Thought I'd share this little bit of wisdom. I see this happen all too often with people working in online businesses and streaming and I'm sure many of you have as well, so I thought I'd pen this down. I'm sure that others that own online/streamer-based businesses will likely weigh in as well.
People: cold, blind calling is NOT something that you should be doing in this business. Arguably, you shouldn't be doing it in business at all, but it's exceptionally insulting in business.
Example #1: over the past couple of months, I've been followed by graphic designers who specialize in working with streamers (mascot, avatar, overlays, etc.) Normally, that's not a bad thing. Here are the problems, however.
- Only interaction with them has been a DM saying, "Hey, you need a mascot/avatar/overlay/[insert product here]? DM me for prices!", an attached image from their portfolio and...that's it.
- They follow about 1000 or so people, but only have 30 tweets to their name and guess what? It's all variations on the above.
- Zero knowledge of prospective clientele: just looking at my streams (or even my tweets!) would say that I'm a long-time font designer. That would typically mean I'm versed in graphic design. Five minutes of rooting around my twitter would show I've owned a graphic design studio for nearly two decades now, and have been doing it for longer. (even bigger mistake: one of the potential clients one of these designers contacted has been doing graphic design EVEN LONGER THAN ME; they're second generation in a graphic design studio and just happen to stream as well!)
- Again, no interaction. Just a blind expectation that I'm going to grab something that looks middle of the road without regularly showing examples form portfolio, tweeting on business or anything.
This just shows that if you have an online-based business, especially one that works with streamers and "live" clientele, you should get to know them. I'm going to ignore someone who just blind DMs me. I might be more interested if I run into someone who says, "hey, saw your font stream, maybe we can do some work together or such." Get to know the people you work with - it takes years to build trust, seconds to lose it and (as an addendum to the old saying), zero time to never get it if you don't bother to put in.
Example #2: I've spoken time and time before with justsimy, who also does design. We've chatted about stuff, she's asked me my opinion on design and I've asked her. We have a rapport, so if a situation came down where someone needed a design recommendation that I couldn't do, I'd recommend her in a heartbeat (and I do!) But I'm not going to recommend the person who tweet-spams me once and never again. Why? I don't know anything about them. I don't know if the art is real or swiped from somewhere. I don't know their limitations in working with software or not. I just don't know at all - and I'm not willing to make a referral suffer a bad experience because I can't answer honestly.
Lastly, it's just good manners and polite to do. We often say that manners are a lost art and that people aren't as polite as they used to be; certainly I've been guilty of that myself at times. But if you don't try, why expect it in return? It helps to know that the person on the other side of the business transaction is known to be fair, honest and have integrity.
Example #3: Last year, I had a client that I was working on a project for. Due to personal circumstances, I wasn't able to complete it in time and so he decided to withdraw. I could have said, okay, fine and left it at that. Instead, I gave him all the files that I had to date, all the work I'd done and instead of even asking for half of what was owed? I just left it at that. Took a $200 bath on a product set, but to me it was worth it, because I felt I needed to show integrity for my own screwups. The client was pleasantly surprised and ended up referring someone else to me just because I showed that I was someone who dealt fairly with them. You can't do that if you just tweet-spam and expect the bucks to roll in.
Sorry if this was long-winded but I felt I needed to say it based on a lot of what I've seen as of late. We're all gamers here, and to some degree, many of us are businesspeople as well. But we'd all like to be treated the same way we treat others - and it never hurts to remind others of that as well.
And that was my TED talk. Feel free and weigh in if you have business advice for others who might be in the same situation.
People: cold, blind calling is NOT something that you should be doing in this business. Arguably, you shouldn't be doing it in business at all, but it's exceptionally insulting in business.
Example #1: over the past couple of months, I've been followed by graphic designers who specialize in working with streamers (mascot, avatar, overlays, etc.) Normally, that's not a bad thing. Here are the problems, however.
- Only interaction with them has been a DM saying, "Hey, you need a mascot/avatar/overlay/[insert product here]? DM me for prices!", an attached image from their portfolio and...that's it.
- They follow about 1000 or so people, but only have 30 tweets to their name and guess what? It's all variations on the above.
- Zero knowledge of prospective clientele: just looking at my streams (or even my tweets!) would say that I'm a long-time font designer. That would typically mean I'm versed in graphic design. Five minutes of rooting around my twitter would show I've owned a graphic design studio for nearly two decades now, and have been doing it for longer. (even bigger mistake: one of the potential clients one of these designers contacted has been doing graphic design EVEN LONGER THAN ME; they're second generation in a graphic design studio and just happen to stream as well!)
- Again, no interaction. Just a blind expectation that I'm going to grab something that looks middle of the road without regularly showing examples form portfolio, tweeting on business or anything.
This just shows that if you have an online-based business, especially one that works with streamers and "live" clientele, you should get to know them. I'm going to ignore someone who just blind DMs me. I might be more interested if I run into someone who says, "hey, saw your font stream, maybe we can do some work together or such." Get to know the people you work with - it takes years to build trust, seconds to lose it and (as an addendum to the old saying), zero time to never get it if you don't bother to put in.
Example #2: I've spoken time and time before with justsimy, who also does design. We've chatted about stuff, she's asked me my opinion on design and I've asked her. We have a rapport, so if a situation came down where someone needed a design recommendation that I couldn't do, I'd recommend her in a heartbeat (and I do!) But I'm not going to recommend the person who tweet-spams me once and never again. Why? I don't know anything about them. I don't know if the art is real or swiped from somewhere. I don't know their limitations in working with software or not. I just don't know at all - and I'm not willing to make a referral suffer a bad experience because I can't answer honestly.
Lastly, it's just good manners and polite to do. We often say that manners are a lost art and that people aren't as polite as they used to be; certainly I've been guilty of that myself at times. But if you don't try, why expect it in return? It helps to know that the person on the other side of the business transaction is known to be fair, honest and have integrity.
Example #3: Last year, I had a client that I was working on a project for. Due to personal circumstances, I wasn't able to complete it in time and so he decided to withdraw. I could have said, okay, fine and left it at that. Instead, I gave him all the files that I had to date, all the work I'd done and instead of even asking for half of what was owed? I just left it at that. Took a $200 bath on a product set, but to me it was worth it, because I felt I needed to show integrity for my own screwups. The client was pleasantly surprised and ended up referring someone else to me just because I showed that I was someone who dealt fairly with them. You can't do that if you just tweet-spam and expect the bucks to roll in.
Sorry if this was long-winded but I felt I needed to say it based on a lot of what I've seen as of late. We're all gamers here, and to some degree, many of us are businesspeople as well. But we'd all like to be treated the same way we treat others - and it never hurts to remind others of that as well.
And that was my TED talk. Feel free and weigh in if you have business advice for others who might be in the same situation.
Thought I'd share this little bit of wisdom. I see this happen all too often with people working in online businesses and streaming and I'm sure many of you have as well, so I thought I'd pen this down. I'm sure that others that own online/streamer-based businesses will likely weigh in as well.
People: cold, blind calling is NOT something that you should be doing in this business. Arguably, you shouldn't be doing it in business at all, but it's exceptionally insulting in business.
Example #1: over the past couple of months, I've been followed by graphic designers who specialize in working with streamers (mascot, avatar, overlays, etc.) Normally, that's not a bad thing. Here are the problems, however.
- Only interaction with them has been a DM saying, "Hey, you need a mascot/avatar/overlay/[insert product here]? DM me for prices!", an attached image from their portfolio and...that's it.
- They follow about 1000 or so people, but only have 30 tweets to their name and guess what? It's all variations on the above.
- Zero knowledge of prospective clientele: just looking at my streams (or even my tweets!) would say that I'm a long-time font designer. That would typically mean I'm versed in graphic design. Five minutes of rooting around my twitter would show I've owned a graphic design studio for nearly two decades now, and have been doing it for longer. (even bigger mistake: one of the potential clients one of these designers contacted has been doing graphic design EVEN LONGER THAN ME; they're second generation in a graphic design studio and just happen to stream as well!)
- Again, no interaction. Just a blind expectation that I'm going to grab something that looks middle of the road without regularly showing examples form portfolio, tweeting on business or anything.
This just shows that if you have an online-based business, especially one that works with streamers and "live" clientele, you should get to know them. I'm going to ignore someone who just blind DMs me. I might be more interested if I run into someone who says, "hey, saw your font stream, maybe we can do some work together or such." Get to know the people you work with - it takes years to build trust, seconds to lose it and (as an addendum to the old saying), zero time to never get it if you don't bother to put in.
Example #2: I've spoken time and time before with [JustSimy], who also does design. We've chatted about stuff, she's asked me my opinion on design and I've asked her. We have a rapport, so if a situation came down where someone needed a design recommendation that I couldn't do, I'd recommend her in a heartbeat (and I do!) But I'm not going to recommend the person who tweet-spams me once and never again. Why? I don't know anything about them. I don't know if the art is real or swiped from somewhere. I don't know their limitations in working with software or not. I just don't know at all - and I'm not willing to make a referral suffer a bad experience because I can't answer honestly.
Lastly, it's just good manners and polite to do. We often say that manners are a lost art and that people aren't as polite as they used to be; certainly I've been guilty of that myself at times. But if you don't try, why expect it in return? It helps to know that the person on the other side of the business transaction is known to be fair, honest and have integrity.
Example #3: Last year, I had a client that I was working on a project for. Due to personal circumstances, I wasn't able to complete it in time and so he decided to withdraw. I could have said, okay, fine and left it at that. Instead, I gave him all the files that I had to date, all the work I'd done and instead of even asking for half of what was owed? I just left it at that. Took a $200 bath on a product set, but to me it was worth it, because I felt I needed to show integrity for my own screwups. The client was pleasantly surprised and ended up referring someone else to me just because I showed that I was someone who dealt fairly with them. You can't do that if you just tweet-spam and expect the bucks to roll in.
Sorry if this was long-winded but I felt I needed to say it based on a lot of what I've seen as of late. We're all gamers here, and to some degree, many of us are businesspeople as well. But we'd all like to be treated the same way we treat others - and it never hurts to remind others of that as well.
And that was my TED talk. Feel free and weigh in if you have business advice for others who might be in the same situation.
