If you don’t know Danielle, than you seriously should. She’s one of my favorite people online. Quirky, fun, and man does she know how to kick entrepreneurs in the arse. My kinda lady.

Are you doing what you love? Why aren’t you? Danielle has helped countless people figure out how to make money doing what they truly love.

Seriously, I can’t say enough about the lady. She recently launched the Fire Starter Sessions to the tune of massive success, then for her birthday generously let people pay whatever they could for the kit. Another massive success.

The FSS is something I would recommend to anyone who wants to a) figure out what it is they love and b) how to make money doing it.

Anyway, here’s her awesome interview. Take notes, kids. This is pure gold.

Glen: So Danielle, how does one truly figure out what their IDEAL occupation should be? Can you give us a little bit on your “metrics of ease”?

Danielle: Your most valuable currency is what comes most naturally to you. This is a radical concept for so many of us. We’re trained to fit in, to be well-rounded, to multi-task. We tend to push our way through. Fuhget it! When I stopped trying to be great at the things I was merely good at, I freed up my creativity and my intellectual power. And then I got it, I really got it: when I was doing what came so naturally to me, I was more productive, more innovative, more…at ease. Conclusion: easy is right. The “flow” is where the power is.

So when do you feel amazing? What activities cause you to feel useful, vital, better-than-before? When do you have that “there’s more where that came from” feeling? What feels so good and so easy to give that you give it generously? Do more of that — and get paid to do it — until that’s all you’re doing with your life.

Glen: In the FSS you make a huge emphasis on making money NOW. How can putting an emphasis on bringing cash through the door help with the creative process?

Danielle: No money. No business. Simple. I’ve seen so many solo-preneurs get tripped up on getting their branding just right before they can go after clients, or having business cards printed so they can start networking, or putting staff policies in place so they can give great customer service. Once you know what you have to offer, just go get the business. Start. Pick up the phone. Work it. Move the energy. Take the risk. THAT’s creativity.

And there’s nothing like prosperity to fuel your creative fire. Pressure is useful, you know, “necessity and invention” n’ all that. But a zero PayPal account or an empty store will chip away at your innovative spirit. You’ve got to see it working. You’ve got to be eating. Even the most maverick artists need proof of love from their audience.

So my formula is this:

In terms of business growth, FIRST, focus on doing what makes you the most money, the fastest.

Get the money in the door. The whole point of the first three years of business is to SURVIVE.

Simultaneous to doing what makes you the most money the fastest, your SECOND line of action is to focus on doing what makes you the *most* money. The fast money may not be the Big Money. But you need to make time to work on the Big Money-making projects, though they tend to take longer to manifest. And they require the greatest creativity and innovation juice.

Glen: Money and Art seem to always be at odds. This is a massive deal for MANY wanting to stay true to themselves, but still make money. Good money, even.

So here’s the Million Dollar Question: How do you create a personal brand, without selling out?

Danielle: If you’re making art, you are not separate from your brand. I make my livelihood as an artist (of words, philosophy and strategy), and I always cringe a bit when people asked me how I developed my “brand.” I didn’t. I developed my self, my art, and then I put it on display and trusted that the “right” people would dig it, and pay for it.

If you create a personal brand that isn’t deeply personal, you’ve already sold out.

The vast majority of artists I know (from writers and craftspeople, to software developers and designers) don’t have any quams with making money – and lot’s of it if possible. What makes them all weird is the *marketing* of their stuff, they don’t want to sell out and become an infomercial. It understandable, because we live in a culture of false advertising and the slick, hard sell. It’s dangerous turf for sure. But this is where you need to diligently carry your personality forward. It’s not enough to have an authentic, integrity-driven offering, you need to sell it in a way that is true for you. If you’re slick, be slick. If you’re subtle, be subtle. Just be consistent. And above all, be passionately proud of what you’re bringing to the world.

Glen: What’s your number one tip for creatives who want to make a career out of their dreams?

Danielle: 1) Know what lights your fire and go out of your way to fuel that fire.
There’s a reason why every mystic and rocking CEO says, in one way or another, that passion is The Key to success. Because it is. Passion gets your endorphins pumping, it feeds your brain, it supports your soul and gives your life meaning. And passion persuades – and persuasion generates financial freedom.

2) Know how much money you want to make a year.
This makes things very, very real. Dreams and purpose are only one part of the equation. When you anchor the creative to the practical, you’re wielding some serious manifestation mojo. Would $50k or $150k a year float your boat? Great. What do you need to do to bring that in? How many units do you need to ship? How many workshops do you need to fill? What can you do by the end of the day to get where you want to go? Do it.

###

Thanks Danielle for a wonderful interview. So whatcha think? Is she spot on? Have any questions? Post ‘em below.

If you’d like to learn more about the passion + art = money process, check out the Fire Starter Sessions.

It made the hallowed list of my favorite creative tools, so you know it’s something awesome ;)

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Post by Tim Brownson.

Photo by Stephen Poff

There are any number of books, magazines and blogs out there that are happy to tell you that you must follow your passion in your work to be really and truly fulfilled.

I’m here today to tell you, they’re all wrong.

I must admit that until fairly recently I too believed in the ‘chase your passion’ school of thinking and I even say in my first book:

“I can’t guarantee that you will earn big bucks living your dream, but if you are really happy and can meet your basic needs, do you really care?”

In principal it’s fine and for a lot of people, good advice. However, in practicality it fails to deal with two aspects that should be taken into consideration if you are looking to change direction in life.

Can You Earn a Living?

What if your passion can’t pay you a wage? It’s unlikely (although admittedly not impossible) that you’re ever going to find anybody to pay you good money to go plane spotting, coach kids to play softball or race pigeons.

Don’t get me wrong, I feel sure there are people out there that do get paid for doing similar jobs, but there isn’t and endless supply of such openings and it is wise to understand that before embarking on a career plan that may lead to endless sleepless nights and angst-filled days.

It’s a seemingly obvious roadblock that surprising amounts of people fail to notice. They have read all the well-intentioned advice that assures them if they pursue their passion with every fiber of their being the big money wont be far behind.

Unfortunately, it isn’t always like that. Sure, we all know stories of people that have done amazing things and truly become Rich and Happy by staying fully committed to their dreams. The reason we know of these people though, is because they’re the exception to the rule and their stories naturally bear repetition.

Unless they’re your friends or family it’s unlikely you’ll get to hear about many people that failed in their quest to work their passion. Yet there are many more of them than there are runaway success stories.

This may sound like the words of a naysayer and doom merchant, but nothing could be further from the truth. Am I saying do not chase your calling in life? Absolutely not. I just want you to do it with your eyes wide open, stay flexible in your approach, but most of all, and understand your values:

Do Your Values Align?

What about this scenario? You get the job of your dreams in a traveling circus and you absolutely love it. However, the pay is atrocious and you find out that the performing Chimp in the red stripy pants is earning a buck an hour more than you.

Worse than that, the hours are ridiculously long and you are working all over the country, which keeps you away from your beloved family. Suddenly the whole deal doesn’t seem quite as enticing, does it? Ok, so you’re not one of those poor unfortunate souls whose every working hour is spent wishing they were somewhere else, but you’re not exactly living a Utopian ideal either.

So what’s the deal? After all it’s what you always wanted to do and the books have told you to go and do what your heart tells you to do.

The drawback with this situation is that although you love the job, you’re still not meeting your ALL own value needs, and these are the things that truly dictate how happy and content you are at your core level.

You may well have nailed the work side of your life, but that is only one aspect of your day-to-day existence and if other areas are collapsing around your ears a great job will be a minor consolation.

If family is absolutely critical to you then being away from home is going to be unacceptable, no matter how much you love the job or how much money it pays you. You simply cannot compromise your top values without seeing negative side effects.

I was working with a client one time that was looking to start up his own business. We were discussing what he was passionate about and it was so incredibly niche there seemed few if any opportunities to make money without uprooting his family again. This led to a momentary impasse as we looked for ways to advance the process.

Then a thought occurred to me. What if we forgot about the specifics of the passion and just tried to align his values with the values of the business? After all, it’s values that dictate your passions and its values that are at the core of who you are as an individual. Surely then, they are the logical starting point?

Imagine you’re looking to change careers or start your own business and you have done a proper value assessment and your top 8 top values are as follows: Family, Wealth, Commitment, Passion, Peace, Fun, Leadership and Open-mindedness

If you could do something that met (or at the very least didn’t conflict with) all those values and also met them for your employees too, wouldn’t that be something to get really excited about?

Would it really matter what the business actually did, couldn’t you get passionate about what it stood for just as much as what it produced or offered? The fact is, as I’m sure you well know if you’re a business owner of more than a couple of people, you should be working on your business in a strategic sense anyway and leaving the minutiae to others.

Do you think Warren Buffet is enthusiastic about the products or services of the businesses he buys? On the whole I doubt it, but I’m damn sure he values people and creating sustainable successful companies for those people to work in.

If you’re sick of compromising and you now want to follow your passion I whole-heartedly applaud you. Just make sure you use your values as the starting point and refuse to allow yourself to be dragged away from then however tempting something may at first appear.

Tim Brownson is a Certified Life Coach and NLP Master Practitioner and the co-author of How To Be Rich and Happy. You can read more at The Discomfort Zone.

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Photo by Anthony DeLorenzo

Let’s see a show of hands: Anyone in the audience tried to sell something online, but failed miserably?

(Here’s to hoping I’m not the only one with my hand raised….)

We launched the Making Web Video that Sells toolkit a while back to a “meh” reaction. This floored me.

I had put so much time and hard work into a product, only to see it flop miserably. I’ll be honest with you: the sales stunk.

It’s a pretty humbling experience to watch something that you’ve poured yourself into for months do a cyber bellyflop.

A Growing Trend

Some Most iPhone developers are noticing that it’s not all popcorn and cotton candy developing iPhone apps. In fact, it’s hard for many to break even. Most iPhone developers are forced to drop their app price down to $0.99 in order to get traction, even though the application cost a lot to make.

It seems that people are content to pay less and less for digital goods, and expect more out of them. Shoot, most of us in our Google-filled existence have come to expect paying nothing for fantastic products. (Read Jonathan Field’s excellent post on the FREE movement.)

For those of us who create digital goods, the future looks bleak.

Or does it?

The Toolkit

We had initially priced at $67, which is what we thought that people would pay for a resource of it’s nature.

But I don’t blame the poopy economy or anyone else for the toolkit’s dismal launch.

The fact is, the poor launch was my own fault.

But before I get into why the toolkit didn’t sell well, let’s get something clear first.

I know people are paying for premium products.

In fact, people are always paying for premium products. Case in point: Apple.

Apple is managing to have another absolutely stellar year in the midst of a recession. Yet compared to other competitors, their products are sometimes twice as expensive. On paper, Apple’s company ship should be sinking. But they’re far from doing that.

Apple easily outsold the competition because they ruled in perceived value.

It’s All About Perceived Value

How much do people think your product is worth? Ask nearly any Mac owner and he’ll tell you that his laptop or iPhone was worth every penny. But was it really? Do you think Apple can justify their much higher pricing?

It doesn’t matter.

Apple could charge three times more than what they currently charge for an iPhone, and if people still bought their products, then that’s what the iPhone is worth.

Value is only perceived. Which brings us back to my selling problems.

The reason that the toolkit did so poorly wasn’t because it was priced too high or too low. The problem was that potential buyers didn’t think it was worth the price.

I did a poor job of conveying value. I didn’t know the first thing about copywriting, and the sales page only showed what the toolkit did, and didn’t focus on how it could really help potential buyers. I did a pitiful job inspiring people, instead only giving them the benefits.

Do I think that the toolkit is worth every penny? Absolutely. I know how many hours Doug and I worked putting it together. It’s a one-of-a-kind comprehensive resource. But until I can convince the buyer that it is an incredible resource, the sales will remain flat.

Irrational Buyers

Most of the things we buy aren’t out of necessity. We buy them because our emotions tell us to. It’s been proven that smells, sounds and other sensory stimuli are the catalysts for purchasing. The senses arouse emotions, and more often than not our emotions decide what we buy.

Armed with this helpful insight, than it’s clear that people will pay for something if they literally feel that it will make them happier, skinnier, or wealthier. Cold, hard logic doesn’t have much to do with it.

So if emotions are writing the checks, then what do we have to do to make the sale?

The Number One Secret to Digital Sales Is…

If you’re going to be successful selling digital goods (or physical goods), you have to inspire people and get them excited about the product.

It’s as simple as that. Sounds simple, right?

Excited customers love what they buy, and in turn share it with others. They’re your best form of advertising.

Anyway, I just thought I’d share my experience struggles trying to sell a premium product. I hope me writing about my mistake will help you if you’re trying to sell a product on the web. Because it can be done, and it can be done well.

Just because selling on the Internet can be difficult doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. Learn, adjust, and try it again.

We’ll get the hang of it.

But until we do: Remember that it’s only work. There are plenty of things more important than commercial success of a product. The second you get wrapped up into the success of something you’ve created, that’s when you start making decisions for the wrong reasons.

There are plenty of things that are more important.

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Today is an exciting day. We’re officially re-launching a pre-sale on the Making Web Video That Sells toolkit.

Confused? Yeah, me too.

So, in one of my major bonehead, palm-to-forehead moves, I tweeted about the fact that Making Web Video That Sells toolkit was live for pre-launch. Then I heard crickets. Why? Because I tweeted it in the afternoon of July 2, when many people had the next day off (or called in “sick”) for 4th of July festivities.

So, we’re re-launching our pre-launch for the toolkit, and I’ve got a nifty video to show what exactly this toolkit is and does.

Like the video says, it’s a total resource. It’s not a static document; it’s an ever-changing resource. We’ll be continually adding to it, as technology changes over time. More screencasts, more chapters, more tools and we’ll even remove the outdated stuff.

One good thing that has come out of this confusing pre-launch is that the makers of the incredible screencasting software ScreenFlow have given us a coupon code of 10% off ScreenFlow with the purchase of the toolkit. But the coupon code (and our reduced price) only lasts for a few more days, so you’ll want to act quickly.

So there you go. To take advantage of the sale price and ScreenFlow promotion, you can purchase directly below, or head over to WebWarriorTools for more info on the product.

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Photo by Zevotron

On most days there is blind woman that goes to the coffee shop I frequent. Karen’s one of the sweetest and most genuine people you’ll ever meet.

What’s most amazing about Karen is her complete trust in her guide dog, Comet. Comet leads her everywhere she needs to go, and allows Karen to do nearly everything that those of us blessed with two eyes can do. Comet leads Karen to the register, around tables, and waits patiently while Karen types away on her braille keyboard and sips coffee. Karen has given over control to something that she trusts completely. Comet senses this and never lets Karen down.

I’ve noticed that creative workers (ie. artists, writers, bloggers, musicians, etc.), sometimes fall prey to not letting their passion lead them. Instead of letting the fire in their gut create wonderful masterpieces, they let money or other forces control their output, and it changes things.

Sometimes you have to give up control of what you want, and let your passion lead you.

In 1995 bestselling author Steven Pressfield had the idea for The Legend of Bagger Vance, and almost didn’t work on it. Traditionally there isn’t much of a market for golf fiction, and he knew that if he wrote the novel it probably wouldn’t be read by many. Still, he had been given the idea, and he knew that he wouldn’t feel good about himself until he finished the work. The Legend of Bagger Vance is now an international bestseller, and touts a major motion picture based on the movie. Only because Pressfield followed his passion.

We humans are attracted to passion, and we can sense it immediately. It’s contagious. We thrive on it, and we thrive on others who have it. It’s a quality we all possess, but it’s not something we all use. In fact, many of us ignore what we’re really supposed to be doing, because it’s much “safer”. If we fail at what we really want to do, then it would devastate us, right?

Following our passion makes us vulnerable, as it exposes us for what we really are. It opens us up to critics, to people who wish they could find their own passion and ride it into the sunset. But they would rather scrutinize those who do what they love. We can’t be afraid of critics.

When it comes down to it, there really isn’t much of an option to being happy if we don’t follow our passion. Whether it’s writing, blogging, creating web sites, directing films, writing music… all of these things have to be directed by what’s in our gut and what’s in our heart. There can’t be any nagging thoughts about small market share, or competition, or public reaction. Those are just distractions to keep us from doing the real work that needs to be done, the work worth doing.

Nobody really follows an artist with a potentially great business plan. We follow passion. The business plan comes later.

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Just wanted to let you guys know that I’m releasing an ebook today titled “Jump-Start Your Workspace: Small changes that improve focus and shorten your day“.

It never ceases to amaze me how the combination of our physical environments and our mental state can affect our work areas. Great work environments are much more than what meets the eye. It’s the perfect harmony between what’s around us (furniture, materials, etc.) and our mindset that really make a workspace attractive and productive.

A great work environment gives you more focus, allowing you to work less

If you have more focus, you’ll be able to do more in a given day. Work environments are directly related to how much focus we have, which means the better the environment, the better the quality of work.

The best part about this ebook: The changes I outline are mostly small, tiny things. It doesn’t take much to transform a crappy work area into a thriving, healthy work environment.

So check out the ebook, if you’re looking to improve your quality of work. I priced it at $9.95, so you shouldn’t have to break any piggy banks. :) There’s also an affiliate program, if you’re looking to make a little money selling the book yourself.

You can purchase the book by clicking the button below:

I owe you all a big thanks to supporting me through these ebooks. I couldn’t write these without the support of loyal readers like yourselves. Thanks again!

Preview

Here’s a list of contents to the ebook:

• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Curing Clutter
• Chapter 2: The Immediate Environment
• Chapter 3: Personal Environment
• Chapter 4: Interruptions
• Chapter 5: Scenery
• Chapter 6: Requiring Human Interaction
• Chapter 7: Taking Breaks
• Chapter 8: Variety is the Spice of Life
• Chapter 9: The Little Things Add Up
• Chapter 10: Finding Your Work Time
• Conclusions

Here’s a preview of a few pages in the ebook:

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Ideas can’t be transferred. It’s just not possible. Ideas can be built upon, but you’ll never fully transfer an idea or dream.

I came across a post by Darren of Problogger that I think gives a pretty decent example of a website that spiraled downward once it was acquired. Zookoda is an rss-to-email newsletter service. It has many great features, and by outward appearances looks like a great option.

“However since it was sold to PayPerPost (now known as IZEA) I’ve noticed the service becoming more buggy and the customer service seems to be decreasing. I’ve had problems with deliverability (for a while there it wouldn’t deliver emails to anyone with a yahoo email address – I have thousands of subscribers using them), emails regularly are not sent and I’ve noticed more downtime and slowness with the site.

Email newsletters have become a central part of my blogging and I can’t afford an unreliable service any more. I’ve hung in there to give the new owners time to improve the service – but if anything it’s gone backwards. “

While IZEA can purchase the Zookoda code and possibly the developers, they can’t purchase the idea, culture or further advancements that Zookoda’s that might have happened while Zookoda was independent. It feels like there’s not a whole lot of motivation from the developers, as their blog is now stagnant. There aren’t any recent updates, other than “we’ve been evaluating for the last few months”.

I can tell you as a developer that if your product is taking months to “evaluate” what to do next, it means you don’t care about it. It should take a matter of days to figure that out, tops.

Turns out money can’t buy everything. ;)

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I’ve been a huge fan of Seth Godin over the years, mainly because the man thinks outside the box. But the reason that I’ll always be a fan of Seth is his humility. Check out his Thanksgiving Post for further proof.

I tried to sum it up like this: Not only can’t I imagine charging for my blog, I’m practically in debt to the people who read it. I ought to pay them, not the other way around.

Every time you read something I write here, you’re giving me a gift… attention. It’s getting more precious all the time, you have more choices every day, and it’s harder and harder to find the time. I know. I’m grateful. I’m doing my best to make your attention worth it.

via Copyblogger

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Sometimes a creative solution to a problem just inspires like no other. I recently stumbled upon reCaptcha, a captcha solution for websites. Captcha is that kind of annoying thing that makes you enter random words by squinting at a funky, distorted image. It’s an almost necessary evil these days to ward off spammers.

But reCaptcha has found a way to make the whole process 1) less-annoying and 2) actually beneficial to society as a whole. They’re essentially making lemonade from lemons.

You can see a live example on their homepage. reCaptcha takes a pair of words scanned from a real book, as part of the Internet Archive. While these endless pages are being scanned, the computer occasionally comes up with words it’s not quite sure how to interpret .  (See image below.)
 

This is where reCaptcha is genius. It takes a combination of two words that can’t be read by computers, and ensures they’re read by humans. Every every time you enter the two word combo into the reCaptcha box, two more words are correctly identified, and that book is closer to being digitally archived. Beautiful.

This is a perfect example of what I call the “Two Birds, One Stone” method for developing a solution. Any time that you can take something cumbersome and make easier to use and more useful, you’ve got solid gold on your hands.

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Mike Arrington has an interesting piece on Yossi Vardi, a prolific tech investor of the past 40 years (more on Yossi in a bit). Within this piece a killer speech given by Teddy Roosevelt in 1910 was referenced. In an eloquent way, Roosevelt managed to sum up why it’s better to try, even when failure is an option.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

It’s not important that the man in the arena didn’t win, it’s that he’s actually in the arena. Only a few people win at anything, especially the first time. Failure is an important part of learning, and eventually succeeding. How many great sports teams have had to go through “rebuilding seasons” before they built dynasties?

Yossi Vardi, an investor in tech startups, knows what it means to fail. As a matter of fact, he especially likes to invest in startups that have failed in the past because “It makes them want to win even more”.

Yet another reminder to not let failure discourage you.

via TechCrunch

Photo by andertho

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