Chris Do

Host, Producer

The Futur

I help people realize their value and communicate it to others.

Founder, CEO

Blind, Inc.

CEO, Chief Strategist, Executive Creative Director

SalesHood

Advisor

Entrepreneurs'​ Organization

Keynote Speaker

NO/BS Events

Keynote speaker at No/BS conference "Non-Talk" Talk.
Full day workshop "Branding & Business Bootcamp" Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.

USC Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy

Guest Speaker

Likha Summit

Keynote speaker "Abundance Mindset"
Workshop Social Media Marketing

Future Media Concepts

Keynote speaker for Video Creator University "The Journey From Creative Services To Content Creation"

State Farm

Internal presentation on "Growth Mindset"

Graphy

Loud Introvert with a big mission: Teach 1B people how to make a living doing what they love. I run Business Bootcamp/Futur Pro Community.

I ran a two time, Emmy award winning motion design/brand consultancy for over 23 years. In 2014, a friend encouraged me to make educational videos on YouTube. I reluctantly agreed. The decision changed my life and my business. Now, through The Futur, I teach creatives how to speak the language of art and business.

Book me to speak at your event or conduct a workshop on: pricing, sales, negotiations, content marketing, branding, storytelling, building community and influence.

Clients from Hell. We've all had our fair share of them so I've compiled a list of the 7 Deadly Signs with contributions from my Twitter friends: Phen, Margarita Mercado, Pri, and AJ Dimarucot. Go follow them.

If you've had a good laugh because some of these hit too close to home, learn how to spot these early on and avoid these clients in the future.

I have volume 2 and 3 in the works. Feel free to share your deadly signs of a bad client.

Bilingual creative who lives at the intersection of business & design. Content creator, public speaker, workshop facilitator.

Clients from hell

I’ll say it again for the people in the back. You are not weird. You are handcrafted, and limited edition. One of one. Ultra rare. You should command a premium.

It’s been a long journey of self acceptance for me. For a long time I would’ve done anything to be one of the “normal” people. Being weird meant being an outcast.

Weird is how others label someone who doesn’t fit in, in a negative light. It’s not until much later in life that I could reclaim the word as a sign of empowerment. I salute all of you have been able to embrace what makes you unique. Weird. Limited edition. It’s all about the attitude.

You can’t spell weirdo without Do.

Happy Wednesday. Tag someone who needs to see this.

What can 5 minutes a day do? Not much. But applied consistently over the course of a year, it could make a radical difference in your career or life.

This is the 1% principle and the math doesn't lie. It helps to explain the habits of highly productive and successful individuals. They give, at minimum, an extra 1% everyday.

What are you going to do with your 5 minutes?

1% principle

Successful people have a bias towards action. If you find yourself addicted to learning, but aren’t achieving the results you set out for yourself, you may be addicted to learning.
But as Robin Sharma said, “Knowing what to do and not doing it is the same as not knowing what to do.”

Learning without application is akin to an intellectual exercise. The good stuff happens when you apply what you learn.

So, put down the book. Stop watching the video. Don’t enroll in another course. Apply what you learn.

Everyone has a friend that's an askhole. You know the type.

They ask as if they really want to know, but don't listen. Some even argue back. Why did you even ask, then?

Sometimes, you even see the askhole twice a day. Once when you look in the mirror in the morning and once right before you go to bed. Don't be an askhole. If you aren't looking for answers, or already know it, don't ask.

Tag someone who might be an askhole. They'll figure it out. Or not.

Happy Monday! Wanted to salute all of you who are out there grinding everyday in pursuit of your dreams.

As they say, game recognizes game. Life is about hard choices and sometimes comes at the price of being popular, liked or understood.

I wanted to cite the source of this popular meme. As far as I can tell, Jonathan Yabut is the person who came up with this idea. He has a book out by the same title.

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I learned early in my career, that if I could hire someone to do the job that I was paid to do (even if I broke even), I was coming out ahead. How is this possible?

1. I had recaptured my time to do the things only I can do: Client relations, networking, lead generation, vision planning, research and development.

2. I was building out my company’s portfolio—a new piece to show that we can deliver the goods. I would be able to leverage the work to ask for more money in the future.

3. I created opportunities for others to make a living doing what they love. Over time, I got to work with artists with much more specialized skills (aka, who were better than me).

4. Able to take on more clients and scale up my team.

Now, I’m not advocating taking on work to break even. On the contrary. I want you to charge enough so that you can comfortably afford to hire others to help you. This was just an extreme example of how, even if you didn’t make any money, the importance of using your time to run your business.

Before you comment on this idea, I’m aware that making such choices takes you further from having your “fingerprint” in the work. This is the price you pay to be an entrepreneur. You have to lead. Hard to do so at the back of the line.

Share this with someone who needs to read this to grow their business. Share this with someone who works really hard but hasn’t made much progress in their careers.
Remember, every day, you have one less day to spend.

Things get better as long as you don’t give up. Every creative goes through this process of self love and self loathing in the pursuit of making something. The key is to not give up before things get good.

In life, sometimes you win and sometimes you learn. This graph was created by Maureen McHugh and later shared by Austin Kleon

Have you ever gone through a project thinking that this was the worst thing you’ve ever done? But then learned something valuable? Let me know.

Things get better

If there's something strange
In your neighborhood
Who you gonna call?
Trollbusters!

If there's something weird
And it don't look good
Who you gonna call?
Trollbusters!

I ain't 'fraid of no ghost
I ain't 'fraid of no ghost

If you're seeing things
Running through your head
Who can you call?
Trollbusters!

Join us this Thursday
9am PST
Linkedin Audio w/ Eric Moore

#linkedinaudioevent #socialmedia 

View event: Trollbusters: Turning Your Online Foes into Faux Pas

https://www.linkedin.com/events/trollbusters-turningyouronlinef7067286925233029120/

As a creative person, you might feel compelled to discount your services to generate a sale. Undoubtedly it works.

That's why so many people do it.


If you're going to do it, understand the psychology of what is happening. You may find other ways of achieving the sale without discounting or positioning yourself poorly.

With experience, my value increases over time. This is true with creative services as it is with products we create. The best price is the first price.

At one point, it was free to join the Pro Group, my paid coaching community. Today, it’s $250/mo. My one on one coaching rate started at $500/hr. Now it’s $1500. You see the pattern?

Clients and customers who wait around because they want a lower price will wait a really, really long time.

Hope this inspires you and gives you some confidence when stating your price. It should be backed by this belief that your current price is a bargain compared to tomorrow’s price.

I used to tell myself that I was a slow reader. I used to tell myself that I was average. Nothing special. Carry on.

Mr. Tuttle, my home room teacher from 7th grade, thought I was gifted. When I took my IQ test, I subconsciously sabotaged the results. My self story was too strong.

After constantly being compared to “smarter” cousins, and other brilliant children, I started to doubt myself. Why can’t I be a straight A student? Why am I so undisciplined? Why does my mind wander so much and why do I lose focus?

It wasn’t until my 40s that I realized how I read differently. I don’t read fast. I read deeply. I read at a pace that allows me to contemplate the meaning of what I read and with the intention to teach others. It wasn’t a race to finish. It was at a pace to understand. My whole outlook on books and myself changed.

It’s not how many books you read. It’s what you’re able to apply from what you learn that matters. Now, I have a whole new self story. Thanks for reading. Hope you’ll apply something from what you’ve learned.

The key to happiness is to be grateful for what you have while you make progress towards your goals. It’s a delicate balancing act to achieve. We often get disappointed in the in-between state of starting and completing.

Of the 5 Ps of marketing: product, price, place, and promotion, positioning is the most important.

Originally coined by Ad Men, Jack Trout and Al Ries, positioning is where your product or service lives in the hearts and minds of your customers, relative to your competition.

Therefore, to position your brand strategically, you need to identify a few things. Who are your customers? What do they need? More importantly what do they want?

he mistake most people make when identifying their customers, is that they go too broad, thinking this is their best chance for success. It is the opposite. Define your smallest viable audience (SVA). Start with them. How? Split the market until you are able to clearly “see” your customers in your mind and are able to speak and connect with them in an authentic way.

Customer centric marketing: know me, anticipate my needs, make my life simple, look out for me, reward me.

Next, identify who your competitors are. Do they have something in common? If not, it means you’re still too broad. How will you be different? Why will people care?
Once you’re able to do this, an effective strategy is to reposition the competition to create space for your brand.

Two examples. When 7-up launched, they used the tag line the Un-cola to reposition the established soft drinks. With one clever phrase, they created a new market for people who were tired of colas.

Listerine was the marker leader in the mouthwash category with a strong medicinal taste. They proudly boasted, “the habit you hate twice a day”.

Scope took aim at this. When they launched they used the line “no more medicine breath” and took a big bite out of the market leader.

Helpful? Let me know in the comments.

What does it take to have a positive mindset that leads to success? Which of these traits do you need to switch? Do you agree with this breakdown? Let me know. Curious to see what you think.

You don’t need a mentor. Find heroes. There’s an unlimited supply of them.

Don’t wait for someone to take you under their wing. Find someone you admire. Study their success.

Who is your hero? Tag them.

l've been super busy with speaking engagements and TheFutur Pro Group the past week. On top of that I didn't slow down during the weekend and wound up tired.


I had no energy and felt completely exhausted. This is what happens when I don't listen to my body and push myself to the limits.


This inspired me to share with you how I'm supposed to govern my schedule. Skipping the much needed self care day came at a price.


Let me know what you do to be more productive and get more done. Was this helpful to you? Do you want me to get more personal with my posts?

Get more done

Yes. No. Maybe. And how to respond. People mess this up all the time. Someone says yes and you keep selling. You’re thrilled they agree but have more to say. You’re proud after all. You keep talking and eventually the prospect gets up and leaves. Pay attention next time you try to convince someone of something. When they agree, do you keep selling?

Yes is the best answer. No is the second best answer. Maybe is the worse. It gives you hope. 17 proposals later you’ve made no progress.

Stay away from maybe.

3 possible responses

Value is subjective.
Value is contextual.
Value is relative.

The same service you provide will therefore have vastly different value depending on who you talk to.

Focus on results. Focus on what the client cares about. This is the way.

You don’t have to do things on your own. When appropriate, ask someone who’s been there before for help.

Robert Greene's 48 Laws of Power: law 13, appeal to the person's self interest. What’s in it for them?

Instead of saying I need help becoming a better designer, would you help me? Say, do you need assistance with production work? Are there any tasks I can take off your hands? I’d love to help you because I believe in what you’re doing.

Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Look for ways you can help fulfill their needs. Observe from their point of view.

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