Interviews, Show Notes
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The Nitty Gritty:
- How CreativeLive has evolved since it started 7 years ago
- What’s new and exciting in the online education industry
- What enhancements to self-education should be expected in the near future
My guest on the 100th—yes, 100th—episode of the Profit. Power. Pursuit. podcast is Chase Jarvis, co-founder of CreativeLive, the online education company that co-produces this podcast with me.
In celebration of this milestone, CreativeLive and I are thrilled to announce that we’ve put together an amazing giveaway for our listeners!
You can win my hand-picked bundle of 14 CreativeLive classes—taught by some of your favorite Profit. Power. Pursuit. guests—valued at $1,486 dollars PLUS a trip to CreativeLive studios as a studio audience member for an upcoming class of your choice!
Listen to our 100th episode interview with Chase Jarvis for details and information on contest rules.
Here are the incredible classes you could win in the contest bundle!
- Instagram Marketing for Small Businesses with Sue B. Zimmerman
- The Art of Networking with Jordan Harbinger
- A Brand Called You with Debbie Millman
- Mastering Your People Skills with Vanessa Van Edwards
- Personal Branding for Creative Professionals with Dorie Clark
- Make Your Dream Trip a Reality with Chris Guillebeau
- How to Leverage the Power of Live Online Broadcasts with Joel Comm
- Become a Better & Funnier Public Speaker with David Nihill
- Think Bigger, Make More with Jason Womack
- The Personal MBA: The Foundations of an Effective Business with Josh Kaufman
- Heroic Public Speaking with Michael Port
- Make More Money & Discover Your Worth with Sue Bryce
- Branding Strategies to Grow Your Business with Jasmine Star
- Create Your Dream Career with Michelle Ward
In the special 100th episode interview, Chase and I chat about the evolution of CreativeLive since its inception, the state of the online education industry and the exciting time we’re entering to enhance the experience of self-education.
Evolution of CreativeLive
Our goal is to unlock the power of creativity that’s inside of every person.
– Chase Jarvis
The concept for CreativeLive started when Chase and co-founder Craig Swanson began toying with the idea of making workshops to inspire and support creators with a fresh approach to education. They wanted to give students access to the innovators, visionaries and leaders who are doing the work. After their first pilot class on Photoshop, they knew they were onto something. Today, they have more than 1,500 classes, 2,500 articles, this podcast and much more that help creators live their dreams.
While there’s much that’s stayed the same since the company started, the biggest thing that has changed is the scope of content they have to offer students and how they give those students access to precisely the class they need. CreativeLive has more than 10 million students who consume 3 billion minutes of video on the platform. Listen in to the entire podcast to hear how they are “growing into our own skin” and how they hope to connect students with the learning that will unlock their biggest need or challenge. Doing so will help them make a living and a life doing what they love.
Today, the CreativeLive team is much more intentional and sophisticated when determining what new content or classes to provide and how it finds instructors than it was in the early days.
Online Education Industry
In the future, all CEOs will be considered artists.
– Chase Jarvis
Education is this amazing glue between brands and customers. In the future, Chase believes that education is going to decentralize away from schools and become integrated in every brand/customer relationship. Education is the most authentic content marketing that exists. Content marketing adapts to education rather than the other way around.
Companies that care about you will provide great education. If their products are part of that, then that’s a nice incidental thing. As brands provide value to consumers’ lives over time, when it’s time to transact, those consumers will be there for you. That’s a massive global trend.
Opportunities to Enhance the Self-Education Experience
I think we’re just getting started.
– Chase Jarvis
Now, CreativeLive is working on how to make the website and the platform better with the use of technology to help the student journey. The team is trying to solve problems such as how to string a lot of lessons together to enhance the self-education process. Because they’re getting smarter and more experienced, they can leverage technology and create a better user experience. Data is also helping inform the classes that are created and offered and to develop solutions to what students want. Just as the CreativeLive team has become more intentional and sophisticated, self-education platforms will be as well.
Tune in to the full podcast to hear more from Chase about his predictions for the online education industry, how he integrates creativity as part of building a business and what’s on the horizon for CreativeLive.
Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast so you will be with me every week as I get the Nitty-Gritty details from today’s thriving business owners.
Business Brainstorm
Writing & publishing books–for sale–has been my marketing secret weapon for the last 5 years.
But I can hear you saying now: What the heck am I going to write a book about?
(Even if you’re not, you’re probably wondering how to turn your idea into something really engaging and effective for your readers.)
I’ve got an easy exercise you can use to figure it out.
Now, what if you’re not writing a book? This technique works great for any big marketing project you want to embark on (a free course, video series, conference, etc…).
How to Choose Your Idea
Imagine sitting down with the top podcaster, journalist, or writer in your space. They’re really interested in what you do and how it’s different from the rest of the field.
They’d like to know more and you’re excited to answer their questions.
Write down the 5 questions you’d most like to be asked in an interview about what you do in your business.
Then, answer those questions.
Once you’re done, look for the ideas or insights in your answers that separate you from the rest of your space.
Also, look for the things you feel most passionate about, the rants & raves you have about the problem you solve (as my friend Dr. Michelle Mazur would say).
Choose one. Select a differentiator, a rant, or a rave from your interview.
That, my friend, is the topic for your book (or any big marketing project).
Want more? Watch the video clip above or listen to this week’s episode of Profit. Power. Pursuit. where I jam on what publishing books has done for my business and how self-publishing has changed since I was a bookstore manager.
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Then, mark your calendars for my FREE class on writing & publishing your first (or next) book on CreativeLive.
Interviews, Show Notes
Today marks the launch of Profit. Power. Pursuit. : a CreativeLive podcast with me, Tara Gentile, as host. There is an exceptionally strong mission behind this podcast—and it’s not just the mission statement we’ve created.
For me, our mission is about truth-telling. It’s about shedding light on what actually makes creative or idea-driven businesses work. We pay a lot of lip service to following your passion or living your dream life but we often forget the logistics, administration, and sheer grit that it takes to do that.
The people I’m talking to on this podcast don’t forget—can’t forget—it. They live the logistics, administration, and grit every day.
Now, I don’t believe for a minute that you think running a creative or idea-driven business is easy or even glamorous. You know it’s hard work. Yet, a huge knowledge gap between “follow your passion” and “become super successful” persists.
Plenty of people will talk about the empowering upside of entrepreneurship; few are talking about how they actually built a team, negotiated their fees, invested in the future of their businesses, or handled failures.
I want to change that with this podcast.
Every time you listen, I want you to discover something new about the ways creative people are making money, taking control of their businesses, and pursuing what’s truly important to them. I want you to experience the logistics, the administration, and the grit. I want you to connect the dots between a problem you’re having and problems that my guests have solved.
To kick off this podcast, I sat down with Chase Jarvis and Craig Swanson, the co-founders of CreativeLive. They talked to me separately so that I could get an unfiltered view of each of their perspectives on profit, power, and the pursuit of what’s meaningful.
My favorite moment from Craig’s interview was his explanation of failure. He told me a story about realizing that learning how to rollerblade meant first learning how to fall down. He also explained how “learning what falling feels like” helps the team at CreativeLive be resilient in the face of technical difficulties, production snafus, or marketing disappointments. The team has internalized the feeling of failure so that they can move through it quickly and create a solution on the fly.
My favorite moment with Chase was when he talked about the deep transformation the students, instructors, team, and he experience through CreativeLive. Each class taught, each lesson learned, and each hurdle overcome changes us simply because we’re moving toward our desire.
Becoming a CreativeLive instructor has changed me. Founding CreativeLive has changed Chase and Craig. Watching CreativeLive has changed hundreds of thousands of students. And all because we’ve taken steps toward what we want: the profit that comes from creating value, the power that comes from taking control of your own life, and the pursuit of what’s truly important to us.
As Craig said, “The act of moving towards something we want is transformative in itself.”
I hope you are transformed by listening to Profit. Power. Pursuit. as I have already been transformed by hosting it. Listen for the details, the nitty-gritty, and the unexpected—you won’t be disappointed.
Click here to download the podcast. While you’re at it, please subscribe. Your subscriptions help us reach more people with this podcast and create even more transformations in the world of creative business.
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Quiet Power Strategy
On Saturday night, I sold two copies of my new book, Quiet Power Strategy.
And it was one of the single best experiences of my life.
Before starting my company, I managed a Borders Books & Music store. Though that company is now defunct, at the time, they were the 2nd largest bookstore chain in the United States. I managed a store with a $5 million volume and a team of 30-40 employees.
My role as Sales Manager had me overseeing merchandising, human resources, our coffee shop, and the local books & events category. It was my job to purchase books from local authors and plan book signings. While I was working 50-60 hour weeks for $28,000 per year, I dreamed of the day I could be the author instead of the bookseller.
Filling out purchase orders and accounts payable records, I daydreamed about when it would be my book on invoice instead of my signature on the purchaser line.
Saturday, those day dreams came true.
My friend Lisa Reid, who owns Lucy’s Books here in Astoria, Oregon, asked me if I would be the March Author Spotlight when she heard about the impending release of Quiet Power Strategy. When 4:45pm rolled around on Saturday, I gathered up some books and headed downtown.
After about 6 weeks of warm weather and brilliant sunshine, the Pacific Northwest got some “normal weather” for March. It was about 52 degrees and ranging from drizzle to downpour all day. Even though ArtWalk is generally a well-attended event here, noone was overly optimistic.
I sat down at the author’s table and watched about 5 or 6 people walk through the door in the 3 hours I was there. Lisa apologized. It was wholly unnecessary. My dream had come true. I was an author, at an event, at a bookstore. The two books we sold Saturday night represented one of the greatest victories of my career so far.
Well over 1300 books are out there in the world since the books was released last month (thank you!). And those 2 sales still represent something new and incredibly fulfilling to me.
As the above photo wracked up more & more likes on Facebook and Instagram, I couldn’t help but reflect on how much clear vision, purposeful action, and focused direction helps a business stand out.
It’s not about how loud you shout or what promotional tactics you master. Your voice will get hoarse. The algorithms will change.
Knowing where you’re headed, what you want to create, and how you want to connect with other people leads you to take action that helps your business stand out.
Perhaps more so, each step you take on the path toward those things earns you and your business more respect, visibility, and attention.
If your business is struggling to earn that respect, visibility, or attention… if you’re feeling pulled in a million directions and far from focused or purposeful with your actions… my next CreativeLive workshop can help.
We’ll spend a whole week identifying your vision, declaring your Chief Initiative, and defining the metrics by which you can track your progress.
Here’s what you’ll learn in 25 FREE lessons over 5 weeks in Build a Standout Business:
- The 8 questions you need to answers as a foundation for standing out naturally.
- The 2 languages you use to communicate naturally and how you can use them to create more compelling messages.
- The specific conditions you need to successfully connect with others and what marketing channels to try based on those conditions.
- How to create a business bio you can be proud of and use to differentiate what you do from everyone else in the market
- And much, much more…
Again, this bootcamp is completely FREE to watch live and, when you RSVP, you’ll get access to the exclusive course worksheets as soon as they’re available.
I hope you’ll join me starting March 23!
Big Thinking
“So, what I’m hearing you say is that I don’t need a big list to make money.”
One of my audience members realized that incredibly liberating fact on Friday during my CreativeLive course.
No, you don’t need a big list to make money. You don’t need a big list to release a great offer. You don’t need a big list to garner attention or leverage your true strengths.
Sure, list-building is a (perhaps, the) key marketing activity. But you can create a lot of success for yourself if you’re willing to sell while you’re building your list.
You can implement the Living Room strategy. The idea being that it’s a heckuva lot easier—and often much more rewarding both financially and energetically—to fill a living room instead of a stadium.
Bear with me. Imagine you’re a singer/songwriter. You’ve got a few backing instrumentalists and you’ve ready to start performing. Maybe you’ve already been performing for years.
What’s easier to sell 12 tickets to an exclusive, intimate performance in a living room? Or to sell 5,000 tickets to fill a stadium show?
The correct answer is the former. Yet, I see business owners aim to fill the stadium, stress about the logistics of such an endeavor, and then feel defeated when their efforts don’t match their expectations.
(This is an example of a Living Room Strategy I’m working on right now!)
Living Room strategy isn’t about playing small.
Click to tweet.
It’s about understanding how to get results now—and how those results set you up for Stadium-style success when and if you want it. If you follow my Facebook page you’ve started to see my writing on Quiet Power Strategy.
Quiet Power Strategy is all about perceiving, discerning, and focusing on what is going to create the greatest opportunity for service while allowing you to leverage both how you work best and what you want most.
When you choose to fill the Living Room instead of the Stadium, you can have more control over your outcomes, more money in your pocket, and more confidence in your mission. And at the same time, you’re setting yourself up to fill the Stadium later on. Soon, even.
So what does this look like in practice? Knowing you want to create a conference but creating an intimate salon first. Knowing you want to create a New York Times Bestseller but selling your methodology to corporations one at a time first. Knowing you want to create a product & idea empire but sitting with women in actual living rooms first.
You see, it’s not just entrepreneurs who want to serve small groups that leverage Quiet Power Strategy to fill Living Rooms first. It’s bona fide creative rock stars who were intentional about getting their ideas in the hands of the people who mattered most first, and then developing the infrastructure that could take their ideas to the masses.
It’s the confidence, control, and working capital that filling Living Rooms provides that allows for filling Stadiums later on. And that’s quietly powerful. It takes the perception to realize how you can be of service to a small group of incredibly committed customers, the discernment to know how your unique skills, strengths, and passion will create amazing experiences for them, and the focus to actually execute the plan.
The entrepreneurs who will be filling Stadiums in 2015 and beyond are filling Living Rooms today.
Are you?
***
P.S. Due to popular demand, I actually created a Living Room Strategy training. Click here to find out more.
