Caleb Marshall, better known as The Fitness Marshall on YouTube, discusses passion, perseverance and profit with host, Brittany Luse. Later, Brittany speaks with YouTube’s Jamie Byrne about the platform's monetization features.
During his last year of college, Caleb Marshall decided that he wanted to pursue a nontraditional career path… so he started a YouTube channel.
In this week’s episode, Brittany talks to Caleb, aka The Fitness Marshall, about his passion for fitness dancing, how he built a brand and business despite obstacles, and the many ways he makes a profit other than monetizing his videos. Later, Brittany talks to Jamie Byrne, Senior Director of Creative Partnerships at YouTube, about the platform's monetization features and how they’ve evolved over time. Some participants have been compensated for their involvement in this series.
KEY TOPICS & TIMESTAMPS
RESOURCES
SOCIAL HANDLES
CREDITS
The Upload is a podcast by YouTube produced in partnership with National Public Media. Our Executive Producers are Brianna LaFleur and Erica Osher. Supervising Producer Shannon Boerner. Our Lead Producer is Theresa Avila; Editing and Engineering by Alie Kilts; Production Assistance by Gurjit Kaur with support from Maddy Weinberg. Our logo was created by Jen Grottle and our music is by TimaLikesMusic. Hosted by Brittany Luse.
Featuring: The Fitness Marshall
(30 mins)
[0:00]
Brittany: I have a non-traditional job. I had the kind of job when strangers ask me what I do for a living, and I say podcast host, the first question they ask after that is, “What's a podcast?” The second question they ask is, “But what do you do for money?”
Even though I'm lucky enough to have a creative job that supports my lifestyle, going into this podcast, I still didn't really get how YouTube creators get paid. As I've been working on this series, I've been chatting with guests who haven't taken the most traditional path. And when you don't have the security of a nine to five job, you have to think of creative ways to not only do what you love, but also support yourself financially.
I’m your host, Brittany Luse. And this is The Upload: The Rise of the Creator Economy, a special podcast from YouTube in partnership with National Public Media. In this episode we’re going to dive into a crucial part of the creator economy: How do you earn a LIVING from YouTube?
[1:00]
Remember in Episode 1 that Oxford Economic Impact Report I mentioned? Well the 2020 stats just came out TODAY. And YouTube's creative ecosystem contributed $20 billion dollars to the United States GDP. That’s a 25% increase from the previous year. Put another way, that's the equivalent of nearly 400,000 full-time jobs.
As we’ve seen, there are a lot of creators who are making money DIRECTLY off their channels. But, that’s not the ONLY way that creators can earn their living. In fact, as you’ll soon hear, they can also generate revenue streams that DON’T depend on ads. And a key component to doing this successfully relies on creators having a deep and meaningful connection with their viewers.
Today’s guest has done exactly that. His name is Caleb Marshall, AKA the Fitness Marshall.
[2:00]
[CALEB ARCHIVAL]
“Hello every booty! Welcome to our very first sweat session of 2021!”
“Not a channel that is going to tell you to lose weight, that’s gonna tell you how to look. This is a channel that’s going to hopefully make you feel good…”
“Welcome back to another strength Marshall video...sweat session, it’s a..strength Marshall video. Welcome back to a sweat session…”
Brittany: Caleb’s channel features high-energy dance workout videos with popular music featuring tons of Brittany Spears. Because Caleb uses copyrighted music, he can’t monetize his videos in the traditional way. So, to grow his business without relying on ads, Caleb didn’t just need a lot of viewers. He needed real people who would support all aspects of his business. From his in-person fitness classes, to his apparel collection and member-exclusive content...
Here’s how Caleb makes it work...
Brittany: Hi Caleb, it's nice to see you.
Caleb: Hi, Brittany, you too.
Brittany: So to jump right in, if you could, um, just introduce yourself, like say your name and what you do?
[3:00]
Caleb: I am Caleb Marshall, also known as The Fitness Marshall; and, I am known as the modern day combination of Richard Simmons and Brittany Spears.
Brittany: I love that. I'm like, what was the, what was the early days combination between Richard Simmons and Britney Spears? Um, so how do you introduce yourself if you just like meeting somebody in passing today? Like, do you think of yourself as a dancer, a fitness instructor, a content creator, like how do you put that?
Caleb: You know, I feel like, and especially being on YouTube, I just think of myself as a content creator. I'm just someone who had an, had a love for a lot of different things, and really love for helping people. And I was able to create content that really didn't fit in one specific world, vertical. And I got to do that through YouTube.
Brittany: So if you could just like, talk to me about your channel. Like what, what, what content are you creating?
[4:00]
Caleb: Um, I'm creating easy to follow dance fitness videos, where I'm just standing in front of a camera, and I'm directing people and their followers following along with me. And it just opens up this opportunity for people to feel like a pop star and feel so confident in their bodies, because they're at home and they're not surrounded by people and not in this intimidating space.
Brittany: That's so amazing. So, um, I want to talk a little bit more about how you got started. Like, how did you combine your background in dance and your passion for performing with fitness? Like how'd you get started?
Caleb: Um, I mean I always loved performing. I always loved making people happy in some form. I, myself, was going through a lot of issues with feeling like I really didn't know where I fit in this world, but I just knew that I wanted to create and I wanted to entertain. And so when I got to college, I started teaching these dance fitness classes and this light bulb moment went off and I was like, “Oh my Gosh This is my true passion.” And I just really gave everything to these dance fitness classes that were paying me $10.45 an hour. And so it was, it was —
[5:00]
Brittany: Oh you remember
Caleb: I do, I do, I was clocking in, but it was amazing cause I got to do something I really loved. But on the other hand it was kind of like, this is just a hobby. It's not really an actual career. I went to school by the way for video production, and so I'm thinking that I'm going to be creating videos for other people. I'm going to do music videos. And then I had this moment where I was on an internship and I was like, “Oh, my Gosh. I hate this. I don't want to be here.”
And I, I, it was awful cause I was like I’m senior in college and I just realized that my dreams aren't even my dreams. And so it was this big, like “what do I do with my life?” And then I just came back to: I love making dance fitness dances and teaching people in person. And so I took what I did. I took my knowledge of video production, and I put it on YouTube. I had no idea what I was getting into going into it.
[6:00]
I didn't watch much YouTube. I just knew that made the most sense to me. I could reach the most amount of people. I could, I could do the most good. And I felt like I really had to shoot my shot.
Brittany: How much planning and thought did you put into creating and launching your channel?
Caleb: Um, I, I don't do anything without a lot of effort and a lot of planning. So I got back to school. I realized that I wanted to start this YouTube channel. And I was brainstorming, I was talking to friends and trying to, trying to figure out what to do. And I, basically, um, in like a discussion with a group of people, we came up with the name, The Fitness Marshall. And then we were like, that's really funny because your family is, might like, I, all my family is like ex military or still active. And I'm obviously very gay, and I really enjoy just being free and being myself. So I was like, why don't I take kind of both of those things and put them together. And take my last name, which is Marshall and create this brand. And so just naturally from that, I was like, okay, so like army colors, camo, um, let's, let's name our, let's name the backup dancers.
[7:00]
So I thought, okay, I want it to be me, and I want it to be two people behind me. That was always the plan. I love the idea of, like, having a backup dancer, but then I was like, we can't just call them backup dancers. So we came up with the name, Backup Booty, and branded that. And then I got a, like a logo. And so I, like, I did a cutout of me, like saluting, and that became like me saluting and stars. So that became like my brand image that I use with everything.
And it just was very consistent, repetitive imaging. If you look at the videos, I mean, I think for five years straight, I wore camo pants. And I wore, like, a black tank top. And that was so intentional because I was like, there are so many people on this platform. There are so many fitness instructors. I want people to look at me and recognize me the same way they recognize a cartoon. Like when you see your favorite cartoon character, they are wearing the same thing. And it's like a joke because people are like, “Is your, is your closet just tank tops and camo pants?”
[8:00]
But it really was. But I, people were commenting, “Like, why is he always wearing camo pants?” And I was like, it's working, it's working. Cause, cause that's how people would recognize me. They'd be like, “Oh, you're the guy in the black tank and the camo pants.”
Brittany: Sometimes new creators can struggle to keep the momentum going when they launch a channel. But, you actually had a background in video production. How did that help you when it came time to launch your own channel?
Caleb: So from the beginning it was very intentional. And it was always passion driven. I remember I created 12 videos, and made sure I had all 12 ready to post. Um, I had, I mean I rented production equipment. I got lights. I put in so much effort to making all of the videos look and sound the same, so that it really could be this seamless experience that you could just auto-play. And I knew how YouTube’s algorithm worked and it would just surface the next video or I could make a playlist. And so from the very beginning, I made sure it was a full and complete workout experience, and I just kept that same consistent brand.
[9:00]
And if you look at my videos now, it's still the same exact setup. The quality is constantly improved. But the recognizability of,” oh, that's that? That's the dancing guy. That's the guy in the camo pants.” Like, you're always, you're always going to have those elements that are very recognizable.
Brittany: Obviously that pre-launch strategy and all that planning was a success. I mean, you got 100,000 subscribers in less than a year. Actually, you got there in 8 months! Which is incredible! Not a lot of people can say that. How did it feel to reach that milestone?
Caleb: I mean, I didn't even know how to wrap my mind around it. I actually just found a post last week that I made on Facebook and it was like, “Oh my gosh, thanks guys. Over 200 subscribers on my YouTube channel and 10,000 views. This means so much to me. I never thought this was possible.” And it was just the sweetest purest thing because I, I didn't know what to expect.
[10:00]
And from my perspective, like when people come to class, I mean, if you have 50 people in a room, like that's so much energy, that's so many personalities. And so I always went into it knowing like, what a number meant, like what a person meant. And so when I saw 200 subscribers, I was just mind blown. And then when I saw a hundred thousand.
Brittany: Wow.
Caleb: I, I it's just like you feel
Brittany: It’s like it’s unconscionable.
Caleb: It, it really is. And it's so weird because you see so many people online with all of these millions of followers, and it's so easy to just compare yourself, but to think like, “Wow, little old me in the middle of Indiana , in the middle of nowhere, has a hundred thousand people who have chosen to actually click the subscribe button. And even at that moment, I realized I was still going to have to figure everything out.
Those subscribers, those numbers are amazing, but they have to lead into action items. I mean, for me, like what, what are you going to do with those subscribers? How are you going to leverage that? How are you going to build a business? It was never from the beginning, like, oh, let me just put out videos.
[11:00]
And then hope I become rich and famous just because. It was like, okay, you have these things, but I'm my own boss. Like there is no one at YouTube, like, handing me a check, like giving me money or telling me what to do. It's like, I am responsible for my own success.
Brittany: You made an important executive decision for your channel early on. You decided to use popular, copyrighted music in your videos. How did that impact your ability to monetize?
Caleb: It's funny cause I've never directly monetized my channel. Um, it's, from the beginning, I knew that I was using popular music and I genuinely thought, like, the people who had millions of subscribers, surely like once you're at that level, you're going to monetize these videos. And then I remember messaging one of my, like fitness inspirations on YouTube. And I was asking her how she monetized her content.
[12:00]
And she said that she didn’t. And I was like, “Oh, what did I sign up for? What did I do?” And it was a really scary moment because I could have quit.
Brittany: That sounds really hard. But ultimately you stuck with it.
Caleb: So it was, I mean, that was the worst thing, spending all that time, knowing I'm not going to get paid and still maybe the video is going to get blocked. And so I think, YouTube has done a lot of work in their relations with labels.
So now the videos are able to be viewed by everyone, most of the time. But all of that revenue is going directly to the copyright owners. And I think that's what people don't know. They think that when they see a video with millions of views on YouTube, they assume the creator’s getting that money, but there's a cut involved.
YouTube gets a cut and the labels get a cut. And in my case, YouTube gets a cut, the labels get a cut, and I get nothing. And I'm very open about that. I've talked about that a lot. And it was really difficult for me because I am someone who — for better or for worse — can not do something unless I love it.
[13:00]
I mean, I can't fake it. It’s also, I have ADHD. And so it's really hard for me to focus on something if I don't really care about it.
Brittany: So, why is it so important for you to use popular music in your videos?
Caleb: I mean — I talk about this all the time — but Brittany Spears is my number one icon. Like, she inspired me to, to be a performer. Her music ,um, got me through so much in my life. And so the idea of me making videos, to copyright free music, and using music that doesn't move me, that’s just a disservice to the people watching.
Because if I'm not moved, if I'm not feeling these emotions, then how am I going to make them feel those emotions? How do I make people feel confident, and sexy and powerful, if we're just dancing to a track that nobody knows? And sometimes that works, and sometimes it's necessary just because, like, you have to pay your bills. But I, I said that if I could ever help it, I would, I would do whatever I could to keep using popular music.
[14:00]
Brittany: So, so at this point, you’re not monetizing your videos *directly* on the platform. How did you keep yourself financially afloat?
Caleb: I mean, I couldn't afford a haircut. I could not.
Brittany: Wow
Caleb: I mean, I was living with my boyfriend who was in college. So, I was like staying in his dorm room, rent free, like graduated, brushing my teeth with freshmen. Meanwhile, having over a hundred thousand subscribers. It was the most weird thing like, “Oh yeah! You’re the famous guy on YouTube!... You need, you needmoney to eat?”
It didn't make any sense, but I really stuck with it. And I thought that if I loved it enough, and I stuck with my passion, then I would figure it out. And so my partner at the time decided, “Hey, if we can't monetize these videos on YouTube, what if we leverage your audience? And we start creating concerts and we start performing live?”
[15:00]
And I was so scared to do that because I didn't think anyone would want to come.
Brittany: Oh no
Caleb: Yeah, I was so nervous. But I let him do it, and I let him set up this live event. And I remember, I think we sold like 25 tickets the first day, and like 25 tickets the next. But that was the max capacity of the venue.
And so I was like, okay. And so we did it again, like a couple hours away. 70 people come. We keep repeating this, and every time we do it more and more people come. And before you knowit , we are on a literal U.S. tour, that we've booked all ourselves. I mean, my fiance, Cameron's calling all of these venues, renting the lights, we're doing our own production, everything is just us, but we finally find a way to make some money.
Now, it's not much because we're renting all of these things, we're flying out. But we do find a way to start like keeping our head above water. And that was kind of the pattern for quite some time. It’s just how do we keep our head above water, leverage our audience, and keep building a business?
[16:00]
Brittany: Talk to me about, uh, the other approaches that you've taken to sort of, uh, expand the different ways that you can monetize your content. And how do you currently monetize your channel? Like memberships, exclusive content, like talk to me about what, what you're currently doing.
Caleb: What really genuinely changed our lives, and I'm not, that's a no, no understatement. What changed our lives was YouTube memberships. And it also happened right around the time the world shut down and no one could go to the gym. And it was just this, I mean, I felt like every star had aligned. So once the pandemic happened, um, I mean, we, we launched our memberships, I think in January or February, the world shuts down, you know, in March, April. And so it's this weird thing where a few months ago we were going to quit and all of a sudden, now we have a subscription model.
[17:00]
Within app, which is so incredible because we've tried that before, outside of platform. It didn't work. People love being able to stay on YouTube. And it's almost like our content, but longform reborn, more energy. It's just, it's elevated. And so I feel so good about it, because it's not a money grab. It's not, “Hey, just donate to me because I want a bigger house.” It's like, I have something really amazing to offer you that I deserve to be paid for. Um, but that I've never been able to offer before. And so, yeah, memberships, I mean changed my life.
Brittany: So what's next for you as you continue to, like, grow your brand and expand, I guess like your, your media empire in a way. What’s, what's coming up?
Caleb: Um, I’m really, really excited about this. Um, I talked a little bit about it, but, um, we’re laun—, we have our active booty, activewear line. And so that's something that we made for every type of person. And so, like I said, we spent two years developing this and we did it with another YouTuber. And we launched this active wear an extra small to 3X. And something that we
[18:00]
did that no one else was doing, we fit on models of every size. So like, instead of just saying let's fit a small person, and then let's just size up everything. It's like, no, the dancers I have with me are women of different sizes. All of our audience are people of every shape and size that you can imagine, and everyone needs to be represented.
It didn't make sense for us to approach it in any, in any other way. And so we did it with so much time and passion. And the success that we had when we launched that. I mean, we sold out, I think within a week, all of our activewear. And coming from, uh, uh, YouTuber who, who put out merch, and no one bought it, it was this really wonderful moment that was like, oh okay. Like when you, when you put something out that's really functional and for people, and then leverage your audience on YouTube, you can really make magic and more than magic, you can make it a sustainable business.
[19:00]
Brittany: What advice would you give other people who want to make content on YouTube?
Caleb: Make sure you love what you do. Like really make sure you love what you do. Give yourself the opportunity to grow and to change, and it might not be exactly what you thought it was going to be, but really make sure that you're in it for the long haul. Because if you're, if you're coming to YouTube and you want overnight success, if you want that mansion just by posting, you know, a video of you hanging out with your friends, like that's not what you're gonna get from YouTube. YouTube is a place for long haul, growth sustainable content and, and really building a brand and a business. No, one's going to wake you up and say, “Hey, have you posted this video?” That, that's just not going to happen. So make sure that you're able to hold yourself accountable, and to, to really have a plan and to always be thinking of the next step, because building a business is not easy.
[20:00]
You're going to have highs and you're going to have lows. Don't ride the highs. Don't ride the lows. Just try to stay as, as middle ground as you can. And remember why you're doing this in the first place.
Brittany: That's such beautiful advice and it's really nice to hear it coming from someone, you know, like you who's really built their entire business, from, you know, from that first, well as I was going to say from that first video, from that first batch of 12 videos, you know, to now. Um, like to have had all of your success, uh, really come from you, uh, putting yourself out there on this platform. It's really helpful. Thank you so much for joining us.
Caleb: Thank you. I love this. I love talking with you, Brittany.
Brittany: It was so lovely talking to Caleb. I swear I could feel his energy radiating through the screen. Also, I just got to say, modern day combination of Richard Simmons and Brittany Spears. Chef's kiss.
[21:00]
It's clear that staying true to himself and what he's most passionate about, is the driving force behind everything Caleb does. Not to mention the amount of consideration he puts into creating a welcoming brand. Caleb’s story is just one example of a thriving content creator ecosystem. But there are so many other ways creators monetize. To understand what’s possible on YouTube, I got on the phone with Jamie Byrne.
Jamie: Hi, my name is Jamie Byrne. I oversee creator partnerships at YouTube. I just hit my 15 year anniversary at the company. So I've kind of got this incredible uh kind of history of YouTube that I've seen it develop from the very early days to where it is today.
Brittany: That’s perfect because I wanted to start off by asking about YouTube’s early days. So now YouTube makes so many tools available to creators today to help them monetize and scale their channel.
[22:00]
But what was the relationship with YouTube creators like in the beginning? Did YouTube have a system set up to pay creators from the start?
Jamie: Sure, I think I remember when I discovered YouTube. It was in January of 2006 and I wasn’t working at Youtube at the time, I was at Yahoo. I saw these creators on the platform that had very simple production. You know all they had were webcams. They were talking into the camera, talking directly to their fans, and then interacting not only with their fans, but also with one another. And it was really clear, at that moment, that something different and special was happening on this platform with the creator ecosystem that was kind of developing. And I think, you know, it was something that we tried to nurture, at, in the very early days. We started experimenting with sharing revenue, you know, as early as 2006. I remember, you know, kind of calling up Smoosh, which was one of the most popular creators on the platform at the time, and offering them like a monthly payment.
[23:00]
Brittany: Wow, it’s so wild to think there was ever a time YouTube had to ASK people to be full-time creators. Obviously things are really different today. Could you give, like could you help give,like, a brief overview of the different ways creators are able to make money from their channels now?
Jamie: When you start to think about the monetization features that are available to YouTube creators, you know kind of on our platform, of course, like the biggest engine is advertising revenue. And so the majority of creators on our platform, you know, earn the most, kind of the biggest percentage of their revenue comes, comes from ads.
But what we've also done is kind of expanded into a number of different fan funded type models to help supplement that income, like we have something called super chat, which allows while your live streaming, it allows your fans to kind of contribute, a contribution to you, which then raises your profile in the live stream chat.
[24:00]
We have channel memberships, which is really kind of a virtual fan club for a creator super fans and allows them special access to the creator, maybe access to special content that's private for some period of time. And so we have, currently, 10 different ways on YouTube that creators can generate revenue. Again, everything from ads to some of these newer models, which are, you know, that are generated from, from the fans themselves. And really kind of, you know really kind of, um speaks to the connection that a creator has with their community.
Brittany: I’m curious, are there any features that are more popular or successful than others?
Jamie: The exciting thing about having so many different options, 10 different options for creators to monetize is there's no one playbook. Right, so depending on who you are as a creator, depending on what market,
[25:00]
what what country you might be in around the world, the behavior of viewers in that market, you may have a totally different mix of tools that you use to generate revenue right? And I think one of the things that we all know is that, the most robust media businesses have diversified revenue stream right? So, you know, I think, there's no one way for a creator to do it. You know, if they, if they happen to be really niche, they may not have huge amounts of views and generate tons of ad revenue, but they may, but they'll probably be really successful with something like channel memberships or Superchat, where they have really engaged fans that really care about the content of their YouTube channel.
Brittany: It's exciting to hear about so many of the monetization features from the source, because, I think so frequently that people just think that, it's ads and that's it. Like that's the only way that you can make money from YouTube.
[26:00]
So it's really helpful to know that there's so many options out there, especially for creators and followings of different sizes. But it makes me wonder, what are some common misconceptions people have about how YouTube compensates its creators?
Jamie: Yeah, and I think actually, you know, I think that in terms of , like, thinking about misconceptions, you know, one of the misconceptions could be, that you can't , you know, earn significant revenue on YouTube unless you're a very, very large creator. And I think because of all of these different monetization options that we do have, that are fan driven, it means that if you have a really committed fan community, you know, even if your ad revenue is almost on the smaller side, you can actually make significant earnings from engaging your fans and giving them access to special features, special content. Or you know many of your fans will contribute just because they, they feel really connected to you and they want to be recognized through things like Superchat or something like that.
[27:00]
Brittany: YouTube is one of the first and one of the biggest platforms where creators can get a good following, then grow beyond the platform and have lots of success. But then they always come back to YouTube. Why do you think that is?
Jamie: Yeah, I mean, when, when we talk to creators, one of the things that they often tell us is that, you know, we're really, they consider YouTube to be their home base.
It's where they nurture their, it's where they nurture their fans. You know we have the largest reach of any content platform. We have two million people that come to YouTube every single month that creators have the opportunity to engage with. So when they're small, maybe the majority of their revenue just comes through, kind of some of these monetization features. But as they grow in influence, they're able to kind of branch out, start other businesses, start, start commerce lines, sell merchandise and things of that nature.
[28:00]
We're really proud that we're able to kind of provide this kind of central hub for creators, to build you know, the media businesses of the future.
Brittany: So Jamie, you’ve been working with creators for more than a decade, and you've kind of gotten this front-row seat to the rise of the creator economy. What sort of impact do you think creators have had on the culture at-large?
Jamie: You know, they were really at the Vanguard. And what they've really done is not only changed YouTube, but they've, they've helped deliver, you know, what we now talk about as the creator economy. Which, as we know, it's not just video creators. It’s journalists. It’s creators of all types. And so, you know, I think it's really exciting to have been, from YouTube point of view, part of that journey. But every creator that has been on YouTube since day one has helped, kind of, get us to where we are today.
Brittany: Jamie, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me today. It has been wonderful.
[29:00]
Brittany: There’s really no one way to build a business on YouTube. Next week, we will be peering into the playbook of another creator whose YouTube career has allowed her to craft her ideal work life balance.
That’s it for today’s episode. Thanks for joining me on this journey into the world of YouTube creators. Remember to tune in every Wednesday, and be sure to rate and follow wherever you get your podcasts.
CREDITS
The Upload:The Rise of the Creator Economy is a YouTube Podcast produced in partnership with National Public Media. Our Executive Producers are Brianna LaFleur and Erica Osher. Our Supervising Producer is Shannon Boerner. Our Lead Producer is Theresa Avila. Editing and Engineering by Alie Kilts. Production Assistance by Gurjit Kaur with support from Maddy Weinberg. Our logo was created by Jen Grottle and our music is by TIMALIKESMUSIC. I’m your host Brittany Luse, thanks for listening.
[30:00]