If you have a business, Dr. Ulrich Selz thinks you should have a YouTube channel. He's earned the right to say it: 655,000 subscribers, a bestseller, and two years without launching anything new while the income never dipped.
He's a physician in Germany. He still has his practice, but when the wait list hit a thousand people, he closed it. He's also built a German-language YouTube channel about gut health with 655,000 subscribers, and most of his focus over those two years went into writing Der Darm-Doc, a SPIEGEL bestseller.
So what paid the bills while all his focus was on the book? Recurring revenue, from his channel and his two communities. One is a self-help group for people with gut health problems, and the other is where he teaches therapists how to help those people. He says it "made me comfortable to write this book."
Then we dig into how he runs it all, week to week: one long video a week, scripted word for word, the numbers he checks first, and the freebies that turn viewers into leads.
In this conversation, Dr. Selz and I get into:
* What paid his bills for two years while he wasn't launching
* Why he closed the wait list for his practice at a thousand people
* Why he calls subscribers "just a prestige number"
* Why 60 or 65% of his watch time comes from people who aren't subscribed
* The 15 to 20 freebies he pitches inside his videos, and why "Amazon has the email address, not you"
* The free online area he built for his readers, and why 30% of book buyers went in
* Why he thinks everybody with a business should start a YouTube channel
FREE RESOURCE: The three plays from this episode, written up for you in the free resource kit. The 48-Hour Check, A Freebie for Every Topic, and The Pre-Sale Runway.
→ https://podcast.stu.me
CONNECT WITH DR. SELZ:
* Website: https://doktorselz.de/
* YouTube (German): https://www.youtube.com/@DrUlrichSelz
* YouTube (English): https://www.youtube.com/@DrUlrichSelz_english
* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr_ulrich_selz/
* Podcast (German), Dr. Selz - Dein Gesundheits-Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dr-selz-dein-gesundheits-podcast/id1888730284
CONNECT WITH STU:
* Website: https://stu.me
* Book "Predictable Profits": https://a.co/d/4GIi1uz
* Instagram: https://instagram.com/stumclaren
* Podcast: https://podcast.stu.me
* Membership.io: https://membership.io
Subscribe to the show if you want income that doesn't depend on your next launch. That's what we dig into here every week.
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Two Years Without a Launch (Cold Open)
0:27 - Meet Dr. Ulrich Selz
0:56 - A Bestseller Built on YouTube
1:18 - The Golf Lesson That Started It
2:40 - 655,000 Subscribers
4:09 - Closing a 1,000-Person Wait List
4:35 - What the Channel Really Changed
5:58 - YouTube Is an Underrated Lead Source
6:38 - 15 to 20 Freebies
7:10 - The Hard Side of Being Visible
8:05 - How to Handle Hateful Comments
9:00 - Title and Thumbnail Before the Script
9:45 - Why He Never Plans Far Ahead
10:56 - Shoot Tuesday, Rewrite Wednesday
11:21 - One Video a Week, Word for Word
12:17 - Watch Your Video While You Write It
13:10 - When the Format Stopped Working
13:44 - Most Creators Are Bad Viewers
15:16 - Your Audience Shifts Without Telling You
16:40 - Core Audience vs New Audience
17:36 - Data-Driven Creativity
18:31 - The Monday Morning Check
19:03 - Why He Ignores His Subscriber Count
20:04 - Most Watch Time Comes From Non-Subscribers
21:23 - A Freebie for Every Video
22:36 - Why the Publisher Said Yes
25:00 - "Not on Instagram"
25:41 - Building Buzz Before Launch Day
27:01 - 11,400 Pre-Sales
27:25 - Turning Readers Into Subscribers
28:30 - A Free Members' Area for Buyers
30:02 - 30% of Buyers Came In
30:32 - Why Every Business Owner Should Start a Channel
31:32 - What an Underperforming Video Teaches You
33:14 - Use AI After You Publish, Not Before
34:43 - What He'd Do With Stu's Channel
35:11 - Launch Syndrome
35:42 - Two Years Without a Launch
37:00 - Where to Find Dr. Selz
37:42 - Stu's Key Takeaways
