David Smooke on Taking Incremental Steps, Community Building, and Unleashing Your Potential

David Smooke studied economics and creative writing in university because he liked to write and felt economics had real world applications. He believed these two areas of study would be practical skills to have for his career.

After graduating, David got a job as a journalist, but felt his creativity was being stifled. He was given assignments, and was given very little leeway in how he could apply his creativity.

So he saved up a few months rent and moved to San Francisco. This turned out to be the pivotal moment in David's career. It was here that he got his first taste of marketing while working for a startup.

At the startup David honed his marketing and community building skills. The lessons he learned here allowed him to start his own marketing firm called Art Map Inc.

In this episode, David talks about taking small incremental steps, the importance of community, and why you shouldn't hold yourself back.

Here are three things you can learn from David:

Small Incremental Steps Work

Many artists want to run before they even learn to crawl. They want to be a well-known, successful, artist, without figuring out what steps will help them get there.

If you've had trouble reaching your goals, that's a sign you might need to slow down. Instead of trying to tackle your tasks full speed, you need to break your goal down into smaller, more manageable, parts.

David believes everyone should work at their own speed. "Everyone moves at their own pace and whatever their age is irrelevant."

He believes we need to position ourselves to make giant leaps by taking incremental steps. "You have to do a million of these incremental steps to even be in a position to make the leap, whatever the leap is."

So, no matter what stage in life you're in, you can make strides towards your goal. You just need to be patient and practical about it.

The Importance of Community

One of the most important and overlooked aspects of a successful creative career is finding your tribe or community. As artists, many of us would prefer to work alone or in isolation, but we can't do everything ourselves. The most successful artists have a community they can count on in their moments of need.

David believes community engagement is much more important than vanity metrics like likes. An small active community around your work can make the world of a difference.

"One hundred likes aren't worth as much as one comment. Someone else actually contributing and being a part of it is always been more meaningful to me."

David owes the growth of his agency and publications to the community he's built around them.

"Really a lot of the initial growth, from the beginning, I owe to the community."

It has allowed him to grow his following from zero to tens of thousands of subscribers. It is how he built his business.

Don't Hold Yourself Back

One thing that holds artists back from growing their audience is holding work to themselves. If you have a tendency to hold yourself back when sharing your art, you are doing your fans a disservice.

"If you're a good artist, you're probably doing a lot more than you're putting online, and you're probably more interesting to look at your actual work and talk to you then it is to browse and search for you on the internet. So closing that identity gap is a lot of where I would start with."

David also believes you should share your work before it's even finished. It allows people to see your process while you're in the act of creation.

"I would also say that a major barrier that I see is that people being scared to put things out there before they're what they would call finished. You know, it's very acceptable and good marketing to put out there the process that you're doing, while you're doing it."

Don't wait for your work to end up in a gallery, or in the hands of your customer, to share it. Be proactive with sharing your art.

"You shouldn't wait to finish a painting, get it in a gallery, get it sold, and wait for that customer to put the painting online. You don't have to do that to market your art."

What many artists fail to realize is that your work is interesting to other people. People are interested in your process and how you create. Share that with them and you will start to build a community around your work.

"There are so many things around what you're doing that's interesting content to other people, that will create your audience and community."

Read more shownotes from episode 77 with David Smooke