ross-barberWhat is your creative mission?

To help musicians build an audience, sell more music and book more shows by having an awesome online presence.

What do you love about what you do?

I love that I can work with artists every day and help to make a difference in their careers. Being a part of their journey is a really great feeling, especially when you’re there from the start and see the success they’re achieving further down the line.

I also love that it gives me the chance to be creative, and how every project is different. That combination of being able to work with musicians, being creative, and only having to answer to myself (and my clients) is perfect for me!

What have you learned from your successes/ failures?

An early failure I learned from was not having contracts in place when working with clients. I had to realise that while most of the time, things are very friendly between my clients and I, it’s still a working relationship. The client in question vanished on me without paying an invoice – but because I had no contracts in place, I didn’t have any way of chasing this up. So I learned the lesson – always use a contract and take a deposit.

On a more positive note,

[bctt tweet=”I am constantly learning the power of networking and building relationships.”]

The more people I work with and the more people I connect with, the more opportunities I’m finding are presenting themselves. Being active on social media has definitely helped to attract more clients and build relationships that have helped me make progress in the industry.

How do you keep pushing ahead after a difficult challenge?

It can be tough when you’re feeling a little demotivated after running into a challenge. Sometimes it can be quite overwhelming when you’re balancing a lot of different things and something goes wrong.  Depending on what the challenge was, I might call someone else in a similar line of work and talk it through with them, or I might finish early for the day and give myself some time to recharge. Sometimes a break really helps.

[bctt tweet=”It helps to remind myself that we’re all human and we all make mistakes…”]

and that even though today has been challenging, tomorrow might not be.

Have you ever encountered resistance from family, friends or the world in general? How did you overcome those kinds of blocks?

When I told some people that I wanted to focus specifically on design for musicians (rather than design for anyone and everyone), I was told that it would never work and that focusing on a specific group of people was a bad idea. I knew myself that I didn’t have any interest in doing design for corporate clients or businesses, so I had to stick to what I wanted to do. It required a lot of persistence and blocking out the negative voices, which I guess in many ways was its own challenge!

How has your art and creativity healed you?

[bctt tweet=”The biggest way my creativity has healed me is just that I don’t feel lost now.”]

There was some time where I was working in jobs just to pay the bills while I tried to figure out what I wanted to do – and that was really hard for me. I knew all I wanted to do was something creative (whether that was music, or working with musicians in some capacity). So being able to create for, and with, musicians has definitely made me feel like I have some kind of purpose… and one that I enjoy!

What are your NFA bullet points? What steps would you recommend for anyone who wants to kick some ass and get their creative dreams off the ground?

– Find out what you love doing and see if it’s something that others can benefit from and/or enjoy.

– Always follow your gut! It’s rarely wrong.

– Get networking. Build relationships and offer help and value to others whenever you can.

– Ask for what you want. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.

[bctt tweet=”- Do what you love and do it with integrity.”]

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FIND ROSS

website: http://electrickiwi.co.uk
facebook personal: http://facebook.com/rossautomatica
facebook fanpage: http://facebook.com/electrickiwidesign
twitter: http://twitter.com/electrickiwi
instagram: http://instagram.com/electrickiwi
linkedin: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/electrickiwi
podcast: http://bridge-the-atlantic.com

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