HSH 053: Running a Creative Business Without Selling Out Your Soul with Cory Huff
On this episode, we are talking with my friend Cory Huff about marketing yourself like an artist. For you creatives out there, you deep thinkers and those of you who thinking marketing is a scary word – stay tuned, because this episode is for you!
Cory started TheAbundantArtist.com out of a passionate interest in understanding how creative people can find funding to make money from their pursuits.
He originally started it as a blog and side project while he had a day job, but people started asking him to teach courses and material. 8 years later, the membership site has about 19,000 members and Cory also has a book published with Harper Collins on how to sell your art online.
In order to market themselves effectively, Cory says that creative need to know how to tell a good story about what they’re doing. This way, people will really understand what’s it’s about and this creates an emotional connection with the audience.
He feels there is actually a lot of value in creating something just for the sake of creating it. What you create will resonate differently with people in different ways, but he notes that most great art actually comes from a conversation that the artist is having with others about something that is happening or something that they want to explore.
Cory’s signature online course has evolved over the years, based on customer feedback and it is now a lot less informational and more about taking action.
He says that when we start attaching business to some of our creative outlets, it can kill the joy and that’s when it should remain just a hobby.
Understanding why you’re so interested in something will help translate it into a story that others will comprehend.
Cory recommends going to online communities to see what people are saying. He shares that it doesn’t necessarily have to be a community in your niche either, but you might get some good ideas and information there as well. The bottom line is you need to understand what people are looking for and what those emotions are!
Every single artist wants the validation that happens when someone buys his or her work. This means that someone else is recognizing the value and that the artist has done something meaningful.
To Cory, “hustle” is about doing focused, effective work that will push him towards whatever his goal is; without working 20 hours a day on his business!
The one thing you can do today to push your business forward is to check out his three free courses at TheAbundantArtist.com.
Our inner creative have a voice that is easy to reject or ignore, but Cory proves that even as a creative, you can succeed in a business-to-consumer setting while making art that feeds your soul!
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