Conscious Me by Carlos Velez

Why is Selling to One Customer a Joy, and to Another a Nightmare?

Carlos Velez — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 18:42:07 +0000

I meet people (customers) in their homes and sell them big ticket projects on a daily basis. Sometimes it feels good, sometimes it doesn’t. What makes the difference?

I visit with them, talk to them about vinyl versus wood fence, or wood versus vinyl windows. I take their measure as they take mine, and I make an offer. I ask for the sale. More than half the time I leave with a check.

But walking out with that precious slip of valuable paper has very little bearing on how I feel walking out (though it does have some). After all, it’s not a contest I’m trying to win. I’m not trying to convince anyone to buy something they don’t want to buy. I don’t do high pressure sales.

Sometimes I tell that customer it was a pleasure to visit with them, and I warmly and genuinely invite them to call me for any home improvement needs even if it’s not my area. Sometimes, I just want to get out of there as fast as I can.

So what makes the difference between a good feeling sale and a bad feeling sale?

An Instinctual Connection to the Customer

It’s the connection to the customer. You feel it within moments of shaking hands hello. There’s some kind of primal, instinctual connection that happens and you either jive with the customer or you don’t. Sometimes it’s neutral, and sometimes the whole thing is anxiety ridden and you have to put on your professional self because your personal self isn’t comfortable.

Here’s what I’ve discovered for certain. When I can sell as my personal self, I am happier and my customers are more thoroughly satisfied with their entire experience. The whole thing hinges almost exclusively on “the vibe” between me and them.

I’ve had projects where everything that could possibly go wrong did go wrong, but I connected with that customer from the get go and so dealing with the problems never got stressful, the customer never got upset about the situation. We just fixed it and did our best, and the customer was satisfied with it.

Then I’ve had projects where nothing could satisfy the customer, though everything went smoothly and they got the best price available. Guess what. I felt anxious around those customers from the start.

Our instincts tell us who we should be dealing with. That customer that’s inspiring an anxious vibe, isn’t our customer. The one that’s totally neutral, no feelings either way, probably isn’t our customer either. They’re someone else’s. They will jive with the competition, and that’s ok.

I’ve got a job to do, though. I can’t turn customers away or treat certain ones differently just because I like them more or less. I have a boss and a job description that say otherwise.

But what about the photography business I’m starting with my wife? Is it any different? Does being our own bosses change this?

How do Julie and I deal with these different types of potential clients? Your thoughts?

Why is Selling to One Customer a Joy, and to Another a Nightmare? is a post from: Conscious Me by Carlos Velez Conscious Me is now on Facebook. Click to visit the new page!

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Please Critique My Sales Page

Carlos Velez — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 19:29:47 +0000

Yesterday we talked about the grueling experience my wife and I had pricing our art in our photography business. The lesson learned was that the problem is not that we are wanting to charge too high a price; the problem is how to sell our art for that price effectively.

At the end of the post I said I would provide a link to the sales page I wrote after that revelation and open it to critique in hopes of getting great advice as well as giving you the chance to learn from what I do well, and what I do poorly so you can apply it to your own business.

So here’s what I want from you if you’re willing to oblige me.

This page is written towards high school seniors and will be one of several pages on our site targeted towards different types of clients. So as you read it, put the blogger in you away, and put the editor in you away. Read it as if you are either a high school senior looking for someone to take cool photos of you, or as if you are that senior’s parent who will be paying for the shoot.

Read it like you’re a consumer. Then come back and answer these questions. I know I’m asking a lot, but I really think the experience will help you a lot as well, so…please, and thank you!

The magnificent link to my spectacular sales page: Julie V. Photography | Senior Portrait Style Sessions in Topeka, KS

Feedback Questions

What parts turn you off?

What parts were not clear?

What parts sold you on our photography?

What would it take for you to hire us?

ps. if your curiosity about our photography business is not satiated, you can check out the main page at Julie V. Personal Style Photography | Topeka, KS.

Please Critique My Sales Page is a post from: Conscious Me by Carlos Velez Conscious Me is now on Facebook. Click to visit the new page!

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How I Got Comfortable Charging a Premium for Our Art (sort of)

Carlos Velez — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 12:40:08 +0000

Blerg. Today (and quite a lot over the past couple of weeks) my wife and I have had to put down on paper what we’re worth being paid as photographers – as artists. How much to charge per session. How much to charge per mini session. How much to charge for photobooks (after the arduous task of deciding which photobooks to offer).

I can tell you this right now. We’re not charging enough – yet. The prices we’ve set will not give us a full time income -but- it is more than we feel totally comfortable charging. That’s a good thing. I think artists should always charge more than they feel comfortable charging because we’re always worth more than we think we are.

The problem of selling…revisited

The problem comes back to selling your art at that price. If you’re uncomfortable with the price, you’re not going to sell it very well. You might accept praise as a form of payment, or at least seem very unsure of yourself when you give the price, which does little to reassure the customer with the cash in hand.

Fortunately, I have a lot of sales experience. In fact, compared to the average artist I’m a pro and an authority. Nevertheless, deciding on prices for our photobooks today gave me a headache and pinged every fear and insecurity I have about our business. I had doubts that anyone would pay what we wanted to charge (which isn’t giving us any ridiculous amount of profit).

We looked at our competition and saw that we were on the higher end for our session fee, but on the lower end for our print prices. Other photographers were offering a disc of the photos and a copyright release – we are not. I started to panic. I wanted to find excuses to lower our prices, and we did – a little.

By the time Julie and I were “done” (I think there’s still more work to be done) figuring out our photobook prices we were both head-achy, cranky, and ready to do anything at all unrelated to our photo business.

How I got comfortable charging a premium for our art (sort of)

Afterward, we got to cooking (dinner). And while we were cooking my brain started mulling over how we were going to sell people on our business and our products. And that was it – the solution to the conundrum of pricing. The problem is not figuring out the perfect price that is going to keep us competitive. Fuck competitive. We don’t want competition. We want to be one of a kind. So the issue isn’t an uncompetitive price.

The issue is how to sell that premium price. (Did I emphasize that “how” enough? Let’s repeat…the issue is HOW to sell that premium price.)

So I thought back over all the things Julie and I have discussed about how we want to make our business different from all the other photography studios in town. I thought about how we want to provide an amazing experience to every client from start to finish, and how we never really want to finish that experience anyway, how we want to keep the relationship going with each client. We want our clients to love us because we made them feel beautiful and special in a way that only we could.

We work hard to make art, not portraits, of our clients.

Our higher than average session fee is well worth that. Our gorgeous photobooks that will last for decades are well worth that. We offer quality and originality. We offer something unique.

How we sell it is everything. If we sell our services like our competition we’re going to lose out to a cheaper price because the client will believe we are interchangeable with our competition.

This is good news! At least it is for me, because I have some talent for selling. I’m good at it at my day job. Now I just have to learn to apply the selling skills I’ve acquired to our business of art. As I do exactly that, I hope to help you develop your selling skills as well.

So my task this week is to write a sales page that places Julie V. Photography as a premium photographic and personal experience. The sales page must set us apart in the minds of our potential clients. It should create a divide between us and other photographers so that when the potential client compares us it’ll be apples and oranges. Then they won’t look at the bottom line, they’ll look at the content.

They’ll have to decide between portraits and the Julie V. experience.

Please critique my sales page

Update: As of this posting, I’ve published a sales page for our Senior Portraits since that is what we are getting lots of inquiries about. Tomorrow I will put up a post here on Conscious Me asking for your help in revising/rewriting it to make it more effective. With any luck we’ll be able to sharpen each other as salespersons. I intend for this exercise to benefit you as much as it does me.

Comment about any frustrations you’ve had with setting prices or selling your art (writing, painting, music, web design, programming…anything that you create) and maybe I can help, or maybe one of my other readers can.

Come back tomorrow and we’ll tackle this sales page and make it shine.

**The new post with the sales page link is up! Click here to read it and give your two cents…Thanks!**

How I Got Comfortable Charging a Premium for Our Art (sort of) is a post from: Conscious Me by Carlos Velez Conscious Me is now on Facebook. Click to visit the new page!

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Why You Should Stop Reading My Blog

Carlos Velez — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 13:00:21 +0000

Blogs are amazing. The low barrier of entry to blogging (meaning, the ease of getting started) has led to an explosion in the amount of people publishing their thoughts and opinions online. It’s amazing! I freakin’ love it! There are so many people who write life-changing content out there. And I want to read it all!

I can’t though. There comes a point of critical mass where one more RSS subscription overloads me and next thing I know I have 432 unread blog entries in my reader. There needs to be a better criteria for what blogs I subscribe to than “great content.”

Reading other blogs is good for a few things. Inspiration. Motivation. Connection. And each one of those is vitally important to success as an entrepreneur or a blogger, or anything you want to do really. But there’s a “but” to each of those benefits.

Inspiration

Sometimes I read a blog and it inspires me to reach out, to try something new, or it gives me an idea worth doing. When that happens I star it in my reader, I might retweet it or even leave a comment. Then I read the next blog post in my reader

Wait. What?

Wasn’t I just crazy inspired? Shouldn’t I be doing something about it?

Well, yes, I should but the thing is I have like 10 more new articles in my reader and I’ve gotta get through them because tomorrow’s Monday and every damn blogger in the world is going to post something tomorrow and my reader will get overloaded if I don’t get through these. (breathe)

Inspiration is lovely. Inspiration is a gift of gold. Inspiration is a passionate kiss from the mouth of your goddess.

-But-

Inspiration doesn’t do anything, it just is. What if when we read an inspiring post we just stopped reading, skipped commenting and retweeting and did what it inspired us to do? We could leave a hell of a comment afterward.

“Hey, thanks for this post! It inspired me to do this thing…[fill in stellar accomplishment here, or hell, even link to it]. I couldn’t have done it without you [insert smiley face, winky face, kisses and hugs, or whatever emotive combination of characters you prefer]“

If I ever read a comment like that on my blog, I’d be beside myself with appreciation and impressed as all hell at the commenter.*Hint, wink nudge*

Motivation

Inspiration’s hot younger sister. Sometimes you read a post and while it’s not necessarily inspiring you to do something new, it does put fresh energy into your step. You’re excited to do what you’ve been doing. You want to go further and faster than ever before.

-But-

Motivation is a sugary energy drink that will drive you and crash you. It will not have lasting long-term effects on the work you do. Ride that buzz while you can, by all means, and focus your effort on something important while you have it. But don’t become dependent on it. Motivation and energy drinks are temporary solutions to be used on occasion, at best.

Athletes aren’t great athletes because they down a Red Bull before each game. It’s because they’ve trained, practiced, and made themselves fit to do the hard work for the long term.

We don’t need motivation (much). We need practice.

Connection

God it’s wonderful to connect. If Motivation is a hot younger sister, then Connection is their smokin’ no-way-she’s-old-enough-to-be-a mom who makes you feel comfortable and giddy, and more of a man. Connecting is what blogs are all about right? Leave comments. Step up the relationship to second base with email. If things go really well, you might be able to round third with some Skype. We won’t discuss crossing home plate.

The best things that have happened to the success of this blog, meager as it is, have happened because of a connection to someone. Most of my readers have come from another blogger, because they promoted me in some loving way. I believe the best, fastest, and most enjoyable road to success lies in connecting with others whom you jive with.

-But-

They might be anxious to do for you what they can, but what do they have to work with? If they don’t have the opportunity to do much more than retweet your retweets, the connection is going to go from “sexy and passionate” to “just friends.”

Now let’s be clear. I believe being social on social networks (as in, just having casual conversation, not trying to promote yourself or others) has real value (because it lets people connect to you better), and I also believe you should connect to someone because you value them and want the best for them, not because you want them to further your career. I’m not a douche bag.

But why are you (am I) blogging in the first place? Are you (am I) here to make friends? You certainly can (me too). And great ones (I know I have). But is that why you (I) started, or did you (I) have another goal in the beginning? If you (I) ever want to accomplish that goal, you (I) have to disconnect a little and get some work done. Give your (my) friends a little time to miss you (me), and something to talk about as well.

In other words, don’t spend your day nosing through an RSS reader that’s bulging at the seams or retweeting every post that all your friends put up on Twitter.

Triage

Go through your RSS feed carefully. As you look at each subscription, ask yourself these questions:

Do I want to read every post from this blog?
Why did I subscribe to it in the first place?
Does the blog or the person behind it contribute (be honest) to my goals?
If I stopped reading it, would I miss it or just feel guilty because I feel like I should read it?

I did this, more or less, a few weeks ago. I unsubscribed to a bunch of blogs, and it broke my heart. There were some great personal development blogs in there with wonderful content, but they aren’t what I need at this time in my life. There were some blogs by people I like a lot, and to whom I wish the best of success. But their blogs just aren’t for me personally; I’m not their target audience.

The result is that I almost always clear my RSS feed every day, and I get a lot more out of what I read because the pressure to clear though the mass amount of blogs is (nearly) gone. I subscribed to a few new blogs, mostly photography, because that’s what I’m putting my heart and soul into and I could use a little inspiration, motivation, and connection. Then I had to go back through and unsubscribe from some more to make space.

The ultimate result is that I have a lot more focus now. I’ve accomplished a lot more work that leads me to my goals this month than I have in the past three. The past couple posts I’ve published pretty much kill anything else I’ve written for this blog – ever. Oh yeah, and I’ve started to make some money from the work I’m doing with my wife in our new photography business.

Stop Reading My Blog If…

it doesn’t pass the litmus test described above. I do hope I pass, but more than that, I hope you accomplish the goals you had in mind when you started blogging. If reading my blog distracts you, or puts pressure on you to clear it from your reader, or comment or retweet and you’re not doing the work you should be…unsubscribe.

If Conscious Me isn’t helping you but you want to stay connected, follow me on Twitter, or friend me on Facebook. I also have a feed of this blog posting on the Conscious Me Facebook page; you can just read my posts when the titles suck you in.

So what do you think? I want you to leave a comment, I do. Instead, I dare you to close this window on your browser and work on something important, something that will get you closer to your goals, and do it solidly for the next hour. After you’ve accomplished something, I’d adore you for coming back and posting a comment about what you did.

In fact, if you do, I’ll do any one (or all) of the following for you. It’s not much, but it’s all I got.

Retweet any link you want, after I’ve read through the page so I can add a relevant comment to the tweet.
Let you guest post on Conscious Me
Friend you on Twitter and/or Facebook
Add your blog to a new link list on my sidebar that I’ll put up for anyone who wants a link on it for the next month

Bonus: if you write a post about your experience with this, I’ll post a link to it below.

Whatever we do, let’s just all go do something to make progress.

Carlos. Out.

Why You Should Stop Reading My Blog is a post from: Conscious Me by Carlos Velez Conscious Me is now on Facebook. Click to visit the new page!

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The Artist as a Brand, a Company, a Salesman

Carlos Velez — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 06:43:25 +0000

The business world is changing. The internet and technology and all that coolness are to blame. Self-publishing professional looking material is now possible for any bloke with a laptop. The artist now has the means to be a business without selling the rights to his work to a middleman. The artist can be his own brand.

Local, small-time musicians are recording music digitally, and putting out albums with sound engineering that would have been impossible 20 years ago without a massive record label behind you.

Novelists are bypassing the publishing companies and selling directly (or through Amazon) to the readers, and making more money doing it.

Photographers can start up a business and a good looking website faster than you can say cheese without knowing a lick (a click? no that’s too cheezy) about how to do it.

The artist can sell his work himself and keep a much huger profit margin than ever before.

Oh shit. Wait. That was the catch. The artist has to sell…and he has to do it himself.

But Artists Hate Selling

I’ve known a hell of a lot of artists in my time, and yeah, they hate selling. I am an artist too, but at my day job I’m a salesman. I’ve found a good level of comfort selling projects that often cost $5K – $15K. But even with that experience backing me, selling my own art is a trial. It’s extremely difficult to charge what I’m worth.

It’s so tempting to find reasons to not charge that golden figure yet. I don’t have enough experience, I don’t have good enough equipment, no one’s heard of me yet, I’m not as good as ________.

Mindset is Absolutely Everything

When I walk in a customer’s home, measure their windows and quote them a $10,000 bid, I get nervous. Especially when that $10,000 only covers a couple windows and a patio door because they chose the most expensive line I have available. As I see the dollar amount adding up, I feel the consumer in me balking because I couldn’t and wouldn’t make that purchase.

I’ve had to learn that I am not that customer. It’s not right for me to project my own feelings and financial situation onto them. That customer chose to price out the most expensive line of windows either because they want the best and are willing to pay for it, or they have no idea what it’s going to cost them. Either way, my job as salesman is the same: to present the bid as what it truly is – the best product for the appropriate price.

If the customer wants fancy wood windows they have to pay what fancy wood windows are worth. If they only want to pay half of that, they have to choose a window line that’s worth half of that. It’s simple when it’s windows…sort of.

It’s more difficult when it’s your art, or your time.

The Value of Art is Subjective

It’s easy to determine the cost of a physical product. Wood windows with fancy bells and whistles cost 2-3 times as much as vinyl windows. Hence, we sell them for 2-3 times the amount of vinyl. Easy.

But what’s your art worth? What’s an hour of your time worth?

There are logical, mathematical methods of figuring that out, at least to a degree, and that’s worth doing when you go into business as an artist. It involves spreadsheets and math and other such things that make most artists go cross-eyed and search for the nearest bottle of whiskey.

The thing is, no matter how well you figure out what you should get paid for your time, all potential customers are going to reach their own conclusions of what you’re worth in a different way.

They’re going to look at your work and the single biggest factor in whether they want to hire you, or purchase your art is going to be how your art makes them feel. (I lied, there are some customers whose first and single biggest factor is price, but that’s another discussion…keep watch for it.)

Notice I said that’s a factor in whether they want to hire you, not if they decide to hire you. If they feel good about your art, then their mind will shift to price. Can they afford you?

This is the extremely difficult part. This is the part where artists get stuck and remain starving artists for the rest of their lives.

We don’t want to tell people who like our art “no.” We want to sell them wood windows for the price of vinyl because they made us feel good about our work. When you’re in that situation it’s hard to remember how much your art costs – in time, experience, effort, and investment of materials and training/education.

That’s why most artist don’t make enough money to take the issue of money off the table. The world’s artistry is drowning in a daily deluge of overdue bills and crappy hourly wages.

The Artist is a Shitty Salesman Because He’s Accepting the Wrong Form of Payment

We love it when people love our art. Adoration is a form of payment for the artist. We fall into the trap of trading our art for small hits of increased self-esteem. We find any excuse to cheapen our art for the nice person who likes it and makes us feel good, and we do it every time.

The result is an unsustainable lifestyle. If you want to make art full time, and only make art, you can’t sell it at discount rates. You’ll be forced into finding another way to spend 8-10 hours of your day so you can pay for your “hobby” (yeah, that’s what it is now, no longer a business), which can easily drain your best energies and inspiration. Or you can build a brilliant business model around your art that allows you to sell it for the cheap and still turn a profit. Got one? If not, we’re back to selling your art for what it’s really worth.

You should feel good about your art, but you shouldn’t have to peddle it for compliments. If your self esteem as an artist, your confidence in your art hinges on the words that other people say, you’re going to be a shitty salesman. You can accept Visa or Mastercard, but you can’t accept praise as payment.

It indicates a lack of self esteem. A lack of confidence in your art. Financial success as an independent artist is entirely dependent on how you value your art and yourself. You will get paid what you think you’re worth. You will get paid what you allow people to pay you. A sturdy self esteem will do more for your financial success and artistic success than a college degree.

Learn to Sell – It’s an Art

Don’t buy a new guitar, don’t attend another writer’s workshop, and don’t buy another camera lens. You’re not failing as a business because your work isn’t good enough. You’re failing because you’re not selling it the right way to the right people.

You need to learn how to sell. Selling is an art and a necessary skill in life…for everyone. It’s as important as knowing how to balance a checkbook or fill your car with gas.

You don’t have to be cheesy, or pushy, or make people uncomfortable. In fact, if you’re doing that you’re doing it wrong. When selling is done well, it’s as enjoyable as lunch with your best friend. I’m saying this with the weight of five years of experience selling projects that cost thousands of dollars a shot.

I’m also saying it as an artist. One who is not making a full time income off my art, but will be damned if I don’t make steady progress toward that goal starting right now.

Get a part time sales job, or read amazing blogs about selling with integrity. Take a class. Google it. Do what works for you – not what’s comfortable, but what really works.

You owe it to your art.

ps. You’re still wondering how the hell to sell right? You still have questions about this whole issue? Post them below, I’ve got more to say on all this, and you can expect it over the coming weeks. Likely the coming months and years. And really, if you didn’t click on that link above, go check out the best material I’ve read on business and selling effectively and ethically – the Heart of Business blog.

The Artist as a Brand, a Company, a Salesman is a post from: Conscious Me by Carlos Velez Conscious Me is now on Facebook. Click to visit the new page!

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Artists at Heart, In Soul, and Out of our Minds

Carlos Velez — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 16:08:51 +0000

Julie V. Photography | An example of my work

Today is the day.

I’ve written about the day I became a photographer. Today is the day I become a paid photographer. Julie and I are shooting a senior portrait session this evening and I’m really stoked about it. I’m looking forward to taking some killer photographs. (update: check out some photos from the shoot on Julie’s Facebook)

The thing is, I’ve been practicing photography since Easter. That’s less than 3 months. I quite literally had no experience before that. And I haven’t been practicing every day either. I’ve stood behind the camera 9 times (of any real significance). I am far from experienced or knowledgeable about the art.

But photography feels lovely in my hands. I’m good at it. It’s similar in ways to my experience as a musician, except I’ve never really called myself a good musician. The flood of pleasureable chemical feeling (adrenaline? beta-endorphins? whatever.) that I get when I’m shooting with my Canon 50D reminds me of when I’ve performed on stage, swinging my guitar around in uncontrolled passion to driving blasts of punk rock or hardcore rhythms and melodies.

I love performing live music. But I never imagined myself a talented musician or songwriter. I had two friends that we’re amazing, phenomenal musicians (Marty went on to write gorgeous songs, lyrics, and melodies for Cowboy Indian Bear who recently released a killer indie rock album Each Other All The Time – listen to it, for realz). I played in bands with them for years and never felt like I measured up to their artistic genius.

The Importance of Confidence in Art

I had the thought the other day “I’m a better photographer than I am a musician.” I thought it even though I have so little experience. Even though I look at my photos and think “Gah! I didn’t notice that shadow on her face” or “Damn it! I didn’t get the focus right.” I’m a more accomplished musician than I am a photographer. So what gives? What’s the difference?

My next thought was “The difference is confidence.” I am drastically more confident in myself than I was all those years ago. I don’t know how the hell I existed back then. If I had been as confident then as I am now (which isn’t a terribly amazing amount of confidence) would I have been a better musician and songwriter? Yeah, I think so.

I love writing music, but it has baggage. It has a basement full of dirty-pain-thoughts mixed in with the fond memories. I beat myself up so much back then for not having the singing voice I wanted, for not writing the kind of lyrics that move your heart, for not writing the guitar parts that were so unique and thrilling.

Say what you want about the tortured artist, but I don’t think he’s performing at his best.

Photography is different. No baggage. When I think “Crap! I overexposed that shot and it would have been so good!” I’m not really beating myself up. I don’t feel bad. I’m just making mental notes. I’m just learning from it.

It’s rather amazing really. The best of my photography lifts my self-esteem, but the worst of it doesn’t damage me. How did I get here?

Well, Conscious Me has a lot to do with it. I’ve built a lot of confidence in this blogging game. I’ve made a conscious effort to be more confident. I’ve made a conscious effort to change my critical thoughts. I’ve made a conscious effort to believe in myself. I’ve made a conscious effort to see everything I don’t like about myself as something that can and will change. It has been a grueling amount of conscious effort.

All this realization (which happened in the span of about 10 seconds in a conversation with Aaron a couple weeks ago) led to a couple of theories, and I want to know what you think.

We Are Artists

I’m not a photograher, or a musician. You’re not a writer or a painter. She’s not a designer or a programmer. And he’s not a chef or gardener.

We are artists.

We are artists at heart, in soul, and out of our minds.

Maybe we’re not good at certain forms of art for other reasons, like my confidence issue with music. Maybe that can change, or maybe it’s too bogged down with baggage to be worth the effort. But whatever the reason, and whether it’s too big to overcome or not, maybe at the heart of it all we could be good at any art we tried if we could put our whole, healthy selves into it.

We Are All of Us Artists

And the other thought I had is that maybe all of us are artists. Maybe we’re not engineers, and mothers, and cab drivers, and secretaries, and dentists. Maybe we’re artists. Maybe scraping plaque off a patient’s teeth is an expression of our artistic self, or maybe it’s not. I guess it’s different for every dentist out there. Either way, maybe there’s an artist inside that needs to share our art with the world.

And maybe, just maybe, we have more avenues of expressing our art than we thought.

What do you think?

ps. Want to check out the temporary page for Julie V. Photography, the business my wife and I are building together?

Artists at Heart, In Soul, and Out of our Minds is a post from: Conscious Me by Carlos Velez Conscious Me is now on Facebook. Click to visit the new page!

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Computer Crashes & Time to Think Lead to Great Change

Carlos Velez — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 18:38:32 +0000

Last month sucked real bad. Many of you already know the story – all computer equipment fails, unable to work on blog, re-evaluating my position these past couple months. Today I’m going to share with you the realizations I’ve made and how it will impact my future, the business I intend to build and how it will affect this blog and the Pre-Writing Challenge.

Since I started blogging last fall (and publicly since January 1st) I have learned incredible lessons about myself. I have come face to face with the realization that I am capable of incredible things – and make no mistake, that’s a scary realization. I have also had to own up to very serious problems and limitations in my personality, and habits that will make any attempts at building an online business and/or blog fruitless and destined for failure.

The point of blogging, for me, has been to get out of working at a job for someone else. I have known, since the summer of 2006, that I should be creating my own location-free business(es). Some of you know I stepped down from a management position at my current day job to pursue this dream, but that was before I knew I wanted to blog. I knew my business would be internet-based, but I had no idea what it would be.

My wife was also trying to start a photography business at the time. She was going through a class at the Topeka Chamber of Commerce to learn all the good stuff like how to write a business plan. I read a really well-written book by the Nolo company on starting a small business which covers the business plan and lots of other great information. I was pumped (you know how I get) and ready to start something. With no great ideas in mind, I decided to try to help my wife start her photography business.

Yeesh. That was a nightmare.

I was overwhelming her and my “help” was anything but. She told me (and rightly so) to do my own thing. That’s when I started toying with the idea of starting a blog, and start a blog I did

Conscious Me was born on WordPress.com and I started writing. I started thinking about myself, and who I was. I blogged about Personal Development because I am damn passionate about it – always have been. It felt right, a perfect fit.

January 1st I launched the site on my own domain and hosting and got serious about it. I started thinking and writing about how I would monetize the site. I started commenting and guest posting to build traffic and that soon led to the Pre-Writing Challenge. While the P-WC was going on, I found my stride talking about the Law of Attraction, and decided I ought to look at product creation on that topic. I planned to write a book this summer and had some cool ideas on how to go through the buzz-building product-launching part of it.

Then the Challenge ended and I started talking to Doolin and Aaron Pogue about doing more with the Challenge. It was such a great experience and had a lot of potential to grow and monetise. We brainstormed about other events and came up with a large-scale plan including four challenges a year, each managed by a different person and covering a specific, critical aspect of blogging successfully. The idea thrilled me. You know how I get.

In April and May all my enthusiasm for all these projects fizzled out. Day job started draining my energy as we entered the busy season and I found myself putting less and less time into writing the e-book for the Pre-Writing Challenge, writing for Conscious Me, reading the blogs I find inspiring, and building relationships with the great people I’ve met along the way.

Then all my computer equipment died within a week of each other.

Having the means to work on my blog almost entirely taken away from me, I did a lot of reflection. I thought a lot about my current state of “burn out” and how that wasn’t really the right word for it. I’m not burned out. I’m not tired of blogging. I’m not tired of creating products. I’m not tired of building a business.

The Real Issue

There have been three business ideas I’ve had since last fall, and here’s the good, bad, and ugly of all of them.

The Photography Business

The cool thing about the photography business I tried to help my wife with was that it was immediately “monetizable.” We could start making money with it as quickly as we could book clients.

The problem was that we had pretty crappy camera equipment, and my wife was not really ready to start a business yet. She too has gone through a lot of personal development this year and the truth is that neither she nor I was ready to actually go ahead with it.

Also, I couldn’t work well with my wife. I had some real self-esteem issues that I am still working on that made my attempts to help into hurtful situations for her that caused us to argue and fight like we never had before. I was trying to build my self-esteem at her expense and it caused a lot of grief.

Another problem was that the photography business has a ceiling on how much money we can make with it, which is contingent upon how many clients we can book and how much we can charge them for a session, plus the price of prints, etc. Not what I want.

Conscious Me

I found the right track when I started blogging. I love all the work involved: the site building, the writing, the socializing, the product creation, all of it. I love the mobility of blogging, and the unlimited success that’s possible with it.

I am a fan of passive income, and blogging gives avenues of generating passive income, or as Dave Navarro call is, front-loaded income. You have to put a lot of work in up front, but then it pays off passively after that with comparatively minimal work. I’m not afraid of working hard, but I don’t want my pay to be directly dependent on the amount of hours I work.

The problem is that while I’m passionate about Personal Development, I’m not passionate about it as a business. The blogging business format rocks, but the topic is not right for me. I love Conscious Me, but I don’t want it to be my primary business.

What does this mean for Conscious Me? Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere. This blog will stay and I will continue to write and discuss and grow this blog. Building Conscious Me has been a life-changing experience – it is helping me grow as a person in ways I never thought possible. I have no intention of stopping.

I do, however, intend to slow it down. I have found a business I wish to pursue and must focus my time and energy in that direction. More on that in a minute.

The Pre-Writing Challenge

I saw a big-picture with the Pre-Writing Challenge that excited the hell out of me. So much potential. But much like with Conscious Me, it was the method that really excited me. Pre-writing is an incredibly valuable skill. It has improved my efficiency as a blogger and as a worker in general, but I’m not passionate about working the Challenge itself, or the business around it long-term.

Don’t worry. I’m not giving it up yet. I plan to finish the book and I plan to make sure that the Challenge happens again next year, but I don’t plan to stay on it. I want to find someone to hand the reins over to. I want to see it grow and be successful, but I don’t want to do it myself.

The new, tentative plan is to finish the e-book by the end of the upcoming e-Book Challenge, led by Aaron Pogue. That means I have until the end of August. After that, I want to network with some other people to help bring my vision for it to life and then let it go.

The New Business

That brings me to where I’m heading now. Through all this, I’ve learned what I am passionate about, and what I’m not. I am passionate about blogging. I am passionate about business. What was lacking was a topic, a niche, a direction.

Things Come Full Circle

In the end, I’ve come right back to the beginning. Photography. Since last fall when I was trying to help Julie start a photography business, I have started learning the art myself. Since Easter, when Julie got a new bad-ass camera, she has been teaching me how to take amazing photos like she does.

You know what? I’m good at it. I am extremely new, and have a lot to learn, but I take to it quite naturally just like Julie did. Doing a session is a lot like performing on-stage in a band. I think I’m better at photography than I am at music though. So what’s different now than last fall? Why does it suddenly seem like such a good idea?

I can work with Julie much better now.

I have been working on those problem-causing self-esteem issues and I’m making real progress. It’s not a total breeze, but we’re having fun together.

It’s no longer limited.

With everything I’ve learned about blogging, there’s no reason for our income to be limited to sessions and print sales. There is an enormous amount of opportunity to monetize a photography blog and I know how to do it now. There are a lot of passive income streams I can start setting up right now.

It offers me a chance to do many types of work.

The following list are all things I love to do, but I wouldn’t be content doing only one or two as a business:

be artistic and creative
do solitary techie work
make sales
do site design
write
work with my wife
meet new people

Combining all of these into one business, in relation to a topic/niche that I am passionate about is irresistable. I can spend time learning the technical aspects of photography, nurturing artistic talents, creating photoshop actions, meeting clients, writing about photography or photography-blogging, setting up sales pages and strategies, helping my wife, and making lots of money. It’s as perfect as a business can be.

We have our first two clients this month and I’m scrambling to put together the first rendition of our site. Actually, since I wrote that sentence two weeks ago, I’ve shifted gears. I am excited and passionate about this, but I’m taking it slow. I am putting a lot of effort into doing the nitty gritty stuff that I tend to put off, like writing About pages. I am focusing on creating the content before doing the design.

I don’t know when the site will be up. What matters is that we are consistently accomplishing little bits that are moving us forward. We’re going to do this thing up right.

This summer, I must put a lot of time and effort into building this business with my wife. We have a grand vision, but as I’ve learned about myself, I need to focus on the immediate details and how they lead to that grand future. So I will be shifting my focus from Conscious Me to photography.

As I’ve said, this blog will carry on indefinitely. I plan to monetize this blog as well, but my priority is the photography business. As of right now, I would say you can expect a new post every week or two. We’ll see how it goes.

Conscious me will continue to fulfill it’s purpose of turning me into a man who can be a successful entrepreneur, husband, and friend.

Not A Sole Proprietor. A Partner.

Now that this is the plan, it seems very right that my main business will be working alongside with my wife. We have different strengths and will often be working on different aspects of the business, but it will also keep us closer together. Now when we’re in our own world’s of work, we will know where the other is at and how to meet there.

I like that.

Thank You

Having you all as readers and joining me through this journey of change and growth is an unforgettable experience. I hope that reducing my output on this blog doesn’t alienate you incredible people.

I know I’ve been pretty absent lately here and on Twitter and from commenting on your own blogs. Sorry about that. I was pushing myself to unsustainable action before, and on purpose. I wanted to discover what I was capable of and what my weaknesses are. I’ve done that. It led to a crappy couple of months, but it’s also had some wonderful positive effects.

Thank you for being there through all of this and for what’s to come. I appreciate everything you’ve done. You’re the best, seriously.

Computer Crashes & Time to Think Lead to Great Change is a post from: Conscious Me by Carlos Velez Conscious Me is now on Facebook. Click to visit the new page!

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It’s How You Use It (Understanding) That Counts

Carlos Velez — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 17:35:37 +0000

We are at the end. The conclusion of this impromptu series on how the Law of Attraction relates to the disasters that befall us. A couple of weeks ago my external hard drive fried in a power surge. A few days later (before the appointment at the Apple store to get it fixed) the computer hard drive failed. Suck. My wife and I weeped and gnashed our teeth over the loss of some important data that was lost, and quivered at the prospect of losing the hundreds of gigs of photos, work and music stored on the external. We asked “Did we manifest this tragedy?”

You all responded with wise, insightful comments and it helped us through. Thank you

I started thinking about this issue in depth. I thought about chaos vs design and concluded that both affect our lives. I considered how to discern whether a tragedy has a purpose for us or not. And that has all been a look at the why of it – ”this happened because…”

Many people in my shoes would believe the Apple failures were just bad luck and that no amount of positive thinking could have prevented it. Some of you have commented to that effect. To be honest, I flip flop about that. I believe that this situation was designed to galvanize my wife and I into action that we had been struggling with in our online businesses. I believe that. I am unsure whether the hard drive failures still would have happened if we had been focused, confident, and taking action.

That’s well and that’s good. It’s calming to gain understanding of a difficult situation (so long as you’re not freaking out about your conclusion), but the thing is, it really doesn’t matter. It’s ultimately semantics. Which glasses do you want to look at it through? It happened for a reason. It happened by random chance. Both thoughts can be a vicious trap. OK, now what are you gonna do about it?

People will fight to the ends of the Earth about what form of government is best. Capitalism. Communism. Monarchism. Anarchism. Socialism. Fo’Shnizzlism. But when you come right down to it, they all work on paper. There’s nothing wrong with the ideas. It’s poor execution that fails us.

I’m not here to make you believe in the Law of Attraction. These posts are designed to help people who do believe in it, deal with it effectively. The thing that matters most is execution. This is the part that we all need to think about. Get here however you want, but this is where it all counts.

So the next time something crappy happens, what are you going to believe? Was it random or was it designed?

But more importantly, what are you going to do about it? (Guess what the next, and last post on this subject is going to be about?)

It’s How You Use It (Understanding) That Counts is a post from: Conscious Me by Carlos Velez Conscious Me is now on Facebook. Click to visit the new page!

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Shit Happens – Discerning Purpose from Chaos

Carlos Velez — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 11:00:05 +0000

The Law of Attraction presents a difficult question for us. It tells us that we can attract anything into our lives by our thoughts, actions, and feelings. That’s inspirational when we’re talking about attracting good things like money and relationships and opportunities. But, as many of my readers said in the comments of the first post in this series, shit happens (read part 1, and part 2 to catch up). And it happens to good people.

The difficult question then, is whether we attracted those things or not. After some incredible discussion on the subject, I ended the follow up article with this:

You have to decide for yourself whether (a) everything is chaos, (b) everything is designed (by ourselves and/or God), or (c) there’s some blend of the two.

I choose (c).

Whatever you believe, I ask you to explore this option with me. Challenge me on it; I’m an only slightly-formed lump of belief on the subject. Challenge yourself about it. What can we can learn together?

It presents a new, difficult question though: How do we discern the difference between chaos and design and what do we do about it?

Indeed. Tough question. Let’s roll.

Discerning Chance Misfortune from Attracted Hardships

We’re going to discuss this in real-life terms. The real-life example in question is about my computer and external hard drive crashing/dying/putting-me-and-my-wife-through-agonizing-torture-as-we-wait-to-find-out-if -all-our-photos-and-music-are-gone-forever. It’s very sad, and causing no small amount of worry and stress in the Velez household.

Julie (my wife) and I both asked ourselves the question “Did we manifest this?”

We had to step back and take a look at ourselves. What have we been doing or not doing in relation to our use of the computer and the external hard drive? What attitudes have we had. What have we been thinking and saying? Here’s the truth:

Julie and I have been working on our businesses grudgingly, and backing down from significant progress.

I am only going to comment on my own issues for now. I may ask my wife to write about hers or talk about them myself at some point in this series.

My Confession

I have done next to nothing on my blog or on the Pre-Writing Challenge e-book in the past three weeks. But I’ve been struggling with that for longer than three weeks. Since the beginning of April I have been forcing myself (with varying results) to stay motivated, carrying on only by the effective habits and processes I implemented during the Pre-Writing Challenge.

But it hasn’t been the work of blogging that has gotten me down. In fact, whenever I do sit down and write a piece for my blog, or the book, or when I email a fellow blogger, or comment on someone’s site, it’s energizing. I love it. I am passionate about it and have much that I want to do. The problem has been where my energy is focused.

”…consider that you are swimming in a kind of energy…What comes into your life is filtered by this energy. Things that match your focus, or things that will move you forward on the path of your focus, things that are a reasonable effect to your recent causes will be allowed through…Other things are blocked from happening in your life because they don’t match. Your focus – conscious and subconscious – your decisions and actions all shift and alter the energy in your vicinity – like dropping watercolor paint onto a wet page, new color blossoms.

- Megan Potter @ Limitless Living | click to see full comment

The beginning of April is when my workplace hit its busy season. I have had an enormous work load and have handled it very well. I’ve organized my workflow and set up systems to help me keep track of my dozens of projects and I’m rocking it. But it’s taking nearly everything I have. I have not had the freedom of mind to work on my blogging like I did for the first three months of the year.

Something had to give, and unfortunatley, I let it be the thing that mattered most to me – my business, my blog. I was denying and sacrificing my most important work in order to survive at my less important job. The energy around me and in my life shifted from a focus on my blog to a focus on my day job. My performance at work increased, but thinking about my blog brought on feelings of guilt and inadequacy. Then the computer broke. I then had all the excuse I needed to continue forsaking my online work without guilt.

That’s the “why” of it for me but it still doesn’t explain how to know that the computer breakdown was attracted and not unhappy chance.

Synchrony – The Deciding Factor

Let’s go back to the very beginning of that rough patch I’ve been having. After the Pre-Writing Challenge ended in mid-March I had the daunting task of writing and selling an e-book based on it. I was excited at first, and started getting things set up to collaborate with the other challengers on the book, but when it came time to start creating it, I balked.

I got scared that I couldn’t do it. It felt like it was too much for me. I thought about all the reasons why it would probably not succeed. And then my computer broke…yeah, at the beginning of April. We had two computers, and the one I used for blogging quit on us. Sound familiar?

Then I went to Oklahoma that same day and stayed with my friend Aaron for a bit. He helped me get started on the Pre-Writing Challenge e-book and I got pumped up about it. We got back home and I bought a netbook and started working my ass off to get the work done.

Writing the e-book (thanks to Aaron’s help) became an easy and enjoyable task (affiliate link). Somewhere along the way, though, I got bogged down with all the sales copy, mailing lists, landing pages, and a whole new site to create. My motivation flagged again. This was the same time that my day job kicked into full gear, and sapped all my good work energy. So I started to let things slide. I stopped trying to get up early in the morning to blog. I stopped reading other people’s blogs that inspire me. I let myself do anything besides work on my important work.

Within two weeks the external hard drive got fried in a storm, the power cord to the computer stopped working, and then the hard drive on the computer failed. That brings up one of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned in life:

When shit gets ridiculous, stop and figure out why.

The computer situation in this house has been ridiculous. I could write it all off as chance, chaos, or bad luck. But if I did, I think (in this case) it would either get more ridiculous, or another area in my life would meet with the same synchronistic misfortunes until I started doing something to change.

We are not meant to exist in depressing or anxiety-producing circumstances for the long term. With the technological catastrophe that befell my wife and me, the Law of Attraction presented me with a circumstance to force me into action. I couldn’t take where I was at anymore, but didn’t have the courage to do anything about it, so I manifested this situation. More accurately, my saboteur manifested this situation – to protect me.

I had the choice to stop feeling guilty about neglecting my important work and resign myself to a good day job where I have been doing well, or recommit myself to overcome obstacles and do what I really want to do – build an online business and work on projects that matter to me with people that matter to me.

It’s synchrony. It looks like bad luck. It’s unpleasant and, honestly, it’s a pain in the ass. But it’s what I decided I needed to get me back into gear because I wouldn’t let anything better get me there.

We have a couple more questions to answer about all this:

What do you do when you recognize synchrony in the unfortunate events you’re attracting?
Can we recognize this before a whole series of crappy things happen to us?

What do you have to add to that list?

Before we get to that list though, what do you think about using synchrony as a gauge for our involvement as the cause of unfortunate events? This series is being shaped by the discussion in the comments, so bring it on. Where we go next will be determined by your contributions below.

Shit Happens – Discerning Purpose from Chaos is a post from: Conscious Me by Carlos Velez Conscious Me is now on Facebook. Click to visit the new page!

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Did The Law of Attraction Manifest a Computer Breakdown? Chaos vs. Design

Carlos Velez — Sun, 30 May 2010 05:00:52 +0000

Did I Manifest A Computer Breakdown Via the Law of Attraction?

On Tuesday’s post, I posed the controversial question of whether or not the bad things that happen to us are created by us, or whether they are simply chance and we bear no responsibility for them.

It’s a very sticky issue with the Law of Attraction for many people, and understandably so. There are classic examples where you’ve pretty much gotta be a douche bag to claim that certain types of terrible events are the fault of the victim(s).

Digested food and body waste happens.

To take the question to the logical extremes: did 230,000+ people manifest a 9.0 subocean earthquake on Dec. 26, 2004, and does Joe Francis deserve to be a millionaire with his own island for exploiting drunk girls to be on Girls Gone Wild?

You might be a hoopy frood who really knows where his towel is, you might even be the guy who put the bomp in bomp-shaboma-shabomp, but it seems there’s not much we can control outside a very tiny sphere of influence. Even philanthropic vegetarian triathletes get cancer.

Jonas Wright Photography | Click to see the original comment

There are some things that just can’t be explained satisfactorily by the Law of Attraction. Not everything that happens can be a result of our own thoughts, actions, and feelings. Who could point a finger of blame at a child for being abused, or a woman for becoming a victim of rape?

I certainly won’t. That’s ridiculous.

If you take a cursory glance around my site, though, it becomes obvious pretty quickly that I am a supporter of the Law of Attraction. I believe in it. I think it has the capacity to bring dramatic change (to our delight or misery) to our lives. So what the eff?

”My nerdy brain immediately runs to the false logic implicit in claims of blame. Ie. just because you can attract stuff into your life, doesn’t mean you attracted everything in your life. Randomness and chaos (in the mathematical sense) is inherent in the real world…”

- James @ Dancing Geek | Click to see full comment

There is chaos in the world. To flip James’ statement around: just because chaos exists, doesn’t mean everything that happens in our life is chaos. We can attract good and bad – create it – and good and bad can happen chaotically.

That’s not something that I know how to prove, nor do I feel a need to. We all inherently know truth when we hear it. Evidence and studies are just excuses to allow ourselves to believe what we know is true, or want to be true. You have to decide for yourself whether (a) everything is chaos, (b) everything is designed (by ourselves and/or God), or (c) there’s some blend of the two.

I choose (c).

Whatever you believe, I ask you to explore this option with me. Challenge me on it; I’m an only slightly-formed lump of belief on the subject. Challenge yourself about it. What can we can learn together?

It presents a new, difficult question though: How do we discern the difference between chaos and design and what do we do about it?

That’s the subject of the next part of this series. Your thoughts? Questions?

Did The Law of Attraction Manifest a Computer Breakdown? Chaos vs. Design is a post from: Conscious Me by Carlos Velez Conscious Me is now on Facebook. Click to visit the new page!

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