If Robert Downey Jr. never got the part as Iron man, we may have had Dan Lok playing an Asian Tony Stark. 

He fits the bill. He’s rich, confident, intelligent, and always planning to go bigger and better.

I mean, he dresses in some killer suits; they just don’t happen to be made out of Iron.

Dan Lok has generated an obscene amount of views on YouTube over the years, granting him a spot as one of the most admired business gurus on the internet. He is very experienced at YouTube marketing.

Dan has a sincere conviction in regards to giving business and financial advice to millions around the world. By delivering many different content styles, from driving in his Bentley to having zoom calls with his sales teams, he has a diverse range of content on YouTube.

With years of experience in the game, Dan Lok has practically perfected the art of content creation in the business realm, so let’s break that down today.

1. Dan Lok Is An Exceptional YouTube Storyteller

A fantastic way of judging Dan Lok’s storytelling is to briefly look at the opening of his speech at the TEDx talk he gave.

Become an unstoppable force like Dan Lok.

The Unstoppable Force – The Real Difference Between Success And Failure

The primary skill to focus on here is when he asks the audience to imagine a successful person in their mind. Then he gives the central question he will be discussing afterwards.

Before Dan was successful, he lived in a one-bedroom apartment with his mom; he only worked one job in his life as a grocery store bagger, got into credit card debt multiple times, and drove his shitty $2,500 Ford Escort.

Dan Lok’s humble upbringing has made him a relatable personality on YouTube.

Dan uses these stories to connect with his audience by explaining his struggles first before explaining his wins.

Use this strategy in your YouTube videos. Always focus on the viewer’s struggles first. Emotion and relatability are what keeps viewers hooked to your channel. 

This powerful dynamic involves the audience personally and gets them to think about a real-life example of someone successful in their world. 

Success is on the razor’s edge of failure.

This is the pinnacle right here of successful storytelling. There is a reason why there are almost 1 million views on this video at the current time of writing.

The critical aspect of telling a story is not how you imagine it but rather how the people you are telling it to imagine it.

The questions you should be asking yourself are:

  • “Are they seeing what I see in my mind?”
  • “Are they thinking about the ideas that I’m trying to get across?”
  • “Are they bringing up real-life examples of my ideas from their own lives?”

These questions are critical. If you’re trying to tell someone a story, they need to be wrapped up in it just as much as you are, except just in their own way.

Dan Lok’s mentor, Dan Peña, explained the best way to tell stories, “He started with nothing, I started with nothing, I’ve got nothing. Meaning, or referring to the kids that are listening. So hell! we have something in common!”

Dan Peña (Dan Lok’s Mentor) knows that the most influential stories on YouTube always focus on the viewers watching the video.

So now you need to ask yourself, why are some people telling better stories than you?

It’s most likely because they are attempting to get the audience involved with these questions and techniques.

Creating content is all about telling a story, a story that people want to hear more of.

Your ability to tell a good story allows you to imprint people’s minds. Dan Lok & Dan Peña understand this well.

So when you make your next piece of content (which I know you’re thinking about now), you should consider this and try to understand how you can attract your audience to the ideas you want to bring to the world.

2. Dan Lok Hooks Viewers Eyes With Consistent YouTube Thumbnails

If you knew who Dan Lok was, there’s a high likelihood that you would recognize his thumbnail designs.

Most of us have seen a Dan Lok thumbnail appear on our home and suggested feeds (especially if you consume business content regularly.)

Since Dan Lok’s focuses on business, his thumbnails incorporate business, mindset, and lifestyle-related topics.

Why are his thumbnails so easy to recognize?

Creating near-identical thumbnails is an essential strategy that most YouTube marketers get wrong. Dan Lok uses nearly identical thumbnail designs to capture his audience’s attention! 

Create your thumbnails with consistency and uniqueness and add branding to your thumbnails.

Branding is what you regularly do that differentiates you from the competition.  

Here’s a list of ways you can develop consistent thumbnail branding:

  • Use the same colors.
  • Use the same thumbnail title font.
  • Use thumbnail titles with phrases that regular viewers recognize.
  • Position your thumbnail titles in the same areas.
  • Add your face to the thumbnails
  • Add colors and designs that reveal your personality.
  • Wear something unique (Dan Lok wears his suits.)
Thumbnails grab your attention, be unique and stand out on YouTube.

Most viewers will recognize Dan Lok’s thumbnails because they all use forms of flashiness, wealth, and humor.

As you develop your channel with similar thumbnail designs, viewers will recognize your branding and click on the video because they will know that you designed the thumbnail. 

If you have no idea how to create thumbnails for your channel, consider analyzing your favorite content creators’ thumbnails and steal some of their design ideas. You can replicate aspects of the creator’s thumbnails (titles, images, and faces.) 

Learn how to steal Dan Lok’s font for his thumbnails!

If you want to find out what font the creator uses for their thumbnail, take a screenshot of the letter and place it in the WhatTheFont! drag and drop tool. WhatTheFont! will then give you a list of options. First, choose a font that looks similar to the original text.

Searching for a specific image is also very easy to do. Take a screenshot, save it to your computer, then drag and drop the image into the Google “search by image” feature. Google will usually have a list of images that are either identical or very similar to the screenshot you uploaded. 

Remember, don’t copy every aspect of YouTubers thumbnails and put your face on it! Take inspiration and design your similar yet unique style thumbnail.

To demonstrate how Dan Lok puts together his thumbnails, we will give you a step-by-step breakdown of how Dan designed a thumbnail he posted 3 weeks ago titled, “How To Deal With Being Overwhelmed – Mentoring My Team.”

**We opened Photoshop and replicated Dan’s thumbnail from the ground up. Check out the full video here and download the .psd file if you want to follow the complete step by step breakdown!**

Take a look how we put together Dan Lok’s thumbnail from scratch.

The first thing that sticks out with the thumbnail is the title “Overwhelmed?”

“Overwhelmed” is a trigger word that attempts to connect with the audience by clicking on the video. The most common feeling that gets associated with being overwhelmed is stress. Dan shows the overwhelmed emotion with a dark red storm in the background. 

In the background, Dan added a clock and a business credit application, the clock represents time running out, and the business credit application is the document that determines whether or not a business is a credit risk. 

In the center of the thumbnail, Dan Lok is in his suit, holding two of his fingers to his head as if he is thinking logically (Suit=authority and Dan Lok’s branding.)

As Dan thinks, with the dark and stressful storm, the solution to saving time and receiving a loan appears with the yellow text and arrow saying, “Do This.”

The thumbnail brilliantly uses simple language that is easy to read and straight to the point.

With only three words, viewers scrolling quickly around the home and suggested YouTube pages will soon see the problem (overwhelmed) and click on the solution (Do This.)

The thumbnail doesn’t clearly explain what the overwhelmed feeling is, helping it create curiosity, and leads viewers to click on the video.

Dan Lok can quickly grab clicks from enthusiasts struggling emotionally with their businesses with a combination of curiosity, emotion, simple language, vibrant colors, and authority. 

3. Dan Lok’s Video Edits Keeps YouTube Viewers Watching

Dan presents himself similar to a Hollywood movie businessman. He’s always trying to show himself as an authority figure that knows what he’s talking about.

Although some of his videos might be cheesy, they are brilliantly recorded and edited by his team in ways that retain the viewer’s attention.

Dan tries to make his audience feel like they are in the room listening to his mentorship.

In his “A Day in the life as a CEO” video, his team edited the footage to show Dan teaching a zoom conference room.

Dan Lok utilizes animated text on YouTube.

He makes the video feel like a conference meeting with zero movement cameras. However, the footage eventually transitions to moving cameras that circle the room and make the video feel more like a montage.

Business meetings are boring, but Dan’s video team can turn the dull conference room into a cinematic experience. Dan’s channel’s primary focus is to take business lessons and turn them into digestible movies.

In his “Tell Me About Yourself” video that received 7.7 million views, Dan hooks the viewers with a made-up interview featuring a nervous interviewee.

The interviewee humorously makes mistakes, acts anxious, and asks to call his friend after Dan asked him a simple “tell me about yourself” question. The editors then implemented cartoon-like music and transitions to make the video feel alive.

Using cinematic effects, Dan Lok produces entertaining content on YouTube

This video performed well because the hook uses moving cameras, editing, emotion, and storytelling.  

All within 22 seconds…

YouTubers like Dan Lok have made the business/entrepreneurship space popular for a reason! Dan Lok’s production team can film anywhere throughout the penthouse, studio, and headquarters. He will show himself walking around as if each room is its video production room.  

Not many get to the level of success like Dan Lok has on YouTube

This allows Dan to shoot videos in different locations without making the video seem less repetitive.

He’ll shoot in front of his Bentley, penthouse desk, in a studio room filled with TVs, and sometimes in front of a parked-out private jet.

Dan Lok always finds new environments to shoot his YouTube content.

Even simple animations and sound effects can make the video come alive.

Simple animations can take your YouTube channel to the next level.

His videos will use text boxes to list necessary business steps, illustrations that clarify a concept, and motion graphics effects that emphasize a point.

Remember, you don’t have to do everything Dan Lok does throughout his video; instead, take ideas from multimillionaires like Dan and implement them with your style.

You can replicate what Dan is doing to catch his viewer’s attention even with a crappy camera and a mediocre microphone. You could also film at different locations, add sound effects and animated text through software like Adobe Premiere Pro or DaVinci Resolve.  

Having the ability to use expensive video equipment and editors will give you the ability to grow fast. However, it’s not a critical factor that leads to growth.

Ignore the equipment filming Dan Lok’s videos and focus on his strategies to retain his viewers. Instead, add value to your viewers, and the results will come.

Analyze popular YouTubers and implement their strategies with a phone camera, webcam, or a basic DSLR camera. Sometimes you will have the ability to outperform Dan Lok’s most recent videos by using the right strategies! 

Don’t be discouraged and start filming because before you know it, you will have the ability to purchase equipment you could have never imagined owning. 

Conclusion

At the core, Dan Lok and his production team are masters at putting together stories to tell while moving you to want to take action with your business or finances.

He does this by creating simple thumbnails that catch your eye, video editing that creates smooth transitions between scenes in his content and getting you to think about how to apply concepts in your own life.

The YouTube algorithm has shone a light down on Dan Lok and his content for engaging his viewers in a challenging sector of YouTube, the business sector.

Business and finances on YouTube are difficult to have any success in unless you’re talking about how you can make $1 million in 30 days…

Dan Lok is a veteran on YouTube who has made content for years. One of his main pieces of advice has been to be consistent with your work, and he has at least practiced what he has preached.

Let us know in the comments… Do you think Dan Lok is a genius YouTube marketer that genuinely tries to help entrepreneurs out? Or a scammer that is trying to bleed all of your time and money?

And if you want to learn how to master YouTube like Dan Lok, click the link below.

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