Thousands of our community members have been laid off or furloughed this year.
That's the sad reality of the trainwreck that is 2020.
The silver lining is that many of our community members are finally making the decision that it's time to turn their studio into their full time gig.
Whenever it's time for you to take that leap, one of two scenarios can happen.
Scenario 1: Your business gains traction, you start making money doing something you actually love, and you never look back at that old day job again.
Scenario 2: Sh*t hits the fan, you can't seem to make it work, and you start doubting your decisions.
I want to talk about scenario 2 in this article, because there's a concerning trend I'm seeing from people…a trend that is leading to sh*t hitting the fan for many of our own community members.
People are treating their business like it's a day job.
Here's what I mean.
Life at a day job:
- Show up to work
- Do whatever your boss tells you to do
- Collect a paycheck
It's been a while since I've had a day job (4,298 days to be exact), but that's what I remember life looking like.
Now let's look at what life looks like for someone treating their audio business like it's a day job:
- Show up for “work”
- Finish whatever small/free projects happened to fell in your lap this week
- Run out of stuff to do, so you spend the day playing around with gear/plugins/whatever
- By the end of the “workday”, you realize you've fallen deep into a YouTube or social media rabbit hole
- Repeat the next day
Let's compare that to the day of a successful business owner:
- They plan out their entire week so nothing slips through the cracks
- They wake up early so they can work uninterrupted during their “golden hours”
- They follow a strict morning routine that sets themselves up for a successful, productive day
- They use their “golden hours” to finish high-value, creatively-demanding work
- They use their less-productive hours to complete tedious-but-necessary administrative work (like email follow ups, invoicing, accounting, basic revisions, etc.)
- Most importantly, they understand that they eat what they kill
Let me talk about that last point for a second…
Successful freelance business owners understand that they, alone, are responsible for finding clients. Not some boss that's simply assigning work for them to do.
If you're trying to make a living from your audio skills, ask yourself the tough question: Are you treating this like it's another day job…hoping work will simply fall into your lap?
If so, it's time to start taking your business seriously.
There are over 150 episodes of The Six Figure Home Studio Podcast (soon to be rebranded to the 6 Figure Creative Podcast) for you to listen to, learn from, and implement.
Education is the first step in treating your business like an actual business.