111: What’s Working for Business Owners On TikTok In 2026 With Mike Yanda
If you think TikTok is just dancing and trends, this episode will change how you see the platform. In this conversation, Mike Yanda breaks down how coaches, consultants, and service providers are using TikTok to generate real revenue.
He shares the exact content strategy and simple funnel that helped one client generate over $75,000 in a single month.
This is about building a system that converts TikTok views into clients.
PS: Mike and I met because we are both speaking at Social Media Marketing World this Get your ticket to the conference and come hang out with us in person.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
00:00 Why TikTok is still one of the easiest platforms to grow
07:03 The biggest myths about TikTok and who it is for
08:00 What content actually works on TikTok in 2026
15:04 The “model, validate, personalize” framework explained
22:43 Why consistency beats perfection every time
26:08 The simple content-to-client funnel that drives revenue
27:07 How to turn views into leads and sales
44:59 How to use TikTok and Instagram together for growth
48:25 First steps to start and what to focus on as a beginner
Key Takeaways:
TikTok rewards clear and helpful content
You do not need viral views to make money
Your content must match your offer
Consistency builds momentum with the algorithm
Simple funnels convert better than complex ones
Views are data that help you improve
Confidence comes from repetition
Links Mentioned:
Get your ticket to Social Media Marketing World
A Truth You Need to Hear:
“You don’t need millions of views to make money. You need content that connects with the right person and leads them to the next step.” - Mike Yanda
S3 Ep111 Transcript - What’s Working for Business Owners On TikTok In 2026 With Mike Yanda
00:00
Today we're diving into a platform that I know many of you have questions about, and that is TikTok. I'm chatting with Mike Yanda, who went from being a lawyer to building a massive online brand. And now he's known for helping coaches and consultants become thought leaders and drive serious revenue on TikTok. Mike is going to bust the biggest myths around who TikTok is actually for.
00:24
You're going to discover what's working on the platform right now in 2026 for small businesses and brands. And he's sharing the exact monetization funnel that helped one of his clients generate over $75,000 in a single month using TikTok. I hope you're pumped. Let's go.
00:45
Welcome to Strut It, a podcast about creating bold visibility on social media with zero apologies. I'm Elizabeth Marberry, your host and Instagram marketing coach. I help small business owners get seen on Instagram and monetize their offers so they can make more money doing their sole led work. If you're tired of spinning your wheels on Instagram and you're seeking simple, proven Instagram marketing strategies that actually work, you're in the right place.
01:14
Let's dive in.
01:24
Welcome back to the show. I'm so thrilled you have joined me today because we are gonna be geeking out on all things TikTok. And I hope you're pumped because I brought on the most epic guest. His name is Mike Yanda and he is a lawyer turned stay at home dad who built a multimillion dollar digital course brand and a seven figure social media agency.
01:51
Mike and I met because we are both speaking in this April at Social Media Marketing World. So if you have not yet gotten your ticket to the conference, what are you waiting for? You can come hang out with us in person. But Mike, I'm so excited to officially welcome you to the show. thanks for having me. I'm excited to dive into all this. Yeah, I'm so excited. Okay, so this is such a fascinating story. Lawyer turned stay at home dad, turned digital media empire builder, like.
02:18
Give us the scoop. How did this happen? Tell us your story. It all happened by accident. I never thought I would be here, honestly. I fully intended to be a practicing lawyer, finish school, pass the bar exam, started working in an oil company, doing a lot of contracts and different things. But, you know, I had a lot of student debt. And so when I was in law school, I started an online business and I had gone through this big weight loss transformation, which I need to go through again.
02:47
But I went through that whole journey and had a lot of people asking me what I was doing, how I was doing it as a newlywed, a new law student, all of that kind of stuff. And I started helping people. And then I was like, hey, I could make some extra money to pay for this $200,000 in student debt I have. So I started doing paid coaching. And then I was like, well, I don't have time to be on social media or Twitter or do a blog or all the things that were big at that time. And so I started running Facebook ads and then
03:16
That took off and I built this business and people asked me how I did that. And so I started helping other coaches to run ads and do all of those things and just got really into the social media world. So by the time I had been practicing for about a year, I just left my little career behind. The business was doing really well. I had a newborn was the first of three kids that I would end up staying home raising. It's just been an incredible journey. And now my wife does not work anymore. She's got her own antiques business. So it's like completely changed our lives. And it was just.
03:45
accident. It was just me figuring something out for myself, helping other people once I figured that out. mean, and that's the entire info product digital marketing world, right? It's just solving problems and helping other people solve problems. So I've just kind of stumbled my way from thing to thing. But, you know, I've been doing this for over a decade now and doing it really well. And I geek out about it. It's so much more fun than litigation and law and all that dry stuff. my gosh, like night and day, I can only imagine how much more fun it is to make content than
04:14
practice law. 100%. 100%. I love it. So how did you specifically, like what year ish did you migrate into TikTok? Because I know for me, I can only speak for myself, like TikTok really got on my radar in 2020. I'm curious for you, like when did you start to kind of discover it and learn how to create for that platform?
04:40
You know, I'm really bad at dates, even like going back to like when I started doing this. What I do know is I've had a YouTube channel for two years now, and that's pretty much around TikTok. So I had started probably at least a year before then. And that really just started out of, had all of these clients we were running paid traffic to. So we were doing Facebook and Instagram ads to help them generate leads for their coaching businesses. And I would have people that come to me, well, it actually started with my clients that were running a lot of paid traffic, that they had no organic presence.
05:10
and they wanted to grow one. And at the time it was like, I mean, when you think back three, four years ago, was like nearly impossible to grow on Instagram. And so they were like, hey, kind of interested in TikTok, but you know, I'm really not about dancing and all of those kinds of things. And I was like, guys, like this is social media. Like if you have valuable information to share with people, like you can go out there, be a talking head and grow a brand. I just, had some clients, they just didn't, they didn't believe me. They weren't willing to try it. And so was like, cool, I'm gonna go show you. And so.
05:38
I went and I started posting and went from zero to 10,000 followers in under 45 days and then kind of blew up from there and then started helping a bunch of clients do it as well. like one of my clients, we got him on TikTok. He already had a pretty successful coaching business. We had grown to about 20 to $30,000 a month with paid traffic. I mean, his first month on TikTok, he brought in $75,000 worth of more coaching clients. So it just very quickly started to blow up.
06:08
It just became this great way for people that had service-based businesses, weren't really ready to use paid traffic, maybe just hadn't built it to where they were comfortable to make that kind of investment. It was like, it's okay, let me show you how to make some content and start generating leads and learn these systems to turn your content into clients, the exact same systems you would use with paid. uh And it's just become a big part of the business and of the agency now. uh I don't know the exact dates, but it's been at least three years or so and through all the waves that we've had.
06:37
in recent years with TikTok. And it's still, it's one of the best, easiest places. I mean, I could just keep rattling off stories of people, but it's one of the easiest places to grow right now. Yep. Then if you're selling high ticket and doing some of those things, and a lot of people think like that audience isn't there, but it is. Totally. Which is such a great segue into, I wanted to talk about the myths that people have about TikTok. Because when I talk to my clients about it, a lot of them are like,
07:03
oh, well, I'm too old for TikTok. Like that's a young demographic or I don't want to dance. I don't want to entertain people. So is it worth it for me? Or, you know, I'm a chiropractor or I'm a record store owner or kind of like feeling a disconnect between this is my product or service based business, but no idea why I would be on TikTok. Like it's like a total misconception of what TikTok is about. So
07:31
What are those myths that you hear and that a lot of our listeners are probably thinking in their head, like, I don't know if TikTok is for me. There is so much to unpack there. I think the first thing is that if you look at how Instagram is right now for business owners and the type of content that you're putting out, that's what TikTok used to be, like maybe two years ago. And so a lot of this text on screen, like that kind of stuff, TikTok is now more like short form YouTube. It is very much more
08:00
educational content, you showing your expertise, helping people, you're just doing it in, you know, let's say 60 second to three minute length. That's kind of what it looks like. So if you have an expertise, if you have a problem that you help people solve, there's really not a better place to be right now on TikTok. The one I would argue would maybe be YouTube, but if you don't have the time or the ability to do this longer 20 to 30 minute content with all the editing and all those things that go into it.
08:28
Like TikTok is the way to go. And that was kind of how I got my feet wet to get in, to have the confidence to go do YouTube. So I think that's the first big thing is just understanding what it is. It's really picking up your phone and talking to it and sharing your expertise. And it's FaceTime style video. It's not overly produced. It's not edited. Honestly, the uglier the content, the more you're going to win right now, especially in 2026. So that's kind of, think the first thing to know. You mentioned the age stuff.
08:56
There's just a huge opportunity in social media in general for people that are older, way older, but like I just turned 38, but if you're 35 plus, 40 plus, like you have a big opportunity. And if you're 55 plus, you have an even bigger opportunity because people want to see people like them and they want to see people with life experience. And so there's all these little AI, you know, 18 year old entrepreneurs out there.
09:20
That's not what people want to learn from. They don't want to learn from the life coach that has no life experience or the business owner that hasn't actually built a business and is relying on chat GPT. They want to learn from like the real people. so experience is mattering more than ever. And we're seeing a lot of older and more experienced creators that if they can just get over, you know, getting on camera and showing their face and talking, they're crushing it. Even like I've got a vocal coach and
09:47
I don't know how old the guy is. don't want to, I don't want to make him out to be older than he is. I'm not sure, but he's got full on silver hair, older guy. He's a vocal coach and you know, we just started getting him going on Tik Tok and he went zero to 22,000 followers in his first 30 days. And he was bringing in at least half a dozen clients at like $1,800 a month that he's bringing in these vocal clients. And he's like, I've always just been referral based. And now he's just talking to people about
10:17
singing and improving their voice and drills they can do and things like that. And when people actually get value from your content, people always talk about like your content has to be valuable. But what it really comes down to is if it's helpful, if it helps them to understand why they're stuck and it helps them to figure out what steps they should take or how to get from point A to point B, whatever it may be, if you can do that and people start to see you enough, it builds so much trust.
10:44
And then they're going to want to work with you further. And so it's really just about going out there and just helping as many people as you can. And, you know, there's this whole tick tock jail thing people talk about. We could probably dive into that more talking about myths, but your worst case scenario is you're stuck at 200 views, but that's still 200 people that you're reaching every single day with your content. And all it takes to land a client is to help one person. And you'd be surprised how many people watch one video from you or watch one podcast. And they're just like,
11:14
wow, that is amazing. And they reach out and they wanna work with you. Like that's how business works, that's how social media works. So there's a lot of opportunity there. And I think the platform's a little bit different than most people think, especially if they're only using it for entertainment. And they're only like watching comedy and skits and random stuff. that's, it's like, there's two sides to TikTok. There's entertainment and then there's expertise. And if you're on that expertise side, it's a lot more like YouTube. Wow, that is so...
11:43
cool and it's kind of making me want to go adjust my TikTok algorithm. Like I want to scroll with intention and like the expertise video so can see more of those. Do you coach your people to do that? Yeah, 100%. I find that that happens sometimes with Instagram where, you know, part of doing really well on Instagram is, for example, one of my clients, she is a singer songwriter. And so sometimes I will see a video pop up.
12:07
of an independent artist showcasing their music in such a brilliant, unique and simple way. And I'll share that reel with her and then she'll essentially recreate that reel. And it does so well. And it's because, okay, this was a proven content type and you essentially just repurpose that for your business. And so part of doing Instagram effectively is knowing what is happening within the culture of Instagram, right? What are the trends? you those proven concepts? So I would imagine on TikTok,
12:35
it would be similar. So if you're listening and you're thinking, I am on TikTok, but all I'm seeing is all this like cringe content that is so not at all what Mike is talking about, then maybe it is time for you to clean up that algorithm, my friend. Like, is that a thing, Mike? Is that a thing that you tell people to do? 100%. Yeah. First off, like if you don't like the content you're seeing, you're seeing it because you were consuming it. So that always cracks me up and like, I'm getting all of this stuff. And it's like, well, I know what you were watching then. Like that's how you got it. So.
13:05
Yeah, you have full control over your, it's called the for you feed, right? Your for you page or whatever you want to call it. And you can control what it shows you by what you watch and by just clicking on videos and saying that you're not interested. And so what I always encourage my clients to do is if you want to just consume TikTok, because you want to scroll in the evening to relax and unwind, that's fine. But use a different account for it. Like set up a dummy account. That's your fun account. That's your entertainment account. That's,
13:35
for your late night binge scrolling. All right? But when you're working, like your feed is your most powerful content research tool. I mean, anybody that knows anything about YouTube or has ever thought about starting a YouTube channel, like there is a culture of content research of, okay, I'm going to search the keywords for my topic and I'm going to see what videos are ranking and I'm going to look at the titles. I'm going to look at the thumbnails. I'm going to use those for inspiration. But nobody does that on TikTok, which is just dumb because
14:05
TikTok is every time a video goes viral, they're immediately looking for another great video on the exact same topic to feed the demand they have on their platform because these videos have a short lifespan. So something blows up and then the next day they want the exact same thing to blow it up again. And the same stuff blows up over and over and over again. So content research is a really big part of that. And if you curate your feed to only be about your niche, then you don't even really have to do content research.
14:34
because every time you show up, the algorithm is gonna show you the best three, four, five videos that are out at that moment for your space. And so like, if you look at my feed, it is all about TikTok growth. And so I sign on and usually the first video I see, I'm automatically saving to an ideas catalog. That way I can go back and I can create my version of that video. And the method that I always teach people, we call the MVP method. M is for model. So basically you want to model proven ideas in your niche.
15:04
V for validate because we don't want to just model any videos. We want to outlier videos. And so I'm looking for videos from creators that get way more views than they normally get. And that varies depending on the size of the creator. So a small creator that never gets more than 500 to a thousand views, if they suddenly get 15, 20,000 views, that's a pretty significant outlier. And there's a good chance that you as a small creator could blow up with that kind of topic as well. But if it's a bigger creator that's getting tens of thousands of views every single time,
15:34
Well, what are the ones that are getting half a million, a million, two million? Like we're looking for those much bigger numbers. Like basically is it a standout content for them? And if it is, then that's a sign that you should be creating content like that, which kind of gets us to the P which is personalized. Like we want to model content. I probably have it sitting right here. Yep. My favorite look in the world for business owners and for content creators is still, still like an artist by Austin Kleon. And you can read this in an evening. It's pretty much like an adult picture book. Like.
16:04
Everybody should pick this up. But the idea is that there are no original ideas out there. There are just things that have worked over and over and you need to take those concepts and make them your own. And that's that personalized part. And if you think about painters, Like Picasso did not become Picasso overnight. And if you actually look at his art through history, you see how it changed over time over these five, 10 year periods, whatever it may be. Because artists start...
16:32
by mimicking the greats and using their techniques and replicating their art. And then as they do that and they learn more and more techniques, they make a mistake and go, oh, I like that. Or they try something new. They break the rules, but they learn the rules first before they break them. And that's what you have to do with your content. You have to learn the rules. You have to learn what's working and you build those things. And then you start to understand what good content is on the platform. You understand what are the topics that are in demand? What is a good hook?
16:59
Like what is your editing style needs to be? You're gonna find your own voice too. And like the style that works for you, because it's different for everybody, but you only learn that through the reps. So at the start, you find those videos to model, you make sure that they are, you validate, that's what the V is. You validate that they're outliers. And then you go make your version. You put your spin on it, you know? Use the same hook, use the same title on the screen, know, text on the screen.
17:24
but if it's three tips to grow on TikTok, like don't use their three tips. I don't even watch other people's videos. I just swipe basically the packaging and then I share what I believe, right? In my way, in the way the things that I talk about and the things I throw stones at and the things I agree with. Like I try to put all of that in there. So when people find me, they either like, absolutely love you. I want to follow you. I'm gonna follow all of your advice. They're like, guy's an idiot. And they get off my page, which is totally fine because I only want to attract.
17:53
like my little corner of the internet with a bunch of people that are weird in the way that I'm weird, that agree with what I agree with, you know? Like that's what you're trying to create to grow your brand and to attract clients. So probably a long-winded answer there, but I mean, that's really the process is like you said, we're modeling that content because most people don't actually know what good content is at first. They're just guessing. Yeah. And I love that teaching because I think there's this belief that adults have that when I start something new, I should just be good at it.
18:23
Yeah, no. Right? Like, it blows my mind. So I was a performer, professional dancer, and this would happen all the time where, you know, someone would come to a show and they'd be like, gosh, I can't dance like you. And I wanted to be like, of course you can't dance like me. I've been studying this for like 10,000 hours. Right? Yeah. But there's this sense of like, when my clients start doing this work, they're like, well, I did it for a month. It's not working. And I'm like, you got to keep going. Right? Like, you have to keep
18:53
at it, I think it's this perfectionism that comes up. know, social media is so vulnerable, right? Like you're saying, I'm going to share my opinions. I'm going to share my lived experience. I'm going to share my thoughts on this platform or my thoughts on this strategy that I'm testing out. And so it's totally vulnerable because you're putting it out there publicly. People could totally shoot you down, which to your point is a good thing because that means that's not an ideal client or follower for you. So goodbye. But I think it's one of those things that
19:22
because people are actually afraid of what other people are gonna think of them, they get into that other side of, I'm just gonna listen to all the podcasts, I'm gonna read all the books, I'm gonna watch all the YouTube videos, I might even hire the coach, but I'm not gonna necessarily go and do it. And there's always something underneath that. And I think it's this belief that, oh, well, Mike's doing it, it's so easy for him. It's like, no, Mike has just been doing it and doing it over and over and reiterating it. And I love that example of like an artist.
19:52
No one is just perfect out of the gate. It's like, you got to get those reps in. And I love the piece around the authenticity of like, you can take these proven formulas and concepts. You do not need to reinvent the wheel and you can add your own authentic voice. And that's what makes it your brand, right? Exactly. Whether it's a personal brand, whether you're a CEO of a company, right? Like we need to see people's faces. We need to see faces of team members.
20:20
Like in this world of AI, we need to hear voices and perspectives. So I love that you kind of pulled all those pieces together. Well, I want to touch on that, being confident on camera and all of those kinds of things and that perfectionism and all that, because I did that for a long time. My YouTube channel, I thought about starting a YouTube channel every day for five years. I took every single course that's out there to learn about YouTube. Part of why I went to law school is because I'm like a compulsive researcher. Like I just really love learning.
20:49
And so this business world, it's not much better. Like I buy so many courses and like study so many things, like even when I shouldn't be, I have to cut myself off. I wanted it to be perfect. I want to have the perfect plan, the perfect strategy. And there's no such thing as that. And one of the things that was really appealing about TikTok to me was nobody had to see you. It's going to complete strangers. You can go into your settings and say, don't sync this with my contacts. Don't show this to my Facebook and Instagram friends. Like you can turn all of that off.
21:15
and just go out to a bunch of people, have no clue who you are, and just let your content and your expertise just survive or fail based on how good it is. And I really love that. And that really gave me the confidence to get started and to go out there. And then as I started to have some success with that, it's a lot easier to step at YouTube and start sharing everything there. And you're gonna find your voice just from posting the content. And that's why I like this kind of modeling approach, because instead of you worrying about coming up with ideas or...
21:44
the little technical hacks or things that you think are gonna get you more views, because none of that actually matters. It's just like, okay, here's a proven idea. I'm gonna go make my version of it. Like, what do I want people to get out of it? A lot of times when I'm doing content, like, I was trying to think about what do I want my brand to be? How do I want to be different? And one of the big things that I thought about was like, I wanted to make the content that I wish had been out there. Like when I'm trying to learn things and I'm not happy with the content that I'm seeing, what is it that I'd wish I'd seen? Well, I wish I had seen
22:13
more deep dives, more actionable, less fluff. And so that's what I always try to bring to all of my content. And so once I did that, it was just like, look, I'm just going to commit to doing this for a very long time because the only way you can fail at content is to give up. Like if you just don't quit, you're going to make it eventually and everybody's on their own timeline. And so as soon as I did that, like the pressure was off. And I think too, you talk about like worrying about what other people think. I think there's two sides to that. There's
22:43
worrying about what people think about your opinions and what you're sharing and worrying about what people will think about your results. And at the end of the day, most people do not care. They don't care about you. They don't know you. They don't care how many views you have, your peers and stuff. Like some of my best friends in business, like they don't even know I have a YouTube channel. Like they don't, they just don't care. People don't care. Even the people that care about you do not give a crap. So you just got to get over that and get on camera. People are going to hate your opinions. Like that's a fact. So
23:12
It doesn't matter. Share your opinions. These algorithms are designed to show content to people that they want to see. And so if you go out there and just state your opinions and state your beliefs, you might attract haters. You might attract people that disagree with you. But those people engaging are only going to push your content further. It's only going to make your content more successful. And 90 % of the people that are viewing your content, they're seeing it because what you have to say is what they want to hear.
23:42
It's kind of like this reaffirming loop. so don't worry about it. Like who cares what a random stranger that doesn't even have a real username and has like a Hot Wheels car as their profile picture has to say about you. Like it doesn't matter. You'll never talk to them again. You'll never think about it. I've probably had two or three instances over the years where, especially as my content's really blown up, where I've had somebody say something that I'm like, oh, that kind of got to me a little bit, but then I go to sleep.
24:12
and I forget about it and I spend time with my kids and like, it doesn't matter anymore. Like at the end of the day, like there's all these people that you can help for free and there's all the people that you help in your business. And if you don't just get over it and put yourself out there and not worry about what you look like or what you sound like, if you can just set all of that aside, you can completely change your life. My biggest regret in my business, you know, over the decade that I've been doing this is I should have started sooner. Where would my YouTube channel be if I'd started it right away?
24:40
and I've been doing it for seven years instead of two years. Where would all of my social media be if I had started earlier? How big would my email list be if I had started generating leads for it early on? You're always going to regret those things. You're going to regret that you didn't start, not that you did. So I hope that helps somebody because I've been there, you and you made that comment about like, I'm not like Mike. Like I didn't figure it out. I got comfortable and I learned how to talk on camera through just talking on camera and action builds momentum and momentum builds confidence. Like you don't reach a point.
25:10
where you suddenly feel better about posting, you just keep posting until one day you feel good about it. Absolutely. That is my exact process as well. Like I resonate with you so much. And this is why I wanted to bring you on the show is I had heard Mike being interviewed by Michael Stelzner on the social media marketing podcast. We were both on that podcast. And Mike, when I heard you talking to him, I felt like you were saying,
25:38
the exact thoughts I have in my head. So I just really appreciate you sharing your voice and your lived experience and your vulnerabilities. And I know that our listeners are going to be impacted by that. So thank you for that vulnerability piece. And I want to move into monetization. You've mentioned now like multiple clients who, oh, he made $75,000 in a month or, you know, oh my gosh, you're selling high ticket sales or so connect the dots for us because
26:08
You know I'm a huge fan of organic content and I know that you also have an ad strategy that you weave in. But I'm just curious when you're talking about the monetization within the organic growth, like can you share with us a little bit of behind the scenes of like a sales funnel or how that works? Yeah, so everything should be guided by your offer, right? Whatever it is, whatever the problem is that you solve, the transformation that you provide with your offer. And I'm saying this like speaking to
26:38
kind of digital product creators and coaches and service providers, those are the kind of people I work with, but it can apply to a lot of other things. If you know your offer and you know the kind of people that buy your offer and the problems that they deal with and the desires they have and how you help them, like that's your content. And if your content is anything but talking about those things, then you're not gonna attract the right people anyway. So that's a big part of it. And I always talk to people about how we wanna create this like content to client pathway. We want it to be
27:07
really easy so that way when they discover you from your content for the first time and they go to your profile, your bio and your pin videos and your other content are all similar to what they discovered you from. And then when they click on your link and they look at your offers or your landing page, that that's congruent as well. And if you can create this clear pathway, people are gonna find their way to your offers and your funnel doesn't have to be overly complicated. When it comes to coaches, I mean,
27:35
Everything at the end of the day comes down to a book of call funnel unless you have like a massive massive audience And so that's what we focus on is is selling a high ticket, you know booking calls with people And so you really just need to be either having you know, people DM you getting people into the DMS reaching out to prospects or Generating leads getting name emails phone numbers those kind of things and we use a lot of systems where we do a lot of SMS marketing and so You know, we want to be growing our list
28:03
So we can email and we can make offers. I love email marketing. And we want, as leads come in, to be having conversations with people and talking to them about what they're dealing with and what their goals are, and use that as a bridge to get them onto a call. Sales come from conversations, like conversions from conversations. So that's what we're trying to generate. And so to me, it's the same whether we're doing organic or we're doing paid. With organic, you're going to have these extra opportunities where
28:30
people are gonna DM you and they're gonna reach out to you and all of those kind of things. But we wanna have a system that's predictable to plug people into. And so for us, it's having some sort of lead magnet, whether that's a free community or a video training, like a BSL type thing, or it's a ebook. Or it could be uh some people like book funnels. They wrote a book and they use people that way. I don't really care what it is. I just want name, email, phone number, and then I want to be tracking.
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How many leads did we bring in today? How many people did we talk to? How many people did we set on a call? How many people showed up for the call? And how many did we close? And so if we look at that, leads, sets, live calls, and close rate, like if we look at our leads conversations, sets, live calls, close rate, those five pieces are basically our entire business. And so then all you're doing is you're either spending more money with paid or with your content, you're trying to get more views and you're trying to drive more people in there. But really the magic
29:29
And it doesn't matter if it's organic or paid. It's not just how many leads that I generate. It's what do you do with them afterward? And so like we have very specific KPIs that we're trying to hit that we know like, I know that if you bring in a hundred leads, like at a minimum, you should be getting too high ticket sales from that. We know that because we know the percentages that we should be getting from lead to a conversation. How many conversations should book a call? How many people should show up? How many you should close as bare minimums? And so.
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I'm big data nerd. Like when you're tracking those numbers, we don't have to guess whether the funnel is working or anything like that. All we have to do is identify the weak spot and then apply the correct remedy. And so we do, we run from spreadsheets and I have all my clients tracking their numbers and it's basically like diagnosing the problem and applying the remedy, like just like medicine. And you fix one problem and then you move on to the other one.
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eventually it just becomes this well-oiled machine and then you can just roll and roll and roll. So like that client that I said did 75,000 in his first month, I mean, we had been working on that machine with his paid traffic. And so he kind of had it pretty dialed in. So as soon as we started collecting leads, you know, we put his link in his bio and his content started to take off. It was just like, okay, cool. We have way more volume of leads now, but we're still converting them at the same rate. So that's the kind of thing. I don't really care what your lead magnet or your bait is to bring people on.
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But we use like high, go high level. We get a phone number. We have text automations to follow up with people. We have conversations with them, book them on calls. And then with the content, we're just making sure we're talking to the right problems and we're attracting, you know, the right people. And if you know the transformation you provide and you know who your ideal client avatar is, it becomes a lot easier to create your content. question about.
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how it works with TikTok, because obviously I'm teaching Instagram this exact thing, sales strategy and funnels. One of the reasons I love Instagram is the DMs, right? The direct message feature, it's so key. DM automation, I can send people links, things like that. On TikTok, what is the strategy of, okay, so let's say I did a talking head video about, you know, five ways I'm growing on Instagram in 2026, okay? And I'm teaching.
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Would I mention my freebie at the end of the video or would I say, you know, in my caption, like link and bio for my free Instagram growth guide. Like, are you doing any calls to action or are you just kind of hoping that, oh, the content's so good that the consumer is going to go on their own path? Because with Instagram, the call to action is like very, very important. Not that you have to always has to be in that way, but.
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I'm a big believer that like you need to tell people what to do as well. I think they're a little bit culturally different, but also if TikTok had some of the tools, like if you could get people to comment and have the automations with mini chat on TikTok the way you could on Instagram, I would have an absolute field day with that. would love that. But I get it, you know, but what I always tell my clients is people are smart, at least if you want smart clients, like I want to work with smart people. And so if I have to tell somebody,
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to follow me or to go check out my profile, then they're probably not the level of person that I wanna work with. So that's just my belief. I understand calls to action are important and especially with paid advertising, I've known that. But what I've just seen is people find their way and it usually takes more than one touch point. And so what I want to create is I wanna create an environment where people see me everywhere.
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And I want to create an environment of binge behavior where people keep watching all of my stuff to where I am who they associate with the problem that they want to solve. And then they just want to work with me more. And, you know, we going back to like my other company where we have all the courses and everything, we have some really cool advanced analytics that we operate in that company. And there's a blog and like all this other stuff. And we found that it usually takes people consuming 25 pieces of our content before they buy.
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It is like the average pieces of consumption. That's reading a blog, reading an email, watching a YouTube video, consuming a podcast. We have all of that data to the point where we started when we noticed that somebody was at that critical mass, but had not purchased. We started triggering a pop-up specific to them on our website that had a incredibly high conversion rate, getting people to buy a $500 course. Right. So it's the same thing with your content, like on TikTok.
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If people see you enough, they will want to buy and they will seek out what you have, especially if it's really clear from what you do. And so what I try to do instead is if you're going to do a call to action, do it in the middle of your content and make it very casual and very organic. I always tell everyone, don't put your calls to action at the end of your videos because finish rate is such an important metric on TikTok. So TikTok is looking for something called play duration, which just means how many people are watching
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the video, like what's the most amount of watch time, but it's watch time plus finishing the video. So you gotta find the sweet spot of getting them to watch and getting them to finish it. Little different than on YouTube where watch time is much more important and you see people game it and they'll be like, hey, here's the complete guide to doing this and it's a six hour video because even if people don't complete a big percentage of it, they just got two hours of watch time, like, it's massive and so they're gonna get big views. So you have to kind of keep those things in mind. So I don't want anybody swiping off videos.
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So on TikTok, it's like, can you surprise them with the video ending? Like, can you just abruptly end it? Like you get to your point and you don't summarize, you don't tell them what to do next, you don't ask for the follow, you just end the video. Because if you do that and it loops and they start watching it again and then don't realize it, then you're actually gonna get more views. And so we just want to create a snowball effect of somebody watches enough of our content that that video gets pushed, but now they're getting served other videos.
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and we wanna start having enough success where we have a bunch of videos going at once that are just driving a lot of traffic to your profile and are starting to build those fans that stop every time they see you in the feed and seek out your profile to watch whatever new videos you have. When you do that and there's a clear connection, that content to client pathway between your content, your bio and like making it about them and who you helped and then your offer.
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that's in your link or multiple offers in your link if you use like a stand store or something like that. If that connection is clear, people are going to find their way there. And I've just found like more traffic beats telling people to go do something. It's not always the case, but I definitely, I'm only putting in calls to action when I feel like it's a really natural fit and I try to make it super casual. So that's my approach to it. I do the same thing on YouTube.
36:30
I have never asked anybody to like or subscribe on a single YouTube video. done over a hundred videos and have almost 70,000 subscribers now. But what I do instead, the only call to action I've ever done on my videos is I tell them what video to watch next. So I'm telling them all these tips to get more views. And then I get to the end and say, okay, now if you put all of this together, you're probably going to get a lot of views, but sometimes people run into a situation where they're getting the views, but they're not getting the followers. So I want you to watch this video next.
36:59
That way you can learn the changes that you need to make to your content, your profile, to increase the number of followers you're getting per post. And it's solving the next problem. It's like, hey, now you know all these things about growing on TikTok. You're probably going, how can I start making money from this thing? So I want you to watch this video next, which is my complete guide to how to make money on TikTok, you know, as fast as possible. Those are the only call to actions that I do in any kind of content. I'm not saying it's 100 % the right way. It's just what I do and what I've found to work really well across all the people that I've worked with.
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Yeah, that makes total sense because you're valuing the view and the complete watch time. And you know that if the call to action isn't organic or it's too salesy, people are going to swipe away and you're trying to drive up those views in the traffic so more people can see your content, gets in front of more ideal clients. And then those really highly qualified people are going to take those next steps to click the link in your bio. So that makes total sense to me. You and I could definitely go on and on.
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forever on this topic. We're so aligned in how we teach. To kind of wrap this up, I would love for you to share some beginner first steps. So we have a lot of small business owners. We definitely have some coaches and consultants. We have some creative entrepreneurs from different industries listening here. But if someone is like, OK, Mike, you are totally motivating me to start on TikTok. What are a couple first steps?
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Well, the first thing is you just got to start posting and just make it sloppy. Like just get something up, okay? A big part of having success on TikTok is just training the algorithm to understand what your content is about or categorizing you. Cause every time you post a video, like this is probably would have fit with the myths, but this 200 view jail, like TikTok's doing it intentionally, but they're not putting you in jail because they don't like you or they think you're bad. What they're doing is they're showing
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every video to a sample audience of 200 to 300 people and then they stall your video until they can analyze that data. And then based on how well it performs, they either push your content to more people or they just leave it there. And they do this for every single video and every single type of creator. And so if you have a video go viral and your next video goes to 200 views, like you're not shadow banned. I know that's what a lot of people think. It just means that you made a really good video and you made a crappy video. Like, you just need to...
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identify the patterns and learn from that. But one of the things that can help is that when you're very consistent with the topic and of like what your content is about, the algorithm has a better understanding of who to show your content to. And their goal is to show content to people that they're going to consume that's gonna keep them on the app. So when you hear, and this is like one of the biggest things I'm constantly fighting on TikTok, like if you go on your feed, there's so much conflicting advice, so much of it is BS.
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And there's like little strategies like engaging from the bottom up or using this feature or these little things that it's like, if you do this, it will get you more views. And none of those things work. What actually works is people just really loving your content. And so if you're consistent with your topic, the algorithm is going to show your video to 200 people that are interested in that topic instead of 200 random people, which is going to increase your chances of getting good views. And then it's just about tightening up the content. So
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early on, embrace the 200 views because it means that essentially no one is seeing your content, no one is judging you, nobody cares yet. So use that as an opportunity to be consistent, to develop the habit, to get categorized and to learn how to create good content. That way when your day comes and you blow up, you're ready for it, right? And you're better. So I think that's the first thing. The second thing is kind of what I said, be consistent with your topic. Don't confuse the algorithm. If you post about
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fitness one day and finance the other day, you're really going to struggle because maybe you have a video that does pretty well with fitness and then you talk about personal finance. Well, now that video is shown to people interested in fitness and they're like, hey man, I just want to know how to be less fat. Like I don't really care about saving money, you know? So that can be super helpful. And then just modeling the content. Like we said, don't worry about analytics. I know I talked about play duration, watch time, finish rate, and all those kinds of things. The only metric that matters, your only scoreboard is views.
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If you start trying to figure out where your video's dropping off and how, you know, you're just going to confuse yourself and you're just going to get frustrated. All that matters, get to hundred videos as fast as you can. Try to make all 100 of them modeled off of proven videos. That way you don't have to think of ideas. You can just talk and then look back at what works. Like, okay, you did your first batch of 20. Which one did best? Okay, let's make that video again, but make it different.
41:45
Let's take the hook from that video and let's apply it to another one of your content pillars. Like let's experiment a little bit. That's really all this is. If you look at the views, you double down on what's getting the views and what's working and then you iterate it, right? You talk about that topic with different hooks in different ways. You apply whatever patterns you're noticing between your working videos to other topics. if you do those things, like you're going to be successful. It's just a matter of how
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consistent you show up, how quickly you learn these things. So that's what I would do. Get to 100 views as fast as possible and just keep it simple. The easier you keep it, the easier it's going to be and just tune out the noise. Like really, there's so much bad stuff out there. Yes. Okay. These are great tips and I just want to highlight for everyone listening that because I know you're listening to this because you want to grow on Instagram too. Like anyone who's listening to my podcast loves Instagram or they want to be seen on Instagram.
42:40
So I have really good news for you, my beloved listener. As an Instagram coach, marketing strategist, everything that Mike shared would apply to Instagram. The only exception might be his take on calls to action, because you can kind of play those in different ways because of DM automation on Instagram. But besides that, seriously, Mike, everything you said today, I want to make this bridge for the listener, applies to Instagram. And one of the things I want to highlight is that
43:09
Mike, how you describe the TikTok algorithm. know, Instagram recently changed their algorithm after watching TikTok and learning about the recommendations based algorithm, right? And so that is actually how Instagram now works. And that's why on Instagram, it actually doesn't matter how many followers you have anymore. They show it to a small group of people, 200 people, depending on how those people interact and engage with your content. If it's getting a lot of engagement.
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it'll be shown to more people and so on. So everything that Mike shared with you today, just remember that when you are investing in learning these skills, whether it's TikTok, Instagram, any kind of short form video platform, it's so worth your time because you can apply these skills to other platforms, right? Because I know you're busy, I know you're stressed out, I know you have a lot going on. So this idea, I'm sure that after listening to my chat, you're gonna be amped to get your cute butt on camera.
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and you're gonna be doing these FaceTime videos in your car and you're just gonna get those 100 videos out. And I wanna tell you that you can post those talking head videos on Instagram. 100%. Right? It used to be like, Mike, this is a myth that I hear all the time. Oh, well, it's so different on Instagram. Okay, yeah, they're different, but here's the good news. Instagram used to be so buttoned up, right? It used to be so polished, so aesthetically pleasing.
44:31
It's not like that anymore. Instagram is definitely following more suit with TikTok in terms of the authentic, raw, messy, ugly, because people are desperate for authenticity and they're desperate for that sense of belonging. So as you're listening to this and you're gonna go create those talking head videos, might give you so much gold structure so you know exactly what to do and go run with this. I want you, my beloved listener, to listen up right now. Those videos that you're gonna create for TikTok,
44:59
I want you to post them on TikTok. want you to post them on Instagram. And if you have a YouTube, why not put them on YouTube shorts, right Mike? Yeah, 100%. Honestly, one of my clients, Kyle, has been absolutely crushing it with TikTok. And he started maybe two months ago, putting it on Instagram and automatically posting it to Facebook. And he's now getting more views and more followers on Instagram and Facebook. And Facebook is actually his biggest revenue generating platform and view generating platform right now. So.
45:28
All of them have switched to this type of algorithm. So all of those things are going to apply. You just got to go out there and do it. know, one thing I would say, I love that Instagram can like auto post to Facebook. And I know there's tools that can do that, you know, from like TikTok to Instagram and all those kinds of things. Use those if you have them. I'm just, you know, allergic to tech, but you know, only commit to as much as you can do, you know, try to own a platform. But once you've owned a platform, like once you were having success,
45:55
You're doing well, whether it's on Instagram, whether it's on TikTok, when you can consistently show up and you have a routine and you know you're not going to miss a day and you've started to figure it out, then add another, start posting it on that other platform. You have nothing to lose. And there's so many ways for you to take that content. You can literally pull it down without the watermark, post it on another platform. And usually it's going to work as well over there. And one of the cool things is that sometimes videos that flop on one crush on the other and vice versa. And so you're actually going to get more run out of all of your content.
46:25
It's more data. The views are data about what works that are only gonna let you get better. But you don't get that data unless you start posting and you get the reps to begin with. Oh my gosh, this was such an epic conversation, Mike. I know everyone is gonna want to know how they can connect with you, follow you, find all your resources. So tell us, where should they go? I think the easiest place to start is to go search my name, Mike Yon on YouTube. And then you can find my TikTok, you can find my email newsletter, you can find all of those things from there. But if you really want
46:55
deep dive content, like that's where I put it. Like you can go follow me on TikTok and I put stuff out there every day as well. But you know, I am an educator. Like I teach more than I'm not trying to do a bunch of salesy stuff. So when I put up a video, it's like pull out a notebook and get ready for 20 minutes of just scribbling because I don't take a breath. I talk fast. You guys have gotten a preview of it today and I probably slowed it down a little bit. Just go there, put my videos on 0.75 speed and uh.
47:25
you know, take notes. my gosh, that's so funny. I love that. I love that. Well, we'll be sure to link your YouTube, your TikTok, all the things in the show notes. Everyone definitely go give Mike some love, binge his content, especially if you want to grow your business on TikTok. He's such an expert. And don't forget to grab your ticket to social media marketing world. Come party with us. Yes, come party with us.
47:48
We get to hang out in person, we get to meet in person. It's going to be so fun. And yeah, we'll link the conference down in the show notes for you too, if you want to come to our sessions and say, hi, we could film some content, right Mike? Let's do it. Okay, awesome. Thank you Mike so much for being here. I appreciate your time. Yep. Thanks for having me. was fun. I hope that you got so much value out of my conversation with Mike.
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If you did, do me a solid and share this with a business bestie or colleague who is wanting to understand and grow their brand on TikTok. I so appreciate your support and I can't wait to strut it with you next week. Thank you for listening to strut it. If you're ready to start leveraging Instagram to grow your business, then you're gonna wanna grab my free monetize your IG guide.
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where you'll learn seven simple and proven ways to finally make money on Instagram. You can grab your guide at ElizabethMarberry.com slash freebies. That's ElizabethMarberry.com slash freebies to get my monetize your IG guide. If you got some incredible value from today's episode, be sure to leave a review and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform.
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and I cannot wait to start it with you again next week.
