Collaborate and Conquer: How To Easily Make Connections That Increase Your Reach and Impact

00:00:00
 Some people call this economy the creator economy. But I call it something different. I don't think it's just a creator economy. I think it's the community and collaboration economy. And I'm going to explain why collaboration and connecting with your fellow creatives is essential to your survival as a creative in this day and age and through out your life on this creative Checkup episode of The God and Gigs Show.

00:00:30
 Give me just a moment to welcome those of you who are new to our show. Thank you for giving us and me a chance. My name is Allen C. Paul. I'm the host and founder of God and Gigs and we are here to help you to transform your creative life from the inside out by applying timeless spiritual principles to the temporary creative problems that you might be facing.

00:01:13
 And today we're going to talk about the problem of growth, the problem of finding people who understand what you're about and getting your message, your art, your craft, your music, your creative life out there for others to enjoy. And you see, the issue is oftentimes as creatives, we live in these silos. Now, I know if you're listening or watching me, you're saying, okay, I'm connecting with you. I'm watching the video, I'm listening to the podcast. I've connected, I found you.

00:01:40
 But to do this over and over again is tough. Even in this world where we have social media sharing everything, it is very hard to find like minded people to either consume or create with you when it comes to this creative lifestyle. So how do you solve this? Well, a lot of people attempt to say, well, you got to connect, you got to collaborate, you got to collaborate with people. How do you get just a bunch of people that think like you think and give them your time and they give you your time?

00:02:11
 How do you get that to happen quickly? Well, the truth is it's not that easy. The truth is you do have to do some homework, you have to sit down and then you got to build relationships. So all of this to say the collaboration economy is going to go and be won by the people who are really good at making this happen quickly and easily and the ones that don't shy away from the opportunities to create collaborative places where people can gather to really put their careers into this kind of thought process all the time. If you are able to create a collaborative environment around your career, you're going to find everything goes easier.

00:02:52
 Now, I'm going to use an example right now that I do really highly recommend, but I also just want to talk about it in terms of the platform and the process that this is. I'm talking about an email service that I am an affiliate with called ConvertKit. Now, I've always recommended ConvertKit to all the creators in my community, but what they just did recently is really cool and it explores and explains why collaboration is so important and how it can work for you. So ConvertKit, what they've recently done is they've created something called The Creator Network. The Creator Network is a series and a group of creators inside their ConvertKit ecosystem that use their email service.

00:03:34
 But what ConvertKit is doing is that every time they send out an email, including me, I'm a member of the ConvertKit Creator Network. So every time somebody signs up for my email newsletter, the first thing they see is not, hey, thank you, buy my next thing they see a list of the five other creators that I recommend. And it's been such a joy because immediately I've already been able to find creators that I really respect, really love reading their stuff. And I can say, hey, if you're following me, you got to follow this person, you got to follow this creative, you got to follow this writer. They are also right in line with me.

00:04:16
 And if you like me, you're going to like them. Now, here's the cool thing. I call this the Golden Rule of artists. It's inside the devotion, your art, God's heart. The Golden Rule of Artists is just like the golden rule that Jesus taught us, which is to do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

00:04:32
 If I want to be recommended by other creators, musicians, artists, I got to recommend them first. As a matter of fact, the ConvertKit Creator network program, you can't even join it until you recommend somebody else first. You can't just jump in and just ask people to be recommending you. You have to go first and first pay it forward. So what I love about this program and what it proves is that you can first make sure that whatever recommendation or collaborative effort you're making is baked into the way you do things.

00:05:04
 Here's another example. Social media is a perfect one. How many times have you posted and said, I don't know what to post and I don't know what to say? Instead of simply saying, hey, let me post what somebody else is doing, I don't know what my next project is. But such and such, they're doing an amazing thing.

00:05:21
 Go follow them. Have you ever thought about the fact that there are endless possibilities for you to constantly promote other people? And as you promote and collaborate with them and share what they're doing, it becomes an instant kind of flywheel, where it comes back to you, where you sow and you reap, you so and you reap. And it's not because you're looking to get something from those people, but you are genuinely interested in their success and they become genuinely interested in your success. So it can be in social media, it can be in creative work.

00:05:55
 Every time you write or sing or play, your next thought should be in some way, how can I share this experience, how can I connect with someone who's already doing this? And again, the more automatic this is like Convertkit's program where immediately the recommendations pop up, I don't have to do anything. The more that you can make this an automatic part of your creative life where collaboration is a natural extension of what you do, the easier it will be for you to grow your audience. Why? Because you're not going to be thinking and working by yourself.

00:06:28
 You will always have this group mentality of how can I connect with others who think like I think, who create like I create, and who can also help me build this big boat for everyone to come in? Like Noah and the ark, right? You got to build the boat big enough where everybody can come in. You can't build it by yourself. But if you have other people that are constantly coming into your world and you're sharing what they're doing, you're sharing with them, you're collaborating with them, they don't even necessarily have to know it.

00:06:59
 And that's one of the big things I think we struggle with even as creators. We think everybody's got to be in on it. I got to make the collaboration and we got to sit down and plan. But maybe you got to go first and then the collaboration in terms of the more structured writing session or the more structured video session where you work together. But you got to take the initiative.

00:07:20
 And what I love again about this Creator Network program is that it does force you to take the initiative. If you're interested in that, you can go check out a really cool collaborative tool that shows you who you can connect with. Just go to Godandgigs.com Match and you can find out three creatives that you might be matched with if you were a part of the Creator Network. It's really cool. It shows you all the different creators that are in the ConvertKit ecosystem.

00:07:46
 And again, it shows you how quickly you could be in collaboration with creatives you've never met that have your same heart, your same drive, your same niche. And you could quickly, without them even knowing, create a relationship. And that could be the start of your audience growth. Because once again, it's not that you have to immediately become fast friends, it simply means you are now a hub, any wheel, and people are revolving around you as you begin to share their stuff. You become the engine, you become the collaborative engine of your own community and of your own creative network.

00:08:29
 When you start to share other people's things as a matter of course all the time and your mindset changes from I'm a creator to I'm a collaborator. And once you get there, we're going to move on to the next C a little later in another podcast episode about curation. Because once you're collaborating and you're curating, which means now you're helping people to find the perfect thing that they need. Now you've gone to make the entire thing so powerful because you're not by yourself. You're helping to collaborate.

00:08:59
 You're creating community and you're curating content so that you're not just trying to create everything yourself. Well, my friend, I hope this creative checkup has helped you. If you're more interested in the ConvertKit Creator Network, once again, a really cool way is to go to Godandgigs.com/ Match. You can see the Creator network matching tool where you can find three people that you can connect with. Or if you want to just see about the entire network, simply go to GodandGigs.com/growfaster.

00:09:29
 Okay, all those links are in the show notes. Don't worry if you didn't catch that. Just go down to the description in this particular app and you will be able to find that link. Well, my friend, that's our show for today. Thank you so much for joining me.

00:09:42
 And until next time, continue to become the creative that you were created to be. God bless you and we'll see you next episode. Thanks for joining us here at the God and Gigs Show. Please leave us a review on iTunes like our Facebook page or visit godandgigs.com. Tell us what you thought of this show.

00:10:02
 We'll be back soon. In the meantime, go create something amazing.