Tag: creative

bookmark_borderMore Thoughts on Selling, Marketing & Social Media

Posted on by savethesavages

I get a lot of people following/unfollowing me daily on my crystal shop’s Instagram page. The number of followers hasn’t really grown that much. But that’s alright because I still get sales.

At first, I did get hung up about it. Like why do people play the stupid ‘follow to unfollow’ game? It really annoyed the fuck outta me.

Anyways, I realized after a year that it didn’t actually matter…I still made sales.

Moral of the story? Just because you have more Instagram followers doesn’t necessarily mean you get more sales.

I’m writing this because maybe some of you are feeling discouraged or feel like you’re not gaining any traction on selling or putting yourself or your brand out there. It’s crowded, everyone’s doing the same damn thing, people steal content, I have to show my face when I don’t really want to, blah blah blah…

It’s definitely going to feel that way sometimes, especially when you’re just starting out.

But with consistency, patience and most importantly – using your own unique voice & perspective – you WILL sell and you WILL attract the right people. And all your hangups about other people doing the same thing will melt away.

Not as easy as it sounds, but if you intend for things to be a certain way – trust that it can happen.

And as cliché as it already sounds – you really HAVE to believe in yourself. You have to be your own fucking number 1 fan. Your negative self-talk will only hold you back.

You also have to stop looking at what other people are doing. I swear, as soon as I stopped doing this – my creativity came back; my writing and my art sounded like me again.

I’m a life coach now by the way. Kidding!?

I’m writing this to encourage you and myself. I have more confidence now that I’ve had the business up and running for a little over a year. So while I have some nuggets of wisdom to share, I’m also aware that I still have a long way to go.

Either way, I’m not worried about it. I intend to have fun and go at my pace.

I see a lot of people start their shop pages on Instagram but don’t really last longer than a month. Why? Because I think they run out of steam. They tend to post a lot hoping people will notice them and start buying right away, but then they burn out just as quickly as they started.

Consistency and repetition is key. But also, pace yourself so you don’t crash and burn. Self-care is just as important.

One of my mentors was telling me you should post 3 times a day on Instagram. I followed that at first, but got tired. So now I only post once or twice a day, depending on how I feel.

What most people don’t think about is that while even starting a small business can be a lot of fun, it’s also A LOT of work. You are the owner, marketer, manager, accountant and more…all rolled into one. You can easily go through a roller coaster of emotions too – from being happy and excited because you made some sales, to being scared and anxious because you spent a lot of money to make those sales, then happy and excited all over again because you paid down some of your debt. Yay!

That is the reality of a lot of small businesses & entrepreneurs – spending money to make money.

Would I do it all over again? Probably.

The secret is to only sell what you love, what you yourself would buy and use. I guess in some ways this is difficult because you’ll be tempted to keep a lot of the stuff you’re supposed to sell!

The other secret is to branch out and learn other skills so you can stand out from everybody else who sells the same thing as you.

Here’s a personal example: I don’t consider myself to be a seller or come anything close to being a salesperson; I am so anti-hustle. Not into it at all. But on the contrary, I AM selling, consistently.

How am I doing it? I honestly couldn’t tell you.

Either people really love the crystals that they see on my Instagram, or they like me as a person. They could be basing it off the reviews I have on Etsy.

It could be all of the above or none of the above.

Behind this human avatar, I could really be a fucking magical being – creating whatever I want to happen next. That sounds feasible to me.

Whatever it is, the effort is paying off – that doesn’t mean I’m done. I have to continue, because I love that I created this; and I love that people love it too.

And I also know that you can do this for yourself too.?

p.s. hope you enjoy the photo I posted with this post! My mom’s church friends already think I worship the devil anyway.???‍♀️?

bookmark_borderRebuilding Oneself Creatively

Posted on by savethesavages

At some point in life, one has to rebuild or reinvent themselves. Maybe even more than once, but a few times in a span of a lifetime.

Your past no longer defines who you are now at this present moment.

I imagine this is how musicians must feel when fans are attached to their more popular songs; people keep wanting to hear you play those same songs over and over but you (the artist) have been ready to move on for sometime now.

But I have to admit, Purple Rain is Prince’s best album. EVER. RIP

I understand this because I have been in the process of doing just that, making others aware of me but from a different view.

It’s not easy, but it can be done. Your past friends might not ‘get’ you anymore, or you might have just drifted apart with those you used to be tight with. It happens.

And yes, there are a ton of artists, writers, makers, creators out there who want to be noticed for their work too but don’t be discouraged if you feel as if no one is paying attention to you and what you have to offer.

You must keep trying, but not in a way that makes you look thirsty (that’s a whole another topic in itself). It is better to make an effort than to be in a defeated mindset and say outloud “no one’s gonna buy my stuff” or “no one’s gonna give me the time of day”.

“No one likes my art.”
“No one likes my music.”
“No one reads my blog.”
“I’m not good at this.”

How do you know that? How do you know what people like or don’t like? You DON’T know.

As far as not being good at it, then you must practice. It’s the only way to get good at something. Even those who are naturally gifted have to practice their craft; it may come easier for them because of their talent – but practice and consistency is involved in any endeavor.

Here’s a personal example: I don’t think I am very good at writing. I am good at blogging about personal shit…as a matter of fact I am an EXPERT at it (haha); but writing for an actual audience – being helpful, making it interesting and to the point? That’s definitely a challenge for me. But I am making the effort with this blog post, I am practicing more and more.

The one thing you don’t want to do is put yourself down. Try not to say anything negative about yourself, try not to say anything negative about others.

Continue to create for yourself. Act like nobody’s watching.

So I hope this blog post motivates you a little. I know, I know…there’s already a FUCK TON of motivational quotes, words from ‘influencers’, experts, gurus, etcetera out there.

But I am just like you, I am trying too. I want to put more effort into this blog, I want to get better at writing quality blog posts on topics that I can discuss. I want to keep pumping out new drawings to go along with these blog posts.

Here are some new rough drawings from my sketchbook. I kinda like coloring with office supplies, hi-liters in particular :]

bookmark_borderPersonal Brands and Such

Posted on by savethesavages

For a long time I thought I screwed myself over by changing my site name from “SHERMGRAFIK” to “SAVE THE SAVAGES”. Deleting everything and putting it back up didn’t help either. If you view it from that perspective, I guess I kinda did; I lost visitors, I lost my spot on Google’s first page for search engine results and I really don’t have much of an internet / social media presence anymore. I basically lost my audience.

That you should stick to your ‘personal brand’ so people will remember you, that you should ‘build up an audience’ and ‘gain more followers’ …that you should do this or do that.

That’s all blah blah blah to me now, only because I’ve finally reached contentment, I have no desire to achieve those things. And I want to remove the phrase “I should” from my vocabulary forever and replace it with “I can”.

Being content is not the same as being complacent.

And after learning how to do this for my employer, I’ve come to realize that people can buy or even cheat their way into popularity and brand awareness – by stealing other people’s content or buying followers, just to name a few.

This sums it up for me, it’s a quote from what Cameron Crowe learned from David Bowie on Mashable:

His takeaway, though, is what sticks out bright in his mind today: “He was always obsessed with music and art and never the business.”

“The thing I just wanted to say — I’ve had the last couple of days to think about it — [is that] David Bowie’s impact is so huge in that he presents himself now as a role model to artists who may need to remember that it’s not about branding, it’s about a restless need to be creative and to continue being creative,” he said.

“David Bowie was the anti-branding artist.”

Don’t get me wrong, branding is great – it gets your name out there. But for artists, it’s not a hard and fast rule. You don’t have to stick to a style of creating because the masses like it, you have to create because it’s what you’re born to do whether you have an audience for it or not.

And that’s my take on it.