Effective Marketing & Business Tips for the Rest of Us
What does that mean exactly, and who’s “the rest of us?”
Let’s keep it real simple for now:
- The rest of us is you and me and all the other regular John and Jane Does out there.
- You have a passion in life, and you want to turn it into money.
- You want to make money doing what you love, but you’re “not quite there yet.”
- Spending hours a week on social media outlets probably isn’t your idea of a good time.
- With the right kind of marketing and business sense, you can make money doing what you love way sooner than you think.
That’s the broad view. Sounds pretty good, eh?
We’ll get you there.
But we’re gonna do things a little differently here…
Doing what we love for a living sounds awesome, no?
What doesn’t sound so good is putting off our passions while we acquire 20,000 subscribers, pimp ourselves on Twitter, play the guest-blogging game and schmooze with A-Listers in every corner.
Gag me with a famous person.
I’m not against success, heavens no.
But I’m full against the idea that you must reach a certain size/subscriber count/Twitter following before you start making money, even a comfy living, doing what you love.
We can make a living and rock the world, long before we make it to Carnegie.
Does Size Matter?
Sure. A little bit. But not as much as you’d think.
Very few of us can expect to make a site like Copyblogger or become the next Gary Vaynerchuk.
That tends to get some people down, but the truth of the matter is that you don’t need that kind of size or exposure to make a living. Not even remotely.
In fact, there are far more of us other guys. The C- and B-Lister folks you’ve never even heard of who are making great money online.
That’s not to say you can be a Z-Lister either though. You can’t ignore self-promotion and hide out in your studio, as that just leads to invisibility. The greatest painting in the world does no good kept in the painter’s closet.
So somewhere between “Utterly Invisible Man” and “A-List Super Pimp” lies a more probable success formula.
Here’s me and you
We just like to do our shit and get on with it. For me, I like to draw, design and write.
I don’t want to be on Twitter all day. I don’t want 80 different social media profiles to keep track of. I don’t really care about schmoozing around at BlogCon #475 or handing out business cards at SxSW. If I even go to those, it’s to see a couple friends and catch up over a steak.
I just want to get down to business, doing what I love. And, yeah, getting paid for it.
And man we love what we do, don’t we? I get this thing in my chest…this little flutter of excitement and surge of adrenaline…when I think about writing and drawing.
And maybe you have something similar. You want to sell your words, or drawings, or doily coasters knitted out of rabbit whiskers. And this is what you love.
So riddle me this: why should we be doing a bunch of other garbage we don’t like?
Exactly.
About Me
I’m Charlie. I’m an artist, writer, web consultant, designer and beginner of things.
I’m far more curious than a cat and a lot less skittish, so I try a lot of things, have my share of failures and figure a whole bunch of stuff out along the way.
I created IgniteLiving because I like to help people. Sounds simple. It is. Watching another person succeed, to me, is far more enjoyable than achieving my own success.
And I hate to see awesome, well-intentioned people and very capable people fail at things where they should be succeeding. It bugs me.
But usually the fixes are easy and down to some sticky detail or other.
Consider an airplane taking off. Everything has to be just right in order for this sucker to get off the ground. The plane has to be in good repair, have enough fuel, have working instruments, and most importantly have a competent pilot.
It’s the same with your business. Your site and business fundamentals have to be clear. Your navigation system better be up and running so you know which direction you’re headed. And you, as the pilot of your business, better know what you’re doing.
Fun Facts and Miscellanea and Things I Sometimes Think About
- You don’t need to be famous to make money
- I’m a raving UFC and martial arts fan. WAR Aldo!
- Sometimes I ramble and almost always I wax poetic. Hope you can dig it.
- If it’s fun, you’re probably doing something right.
- If you’re worried about doing something, you should probably just do it.
- I believe things are essentially incredibly simple. If it starts getting complicated, it’s most likely incorrect.
- I’m afraid of heights but love to rock climb.
That’s all I can tell you for now, gang.
I’m one of the rare people on the internet who still writes people back. If you have any questions, want to get in touch for any reason, drop me a line and we’ll talk!
Best!
Charlie