Today’s task:
Continue working towards building passive income – AKA figure out how to present your work in a digital portfolio
This morning I spent about an hour working on laying out the different pieces that I would want to include in the case study of one of my branding projects. One of the things I have admired the most in portfolios of other people’s website work is when you get to see a mini-movie play on their site where it shows a mockup of a website scrolling through the content. It’s so freakin professional. And I decided that this is the caliber of presentation that I’m going for.
I started out by creating a simple table, kind of like the different strips of a website, and putting in what I wanted to see. This is what I ended up with:
[mockup of the homepage site OR scrolling through the site (GIF)] |
[Description piece of project components] |
[Gallery of report template + thank you cards] |
[Mockup of business cards] |
[process logo + description] |
Then I started to get seriously sidetracked as I watched a tutorial video about how to create this, going down a rabbit hole of ideas as I found this site called Social Squares. It’s like stock imagery porn. 😀 No joke! For anyone that seriously obsesses about getting the right stock imagery, this is pretty much the answer to your prayers.
Anyways, after I scrolled through the site, I started to do some of my own brainstorming about offerings in 2023. This is what I came up with:
The stock membership for FARMERS?!
Spend more time on your farm and less time figuring out how to market it.
Curation challenge
Copywriting 101 for your farm
Develop your own brand guidelines for your farm in these 5 simple steps
Brand Positioning: Standing Out from the Crowd of Fellow Farming Operations
Storytelling for your Farm
2023:
First four months: Going internal
- Jan- Wrap up the 60-day Financial Fitness Challenge; launch The Transcendent Farmer Podcast
- Feb – Preparation, marketing
- March-mid-April: Aligned Farm Design – 6-week course
- Guest post 1-2 articles
April-July: Planting, Harvesting, & Brand Curation
- Online course to show people how to collect great stock images and video content for their products
- Publish the high-value market channels e-book
- Guest post 1-2 articles
August-October: Height of harvest and closing out the season
- Focus on self-care and continuing to reinforce healthy habits
- Celebrate all that you have accomplished
November-December: Annual review
- Getting your finances in order → Publish e-book related to financial fitness challenge workbook
- Identifying areas for improvement/change
- Rest
Jan-Feb. 2024: Going Steady & Being Intentional
- Develop your digital assets
- Copywriting
- Marketing strategy
Then, of course, I wanted to get even more specific about what I could expect from each of these activities. The numbers don’t lie, afterall, and I want to be sure that I’m creating something that’s not just super valuable and helpful to people, but also worth my time to create.
The month-by-month outline, plus estimated revenue:
Month | Project | Estimated Revenue |
Jan. | Financial fitness challenge | Subscribers/Followers → Calculate acquisition cost?! |
Jan. | Complete sponsorship packet and start doing outreach | Sponsors for program |
Jan. | Transcendent Farmer Podcast | Subscribers/Followers |
Jan-Dec. | Guest writing/blogging | Subscribers/Followers |
Mar-Apr. | Diseño de granja alineado (Aligned Farm Design) | $950/ea., 12 students → $11,400 |
Apr.-Jul. | Brand curation mini-course or 7-day challenge (pre-recorded, scheduled course?)Check in at beginning, mid-way, and at end as a group | 10 students at $100 each → $1000 |
Apr.-Jul. | High-value market channel e-book | $25 per download; passive income item; digital download |
Aug.-Oct. | Self-care challenge (30 days?) in fall | Donation-based, subscribers, $50? |
Nov./Dec. | Annual review – Live call or video published to YouTubeQuestions to ask yourself; can get folks to download the worksheet in exchange for their email address 60-Day Financial Fitness Challenge e-book | Subscribers $25 per download; passive income item; digital download |
Jan.-Feb. 2024 | Self-paced online course – Develop digital assets, copywriting, marketing strategy | 20 students, $150 ea. → $3000 |
A couple of other things that I did today that helped me think about this included:
- An accountability call with my sister to talk about our goals for 2023
- A quick chat with my CPA to discuss my spreadsheets where I’ve been keeping track of my expenses → Apparently I’m not doing this very well, as she recommended I start using quickbooks.
There were several takeaways from these conversations:
- Trust in yourself. Look at your track record. Learn to read your own patterns.
- Reading your patterns means that when you think about the last time you were seriously abundant or a lot of awesome things were happening, think back to what happened right before that amazing thing happened. What did you do? Say? Think? That is the pattern you want to keep repeating. So journal a bit and think back over the last year. Then try it out for yourself and see what happens!
- There’s a lot to be said about intention, surrender, and letting go of control. Developing a healthy relationship with each of these is probably one of the hardest things we can ask of ourselves because it is a daily practice, not something you can check off on a box and call good.
- Connect with the feeling of what you want and don’t worry about the finer details. You’ll know it’s arrived because your body will tell you.
- Ask for help early and often. Don’t be embarrassed to admit when you’re wrong, when you’ve made a mistake, or when you don’t know what the hell you’re doing. The people who grow the fastest are those who are willing to own what they don’t know and surround themselves with people who do.
- Balance your checkbook. Or find someone who knows how to and pay them with joy and gratitude because you have the means to afford their services. 🙂
Today’s resources to keep you inspired:
How to Create Scrolling Screenshot Graphics (GIF and MP4)
[Canva tutorial] Create a GIF scroll animation mockup to show your website