I consider myself an independent creator. Part of being independent for me is having my own platform to deliver my creativity to the online community. This blog, “The FYI” (For Your Information), represents a place to find updates about me, “Raymond Bruce,” the creator, and a resource for creators. Whether for audio or video, my goal is to pass on information on the practical and business sides of things.
Everything is Connected
Connecting the dots is key when building your business. Understanding your environment and navigating your marketplace is vital to sustainable business and business development. Spotting opportunities and gaps in the market will determine your course of action when developing your products and services. This, in turn, will alternately build a sustainable business income source.
Understanding that having a good brand enables better marketing for your business, attracting customers and revenue, The goal of a creator-entrepreneur should be to build a community and ecosystem around the product or service being offered. This builds customer loyalty and trust.
Providing good customer service to your customers or clients can make a difference, too, whether they are a part of your product or service brand promotion.
This is essentially the purpose of Raymond Bruce for Creators. To help with connecting the dots and laying down a foundation in knowledge for entrepreneurs and creators alike.
My post, “Build Your Brand,” covers the fundamentals of building a brand. The Creator Financial Toolkit is a series of posts that outline my perspective on multi-currency money management and how to save money for an online business.
No one part of a business makes a business successful. It’s a combination of different aspects of the business that determines how successful the whole business is. Marketing, distribution, sales, and customer service all work in tandem and contribute to the success of a business. The ability to perform well in all aspects of your business reflects on your brand.
Keep in mind that when building your business, it’s no good to have the best product without marketing, as no one will know you have the best product.
Business Mindset
Each post is part of a bigger business philosophy, only broken down into smaller, easily manageable pieces. The desire on my part is to make the Raymond Bruce for Creators section of raymondbruce.com a resource and point of reference for all.
In my experience, finding the information required to achieve a specific goal can be challenging. A website may have a bit of information; a book has another part of the problem. The actual solution is not explained properly or clearly. Moreover, recognising that multiple sources of information related to each other are not always laid out clearly Also, the information gathered, when understood and taken into context with seemingly unrelated information, can be beneficial when manipulated correctly.
For example, in my post, Financial Creator Toolkit Part One, I explained that PayPal offers the ability to select a specific card for a specific currency transaction. While Revolut and Wise offer multi-currency accounts with virtual debit cards,
By manipulating this information, money can be saved using the method described in the post.
Fundamentally connected, the dots are about research. Casting a wide net of information gathering. Analysing the information gathered and then building an action plan based on the conclusion of your analysis
So it is important whether you are reaching software, a service, or a platform. That you fully understand its functionality and if it meets your requirements. Making the wrong choice can be costly and time-consuming.
Recognising that everything is connected is a multi-layered way of thinking. Using marketing to find your core audience
At this moment, I am concentrating on the process of building my website. Which I have done so far with previous posts on The Platform and raymondbruce.com, with more to come. Every day, more and more resources become available to independent creators. Enabling creators to better create and manage the business behind the creator’s creativity. I’m not a teacher, but I intend to pass on what I have learned and will learn in the future. So expect to hear about navigating the music industry, the online community, financial resources, and topics related to videography, etc.
I have started covering the music industry in the post “Which Music Distributor”. But I intend on covering topics like income streams from music publishing and others. Moreover, I will be listing the equipment and software I use and their alternatives. From Presonus, Adobe Creative Cloud, DaVinci Resolve, Affinity Software, Native Instruments, and more.
As you can tell, there is a lot to cover, and it will take some time to cover everything. At some point, I will create a resources page that will have links to the companies, hardware, and software mentioned in my posts. So it’s a good idea to return regularly, as you may find something of interest to you.
