5 Reasons Why You Need to Build a Creative Community NOW

If you don't have a community as a creative in 2024, you're in DANGER.

In this excerpt from our Creative Checkup livestreams held every Friday on YouTube, you'll discover why your creative project depends on you building connections and community - and you'll be introduced to the steps you need to take right away. 

Free Resource for Artists Considering Going Pro

If you are thinking about becoming a full-time artist, you've got to ask the right questions.
So we've created a workbook to help you figure out what you need to know before making the leap.

Go to GodandGigs.com/questions to get your free download of this powerful and practical resource, and take the next step toward your creative dreams! 

Transcript

Thank you for watching. so so so so so Thank you. Bye. All right, friends, we are here. Already had Instagram saying hello. I love it. Hello to Charmaine, intellectual black female, also known as. Mimi Roundaway joining us on Instagram. So that's so cool. Greg is already on Instagram. So this is cool. Instagram has been showing off, y'all. I do go live here on Facebook. I do go live here on YouTube. But honestly, what's weird is that Instagram, which is not like the best, you guys are seeing me in this box right now, but uh Instagram has been the best. So let me first introduce myself, just in case any of you are joining us have no idea what I'm talking about. My name is Allen C. Paul. 
I'm the host and founder of guiding Gigs. This is our creative checkup. This is where we help those who are transitioning from that box of traditional life, either as in a corporate life or you kind of in a closet creative, been a christian that's kind of been trying to figure out this whole creative life, but you weren't sure how to do it. We help you to solve one specific temporary problem so that you can have that kind of life that you deserve to have because god wants you to walk into your creative purpose. He wants you to not be boxed in by this kind of thing if you can only be this, you can only be that. Many of us in this community, we're working in churches, but we're also creating outside of churches. 
or we're in corporate life, but we're also creating stuff in our own lives. We're writing albums, we're doing poetry, we're doing all kinds of things. We're not boxed in by this weird thing of labels where people say you can only be one thing. So that's why you're here. That's what I hope you're going to get out today. And today, let me slow down because I'm excited. Today we're going to be talking about why you need to build a community in OW now. If you are a creative, even thinking about being a creative, if you're one of those closet creatives that you haven't stepped out to create your thing yet, you need to get started on your community and we're going to tell you why. 
Five reasons why. Why we have to do this. So once again, I'd like to introduce, or not introduce, but i'd like to welcome all those who are joining us on Instagram. If you are, please make sure you comment and share this. That helps us get out into the algorithm world. Same thing on Facebook. and YouTube, if you're watching this, let me grab my comments real quick. See if there's anybody watching. And comments also help me know that you are hearing me. Likes and those kind of things kind of make sure before i go ahead that you're actually hearing me. So if you're hearing me, say hello, say got you you're we can hear you. Any of those comments help me to be sure that i'm not talking to myself, because every once in a while, you know, tetan tetan stuff. 
Yes, thank you, Mimi see people don't understand when you're in here talking to a camera by yourself, you can feel really weird. And I've gone minutes where someone finally, I just see people bouncing off, leaving, leaving, leaving, like why are they leaving? And then i realized because my mouth was moving and nothing was coming out. So y'all help me out. Share, like this post. If you're on facebook or on YouTube, on Instagram, of course, you can also give me some hearts and let me know that you're enjoying this content. So, I want to go ahead and give you guys a little more organization. We're going to be more organized, y'all. We are creators, but we are organized. So we're going to do a little more organization. 
And I'm going to give you the lineup for today. So in case you have to bounce in or bounce out, you're going to know exactly what we are doing today so that no one will be like, wait, why am I listening? Why am I here? So what we did in my creative checkup newsletter is that we changed it around so that it was literally like a checkup. I thought of I literally went to the doctor yesterday for my blood work and I'm trying to get myself back in my health habits, right? So I said, what does a doctor do in a checkup? Well, he checks your vitals, he checks your blood work, your lab work, he looks at what you've been doing, then he does a consult, he asks you how you're feeling, what's really going on in you, you know, this hurting, is that hurting? 
And then usually he'll write a prescription if you need it or something or just tell you what to do next. That's what we're going to do with our creative checkups, not just in the written form, which you can get at guidinggigs.com slash info. We're also going to do the same thing in our creative checkup lives. This way, I think it'll be a lot more productive. Instead of me just kind of rambling on the different topics that we're going to be talking, which I'm not considering that rambling, but I think sometimes we get into the conversation. And I get so wrapped up in the conversation that I forget that we need to make sure we cover all of these parts of the checkup. So this will help me stay on point. 
You guys help me stay on point as well. We're starting right now with the news and notes. Okay, so that's basically where I'm introducing everything and talking about what's been going on and guiding gigs for the first five minutes or so. But then we'll jump right into the vital signs. The vital signs are the things that are the heart of the matter. And the heart of the matter is today are five reasons why you need a community. So that will be the heart, the vital signs. But then we'll get into some lab work. I'm going to talk about what's working for Guiding Gigs, what's working for some of our members in Guiding Gigs 360, our mastermind. And finally, we're going to make sure we get some consult in. 
Let you tell me in the comments what's really going on. Maybe there's something that I didn't address. You can kind of go right into that during the comments. Again, if you have to pop out and come back on the replay. I do read the comments. So if you do not get a chance to listen all the way through, please return to this replay and then say, hey, I had a question. I had to jump out. Can you please address blank? Okay. These replays live on Instagram. Well, not on Instagram, but they do live on YouTube and Facebook much longer than this live. So feel free to jump out if you need to jump out, but then jump back in when you can. Ask your question so we can answer it during the consult. 
And finally, I'll give you your prescriptions. Again, I'm not a doctor. I just like that term because it really does imply here's what you need to do. Go here, listen to this, blank, blank, blank. This is the exact same format, once again, that I follow in my Creative Checkup newsletter, which you can get on Wednesdays, which covers all of these five things or four things really. And the news is also in there as well. And that is how we're going to do our Creative Checkup. So let's see if this format works. You let me know if you guys think it's a good format. Give me a thumbs up. If you think it's not going to work, then just tell me privately, please. You know, don't tell me. 
Don't hurt me right now. All right. So speaking of our news and notes, we are still in the summer of success here at God and gigs. Okay. So summer success will go through September 1st. Now, what is the summer of success? Well, we've partnered with a lot of companies. Coaches including sandy B of 90 day winds. I'm currently going through a 90 day winds practice myself Personally trying to get 90 days of work done with my devotional which needs to be coming out the next devotional We already released one But I only did one and I was supposed to do like four and three months that I've only done one So my summer success is still going on if you want to join us in the summer of success 
i suggest the best way to do this to join our facebook group and tell us what you're working on for the summer, because we are going to be challenging you. We may do a challenge before this is over to finish this summer of success strong as a creative in your particular field. So be open with about your goals. I would love for you to join the membership, obviously to share it there. We're going to talk more about that, but the summer success is still going on. Those of you who might have wondered about that. Here's what I've been up to this summer and got on gigs as well. And I kind of put this all together so you know that there's things happening. 
That is not just me talking about stuff. Now, I just mentioned we released the devotional, the YouVersion devotional. It has over 200 people who have completed it. I would love to have more people completed because once you get into the hundreds and thousands of people that have completed your devotion, YouVersion tells us that. You can go to a YouVersion plan. It'll say over a thousand completions. so if you have not yet gone to you version and found the creators uh craft i've got to be careful because there's three more that i'm working on, but the creator's craft was the first one. So if you have not gotten the creator's craft on you version that's the bible app on most phones, it's just called Bible. 
Would you please go check that out? It's just three days and i would love to have more completions on the u version devotional it's huge that we got on that platform. That's not normal. for a author just to kind of get in there, usually it's a big platform for big authors. And I am very, very, very happy that we are represented as guiding Gigs. So would you check that out? Number two, our podcast workshop with ashonda brown was this past week. That was amazing. Last week, actually, it was Friday. So anyone that's not just a podcaster, but in content creation, go find that workshop, okay? It's on the shonda's page bootstrap biz advice bootstrap biz advice is where you can find that. She's got a new app out with her entire membership. 
And guess whose face is on the app? Yes, I did not break the camera, I promise. Yours truly got to be a model. I'm a model y'all i i who knew this was gonna happen? So I am a a face on the nashonda brown um uh app along with lex Roman. so it's just amazing. So go check out the podcast workshop. We've been doing that. We did a coaching call with one of our 360 members. I really should have recorded this, but i didn't. This was where we worked with one of our 360 coaching clients on her entire convert kit setup. This is the email platform that we use. They are doing a huge rebrand right now. Why does this apply to you? 
Because we're going to be talking about community in a second. And if you cannot reach your community without email, You are in trouble. OK, please. Good to see you in one. All right. You guys are joining us on Facebook. Awesome. Thank you so much for joining us, Juan. I would love for you to hear this. OK, so we're going to jump into Romans got a couple of minutes of news, news and notes are inspire creators collection open. Let me grab that real quick. If you would like to check this out, go to God and geeks dot com slash inspired. Got to get stuck on slash inspired. This is where again, you're going to hear this at the end. all of the resources we put to help you to get out of that stuck feeling, out of that, how do I create a community? 
How do I build my brand? How do I do what God has called me to do in my creative sphere? What do I use? Do I use social media? Do I build this? Do I have to know all this other stuff? What do I need to know? That's where guidinggigs.com slash inspire is to help you get out of that stuck feeling and it gives you the resources so that you stop delaying building the thing that God called you to build. Okay, that's why we have guiding gigs that comes as inspired. It's ten dollars a month Super easy to get into it connects you with our community with all the folks that are already doing stuff like we are Okay, we've got coaches in there. 
We've got trumpeters in there. We've got poets in there We've got pastry chefs in there. What do they all have in common? they have a god-given ability a god-given gift and they're working within it to create a lifestyle that That allows them to do everything that God has blessed them to do. That's why we call it 360. All right, finally, that's a personal thing. I relaunched my Sit, Sing, Swing series. And the reason I bring this up is because number one, it has a lot to do with my musician side. We relaunched this series that I've been doing, which has three concerts in the summer with my friend LaVie. It was an incredible opening night we did in this cool movie theater. It had the big movie theater behind us showing off our images. 
It came off incredibly. And the reason I'm mentioning that again, is because we're gonna be talking about that in a second. And I would like to use that as an example of how community can work for you. It's an entirely separate thing from guiding gigs, but yet improves what we're doing is working. And so I wanna make sure you guys heard about that and kind of give us some, I don't know, some prayers for that thing to go forward. All right, last news and notes, and then we're done. uh let me see. We need to go to this, because this is coming up soon. In about three weeks, my friend lashonda that i just mentioned is going to do her linkedin live monetization master class now why you might ask, why do i need this? 
Well, most of us creatives, we are struggling to make money. Most of us, we're struggling to make money either through our gigs, we're struggling to make money through our products, we're struggling to make money and sometimes it just seems like facebook and youtube and not necessarily YouTube, but more facebook and instagram are just that you're not going to find any income there. Like you're just not. Like you can try, you get viral, whatever, but it's not going to be a lot. LaShonda has broken the code and she's earned over ten thousand dollars using these strategies. So I've already told you, I've been on her live stream. I'm in her app. I'm telling you right now, this is a smart move to try this out in LinkedIn, which is like, 
glorious place where the algorithms are not ruling stuff and throwing trash in your face. Creatives, it is not just for business people in corporate types. This is exactly why I'm doing this because many of you are in the corporate world half-time and you're in the creative world full-time and you don't know, or half-time and you don't know how to combine the two. LaShonda has mastered this. She's all creative but she's also all business. so you want to get into this class lashondabrown.com linkedin live masterclass. It is a paid class, but it is absolutely worth it. And I have a code that you can use for 25 off. Okay. So I'd say, I think it is and make sure i get that right. What is my code? 
I can give it to you. I might type it out. Let's just make sure i get it. I might slow down a little bit while i'm looking to make sure i find it. LaShonda Brown membership. Thank y'all for waiting. It is going to be. My first name, so it'll be Alan25. Got it, okay. So if you want to get into this workshop, let me see, I can't do this comment on, actually I can do this comment on Instagram too. So let me do this quickly and then we'll get into the vital signs. You can use the code Alan25 and it will save you 25% off on this particular masterclass. All right, Alan25. So again, y'all, it doesn't matter what you are doing right now. 
If you are in the poetry scene, if you are in film, if you are in directing, if you are in music, there is something that you can talk about. There is something that you can share that could actually make income for you outside of the normal running around doing gigs. We call it guiding gigs because gigs can be several different things. things. It's not just performance. Most of my income is no longer coming from performance anymore. Okay. It doesn't mean I don't love to perform, but most of my income does not come directly from my performances. So this is why I'm trying to make sure y'all see and hear this from a Christian worldview, from someone that loves God, but also loves what God provides. 
And he can bless you with an income. If you try out these strategies, LashondaBrown.com slash linkedin live masterclass. Okay. 25 off if you use my code. All right. And we'll move on from there. Last little news. I'll come back to this later. I just want y'all to always know that our membership is growing. That is our membership. That's the 360 gold. Those are the people that are joining us in our membership. But I'm 18 minutes in. I want to go ahead and get to our content. I'll come back to the membership in a second. Y'all tracking with me? So now we're in the next part of the agenda. I want to make sure that we're following the agenda like we said. Now we're going to jump into our vital signs, reasons why you need a community. 
By the way, if you guys like this video thing, I'm using StreamYard. You can also find out about StreamYard. We'll talk about that a little later. Here's why. Let me jump onto my banners and get this ready. Let me first give you a back story of why you need a community now. and i'm going to talk about a specific post, not even a post, a comment that i made on somebody's web page or instagram post this post was i believe it was will i am from the black eyed Peas. And he was talking about why musicians are struggling to make money. And he said something to the effect that the music industry really wasn't invented to sell music, that most people made music made music and then they sold ads with the music, 
or the record players were designed to sell equipment and so on. So this was the thing that he was trying to make clear that music and musicians have to make money in other ways other than just the direct buy my song. A lot of people were annoyed with that particular clip. That was an old clip probably. But I got on and I commented and I won't read my entire comment. You can go into jazz memes if you want to see my comment. But basically I told them that Will.i.am is right. We are not in the business, musicians ourselves and artists in general. We don't sell art. We sell what art makes possible. Let me say that again to make sure you heard me so you don't think I'm like being crazy. 
We do not sell art. We know art and our abilities is priceless. You can't pay us for it. It's not priceless. my music is not for sale because my music doesn't come just from me. It comes from God. So really, on the purest form, art is truly priceless. There's no price you can put on it. But what you can put a price on is what it makes possible, what products make it possible, what feelings it makes possible, what experiences music and art makes possible. That's what you can sell. So that's basically what i was making the point of. So do you know 166 people, I don't know how many people like the post, but 166 people liked my comment. That's insane. I've never seen a comment get, I've never even had a lot, most of my likes, I don't get that many likes on my Instagram, but i got 166 likes on a comment. 
So this means I must have struck a nerve. So what am I bringing this up in terms of community? Well, one of the things that creatives are finding out all too quickly is that just selling their work is not enough. Just trying to go viral is not enough. You are struggling, you're pushing yourself and you're beating your head against the wall because you're trying to make something out of nothing when it comes to selling your art, creating products, making live streams like this one and what you're missing is the reason that you're not going anywhere is because you have not built the one thing that will make all those other things possible and that is a community so let's talk about the five reasons why you must build a community now now some of y'all in this live stream i'm going to cut off for a second mimi knows this mimi if you're watching you already know this okay and some of my other friends here that i've seen keith 
some of you have already built communities so i i know i'm preaching to the choir but this is for those who are watching who have not yet built a community and say well i what do i need a community for i just need to go out there and make stuff and do stuff and build stuff and create music and art and then the people will come if you build it they will come right not necessarily so let's talk about the five reasons why you got to build a community now this is going to hurt but so did my comment so i figured let me just stick with it Reason number one, this may hurt if you're listening and not reading it. If you're reading it, it may hurt just to read it. 
Your talent isn't what people want. How in the world could I make such a statement? Your talent isn't what people want. Wasn't Michael Jackson insanely talented? Wasn't Prince insanely talented? Aren't the stars of today insanely talented? Isn't talent the first thing that draws people in? Well, your talent is what catches their eye. But what your talent does is simply get them in the door. But you'll see plenty of talented people who people see, oh, they're amazing, and then just keep on moving. They'll go by their TikTok, say, oh my gosh, she's so talented, but they'll never stick with that person. Why? Because your talent isn't what people want. What they want is connection and meaning. what people want is meaning and connection more than they want just your talent. 
Because here's the thing, your talent technically can't do anything for them other than that moment that you sing, other than the moment that you play, other than the moment that your video comes on. Those things are temporary. It can happen for a minute and then it's gone. What do people do after the video is over? What do people do after your song is over? What do people do after the poem is over? Well, that happens. Y'all been to every single workplace cooler, water cooler. You've been there in the school room. What are people doing? They are talking about what just happened. They are talking about the latest Netflix thing. They are talking. so what people want more than simply the actual thing you made is the effect of the thing you made. 
That's what they really want. They don't necessarily just want to watch an amazing movie, Avengers, whatever, you name it. The universe around it that the social construct creates is what they want more than even the thing. And when they buy into your thing, then your talent can continue to draw them in. But what keeps them there is the other people. This is why you need to build a community now, because if you are relying on your talent, you are going to be in more and more competition, constant competition to try to out talent people. and let me tell you, that's a losing game because me, you, everybody, there's somebody out there that's more talented that is not a dig at you. It's just a fact. 
There are people that are more talented, but you have to stick with the fact that you create something that people want to be around after you're done singing, after you're done performing, after you've made the thing, they have something to hang on to. So what people really want is not your talent alone. They want the connection and they want the message and the meaning that creates this kind of feeling that what i watched, what i heard now kind of keeps going with me. That's what people really want. Great to see you, Wilfredo. Good to see you, man. El Jefe is in the building. Thanks for joining me, brother. and anybody else that's joining us in the last few steps last few seconds while i was talking let's move on to reason number two why you need a community as a creative right now you got to build it right away reason number two is you need momentum from a mission this kind of goes all these go very much hand in hand but if you have been stuck kind of feeling like i can't get anybody to pay attention to my stuff i can't 
seem to get any traction on social media. I do concerts and I don't know if anyone's buying tickets. I don't know if there's a... What you're really struggling with is you're trying to push that big rock of momentum up the hill and you can't do it by yourself. And once again, what actually creates momentum for creatives is not just fancy artwork, is not just a logo, is not just your website. What creates momentum is a mission. something that your art is about, not the art itself. So we just said it. People don't necessarily want talent. They want something after the talent that connects them. So now what connects them with the momentum is the mission that they share with you. Now, how do you get people to actually care about what you want? 
Now, you might say, I want them to love the music. I want them to love the art. I want them to go forward. I want them to be inspired. Well, yes. But Andy Andrews said two things about change. There's only two things that will make someone change. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt and what's in it for me. Proof beyond reasonable doubt and what's in it for me. So people that you want to join you and to connect with your community need to know what's in it for me. What's the mission? What am I connecting to? That makes me want to see and follow and buy tickets and do that. What are you about? And so the reason why you need a community is because the momentum comes when people are joining your mission. 
And when they're joining your mission, they're much more likely to connect with your art because your art is helping to lead the way of the mission. It's the same thing in evangelistic terms. We always say this about choirs, right? About praise teams. The praisers go first. Well, why does god always make the praisers go first? It's because people follow the music because the music is declaring the mission. Are you following me? The music declares the mission and the mission creates momentum from the people behind that are following the musicians. We get this crossed up all the time, musicians in church. I'm very sorry, but you have to remember the music is not the point. The worship service is not just because worship. It is only a vehicle to get the people thinking about the mission. 
The same thing is true in secular fields or any other area you are in. Your artwork declares the mission and then the people buy in and then it creates momentum because they are now buying into your mission for your creative art. If you're not doing that, you are stuck and you're going to feel more and more like you don't have any momentum in your creative life. This is why you need a community right away. I'm going to keep moving because I want to make sure I use your time wisely. Let's talk about social media. The third reason why you need a community now is because social media doesn't help you connect with people unless in parentheses. Social media, as we all know, I'm using it right now, is designed for one thing is to keep your eyeballs going to the next thing. 
If you're not going to watch this video, Instagram's about to show you something else that it hopes you will watch and continue to watch. And if you scroll, it's going to show you something else that you hope you'll watch. Why is this not helping you connect? Because Instagram has no goal of your own particular community to stay connected. Not if they're not going to watch. Not if they're not going to stay focused. Not if they're not going to fulfill the goals of Instagram and Facebook. That's not their goal. Their goal is to keep people watching and continually consuming more content. It is not designed for them to connect. Again, here's the unless. Unless, and here's where we have to decide what are we going to use social media for. 
Are you going to use social media to attempt to go viral? Or are you going to use social media to go deeper in connection with individual people? Because that is the only way social media can help you connect. It is in that follow-up. Pat Flynn says this all the time. He's an absolutely famous and influential marketer that I follow. He's one of the first courses I bought was from Pat Flynn. And he says, and I think many others have said after that, the fortune is in the follow-up. If you are not responding to every single like, every single comment, if you are not constantly replying, constant going back to DMs, no matter who the person is and simply saying, thank you for watching. 
Thank you for posting. What do you think if you are not going deeper with your social media, but simply looking at the like button, social media is not helping you and therefore you feel like you're stuck and you have no community to back you up. Social media is not the place to build community unless you commit to community this is making sense? If this is making sense, let me get a heart or a like because sometimes I get talking and I'm rambling. I want to make sure that I'm tracking with you guys. But this is making sense that social media is not helpful unless you are making connections. I'll give you some examples. Our current, one of the podcasts I work with right now is tracking up to about 10,000 followers right now. 
But do you know that every single time that somebody's joined, I've tried to do this and I tried to automate it, but automating didn't work. If they follow us and they have a public profile, I send a message saying, thank you for following me. And like I said, we're going into 10 thousands. So I might have to get some help, but I am responding directly. When someone sends in a direct message, we're responding directly to that direct message every single time. And now that podcast is now top 25 in America. the spotify rankings for religion, it was already there, so i can't take credit for that. But I do feel that we're working hard to deepen the connections through social media, through our facebook page. 
Same thing on the guiding gigs page. Same thing on my other pages. We deepen connections through social media. We do not go wide. We try to go deeper. And that has worked for us. So I would suggest that you need this if you're going to stick on social media at all. Make sure you're going deeper because social media does not help you connect unless you go deep. I hope this is helping. Let's move on to number four. The fourth reason why you need to build a community, Mr. Mrs. Creative right now is because authenticity is becoming priceless. And yes, we are talking about those famous words AI. Have y'all noticed how few times you can look at a post and be sure it's real? 
I will not talk about the election at all on these posts. I will simply use it as an example of where people are super skeptical of anything that they don't touch themselves, see themselves, sense themselves. It's like we're in the matrix, y'all. Any of my friends that know still remember the Matrix. I feel like that's like an old movie now like a like a classic old movie. But I feel like we're in the matrix when it comes to ai because we are erasing the line between what is real and what is false and nobody believes anything. So authenticity is becoming a superpower. Being real and people knowing that you are who you say you are, that you said what you said, that you sang what you really sang, 
that this video wasn't doctored. Authenticity is becoming priceless. So you need to build a community now because otherwise, guess what? People are going to start to question your authenticity. They're not going to know for sure if that's you. If they don't know you, they're not going to be sure that's your video. If they haven't been in an interaction with you, they're not even going to be sure. You can't be sure that these are my words. I'm being honest. Not deep fake, I'm not a deep fake, but I could say that and it could be a deep fake. How's the only way you're gonna know that this is really me on this video? It's because my community does know. It's because those that know me, know me. 
And those who know me and know my creative life and know what I'm creating, vouch for me. So that means when something comes up that somebody says, oh my gosh, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, said this or that, or some AI thing, whatever. The people that are in your community will be the ones that defend you and keep you from being sucked into this AI craziness where nobody believes what you create is really you. So you've got to build a community now because before you know it, people are going to question the authenticity of pretty much every artist unless they were in the concert, unless they know the person that was there at the concert, unless they trust the people that are there, you're going to find out that you will be harder and harder. 
It will be harder and harder for you to really prove that you are who you say you are, that your stuff is legit. You need a community like stacked because otherwise you're going to be running up against, again, a bunch of robots, a bunch of fakes, a bunch of things. And I'm not saying this to scare you. I'm just saying it's because it's true. Podcasters, I'm in this thing with a lot of podcasters who are dealing with AI voices. Some are saying, yes, let's do AI voices. Other people are saying, this is exactly what we don't want because now people can just copy my voice and they don't know it's really me. And I tend to lean on that side. I tend to lean on the side where, you know what? 
AI is great for a lot of things, but I want this to be me every time you hear it. I never want it to be where you're not sure that this was really my voice or my words to you. So Authenticity is becoming priceless and you're going to need a community for that. So that's why you got to build one now if you don't already have one. And finally, creator communities last. Viral vanishes. And I think you can tell this is where I've been leading the entire time. I can point to every single band that you can think of, whether it be the Grateful Dead or the Rolling Stones or I'm trying to think. Earth, Wind and Fire. I'm trying the Beatles like whatever the community around that band or those groups, the Beehive, right? 
Every single one of these groups last even after the artist tends to fade away. Or maybe their biggest hit fades away. But the creative community sticks together even when the artist is no longer active. Creative communities last. So that's why you got to build one now. If you are in any kind of creative project, if you're stuck in that little kind of, I don't know if I should build this thing. Guess what? You should build it with people because the people will last longer than even the object that you build will. But if you start with just the thing with the art piece and whatever, then you try to build around the art. Only you're going to find yourself where it's more of a flash in the pan. 
And we don't want that What we want are creative communities that last longer than we do the bible talks about counting the cost Making sure that you have what it needs what their project needs to finish what you need to finish and honestly Some of us we start and we can't finish because we didn't count the cost Of building something that could last in terms of our creative life so we get frustrated, we get mad because I did all this work and nobody liked it. Well, because you didn't try to create a community around it. You just created a thing and then you hoped people would like it instead of creating a community first. Where now, no matter what you make, people can connect with it. 
And let me go back quickly. Remember that this doesn't work unless you have a mission around your art. If you have a mission, that people have something to connect with and your talent that can help create the things that help amplify the mission of your art, of your creative life. But it doesn't replace it. Even if i didn't play piano, I would still want people to connect around shared experiences. That's my goal. My piano helps that happen. So as i said at the beginning, this is not about talent. People don't buy your music. They don't buy your art. They don't buy that. That's priceless. What they buy is the experience and things that you make possible through your art. And that is why you need a community so that people can share in that experience. 
Well, my friends, okay, I went through my process here. I hope you guys got something out of that. Did you get any questions or anything else out of that? Because remember, we're going to go into lab work. We only got about 40 minutes left or 20 minutes left. so we're going to go into the things that are working over here that i've been using that hopefully that will help you as well to do those things. And we just talked about community, right? So first things first, I got to tell you about that's helping me build community. And that is what i mentioned with ConvertKit. Now ConvertKit is my email platform. And I'm just going to give you an example of how this is working for us because what convertkit does is convertkit actually helps me segment my 
emails and find people who have been to, let's say in this case, the sit, sing, swing thing that i mentioned. I said i was going to share my screen. I might do this. Let me see if i can share my screen real quick. I'm going to go find Facebook. And I'm going to show you at least an example of one community that we've built where this is working. So let's see if i can share screens. Give me a second, y'all. um present slides, share screen. I'm going to go to groups on Facebook. I don't want to share the audio. Let me know if you guys can see my Facebook now. Let's make sure it's coming through. Give me a yes if you can see the Facebook or a thumbs up if you can see the Facebook. 
The reason why I'm using this as an example, y'all, I think it's popping through. The reason I'm using this as an example, It's because this Facebook group has been around since 2017. This is an example of a community that we built around sit, sing, swing, which is our summer music series. And the people that are in this group, of course, they like the music, but you know what they like even better? They like each other. Whoops. Is this thing? I got to get inside the family. There we go. So here we have people who are sharing and everything. And the reason I mentioned this in terms of ConvertKit is because all these people are on my email list. And when they join and they buy a ticket, I can instantly send them a link to this particular Facebook page, this group, which is private. 
So nobody that is in this group has not been to a show. Everyone in this group has been to a show. And so when I email them, I can say, oh, hey, thanks for coming to July's Sissing Swing. Do you want to come back for August? I can be very specific and really connect my community together using ConvertKit because I've segmented it and I've tagged them and I've done all these things to make sure that they will stay connected. So that's what's working for me right now. The ConvertKit platform has been immensely helpful to make sure I keep this community connected. Okay, that's why I want to make sure I shared it in lab work because if you don't have an email list, you're relying on social to keep your people together. 
That's a very dangerous thing to do. Social can cut you off. But once you own email addresses, they actually will stick with you. You have a comment over here. Let me make sure we got everybody. Oh, thanks Wilfredo God good thank you for letting me know that was coming through. Awesome. So if you want to check out and by the way, I mentioned we did that coaching call with one of our members on ConvertKit. I gave them an entire hour. I cut my coaching cost in half for my members. Normally it's $200 an hour. We cut it down to $100. She got way more than an hour because we just stay it on and I just helped her format her entire New workshop strategy that she's doing she is a coach that she's using creative elements and here's where like it really blends guys The creatives in our group are learning the business the business people in our group are learning about the creative So each group if you are creative trying to figure out the business side You figure it out because we help you if you're more of a business corporate person making the transition to creative We help you figure it out because we're creative so we use 
all the amazing musicians and artists that we're following and we give you guys the examples of what they do so that you can do what they do and stop being a closet creative. Stop hiding your talent. Stop hiding your gift in a traditional nine to five or help you blend it in a nine to five in a hybrid type of way. That's what we do in the membership. I help you figure that out from business to creative, from creative to business, all under god's umbrella of how he wants us to live our lives. as multi passionate creatives. So this is what's working for me right now. ConvertKit using that, using the segmenting. I've got lists again on list on list. I know where every single person is in our group. 
I know exactly how many shows they've been to. I know how much money they have spent. I know what kind of music they like, and I'm able to send them emails to help them get. And so we were able to meet our target for this last show. And yeah, this is what's working for me. So if you want to join me in godandgeeks.com slash ConvertKit. Actually, there's... Oh, wait, wait, wait. Hold up. I got a new link. Shoot. Where is it? You might already have... Maybe you're on MailChimp. Anybody here is on MailChimp or what are some of the other ones? Constant Contact. You might already have an email list, but you've never... I need to build this real quick. Hold on. Give me a second. 
Because I forgot I had this list, this new link. I just made it. I just made it. Give me a second. Wait, maybe I could just edit this one. I'm just going to edit it faster. ConvertKit. If you put ConvertKit switch. So this is for those of you who already have an email list and you're like, okay, but I don't, I don't, what do I, how do I do it? Do you know these people will actually give you an expert that will help you switch and So go to ConvertKit Switch, guidinggeeks.com slash ConvertKit Switch, and they will help you get from MailChimp, from Constant Contact, from some of these other platforms. They will help you switch, okay? So this is an excellent way for you, again, to build community. 
You gotta be a part of these groups. So that's what's working for us right now, okay? That's our lab work. Now, consult. do any of you have any questions about what is going on right now? Because if you have any questions, I would love, this where the console comes in, but i'd also love for you to help us out by answering some questions about you. So I would love to know if you have any questions about what you're not not just about what guiding gigs is doing in general, but just things you'd like to see more of, things like that, you can go to guidinggigs.com feedback and that's where we can start the console. I would like to hear from you. Gotten gigs calm slash feedback. 
Okay. I don't have that link right now. Let me see if I find it. I might just put it in the, I might put it in the comments. So you guys can see that one there. Give me a moment, if I could type and do the same time. So that wouldn't be awesome help you just like basically about, I just like 15 questions or so, just telling me about you and telling me about what you would like to see in God and Gigs. And that's something that you guys could do to help us as a group, to help us as a platform, and then most importantly, that we can help you more. So no matter when you're watching this, if you're watching this on replay, go check out Godandgigs.com slash feedback. 
Okay. Oh, there we go. I see Anne. Anne is in the building. Mills was also in the building. Very cool. I'm so glad you guys are with us on Instagram. I love the fact that Instagram is continuing to bring people to our community. As you can see, this is community is what we're talking about. So this was a really blessing. So that's the consult. But if you have any questions about what I've shared, about building communities, how I've done it in sit, sing, swing, got in gigs, keepthemusicplaying.fm. And I know there's probably another one I'm forgetting right now. How many communities have I built? Basically around my music career has been, Sit, Sing, Swing is a separate thing, a music career. So Alan Paul Music has its own community. 
The Insiders. Oh, I would love to answer this, by the way. You haven't asked, but how do you name your community? I've struggled with this for years. What should be the name of your community? Well, the first thing I've found is it's best if your community names itself. If the people that are following you give themselves their own nickname. Now, Forgotten Gigs, we've never gotten a good nickname. I started with gig lifers i hated it, didn't work, nobody's used it, and that's probably the problem, because i tried to name them myself. So it's always best if your group has a name, but then if it doesn't, always try to make sure that your name connects with your mission, okay? I call the music insiders insiders because they're the inside. 
They get first dibs on where i'm going to show up. The emails get to them first. The discounts get to them first. Um, I've sent, um, the 50 for 50, the people that are supporting my recording project, they get the, uh, demos first. I'm going to be doing demos and they will get them first. So they're the insiders, right? So whatever your name of your community is, let it be connected to the mission that you're forming. And that way they will know that they are special. They are included that they are seen. Okay. So that's my consult for the moment. And then finally prescriptions. Okay. How do we like this format? I liked it. It gave me some more structure. I felt very much more comfortable knowing that we were following our format here, that I wasn't just kind of like winging it. 
And so let's talk about things like, no, let's be more organized. So this is the same thing that happens on our newsletter. As I mentioned, the newsletter you can get at gotandgigs.com slash info. Okay. Check us out at gotandgigs.com slash info. so last five, ten minutes, let's just talk about prescriptions. Here are the things that you need to do next. First of all, what i believe that will help you thrive is to go listen to this podcast with the og of guiding gigs, Trent Phillips. Let's take that out of the way so you guys can see it. There we go. Trent Phillips honestly was the first mentor i had when it came to guiding gigs. Um, Mills, you know, like the people I'm looking at in this circle and they're watching, you guys mostly know who Trent Phillips is. 
But if you don't, if you've heard Donnie McClurkin's classic psalms and spiritual songs, hymns and spiritual songs, that's when Trent started with him. And so he's been Donnie McClurkin's MD for years, worked on the Super Bowl, Sundays, the Stellars. You name the gospel project, Trent has probably been in the middle of it or connected to it in some way. He's an amazing man, amazing father now, amazing husband. And he gave us one of our first big interviews back in 2020. And I said, you know what? This cannot stay four years in the past where people had to scroll all the way through Facebook to find it, or scroll all the way through their podcast player. So we brought it back this last time, GodinGigs.com slash 295, if you wanna find it on your web browser. 
or just follow the guiding gig show slash podcast on any browser you'll be able to find it and of course on your podcast players uh apple spotify i'm very big advocate for indie podcast players like fountain like curio caster like true fans you might never heard those names but we're very much promoting the podcasting 2.0 so um we are trying to be on the cutting edge of this kind of stuff so if you use a different podcast player that's cool um i'll tell you a lot more about those podcasting 2.0 because I have a show that's just on podcasting 2.0 apps. But this is what I would like you to do. That's one prescription. Our second prescription is to definitely sign up for the LinkedIn masterclass. 
Remember, LaShonda is a creative. She's a theater major that now is doing amazing work by helping people monetize their brands and monetize their art and monetize their gifts and their service businesses. Creatives, you guys, I'm talking to y'all. Sometimes I'm talking to the business folks that need to get more creative. Now I'm talking to the creatives that need to get the business in order. Y'all need to come to things like this more often. Most of us musicians, we don't do it. We try to go out here and i just explain to you that talent is not enough. You need to come up with new strategies. I suggest you go to lashondadebrown.com linkedin live masterclass use my code allen25 saves you 25 25 off of the, um, admission price. 
I'll be there. Um, and i'm going to be taking in i know linkedin has not been as, um, a priority as it should be, but every time i post it on LinkedIn, I get so much more real feedback than i do from facebook or Instagram. So I suggest you join this linkedin live monetization masterclass, how you can use mon. monetization in linkedin to make like lashonda has ten thousand dollars or more using her strategies. Again, we're talking about someone that i love and appreciate and she's my mentor in YouTube. Everything you're seeing i'm doing is probably something with shonda either suggested or tried or i watched her do and i copied it blind, copied it like immediately like hey i'm gonna do what you do because you're smart and you do this right and your youtube is blowing up to 30 000 members i'm gonna do that too because i want to get to a thousand members we're right at 9 22 
So again, y'all should be liking, should be subscribing, helping us get to that goal. Because why? Because we're a community. Because our shared mission is to help creatives to fulfill their God-given goals no matter where they create. Whether you're in corporate, switching over to creative, or whether you're creative, trying to use more business strategies and be more fulfilled and thrive more in your creative field. That's what we're here to help you do. we're here to help you to really figure that out, okay? To help you connect the dots between your spiritual life and your creative life. That's the mission. So if you believe in that mission, you should also want to thrive in your own mission. And that's my goal for you is to really thrive. 
That's why i want you to go to theshondabrown.com linkedin live masterclass. Last prescription. I believe you should definitely check us out at guidinggigs.com slash gold. Our membership has been on fire. It is growing. I've got all these people over here that are in our gold membership. That is our paid side. The guests are people who are paid one time and are still in it. They are, you know, hanging out in the forums, but they don't necessarily get the live coaching. The live coaching is for 360 gold. So if you're interested in becoming a guest and just checking it out for free, you can go to guidinggigs.com slash 360guest. That's my prescription for you. If you are serious about really jumping in and getting yourself out of that stuck feeling and getting real help into your creative life, then I suggest you join us in gold, which you can go directly to the front of the line at guidinggigs.com slash gold. 
All right, my friends. Losing my voice. Let's see if we have any more comments, any more in the consult. Happy to head up and looking forward to watching this in the replays. Aaron from Worship on the Streets in UK. Thank you so much for joining us, Aaron. I am so glad to see you. Aaron was an amazing member and he is still a part of the community. He is still doing amazing things in the UK with evangelism, street evangelism. Aaron, so good to see you. This is a perfect example and pop up that comment. I forgot i can pop up these comments. So thank you so much for that. Thank you, aaron for joining us. Let me see if i had any other comments there. 
Here's the link i mentioned about the feedback. If you want to sign up and give us some feedback on what you're doing, what you need, and what you need more of from guiding Gigs, this is the consult. Go to guidinggigs.com feedback it's about a 15 question survey we'd love to hear from you and let you let me know what you need more of. um remember if you want to join the master class go to garden gigs i'm sorry to lashonda brown.com and then use alan 25 to save that 25 off. Or, I keep saying dollars, it's percent. um it's close to that, basically. It's about a hundred dollars or so, so, but yeah, it's around 25 But, either way, I want you to go check that out all right my friends, that is it for there we go. 
Wait, I gotta go here. There we go. My friends, this was a great one. I enjoyed this. This was a great call. This was amazing. I hope you enjoyed it too. Let me check in on my Instagram folks before we sign off. So glad you guys joined us. Wonder Music. Thank you for joining us. Mimi J Mills was in the building. We had a lot of other friends kind of jump in. Charmaine jumped in for a moment. It was good to see you as well. And everybody joined in on Facebook and who's watching us on replay. Thank you guys. God bless you. And until next time. Continue to become the creative that you were created to be. God bless you guys, and we'll see you next Friday, same time, 1 p.m. 
Eastern.