Get Planning with Your 2014 Planner!

The new year is here. Know what that means? My awesome chickie, Leonie Dawson's 2014 life-awesoming planners are out. I love them and swear by them for productivity and getting your creative dreams fulfilled. There is one for life and one for business. I use both. I love seeing my goals manifest. It's such a great resource and it's one of my top 3 highest recommended "get that creative life going" tools.

Get yours, today!

Review: Diva Dreads

Today, I (Visionary Bri) want to tell you about this abso-freaking-lutely awesome company, Diva Dreads.

Are you interested in dread falls? I am. I love the look of dreads, but I also love the feeling of running a brush through my hair and massaging my scalp, so I'm just not ready for the dread commitment.

I found those videos on YouTube. You know the ones. "Make your own yarn dreadfalls!" Well, I bought two things of yarn and got to work. For a week, I dilligently made my dread falls, excited that I'd soon have an awesome hair piece to rock.

But I was sorely disappointed. I'm sure that if you're trying to make them for fun colors, they're okay. But the final product looks less than stellar.

"But I wanted 'em to be beautiful. . . "

After doing some research, I came across a wonderful company out of California called Diva Dreads. Looking at their site, I sent them an inquiry email immediately. I think that this has been one of the absolute best hair decisions I've ever made. Diva Dreads far surpassed my expectations, as a company.

All their dreads are hand-made by a mother and her two daughters. Send them a picture of your hair and they custom blend colors to match and compliment your real hair. And how lucky am I? Diva Dreads sent Visionary Bri my very own custom dread falls to review. 

Now I'm one stylin' chicka and I want to wear my new dreadfalls everywhere!

This is the picture I sent for color matching.

Now, here's a picture of the dread falls Diva Dreads made for me. Notice all the different tones and colors that make these dread falls just *pop*!

 

See those pretty orange flowers? Those were included!

Every pair of dreadfalls by Diva Dreads

gets a pair of complimentary flower clips!

Somehow, I expected the dreads to be stiff, but these aren't. They feel and move just like my natural hair. Do you see the beads that Diva Dreads put on? Those are handmade limited run beads and all the beads that Diva Dreads uses are. They look like aged brass and they're just so neat! The ends of the dreads taper off like natural hair and look astounding both up close and far away.

I'm a big fan of using faux hair in fashion and I own several pieces. All the top bellydancers in the US are using Diva Dreads for their falls and they're the hands-down best hair accessories I've ever worn. 

Another cool thing? When your purchase your own dread falls from Diva Dreads, they're guaranteed for life! If you wear them to a festival, dance with them in or go to Burning Man and they get dirty or become loose? Just send them to Diva Dreads and for $10, they'll clean them, tighten them and send 'em back to you! I have never heard of another company that does this and it's really great to know that Diva Dreads is serious about and helpful with maintaining the beauty and quality of their products.

I can not rave enough about this company. So stop on by their site and get yourself a brand new beauty product that you'll love and will last you for the rest of your life. Heck, get 5 or 6 in different colors (they come in the whole rainbow) and tell 'em that Visionary Bri sent you! I know that I'm going to be getting some brown ones with purple in them, in the future.

Now, for the absolute best part. Go and "like" Diva Dreads on Facebook. Send 'em a message saying where you saw this review. Order from their site and tell 'em Visionary Bri sent you, or even just email them and tell them how awesome they are. Diva Dreads has agreed that, if we get enough of a buzz going, they'll do a giveaway and one lucky reader will a set of CUSTOM dread falls for their very-own-self!

That's right, loves. Now, get out there and spread this post. Put it on Reddit. Tweet it. G+ it. Share it on Facebook. Put it in an appropriate linky. Let's get the buzz of this Visionary Friend going! I really would love to run this giveaway, so get to sharing, my lovelies.

And don't forget that we're all Visionaries. We just have to figure out where we excel!

Love to All,

-Bri

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Lovin' the Hustle

A friend of mine was speaking to me on the phone last week. "I thought I could just create art and be happy. But that's not all there is to it. It's so much 'hustle'!" "Yeah," I said. "Making your own way in the art world is a lot of hustle."

Oh, my dears, I encourage you each and every day to chase your creative dreams. Why would you spend one more second of this beautiful, precious life doing something you hate? Why would you wake up on a day you've been blessed to receive and not be 100% tickled and thrilled that you're alive? Why, in this vast, wide and wonderful world, would you continue down a path that's making your life harder and less fulfilling?

Honeys, I've never said that chasing your dream was easy. Sometimes, it takes true grit to stick to your guns and be who you are, not be who everyone else thinks you should be. Sometimes, it's weathering a million 'no's in the world, just to get one 'yes' and then making that one 'yes' count.

This past week, I appeared on television for the first time in my adult life promoting this Visionary Bri project. How did I get on television? I'm glad you asked. I hustled.

See? There's a university in my town and I know that they have 1) a radio station and 2) a television station. And it occurred to me, "They need stories to run on these things. Why can't one of their stories be about me?" So, at 2:00 am on a Monday, I looked up the website for the college television station and I sent them an email.

That's right, honeys. Nobody called me. Nobody said, "Hey. You're so awesome, we'd like to put you on TV." I didn't have to wait for that validation. If you wait for someone else to deem you worthy of publicity and take time out of their day to call you? You're going to be waiting a long time, dear.

Now, I don't say this to sound mean. I just want to give you a dose of reality. Two weeks later, the programming manager emailed me back and said, "Can you tape with us tomorrow?" Out of the blue! It was a great surprise to wake up to. "I'm gonna be on TV, tonight!"

When I went in for my interview taping, do you know what the programming manager said to me? He said, "Thank you, so much, for emailing us. I wish more people would. Most of the time, we're scraping for content. People just don't tell us what they're doing."

Hear that? He was happy that I emailed him. Truthfully, the website had the wrong person's name on it and I emailed the former programming manager. No worries, though. My letter got through to the person who needed to see it to make things happen.

That's the press' job, babies, to write about and report on things. Their job is to tell the world what's going on that they may not know about. If you're happening in your area and no one knows, why should the media not cover you? Aren't you awesome and deserving of a little press? I'd say that you are.

Basically, when you contact the media yourself and say "Look what I'm doing," you're making their job easier. And who doesn't love it when their job is made easier? You just have to give them a reason to cover you. Do you have a good following, already? Are you a local person? Are you doing something new and different?

And now, some tips. For my television appearance, I showed up when it was convenient for them to tape. I figured that they were giving me a big blessing, letting me come on their show, so I was going to make it as easy for them as possible. Also, I was honest and I told the programming manager, "This is my first time doing anything like this. Could you walk me through it?" He was more than happy to explain things to me along the way. His job was to get a good, engaging interview for his station. Mine was to be overflowing with enthusiasm and promote what I do. It was a win-win.

Honeys, my friend was complaining about the 'hustle' of being in a creative line of work. Me? I love it. I love sending out 60 inquiry emails, only getting 5 responses back and (even then) only 2 are a yes. I love the hours spent researching potential markets, potential contributors, potential sponsors. It lets me see a lot of what other people out there are doing and it gives me more ideas.

Flat out, I love the hustle. I think it's great! I love to building of contacts and trying to figure out a way where everyone can get what they need. I love the emailing, the letter writing, the phone calls. Each 'yes' that I get brings me closer to my goal. Each new contact builds this wonderful creative empire and allows me to bring each and every one of you my message of hope, of self love, of joy and wonder, of glitter and tiaras, of ice cream and fun ideas.

This is my advice to you, this week, my darlings. Learn to love the hustle. If you love it and look at it as a blessing, it will take you far. After all, you are essentially promoting the best and most beautiful gift you can offer this world - yourself!

If you look the hustle as a chore, you will become bogged down by it and your true work will suffer. Do whatever you need to do to make it fun for yourself. Send emails while eating your favorite ice cream. Try to find something about the person you're talking to that you like or you respect and TELL THEM about it! Just make it fun.

 Everything about your dream should be fun. It should be an adventure to try new things, see what works and see if you can find a better way to do them. Will a different pen give you better grip to write with? How about writing on unlined paper? What about creating an entire dance built around the concept of octagons? Push yourselves to innovate, my loves, but gently. 

Who says you can't call a television station and say, "Hey! You should interview me!" Who says you can't call up a newspaper and say, "I've got an awesome story for you!" Who says you can't rent out a space and fill it with your watercolors of your feet, then offer to paint visitor's foot portraits?

This world is vast, my beauties. It has room enough for all of us. What will you do with your little slice?

Until next time, please remember that we are all visionaries. We just have to figure out where we excel!

All my Love,

-Bri

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Building a Business Without Breaking the Bank

Mindvalley is an amazing company. With its' only business plan scratched on the back of a napkin, Vishen Lakhiani has learned a lot about striking out on your own as an enterpreneur.

Like Vishen, I don't advocate (and never will) going into massive amounts of debt, right off, to get your project on the road. If your bottom line is worrying about whether you're going to be able to repay the money you owe, you're not going to put your thoughts or energy where they're needed the most -- coming up with ways to draw people to you and innovating new products. The more people that are drawn to you or hear about you, the more likely that they will be interested in what you're doing and demonstrate that with paying you.

To start your own business, either in the creative field or not, it doesn't require a lot of money. It does require what I call "hustle." "Hustle"(see this post) is going out into the world and making yourself known. This could also be known as "marketing." That is where your energy should be spent -- in coming up with what you want to sell / do, then getting it into peoples' minds. You could also call it "grassroots marketing."

Hustle is going to work to your advantage and I'm going to tell you why. When you begin your hustle, you embark on a new journey. You start dreaming up new and exciting ways (that might be uniquely yours) to tell the public you're there. And, since it may be avenues people have never tried before, the system doesn't have "fail-safes" in place to keep you from achieving your goal.

When you first start out, it feels like you're in a world full of "no." "No, you can't just dwaddle around and do art all day." "No, no one's going to want to buy that." "No. It's impossible. It's never been done before." Well, GOOD! That means that there's less to fight against.

Get creative and get your butt movin'. My stickers and sticker boxes (explained in this post) were 100% a lightning-flash idea. I knew that people dropped business cards in coffee shops and the like. That was common and a good start, but how about bulletin boards? I didn't want to put just one sticker up. I wanted to be able to reach as people as possible who came to the bulletin board.

This is the absolute truth. I was thinking about this bulletin board / sticker thing and holding the stickers in my hand. My eyes wandered around my bedroom and happened to see the box of graham crackers that was sitting on my nightstand. The idea popped into my head and the rest is Visionary History!

No matter what you've got going on, you can always get the word out there. Use a free blogging site. Create a Facebook page for your project and share the link around the internet. Trust your instincts. If something in your gut says "Do it," then go do it. Market in crazy ways. Rent billboards! I'd love to see a creative project advertised on a billboard. I'm tired of viewing car dealership and warehouse store ads! See if there's a local radio station you can get on and talk about what you're doing. What about your local paper? Call them and see if they'd be interested in running an article on you. Put tear-off tab signs in local businesses (with the owners' permission, of course).

I encourage you all, my dears, to continue to grow, to expand and to be absolutely 100% joyful in your expanding endeavors.

Until next time, remember that we're all visionaries. We just have to figure out where we excel.


Love to All,

-Bri


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"Hustle" aka "Marketing"

Otherwise known as yelling, "HEY! I'M DOING SOMETHING OVER HERE! LOOKIE LOOKIE! PAY ATTENTION!!!"

Living an independent, creative and free life requires a fair bit of what I call "hustle," which is known in the actual and real business world as "marketing." Now that may sound like a daunting concept to you, but think of it this way. Unless you know me, personally, my marketing has reached you. You've found me and you're reading this. Take a look at all the countries that people live in who read my blog. Impressive, isn't it?  All of these readers, including you my dear friend, can be attributed to my hustle regarding this blog.

*insert self-congratulatory pat on the back here*

The word "marketing" is one of those big, scary, business words that intimidate the sometimes shy, creative temperaments of artists like me. It's an intimidating word like "deficit," "revenue," "optimized," and "consultation clarity meeting." It's one of those words that, honestly, makes people like me run for the hills. "Ah! Scary professional thing! Don't understand! Too intimidating! Let the suit-wearing people deal with those words and just let me play with art and create nifty stuff!"

And that's fine, if you feel like that, when I use official-sounding business words. I used to feel exactly the same way. But I quickly learned that, right now, I can't afford a P.R. person or a savvy personal assistant or any other suit-type person to take care of the "fitting crazy little me into the actual, real world" duties. I'd either have to learn how to do them, myself, or be like Henry Darger who's impressive body of work was not discovered until after his death. In short, if you don't share your work with the world, honey, it's gonna take a long time for the world to recognize that you're doing anything, at all.

 One of Henry Darger's paintings

Personally, I'd like to be alive to hear when someone either likes or hates my creative projects, so that left me no choice but to tackle the big, bad, normally-reserved-for-people-in-ties jobs, myself.

Let me explain to you some concepts and what I mean.

Basically, no one knows that this little corner of the internet called "Visionary Bri" exists unless I go out and tell people that it's here. Every time I make a blog post, I visit a few key sites that I've found and post the link there so people can come and look around.

As I go about my daily life, I have stickers with my blog address on them that I won in a contest from PrintRunner and I hand out the stickers. My website is also on my business cards which I hand out, as well. If you don't know me and I happen to come across you, chances are good that either one of  both of these things will be given to you.

Any time you go out and actively tell people about what you're doing, letting them see your face and directing them to where they can see more about you or your product, is called "active marketing."Attending seminars, joining committees and rubbing elbows with like-minded people. In internet world, "(a)ctive marketing campaigns are designed to drive traffic to a site immediately. Often times, active campaigns are paid placements that only drive traffic so long as the ad is running and once completed, traffic begins to dwindle immediately."

"Passive marketing" is simpler, but some thought has to be put into it to maximize its efforts. Any billboard you see, any sign hung outside a business, any radio commercial you hear, any link you see is passive marketing. You make the initial effort to create a marketing plan (commercial, sign, etc.), but you don't have to be there every time someone sees it. In internet world, it is placing an "ad one single time that produce(s) sales for five continuous years. Customers stream in to your company saying they remembered the ad spot you ran years ago and they still felt compelled to work with you and your organization. Too good to be true, right?This is exactly what passive campaigns are designed to do."

Once you know 1) who you're trying to market to and 2) what would be the optimal venue for your advertising, marketing is pretty easy. It doesn't have to be a huge multi-million dollar campaign, but it certainly can be, if you have the money to throw at it (which I currently don't). Think Super Bowl commercials. So much money spent on one commercial and who in The United States can forget the donkey that wanted to be a Budweiser Clydesdale?

Once you understand the concepts, marketing is easy!

To start out, scope out the 'hood like a thief in the night. Start out right where you are, either at your computer or your home town. Start off with friends. If people know who you are, first, the chances of them being interested in what you're doing is higher. Do you know any local merchants who might let you put your business card or a flyer up in their store? Ask them about it. Always ask. The worst that they can say is "no."

You can search the internet to find communities of like-minded people and I'm always in favor of this because I can do it late at night without having to get out of bed!

Now, I am lucky enough to live in a town where there's a university and it's pretty sizable. People overlook universities, but they offer a substantial population of all kinds of people who would be interested in what you're doing. Plus, there's a new crop of them coming in every August, so take advantage of that if you can.

One of my marketing schemes that I came up with (and you can feel free to steal if you like) was my little marbled boxes. First, I cut the bottom off of a graham cracker box so that I had the bottom plus about 1 inch going up the sides. Then, I took some computer paper, took out my marbling kit and marbled some paper.

I then glued the marbled paper to the boxes with some plain white glue and affixed a little sign.

See the pretty marbled paper?

"Please Take One" finished Marbled Box with stickers

So, I made 2 of these little boxes. I put them in my purse and I hit the streets of my town. My first stop was my local university. I had to park The Visionary Van and walk for a bit, but it was okay. I used to attend this university back when I was younger, but it took some doing for me to find the "free for all" bulletin boards where you can post anything you want. Eventually, I did find one, though. I took two thumb tacks and stuck the box to the bulletin board at about eye level. Now, the little box sits there, waiting for people to find it.

Did people look at me funny, walking around a campus looking a bit confused on a Sunday. Yes and no, but I did spy some college boys checking me out, so I don't think my presence was entirely unwanted there. ;-)

I also took a box and put it in the local "when I was in school here, I spent more money here than I did on tuition" coffee shop. It's got a different name, now, and is under new ownership. But there was still a place for local people to put business cards and the like.

Marketing isn't all that hard, once you break it down. I encourage to come up with your own ideas to get your work out there in the public eye or steal mine. Maybe you won't be able to make a living off your creative work, yet, but it's better to give people an opportunity to be interested in you so that you can work on making a living at it.

Keep creating, my dears. Don't shy back from telling the world what you're up to and don't wait 'til it's "perfect." Get out there and show 'em what you're made of!



And please remember that we are all visionaries. We just have to figure out where we excel!



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