This is a video blog in response to a post over at Danny Brown’s website – Make a living with your tribe (without scaring them off) which was a guest article from Brandon Mendelson.

There’s been discussion lately on how you can benefit your tribe while still making money from it. At some point, your tribe will become too large to work on it full time – unless you’re filthy rich already and do not need to work. So what do you do? How can you go about making money from the tribe, but not “marketing” to them or “selling” to them? The ideas they went over were to give out affiliate links for products and make money from that, send out sponsored messages and encourage your tribe to visit your sponsors or integrate a brand into your tribe.

My ideas was, why not be the brand yourself? If you’re a writer, why not write a book and let your tribe know. If you design, let your tribe know that is what you do and if they ever need work done, they can get a discount for being a part of the tribe. If you’ve got products to sell that pertain to the tribe, let them know. Do not sell, just mention it. Make sure it’s known, and move on. If your tribe wants to support you, they will. Hell, you could even let your tribe get a cut of the profits if they promote your product/service for you to non-tribe members.

Below is my original comment posted on the article on Danny Brown’s website (I bolded the words I’d like you to read and re-read):

Nice article and very true. It’s funny, I just finished reading the Tribes book last night and haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. I agree with you, pushing advertisements on your tribe will KILL any credibility with them and pushing affiliate links could work, but as you said, you need to stick that out for the long haul.

I think that if there’s something you can personally sell that will benefit your tribe and is a genuine product/service, you can win this way as well. Building the product/service because it’s beneficial to your tribe is key though. Without the benefit, you’re not helping – you’re selling – and they’ll know it.

So what do you think? Let me know in the comments.

The message is simple; stand up, speak up and get what you want. Closed mouths don’t get fed. Plain and simple. Quiet people blend in, fall into the background and rarely get heard. Make noise. Call the potential client you’ve been putting off for the past two weeks (I’m a freelancer just like you, so I KNOW you’ve got a couple people on your “dream job” list – call them).

The video today is featuring the intro/outro which I featured yesterday as well. I’m testing things out and trying to get used to the video editing software, so my apologies if it doesn’t look right. I’ve also used my flip video for my last couple videos, so they aren’t in the HD like the previous ones have been. I’ll be switching things up a bunch until I find just the right set up. Oh, and I was holding the camera again today – I need to get back into recording in my office

Thanks for watching, and I hope you enjoy the video today. I’d love to get your feedback.

Today I wanted to explore the mind and methods of Dana White – the guy behind the UFC. No matter how you feel about him, he’s done a lot of the right things in business and has grown the UFC to a multi-million dollar organization – grossing around 40 MILLION per PPV. So I sat for a minute, thought about the things he does and came up with these five pieces of business advice that we can learn from Dana White.

Don’t take shit from nobody

Dana is a no-nonsense kind of guy. Just recently he went on a tirade about EA Sports and how they didn’t want anything to do with him when he wanted to put the UFC Undisputed game out – until they saw it was doing HUGE numbers. Dana basically said “fuck them” and kept moving forward. This is the type of attitude that is needed to win. Success doesn’t come easy, and it sure as hell takes a lot longer if you’re giving into every negative remark friends, family and competitors might say towards you.

Take risks that you believe in

Dive in. Don’t sweat the small stuff and just get started. Take a risk. Dana White did and lost 40 million dollars – and is now making 40 Million per PPV! The benefits could be huge. The hardest part to doing something is the first steps, so take those first steps and you’ll start to experience the snowball effect.

Work as hard as you NEED to

Yes, you need to hustle. Yes you need to work hard. But you also need to know when to push and went to coast. There’s no need to work 20 hours a day, 6 days a week if the end result doesn’t reflect the work you put in. Focus on the quality output and the rest will fall into place.

Put out the best end product possible

If you’re releasing wordpress templates, make sure they’re super duper quality. If you’re releasing free textures, make sure they’re freaking HUGE and clear. No matter what you’re doing – print design, web design, logo design or consulting, make sure you’re putting out high quality product and people will take notice.

Never sweat the competition

Dana White is the master of never sweating the competition. Affliction, DREAM, Strikeforce and any other smaller organization out there are levels below the UFC – and Dana knows it. So when they call him out to fight in a cage, or ask him to co-promote a fight, his answer is always the same “who the fuck are you and why should I care”. Learn to follow this philosophy – you’ll be grateful for it in the future.

See, who said you couldn’t learn something from a loud mouth prick

Oh, and if Dana is reading this – thanks for being a loud mouth prick – thats what it takes to do what you do. From a business stand point, I salute you. You’re a true master of your craft.