Ask Me Anything with Chris Do | Adobe Creative Cloud

What's happening? Everyone, welcome to the Anything with Chris Doe Question Session hosted by Adobe. If we're just meeting, my name is Katrina Torrijos and I'm part of the Adobe community team and I'll also be your lovely moderator for this talk, so today. It will be an ama style session where I will be asking questions to ask Chris from our zoom chat as well as the Discord server, so if you are not on the Adobe Creative Career Discord server definitely go there, we have workshops mentoring and giveaways that By the way, we'll be hosting three massive giveaways right after this session, so stay tuned until the end of the session and hop on over to our Discord for more details on how to participate.

Okay, enough chatter, let's give a warm welcome and chat enthusiasm to Christo. Emmy Award-winning designer, CEO and Chief Blind Strategist, and Founder of Future, an online education platform with a mission to teach one billion people how to earn a living doing what they love. That being said, let's get into the first question, the billion. mission that is a lot of people, do you have a number like where you are now? It's hard to say that there is a tracker that we have created on our website that tracks officially, so the official number is like 22,000 ish, but if we count all the people who watch the millions of subscribers and the hundreds of millions of hours of videos watched, I think the number is over 22,000, but I'll stick with that for now, there are still a lot of people watching.

We are impacting so I hope we get to those billion numbers soon maybe tonight yeah maybe tonight how many people do we have in the chat? Megan, I have no idea who's in the session right now, but let's get everyone together, let's get them all together, it's what kind of Let's get them all, yeah, it's like Pokémon, catch 'em alright, okay, so we'll start with He loves now and let's start with a good question. This question comes from Persephone again. Sorry for the pronunciations. It costs me a lot. with words and names sometimes um, but persephone says hi

chris

, do you have any role models?

Do you have any role models? Someone who has greatly inspired you or shaped you and impacted your style. Oh yeah, okay. So role models, I would divide them into two categories, like real life people like me. meet and then design role models, so designing role models is very easy and they will be the legends, the pioneers in design. I'm talking about josephmurler brockman yancha cold maholinage. I'm forgetting some right now about stephon sagmeister who is still alive. I think his work is incredibly conceptual. Paula shares the usual suspects there and in my real life she is usually a mix of people who are my family, like my mom and dad, they are a big influence on me in the way I think and come.

I came to that conclusion late, not that I grew up my whole life thinking that mom and dad are a role model, but later in life I reflect on the lessons you both taught me, the sacrifices you made for us, your children. having a better life and the work ethic that was instilled in us that was really paramount my older brother who saw in me something that I didn't see in me he was the person who sent me to animation festivals bought me my first computer a friend 3000 and he says, I think you want to do this thing called video and back then I even know what the hell that was, so there are people in my life who opened doors for me or kept them open even though I wasn't willing. walk through them amazing um Chad is saying as he asks Chris can you turn the mic up a little bit?

Yeah, let me check what's going on here. It's a little soft. A little soft. Is better? Can I keep spinning? Is better? Chat. rest if I keep going up here I think I'm at the maximum level here is that too loud everyone says yes, perfect, okay, okay, I'm fine, volume 200 is perfect for everyone, okay, amazing, um, it's Well, then comes the next question. by anjali raichura hi

chris

hope you are well thank you for educating us with this unique way of teaching my question for you or for you is about the sales in your book oh trivia pocket full of dough that you have mentioned in one of your chapters anchor prejudice that Whoever manages to save the price first has the advantage and I have also heard people say that if you don't ask the client about their budget first and if their budget is high, say 10k and your offer is low, 4k, then they are missing out on that money. 6k on the table, could you please guide me on how best to approach the pricing conversation with a client?

Should I give her a price range without asking her for a quote? Or should I ask you the budget first? Thank you. in advance anjali raichurra and jelly is fine and jelly is fine sorry okay so here's the problem when you find yourself in a situation where you finally get to the conversation about money and your clients go back to the numbers as if If you don't deserve that, then generally speaking you are positioning yourself in a place where clients are not sure how much to spend and come to you with a very low budget in mind, so any number you say will be very high if that is so.

In the case, you should say the budget first and not last because this is what will happen if you are thinking that you want to get five thousand dollars for a logo. I'm going to start there, okay, adjust the number as you see fit. so five thousand dollars for a logo, so what that means is that normally when I work with clients and I come in and ask for a logo, it's between six and ten thousand dollars, depending on what they need. anchoring and you're using price ranges, you go from six to ten, so now the customer says, "Oh my God, that's so embarrassing," I thought I only had two, okay, okay, I'll tell you what would happen if we had 6,500, what? would you consider doing this and you?

Let's say, well, let's talk a little more, so you're using anchoring bias, which is a form of cognitive bias where we focus too much on the first information we get, if you want to be really smart about it. I would say the number 10,000 first, so I would say between 10 thousand and six thousand dollars, so the ten thousand dollars, that number will stay at the top of their minds and they will convince themselves, the other way around, this is What will happen if you are like uh, yeah, so what kind of budget do you have to spend on this? and they'll say I think we have two thousand dollars and then you're sitting here thinking I wanted to ask for five, but two thousand five is so High from two thousand Look, can we do this for thirty five hundred?

Can you meet us there and they will go home? Well, if you think you're really good, okay, I'll raise it to 3,500. And so, if you're used to clients saying your price is too high, you should say the price first now, if you're going to meet a really important client and you have no idea what you're doing, you might want to not say the price. at all and if you think it's going to be a big budget project, you have to go into discovery and you have to ask the question, ask your client a lot of questions and try to figure out what the task at hand is and let them ultimately say budget.

First, because if you don't have experience, their number will be much greater than yours, so there are two schools of thought, both work, both are relevant, it depends on where you are now, most

creative

s I talk to go to raise their prices. be too high, that's why I say I understood it first, yeah, those who honestly price has been like the number one question in our community because price varies from person to person, fields of experience and everything, so I'm glad that You brought up that point as if it really depends on the situation and where you are because you don't want to go too bald, but you also don't want to get ruled out if your rates are too high.

I love that okay next question is from Abigail and Chris thank you for doing this session love. I'm about six months out of college and I just moved to a new city and am applying for a job. What moves leave a candidate with little to do? no experience stands out in a sea of ​​applicants for

creative

positions thank you yes ok abigail first of all congratulations it's a tough time graduating school luckily i think lights at the end of the tunnel hopefully , if everything goes well, let's cross our fingers, you know, come. During the summer, things are going to get a lot better, so hang in there first of all if you want to stand out ideally, what you want to do is get the inside track, all things being equal, you want to have some kind of relationship.

The relationship is already built with the people who will make the decision about who to hire. The best way I know how to do it is to start interacting with the content those people produce on a daily basis, so right now you have nothing to do. presumably you're at home, you can't go out, whatever it is, okay, just continue on LinkedIn, follow the people who make the hiring decisions and the creative directors, the art directors, whoever the heads of this company are, Follow them and start interacting with their content. read their articles, watch their videos, make a really thoughtful comment that shows that you're a thinker and you'll start to stand out, so when you show up and mention your name, they'll be like, "Oh my God." I know you?

Where do I know you from? It's going to be a weird deja vu thing, so here's another tip I'll give you. Make sure your profile photo is consistent across all your social media accounts and is somehow visible. Like if you've lost a lot of weight take a new photo if you gain a lot of weight I'm guilty take a new photo just make sure people know it's you and this is very important because people use weird avatars and I'll meet them in real life and they say oh hey Chris I interact with you all the time like remind me again where we talked it's because they don't have a precise picture and you know this too all you have to do is scroll. instagram and you'll see people's biopic and then you'll see their real photo on their feed and it's like, oh my gosh, you need to update your photo, it's not a beauty pageant, it's a contest of are you a real person and I want to connect with people, that's how you can get inside information, the other thing you can do is really just good advice in general, which is do your homework, just study the company, read about them, they're probably putting out some press releases from time to time from time to time, just keep in mind. an informed person so that when you have the interview they will eventually ask you questions and then you can respond in a way that other people don't because you've done your homework, that's all I have to say about that, yeah.

Such great tips as when I started my professional career, honestly the first thing I also learned was the profile photo. You don't want people to know or think that you're a robot, and by having it consistent, it's like it's constantly there. appearing on people's feeds with the same image leaves a mark in their mind about who you are and gives them some familiarity and is very true to the task aspect. That's right, um, yeah, you'd be surprised how impressed. what companies are like when candidates actually do their homework and give them their content back, it's always a curveball, um yeah, it's hard to believe, but I used to have dreadlocks, imagine if that was my profile picture, there's no way you're lying, do you have a sure photo?

I'm trying to find it, but yeah, okay, okay, let it be the last slide of this talk, please, my wife has it somewhere, I can't find it, okay, keep us updated, okay, next one is of hibachi fried rice. I love the name. First of all, I love it, yummy, how do you overcome imposter syndrome when you're starting out as a junior designer or making a move to a new field? Thanks, okay, how much time do we have? This is a great question. 45 45, we could eat it 42 the 45 of us are doing well imposter syndrome I think creative people suffer from this more than most ordinary people and it's because it's like we don't fit the mold of things to do, we don't follow the path trodden, the well-chosen path or We keep jogging and then we are doing something strange and different and then we become super hypersensitive to this and especially if you have not achieved all your life goals and who has really done it, you start to think that God, do I do something good or valuable and the other thing about what we do is that what we do feels to many of us so natural to us so natural to our being if you've doodled all your life and now you draw and you're an illustrator of uh, If you're an illustrator or if you take photographs your whole life and you really think about the world in these kinds of moments, these frozen moments just feel normal and natural, so you tend to dismiss what's normal for you, okay, so there's a pair. things you're going to want to do the best thing I know how to do is try to look at yourself from the point of view of someone who admires you, someone who admires you, what do they see and this is the cognitive dissonance that happens in your brain.

So you think I'm so useless,I just don't know what I can contribute to the world and you share some of your images with one of your friends or an uncle or a grandmother or someone who looks at you and thinks Johnny or Mary you are so amazing that they almost have tears in their eyes. because of how talented you are and you're sitting there like, oh, this is garbage. I'm not good for anyone, so try to look at yourself from a different point of view. I think sometimes we get so obsessed with ourselves and we just focus on every little thing we do and we'll never live up to our own standards, our own tastes, so if we can stop looking inward like that and just relax for for a second and look at ourselves from the point of view of another person who looks up to or admires them. and see what they see for half a second, I think the other thing is that, on a social level, they teach us things like being humble, being humble, humility is like a virtual virtue, right?, and there are expressions like if you are getting too big for your boots are too big for your pants or did you do it the door like don't let the door hit you no no sorry like can you get through the door because your head is about to hit it? you know you still fit under your hat, so we have a lot of these expressions because humility and being humble is considered something to live by and part of being humble is not recognizing your own gifts and contributions, so it's culturally frowned upon. that people recognize it.

I think I did something good, not in a proud and boastful way, not in a bragging way, but just to recognize that you did something good, so I find that cultures, especially ones that really instill people to be super, super humble They also suffer from a high degree of imposter syndrome, so my thing is that, in general, you have to learn to love yourself, love all the parts of you that are good and some of the parts of you that are not. so good, love them all and accept yourself. because it's hard to love someone who doesn't love themselves, so we've all been in relationships before, I think with someone who is super emotionally needy, super needy, needs constant affirmation and support and sucks up all the energy in the room, and if I've been in a relationship like that before you know exactly what I'm talking about, there's no room for me because all I'm trying to do is fill that void, that void that exists inside of you and ultimately those relationships No.

The latter, unless they become codependent, so first and foremost, you need to be your own number one fan, love the things you do, appreciate what you do as something extraordinary, and start that new cycle of looking at yourself from a different perspective. different and healthier point. From my point of view that's all I have to say about that, oh my god Chris you're going to make me cry right now and I feel and I feel like everyone else in the chat is also saying this is so true preach that someone said like that, it really hits home for me. um for us this is something that a lot of creatives go through so yeah definitely yeah powerful power words chris um you sure know dating advice is coming its common it's all a relationship yeah , yeah, wait, talk, talk more about that, what do you mean by that?

I'm curious, yeah, so you know, people think I'm going to go to Kirsten to ask her some advice or how to price a logo and I tell them you know it's all a relationship between you and you, you and your partner, whether it's your spouse. or someone you're dating and the clients you work with, it's all about communication, so there's the external communication that we mainly focus on in Western culture, but what about the internal communication, the dialogue that you're having? with your inner child? important and they are all very consistent here's one thing here's a quick check for each person okay, the check is this: would you ever tell one of your friends the words you say about yourself?

Just think about that for a second, like If you do something and you think it's terrible, you're stupid, it's the worst. Would you say that to your friend who showed you a job? Would you say that to a stranger? You could say that to an enemy, but you definitely wouldn't say it to a stranger or a friend, but we still use this language internally all the time to describe ourselves and it's so damaging that I don't want to open a can of psychological psychotherapy worms. here, but there is this inner child. and we're not treating that inner child as well and unfortunately we've learned some really bad habits like we raise ourselves the way we're raised, so look there, I just opened a can of forms that I didn't mean to.

Guys, go talk to your therapist after this, okay, okay, so let's change the subject a little. I know we went a little deeper with the talk about self-love in relationships. We changed the subject a little. Let's talk a little bit about business, so I have a question. by colby kleitz, i think it's in the chat, so tell me, what's up, colby? Hi Chris, I appreciate all the resources and talks you host online as a young designer. It is an incredible resource and I greatly appreciate it. I also enjoyed your talk at Creative South in 2019. you did your homework, you have a fan so here's the question, so I've been freelancing for almost five years and at the same time I work full time as a creative in different organizations.

My ultimate goal is to grow my freelance business as a creative one day. at an agency, what steps can you recommend to transition my freelance business to a legitimate agency? Okay, take a deep breath, breathe, the first thing you need to do is stop thinking that you are an independent professional. I would love to abolish this. word especially because most of us use it incorrectly a freelancer is a temporary employee who works for a company without the benefits of an employee a freelancer sells time a freelancer cannot allow other people to do the work for him, right click, imagine if you're freelancing for a company, you show up and the boss says who's that, oh that's Dave, who's Dave, he's my intern, Dave will do the work, I'll sit here and art direct you, I mean, they would throw you out on the street, they are like us.

I didn't hire you Dave, if we wanted to hire Dave we would hire Dave, so there is a need for freelancers in the world. I've worked with a lot of freelancers, but what you're talking about is that you're a freelance business owner, you're not. a freelancer, you just call yourself a freelancer, you work for multiple companies, in theory you are selling results and not the time you are on, you manage your own time, you work your own hours and you do whatever it is you you need to do. all you need to do is deliver what you promised when you promised it and you could have four people working for you you could have 40 people working for you you can do all the work yourself you get involved in things like writing marketing proposals and instead of getting hired you get jobs that are given to you, it's a completely different mindset, so the first step to becoming a business owner is to start acting, thinking and talking to yourself as a business owner, that's the first part, so we have to teach you.

Some business skills are fine now, so you should go into marketing. The most important thing for your business right now is getting a steady flow of work to the client and David C Baker talks about this. He said that as far as he knows, the formula for confidence is when opportunity exceeds capacity, then you take the number of opportunities and the amount of capacity you have and the more capacity you have that opportunity, your confidence score goes down, so who has 10 clients calling but can only work with two clients at a time. Now imagine how that would make you feel and the way you do that is to be properly positioned in the market to attract the right types of customers based on a narrow area of ​​expertise that you want to focus on and focus is really really important, okay it's how you separate yourself from others that's how you are seen in the market as an expert and an authority so you have to pick a lane you can't take all the lanes pick a lane and go deeper then you will get more . amazing opportunity, solid, solid advice, um okay, also on the business topic, this question comes from Maddie Beard after a client project, how do you measure, test and show the value or impact it had on your business?

Okay Maddie, I love your question, it's also a sign that we haven't started the project properly, how do I know that? Because at the beginning of the project you should ask your client how we will know if we have been successful when we are done, how will we measure success? and there may be quantitative things or qualitative things or a combination of both when we increase site visitors by ten thousand, okay, you could measure that now we know if we reduce the bounce rate on the site by two percent, can we measure those things If you can increase customer satisfaction, okay, this gets a little harder to measure, how do you know about customer satisfaction?

Well, Yelp figured this out: They give people who eat at restaurants a review and then average those reviews together to get a score. The higher the score, the more satisfied people are, so you can ask your customers when they say things that are soft and hard to measure. How will we know well each customer who buys a product from us? We ask you to complete a survey. Great, what's the average score right now of the 1000 clients or previous clients or 100, it doesn't matter, so when you're done you'll say in three months, let's review this and see if the things that I've had an influence on have moved. the needle for you, so you don't define those metrics and you don't do them after the fact, you have to do it before you start and then you can easily get into the conversation about value, so if we increase the number of visitors to the site we reduced the bounce rate and improved customer satisfaction by two points.

You're going to be very happy. Well, what's that worth to you? So we need to talk about how to measure success before we start. We need to allocate a dollar. value for each of those things amazing, okay, great points, I hope I answered your question, Maddie, um, okay, and now those were from Discord, I'm in the chat right now, yes, Discord questions, now I'm in the chat and I had one checked, oh. here we go, i found it, this is how to flag a comment in discord. In fact, I just took screenshots of a lot of them, so everyone posted their questions for a whole week before this event, so I went in and took them, so yeah, but now They're looking at all the questions on zoom , so if you didn't notice, there's a q button at the bottom right of the window, right there you can post your question there and then I can see it, so don't say yes so you don't say yes so you don't get drowned out by the chat. okay, so the next question comes from jacob brown and he says: hey chris, how do you stay so on top of your social media without getting distracted by it?

That's a good question, I don't know if I'm as clued up as you might suggest, but I appreciate that comment, Jacob, part of my life and my work, and my joy is answering questions and reading comments, especially afterward. something has been released, it informs what I do next, so if we make a video that I think is going to be good and no one sees it and everyone says this is too long, this is too stupid, this is too irrelevant and the music is too loud and we're like, oh, we're wrong again, we need to use that as valuable feedback, so I read it and respond and I also want to make sure that people who engage with our content, especially when something drops them.

The critical first 24 hours, they know I'm here like I'm literally the guy answering and they try to test me the whole time, like I'm really you, you're your intern or your assistant and then I ask them, what do you want? I want to tell you that you know you want me to insult you, so you know it's me and I say, okay, it's you, okay, so I do it because the algorithm says, hey, this is interesting content, there is very high engagement. in it and maybe we should share this with more people, so there's a lot of value there.

I reward people who engage with content early on. I give them, you know, brief but hopefully insightful answers to their questions. I receive valuable comments. I get love for algorithms and they are served. More people and over time, what people do realize is that if they comment early, they're actually getting me to engage with the content before it falls off my radar, so I think it works well across the board. I would suggest that all the people who are struggling with this just choose one platform to do it well, don't spread yourself so much, it's just the law of concentration,true, there is a limited amount of you to go around, it's like a small dollop of peanut butter, you put it on 10 pieces of bread, it's not. a very delicious sandwich, but if you get a good pat and you just make a really nice finger, what do you call that a finger sandwich? it could be good that's what you want to do focus that's it yeah oh my god that's the secret to your social media strategy because I've seen your content and it's amazing that you're so on top of it and you honestly like it what you said before about how the first people comment on your post.

It's true, I published you in stories that I liked. your stories and you like me too so I thought it was him so yeah super happy because he's not lying about those guys it's real they're not his intern honestly I don't have anyone. I need a top virtual assistant, but I haven't had one. one, so there you go secretary, it's just me, oh okay, it was like a virtual assistant, we have people looking for jobs in the chat, we have a lot of people here dm, yeah, oh, did you hear you heard it first, people, dm, damn christo, about the va position.

Alright, perfect, so also talking about social media, let's talk about LinkedIn because LinkedIn is a little complicated, so this question comes from Jerome Jerome, yes, Jerome. Hi Chris, I'm wondering if LinkedIn is a good place to reach potential clients. And if that is the case, what is the best way to start the conversation without being seen as aggressive or salesy? The secret to not being aggressive or salesy is to not be aggressive or salesy. It's like, how can I be a good guy? Well he would just be nice so there are some rules some rules of social media etiquette okay if you haven't given value don't ask for

anything

rule number one if you haven't given value don't ask me for

anything

I'll do my best to block people on social media when their first comment to me is hey, can you look at this, can you do this?

I have something, I have a timeshare, I want to sell to you, it's like no, I'm going to block you right now, I don't need a new employee. uh, benefits program right now, I don't need it, I don't even know that you guys know me first, like take me out on a date, buy me a drink or something, just don't go straight for the kill guys, it's too much. too aggressive, the best thing you can do, we've said it before, but LinkedIn is an amazing platform to connect with business people, real, genuine people who are actually looking for you right now, so what you need to do before someone accept your connection it's just comment interact with their content follow them just get to know them you know one thing I'm doing right now because I have a backlog of invites is if someone makes a thoughtful comment I'll look for it and if they haven't already tried to connect with me I'll take initiative and I'll connect with them, what a great way to turn things around, turn things around, so get involved, write something smart, contribute, don't be a know-it-all, write something smart. thoughtful and if you finally do it, when you approach them and say: I would love to connect with you, now write a personal note, don't tell them your whole life story, one or two sentences, that's all it takes, no scribes, LinkedIn recommends. should we connect or I like people in your super generic space.

You know, if you don't write me a note, I might accept you, but if you write me one of those generic auto-complete notes, I delete them, block you, and accept. the ones who write me a thoughtful note right away someone I know has seen something read something I've done so I say, okay, you're a real human being, now don't ruin that part, you're on a good start, start to think about what is it that you can do that will help them express it like that, yeah, that's a great tip that you mentioned. I get a lot of stuff in my LinkedIn DM. from recruiters and stuff like that and it's also copy and paste like you know, did you really look at my experience?

I don't know about that so I definitely don't want to come across that way as a copy and pasted message because Okay, that's the quickest way to get ignored or blocked. Well, next we have another question from Laura Escobar. Laura shouts. I see you're in the chat. Thanks for being here. Hello. Then she says: Hi Chris, first of all, thank you. Thank you very much for doing this session and being open to sharing this time with us. I wanted to ask you about how to be a loud introvert because I'm also an introvert with the goal of being heard and I'd like to hear your tips on how to reach that inspiring volume.

Yes, it seems like the world is dominated by extroverts, right, it seems like it, and what are we introverts going to do with ourselves? Besides hiding in a corner, okay, I just want to show you how much of a nerd I am before I answer. Your question is good, because people say no, it is not possible, my students also told me this. I remember because I was going to class, I'm crazy in class, by the way, I'm very loud in my class and like there's no By the way, you're an introvert, we just don't believe you and then what happened was one of my students started doing practical for me and I had to prepare this talk for the motion design conference in Santa Fe and I was devastated for months.

I was erect because the person organizing the event wanted me to submit my talk beforehand. She also wanted me to memorize it because she constructed it like a Ted Talk for motion designers as if she didn't need that kind of pressure in my life. I hadn't done much public speaking before that, but I was a mess and all my interns looked at me like I'm telling you what's wrong. I have to give a talk and I'm not done. I'm rewriting. the talk and I'm on my 44th draft of the talk and I fly to Santa Fe in three days and they get nervous about me from time to time, finally this intern who was in my class and she says: you're right You weren't lying, you were so weird, I said yes, I'm really weird and I end up doing this talk many sleepless nights, nightmares about the whole talk and eventually I get over it, but this is what I realize about almost everything in your life, the things that you They scare you they make you stronger if you just do it and the more you are exposed to something the less power that thing has over you and think about if you have never eaten spicy food before like some of my friends. you just put some black and white pepperoni on it, you know, and the Asians say, are you kidding me?, black and white pepper and that's spicy for you, you know, it's just increasing your tolerance, so you'll have like a serrano pepper. . jalapeño and eventually you will get to the ghost pepper, that's how you do it, just expose yourself little by little and what you will realize is that the fear you have in your head rarely manifests itself that way.

This way it's never that bad and you learn a lot more by doing it, if you have the chance do it in small ways so the risk of total disaster and failure is finite, like for example you totally bomb and it's like four people on zoom . you'll live, just don't call those people again, you'll be fine, you don't have to go out of town, you don't have to do anything, they just zoom out and then increase that to 12 people, then 20 people, then 100 people. and then 500 people, it gets easier, it's not easy, but it gets easier and that's the goal, yeah, solid advice.

Greetings to all the introverts who are in the chat. I think that's everyone, isn't he looting me? Yes, definitely, it's okay. While we're on the topic of introverts, hey, can I tell you a little joke? Oh yeah, go ahead, there's a comic, I forget her name, but she comes on stage and says, where else are all my introverts? There's silence in the room and then a couple of people like liar so yeah I'll eventually make that joke on stage yeah definitely I feel like except everyone it doesn't really work in chat because now everyone's like a introvert club, yes, very brave of you to raise your hand with emoticons, yes, yes. that's my joke, it's great, oh my god, keep it up, I love it.

Well, while we're on the topic of introverts, I have a question from Charlene and she says: Hi Chris, do you have any tips to help introverts perform better during job interviews? I have confidence in my work and process, but that's always the case, it doesn't always come across when I talk about it, reacting in the moment with a thoughtful response is also a challenge, the key is to just slow down, just slow down, breathe, someone asks you a question. If you don't know how to answer, here's a trick my business coach taught me, just say: can you phrase it a different way? and then they think about it and then express it in a different way and give your brain all the time to think. of an answer if you really really don't have an answer just say you know what is a fantastic question that deserves more thought do you mind if I contact you with a more thoughtful answer?

I just don't want to make something up right now you will gain a lot more respect and many times you will never have to follow up with the answer. I've done this with clients before they ask me some crazy questions that I know nothing about and I'll tell them I have to contact my team. There is an expert who is not on this call right now who could probably answer that. I owe you a better answer than I could make up, so that's one, two. your mindset, which is probably more important than anything else when approaching this, is whether you tell yourself the narrative that this is the most important thing ever, that you don't deserve to be here, and that you're no good in these situations. . guess what you have so much pressure on yourself and you are not going to do well in this interview why don't you change the narrative you change the narrative you know what they are interviewing me and they only interview people who they believe are qualified for this it is about determining suitability so the other person wants to know some things about me and I will do my best to be clear all I will do is give them the best information I can give them and stay out of the results what happens next is completely out of the question my control that person could have a good day they could have a bad day they could have a bias in favor of me and a bias against me there is nothing I can do about it.

What I can do is present myself as I am to give them the information they need and that's it, the rest will take care of itself and if they are not smart enough to see the talent that lives inside your body, give it to the next person. person their loss, I mean, just let that sink in real quick, yeah, they really are lost, you know, um, no, don't do it, if they don't want you to move on to the next one, that's totally fine, all you need is that . one yes from an employer and that's all you need, yeah, and one way to think about it too is that every no, it's probably like a blessing in disguise, you just didn't realize it yet, yeah, you may have dodged a bullet, exactly every note.

You are one step closer to your yes, so don't lose hope. Okay, so change the subject now and stop talking about working for yourself and doing your own thing. This question comes from Brendan Boyle. Hi Chris, I run a relatively successful design business, but over the years I've become less enthusiastic and gravitate towards my true passion for art and illustration. What do you think about changing your career when there are a number of people I hired who will also be affected? Okay, that hits the mark. Back home, I used to run this company called blind shifting and becoming an educational company impacted everyone's lives, even those who wanted to go on the journey with me and clearly there were some who didn't want to and I owed it to them in the first place. everything as a person to set an example, I want to live the life that matters, I want, I want to do my great work, the work that will have an impact, the meaningful one, the deep, meaningful one, right, I'm not going to show it. stand up and pretend to be someone while I tell you, don't show up and pretend to be someone and then we can all change life it would be really boring if we were never allowed to change what you want to do is you don't want to just change on a whim and not think it through to make it seem that you already know that you want to be an artist or an illustrator or something, that's what you said about your art and illustration and that's what you want to do and that's what makes your soul happy, you can't deny your own happiness to make your employees happy and to be honest they might even be that happy so what you do is you lay out the plan that you say I'm going to start. to change focus to this company and let's move more towards art and illustration, I realize that it may not be a good fit for everyone here, so if you recognize it yourself right now, let me know and I will help you . find another job, we will make sure this transition is as smooth as possible those of you who think you want to continue this journey, this is what I would like from you, I do not guarantee that this will happen during you, but I want to give you that benefit and try to take you with me, so when we went from the future, I'm sorry, from being blind to the future, we lost a couple of people, we lost like four or five people, mainly in production andsales.

Since we don't know how to sell education, this is a totally different market space, we have no contacts, so one by one they quit or found a way to convince themselves to leave the job, then there was this group on the right that we are 100 with you Chris and they went and went with me all the way, then the ones in the middle I did the best I could to help them along the way, some made it, some didn't and that's the best I can do as a leader and now we have a completely company different and the people who are no longer with us are doing the things they love and living their true lives and who am I to say I can control that I don't want that kind of responsibility?

Yeah, because it's really different when you're a business owner and you're in charge of not only yourself but other people as well, so I think that's a great point, like making sure that the transition is smooth and making sure that your people are. watch out, I'll really like it, it will be a good step, yes, Michael Sophia said something very smart here, he said enable change by creating change, I love it, yes, some smart people in your group, yes, awesome, okay then The next question is when, hello Chris. thanks for doing this, I'd like to ask you how you would approach clients to present your ideas, by phone or email or social media or something else, and how to avoid falling into that autopilot mode and risk burning out, those are two.

You ask, aren't they two separate things? questions, yes, they are very separate questions, like one is how to present ideas to clients and another is how to not burn out and go into winish complacency autopilot mode, do you want to choose one or the other or Katrina, will you choose one for them? let's do the first half because I feel like we can also talk about burnout afterwards, it's a separate thing, okay, so how do you present an idea to a client? Do you think this is a business idea that could help him or what do you think the pitch is?

The part is: Were you invited to submit a proposal or is it a self-initiated proposal? What do you think? What do you think? Katrina said self-initiated proposal. She's fine, beautiful, oh I see when she's there. Yes, he is in the chat. When she's there, she's here. see it, okay, so this means you have an idea, you've been observing a client's business and you say, hey, I have an idea, I'd like to propose it. This is what the customer needs to recognize that they have a problem before you tell them what the solution is and the best way I know to do it is to ask some really smart questions.

Say, for example, you have an idea to create an app for them because they are a restaurant and not. have an app to expedite orders for pickup, let's say that's what's cool, don't come in and say mr madam customer. I have an idea that will revolutionize your business because there is all this takeaway and we have to adapt to the pandemic I am a software developer I know ux and ui I can do this for you we can have it up and running in three weeks that is a whole speech if you had said that It could have been a pretty good pitch because you have identified the problem and in my opinion the best approach is to interact with them and say Mr.

Mrs. Customer. I have been to your restaurant for the last 10 years. I've been wondering something: is there an opportunity in your business that you haven't been able to capitalize on especially when it comes to takeout orders. Well, we were thinking about this the other day. We wonder the same thing, but you know these things are expensive and time-consuming. How much do you think it will cost when Ish follows up? Well, we've heard that it costs six figures to launch an app and that it will take six months or more and you're like, okay, that doesn't have to be the case in fact, I've been thinking similar things.

It's kind of funny that you come to the same conclusion. Would you be interested in sitting with me for an hour? Maybe I can take you out to dinner, we can sit down and we can talk. a business idea that I think will solve your problems but won't cost you as much time or money to develop. Well, fantastic. When can we do this? How does it sound tonight? And this is how I would do it, so I would start with a question and if they say yes, no, we are not interested in that, we will stop pursuing this because now you are just going to try to sell an idea that nobody wants, okay, one idea has to feel good, it has to be like that. feel natural and if you ask the right question, if you ask the question carefully enough, you will find your answer one way or another and you won't have to spend a lot of time working on a proposal or an amazing speech, okay?

This question is for all my international friends. This question comes from Nietzsche and she says: Hi Chris. I was wondering how you can take steps to start working internationally. What to look for and how to meet new prospects. Why I would like to go international. do bigger projects that have impact outside the Netherlands, hello Netherlands, first of all I want to say that the answer, sorry, starts with your way of thinking, you are as big or small as you think is okay and you should give yourself Realize that we are having a conversation right now via zoom, across several different cities across the continent, across the ocean, how can we do this and yet we are still connected and it is because the web has shrunk the world, it's like I've made it much smaller? work from anywhere at any time so you need to think and act like a global brand, that's what you need to do and if possible you want to look like you're an international entity.

It would be ideal if it had a communication address. and if you wrote most or all of your copy in English, of course the products and projects you work on could be in your native language, but you want to have that international style if possible and you want to participate. people on social media on the dominant platforms like facebook linkedin twitter youtube instagram and maybe clubhouse now, so people will get to know you and they won't know that you are from any country or region. We'll just get to know you as a person who has valuable ideas and very high quality work and then once you establish yourself on par with international design firms, it shouldn't be that hard for you to get the job done if you just look at an A Couple of well-known American or British design agencies and firms just look at the work, look at how they present themselves and if they were to show both their work and their website and social media accounts, if they can't tell. the difference is not in terms of content and design, but only in terms of general atmosphere.

You are doing it very well. If you do, you'll be fine. I hope it helps you. Great advice. Oh, someone said, let's talk about the clubhouse, just a single question. just like it randomly comes to mind, recently, not even recently, you started doing clubhouse chats, how are you doing and what do you think of it as a platform? Yes, it's going very well. I've only been on the platform for about five weeks. I've grown to 44,000 followers, which is the fastest I've grown on any platform and I had some doubts about it. I received the usual disparaging comments like "Oh, I don't need another social media platform to keep going and occupy all my followers." time and I go in and out of different rooms and there's a lot of noise, some felt very salesy, some felt very techy, if you know what I mean, some were just poorly organized, low value, a lot of talking, just voiceovers, etc At first I was discouraged, but then I started thinking about it, and to me, any time something is really messy or really loud or poorly done, it's an opportunity, it's open for someone to come in and do something that's thoughtful and intentional and strictly moderated. and it gives a lot of value and that's what I focused on when they zig zag you and when you zag zug so we're in zag zug mode right now and people are starting to recognize that when we set up the room it's going to be in a certain level of quality and what blair ends up jokingly referring to me as being a ruthless moderator and I am, I'm going to interrupt you because we don't have time to listen to your whole life story and I want to I hear you pitch, that's what the people, they used to get along in these rooms, so yeah, I started, this company makes xyz and you know if you need this guy, don't stop, stop, so I'm enjoying the clubhouse experience, it's very close. to what I used to do in person in terms of teaching, having a conversation that's two-way, like when I make a video on YouTube, you can't really talk to me, you can't really influence the outcome of the video, but in a clubhouse. room where you can and I think that's really cool and I think we're so hungry to connect with other people that it's the right platform for the right time very, very interesting, everyone is very excited about the clubhouse thing and your content there, um, someone.

I also said, um, you do Twitter spaces, it just started this morning. Wow, people are on it, they're on it, they're on it, have you used it yet? Yes, I literally organized my first Twitter space this morning, like I was clumsily, clumsily, on my way. There are 200 people there, not quite, but somewhere in there, so yeah, I see you, look, you guys are following me. I love it, thank you, they are like my virtual group. Yes, this is Christo's fan club, I'm sure excited. about that you know mm-hmm I'll tell you something I'll tell you something so nerdy about me that you'll like to throw it away okay, are you ready, okay, get ready for this, okay, I'm a nerd.

I'm a nerd, it's like I don't know how to start conversations with people I don't really like. My thing is I'm going to overcompensate on social media because when I see you in real life you'll come. It's up to me, you say: Hey, I love your content. I'm like, oh, thank you and we'll just have a conversation because I don't know how to start conversations. I told this story a while ago, but for the first time.

adobe

max i think it was in las vegas it was in las vegas and my friend, a former employee, was supposed to go and at the last minute she canceled so I couldn't even give her ticket to someone because they canceled at the last minute and so I'm there and I'm like, oh, okay, I'm going to be at an event for thousands of people and I don't have a winged person, I don't have anyone to go to the conference with and I'm.

I'm getting discouraged, but I was thinking, man, Chris, you're an idiot if you can't feel at home in a W Max. Where can you feel at home at an NFL game? I mean, you have 8,000 12,000 nerds and designers there, just relax. So I went to this and I remember it very clearly and okay, you guys are going to laugh at me. I just waited in the hallway between sessions, like when the sessions ended, there would be a rush of people and they would just move down the hallway. hallway to get something to eat to go to the bathroom or to go to his next session, neither of which I signed up for, so I stood there, I stood there, like Bruce Willis in Unbreakable, you know, arms outstretched waiting for someone to say, "Hi, Chris." I know you, and finally, after I got over the awkwardness of it all, someone said, “I love your content.” I said, thank you, oh yeah, that's what I do.

I just put all the work up front into writing, producing content, recording podcasts. make calls to the clubhouse or live mistresses like this so that when I pass by your your city your city you can say hello to me so because I don't know how to say hello to you that's my trick yeah that's it. That's great, oh my gosh, we have two minutes left on the clock and while we were talking about um, while you're basically talking about your personal brand and getting yourself known on these platforms, when you come to town. You are much more recognizable.

We will finish this last question with this question from Emily Lewang. Hello Chris. What advice do you have about personal branding? It's much easier for me to create it for a client, but it appeals to me. too many directions when it comes to me, do you also use basic or other strategies for personal branding? Yeah, we had a slightly similar discussion today with someone and it's like, man, you're going to tell people that you're really good at branding. and you don't have a brand it's going to be a tough sell I mean if you get more work than you can do don't worry don't even worry this was true when we were hiring freelancers when someone said oh you have a higher x and y they are so good and I try to go to their website, it's like four years old.

I know they are really good because they don't even care about updating their site, but let's not be the person who talks about branding and doesn't do it for ourselves, that's a little embarrassing right now, so I discovered this, especially when it comes to personal brand. Personal branding is really about you telling your story and your story can sound like where you came from. A story like Spider-Man, who has great power and great responsibility, gets bitten by a radioactive spider. Superman is an alien from Krypton who lands on Earth. We know his origin story. What the hell is your origin story like?

Do we know what the moment was? your life that changed everything you are not a mutant and you are not an alien I don't believe it, but something happened someone told you something an event happened that changed your life and changed the trajectorywhich could have been when you were seven years old, could have been when you're 17 or for some people 47, the moment when things change, that's your origin story, you want to take advantage of that and here's the problem, people don't have time to sit and listen to your damn long time. stories, so you have to narrow down your story, you have to keep narrowing it down until you find its essence and what I would like to describe is that you want to find your two-word brand, two words that describe who you are. unique to you where you can claim your space in that blue ocean versus the red ocean the red ocean is where everyone fights and competes and gets slaughtered the blue ocean is somewhere a little far away when no one competes and you own that space you want to find two words that are juxtaposed and don't overlap in meaning, okay, they go like this and what you want to do is just generate a lot of words and eventually narrow them down to what you think is really true. who you are, that's your word backbone, your word backbone, that's what holds this whole structure up and then you find a word that opposes that word which is also you, usually that word is not so flattering, it's okay so I'm an introvert, but I'm also a loud introvert or a kind critic, like yeah I'm very critical, but I try to do it from a place where I want to help people from a space of generosity that some people might consider me from. a diligent Rebel like I want to go against a system but I'm doing it systematically and someone on Twitter said this about me.

They are like Kristo. You are a lovely razor blade. I told my wife that she practically broke the food on her. mouth she is like that that's how you are You cut people off, but there's something about you that makes it tolerable, so let me give you some examples, okay Apple, what's your two-word mark? incredibly cool, his backbone is crazy, it's about his attention to detail, crazy, not good. and cool it's boring but tremendously cool it's totally Apple you get that mini cooper you know I invented this one but it's like a mini cooper really small but cool and fun to drive very small that's mini cooper and if you look at their advertising, their marketing you'll see that It packs a punch, you know it's sexy but it's small, it's powerful, it's powerful and you think like Lexus, you remember the Lexus motto, they changed it a couple of years ago, but it used to be the relentless pursuit of perfection, which isn't A lot of things to me sounded really super generic, but if you know anything about Japanese culture, it sums it up perfectly, so it's just relentless perfectionism, it's that drive for constant improvement, which is actually noble and those are some marks. and hopefully that sparked something. ideas in you you find your origin story in the moment when everything changes in your life and you can never be the same again distill that into two words your spine word spine that you know as your spine and your word that juxtaposes and Oppose that idea when you find it those two words, you should be able to create multiple combinations of two words that really describe you, choose the best one and then build from there, boom, there it is, we have a follow-up, what is your brand of Two words? wordmark yes, yes, I already said I'm a loud introvert, loud introvert, there you go, yes, someone asked them, yes, amazing, amazing, so thank you Michelle, she said, thank you so much Chris for the great advice .

Lily says it like an oxymoron, a lovely giant razor. shrimp haha ​​nathan said 100 true strong introvert like a fish in the government oh oh spicy amazing amazing okay so oh my god I didn't realize I'm so far behind in the chat comments I keep scrolling like oh my god never ends, no I don't know, I'm stuck, I'm stuck here, it's 504 p.m. m., as if I knew, yes, yes, I have a lot of conversation. It is an endless scroll. I love, oh hey, I just saw Fernando, who, who is he, it's a strange name. but he sent me captions like in Hebrew so thank you so much oh yeah he said he's the guy who sends you the subtitles wow cool yeah awesome everyone says thank you Chris thank you for everything Chris awesome , okay, so I guess that means that's a summary. ama session today thank you so much chris for being here and everyone in the audience today uh we did it we did it oh my god I could breathe now oh no yeah surprise craig really surprised yeah um but yeah it's been a pleasure be your moderator, but before you go, remember to enter the Adobe Creative Career server, say hello to my mods in the chat, please leave the link to Beth and Justin in the chat, thanks, so don't forget to enter the Discord server from Adobe Creative Career and enter our three giveaways that I'll talk more about now, so the first thing we're giving away is ten creative

cloud

subscriptions for one year.

Wow, yeah, super bible, Chris said that Adobe powers their entire workflow so that life matches my workflow, your life, yeah, next. The prize is that we are giving away one hundred copies of Chris' book, a pocket full of money, signed and autographed copies, and lastly, a private one-on-one session with Chris himself. Oh wow, can I get some hype in chat for all those prizes? Oh my god, I am. It's very sad that I couldn't win. I literally said to my team: Can I go book? Please, please, can I get a connection? Michelle asked how do we enter pray tell me wow this is how this is where the discord comes in so when everyone enters the discord in the Chris Doe section you will see three channels for each of the gifts that weren't there before . the session, but now they are live, yes, so you can submit your entries.

There are three different messages you need to respond to, so simply type your response, hit send and then we'll pick the winners and they'll be announced tomorrow. um, yeah, amazing, amazing. With that said again, thank you all so much for coming today and we hope you got value from today's session and we'll take that with you throughout your professional career, so thanks again too Chris, thanks for the last words, yeah , some last words. First, Adobe, you guys run a tight ship every time we try to give something away, it's a total bunch. I have to tell you that you are here, you are ready to answer this question, it is smooth as ball bearings and I just have to say.

I almost got carpal tunnel just signing those books I hope you enjoy them it was very repetitive but I did it I did it just for you I didn't do it so many no stamps no stamps just hand signed hand signed wow yeah amazing sign right? Just kidding, I couldn't seal that the internet wouldn't let me hear the end of that. If I stamped it, I can't call him on the phone. It's signed or it's not signed, but yeah, thanks Katrina for hosting, you did an amazing job. I think people enjoyed this and I had fun so thank you for doing that and Megan, thank you for having me as always, thank you Chris, I love it, thank you so much, I appreciate it guys, you don't know this, but this.

It wouldn't happen if it weren't for Adobe. I don't just show up randomly and I do these things well, so thank you. Thank you so much. Kristen. Thank you very much to everyone in the chat. Chris. Could you interpret us with some music and an ending? whatever the future plays, whatever they end up there, amazing, here's the music we always end up with, guys, here we go, amazing, I love it. See you next time, have a good rest of your day. See you on Discord for the after party. Bye everyone, show us your moves, that's the move, come on Megan, we're dancing.

Bye, talk about being shy.