Step Into Your Artist Pants

Garth Beyer

You’ve got to flip the switch on, you’ve got to bully yourself into it, you’ve got to step into your artist pants and walk with confidence. You can’t expect to do remarkable work if you don’t feel it, if you’re not in love with what you’re doing.

The most common thread in all the writers’ institute workshops this weekend is to do only what you will really love doing. If you don’t love the novel you’re writing, scrap it. If you don’t like a particular social media outlet, avoid it. If you don’t love what you need to sacrifice to go the route of traditional publishing, don’t try to traditionally publish.

Yes, you need to try each pair of pants on, but when you find the right ones, the artist pants, don’t exchange them for any other pair no matter who holds up a different pair and says “you need to wear these if you want success.”

 

Stay Positive & Stride With Passion

Being On The Edge Of Your Seat Matters, But Where That Seat Is Matters More

Garth Beyer

As a journalist and avid conference-goer, one of the best suggestions I can give is to take an edge seat wherever you go. You may be at a press conference and have to chase after someone who holds the real story. You may be in a workshop that is nothing like you expected and you want to leave to check out a different workshop. If you’re sitting in the middle, boxed in, you’re not very likely to get up and leave. You’ll miss the real story, the better experience, the things that make a writer’s belly flip or set it on fire.

 

Stay Positive & Always Be Ready To Chase After Something

How Is There So Much Crap In The World

Garth Beyer

Crappy television series, crappy hyped up box office movies, crappy books, crappy food, crappy insurance plans, crappy businesses, crappy ordinances, crappy cars. There’s a lot of crap out in the world. How did it get there?

You can’t tell me you haven’t seen a movie that you wondered, “How the hell did this ever make it to the big screen? Who would buy this?” Let me tell you.

People know how to sell their crap. Producers, companies, publishers, they all buy crap from time to time. The thing is, they don’t know they are buying crap. What they think they are buying is a really great idea. And you know what, it’s not their fault. If someone has mad sales skills, mad storytelling skills, mad ethos-persuasion skills, then heck, they deserve to have their crap bought.

A well-known publisher in Madison just told me today she knows one author who has had a handful of books published, but never any of them really selling well. She said, “He will come into a meeting and say to the agents ‘Yea, that one didn’t do very well on the shelves, but here’s this other book idea.’ He would go onto pitching [selling] this new book and would end buying that one too.”

You can make it big in this world, but you have to know how to sell.

The same publisher also told me she had read hundreds of books that were exceptional, but the author just couldn’t sell them to the agents.

Only when everyone learns how to sell well, will the real content of any art be taken as serious as it deserves.

 

Stay Positive & This Is Why It Doesn’t Make Sense To Me When Someone Says Their Work Isn’t Good Enough, It Can Be If You Learn How To Sell It. Bittersweet Isn’t It?

Who Are Your Sponsors/Investors/Donators

Garth Beyer

My SO and I listen to the same radio station. She mentioned to me the radio station is asking for $2,000 donations. The two grand donation can be given at once or over a period of a year. She thought it was a lot to ask of people to donate. Why not ask for smaller donations so more people will be willing to pitch in, she suggested.

She’s right. They would get more donations if they requested a smaller donation and reached out to more people. But why? Why spend more money on advertising to the mass who may or may not donate a little bit to the radio station when the radio station can meet their yearly goal with a handful of large donations. It’s truly niche marketing.

If Ferrari really wanted to (heck do I wish they would), they could cut the price of their cars to a quarter of what they are now, sell a ton and still make loads of profit. Why, though, when they can produce a few hundred cars and sell them at high costs.*

Even certain news organizations could put ads on their sites, put up paywalls and charge submission fees for freelance content, but why when their journalism is so thorough and desired that they can meet their expenses just by asking for donations.

I think there are grand benefits in figuring out how much it is you want to make from an idea, invention or business and how exactly you want to make that much. You can follow the steps of selling a product or service and charge what everyone else is charging in hopes of gaining the attention of the mass public. Or (or!) you can find the condensed group of people who will pay top dollar for what you offer.

Might be worth mentioning there is a profit differentiation between the two methods. I think you can figure that out for yourself, though.

 

Stay Positive & Remember, The Less There Are, The More You Can Focus On Each Individual

*Quality of course matters. Yamaha wouldn’t be able to sell their mopeds for half a million dollars. The quality just isn’t worth that. But, there are products and services I see regularly  I would pay more to have than what they are charging. Macs, Mizuno shoes, Biofreeze… Despite this post encouraging increased pricing, I can’t contest there’s beauty (and profit) with the effect of selling something for less than it’s really worth. (Something I’m sure we’re all thankful for.) Discretionary note: never price lower to the point people assume cheapness.

How To Become Wise

Garth Beyer

While at the polling place to vote, the chap before me completed his ballot and stuck it in the nearest machine that looked like you stick ballots in. A woman rushed over to him (by this time I was waiting in line behind him) and stated that particular box was not the tabulator. She directed him to the correct box and I, nonchalantly, removed myself from the line and headed toward the correct box to submit my ballot.

“Thanks for making the mistake first so I knew where to submit my ballot,” I said to him.

To which he replied in a goofy but true way, “That’s how we become wise. We make mistakes.”

 

Stay Positive & Had I Known His Name, I Woulda Voted For Him

Will Your Product Or Service Be Around In Five Years?

Garth Beyer

Does it really matter if you know? Shouldn’t you act on the forethought it might?

Timeless enterprises are never constructed by moving forward on short-term-quick-ROI. Timeless enterprises are constructed by moving forward on short-term-quick-tasks that aim for a long-term ROI.

You can make something work tomorrow, but with the expectations of people these days, you’re better off making something that will still work five years from tomorrow.

 

Stay Positive & A Thought Like The Long Trail

When You’re In It For The Long Run

Garth Beyer

How can you make it more enjoyable, or in most cases, at least more bearable? It’s simple to figure out whether something will take a long time or not. Best case scenario, of course, is it doesn’t take long. You can plan for a short input and quick output, but here’s the thing about plans: they almost never happen the way you plan for them to happen (and certainly never as quickly as you plan).

#ProTip: Think of every long-term effort as if you were running long distance. It’s much more enjoyable when you’re running with a friend, much more bearable if you’re jamming to fresh music, you’ll be more excited to go the distance if you have a new pair of kicks. You can build these variables into your plan before you start.

And that’s the key isn’t it? So many people start as soon as they know where they are going. Fact is, the how matters most. The path ahead will be as smooth or as bumpy as it will be, but you can prepare to enjoy either.

 

Stay Positive & A Few. Little. Tunes. For You. Enjoy Your Run.