McLane Creative

If you pay close attention, you may see a links to mclanecreative.com on some websites. What is that all about?

Essentially, McLane Creative is for stuff I do outside of my work at Youth Specialties. Sometimes there may be a project I want to experiment with that has nothing to do with my full-time gig, so I fly those things under that banner. Those are personal projects… stuff I play with when I’m bored.

But I also do some projects for people under the McLane Creative name. Up until this point I’ve kept those projects very small, kept closely within my network of friends, and kept my involvement in them below the radar. The simple truth is that for every project I had time to work on I was saying no to about 20 inquiries.

As an entrepreneur– this drove me nuts! There are so many great ideas out there and it is super annoying to have to say no to 95% of them. (And about 99% of my own) I simply don’t have the time/energy to do more than what I’m already doing… but there must be a third option.

That third option was such a simple solution. Why didn’t I think of this before? I’ll keep doing the 5% of projects completely on my own. But I’ll also start saying yes to more projects I’m passionate about, just won’t do 100% of the work myself. Instead, I’ll work with my network of existing friends who are all themselves brilliantly creative. In football terms, my role with McLane Creative will be primarily to distribute the ball. (Unlike in the NFL, this will be a fair trade deal. I don’t believe in hiring coders in Eastern Europe or Asia, you need to ask about that these days when hiring creatives.)

So these are the 4 types of things I’m now open to under the banner of McLane Creative: (*super-important disclaimer below)

• Web design/development/implementation
• Social media and online marketing consulting
• Full-on marketing campaigns (print, video, web)
• Speaking, staff training, one-on-one nerd coaching, writing

Last, it’s probably good to say up-front that I don’t work for free. (I do a fair amount of pro bono work, but I pick those projects on my own for my own reasons.) Since I pick only projects I am passionate about, my rates tend to reflect that passion. But free? No can do. Barter? I do like tacos. I’m looking for a country club to exchange a free membership for web design!

Want to know more? Hit the feedback button on the side of my blog or head over to the website and contact me.

*Super-important Disclaimer. I’m not starting a business in any way, shape, or form! I’ve got a job that I love enough to call two full-time jobs already. The only way I can say yes to more is to hand most of it off. Nor will I consider any project, even one that I’d hand off to a friend, which competes with Youth Specialties/YouthWorks in my opinion.