How Will Hamilton built a successful business with his blog about tennis

• Will Hamilton’s tennis blog Fuzzy Yellow Balls
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(Literal) Text Transcription of the video :

Olivier Roland: So, you are famous in your industry for your blog “Fuzzy Yellow Balls”. Before we recount the history and why you created that, can you just tell us today what is your blog, what’s the profit? What is your revenue? So, people can grab the importance of it.

Will Hamilton: Sure. I will give you some numbers I think will make sense and everybody will resonate with. On YouTube every month, we get about one to two million plays, video plays.

Olivier Roland: Wow.

Will Hamilton: Yeah. One to two million plays per month. So total, we have about 29 million plays on YouTube. And we use a model called a “Product Launch” to sell products at certain times during the year. So, our last product launch for example did about $170,000.

Olivier Roland: Wow, great.

Will Hamilton: Yeah. We’re doing well.

Olivier Roland: So, in French “Product launch” is “Super Lancement” or “Lancement Orchestré”. It is the main way of selling products that I teach in the course. So Will, can you tell us when did you start your blog and why?

Will Hamilton: Well, I started the website, the blog started in 2007 but before that I had coached tennis sort of “in real life”. So, to speak what you would traditionally think of as a tennis coach on a tennis court. And, I had played it in college I guess you all say in university.

And, I graduated in 2004, taught 2005-2006 and was actually about to quit and move into a different sort of a traditional job, you could say. And, I was kind of debating. You know, I wonder if this online tennis thing would work, because, I went to YouTube and this is just when YouTube had got started in 2005-2006. And there were some tennis videos up there. One in particular and “how to hit with topspin?” “What is topspin?” And it had about 55,000 plays.

Olivier Roland: Wow.

Will Hamilton: It had a lot of plays. And, it was a good video. The content was good but the production quality wasn’t very high. It was kind of just you know, the people didn’t know much about video. So, I said to myself you know, “People are looking for this” and I think if I put together some high quality video, then this could really have legs, in other words this could do very well. So, we started in 2007 and you know here we are.

Olivier Roland: So, I think we have got the good view of your business, how you did that. Do you have a tip for people that want to create their blog right now?

Will Hamilton: Well right now, we’ve talked about take an action. That was the first thing. And that’s got to be the number one piece of advice, because I think a lot of people, you know when they don’t know how to do something and they’re trying to get into something, they sit there and they do research. They try and learn and they try and learn. You absolutely should always be trying to learn more, but at a certain point you have to apply what you’re doing.

So, you have to take action and we’ve talked about that. Anybody you see that is successful, they’ve taken action. So, that would be number one. Just get going, even if you know, perfect is the enemy to good.

Olivier Roland: Yeah.

Will Hamilton: You know, get out there and start.

You know with the video in particular, it’s similar with the take an action but that’s a process in itself and you need to, like we said earlier, get a process where you can produce video pretty quickly. And there’s a number of ways you can do that whether it’s putting a camera on a tripod, pointing it at a dry erase board, and them diagramming some stuff, or using Camtasia to capture your computer screen, or doing a webinar. There is a bunch of ways to skin a cat.

Olivier Roland: Yes and actually, there is a camera on the tripod,

Will Hamilton: Yeah.

Olivier Roland: A microphone here and that’s all.

Will Hamilton: Yeah I mean you…

Yeah, you don’t need to do anything more than tripod and camera. And if the content is good, hopefully I’ve said something valuable, but if the content is good, people are going to watch it.

So you know, if you’re still watching right now, then maybe that’s the proof that the content was good enough to keep you watching. And, you don’t need anything more than a tripod with a camera and a microphone like this.

Olivier Roland: And you can see that the video is far from perfect,

Will Hamilton: Sure.

Olivier Roland: It’s not fancy, like what you can see on the TV but it doesn’t matter.

Will Hamilton: Yeah, it really doesn’t matter. There’s people riding bikes in the background.

Olivier Roland: There are noise from cars and all.

Will Hamilton: Exactly.

Olivier Roland: Ok. So thanks Will, I think we have great tips from you and I hope it inspire people to do the same thing in France, not only in the tennis market but in all of the markets in France. You know guys that today, if you want, there are huge opportunities to take some. I hope that after this video, you will just take action.

Will Hamilton: Oh yeah.

Thanks for having me Olivier and I hope so, you all take action. I hope that I provide you something valuable and what is it… How to say next time? Is it la prochaine fois?

Olivier Roland: A la prochaine.

Will Hamilton: A la prochaine.

Olivier Roland: Merci Will.