As exciting and compelling as it is to move to a big city, and make friends with all the big shots, and work with all the cool brands, it might not be the best way to run your business. I lived a quarter mile from Venice Beach’s Abbot Kinney, where all the hip new shops flock. I saw dozens of brands come and go in the years I lived there, spending fortunes on rent, and folding twelve months later.

Creative people who have trained their minds to vividly see what doesn’t yet exist are often susceptible to even more vivid anxieties and temptations than others.

Here’s an efficiency hack: spend less time on it. Seriously! What if the the things you want but don’t have time for could be achieved at an acceptable level in way less time? Even if it’s not perfect, 90% of the value will still be translated to the audience with the efficient version.

Set up next to a window or go outside, and use the natural light to illuminate your product. A really cheap way to increase the quality of your videos is to incorporate creative backgrounds. Colorful poster-boards, textured walls, and computer screens all work well.

You can find a lot of models for under $100 per hour in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. They have great search criteria for specialty, age, height, gender, ethnicity, weight, hair color, union status and more.

This inspiration was exciting, but it was distracting me from what I should have been working on. I’m a huge nerd for inspiration and motivation, but I’m coming to realize that there’s a time and a place for each. Below, I’ll break down each one, and discuss when it’s best to seek them out, and when it’s best to ignore them.

Don’t let the words of bad clients who said you were “too expensive” reverberate longer than they already have. Drown out these voices, or walk away from them until they fade. Sometimes, the most helpful thing you can do for a pitch is to stop working on it until you feel confident again.

Curation adds incredible value to an audience with very little effort in comparison to creating original content. And if you can curate premium content, adding thoughtful comments along with it, the public perception of your work will increase in value as well. People will associate your work with the work you’re curating.

You wrote down that you want to read more in 2022. I know you did. Everybody does. But you haven’t touched that book your uncle gave you for Christmas. The one he was sure you’d “really enjoy.” That’s okay. Not every book is for everyone. The trick is to find books that pique your interest and that help you achieve your goals. So here’s a list of books that digital creators will love.

The cursor is blinking. The page is blank. You know you need to email brands to get more work, but you have no idea what to write. Finally, you send out a couple emails. Compulsively, you refresh your inbox again and again, waiting for a response. There has to be a better way, right? There is. It’s called an email template.

Hey Reese, I have a question for you. I want to influence people. How would I approach that using my video talent? I feel like I have been able to do it already on a micro scale with a few people. Theoretically, shouldn’t I be able to do it with one million people? If I understood the concept better?

You’ve probably seen freelancers who make a lot of money, more than you ever thought was possible. You’ve probably also seen freelancers who are just scraping by, always complaining about working too much and making too little. The difference between the two comes down to how each one prices their services.

The fact is, boredom produces creativity. Our brains can only handle being bored for so long before they start coming up with ideas.

Do you ever feel like you spent the entire day working, but somehow, you didn’t get anything done? We all have. But a few of us don’t feel that way anymore, and that’s because we write down our “big three.”

Working with new clients is exciting! But don’t get too excited, ok? It can be tempting to jump straight into the work once you get a project approved. But taking a moment to zoom out, and understand what your client really wants is crucial. Here are three questions to ask new clients to make sure you nail your new creative project.

Losing clients is part of the game of freelancing. But losing most of your clients might mean you aren’t very good at the game. Long-lasting client relationships depend on two things: great work and great service. Over the past five years, I’ve developed a few best practices that help me cultivate lasting relationships with great clients. I’ll share them with you below.

If you’re a creator, you’re probably fielding emails and calls from a number of brands, locking in work for Q1. But how can you tell if these brands are going to be good to work with? At the start, every opportunity seems similar, and it’s hard to tell which clients will be tough to collaborate with, and which ones will be great to work with. I’ve been working with clients for over five years now, and I’ve sniffed out a few red flags to watch out for.

There are too many options. Where do you even start? I felt this way for a while too, buying online courses and guides, hoping they would bring me the results they promised. That was until I started helping clients create their own online classes. Then, it became really clear which classes are worth it, which are not, and how to decide.

Whether this year is exciting or daunting for you, the fact remains: you need to get more clients this month. But there’s a big difference between wishing you had more clients, and actually doing the hard work to get more clients. I’m going to teach you how to do the latter.

Today marks my 465th blog post in 465 days. Tomorrow, I’m not publishing a blog. I’ll break that streak.