RBBiz Day 5: Andreea Ayers

Creative Business

We closed out the first week with DIY Publicity and Product Marketing presented by Andreea Ayers of Launch Grow Joy.

It’s kind of funny, I remember the early years of the Right Brainers in Business Video Summit when the interviews were predominately coaches or other other thought-leader types and we artists and artisans had to really work to apply what they were teaching to what we were doing. But it’s awesome because Jenn listened to our feedback and over time we gained more of a mix, to the point that Jenn had to caution coaches, etc. to stick around through today’s interview, that just because we were talking product placement in stores and magazines didn’t mean there wasn’t something that could work for them as well.

The Summit’s come a long way in the last five years!

I was familiar with the vast majority of what Andreea covered on Friday, but that was okay because it meant I could spend more time interacting in the chat stream! Which is why my biggest takeaway was the heart-word: Connection.

Heart word?

It may not be a real thing, but it’s something I started doing as I filled out the daily playsheet that comes with the booster and premium pass upgrades. There’s a humanoid figure with some symbols to represent different thinking or action points learned during the seminar, and the “What is my heart telling me?” prompt is, of course, next to the heart on the figure. So while I put (usually) more lengthy notes under the prompt, I was also writing a core-concept word across the heart. And since I didn’t a major aha! moment specifically from the interview, I decided to collage quick phone pics of each days heart-word in Diptic and post that as my daily share on Instagram.

Week 1 heart-words

Week 1 heart-words

Integrity from the Lisa Congdon interview, Authenticity from Amethyst Wyldfyre, Community from Corbett Barr, Motivation from Sam Bennett, and, finally, Connection from Andreea Ayers. Both for the connections I make in the chat room during the summit sessions (and the ones in the Facebook group), as well as the connections we need to make with stores and publications to get our work seen and our message shared.

One of the exercises in the original Right Brain Business Plan book, right up there with the Big Vision Collage for your business, is to create a set of values cards. I have my original set from several years ago and they still apply, but I think I’m going to do a new set based off of these heart-words after we finish next week’s summit session lessons.

~ ~ ~

I know these posts are a bit of a departure from my usual posts, so I hope you don’t mind terribly that I’ve been writing about the RBBiz Summit instead of house stories or craft projects. It’s been a great way to keep me engaged in the topics and has really helped clarify what I’m going to do next, so thanks for sticking with me. It’s also confirmed that posting every day isn’t really feasible for me, so after next week I’ll be going back to my 3/2 posts per alternate weeks, because while much thinking has been getting done, not as much doing has! Gotta get back to the doing!

RBBiz Day 4: Sam Bennett

Creative Business

Procrastination is Genius in disguise…

IMG_20150312_133044

Or so The Organized Artist and Day 4 interview subject Sam Bennett claimed early on in Thursday Summit session. I appreciate anyone who joins together organization and artistic pursuits, bucking the stereotype that all artists are disorganized, flaky, and otherwise irresponsible. It’s pretty important, if you want to be a successful artist, that you have some sort of system that keeps things flowing smoothly!

Procrastination is one but one problematic trait of creatives (and others, of course, but we’re focusing on right-brainers at the moment), as is perfectionism. Bennett had a suggestion for dealing with that, as well, at least when it comes to goal setting. She suggests that we set goals in tiers: what I must do, what I’d like to do, and what would be amazing (the ‘drinks are on me’ level). That way, as long as we meet our level 1 goal we can accept the accomplishment and move on to whatever’s next.

I do this when I go to conventions, though I never really thought of it in this light. My must-do number is however many books I need to sell in order to break even for that event (usually around 16-18). My second goal at each convention is to empty a box, so we’re taking one less box of books home that we arrived with (average of 22-28 per box). My third tier goal shifts, depending on previous sales. The most books we’ve sold in a 3-day convention was 54, and that was an outlier of a show for us on several levels, so while it’d be great to beat that one day, it’s not always realistic. Instead, our highest “normal” show is in the 32 range, and any time we start approaching that number I get very, very happy!

Finally, she reminded my of a piece of advice I’ve given often, and even follow myself (most of the time), though I haven’t lately. You can do anything for 15 minutes. Setting aside 15 minutes for the projects that matter most, each day, every day, is a sure-fired way to actually Get It Done (also the title of her book). While I plan to spend way more than 15 minutes on The Crafty Branch’s business plan this weekend (my third-tier goal would be to finish it altogether, but I’d be thrilled with just organizing all the facts I have now and completing the playsheets–see what I did there?), making time for those 15 minutes during the week can be a bit more challenging.

This week has gone by so fast, already–only one more session before we’re halfway through–but there’s still another full week ahead. And you can still sign up for your free pass to the second half by clicking the image below. And if you want to catch up on the earlier sessions whose replays have started to expire, upgrading to the Booster pass gives you forever-access and other downloads, too. You still have time to upgrade to the Premium pass, which comes with hundreds of dollars worth of additional business-building resources, and the first of three coaching calls is Wednesday the 18th.

grab-your-free-tix-url

RBBiz Day 3: Corbett Barr

Creative Business

While Tuesday’s session was way far to the right side of the brain, Wednesday’s interview with the founder of Fizzle.co, Corbett Barr, was a bit more on the logical, left-brained side. Just because this is the Right Brainers in Business Summit doesn’t mean we ignore the left–in the original Right Brian Business Plan book Jennifer Lee maps the different sections presented in the right brain plan to their traditional left-brain counterparts (helping those who need to prepare the traditional plan to present to banks or investors) and the upgraded options for the Summit (Booster and Premium) both included left-brain checklists of actionable items from each section.

I considered yesterday’s talk a sort of palate cleanser.

Top 3 Corbett Barr takeaways

Top 3 Corbett Barr takeaways

The topic for this interview was listed as “Honest Online Business Marketing” and I think transparency is the watchword there. He made the point that people don’t fall in love with brands or corporations, they fall in love with the people and stories behind those brands. So it’s important to open up and share some of yourself, to give your right people a chance to get to know you.

He also introduced us to the concept of the MVP, in this scenario it’s the minimum viable product and is, apparently, a software term? (If so, that explains so very much about software releases.) A practical direction in the vein of work smarter, not harder, it’s the idea that you can put together a product that meets a basic standard of work with which to test the waters and get feedback.

And how do you get that feedback? But having a community that is invested in your product or services. Fostering that community will, in turn, inform where you need to go next. Like finding a need and meeting it, but in a very concrete way.

Now, applying this lesson to The Crafty Branch makes me wonder what an MVP would be in this situation—a pop-up shop, perhaps? Of course, that’s almost as much work as the entire store, so maybe that’s a bit big for a viable MVP, but I”ll keep thinking on it!

RBBiz Day 2: Amethyst Wyldfyre

Creative Business

If the speaker’s name didn’t give you a clue, Tuesday’s session by this Empowered Messenger veered off into woo-woo territory, specifically urging those who needed to to come out of the spiritual closet; to stop hiding our true selves and, in the process, hindering our full potential. As she, herself, did when she made the move from real estate developer to crystal healer.

Best to learn from those who’ve gone through it, right?

I have a whole page of notes from this interview and look forward to replaying it several times: there’s a lot of great info even if you’re not into the woo-woo, non-mainstream spirituality of it all. Some tidbits worth sharing:

  • Trust in the Random
    I lean towards the concept that nothing is truly random, but substitute unexpected and I think that’s certainly worth thinking about. We might plan, but if we maintain that plan in the face of unexpected opportunities, we run the risk of missing out on some very cool experiences.
  • Downloading from up above and uploading from Mother Earth
    Just because we might have a spiritual outlook, doesn’t mean we have to have our heads in the clouds all the time. Staying grounded is just as important, and spending time in nature (both the great outdoors and the nature of ourselves) helps do just that.
  • A magnetic message attracts your kind of Right People
    But what else do magnets do? Repel. In this case, a magnetic message does more than just make you appealing to your target audience, it says loud and clear to the rest of the world that ‘nope, not for you, just move along’ and saves both you and them time in figuring that out!

And speaking of repelling… there’s Skunk Medicine.

A quick sketch from my RBBiz notes.

A quick sketch from my RBBiz notes.

While there are folks out there that keep skunks as pets and otherwise consider them awesome, the vast majority of people, when confronted with a skunk in the wild, will quickly vacate the area lest they be subject to the skunk’s defense mechanism. Talk about repulsion!

Skunk is teaching you that by walking your talk and by respecting yourself, you will create a position of strength and honored reputation. The carriage of your body relates to others what you believe about yourself. There is no need to bully, aggravate, torment, or overpower other being when your sense of “self” is intact. As with Skunk, the resonant field of energy around your body is relayed through the senses. Self-esteem permeates the body’s energy, and is instantly recognized on an extrasensory level by others.

~~ Sams, Jamie and Carson, David. Medicine Cards (Santa Fe: Bear and Company, 1988)
h/t to Foglesong Presents

So if you need to work on your self-esteem, channeling a bit of Skunk’s wisdom isn’t a bad way to go.

With all of this in mind, I was only slightly surprised to have my car surrounded by bees while at a stoplight on my way home last night. Where the bees came from I have no idea (I was in the middle lane of a very busy road and they seemed to be concentrated right where I was, even though I’ve never noticed anything like that there before), and I’m not generally a fan of flying things, especially those that have the power to sting me, but I gave this “random” occurrence some due consideration.

Bees are hardworking, industrious, and community-minded. Working within my community is the next logical step in the progression of my business goals. Some would say this is an affirmation of the path I’m on and I’m inclined to see it that way.

Otherwise we’re talking a freak swarm of bees and, well, I’m not sure that’s any better!

In the interest of community service, a member of my community is doing something pretty cool starting tomorrow. My Bean Buddy, Nicole Fende, is teaming up with Tai Goodwin to host the Profit Beyond the Book Telesummit. Nicole and I finished our books around the same time, and we’re both working on the next ones. But there’s more to getting the word out than just publishing, and that’s what I understand the telesummit to be about. It makes for a busy next 3 days if you want to watch both the Right Brainers in Business Video Summit and the Profit Beyond the Book Telesummit (the schedule overlap was not intentional), but sometimes it’s good to challenge ourselves, right?

RBBiz Day 1: Lisa Congdon

Creative Business

As usual, the Right Brainers in Business Video Summit has me in the frame of mind to recognize personal truths and get. things. done. The synapses were firing even before the summit started!

Todd and I ended up going to Louisiana this weekend for a family funeral, and arrived back home after dark on Sunday (even with the time change). Still, I had just enough time to print out the playsheets (both the Summit-specific ones and the playsheets from the Right Brain Business Plan and Building Your Business the Right Brain Way) and bind them into a notebook so I can keep all my Summit notes together and use it as part of my right-brained plan for The Crafty Branch. As I was putting it all together, I added blank sheets of paper between each printed sheet so I wouldn’t have to worry about adding sticky-notes or loose sheets that could get lost.

First lesson of RBBiz 2015: Scarcity makes me anxious. Abundance gives me comfort.

My first day's notes and playsheet (hanging out on my planner).

My first day’s notes and playsheet (hanging out on my planner).

I realized I might be adding more paper than was necessary, but to not add them sparking a bit of nervousness and worry that I wouldn’t be able to keep each day’s notes together if I was stuck cramming letters wherever they’d fit. And I had the resources and ability to provide abundance in this instance.

But onto Monday’s interview with Lisa Congdon.

I’ve heard Lisa Congdon speak once or twice before. I was familiar with the basics of her story and process–so some of this was familiar ground for me (there was also a dust-up in the past I knew about, so I challenged myself to listen objectively and leave my preconceived notions of the speaker at the door, so to speak). It’s bound to happen when you spend a lot of time among the Internet teaching grounds, you know? But just because you’ve heard something before, doesn’t mean you don’t need to hear it again, in a new space and in a different frame of mind. Repetition is a good thing, sometimes, so being reminded of “dream big, start small,” “don’t compare yourself to others,” and “create everyday” are good things to hear and act upon.

There was a moment in the chat stream though, one of those “only happens in Summit” kind of thing, where we were reminded of the importance to let the Universe know we were out there and–very important–available. So I, and others, did just that.

I am an illustrator who LOVES to work with emerging authors and creators.

Which is absolutely true, but something I hadn’t been putting out there as much, recently. I mean, sure, I build that shiny new website, but how often have I promoted it since then? Exactly.

But in announcing my availability in the fast-moving chat, the Universe listened–or one of its citizens, at least, and I sent out my resume and rate sheet on request last night. It was also the kick in the pants I needed to finish said rate sheet and resume, so now that’s done and I have it ready to go in the future.

Nice the way that works, right?

My resume opens:

The  more I consider the hows and whys of what I do, the more I am convinced my purpose is not just to create, but to support other creators and help them reach their goals by offering my skills and expertise to their endeavors. I am not simply a pencil for hire, I am a collaborator, a co-conspirator, and a champion of the emerging author and entrepreneur.

And that’s my other big takeaway for Monday, maybe not from the presentation directly, but the chain of events and thoughts all coalesced into the realization that everything I do: my cookbook, this blog, and the store-to-be is as much about expressing my own creativity as it is about encouraging and enabling others in theirs. It’s my Helper Monkey-ness at its core, and a great way to evaluate future projects and opportunities with a very quick litmus test.

grab-your-free-tix-url

If this has you curious, there’s still time to get your free ticket to the Right Brainers in Business Video Summit. And since the replays are good for 48 hours, if you sign up today you won’t have to miss anything, you still have time to get caught up!