Not new leads. Existing conversations - coaches and consultants who had already engaged, asked questions, or shown intent - that were sitting in my community with no tag, no stage, no follow-up scheduled. Within 48 hours of setting up a proper CRM inside Skool, I had over 50 potential leads mapped and tracked that I would have continued to ignore by accident. Let me explain what a CRM actually is, because the acronym puts people off. Imagine you're a GP. Every patient who walks through your door has a file. That file tells you when they last came in, what you discussed, what you prescribed, and when they're due back. You never start a consultation from scratch. You never forget who they are or where you left off. The file does the memory work so you can focus on the diagnosis. That's a CRM. It's your client file system. Nothing more complicated than that. Now imagine that same GP trying to run their practice entirely from memory. No files. No notes. No record of who said what or when. A patient calls back and they're starting from zero every single time. Appointments get missed. Follow-ups don't happen. People fall through the gaps, not because the GP doesn't care, but because the system isn't there to catch them. That's most coaches and consultants right now. The pipeline problem in this industry isn't a lead generation problem. Most people reading this have had more conversations with potential clients in the last 90 days than they realise. The problem is a lead visibility problem. The enquiries are there. The interest is there. But without a system to track where each person is in the journey, who needs a follow-up, who's ready for a discovery call, who went quiet three weeks ago and might just need a nudge - those conversations evaporate. A CRM doesn't generate leads. It stops you losing the ones you already have. I've been using Panda for this - it runs natively inside Skool, took about an hour to set up, and gave me a Kanban-style view of every conversation in my community organised by stage. No third-party tools. No data leaving the platform.

We've known this for a while, but it's worth saying out loud again in 2026 because the noise around Shorts is louder than ever. Here's what's actually happening. Someone searching YouTube for help with their coaching business isn't scrolling for entertainment. They're on a mission. They're evaluating who knows what they're talking about. And a 10-15 minute video that answers the exact question they just typed in does something a Short never can, it builds the kind of trust that makes them want to reach out. One well-placed video targeting a real CAT Moment, a Challenge, Aspiration, or Transformation your ideal client is actively searching for, can still be generating inbound enquiries six months after you published it. Without you touching it. That's not a content strategy. That's an asset. Shorts have their place. But if you're a coach or consultant and your goal is qualified inbound leads - not views, long-form is still where the work gets done. What's your experience been? Are you seeing long-form convert better than short-form, or has something shifted for you recently?

I've got a meeting next week with one of the UK's largest events companies - and if it goes well, I'll be speaking at business events around the country. First time I've pursued this. Nervous and excited in equal measure. The reason I'm doing it: you don't own YouTube, LinkedIn, or Skool. Any platform can remove you without notice. Speaking is one of the few channels you actually control. Will report back after the call next week. Anyone else taken their online business offline? What worked?

So, what is the difference between The Content Revenue Lab and this new community? Quite a lot, actually. In the Content Revenue Lab, I teach over 40s how to monetise their YouTube channels. Whether that's via a Skool community or digital products, and even courses. This community is actually set up to work with COACHES AND CONSULTANTS who already have coaching and consulting clients. You're already using social media, but you either haven't thought of using YouTube or never knew you could actually get leads from it. In this community, we also teach you how to use YouTube as your customer service agent, your marketing agent, and your sales agent. Believe it or not, YouTube can do all three.

Not because they're lazy. Because nobody told them there's a difference between content that gets views and content that gets clients. I just broke down the three stages and the progression that actually works - in a new article inside the community. Here's a link to the article - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-most-consultants-choose-wrong-youtube-video-type-desmond-dreckett-6qqle