"Making Money While you Sleep" vs Reality | Ep. 68

Passive income isn’t magic, but YouTube can work for you 24/7! In this episode, I share my real-life YouTube funnel system—the exact steps I use to generate course and membership sales, even when I’m not online. I’ll break down how to create binge-worthy videos, set up your Backstage Pass funnel, and use email automation to build a peaceful, profitable business. Ready to see how it really works? ▶︎ Funnel Blueprint Happening Inside VBA! Video Brand Academy: https://videobrand.link/vba

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Transcript

You and I both know that these businesses don't run themselves. Right. If you have an online business where you have a service or you sell a course or a membership, or you know, some kind of program where you help people, that stuff doesn't sell itself, but YouTube. Works 24 7, right? Even when we're not sitting here doing our work, even when we don't publish a video every week or even every couple of weeks, YouTube is still kind of working for us.

So how can we utilize that 24 7 nature of YouTube so that we wake up to sales without falling for some passive income scheme or some, you know, sipping margaritas on the beach hype

well, my name is Meredith and I'm here to help you infuse the best video marketing strategies into your business so that you can build your binge-worthy video brand. And this is episode 68 of Video Brand Infusion. In this episode, I wanna show you the real system, like the real life system for how to, I hate to say it, but how to make money while you sleep. 

And the reality of actually setting that up so that you have a system that actually works.

and if we hop into the time machine for a moment and go back to 2014, when I was planning out my YouTube channel planning out my business, I actually set out to be a blogger. So I was doing a lot of planning of blog posts and a lot of keyword research.

One thing that I never fell for was like the instant passive income. You know, make money while you sleep, sip margaritas on the beach, kind of stuff. Like I knew there was work that went into it, probably because my background was in web design. Like I knew it took time and effort to create content to create a website.

And then I was learning how to make videos, so I knew it took. A lot of time and effort to create videos too. So I knew that the whole passive income thing wasn't, as magical as it sounds. What I did chase though, in those early years, and actually for several years in my business, is multiple revenue streams. I had. You know, ad revenue on YouTube. I had ad revenue on my blog. I had affiliate revenue, lots of affiliate revenue. and I even worked with brands even early on.In addition to that, I had a couple of courses and I had my membership and I was trying to like. All of my fragmented energy into all of these revenue streams until there was a year, 21, 22 ish. There was a year where. A lot of those revenue streams just stopped. some of the affiliate programs I was in slashed their rates.

They slashed the payouts. Some were eliminated. My ad revenue completely tanked to zero for six weeks. There's a whole video about that on my channel about the, invalid traffic bug. Like I'm knock on wood, I'm even afraid to say those words. 

A couple of years ago, I said, you know what? I'm gonna go all in on my courses and my membership and let those other revenue streams just like do what they want.

I'm not focusing on them. That's what ultimately ended up really growing my business revenue wise, really quickly. That's how I got to six figures, and my business is focusing on my own products and programs. But it wasn't like they just sold themselves because they existed. Just because you have a course doesn't mean people are gonna buy it. Right? And if you've ever created a course and launched it and nobody bought it, then like, you know what I'm talking about? most people have been in that boat, at least at the very beginning. 

you know, I've worked with a lot of clients and students who created a course or a program that they wanted to create, they created a kind of like in the image of how they wanted it to be. 'cause they thought. Yeah, that's what people wanted or needed, and then didn't end up having really any sales at all.

And so the idea that like passive income, just hit this button, create this course, and nowadays you can just, you can use AI to create a course and people will buy. It is like so far from reality and yet at the same time, I understand why people go that route. I understand.

Why it sounds so intriguing and so alluring, because of course you wanna generate revenue with the least amount of effort possible. We all want that, right? But the reality is most of us who create a course or a membership or create a digital product to sell. Have to kind of iterate and kind of keep trying things, keep testing things and looking at the numbers so that we know, where to pour our time and effort in to make those sales and that kind of stuff.

He's not passive. It's not zero work. It's actually a lot of work to do it. Like you're creating landing pages, you're creating the course material, you're creating the sales page, the checkout page. You're paying for the software for all of that stuff too. you write an outline for the course.

You record the videos for your course. You edit them, you upload them. You need a featured image. and you need like something for the body of the lesson. 

I use Kajabi for Video Brand Academy and so often I think, oh, you know what, I'll just like put a quick course together. Even just like three or four videos. You outline them, you record them, you edit them, you upload them. If I remember to, I have to. Export the SRT file, the caption file, upload that to Kajabi so that people can watch the video with closed captions.

And then summarize the video in text for the body. And then if I mention like links to other things, or if there's a resource or a Google Doc, I have to put a link to that in there. Plus there's a featured image. So now I have to open up Canva and I have to create the featured images for each of those, like just that stuff.

not to mention the time and effort and energy that you put into just like trying to figure out what's not working. Why aren't people clicking? Why aren't people opening this email? Why aren't people buying when they're on the sales page? now, if you really wanna help your clients and students,You can collect testimonials and case studies and use that in your marketing.

like Right. It's a never ending thing, and yet. It's not like it sells itself. So how do your courses and programs and memberships sell on their own? How do you actually get buyers, you know, while you sleep?

I'm using air quotes for that. there are a lot of different strategies and ways to create an environment. Where you would get a sale, right? I'm trying to think of the right words without sounding, jargony, without saying like sales funnel, sales mechanism.

Right? There are a lot of different ways that people could buy your program. Most of the time, if it's just on your site, under courses most of the time people aren't going to go find that At a large volume every once in a while, yes, you'll have somebody that finds you they want your stuff, they go seek it out, but generally you have to kind of get people to your stuff somehow.

Like webinars and, you know, live video series and like five day challenges. I used to run five day challenges, They were a lot of work, but they were a lot of fun. Like I enjoyed doing them, but as far as like a revenue generator way of, making sales for my membership, 

It was fun, but it was exhausting. and so a couple years ago I thought, well. Gee, we have all of these methods for doing a live launch and we know that YouTube is working 24 7, so how could we just like, how could I marry the two things and like mash them together? That's when I came up with what I call my YouTube funnel. I used to call it my secret video funnel.

I call it my Backstage Pass funnel now, because secret video sounds like,It doesn't really sound that interesting to be honest with you. like it sounds kind of sketchy or something. So I created this YouTube funnel that kind of mashed together all the good stuff about live launching and all of the good stuff about YouTube.

And it's perfect for making sales of a course or program on Evergreen, meaning like It's always going. People are finding you. They're getting into your backstage pass funnel, and then you're making sales. It works perfectly for like a standalone DIY course or program. I have a YouTube funnel set up. For the membership too, but it doesn't perform as well as when I had it set up for my YouTube course. I'll have to bring up my stats in one of my videos and really kind of like deep dive on that So I'll talk more about the YouTube funnel in just a second. The other way that I bring new clients, students into my membership is I like to call this unlaunching.

Technically, it's a launch, like any promotion, any like thing you put out there that's like, Hey, join my stuff, buy my stuff. Like technically that's a launch. I call this an unlaunch because. My content is working for me 24 7. If you are on YouTube and you have videos out there that people are watching all the time, even videos you published last week, last month, last year, last decade. If you're constantly kind of getting this traffic and constantly building your list, then you can do. What I call an unlaunch to your email list where you don't have to make a big to-do about some live webinar or some three part series. You can just say, Hey, here's an offer. Come on in

for my unlaunch, to my, uh, membership. I like to have a time period where, you know, when you join during this time, you get something extra. You get something more than just like, Hey, come on into my membership, because technically you could join the membership at any time.

So during that promotional. Unlaunch period. There's something extra, there's an extra incentive to come and join during that time. Both of these,passive ish ways of making sales require tech setup. But once they're set up, once they're running, they can run in the background.

they can run while you're awake. They can run while you're sleeping. So let me talk about the exact YouTube funnel setup, the Backstage Pass funnel setup that I use, that I've used for a couple of years now that I believe.

Is like the ultimate sales funnel for YouTube, and I'm, I'm not trying to like sound hypey when I say that. I'm just telling you, this has worked really well for me. It also feels really good to me. It feels really good to make videos and focus on just like putting good content out there.Useful, helpful content out there Knowing that the right people will find me through my content and that I have this backend stuff set up to actually get them into my membership in Video Brand Academy or into my video editing made easy course. It's so like, chill. 

have, I have a friend who likes to say my, whole business model is like peaceful and, yeah. think it is. I really like it. So let me kind of break down the five phases of a YouTube funnel that actually works, that actually generates sales for you.

number one, obviously you have to have something to offer, whether it's a course or a membership or a digital product or a service. You have to have something that you are exchanging with your, client or student. So your offer is typically not just the thing, right?

It's not just the course, it's. Like how you describe everything that the person is getting in exchange for the dollar amount that they're giving you. So it could be a course or a program, could be a membership. It could be a service, but the whole package, the price, how it's delivered, how long they have access to it, the bonuses that you have attached to it.

Like all of that stuff is the offer. Like think about a present, think about a gift. Everything in there you have the box, you have the wrapping paper, you have a bow, you have the stuff that's inside. You have like the tissue paper, and maybe there's more than one thing inside, like the whole package is the offer 

 for the YouTube funnels that I've done and that I have tested and that I've had clients and students running anywhere between like a hundred dollars to $300 range 

It might depend on your niche or industry. But somewhere in that range I think is a good place to kind of test. It's not really a rule, it's just something for you to test

so you have something to sell. And then. Obviously if this is a YouTube funnel, you have to have a YouTube channel. YouTube is like the foundational platform for where, not so much where the funnel is built, but it's sort of like the launching pad of where the traffic. Comes in and you get them into your actual funnel. So YouTube is the most powerful way to grow your audience online. There's two and a half billion people here.

It's not saturated. There's always an audience ready and waiting for your content, regardless of your niche. And we could go down, you know, a whole rabbit hole of. All of the strategies for growing your audience and optimizing your channel for leads and sales and you know, attracting your ideal customers and things, that's a video for another time. That's what I teach inside of Video Brand Academy. But having the YouTube channel is like an obvious part of a YouTube funnel, right?

The third thing that you need to have is a library of binge-worthy videos. So I'm talking about long form content, like. 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes or so. I'm not talking about shorts. I'm not even really talking about live streams, even though that's considered long form content. I'm talking about binge worthy videos on topics that your clients and students are searching for, that they're looking for answers on, that they're like the problems that they're desperate to solve.

You show up as the. Solution haver as the problem solver. Building a library of binge-worthy videos or a spider web as I like to teach inside a video brand academy is the fastest way to grow your audience on YouTube, especially if you have a. Business, especially if you are not just trying to grow your audience and go viral, but you're trying to attract actual buyers for your thing.

So you have your offer, you have your channel, you have your library of binge worthy videos. The fourth and fifth thing that you need are the components of the funnel itself. So the first thing is, 

I call it a billboard video because it's at the top of your channel and everybody is going to see it, the only job of that billboard video is to attract the right leads to attract your ideal customer. And it might attract subscribers. It might grow your audience in that way, but the job of that video is to bring in leads and a lead. If you don't know, a lead is. You know, an ideal customer who's actually opting into something, they actually put their email address in. 

They put your e their email in, they get something in return. The thing they get in return is the fifth component of the funnel. I used to call it the secret video. Like I said, that sounds kind of creepy now. but I now call it my Backstage Pass video. It's a backstage pass because you've put this billboard out there, this like. Batman signal for the right person who your program is designed to help. When you bring them into the backstage, as I call it, you are showing them All of the ways that it's gonna help them, actually help them reach the desired result that your clients and customers want and need. 

Now what the backstage video is not, is, it's not a webinar, it's not a trip wire, it's not a high pressure sales page. it's just the valuable information that people want to learn from youAnd delivered in a way where they can easily see the value of buying your course or program or working with you in whatever way that you're offering. 

It's a little hard to explain without images or, you know, drawing something on my screen, which is why I am putting together a whole YouTube funnel Blueprint, playbook.

Don't know exactly what I'm gonna call it quite yet, but I'll be doing that inside a video brand academy in the next couple of weeks. So I'll put a link down in the description if you wanna join us for that. 

but like I said, the backstage video is not a webinar. I think this YouTube funnel, system could work with a webinar. But let me explain why I don't do webinars live or evergreen. First of all, I don't even know the last time that I sat through a webinar, like I think it's been years. So personally, I don't wanna create something that I wouldn't want to do myself. Right? Second of all, This is why I think my YouTube funnel system works so well with YouTube, and I wish I had a word for this, and I'm sure there probably is some scientific word, but it's like a, it's like a congruency of content, right?

Because if you watch. My 10 minute, 20 minute, 30 minute, 40 minute long videos on YouTube. And now I'm asking you to watch a 20 minute, 30 minute video on my own site as my backstage video. It's very congruent. It feels like, oh, this is just Meredith's YouTube video, but it's embedded on her site instead of on YouTube. Versus, and this is like maybe the extreme example, but a lot of people are doing this. A lot of people are doing this strategy, if you can call it that, where they're focusing on short form content. They're making reels, they're making shorts, they're making tiktoks, and then they're trying to get people to opt into a 60 minute or 90 minute webinar, or a three part series of 60 to 90 minute videos, like, can you see the incongruency there? You attracted people with a 90 second reel and you're trying to get them to watch a 90 minute video. If that doesn't work for you, if you've tried that and it doesn't work for you, then like it kind of makes sense why that wouldn't work. 

but my backstage pass YouTube funnel, there's like a congruency of attention spans. Right? It just kind of makes sense. You're used to seeing me on camera here on YouTube. You're gonna be used to seeing me in the video that you're opting in for in the Backstage Pass video.

You don't have to put together 120 webinar slides. You don't have to like, prepare for this big live thing and have all the stress of that. 

like I said, it's peaceful, it's chill. It's not like a high pressure launch, you know what I mean?

But key component is the email strategy, the email follow up sequence that happens 

 the last time that I took a peek into my email and sales stats for one of my YouTube funnels, 92% of the sales of the course came from link clicks in the emails. 92% came because of that email follow up sequence.and those emails are all in an automated sequence.

They go out, they're timed to go out at certain times or on, you know, certain days, right? It's completely hands off. 

that's why I give my students and my funnel program those, exact sales emails because they are such a huge part of how and why. The YouTube funnel strategy works. So the reality is making money while you sleep, can be a reality.

doesn't have to be some type of a passive income scheme, but it's not instant magic either. It takes work to set up. You have to know that you have an offer people want. You have to have a channel that attracts the right viewers. The funnel does the heavy lifting for you when you have all of those pieces together. 

And that's when you can, you know, wake up to stripe notifications with a little more peace of mind. Right. So I mentioned I'm gonna be teaching this in depth inside of Video Brand Academy in the next couple of weeks. So if you want my exact YouTube funnel blueprint, if you wanna see it in action, if you want my help putting your YouTube funnel together, I'll put a link down below to Video Brand Academy. and it's gonna be fun because I've only ever taught this as a standalone course. So I'm excited to kind kind of. Break it down and walk my video brand Academy members through the same system that I have used to essentially generate consistent sales of my course and my membership without having to sell consistently.