by David Andrew Wiebe | Jan 18, 2022 | Creativity
An earlier post on this topic struck a chord with readers. So, following it up with a more in-depth look at making your artistic ambitions a reality is necessary.
I am a champion of artistic success, and as such, you can think of me as your cheerleader, though you will never see me in tantalizing short skirts. It simply isn’t my style. Which isn’t to say there’s anything wrong with that.
Before I commit to digital ink anything else I might privately chuckle at and publicly regret, let’s move right into the key steps that will have you effective in reaching your 2022 objectives.
1. Create Your Unfolding Plan
No, not a plan. An unfolding plan.
And while some might argue that’s little more than semantics, I have personally experienced and observed the difference an unfolding plan can make, especially compared to the usual rigmarole of setting New Years Resolutions and hoping and praying they will manifest all on their own. If you’re a proponent of laziness and sloth, this article is not for you, and you would be better served with mainstream spiritual shlock.
One of the all-time best-selling authors said:
Begin with the end in mind.
Who was it? Author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey. You would not be any worse off reading his volume, paying careful attention to Covey’s quadrants, which are the definitive pillars of personal productivity.
The unfolding plan, as you’ve surely inferred already, begins with the end in mind and is unfolded from there.
How to Set Up Your Unfolding Plan
The basic framework is as follows:
- Look three months ahead. What will you have accomplished? Envision it in rich detail, including the celebration party that follows, and write it all down as a done deal (e.g., “we have launched a New York Times best-selling book”).
- What will you have accomplished in month one (first milestone) to have gotten the outcome defined in the final step? Write that down.
- What will you have accomplished in month two (second milestone) to have gotten the outcome defined in the final step? Write that down.
- What are the weekly actions that will support you in reaching your milestones and outcome? Create these actions as promises, requests (of others), and conversations to be had.
- Create a space to document your accomplishments, update as you go, and review them often. You will be surprised and amazed at what ultimately gets done.
2. Build Your Team
We’re all lone wolves. Only some are willing to admit it.
You will get better results in your endeavors if you allow others to contribute to you and your projects.
Though I’m harping on a point I’ve raised many times already, fundamentally your team can take any form. Not everyone on your team needs to be a paid employee, but ideally, they are personally incentivized.
Today, you have access to:
Hold weekly meetings and ask plenty of questions. Listen to the answers. The ideas you generate together will far surpass anything you can conceivably come up on your own.
Never micromanage. It’s a waste of your time, and it just annoys others when you don’t give them the space and time to fulfill on their promises. Don’t manage people – instead, manage promises and commitments.
And at the risk of sounding trendy, regularly ask “who?” not “how?”
How to Build Your Team
Place a phone call. Be direct in sharing why you’re calling and what the conversation is going to be about. Share your idea and invite them to contribute. Whether you get a “yes” or “no,” accept the answer graciously. The outcome isn’t as important as the action taken. Keep making calls until you have a team of six.
Always take the time to get into their world and ask what’s important to them. There’s a way to help them get what they want through their participation in your project, and it’s your job to identify how that’s going to work.
3. Move Projects Forward with Urgent Concurrency
I’m an adventurer, looking for answers to the questions of creatives in a variety of niches, fields, and industries. This answer must be credited to author Dan Kennedy, and if you can still get in, a subscription to Magnetic Marketing will stimulate viable actions and enrich your creativity prolifically.
“Successful people don’t do one thing, step by step, as we are taught in school,” says Kennedy. “They move multiple projects forward with great urgency.” This discovery was also mentioned in my holiday reflections, and it has been my modus operandi from the moment I heard it.
I run multiple businesses, write daily blog posts, participate in community projects, hold down multiple staff writing and ghostwriting contracts, make music, engage in personal development (I’m currently in a yearlong leadership program), and still have time enough to work out three times per week, keep a social life, and wind down for a couple of hours at the end of each day.
How to Move Projects Forward with Urgency Concurrency
Perfectionism will not serve you. Learn when something is “good enough” and get used to publishing. The only way to get used to publishing is to publish regularly.
Have a start and end time for every activity in your life. Say, “X project must be done by Y time” and be unreasonable with yourself.
Minimize calls, meetings, and other distractions that might take you away from actioning your plan. Commit to weekly progress with every project.
Also see: How to Move Multiple Projects Forward Powerfully
Additional Resources
We often assume complete freedom and crystal clarity in moving forward with next steps in our artistic career when we haven’t done the hard work of reflecting on the year past and identifying where and why we’re constrained.
If this describes you, you will profit from a read of my Start Your Year the Right Way, in which targeted prompts will guide you through exercises to complete years past so you are free and clear to act now in the present.
Final Thoughts
If you are looking for further guidance on the topic, a perusal of my products and services will serve you. I am always adding new solutions to help creatives just like you, and while I’m not affordable, I am worthwhile. Set yourself up to reach your 2022 objectives with flying colors.
What have you taken on in 2022? What do you intend to accomplish? What structures and systems have you implemented?
by David Andrew Wiebe | Jan 2, 2022 | Inspiration
Late December / early January is one of my favorite times of the year. I love spending time thinking and reflecting on the last 365 days, as well as what I seek to accomplish in the next. And as I’m going through my year-end routines, I’m usually consuming quite a bit of content as well, because I find myself able to see it with new eyes and hear it with fresh ears.
Here I will share some of the golden nuggets I picked up in the last couple of weeks.
1. Do More of What Works & Tap into Trends
For me, this is not a new realization. It is a revisitation, though, of a critical productivity and business-building principle.
Success leaves clues, and content is the trail. If you’ve been publishing for any length of time, you should be able to identify the unicorns among your donkeys.
And while exploiting past successes isn’t always obvious, you’re going to squeeze more juice out of boxing up old things in new packaging versus betting on new horses.
Seek opportunities to do more of what works, and tie into the zeitgeist as you’re able.
Where I got this: Wolf
2. Successful People Move Multiple Projects Forward with Great Urgency
When I heard these words exit from the mouth of author Dan Kennedy, I felt as though I was being given permission to embrace this behavior. It’s exactly what I needed to hear.
See, most of us try to do everything step by step, one step at a time, just as school taught us to do. Kennedy contends, though, that successful people categorically don’t exhibit this behavior. They move multiple projects forward with great urgency.
This reflection is already changing my mindset and conduct. I am now more grateful for the work I have, and I’m more intentional about making progress in the areas that matter.
Where I got this: Dan Kennedy’s Magnetic Marketing Podcast
3. Don’t Reinvent the Wheel
Here’s another piece of wisdom via Dan Kennedy, and while it sounds trite, I think his exact utterance was something to the effect of “I’m a prolific creative thief.”
So often, we think the shortcut to winning creatively is being original and unique. But not even The Beatles were 100% innovative.
Templates, frameworks, and swipe files are a creative essential. And modeling others and their successes is a skill we’d all do well to master.
Where I got this: Dan Kennedy’s Magnetic Marketing Podcast
4. Sell the Same Work Again & Again
Whether you’re a freelancer or entrepreneur, if your compensation relies on making things, when and where possible, take the same work, and repurpose or repackage it. If any part of you thinks this disingenuous, you should know that bloggers like Darren Rowse have had great success with bundling up free content and turning it into products.
A blog post can become a series of blog posts. A series of blog posts can turn into an eBook. An eBook can turn into a series of eBooks. A series of eBooks can become a book, and then a course, and so on.
And it doesn’t just work in linear but also in parallel dimensions. For instance, a blog post could form the foundation of multiple tweets, ad copy, a newsletter, a podcast episode, a video, and more.
What you’re reading now will go on my blog, on Medium, and in a future book, at minimum. When and where possible, look for multiple ways to get compensated for the same work.
Where I got this: 6 Steps to $1 Million Dollars by Gordon Pape
5. Don’t Make What You Can Never be Compensated for
I’d heard this before, but this time, it really hit me between the eyes.
I’ve had a few failed launches in my time, especially in the last couple of years. And what I’m seeing now is that a) you need to know your audience, what they will pay for, and how they like to be talked to (direct, indirect, urgent, etc.,) b) even when you have the right product, desperation still stinks, and c) sometimes your hard-gotten email list is made up of a bunch of freeloaders.
If you’re creating for fun, that’s a whole other thing. But entrepreneurial endeavors aren’t a walk in the park, and you need to be thinking ahead. If you can’t foresee being paid for it, don’t make it, and if in doubt, take pre-orders to validate its viability.
Where I got this: 6 Steps to $1 Million Dollars by Gordon Pape
6. Create the Perception of Success
People like to work with those they perceive as successful, and it doesn’t matter much whether that perception was created or imagined. if you can create it, prospects and customers will be more amenable to throwing bigger sums of money your way.
Where I got this: The Ultimate Marketing Plan by Dan Kennedy
7. Build Personal Satisfaction into Everything You do
Dan Kennedy says the idea that you need to set up your business around things you don’t want to do is erroneous. When and where possible, he says, build personal satisfaction into your business, and put it ahead of profit.
Home court advantage is a real thing, and if you can get people to come to you instead of you having to go to them, it automatically puts you in a position of power, and the psychological effect is a client who is more likely to heed your advice and get results from your guidance.
In every area of business, it’s worth exploring opportunities to create more satisfaction in your work.
Where I got this: Magnetic Marketing
8. The Less Flexible Time You Have, the More You Accomplish
Some would certainly argue against scheduling to the hilt, but I tend to resonate more with Dan Kennedy’s methodology of scripting one’s day.
There’s a finite amount of time to do everything, and every activity should have a start and end time. And where most people get stuck is in establishing a proper end time for all their activities. When you schedule activity with an end time in mind, you necessarily put more restrictions on yourself and others. You start to say things like, “it will be done by 2:30 PM, because it needs to be done by 2:30 PM.” And you make it so.
Constraints lead to increased productivity when you treat time blocks as a matter of do or die, life or death.
Where I got this: Magnetic Marketing
9. The Longer, Harder Way Doesn’t Pay More
There’s a longer, harder way of doing everything. You can start a book from scratch. Or you can draw upon content already created. You can make a new course. Or you can update an old course and make it better. You can seek out inspiration. Or you can create everything from scratch.
But just because you spent more time on something, put more effort into it, thought more about it, doesn’t mean it’s going to pay more. Identify the direct path to achievement before blazing a new trail, especially if your income depends on volume.
Where I got this: Magnetic Marketing
10. Do Something Daily to Bring Fresh Blood into the Business
Dan Kennedy says you don’t ever want to rely on one channel to bring in new business, even if it is effective. He says he’d rather have you focus on 10 channels that “sort of” work versus one that’s amazing. What I get from this is that one is the most dangerous number in business, and single-source dependency is setting yourself up for disappointment.
Use many open doors, many funnels, many channels to attract new customers.
Where I got this: Magnetic Marketing
11. You Can’t Make Money Doing Anything Other Than Marketing
You aren’t in the business of writing, making music, coaching, infoproducts, or dentistry. You are in the business of marketing. This paradigm shift is a challenging but ultimately rewarding one. Businesses rely on cash, and cash is only generated with marketing.
Where I got this: Magnetic Marketing
12. Appear a Specialist Even if You Aren’t
Specialists tend to command greater income and more respect from their clients. Entrepreneurship is challenging enough without inevitable dream stealers and time wasters, and you are better served creating strong positioning in the marketplace, such that people respect you and your advice from first contact (which, by the way, is a commodity if people don’t pay for it).
Where I got this: Magnetic Marketing
13. Do One Thing Daily to Generate New Business
This sounds a lot like an earlier point (see #10), but it’s easy to miss the forest for the trees.
Distill what was said earlier down to its core, and this is where you arrive – you want to take one action, every single day, that helps you generate new business.
This will be a game-changer for me in 2022.
Where I got this: Magnetic Marketing
14. Success is 1/3 Spiritual Connection, 1/3 Talents & Gifts, 1/3 Environment
Feng Shui expert Marie Diamond explains that many successful people reach a point of impasse on the way to the top. They work on their mentality, their spirituality, even their talents and gifts, but they get to a point where there’s no moving forward, and they’re missing just one thing – their environment is not consistent with their commitment.
To create a life harmonious with your goals and dreams, it is necessary to create an environment where you do your best work. An environment that reminds you of the success you’re creating, not the failures you’ve endured. Everything in your environment affects your subconscious. If you’ve been hitting a wall, it’s time to transform your life by transforming your home. Eye-opening.
Where I got this: Use Feng Shui To Become Abundant Today
15. Keep Your Content Fresh
To remain efficient, I have often opted for fast and easy ways of creating content. Set up a couple of spaces for writing, podcasting, and making videos or going live, and share a timely message.
What I learned listening to copywriter Jim Edwards is the importance of keeping things fresh and interesting. There are so many ways to relay a message – rants, lists, reviews, critiques, how-to guides, and more. Not to mention, if you’re making video content, you can vary up your background (filming location), wardrobe, and more. With every piece of content you create, there are hundreds of variables you can control to drive up engagement.
It’s easy to sacrifice creativity and forethought for efficiency. But is it worth it? If you want to keep things interesting for your audience, you want to keep your content fresh.
Where I got this: Sales Copywriting and Content Marketing Hacks Podcast
Final Thoughts
How do you like to spend the holiday season?
Did you spend it drumming up business or did you take a break?
What content did you consume?
Did you have any realizations of your own?
I would love to hear your thoughts.
