A Personal Stylesheet

To really be successful:

Anything you do of your own accord will not be successful. If you want success then you need the support of everyone you know. Having the support and buy in from others is what will make you be successful. No one supports an incompetent person, so don’t try selling yourself, sell your brand.

The following guidelines are the why’s and how’s of being successful online.

Use a logo. This can not be stressed enough. Your company is your logo. Your brand is your logo. People want to see that because that is what they are going to believe in.

Don’t use a photograph of yourself. Really the best way to ruin your brand is to use a photograph of yourself in any of your work. People want to believe in your brand, your logo, and your company.

Don’t give personal information about yourself in any way. People don’t care, they won’t read it, and it doesn’t matter. It’s nothing personal, it’s just business. Keep your private life to your friends. Make people believe that your logo, brand, and company are number one. They aren’t supporting you, they are supporting your brand. Don’t give it away by telling them who you are.

Basic Tips For Photographers

There are a few keys to understand how to get the best results. The first two are that you have to do quality work, second you have to produce work on a regular basis.

Besides these points, there are a lot of things to learn and understand. You have to have a clear idea of what your goals are. You have to understand your market and understand what you want to achieve with your work.

People will want to look at groups of photos that are in a topic that they want to see. To be more specific, if you have photographs of dogs, please group all the photos of dogs in one gallery and make it easy for people to find.

People want to see specific things and don’t want to sort through a timeline of things that they are not interested in. You have to show them exactly what they want to see in one click of the mouse. People won’t click two or more links to see your galleries.

If you want to take portraits, only show work with examples of portraits. That is what you are selling, that is what they want to see. If you want to take portraits don’t show people photographs of landscapes or animals. Understanding this is key.

Use social media, however don’t waste your time with spending all your time posting your services begging for business. If you want the business you will have to have support from your friends and family with their buy in, or others who are influential to meet your needs. The biggest factor for success is having everyone’s 100% support for what your doing.

I can not stress this enough. You can not make it alone with out the support from at least 50 people that will help support your message, your product, and sharing your work.

So after you focus on your craft, the second thing you have to be building is buy in from those who are going to support you in your efforts. The only way to make it is to have a support network that helps promote your product.

Tips For Writers

Writing is a craft and skilled art. You don’t become good at writing overnight. Not unless your a genius. The best thing you can do for your work is to be prolific in your efforts.

The second part of this is to be so dedicated that no matter how many rejections you get, you keep going anyways. When no one will read your work or support your efforts, you have to understand that the only persons validation that you really need is yours.

It helps if you want to do something with your work that people will read, however don’t put any trust that your writing alone will gain support from other people. If you want to get the support from others that you're going to need, you are going to have to be a highly functional reasonable being with a brilliant vocabulary and quick witted enough to side step the zingers and make them feel that you're the best mind they have ever met.

Then write the work that proves it. If you work your whole life to gain the support from others, when you choose to be a writer, you will have already gained the support from others that you need to publish your work. Sure you can go with a publisher, but what they care about is that you fit in a box. If you self publish, you are going to need support from your friends and family. I can not stress enough that without their support, you will never get past zero book sales. Some people are great writers, other people are good writers with a large support network. If you're a great writer, you might be happy. If you're a great writer with a support network of people that support your efforts you don’t have to be great, you just have to have other people’s support to tell someone that your book is great.

People base their choices on two things, recommendations from friends, and five star reviews. People only want to read five star books and only will pick up a copy if their friends have said, “Damn this is good.” People are not able to choose for themselves to read a book without someone else to say, “This is a great book.”

So do not despair, what you should focus on is getting support from other people that will give you five star ratings, and tell people that you're a great writer. Then write something really great. Keep going and never give up. You really aren’t a writer until you have written a few million words and understand you will write what you love.

Advice for Artists

Artists are more interested in the end result. Artists care about the creative process of learning, creating, and finding out self realization without being told what to believe, think, or feel.

The best advice for an artist is to follow their creative dreams. For you to be successful, you have to understand the failures are only there so you learn about yourself. Not that you are a failure, you are not a failure. It’s just that it takes a lot of time to build the skills and talent that are required to produce your body of work.

How you run your business depends upon yourself and what you want from life. Traditionally artists are never paid for their work. If you're an artist your work will be sold by the people that paid you nothing for a piece and resold to the highest buyer that you will never see a penny.

This needs to change. I believe an artist should make money every time their work is sold. The artist should be paid for every sale, no matter how much time has passed since the work was created. Their should be accounts for artists that are trust accounts where the funds are deposited and the artists family benefits for the life of their work. This isn’t too difficult to be done. Voice your support, make this happen.