When you're a creative and not a marketer. (Start with love.)

Seth Godin says that people love the brands that love them back. And I love this quote, people love the brands that love them back. I think that's such a cool concept, right? And it can be a tricky thing for us as creatives and artists to like start to think of ourselves as a brand. I know it took me a long time to think about that, but the thing that switched that for me is that I just started to. I'd heard somebody say like, you know, a brand or your brand is really just your reputation. It's what people say about you when you're not in the room, right? So what do people say about you when you're not in the room that you like, do paintings? Or is it that you do paintings that connect with people on a more emotional level because you've gone through X, Y and Z? Or is it because, you know, you write songs that are hilarious and talk touch on quirky subjects like politics and blank. What is it that you do that makes you stand out? And it's really important that you stand out now. It's really important. And I think that the cloudy part here, because I know where you're headed before you shut me off. It's like the title says.

When you're a creative but not a marketer, right? And here I am talking about all these marketing terms. Stick with me here for a second because what I want to really hone in on is this idea of people love a brand that loves them back, right? But it's first important that we think of ourselves a little more as a brand. And that requires confidence. That requires saying, I have something that's valuable, right? And I touch a lot on self confidence and those kinds of things in other videos. So please, you know, go feel free to check that out. But I've actually created a quiz. If you're not sure, like what makes you valuable, I've created a quiz that will allow you to answer these questions and then hone in on what makes you what your like natural values are. And these are based on a study that was done where they looked at values and said this is what people like. They like functional values, they like emotional values and then like these life change values. So things that like anyway, go take the quiz. If you're not sure where you're at, go take the quiz links in the description below. I would encourage you to try it out, see what you think. Right? But once you know that you have something valuable and how that value works, then it's just about loving the person back and what Is love, right? What is loving? Your customer, your listener, your viewer, whatever, really all about listening. Like, think about a great relationship. A great relationship is about great communication. And it's about, like, you know, what's the biblical thing like? Love is patient. Love is kind. It's not envious. It does not boast about. So, like, I hope that you hear it in the way that I speak to you guys. Like, I truly have a ton of love for you all because I. I want to come from a place of serving you. I want to come from a place of trying to be helpful to you based on my experiences of what I've done over the last 20 years of being a professional creative.

But I know that value. I feel confident in what I have to offer. And many of us, we don't have that confidence yet. And so to start giving value, really all you gotta do is just show a little love. Just. Just listen, start a conversation and show a little love and see what happens, right? People love the brands that love them back. So what would happen if you're putting out your artwork and you just struck up a conversation about something that you're really passionate about and that you knew that your friends are also into it. And then it's like, okay, we're talking about this thing. Let's call it. All right, let's call it Breaking Bad. Okay? I've talked about Breaking Bad before. I'm a huge fan. Best show ever. I would kill somebody over that. Not really. That's extreme. I would have a knockdown drag out with a very small rodent if they disagreed. So anyway, Breaking Bad, great show. You know, what is it? What are the undertones of that show that I really like? I like the idea that there's this character that we find in a lot of like, heavy need, right? And he. And we love him at first because we know he's going through something heartbreaking. And then as the show goes on, we see this transformation of him going from having to just survive and figure out how to serve his family to like serving himself. And it becomes nothing but self serving, right? So something as simple as Breaking Bad can be transitioned into these deeper things, these things underneath it where it's like, you talk about Breaking Bad and then you're like, you know, what's interesting is if you think about Walter White, like, I wrote this song about this thing, or I made this art about the idea of how self serving we are as a culture or whatever, you know, what we find is that our interests usually parallel on many levels. So what I'm into, which is like, story and all these other things. I love those things. So I then go out and analyze those kinds of things for you. It may have to do with how, like, what styles and techniques you use inside your work, right? And so you may want to go talk about that. And so you may. Because you're talking about styles and techniques of art, you may end up attracting more artists. And that's cool. And so maybe it's your thing to serve them. And then, you know, maybe it's like you're into. I don't know, you struggle with something over here, like anxiety or you've dealt with the loss of a loved one. Like, there's something a little more serious over here. So it's like, well, that's a thing that you pull from. There's influence that comes from that. Everything that we create comes from influence. It comes from a story. It comes from, you know, these outside perspectives. We're all just a conglomerate of our experiences and the people that are around us. And so showing love to people is really about just being vulnerable enough to say who we are and what we're into and seeing who starts to feel that and then listening, right? And then saying, okay, what do you. What do you. What do you. What are you showing up and saying to me that I can then respond to? So, for instance, and I don't want to, like, this is not a toot my own horn kind of thing. The reason I'm making this video is because somebody literally said in one of the comments, you know, hey, I'm not a marketer. I'm just a creative. And I think that's a problem. And so I thought this is something I should really talk about. Like, what is marketing? Well, marketing is just getting yourself out there, right? And people love brands that love them back. So start with just sticking your stuff out, sticking your neck out a little bit, putting yourself out there a little more alongside your art and allowing us to see who you are as a person. Tell us what you love. Because we often love the same things. We're often attracted to people that we like the same things. So if we're just seeing your work and we're not seeing what it is that you love, it can be a hard thing for us to understand who you are as a person, right? And so connecting to you as the artist, as the creative is ultimately maybe the most important thing. So don't think so much about marketing your work. Just think more about starting conversations. Think more about putting a little love out there, seeing who listens and then listening to that person and asking them, hey, what are you into? What would you like to talk about? Right? Don't just comment on things just to try to get more comments or get followers. And. And don't just like things in hopes that somebody's gonna come and like your stuff back. Right? When we do things that way, it's very self serving, right? We need to go in and really figure out how to listen so we can serve somebody. Because ultimately for marketing something, we have to have something to offer. And an offering usually comes from a place of love and a place of service. So think about serving somebody first and it's a lot less skeezy, like Better Call Saul billboardy sort of thing. And I know that's what we're all trying to avoid as creative people sending you tons of love. Again, go check out the quiz. If you think that would be helpful, you can check out this video right here. We've been talking about a lot of good stuff here in terms of emotions and connecting, and so I think this would be a great one for you to check out. All right, see you soon.