Interview with Geek to Freak Greg Chism

today I have Greg Chisum many of you may recognize him as the geek to freak YouTube channel and this is no little thing that we have going on with this interview today for those of you not familiar with the geek to freak YouTube channel he has 15,000 dedicated followers on one single Channel alone his videos will get anywhere from 2,000 to 100,000 th plus hits um within a very short time of him posting them and what I wanted to focus on today is a journey with this man that many of you are not familiar with and that is the effect that the YouTube channel has had on his life he really is just an average guy like anybody else but what he's created with this YouTube channel has given him opportunities that otherwise would have been missed and that's the journey you're going to hear today you're going to hear about yes he's had a rough life yes he has built a lawn care company and yeah it does great work but that's not what the interview is about today is what I want you to keep your eyes and ears open for is the opportunities the possibilities that you as contractors can take away from this and what Greg has done is he's kept his mind open his ears open he's looked for opportunities as he's grown his lawn care business to Branch out to diversify and to do even more things to to give himself opportunities to grow in ways that otherwise he would have never had this is an excellent interview for people that I are just getting into Landscaping one of the things that I really love about Landscaping is it is the doorway in anybody can become a landscaper anybody can grab a shovel and a rake and grab a pickup truck and go to work and it creates that that first chance to become even more to become better than you currently are but then once you get in if you really try if you really put the effort in if you really apply yourself you can do almost anything and in this case what Greg did AKA The Geek to freak did was he documented that Journey along the way but then during the documentation of that that took on its own entity it took on its own life almost and he wasn't about to let an opportunity get wasted so what did he what did he do he started focusing on that trying to make it better bigger even more so trying to learn the intricacies of this and he talks us through that you're in for one hell of a ride so sit back get ready and enjoy the journey and here we go all right we have Greg Chisum you will know him better as geek to Freak Fitness and Lawn Care this guy has an amazing story and it goes Way Beyond lawn care Lawn Care is the launching Point what you are going to hear next is a true entrepreneurial Journey this is what I consider to be one of the most amazing stories that I have shared or had the opportunity to be a part of in a long time I was so inspired I was talking to Greg earlier on the phone and we were just going over some ideas of things we could talk about and we hit on the YouTube channel thing and there is so much story to that that each and every landscaper contractor excavator I don't care who you are when you hear this story you can apply this towards your own life but before we get too much into it Greg can you hear us okay you got us all right yep I can hear you this fine so before we get into the success you've had with YouTube before we get into the success you've had with your lawn care business can you tell us a little bit about yourself well you know I know you're a single father raising two kids can you tell us a little bit what that's like and what's going on in your world well um it's a tough one being a single father my daughters are currently four and six and um it's a it's a tough situation but I think actually having a lawn care as my primary source of income is has helped my tough situation because I have flexibility and I can manage to take them to school in daycare and then go start my work get it done come back pick them up and if I have something left over I could plan that for the end of the day to where I'm allowed to actually take them with me so in hindsight it's actually like a blessing and very helpful so long care um for a career in business it's not only just a possibility but it's it's actually a a very flexible and helpful choice for some people you know Greg one of the things I I I tell people all the time and I think you can probably relate with this is that when you own your lawn care business you can make it as great as you want or it can be as big of a flop as you want okay um it depends upon the effort that you put into it but Lawn Care Landscaping is the best job in the world that allows anybody to come in if you're able-bodied and you're willing to put your heart and soul and work into it you can go anywhere you want with this you know you can start out with a shovel and a rake you don't need a lot of money you can get going on it you can buy your lawnmowers kind of get the ball rolling and then you can develop that business further or you can take it into other other areas other opportunities and that's what you've done and that's the beauty of your story is you have developed a nice lawn care business and then you developed a successful YouTube channel to to help other people do the same thing yeah and if you if you think about it you know Lawn Care created my YouTube channel and my YouTube channel was created by other things in my life you know I got on YouTube as 38 years old I had severely crooked teeth my whole life and I was you know very insecure about that and it made me shy and it actually held me back in my life and I reached a a Breaking Point with that where I wanted to you know change that and get Brees but I didn't know what to do I didn't know if I was too far gone or what did on YouTube and man was I inspired by some of the Transformations and Journeys and I befriended some of them people sent them pictures and they told me exactly what to do and I went out and I did it I got back on there and posted my own videos and so I started YouTube by making videos about my braces as an adult how long ago was that Greg when did that start well I guess that would have been from 43 now so I guess like well four years ago when I first started making them videos for the braces and then my channel which is full of that stuff and I started working out too because then changing my looks building confidence started lifting some weights um I wanted to become more outgoing and YouTube was a big part of this because all the videos I would watch for self-help videos and motivation that you can do this and I was really truly inspired by that and I started working out too and eventually my channel was so clogged up with you know a variety of videos I decided to just start the current one that I have now which is in De Freak Fitness is what I called it and then I focused on just a few braces videos and my workouts in my everyday life and that's when somebody said what um why do we always see you have all these lawnmowers and trailers and stuff in the background when you make these videos what do you do for you what kind of lawn care work do you do I said well I'll make a video on it and I took them to work with me a day in the life of geek the freak lawn care and I showed them um you know how you I get up and make my shakes and my snacks and pack my truck up and load my stuff and get the kids ready and everybody does goes their wrong way and then I start cutting grass and I cut I think eight or 10 yards that day on video and put it up on there and next thing you know I have a whole bunch of lawn care followers and now my channel changed to Geek The Freak Fitness and lawn care so it all just keeps going and turning itself into so for those those people that don't know your lawn care video you have about 15,000 subscribers on that right now is that about right Greg yeah I'm getting really close yep right there okay okay and I'm a subscriber I mean I I subscribe to the channel actually it's fun it really is it's it's down to earth now would you say you put a lot of production quality into these videos that you make Greg or what would you say no I would say that I do it exactly how I um would tell people they can do with lawn care you can make videos on YouTube with basic equipment you can start a lawn service with basic equipment and you can grow into it the first 200 videos my channel were made with a Motorola um Atrix phone and no software no anything just a little YouTube editor you can use so we are teasing the audience at this point is what I consider we're just talking about the videos but this isn't really the the journey yet we haven't gotten into what you have done what I want the landscapers I want the contractors I want the business people out there to know is that you used lawn care as a launching point to develop even more you use the lawn care as an as a Avenue or a venue so to speak to create a YouTube channel and what did you discover once you created that YouTube channel well what I quickly discovered was like-minded people people um in the same boat as me I was I was um I was putting up these basic videos of what I do and I was finding out that I'm actually helping people and I was finding out people were piling in and leaving comments say that they do the exact same thing they feel like they're walking in my shoes and I got this sense of community a sense of I'm not alone in this world but there are other people doing the exact same thing and now I have a way to connect to them which I've never did I've been cutting grass my entire life since I my father started a lawn service and I cut lawns my entire life while holding down other jobs and I always felt like I was the only person doing that I never knew another Lawn Care guy people are telling me well while you were walking around in 1988 cutting yards they were too they're saying the same thing they did it all way along just like me and it's it's a really good feeling so your videos are getting into the you know the hundred thousands of views per video for lawn mowing lawn cutting what does that I'm sorry go ahead Greg I say that's absolutely kind of shocking to me I never expected any of that I was just making videos and letting the people guide me on what to put out other than that I was just putting out my day daily life stories and vlogging and so really it's because of the the questions and the requests that I even made those videos so it's absolutely shocking there was no like game plan to make a 100,000 view video so the lawn care started it the videos kind of continued the journey and are you going down A New Path um actually yes because at at one point I felt like there was so much going on in my life that I needed more of an outlet for it because I found that YouTube is sort of like your diary and therapy to a degree and it can be used as that tool it can be used as many different tools but self-help is mine and I needed more of an outlet so I would create other channels and so that I wouldn't plug up my lawn care Channel with random thoughts about other other subjects that they wouldn't like I would would post them up on these channels to give myself like I said an outlet for it and a release and then over the course of the last couple years a couple of the other channels have developed their own own little following or Niche and now I can post up anything I want and have an outlet forth and it goes to the correct person and we all get something from it I love that what you just said it you each Channel you've designed it to be in Niche and that's what I want us landscapers and excavators contractors in general to remember is as we're going out there to keep our eyes and ears open for other opportunities and YouTube has opened up those opport unities for you at this point hasn't it it's helped you to not only express and and express your emotions to discover your own interest to optimize those interests but to also create another Avenue of income yeah when I first started on YouTube I had no idea that they would actually pay you and I'm not sure that they they did that back then to a degree like they are now but my first channel about the breaking and stuff I didn't make any money off of that there wasn't either an option for it or if there was I didn't activate it and then when I started this channnel I did monetize it right off the bat it would make me you like 30 cents a day or something and so the the idea of making money out of it wasn't there so I just did it and I continued to keep my geek free Fitness and Lawn Care Channel as just my true to life Vlog but over the course of time with a few of the hit videos or what have you it it increased revenue and I'm like wow so another good thing came from this I got a I get a little bit of money from that and it it grows as I grow and I'm encouraging other people to do the same thing because you start one way and you end up another without even thinking about it you know you can be you can set a goal and start moving towards it and you could have great success along the way with other things you didn't know and that's what YouTube is doing right now but well I get a little bit of money from making these lawn care videos and the same time I thought well if I'm really GNA be some sort of go-getter I'm gonna go out and cut yards for a l and why wouldn't I try and see if I can develop one of these other channels into a money maker and that's what I've been spending this winter on and I'm kind of having success with that too now so tell us tell us about one or you know what one of your other channels is and what you've done to it it all basically started from you know lawn maintenance well um one of the other channels that I I will tell about right here cuz um the other ones are just I kind of I I like you having them a little bit private so that I can um press myself and share my videos without having all the same eyes on me that I know um but my other channel is called toy Freaks and it was actually just called Greg Chisum um until a few months ago when I changed the name and it was just Family Videos I'd take videos with my kids and I post them up there and just like home stuff you know playing in the living room and with toys and everything I I started seeing a pattern the certain videos were getting more views than the others so I focused on that I I I analyzed each video the descriptions the titles the tags everything involved in making that video like and just what made these a success and I've tried to repeat it and um I've had I've had some good luck with that and I've actually sent one of them by retitling it and tagging it correctly it went viral now and it it won't stop going it's just goes it's kind of making me some money and it's drawing more people to the channel and it gave me a better idea of so let's get it let let's put this into perspective so that other people can kind of get an idea what we're talking about is the ability to take your interests your hobbies your desires and to create cre a YouTube channel for that and then to monetize that channel to actually generate income coming in and you have one of your videos on a channel that our lawn care the geek to freaks don't know about it's called toy freak you have one video One video alone on toy freaks that has over 6 million views yeah absolutely shocking that video was it was just that was about playground for practicing editing for the first time so I would on that channel and that was one of the videos that I actually did a little bit of editing with and putting still pictures of my kids and it was unboxing a toy Christmas toy and it's it's right back there it's just one of your little interests one of your hobbies it's all natural it's not force and it's you know it's fun it's creative and it's rewarding and they can also be you know financially rewarding too YouTube is absolutely amazing a lot I think a lot of people might get into YouTube through the Landscaping and Lawn Care industry thinking that that it's a good way to promote their business and although it can be I think it should be used more for networking with other like-minded people because personally I as much as people say they've learned from me or been inspired to start from nothing and get a lawn service going I am constantly being inspired and I have a network and a group of people that I can contact and ask questions to myself so if I ever want to take things to the next level I can do that because of YouTube and because of all my little options I set up for myself with all these different little outlets on YouTube it's just expanded even more I can make videos with my kids I can talk about world news over here with other people I can do this and that and it's just just snowball just it all it connects but it all goes in its own directions and it just keeps leaving me in all different ways and so starting back to where I was saying I used to just be some dude walking through a backyard with headphones on in 1994 thinking I was some laser cutting grass and now those steps that I took back then I talk about on YouTube and it spread me out like a giant spider web in all directions and I've become I've grown into acceptance of who I am and I've made a lot of friends and it just benefits me in so many ways I don't even know I don't even know how to explain it it's all new too it's all new to me so if if you know somebody wants to explore this you know of going into the taking their desire their hobby their passion and you know sharing it with the world putting up a a YouTube video what kind of you know what is six million views what does that actually convert to into dollar bills roughly what is something like that what would somebody expect if they did all the steps the right way or what would you recommend that somebody does and then yeah what kind of return could they expect well you shouldn't expect a whole lot of return at first but there's a lot there are a lot of factors in the the revenue that you will get from a video but a good way to to judge a video if you do see one on YouTube if it has 10,000 views they got at least $10 for that probably $20 then you just multiply that if they have monetized it if they have monetized it and just because you've seen the ad before you watch the video doesn't mean they got that cut there are other factors into it but you can do this here's the thing about YouTube is that just like with the lawn care industry you are allowed to do this and it's free YouTube is free to start Lawn Care is it's not that involved to start one you can have basic equipment and have a basic license to operate in your city and go out there and just grow it and do what you want to do make it fit in your lifestyle your your lawn care and your YouTube and your life and then take your life and share it around and you will get more people that are likeminded and you all brainstorm develop a community feed off each other's energy and it becomes its own creature and that's what it's done for me so Greg you have taken the time though to make sure that you've monetized every video correctly so this is it doesn't just happen you know it's not happen stance oh it just occurs to you and you just all of a sudden you make a great video and all of a sudden money starts flowing in if you don't monetize it if you don't set up the system ahead of time or can you set up a system after the fact can you create a video see that it's going viral and then quickly monetize it or is it too late at that point yeah you can do that too if you have a video that that takes off you can walk through the steps there it's all um it's all on YouTube Google owns YouTube and the program is Google AdSense and you it's all on your dashboard on there you'll be able to walk through all the steps about monetization there are videos that show you how to do it and whether you already have the video up or not because be honest all…