If you wanna actually grow on YouTube in 2026, this is your full playbook. No fluff, no BS, because YouTube isn't about looks, not about timing, it's not about fancy equipment. It's about following a simple system that I call the four c's of YouTube. If you don't know me, I'm Sam Gaudet, Dan Martell's creative director, and I've helped him grow his YouTube channel from under 10 k subscribers to over 2,700,000,
growing his total audience size from under a 100 k to over 10,000,000 across all platforms. All that generating multi 8 figures in revenue. So I'm not guessing I know exactly what works. So without further explanation, these are the four c's of YouTube. So this is what you'll walk away with today. Number one, the four c's of YouTube, my four part YouTube system to actually help you grow your personal brand. Number two, actionable tactics. I'm not gonna sit here and tell you principles
in theory. I'm gonna show you guys exactly how I've implemented this on Dan's personal brand so you can implement it in yours. And at the end of the video, I'll share with you my free YouTube scripting template that you can go and implement on your YouTube channel today. So these are the four c's of YouTube. The first one is getting somebody to click. How do you get somebody to click on your video? If you look at this video here, these five AI businesses will make you a million dollars with zero employees. There's a reason why that video performed. And it comes down to three t's, right? Topic, title, and thumbnail. So let's double click on topic. Because where most people go wrong is they think camera gear and software is important, editing and design, formats, hooks. But at the end of the day, the reason why most videos perform not only on YouTube but everywhere else is the topic that you pick. Because all things being equal, I can make a video about getting abs in ninety days And I can make a video about how to grow a b to b SaaS company in ninety days. And with the same editing, same camera gear, same format, same hooks, the video about abs is gonna perform a lot better than the video about b to b SaaS. Why? Because of TAM. Right? Total addressable market. The total addressable market on getting abs in ninety days is a lot wider, which means more people are gonna want to watch that video as opposed to the TAM on building a b to b SaaS company very small, so that topic isn't as interesting on YouTube. But you don't wanna optimize for the most popular topic. That's why I've distilled my topic selection method down to three simple things. Number one is demand. Right? How many people actually care
about that topic? And that is a 100% figuring out the total addressable market, but there's a few ways that I like to test for demand. The first way is I create a research account. So I create an account on YouTube, start a new Google account, and I literally go and find all my competitors and I subscribe to their channel, I start watching their videos. What that's gonna do is make my browse page on YouTube full of ideas in my niche. The key here is you don't wanna copy, you wanna get inspired by the topic. So let's say I see a video on AI tools. Right? I'm not gonna use the same title title and thumbnail. I'm just gonna get inspired by the topic of AI tools and I'm gonna make a video on that topic. Because a lot of people think that just title and thumbnail impact
the performance of your videos,
but that's not entirely true. Right? Your topic is what is most important. The second way I like to research topics is using research tools like one of 10. You could use tons of other tools. I know there's vidIQ on here. But what you wanna do is say your filters for anywhere between a two to four x outlier. All an outlier is is a video that's performed disproportionately better than the average rate on that channel. So if a channel gets on average 10,000 views on a video and then all of sudden they get a 100,000 views on a video, that means that video got 10 times more views than the average video, which means it's a 10 x outlier. You only wanna look at videos within the last six months. Right? Because I think demand ebbs and flows over time and you don't wanna get inspired by topics that have been hot seven years ago because they might not be hot today. And the other key here is you wanna prioritize smaller accounts. You don't wanna go follow and get inspired by accounts that are over a million subscribers
because those accounts, every single video is gonna hit. Right? What you wanna do is only get inspired by smaller accounts, accounts that, you know, maybe you have 10,000 to a 100,000 subscribers,
but get all of a sudden an outlier that gets over 250,000
views. Right? That is interesting to me. Way more interesting than a video that gets a million views on a million subscriber account. And the key here, do not copy. Just get inspired by the topics and create your own title and thumbnails. Which brings us to the second thing I like to keep in mind when picking topics for my videos, which is fit. Because for example, if I made a video here on this account where I talk about content creation and I talked about how to get abs in ninety days, I do not think that video is gonna do well on my account. Why? Because it doesn't have fit with my audience. That's not what people come to me for. Right? And if you're making videos,
just chasing demand, doing every single cool trend, you're never gonna get sustainable growth on YouTube because you're not hearing your audience out. And there's three sections that I like to keep in mind when making videos for my audience. Right? And Patty Galloway calls this CCN fit. Right? If you don't know Patty Galloway, he's grown Red Bull's YouTube channel. He was MrBeast YouTube guy for a little while, and he's probably the most knowledgeable person on YouTube. And it all comes down to this. Right? You wanna make sure that all your videos are applicable to your core casual and new audience, not not just to your core audience. A lot of people just make their videos for their niche. But they're missing out on viral growth because
they only serve the person that is gonna buy today. And so what you wanna do is pick topics that resonate with your core audience. Right? The people that view and buy your stuff. Your casual audience, the people that view your stuff but don't necessarily buy your stuff yet. And then your new audience, the people that have never seen your face before. And what that's gonna do, it's gonna allow you to actually serve your core audience and then also get viral growth. Right? Because as an example for us, a topic that does really well and has really good CC and fit with our audience is when we make a video about meetings being the biggest time waster in any company. Right? Where Dan talks about meetings and he shits on meetings, those videos tend to perform really well. Why? Because it resonates with our core audience, the business owner that maybe he runs a lot of meetings and he know he shouldn't. And then our casual and new audience, the people I've never seen our face before and the people that maybe you casually watch our videos, maybe have a job and they're on a lot of meetings that could have been an email. Right? And so they're resonating with that topic as well and they're in the comments lighting those up. What you wanna do in those videos is you start really wide. Right? You say, you know, meetings are the biggest time waster in any company. And then at the end of your videos or towards the middle, you actually solve the pain and the problem for your core audience. The same is true on YouTube. Right? What you wanna do is progressively overload your content with deeper and deeper knowledge so that you're actually serving your audience. For example, in that video, we serve our core audience by sharing really tactical advice at the end of that video. For example, Dan says, instead of having a lot of meetings, have a really clear scorecard,
KPIs, and owners for those KPIs instead of relying on a lot of meetings. And what that does is it gets us to 2,300,000 view video, but then also serves our core audience. Which brings us to the third thing I like to keep in mind when picking topics for my YouTube videos, which is interest. Right? And I've got a super advanced strategy, uh, for you to pick videos that you're only interested in. Right? It's kind of a joke, but if you're not interested in a video, don't do it. Right? Why? Because
people feel that shit. Right? They feel when you're inauthentic. They feel when you're just chasing trends. And if you're seeing a lot of videos that have, you know, demand and fit with your audience, and you're not interested in the topic or talking about it, don't make that video. I see a lot of creators make that mistake where they back themselves into a corner where they can't get out of because they just over optimize for their audience.
Because on the flip side of that, right, if you're only making videos that you're excited in, your your audience is gonna feel that. And I think that's why Dan's been able to grow so fast. I think that's why my account's doing really well is because when I share these things about YouTube, you feel my excitement. Right? I'm super excited to share this with you guys, and that's what I think most creators should think about when they're making videos is, are you genuinely interested in the topic that you're talking about? And if not, cut that shit out. So topic's really important. But there's a couple more things that you need to keep in mind to get people to actually click on the video. Let's get into title. Right? How do you actually write titles that people want to click on? And I'm not gonna I could sit here and give you guys a 100 YouTube titles that I think are gonna perform, but that's giving you a fish today. It's not teaching you how to fish. What I wanna do in this video is teach you how to fish. Right? And there's four emotions that I like to keep in mind when thinking about writing titles for my audience. Right? Hopes, dreams, fears, blockers. Hopes being short term, why what do they want, you know, in the near future? Dreams being what do they want long term? Fears being what are they scared of? And then blockers being what are the limiting or negative beliefs around the outcome that they need to overcome
to actually want to watch your video? I'm gonna give you guys examples right now. So let's say our the topic that we pick for the the video that we're outlining is how to make money. Right? I'm gonna hit it from different angles. So if I wanted to hit it from a hopes standpoint, I would say how to make a million dollars in 2026 short term. And then if I wanted to hit on the dreams, right, if I wanted to achieve financial freedom in the next twelve months, I do this. Right? Hitting on that dream of maybe possibly achieving financial freedom, which is the long term goal of your viewer.
Now let's get into the negative stuff. Right? Fears. You'll never become rich until you understand this. Hitting on that fear that, you know, they might not understand something that they need to know to get rich. And then blockers, how to get rich without talent, luck, or trust fund. Right? Maybe hitting on that limiting belief or negative belief around like, oh, rich people are just lucky, have a trust fund, etcetera. The key here is you see how every single emotion can completely package a video in a different way. And we wanna keep in mind is what emotion you want your viewer to feel when they see that video. And you'll notice that on different channels for us, aspirational titles, right, hope streams tend to perform better than fears and blockers. So And you wanna make sure that you understand your audience so you can pick the right titles for your videos. But we're not done yet. Right? We went over title. How do you actually pick really good thumbnails for your videos? And there's a few rules that I like to keep in mind when making really good thumbnails. And if you look at all these six videos, those are our best performing videos in the last year. And there's a reason why all those videos performed. Right?
It's because we follow the three element rule. Right? The first rule is having a big face with a clear motion. People are drawn to faces. Right? We like looking at eyeballs.
And if you don't put a face on your thumbnails, one, you're not gonna pull as many views as you could.
And then two, you're not gonna create facial recognition with your audience. Right? Now that we have Dan's face plastered all over our thumbnails, people associate Dan's face to getting a result. And so next time we put Dan's face on our thumbnails or even if he goes on another person's podcast, his face is a visual hook. And that's pairing yourself with a result over time. And that is very very important if you wanna build a long term personal brand. The second part here is you wanna have a clear emotion. Right? You don't want your emotion to be neutral or even unclear.
And if you look at every single emotion that we tapped into. Right? Hopes, dreams, fears, blockers, in the titles on this section, every single facial expression matches that emotion. Right?
Stop wasting your life, seven things I quit to go from broke to millionaire, that middle video. He is clearly in distress,
he's clearly upset, he's clearly you know, a little bit tired, he's got those wrinkles on his forehead, And that communicates the emotion to the viewer. The biggest mistake you can make is make, you know, a super negative video like, you know, stop wasting your life and then have a big smile on your face. Right? You're disconnecting with your audience and that's not gonna make people click. The next part here is you wanna have short text, three to five words. Most people browse
YouTube thumbnails. They don't actually read them word for word. Right? And I see a lot of people writing bibles
on their thumbnails
where they expect people to read. I don't know about you, but last time I've been on YouTube homepage, I'm just scanning the text on screen. Whatever catches my eye, I click on it. Right? So you want three to five words max. If you look at our best performing videos here, all four have four words on screen. Not 10, not 20, not 25, four words on screen. That's really important.
And the next part is you wanna have one visual
that reinforces the concept. Right? This is optional but for the left for the bottom right video with the money flying around, that's an example of using a visual or concept that reinforces the point. Right? You don't wanna distract from the viewer and create something that you know would distract them from actually, you know, clicking on the video. What you wanna do is have a really clear object
and visual to get somebody to lean in. The key here for with thumbnails is you never wanna repeat your title. I see a lot of people people just take their title and then write it on the thumbnail. You have two options to get somebody to click on. Right? Your title and then your thumbnail. So why would you waste one on just repeating the same thing? The key here is to get them to feel an emotion. You have two ways to make them feel that emotion. Make sure to leverage those. So that's how you get people to click on the video, which is the first c. But there's three more c's that we need to get through to get our YouTube channel to fucking blow up. The second one is capture. Right? Also known as a hook. You wanna get somebody hooked in the first thirty seconds of a video. But how do you do this? Right? Because a lot of people think that hooks come down to, you know, having a hook bank. But I think if I wanna teach you how to fish, I have to teach you the principles behind why a hook works. And there's three viral principles that I believe are the most important when it comes to hook. The first one is reassure. The second one is elevate. And the third one is open a loop. And don't worry, I'm gonna break down every single one for you guys right now. So how do you reassure someone, right, that they clicked on the right video? Because this isn't 2016 anymore. You can't clickbait people into watching your video. And so in the first thirty seconds of the video, you have to share a really clear promise
for what's gonna be taught in the video. And it also has to relate to the title and thumbnail. Imagine if I made a video that was like how to make money in 2026.
And then you clicked on that video and all of a sudden I'm saying something like, oh, the other day I was doing a puzzle with my grandma and then we went on a walk and then you lost me. You're not gonna watch the rest of the video. You're gonna click off as soon as possible. So we want what you have to do in the first thirty seconds is share a really clear promise
of why somebody clicked on that video. The next part is you wanna share proof. Right? Somebody's gonna ask themselves in their head, why you? Why should I listen to you? So you wanna address that concern as soon as possible by sharing why you're the person that's credible enough to share that information, also known as proof. And then you wanna handle objections. Right? As soon as possible, handle their objections that might come up in their head so that they watch the rest of the video. And I'll show you guys an example right now. This is a real example of a real video. Right? I'm gonna share with you the six phases to scale your business from 0 to million dollars in twelve months. Really clear promise. These phases have allowed me to go from 80 hour weeks to working less than five hours a week and make over 8 figures a year. Clear proof and I know why I'm listening to you. They're the same six phases I took over 10,000 of my coaching clients through to help them scale their business. So if you're thinking this doesn't work for me, trust me, it will. Right? Having some proof in there because we have you've got over 10,000 coaching clients, and then also having some objection handling in there if somebody's like, oh, this doesn't work for me. Well, I've taught over 10,000 people. How could this not work for you? But we're not done yet. Right? We've reassured the viewer. We need to now elevate
the promise. And what does that look like? Right? We wanna scale a promise by, you know, sharing extra content, free bonuses, teases. You've seen me do this in this video when I said, you know, I'm gonna share with you the free YouTube scripting template at the end. Wink. Wink. I also do this. And then urgency. Right? You wanna make it a now thing. You wanna make it time based. Right? This will only work for this year or you wanna make it relevance based. Right? Maybe a new AI came out and now you can only use that AI to solve the problem. And so this is what that looks like in practice. Right? I'll even break down phase six in real time with you and give you a free template that you can use to estimate the phase of business that you're in. We scale the promise. Right? And then don't sleep on this because with the rise of AI, building a business is the only viable way to make a million dollars in 2026.
Adding some urgency in there. Right? Using some relevance based stuff in there to get somebody to watch the video now. But we're not done yet. Right? We we reassured them. We've elevated the promise. Now how do you actually open a loop in the viewers' minds? They get addicted to watching the rest of the video. Right? Because all the hook is isn't just to retain somebody for the first thirty seconds, it's also to get them to watch all the way till the end. And that's the whole point of opening a loop. Right? So what you wanna do and you've seen me do this in most of my videos and in all of Dan's YouTube videos, you show the road map on screen. You show them what they're gonna get. Right? Five steps, six steps. You show it on screen and you blur them out so people are curious what are the six steps to scale your business. Right? What are the four c's of getting views on YouTube? And that is what you wanna do in your videos, is show a road map so that people actually know what they're gonna get out of the video and get curious so they watch till the end. And the next part is you wanna share a unique mechanism. Right? Either say the ten eighty ten rule, you know, the four c's is an example, but share something that is familiar but unknown so that people get interested in what you're saying and watch your video till the end. So this is an example of a perfect cook. Feel free to take a screenshot and I'll go through it with you guys. Right? That's why I'll give you my ten eighty ten principle so that you can execute on this opportunity even faster, sharing a unique mechanism. Without So further explanation, these are the six phases to scale your business, and then you show the road map on screen. Why? Because you want people to get curious about the steps so that they watch till the end. So we got people to click, we got people to get captured in the first thirty seconds. Now, how do we actually get them to watch the whole video? Right? Consume it till the end. And there's three things that I believe are the most important when it comes to retention because a lot of people think that retention is about, you know, editing tricks, flashy graphics and cutting every three seconds. But at the end of the day, retention comes down to three simple principles. Structure, pacing and the sacred timeline and I'm gonna break down every single one for you guys in real time. So let's get into structure. Right? This is how every single YouTube video for Dan is structured. That's how I structure my YouTube videos. And it's the most important thing that I could teach in all of this video, which is point, explain, illustrate lesson.
This is super important. When if you want your videos to perform, you have to follow a formula. Right? So point, what is it? Explain why does it matter? Illustrate using example, story analogy to make it land, and then lesson, provide a clear actionable next step. So I'll show you an example right now. Point, phase one. And this is the same video that we just outlined the hook for. Phase one, delegate your tasks. Right? Explain. Most entrepreneurs hold on to things that they know they shouldn't. Right? They they hold on so tight. Illustrate.
You use this I could use this client story here. Right? I I looked at a client's time. I audited his time, and I noticed that he was spending all his time in his email. And then you go into the lesson. Right? So I taught him this delegation framework called the ten eighty ten rule. Right? The unique mechanism that we tease at the start. 10% upfront, I do ideation with him, so I teach him how to do the thing. 80% execution is done by him, so he goes out and does, you know, the work. And then 10% integration at the end is basically him coming back to me, showing me what he did, and I give him feedback to make it a 10 out of 10. That is how you want your videos to flow. You don't want it to be long long drawn out stories. You want it to be super simple tactical
advice that people can take and implement in their business or in their life today. And guess what? You don't have to do that once. You can do that anywhere between two to six times. I've seen videos do this 10 times, 15 times, 20 times. One of our best videos on Dan's channel is 40 brutal truths I wish I knew in my twenties. That video has 40 points in there. And we follow this framework to a t to get people to actually lean in. They need to feel like they're getting value. The next part is pacing. So once we have a really good structure in our video, how do we pace our videos that people get addicted to watching till till the end? And once you see this, you cannot see it. It's like Pandora's box. You'll watch any YouTube video on any big creators account like mister beast and they follow this asymmetric pacing to a t. Right? What you wanna do is your first point to be maybe a minute, your second point to be maybe two minutes, your third point maybe to be three minutes, and then your fourth point, you know, four minutes, five minutes. But you wanna create this illusion of progress. Right? You If you've ever watched an infomercial and you see the progress bar going really fast at first and then it slows down over time, that is what you're doing with asymmetric pacing. You're creating this illusion of progress that people feel like they're getting value a lot faster than they actually are and you're gonna get them to watch till the end. So that structure pacing. Now, let's get into the sacred timeline. What is a sacred timeline? If you've ever watched Loki on Netflix,
they have this thing called the sacred timeline and essentially if you break the sacred timeline, you're fucked. Right? And that's the whole point I wanna make in this video is if it doesn't serve the promise of the video, cut it out as soon as possible. Whether it's in post or in your scripts,
but you want your promise, right, if it's making money or if it's growing on YouTube to be reiterated every thirty seconds to a minute in your video. If And anybody's wondering, know, what did I click this video on for anyways, you already missed the point. And what you wanna do in all your videos is to have a clear timeline
that is sacred. And if anything doesn't
serve that timeline, that promise, you cut it out as soon as possible. What that's gonna do is keep people retained on your video because they get reminded why they clicked on the video in the first place. So we got people to click, we got them captured in the first thirty seconds, then we got them to consume the video till the end. Now, how do you actually convert that viewer into one of two things? Either a buyer or a binge watcher. And I'm gonna show you guys two strategies that I use in all our YouTube videos. The first one is a call to action. The second one's a recommendation. Let's get into a call to action. I believe that every single YouTube video should have a free resource. Why? Because I don't think you should get married on the first day. And if someone wants to work with you, they should go down your funnel, not just go to a call page. But there's a few key things that I like to keep in mind whenever I'm sharing a free resource on our YouTube video. The first thing is I wanna put it at least 30% through the video. Right? Not at the end. A lot of people put their CTAs at the end of every single video for a free resource. The problem with that is the average retention on a YouTube video is around 30%.
Right? 25 to 30%. That means that most people, 60 to 75%
of people never see your CTA if you only put it at the end. And if you move it
to around the 30% mark,
retention on YouTube at 30% on average is around 50 to 60 Doubling your opt ins by just changing where you do the CTA. And so if you're doing all your CTAs at the end of every single YouTube video, move it to the first 30% and you'll see your opt ins skyrocket. And you wanna make it super clear where they can get it. Second, you wanna make it the first link in the description or at least the first thing in the in the description. You don't wanna make it hard for them to find stuff. The amount of people that I see put ten, fifteen, 20 links in their description
and
bury their resource at the end is insane. And if you wanna convert the most amount of people to your free lead magnet, you have to put it first thing
at the top. Not second, not third, not fourth. You have to put it first. And the last part is you wanna remind them at the end of the video. Even though you put the resource at the start right in the first 30%, what I found is that if you remind people at the end of the video that they can get the resource, those people,
they got tons of value that watch till the end will convert at a higher rate. And I've seen that increase our opt ins by 10 to 20% by just mentioning it one more time at the end of the video. So that's how you convert somebody to a buyer by using a call to action. But how do you actually convert them to a binge watcher? Right? And if you've ever watched Netflix
like me and not ashamed to admit this,
you're a little bit too deep in the shows. Right? You're in you're at episode four, episode five, episode six, and you see that auto play. And at the end of every episode,
you get automatically thrown into another episode. That is by design. And unfortunately, YouTube doesn't allow you to do this with your audience unless they're on a playlist. They're gonna send people to a next video whether it's your video or somebody else's. But what you can do is recommend a video to them. And what I like to do is identify the next logical problem. Right? If this video helped them go from zero to million, go find the video that helps them go from one to 10 and recommend that video. Right? The next logical video that they need to now watch. And you wanna frame it as a continuation.
You don't wanna frame it as here's a random video that you could watch. It's like no. This is the next logical step that you need to take on your journey. And the last part is you want to point to a specific video. Yes, YouTube allows you to recommend four, five, six videos on screen, but that will just confuse people. What you have to do is recommend one video that they should watch next and watch people binge your content. So this is what we went through today. Right? We got people to click on the video by using topic title thumbnail. We got them to consume the first thirty seconds of the video by using reassure,
elevate, and open loop. And we got them to consume the video by using structure pacing in the sacred timeline. And we got them to convert to either a binge watcher or a buyer by using call to actions and recommendations. And as promised, if you want my free YouTube scripting template, just find me on Instagram, message me the word YouTube, and I'll send you the free resource. Watch this video next if you wanna learn how to grow on social media so fast that it kinda feels like cheating.