Category: FEU Training Blog

It used to be that everyone blogged and now it seems that everyone has moved on to Twitter and Facebook instead. Of course they have: blogging is more challenging. It needs exactly and precisely the skills and the talent that you use every day as a creative practitioner – and that most people simply do not have. They’re also not freelances looking to make a name, make some money or stretch their abilities. For us, blogs are like agents getting us readers and spreading our name without our knowing it and without claiming 10-15% afterwards. Plus, you can promote your blog on Facebook and Twitter.

There is that issue of money. Don’t get excited now. It is possible to make cash out of your blog but you will make more from the work that you get via it. Sometimes that’s clear and direct such as when magazines have reprinted blog posts of mine and paid me for it. Also, I’ve interviewed bloggers who were journalists and writers who told me they have book deals in mind from day one and they got them.

But then I talked to Jennifer Williams, a blogger from Brooklyn who isn’t a writer and didn’t think about books at all. Nonetheless, that’s what she’s got. She’s an artist whose blog of sketches is called ‘What My Daughter Wore’ and a publisher chanced upon it and found her charming, joyous feel irresistible.

Promoting yourself

More often, people will find your blog because you tell them about it. You know how you have to have a website now? It’s can be a pain and sometimes an expense setting up a website and then it’s a chore keeping it updated but you know you have to. If someone comes to your site and the latest thing on there is from five years ago, you look bad.

Blogs go on your website or can act as your website. Plus, every time you blog, the date and time is slapped on there automatically. So blogging regularly is a way to keep your website looking fresh and you looking active.

It’s also a way to advertise yourself, literally, in that you can promote your gigs on your blog if you’re a musician and you can upload videos to it if you’re a filmmaker. But, much more importantly, every single thing you post on your blog is a huge advert for you.

That’s easy to understand with writers. I’m a writer and I have been commissioned because people see and like how I write my blogs. But writing is not about the words you type. It’s about you and what you reveal. Blogging regularly tells me, demonstrates to me that you are real. You’re a creative professional and this is your real job. That’s one reason why posting that you’ve got a gig somewhere is genuinely useful: only the smallest fraction of your readers can physically get to one particular venue but every single reader is seeing that you are performing.

It’s about you and it’s not about you

You’ll run dry quite quickly if you only blog about yourself, though. Look for a topic you are interested in: I’m a writer so I have a blog about writing. There must be a million of these. But one day something just poured out of me. I wrote about why I became a writer at all. I am the writer I am today because of a now little-known US TV show called Lou Grant. I posted this short and heartfelt little tribute to a show few here in the UK ever knew and I got a lot of reaction from people responding to how dear this drama was to me. They didn’t know it, they just responded to how I had bared a bit of my soul to them.

And then the executive producer of Lou Grant emailed me to say thanks. I’ll never get any work from him – he’s retired and on another continent – but you know how much that email meant to me. Blogs are about reaching out to people and sometimes about reaching in to yourself.

Plus, shortly afterwards, I did a piece about UK drama and Father Ted creator Graham Linehan tweeted a link to it. Nobody paid me to write it, nobody asked me to write it, but six thousand people visited my blog that day and editors ask me about it still. Basically, it raised my profile and got people talking about what I do and, as a result, I got work from it.

More info

If you want to improve your blogging skills, look out for our workshop which will be advertised in the beginning of 2015.

BEFORE YOU can make great use of your computer, your phone and your tablet, switch them off. Not completely, just switch off everything about them that distracts you. Email: off. Facebook: definitely off. Email is more than a boon to us, it is impossible to do our businesses without yet it isn’t as important as we think. The world won’t end if we don’t respond to that incoming message bleep immediately. We just act as if it will.

You’re not going to undo the way we have all been programmed to react to bleeps and notifications so switch them off. However, while you can just switch off Facebook and stop thinking about it, email takes a bit more effort. No matter how busy you are, there will still be some people who you must respond to immediately.

Gmail lets you have a separate inbox for important emails: set it to only notify you when something arrives there. Apple Mail has an even better feature: you can specify that certain people are VIP and then only get the bleep when they send you a message.

Time saving technology tips

With the distractions out of the way, there is so much more you could be using this technology for. There is life- and career-transforming software, utilities and extras you can buy but look at what you’ve already got first.

Start with your web browser. Every single one of them has the same thing at the top: an area called an address bar. You click in it, delete whatever’s already there and start typing a website name or something that you’re searching for. Never click again. Instead, hold down the Ctrl key on your PC or your Command key on your Mac and tap the letter L. The moment you do that, you are in that address bar and everything is selected: type anything at all and it will replace what’s already there.

The time it saves physically clicking and deleting is minimal but the way it lets you concentrate on what you want to do is highly beneficial. You will get so fast at moving around websites that you’ll think about selling your mouse.

It’s the same in email. Without taking your hands off the keyboard you can reply to people, forward messages and archive them. Or even delete a few. It’s the same in Word too: you can select text, copy it, move it around, change every last detail of it and save it out into new documents without once lifting your hands away from the keys.

Do watch out for RSI. But also whatever software you use the most, take a minute to Google its name and the phrase “keyboard shortcuts”. You will be dizzy at the list you find. Hundreds upon hundreds of ways to do things without your mouse. Try a couple, practise them until they’re habitual, and you won’t go back.

Easy access

I had a thing where a producer who rejected a script of mine left his company. I found out who replaced him, got out the old script and sent it over. Total time: under a minute. And that was despite the script being so old I couldn’t remember the name or where I’d put it. But I could remember a character from it so I searched for that and Mac OS X found it instantly. Windows from version 7 upwards can do the same thing: they search within your documents.

This is another thing to Google because it varies too much between systems. But if you need to find a script featuring a character called Bert, that you wrote between 2007 and 2012, which you once sent as an attachment to the Acme Broadcasting Company, you can tell your computer exactly that and it will find exactly that script.

Worth investment

You can do all of this right now on the computer you own. But you can do more. My freelance business was transformed by my switching to OmniFocus, a To Do manager that is both very powerful and happens to suit me down to the ground. Recently I’ve been converted to the same company’s OmniOutliner for roughing out complex projects.

When I have that itch of a new idea I know could be great if I can just get hold of it somehow, I’ll now do a Mind Map of it (for more on this, if you're a member, have a look at the ecourse I've written for FEU freelances 'Creative Productivity' ). Just throw down ideas in any order, in any way and then later start shuffling them around. It’s exactly like the way I first sorted out the mud in my head when I was truly overwhelmed by the volume of work I had to do. Especially since I now do this on my iPad, it feels like I’m laying everything out in front of me and I am able to physically push it around.

I use an app called Mind Node for that and I recommend it but there are many equivalents for every type of computer or tablet or even phone that you can get.

TextExpander is useful: I actually like typing – I’m such a writer – but that utility lets me repeat often-used text like bios or complicated text like Amazon links. I never have to remember that “http://amzn.to/1dO1nue” takes you to one of my books, I just press a couple of keys and TextExpander pops out that lot. TextExpander is Mac- and iOS-only but there’s an equivalent called Breevy.

I’ve never used that. I’ll never use everything and if you tried, you’d have no time to do your real work. But my computer, iPad and phone are so useful that I do exploit them every way I can.

There’s a bit of the boy with a new toy in me sometimes but all I want from technology, all I want from other people, all I really want from me is more time to write. The only way I get better at writing is to do it and productivity is about clearing time for the reason I am a creative freelance in the first place.

More info

If you want to learn more about becoming more organised and productive, sign in to the FEU ecourse Creative Productivity. It's free to members and you can dip into it whenever you want - on the train, before meetings or when you've got a quiet hour or two to work through the whole course or specific modules.

The BIGGEST single problem that stops you getting more done is you. But in second place comes everybody else. Maybe Facebook is joint second but really it’s the way that whenever you need something from somebody, there is a delay.

However, think about what happens when you need something from someone. Whether it’s the tiniest contractual detail or it’s approval before you can go on to the next thing, the process works the same way. You tell them what you need, they don’t answer and you’re left hanging around. You’re human so you can’t help but churn over it. Is it too soon to chase them? Is it too late to go stand on their desk until they do it?

Set parameters

Rather than waste your time and energy dwelling on what may or may not happen, I’d suggest you set some parameters. Phone them up and when you get their inevitable voicemail, leave a message like you always would do except add this to the end: “I’ve sent you the email with the terms and conditions that we discussed. If you don’t get a chance to ring me back earlier, I’ll ring you on Friday to check that everything is OK.”

By doing this, you’ve prompted them to call back if they want to (or not, if they don't want to) and you've given yourself permission to stop thinking about it until Friday. Basically, you’ve taken control, acted professionally and can now move on to another job.

There’s no guarantee that you’ll get them on Friday but there wasn’t a guarantee anyway. What there is now is the fact that you don’t need to think of them until then.

I don’t mean to suggest that people are rubbish at phoning you back because they’re rubbish. You know that it’s really just that they’re busy. One thing that leaving this type of message does is tell them that you get that, you’re fine with it, in fact you understand it because you’re busy too. We’re all professionals, that’s what you’re saying. It’s like when you haggle over a contract fee - even though behind the take-it-or-leave-it bluff you really, really need that money, if you look like you don’t need a job, you get it. If you sound like you’re busy, you’ll get busy.

Plan ahead

After weeks, even months of chasing someone, it’s often the case that people suddenly make a decision and want information about what you do at the snap of their fingers. Rather than be caught on the hop, I’ve always got several different CVs ready to go – e.g., my one for journalism mentions Radio Times a lot; my drama one plugs the Doctor Who radio plays I’ve written. Also, I have bio text and head shots ready.

Build a stack of information about yourself so that you can tweak it for the next time rather than waste time writing everything from scratch. A good tip for writing bios is to write down two things you’ve ever done that are relevant to the work you want and one thing that is notable or perhaps a bit unusual but ridiculously far away from what you do.

For instance, the last thing I did that needed a bio was a gig being a judge on a television awards panel. I wrote that “William Gallagher is a Radio Times writer, author of BFI TV Classics: The Beiderbecke Affair and he’s flown helicopters”.

I was the least of all the judges on that panel but my bio went first on the programme and I think it’s because I was the first to reply to the request and I included some information that was remarkably different from everyone else. This happens: I’ve been given my pick of a slot just because I was so fast responding. And I can be fast because I have this stuff ready.

Actually, just between us, I also use some technology. If I simply type my little code phrase “xbio” into an email or into Word, then my Mac pops out a 400-word bio that I’ve previously written. I then edit it, of course, and I bend it to suit the project I’m on, but it’s easier to change 400 words than it is to start anew. Technology is truly the creative freelancer’s friend and you’ve already spent a lot on your computer…next time we’ll deal with getting much more out of that.

I LEARNT all sorts of methods at BBC News Online for being productive and I am naturally drawn to technology so I’d had ‘To Do’ apps anyway. But it was when a job was going really well that I started looking into productivity more deliberately.

I thought I was being clever: my big freelance contract was with Radio Times magazine, which I loved, but I wanted to write books and Doctor Who radio dramas too. If I could handle my time better, I figured, I could go do that and keep the regular RT work.

Then, Radio Times made me redundant. You know that any redundancy, any abrupt end to a long job is a difficult time and I’m not going to pretend that I was unaffected. Plus, if they hadn’t kicked me out, I would never have left: I loved that magazine and its website so much.

However, let me be exactly as honest for one more moment: as it turned out, I now thank Radio Times hourly. They could not have made me redundant at a better time and the fact that I was already applying myself to making better use of my time turned out to be an advantage when I suddenly and unexpectedly needed to take a structured and efficient approach to getting more work.

Get on top of your work

Hopefully your work isn’t going to suddenly stop but there’s no question that it will change. It is part of what makes your job interesting but change is often challenging. It usually seems that you have to do more and you have to do that more with less resources. If your work today exactly matches your original job description, you’re unusual, your business is strange and I suggest you’ve got to be bored.

Being busy or being bored is like being rich or poor. People tell you philosophically that these are really the same thing but you know which one you’d prefer.

They can both be overwhelming, though and we’re not good when we’re overwhelmed. We are rubbish at dealing with masses of problems and responsibilities at once. However, we are superb at doing our work. Tell us what to do next and it gets done brilliantly.

This is one thing in favour of having one boss and one job: let him or her decide what they need next and you can just get on with it. It is the number of spinning plates rather than the plates or the spinning itself that is a problem.

I think this can be worse for creatives and ten times worse for freelance creatives. More than anyone else in any other job, you are doing what you do because it’s your art and it’s your vocation. There’s a fair chance you just snorted there because art and vocation feel a long time ago when you’re struggling to get new work or you’re ferociously struggling to complete what you’ve promised.

Break it all down before you breakdown

You’ve got the doing covered - you are superb at the doing. You just need to find a way through the mud of deciding what’s the most urgent and important thing you must do right now.

It’s only mud in your head. Get it all out of your noggin’ and write the lot down on a list. Don’t think about it, don’t plan, don’t do anything except dump it all out onto paper or a screen. Take as long as you need to do this. Get every scintilla out of your head and onto the list in front of you.

You might be daunted by the size and scope of what you’ve written but you’ll also feel better. Seriously, just by doing this, you will feel better. It’s because you’ll feel ready. You’re changing this mud into one specific thing to do, one specific task. Your job now is to examine the list and sort it out. That’s doing and, I am not kidding or flattering you here, you are great at doing.

Look at your big list and start grouping things together: this is all stuff for that commissioning editor; that is all for your accountant and this is all leads for new work. Make big, wide, open groups where you just bung things together loosely.

Then take one group and sort that. Some of the things you’ve listed in a group will be vital, others will be the whole reason you wanted to be the artist you are, and some will be rubbish, which you can scrap immediately. Just let the rubbish go because you know it’s not going to happen so there’s no point in keeping it in your head.

Park all the stuff that you want to do, that will wait for just a little while. For now, you’re concentrating on the vital stuff. Break that down even further. If something has a real, actual, definite, committed deadline then write that down.

The odds are that you’ve written very big and quite vague things like “pitch to producer” or “write book”. Good. Now take one of those and think about what that actually means. If you’re going to pitch to a producer, you need to know which one and then decide what you’re going to pitch and when. So write that down. Rather than “pitch to producer”, write something like this: “Choose which producer, decide what project, find a date to contact him or her” and then start doing. And – say it with me – you are great at doing. It’s just a shame that other people aren’t. That’s what we’ll talk about next time.

IF YOU want to learn more about how to deal with bullying and harassment, the Federation of Entertainment Unions (FEU) has recently launched the guide Creating without Conflict.

The guide was produced as a result of a FEU survey on 4000 workers in the media industry in which 56 per cent of respondents said that they had been bullied, harassed or discriminated against at work.

As well as advice and guidance, the guide contains union contacts that you can get in touch with if you need further help.

 

It is a fact of life that not everyone you approach will want your services. If, for example, you have an email list of 100 potential clients and send each one a short, punchy overview of your talents and experience, you would be very lucky to receive 20 replies, most of which would probably be along the lines of ‘thanks but no thanks.’

Irrespective of the media we use for marketing – email, phone, face-to-face, social – it is inevitable that most of our efforts will draw a blank. Nobody likes to be rejected, however, and so you might be tempted to avoid the pain by simply reducing the chances of it happening by giving up on your marketing efforts. An alternative approach is to actively hunt for new opportunities and, at the same time, challenge the way you think about rejection.

So how do you deal with the inevitable rejection? There are three basic techniques that I think work best if you employ them simultaneously:

1. Acknowledge that rejection is totally normal and refuse to take it personally. No matter what your industry or specialism, you cannot expect that everyone you approach will need your services at that particular moment. This does not mean, however, that you are a failure.

2. Contact prospective clients at the right time. For example, freelance journalists instinctively know the production cycle of a newspaper and will pitch ideas for articles way before the presses start rolling. They also know to never phone an editor on a deadline. Actors too know that they need to be in the minds of casting directors months or even years before filming begins.

The same principle applies in the corporate world. Every company has a financial year but this doesn’t necessarily mirror the calendar year. Some British companies’ – and many public sector organisations’ - financial years follow the government’s tax year, from April to March. But there are no strict rules, so is worth hunting around the financial pages of your target companies to make sure. Budgets are decided three to six months before the new financial year begins, so if you are going to make an innovative proposal, this is the best time. If your proposal arrives toward the end of the financial year, don’t be surprised if the budget has been spent. However, on saying this, in some cases, people have money that they need to spend before year end. It’s just a matter of keeping in contacting and finding out the right time for each individual.

3. Assume an infinite population of prospective clients. ‘Infinite’ is obviously an exaggeration but it can certainly appear that way when you are actively marketing. Journalists and writers have hundreds of magazines, newspapers and websites to approach. There are numerous film production companies, thousands of music venues, and, of course, tens of thousands of other companies that might need writers, actors and musicians. If a phone call or email yields no result, move onto the next one and don’t fret about what might – or should – have been. A useful motto when you are trying to eek out new commissions is: ‘Someone, somewhere needs my services right now, and all I need do is find them.’

Actively searching for new clients clearly necessitates a different mindset from the passive approach to marketing. Sometimes it demands considerable mental dexterity: you need to be simultaneously fatalistic (‘oh well, these things happen’) and optimistic (‘this next phone call could be the big one!’). And you also need to know when to stop.

It helps to give yourself a target. If, for example, you have decided to actively sell your creative services to technology companies, divide your project into tasks. In week one, start by doing the research: check out the websites of 10 companies, find out what they do and how they promote themselves. Find the name of the marketing managers/or people commissioning and read their profiles. It might take a day or two to gather sufficient information, so on the third day give yourself a target of calling each of the 10 names on your list.

Cold calling prospective clients is deceptively hard and stressful work, and this is one reason that many people prefer email. But the phone is often a much more versatile medium: you can express enthusiasm much better with a voice; you can answer and ask questions quickly; and you can even inject a little humour into your pitch. Each call is, in effect, a performance, and after 10 you will need a break.

Your first day’s efforts might well bring no success, but this doesn’t mean you should quit. Instead, you should consider the feedback from the phone calls: were people totally disinterested, or was it a case of bad timing? What did you find out that will help you decide what to do next? Did anyone suggest calling later in the year? Did they suggest you spoke to a colleague instead? Armed with this knowledge, call another 10 companies the next day.

If you still are hitting brick walls after 50 phone calls, you should consider changing direction. Maybe the technology industry is not the best candidate for your services? Maybe your idea is just too radical? Maybe your idea isn’t as good as you thought? Contemplating this latter possibility can be rather deflating but it could be true. Although it might seem like a defeat, there is no disgrace in pulling the plug on an idea with no future.

Again, how you think about such things is the key to contentment: view it as every time an idea doesn’t come to fruition, you’re a step closer to one that does and will have found out plenty of information along the way that will help you refine your marketing efforts.

Every freelance knows that self-marketing is the key to winning new commissions. Although emails and phone calls sometimes appear out of the blue, it is usually your own efforts that generate the most interest. The problem is, however, that most other freelances use the same basic techniques and so, to stand out from the crowd, you need to constantly look for new approaches that might help you connect with prospective clients.

Many marketing gurus will advise you to put social media at the heart of your marketing efforts. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other platforms are indeed invaluable aids for creative freelances but they are not the only route to more clients, and lucrative commissions. This blog posting considers an approach to marketing that has been around since before the digital revolution and, despite its age, it is still effective, particularly as it has a very different foundation to modern techniques.

Many years ago, before I was a freelance journalist, I sold software to big corporations. The products were very specialised, very complex and very expensive, and for these reasons, few companies would ever consider buying them. My sales territory was the south-west of England and in my first week, I set about getting appointments with 100 or so companies on my prospect list. After a week of knockbacks, unreturned calls and vague promises of meetings, I confided in a senior colleague.

‘Shotguns and rifles,’ he said sharply.

I was puzzled.

‘You are taking the shotgun approach,’ he said. ‘It’s like aiming at the middle of a flock of ducks and all you’re doing is shooting off a few feathers. You need to use a rifle, with a telescopic sight and choose your targets carefully.’

Focus your aim

I took my colleague’s advice and spent the next few months doing research. This was in the days before the internet so most of my information about the companies, their IT environments and their budgets came from phone calls to people who know such things. Crucially, I also found out the names of the people who made decisions to buy, those who held the budgets and the technical staff who made recommendations. By qualifying my prospects, I reduced my target list from 100 ‘maybes’ to 10 ‘possibles’ and only when I had built up sufficient knowledge did I make the calls to the key people. Six months later, I started to make a serious dent in my sales target.

So why is this approach relevant to creative freelances? Well, a few years later, I became a journalist specialising in the IT industry, and instead of firing off letters to every editor under the sun, I followed a similar strategy and found the magazines that would most likely give me commissions. I read back-issues; found out how much they paid; got copies of their schedules for feature articles; and asked other journalists how best to deal with the editors. Again, my ‘rifle-shooting’ paid off and within a few months, I began to see my by-line in the IT trade press.

One of the problems with social media is that it gives a nice warm feeling that you are reaching lots of potential clients by doing very little. Yes, you may well have 500 Facebook friends who know you are a musician for hire, or you might be a writer who is ‘connected’ to a host of literary critics through LinkedIn. But such connections tend to be rather tenuous and the inevitable consequence is that you spread your efforts thinly. Social media encourages a rather passive ‘shotgun’ approach to marketing.

A new approach might be to combine the best of old and new techniques. How about using social media to find potential clients, then use the internet to its full potential to discover more about their specific needs and preferences, and then fine-tune and personalise your marketing message?

This was exactly the strategy I adopted at the turn of the millennium, when the internet was taking off but before the advent of social media. I had been working as a freelance journalist for five years and, although I enjoyed the work, the rates were pretty low. I often used the internet to check out companies I was writing about and noticed that their own marketing material was often poorly written. So again, I did my research and came up with a list of about 20 companies who might benefit from my services.

Within a few months, I had successfully shifted my specialism from journalism to copywriting and soon had a client list of leading IT companies to add to my journalism portfolio. Again, this principle could equally apply to other creative professions. As a musician, for example, you might typically earn your money from playing gigs in pubs and bars, or session work, but how about selling your talents in the commercial world? Likewise, actors and other performers might be able to find a way of packaging their skills as something that a company could use.

Companies are always looking to find ways to build teams, improve communications, and appeal to their customers in innovative ways, and these facts are manna from heaven to creative professionals. It is certainly not easy to find such opportunities: don’t expect an advert that says: ‘Wanted! Actors to give classes on voice projection.’ But the potential rewards are considerable. I discovered, for example, that copywriting paid four times as much as freelance journalism and, to add to the attraction, the work from my corporate clients was regular.

The onus is on the freelance to find a creative angle for their services. Journalists and writers should home in on the marketing department, and find out who is responsible for co-ordinating the production of marketing literature. A good starting point for musicians and performers might be to find out who makes your potential clients’ corporate videos; or track down the person responsible for staff development and community projects. It will take time and effort, and you will inevitably hit plenty of walls. But if you persist, you might just see the financial benefits of rifle-shooting in the corporate world.

When we set goals and make plans, we have to find the motivation to transform these into reality. There’s lots of advice out there on how to do this, indeed, we’ve made many suggestions within previous blog posts, or in the online resources section of this website.

One very powerful tool though is the Vision Board. In this blog we’ll discuss what this is and how it works.

What is it?

A vision board can be a notice board, allocated area of wall or a large piece of paper - it doesn’t really matter what you use. What’s important is what you put on it. Vision boards are usually a collection of images, words and sometimes materials that invoke strong positive feelings in you.

For maximum impact, it’s good to place your vision board somewhere prominent where you’ll see it every day. By looking at it regularly, you’ll be reminded what you’re working towards. The feelings it will produce in you will help you stay motivated to achieve the goal or goals encapsulated by this collage of images that are all very personal to you.

Being made up of images, the overall picture that is created becomes more memorable, so you can see it in your mind’s eye even when you’re not actually standing in front of it. Conjuring up a mental image of a list of goals and sub-goals and actions in this way would be trickier to do for most people.

It’s not dissimilar to the mood/style boards used to help designer’s clients get a more tangible sense of the ideas being presented. The big difference is, it’s more personal nature and the powerful motivational impact it can have.

How does it work?

To understand how it works we have to consider how our brains and motivation works. We are complex beings, and I’m not going to be able to tackle that vast topic in this short blog. However, I am going to pick out one key element that plays a huge part in the effectiveness of vision boards, which is the way our conscious and unconscious minds work.

Milton Erickson, a therapist whose hypnotherapy practices formed the basis of Ericksonian Hypnosis, used the analogy of the conscious mind and unconscious mind as a horse and rider with the rider being the conscious mind, and the horse our unconscious.

When the relationship is working well, the rider makes the decisions about where to go, and at what speed, and the horse works out how best to make that happen. Anyone who has worked with horses, or any animals, knows that it takes a lot of time and close work to form a successful partnership like this.

However, we’ve all seen what happens when this relationship breaks down, and the horse decides to do it’s own thing. There is nothing any rider can do to actually make three quarters of a ton of horse do anything! The relationship only works when the horse was voluntarily cooperating.

In the same way, our conscious mind can make great plans, but if no attempt is made to persuade the unconscious mind that these plans have merit, then just like the horse, it will keep going on the path it knows, rather than listen to its rider’s new instructions. No amount of positive intentions set by the conscious mind is ever going to prise an unconvinced unconscious mind out of its ‘stable’!

What the vision board does, is work directly with the subconscious mind. The unconscious mind is the less verbal partner of the two - it’s far more influenced by images and feelings than reasoned argument. Making big powerful picture worlds on a board, with deeply felt emotional attachments, makes it very compelling to your unconscious. It lets you set goals in a subtle way, gently and persistently shifting the focus for your unconscious mind onto what great things are possible for you.

Then, when you are going about your daily life, your unconscious mind will spot that advert or opportunity that can take you one step down the path towards your goal, and draws your conscious minds attention to it. Before you know it, something small has changed, which will motivate both of your minds to work together in this direction, just like that successful horse and rider partnership.

How do you create a vision board?

To create your own vision board, first choose a topic or goal that you care about. Then start to collect images that are relevant to this topic and which strongly draw you to them. It’s important not to use images, words or objects that are just so-so, the impact of the board is stronger when you have a big emotional response to each and every component.

Once you have enough images, it’s time to gather your materials. Decide whether you are going to use a pin board or paper. A pin board can be good because it’s easy to update if you find a new image, or want to replace an old one. Saying that, you can easily glue a new image over the top of an old one on paper, so it’s really up to you. If you prefer to use a techie method, Pinterest is a great way to do an electronic version, which you can print out, or use as a screen saver, keeping it in your sights regularly.

Make it fun to make, do it with friends, or as a relaxing ‘me time’ event. The more fun associations you have with it, the more positive impacts it will have on you long term.

Then just get creative. Make it look as good as you can. Add additional decoration, or key words, anything that makes the message it holds for you more exciting, compelling and attractive.

Once you’ve made it, put it up somewhere you will see it regularly and see what happens!

What is crowdfunding?

Crowdfunding is based on the principle of raising relatively small amounts of money from a large number of people. So, for example, if you needed £10,000 to start a new project, instead of borrowing the whole amount from one bank, a thousand people could provide £10 each.

What are the origins of crowdfunding?

Although there are examples of similar models of business financing as far back as the 17^th century, crowdfunding is a product of the internet age. The first recorded use of the word was in 2006 and since then, myriad websites (or ‘platforms’, as they are formally known) have sprung up to help connect people who need to raise funds (‘creators’) to those who might want to provide funds (‘backers.’) Leading crowdfunding platforms include: www.kickstarter.com, www.crowdfunder.co.uk and www.wefund.com

How popular is crowdfunding?

Crowdfunding has exploded over the last few years. Banks have never been very keen to lend to start-up businesses because they are inherently risky. But since the Financial Crisis of 2008, banks’ aversion to risk has become even more pronounced and this has been compounded in the UK by severe cuts in arts funding. Consequently, entrepreneurs (including many creative people) have tried to find finance via alternative routes and crowdfunding has become a particularly popular option. Forbes magazine estimated that crowdfunding raised over $5 billion globally in 2013 and in the UK, the equivalent figure was estimated to be around £400 million.

How does the crowdfunding process work?

Crowdfunding starts with the creator. This could be a musician who wants to record an album of their own songs but can’t afford the studio fees. Or it could be a TV producer who needs funds to film, edit and promote a ground-breaking documentary. Or maybe an author who is fed up with rejection letters and wants to self-publish their book.

The first step is to choose a platform and submit a project. This is a description of your idea, usually with a promotional video, that will encourage backers to pledge money. You will also set a target amount and an end date for example, £20,000 by December 31. Typically, your project will run for between four and eight weeks, during which time you will spread the word among your friends, family, clients and anyone else who you think might be interested. The beauty of the web is that you have a global audience – assuming you can drum up interest.

Backers pledge donations online, using PayPal or debit/credit cards, and then, hopefully, by your end date you will have achieved your target amount and you can start to bring your plans to life.

Are projects guaranteed to gain funding?

No. In fact, many projects fail to attract funding altogether. One reason for failure is that creators don’t hit their target. Some crowdfunding platforms are based on the ‘all or nothing’ (AON) principle, so, using the example above, if you secure pledges of £19,999 by your end date, you will not receive a penny.

Other platforms have adopted the ‘Keep It All’ (KIA) model in which the creator receives whatever funds are pledged, even if the target is not met. A recent study of some 23,000 crowdfunding campaigns revealed that AON-based projects are more likely to be successful because creators are more meticulous with their descriptions and justifications, which makes backers more inclined to pledge funds.

What makes a successful project?

One of the greatest misconceptions about crowdfunding is encapsulated in the phrase ‘a great idea speaks for itself.’ Your project may well be the finest film, album, book or play in history, but if you just submit your project and wait for the money to roll in, you will be disappointed.

Successful projects are characterised by very active and innovative marketing on the part of the creator in which social media often plays a crucial role in raising awareness. In addition, ‘old school’ techniques are used, such as using the phone, meeting in person, leaflets, PR stunts, throwing a launch party… whatever it takes.

It is imperative that your target is achievable and can be justified but equally, you need to be realistic about how many people you can convince to make pledges. Not every person who says ‘yes’ by email or via Facebook will actually honour their intentions. You can ask friends to encourage their friends, but people who don’t personally know you will only make a pledge if your project is extremely compelling.

So the creator gets the funds, but what’s in it for the backers?

People you know might donate money for purely altruistic reasons and expect nothing in return. But to attract larger numbers of backers, you will need to offer an inducement. This can either be a reward or equity.

A reward can be anything from a credit on your album or in your film to a free signed copy of your novel or a handful of tickets to see your play. Alternatively, you might want to tempt backers with a promise of equity: either a share in the profits of your venture or your business as a whole in exchange for a specified amount of money.

Are there any notable examples of successful crowdfunding?

Plenty. The most well known examples of successful crowdfunded projects often involve huge amounts of money (e.g., $40 million dollars to develop a computer game); sheer quirkiness (e.g., a museum of miniature exhibits) or already-famous creators (such as filmmaker Spike Lee and singer Amanda Palmer).

Of course, the vast majority of successful projects are more modest, and every platform website has examples of how a few thousand pounds have helped creative professionals realise their goals. Click on the following links to read more about successful projects.

• Kickstarter
• Crowdfunder
• We fund
• Sponsume

What is the role of the platform?

In essence, platforms act as financial ‘dating agencies’ because their primary role is to connect creators with backers. Platforms also have a moderating role and ensure that everyone sticks to the rules. Typically, the platform charges a small fee, perhaps 5% of the total funding raised.

Although all platforms adhere to the basic principle of crowdfunding (small amounts from lots of people), each one operates in a slightly different way. As a creator, it is vital that you understand what is expected of you. So, before launching your project, visit various platforms’ websites and carefully read the terms, condition, rules and regulations.

How do I narrow my choice of platform?

There is a huge choice of crowdfunding platforms and it certainly pays to do lots of research before you decide. Some platforms specialise in certain types of projects: property, technology, art, etc. Others are focussed on local community projects, or specialise in helping young entrepreneurs. Most platforms offer crowdfunding for multiple niches and their websites will usually give examples of the categories of successful projects, for example: arts; publishing; music; film and theatre; community; environment etc.

Are any platforms recommended for FEU members?

It all depends on what you want to achieve. You need to feel comfortable with the platform and be confident that it is right for you and your project. A good starting point for your research is the UK Crowdfunding Association. This was formed in 2012 and at the last count it boasted almost 40 crowdfunding platforms as members. Scroll down this web page, read the brief descriptions of each platform and click through to the websites of those that appeal.

The well-established, general platforms (like kickstarter and crowdfunder) have helped many film-makers, playwrights, writers, performers and journalists realise their dreams. But you might also want to consider platforms that specialise in the creative industries. These include:

• Newspryng (for journalists)
• Sponsume (for all types of artistic enterprise)
• Unbound (for authors)

However, platforms that enable creators to raise funds by selling shares (or ‘equity’) in their venture must be authorised by the UK Financial Conduct Authority. Most platforms, however, are not investment-based and so do not come under the authority of the FCA. In March 2014, the FCA published a document that explains its policy for crowdfunding in detail.

Despite crowdfunding’s lack of regulation, the risks faced by creators (and backers) are small. Even so, if you are going to launch a project you need to be sure that your chosen platform is a reputable organisation with a strong track record. Membership of the UK Crowdfunding Association does not guarantee a successful project, but at least it ensures that the platform follows the industry’s code of practice, which should give you peace of mind.

Find out more about crowdfunding

Crowdfunding has received lots of media attention in recent years. The following links are useful starting points:

• The Telegraph – Which are the best 'crowdfunding' websites?
• The Guardian - Crowdfunding for the arts: top tips from the experts

Do’s and Don’ts

There are some spectacular strategies out there for making setbacks worse, and if we are honest, most of us have indulged in some of them on occasion. In this blog, I’ve identified the most common negative approaches, and below each one offer an antidote. So if you recognise an unhelpful strategy that you are guilty of using, try the alternative and see if it helps!

1. Don’t - catastrophise

Some of us have a tendency to make things worse in our heads, e.g., when something bad happens, we imagine all the negative outcomes or knock on effects that could possibly happen because of this event. Then, we take all these imagined scenarios, and conjure up negative outcomes and knock on impacts that could possibly result if these things were to happen. Before we know it, we are blubbering idiots, curled up in the foetal position, completely overwhelmed by the enormity of the chain of events that haven’t even happened! Ever done this, be honest now?

Do – keep it in perspective

To avoid making a molehill into an imaginary mountain, the alternative is to see what has happened in the context of everything else that is going on in your life, and recognise that it is just a passing disappointment. Career disappointments don’t remove your good health, or strip you of your family or friends, or take your hobbies away.

While obviously having no money has a knock on impact, it’s important to stay motivated so you can move onto the next opportunity rather than make this one even worse than it needs to be.

It’s important to remember that no setback, however bad, ever defines who you are, there is always so much more to you than any one setback in any one area of your life!

2. Don’t - focus only on the problem

There is no better way to render you completely free from any motivation to improve a situation than to put all of your effort, time and attention on what went wrong. Imagine rushing to the airport and finding you missed your flight. To implement this strategy, you should find a seat, pull out all the paperwork, and check all the times to see what went wrong. This is a good time to dig out your diary, and wonder where you didn’t allow enough time, perhaps the taxi, bus or tube took longer than you expected. Maybe there was a hold up at the check in desk. You could even take a little time to consider that this wouldn’t have happened if you had taken a later flight, or travelled on a different day. With this approach, it’s worth considering whether you missed this plane because you are ‘unlucky’. You could go the whole hog and engage your inner victim, start to feel upset and wonder, “Why me!”

You get my drift here, nothing is actually changing, and no steps are being taken to sort the problem out.

Do - ask what can you do about it

If we use the example above of the missed flight, what’s the alternative strategy? Looking at the facts of the situation, you are not on the plane you planned to be, and it’s likely you still need to get to your destination.

So ask yourself, what can you do about it? The answer to this question depends on what you were travelling for and what your personal resources are. You may be in a position to shrug it off and book another flight, if not, it’s always worth throwing yourself at the mercy of the airline. There may be some flexibility, especially if your delay was out of your control. You can explore other modes of transport, cancel your plans, or come up with some alternative creative solutions to the problem.

If you have to give up and go home, it still isn’t worth dwelling on how it happened, other than to make sure you learn any lessons that would prevent it occurring again in the future. Then find a constructive use for the extra time you have just gained to make the best of what started to look like a bad day!

3. Don’t – use the setback to taint the good stuff

An excellent strategy for feeling bad about a setback is to use it to redefine all the good things in your life through a self-crafted filter of negativity. By which I mean, say for example you didn’t get a job you really wanted. Take this fact of not winning that work and add some meaning about how it reflects on you as a human being. Things like being useless, worthless and clueless are all good for this approach.

Now add some wild speculation along the lines of, only these employers had the insight to recognise the deep flaws in you and your abilities. People who have loved your work in the past must be deluded and quite frankly not very good at their jobs. All the friends and family who have supported you in your endeavours must have been having you on.

You can see where this is going. If you really put your back into this one, you can in a very short time come to see your entire existence as a sham with every positive experience a chance occurrence, akin to winning the lottery!

Not a good place to go… ever!

Do – use past positive experiences to recognise this as a temporary setback

This is the exact opposite of the negative strategy above. This involves using the same imaginative abilities, only reversing the focus and direction. By which I mean, instead of holding up this current setback as the defining example, or gold standard, by which you measure everything else, take a few random examples of great memories of past experiences where you have been successful in this area, and compare this current experience with each one. As you do this, you will remind yourself how insignificant this current setback really is, and you will get back in touch with some of the things you really loved doing.

If you find this hard to do, especially when you are feeling a bit bruised, it’s a really good idea to have an achievement file, with a list of your proudest achievements, tucked away somewhere, so you can pull it out in emergencies like this, and browse through the all the good stuff. It’s a brilliant way to get your head back into positive shape for taking the next step.

4. Don’t – believe that this one setback will shape your whole life

Have you ever had that feeling, when something bad has happened, that it’s going to impact every aspect of your life? Occasionally this does indeed happen, but it is by far the exception not the rule. To use this strategy to feel really bad though, it’s important to forget this. To work this one to the hilt, you must forget that you have any other options to try. Erase from your memory any other situations where you have felt like this and the situation has turned out fine. Now just sit and imagine how your whole life, career, social structure and finances are about to crumble around you. See the task of rebuilding a new life from scratch, and take a little time to let this completely overwhelm you.

Dark stuff, eh?

Do – remember that ‘pivotal moments’ are rarely single events!

We all love to identify that point in our life where we changed direction, or found success, or made an important decision. If we are honest though, these key events are generally convenient hooks that make our story telling more exciting. The reality is that the ‘lucky break’, came after years of preparation, training and being in the right place at the right time, before the ‘magic moment’ actually took place.

When we make major life changes because we have been unhappy, the way we talk about coming to this momentous decision indicates how this isn’t really a snap decision, it comes after many frustrations, as in: “It was the straw that broke the camels back.”

So when something goes wrong, even in a big way, remember all those other times when you thought you had reached a brick wall and it turned out to be a minor blip, or even worked to your advantage.

Remember also that it’s very rare for one single event to change your life. If you think about your progress as being like a speeding train, it takes a lot to slow it down or stop it. Imagine setbacks as flies hitting the windscreen! Splat!

5. Don’t – use a setback as an excuse to trawl through bad memories

I have to say this used to be a speciality of mine. If I was embarrassed or had made a mistake, I was spectacularly talented at finding other similar examples from the past. I would take a careful inventory of them and maximise the impact by going right back and reliving each one, until I felt the embarrassment or shame of each one once more. If I really wanted to indulge myself, I would imagine an audience of disappointed and unhappy people looking at me, gently shaking their heads.

This is a really effective way to feel as bad as you can about a minor setback.

Do – ask what you can learn from the setback, or find the funny side

We don’t learn nearly half as much when things go well as we do when they don’t! So, instead of bedding down to feel as bad as you can about a setback, embrace it as a learning opportunity.

Always assume the mantle of feedback not failure. You can do something with feedback, failure is an emotional dead end. Once you have identified any lessons, if you still feel bad, look for the funny side. You’ve heard the saying: “One day I’ll look back at this and laugh.” Why wait?

In Conclusion

This has been a slightly tongue in cheek look at the do’s and don’ts of dealing with setbacks, and if a health warning is necessary, please do not try out any of the ‘don’t strategies detailed above, even in the spirit of scientific experiment. Do try out the antidotes though, until they become your habitual responses to setbacks, and use them as your setback fly swat.