COHORT 22 · WEEK 3 · 28 MAY 2026 · GUEST SESSION
Tom of Bonus Footage, in conversation with the Cut30 coaches
Two sessions in one. The coaches first taught the content funnel and the 3% change — the rule that you repackage a proven idea instead of remaking it — then Cut30 grad Tom returned to talk about the yap systems that took him from 7,000 to 37,000 followers in the weeks around the course. Below are the tactics worth stealing: the funnel, the repackage rule, the vehicle hook, and the daily systems Tom runs to never run out of ideas, plus what we could try on our own clients.
The idea that travels furthest to our work is Alex’s content funnel. Stop asking ‘is this a good video’ and start asking where it sits: top-of-funnel casts the widest net to win followers, middle serves the people already there, bottom moves them to act. Most people, and most clients, over-make bottom-of-funnel content before they have earned any reach. Sort every client’s content by that question first and the rest gets easier.
Streaming from your owned Drive copy · about an hour · click any insight to open its moment in the transcript.
Alex ran the same True Classic idea three times in one week. The narrow marketer version stalled around 3,000 views. Repackaged with a wider title, it did 5,000. Reframed as ‘the $150M marketing playbook,’ the same underlying idea hit roughly 300,000. Nothing about the substance changed; the packaging did. He calls it the Landforce Law, borrowed from Virgil Abloh.
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Now that we've got some basics. Yeah, and then we're going to get into Tom. We're going to try and keep ourselves to a tight 20, 25 minutes here. Alex, take it away, brother.
Let's do it. All right. Let me go back a slide. I jumped the gun early. Y'all can see my screen, though?
Yep. Just give me a little thumbs up. all right we're gonna talk about two things one three percent change this is the land force law and then and that's that's uh oran came up with that and then we got funnels content funnels understanding the content funnel and the different content that you create and the different goals that you attach to that content let's first start with three percent change so something that you probably got guys have noticed is obviously instagram has updated the analytics on the back end right um if if you've paid attention to those and you should pay attention to those it literally tells you what you need to do and the metrics you need to hit for a piece of content to be successful now this rule applies and can it will continue to apply as much as the even if you know as the analytics change and basically the three percent change and rule in this context is you can make something completely novel a piece of content completely novel if you just shift it by 3%, right? And this is actually coined by Virgil Avloh.
And the idea in this is a lot of the content that you're creating now can perform significantly better and probably has the potential to perform significantly better, but you're not packaging it right. You know, your hook, your first three seconds, your first frame, maybe it's the storytelling.
This is where you get into the analytics, maybe it's the storytelling, the drop-off points. Those are the things that are then actually hurting your video and getting them stuck in places like 3,000 views and 4,000 views, et cetera, where if you make these small changes to a video that you look at the analytics and it looks like it has the potential to perform significantly well, then you can make those adjustments and be able to almost like repackage the video and change aspects of the video to then get it to perform much better.
So if you look at these three videos that I have here, these are all three, and I'm not saying do this exactly where these are all three videos that I posted in the same week. Right. And so first iteration of the video, I had, I had less than a thousand followers at the time.
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Top-of-funnel is commercial fishing: the widest net to pull in followers. Middle serves the people already following you with real education. Bottom is the specific ask — a product, a launch, a booking. Alex ran a gym membership to full capacity on organic alone by mapping series to each tier. His starting ratio for five posts a week is roughly three top, two middle, and don’t touch bottom until you have traction.
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Most of you are going to make the mistake of thinking something is top of funnel when it's really not, when it's really bottom of the funnel content. And so when we think about the content funnel, we really want to think about it through this lens.
There's content to get followers, right? You get people into your ecosystem. These are for for me this is like good content for his bad content for or now i think it's more of his his yaps for calling it was a lot of them were his um like factory breakdowns like that was a lot of our top of funnel content it was our content to get hundreds of thousands if not millions of of views the goal was to get followers the goal is to to expand our ecosystem and then we have middle of content it's content for your followers right this is where you're you're creating specific value for the people that already follow you.
It's not every piece of content is made or should be made to get a million views. Some content, especially like if you're in smaller categories or some content is never, you know, it might never get a million views. It might top out at 500,000 views or 250,000 views. It's fine.
But again, that middle funnel content is the content that is made for the people that are already following you. Most of you don't have to worry about that right now either. And then you have affinity slash action this is content uh to get your followers to take action right like if you if you have a product that you're trying to sell and you or you have a launch you have a campaign etc like that falls into the category of bottom of the funnel content the way i like to break it down is you know i'm a florida boy at heart so we got to go fishing top of funnel content is that is commercial fishing right like casting the biggest net possible to catch as many fish as possible right like that is top of funnel middle of funnel is fishing with a cast net 12 foot net 10 foot net etc you could still catch a significant amount of fish and then bottom of the funnel is like one-on-one action you could be you got to be fishing specific spot at specific time with specific bait to catch a specific fish right that is bottom of the funnel content and so that is the content that does not have the ability to get again a million views unless it's an outlier a million views, 10 million views, et cetera.
And so I'll run through a quick example of when I was a CMO collective and I'll show exactly how like we looked at our funnel. So there was same thing. We were, we were, this was a new location that we were opening.
And so we created our content funnel years ago to, to, okay, how do we essentially funnel people to apply and then get them in the door?
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Take a high point, then the thing you had to work through, told in photos you already have. Alex’s example is the runner: ‘I was an All-American and still had to start over.’ It works especially well with a brand — the ‘I left my job at Palantir to start a yogurt company’ move — because it turns viewers who came for your topic into fans of you.
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This is a great one. And when you do your carousel this week, this is what we would like to try to get you to do. This is a Cut 30 carousel from someone who did Cut 30 with us. And he's just telling his own story. I was an All-American and still had to start over.
So he has an account, obviously, about running. And he's basically highlighting a high point in his life that then he had to work through. And literally, you will see in photos from his camera roll, he is telling a story of things that happened in his life and then what he had to do to overcome them. This is an awesome thing, especially if you have a brand.
This is why you see the, you know, I left my job at Palantir to start a yogurt company like that. This is where you're able to use those stories, raise the drama, and get people to follow along and build some real affinity. And this is great middle of funnel content because it takes something people might have seen your other content about running, but then teaches them about you, right?
They become fans of you. So that's what we call, in general, a personal story carousel. Now, I'm going to go through two sections.
I'm going to go through a personal brand and a brand section and zip through these. What I want to call out is one Tom just did. So there's a creator called First Class Jerk who is a travel creator who has a video series where he DMs his celebrity followers and asks them what their favorite hotel is. And Tom did an excellent spin on this by saying, I DMed creators.
So he DMed his big creator followers asking them for a tip. And he puts it in a carousel. And you will see, literally, he leads with some screenshots.
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Tom’s mindset video did nothing on its own. Wrapped around Steph Curry and another recognizable name sitting oddly together, it opened a curiosity loop and ripped. Oren’s framing: it isn’t someone else’s story, it’s a metaphor for your own, stolen and reapplied. Rather than your productivity tips, people would rather hear Steve Jobs’ productivity tips that you then adopted.
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I just think that that's such an important one to think about because like, that's such a generic video without you sprinkling in your personality and then using that hook. Like, I feel like we've seen that video a hundred times in, in, in cut 30, just about like, have a good mindset.
Right. But making it your version of it. And then of course, like using them as a hook obviously changes, changes the nature of the beast.
Yeah. If you take nothing away from any of these other calls, it's just like every story that you tell, like if you put it in relation to something everyone knows, and you've heard this feedback a bunch in here, but instead of hitting like your productivity tips, they'd rather hear about Steve Jobs productivity tips that you then adopted or using a metaphor.
Like what I love about Tom's, it's not just someone else's story. It's just a metaphor for what he's doing. He's just stealing it and applying it. Right. And that's an excellent way to look at it. Like all the videos I'm doing now are all like, here's the concept and I'm just twisting it for my own desires.
Right. Like what's a thing that people are always thinking about? Okay, how can I like make a point about it? And so just, you know, every single video, bear that in mind.
The one other point about that video, just like if we're talking like, you know, little details, I know the hook was flat.
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Tom borrowed ‘honor your downloads’ from Courtney Johnson: an idea plus a window means you ship it now. He treats it like a job he was hired for — the on-camera spokesman who has to say the thing when it arrives. His actual ritual is a morning journal, then drafting the hook on the drive, then recording in the Starbucks parking lot before the download fades.
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Yeah. The one there's something that she said once was like, she was on my podcast. She was like, you have to honor your downloads. So that's sort of my commitment.
Like if I have a window and I have a download, like an idea, I'm just like, I'm sending it. Like that's, that's my job.
You know, like, like you have to hire yourself to do this shit because no one else is going to do it. Like if someone paid me and was like, hey, you're the face of bonus footage. Like your job is to fucking say this shit when you have the idea.
Like I that's sort of the principle I have. And so I literally I wake up in the morning. I write for 30 minutes in a journal. I do 10 ideas and I do one page of like kind of the artist way where you do a stream of consciousness. And then usually I get an idea from that.
And I give a structure to it. And then I literally like our, my office has turned to a nursery now. So I go to Starbucks to work and on the drive there, I'm like thinking through the hook. And then I sit in the parking lot and I send it like it's, it's a, and I was talking to Ed Crockett, like I made a video about it. I call it my yap station.
Like, it's almost like, what's the dog? They did the thing with the dogs where like they, they ring the bell and they ring the bell and they salivate like i see pavlov's pavlov's dog i gotta send it that's excellent um what is the process like for you kind of now coming up with uh coming up with content so right now uh so this is a bit so one i actually want to highlight three three things that i learned from each of y'all i think this is important i think this might be some some random stuff that that popped up so um first orn when we were in, I think I did like a, one of your three day challenges after cut 30.
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Tom runs James Altucher’s ten-ideas-a-day drill plus a page of stream-of-consciousness writing, then a walk to let the subconscious surface the simplest ideas. He also mines his other videos: the Rise of Yapping clip had five videos hidden inside it, each a moment he could pull out and re-tree into a new post. And he pulls from real, no-agenda calls with other creators.
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And he like watched it and I could see his face and he was like, what are you saying here? Like, it was like, I don't like, it's like, it's cool. It looks cool, but I don't know what you're saying.
And then I realized like, that was a very clear moment for me. Like I'm trying to do too much in these, just be direct and be clear and not try to be clever. And then the one thing that Colin said, I remember I was talking through like niches with you, Colin, and you sort of just said like, not in these words, you were like, you know, the niche is fine.
your content just sucks and it kind of like i was just like yo you're right you're right a little bit um what was the what was the question uh that i forget yeah it's just like how are you coming up with content ideas now like yeah i know you're busy you have the job you're thinking through these like you know what happens actually get the videos down yeah right now i um it's it's honestly that thing in the morning it's where that's the thing where i prime my day so James Altucher has this thing where you just write 10 ideas every single day.
He builds your idea muscle and I write them in the morning. And sometimes it's based off of like, I do have a folder of like saved yaps and saved green screens. And sometimes if I'm like really itching for something, like I'll scroll and I'll like look at stuff in other niches.
But a lot of it is like a half a page of, I'm telling you that it's like magical. It's a half, it's one page of morning pages where you just stream, stream of consciousness.
You're supposed to do it for like four pages. I'm lazy. And then I do 10 ideas, the James Altucher method. And then I actually I hit a walk after that.
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Tom’s biggest video opens on a hook, then re-hooks around 15 seconds in with ‘I analyzed 84 videos and the top creators are all doing this one thing.’ That is a hook in itself. If you have a banger opener with a big curiosity gap, extend it: once people are locked, drop in a story to hold them another 20 seconds. When he skips the re-hooking, the videos tend to die.
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Like the contrast one is, is a, like, is a huge, you just need a couple of small concepts um it's like i think i might uh i saw a great hook today and it's funny because like oh sorry go ahead go ahead no go ahead i was gonna say like i i all my hooks have always been direct and now i'm like trying new hooks because mine have always kind of been like this is how to do like very very direct and and they hit right but now i'm like okay let me let's try some new stuff like i'm almost on the other end of that well i didn't notice that about you like you get right into it it's just like hey this is the information just just freaking send it and and like i don't know dude i feel like people crave that a little bit they're like because it got to a point where everyone was like using so much of the hook templates that everyone's just like yo you're hooking me where if you just like get like here here's the info and you also i put all right and i did this and i was feedbacking someone in here earlier today uh but i put all right in front of the hooks because it's just a natural so like all right have you noticed how is better than have you noticed how so like using one of those natural words is always just like makes it feel feel more and more conversational like you're just yeah you're just like answering a question but any insight like all right have you noticed how plank is a great like casual hook that's one i don't use as much but i have written 150 of those for for ugc creators and stuff uh yeah so look hooks coming in and out of fashion you kind of have to save a working doc things change algorithms change niches change but you just it's just good to go back to that list and think of what fits and just pay attention of it when you're consuming um you know it's just a kind of worth noting uh the super hook to the the 15 the 15 second in um that's one where um if if there's a opportunity to throw it in i'm just like yeah i'm gonna drop something in that's where you hit the butt in the but explain that for people that haven't heard before what the super hook it's basically a second hook uh so in my video in the one video that blew up, I'll just use the example.
I started by saying yapping on camera looks easy, but everyone's missing the point. And then I kind of say what they're missing. And then I say, but I analyzed 84 videos and the top creators are all doing this one thing.
And like, that's a hook in itself. I'm basically just re-hooking. Then about 15 seconds later, I say the book that they need to read and the insight from that specific book. So in my best video there's essentially three hooks in in that video and when i'm lazy like the like when i don't do that stuff the videos tend to tend to flop yeah and if you have a banger like the super hook thing i've been working on is if i have a banger hook with a huge curiosity gap where i'm like okay people are really going to want to get to it and you can extend it like you mentioned with a super hook you can kind of double it but then i'll that's where i'll do the story like when i know i have them locked that's when i'll like set it up and i'll be like you're at dinner and try becca and blah, blah, blah.
Like go into something because then it's just like, they're going to laugh and they're going to stay through it. And then next thing you know, they're in there for 20 seconds. So if you're ever like, look up and you're like, I have an excellent hook.
Like remember back to this moment and be like, hook into like funny story. Then go into the video is a great way to just ensure a banger. One of my, one of my favorite examples of that, that is a little bit counter intuitive is on orange product versus brand where he's got a high contrast hook.
That is a good hook. But if you'll, if you notice, and if you look at it, the magic of that series is that within the first two, first one or two, you'll have to correct me, Oren, uh, within the first one or two that he mentions, it's always going to have something that, that, that you agree with and then piss you off or you think is crazy.
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Eight of Tom’s ten best follower-getting videos are green screens, not raw yaps. The coaches’ frame: a high-quality camera yap earns more followers even at lower views, so a raw yap is the easiest way to get honest algorithm feedback (run it as top-of-funnel), while the green screen does the follower conversion. Same reason to run multiple formats: each one has a different job in the funnel.
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That's where I'm at right now. I'm trying to get to a hundred K. So like the rise of yapping, I'm just going to like, I'm a moron for not copying that over and over again, at least once a week in a different way.
So that's one, the notion list example, it's, it's a layup. Um, I've been neglecting it cause I, it's like, it feels too, it feels too simple.
Um, but I did it last week and it got like 1500 followers um and then uh the the carousel that that oren talked about idm creators layup it almost some some of the shit that works it's like it's annoying how easy it's a how right in front of you it is like i had this idea for three months i was like oh it's like i don't know and then i just put it in canva it took me 40 minutes on my phone um and i posted it and and it's a it made the cut 30 uh example list let's go baby um and then so this one is like and then one where it's just an on-camera delivery uh it's just something about like cadence delivery confidence on camera i get a lot of questions about that then the steph mindset that's a format then the two-minute yap there's no reason that i shouldn't keep doing them like um and then i did a format called a carousel yap study where i break down a yap uh one fun fact can I tell you all a fun fact which is hilarious um I have my 10 top videos for bringing in followers eight of them are green screens and like they're green screens this is the downside of the yapping is that um the green screens don't perform as well anymore but the follower ratio from yes it's like all-time low or I wonder too like I'm like this is what I realized too is when it comes to brand deals, brands, it's hard to do a brand deal with a pure yap because you can't demonstrate anything.
Yeah. And I'm convincing them to do it now. Um, so yeah, so like a couple, a couple of insights from what you're talking about. Like, so you'll know, I would, uh, straight yap, well, I'll perform high quality camera yap, but you will get more followers, even with less views on the high quality camera yap.
And so we encourage the, the, just the raw, because it's the easiest way to actually get some feedback from the algorithm, right? That's, That's why we encourage everyone to do it. - Explain raw.
- Like iPhone, no in your car, no book gap, all the other stuff, right? It's just, you don't get the, you'll start to notice you bang on a green screen.
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Tom went to school for health and phys ed, then started promoting a friend’s music online, which helped that friend get a major record deal and pulled Tom into the music industry for a few years. He came home, started DJing and shooting music videos for friends, and around 2014 brands began reaching out based on that work. That path led to Margaritaville Hotels and Resorts, where he is now director of content across roughly 80 hotel partners. He started Bonus Footage in 2020 as a creative outlet for his conversations with other creators, but never took it seriously until late last year, when he enrolled in Cut30 to reset. He came in around 7,000 followers and, a week or two after the course, hit his first banger and climbed to about 37,000 on Instagram. He is based in Westchester, Pennsylvania.
More from this guest — Cohort 23 Zoom 3
The examples behind the tactics — the accounts referenced in the session, and what each one illustrates. Tap a name to open the profile.
The Landforce Law: reposition or repackage a proven idea slightly and it can jump to top-of-funnel
Top / middle / bottom: content to get followers, to serve them, and to move them to act
Total available market; different people consume different formats, so run a deliberate mix
A known name or headline that hijacks attention and carries an idea that wouldn’t travel alone
A second re-hook around 15 seconds in; the best videos stack roughly three hooks
When the idea and the window arrive together, capture it immediately
Ten written ideas every morning; the first five or six are bad on purpose, which is the point
Raw talking-to-camera; the hardest zero-to-one format, but the fastest algorithm feedback
Talking over graphics; converts to followers even when it pulls fewer views than a yap
Camera-roll photos telling an overcome-it personal story; this week’s homework
How this maps to our roster
Your serial-entrepreneur advisor ran the session against the current client list. Point-form provocations, grounded in real engagements.
A weekly series across multiple clinics is exactly where funnel discipline and repackaging pay for themselves.
Three on-camera talents on a signed retainer, and Allie asked for coaching. A roster built to be drilled.
The doc runs on Greg reading as genuine; a camera-roll story carousel is the cheapest first proof.
Classical feeds skew stuffy; a known-name vehicle plus a human story is the scroll-stopper.
Alex’s own warning: most people make bottom-of-funnel content before they have an audience for it. A clinic on retainer will want to lead with booking CTAs; hold them until the top-of-funnel content earns the reach, or the ask falls flat.
Tom now shoots lower-res brand deals because they read as more authentic, which cuts against JI’s premium-production instinct. For a Marmur derm, ‘raw’ means unfussy and genuinely themselves, not poorly shot; the credibility still has to be there.
yeah yeah all right welcome in welcome in shout out shout out matt that video is ripping it was absolutely crushing i knew it was only a matter of time wait was it the tiger one i didn't see it no katie shout out 5 000 followers let's fucking go we still got folks rolling in we'll give people another minute here alex you done any good shopping recently oh yes fast answer to whoa what you caught bro where was that i bought the uh this is a big purchase The Innie is Granted Year.
Oh, sick. Let's go. Those are all over my neighborhood. Yeah. Very popular. I was sick on a Sunday and I got very bored.
But yes, I'm fucking loving it. Let's roll. We're going to drop in the chat a link to Tom, who's today's guest. A.K.A. bonus footage. Yeah.
There he is. um we're just gonna just let him have the floor just let him yap for fucking 45 minutes just 59 minutes front of him we just brought that deck we talked about today right just butt there for every five seconds yeah damn my wife's sick of that shit already dude yeah my wife is definitely like i liked it better when you didn't talk yeah i was silent for like 10 years and then we started tom if y'all get in an argument do you just like throw down the new pad and just like start yapping yeah he hooks strong he backs it up yeah yeah i usually thought you were right but it was until i usually add a contrarian take and then uh and then something useful um and then a many cat automation into yeah yeah you're like if you want my backup for this quick comment yeah Yeah.
I'm in love with my life. I do miss the banter at the beginning of these calls. I think this is an underrated part of the Cut Pretty program. We're going to get our headlines today. Yeah, it can be hit or miss.
I appreciate that, though. Mostly miss. All right, great. 604, let's dive in. Today, we're diving into what we're going to do in week three because we are going to switch it up.
We're starting to dive into some tactics. We know, especially for some of our more experienced creators, we've been rehashing some formats. You guys have had a lot of stuff that you've already heard, but we're going to be getting into deeper levels of that this week and next week.
Now that we've got some basics. Yeah, and then we're going to get into Tom. We're going to try and keep ourselves to a tight 20, 25 minutes here. Alex, take it away, brother.
Let's do it. All right. Let me go back a slide. I jumped the gun early. Y'all can see my screen, though?
Yep. Just give me a little thumbs up. all right we're gonna talk about two things one three percent change this is the land force law and then and that's that's uh oran came up with that and then we got funnels content funnels understanding the content funnel and the different content that you create and the different goals that you attach to that content let's first start with three percent change so something that you probably got guys have noticed is obviously instagram has updated the analytics on the back end right um if if you've paid attention to those and you should pay attention to those it literally tells you what you need to do and the metrics you need to hit for a piece of content to be successful now this rule applies and can it will continue to apply as much as the even if you know as the analytics change and basically the three percent change and rule in this context is you can make something completely novel a piece of content completely novel if you just shift it by 3%, right? And this is actually coined by Virgil Avloh.
And the idea in this is a lot of the content that you're creating now can perform significantly better and probably has the potential to perform significantly better, but you're not packaging it right. You know, your hook, your first three seconds, your first frame, maybe it's the storytelling.
This is where you get into the analytics, maybe it's the storytelling, the drop-off points. Those are the things that are then actually hurting your video and getting them stuck in places like 3,000 views and 4,000 views, et cetera, where if you make these small changes to a video that you look at the analytics and it looks like it has the potential to perform significantly well, then you can make those adjustments and be able to almost like repackage the video and change aspects of the video to then get it to perform much better.
So if you look at these three videos that I have here, these are all three, and I'm not saying do this exactly where these are all three videos that I posted in the same week. Right. And so first iteration of the video, I had, I had less than a thousand followers at the time.
First iteration of the video was me talking about the brand true classic and then like breaking down their PDP. So the video was the secret to landing pages that convert. If I'm looking at this content now, this is more of like a middle funnel, bottom of the funnel piece of content for my audience, right?
Like it's very, very specific where I'm just talking to marketers, right? And predominantly like growth marketers or a conversion rate optimization, a bunch of nerds. Like I'm just talking to those folks with, with something like this. And so that video, like, even if I made the best, best version of that video, it's probably getting 20, 30, maybe 50,000 views like at best.
So already there, I'm like, okay, this isn't the best. But when I look at the analytics, this video, again, like at the time, like me getting 100 likes and me getting 80 saves, it's like, okay, like there's something here. Like obviously these people are finding this valuable, but the average watch time kept getting stuck at roughly eight seconds, like eight, nine seconds in that ballpark.
But I'm able to look at the analytics and basically say, oh shit, like people are finding this value. A lot of people are saving this. Can I just try this again?
Because when you're like, when you haven't had a video crack 10,000 views, you're desperate to get something to crack 10,000 views, right? So I'm like, all right, cool.
I'm going to just repackage this and try to make it a little bit better because people obviously like this video. The next day, I do have True Classic turned $3,000 into $150 million. So a little bit more about their storytelling but as you can tell by the first image i basically kept the majority of it the same right got it to perform a bit better probably the the title hook is a little bit more interesting than this in this cast a wider net than this okay so got roughly 5 000 then whoops jumping the gun then in the third iteration i read i did two things which i'll let tom talk about the but then therefore a framework, but that's a rule that I follow in all of my content and my script writing.
But the other iteration that I did is I repackaged the overall value and the actual idea. So I took all of the context that I was putting into these videos. So even landing pages, like ads, because I talk about ads, I talk about landing pages, I talk about the organic content, et cetera.
And I packaged it into true classic $150 million marketing playbook. Right. So even if you're not like, even if you don't have a business or you're, you could be somebody interested in marketing, you could be somebody interested in content creation ads, just businesses in general, you could be a founder, you could be so many different people and find this interesting because it casts a much wider net than secret to landing pages that, that convert.
Right. And million marketing playbook. I piggyback off the name True Classic, $150 million, eye candy, like the number being eye candy, marketing playbook tells you exactly like kind of what you're going to get from this.
The result of these three iterations was going from 3,000 to roughly 5,000 to then roughly 300,000, right? And all that really changed was me repackaging the idea and looking at the analytics to be like, is this idea that's worth me trying to repackage into, um, into a better piece of content. And I've done this so many times with, with videos where I'm like, okay, if it got to a hundred thousand views, like chances are I could get it to like two 50. If I change some aspects of the video and you'll, and you'll see this with, with so many things, like you could test a one shot and be like, oh, okay. Like people love this.
I can, I can turn this in now into a completely different format and it'll perform exceptionally well. And those same iterate, like that is still a 3% change when you just take an idea change it into or apply it to another format. And so as we go into the content funnel, this rule is going to apply as like you think about top of funnel content.
Most of you are going to make the mistake of thinking something is top of funnel when it's really not, when it's really bottom of the funnel content. And so when we think about the content funnel, we really want to think about it through this lens.
There's content to get followers, right? You get people into your ecosystem. These are for for me this is like good content for his bad content for or now i think it's more of his his yaps for calling it was a lot of them were his um like factory breakdowns like that was a lot of our top of funnel content it was our content to get hundreds of thousands if not millions of of views the goal was to get followers the goal is to to expand our ecosystem and then we have middle of content it's content for your followers right this is where you're you're creating specific value for the people that already follow you.
It's not every piece of content is made or should be made to get a million views. Some content, especially like if you're in smaller categories or some content is never, you know, it might never get a million views. It might top out at 500,000 views or 250,000 views. It's fine.
But again, that middle funnel content is the content that is made for the people that are already following you. Most of you don't have to worry about that right now either. And then you have affinity slash action this is content uh to get your followers to take action right like if you if you have a product that you're trying to sell and you or you have a launch you have a campaign etc like that falls into the category of bottom of the funnel content the way i like to break it down is you know i'm a florida boy at heart so we got to go fishing top of funnel content is that is commercial fishing right like casting the biggest net possible to catch as many fish as possible right like that is top of funnel middle of funnel is fishing with a cast net 12 foot net 10 foot net etc you could still catch a significant amount of fish and then bottom of the funnel is like one-on-one action you could be you got to be fishing specific spot at specific time with specific bait to catch a specific fish right that is bottom of the funnel content and so that is the content that does not have the ability to get again a million views unless it's an outlier a million views, 10 million views, et cetera.
And so I'll run through a quick example of when I was a CMO collective and I'll show exactly how like we looked at our funnel. So there was same thing. We were, we were, this was a new location that we were opening.
And so we created our content funnel years ago to, to, okay, how do we essentially funnel people to apply and then get them in the door?
So we had three series that were top of funnel, right? Every time we created one of these are we knew we were getting anywhere from 100,000 to 250,000 views some of them top that but the majority of the time it played within that ballpark the the first piece of content was this win the day series we had one of our our content pillars was more so on the inspirational side um when our win the day series was a series that we dropped every single monday to kick off the week right that was and we and it was always a collab with one of the founders who had a decently sized audience at at the time that was series number one top of funnel more so generic but generic for a specific uh type of individual part two or sorry series number two was this one that we started called cold hard truth got different members of course like in this case you see jamar chase nfl player but like we had other uh cody sanchez etc different members different athletes that train there put up in a cold plunge ask some rapid fire questions um while they were the freezing water that was series number two series number three was then there was a lot of amazing builders and athletes that that trained there so series number three was um around like more docu style around those those athletes and we had a big creative team so we were allowed you know we can we can do this but the main gist was that was our top of funnel content that was the content we always made to to cast the biggest enough net in in austin so that we could then funneled down funneling down to middle funnel content was more so educational content around specific injuries around optimizing specific things because those were the things that when people would come to the collective what they were interested in or what we would upsell and so knowing that we would always we would just reverse engineer okay like if you're following us and you're probably one of these types of people like what are the things that you'd want to learn and if we taught you that how would we teach you about that thing in a way that you knew you know we offered it part two of middle of funnel was then just a specific like podcast that that we did that was more so around more on the brand building side um with the the three founders bottom of the funnel in this case was always uh it was like it was very product centric in this case the product being the the facility.
This was our funnel. And so if you look at this, this was, we'd never really post on Sundays. This is what we were posting Monday to Saturday, every single week. We'd grow with this.
We'd educate with this. We'd take, we'd get people to take action with this. And this worked extremely well for us where we didn't have to run any ads. We filled up the entire membership just off the backend of organic content.
And so the goal is for you to understand that not every piece of content is going to achieve the same thing. And they're not supposed to. There's videos that I make that are made or the goal is to, quote unquote, go viral within my category or to cast a very large net.
There's content that I make that is then to educate those same people that follow me from the beginning so I could funnel them to the agency, right? That is how you then need to be thinking about your content as you go and start to make a lot more content. A lot of you are going to make the mistake of making too much bottom of funnel content when you've done no top of funnel work and the last thing i'll end with is there's a correlation with all of this if you pay attention to something that you like a creator that you follow or not even follow a creator that like you you see today you engage with their content you'll start seeing their content more on your explore feed more in your reels tab right and that's the power also of top of funnel content even if it if they don't follow off the first impression or off the first piece of content that they see from you, you will start to show up on their feed because you engage with them.
Whether you shared a piece of content, whether you saved a piece of content, or whether you liked or commented on it, they will show up on your feed again. And so that is also the correlation of top of funnel. If you have a video that gets a million views, you are going to resurface on a lot of those people's explore feeds and reels um reels algo again and so understanding that shows the importance of this to have a more uh impactful middle and bottom of the funnel content so Alex before you hand it off there's a couple of Alex specific questions there but I would love to have you hit this one from Jennifer um just hit on uh the middle of the funnel thing you were talking about educating your audience.
Could you back up and share a real world example there? Yeah. And I can pop in on run real quick as well. Like if you look at my content, I'll talk about something mass appealing, like a sociology example.
But in the middle of funnel content, it's all educational. So basically, I'm introducing the concept of something in a marketing world, right? Some marketing thing, but I don't get into any tactics.
And the middle of funnel content will be like, oh, well, here's how you'd actually run a program to do something like that. Like that becomes middle of funnel content. And then as you'll start to notice that balance between here's an idea that's being talked about, or here's a cool thing that's happening versus here's how you do it.
Here's where the expertise lies is like kind of a big difference. And you'll notice that drop off in views. Those other ones get hundreds of thousands of views. Those others get 50 to 100k. And that's completely fine, right? You're narrowing down your audience to the people you want from the wide swath.
Alex, any good examples from, I know you obviously worked with a collective one. yep and i'll even like like orange wearing a fitbit right now the fitbit could literally like the top of funnel could be like ranking different uh wearable devices and then the next one could be like how to understand your fitbit data yes and like the one is extremely top of funnel the people that are going to be interested overall in wearables are going to be interested in the ranking video let's say they follow you because of you because of that the next thing and like let's say they buy Fitbit, they're now going to look to you to be like, educate me on how to look at my data. And you don't have to be able to educate someone at like the Huberman level, but you could educate someone about like, hey, here's how I'm using my Fitbit to optimize eye sleep.
And like, that is middle of the funnel in this case. Exactly. And you'll start to see it. You'll start to see content you do that gets views, but you're kind of like, okay, it doesn't really, it's not necessarily all the right people. It's not whatever, but you're like, I know how I can actually get some attention.
That's a good thing. But you need to then anchor that with, Okay, how do I give more relevant information about me or about what I want to achieve to those people? And so the way we recommend doing this, and for most creators, say you're posting five times a week, would be two, two, one.
Honestly, when you're starting out, three top of funnel, two middle of funnel. Don't even care about bottom of funnel until you actually start to get some resonance. But you should be kind of really focusing on that 50-50.
Like even now, I'm doing two, yeah, two, three, two, like most often.
And we will be workshopping through this stuff. So you can start to think about what is my top of funnel content? What can get views, et cetera, in here?
I don't want to derail too far. So we've got something to hit. Yes, Chad, 331, 221. Exactly.
That's a great way to look at it. And I would say don't ignore the bottom, but until you get some degree of traction, don't even think about it. Then once you do start thinking about, okay, am I getting what I want out of this content?
Am I asking people to join my email list? Am I telling people about my brand? Am I making sure they know the sale is live? Don't feel bad about it. Just don't lead with that before you actually know how to make good content.
Yeah, just hit a 4-3 right there. Yeah, exactly. 4-3 defense. All right, so I'm going to pop into carousels this week because we are going to be switching it up.
The homework this week is we're going to make videos we have not made before. So if you've been making yaps, you've been making one-shots, whatever, we're going to have you try new stuff, including a carousel and ideally a vlog.
I'm not going to go too deep into vlogs. We have a whole section on that inside the curriculum. Alex has actually made some really good videos about cool blogs here on his feed as well, too. But that basically is expanding the 10 shot.
Now you're going to use a voiceover and try to tell a story on there. But I do want to talk about carousels. One sec, I'm going to try and mute. Colin, can you mute Matt real quick? I don't know.
Yeah, I can't see where that's coming from, Matt. Matthew. That's one on there. I just can't mute someone on that.
All right. I want to dive into carousels because it proves an important point you need to think about when you think about content. And that is that different people consume content in different ways. We call this content TAM or total available market. So, for instance, I make long videos where I talk for like two minutes.
I don't ever consume videos where I talk for two minutes. Millions of people do, but I mostly consume one shots, 10 shots, and carousels. And so you'll start to notice if you want to reach the biggest market you can with your ideas or with your brand, you need a mix of different formats.
You'll also find as you create with the amount of time you have, whatever, you may have a great content format. It takes you a hell of a time. But if you're quick on Canva, you can actually whip out carousels really fast.
That makes it easier for you to hit your content goals. So it's good to have this mix of formats. It's why we do this. So I'm going to walk through a few types of carousels. And we have a whole section inside the curriculum on how to actually make these.
I've updated a bunch of these examples. I know we have a lot of repeat people in here. So you don't have to zone out if you've seen this before because I'm giving you some new stuff. So the first concept, I'm going to put my screen on here that I want to talk about, is your own story.
This is a great one. And when you do your carousel this week, this is what we would like to try to get you to do. This is a Cut 30 carousel from someone who did Cut 30 with us. And he's just telling his own story. I was an All-American and still had to start over.
So he has an account, obviously, about running. And he's basically highlighting a high point in his life that then he had to work through. And literally, you will see in photos from his camera roll, he is telling a story of things that happened in his life and then what he had to do to overcome them. This is an awesome thing, especially if you have a brand.
This is why you see the, you know, I left my job at Palantir to start a yogurt company like that. This is where you're able to use those stories, raise the drama, and get people to follow along and build some real affinity. And this is great middle of funnel content because it takes something people might have seen your other content about running, but then teaches them about you, right?
They become fans of you. So that's what we call, in general, a personal story carousel. Now, I'm going to go through two sections.
I'm going to go through a personal brand and a brand section and zip through these. What I want to call out is one Tom just did. So there's a creator called First Class Jerk who is a travel creator who has a video series where he DMs his celebrity followers and asks them what their favorite hotel is. And Tom did an excellent spin on this by saying, I DMed creators.
So he DMed his big creator followers asking them for a tip. And he puts it in a carousel. And you will see, literally, he leads with some screenshots.
He has a shot of his DM. And then he's literally just laying these over. Okay, here's the response. Here's their profile. All of this is in like default textiles.
He put some time into making it look decent, but it's literally just screenshots and he's just sharing raw, valuable info. That is an awesome idea to do if you start getting some good followers is to be like, what could I ask them?
Another good recommendation is tips. So this is another one where I turned Claude into the world's best executive assistant. So basically pick anything that you do in your work, et cetera.
I, you know, optimized my fitness routine for X and Y. I completely changed my love life by doing this one thing. You basically hook it there with a good photo.
And it's worth noting on carousels, that first slide is your hook. Same way we talk about videos, we talk about the first slide. You got to catch people with text, catch people with visual. And she actually goes into a story.
I tried everything. And then here's what I actually built. And then just gives it into a breakdown. I love this carousel because this is a great first image. It's a cool image of her.
But then after that, it's just some text and screenshots. It's nothing crazy. Anyone could make that in Canva. Another good carousel type that is great for basically any niche is curation.
Same creator. The substacks that made me smarter in 2025. This is an amazing formula for curation. The movies that made me a better graphic designer. The signature move that allows me to win in every wrestling match.
Basically use that combo. And then again, just list them out. Simple, one sentence description, not trying to do too much, basically being a resource.
And then one, if you have any credibility, if you are an expert, I know we have some medical people in here, stuff like that. Use your expertise.
I'm a dermatologist. I'm a construction project manager. I'm a senior art director. And if you called out six years as a registered nurse and still no one believes me and then break down some facts things there that is awesome fodder for a carousel.
And I want to call out, you'll see how people do this. Sam is a recent graduate of Cut30. She makes content about farm hotels. She was making videos and she took one of her common questions.
She realized when she was making her videos, a lot of people didn't even know what a farm hotel was, but she's making all these videos about them. She just answered the question, what is a farm hotel? Again, we're not looking at expert graphic design here, just the basics of making it readable.
And she broke it down extremely simply. This is a dead simple carousel. I made a joke with one of our horse creators in here last two sessions ago, I think. Like if you did what is a saddle, it would probably go as well. You can never underestimate how little people know about things that you take for granted.
And so a simple carousel like this to a commonly answered question or something you see in the comments is an awesome approach on Sam ripped that in cut 30. Same thing here. She pulled numbers in her niche, another super simple carousel.
But she basically pulled on what are some key stats and just ripped that. And you'll watch some of those early carousels with simple designs to now she's kind of sharing some of these showcases around items inside her niche.
And I would love to call this out because Farm Hotels is like a pretty random niche. And it just goes to show basically anything interesting.
As long as you can pick some cool looking pictures, you can really tell some stories. And she did it in a wide way. I will drop all these examples in there in a minute.
And then for brands, a few examples here. Oh, lost that one. A few cool ones to do at brands. First is what's happening behind the scenes of our blank.
So I know we have our guy who has the water bottle filter in here. It's like all the strange places that I've been, you know, while I'm building this multimillion, like while I'm building this new water filtration system, and it has him like packing mud into the water bottle.
You can actually take those photos and show what you're working on, what you've been trying to do with photos. It's a great middle of funnel brand carousel. It also goes really well if you have fans, if you have a bunch of people that are commenting a lot. Salt, it's a brand Alex and I both know. They did this.
This is really a cool idea of you're on our close friends. So basically they're showing it as if it's like very intimate stuff. And they're making kind of like inside jokes and talking about their brand there. Same thing with sharing your journey. Completely unhinged things I did since starting this company is a great one.
These are all just carousels made from your existing camera roll. That's why I love them. You don't have to go create anything else. And then the last one I'll share here for brand is negative comments is a great one. You get a bunch of negative comments.
Also works great if you're a creator. Turn them into a carousel. And then you basically say the negative comment and then disprove it. This is an awesome one that people will love to read. And if you're getting a bunch of negative comments that you disagree with, let them rip in there.
And then when I share these actually a little bit inside Slack, I will also share a couple of the ones. If you are more of a graphic designer, I purposely share the other ones to prove you don't have to be a graphic designer.
All of those you could do in Canva, but we do have some nicer options too. If you do know what you're doing, like some projects showcases, things like that.
So I will drop all those in Slack, but your homework this week, trying new formats. We want you to do three videos. Ideally two are in a new format.
Ideally a vlog and a carousel. If you need us to tell you what to do for those, if you're doing a carousel, I cannot recommend enough the personal story carousel, something you've overcome, something you went through to got here. If you need dates for those, then we would love to have you to see these posts on Friday, Sunday and Tuesday.
But we're going to get you in the groove of doing three videos here. Colin, what else we got before Tom? Yeah, first of all, I want to call out that with what we just went through, the funnel and with formats, any of you who have asked, oh, should I make this video or this video?
The answer is yes, right? It's more of a matter of funnel. If you've asked, oh, I want to do a video about X, should I do it as a yap or as a green screen or as a carousel? The answer is yes, right?
These are all just different methods to repackage the content. And ultimately, those will find their way into different pieces of your overall mix and your overall funnel. The only thing we need to hit before Tom, like Oren mentioned, your homework is two pieces of these of totally new, totally alien content styles, especially if it's something that you thought you would never be doing.
And then mostly to put you on notice that when we meet here next Wednesday, it is the beginning of the seven day sprint. The seven day sprint is where almost all of the biggest winners come out of Cut 30. We're hoping that you're getting a couple of pieces of content week one, three last week in the area of three to five this week, maybe next week.
It is every single day. And we're going to be holding daily standups with everybody that is in the sprint. It's on the honor system, but every single day, quick 15 minutes stand up to talk about what's going on, ideas, so on and so forth for everybody that is in that grind and posting every day and starting the rest of their life with content.
With that, it's time for Tom. Yo, I want to intro Tom because when I first got on TikTok in kind of a totally different chapter of my life, one of the first people I followed was bonus footage because he was, as he'll tell you, kind of like big in the creator brand space.
He had a podcast talking to creators about their brands. And I was deep in that hole. And then I think four or five years later, somebody registered for Cut30. And it was bonus footage and we've come full circle.
And now let's go, let's go. He is here as a guest to talk to us. So Tom, what did I miss? Fellas, what did I miss? I think y'all stoked to be jamming y'all.
Where do you want me to start? Where should we kick off? How did you get here? What, give us the rundown on your creative journey because I know it's not as simple as yeah.
I mean, yeah, it's been, it's been a little, but yeah, first off, you know, cut 30 was, was always the, the vision to get here and hang out with you guys. Right.
So no, I started making content way back in the day. Obviously, I think we all got like a fun way of getting into it. Just like, you know, I want some attention, want to show some friends that I'm cool.
And then I started trying to promote my friend's music. And it was just like instinct. I was like, I don't know. I feel like this is this YouTube thing is the route. And then that ended up helping my friend get a major record deal.
Then I ended up working with him and with some like a bunch of big people in the music industry for a couple of years. And then I realized that like that industry is fairly shiesty. And like, I'm like, it just, I just wasn't built for it. So then I moved home and then I started like DJing and then making music videos for my friends.
And in that process, it was around, it was like, you know, 2014, 15, right?
When, you know, all the like the little rappers were like, that was the creator in that era. Like indie little rap artists, right? Or like people trying to make funny songs. So then brands started reaching out to me based off of that, saying like, hey, I saw you made these things.
So then I started making content for brands. And again, like I went to school for health and phys ed. This was all just like just like instinct. Like, hey, I'm telling stories with the resources I have.
It was always pretty janky, just like making it happen, which then led to one of the companies I work with that I worked with now. I still work with today. It's my day job. I'm the director of content for a hotel and resorts company, Margaritaville Hotels and Resorts.
So Jimmy Buffett's team saw one of my videos and then got me in touch with their marketing team. And they brought me in as like a contractor. And then over like three or four years, and I had some kids and I got a wife. They were like, you know, work here full time.
And I was like, all right, I like, I like, you know, let's corporate up a little bit. So this was like around like 2021 when, so I oversee, there's like 80 different partners at this brand. And I work on the brand marketing team.
So I basically help all these hotel partners make content and it's not that exciting content. It's kind of like stock footage for hotels and resorts. Like I can't really flex creativity, but the paycheck's nice. I like the people.
But at the same time, I needed like an outlet. And I've always had these conversations with individual creators, like artists, the, like if I'm at a party and I met anyone in this call right now, like I'm locking in, I'm very curious about your content journey.
Like I'm, I'm talking ideas with you. And then that's why I started bonus footage. And it was just like legit, like bonus footage, like the behind the scenes of like all these conversations I'm having.
Started yelling at the camera, but never took it seriously until I was it was like a hobby. It was like an outlet. It was just like I want to do something where no one's telling me what the F to do. And I kind of believe in this principle of like create content that subscribes you to a network. So like, you know, the network effect of like, everything's a network.
So you, the school you go to, the college you go to, and I believe like the content you create subscribes you to the network. So I was like, I love content creators.
I just want to be in this space touching, like this building, like I live in Westchester, Pennsylvania. It's a small town in PA.
I'm not really building a network here. So I was like, this is my way to kind of like build a network with like-minded individuals. So that's what bonus footage was, but it was never intended to like be something until, you know i kind of went through some like personal stuff with my family um and then at the end of last year i was like you know what i'm actually going to take this series seriously i need a refresher uh i want to go in and so i started doing cut 30 um ed ed crockett good friend of mine i talked to him every single day he told me about he's like dude you got to get in so i got him um but i remember like the third week or so uh i was i came in trying to do the small creator, big content series.
And like, that was the reason I got into, I had this, like, I was like, man, this series is going to be big. Right. And I just tried it every which way. And it just didn't work.
And then like the beauty of cut 30 is like, it makes you show up so consistently that I had to like kill that idea. And I didn't have anything in front of me. So I found, I made this course in 2019 called thrive on camera.
And it had like 50 points about how to like talk on camera in 2019 and then i was just like wait a second these are all concepts and that then gave me the ammo like you said um i think oran like in my opinion i i was trying to be too clever with this small content a small creator big big content series and i just had to go simple right in front of front of me singles up the middle like stuff that like felt obvious to me that that ended up the the internet you know it has been liking so i kind of jumped since then i think a week after i had the first like banger um i went from like seven eight thousand to i think we're at 37 000 on instagram which which yeah all shouts to to cut 30 for for helping rocket that rocket that journey up yo thank you for the rundown i didn't know a lot of that it's amazing i i got that's the high level that's the high level i'm trying to not bore people perfect i got i'm gonna put a link in the chat for everybody but um and then as i drop it i'm gonna ask you about it but my memory at least is like when we're in cut 30 you were grinding away not getting much traction this video that is i'm gonna refresh your mind on it uh why you stop making videos with steph curry as the hook yep um i just put in the chat you guys um i think this is one of your first yeah it really got traction um i would love to like kind of get a rundown on it from you but i wanted to call out to folks he's talking about a thing and he leveraged he pulls in a brand a celebrity a headline something that's happening something that's on people's mind and just use that as a vehicle to talk about to just yap to talk about the thing so videos in the chat if you want to tell us about this video and and correct me if i'm wrong that it was your first kind of so it was it was close it was the second first one um so the one i'll talk about that one but the first one before because i want to share it because i think it's i'm trying to share tidbits that's useful so i uh it was the video where i talk about um it's it's higher up wellness and justine's camera roll and about like how the best creators sort of have like a cadence that they go by when they talk and I'm kind of giving like one single tip and that was like in my course and that was the intro to this video it was intro to another video and I it had and I know like the green screen rules like you're supposed to change the um video change the uh the the picture in the background every 2.5 seconds I was busy as shit that day I was like I'm just gonna stick with this one photo in the background. I was like, I was going to go. So it's basically like a yap green screen. So it's like one photo, but I'm just yapping in front of one, one image.
And I just, it was supposed to be the intro, but I just talked for 45 seconds. I was like, all right, I'm just going to send it as is. And that's the first one that hit like a hundred K. So then I'm on something. So I took, it was basically Michael smoke from, I think that's his name, higher up wellness and Justine's camera roll next to each other.
And I took that. I was like, all right, if that worked with them, maybe, you know, Steph Curry's like, you know, I think he's, he's one of the coolest athletes in the world.
and uh and i yeah uh so then i took him i was like what's another big creator i was like shelby but like i don't um yeah so i basically took them and it was i tried like it was a mindset video it was about uh you know looking at data as um as not as dopamine but as just like information and that's like basically the the full message of the video but i yeah i use their images and kind of tie like an athlete's journey with a creator's journey and like that's the that's the full concept.
I just think that that's such an important one to think about because like, that's such a generic video without you sprinkling in your personality and then using that hook. Like, I feel like we've seen that video a hundred times in, in, in cut 30, just about like, have a good mindset.
Right. But making it your version of it. And then of course, like using them as a hook obviously changes, changes the nature of the beast.
Yeah. If you take nothing away from any of these other calls, it's just like every story that you tell, like if you put it in relation to something everyone knows, and you've heard this feedback a bunch in here, but instead of hitting like your productivity tips, they'd rather hear about Steve Jobs productivity tips that you then adopted or using a metaphor.
Like what I love about Tom's, it's not just someone else's story. It's just a metaphor for what he's doing. He's just stealing it and applying it. Right. And that's an excellent way to look at it. Like all the videos I'm doing now are all like, here's the concept and I'm just twisting it for my own desires.
Right. Like what's a thing that people are always thinking about? Okay, how can I like make a point about it? And so just, you know, every single video, bear that in mind.
The one other point about that video, just like if we're talking like, you know, little details, I know the hook was flat.
Like I watched it back in the edit. And the first thing I say in that video wasn't the actual hook. I cut the first five seconds that were there and then just started. I think it's like when Steph Curry's balling, like, like he doesn't say I made that shot.
Like, like it was just like, I only went off of it because it was the energy. It was the energy entirely. And the first thing just felt like I was like inching up too, too slowly to the actual, like just the action.
Yo, I feel like a big part of your process, like, again, I've watched you just ship a lot of volume and find your way. Like set, like really, especially since you did cut 30, it's really mostly been this year I think like, I don't know.
Talk to us about what you've learned through just like, just yapping. Just, just. Yeah.
Yeah. So you guys know Courtney Johnson, right? Yeah. She's a guest on here all the time.
Yeah. The one there's something that she said once was like, she was on my podcast. She was like, you have to honor your downloads. So that's sort of my commitment.
Like if I have a window and I have a download, like an idea, I'm just like, I'm sending it. Like that's, that's my job.
You know, like, like you have to hire yourself to do this shit because no one else is going to do it. Like if someone paid me and was like, hey, you're the face of bonus footage. Like your job is to fucking say this shit when you have the idea.
Like I that's sort of the principle I have. And so I literally I wake up in the morning. I write for 30 minutes in a journal. I do 10 ideas and I do one page of like kind of the artist way where you do a stream of consciousness. And then usually I get an idea from that.
And I give a structure to it. And then I literally like our, my office has turned to a nursery now. So I go to Starbucks to work and on the drive there, I'm like thinking through the hook. And then I sit in the parking lot and I send it like it's, it's a, and I was talking to Ed Crockett, like I made a video about it. I call it my yap station.
Like, it's almost like, what's the dog? They did the thing with the dogs where like they, they ring the bell and they ring the bell and they salivate like i see pavlov's pavlov's dog i gotta send it that's excellent um what is the process like for you kind of now coming up with uh coming up with content so right now uh so this is a bit so one i actually want to highlight three three things that i learned from each of y'all i think this is important i think this might be some some random stuff that that popped up so um first orn when we were in, I think I did like a, one of your three day challenges after cut 30.
And I was looking at that Steph Curry video and I was like, how do I make this a series? Like I really wanted to make it a series. And then you told me you were like, dude, sometimes there's just outliers and it's not a series.
And my mind really wanted a series. Cause everyone's saying make a series. And then, and then like two weeks later I made the, you know, I gave myself the freedom, just like, you know, stop trying to hold on to that one. Just make, um, just freely make stuff.
Uh, uh, Alex, the, the one, there was one big moment in one of the calls. It was one of the office hours.
Alex was watching one of my videos and he was like watching it live in front of the group. And, uh, I was like, dude, how come this thing isn't popping off? It's got all these saves. Like it hasn't blown up.
And he like watched it and I could see his face and he was like, what are you saying here? Like, it was like, I don't like, it's like, it's cool. It looks cool, but I don't know what you're saying.
And then I realized like, that was a very clear moment for me. Like I'm trying to do too much in these, just be direct and be clear and not try to be clever. And then the one thing that Colin said, I remember I was talking through like niches with you, Colin, and you sort of just said like, not in these words, you were like, you know, the niche is fine.
your content just sucks and it kind of like i was just like yo you're right you're right a little bit um what was the what was the question uh that i forget yeah it's just like how are you coming up with content ideas now like yeah i know you're busy you have the job you're thinking through these like you know what happens actually get the videos down yeah right now i um it's it's honestly that thing in the morning it's where that's the thing where i prime my day so James Altucher has this thing where you just write 10 ideas every single day.
He builds your idea muscle and I write them in the morning. And sometimes it's based off of like, I do have a folder of like saved yaps and saved green screens. And sometimes if I'm like really itching for something, like I'll scroll and I'll like look at stuff in other niches.
But a lot of it is like a half a page of, I'm telling you that it's like magical. It's a half, it's one page of morning pages where you just stream, stream of consciousness.
You're supposed to do it for like four pages. I'm lazy. And then I do 10 ideas, the James Altucher method. And then I actually I hit a walk after that.
And then that's when the subconscious sort of like comes up with stuff. And it's like these are the most simplest ideas, too. There's like so basic. But the other one is I'll look at my other videos, like the Rise of Yapping video.
I went into that video and I was like, there's like five videos in here. Like I looked at like because each moment in that video. So at the beginning, I say yapping on camera looks easy, but everyone's missing the point. In the middle, I say I analyzed 84 yet videos.
I'm like, OK, that's a hook. Like I'm like, I just kind of took different moments in that and just like made new like like did a tree from that content. And a lot of it is like conversations with creators that I've been having more recently because I have this thing that I call steps and steps where I hit my I hit my 10,000 steps every day and I I just have calls with different creators.
during those steps and concepts. And I just like jam with them and I'll get off calls. I'm like, dude, that's the thing I got to say. So I love pulling from real life conversations as much as possible.
I'm linking to the Rise of the Yapper video here, guys. Yeah, that's the one that kind of blew up. The one thing that I've been experimenting and enjoying recently is like, I'm a vibes guy.
Like I wish I was more of a data guy like you guys, But like I go off vibes like way too much where I'm like really kind of leaning into my energy of what incites me because I can't really fake it if it's like not interesting to me. So the one thing that I noticed, and it's a format that is like sort of testing my assumptions. I thought a yap had to be a certain amount, and it probably does when you're just starting. But I started experimenting with a two and a half minute yap.
And there's something about them that are working. Like I have two that are in my top ten of like bringing in the most followers. and they only have like a hundred thousand views compared to like the ones with millions and i'm just talking for two minutes straight and i made a challenge i was like i'm going to do no cuts in two minutes straight and just kind of go stream of consciousness and kind of go in with three points and it's so different than my like scripted out like green screen video um process to develop so that's one of the pillars that i've been experiment experimenting with recently what What about when you get a good idea and like you actually go into yapping?
Do you have some kind of structure for the yap? Do you bullet point? How do you actually yap in a way that's engaging? Yeah. So the one thing I've noticed is, well, it's usually, it's probably very similar to the structure that y'all gave us at the beginning.
It's essentially like a hot take plus utility. And then I think about the hook at the beginning. So it'll be like the thing, like the shower thought I'm thinking. And then I like attach like utility, like what someone you should do with this, like how to implement this.
And then I think about the hook. So are you saying workflow-wise you like you will just kind of go and yap about it and then come back and say – So it's different. It's honestly different. So like for the green screen videos, I script most of them out word for word, except a couple one like the every now and then I'll do like a kind of reaction like Catchy BT dropped a dropped a like her job description for an editor.
And I had like a insight I want to share on that. And I just put it on and talk for five minutes and then cut it down to 40 seconds. That's a great format, but I don't have an editor right now. And it's just too time consuming.
So I will typically like the one, honestly, truth be told, it varies. I've written them word for word, but then others like the one I have one.
It's like almost like 1.5 now. And it's and that was like it wasn't written down, but like I knew exactly what to say in my head. It's like 30 seconds long. So you can I could I kind of like hit the points.
But it took me like seven to eight tries to like hit it in one take. Yeah, that makes sense. For anybody fantasizing about not having to write your videos, I find as someone who's pretty good, like speaking off the cuff, anytime I save not writing or like Tom just said, like drilling down exactly what I'm going to say, even if I don't write it word for word, the time I save not writing is always made up in me like hacking together.
A hundred percent. Like what I yapped out to make it work. It makes the edit so much harder. Like at the very least, it's like drill down what you're going to say. Make sure that you're not being over, overusing like the same connecting phrases.
But, but all that time always gets lost anyway. Yeah. So like, let's take the, the, the, I'm trying, I'm trying to think of the specific videos that I can talk to.
So I have, I'll tell you my content schedule moving forward. Do that. So I have seven videos based off of like, and I did, this is after like 150 videos I put out. I looked at like the seven I like making the most and the, that are getting the most followers.
That's where I'm at right now. I'm trying to get to a hundred K. So like the rise of yapping, I'm just going to like, I'm a moron for not copying that over and over again, at least once a week in a different way.
So that's one, the notion list example, it's, it's a layup. Um, I've been neglecting it cause I, it's like, it feels too, it feels too simple.
Um, but I did it last week and it got like 1500 followers um and then uh the the carousel that that oren talked about idm creators layup it almost some some of the shit that works it's like it's annoying how easy it's a how right in front of you it is like i had this idea for three months i was like oh it's like i don't know and then i just put it in canva it took me 40 minutes on my phone um and i posted it and and it's a it made the cut 30 uh example list let's go baby um and then so this one is like and then one where it's just an on-camera delivery uh it's just something about like cadence delivery confidence on camera i get a lot of questions about that then the steph mindset that's a format then the two-minute yap there's no reason that i shouldn't keep doing them like um and then i did a format called a carousel yap study where i break down a yap uh one fun fact can I tell you all a fun fact which is hilarious um I have my 10 top videos for bringing in followers eight of them are green screens and like they're green screens this is the downside of the yapping is that um the green screens don't perform as well anymore but the follower ratio from yes it's like all-time low or I wonder too like I'm like this is what I realized too is when it comes to brand deals, brands, it's hard to do a brand deal with a pure yap because you can't demonstrate anything.
Yeah. And I'm convincing them to do it now. Um, so yeah, so like a couple, a couple of insights from what you're talking about. Like, so you'll know, I would, uh, straight yap, well, I'll perform high quality camera yap, but you will get more followers, even with less views on the high quality camera yap.
And so we encourage the, the, just the raw, because it's the easiest way to actually get some feedback from the algorithm, right? That's, That's why we encourage everyone to do it. - Explain raw.
- Like iPhone, no in your car, no book gap, all the other stuff, right? It's just, you don't get the, you'll start to notice you bang on a green screen.
It just like, it gets harder to make it rip, but you get more followers when you do. Then same kind of on the program, with the brands, I'm having to convince brands now, like I'm doing more like low res content brand deals.
So I'm like, it just comes across more authentic. - Really? - If you do a high produced and it's a brand deal, they want to pay for it, but it's not going to work as well.
And then always have a mic, Sean. you like you whether the bike is plugged in mine's plugged in i have ones you can't see it on camera i recommend that but like if your audio sucks you're doomed kind of either way um but yeah i would just kind of there's like there's levels to what that looks like and that's why we encourage multiple formats right like you may be getting more views off those yaps they may get you that might be your top of funnel but if your green screen is middle of funnel your green screen might be about converting those people to followers because they see you doing some more advanced stuff yeah yeah yeah what was the notion video you mentioned um so i made a video the other day where I literally, it was one of the, in the morning, I was like, I'm just going to dump a, I've had a bunch of people asking me to do one-on-one coaching or one-on-one, like, like producing their content, like idea to publish.
Right. And I legit don't have time to do it. And I was just like, all right, this is, but I wrote down like what, what I would do if I, that was something that I was hired to do. And I, I was just like, this is a video.
Like, why isn't this a video? And I just threw it behind me and I just said the points. It was like, it was so simple, but it had the highest it was like i would say it was probably bottom mid funnel where it had a very high signal audio i was getting texts about it i would like people were finding my email just email like like dude i want to work with you it was it was wild the the conversion where it was just um that's that simple of of a video uh i don't know too maybe we were talking about like uh writing the hook i always write my hooks last i write the entire video first and then um and i just have a list of hooks i go through the recurring what you'll notice i have a list i just counted them i've got 11 recurring formats that i reuse um that are like serious and so whenever i'm bored i'm or whenever i like don't have an idea i'll go back through and be like okay do i do a rate the rebrand do i do a synthetic luxury do i do a help me buy a blank like i just have those i would so highly recommend anything you have that works that you could repeat and not everything is repeatable just like we talked about earlier with tom on that steph curry video or like sometimes just an outlier if you do have that it's a great way to go back through and be like, is this a series?
And then over time, accumulate it. Like that was maybe five at this time last year, but now I've got 11. Yep. And, and, uh, the, the, like the, the one thing that I do is, um, when I'm saving videos, I look for outlier videos.
I don't look for videos of like, like you can't look at a higher up wellness's videos and like judge it if it's good or not. Like his face is a hook at this point or like Shelby Sapp, you know, or you guys, right?
Like, like, I mean, you guys have built so much trust that like, it's harder to gauge, like, like compared to a new creator where no one knows you. So if I'm saving videos and looking for inspo, it's like, I look on their page. And if they have like, you know, less than, you know, 50,000 followers, I'm gonna like, and it's an outlier video, I'm trying to look at that and what's working.
I'm trying to get better at hooks to like, I'm very lazy with them. But when I think about them more, they always work. And that's, that's a part that I like, I'm reminding myself now on this call, I need to, I need to think about them more.
Yeah. I think, and a couple of quick tips for people out there just want hooks. Like this is how to blank, like don't make it, especially if it's an informational video, just get right into like, this is just introduce it exactly as it is.
You'll see, I do contrast hooks all the time. Like, would you prefer this or this, or we used to do this. Now we do this.
Like the contrast one is, is a, like, is a huge, you just need a couple of small concepts um it's like i think i might uh i saw a great hook today and it's funny because like oh sorry go ahead go ahead no go ahead i was gonna say like i i all my hooks have always been direct and now i'm like trying new hooks because mine have always kind of been like this is how to do like very very direct and and they hit right but now i'm like okay let me let's try some new stuff like i'm almost on the other end of that well i didn't notice that about you like you get right into it it's just like hey this is the information just just freaking send it and and like i don't know dude i feel like people crave that a little bit they're like because it got to a point where everyone was like using so much of the hook templates that everyone's just like yo you're hooking me where if you just like get like here here's the info and you also i put all right and i did this and i was feedbacking someone in here earlier today uh but i put all right in front of the hooks because it's just a natural so like all right have you noticed how is better than have you noticed how so like using one of those natural words is always just like makes it feel feel more and more conversational like you're just yeah you're just like answering a question but any insight like all right have you noticed how plank is a great like casual hook that's one i don't use as much but i have written 150 of those for for ugc creators and stuff uh yeah so look hooks coming in and out of fashion you kind of have to save a working doc things change algorithms change niches change but you just it's just good to go back to that list and think of what fits and just pay attention of it when you're consuming um you know it's just a kind of worth noting uh the super hook to the the 15 the 15 second in um that's one where um if if there's a opportunity to throw it in i'm just like yeah i'm gonna drop something in that's where you hit the butt in the but explain that for people that haven't heard before what the super hook it's basically a second hook uh so in my video in the one video that blew up, I'll just use the example.
I started by saying yapping on camera looks easy, but everyone's missing the point. And then I kind of say what they're missing. And then I say, but I analyzed 84 videos and the top creators are all doing this one thing.
And like, that's a hook in itself. I'm basically just re-hooking. Then about 15 seconds later, I say the book that they need to read and the insight from that specific book. So in my best video there's essentially three hooks in in that video and when i'm lazy like the like when i don't do that stuff the videos tend to tend to flop yeah and if you have a banger like the super hook thing i've been working on is if i have a banger hook with a huge curiosity gap where i'm like okay people are really going to want to get to it and you can extend it like you mentioned with a super hook you can kind of double it but then i'll that's where i'll do the story like when i know i have them locked that's when i'll like set it up and i'll be like you're at dinner and try becca and blah, blah, blah.
Like go into something because then it's just like, they're going to laugh and they're going to stay through it. And then next thing you know, they're in there for 20 seconds. So if you're ever like, look up and you're like, I have an excellent hook.
Like remember back to this moment and be like, hook into like funny story. Then go into the video is a great way to just ensure a banger. One of my, one of my favorite examples of that, that is a little bit counter intuitive is on orange product versus brand where he's got a high contrast hook.
That is a good hook. But if you'll, if you notice, and if you look at it, the magic of that series is that within the first two, first one or two, you'll have to correct me, Oren, uh, within the first one or two that he mentions, it's always going to have something that, that, that you agree with and then piss you off or you think is crazy.
Right. And, and that is, that serves to just pull you in further. If you were on the edge of swiping, you're now you're in because what the hell is this guy thinking?
Right. Yeah. You have to, when you're doing a listicle video and like listicle videos are amazing. Take anything in your niche and just do eight, rip eight, like very quick hook, blank or blank or ranking X or Y, and then go through eight.
But if you do that, and it's nice because people are going to wait to hear them. They want to wait to hear their favorite one. I want to hear my favorite luggage. I want to hear my favorite creator. Oh, who's the best eight basketball players? It's stolen from SportsCenter, like quite literally.
But then it's, if you don't have something that gets people fired up or that shows you that they're seen right away, where they're like, yeah, I also had that experience, then you don't keep people. But that's just a great way to run a listicle video the one thing i want to mention is like like uh just a little mindset thing of the um you know we i think i don't know i i'm sure a lot of people deal with imposter syndrome like who am i to talk about this shit like i'm i'm in this program where like i'm i look at you know all you know you three and like you guys know so much about content and i'm like who am i to be talking about content but like there's like it it's it's not about like who like like being at someone else's level it's like can you say something that helps someone that's that's behind you's level like that's the only thing that really matters and um that mindset sort of freed me up to just like be like yeah dude like it's like the other thing the other weird thing about short form is that that you have to grapple with too is like it's less like youtube where like youtube they go to your channels to like get that information it's like a library it's like they're going to get that book they click on that video they watch it it's getting more away than that more recently.
But short form is like, if you're doing educational content, you have to be like very clear and direct about something that isn't gonna make sense for everyone. But people are scrolling and they, and like, so like people get offended, like, but you have to be confident in what you're saying, even though like a lot of the stuff that I'm saying is like, I don't think everyone, like there's a lot of people that, like, I'm not saying everyone should yap, but I have to talk like everyone should.
Right. So like, so like people like get mad, like, oh, I tried that. And I was like, well, it's not for you. It's, it's, it's fine.
Um, I don't know. That's sort of like a mindset thing that I, uh, that I've, I've been thinking about more recently that you, I don't know.
Yeah. And we'll, and we'll, we'll end on this. No, we're over time. I want to be respectful. Yeah.
My bad. My bad. I don't think we did it last time. Uh, like in the, one of the prior zooms, if it, yeah, if you are in that imposter syndrome, The takeaway from what he just said is it's not about making you have to make content as an expert.
We know we have the expert track on here. It's called expert because that's the mindset you have to be in. But all that matters is that you are an expert to someone. If you are 21 and you're right out of college, you're an expert to someone in high school.
If you're in a junior level job, you're aspirational to someone who has to have that junior level job. If you have that mind state, if we connect it to the TAM, you're not going to have the biggest reach. But that doesn't matter.
You're going to reach people that are willing to hear your message. And guess what? It moves. Like I started making content. I knew a shitload about normal marketing.
Now I also know all these other things and the TAM of the audience has grown with that. So we just bear that in mind. I just dropped a link to Tom's Instagram. Tom, you got anything else you want to plug before we're here?
And I would follow him just because I look, I follow Tom to get ideas for yaps, for client work, for whatever. Like it's an actual account if you do this. So worth a follow.
Yo, I'm dropping a link to Tom's yap challenge. So the one thing I'll say is like my, like your content journey is starting now. My video started blowing up a week or two after Cut30. Just pretend you're still in Cut30 and hire yourself to be the on-camera spokesman for whatever it is you're representing and put the camera on your face.
Hire yourself is such a bar. Like that's, it's 10 out of 10. Thanks. Thank you so much for joining us.
You're a legend, dude. That's a gat. Thank you so much. Yo, go follow Tom.
A quick recap. Homework this week is make an origin story carousel and make a vlog. There are tons of references. We're making a bunch of videos this week and getting ready for the seven day. And we'll see y'all in Slack.
Thanks again, Tom. Appreciate it, guys. Thanks so much. See ya. See ya.
Cut30 · COHORT 22 · WEEK 3 · 28 MAY 2026 · GUEST SESSION · open the owned video ↗