"I Want To Be An Evil Businessman, Why Creatives Fail At Business"

The Financial Planning workshop is fast approaching!
Below are some details to help you prepare including Date, Time, Location and what to bring with you.

After setting goals in “Life Branding” and creating a plan in “Business Planning” it is time to put in place some quantifiable (Read Numbers) tools to help you set goals and measure your financial progress. Whether you are an employee, freelancer or company owner these tools will be indispensable in your growth.

The Goal of the Financial Planning workshop is to help you create a sound financial model for your business, non-profit or freelance practice. It is designed to give you a tangible, easy to execute, visual guide to numbers and financial planning. You will use these financial tools to measure and share your financial goals and progress with your business partners, staff, potential investors and others.

During this workshop we will work together in both small and large groups to define:

Why creatives fear numbers
Baseline financial planning
Understanding the financial language
How to do financial models for ANY business!
Mastering the sales process
Sales forecasting
Understanding a Profit & Loss Statement
Assets & Liabilities
Your financial goals

And More!

We will provide:

Financial Planning workbook binder
Digital templates for workshops (PPT & Keynote)
Coffee snacks & beverages

You will need to bring:

An open mind
Your EBM seminar workbook & other workbooks (if you have them) and any other previous work you have done for yourself or company. eg. business plan, mission or vision etc.
PC or Mac Laptop. This is not critical but can help if your handwriting is bad.

For those of you who will bring laptops and have macs I would HIGHLY
I have been using it for several years now and it is an indispensable tool for business planning.

Saturday, April 5th from 9am - 5pm
Sunday, April 6 from 9am - 7pm

Please note that we shortened Sunday’s session. We are right brainers after all.

The workshops will be conducted at Groop Headquarters in Downtown Los Angeles at:
125 W. 4th St. Ste. 103
Los Angeles, CA 90013

Parking is behind the building.

The Business Planning workshop is fast approaching!
Below are some details to help you prepare including Date, Time, Location and what to bring with you.

So now that you have developed your “Life Brand” at our Life Branding Workshop (or worked on it at the Evil Businessman Seminar) it is time to start or continue building the vehicle(s) to get to your destination. One of these vehicles is having your own business. That can be a freelance practice, non-profit, product business or service business.

The Goal of the Business Planning workshop is to define your business, non-profit or freelance practice. It is designed to give you a tangible, easy to execute, visual guide to building and growing your business. You will use it to share with your business partners, staff, potential investors and others.

During this workshop we will work together in both small and large groups to define:

1. Why should I plan?
2. What will the plan do for me?
3. Your business mission
4. Your business opportunity
5. The size of business
6. Your competition
7. How your business makes money
8. How do you exit your business
9. How do you market your business
10. Your financial goals

And More!

We will provide:

Business Planning workbook binder
Digital templates for workshops (PPT & Keynote)
Coffee snacks & beverages

You will need to bring:

1. An open mind
2. Your EBM seminar workbook & Life Branding workbook (if you have one) and any other previous work you have done for yourself or company. eg. business plan, mission or vision etc.
3. PC or Mac Laptop. This is not critical but can help if your handwriting is bad.

For those of you who will bring laptops and have macs I would HIGHLY
recommend that you buy the latest version of Apple’s Keynote software.
I have been using it for several years now and it is an indispensable tool for business planning.

Saturday, Feb. 16 from 9am - 5pm
Sunday, Feb. 17 from 9am - 7pm

Please note that we shortened Sunday’s session. We are right brainers after all.

The workshops will be conducted at Groop Headquarters in Downtown Los Angeles at:
125 W. 4th St. Ste. 103
Los Angeles, CA 90013

Parking is behind the building.

If you have any questions please feel free to call us at: 213.613.0066 (Shannon Brown)
Or email us at: info@evilbusinessman.com

How or why would you use Facebook as a marketing tool?

It is simple. Sales leads whether you are selling a product or a service usually come from your network of contacts and people you know. The bigger your network, or the more people know what you “sell” the more leads you get. This is true in the real world as much as in the online world. Facebook is simply a way to amplify and automate your reach. If you are a creative either selling your services or a product using Facebook as a tool to amplify your message or reach is a no-brainer.
You don’t have to set up a Facebook account for “your business”, you can use your own Facebook account for business and personal networking.

This is my experience using Facebook as a marketing tool:

1. I use it to let people know about events I am hosting. About 30 people came to the Evil Businessman seminar from my event posting on Facebook. (250 people attended)

2. I use it to let people know what positions we are hiring. I update my status to “We are looking for…” when we are trying to fill a position. Which is all the time.

3. I use it to show people links of recent work or things we find interesting.

4. I use it simply to “ping” in my network (Or the the other way around, other people “ping” me. Not the be confused with “poked’). Over the last 3 months we have received 3 project leads (and closed them) via Facebook. This quickly adds up in terms of revenue.

So my final thoughts are:

Use it.

During the seminar, I mentioned I would “talk to you later” about some of the questions you had. Using the magic of the Internet I would like to address many of these.

I would like to share my experience of starting The Groop as a collective and how I did it.
First let’s set the baseline: What is a “Collective:”

    “Collectives, also known as “co-operatives,” “cooperatives” or “co-ops” are groups of individuals who join together to undertake an activity for their mutual benefit. Co-ops may be for-profit or not-for-profit, unionized or not, and legally incorporated or not — what’s different about a co-op is that it’s owned and operated by its members.”  Source : Backspace.com

The benefits of working as a collective are many. You have more resources to share, such as, space, equipment and supplies. Another benefit is that you have different skills, and you can promote the work of the different members. Collectives have been around for ages. A great article on Backspace.com mentions that Push Pin Studios, Pentagram and other successful design studios first started out as collectives.

So how did The Groop do it? How do you create a successful business with this model?

Read the rest of this entry »