How We Got Inayah McMillan 1,185,797 Views On One Video

TL;DR

Most business owners I talk to sound exactly like everyone else in their niche, and their views show it. Inayah McMillan is the clearest example I've seen of someone fixing that.

She teaches people how to make money with Airbnb and digital products, which is one of the most crowded corners of YouTube. The very first video we made together, "How I Brainwashed Myself to Be a Millionaire at 20", is now past 1.1 million views.

We made three changes, and you can copy all of them:

1. Found the one thing she can say that almost nobody else in her niche can.
2. Borrowed a title format that had already worked twice for a bigger creator with the same audience.
3. Wrote a hook that starts her story in the second line, then turns it around to the viewer.

Below you'll find each step, the numbers (including the ones that don't flatter us), and a worked example for a consulting or service business. You don't need to be in her niche, and you don't need 256,000 subscribers.

My name is Bryan, and I run Viral Bangers. We're a YouTube agency for business owners who sell something, like coaches, traders, consultants and info product businesses. We handle the ideas, the scripts, the editing and the thumbnails, so all you have to do is show up and record.

Here are a few of the people we've worked with:

• Chamath Palihapitiya: we edit all of his long-form videos.
• Jordan Welch: we scripted "getting rich is easy, actually", which has 923,571 views.
• RP Profits: we built his thumbnail formula, and his typical video went from 2,393 views to 17,517.
• Ethan Garland: we worked on two of his top three videos, including one with 539,000 views.
• Scott Taylor: his views went from about 3,600 a video to 15,000, and YouTube now brings in around $40,000 a month.
• Fiction Profits Academy: 7,000 to 15,000 subscribers, and they're the top result for "how to start a KDP business".
• Clover Trading: average views went from about 1,000 a video to 8,000.

Inayah is one of those clients too.

Inayah McMillan runs an Airbnb business and teaches other people how to start one. She also sells digital products and runs a clothing brand. Her channel has 256,000 subscribers.

When she came to us, she had three problems. She was spending hours writing her own scripts, time she didn't have because she was busy running webinars. There was no real plan behind the videos. And she'd had big videos before that she couldn't repeat, because nobody could tell her why they worked.

She'd already tried writing everything herself, and she'd tried other agencies, and neither had stuck.

She was so busy that for the first two months I never even got on a call with her. We worked through her operator, the person who runs her business day to day. We came up with the ideas and wrote the scripts, and all she had to do was approve the ideas and record.

Now, you might be thinking: "Bryan, she already had 256,000 subscribers. I have 1,200. Why should I care?"

A big channel does make big numbers easier. But the three changes we made work the same way on a small channel. On 1,200 subscribers you'd be looking at the right few thousand people clicking instead of a million, and if you sell something, those few thousand are the ones who pay. I'll show you what that looks like for a consultant near the end.

Everyone In Her Niche Says The Same Thing

Inayah's videos sit in what YouTube people call the "make money online" niche: Airbnb, digital products, side hustles. It's one of the most crowded niches on the whole platform.

Almost everyone in it leads with the same thing, which is an income claim. "How I made $10 million." "My $50,000 a month Airbnb portfolio." Inayah did it too, and to be fair, it worked once:

Income claims can work, but anyone can make one. There are thousands of people on YouTube right now calling themselves millionaires, so when everyone says the same thing, the viewer has no reason to pick you over the next person.

If you're a consultant, you probably lead with tips instead, like "5 ways to close more deals" or "how to get more clients". Same problem: your competitor could post that exact title tomorrow.

Find What Only You Can Say

So the first thing I asked was what Inayah could say that other people in her niche couldn't.

The answer was her age. She became a millionaire at 20. Plenty of people claim to be millionaires. Very few can say they did it at 20.

I call this a unique advantage: something true about you that your competitors can't copy. It can be a result, a timeline, an age, a background, a number of clients, or a strange path to where you are now. In my experience, you can't stand out in a crowded niche without one.

She had a second one too, which was her story. She grew up in a big family without much money (at one point 12 of them lived in a three-bedroom house), she was working several jobs, and she lost her brother young. Nobody else can tell that story.

Then we got specific. This is one of the oldest rules in copywriting, because the more specific you are, the more people believe you and the more curious they get. Thousands of people can say "millionaire", but almost nobody can add "at 20".

For a consultant, it might look like this:

Borrow A Title Format That Already Works

The title came from somewhere else. I don't brainstorm ideas, I steal formats.

A format is the shape of a title with the topic taken out. "How I Brainwashed Myself to ___" is a format, and you can drop almost anything into the blank.

This one came from Leila Hormozi. She had two videos on it, and both did far better than her usual videos:

When a video does far better than a channel's usual videos, YouTube people call it an outlier. One outlier can be luck. Two on the same format is a pattern, and a pattern is what you want to borrow.

We picked Leila for one more reason, which was her audience. She has a big female audience, and so does Inayah. Same audience means the same psychology, so the same title shape is likely to pull the same people.

These videos were old, too. Her first one was about two years old when we borrowed it. A format that worked two years ago and still gets watched is a much safer bet than chasing this week's trend.

Steal the format, never the video.

The title shape was borrowed. Everything inside the video was Inayah's.

For your business, look at the bigger channels your buyers already watch. If you sell to business owners, that might be Alex Hormozi, Leila Hormozi or Codie Sanchez. Their audience is your audience, just bigger.

Put Your Advantage Inside The Format

Then you put the two together. The format was "How I Brainwashed Myself to ___", and the advantage was "a millionaire at 20". So the title became:

We could have gone with "How I Brainwashed Myself to Be Rich", or "to Be Successful", or "to Make Millions". All of those are just Leila's title again. Adding "a millionaire at 20" is what made it Inayah's. Search that exact title on YouTube and you'll only find her, because nobody else can honestly post it.

The thumbnail wasn't anything crazy either. It's her smiling, with "reprogram your mind" on it, which matches what the video is about.

For a consultant, it could look like this:

Before you lock it in, search your title on YouTube. If someone else already has it, or could post it honestly, make it more specific.

The title gets the click. The first 30 seconds decide if they stay. This is the opening of Inayah's video, word for word:

Inayah's first 30 seconds"This is how I brainwashed myself to be a millionaire at 20 years old. Growing up in a big family, we didn't have a lot of money. As I got older, I realized that your brain has a specific operating system for money, just like a computer. Mine was programmed for poverty, so I had to hack it. Most people think mindset work is just about positive thinking, but I'm going to show you why the mental programming that I used took me from $20 to my name at 18 years old to building a business that generated over 13 million just 4 years later. If I did it in such a short period of time, I believe that you can, too, and probably even faster."

It looks simple, but every line has a job. There are four moves in it.

Move 1: Repeat The Title, Then Start The Story

The first line is the title, said out loud, so the viewer knows straight away they clicked on the right video. Then she goes straight into the story with no warm-up: "Growing up in a big family, we didn't have a lot of money." A title that starts with "How I" promises a story, so the story starts in line two. And it's a story a lot of her viewers can relate to.

Move 2: Make Them Ask A Question

"Your brain has a specific operating system for money... Mine was programmed for poverty, so I had to hack it." Now the viewer wants to know what that means. Then comes a line that goes against what they expect: "Most people think mindset work is just about positive thinking." Every couple of lines, they get a new reason to keep watching.

Move 3: Show The Before And After

"$20 to my name at 18 years old", then a business doing over $13 million four years later. It's a big gap in a short time, and it's exactly the result the viewer wants for themselves.

Move 4: Turn It Around To The Viewer

"If I did it in such a short period of time, I believe that you can, too, and probably even faster." Most people leave this line out. Everything before it is her story, and this is where it becomes the viewer's story too, which gives them a reason to stay until the end.

For a consultant, the same four moves might sound like this:

The same four moves, for a sales consultant"This is how I brainwashed 40 sales teams to love cold calling. The first team I ever worked with hadn't booked a meeting in six weeks. Most people think cold calling is a numbers game, but what fixed this team took one afternoon and one new script. A month later they'd booked 31 meetings. If a team that hated the phone could do it, yours can too, and probably faster."

Make The Story About The Viewer

The biggest mistake people make with a story video is making it all about themselves. The title says "How I", but the viewer only cares about what it means for them.

Inayah's script keeps turning back to the viewer. A big part of her story is her faith and praying five times a day. Right after that part, she says: "Now I understand everyone doesn't pray five times a day, but for you it could be anything." Then she finishes with three steps the viewer can follow, and one small thing to start with, which is 15 minutes tomorrow writing down their goals.

So after every part of your story, ask yourself what it means for the person watching, and then say that in the video. If you tell the story of the team that hated cold calling, follow it with the one line the viewer can use with their own team on Monday.

The editing is simple, too. It's mostly her talking to the camera, with a few graphics to show what she's saying and no crazy motion graphics. The script is what holds people.

In the first month, the video hit 309,000 views. That made it an 11.1x outlier, which means it did about 11 times what her usual video does.

It kept going. The video is now at 1,185,797 views, with more than 2,000 comments, a lot of them from people saying she's helped them.

But the result I care about most came later. She sent us two more creators.

Views are nice, but a client sending you two more clients is how you know it worked.

What We're Not Claiming

We write her ideas and scripts. We don't run her funnel or her tracking, so there's no revenue number here. She sells an Airbnb masterclass and digital products under the video, and a million views in her niche almost certainly brought in buyers, but I don't have the number, so I'm not going to make one up.

She also already had a big channel when we started, and she'd had big videos before.

And not every video since has done a million. We wrote the videos after it too:

None of them came close to the first one, and that's fine. The goal is to raise what your normal video gets, because one big video brings new people in and the videos after it turn them into buyers.

As a consultant, you probably won't get a million views, and you don't need to. Scott Taylor, another client of ours, got about 10 calls from one video with 37,343 views. If you sell something high-ticket, a few thousand of the right people is plenty.

This is the whole process on one page. Fill in the last column for your business:

If you're stuck on the first row, go back to the three questions in Step 1. If you can't find a format, spend 20 minutes on the Popular tab of the three channels your buyers watch.

Then commit to 10 videos before you judge it. Compare the median views of those 10 with your last 10, and ask every new lead which video they watched. That second number matters more than the first.

Your Positioning Checklist

Run every video idea through this before you script it. Tap each one as you go.

• The title has something in it no competitor could honestly say
• The format has worked at least twice for a bigger channel my buyers watch
• I searched the title on YouTube and nobody else has it
• The first line of the video repeats the title
• The story starts by line two
• There's a before and after with real numbers
• After every part of the story, I tell the viewer what it means for them