Hello Semi-Techy; Welcome to 2013

Afraid that not being a techy is holding you back from branching out into location independent, freelance, entrepreneurial, creative work?

Be afraid no more.

In the last few weeks, I've come to discover a huge secret.  Even if you can't afford (or choose not to) hire a web designer, graphic artist, SEO manager or whatever  there are other options.  There's DIY for the non-techy.  Which, by the way, turns us into semi-techy's.

Welcome to 2013, the year of the Semi-Techy.

This is the time for any person who has been holding back putting out their work because of technology related fears to get over it!  Embrace the inner-techy!  It’s our time J

I’m not kidding you.  However, before I tell you why you need to grow your tech skills, one itty-bitty disclaimer:

I believe adamantly about outsourcing and focusing on your best work.  It’s a huge time and energy drain to work on areas such as marketing, PR, web design, website maintenance, autoresponder building, SEO, etc. when your specialty is a fiction writer or hair accessory designer or sculptor.

However, when most of us launch our creative biz we are bootstrapping the whole enchilada; there is not a lot of extra resources to spend in a $1500 website design, logo development or SEO skills to bring more people to our website.

Or, you just gotta choose:  go to a conference to learn skills and meet people or spend money on the website.

In any case, there is a lot of choosing to do in launching a business.  There isn’t money to do everything. At the beginning you may find yourself like me:  needing more technical skills than I can hire out for.  Touch choices have to be made.

The solution:  Lots of solopreneurs and creatives are responding to the need for DIY websites, autoresponders, marketing, publishing, design, logo designs, app development and other products.  They are building customizable products for the creative biz on a budget.

These techy people are creating products to help us less tech-inclined people out.

It is  making a huge difference in what you and I can do and how fast we can grow.

The good news is we don’t have to have a degree in website design or spent an internship with an internet company to figure out a few things.

There are only a few things we do need:

1. Time
2. Determination to get the itty biz off the ground
3. Willingness to get dirty and learn a few skills

Because of this, there are now beautiful websites you and I can put together without knowing anything about coding.

We can put our art on Etsy or start a blog or start a photography business or a membership site to teach watercolor classes or interior decorating.  We can be coaches and grow a speaking business or demo cooking techniques.

It can all be done.

You can learn.

I did.  Or I should say, I am learning.  It’s such a process.  But I’m doing it.

And when I get stuck in a rut and the slider doesn’t display the pictures properly or the subscribe button on the blog doesn’t connect to Mail Chimp email services, I stress for a minute as my hair grows three times in volume (it does that when I’m stressing, eek).

Then I remember: there are people who can help me.

There are so many helpful people available to help.  I talked to (actually I emailed) the designer of the WordPress theme I am using for My First Niche Website as well as the designer of a plugin I am using to connect my Mail Chimp account to the website.  They both responded to me quite quickly.  In less than a few days all the issues were resolved.

Yahoo.

So, if  your lack of technical skills has been the reason you have not started launching, you, my launching creative friend, are out of excuses.

As long as you’ve got a few things:

Time (what activity can be eliminated this week?)

Determination (Yes, you can do this!)

Willingness to Learn (You wouldn't be on this site if you didn’t like to learn!)

The future is yours.  Hello Semi-Techy.  Join the bold, the proud and the brave- the age of the Semi-Techy!