So what is the
best video editing software?
In this video I'm going
to share with you...
If you're looking for
cheap video cameras...
So what are the best
ways to make money?
In this video I've got three of my
favorites and we're going to jump into
that right now.
Another day in paradise.
My name is Sean Cannell and I
make a living as a professional reviewer,
especially on websites like Amazon.com, and I
do so on YouTube through my
channel Think Media.
So let's jump into it right now.
I live in Las Vegas with my
beautiful wife, Sonja, our chihuahua Sophie and
our baby on the way.
I made videos probably for around a
year without getting any money at all.
I remember my first Amazon affiliate
commissions paycheck, which was back
in 2010, and it was for
two dollars and 12 cents.
Ten years later, in April of 2020,
we almost hit $40,000 in profit from
just the Amazon Associates program, which
was nearly $1 million in sales
for Amazon.
I really like to take my mornings
to study, to kind of do spiritual
practice and to do a couple
of laps in my neighborhood.
Got to stay fit, keep the
mind sharp and keep grinding.
It's typically more flattering to go a
little bit higher with the camera
and angle down rather than
go lower and shoot up.
But why should you even care about
my opinion when it comes to cameras?
I guess because I've been
doing this forever it seems.
Back in 2003 is when I got started.
I just started volunteering at my small
church an hour north of Seattle in
the youth ministry, and I started
making weekly video announcements for
the youth group. I took out a loan
to buy a DSLR and buy some lenses.
That also gave me the opportunity to
start a YouTube channel called Think
Media where I started to talk about how
to use the cameras I had just
purchased. Recently hit a million
subscribers on Think Media.
Kind of crazy because I'm just
a small town kid, college dropout.
Started to shoot videos in my bedroom and
now I'm actually still just in a
bedroom here in Las Vegas.
Really you are doing the work of at
least four to six to 10 people, and
that's what it is now. We're
like a team of eleven.
And now Think Media is actually multiple
personalities and it's more of a
brand with multiple content creators.
But it certainly was built on my
personality and me as the lead reviewer.
From my lifestyle
channel Sean Thinks.
Going to be doing a review and kind
of more of a tutorial on this Samson
Q2U, a super budget podcast mic.
I'm going to tell you a little bit
about it just to hook you up with
something cool.
If you've never heard about the Amazon
affiliate program before, to me it's
just a cool way to get a
small commission when you share or recommend
products that you love and use on
the internet In a way you're a
salesperson that's like, hey,
welcome to the internet.
You're thinking about
making a purchase?
Well I've tried both of these.
I recommend this one. If you want to
check it out, there's a link below.
About to do a livestream in
our YouTube Influence Facebook group.
I'm actually going to
be unboxing the Q2U.
This is the Q2U.
It's prepare and get ready in the
morning, shoot for a couple hours, edit
all afternoon, get everything optimized and
edited and uploaded to YouTube
at night, and then get
up and do it again.
All right it's 3:00 p.m..
I just got done with some meetings.
Got done with that livestream where I
was talking about that Samson mic.
But it's a little after 3:00,
just now getting to lunch.
Super hungry. Not entirely uncommon.
And lunch is the time to catch
up on your YouTube subscription feed.
And now you're also
just getting started.
Answer the comments.
Share it on social.
Answer them. Then come
back hours later.
Answer them more.
Email the brand back.
Promote, promote, promote.
You can look up
about YouTube creator burnout.
And it's massive.
It's everywhere. When possible, I like to
take a couple skate breaks to
get out of the office from sitting
at the desk and just creating and
meetings. I think having structure, having
discipline and focusing on your
health in this career is important because
I will say the demand is
endless. There's always another
video to make.
There's always another
product to review.
There's always another
brand to email.
I pretty much work seven to seven,
five days a week and plenty of
weekends. I'm happy to grind 10 to 12,
14 hour days don't intimidate me at
all. But I think it's
all about rest and run.
I pretty much check in on
my Amazon earnings every single day.
So yesterday on Amazon, across all
of our properties, we earned
$1,411.
What's up, guys?
Sean here with Think Media. So on
average per week we are posting probably
around 10 videos across
all of our brands.
I just shoot a video for
YouTube talking about the product.
And in the video, I would say something
like, "And if you want to check
out this product or see more about
this, there's a link in the YouTube
description below." If someone goes to
the YouTube description, clicks on
that link, it takes them over to
Amazon and then their behavior is tracked
for 24 hours.
If they do make a purchase within
that 24 hours of anything on the
website, even different than what I recommended,
that is credited to you by
the next day.
Categories like luxury beauty can be as
high as 10% and then categories
like groceries are like 1%.
And our biggest category is photography
and cameras and that's 4%.
Amazon by far is absolutely the
biggest source of revenue for us.
Again, April 2020 making nearly $40,000
in profit, which was a record
month for us by far.
Right in the middle
of Covid-19, Amazon
released an announcement that they were
slashing commissions in a lot of
categories. Amazon's demand was just shooting
through the roof and they
needed to manage that.
And we saw 50 to
80% cuts in that percentage.
Fortunately at Think Media, we saw our 4%
in cameras stay locked in and so
we feel like we kind
of dodged a bullet there.
But that's sort of the nature of this
industry in general, is a lot of
these online things can change.
You are your own boss
so it's all on you.
And that's a pressure to carry, that
you can't just lean on your employer
through good and bad times.
It feels like, oh, cry me a
river, you're a YouTube influencer with a
seven-figure business.
How could you possibly
have hard days?
But the truth is, we're all humans.
I think my hardest days come from
some of the messaging and response that
can come from people on the internet.
Usually in the evening I'll go into
the comments section and answer lots of
comments, as many as I can get to.
I end up with constant inspiration and
a list of what products and videos
to review and create next.
You feel accountable to your
audience, accountable to brands, accountable
to keeping up the momentum.
There is no 401(k)
baked into this thing.
There is no consistent
paycheck if you stop.
And then try to spend five minutes with
Sonja before I fall asleep with no
energy left at night and then
get up and do it again.
One of the interesting things that comes
up when reviewing products is what
do you do if you talk about a product
that's not good or what if a brand
sends you something and you feel almost
pressured to say good things about
a product that maybe isn't great?
We're not afraid of
offending one brand.
And we care about our
audience most of all.
I mean, if the autofocus sucks on
the camera, the autofocus sucks on the
camera. It kind of has a hunting and
general loss of focus and at times it
sometimes just loses it completely and still
wanders off even with the new
firmware update.
When we say best budget camera
for YouTube, we mean it.
I want to scour the ends of the
earth to find the best answer to the
question. I think that the Mark II to
this day is still a great camera to
invest in. Amazon never sends
me free products to review.
The ways that I get the products are
either number one, I buy them and we
buy a lot. Second way of
getting products, though, is getting products
typically directly from the brands.
So somebody like Rode Microphones might
send us their latest new
microphone, which also is
sold on Amazon.
So Amazon gives us a monetization
platform where Rode wins by getting
awareness of their product.
I'm grateful that we have a new
shotgun microphone, but also I have a
pathway of monetization because where people
are going to buy that product
is probably Amazon,
the everything store.
And what the FTC expects is that
you are just transparent about the brand
relationship. A lot of times we get
review units that we send back.
At other times, the brands will just send
us out a free unit that we just
get to keep. And we also have at
times passed the gear along in giveaways
or given it away.
We are giving away
a Canon M50 camera.
When it comes to getting approved
for the Amazon Associates program, it
actually can be a frustrating process for
some because it's not going to
happen instantly. You want to wait until
you have a little bit of momentum
and a little bit of
influence before you apply.
You've got some subscribers going.
You're uploading at least
a video a week.
Therefore when you apply, you actually
get some traffic on your links,
lock in your approval to the
program and start generating sales every
month. The allure of fame or the
allure of just endless pursuit of growth
and views and more
can be toxic, frankly.
And so staying grounded in what you're
doing it for, why you're doing it,
and then being really reasonable and
wise, I think, in your time
management, life management in the process,
that's the journey I'm hoping
to stay on. Every single night I go
to bed and I'm like, I'm grateful, I'm
thankful and I can't
wait for tomorrow.
Whoo! 8:35.
Man it's been a day. So many
meetings, Zoom calls, videos, live streams.
But the to-do list and the things
that weren't checked off will have to
wait until tomorrow.
Until then, it's lights out.
Peace.
