business

Buzz Feeding Time (Matthew Ankerstein, entrepreneur, influencer, podcaster interview)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

Once upon a time bees where everywhere, but over the past few generations, we’ve been losing our honeybees to pollution, urban sprawl and host of other manmade factors that effect their environments. It’s a sad thing, considering that bees pollinate a vast majority of the plant life in this world. Where would we be without bees, after all dear readers?

Now this absolutely is not meant to be a depressing post, but I do want to wake you up!

You see creative cuties, there’s wisdoms in studying bees. By zeroing in on an analogy of the bee, my hope is that you’ll acknowledge that hard work and fostering community are invaluable, especially in an era of communication. And to someone like Matthew Ankerstein, bees can bring a lot more to this world as a metaphor. Matthew thinks it’s important to connect with lots of different business leaders, and he’s always been fascinated by business (Bill Gates was one of his idols growing up); on top of that, Matthew was also surrounded by the hardworking farm lifestyle from a young age.

He took this passion for business success, mixed in some neve-rending hard work ethic, and decided to marry the two concepts together during his time at post-secondary. That’s when he came up with the idea for Bee Influenced. His goal with Bee Influenced is to provide business leaders, students, and startups with resources to become better online marketers. By focusing on SEO, influencer marketing, podcasting, and email marketing Matt brings a solid set of topics to the table with his weekly show. And to make it even more memorable, he invites business leaders all over the world to share their stories in an easy to digest format – the podcast.

I even got to join in on the fun for an interview with him this summer!

But when I asked Matthew to get behind the hot seat himself and talk about dealing with the challenges that creative professionals face, he was over the moon. This is his interview, and his topic is working through adversity.

I still cannot believe how much insight Matthew has, and I’ve listened to our interview over and over in the editing booth! He has a great love for technology, an eye for strategy, and a willingness to serve others with humility.

We really do hope you enjoyed watching the back and forth between Matt and I, and highly recommend you share this post, leave a comment, and make a like? And if Bee Influenced seems like something you’d be interesting in visiting some more, check out his Facebook page, Instagram, Twitter and website yourself! Lots of ideas to pollinate there.

And special thanks to Matthew for being merry, motivating and merciless. His strategies, ideologies, and abilities are a breath of fresh air. Something to buzz about, for sure.

Tim!

I See A Friday, And I Want To Paint It Black (Black Friday pt. 2)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

It’s here once again… The most wonderful time of the year.  Another year almost over and a new one about to begin – A new sales year that is.

I see the end of November dear readers, and I get excited. Excited about the prospect of making good buying decisions that will positively impact your personal business as a creative professional, and at this stage of the game, I really don’t think you can afford not to consider Black Friday as part of your business strategy. Whether you are just getting started making and selling your form of art or well into the thick of it, there are peak sales periods where retailers are offering massive savings in order to make enough business for the fiscal year and stay afloat.

bqzcdiligae9uwj

I would say its a rather symbiotic relationship in fact. You get items that you’ve been putting off buying because of the expense, and businesses make enough money so that they can continue to keep the lights on for another year or two.

I wrote another post about this day last year, a more in-depth overview of what Black Friday represents historically and from a cultural standpoint, but this year I wanted to spend a little time on the significance for you, and to give a timely update from my own perspective.

Black Is The New Black

I’ve always been tight fisted with my money. But there have been occasions here and there, where I decided against my impulse to spend money on myself. It’s the paradox of thrift, a theory of economics.

The idea states that an increase in autonomous saving leads to a decrease in aggregate demand and thus a decrease in gross output which will in turn lower total saving. The paradox is, narrowly speaking, that total saving may fall because of individuals’ attempts to increase their saving, and, broadly speaking, that increase in saving may be harmful to an economy.

To put it simply and rather gravely – saving for a rainy day is prudent, but penny pinching breeds a lifetime of poverty. Learning the difference between always living within your means versus always spending more than you have is a difficult lesson, but I will give you this advice, he who never takes risks is guaranteed to stay within his comfort zone.

It’s your responsibility as a creative professional to at least try for your dreams. You’ll never regret trying. To quote one of my favourite movies of all time, Richard Linklater’s Waking Life, “things have been tough lately for dreamers. They say dreaming is dead, no one does it anymore. It’s not dead it’s just that it’s been forgotten, removed from our language. Nobody teaches it so nobody knows it exists. The dreamer is banished to obscurity. Well, I’m trying to change all that, and I hope you are too. By dreaming, every day.”

original

So dream big and dream often, you creative cuties. I might not be doing much tonight because I’ll be up at the crack of dawn for this sale, but I’m truly living my dreams, so I don’t sleep as much as I used to. But that could just be a theory.

Tim!

Let’s Get Credible (Georg Rockall-Schmidt preview interview)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

We can’t all have good credit scores. Some of us because of circumstances, a lot of us because we made bad decisions about what to buy, but did you know that there are factors you wouldn’t have considered? Your payment history, credit file age, diversity of accounts, and how often searches are pulled, for instance. You do know that a credit score and credibility go hand in hand according to banks, credit card companies, collection agencies, and governments, don’t you dear readers? Credibility is the quality of being trusted and believed in. Or to put it another way, it’s a quality of being convincing or believable.

Perception is reality after all.

You see friends, when people think you’ll keep your word, they are more likely to trust you and let you make decisions. This is something that all good leaders have, salespeople and business operators included. Now this is where you come in – You make art. You love to make art, but you need to be credible in order to sell said art.

And as the old adage goes, it’s easier to ask forgiveness then permission. Especially from someone who is credible.

Once you realize that your public image is just as important as the one that you internally hold up for yourself, you can begin to consider all of the options, just a little more closely. Heck, it even applies to US politics but you’ll see what I mean when you turn on the clip

Oh wait, I forgot to mention, that this is preview of my first ever international interview with Georg Rockall-Schmidt. Georg is one of the most awesome people that I’ve never met in real life. Georg is a full-time creator of YouTube videos. You can find his channel here, but effectively he creates videos about pop culture, history, parody, his personal thoughts on life, and a whole lot more. An English dude with an anti-establishment educations, he believes that credibility defines ideation, and it’s important to him to have self-awareness but to simply leave all of the unnecessary elements out of the equation.

And that’s just a teaser. I have a full-fledged interview coming up in the next week or so featuring more of his incredible insights. This is Just A Thought on all that is Georg Rockall-Schmidt. Sorry for stealing your tagline Georg!

Can you believe it dear readers? I’m out of theories for the night. But just because I’m out of theories for now, doesn’t mean you can’t read more of my own thoughts! Browse the website, leave some comments, subscribe, and share with your creative friends. Otherwise, you should have a fantastic night, because I’ll be back tomorrow with a new Dragonette album review.

Tim!

Explore Some More (Megan Warkentin preview interview)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

 

Exploration is important, it allows you to learn things about yourself, to make friends, find lovers, to live life in a more productive and harmonious state. And in the most obvious of ways, to experience that which you did not even know about – gaining in wisdom and knowledge.

Cameras, laptops, smart tech, mobile phones, all of these things are the result of exploration. The same can be said of conceptual exploration. If we don’t stay active with our thoughts, we stagnate and we die. Metaphorically or sometimes quite literally. That’s one of the many reasons for timotheories, a way for me (and the ever-expanding timotheories squad) to communicate ideas and activities to you which are obscure and not readily available.

As you know, I meet with artists on the regular in the hopes of communicating key principles of business, creativity, and social skills we all need, yes myself included dear readers, in order to function properly as an artist, also emphasizing that exploration never ends. We have to embrace that uncertainty and exploration in order to continue along our merry way.

Which is what this month’s featured artist has her eyes keenly tuned toward. In fact, she thinks exploration is vital, so much so that she’s made it part of her artistic practice to paint individuals risking life and limb in order to test their own mettle. But more on that later, I still have to release the complete interview folks.

Using metaphor and the literal, Megan Warkentin is a graduate student at the University of Alberta who is the final chapter of her degree, preparing for her graduate exhibition this fall semester. A born and raised Edmontonian, Megan has been involved in the art scene for quite some time, but her major contribution has always been in the arena of painting. I’m incredibly proud to have the opportunity to share a sneak peek of our interview with you today, because she has some great ideas on how explore as an artist.

I’m jumping off the walls in anticipation, I can’t wait anymore, so here is a preview of episode 12 of timotheories interviews, enjoy.

I must be a fan of long weekends, because I did the same thing last month. Releasing a preview over the long weekend is a great way to explore my own timing, but I got it to you didn’t I?

I’m out of theories for now, dear readers! Have a fantastic night, I’ll be back tomorrow with a review on the new Bon Iver album. It sound be a good one.

Tim!

Mind Your Own Business (Your Business Plan)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

You ever have someone tell you to mind your own business, dear readers? It’s a fairly common saying in our western culture. It’s supposed to be a direct way of telling others to stop meddling in that which does not concern them.

The expression started out innocently enough.

It came from the Christian bible and in particular from the New Testament. I’ll share the verse with you for reference –

…and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you,

1 Thessalonians 4:11

As time passed it slowly entrenched itself into our culture more and more, and even had a place on the first official 1 cent coin of the United States when it was designed in 1787.

By the 1930s a slang version of the phrase came up, which stated “mind your own beeswax.” Author Eric Frank Russell shortened the phrase into Myob!, and various comedians like Kevin Hart and Eddie Murphy have used it in their standup. My personal favourite is, of course, from pop culture.

Will Smith’s Fresh Prince persona has a solid point.You have to stand up for yourself and if it comes to it, tell people to lay off. Now, what does that have to do with today’s Wisdom Wednesday? Well, if you recall there was a time, roughly two months ago, when I wrote about the importance of marketing. And it just so happens that one of the associated points on marketing for a professional was developing a business plan.

Your reason to be, or as they say in french, votre raison d’être.

Writing you business plan may seem stressful at first glance, but it’s not that difficult to do, which is why we will start with the framework of your business plan –

http://www.canadabusiness.ca/eng/page/2753/

Business plans come in all shapes and sizes, but every business plan needs to consider its audience, the business goals, and especially the mode of delivery. I took this layout directly from the Canada Business Network section of the Government of Canada website, so you know that we’re not messing around on timotheories.

Here are some sections that you could POTENTIALLY include in your plan:

  • Executive summary
  • Business strategy
  • Marketing strategy
  • Operational plan
  • Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis
  • Human resources plan
  • Social responsibility strategy
  • E-business strategy
  • Financial forecasts and other information
  • Business exit strategy
  • Additional resources

But now you’re probably wondering how to get started in filling out those sections. Well, I went to another website to dig up some info on example business plans and get you art makers and art shakers some tips.

And here are a few tips to get you started on your own business plan –

  1. Look at other industries that already do what you do, for inspiration. But you need not worry about looking for a duplicate match. The reality is that even if another business functions similarly to yours, every business has a different location, team, and business strategy governing it. Just like individuals.
  2. Emulate their plans at the first draft, and scour other sources with each revision. Good artists copy ideas, and great artists steal them. I think some guy obsessed with apples said that once. You’ll get over your initial fears, learn something about your business, and potentially gain new ideas.
  3. Remember to write your business plan, avoid the copypasta. Professionals like lawyers and accountants can see through this and because your vision isn’t there, you only hurt your businesses chance of success in the long run.
  4. Like art, the real joy and growth comes from the process. You are creating a business plan. And like any creative pursuit, questions arise and insights are gained. You’ll be forced to answer questions you didn’t know you had, and you can then share your vision with stakeholders and anyone you think should know about it.
  5. Build a better business by using your plan every day. Put it on the wall, and keep it there so that any time you have questions about growth, strategy, and costs, you can stay on target and grow your business the right way.

All of it comes down to this, if you mind your business, people will mind their own and you’ll get a innumerable amount of monkeys off of your back. But that’s just a theory.

Tim!