How I Turned My Creative Skills into a Multi-Six Figure Career

Your Mindset

If you are a graphic designer, video editor, any sort of artistic craft, skilled person, and you're frustrated with your income level, this blog is for you.

Look, I want to tell you a story about my past and how I was able to go from like complete struggling scarcity mindset.

To a multi six figure career in digital marketing and how I took my creative skills and transformed them. And, what I did to get out of that scarcity mindset, get out of that frustrated scenario.

So, I went to a two-year technical school for video production and I learned how to make great videos.

I learned how to edit videos. I was also an early adopter of Adobe Photoshop. I knew how to make things.

With layers and effects and all these sorts of things far before most people did.

I was definitely ahead of the curve by no means, am I the greatest graphic designer by no means?

Am I the greatest video producer, but I was skilled enough that I had a sense within myself that I should go and take advantage of these skills. I should be in the marketplace utilizing. My school told me that I should go work for a news company.

I didn't really want to work for a news corporation or media company. I really wanted to be more of a freelancer.

I wanted to have an independent lifestyle, and eventually I wanted to take advantage of everything the world had to offer such as social media, YouTube, and all these sorts of things. And it was very difficult for me to understand how to charge more, how to get clients.

and it was ultimately scary because you're always like, when is my next job coming? How do I ask for more?

How do I increase my rates? Am I stuck at this level? And even though I had some pretty big jobs maybe $5,000 for a corporate video or $2,000 for designing a website or something like that, the breakthrough and epiphany for me was ultimately realizing.

Language of Business Owners

What business owners are looking for and how they perceive these types of skills in the marketplace and, what they look for when they start working with freelancers, independent companies, even agencies at the bottom line, every business is looking to grow their revenue.

Primarily that is the primary issue.

They're trying to make more money. They're trying to generate their own customers.

And so, the epiphany was simply. If I could position my creative skills in terms of revenue for these companies, I would be far ahead in terms of other creative designers creative, artists, and such. So ultimately my realization was.

Talk to business owners about making money. Don't talk to them about graphics. Don't talk to them about videos.

They don't really want those things. Although they may decide that is a vehicle in the end. They're not actively seeking new graphics, new photography, new videos, new social media.

That's not what's on their mind. What's on their mind is how do we make more money? How do we get profits? How do we grow our business?  And so ultimately.

I realized I have to be able to speak with people on a level that they understand.

Positioning Yourself

So, the switch for me, the big transitional point was to stop really calling myself a video producer, stop calling myself a web designer, stop calling myself a graphic designer and start calling myself a marketer, a digital marketer.

And I think, especially in the, early two thousand and beyond maybe the last two decades.

It's been much easier to describe. Success through digital marketing. If you go back into the eighties, nineties, even seventies, sixties, going back, as far as you want there isn't a lot of design jobs out there.

There weren't a lot of tools and platforms to take advantage of. And now there is so many available and it's flourishing because the new way for businesses to grow is through online traffic channels, whether that is video, whether that is social media, whether that.

Instagram photos, whether that is TikTok videos it's it, applies to so many elements.

And what we have to realize is that by calling ourselves digital marketers, we unlock this relationship with business owners and, they're able to say, hey, I understand you're going to help me market my business.

You're going to help me bring awareness to my business. You're going to help me. You. Find new customers.

Oh, and the way you do that is with Instagram carousel. Oh, interesting. I'd like to know more about that.

Oh, the way you do that is through short form videos on TikTok. Okay. That's interesting. As a business owner myself I don't really, I'm not even worried about what vehicle you use, what method you use, what means you use?

I'm worried about the end point, which is more. More customers, more revenue, more profit.

So, the key is to ultimately speak to business owners on this level.

And if you start doing any sort of branding, if you start doing any content marketing for yourself, if you start doing any cold outreach, your direct avenue to a business owner's head and to their awareness, their attention and their interest is to just say, hey, I can help you grow your revenue.

And if you haven't made this link, I think you need to spend the next 3, 6, 12 months thinking about it.

You need to say, how do I take my artistic skill and transform that into revenue?

So, the obvious answer is through content. Content is powerful and critical in today's business landscape.

And, that's about getting awareness and engagement and connection with the brand and its customers.

So, whether you're doing still graphics, whether you're doing videos, even if you're doing creative writing moving more so into the copywriting realm of things, how can you transform your skills?

Whatever they might be into a digital marketing format and then build a niche service around that.

Transformation from Artist to Marketer

You're a graphic designer, maybe stop creating, just prints or stop creating artwork for sale and move more into creating art for a brand for a business and becoming their premier artist or doing some sort of collaborative.

Project with them or doing some sort of social content campaign for them. That's unique.

Apply your creative skills for a brand. So, they can put better content out in the world, charge a package, a recurring package give them more and more graphics each month. If you're a video producer start thinking in terms of views for your clients, start thinking in terms of awareness for your clients, stop being so connected with the, edit or the, final version of the video.

Because if no one watches that video. What is the real value in a business sense, right?

It's maybe artistic it's made of creatively inspired. It excites you. That's amazing. I, made a lot of videos that I'm really excited about, but if it's not getting reach, if it's not getting awareness, ultimately, it's not serving a business priority.

If you want to be an artist. And you don't care about money. And then this video really is doesn't apply to you.

This is for people who are struggling to make that connection of my skills and a greater amount of income. And I'm telling you that the key here is to link your skills with a marketing campaign or a marketing service, and then speak to business owners about marketing, about building their business, bigger brand, bigger, more revenue.

So, I think that is how you are able to ultimately grow yourself as an individual, as an entrepreneur, as a business owner.

And you're going to find like a lot more attention from business owners because you can speak their language, right? So, this is my first video sort on this topic in terms of how-to creatives go into digital market.

and I would say that creatives make some of the best digital marketers today because the digital marketer has so many tools at their disposal.

They can handle so many different areas of a business's marketing campaign. If you can add in the creative element, if you can add in that strong aesthetically driven eye.

Ahead of the Curve

You will be ahead of other marketers who struggle with that, who need to outsource their graphic implementations, who need to spend 3, 5, 10 times the amount of time to create something visually appealing. If you're very quick at whipping something up then you're absolutely going to have a powerhouse combination.

So, I highly recommend you skill up and become well versed in marketing terminology.

Understand what a marketing funnel is. Understand what content marketing is. Understand what a sales page is, what a video sales letter. What is customer acquisition? What is lead generation? What is conversion rate optimization?

These sort of marketing terms. If they could be combined with someone strong in the graphic or design sense.

Ah, I just think you're going to be a really powerfully skilled person in the current marketplace. And I think you're going to be more future proof. You are going to be a more desirable marketer to work with.

Look, I think artists there's, a lot of artists out there. And I think that's amazing and that's beautiful for the creative pursuits of our world.

But this video at the beginning, we said for those who are frustrated with their low income, this is the connection to make. All right. So, take that with you.

Go away. Think about how you can potentially link those elements. And if you're interested in becoming a better digital marketer, that's why we have Rich+Niche go to richandniche.com and take a look at some of our digital marketing courses.

Or perhaps check out our academy where you can get access to all of our courses on a monthly subscription.

And of course, I'll be there to mentor you along the way.

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