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.

This video is a happy birthday note to Seth Godin’s TRiiiBES network. I only got accepted into the triiibe a few days ago, but I can already see how well this is going to benefit me. The book “Tribes” by Seth Godin has been my favorite book I’ve read thus far and has changed my entire thought process on business and life in general.

THANK YOU SETH!

View other blog articles written about the 1 year anniversary of the TRiiiBES launch.

• Triiibes – Beginnings of a Legacy
• More TRIIIBES article links

As a quick run down of what I posted about over the weekend, this GreenStar TV episode gives a run down of whats been going on with me and whats to come. I also make mention of Black Velvet Nation – more information on that is going to be coming soon.

Have you ever come across an opportunity to grow your business or do something great? How many times have you let that slip through your fingers? Today’s episode is about just that – and it features the recent news of Fedor not being able to fight Josh Barnett because Barnett tested positive for steroids. What a huge opportunity gone to shit because of Barnett doing something stupid – don’t let that happen to you!

Thanks to everyone who’s watching the videos – and don’t forget about Texture Thursday tomorrow!

Lets sit for a minute and pretend that the advice everyone gave you was wrong. Lets pretend that the idea of “completing the big tasks first” is good for productivity. Lets just pretend for a minute, ok? What if I said that they were wrong (in my opinion)? Thats what today’s video is about.

I am not saying that it’s wrong to go through the big tasks on your to do list first, but I am saying that for some, it might be easier to knock out the smaller tasks to build up momentum and motivation to complete the final tasks. Have you tried that before? My analogy in the video was that it’s like rolling a snowball down the hill – it’ll pick up speed and also pick up more snow along the way, just like if you were to start small and get to the bigger stuff later. And have you tried rolling a snowball UP a hill? I don’t think it works out as well.

As a freelancer, I find it hard to focus sometimes and I find that I am unmotivated a LOT of the time that I know there’s a ton of things to do. So I knock out the smaller stuff first because it’s easier, and along the way I build that happiness to see check marks on my to do list. So here’s to you trying something different – it just might work out for you, I know it does for me.

Today I am getting the video in a bit later than usual – but for good reason. I’ve been hustling, putting together a wordpress theme I will be releasing soon here on GreenStar – free of charge! But I knew I had to also get out the camera and take some shots of textures as well as this video – so I went out tonight and killed two birds with one stone. The textures are awesome; the video, I am not sure about as I haven’t watched it yet. I filmed it in my car after I got done with the textures. Tomorrow I promise to shoot the video in my office so the quality is clear

In the video I am speaking about getting the job done, no matter what it takes. Thats what I did today and thats what you should be doing in your business & in your life. No matter what obstacles might come your way, or what hurdles you may have to jump, you must push forward.

In other news

Max over at Design Shard released a set of 20 yellow & concrete grunge textures today that I shot and am releasing on his site – they’re crazy good, so go make sure you check them out and download them.

Also, don’t forget, tomorrow I will be releasing the textures I shot tonight – there are 30 total. I also have another set for Thursday already that I shot with my girlfriend – she did half and I did half. Stay tuned, and don’t forget to subscribe to RSS updates so you don’t miss any news about the free theme I’ll be releasing

p.s. I just watched the video – I should have taken my hat off so you could see my eyes

Todays video is a quick one just to remind everyone to enjoy the weekend. Grab some downtime and relax. It’s a much needed break from a week of hustling

See you all on Monday!

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.

First of all, let me apologize for the late upload of todays (Wednesday) video episode. I’ve had it recorded since wayyyy earlier today but got side tracked (I’ve been hustling). Anyways, it’s here now and it’s live – thank you for watching.

Today I did the update surrounding what will be happening on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I’ve been a fan of the Textures from Bittbox and also the textures from PSD Fan and they each release textures on either Tuesday or Thursday – so I thought – why not release them on BOTH days? With my new camera, I am flash happy and have a ton of textures ready to go. Tomorrow’s textures will not be a light rock like the video says (I know, last minute change – I found a cool ass place to take texture shots that I want to release tomorrow).

So, keep an eye out for the textures – they’re coming. More freebies will be released soon as well – including photoshop brushes, vector graphics, ect. I’ve got a lot in store and hope to create a feeling on this site of greatness

Also, I will be going over the weekend through each of the pages on this site and finalizing them – I know I’ve been neglecting the about/contact/portfolio pages – I’ve got them coming, I promise

p.s. the video is not on viddler right now due to uploading errors. I’ll switch it out as soon as viddler starts playing nice again.

Today’s episode of GreenStar TV discusses the need to hustle in business. We NEED to hustle. The tortis may have beaten the hare, but in real life – the early bird gets the worm, and since I’m not a morning person, I tend to hustle throughout the night to beat the clock when the sun rises

I remember seeing the end of a video on From The Couch where they said “It isn’t hustling if you take naps” and “It isn’t hustling if you wake up late” and I thought to myself, damn that is SO true. Every day, in every way we need to push ourselves and get into a better position for the end goals we have set in place.

Gary Vaynerchuk talks on twitter a lot about hustling… here, here and here for starters. And when Gary speaks, I tend to listen. The man is a genius. Anyways, he’s right though – hard work pays off. The hustle is what we need to live by. The more you hustle, the less you’ll worry that things aren’t getting done or that you don’t have enough time/money. Hustle now, be rewarded later. End of discussion!

p.s. there are a few texture sets being released this week – one or two will be released here and there will also be a couple released over on Design Shard – I just have to find a few spare minutes to zip them up and send them over to Max.