Bleach is Cheaper than Milk

Why creatives need to focus on their core talents and let the rest slide a little

They’ll ignore the messy desk if you can solve your tribe’s problem. They’ll ignore your crazy outfit, or your lack of a personality if you hold them by the hand and take them from where they are to where they want to be. They’ll forgive a lot of things.

What they won’t forgive is when you stray from the reason they followed your work to begin with.

What you stand for — your core reason to practice your craft — is nothing to take lightly. When you fly your flag, you better be willing to stand under it.

Not only is your specific craft your platform, but it’s also your soapbox.

You have message to share. You’re the best in your niche. We need you to make more of your work, produce more of your art, code more of your apps.

The other stuff will be here when you return.

We get so bogged-down with all the other parts of running and indie business, we sometimes lose focus of why we’re here in the first place. There’s only so much bandwidth in the tank. It’s critical we save the most of it for the reason we show up to work every morning.

If you solve their problem they’ll forgive your foibles

Maybe your website sucks, but it’s good enough to deliver your message. Maybe you misspell your words more often than you should, but your content is so valuable they keep coming back. Maybe your customer interaction needs a little training.

If you give us what we want — the reason we stand at your doorstep — we’ll forgive (or ignore) a lot of the other stuff. There’s always room to cleanup the mess later. We don’t have to schmooze people. We can be honest with what we’re good at and where we fail.

Bleach is cheaper than milk.

Where creators stumble, is when they try to be everything to everyone, in every place. No one can do that. But if you make such promises, you’ll disappoint. We’ll think you’re one thing and when you can’t deliver, you’ll make us angry.

• No one cared about Albert Einstein’s desk. It was a disaster.
• No one cared about Van Gogh’s ear. It was missing.
• No one really cares how clean your shop floor is, as long as you deliver on the promise that brought us to your lobby.

It’s not a free pass either

If you’re a total disaster you’ll lose your customers. There’s no question. I’m sure Einstein owned a trash can. There will come a tipping-point where your customer will choose her second choice if you fall too far off the wagon.

You’ve got to ship your art.

It will never be perfect. What it can be is the best you can do, today. Tomorrow — if you’re a craftsman — it will be better. We get all worried about the color of our buy button, or the weight of our business cards.

In the end, if we answer one question well, tomorrow we’ll get the opportunity to play again:

Have I served my tribe the best I can?

The dust bunnies will work themselves out. You can upgrade your crappy website when you have some downtime. Your business cards probably never mattered.

But our core work…

This is why we’re here. This is our work that matters most — no matter what the work is. Our core work is our oxygen. We can’t skip the oxygen.

Ignore everyone but your tribe

The critics don’t matter. You aren’t here to serve them. Those who don’t understand your work, don’t matter. They have no intention of buying it. Ignore everyone, but the members of your tribe.

Serve your tribe until it hurts. Then serve them a little more.

I like to serve my tribe through email. This allows me to use a consistent message, repeatedly, over time. I can sell my work, automatically, by writing an email once and using it again, forever.

I’ve got customers who respond to emails I wrote last year.

These folks think I wrote to them yesterday — personally. The continuous stream of contact matters. We can’t ever let our tribe forget about us, no matter which line of communication you choose.

If you build your tribe’s list now, you’ll have a pre-built, rabid audience ready when you launch your next work (or re-launch your old work). This should be a list you own (instead of relying on social media or some other big-business platform). Tap the link below. Enroll in my Tribe 1K indie email masterclass. I’ll show you how to get your first 1,000 subscribers (and your next 1,000) without spending one hot nickel on ads.

We’re waiting for you.

Enroll in my Free Email Masterclass. Get Your First 1,000 Subscribers

August Birch (AKA the Book Mechanic) is both a fiction and non-fiction author from Michigan, USA. As a self-appointed guardian of writers and creators, August teaches indies how to make work that sells and how to sell more of that work once it’s created. When he’s not writing or thinking about writing, August carries a pocket knife and shaves his head with a safety razor.