As evidenced by one of my recent posts, making a living as a freelance media producer is a lot of work besides just making media. How can you keep it all straight?

I'm doing a bit of an experiment. Recently I made a pretty big structural change in my business, from one brand focused on band/artist/model media production to three brands nestled in one overarching media group. Here's the breakdown if you haven't read my previous posts:

So now that I've got the websites and social media launched, it's all about attracting the right team members. After all, this is an entrepreneurial partnership based on contract work, so it's a matter of finding people willing to put in some work for a percentage of each contract that comes in. 

So I've got my work cut out for me, but how do I both continue to pay my own bills, expand my media presence and engagement, as well as search for the right people to help out? I need to be more organized, so here's the plan:

First, I've revamped my schedule. What used to be larger blocks of time is broken down into smaller, 1-2hr sections with very specific purposes. I'm writing this blog between 10-11am, as it's blog time!

Basically, I listed out the responsibilities I had to take care of on a daily basis, then I ordered them based on what time of day I typically do that sort of thing anyway. For example, I like to start my day with a workout, then take some time to get cleaned up, make food for the day, and get my head on straight. I leave two hours specifically for that every morning, followed by time to blog while I eat my breakfast. I leave these blocks as openly defined as possible, that way I'm not locked into a specific task, but still working toward a unified goal. For example, "Blog Time" can be put towards any of my four blogs, and any of the multiple topics within them. It's a framework that allows me enough freedom to improvise, but with enough structure to keep me organized and on task. 

Now that I've blocked out my daily schedule, I move on to weekly items like homework deadlines, vlog posts (working towards producing those again), and scheduling my FB page posts for the week. Eventually, I plan to get back on Hootsuite and schedule posts for all my social media, but for now I'm just focusing on turning my FB pages more active communities. Either way, taking an hour out of each week to schedule posts for the week takes out the scrambling and floundering later on. Even if I don't know exactly what I want to post, having a skeleton frame can make it easy to edit and fine tune later on instead of starting from scratch. 

In addition to my weekly calendar, I've added notifications to remind me to check my unfollow app, double check my Full Sail assignments throughout the week, and update my websites. Since these are all within Google Calendar, I've synced these to my phone and laptop.

Now that we've gotten organized, what are the next steps?

A plan is a powerful thing, and can lead to some unexpected productivity and social response. My hope is to push myself to adhere to this structured outline, pick up work more often and deliver the final products quicker, which will in turn give me the opportunity to vette possible partners. It's a big decision adding people to the team, so it's going to be a long process... but one well worth the effort. The positions within Full Coverage Media Group that I'm looking to cover are the following:

Media Manager - Social media marketing meets media distribution. This role requires a firm grasp of social media marketing for business, as well as how to market brands of vastly different styles and clientele. In addition to the social media and marketing aspects, this role would also actively search for publications, contests, and other outlets to which we could submit already produced material, and spec work that we could produce specific materials for submission. We're searching for ways to monetize our media, and increase engagement. Some experience or training and a willingness to master the role is preferred. Contract work, based on percentages of incoming work.

Business Manager - This is exactly what it sounds like, Full Coverage Media Group needs someone to oversee the writing of contracts, invoices, and other business materials, as well as direct our approach, structure, and tactics to be sure we're following legal procedure and filing all the correct permits. 

Both of these positions include a learning curve and I completely understand that; I'm not looking for wizards, but people willing to learn with an interest in the field. If you feel like you could be a good fit, get in touch! Feel free to pass it along if you think you know someone else who would fit the role, any help in the search is greatly appreciated!

Now that I've gotten organized, set my goals, and figured out my path to get there, it's just a matter of following that schedule and keeping the end goal in mind. By whittling a little bit of work away each day, I'll constantly be making progress in the integral parts of my business and constantly draw nearer to my goal. What are your goals, and how are you moving towards them? Leave a comment below, let's talk strategy.

Thanks for reading another installment of SHS News!

Cheers,

Stay