Hello there. My name is Ben Claremont, and I teach aspiring YouTubers and entrepreneurs how to start thriving YouTube channels that build your brand and sell your products on autopilot. I began my channel filming 360 camera tutorials in my bedroom back in 2016, which eventually grew to hundreds of thousands.
I created this podcast to help you achieve the same by sharing insider tips and tricks for starting a successful YouTube channel as well as navigating the challenges along the way. Whether you already have a business that you want to get more exposure for, or you're a new content creator looking to monetize a YouTube channel from scratch, this podcast, Full Time YouTuber, is here to provide you with the tools, strategies, and inspiration you need to turn your passion into profit and build a thriving online presence.
And right now, In episode one, I want to tell you a bit about me and how I went from complete beginner with no subscribers and no experience to seven figure YouTube entrepreneur. This wasn't an overnight journey. It took me many years to get to where I'm at now, but I can say for sure that there were very specific things I did along the way that achieved the majority of success and brought me the most growth.
Both professionally and financially, as well as of course, building my brand. So why don't we get started at the start? So my background is actually as a filmmaker, I went through film school here in Sydney, Australia. I really enjoyed that. And at one point it was my goal to become the next Stanley Kubrick.
I was really into movies, film and TV, and I saw myself. as a movie director one day but I didn't really have at the time the self awareness or industry knowledge to know that this was a very long term goal that the vast majority of people who try and achieve it will never get to due to such high industry saturation and very little So after living as a starving artist, pursuing that dream for the majority of my early twenties, I got to a point where I realized that I needed to earn money somehow in order to pay the rent.
So I started working with the skills I had, which was video and editing, and I worked as a freelance videographer. Offering my video services to clients here in Sydney. I remember in my spare time while I was doing this, I would start making YouTube channels thinking that they would become big. I made these channels around comedy and music and filmmaking and none of them took off whatsoever.
I got nothing but haters and trolls. And I quickly gave up my dreams of becoming a YouTuber, only to then try again six to twelve months later. Eventually, after living as a starving artist for the majority of my twenties, I discovered what a 360 camera was. I saw someone post on Instagram this weird tiny planet photo, and it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen.
For those that don't know, a tiny planet photo is a really creative style of photography, where it looks like you are standing on a miniature little planet. Where everything around you, no matter which environment you're in, it's wrapped around into this planet looking shape and you're standing either in the middle or on the outside and it looks super cool and it's just really quirky and weird and amazing.
And I decided that I simply had to figure out how it was done and buy one of these cameras for myself so I could start making these amazing and very silly photos. So I remember I had like 500 in my bank account at the time and I spent. 400 of it on this 360 camera that no one had ever heard of. And it was probably going to go nowhere, but I just love the creative concept of it.
So the camera arrived. I started making these fun tiny planet photos for myself and it was really satisfying. I connected with a strong sense of passion to this new medium. And eventually I started an Instagram account. And I posted my tiny planets to it. I used the hashtags. I did all the typical Instagram marketing.
And eventually, I built up a very small niche cult following of like a hundred followers. And eventually, I started seeing other people posting these tiny planet photos. We were a small community at the time, but we were really into our tiny planets. And as 360 cameras were marketed more and more over the coming year or two, This community on Instagram grew to the point that I was able to grow my following in sync with the growth of 360 cameras.
And eventually I got to a couple thousand followers, and every single day I remember waking up and getting a question about how I did the various tiny planet effects. And I thought, okay, I've got to have a way of showing people somehow because Writing in the comments isn't the best way of explaining something that is visual.
When you're taking photos, it's a visual process of setting up the shot and then taking the shot and editing it and so on. And that can't really be done in the written format. So, I decided, eventually, one day, I would start, I think it was my sixth or seventh YouTube channel, and I'd post some tutorials just for these people on Instagram who asked about these effects.
So, I made a video, my very first proper tutorial back in 2016. And that was like, how to Take a tiny planet photo with this 360 camera, the Ricoh Theta M15. And I posted it, it got like a hundred views that eventually went up to 500 and a thousand over about a month. And it felt good. Since I was working as a videographer, I knew how to make professional videos already.
So I was able to film there in my bedroom, making these tutorials, and sharing them with people on Instagram, sending the link, and also building a brand new audience on YouTube. So after this time passed, and I got more questions on Instagram, as well as in the YouTube comments, which provided me with How is it that I've been in the mindset of a browser?
Including brand new video ideas that I could cover and keep building this micro Youtube channel, completely from the ground up, with absolutely no goals or intention behind it. Until one day I realised that I could actually make a digital product, and sell it to people, to teach them this niche skill that they were asking me about everyday.
on YouTube, on Instagram. So I got to work and started writing an ebook. It was really simple, but I poured my heart and soul into it. I think it took me like six months to make, but eventually I got to the finish line and I launched this book about tiny planet photography. I announced it on my YouTube channel, like this big, amazing launch announcement.
My book is now for sale. And in the first week of sales, I made 200! Yay! Go me! Yeah, I know, that's not a big amount, is it? But for me, it was kind of life changing. And the reason is That served as a proof of concept that if I were to just keep repeating the same formula of giving people value through Instagram and YouTube and then telling them to go buy one of my products, I could scale this thing infinitely.
And that is exactly what I did. Firstly, I got to work making more and more videos about tiny planet photography on YouTube. And in each one, I would include a pitch at the end of the video for people to go and buy their copy of my ebook, which brought in regular recurring revenue. Again, it wasn't a lot of money.
I think I was selling it for like 10 at the time. So we're talking hundreds, not thousands, but it definitely felt good to be getting this as passive income. All I needed to do was post a video and this money would come in while I was sleeping. Fast forward a year and I made my very first. Online course, which was about 360 video.
I launched it and in my first day of selling that and promoting it through my YouTube channel, I made 10, 000. This completely blew my mind that I could make this much money in a day. I remember when I was working as a freelancer or even as an employee for another company, I could never crack the thousand dollar a day barrier.
And we're talking Australian dollars by the way, not US, so it's slightly less than US. But I remember on this day that I made the 10, 000 that I just achieved the impossible. I truly couldn't believe it. I thought my entire life was made after that day. I could retire the very next day and just rest on my laurels after a job well done.
Well, it turns out it doesn't quite work that way. Of course, you have to repeat the process after you create a product. You have to promote that product over and over and over. And that's what I did. I continued the process of making valuable tutorials for YouTube and telling people to go and check out my online course, which they could enroll in by following the link below.
Around this time, my channel had grown to over 10, 000 subscribers and I attracted my first brand deal, which was from a brand called Ricoh, a camera brand, and they basically sponsored me to travel to America and hold workshops. I think I held four in total. And I had no idea what I was doing, but it was the coolest thing ever.
I was living my dream fantasy life as an influencer, traveling the world and getting paid to do it. In hindsight though, the amount of sponsorship money was nowhere near enough to pay for a trip to America and accommodation and everything, and then make any money on top of that. It was like literally just covering flights and hotels and that was it.
But still, I was living my dream life. And I wasn't going to hear a bar of it. So after I got home from this world tour, I feel so silly saying world tour because it was literally just one country. But after I got home, I knew that I was in the process of scaling this YouTube channel to the point that this would become a regular thing, both with course sales and sponsorships.
At which point I decided that I was going to of my videography clients. So, on the side, I was still working as a videographer, but I didn't need to at that point, because the revenue I was getting from my online courses, and from the sponsorships, was just enough to pay my rent, expenses, and everything else.
So I could then dedicate 100 percent of my time to my YouTube channel. It's definitely a hard thing to do, but once you get to that point, you can make substantial money. Progress because you have so much more time to build your empire instead of it Just being after your shift at work or on weekends where you just want to relax So I did exactly that.
I kept investing my time into making videos and this is when I introduced a Third income source to the equation. And that was affiliate sales. If you don't know affiliate is basically where you recommend a product and you get a specialized link that's trackable. And then for every sale that comes through that link, you get a very small percentage of it as a payment.
And I remember around black Friday of don't even remember 2018, 2019, I was pulling in as much revenue per day as I was previously charging as a videographer. But this was just through affiliate income. It wasn't course sales and it also wasn't brand sponsorships. So the affiliate revenue really was starting to become something very significant.
And between the three different income sources, it was enough for me to live very comfortably. I moved to a much nicer apartment. I moved in with my wife, then girlfriend and life was good. So I kept repeating the process and as any smart entrepreneur would do, I release more and more products. And what I did next was I responded to market demand.
I made one video previously that was on this niche topic called virtual tours. And I had so much engagement on that video and so many requests for more videos. And it made me think, wait a minute, if I made a course on this topic, I could absolutely scale my business far beyond where it is now, where it's just like a basic full time income.
And so I got to work and built out this in depth course on virtual tours. I posted camera reviews, tutorials, comparisons on my YouTube channel in the meantime to keep my audience happy while also teasing them to the fact that I was about to release this epic course coming soon. And then in about mid to late 2019, I was I released it.
Virtual Tour Pro was the name of the course, and in one single week, this course brought me as much revenue as I'd made in the previous year combined. And when I think back to my Starving Artist days, the concept of that was just unbelievable. Like at no point did I ever think I was going to make a whole year's Income in one week.
So that was crazy. And at that point I knew that this was an infinitely scalable business where all I had to do was make great content for YouTube and have some kind of sales pitch in my video telling people to either go buy a product or join my email list. And the better my YouTube content was, the more connected to me my audience felt and the more likely they were to buy my products.
And since I had a really good presentation at the time, and I still do in my opinion, others may disagree, I was able to connect with people on a deeper level because I was very authentic. I used to make camera reviews and I was always really honest. I was one of the only people calling out the flaws of new cameras and I'd be very honest about it.
And that helped me win trust in new customers that would come through and buy my paid products. So the next year in 2020, we all know what happened. The pandemic hit. And my business absolutely thrived since everyone was now locked inside. There was no choice but to sit around at home bored or learn something online with all that time that you now have.
And sales of my course went through the roof. My business in 2020 passed the 1, 000, 000 mark as in 1, earned as a result of my YouTube channel, with online course sales being the vast majority of that. But then affiliate sales and brand sponsorships also playing a significant role. So I spent the majority of the pandemic making videos for YouTube, even though that was kind of hard to do because you couldn't go outside.
And also improving my online courses and continuing to sell those through my YouTube channel. The crazy thing is, I had not done a single dollar in paid ads at that point, and my business had still passed the 1 million dollar mark, which is crazy. But this really is the benefit of having a YouTube channel and an online brand, is that you don't need to rely on paid advertising in order to sell online products or physical products in mass.
Eventually, I started working on my next course. And along the way, I was able to pay for my dream wedding, my dream house, and my dream lifestyle. My business was now running on autopilot purely because of my YouTube channel. And you might've noticed that I haven't mentioned YouTube ad revenue yet. And that's because YouTube ad revenue is really overrated, especially if you're a new creator, trying to figure out how you're going YouTube.
What's important to understand is that even a big creator, of hundreds of thousands of followers only gets paid in the thousands per month for their channel. Unless you're doing crazy numbers per day, like a hundred thousand views per day, that's when it starts becoming something, but if it's anything less than that, it's nothing.
Especially compared to the other income sources I mentioned. If you want to learn my top 10 ways you can earn money through YouTube, I have a free guide which you can download below, and it basically shares 10 different ways you can earn money. It doesn't necessarily rely on YouTube ad revenue, which means if you're a small channel like I was, you can still earn good money without relying directly on YouTube to pay you.
Eventually, I reached the point where I wasn't posting on Instagram as much because YouTube was bringing me the vast majority of my revenue, my results, my brand growth. And my time was just better spent there than making silly tiny planet photos for Instagram. So right now I use Instagram as one of my supplementary income sources, but YouTube by far is the main one.
And now, at the time of recording this, in 2024, my channel is well past the 100, 000 subscriber mark, nearly at 200, 000. And I'm facing the extremely privileged Problem of having reached every single person I can reach in my niche, which is about 150, 000 right now. And I'm exploring other ways of growing my channel to the next level yet again.
And I'm starting that with expanding my niche and talking about YouTube video creation and helping entrepreneurs do the same as me. Now, I just want to say that there really is nothing special about me. I'm just a regular guy who had regular dreams of becoming a film director and failed epically. I then did what I had to do by earning money as a videographer, and I took a big risk of starting a YouTube channel and dedicating as much time as possible to growing it.
I was never trained in Business or social media and I even failed high school miserably. So again, there really is nothing special about me and it's kind of why I've made this podcast. Because I'm just an everyday guy and I'm making my own decisions for how I can build my wealth and my channels while also loving my job and helping.
Thousands of people around the world. I still consider myself to be a small influencer, and I still think that I am on my own creator's journey again. That's why I made this podcast to share with you the lessons I've learned along the way, and no doubt there's going to be plenty more I'll be learning in the future.
So if you want the shortcuts for success with. Building a YouTube channel. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to help you get there much faster than I did. So feel free to follow the podcast. If you want to learn more about building a YouTube channel and monetizing it, if you can relate to any stage of my journey, and you want to get to a similar destination to where I'm at now as a full time content creator, I am offering one on one guidance for the first time ever, if you head to my website.
Benclaremont. com. You can learn more about how we can get started working together. And I'd really love to help you grow your channel so you can monetize it and build a thriving business with it. Or if you're an entrepreneur who already owns a business, I'd love to help you get your channel up and running so you can start bringing clients in on autopilot.
Anyway, you can follow the link in the show notes to learn more about that. Well, that was my very first podcast ever. I hope you enjoyed it. If you have any requests, feel free to message me. The best place would probably be my Instagram DMs at Ben Claymont, my name, and I wish you all the successes in the world.
Good luck and happy creating.
