With the next recession underway, succeeding in the creator economy is more challenging than ever. A record number of creators are trying to launch their side gigs. A down economy means there’s much less discretionary money out there to purchase what those side gigs offer. Knowing the common creator mistakes to avoid provides a clear advantage.
After creating and launching several online businesses over the last few decades, and helping major corporations – Google, Apple, Facebook, FedEx, HP, Amazon – build compelling online experiences, I’ve learned the following lessons about what not to do on the road to success.
Many I’ve learned the hard way. Consider these on your way to digital stardom:
- Do not put your own financial needs between your business and its success. In the spirit of keep your day job until you prove income from your endeavor, if you’re desperate to pay your bills, you’ll be tempted to compromise any longer-term (and often much larger) opportunities that come along – because they won’t immediately generate the short-term cash you need to pay the bills.
- Skip the Freak Out. Remain calm and focused. Remember that all that noise, all the gurus and experts out there, all that content flying around represent true demand and a strong, vibrant marketplace. By simply positioning yourself effectively, you can get in the slipstream of all that activity and let it pull you along, instead of letting it run you over.
- Don’t be impatient. Plan an effective strategy. Be sure to get your sequence right. Do your homework. Test your assumptions, the value you provide, and the experience you create to deliver it. Take the time to learn, to explore, to absorb the vast amount of (mostly free) method and knowledge out there.
- Avoid treating others’ success with scorn. It’s human nature to react to success with jealousy or feelings of inadequacy, especially if you’re still struggling. Be aware that you may feel and react that way, quietly let it pass if it happens, then move on and learn from others’ success. Notice and apply the best models, because they’re proven, and they work.
- Don’t try to shout louder than everyone else. That just makes the online world more noisy and more chaotic – and it doesn’t work. You’ll just appear loud, instead of credible and authoritative. Obnoxious tricks to get more attention will do the opposite and drive intelligent, reasonable people away.
- Absolutely resist the temptation to spam! The vast online world offers the opportunity to easily harvest a lot of emails, to jump into massive online groups that you know nothing about, to leave comments on popular blogs that you haven’t read, to write wildly exaggerated headlines, and to attempt to be edgy or shocking. We’ve all seen those behaviors, and they’re offensive.
I need not remind you about the ethical risks here of getting banned, of getting a crappy reputation, and ruining forever your own online karma. And even if you attempt this, you’ll only attract other spammers and uncouth loudmouths.
- Beware of creating junk, and definitely don’t create massive volumes of junk – see also ‘don’t spam’ and ‘be patient’ above. You know what this looks like. You’ve probably indulged in click-bait at some point. And sooner (or later) you wake up and ask yourself, ‘what am I doing?’ The Internet, social media, and the Web are already far too swamped with junk, and you do not want to end up as just more junk in the junk heap.
Learn your market, your target user, your audience, and create real value for them. Help real people in the real world solve real problems. And be willing to be honest with yourself about the quality and depth of your output and your offer. If they don’t advance the overall quality of our collective lives, professions, and businesses, keep working on them until they’re ready.
- Never hesitate to help others. As you get more successful, you’ll start to experience the benefits of increased exposure and attention in your endeavors, and you’ll begin to create a community of your own. Welcome others into it. Help them find their own way and share your past successes and lessons.
- Don’t shoot in the dark. You’ll attract no one, or people who aren’t your target audience. And you’ll wonder why they don’t buy your stuff or read your posts. ‘Spray and pray’ and ‘build it and they will come’ have never worked, and they’ll burn you out and burn your resources.
- Don’t give up! There are NO overnight success stories. Getting in the flow of others’ successes will give you a huge boost, shorten your time to success, and immerse you in the upper tiers within your markets and audiences.
- Never stop participating in the advancement of the cumulative impact of constantly increasing value in a highly competitive environment – no matter how challenging it may be. Yes – there’s a lot of noise out there. Yes – it’s very competitive and stressful. Yes – you will be challenged to dig deep, get innovative and creative, put yourself out there, and take some big risks. Okay, so you knew all that, right?
- Avoid the temptation to skip testing. This includes focused qualitative testing of your message, the value you offer, and the experiences you put in the world. If any of those three flat flat, they’ll drag you down with them.
You don’t want to spend years of effort, time, expense, and goodwill with hidden technical or usability problems, or aim at the wrong audience, or create invisible barriers between your user and customer touchpoints.
- Don’t listen to all the gurus. Listen to some of them, or better yet, a few of them. You cannot be excellent at every single online marketing and virtual publishing discipline on the planet: blogging, SEO, social media, Facebook Live, Linkedin Ads, guest blogging, Pinterest, Twitter, virtual courses, ebooks, and speaking — unless you’re a big wildly successful corporation with armies of developers and truckloads of cash. Learn to prioritize and focus.
- Don’t go Lone Wolf. We all work better together.
All outcomes in business happen only through the experiences we create.
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I’m Bob Berry — researcher, speaker, writer, and innovator on the art of compelling experience.bob@itstheusers.com / LinkedIn / http://ItsTheUsers.com
