“Blow Your Comfort Zone to Smithereens” – An Interview with Mars Dorian, Marketing Artist

Pleasure. I’m a creative marketer at www.marsdorian.com who helps people stand out online. I use my design and cartoon skills to get my point across visually. So, half-marketer, half-cartoonist. Full marketing artist.

In the future, I want to create beautiful-inspiring products (guides, artwork, books and apps) that I epic-fy with my art and sell with my marketing skills. I want to blow you away.

Boom.

Did you always know what you wanted to do (creatively) or has it been a process of trial and error to get to the point you’re at now? If it’s the latter, how did you decide what to focus on? 

I wish ! My past is one big-ass zigzag line. I always wanted to use my creativity to do biz and inspire peeps from around the globe. But  I needed many experiments (read: failures) to get to where I am NOW.

When I started marsdorian.com, it was all about edgy writing in the marketing/branding niche. It was fun, but I missed the creative side – I was a cartoonist back in high school – and I wanted to bring it back into my biz. Plus almost no one in that niche can draw, so I figured it would be a kick-ass USP that’s also FUN to create. Booya.

It always comes down to this: Finding something within you that you’re already good at, and then combining it with something valuable for an audience. Mix those things together, turn it up 3 times higher and voila – you have an online style that people can’t ignore. It’s more about courage than it’s about skills. You have to constantly challenge yourself and blow your comfort zone to smithereens: How can I make this more crazy ? How can this be more edgier ?

Always always turn up the volume – standing out comes from going to the edges. All the way.

Listen – it’s NOT about the person who’s the loudest. It’s about being ice-crystal clear about your message. You can be super-subtle and still show your message in a way that’s NOT ambiguous. You will use a different word choice and rhythm than a screamer like me, but your belief should just be as PURE.

NEVER confuse people about what you stand for – use your preferred style to show ’em YOUR way.

Ehh, the eternal INNER battle. I think I’ll still be ranting about my productivity when I’m a retired vegetable and having robots work for me. Sometimes, I feel like I’m riding the waves of creativity. And days after that, I feel like an useless thug who has to waddle through a swamp.

What helps me beat these s(t)uck times is a change of mindset: You realize that it’s never the right moment to create something. You often feel like not doing it – that the moment is not perfect enough, but that’s a fallacy. True productivity and creativity comes when you FORCE yourself to do the work. No complaining. No distraction. You don’t feel like it. So what ? You’re a pro. And a pro always delivers, even though, or especially when he feels like shit.

That one site was an interesting experiment. I was trying to create a cartoon-only site, and selling merchandise to sustain it. It didn’t work – I needed WAYYY too much time creating one comic page, and the stuff wasn’t as viral as I wanted it to be.  My strength doesn’t lie in making funny comics, but doing edgy cartoons & designs married with my writing style. But it takes experiments to find that out.

Yess, sometimes I do that – especially on the weekend. Working for yourself means working the way you want. And when I wake up and I feel inspired like heck, I don’t bother putting on my clothes. Why waste the creative moment ?

As long as the cops don’t bust my ass for public harassment I’ll carry on.

CMC Clan – it’s your turn! what’s the one thing you could do today to make your online brand stronger and help you stand out more? Leave a comment to let Mars know he has “lit your ass on fire”.