Creating a brand is more important today than ever before

October 2023

Read the online version here.

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I am a brand, and so are you!

I will write this from an artist's perspective because I consider myself one, but all of this applies to anyone who wants to work for themselves and be their own boss.

If you are an artist who struggles with paying bills every month, or you simply want to increase your income, you should consider becoming a brand. Yes, becoming. You are building yourself as one, and therefore you are becoming one yourself.

Perhaps you are interested in a few things and want to pursue them simultaneously, such as playing music, painting, web design, maintaining a healthy lifestyle, self-education, entrepreneurship, sports, etc. But you don’t know how to make a living out of them, so you get a job in an IT company, answering emails and dealing with customers all day, just so you can come home and do the things you truly want to do. That was my story. Yours might be slightly different, but the core is the same: you want to do things you are interested in and earn good money doing them. Well, with the power of social media, you can do all of those things and earn money by sharing your journey too.

You only need a few things to start: a vision, strategy, and action.

Vision

You can’t get to where you want to go if you don’t know where you are actually heading.

Set clear end goals and the path necessary to achieve them. Write down everything you want to be and do, down to the smallest detail.

How do you want your day to look? How many hours do you want to work each day? How much money do you want to earn each month? What kind of person do you have to be to have the things you want to have and do the things you want to do?

For example, someone with a six-pack wouldn’t eat at fast-food joints every day, and a musician practices regularly to stay in shape.

You must write down what you want, what type of person has or is doing those things, and what you have to do to become that type of person. Once you have that information written down, it's time to strategize your path toward making your vision a reality.

Strategy

Having a vision but no strategy will, at best, slow down your progress dramatically or, at worst, keep you in a standstill, not knowing why you are staying in one place for so long.

How do you create a strategy? By outlining the steps necessary to achieve your goals, which will ultimately bring you closer to the vision you set for yourself.

Start by outlining those steps to the best of your ability and improve them over time.

Don’t overthink it, don’t search for excuses; just start.

Ideally, now.

If not now, today.

For real. Do it.

It might be hard, and you might not like it, but you know you need to do it and because you believe it will improve your life, you will do it.

Action

This is where most people give up because until now everything was just theoretical.

Dreams, hopes, and wishes.

This is where things get real.

Action separates talkers from doers.

You either do what you said you would and change your life, or you engage in mental masturbation, where you think of doing it, which gives you a sense of accomplishment, but you never take real-life action, and your life stays the same.

After you have your first strategy written, you will start executing it, and this is where you start learning about what works and what doesn't. When something works, great. You do it, and life is good. You are closer to your vision. When something doesn’t work, you take note of it, go back to your strategy that is now nicely written somewhere, and you iterate it. You improve what can be improved, change what should be changed, and delete what didn’t work. Then you can think of another strategy path that you will try out and learn from again.

You will do this again and again until you craft a great strategy that works. How do you know your strategy works? You know because it made you achieve your goals and make your vision a reality.

Along the way, you will encounter countless problems that you will need to solve to continue on your path. Once you solve these problems, you can teach others how to solve them quickly. This is one of the ways you can earn money. I love to pay others to help me achieve my goals more efficiently than I could do myself.

One of the things I do is help you establish a strong online presence through web creation that perfectly reflects your artistry, whether it's through music, painting, or other creative pursuits. A website that serves as your canvas for sharing your journey and attracting an audience that appreciates your work. If you are interested in taking the next step, contact me to learn more.

Conclusion

If you do these three things and pair them with the discipline to persist even when you want to quit, you will reach whatever you want.

Believe you can, and then keep doing it and track your progress.

You will succeed.

You will win.

You just did.

Mislav Brajković

KingsString