Hi {{first_name}},

I made three YouTube videos that nobody watched.

The first got seven views. The second got sixteen. The third got twelve.

The content was solid. I explained things clearly, the information was useful, and if someone watched, they'd get value. But almost nobody did.

The content never got a chance to work because nobody clicked in the first place.

That's what I missed.

I was focused on making good videos - recording, editing, making sure the information was valuable.

But I wasn't thinking about the one thing that determines whether anyone actually watches.

The thumbnail and title.

When someone scrolls YouTube, they see hundreds of options. Your video is competing with everything else in their feed. And they make the click decision in about two seconds.

If your thumbnail doesn't make them stop scrolling, the video quality doesn't matter. The content doesn't matter. Nothing matters because nobody sees it.

I knew this intellectually. But I didn't know how to actually make thumbnails that worked.

So I did what most people do. Opened Canva. Picked a template. Added some text. Called it done.

Those thumbnails got me 7, 16, and 12 views.

Then I found a different approach. Not Canva templates. Not spending hours designing. Something faster and more effective.

The next video got the booking.

Here's what changed: I learned to create thumbnails that actually make people click, and I could do it in about 10 minutes.

More specifically, I learned to validate whether a thumbnail would work before I even made the video.

I'm even going back and changing the thumbnails on those first three videos now to see what happens.

The validation piece is what I missed before. I was making videos first, then trying to figure out the thumbnail. By then, I'd already invested hours into something that might get seven views.

I'll share more about how this validation works tomorrow.

Jack