Kelsye Nelson On How To Be A Successful Creative Entrepreneur
Kelsye has a wealth of knowledge to help the creative entrepreneur. We talked a lot about the importance of connecting and pursuing your passion, regardless of monetization.
The first step is to discover the interests and at least do them. Whether it is full time, part time, hobby, or any where in between, the most important thing is that you pursue it.
There were some very powerful moments in this episode. One of the early, heavy hitting and emotional topics revolved around regret and guilt. Kelsye shared how she felt guilty for being in the way of her moms dreams.
This lead to some awesome conversation about supporting others in chasing their dreams. One of the worse things we can do as family members is hold people back from their ambitions. At the same time, we need to be brave enough to set the example by pursuing our own dreams.
Kelsye shared a bit of her own challenging life experiences. We chatted about how with the right perspective, we can pivot difficult times into positive powers. We shared some ideas and anecdotes about this mindset. Talked a bit about trauma, the things that build our character and why it’s important to help people learn to take that stance.
The Magic Of Thinking Bigger
A lot of people who start a creative business start out thinking really small because they don’t feel they have permission to do more.
This feeling holds people back and they often get stuck freelancing, or building tiny products to sell. Kelsye flips this concept around.
She shares her strategy for building bigger, bolder ideas first. These ideas fuel the rest of your vision and goals. Through success at a higher level, with fewer people, you will actually be able to serve more people, faster.
One of the most exciting things was discussing the ideas about building community within your audience. The bigger your list of engaged, active audience members the better. This should be step one!
Kelsye shared some incredible tips on building your audience, marketing the right way and how to grow your own email, or text lists.
To help more people, you have to be selfish and promote. Her expertise and strategy around building your creative business is really helpful for both people looking to get started, or already far along their journey of entrepreneurship.
Kelsye shares a lot about sharing your work with others, and the necessary “evil” of self promotion that will help all of us be more successful.
How To Reverse Engineer Your Big Goals
There were some incredibly powerful points on how to manifest your big dreams and goals as well.
Kelsye shared the idea of writing down your vision, and believing in that future accomplishment as though it actually already exists. Don't just think about it, actually do it now.
Being thankful now, in the present, for things we want to exist our future is one of the most powerful actions we can take to achieving them in real time. Of course we need to put in the actions, but most crucial is feeling deeply that we’ve already achieved it.
When it comes to those actions, we talked a bit about prioritization and the importance of protecting our time and energy. It’s valuable to find balance, because we want to collaborate with each other, and have some down time left over. So, figure out the most important, one, or two things tied to your work and make sure you focus eighty percent of your time on those things.
15 Tips On Audience Growth And Creative Entrepreneurship
- First, it’s not “either-or”. It’s not either you become a creative entrepreneur, or you go to a job you hate. This is a false idea. There are so many different ways to create a comfortable lifestyle that fits your passion and direction. So the way for you to succeed, you as an individual is nuanced.
- Once you realize there are many ways to create a business you love, you have to decide what that success looks like to you and open up your own mind to deeply believe that it is possible for you.
- Build your personal business foundation by starting with a website, preferably in your name. You might switch projects, niches, and content strategy, but you will always exist. So be sure to have this foundation that allows for making many pivots, while still building lifelong growth.
- Regardless of your business model, in almost every case you are going to have to build an audience. Whether you create an app to sell, or you are a musician, you will have to build an audience around your messages.
- Don’t only build a passive audience of subscribers, friends and followers. Be sure to build a more active audience who is willing to share their contact information, such as email, or text number with you.
- The best way to grow your audience is to use other people’s audiences through collaboration and partnerships. By creating something radically helpful for their audience, they will want to put you on and share your work for you.
- Create an email newsletter list. Use a software as a service, like Mailchimp, or convert kit, to create your email list management, newsletter system.
- Share your newsletter as often as you can that brings unique, up to date, and valuable content with your audience. If that is every day, then do so, or it may be once a week, or once a month.
- Only sell ten percent of the time. Ninety percent of the time, just bring value. Remember to give, give, give, give and then ask for something.
- Build a resource that you can give away for free. You should always have things that are actually valuable, people would really appreciate having that they can gain access to in exchange for joining your email list. Not only should it be valuable to them, it should be free and unique, not something they could get elsewhere.
- Make it very easy for people to unsubscribe. And.iIf people unsubscribe from your lists, don’t stress about it. That is fine. It helps sort who really cares about your work. Continue to learn and reinvest your time, and energy into those who you do have on your list still. Bring a ton of value to those who do stick around.
- Think to the side of the main revenue stream. How can you build a lifestyle adjacent to, or around your main thing? When it comes to marketing, or secondary revenue streams, ask questions like; what can you teach people; what can you share that helps others; how can you participate in events, speaking engagements, or collaborations?
- Think of products and services like a Hershey kiss. At the top you have very high end, more expensive items. You only need a few of these top customers to support creating the offers throughout the rest of your business. Over time, you will have offers at a few levels, that are all well worth it for that customer.
- Work to improve your mindset, which is the foundation of healthy success. And actively improve your priorities. Never stop increasing the ability to focus your time and energy on the most important things to you and your business, rather than randomly on everything.
- Write down and regularly visualize your goals and dreams. Believe so deeply that they already exist now. Don't worry about how they'll come to be, just keep believing and keep working.
Memorable Quotes
“Creative entrepreneurs often have a difficult time finding a comfortable way to build a business around painting, singing, writing, or taking pictures..”
“I hate the starving artist thing. There should be no such thing as a starving artist.”
“A creative entrepreneur is simply defined as someone creating something that is designed to have an impact on the world.”
“It is entirely possible to build a business around your art, that does not compromise your art, and that does not lead to your suffering materially. You may not be super rich, but you can build the life you want around your art.”
“I realized when I was pregnant, that if I wanted to be able to tell my daughter to chase her dreams, then I had better be brave enough to recognize my own and truly go for it.”
Guest Bio
Kelsye is an author, entrepreneur and creative community advocate. As founder of Gutsy Creatives, she helps professional creators, primarily writers, reach massive audiences to share their message and earn impressive revenue.
She has founded and served as CEO at multiple companies in her career that were venture backed. But she also knows how to keep her priorities in order. She is a family first leader, who still gets a lot of awesome creative and business work accomplished. And, she splits her time living between the USA and Sri Lanka.
Kelsye is also an enthusiastic public speaker, presenting talks and workshops on publishing, marketing, entrepreneurship, and startups at conferences and events around the world. She believes strongly in building community, both online and offline. While Kelsye has a large online following, she also maintains in person groups and meet ups.
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