8 Game-Changing YouTube Lessons From MrBeast’s Consultant
And how you can use them to make your content better today.
MrBeast is the king of YouTube.
As of today, his main channel is the most-subscribed channel on the platform — 309 million subscribers.
He and his team mastered the art of getting people to click on videos, watch them until the end, and subscribe.
I interviewed the guy who worked with MrBeast for years.
His name is Mario Joos (@MarioJooss).
He works with the best YouTubers on the internet, and each of his clients has millions of subscribers.
He’s considered the #1 Retention Director in the world — knowing exactly what gets the most views in a YouTube video.
Click here to listen to our conversation.
But I wanted to share my 8 favorite lessons from the YouTube wizard himself. 🧙♂️
1) What is retention? 👀
I asked Mario to explain retention to me like I’m an 8-year-old.
Step 1: grab the viewer’s attention.
Step 2: keep (retain) their attention.
Engagement is helping the viewer take action — liking, commenting, subscribing, etc.
But strong retention is helping the viewer do nothing. It’s making time fly by without them knowing.
“It’s like a film,” Mario said. “When the best movies end, you don’t even feel the two hours pass by.”
2) The 5-step process for researching anything.🔬
Mario met huge gamers and YouTubers with connections from his PUBG career.
When tasked with “figuring out” the YouTube algorithm, he became obsessed.
I asked him about his research process. He broke it down into five steps.
1) Capture all available data.
- look at other content
- what are other people saying?
- what conclusions, philosophies, or concepts already exist?
2) Read research papers.
- find randomized control studies on the topic
- make sure the authors and sources are credible
- compare their findings
3) Ask why.
- question everything, no matter the source
- just because something sounds logical doesn’t make it true
- we rarely question people who sound confident
4) Read books for inspiration.
- have at least a basic understanding of everything
- make sure you have context
- you may not be a cameraman, but know about camera angles
5) Experiment.
- run A/B split tests
- see what happens
- find correlations
3) Average View Duration (AVD) and Click-Through Rate (CTR) are misleading metrics. 📊
Every YouTuber prays at the alter of these two metrics.
CTR = % of people who click on the video
AVD = % of video watched
Sounds like that’s all you need, right?
But according to Mario, neither of these correlate with views — the ultimate prize of the YouTube game.
I didn’t understand this until a few Grindstone creators began complaining about views being down while AVD and CTR were up.
Mario confirmed that creators often get confused and sometimes depressed when this happens. They think they’re doing everything right but aren’t seeing results.
(Mario made a 10-minute video explaining his findings.)
4) The first 3 things Mario notices in a video. 🧐
I wondered what the #1 Retention Director looks for when watching a YouTube video…without having any data to analyze.
This was his top three…
1) Visualization: look & feel, pacing, editing
2) Speech: sound, articulation, clarity
3) Charisma: likeability, personality, vibe
Get these right, and you’re off to a great start.
5) Does MrBeast-ification actually work? 📣
People criticize MrBeast’s style for being too stimulating and over the top.
He yells, uses action-packed sound effects, and paces his videos for a child’s attention span.
But then he tweeted this…
So I asked Mario about it.
Is the internet getting tired of the MrBeast-ification of YouTube?
“No,” he replied. “I think Jimmy is just getting older.”
Mario explained that while it may be annoying to some…doing things to keep people’s attention, well, keeps their attention.
“Take Minecraft creators,” Mario started. “They get older and think they should mature their content because they themselves are maturing. But the 12-year-olds aren’t disappearing.”
Likewise, if you make fitness content…Eventually you’ll turn 60.
That doesn’t mean you have to pivot into fitness for old folks. There will always be younger people who are just now getting into whatever your thing is.
6) When your car is on fire, don’t worry about pumping up the tires. 🔥
Put out the fire first.
This sounds ridiculous but so many creators do this.
“People will ask me,” he shared. “Mario…should I use red in this photo or yellow?”
“And I’m thinking…There’s nothing interesting in your video. You’re talking about five things people already know about…And you want to know which color to use??”
It’s like someone who’s never worked out asking about which supplements to take.
Step 1 is going to the gym consistently. We can discuss which brand of creatine to buy later.
Fix the problem first; don’t hide behind hacks. If your videos suck, SEO and timing of upload won’t help you.
7) The top 3 mistakes beginner creators make.❌
While Mario only works with massive creators, he shared the biggest errors he sees in the YouTube world in general.
Mistake #1) Thinking the world will change for you.
Novices think if they just work hard enough, if they’re passionate enough, if they pour their heart and soul into something…
They’ll be successful.
Wrong.
“Audiences won’t adapt to what’s possible for you,” Mario said. “They have so much content available to them. They have a certain standard.”
“If you meet that standard, they watch. If you don’t meet that standard, they don’t watch.”
In short: the market speaks.
If you’re not succeeding, it’s because you’re not good enough yet…Not because “the algorithm is being weird.”
That’s good news. It means you can practice and improve.
Mistake #2) Wanting a business but treating it like a hobby.
If you want 100k+ subscribers and millions of views, then you have to run your channel like a business.
The problem is when creators treat it like a passion project on the side — posting inconsistently, not making changes to improve, and focusing on what they want instead of their audience.
“If you’re doing this for fun then that’s fine,” Mario explained. “But if you want a very successful YouTube channel then you have to treat it like a business.”
Mistake #3) No vision.
Mario notices a lack of consistency in smaller creators from video to video.
“The best creators focus on one thing for a while,” he shared. “Then, once they become an authority figure…they can branch out and make content about other things.”
But too many creators try to branch out too early.
If you make content for everyone, you make content for no one.
8) The #1 lesson learned from MrBeast. 💡
Mario has worked with some of the largest YouTubers in the world.
I had to ask…
What’s the biggest thing you got out of working with MrBeast and his team?
Mario responded quickly with two words:
“Think big.”
Other creators are planning their next intro script. The Beast team is working on a new channel in a new language to reach more viewers worldwide.
“Small creators ask, Is this possible?” Mario said. “Jimmy just goes, Make it possible.”
He also shared about summit syndrome: the feeling of emptiness once you reach the top of something.
“Be sure to set your goals impossibly high. That way you can shock yourself by what you achieve.”
Mario is one of the brightest minds I’ve ever interviewed.
He’s also a goofball. We had fun.
Hope there’s something you can learn from him to make your thing better and faster. ✌️
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