Creative Business Tribe {What is this? Do I belong?} Creative approach and the creative mind for entrepreneurial growth. creativebiztribe.com
How To Get Motivated motivate definition, what drives you, the goal process and more via creativebiztribe.com
How to Make Money Blogging in 2021. How to create content. Ways to make money through your blog creativebiztribe.com
Career Shift {15 Questions to Ask Prior To}. Looking to make a career change, but uncertain about how to start? creativebiztribe.com
Wake Up You Need to Make Money - Creative Biz Tribe was created to help you make more money doing something you love. creativebiztribe.com
Wake Up You Need to Make Money - Creative Biz Tribe was created to help you make more money doing something you love. creativebiztribe.com
How to Make Money Blogging in 2021. How to create content. Ways to make money through your blog creativebiztribe.com
How to Make Money Blogging in 2021. How to create content. Ways to make money through your blog creativebiztribe.com
How to write a blog for beginners. So, you want to start writing a blog for your business because well one, you enjoy writing and two, you know how much amazing traffic can come to
Editor's note: One of my big goals is to eventually run multiple businesses so I can make even more bacon. For this guest post, it made perfect sense to reach out to Toronto photographer, (she is the one responsible for the brand photos on my site) Laura Benn who has experience running several businesses - Gooseberry Studios, Gooseberry Prints, Pawsh Magazine and most recently, The Prop Shop + Co. Read on for some very practical advice for running multiple businesses. Running multiple businesses can be a great option for multi-passionate entrepreneurs. However, it is also a great deal of work
How We Met I haven't met Ky-Lee in person yet but will be later this month at the GBR Anniversary Party. We connected online back in December after I had met someone at an event who co-authored a couple of books through her publishing company. The idea of writing a book was in the back of my mind, but I thought it was something that wouldn't happen until a few years down the road. I had mentioned it to that someone (Thanks, Amy!!) that I was thinking of eventually writing a book. And well, great things can come out of being
Are you leaving money on the table by not using Pinterest well in your business? Here are 3 must have Pinterest courses for bloggers!
Online course platforms: where to create your e-course? I have a guide that'll help you to understand which of the option is the best one for you!
Ah, Shiny Objects. They’re so full of potential, and overall - just seemingly harmless. But Shiny Object Syndrome could actually be the main hurdle hindering your progress in the creative business world. Watch the video version of this topic here: Shiny Object Syndrome is a pretty new term, so it’s not quite in the Oxford Dictionary yet. (At least, not as of writing this.) I think of it as something along the lines of: Seeing and chasing new projects and whims on a regular basis, causing a more or less abandonment of previous priorities before they’ve had a chance to finish up. And this is what it feels like: via GIPHY It took me way longer than I want to admit to see how my chasing of ‘shiny objects’ was delaying progress in the beginnings (and middle) of my business. These shiny objects were things like developing new products & services, trying to reach totally different audiences, trying out that one strategy that worked for that one friend, and focusing on growing yet another social media platform simultaneously. All of these new projects are totally viable routes to take - the problem is that this pattern of seeing a new thing and de-prioritizing the old thing would cause me to never fully see a project through. In my mind, I could juggle all of these things at once, but that’s just not possible when you’re only one person. The recognition of this forlorn pattern came after I got extremely detailed when tracking my time while working. (I still to this day hit ‘pause’ on my little timer for bathroom breaks.) I noticed that a huge bulk of my time was spent in the ‘researching’ category. Researching new things is definitely a needed part of navigating the online business world, but at a certain point, I realized that it was just endlessly tying my time up in possibilities and scraps of unfinished projects. So why can’t you just juggle all of those projects slowly, and just make incremental progress on each one as you go along? Isn’t that what western society tells us ambitious and productive people do? Yes, that is what they tend to tell us. But the problem lies in trying to take ALL the paths at once when you only have limited time and resources. In business terms - it’s increasing your opportunity cost, which we definitely want to avoid. When we scatter our energy across too many projects, we lose the opportunity to make big progress on one of them. Doing some quick and thoughtful research to understand your project options, and then choosing a path and sticking to it until you finish it, appears to be the absolute best & most efficient way to make progress in a one or two person business. I thought of an analogy that represents this chasing shiny objects debacle. Do you remember the Wizard of Oz? And Emerald City? And that distracting and beautiful field of poppies right before the city? via GIPHY Shiny objects are like the poppies - you have to get through them to get to Emerald City - A.K.A. your version of a successfully finished project - but you don’t want to get lost in them. If you start to cut straight through, and then a pretty poppy catches your left eye and you wander over to it, it changes your course a bit. And then as you’re going along, you see an even prettier poppy only slightly out of the way, so you wander over to that, naturally. Then you look up at Emerald City, and start going back towards it. By the time you get to Emerald City (assuming you don’t get lost in the poppies!), you did not cut straight through if you stopped at all those pretty poppies. You actually cut more of a chaotic, zigzag-like trail, which we all know is longer than a straight line. As artists/creative people, it’s usually easy for us to see the vision and end result of a potential project, and this is possibly what makes 'shiny objects' so alluring to artists in particular. But because of this, a lot of times we naturally get stuck in that romantic first stage of a project, and then when that newness wears off, we move on to the next exciting new vision. And then the old project is like: via GIPHY If you’re ready to move past Shiny Object Syndrome, in addition to the 3 techniques laid out below, there's a couple more resources for you: The Guide to a Modern Day Art Career: This is a video-led freebie that goes past just clearing your path of shiny objects, and gets into how to best line up your business ducks, and then learning some modern-day artist marketing techniques that really help you grow online. Get the Guide to a Modern Day Art Career Here The 7 Day Online Artist Plan: The 7 Day Online Artist Plan is an online course that eliminates distractions & gives you the blueprint for being an artist with a powerful online brand. And you'll be able to create that powerful online brand foundation in 7 days. It's super affordable, straightforward, cuts to the transformation part really fast, and there's nothing like it on the market today. Learn more/enroll in the 7 Day Online Artist Plan Here How to get through this field of poppies the fastest, A.K.A. 3 Ways to Overcome Shiny Object Syndrome: 1. Focus Everything Around Your Mission Statement My mission statement is the fastest and easiest way to choose which projects to work on by simply asking myself - ‘Does it directly align with my mission statement?’ You’ll find that a lot of these 'shiny objects' only indirectly align with your mission, and the fact that they could help your mission is what makes them seem relevant in the first place. But with such an abundance of directly aligned projects out there, cutting those indirectly aligned ones out are a no-brainer. Not to be confused with a creative thesis, some of the best mission statements out there are super simple, distilled versions of who that person/brand helps, why they do it, and how exactly they help. One of the most common mission statement pitfalls that I see in artists is that their mission statement is too much about them. For example: ‘Painting has been my passion for years. I started painting when I was 15, and find the creation process incredibly healing for me. I make mostly acrylic paintings, and have prints available as well.’ This first-person centered writing is an easy branding mistake to make, because naturally, our own perspective is the only perspective that we have first-hand experience with. But imagine being that random person on the internet that comes across a website with first-person-centered writing; you’d be like - ‘Ok, cool, but how does this help me? Why should I really buy this piece or read this blog when there’s a million other options?’ Or even more likely - the person coming across your work online just feels like it's not speaking to them. Once your work transitions from being a passionate hobby to a business, it becomes about other people, so make sure that you’re always writing and creating for not only yourself, but for your happy patrons too. Put yourself in their shoes, and answer the questions that they’re asking in their head. 2. Focus All Content, Projects, and Tasks on Who You Help To touch on the same vein as the directly and indirectly mission-aligned projects that you want to pile on your plate - let’s zoom in. The mission statement is the driving factor behind the overall, long-term vision that you’re working on, but helping your audience is a big part of that. (If it’s not, marketing and selling might get really tough.) You’ve probably conjured up more projects than you think that your audience isn’t directly helped by. But what do they really need? More importantly - and this is a much easier sell - what do they really want? What can’t they find? What are they wishing they could learn, do, make, feel, create, experience? By aligning your content and projects directly with who you help, you’re fast-tracking your growth and making your marketing efforts much, much easier. 3. Stand Out by Niching Down A lot of people are afraid of niching down because they’re afraid that they’ll back themselves into a corner or eliminate way too many audience members that they can really help. But niching down really helps you stand out in a big, loud marketplace. You’ll stand out not only by having legitimately less common products and content, but you’ll stand out in an SEO sense too. (SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization, and it just means ranking higher when people search for you on Google and other search engines.) A smaller niche has less competition than a bigger niche, so even though you’re reaching an overall smaller audience size when you niche down, you’ll have less competition. That's why 'niching down' works. Keep in mind too that you can always expand out of your niche later, once you've got thousands of loving audience members, but having a niche is a much more effective strategy when you’re not at that stage yet. Chances are, like many artists, you could niche down to a ton of different things. So, how do you choose where to focus? Get to know the marketplace! You might be like - ‘I mean, yeah, I already know more artists than one needs to know for 3 lifetimes, plus I took like 6 years of Art History.’ But that’s not quite understanding today’s marketplace. Pretend to be a random person looking for work like yours and give it a little Google. For example, if you’re a female artist focused on figure paintings of fuller-figured women that involves lots of flesh tones, then search for stuff like ‘figure paintings flesh’ or ‘fuller female figure paintings’. (And you might be sad to see that you’ve got some fierce competition in Jenny Saville!) Once you have a much more realistic grasp on today’s marketplace in your area of expertise - look for little gaps in the marketplace. What are you not seeing a lot of that you do? What do you - if you’re a customer - wish there was more of? Is there a certain technique, style, or skillset that you could tweak or develop that would fill in one of these gaps? If you can identify something here - that’s probably a perfect niche. I say ‘probably’ because sometimes there’s an empty gap in the marketplace because no one is actually searching for that, which is bad news for business if you're not able to create that demand. You can confirm this by doing some free keyword research on the various free keyword research tools out there. (As far as free ones go, I personally like TubeBuddy, which is a free browser extension that is used for researching keywords on Youtube.) And there you have it! 3 Ways to Overcome Shiny Object Syndrome Just by focusing on a super clear mission, genuinely helping your audience, and niching down, you can greatly fast track your progress in BusinessLand. Definitely don’t underestimate any of this because it feels too simple or easy. Remember, time is finite. Your energy is finite. You must sleep, make art, and have somewhat of a personal life, so you want to be as efficient as possible with growing your creative business. You just don’t have time to stop and smell all the poppies and still make it to Emerald City before dark! via GIPHY Don't forget about The 7 Day Online Artist Plan, which can fast track all of this for you. What is The 7 Day Online Artist Plan? It's an online course that eliminates distractions & gives you the blueprint for being an artist with a powerful online brand. And you'll be able to create that powerful online brand foundation in 7 days. Why is it so special? The 7 Day Online Artist Plan is affordable, straightforward, cuts to the transformation part really fast, and there's nothing like it in the market today. This is not a smorgasbord of advice wrapped up with a bow - it's a journey that moves the needle in a MASSIVE way because the strategy behind it is coming from someone who has both the business chops and the artist perspective. And it's set up to happen so fast that you can't get distracted. Learn More About The 7 Day Online Artist Plan Here
In this episode, Jamie Jenson discusses how to scale a business and write copy (with an authentic voice). She’s achieved amazing results for her clients and uses her previous comedy writing skills to hone in how she writes copy that converts like crazy! Jamie really believes that her busi
Ready to secure some media exposure for your small business? Here are 10 PR tools that the experts use that can help simplify your DIY PR efforts.
This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission, at no cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link. Please see my disclosure for more. Tailwind is more valuable than just automating your Pinterest account. Its new feature, called Tailwind Tribes, picks up wh
Smart Goals Template and smart goals worksheet with timely definition and more for the creative entrepreneur creativebiztribe.com
The other sales funnel that you’re totally ignoring (but shouldn’t be)
So for those who do not speak Spanish, "VOZ" means voice and part of this ever evolving project for me is to always think about how I can use it, This week I am sharing blog posts with an amazing woma
Stumping your toe, as you strive for the elusive work-life balance? Let me offer you something more realistic and meaningful!
Considering a Haute Stock membership for your blog or small business? Here is my honest review of this stock photo membership!
Why It's Important To Guest Post On Other Sites Necessary to help increase your online visibility as a blogger and an online business owner Potential to attract a bigger audience and you are able to link back to your site Cross promotion between the two sites to reach a wider audience and audiences you might not have been able to reach on your own Even though I don't advertise guest posting on my site, I still receive emails from time to time for these requests. The majority of the time, the emails sound really generic and spammy. I'm referring
3 Things I've Learned From NLP and Hypnonsis: Download the free Certainty Hypnosis Audio to Help you master yourself.
Editor's note: Hope you all had a restful and/or productive weekend. The following post is a guest post from fellow GTA (Greater Toronto Area) blogger, Graham Bell of Reverse the Crush. I really enjoyed reading about his experience and how he provided a key takeaway from each lesson he learned with respect to starting a business and failing. Is there anything to be gained from starting a business and failing? That’s the question I propose as you decide on whether or not to continue reading this article. And, in my own experience, the answer is so emphatically YES! For the record,
My Blogging Confession I have a dirty little confession to make. Well, I suppose it’s not that little anymore since I’m starting a blog post off with it. I had mentioned before that blogging did make me get back into my long-lost writing groove. However, I failed to mention that I originally started because I had read online that a lot of people were blogging and making money doing it. So I thought I could do it too. My boyfriend (now husband) and I were house-hunting at the time. We all know how financially draining/stressful purchasing a house can be,
Social Entrepreneurship: How To Save The World And Make The Big BucksHey, guys! Today is a great day because I get to talk about something that is very near and dear to my heart- social entrepreneurship. (AKA- the perfect combination of passion, purpose, and financial freedom. I find social entrepreneurs completely fascinating. They embody everything I […]
When I was going through my rough patch (to be honest, I can’t think of a better word to describe this), I felt like I really didn’t have anyone to turn to. Don’t get me wrong, my friends, fiancé now husband and some of my family knew what I was going through, but they couldn’t relate. They could only sympathize and provide moral support, which I appreciated dearly, but the one thing that was missing was empathy. I should mention that there were a couple of family members and a friend who could relate to my situation and I am truly
If you approach a blogging collaboration correctly - as a 'business' transaction - they can help to propel you forward toward your goals.
Hi there mamas! The holidays are here and I thought I’d do something fun and festive. This time of the year is notorious for spending money, right? Wouldn’t it be nice to just get something free for once and not spend any more? For the next 12 days I’m going to share a list of […]
Happy Friday folks! Today I'm doing a blog post swap with my friend Michelle from The Classy Simple Life. In this post, Michelle shares some awesome ideas on how to style and take photos for your blog. All photos in this post are taken by her. If you'd like to learn some tips on how to follow up with clients, check out my guest post over on her site. You've just launched your biz and you’re ready to get your blog going, but panic strikes. How are you going to make it look beautiful and unique to compete
Konyak Naga people at Wakching village.
There are two things that I often hear from people with respect to blogging. I hate writing/I’m not good at writing.I have no idea what to write about. And sometimes that 2nd point can be the cause of the first point. If you're a small business owner, you have PLENTY to write about. A lot more than you think. Not convinced? Check out the list below which contains 25 blog topics for you to consider. 25 Blog Topics for Small Business Owners: 1. How you got into the business. This can be a more detailed version of what you
Wondering how you can leverage your skills and how to make money as an artist? Here are our top 5 ways you can start making a living from your art!
Frauke is a Belgian DIY creator who uses blogging as a way to support her creative passions. Learn how she uses her blog to achieve that.
Let’s be honest – not everyone wants to think about their content all the time. And if this is you, you’re going to love this interview with Jordan Gill of Systems Saved Me where she gives us the REAL scoop on how to design a content batch week that’s soaking in self-care and gets your content off your to-do list for 6 months at a time. Operations Consultant and Host of the Systems Saved Me Podcast, Jordan Gill takes pride in saving hours (even days) around time-sucking technology decisions and an untrained team. She has been on the stages of She's Building Her Empire, Creative CEO Conference, Success Without Sacrifice, Blog Like a Boss Brunch, and Vision Casting while also being featured in Belong Magazine! She’s also had the pleasure of being interviewed on Creative Empire Podcast, Profit Planner, The Real Female Entrepreneur, Business Building Rockstars, Kickass Masterminds, and CEO Stories. Jordan lives in Dallas with her cavapoo Vivienne and loves to indulge in some true southern BBQ. Key Takeaways from this Episode What has your business journey looked like from when you first hung out that digital “come in, we’re open sign” to where you are today? I feel like everyone […]
By nature women are influential. Find out how your natural design sets you up to have behaviors like influential women leaders!
Tips for introverted photographers looking to gain confidence with clients - and what you can do right now to take charge of your business.
In Your Course Creation Lab blog you'll find online course creation tips, a comparison of the best digital product platforms, the most profitable course ideas and more!
Here are our top 4 podcasts to help you in your creative business! Podcasts are a wealth of knowledge so here are our top podcasts for creative entrepreneurs.
This is the second post in my blog series – planning for 2018. If you haven’t read it already, check out my last post, How to Audit Your Business Budget. In November, we’re going to be sticking with the theme of focusing on your biz finances. Setting an income goal can be a little scary […]
Today on the podcast, we have Claire Swinarski, a copywriter and content marketer for creative entrepreneurs. She has been featured on the Washington Post, Seventeen Magazine, Bridal Guide, and many other amazing magazines and publications around the country. Claire is based out of Wisconsin and she
Masterminds. What the heck are they are why should you consider one for 2019? As someone who has participated in masterminds and someone who hosts a mastermind there are some crucial things to consider when finding one for you and your business. In this podcast episode I walk you through w
In Your Course Creation Lab blog you'll find online course creation tips, a comparison of the best digital product platforms, the most profitable course ideas and more!
