We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Chris Dodd a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Chris, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

Earning a full-time living through my creative work has been a difficult up & down journey for the most part for me. In fact, out of the 10+ years in my industry, I’ve worked either full-time or part-time for most of my journey. In my specific niche as a content creator, I learned really early on when partnering up with brands, most of them just want to throw some free products your way & expect you to create content for them in return. That’s if you’re lucky enough to even get that conversation going without already spending a bunch of money on their products in the first place. I do want to make it clear I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that & I don’t feel as though brands are in the wrong for going that way about partnerships either. At the end of the day, you can still say no lol. However when it comes to making sure you are being compensated for your work and earning a full-time living, shoutouts, likes, free stuff & “clout” aren’t going to pay your rent. Although it’s important to know that sometimes working with the right brand with a lower compensation rate can lead to those other partnerships that pay more! & that’s why I was always down to work with everybody in some way or another, it’s just about understanding where the value comes into play. If you price yourself too high you may block yourself out from some really lucrative partnerships & stunt your growth. I learned pretty quickly in the game that I would have to take as much control as possible over my service & really look at it like a business. I learned in order to get paid I would have to make sure I was bringing as much value as possible to the table. For me, I was never in a position where I was questioning whether my content was worth paying for at all I was always confident in my content and knew that I am really good at what I do. However, I knew being good at something and getting someone to pay you for that are two separate things. I also was never a big fan of taking the time to create free content for brands for a few free t-shirts while they reap all the profits off the sales. This is why I created my own online clothing store from the platforms I had built up for myself on social media in the first place. This allowed me to bring something else to the partnership, I would only work with brands that would allow me to sell their products in my store as well, that way I made sure I got paid on the backend for all of the content I took time to create which ultimately benefitted both of us. If they didn’t want to let me sell their clothes in my store, that’s fine, I’ll just need to be compensated for my content in another way. I was also very careful about what brands I worked with. Having my own store gave me leverage when negotiating deals with brands within my niche. At this point in time I can say I NEVER work for FREE. There’s always some sort of value exchange with every brand I work with. Whether it is monetary or not, we’re both getting something out of our partnership. For me, I’ve really always been the hands-on, feet-on-the-ground type of hustler & learned all of this through hard work experience, trial & error, and putting myself out there.

Chris, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Coming from a more traditional background early on in my journey, I sought out the old way to create a buzz for myself & my brand. I moved out to LA from NY and really just hit the ground working as hard as I could. Back then I was trying to become an actor and entertainer of some sort. I used to skate to auditions every week & would work with as many local photographers as I could to build up my image and get experience. Fast forward a bit after I found myself back home in NY. I realized you could build an image and career for yourself from anywhere in the world now with rising social media platforms back then like Twitter & Instagram. I leaned into my passions and took my experience from the traditional entertainment world to really start branding myself as an entrepreneur & creator. I put my hands & feet into as many different outlets as possible from acting, music, modeling, influencing, and business & sought out what would stick. For me I realized my strong suit was creating content, It was the best form of expressing my message & overall provided the most satisfaction for me. I’m a visionary & creative at first & am proud of myself for being real with myself. I also love the business side of things but understand that its important to bring in the right people to help me with certain areas of business that I’m not so strong in and these days I spend my time growing my online clothing store, and clothing brand & creating content for the brands that I work with. I also now offer content creation services like videography & photo locally from all of my experience creating content for my brands & businesses which I’m really excited about at the moment!

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

In terms of funding the online clothing store that I started back in 2017. I went the hard way about it, which at the time was the only way I knew how to get it. If you want something in this world you have to work for it. In my particular situation, because of some of the choices I had made in my life early on, I didn’t even have the luxury of accepting a 9-5 job, I had a 5-9. I used to work full time around 50 hours a week. Slowly but surely I knew that was going to work long term. I would spend every hour I had off the clock outside of my basic day-to-day responsibilities with my growing family learning & plotting and trying to build my escape window from the job I hated to jump out of. Because I was working nights I used to sleep in pretty late which I always hated, but I would use the first few hours of the day to again tend to my day-to-day responsibilities like taking care of the kids or tidying up the house, then I would catch a workout at the gym, punch in at my night job, clock out anywhere from 10-12 pm and then it was MY time. I would sip some coffee open the computer and get to work. This led me to learn the ins & outs of e-commerce, I chose a lane that I was passionate about which is mainly streetwear & mens clothing inspired by skateboarding & hip hop, and started to make my dream a reality! Overall I used that job to take care of my responsibilities even though it wasn’t much at the time, whatever funds I had left over went right into starting my business until It grew a life of its own.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I would say the biggest lesson I’ve had to learn to this day is being more open-minded in terms of business and professional relationships. Me personally I’ve always been a lone-wolf type of entrepreneur. But sometimes you can really only get so far by yourself. Finding someone like-minded or even a group of like-minded people is such an underrated aspect of entrepreneurship & business in general. Even if its something as litte as getting together for coffee, or starting a chat group via text where you can bounce ideas off of eachther and share knowledge, this can really catipult you in the right direction sometimes. I’m not saying you have to become friends with everybody and it is equally as important to maintain some level of exclusivity, however you never know what relation ship or piece of knowledge you pick up off someone else could very well change your life. This is why I’ve been so heavy on learning in the past few years and being more open minded to new technology and trends within business. Instead of scoffing at new things like NFT’s, Crypto, or even AI, I’ve learned to at least give it an open ear and learn about it! Those of us willing to adapt to new tools will constantly move forward with the business world! Those who are unwilling to learn & adapt to new ways will stay where they are and maybe even worse die out..

It truly amazes me that in 2023 there are people & businesses that aren’t using social media to grow themselves or their business! Now more than ever having your own personal brand on social media is so crucial. Whether you are an entrepreneur or not, you can increase your chances of success and add value to yourself just by creating content on social media. For brands and businesses, social media is a no-brainer. But if I’m a 9-5er working at a normal job, I’m building an online personal brand and creating content every single day where I share my insight, knowledge, or just relatable day-to-day experiences within my field on socials! Then I’m using AI technology that is available for all of us now like CHATGPT to expedite my day-to-day processes, now im a SUPER employee and can demand higher pay, more flexible working terms etc, etc..

Contact Info:

• Website: www.TheStreetwearOutlet.com
• Instagram: @chrisdoddbr
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-dodd-5916331b1/
• Twitter: @chrisdoddbr
• Youtube: @chrisdoddbr
• Other: [email protected]

Image Credits
@ericadavidphotography @visuals_cd