Author: Dan Blank

My days are profoundly different now that I have a team. Five years ago, I launched WeGrowMedia, loving the efficiency of “doing it all,” working where I wanted, and when I wanted.

Last year, I decided to make a big change. I realized that I need to take the next step and turn WeGrowMedia into a team. When I interviewed artist and baker Andrea Lekberg, she framed it this way:

“If you have a business so small that you are doing everything, then you don’t have time to think about growing it. You can’t grow. You are always behind and overwhelmed.”

The WeGrowMedia team is comprised of me and two other people:

1. Diane Krause – Project Coordinator
   Diane is basically my business therapist. She strategizes with me around a thousand details about the courses we run, partnerships, timing, and helping me work through decisions. She keeps it all on track, and also happens to be an editor and publishing expert, so she basically makes everything better than it was before.
2. Leah Shoemaker – Graphic Designer
   Remember that kid in high school who was wildly creative, and could create something magical from a pile of random junk? Well, that’s Leah. She creates original photography, graphics, layouts, coding, and other material for our courses. Leah is basically pixie dust.

Why I Think Outsourcing is a Horrible Idea

Since I run my own company, I obsess over entrepreneurship, interviews with other company founders, and the tools that make it all work. Again and again, I hear about online marketplaces that make it easy to outsource small projects. An easy example is 99designs. You upload an idea that you need designed, a bunch of freelancers “bid” for it with ideas and price, and then you select one.

Loads of people I know and trust use 99designs. For many of them, it works. It gives them access to a talent pool that was previously difficult to find, and at prices that are super cheap.

My own very personal opinion of this type of marketplace: BLEH!

Now, if you use 99designs or are a designer who finds work through it, I am NOT judging you. You are awesome. I love you. Do what works for you. I will gladly shake your hand, buy you a beer, and wash your car Biff Tannen style.

But I don’t want to outsource stuff to the lowest bidder. I don’t want to turn my creative work into a bunch of component parts sourced out to day laborers. (Again, nothing wrong with day laborers, I just don’t want that to be the foundation of my daily life in the company I create.)

I want to invest in others. And by doing so, invest in my company.

I want a team, not a bunch of hired hands who are treated as replaceable at any moment. I mean, don’t we all prefer to be treated as a member of a team?

The more I work with Diane and Leah, the more I wonder: Why would you want to outsource when you can develop a team?

I can say a lot here, but I will just make two more points around this:

1. I am learning how to become a better manager. This means I am inherently becoming a better communicator, and learning how to establish processes that include others. This is a skill set that will benefit me in 1,000 ways through the rest of my life.
2. I am helping each of them grow professionally. I am investing in each of them. Sometimes, it is simply the nature of the work; Leah was thrown into three back-to-back course launches within the first six weeks of working for me. She learned a lot of stuff in that time that it takes some entrepreneurs years to experience. Other investment is more direct: I suggested she learn Adobe Illustrator, and am paying for it and training for it via Lynda.com. That is a skill she will have for her own work, and for anyone else she ever works for.

I Give Them as Much Freedom As Possible

I live and work in New Jersey, Diane is in Texas, and Leah is in western Canada. None of us have ever met in person.

Diane and Leah work the hours they want. That changes day to day, based on the rest of their lives. It’s not unusual for Leah to message me saying, “I won’t be able to work tomorrow, because I’m climbing a mountain with my friends.” After I think to myself, “CANADIANS!“, I message her back saying, “Thanks for the heads up!”

I love that I am able to support her creative work, while also supporting her personal interests. That combined, this creates a LIFE for her that she wants to lead. I want her to lead that life, not feel controlled by me, her “boss.”

My Hiring Process

The idea of hiring a team is kind of scary, right? For me it certainly was. As someone who runs his own small company, and one that 100% supports my family, it can be terrifying to think of also being responsible for paying others. Let’s face it, I feel so much responsibility already.

So I put limits on everything to help me mitigate risk:

• When I hire, I call it a 3-month internship. So if things don’t work out, it is already agreed upon that there is no job after three months. BUT… with both Diane and Leah, I had conversations about extending that. Diane has now worked for me for more than a year. Leah for more than four months.
• Because I start out hiring “interns,” I start out paying intern rates. This allows me to not worry as much about immediate value when I begin working with someone. We have a runway as they settle in and figure things out.
• Each of them generally have an expectation on a cap for hours. It’s not a firm rule right now, but they each work between 10-20 hours per week. So it’s firmly part-time, and I gladly advise each of them on how they can get other work outside of what they do for WeGrowMedia. Both Leah and Diane do have other work they do. I have VERY ACTIVELY tried to advise them on how they can get more clients and charge more for their work outside of WeGrowMedia.

When I hire people, I create a job description and post it on my blog, then just circulate it through my network. In 2014, I made a big effort with this, and received 80 applicants. In 2015, I rushed it, and received 20.

What I tend to find is that most of the people who apply are qualified. Which makes it really difficult to choose the best candidate. In 2014, I lost sleep over this because all of the people I interviewed were so awesome. I ended up hiring three interns that summer! Two of them, Kathi Gadow and Rachel Burns, did work beyond that initial summer, but then got wrapped up in school and a new job.

While I always frame it as a 3-month internship, I’m looking for a partner. I now know what people know when they say, “you are overqualified.” When you speak to someone who you can sense is in a short-term transition, and will quickly move on when the next opportunity comes up. That they are READY for a bigger opportunity than the one I am offering.

I am also learning my own preferences along the way. On more than one occasion, when talking with my wife about someone I had interviewed and was considering, when she asked why I wouldn’t want to hire them, I would say, “Because they didn’t smile in the interview.”

It turns out, I have a strong preference for people who smile. Who are enthusiastic enough to smile without much prompting. I’m not sure what that says about me. But if I am speaking with three equally qualified candidates, I will hire the one who smiles at the drop of a hat.

When I consider why this might be, I think it may relate to a post I shared not too long ago: This Isn’t Easy. Because it isn’t. Trying to create a company from scratch — one that supports my family and helps me and my team grow creatively — it’s difficult. And if I’m going to be on this journey filled with danger, I want it to be filled with joyous people who see silver linings, who find joy in small moments, and who will look at a crazy mountain we have to climb, and take that first step with a smile.

Or maybe I’m just superficial.

How We Work Day to Day

There’s so much more to share. I created a guide called “How to Create Your Team,” which covers the following:

• My hiring/interview tips
• How much to pay
• How to create systems around communicating with your team
• Why you should hire virtual workers
• How to limit risk

You can grab it here (when you do, you will also be added to my weekly email newsletter list, by the way. You can unsubscribe anytime.).

Thanks!
-Dan

My email newsletter is the essential ingredient that allowed me to establish my company, work on my own, and spend my days focused on helping other creative professionals.

Without it, I wouldn’t have been able to launch WeGrowMedia. Period.

As I study other successful creatives, and work side-by-side with some of them, I have become more convinced than ever that email newsletters are a powerful way to grow your audience, engage them in meaningful (not spammy) ways, and to (yes) earn more money from your craft.

Is it the “secret” ingredient to “easy” sales and “overnight success”?
Nope. Nothing is. No matter how catchy the headline, or how charismatic the person selling you something.

But I believe in the value of email newsletters. Here are two ways I am reaching out to help you establish your own email newsletter, or amplify one that you already have. All of these are ZERO risk.

1. My Launch Your Email Newsletter course begins next Friday. I’ve put my heart and soul into this course, and priced it as low as possible. It’s filled with 150+ pages of material, 30+ videos, more than a dozen worksheets, calls, and a private community. I’m biased, but I think it’s amazing. My mom does too. See, totally unbiased! Learn more here. Deadline to register is Friday September 11th at Noon ET.
2. If you’re even a little bit curious about the course, I’m offering a 100% free webinar and screencast this coming Wednesday. 90% of the webinar is focused on training, helping you get your email newsletter setup. The final 10% will focus on showing you the course. Register here.

I wanted to offer something really special beyond this. So, if you are among the first 10 people to sign up for the VIP level of Launch Your Email Newsletter before Tuesday September 9th at 9pm ET, I will throw in something big:

• Free personalized audit on how email newsletters/marketing can grow your audience and your sales. You will fill out an audit survey with background on your goals & challenges.
• I will deliver my personalized advice to you via video, taking you through my analysis and tips. It will be a 5-10 minute video from me to you.

Even before the course begins, you will have me advising you directly on how email newsletters can become a powerful way to grow your audience and revenue.

Okay, that’s everything. Hope you all have a lovely weekend!
-Dan

To celebrate the coming of Fall and a new season, I’m doing something fun, and I’d love for you to be a part of it.

I am offering the chance for you to have me design and build your email newsletter for you!

Perhaps you’ve heard that email newsletters are a powerful way to develop an audience for your creative work. If you aren’t already offering an email newsletter, this is an incredible opportunity. On September 9, I will be holding a live (and FREE) screencast, walking you through the email newsletter creation process.

As part of that screencast, I would like for the walk through to be for YOUR email newsletter! Enter here for your chance to be that lucky winner:

Details for contest:

• Contest begins Monday, August 31 and ends Thursday, September 3 at midnight EST
• The winner will get my assistance with the following: 1) Initial setup of an account with an email marketing provider such as MailChimp, 2) creation of a sign-up form and placement on a website, and 3) creation of the first newsletter template and content
• This work will be done via a video webcast on Wednesday, September 9
• Everyone who enters the contest will be invited to attend the webcast, and can invite friends to sign up as well
• The winner will email with me to arrange specifics around their goals & challenges, and I will provide technical assistance live on screencast for a live audience.

Thanks!
-Dan

Since I teach a lot of online courses, I tend to seek out and study other online training offers. These may be blog posts, courses, webinars, workshops, conferences, and so much else.

Many of these appear to be very high quality, full of value. But it’s also not uncommon for me to see:

• People selling incredible results with a minimal amount of effort.
• People basing their training programs on what amounts to a “case study of one.” For example, they landed on Amazon’s Top 100 list with three of their books, and will now show you how to do it with yours.

In my guest post for Writer Unboxed, I dig into the distinction between what I often seen “sold” to writers vs. the reality of how success happens for professional writers.

Read the post here.

Thanks!
-Dan

This month I have worked on two side projects for large creative agencies in New York City. Today I want to reflect on:

1. The value of working on side projects.
2. What I learned from these creative professionals in the process.

The companies were:

• J. Walter Thompson: Founded in 1864, with a rich history in advertising and marketing communications. They created the iconic “I Wish I Were an Oscar Mayer Wiener” jingle. You can see their entire (amazing) history here.
• Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal + Partners: A creative agency working with incredible brands on advertising, marketing and branding, including BMW, Nike, and many others.

Now, I typically sign non-disclosure agreements when I do work like this, so I’m going to say ZERO about the nature of the projects I worked on. I absolutely value the privacy of the organizations I work with, and how that relates to proprietary value for each firm. But here is a peek inside each. First, the offices of J. Walter Thompson:

And this is a group activity I helped organize at Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal + Partners:

Even speaking generally, there are a lot of powerful takeaways, so let’s dig in…

Pushing Myself Outside of My Comfort Zone

WeGrowMedia is now five years old, and as a small team, we have a lot of freedom. When I take on a project with another organization, especially an agency with tight deadlines, a large staff, and firmly established processes, it forces me to work as they work.

This. Is. Good.
(In moderation, of course.)

My tone in working with them is the same as any client: understand their needs, identify the value I can bring, then deliver on that promise.

But jumping into a short term project such as these means that I may be learning the process as I go through it; meeting team members as I need to be delivering material to them; finding the right tone for every communication while others look over my shoulder.

I’m constantly looking for cues to understand the culture, and ensure I meet expectations. Well, let’s face it, I’m trying to exceed expectations.

Collaboration is Thrilling

Collaborating on short-term projects is the career version of dating. You are excited at new ideas, everyone is trying to impress and on their best behavior, and new possibilities are everywhere.

In my day-to-day work, the processes are often controlled in-house by me, Diane and Leah. The collaborations are often one-on-one. When I take on a side project, though, it is different because I am aligning to other people’s processes. It allows me to consider new ways of working, and it works those muscles of empathy at every step of the process. Being a cog in the machine can help you learn how to work better with others.

While the deliverables for the project is the most important aspect of what we need to achieve, I tend to focus intensely on the people. Who they are, how they work, what they love, what turns them off, and the various communication styles mixing together.

Studying Their Processes is Mind-blowing

In an agency setting, the creative processes are highly evolved and broken down into each individual element. It is not uncommon to see a wide range of roles on a single project:

• Creative lead
• Art director
• Graphic designer
• Planner
• Project manager
• Developer
• Programmer
• Copywriter
• Content strategist
• Producer
• Business leads
• Usability experts
• Photographers
• … and many others

In other organizations, I’m used to seeing people who are the jacks of all trades. They manage entire brands all by themselves. But these larger agencies value highly trained specialists.

This allows for deep considerations of the client goals. Each step of the process requires buy-in from the team, while showcasing the specialities of each person’a craft.

How People Work is An Obsession Of Mine

I run a course called Fearless Work that helps creative professionals find more time for the work that matters most to them. Often, these people are working on their own, juggling a day job, and redefining who they are as their craft develops.

What is neat about working with an agency is that they have well-designed office space where the entire team collaborates. Because design is such a foundation for what they offer, these offices typically look like much larger versions of the Apple store, with loads of different types of work spaces for collaboration. A few months back, I gave you an inside tour of the Kickstarter offices, which gives you a sense of what that looks like.

When I visit offices, I always try to observe not just the design of the space, but how people are working. What I often feel is that it is difficult to design culture from space alone. The culture comes from so much else about the process, the communication, and the vision from leadership.

Seeking Excellence

These side projects push me to understand how the best creative professionals work. These are teams who are called in for bold new visions, innovations, and execution. They get it done under tight deadlines. What I experience here goes right back into WeGrowMedia.

Too often, when someone finds success, they feel they have found the “secret” that they can teach to others. But the reality is that they are a case study of one.

In working with hundreds of creative professionals, running dozens of courses, partnering with agencies and organizations, I’m studying successful creative processes in a variety of contexts.

This is my education, and that can never end.

It Prevents Boredom

Let’s face it, these projects are fun! One thing I love about running a small company is that I have the power to ensure things don’t get boring. That is why I offer so many different kinds of courses; offer one-on-one client work; and it’s nice to be able to take side projects to dive head first into how others work.

In the book I am writing, Dabblers vs. Doers, I am exploring that place between vision and execution. Oftentimes people get stuck in a dabbling mode out of fear. Yet, I think it is important to point out that the act of dabbling can indeed be incredibly useful to the creative process. Everything I outlined in this post tries to explore why that is. That dabbling, when linked to action, collaboration, and creative output, can be a core part of doing.

I have created a handy checklist to help you ensure your creative side projects are successful. To grab it for free, click here.

Thanks!
-Dan