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Success Stories: Craig Harmann on Blogging and Music Publishing · The Daily Writer

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome my friend.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad that you've joined me for this episode of the Smart Business Writing Podcast.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: If this is your first time listening, this is the show that helps you grow your business, amplify your authority, and increase your impact through the power of writing.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Kent Sanders and I'm an author, ghostwriter, and professor.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're a regular listener, welcome back.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: It means so much that you're joining me on this episode.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: I truly appreciate it.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, today is the start of a new monthly series here on the podcast.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: So let me take a minute to share what it's all about and then I'll introduce our guest.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: My overarching goal with the show is to help you grow your business with writing, whatever kind of business you're in.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: I love doing interviews and connecting with people, and one of my life's greatest privileges is connecting with successful authors and business leaders through the interviews that I do here on the show.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Just in the last couple of weeks, we've had amazing interviews with Lee Cockerell from Disney, Anissa Holmes from the dental industry, and in the coming weeks, we have amazing interviews coming up from Aaron Walker, Jordanie Mayberry, Dan and Joanne Miller, Mike Kim, and tons of other amazing people.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now again, I love doing these interviews, and I really get a lot out of these and I love sharing them.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: But I also realize that it's easy to sometimes feel a disconnect when you're just starting out.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: You hear from all these amazingly successful people, and if you're not careful, it can be a little bit discouraging.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I confess that I have felt that way many times over the years.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever I hear interviews with people who've built their own successful businesses or have books on the New York Times bestseller list or have these other amazing accomplishments, you see their accomplishments, then you see yourself, and you make this huge comparison and you think, oh, there's no way I can relate to that person.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing to remember is that the vast majority of these successful people have been working at their businesses a very long time.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: In most cases, at least a decade, if not several decades.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: So whenever you're just starting out and building your business, or if you're just getting into writing, or you're just making a career transition, there can be a huge disconnect between where you feel like you are and where those other successful people are.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I really wanted to showcase some people here on the podcast who are in the building stages of their business.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: These are people who are doing the work consistently, they're putting out great content, and they're really helping people.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm simply calling this series success stories because I want you to know that you can be successful too.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: And in many ways, you might relate to the people I'm featuring in this series more than you relate to some of the guests that I interview on Fridays.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the cool thing is that you can learn from anybody.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: You can learn from people who have been building their business a long time, and you can also learn from those who are just in the first few years of building their content-based business.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: So with all that said, sometimes I have a tendency to over-explain things, I realize that, but I did want to want to make sure that all that is clear on why I'm doing this series.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: So with all that said, I want to introduce the very first guest in this monthly series on success stories.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: His name is Craig Harmon, and he's a musician, writer, music publisher, and entrepreneur.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Craig has a blog called Church Music Makers, where he writes for church musicians.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: And he also hosts a podcast by the same name, Church Music Makers, where he touches on all kinds of issues related to church music.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Craig is open and honest, which I very much appreciate.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: And he's also one heck of a writer.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: He really has a gift for communication.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: So even if you're not a church musician, I'd encourage you to check out his blog and his podcast just to get his perspective on life.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: In this interview, Craig talks about his journey as a writer.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: He talks about some of the tools that he uses for writing and also where he's headed next and lots of other cool stuff as well.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever you finish the interview, make sure and check out the show notes at KentSanders.net slash one four seven for the links.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Again, that's KentSanders.net slash one four seven.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: All right, let's get to the conversation with my friend Craig Harmon.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Craig, welcome to the podcast.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate you being the very first person in this new series called Success Stories.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thanks for having me, Kent.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate it.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to dive in uh for a few minutes here this afternoon into what you've been doing on your blog because it's really, really impressive.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's been inspiring to me.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think you're a great writer, and I think your story will inspire other people as well.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: So is that cool?
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thanks.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate that.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I've done some various blogs throughout the years.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um and Church Music Makers is one that I started last August.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, August, it was August of 2018.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um and for the first year, I really didn't get much in the way of traction, and a lot of that was just me writing and not sharing and being really sporadic with it.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then about August of 2019, I decided I'm gonna write every day and try, or at least somewhat every day, and try to be topical in the posts that I write, um, and then share it as much as possible.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's what I've tried to do.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, Mondays I've been writing for handbell directors and ringers, Tuesday's been for choir and so on, just to have a different topic every day.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: And and that's really connected with people and has really gained a lot of traction.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: So is your audience, would you describe your audience as church musicians who um who are involved in things like choirs and handbells, or is there a lot of your material that also applies to basically any type of church musician?
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's the hope is to be as broad as possible.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um I um my feet are in basically every aspect of church music, whether that's traditional music, whether that's contemporary music.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: So Thursdays I try to write for contemporary worship groups and worship leaders that way too.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um that's the hard part, I think, of just not really, I mean, it's obviously a niche, but it's a very broad kind of niche as well.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: So to try to distill that down can be a little bit challenging.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know what that is funny because, of course, as you know, my background is worship ministry as well.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I think from the outside, people who maybe aren't involved in church or people who are involved in church, but they're not involved in music or worship arts, they don't really realize all the tiny little niches that can happen in the church worship space.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's it's as varied as you can possibly imagine with different instruments, excuse me, different instruments, different um genres, different styles, different philosophies.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it just runs the gamut as much as you can imagine.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, absolutely.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: So let's talk for a second about where you actually get your ideas for your blog posts because you're incredibly consistent in what you're doing.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you're a great writer, which takes time.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think you communicate your ideas really well, but a lot of people struggle with finding ideas for what to write about.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, how does that happen for you?
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, step one, uh, at least until June, I'm a full-time church musician.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so a lot of it is just from um the experiences that I have on a regular basis.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I've been a church musician full-time for 17 years.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: I've played the organ since I was 16.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: My dad was a pastor, so I grew up around the church.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I've got experiences to draw from in that regard.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: But another way, too, has been just being a part of different groups in Facebook and seeing some of the conversation and different things that go on in there.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and if you see the same question or similar questions come up in a couple different groups, that kind of triggers that thought of, well, maybe there might be something that people want to know here.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's another place for me to get some ideas from.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: So you would say a general principle there would be get involved in groups, find out what people are struggling with, what their problems and issues are, and that can be a really good source for knowing what to address and how to how to speak to their pain points.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that makes sense.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm writing down some notes here.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: The question will be are they going to be legible later?
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's gonna be a million-dollar question for sure.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: The answer is maybe.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's a strong maybe.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: What would you say your goals are with your writing long term?
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I I know as you mentioned, and of course, this is public knowledge, you've resigned your position at your church.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: So, what's next for you, and how does writing play into that?
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: That is the question of my life right now.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my degree is in education, so um going back into the classroom could be a part of that, but I've also enjoyed teaching private lessons as well, so that could be uh another piece of that.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um really a big part of why I'm stepping back from my full-time position is um spending more time with my wife and girls, having more control of my schedule.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and a lot of that also comes in with having this heart for church musicians and trying to figure out a way that I can do that, either whether that's being freed up with time, uh doing something else to be able to do more in the way of coaching or writing more, that kind of thing.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um I definitely want to keep writing and and make that a priority because you're not the only one to tell me that my writing is good and it connects with them.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: I and that helps.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's it's one of those things like when you put together a podcast or a blog, you you write it, you speak it, and you put it out there and say, is somebody actually listening to what I'm saying?
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: And and to get that feedback is is really positive and helpful.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: So at this point, I'm still trying to figure that out.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: We're uh opening up lots of doors and and seeing what uh what stays open and what closes.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Let's dig into your writing tools a little bit.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Can you walk us through okay?
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: You have an idea for a post.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: What do you actually use as far as your tools to get that out of your head and then onto, I assume your site's WordPress, right?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: It is WordPress, yeah.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: So what's your process?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what writing tools are you?
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: Typically, and I'm I'm yeah, I'm not much of a an actual like I'm gonna come up with an outline.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: It all kind of ends up in my head and just comes out.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so basically I type the blog post in WordPress.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, pretty much I add it as I go.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um if I'm if I'm using my time wisely and planned ahead.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um Mondays are my day off, so that's usually the day that I try to write at least maybe two to three or the whole week's worth of blog posts.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um that doesn't always happen like I want it to.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: I can relate to that.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um a lot of times it's that morning I wake up and oh yeah, I was gonna write about this.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I I keep an Excel spreadsheet of topics.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: So as I'm going along, um I'll try to, you know, kind of plan ahead a little bit to say, okay, this is the month out of this is what I want to do.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, you know, going with a daily topic that kind of helps to know this is where I'm going for this day, for this day, for this day.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: So those are my big things.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not, you know, I know I end up, I think, doing things a little bit differently than all the experts say, you know, that you're supposed to come up with an outline and revise and do all this.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of that I just end up doing in my head.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm the longer that I go on this writing journey and so forth, I'm convinced that a lot of what the quote unquote experts say that I'm not sure they really practice all that themselves.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: True.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because I mean, I know, and you probably had this experience as well, where you write a poster, you're talking about something from your own life, and I think we all have a tendency, maybe this is confession time and I may need a priest, we'll see.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I think we all have a tendency to make it look like we're a little bit more organized and thoughtful than maybe we truly are.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's just me.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so once once a post is live on your site, where does it go from there?
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: How do you share it?
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: And now, and particularly I know that and I'm sorry, I don't remember the exact details, but over the last six months or so, there have been a couple times where you've had really high traffic on your site.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm curious if you can break that down a little bit for us.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it's it's really random in a lot of ways.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: The the posts that I think are really going to resonate with people and connect with them sometimes seem to fall really short.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: And the ones that are just the most random, um, like I had the what was it, a week ago, I think it was.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it was a it was a choir post about something.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, um, oh, it was with um a smaller choir.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what do you do if you have you know six to eight singers?
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I didn't think it was really that great or insightful, um, but I ended up with about 500 views on that post.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, it was it was great.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: It was just a surprise.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: So um once I write the post to make it live, um, I I copy the link and share it in basically I've got a list of different Facebook groups.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, for choirs, I'm gonna specifically share it in about four or five different choir Facebook groups.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, handbells, the same thing, um, and not just a general, you know, hey, I'm you're a church musician, I'm gonna throw this out to you.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: I try to specifically target um specific groups to share in that in that realm.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: And Facebook has been really the biggest way um that I've connected with people.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I mean, looking at my statistics, it's like I think 95% is Facebook, and then like another, I want to say like two, two and a half percent is Twitter, and then the rest of it is LinkedIn, and then other just random things.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's worked really well for me.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: Again, like I like was saying before, I kind of do things differently than the experts, you know.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: Of um, you know, you're supposed to, you know, do all this other stuff here and there.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I I've just found that that works really well.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm making a note here to uh remind myself later too, because I'm gonna do a little wrap-up uh at the end of this episode.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this is a really important point about knowing where your audience hangs out and where your traffic is coming from, because so many of us don't pay any attention to that.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: But once you know where that traffic is coming from, then you can maximize that or really target those groups and be more strategic about it.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's good.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's really good.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'd like want to shift gears a little bit here for a second.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so you're not just a worship pastor and a writer, but you also are someone who creates your own music and sells it.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: So, and books as well.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd like to dig into that a little bit.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: If you can share with us kind of the story behind writing and creating your own music and selling that online in addition to your books, because that's a great additional income stream.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I I love the fact that you're doing that.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I definitely need to be doing it more.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um I can relate to that.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's always the challenge, right?
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's the time management of life.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, no, so basically, the the majority of what I've done online with composition, and we'll start there um with selling compositions has been through SheetmusicPlus.com.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they have a hosting service essentially that you can upload your music there for free, and they'll sell it for you, and you get I think it's about 50% royalty, um, which is actually really good in compared to standard publishing.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that once you get standard publishing, it's usually 20-ish percent.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because of course they've got all the overhead, the physical copying, and all that.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: This is all digital.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um the only problem with that is you have to do all the marketing.
• 16:41
  unknown: Okay.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's probably the biggest area that I've struggled, hey, really just overall in what I'm doing, because my training is in education, I'm not business or marketing at all.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so a lot of this, a lot of this I've learned on the fly.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so some of it's through experience, some of it's through reading.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but the biggest thing with that is um you know that that they do all the work for me.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um I've actually recently moved a lot of my compositions to my website to try to sell directly from that.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um we'll see how that goes.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then with the with the devotion books that I've written, um, I just went through Amazon, um, did them all as as Kindle books, um, figured out how to do that through Scrivener, um, just to create them that way, um, and then uploaded them to Amazon and um have had a decent amount of success with that.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, the uh Christmas one I did, I added five new ones this past Christmas and actually uh did it as a uh print on demand.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um so Amazon has the service where you can actually print physical copies and actually ended up, I think I sold like about 15 physical copies of the book, um, which was a very pleasant surprise.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, that's fantastic.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: That that really is.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's really cool.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: And there is something special about giving people the option of holding a print book in their hands.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think that is something a lot of a lot of authors tend to overlook and maybe even sort of poo-poo that a little bit, like, oh, everything's got to be digital.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: But I mean, there's something cool about a print book, no doubt about it.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and I think of people like my mother's 80.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, she's got a Kindle, but she's not, she has no idea how to use it.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so, you know, people who are older um or who may not be the most technologically inclined, a Kindle book is gonna do nothing for them.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: So having a physical one definitely definitely makes a difference.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: What are some things that you're learning right now or some challenges that you're currently working through as a writer or an entrepreneur?
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: Time management is the biggest one.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think right now my biggest challenge that I'm facing is just trying to juggle so many different things, still being a full-time church musician and ramping all of that down, but also the fact that Lent starts in two weeks, so my life gets even busier.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but along with then trying to figure out what am I doing and trying to see if teaching more lessons and what that could look like, along with figuring out ways to make an income off of blogging and writing more, that kind of thing, it's it's a little challenging and sometimes feels very, very overwhelming.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then, like I said before, you know, my I know music.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: I know how to make music, I know how to play music, I know how to write music.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but the whole how to share that and and the the business marketing part of it can be really, really overwhelming.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it really is, and I I can relate to that as well because I think as a creative person, and many people listening to this are creatives at heart and would describe themselves that way.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: Some I think sometimes we just want to sit down and make stuff and not have to worry about anything else.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: But uh I guess that's not reality, so we've got to market our stuff.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, one final question here before we start the the wrap up here.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, any advice that you have for people who are just starting out on their writing or their blogging journey?
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think getting ideas and advice and input from others is helpful.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um but don't take it as gospel.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's probably the biggest thing.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um as I've gone along this road, I've tried to to get ideas and get advice input from the quote unquote experts, and it's helpful, it's good, but you you have to do your own thing.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: You have to do what what fits best for you.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, if I if I tried to do more with Instagram, it might work, it might not, I don't know.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: But Facebook has been the place that that has really connected with with church musicians the most.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, great.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's where I'm gonna stick with.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um I haven't done as much with building my email list as I as I probably could or should.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm still able to connect with people and build traffic that way.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's not to say that I'm not working on trying to build that up as well, but I think it's it's doing it, putting it out there, trying to get feedback as well, asking people what their thing, what their thoughts are, you know, is is this something that's relevant and helpful to you?
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um and asking people that you know and trust for their opinion that are going to be honest with you and not just some random person out in social media land, but actually somebody who you're close to, um whether that's your spouse, whether that's a friend, parent, whatever the case may be, um, really trying to get that honest feedback as well.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's hard to hear sometimes that that honest feedback.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Craig, this has been fun.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: How can our listeners how can people get in touch with you if they want to find out more about your music and your writing?
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the best place is to go to churchmusicmakers.com.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's my website.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's where I've got my blog.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's where I've got different services that I'm trying to offer as well, whether that's if you're create if you've got a song that you've written, a worship song that you've got a recording of and chord charts, but you want a lead sheet with the melody and all of that, I can do that for you.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: Or if you want me to come work with your choir or whatever music group.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: And also I'm working on getting into coaching as well.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're a church musician that wants some, wants a little bit of advice and encouragement and help, I'm happy to do that as well.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that's an important service because anybody who's been in church music knows that we all need some coaching and probably some therapy sometimes.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: Which is good because that indicates you know people are they want to get healthy and they want to be balanced and everything.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I'll have links to all that in the show notes.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Craig, this has been a blast.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate your writing and your friendship and uh just your positivity and generosity.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I I think it I think that's awesome and can't wait to share this with everybody.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I appreciate it, Kent.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Craig.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't a super long conversation, but it was packed with a lot of great insights.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: I know I learned several things, and I hope that it added value to you as well.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Just like my Friday interviews on these conversations on this success stories series, I want to end with three takeaways just to kind of boil it down for everybody.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: So here's my three biggest takeaways from this conversation with Craig.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, know your target audience.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: So Craig has a clear audience that he's writing to, church musicians.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: And because he knows really specifically who his target audience is, this allows him to go deep into that subject and directly address those people's concerns, their pain points, and their needs.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: So in your writing, do you have a specific target audience?
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: And are you clear about who you're writing for?
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're not, I really want to encourage you to think about that because when you know specifically who you're writing for and who you're creating content for, it just makes it so much easier because you can direct everything you're doing to that specific kind of person.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: Takeaway too, know where your audience hangs out and also know where they don't hang out.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: Craig mentioned that most of his interaction with his audience is on Facebook.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: And this is good to know because then he can target groups there with his content.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: So when you think about your readers or your audience, where do they live?
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: Do they live on Facebook?
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: Do they live on LinkedIn?
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: Do they live on Twitter?
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: Knowing those kinds of things really helps you avoid wasting time on social media platforms and other places where your readers are not hanging out.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: Takeaway number three is to develop multiple streams of income.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is a common theme you're going to hear on the show a lot, both from me and from probably a majority of our guests.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: We don't necessarily address the theme of multiple income streams in all of our conversations and interviews, but when you get to looking at the content that most of our guests are putting out, typically they're going to have several streams of income.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the reason for this is that multiple streams of income provides security.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: You never want all of your income to come from just one source.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason is because if something happens to that one source, then you're going to be in real trouble.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: Multiple streams gives you security because if one or two streams of income dry up or something happens, then you've got other streams that you can rely on to help keep you afloat.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: Craig sells music, coaching services, books, and he does training as well.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: Craig also gives music lessons and he can expand any one of those streams into more streams if he wants.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I really want to encourage you to think about multiple ways that your audience can experience your message.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just about books and blogs, it's also speaking, coaching, affiliate income, mastermind groups, book sales, online courses, live events, and lots and lots of other potential things.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: I know that whenever we talk about multiple income streams, it can get a little bit overwhelming because it's easy to feel a sense of, oh, I've got to be doing all these things simultaneously, and then you get overwhelmed and paralyzed and you don't do anything.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to really encourage you to think about one or two income streams that you can develop this year in 2020.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: You probably shouldn't try developing five or six income streams at one time, but just think about one or two things that you can be doing to bring in income, even if it's just a little bit of income.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you can get a little bit of income from one stream, chances are really high that you can get more income from that same stream, or at least related streams.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: So lots of stuff in this interview.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: Craig is a great guy, and I really want to encourage you to check out his blog and his podcast.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's really, really great.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: He's putting out some good stuff out there.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: And again, one other final thing before we wrap up is that a theme that you're going to constantly hear on this podcast is the concept of learning from industries that are not your own.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: For example, when I did the conversation with Dr.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: Anissa Holmes, she's a dentist and she has a successful coaching and training practice for dentists.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not a dentist.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know anything about the dental industry other than what I've learned about it the past year or so from some different people.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: But that's a pretty cool thing because then you can see what she's doing in her practice and in her industry to be successful with marketing and content repurposing and all kinds of other cool stuff.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: So you can learn from someone in that industry.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not a musician, you can still learn from someone like Craig, who's doing a lot of cool things to build an audience.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: He's a great writer.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: He's putting lots of cool content out there and being really consistent with it.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and I respect that a lot.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to be consistent with putting out a podcast.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to be consistent with putting out a blog or with anything that you're doing.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: So learn from people who are not necessarily in your industry, and you can get lots of creative ideas that will apply to what you're doing, maybe in different ways.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I hope that you enjoyed this interview.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: I definitely did.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um matter where you're at in your writing or your business, I encourage you to take control and set your own course for the future.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: Craig's doing a great job with this, and I'm really excited to see where his success goes over the next few years.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, friends, that wraps up this episode.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, remember that your writing has the power to change people's lives.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'll see you in the next episode.