When you are chasing your dreams and starting your creative hustle, the first thing to remember is that you are a business. This doesn't mean you have to sell out or give up your values (almost the exact opposite actually). But what this does mean is that you must take yourself seriously. You cannot go into the business of building yourself and putting your passion into the world half-assed. In order to get you where you want in selling your art, music or ideas you are going to need a plan. What I am about to show you is the who, what , when , where and why for creating the plan to start your creative hustle and begin to chase your dreams. Join me on this ride to fulfilling who you are and who you want to be.

Who

The first step is to identify who. Who do you sell to? Who are your people? Who are your fans? Who should be listening, seeing, wearing, owning your art? Who wants to have what you have to offer. When we create something we often forget/confuse these two things.

Everything is not for everybody.
Talent alone does not make you fame, money, you need to show your talent to the right people.

Think about your favorite artist, your favorite performer, your favorite creator. The one that really touches you to your core. Think about how they specifically make you feel and how you like to experience their work. Now imagine that they were delivering their work to a group that had entirely differently experiences, backgrounds, interests, thoughts from you. Would their work sell well? Will others enjoy just as much as you? Of course, you have your megastars that make it their business to appeal to mass audiences, but often to get to that point it takes years and years of development and millions of dollars of marketing/promotion to pull that off.

Another way to think about it, imagine someone in a girl scout troop made the best peanut butter cookies in the world. Like I’m talking “slap your granny” peanut butter cookies. In another troop, someone else got some store bought oatmeal cookies that were a little dry (and she didn't have milk). Imagine just from those facts who would sell more cookies. With nothing else to consider you would imagine the “slap yo granny” cookies would win. Now imagine both of these people set up a cookie stand at a peanut butter allergy conference? (yes a conference for people with peanut allergies to come together) Who do you think will sell more cookies?

It doesn't matter if Girl Scout A's cookies were made with the blessing of the council of Aunties and Grandmas. In all likelihood, little miss store bought oatmeal will sell more cookies at this event. Why? Because she selected the right audience or rather she didn't select the wrong one.

Put some thought into who you want to experience your work, who was it made for, who were you thinking about when you made your piece.

Questions to ask yourself: Who wants my stuff ( how old are they, what is their ethnicity, gender, life experience)? Where do they stay/hang out? What do they like to do for fun? Who do they talk to? Who do they listen to? What do they care about? What they talk about? What they dream about? Even if you want to keep your art and creative work independent of their opinions this research will help you put your work out to the right people.

What

Something we often forget to think about when we engage in the creative process and try to make something is what we are actually trying to sell. This is important because this is how we set up our business model for ourselves. This is how we determine costs and create strategies for sharing what we have with the world.

When deciding what we are selling we have to be specific. Are you trying to move specific prints of your art? a very specific song? Are you trying to sell yourself and build your fanbase? Are you trying to sell your time as a creative worker and get some commissions or are you selling photo sessions with a client? It doesn’t matter which one we are trying to do, but it is really important that we be real with ourselves which it is.

Each unit or thing that we sell requires a very different approach and has a very different Who at the end of it. If we are trying to get commission we need to find clients with the pockets whom we could match with our skill set. If we are trying to sell a piece, we need to find people who want what have to offer. If we are trying to get our names out there we need to go after the people with the influence and the reach to help us move our product.

Questions to ask yourself:

What do you sell? What is your unit of sale, the thing that one single customer would get from you or you get from them)? How would you describe what you sell in a tweet?

Asking these questions is as much for yourself as for your fans/customers. If you know what you are trying to sell you can start answering a lot more questions in this framework that will help you make the most out of your creative hustle. When you find someone who might be interested in what you have to offer you will come confident saying:

"I am promoting my single, it is really for a Saturday crowd looking to chill out, rather than a banger. I am trying to get it into local bars and clubs, do you know anyone who would be interested?" On the other hand, if you don't know exactly What you are selling the conversation will look more " My guy, I do music. Hit me with the contacts ".

Both might work, who knows though the first one is a lot more polished and the person hearing it doesn't have to do too much work on their end to help you out.

When

When should you be selling your products and working on your craft?

As often as possible as well as regularly and scheduled. If you want to make money from your craft, you should schedule time to make money from your craft. Schedule time to reach out to contacts, follow up on leads, do some free grassroots advertising and to work on your craft. When you are scheduled to do these things, you must do them. No Excuses.

If you get lazy, think to yourself that you are a Business. What would your boss say to you if you show up late to work every day or if you missed 3 days of work in a row? In all likelihood, you would get fired. Once your boss tells you this how likely are you to miss the next few days of work. You must treat yourself with the same respect if you want to achieve

Again remember that talent alone does not make your dream successful. You have to regularly put in the time to work on your business and your art if you want to see results from them.

Questions to ask yourself:

Am I putting the adequate time needed to develop my skill? Am I putting adequate time into developing my business? Are my habits going to lead me to success? What can I do today to get closer to my goals? Is the time I spent producing results?

A good book to read on this topic is the Compound Effect by Darren Hardy. It will let you practically think about how to apply your time. (*Note: A lot of books of this kind are very white, if anyone knows of some black authors that talk about success in a PLEASE let me know)

Where

Find out where your target audience/ people you need for your work hang out. Find out the bars and clubs they like, the bookstores they like to go to, the isle in Barnes and Nobles they hang out in and hit them up. If you are just starting then you are likely looking for someone to help you start up/ a mentor. Identify who you would want to help you on your journey and hit them up. If you are trying to sell and move your products, then you are looking for the places where you can find your who that you identified earlier. You want to find where the people you want to sell to reside, where would you find the people that appreciate your craft

Why

That's a great question isn't it? When we start something new often the biggest thing to hold us back is fear. We always get concerned with what people may think of us of our work. What if we are not skilled enough, what if we are not ready, what if they don't like it what if they laugh, what if I wasted all this time. The biggest thing I hear from people starting creative businesses is, what if I fail and I prove all those naysayers right.

Whenever I hear this the first thing I tell my friends is “ Well f*** what they think, do you and let them choke on your success.” That is easy to say, but fear has a way of creeping its way back in and freezing you from doing what you are trying to do. Even writing this post and sharing it was scary for me and I’ve been debating it for weeks despite telling myself “F*** what they think post the article”.

However, in my many years of doing reckless sh*t, I’ve found that the biggest way to move past fear and make your moves is to have a solid why.

Most people would think twice about going into a building on fire, but if a parent sees their kid in the burning building others literally have to hold the parent back from running into the blazing hibachi with no thought to their lives. When you have a solid reason fear becomes minuscule and you can move forward easily.

Your why can be petty as f*ck like “He called me ugly and dumb in the 3rd grade Ima prove his ass wrong” or it can be grand and altruistic like “I need to save all the rainforests so that Pandas can have a place to live”(I understand Pandas do not live in rainforest, I don't really care …) . It can be “I need to represent my family and community” or it can be “I want freedom”. It doesn't matter much what your why is, just that you have one that will help you push through the fear of starting this endeavor.

Question to ask yourself:

What is your why? What gets you up in the morning, what makes you work on your craft or go to class or be wherever you are right now? Why do you do what you do?

Dr.Soul

Writing since May 2017 · 1 story contributed