Squatch Kick - Tips & Articles for Crowdfunding

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Crowd Funding Tip # 6 - When in doubt, create quality


So, you're new to crowdfunding, but you've decided to go ahead and take the plunge, and create a crowdfunding project of your very own. You've even went so far as to hit the start button, and actually launched your project. The clock is ticking on your project campaign.

Now what?!

You don't have a clue where to begin, but even worse, you honestly have no idea what to even say about your own crowdfunding project. How much worse can it get?

Is your project doomed? Is there any hope for somebody as completely lost, as yourself? How on Earth will you ever get this project of yours crowd funded? What in God's name were you even thinking?

I love my son. I love him more than anything else in all of God's creation. What does any of this have to do with your crowdfunding project, though?

Quite plain and simply, it has EVERYTHING to do with it!

Your project is YOUR baby. And, much like an actual baby, your role is to comfort it, and to care for it, and to nurture it as it grows. You can either give your project your time and your attention, or you can neglect it, and watch it either fall into trouble or watch it die, outright.

Your project will require an investment of your time. It may even keep you up late at night. At times, it might even cry out for attention.

Will you neglect it? Or will you shower it with love?

Whether you created your project on a whim, or whether you thought long and hard about it, before you launched it, you're going to end up in the same boat - the boat of decision. Whether for good or for ill, you stand at the precipice of your crowdfunding project's fate.

One of the most common maladies that seems to afflict crowdfunding projects of all kinds is so commonplace that it should come as a surprise to no one, yourself included. Namely, it is the problem of not knowing what to say about this project that you, yourself, created.

What else is there to say? Indeed, what else can be said? Haven't you said it all, already?

As most parents could tell you, there's likely no end of things that they could say about their children. My son runs on an infinite loop through my mind. He dominates my thoughts. My affection for him knows no end. In a nutshell, I never tire of talking about my son. Verily, he is the grandest object of my affection.

You don't have to copy and paste things that you have already said about your crowdfunding project. In fact, what you say or what you write about your project will be all the more interesting if you don't.

When you launch a crowdfunding project, you do more - far more - than just create a project. You also spawn a story, one without a finite number of pages. The sum totality of your project's "story" includes all of the bits and pieces, every last morsel and crumb, every last tittle of anything at all that in any way, shape, or form relates or pertains to your project.

And, in case you haven't already noticed or figured it out, by now, your project's "story" also includes YOU.

Yes, your project's story is as much about you, as it is about your project, itself. Don't be the missing link of your project's story. Fill in the gaps, by sharing bit and pieces about yourself, as you travel down the road of your project's journey toward its funding goal.

If you want people to pay attention to you, then don't be a broken record. Rather, tempt them with bits of your heart, with morsels from your soul. Every instance of you talking about your project doesn't have to be on par with a novel the size of War and Peace. A sentence here. A paragraph there. Sometimes, even a whole page of thoughts - your thoughts about your project.

Yesterday was a different day. Today is a different day. Tomorrow shall be a different day, as well.

Regardless of what you were thinking yesterday, tell us what you are thinking, today. Speak to us anew! Try and try, again.

Except, try this, if you haven't already. Focus upon sharing quality thoughts. Quality exists in small portions before it exists in copious amounts. Be sincere - for it lies at the very nexus of what quality is.

If you make it interesting, then truthfully, you can never, ever say too  much about your project.

Not everyone has heard about your project. Don't make the mistake of thinking that they have. In fact, in all likelihood, MOST people probably haven't heard about it, yet. Which is a very good reason why you should keep talking about your project.

Yes, even after you're tired of talking about it. Yes, even well after it may seem to you that anybody has long since quit listening. The world is a big place, and somebody, somewhere out there is always listening. People are bored. They are always on the lookout for something new, for something different.

Be that something different - but, be a quality different.

Imbue your project with personality, by intertwining tales about your project with bits and pieces of yourself. If you want other people to become excited about your project, then you need to be excited about it, first!

You can't create quality, by allowing your enthusiasm to wither on a vine and die. Enthusiasm was never intended to be contained. The inherent nature of enthusiasm is that it was destined to be shared, it's ordained fate is that it be shouted from the rooftops! LONG LIVE ENTHUSIASM!!

Your project is dead. Long live your project!

You don't have to become the perfect speaker to be the perfect spokesman for your project. All of those people that you want to back your project? None of them are perfect, either.

But, the vast majority of them do possess the basic common sense to enable them to discern between substance and hollowness. Quality, you see, speaks everybody's language, no matter who they are, and no matter what language that they speak.

If you stress to death over what the right thing to say is, then you've already missed the train. Focus, instead, upon just speaking from the heart. If you do, then it really won't matter if you stutter and stumble along the way. People will get it. They will grasp what you're trying to say.

Share your struggle. People have struggles of their own. It will give them something that they can relate to. Your trials. Your tribulations. Your ordeals. These are common denominators of the human soul, of human existence. People will relate.

And, because they will relate, many of them will support you, regardless of what they might think about the individual merits or demerits of your project.

Your project is most likely to fail, if you abandon it. So, rather than abandon it, embrace it, instead. Embrace it and enthuse about it. Let your enthusiasm for your wonderful idea overflow you. Enthusiasm is a very contagious thing - but before contagion can spread, someone must possess it, first.

Spread quality, and not just quantity of words.

That may strike you as a bit odd, seeing as how it comes from someone who talks as much as I do. But, my experience in life has been that, quite often, things that matter typically warrant more words, rather than less.

Even if I fail in getting my message across,  that shouldn't inhibit you from trying to get your message across to the public masses about your project, and why it matters - not just to anyone else, but especially to yourself.

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