How to Grow Your Business by Becoming a Cage Rattler
Cage Rattle Tuesday! Actually it doesn’t have to be a Tuesday, but a great business technique is to plan one day a week to check in with some of your contacts, rattle their cages. Why? Because most of the opportunities that happen will come from keeping yourself on the minds of others. If you are like most entrepreneurs and creative producers, you network in person, make connections on the web, add peeps to your address book and have stacks of business cards. If you initially follow up with people, you may leave it as a “let’s keep in touch, I am sure there are some things we can collaborate on”. Perhaps then the weeks go by, maybe months, and there is no contact. The other person has dropped off your radar and you have dropped off theirs. But try to reboot the connection.
You could come up with a list, nothing fancy, just a list of people you want to revisit. I have a few categories in my management software named “brewing” and “connect”. Brewing is for projects and people that are more simmering, we may not have an immediate plan to collaborate, but down the line there may be some stuff. I also have a connect category, which are people I have met online or in person. Initially there may be no immediate reason to be in contact, but I do like to check in with them periodically to see what they are up to.
If you mark on your calendar to once a week go through your contacts and just rattle a few cages, you may be quite amazed at the response. You could hear “oh I was thinking about contacting you recently” or “I wanted to get your advice on something”, often they will be glad you are back on their radar. You may hear of a new project they have coming up that you both could collaborate on. If nothing else you’ll get a scope of their current projects.
Everyone is usually working on so many different things that if you don’t talk to someone for a whole month, you miss a ton of developments. Developments that could, or should, include you.
Are you a cage rattler?
Business Cards – It’s Better To Receive Than To Give
A lot of you reading this network, you go to functions, perhaps you give speeches, you make connections on a weekly basis. Business cards still continue to be a pivotal part of what you do. You may think giving out your card is the most important aspect, but I feel that getting business cards is sometimes more essential. When you give your business card to someone you’ve just talked to, what are the chances that they will contact you?
It’s up in the air.
Some will immediately send a note within 24 hours. Some will add it to a pile of cards on their desk that they may never get around to. Your continued conversation with this person is left to chance.
Let’s look at it the other way. You ask for a business card from them. Now your continued connection jumps in theory to 100%. You have control over the next step because you now have their contact info. You don’t have to wonder if the connection will continue. Of course this all depends on you, dropping a friendly note to them, conveying that it was good to meet, adding your signature in the email so they can check out your site and ensure they have all of your contact info.
Of course passing out business cards is important. Everywhere you go you should have a small stack ready. But start to think about collecting and processing cards. Perhaps make it a goal to get a business card or contact info from everyone.You can write down their info or at least their email if they don’t have a card. Then followup that night or the next business day with a friendly note.
How do you currently handle the business card scenario? Do you give them? Do you get them?
Do you collect them from everyone and focus on processing them in a timely manner?
Redefining The Success Of Your Creative Career
Look we all want to be successful. We all want to feel like we have achieved what we set out to do. The problem arises when we benchmark our success against others. Instead of creating our own goals and celebrating the success of achieving them, we look at other’s careers and measure ourselves against them. Of course our career path never aligns with anyone else, so that’s when disappointment starts to move in. After that comes resentment, instead of celebrating your own career path you may look to someone else who is seemingly doing better and then get very grumpy. This can then cause you to give up.
For example, let’s say you are a singer. You work to craft your songs, play live around the city, promote, etc. You have all the elements in place. But then you notice your nemesis, another local singer, who seems to be playing bigger clubs, who gets a bit more press coverage, who is aligning with some talented producers. If you examine your career through your own eyes, you can get a lot of joy out of the progress you have made. However if you look at your career through this other person, it does not measure up.
Unfortunately it can then multiply. You look at 5 other artists, or 10 or more. Seriously, it can start to become a major bummer!
Redefining success means to shift the focus of calculating and measuring career steps on yourself if it is directed towards others. You have no control over other’s career paths and it makes little sense to constantly measure yourself against them. Healthy competition is fun sometimes, but obsessive angst and focus on where others are going can completely deflate any and all progress you make on a weekly basis.
How do you measure success? Is it based on your goals? Or is it based more on what others are doing?
Are you driven by your own actions or through competition?
Media Artist Secrets TV #5 – No More Starting Monday
No More Starting Monday – This episode we discuss goal creation and then immediate action, don’t delay the start until Monday, build the momentum when the idea first starts to take shape – hosted by Franklin McMahon
This video is partially based on this blog post – No More Starting Monday – Don’t Delay Success
Watch the show in HD on YouTube or on Facebook
NEW! – Subscribe to “Media Artist Secrets TV” in iTunes
This show is all about the business of being creative, advancing your creative career and ramping up your empire. Each episode will feature creative career development advice and inspiration, cool guests, new thoughts and ideas. Join the conversation by leaving a comment, let me know what you think.
Thanks for checking it out.
http://www.FranklinMcMahon.com
http://www.fmstudio.com
http://www.Facebook.com/FranklinMcMahon
http://www.Twitter.com/FranklinMcMahon
Your Career: If You Can’t Measure It, You Can’t Manage It
If You Can’t Measure It, You Can’t Manage It.
This is one of my favorite quotes (from Tony Robbins) and one that can apply to just about anything, from career goals, to daily tasks, to projects, to new missions, to everything you want to make progress on. Athletes often write down reps at the gym, they take out a pad and note the amount of repetitive exercises they perform. For some it’s the only way to track the progress, because as you get better you can perform more reps.
Measuring can be seen as tracking the progress of your goals. It’s one thing to create projects and daily to-do’s, but often it’s not until you start measuring that you can really see the progress you are making. The element often left out of the career of many creative artists is to step back and chart the progress, look at the bigger picture to see what directions you go and how far you’ve come.
For example, let’s say you wanted to gain some new clients. You network, make some connections, send out some inquiries, pass out cards, the usual. You may get some or you may not. But what if you wrote down that you wanted to connect with 5 new potential clients this week? And as you connected, you marked it down. Or perhaps to give out 5 business cards a week. Suddenly it not only becomes a goal, but there is some added pressure to achieve it. In addition, you can now track the progress, 5 this week, 5 next. Soon you will be seeing 10 targets accomplished, then 20, then 50. You won’t be looking back over a month and fishing around pondering how you did, you’ll have it all written down.
Give the measuring / tracking process a try. Again this is much different than writing down goals, doing tasks and checking them off. Most of us do that now. Try measuring and charting your actions, steering them towards specific outcomes. Create some targets. You may find that weekly hectic work cycles suddenly become more clear when you can see your progress and more importantly feel like you are making progress.
Can you measure it? Can you manage it?
Media Artist Secrets TV #4 – Daily Creative Career Inspiration
On this episode of Media Artist Secrets TV we discuss Daily Creative Career Inspiration. Getting a daily mental workout is key to building up your career. Here are some tips on how to make time to incorporate development into your work week, as well as some author suggestions including Tony Robbins, Stephen Covey, Timothy Ferriss and David Allen.
This video is partially based on this blog post – 4 Expert Tips From 4 Career Development Gurus
Watch the show in HD on YouTube or on Facebook
NEW! – Subscribe to “Media Artist Secrets TV” in iTunes
This show is all about the business of being creative, advancing your creative career and ramping up your empire. Each episode will feature creative career development advice and inspiration, cool guests, new thoughts and ideas. Join the conversation by leaving a comment, let me know what you think.
Thanks for checking it out.
http://www.FranklinMcMahon.com
http://www.fmstudio.com
http://www.Facebook.com/FranklinMcMahon
http://www.Twitter.com/FranklinMcMahon
4 Steps To Avoid Having A Generic Career
First let me say that someone has to be generic. Lots of things need to get done and not everyone can be a superstar. But what if you want more? What if you want to rise to a higher level in your career? I am sure you have seen lots of perfectly fine people, producing content, shooting video, writing on blogs, doing tutorials, entertaining with their craft such as audio, video, graphics, design, film, web or other types of media art.
They are good. They are not bad enough to be discounted and yet not entirely compelling enough to be followed. They are just kind of there.
Here are some ideas I have to take your career higher. To avoid being generic:
1. Convey the passion
It really does not matter what you do, it only matters that you get others excited about what you do. If you are doing something you really are passionate about it’s important to get that feeling out on a weekly basis to everyone you can. We’ve all been pitched by people who are completely competent and spell things out logically, but there is no juice to it. And we’ve also heard people who are immersed in what they are doing and can’t wait to tell the world about it. The more you get your feelings and passion out there, the more people will sit up and take notice. Opportunities come not usually from being skilled in your industry, they come from first impressions and the fact that you can engage and entrance people. Confidence about your craft, passion about your industry, mix in some ego and shake vigorously.
2. Market the difference
You could be a web designer, photographer, graphic designer, marketing person, video producer or anyone creative. When you enter an industry you are entering a very large mass of people doing the same. But what is your twist? What is the hook? How are you different than your peers and competition? Try to find out what that difference is and market it. You need to figure out what separates you from the pack. Once you can nail that down, start getting it out there. Because potential clients and people becoming aware of you may be looking at a lot of people offering the same. Help them choose.
3. Get the word out
This could be a blog, a podcast, press releases, interviews, networking, email newsletter, whatever you need to do, get the word out on a regular basis about what you are doing. Don’t worry about the style, don’t try to craft everything you introduce to perfection, just get stuff out there. Show you are busy, show you are active, show you are everywhere. Keep people thinking of you. Keep them coming back. Often the most successful people are not the most talented, they are the people hustling. They seem to be everywhere, their projects and work flow out on a regular basic for the world to see. Keep the tides moving.
4. Find your voice
Look at anyone you admire. This could be an international person, star, business person. It could be a local mentor, associate, friend. What is it about them? What do they have that others do not? Perhaps they have a large following, they have been very successful in their business. What is their secret? Often it just boils down to the fact that they searched and found something they love to do or something they were good at. The first 3 steps here all are some part of it, but the core is finding your voice. It is sometimes what we would rather be doing. Start to shift to that. Move towards what you really want to do. You don’t have to be amazingly skilled in it, chances are you may not be (yet), but start to shift to your true calling. If you try enough things and take chances, you’ll eventually hit on some things you really are passionate about. Once you enter that realm, you can do the above steps, it will be easy to convey the passion, you will love telling the world about it and you’ll have a thing or two that should set you apart from the rest doing something similar. Keep in mind your voice changes over time, the career you have now is fine, but it may be time to move on. You may be on the tail end and it may be time for a new calling. Always continue to explore. Also once you find your voice, speak your mind. Let your opinions and thoughts come through. It sets you apart and people will feel more connected if they find you have something original or unique to say.
What about you? Are any of these steps now in your current career? Are they worth incorporating?
Media Artist Secrets TV Now In iTunes
It’s official, Media Artist Secrets TV is now available in iTunes. Each episode features a topic devoted to developing your creative career. The show started as an audio podcast and won the Best Business Podcast award at the Podcast Expo a few years back in California. In fact the audio podcast is still in iTunes, you can get that right here. The new video version will be shorter ciips running about 5 minutes and although it is geared toward creative professionals, such as graphic designers, musicians, artists, actors, web developers, social media experts and other artists working with all forms of media, the show’s concepts can be applied by anyone who is running a business. The topics are designed to really get you thinking about where you are headed, as well as expand your reach, audience, skills and success.
The show will also be available on Facebook, YouTube and many other video sites, but if you want to get the latest episodes and download them, then click the link below. And if you enjoy the show, please leave a review on iTunes.
Since this is a group project, I want your input on topic ideas, guest suggestions and anything I can do to make the show better as we progress.
Thanks for watching and thanks for the support. Lots of great stuff planned for the show including special guests..it’s gonna be a fun ride!
Creative Career Surfing – Are You Catching The Big Waves?
I like to surf. I like to look for big waves. Career big waves.
To be successful you always have to keep an eye out for the next big wave. Plus be able to ride it. There are basically two ways to run your creative career.
There are those that ride the waves. When the waves tend to be not as big, they look to other beaches. They move there.
Often they find that this new beach, or rather this new market, is just starting to get popular. Waves are getting bigger and bigger each day. This is a good place to be.
Then there are those who never leave the same beach, who stay with their same services, their same marketplace. When the waves die down, they stand there. Up to their knees in still waters. They look backward and think about the big waves from the past. They worry and stress about the future, they anticipate waves will be smaller from now on. They think, well that is just how it goes.
They don’t even notice the others who have moved to new beaches, enjoying new emerging markets, who are fluid and mobile with their skills, career and talents. Still they continue to stay at the same beach.
Your career has to shift and move, you have to move to new markets, keep an eye on what is next and work to anticipate it. If your current scenario is not working, move to a new beach. It may be similar to your old beach, just bigger waves. Keep looking off into the distance, keep looking for upcoming options.
I like to surf. I like to look for big waves. Career big waves.
I have practically done this my whole career. But my focus is on bigger waves on other beaches I have yet to explore. And I usually can catch them.
Am I the best surfer? Not really. So what’s my secret?
Always be looking.
And have great binoculars.
Hitting The Road – Driving Your Company Like A Virtual Vehicle
What is the difference between a new growing company and a company that is stagnant or experiencing cutbacks? One is moving and the other is stationary. This could be a small one person operation or it could be a large enterprise. It does not matter the size, it only matters if there is velocity there. Imagine your company as a moving vehicle, with the goal to constantly travel and meet new people and clients. You could almost think of this as a political campaign, logging hundreds of (virtual) miles with the goal to expand your audience and reach.
I often talk on the blog about promotion and marketing, spreading the word. Creative artists and business people may not be wired to move rapidly forward while sharing the story of their craft, but you do owe it to your audience. You have a duty to make sure everyone knows what you do and how you do it. Once you start to think of your empire as a traveling show as opposed to hanging a sign for a stationary for-hire service, you start to expand your thinking as well. You begin to see the future charged with possibilities. Extending your reach in all kinds of new and exciting ways.
How you move is up to you. You could network, virtual and in-person, speak at local and national events, write an advice column, post videos of what you do on the web, start a fan group, organize a street team, there are almost limitless possibilities of not only where you can take your brand but also how you can get there.
Momentum is the primary ingredient. As is steering. A company moving is a company that is flexible enough to steer into new areas. The core talent and services are still there, but the road traveled presents new niches and paths of opportunities. Things you find exploring you would never discover if you were stationary.
How has your business moved this week? Did you extend your reach, present to a new group, break in to a new demographic, develop a new product or service that was a bit out of your normal scope?
Are you sitting around anxiously waiting for the phone to ring or are you hitting the road and bringing the show to a new audience on a weekly basis? There are so many avenues of communication these days, especially with the web, that there is little excuse not to explore new ways to reach large audiences.
So how far are you moving this week?
Elizabeth Gilbert On Nurturing Creativity
Check out one of my favorite TED Talks. I saw Elizabeth speak live in Portland at The Merrill Auditorium and she’s a great creative inspiration for me.
Elizabeth Gilbert muses on the impossible things we expect from artists and geniuses — and shares the radical idea that, instead of the rare person “being” a genius, all of us “have” a genius. It’s a funny, personal and surprisingly moving talk.
The author of Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert has thought long and hard about some large topics. Her next fascination: genius, and how we ruin it.
Her website is here and you can also view this video on TED
The video runs about 20 minutes, but stay with it, it’s a great talk for any creative artist to hear.
Check out my site Media Artist Secrets – Creative Career Inspiration at http://www.franklinmcmahon.com/
Can You Specialize In The Nearly Impossible For Your Clients?
Your career success often hinges on what you are offering. Can the client do it themselves, but it is just easier to have you do it? Or is it a service that the client could (almost) never figure out on their own, unless they went through months of training and research?
The more you match up a service with a client correctly, the more successful you will be. Move from pawn to knight, specialize in the nearly impossible for your clients, not just the inconvenient.
Let’s take photography for an example. A client needs pictures of a building or an event. You offer photography services, you can do this job. The client could snap some pictures, it would be quick, but it’s just not convenient for them. Since it is just grabbing some shots, they could have someone in their office do it, in fact they could have any number of local photographers do it. You would do a great job, but it is hard to have any kind of leverage against others in this scenario. If you charge the going rate, they may come back and say, well we can just grab the shots this time, but we’ll keep you in mind.
Along the way you discover that what they really want is to create an on-line photo gallery for their company, that is constantly updated. They also would like the pictures to look professional and be updated with regular events. Oh and they want them to come up randomly, so a different one appears each time someone visits the website.
You discover all this as you talk more and more with them. You investigate and find out what the bigger picture (so to speak) is and how you can offer a solution. You have a friend who is a web guy, so he can do the back-end coding for the slideshow, you subcontract him to do it for you. You also work out a monthly agreement with the company to shoot a certain amount of images per month. You also promote to them your Photoshop skills, you will tweak and sharpen the images so they not only look fantastic and professional, but they are highly optimized for fast web delivery. You also work out a method where you upload the pictures via a server to the client, supplying them with web optimized versions as well as print versions, that they can use for their brochures and newsletters.
Through constant communication and talks with the client, you have gotten a grasp of the bigger project and taken a lot of the burden off the client to make the process happen. You moved from a pawn, who is utilized but not very valuable and quickly sacrificed, to a rook or a knight, who is pivotal to the bigger strategy, and who must be held on to longer for on-going success.
I love chess metaphors.
Start to think about expanding your scope, offering products and services that branch off in directions you enjoy. Move from being a small circular bush, with just a few services, to a large expanding tree, with a combination of client solutions.
Instead of focusing on a small group of services that can be found anywhere, with little to differentiate you, start to package up solutions that do more and more of what the client needs. You begin doing what is a huge task for them, instead of just saving them a bit of inconvenience.
It’s one thing to hope a client calls you, as they survey a sea of other candidates doing the same thing. It’s another matter entirely where they have to call you, you are the person who can make it happen, solve their problems and offer a range of services and solutions that the others cannot.
Can you offer services others cannot? Can you expand what you offer?
How valuable now are you to your clients and potential clients?
Get Obsessed And Move Into The Creative Zone
Have you ever wanted something really bad, like really fixated on it and did everything in your power to get it? I am not talking about thinking about something and wondering that it would be nice to have. I am talking about obsessing and really focusing, having drive and a laser focus on the end goal. The term “peak performance” is a term used a lot with athletes, but it can also apply to media artists. Having a very strong drive towards something in your career or in your life is very compelling. It could be a new client you want to get, a new piece of equipment, a new workspace, a new service you want to ramp up. It could even be starting a business, leaving the process of working for others behind.
Let’s call this being in the zone. You have no doubt experienced it. Your drive is so strong and your focus so tuned that you accomplish what you set out to. For some creative artists, being in the zone happens periodically. In the day to day and week to week process there are these spikes where the drive is very high. It could be due to excitement, too much coffee, a deadline pressure, lots of factors. Athletes always work to be in the zone whenever they perform. Each and every time. But for some media artists, it happens here and there, usually looked at as a “good day”.
What if every day was a good day? What if you were in the zone on a consistent basis? The people who succeed and ramp up their career dramatically over time share a lot of qualities. They are driven, passionate, focused and obsessed. They pick a path and rapidly follow it with a clear end goal.
This has nothing to do with talent or abilities. It is only about producing consistent forward momentum in the directions they want to go.
Every step of the way there are opportunities to take you out of the zone. Your clients are not that exciting, you are in a rut, you are not exercising, your diet could be better, you see others making more progress. A lot of this occurs because your work day is focused on others, clients, phone calls, emails. The switch that needs to happen is focus on your own goals that will make your creative business grow. This may mean having a client wait just a bit longer while you block out some time to explore a new opportunity or move on a plan you have been thinking about.
You’ll know when you are in the zone. You will feel it. Media artists need to be in the zone more and on a consistent basis. However there needs to be time and room for this to happen. Take a project or idea that has been on your list for months and suddenly put a large amount of focus on it. It will suddenly go from a nagging thought never realized to an exciting option with a lot of momentum. Pick something new to focus on today.
Get obsessed, get focused, get rolling on the things you want to be doing in addition to the things you need to be doing. Move yourself, and those important items, into the zone.
Are You Dressed For Success?
We all like to think that it’s really about our talent and not how we look. But the fact of the matter is you will often be judged on your appearance as you work your way through your career. Sure it’s not fair but the important thing is to be aware of it. Now I am not necessarily saying you need to dress up in a suit everywhere you go, but certainly take some time to think about how you are perceived to the general public. You may spend a lot of your time in a studio or working for yourself or with a small team. Comfort is one of the luxuries we have when building our own empire. The difference is when we walk out into the world, when we network, attend functions, interact with people.
One of the best things you can do is convey a sense of confidence and success. A lot of this is attitude. Talent with a dash of ego, in moderation, is not a bad thing. But keep in mind as you ramp up your career you will be ramping up the quality of your contacts. It may be inevitable that you will be in scenarios where the attire is getting better and more official.
Stop to think about some of the most successful people you know. What are they wearing?
I discussed this topic quite a while back on my Media Artist Secrets podcast (iTunes) and got a huge response. Half were agreeing with me and the other half were very against, saying that being successful is based on skill and not about certain clothes worn. And again I am not saying wear a suit everywhere, but really start to think about what you are conveying with your attire. A lot of times you will go to functions and feel overdressed or underdressed. In fact before you even go you may be wondering if you should dress up or dress down. I suggest going for the dressing up part. You’ll never offend anyone by dressing up and you may get some new respect just from some presentable threads.
You have to remember that most of the time when you are networking, a lot of people don’t know you. And as your career ramps up you may be in situations that are basically more dressy. Ramp up your attire to coincide with your ramping up career. Dress “up” when your career is going “up”. It may be cool to dress down and be hip, but what is hip to you may not be hip to others. If you want to close the deal, connect with better clients and ramp up your career, start to really think about how your dress code is in sync with your new business paths.
How do you dress for your industry? How does your industry dress? Do you have a clothing budget as part of your empire?
Are potential clients you are connecting with dressing better than you?
How important are your clothes as a marketing element?
http://www.franklinmcmahon.com/
