Are you a creative who was sold the myth of the starving artist? I’m here to tell you that the creatives are the future. But you need to understand ‘the rules’ for building wealth.

There is a reason the demand for creatives is rising massively, and you CAN make money from your craft! In today’s episode I’ll introduce you to the Four Income Streams that will enable you to work on your passion and become financially independent.

Understanding the four streams of income will help you understand how you can do the AND… make money now and save to be financially independent, AND do what you love.

Things are only going to get better for creatives.  Much better. 

Show Notes

• [01.59] The trends that are driving the surge for creatives

• [04.42] So why is this good for creatives?

• [08.31] But, to ride this wave, you need to focus on the AND

• [10.43] Every single one of us needs multiple income streams

  • Your Primary Stream of income HAS TO make you financially independent

  • Project Income is your second stream

  • At Risk income

  • Side Hustle Income

• [15.07] So let’s look at some examples
  

Related posts and episodes

• How to make money with what you know

• Changing the financial future of Creatives with Shotgun Tori

• Build your hobby into a business

• Wake up your Creativity with Nina Pearse

• Moving African Fashion Forward with Jacqueline Brown

• The biggest myth of a side hustle
  

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Quotes

"As soon as we make some money, we are desperate to outsource it to those who are naturally talented at it.' - Lisa Linfield

"Your number one goal is to first make sure that you’re financially independent. And only after that do you then focus on doing the stuff for love, for the rest of your life." - Lisa Linfield

"Many creatives are purists, and want to, from day one ONLY do the work they love." - Lisa Linfield

"Every single one of us needs multiple income streams." - Lisa Linfield

"Side Hustle’s are hard, especially the ones that will become your future business. That’s why you’re exceptionally lucky as a creative – because you know what you love doing already. And that will give you the energy to work on it." - Lisa Linfield

Script:

194 – Why creatives are the future… and how to turn that into wealth

Hello everyone and welcome to today’s episode of Working Women’s Wealth.  I’m Lisa Linfield and I’m building a community of Women who are committed to the journey of living Financially Free lives – so that we can have the money that enables us to CHOOSE – IF we want to work, where we work, and when, so that we can follow our dreams.

One of the crazy stories The World Out There tells us is that you want to be a “creative”, you need to be prepared to starve your whole life.  That it’s a dead-end set of career choices that never amount to anything.

I’m here to tell you, I totally disagree. 

And things are only going to get better for creatives.  Much better.  But you need to understand ‘the rules’ for building wealth as a creative.

In this episode I’m going to take you through WHY the demand for creatives is rising massively, How you can make money from your craft, I’ll introduce you to the Four Income Streams that will enable you to work on your passion and become financially independent, and I’m going to take you through practical examples to illustrate the four income streams for a writer, musician, artist and photographer.

The trends that are driving the surge for creatives

Here’s the thing – the pendulum always swings.  Life is never constant.  What is in now, will always shift over time.

When I grew up, the world belonged to the maths and science people.  The school curriculum was designed for them.  The career paths encouraged you follow the maths route, and the pay scale totally weighed on the side of the maths professions… all pointing to the corporate career path.  We were encouraged to find a good job that paid well, in a big business that had lots of room for growth – and bonuses.

But the world is shifting, and the future belongs to the creatives?

There are three mega trends

1. The shift away from corporates to small businesses. 

2. The connected world – meaning that it’s not enough to have the best product or service or even the only option in town… the person whose product and service is known, spoken about and trusted will be the product bought from wherever in the world – it doesn’t even have to be the best.  Brand building is key… for everyone.

3. The shift in sales from face to face to audiovisual and social media.

So many more businesses can sell their products anywhere in the world, but now need to find people who can help them write copy, make videos, produce background music for their podcasts and videos, and help them sell via social media.

There is a huge trend away from big corporates and back towards people owning their own businesses.  In fact, in April the US workforce had it’s highest ever number of people quitting work – 4 million.  And in two different recent studies, one showed 38% and one showed 41% of workers were considering quitting in the next 6 months. (here)

The pandemic also dramatically shifted client’s willingness to accept services from someone not physically across the table.  2020 saw the most new businesses being opened ever – in 2010, 2.5m new businesses were registered in the US… it took 9 years to grow a million to 3.5m in 2019 and in 2020 it jumped to 4.35m

All these people starting their own businesses need your talents.

So why is this good for creatives?

Well, let’s take my business as an example.

On the face of it, I’m just a boring old financial adviser, who wants to teach people about money.  In the old days, my clients would only be those in my town, as those are who I could physically see in person to service.  And, if I wanted to teach anyone, I’d head to the townhall and host a teaching series.

But, as we all know, that’s not how businesses operate these days.  For my businesses to run I could use the following people:

●        A creative designer to hold my brand together, designing logo’s, marketing collateral, social media memes.  I am totally shocking with colour and visuals, so left to my own devices, it all goes pear shaped.

●        I would love a copywriter to build my course material, my social media posts, maybe even my podcast

●        I need editors for my book, for the textbooks for my courses

●        I need podcast editors, video editors, and if I’m really fancy, a video team to record my training courses so they look super professional.

●        I need photographers to take pictures of me that look amazing – as an image with me in has ten times the response rate on social media than one that’s generic.

●        For my podcast and my YouTubes, I could do with some proprietary background music, some animations, and some great traffic driving strategies… and an editor that can make money feel human

●        For my book and my courses, I use a graphic harvester, another word for an illustrator or artist that turns the words and thoughts I have into cartoon-like diagrams to help me translate the complicated world of finance into concepts everyone can understand.

●        And then, there’s my online presence of websites, sales funnels and online training courses.  All need graphics, all need colour schemes and logos, all need sites that are beautiful and support the selling of my products… and all need content – video, visual, words and podcasts.

●        Lastly, when I sell my courses, I again need a creative angle, visuals to support the sale, ads to let people know, and creative emails to make them want to buy and be glad they bought.

And so it goes.  And I’m just one tiny self-employed business.

You see, if you want to have your own business, you need an up-to-date social media and online presence.  You need to, in marketing terms, have people know how to find you; find ways for them to get to like you and build trust with them through creation of content; so that they will buy from you.

And the problem is, us non-creative people may be able to learn to do it, but it will never be our shizzle.  As soon as we make some money, we’re desperate to outsource it. I can edit my own videos and audio, it just takes me forever.  I can create ad and social media templates in Canva, they just don’t look good.  I can build websites on any platform, I’d just rather be building teaching content or be stuck in an excel spreadsheet.

So this is why the demand for creatives is going to exponentially grow.

But, to ride this wave, you need to focus on the AND

As you will hear me so often say, it’s all about the AND.

A little while back, I was coaching a young 12th grader who loves tech on how to make enough money to retire early.  I gave him two principles to guide him in his side hustles at varsity, and his job choice once he left – and those two principles apply to EVERYONE.

1. Work out who has the money and what they’re prepared to pay for.  Why? Because…

2. Your number one goal is to first make sure you’re financially independent – then you can focus on doing stuff for the love of it for the rest of your life

So where’s the money… well, it’s always in the corporates… or anything to do with sales.  People have to spend money to make more money. 

So let’s brainstorm the AND.  For those of you who know me, I’m all about the AND.

I know that many creatives are purists want to, from day one ONLY do work they love.  To be fair, that’s not limited to the creatives.  All of us want to do ONLY what we love.  We hate the mundane, boring tasks, or having to work with people that drive us up the pole – whether customers or colleagues or bosses.

Believe it or not, those people grow us as humans, and those tasks grow our muscle in learning and modelling to our children persistence, focus, and grit.  Even now, as a person who is financially free, and chooses my work and clients doing what I love, there are STILL parts of what I do that I need to grit my teeth through. 

I hate sales, but if I don’t do it, I won’t get my message out and achieve my goal of teaching a million women.  I would far rather only release a podcast episode when I feel like it, and have spare time, but again, if I didn’t commit to a weekly discipline, I wouldn’t get my message out and achieve my goal.

So the reality is that there is NO perfect situation.  Which brings me to the AND…

Every single one of us needs multiple income streams

A dollar millionaire has seven streams of income.  SEVEN.  And, as the entire world learned during the pandemic, relying on one stream is dangerous. 

Remember, the goal is to become financially independent (which is where the income from your investments is enough money to pay for your day to day needs) so that you can do work you love (which pays for your nice to haves).

So here are the four main streams of income that EVERY person should have… and afterwards I’m going to give you examples for a musician, a photographer and an artist.

1.       Your Primary Stream of income HAS TO make you financially independent

When I coach entrepreneurs, we talk about retainer clients.  This may be work that’s not your most interesting or earth shattering, but it covers your basic bills and minimum investments.  It’s often at a lower hourly rate, to secure the guaranteed monthly paycheck.

For creatives, this doesn’t mean you need to ditch your creative art in your day job – you just need to find a commercially viable way to leverage it to make money that is consistent every month, that you can count on to pay the bills.

Often this is moving just one step down in the value chain.  It’s a bit like farming or mining.  The person who makes the least money is the farmer or miner.  It’s the people that do stuff with that – like make jewellery or steel beams, or aluminium windows that make the money.  The people who slice up the carrots and put it into a microwave bag make more money than the farmer does. 

It’s the value-adding commercialisation that makes the money… and if you can do it to help people sell something, you’ll always have a job.  So focus on one step downstream from your talent.

2.       Project Income is your second stream

These are ad hoc, higher paying projects that can boost your investments and your nice to haves.  These are things you may need to do sales calls for, or build a few more regular clients.  But the pay is better per hour spent, and as you build a reputation, you can focus on the projects you like doing.

The theme for these first two streams of money (as you’ll see in the examples I’m about to give) is to follow the money supply – corporates and sales.  ‘Feel good work’ is great, but doesn’t pay as well as these two.

3.       At Risk income

This is money that has the bigger upside – but a chance of not making it.  Often you’ll sacrifice your time now for a later big payment.  Sometimes you may need a portfolio of these – where one may win big, two may have average outcomes, and the last one may make no money at all.

4.       Side Hustle Income

This is the piece that may be your passion, which you hope will one day make enough to replace all the other streams when you are financially independent.  But for now, it needs to be your side hustle that you do at night, or wake up early for, or do on the weekends.

My teaching business, including this podcast, is my side hustle business.  I would love to work only on it as it’s my passion.  My dream is to spend my life only writing books and teaching groups. But, I need the money from my financial planning business to invest in building the teaching business… which I hope will become my main focus over time.

Side Hustle’s are hard, especially the ones that will become your future business.  That’s why you’re exceptionally lucky as a creative – because you know what you love doing.  And that will give you the energy to work on it – because your vision for it is so big.

So let’s look at some examples

You’re amazing artistically

●        Steady Income – You learn how to do art on a computer, committing to 20 hours a week as a graphic designer in a marketing agency for sales materials and building websites.

●        Project Income – You get to know every event agency around and become a graphic harvester for corporate conferences.  These are the people that draw out what the speakers are saying so in a single look people can get taken back to the essence of each speaker’s message

●        At Risk Income – a school friend of mine worked out that interior designers love black and white pictures – they don’t detract from the furniture colour scheme and fill a wall… and can be used in corporate boardrooms.  So she created a series of charcoal birds which she then got made into prints so that she could continue to earn a return on the time investment.  She’s expanded to animals and ballerinas, and people around the world now order them.  Over the last ten years she’s built an amazing catalogue of pictures.

●        Side Hustle Income – her real dream though is to paint.  So she still paints and sells them ad hoc.

You’re a photographer and videographer (who can edit!)

o   Steady Income - Do social media for businesses and agencies (it’s all about the manipulation of photos and visual content)… again, work 20 hours a week, and work out how to create content that catch people’s attention as they scroll – short videos, social media memes

o   Project Income – work with businesses to record their training videos or corporates to do their formal headshots or conference photos. 

o   At risk income – film training videos for people in exchange for 10% of the sales revenue forever..

o   Side hustle – you may want to be a wildlife photographer full time, so in your spare time you take photo’s you sell.  A colleague of mine built a side hustle business while working in the bank that markets to photography clubs overseas a ‘photo safari’.  They organise the entire safari experience here, and support these foreign photographers with everything they need to have an amazing photo safari.

You are a musician

●        Steady Income – Get a 20 hour a week job in an add agency doing the background music for client videos and ads – creating proprietary tunes and editing the music to fit the final shot.  If you’re a singer and have a great voice, you could be the voiceover artist for corporate videos (specialise where the money is to pay!)

o   Project Income – build a one hour, two hour and four hour program for corporate team building you can sell to event companies.  Corporates love to pay people to come, in the middle of these whole day business sessions, to bring energy into the room, and foster ‘team spirit’.  Your drummer takes one section of the room with African hand drums, the guitarist takes another section for ‘vocal guitar’, the lead singer takes another section with a catchy ditty.  The key message here is ‘together we’re better’.

o   At Risk Income – Build a training course yourself that teaches people to do what you do.  I googled ‘how to sing’ and google autocompleted… how to sing better, beautifully, like a pro, how to sing high notes, how to sing for beginners, sing from the stomach, sing happy birthday, sing like Ariana grande.  When I googled how to play guitar the top autocompletes were ‘how to play guitar step by step, for beginners, how to play guitar chords, guitar for kids, how to play guitar with long nails, how to play guitar for the first time and how to play guitar boogie.  If you answer one of those top nine questions, you’ll be onto it.

o   Side Hustle – this may be your band… releasing albums… playing at gigs.

Lastly, you’re a writer

●        Steady income – Master the art of sales writing and storytelling for sales.  Oh  my goodness, master this and you will be able to charge top dollar.  I’ve learnt it’s a whole genre on its own… but it’s the genre that makes money.  Again, spend 20 hours a week working for an agency and specialise in sales funnels and online add campaigns.

●        Project Income – Get a few clients that you can work with directly on a project basis to do the copy for their sales campaigns.  Good copywriters can charge $1,000 just for a good sales funnel copy.  I just paid $1,000 for a course that teaches you how to do sales funnel copy.

●        At Risk Income – Do the sales funnel for free, but ask for 10% of the sales value!

●        Side Hustle – Write your books, 1,000 words a day, every day, before breakfast.

Understanding the four streams of income will help you understand how you can do the AND… make money now and save to be financially independent, AND do what you love.

You see, three major shifts have taken place while we weren’t looking

1. No longer does the world operate on final salary schemes for pension, so no longer are you locked into a job for life.  In fact, the average time a person is in a job is 4.1 years now.  If you’re not forced to stay to secure your pension, then what do you do?

2. There has been a strong trend over the last 15 years to create awareness for the importance of mental health.  This deeper understanding that ‘there’s more to life than work’ has been actively reenforced by a focus on the family, on personal mental health practices, and on creating more balance – often found incompatible in this ‘always on’ world with being employed in a corporate.  The pandemic reminded us of our humanity.  We were forced to spend time with our families, and those families that survived the pandemic in touch reconnected parents with their children in a way that many don’t want to give up on now.  We learned to live with less financially, yet enjoy our family and home-life more. 

3. The exponential increase in computing power and connectivity means that the ability to have your own business is no longer restricted to physical local businesses – now, anyone could work anywhere and take on clients anywhere in the world… resulting in businesses that weren’t viable in the old days suddenly becoming sustainable from your home town. 

I am naturally a jack of all trades and a master of none.  My super power is solving problems, and the more complex the problem, the more fun it is to solve.   It’s why I loved Strategy in big corporates and found myself doing it in every business I went into.  Somehow reading the trends, understanding the nuts and bots of the business, and then working out how we could get the business from where it was now to where it needed to be across just felt like the best kind of puzzle to solve.

So it makes sense that I love my job as every day I’m reading social and economic trends and working with clients on how we take them from where they are now to being able to be financially free – and able to retire (or rather stop working cause they have to ).

There’s one trend that I see happening that surprises most people when I get into a discussion with them… that I believe the future belongs to the creatives.  And, like all major trends, we are already on the early adopter or initial phase of this trend.

I absolutely LOVE learning – and am always studying some new thing that fascinates me.

I’m that person that many mum’s bring their kids to to chat about their careers.  I don’t know if it’s because it took me a few careers to find the one I’m passionate about – or because they’re terrified that their kids are going to be on their payroll forever, and they want me to convince them to do a ‘real’ job. 

, my first career was as a Physio Therapist – or in the US, it would be a Physical and Respiratory therapist.  I worked with sports teams and ICU patients – but knew very early on that this one WASN’T for me.  I then went into banking, and right place, right time, launched the world’s first mobile bank that was fully secure – so I was in digital banking before most of the world knew that a phone could do more than just dial!

I then journeyed to the UK, and after a stint as a Management Consultant I returned to banking – in strategy, marketing, sales, mergers & acquisition.  It was back in South Africa that I crossed into investment management and long term life insurance when I found my passion, went back to university to become a board-certified financial planner.

So