Bret Shuford 0:00
If you know my story, you know that a big part of my journey to being a successful influencer creator actor on Broadway was my decision to get sober. And I talk very openly about that journey
of dealing with my addiction, but mostly not because I think that everyone has to get sober, right? It's that I think that success starts with learning how to be our best version of ourselves, striving to meet your potential and as many ways as possible. And that's why I'm super glad that I found best self best self is a company that creates journals that help you live your best life, they have a self journal, they have a best self planner, they have a hero's journal, they have a relationship journal, which is actually how Steven and I fell on it, because we started using their relationship journals and found it to be such a powerful way to set our family up before we had our son. And I want to make sure you know about best self and I have a discount code for you, if you go to the link in my show notes below, you can check out what they have, and see if there's a journal that's right for you, we cannot pull water from an empty well. So if you're a creative and you want to be known, you need to have a really strong sense of who you are the blocks and the things that are getting in your way. It's something I love to talk about. And you need to have a system and steps to get out of that and best self makes it super easy for you to do that. So check out the show notes and click the link to go check out best self. I hope you love it as much as I do. Welcome to a visibility Thursday episode of the creative visibility Podcast. I'm Bret Shuford. And we are, of course, alternating Tuesdays and Thursdays new episodes of how to number one be more creative in your pursuit for your industry, your business, whatever it is you're choosing to do if you're a content creator, if you're an entrepreneur. And then on Thursdays we meet here to talk about how to be more visible, what are the things you can do sometimes, technically, sometimes the things that are going to help you get your name and your brand out there. And today, I think might be one of the most important episodes you'll ever listen to. Because the most frequent question I get from people is how do you create so much content? How do you show up so much? That's the most common comment and question I get when it comes to content creation. And this today, you stay to the end because you're going to really get the tips and the tricks that I think have helped me unlock how to show up on Instagram every single day. And that's really where I live. If you're somebody who's creating content, or you're building a following, it doesn't matter what platform you're on this tool is really vital in order to start to build something that can be consistent no matter what you choose to do. One of the things for me that was really challenging when I was pursuing my craft as a performer is that as a performer, you need to try to win as many people over as possible, right? You want the producers, the directors, carvers to love your talent want to be in the room with you in order to get employed. And that can lead so many people in that industry to a path of needing approval, validation, external validation, and can lead to a lot of what I call that sort of hiding out, right, you might be inspired to do something that you would love to do. But you're so afraid that if you do that thing, right, I was so afraid that if I actually became an entrepreneur, or even social media, there was so much judgement around social media that if I actually owned it, I was afraid people wouldn't respect me anymore as an artist and an actor. And of course, if you've heard my story, you know that the opposite became true, I actually built a following. And so many people were so puzzled by it that I ended up building this whole programming course that has helped tonnes of people monetize and grow their following online. But the thing that I think is so important to understand is that you're not always going to be everybody's cup of tea. And you've probably heard that before. And probably one of the things you hear most from any business coach is that you need to know who your ideal audience is. Now I say ideal audience. Some people would say your ideal customer. One of the things I kind of cringe when I hear business coaches talk about is how everything you do needs to be focused around your business and all your content needs to speak directly to that. And while I think that is true for some people, I don't think that's true for many of us who are artists, creators creatives, because we do bridge this gap of being an entertainer, right? If you're creating art, however you create that but also running a business. And so I always talk about how you need to bridge your credibility and your vulnerability no matter what you're pursuing. You need to be able to not only show that you're credible at the skills that you have, but vulnerable enough that you're a human being pursuing those things. And you need to be show both Sighs you need to balance that in your content. So one of the things that drives me nuts is when somebody is like, all your content needs to have value, all your content needs to put your audience into action. And I just think that's bullshit, because that's not true. Because value isn't about necessarily action, right? If we only value things, when we're in action, then we're going to be burnt out and overwhelmed. You're going to overwhelm your audience. I know there's some business people out there who I follow that every single podcast episode is just the most valuable thing ever. And as awesome as that is, I get completely overwhelmed listening to that podcast, because I never know what my next steps are. It's just like, here's a bunch of stuff that you can do right now. But that's not necessarily where I'm at. Right? In my business. There is value, however, in making people feel something, whether they laugh, or do you entertain them with laughter, or make them cry, or making them feel inspired and motivated, there is value there. So don't underestimate the value of, of feeling of entertainment of connecting because when people laugh, or when people cry or feel inspired by your content, it means that they're feeling seen, and they're feeling connected. And that is a huge, huge value, maybe even more valuable than them getting into action. Whatever it is, whatever problem you solve, regardless of what it is you're pursuing, regardless of how you're pursuing it, or if you're using YouTube, Instagram, Tik Tok, whatever
it is, what most of us get stuck on, is this idea of who is my ideal customer audience. Avatar is something you hear a lot, who's your customer avatar, which I kind of just makes me think of the flight of passage in animal kingdom. But I digress. What I want what I teach in my programme, we go pretty in depth in the creative visibility programme around this is that your ideal audience, most people are teaching you your how to find an ideal audience or customer. They're teaching you their demographics, right. They want you to know, I help women 30 to 40 years old, who are divorced, resolve their, you know, relationship trauma so they can find love again, cool, great. Yes. Awesome. Do that for those people. But I don't think that's specific enough, because that's still so broad, right? I help women. There's a lot of different types of women out there and a lot of different types of relationships. There are lesbian women, there are trans women, there are housewives, there are moms there are widowers, widows. I mean, you know, who Who do you specifically serve? Now? Yes, maybe they're divorced. And we don't need to know the specifics of that. But I like to tell my clients and this is where I think the biggest changes now if you follow this, if you follow, if you do this exercise, and you do it well, and you practice this on a daily basis, it will create a habit for you that you will never ever, ever run out of content, you will every single day have something to say and do when it comes to showing up online. Okay, so what I tell my clients is create an ideal character, a person, one person in the singular that you're speaking to, the more specific you are, the better think about it right? If I'm acting right, and that's this is really rare that I kind of built this out of is, as an actor, if I'm trying to tell do a monologue for 1500 people in a theatre instead of to one specific person, the audience is going to be bored out of their minds, they're not going to know what I'm talking about, right? But when I'm speaking to one person in the monologue in the song, the audience is experiencing me being truthful and honest and speaking, right? This doesn't mean you exclude people, it just means that every single day that one ideal audience member is the person that you're trying to help, what do they need, you can look at what's happening in the world and how it's affecting that person. And you can create a piece of content that helps them get through that day. So the way we do this is it's literally a character analysis, I want you to give this person a name. And here's a little hint, usually, it's a version of yourself. Five years ago, it could be some people I have clients have like a mix of themselves and a client that they've helped that might give them the first name of that client and their own last name or something like that. Right? So doesn't really matter. The goal here is to really know the specifics of the person you're speaking to. We are moving past the demographics, and we're moving into the psychographics. Right? Where do they shop? What blogs do they read? Who do they follow on Instagram? Do you follow those accounts? Are you aware of what's happening in their worlds? What kind of money do they make? Where do they work? What kind of food do they like? Right if you bro break down exactly this person's life to a tee just manifest this person create them, you cannot do this wrong. The only way you'll do this wrong is by not doing it and getting too generic. Give them a name, give them a specific age, get really creative. Imagine their life, imagine their house, imagine their car, imagine their family, write it all down. When you do that, at the end of that list, you're going to have an entire resource at your disposal to help you pull from for inspiration, you're going to have colours and fun and all kinds of language to use, because you're gonna know exactly where they're already following and living. You might even be able to not even have to create your own content. You might even be able to reshare or repost content from platforms that your ideal audience is already on, right? And every single day, you're gonna think, okay, this person that I'm speaking to, what
do they need from me today? How can I help them get closer to the person they want to be? This has changed the game for me and so many people who are content creators, because now when I write a caption, I write it for that person. Right? So for me, my guy's name is Phil. He's single. He's 35. He lives in New York City. He has multiple jobs. But one of those things is He's a painter. He really wants to sell more paintings. And he wants to become known as an artist who also helps other artists learn how to paint he is currently dating, not married, but wants to be married once had kids comes from the Midwest, right? I have this whole picture of who this guy is. And every single day, I think, How can I help him stay on track get a little bit closer to the person he wants to be? And that's who I'm making content for? Now? I have 40,000 Instagram followers? Are all of them, Phil? No. I have a lot of women who follow me. I have a lot of straight women who follow me, right men who follow me. It's it's not about that, right? I'm speaking every single day to this one person. And when I do I, every single day think about how do I solve his problem? How do I solve his problem today? A guarantee if you do this work, you will never ever ever run out of ideas. I hope you enjoyed this episode, let me know and leave a review or come say hello to me on Instagram. And I will talk to you next week. I hope you got a lot out of this episode. And if you did, please do me a huge favour to support this podcast by going over and leaving a review and or both. You can always take a screenshot and share it on your Instagram stories or whatever social media platform is your primary platform. And again, I want you to check out best self it is so important that we have a system for taking care of ourselves that we're constantly getting in check with our mental state because being an entrepreneur being a creative, it can feel very very lonely and you're not alone out there. You need to know exactly what things are getting in your way you need to figure out how to meet your potential not just in your career, but in your life as well. So best self check the link below you'll get a discount on any of their journals. I love the relationship journalist either and I used and I can't wait to hear what you think as well. Don't forget to be creatively visible
