Well, the money arrived! I woke up this morning and checked my balance and I was $8,000 richer — yes!
These funds came from two sources: the second half of the payout for contract work I completed for a Google campaign last month, and from a grant I won in April of this year called “Guaranteed Income For Artists”, which awards me $1000 a month for 18-consecutive months.
The timing of it all is perfectly aligned for me to make the next moves in planning and preparing for the New Year’s Eve “Champagne Dreams” rolle-skate and dance party I’m hosting to debut my new business, Upscale Mobile Entertainment.
Yesterday, before the money came, I had a list of people I was about to call to ask them to each invest $300 in exchange for a return of $400 in a month’s time to help me generate the additional capital I needed to set up the party. I was expecting my personal payouts to come, but past experience taught me to only count the money I have in hand, not the money that’s on its way. This way I’m always working with real numbers. I knew there could be delays to my payouts so until I had it, I wasn’t going to plan like I could spend it. Nah, we not trying to have Kanye’s problem “…with spending before I get it”. Instead, the plan was to collect small amounts from a group of people I hold in high esteem, and use their money to finance the upfront expenses, then pay them back after the party had generated revenue of its own.
Well, let me tell you about my results but also, let me state that I never reached out to the entire list of fifteen people. I reached out to seven. It was surprising to hear how strapped everyone was for cash. But I guess it makes sense because it is the end of December and people are spreading their money across gifts, travel, and the usual life adjustments. Two people pledged to invest $300 each but I will have to wait between 3–10 days for them to actually give it to me. Everyone else didn’t have it. Still, I offered to reach back and ask again in the future because I plan to host another party in February. The decline to give money now was fine with me because I still was able to implant the idea of sideline investing with my events as a passive form of flipping cash. And by the end of each conversation, my associates were all excited and interested in the prospect.
But now that my money is in my hands, I won’t ask any more people to invest because taking their money means I’d have to pay 33% lending fee when I return it, and my goal is to minimize overhead expenses.
The biggest thing I accomplished yesterday was getting the party listed on my website and setting it up for ticket sales on Eventbrite. Sheesh, it took way longer than I thought to complete all of that! The tasks, however, pushed me to further envision this event and what type of User Experience I was designing. The things I considered were the Customer Journey: where will they get their first impression of this event? what type of information would they want to receive? in what order would they expect to see it? what visuals would further excite them? how do I set an expectation and communicate the quality of the event to spur them to purchase their tickets right away?
The whole process made me realize that I want to spend more time configuring my marketing and sales strategy, as according to my prioritization, after securing capital, selling tickets is number one. This time around, I’m going to do things I’ve resisted in the past like optimize my webpages for search engines, create a paid ad campaign, and scout social media for people who I’d like to see at my party, and directly invite them or offer them complimentary tickets.
In the past, I’ve relied too heavily on the audiences that I already had access to or who already followed me on social media to be the ones to endorse my businesses. The thing is, I didn’t pick those people. They chose to opt-in to my content but that doesn’t mean they represent my target and ideal audience. This NYE Champagne Dreams Party is also about establishing myself as a tastemaker. I want my guests to be wowed by the beautiful, fashionable and upwardly-social crowd that’s in the building.
One of the audiobooks I listened to recently rocked my mind because it revealed to me how passive I have been for most of my life in selecting the people with whom I want interpersonal relationships. I would wait for people to come to me, thinking that my ability to attract would bring me the best. Wrong! I would often attract the selfish, the manipulators and the narcissists — people who wanted my attention, my energy and my compassionate goodwill to exploit, use me, downplay me and take me for granted. And the people I would approach would be people I saw as in need, people I empathized with and wanted to help because I could relate to their pain and struggle. I used to pick people from my wounds, not my worth. This book gave tactics on how to take charge and be pro-active about putting myself in contact with anyone I seek, especially those with qualities that are aligned with my intentions. And I’m very excited to put those strategies to use in curating the attendees for my party.
So now that I can move past securing additional capital, today I will spend time masterminding the specific actions and tasks I will complete to promote, advertise and sell tickets. Thursdays are supposed to be my “days off”, meaning a day for me to do something I enjoy like painting, skating, taking a dance or yoga class, or going on a date but my mind and heart are both racing to configure a detailed roadmap to get to tha bag. So, I’m going to do a little work and then find somewhere to play! Keeping the promise to myself to have fun is vital to maintaining my integrity and is key for my continued practice of self-love.
Let’s talk more tomorrow.
Cheers, SuperGoode
