putting three videos out a week as well. Um ,
Speaker 1:Can I ask you a question?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Why three videos a week? What , what makes you think? Like, I was wondering,
Speaker 2:We're just, I've just done it always and it's like, right, that's what I can do. Um , but we are , yeah , that's ,
Speaker 1:Yeah .
Speaker 2:I think with, with what we're doing, I think we are now probably gonna go down to two. Why ? Just because , uh, um, for planning and like , um, quality
Speaker 1:Or quantity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like I
Speaker 1:Used to No, I agree. Like , I sort
Speaker 2:Of do the three tips and tips are easy to film, you know, they're , they're , they're quick. They don't take, you know, a lot of research 'cause it's what I've done for, you know, the past eight years. Yeah . So I know you , you
Speaker 1:A moment in your head, like, you don't have to think
Speaker 2:About it. Yeah , exactly . I mean, you can do a little research
Speaker 1:To see like, how can I craft this tip into a good YouTube video that might perform , but Yeah .
Speaker 2:Like
Speaker 1:You already know the tip. It's not like you're
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly . Yeah. So it's just like giving a lesson. Um , so they, they don't take much time for us, so they're like, we just put them in because, you know, we want to keep, I still want to keep coaching people still having that connection to, you know, people getting better and, you know, there's nothing better when you see the comments of, oh , you know, this really helped to just shot my best round. Oh ,
Speaker 1:It's the best in the world. I love that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I'm not a pro,
Speaker 1:But like I've, I've had pros, like I've done videos of other pro realistic pros and they're like, oh, I tried that. That's the best. I used to watch him a long time ago and I love that guy. Whatever. Like ,
Speaker 2:Yeah . I'm like, I always , I just always like
Speaker 1:Forward it to like the pro like, you know, a YouTube guy and I'm like, Hey, check this out. Like, this person loves you. You know, Like, it's just cool to see that. I mean , I , I'm not a pro, so I think it's cool to like, I dunno , I think, I think what I like about you and your channel is like, you try, you do a really good job of giving value to the audience and not like, and that's huge because I think like whether it's product or instruction, it's like you're just giving free value, right? Yeah. And like a lot of guys don't do that. It's more about like what's in it for the person, like the YouTuber, I guess, in a way. Yeah. Um, but I think that's , that's one thing I really about your channel. Do we got people blowing up our fricking chat. All right . So Blake Anderson wants to know how many, if any, hole in ones have you hit? Uh,
Speaker 2:Three. One of them's on YouTube as well. Slam dunk from that . Laal . Really ? Yeah. Yeah. Slam dunked at Laal . It was really weird . Like the , like, just quickly how that , um, how we filmed that. Um , I'd bought like an extra camera, but we were using , um, I'd got a gimbal with like A-D-S-L-R on it. And then I had another DSLR with , um, like a long range lens, and it was the first time that we set this up and said, oh , let , like, let's, let's put this on this like next tee down and just zoom it on the , um, on the, hold on ,
Speaker 1:On the green. Yeah. I see. We actually hit ,
Speaker 2:Yeah , so like, you know, it's another angle because on the camera that we had, we only had like an 18 to 50 lens, so you're not gonna get right down anywhere near , you'll get 40 yards zoom sort of thing. First time bang, set it up, slam dunk. There we go.
Speaker 1:Did you, what did your thumbnail say? Do you remember what thumbnail says?
Speaker 2:Uh , it's like hole in one or something like that . Hole in one question mark. And I'm like ,
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I could Ima , that would've crack my pants . Yeah . I didn't even get that so much . Impossible.
Speaker 2:Yeah .
Speaker 1:So when was that? When did you make that video?
Speaker 2:22? Is it ? No, 21. Oh, last year. 20 ,
Speaker 1:Okay .
Speaker 2:It was year before last year. Yeah . All right . We
Speaker 1:Got another question. Oh
Speaker 2:No . In fact, it might have been 22, it would've been early 22 , I think.
Speaker 1:All right , so here we go . Todd has a question. What do you feel is the most helpful tip for someone starting out
Speaker 2:Get your basics right? I think a lot of people like underestimate the value of just having, you know, good basics. And even when you go to, you know, a range , um, at a tour event, they're not working on loads of crazy stuff. So a lot of it is alignment, A lot of it is posture, a lot of it is grip. And if you can just start with just some small shots, if you sort of worked backwards up to the driver, you know , if you went from putting to driver and you just learning to get a bit of constant contact and get in some , um, consistent contact, if you have those good fundamentals, you'll, you'll go a long way quick. Because the amount of, like people I used to coach who had poor fundamentals and they just thought , well, I'll hold it a bit this way, that then implement , like impacts the face and then you've got to try and do something to counteract that. Or you stood aim in the wrong direction, so now you've gotta try and swing it a different way as where, you know, you walk up and down the tour range, everyone holds it pretty well, everyone stands to it well, and everyone, you know, has the ball in the right spot. But I think we're quick sometimes to go, oh no, you know , I need to do this magic fix to, to get my , um, to get my golf swing right as well . You know, just make sure those, those basics are right and you'll do everything a lot better and a lot easier,
Speaker 1:Faster too. Right. Because you're not
Speaker 2:Learning little shortcuts,
Speaker 1:You're not gonna
Speaker 2:Remember . Yeah . Well you're not , you don't have to correct mistakes along the way. Then.
Speaker 1:So what, in your mind with the YouTube channel, like what were the biggest jumps then, like prior to Covid? Like what were you at, like Subway , you remember you probably
Speaker 2:Prior to Covid, I think it was , yeah , about 35,000 sec . After the end of second lockdown , um, we were on like 50,000. Um , and then at the end of that year, I hit a hundred thousand at the end of 20,
Speaker 1:Which is a huge deal.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Oh yeah. It was like , that's
Speaker 1:Like I could just , that's the first milestone on YouTube right. Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's
Speaker 1:Literally the first big milestone. Yeah . Well actually I guess getting monetized is the first milestone and then I
Speaker 2:Think like
Speaker 1:10,000, 25, 50 and then a
Speaker 2:Hundred . Yeah , 10 is big . Yeah. Yeah. A hundred . Like getting like , just 'cause it'd seen like
Speaker 1:Ripped .
Speaker 2:I was like, like I've got to get myself one of them. I've got that .
Speaker 1:You gotta get the gold
Speaker 2:One now . Yeah . Yeah. Like that's that obviously like we wanna work towards that. We want to get to it. It almost, you almost feel like there should be a half 1,000,001 or something for like a intermediate stage that you would work in between. 'cause like a hundred to a million is like a big, big jump that can be done .
Speaker 1:Oh yeah , dude . It's like,
Speaker 2:That's
Speaker 1:A lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think you see like a little bit of sort of false , um, numbers now. I think like with the way shorts work, you look at some creators who like,
Speaker 1:Let's talk about that. Let's talk about that for a minute. So what is your opinion on shorts and getting a lot of like, followers very quickly from shorts? 'cause that's what happened last year. A lot of people like blew up because of shorts. Like, what do you think about that? It's not like that anymore. That's what I think. I think it's changed, but
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, yeah, I think it's, it's changing a little bit. It is interesting. You look at it and you go like, oh . And I think that's where like , um, it is a superficial number, sort of your, your subscribe account and it's more, you know, about your views . But also I think one of the other things, and you know, you alluded to it a little bit earlier, is, you know, providing value and connection to, to your fans. I think, you know, for a lot of what we do, I think, you know, and even when, like we're in St . Andrew's last week, a lot of people come up to us, my God, like I can't believe it's you. Can I shake my hand? Uh, thank you so much for this tip. And that's
Speaker 1:Brilliant fan . For a
Speaker 2:Real fan. Yeah . Yeah . They fit real fan. Yeah. As well . I think with like a lot of shorts viewers , um, or like people who have like shot up with , um, um, subs from shorts. You look then look at some of the longer form content and it's just, you know, the views of
Speaker 1:I'm like, need my mind right now. Like, verbatim. Like that's exactly what
Speaker 2:It's
Speaker 1:Right. Like
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I , I think the gut , you know, if you , if you wanted to chase that. Yeah. But for , for us, you know, like I say, we've, we've got , you're gonna build ,
Speaker 1:I don't feel you're gonna build a community. Like how do you build community on
Speaker 2:Shorts
Speaker 1:When you have 'em for five seconds and then they like
Speaker 2:Yeah . And I don't, I don't think a lot of them will go over to watch you. Like you can see it again from, from , um, you know, some channels that do have. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1:Not , yeah . I can talk about after the show about those channels. I've seen 'em though. You can see 'em like,
Speaker 2:Yeah. And you go, okay. Right. Fair enough. So , I mean, some have worked and some have done, and you know, we've played around with it a bit and I think it is worth doing them . Um , but for us, I wanna , and
Speaker 1:We do 'em too, but it's not like, I don't know , it's , it's
Speaker 2:Like throw away content. I too ,
Speaker 1:It's long form . It's long. Like you still do 'em, it's just like advertisement, right ? It's like , oh yeah, I'm gonna short on the video or something. Maybe. But it's like, if you wanna look at the strength of a channel, look at the long form and look at the views, like that's it. Yeah . And then look at the comments like that.
Speaker 2:That's ,
Speaker 1:That's the real identifier subscribers. Yeah. It's amazing. But I mean, that's what I think and I think,
Speaker 2:Yeah .
Speaker 1:Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, you know, if like , we look at it as like now as well, like if we wanted to sell out a golf school, if we , um, you know, had a hundred thousand shorts viewers versus a hundred thousand who have been watching the tips , the course flogs, I think I'd probably get 10 people who came to the golf school from the shorts as well , would probably get, you know, a thousand from the the golf school , uh, from the , um, long form stuff. And they would feel more connected to me. They would be more they
Speaker 1:Know you. They know you.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. They would know you. They'd be sort of more ready to listen to what you're saying. Um , they would take the advice on board a little bit more. They'd be more trusting and they'd, they'd sort of come back and be sort of your go-to you . You know, I would become their go-to golf instructor, you know, whether it's for a lesson , uh, a bit of club advice, or they actually, oh , I'm playing Royal Troon next week. Or Matt did a video there. Let's watch that. Um , and I think that's where, or
Speaker 1:You're playing with Rick or you're playing with Pete or you're playing with somebody like, oh, it's entertainment. Like, oh cool. It's like, you know, yeah .
Speaker 2:Two
Speaker 1:Favorite YouTubes are playing against each other, you know? Yeah . Or something like that. So then, right now, are you just only focusing on long form and it's a little bit of short form then, I would assume?
Speaker 2:Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. You know, the, the , the three we've got , um, the two staples of course logs are the, in the red series , um, where we go to different venues and me trying to break path , that's just for the fact that I still want to try and have something to compete for . Like, even though it's just personally for myself, I'm trying to break that. But there's a good story along the way. Um, you know, we've done it for five years now. Maybe I did, like, I started it four years ago with like a , a break 28 at , at my home course. 'cause I shot 28 on the back nine, which was eight under , and I was trying to see if I could do it, you know, again. Um , and then that's evolved into , um, like 18 holes, different places. We also have the 30 Shot challenge, which is, that seems to be like one that everybody loves. We've got a really good one as well coming next week with Graham McDowell and Major Champion Leo Ride Cup Stall Wart . So we film one with him, which was really good. And we've got some other ones lined up, which is , um, you know, the two long form things. And then we have the , the tips, they'll always stay now. Um , like I say, I wanna always give the advice and help people get better. And then the, the tech stuff, you know, trying to educate people on the clubs that are coming out or even, you know, Amazon stuff and things like that. You know, should you be buying it and hopefully save people a few quid if the , uh, if the product's rubbish and stay away from it or you know, if you should be buying it.
Speaker 1:Okay. So lemme ask you a couple questions. Are you, like, do you have sponsors right now? Like certain brands sponsor you or do you just buy your own stuff or what's the deal?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we've got, we've got channel partners. So currently we like with us doing tech , um, videos, we'll never sign a club contract. A lot of people will think that I'm, you know , um, club contracted to Meno because I'm a closing sponsor. Um , what
Speaker 1:Does that mean? Close ? Oh, close you mean
Speaker 2:Close ? Yeah. They , they are , I , I only have , um, meno Close . They are good enough to like, if I want any, you know , irons, wedges, woods , they will give me them. But in my contract it's not , um, contracted that I have to have any club in my bag, you know , just
Speaker 1:The clothes
Speaker 2:I've had . Yeah, just, just clothes . So where they , the apparel, the footwear and headwear , uh, from those guys. Um , it's good stuff. Got a great relationship with them . The team are really good over there. Um ,
Speaker 1:That's cool.
Speaker 2:And enjoy working with them . Um , then we've got Shop Scope . So the watches and the lasers, they're like the GPS partner. They also , um, are like the title sponsor for the, in the Red series. So we Oh really? Yeah, we started working with them a year ago and they , the , that's one thing I'm
Speaker 1:Friends with Gavin. Are you friends with Gavin?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah , yeah. Gavin's great.
Speaker 1:I love Gavin.
Speaker 2:That's awesome . Yeah . Top Blo ,
Speaker 1:Gavin and Jen and all them .
Speaker 2:Yeah. Jen . Yeah . Jen's brilliant. Yeah . And Lindsay . Yeah .
Speaker 1:And they're really good golfers too. They're like super good.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And it's like that , that's one thing that I've really enjoyed because I, for 12 years only ever used a laser like A-G-P-S-I was not interested in. I would like, why are you wearing a watch now? Don't need that . It's not accurate as well . Now I've had the watch on my wrist. I love it. It's so easy to go to. And then that's that's fine .
Speaker 1:Is that , is
Speaker 2:That looks
Speaker 1:Fine . Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And , and the G five , um, but like with the X five , with the tags in the data is, is so good and so easy to use. And like a lot of my friends have bought them , um, off the back of me sort of recommending it to them and seeing me use it and for like, ease of use for, you know, your everyday golfer. It just highlights what you need to get better at without you , what
Speaker 1:I like about Shot Scope is the , it's affordable. There's two things I really like
Speaker 2:About shots scope . Yeah .
Speaker 1:I mean, outside the tech is great and everything like that. Like Yeah .
Speaker 2:What
Speaker 1:Sets 'em apart in my mind is like, it's affordable and they own their own data. Like that's the biggest thing. And like,
Speaker 2:You know,
Speaker 1:Like they're not buying the , not the data about your golf game, but the data on the golf course. Like that's their
Speaker 2:Yeah .
Speaker 1:Right. So like, that's huge because a lot what I learned from Gavin, like on the podcast, and we've been friends for five years probably at this point, like, is that all everyone else buys their data from like some central depo
Speaker 2:Repository of data,
Speaker 1:Right? So every golf course. And so like, I just think, yeah, I think, you know, what's the biggest competitors to them is Garmin and , uh,
Speaker 2:Bushnell probably.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Bushnell.
Speaker 2:Yeah ,
Speaker 1:Them too . Um ,
Speaker 2:Yeah .
Speaker 1:Who else? So you got them.
Speaker 2:So I've got Meno shot scope , then , um, we work with Fujiko as well. So Chef company Fujiko, I've got all the, the , um, chefs in, in my irons , in my wedges in my woods , uh, work with them. They've done some great stuff. Um ,
Speaker 1:With , I've got the graph TL and you
Speaker 2:Know , yeah. But it's tr and the tr one, I've got all that. Yeah. And then got the Axiom Graphite Irons , which has been quite interesting, the change on that. We've we're actually shooting a video next week about how I found it for the first six months. Uh oh,
Speaker 1:You got the, you got the , those iron shafts or the new ones? Yeah,
Speaker 2:Yeah , yeah .
Speaker 1:What's it called? The
Speaker 2:Axiom.
Speaker 1:Axiom. I went to that thing at PGA show. I shot a bunch of footage, but I haven't made the video yet. Like, I went to their special event that wasn't at the PGA show.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah. At the , uh, at the Ritz on the , uh, Ritz Driver .
Speaker 1:Ritz , yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I was there pretty much all the time. So I probably would've seen you . You were there. Yeah, in and out . Really ?
Speaker 1:Oh, I , oh man. See , we didn't know each other. Now we're buddies. So now I've been like, what's up, man? Um, so who else? Yeah , Fuji makes, quite honestly, Fuji Kura makes one of the best golf shafts of all time. And that's the vent , like all day long. Yeah . I put that on my pinging driver, my old ping driver. And that thing gave me an extra, like 15 yards, like, just by having a new shaft, I was like, holy
Speaker 2:Crap,
Speaker 1:<laugh> . So fu
Speaker 2:And then fourth and final we've got , um, the Dukes , um, which is a golf course in St . Andrew's. So the old course hotel, the , like the most famous golf hotel as it were that sits Wow . By the , the 17th of the old course and you hit over it. So I partner with those like the old course hotel and the Dukes , um, golf resorts. So the old course owned the Dukes, and we film a lot of our stuff up there now. And that's where we were all this week filming. Done some , um, good videos. That's where me and Pete did the, the , um, shot scope , record breakers video, our final one there, which was a brilliant video. If I do say so myself. Oh , <laugh> <laugh> ,
Speaker 1:You know , well, you know, because yeah .
Speaker 2:Like
Speaker 1:You're, you know, excited by it and you're like, oh, this is a good video. I know it's gonna do really well. I'm excited about it .
Speaker 2:Yeah . You
Speaker 1:Know, it's crap too. You're like, oh , I don't like this video.
Speaker 2:Um , a few of them .
Speaker 1:Yeah, me too.
Speaker 2:Um,
Speaker 1:I ask you something else. So then like, when did you start getting like, channel sponsors or whatever, you know, like, like when , what number? I guess in terms of subscribers who are like, oh, who's this guy?
Speaker 2:Uh , it wasn't right away, right ? No. Oh God, no. No. Um, so like the Mno one was probably when I was at about 70,000. Um , I had some other ,
Speaker 1:Did they come to you? Do people like come to you and start hitting you up? Did they hit you up through Instagram or YouTube or your website? It
Speaker 2:Depend like there's , there's agencies that manage a lot of the companies and things like that. And , uh, yeah .
Speaker 1:The PR
Speaker 2:People , like , yeah. Have you , have you thought about this? Or , we've got <crosstalk> ,
Speaker 1:You know what I call them ? We call them the handlers. They're the handlers,
Speaker 2:Yeah. <laugh>. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1:But they're cool. They're all cool people. Like, it's like they, you know, like they have, they work with everybody. They, I mean ,
Speaker 2:Like ,
Speaker 1:They're all my buddies.
Speaker 2:Actually. It's d it's like , it's different in America. You have like managers and agents over there as well. We just have like agents sort of thing or managers. Like there's no real,
Speaker 1:Yeah , yeah .
Speaker 2:It's a big one . London ,
Speaker 1:I talked ,
Speaker 2:Yeah , it's probably agencies , um, that , that do it more over here . But yeah, we, we had some like, like people would approach you even like, even till sort of this year get like a lot of the clubs we , um, were not sponsored by the club manufacturers. They'll , they do send us them to test them, but even , um, even up until this year, we still weren't getting, you know, everything. And it was like, we are doing, you know, we're interested in it and we've had talks with them and I think like then they've gone , oh , right , okay. Yeah. Like , we didn't realize you're doing club stuff. So I think , uh, this sort of now we, we've pretty much hooked up with , um, you know, everyone who we needed to, to make sure that we are getting stuff before it comes out to, to make the content sense for when it comes out. That's the right , like, that's what I
Speaker 1:Like, you can work with a third party retailer, which helps sometimes, or
Speaker 2:Yeah .
Speaker 1:If you have relationships at the brand itself and you're part of that list. Yeah .
Speaker 2:Like I , yeah , yeah .
Speaker 1:You just tell 'em like, look dude, if you sent that to me in September and it came out in February, it's a waste of time and no one's gonna watch that video because they've already been out
Speaker 2:Six
Speaker 1:Months . Like
Speaker 2:Yeah . Yeah .
Speaker 1:It's the key. YouTube is having that product at the moment of announcement or at , or prior to launch.
Speaker 2:But Who
Speaker 1:Was that? What , what's that guy's name? He's English too . Who's the guy that's always in the simulator? The British guy. He's always in the sim . Like it's the background's like Kasim , he's always in the sim . I can't think of his name. Like , um, I think it's like 80 .
Speaker 2:Uh ,
Speaker 1:Oh, well crap, I can't think of his name. Like he, well anyways, he got like the Ping G four 30, like in November of last year. Like , like I was like, how in the hell did you get that? Like, it , like <laugh> ? I was like, no , he was the only person on YouTube that had the product. I was like, what the frick?
Speaker 2:I dunno . Yeah . I dunno who that is unless it's uh , is it the average golfer?
Speaker 1:No, an average golfer. He's like your , he's like our age. Like he's in , he's always in the , he's in a big sim room all the time. Like he never goes to the golf course.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's , um, Alex ets the reason he would've got that Alex . Yeah. 'cause he was in Australia.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's why . So
Speaker 2:Their embargo is are different to , um, to England's and America. So they were gem like
Speaker 1:I never knew that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he had that. So we had that . And that's what's crazy, you know, we had , um, G four 30 were right . They've launched it in Australia
Speaker 1:In November, it was like in November. And we were like, what the F January didn't announced it yet, or Yeah. I was like, how the hell, like <laugh> ?
Speaker 2:Yeah . Like
Speaker 1:It blew my mind when I saw that. Um ,
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's just, I think he's just moved back to , uh, England now, Alex.
Speaker 1:Oh, I thought he, I thought he was in England whole time. I had no idea.
Speaker 2:Yeah .
Speaker 1:Um, does, so then are you, when you get your clubs, how do you get the clubs then? Through a third party retailer or from like, Titleist or Tailormade or
Speaker 2:Buy Yeah , just straight. Yeah, straight from the manufacturer. They'll , uh, we're , we're on like the, the PR list or whatever it is now, where they'll send it before embargo and um , you know, like Rick is , like, Pete is like average golfer, mark Crossfield, whoever they are, you know, everyone who's doing the club reviews, you get put onto those lists and then beforehand you'll get the product so you can see it, spend some time with it, you know, usually about a month before it comes out. So then you can, you know, use it, produce your content, and then have it good to go on. Um , embargo day.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. It's all about , it's, but as a YouTuber, is it better to get paid to make a video or is it better to get a product before it comes out ? I mean, best to get both, right? But like, if you couldn't have both, what would , what would be better?
Speaker 2:Uh , well we , I've never, but obviously like, my , my partnerships, we don't get paid really to make any videos. There's been the odd sort of thing for Oh,
Speaker 1:Like you're , they're they're sponsoring video. They're not Yeah , yeah.
Speaker 2:Not like tour . Yeah. Like tourism boards. I've never had like a Callaway paid video. I've not had Callaway, tailormade , Mizzou, no Titleist , none of those are paid of all that . None .
Speaker 1:Yeah .
Speaker 2:Yeah. They're all just , um, ev like every product, if it's ever a product review, it won't be paid because it, you know, just straight away
Speaker 1:Muddies the water.
Speaker 2:Well, you're not impartial, are you? Because you've already taken money . Exactly. Right . So if you are , you know, the, the sort of, you should say something good 'cause we've given you whatever money is where , you know, the , the revenue you'll make off a video anyway, you know, sorts itself out. So all you need is the product. And then you can be, you know, open about it, find out what is good, what is bad. And pretty much every day , you know, all of them. Now, if you make a bad golf club, you're going outta business, not gonna release it.
Speaker 1:And yeah, everyone's good . Doesn't say something like this's a piece of. Everyone's gonna say that right away. No one's not gonna be like ,
Speaker 2:Oh , that's
Speaker 1:The best thing ever. And there's like 10 YouTuber saying , this is crap. Like no one's gonna
Speaker 2:Do that. Yeah , yeah . They're not gonna release
Speaker 1:It , you know ? Exactly .
Speaker 2:That's , yeah, everyone's making good, good products, you know? Um , it's just whether it's any better than the last iteration, you know, if they come out with the wild claims, this one's gonna go 17 yards longer, this one's gonna , you know, be the fastest ever. And you go, it's the same ball speed, it's the same, you know , distance. It's, it's those things that are , you know, yes, it's still a good product and it will work if you go and get fit for it. Um, but you know, it's not, you know, the, the magic , um, the magic pill that a lot of people may think that it is.
Speaker 1:I feel like you just have to be honest as if like you were walking into a store and you wanna know whether or not is this thing good or bad and will it help me? Yeah . Like,
Speaker 2:Just be
Speaker 1:Honest about it . Like yeah ,
Speaker 2:That's ,
Speaker 1:And that's when I started the website, that's what used to me off is like, I had the money to go buy these things. I just, yeah.
Speaker 2:Like
Speaker 1:With walking into a store and I'd be like, what's the , what's the new driver to buy? And they'd say, oh, it's the , you know, F nine or Cobra or whatever. And I'd be like, okay, cool. And then like, it would be crap. I'm not saying it was a crap product, I'm saying like, it would not have been the right product for me, you know? Yeah .
Speaker 2:You
Speaker 1:Know , like , okay. You know, like maybe, maybe there's like, I need to figure this out for myself and just tell the audience or tell my, on my blog
Speaker 2:Back . Yeah . Just find out what the features and benefits are of it, basically. You know, it's a bit like a car, isn't it? You say it's got this, it's got that. This could work for you if you're looking for this type of thing. This won't work for you if you are this type of player probably. But you know, as we always say, go and get fit for it. 'cause everyone swings it differently and everyone hits it differently. So, you know, not every club is made for you because there's no standard, you know, no one is standard. So
Speaker 1:What do you have what, like for the rest of the year, what do you have going on? So like, let the audience know like what you got going on so people can be ready for it and excited for
Speaker 2:It . Yeah. Um , so we've got more in the Reds coming . We've just like, say been up in Scotland, filmed one at St . Andrew's, not at the old course, the, all the , one of the other courses there. That's the hardest one. Um , that was really good , uh, really enjoyed that even though it beat me up. Um, we've got some more 30 shot challenges. We're just , um, talking through with some other pros at the minute, just getting dates and things finalized for that. And then can you explain
Speaker 1:30 shot challenges?
Speaker 2:Yeah . So you get 30 shots to get around nine holes of a golf course. The idea was that, you know, it's, it was a way of me playing the other YouTubers that are around, you know, Rick, Pete Carter , James Robinson , um, who, you know, other people that we've had on there. But like, as I thought of the , the series, it was like, well, this'll tear up to hopefully as it grows , um, in reputation, hopefully, you know, with brand connections and things like that, we'll start getting some good pros and like the end goal is that we get a top 10 player in the world breaking 30 shots for nine holes.
Speaker 1:That'd be cool. So we've
Speaker 2:Had ,
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so like , so we had Graham McDowell the other day, you know, won , won the US Open and he is on the channel doing the , uh, 30 shot challenge. And he like, he absolutely loved it. He was like, just gonna go and play. This is my practice game all the time now. So we're , we're , um, uh, it's smart .
Speaker 1:Whose idea was for the 30 that your idea for the 30 shot challenge. That's smart dude. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So
Speaker 1:Smart. Yeah ,
Speaker 2:It goes, yeah , it goes against everything goes against everything. Like taking one shot at a time, not counting your score, you get x amount of shots till you're finished . It's like you've got 30, you know, you've got 30 and as soon as you start hitting those shots are gone. So it's , uh, yeah, it's, I'm quite, I really like it. It's great fun to film. So like , yeah , I think we've had like 10 of them now already and they've done really well. So yeah, it's a bit like one of the big staples that we'll have. Um , we are over to the states as well in October, going over to Carlsbad for 10 days, so hoping to meet up , uh, with Fuji , Quora for a couple of days and then doing our own stuff for four or five days, so getting 30 shots with people and doing some in the red stuff whilst we're there. So, yeah. And then just , uh, just the same old really. We've got other , other things in the pipeline that we can't, can't let out yet, but it's gonna be I think, an exciting backend to the year. It's been, I can't believe it's, you know, nearly September already. It feels like
Speaker 1:You about like so fast.
Speaker 2:I know . It's , it's insane. So yeah. Real, real big push to the end of the year now, would like to try and get to quarter of a million on the channel. Um , but as long as we keep
Speaker 1:Making good you're
Speaker 2:2, 2 15 .
Speaker 1:Yeah. Every YouTuber knows exactly what , how many numbers they have. 'cause they look at that every day .
Speaker 2:Yeah. So as soon as you open it up , bang in your face, your face, you're like, and you Yeah . Or
Speaker 1:You get big IQ and it shows you your stuff in the day and you're like, yeah . Like , like what? That sucks. You know? And you're like, it really went up . Yeah .
Speaker 2:So , yeah. Well , I'm , that's it really.
Speaker 1:So where can people find you?
Speaker 2:Uh , Matt Fryer , golf on everything. If you go on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram threads, Twitter , um, type Matt Fryer golfing, and you'll find a , a bald gingerman giving you some golf advice.
Speaker 1:Who knows what he's talking about, who's cool. So,
Speaker 2:Yeah ,
Speaker 1:I've been a big fan for a long time and I really appreciate you like coming on the show, talking to you. I didn't like, I, I know, I know Matt from his channel, but I didn't know Matt personally, so it was really cool to meet you. Um, you too. I'm really impressed and I had a fun time, so thank you. Thank you . You guys gotta check out Matt Fryer . He is legit and he's super cool as you guys can see. So , um, I will see you guys in the next video.
Speaker 3:Thanks for listening to another episode of Behind the Golf Brand podcast. You're
Speaker 1:Gonna beat me,
Speaker 3:The 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.