The YouTube Formula

7Use Your Influence to Generate Big Money

Jessica Hatch had been working full‐time at her family's restaurant for 12 years and on YouTube for 7 years when her mom pulled her aside and asked her why she wasn't doing YouTube full time. This is an uncommon response from a parent or loved one. When a YouTuber wants to become a full‐time creator, usually their family or friends respond more critically. The next day, Jessica trained her brother in the restaurant, and the day after that, she went all in on her YouTube channel Gone to the Snow Dogs, featuring life with her Siberian huskies. It was a scary transition for her to leave her routine and the stability of the day job—and she was making more than double as a YouTube Partner than what she had been making on shifts at the restaurant. Even now, after four years as a full‐time YouTube creator experiencing multiple revenue streams, she still can't believe how much money there is to be made on YouTube, and how long it took her to realize the true opportunities from YouTube.

As you just read about in Chapter 6, AdSense from the YouTube Partner Program (YPP) is a great place to start making money on YouTube, but it's just the beginning. When Jessica first discovered revenue possibilities outside of YPP AdSense, she was floored. She told me, “I had heard people talking about brand deals and sponsorships, and my first thought was, ‘Whoa, I can do that. I can reach out to people.’ So some of my very first brand deals were me literally ...