Another week of creating in the books 🎥
Did you make your estimated quarterly tax payment on Tuesday?
If not, check out last week's newsletter where we dove into how to manage them. Don't get hit with a penalty!
In this week's edition of The Loaf we talk about:
Business: 10 Tips to Help You Start Your Small Business (Even on a Low Budget) [Blog]
Full-time creators are entrepreneurs.
While you may start creating purely out of passion, there may come a time when you'd like to turn your creative efforts into a full-fledged small business.
This article walks through 10 tips to help you get started with minimal money - a few of my favorites directly related to creators:
Pre-Sell Your Service or Product - “This will validate your product or service, bring in capital and help you work the bugs out before launching. Pre-sell to a strategic group of people whom you think will benefit from your offer. Maybe even sell to them at a founder’s rate.”
Leverage Your Own Talents - This is important for creators. "Make sure to understand what you can do without money (what you can do yourself) and then what you will need to hire out for. Once you know what you can do with no money, you can set a plan to leverage your own talents"
Create a Portfolio - Your existing content could serve as your portfolio if you wanted to do creation-as-a-service
Build an Engaged Community - “Building an engaged audience around your business helps you to get your message in front of people who might not otherwise hear it. Don’t promote yourself, but help others instead. You’ll build your reputation and find it easier to get customers.”
Money: How to Automate Your Bookkeeping (And Why You Should) [Blog]
As a creator or freelancer, you're most likely responsible for withholding taxes out of payments you receive - and I would assume that you're managing both your business and personal finances on your own.
As a financial planner, writer, and creator myself, I know how hard it can be to manage everything. Using the technology we have available to us can make things MUCH easier.
This article talks through how and why you should automate your accounting & bookkeeping.
If you're curious about which financial tools and tech to use, here's my current set up:
Bank - Creative Juice
Accounting software - Wave
Invoicing & payment software - Stripe
Tax & automation software - Catch
Also read: How to Put Your Money on Autopilot (Step-by-Step Guide)
Strategy: How Emotional Intelligence and Cultural Relevance Builds Brands [Blog, Interview]
This quick interview with Anna Melissa - copywriter for Nike and creator of the "Catch Lobs Not Feelings" brand - breaks down how you can use empathy and EQ to build a stronger brand, which can then be used to build a stronger connection with your following.
"I think there are a few things that set you apart and make the difference between talking to your audience and engaging in an ongoing conversation with them - and it’s finding the sweet spot between relevance and resonance. Relevance can be in regards to timing or whether or not your audience will care and show genuine interest in something.
Resonance will let you connect with people in a way that is organic, and evokes a feeling of familiarity."
A personal brand is the new resumé - or so they say.
Speaking from experience, I can confidently say that building a personal brand is one of the best uses of your time as a creator. To piggyback off the brand article above, these are a few creators I follow who've built strong, recognizable personal brands:
Jack Butcher
Ex-agency designer turned creator, Jack Butcher has built one of the most recognizable brands on Twitter with Visualize Value.
Aaron Alto
Known for his art, design, & sketches, Aaron's consistent and on-brand approach to creation has helped him build a following - which has then spurred the release of Draw In Business and the WAGMI table.
Sachin Ramje
The ‘Hyper-Visual’ Guy - His unique style is eye-catching and Sachin visualizes complex ideas and writes about data visualization, design and digital marketing
Caitlin Cook
Caitlin has taken FinTwit by storm as of late, building a following of 18,000+ around her cornerstone #GetOutside movement and crypto education.
Josh Spector
One of my favorite follows on Twitter, Josh is the go-to resource for many creators around content strategy. His For The Interested newsletter has over 18,000 subscribers and he provides value on the daily through the newsletter and Twitter.
Jerine Nicole
The Multi-Passionate Creator, Jerine writes about growth and creativity and creates videos around writing, self-growth & entrepreneurship.
Alex Lull
Alex built a following of 10,000+ in less than a year and writes regular, valuable threads that contain his signature yellow designs.
📈 FullSend NFT generates $23 million in revenue in 10 minutes, $16 million in secondary trade volume in 24 hours
📤 How to send a cold DM with a high probability of success
📈 How this creator went from 2,000 to 105,000 followers in 8 months on Twitter (via IdeaEconomy)
👀 Has the TikTok algorithm been figured out? (via Matt Navarra)
🐦 Twitter rolls out NFT profile picture verification
🔗 LinkedIn rolls out more Newsletter features for creators
🖥 This is how long it takes to rank in Google Search (via For The Interested)
🎥 TikTok creator becomes face of Gucci x North Face collab (via The Publish Press)
Tool of the Week: Best First Lines (free) - Created by John Paul Hernandez, this is a resource library that contains punchy one-liners to use for inspiration on copywriting, blog posts, and more
Freelance Finds: Why Freelancers Should Be on Twitter (And How I Would Approach It to Get New Clients)
Keep creating,
Treyton DeVore
Content Writer | Creator
