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Why we should share

One of the best things that had happened to me in my business is when I had decided to share something of value to the world. This simple action had helped me connect with over 20,000 newsletter subscribers and meet many new customers and clients along the way.

This is something that took the time to develop and grow, but it was well worth it. Let me explain how this came to be.

Over eight years ago I created this website to serve as a digital business card and an online work portfolio. It was simple and it had served its purpose.

I later came across an article that had advised to share something of value for free to help a website grow and find new visitors.

So, I had decided to create an animation template for Apple’s Final Cut Pro & Motion software and then posted to this site. Little did I know that the simple act of sharing would change my entire life and place me in an entirely new direction.

At first, this free template allowed me to go on to different forums, websites, and groups and share my link to my freebie without any complaints of spam. Visitors also began to share the link with others.

Another bonus is that this site also became easier to find on search engines, it seems ‘free’ is a very powerful keyword. Plus, there were also requests for more templates, so I created more. Later I began to get requests for editing and animation work and to train and consult others that had wanted to learn what I knew.

In addition to the extra work, I also got suggestions that I should sell my templates. This was totally new for me, but I had decided to give it a shot and see where it goes. I purchased the domain name MotionMasterTemplates.com and off I went.

Starting an online store was a new business venture and I was very skeptical that anyone would buy the templates. But, I am very happy to write that people did. Fortunately, those early members are still loyal members to this day and if it was not for their trust and support I would not be where I am today. ( Thank you! )

Over the years the number of members grew and the demand for more training, consulting and client work. This was all accomplished with zero advertising and zero marketing, just simple old-fashioned word of mouth for the free templates.

Another amazing benefit is the number of people I had the amazing opportunity to meet. From my incredible customers and followers to those that I see as video industry leaders that I greatly respected and admired.

I had also become friends with, what some would call, my biggest online store competitors, fortunately, I did not see them as competitors but instead as people who share the same common passion and admiration for what we do. We still chat to this day and I also see them as my greatest mentors and motivators.

One of the biggest accomplishments in this great journey was having my store added to Apple’s Final Cut Pro Resource Page. When this had happened it brought me tears of happiness and joy. To have a highly valued company such as Apple add my little online store to a long list of amazingly talented people and businesses is incredibly gratifying. ( Thank you, Apple! )

To close this story, if you are a student, entrepreneur, freelancer or professional my advice is to share something of value. The more valuable the better.

Also, be sure to follow Paul Jarvis’ advice and collect an email address from those that want to download. This will allow you to connect with your followers and allow you to share more goodies in the future.

I wish you best of luck and happy sharing! 🙂

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How to add more control to messaging and communications

Even though we love our ability to communicate with the world, a large part of our day still requires focus and concentration and constant messaging can get in the way of our focus. One way to lower our communications overload is to add control and priority in each of your communications channels.

Below is a breakdown of how we can add more control to our communications.

  • Emails:
    Many times we get a large number of emails, but of those emails, we receive only a few are very important.  One idea is to send all important and priority emails to Slack.  This way we do not miss important messages if we are in focus mode and had closed our email.
  • Social Media:
    We can turn down social media notifications so we only get security and admin notifications only and placed an auto-reply notice with a support email so visitors can email me if there is urgency.
  • Slack*:
    Each Slack group has its own notification setting based on urgency.  This way we have more focus, but we still get to our urgent email and project notifications,  We can then close everything except Slack.
  • Growl Notifications:
    If we really need to focus for a few hours.  We can mute my notification bar by option click on the OS X notifications in the upper right-hand corner. By doing this we turn off all our desktop notifications for a few hours based on its setting.

If we take an hour to adjust our notification controls we can add more piece of mind and focus our work.  Please let me know what you think or if you have any of your own suggestions.  Have an amazing day!

* For those of us that may not know, Slack is a piece of software that is highly recommended for team communication.  It comes with a lite version for free that is free to use.  For more information on Slack visit their site: https://slack.com

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Quickly create a text cube in Motion

In this quick tutorial, I will show you how to create a cube that you can add text or anything else you want and have it rotate in 3d Space to your liking.

Animate it the way you want and then publish some setting to use in Final Cut Pro. Enjoy! 🙂

Here is the video:

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Motion Master Templates Featured in Premium Beat

Today was an exciting day as my little online store got featured on Premium Beat. For those that do not know Premium Beat is a premiere place to find Music and Sound Effects for your projects. The quality of work is great and prices are amazing. I have used many of their tracks for client projects in the past and I highly recommend you check out their work.

Here is the article at Premium Beat that featured my store: www.premiumbeat.com/blog/free-apple-motion-and-final-cut-pro-x-templates/