The Business of Being Creative

Growth vs. Expansion

I had the distinct honor of being able to speak to a veritable plethora of creative business owners last week at Engage '09.  One of the recurring topics of discussion was what the next step was going to be.  Most wanted to grow geographically -- do the same thing they were currently doing, just somewhere else.  A few were doing things related to their core business, but only tangentially (i.e., a floral designer opening a retail flower shop).  Only one person I met with was working on expanding his core business (through vertical integration).

Growing the core business into other markets is an ok idea -- so long as you have saturated your current market and have a road-tested operating structure in place.  For instance, if you are a high end stationer serving Seattle, have reached a plateau in sales (but are stable) and find that your staff can handle most, if not all, of the business without you, then considering marketing your product to Portland could be the right move.  Too often though, the creative business has neither saturated its market nor has the operating structure in place to be able to enter a new market without risking its place in its existing market.

All things being equal, I am lukewarm on geographic growth.  The reason - it ignores the value of the creative business' brand equity in its market and, ironically, undervalues the business' core.  Take the same high-end stationer in Seattle.  If he/she really is the best high-end stationer in the market, think about how much time and energy went into building the business' reputation both at retail and to the trade.  How difficult do you think it would be trade off of that reputation to expand into another business line altogether?  Perhaps, graphic design, papery beyond life events (and life events beyond weddings), interior design fabrics (wallpaper, textiles, linens, etc.), and flooring (dance floors, tile, carpets).  The new business line would legitimize the core of the stationer's business and thereby support additional expansion. 

The mistake is to think that your creative business' reputation will immediately translate into another market.  Not to diminish the value of your art, but there ARE other artists already doing what you do in the markets you want to get into.  Your art may or may not be superior to theirs, but you WILL have to prove yourself all over again.  Which, of course, begs the question, why compete in the same arena again when so much opportunity (and new challenges) await you where you are THE big fish?

For me, it is the difference between growth and expansion.  Growth is doing the same thing bigger.  Expansion is using the current platform to develop other areas of business, which, in turn, grows the current platform.  Know your art transcends its medium.  The audience that already loves your work is far more apt to embrace (and value) a new expression than a new audience will the old.

The Next Chapter

As those of you who attended Engage '09 already know, I will be stepping down as President of Preston Bailey Design, Inc. on August 1st after almost six years together.  I will be starting my own company, "The Business of Being Creative", which will provide consulting services to those in the business of being creative.  The reason is simply that I have come to so love creative businesses and have a deep desire and passion to help them grow, both as businesses and artists.  Preston's support means the world to me as I begin this new venture and my heart is full knowing that I have it.

In the coming weeks, I will be updating the look of the blog and will spell out there the services I intend to offer.  However, as a preview:

I will continue to write the blog (so love doing it).  I will also answer any question you might have via email so long as I can do it in a few sentences.

I have started a mentoring program and intend to keep doing that too.  Basically, it is either three or six monthly phone sessions to review your creative business and work on what you can do to improve the business and take it to the "next level".  My mentoring program will be limited to twenty "mentees" at any one time.

I do also hope to work with larger creative businesses and/or personality brands that would like my evaluation and input of current operations, strategic direction and new business development.  I expect that each of these engagements will be for at least six months.

Regardless of what The Business of Being Creative evolves into (and I really do have no clue where it will all go), my aim will always be to inspire, to educate, and to help creative businesses evolve into the best versions of themselves.

Feel free to email me at [email protected].  I would love to hear from you.

A Client's Perception Is Subjective, Your Reputation Is Not

We all work so hard to get people to see us as we want them to.  You and your creative business are no different.  Your website, advertising and social media efforts are aimed at getting the right people to be interested in you.  A client's enthusiasm for your end product is the goal of the business.  Ultimately, though, how a client sees your art is how they are going to see it and is largely beyond your control.

The mistake is to confuse a client's perception of you and your art as your reputation.  It can happen on both sides of the equation -- if a client swoons over your art, but you are a jerk or if your client goes flat, but you are unflappable, kind and professional.  For all creative businesses, assuming your talent, reputation is EVERYTHING.  You might think that your success will be based on the strength of your art.  In the (very) short term, you might be right.  But, long term, if you sacrifice your integrity or are anything but professsional you will be lost.  Whatever your personality, a well defined business with process and commitment, coupled with talent, will win the day.

We all know how to cut corners and to play the games that are more about ego than business.  Acquiescing to an unreasonable request by a client or vendor (i.e., getting paid in cash) in the name of customer service is something I hear of all the time. 

Taking the high road is hard.  You might lose clients to those that are willing to compromise.  And, in the times we are in, that could be the difference in paying your bills and not.  Given the alternative, better to flip burgers. 

Faith is knowing who you are, the value of your art and its ability to sustain your business into the future.  Your reputation will be based largely on how much you are willing to compromise your faith.  For all of you, I hope that amount is zero.

Your New Paradigm

Paul Krugman's Op-Ed piece in last Sunday's New York Times talked about how we should not stop all of the unconventional government interventions into the economy now that we are a few inches back from the edge of the abyss.  Stopping now, he argues, would put us right back where we were a few months ago and maybe even over the edge into a full-fledged depression.

Paul's piece is equally applicable to creative businesses, large and small.  Strategies and structures you may have put in place when the economy went south are still necessary, even if business is looking up.  The temptation to go back to what was comfortable (and maybe what you even liked better) is significant, but needs to be resisted.  The world that was will never be again.  If your new paradigm IS working for you, then it should be your new baseline from which you should operate.

I look at it this way -- a rising tide carries all ships as does a falling tide lower them.  If you have figured out how to float in a lower tide, you will rise faster and further when the tide comes back.  The changes you had to make were based on the new (and grim) economic reality your business confronted starting a year ago.  You probably had to outsource more, be more creative in how you stretched your marketing dollar and focus on only that which was most valuable and profitable for you.  In short, you had to bring as much efficiency to your business as you could just to survive.

Abandoning that efficiency now belies its true light. You might be on the other side of the crisis, but you have no idea how far the changes you have made can take you if you do not embrace them as permanent.  I do not believe you will fall into the abyss as the American economy will if we stop our interventions now, but you will miss the rewards that leverage and efficiency bring to any business.

Your Brand Can Stand On Its Own

I am all for strategic alliances and other marketing/co-branding efforts, if everybody brings something to the party.  Too often though, creative businesses sign up to "represent" or be a "preferred vendor" for a well known, large (maybe even huge) corporation without any real obligation on the part of the corporation to DO anything for the creative business.  The creative business does it on the hope that just being associated with the corporation will bring legitimacy to the brand (and more business).

Never works.  Why?  There is no such thing as a free lunch -- if your brand doesn't have a singular reputation and meaning on its own -- no business association is going to magically make that happen for you.  The likely result in such lopsided relationships is that you and your business will have to commit enormous resources (likely to the point of distraction) just to support the corporation and its brand.  In the end, you will be invisible and your art will be wholly commoditized.

If you know the value of your brand and your art, you know you bring something that will help the corporation achieve a goal it has set for its brand.  And, even if this is true, you still need real compensation -- whether it is in the form of financial guarantees, PR/Marketing/Advertising commitment or both.  Without risk, the corporation will literally not be invested in your success and it will be all too easy for them to ignore the Dip that is inevitable in any business relationship.

I know how enticing and even sexy it is to be courted by a corporate partner.  The fantasy of what it could all mean for you and your business is intoxicating.  Some of you in this position might feel that if you turn down this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity it will never come again.  You are wrong.  If you continue to do what you do, your brand will only get stronger and your value to the corporation, everything being equal, will only continue to grow.  From there, you will be able to make the deal that helps everybody.

The Value of Boundaries

No doubt about it, great customer service is wonderfully subtle -- the little things that add up to everything -- like a rep from Zappos.com sending flowers to a customer who didn't return a pair of shoes she got for her mother because her mother had died.  But dig a little deeper and you will see that the subtlety of great customer service is a subset of well-defined boundaries and expectations.

There is a basic trade happening for all creative businesses:  your customer is paying you to create art for them.  Implicit in the trade is the customer's obligation to tell you what kind of art they want and your obligation to deliver it when and where they want it and to tell them what they need to know along the way.  Easy enough -- if you lay it all out before you get started.  Recipe for A LOT of stress if you don't.

We have all heard of clients calling at 2:00 in the morning, demanding five presentations, not paying their bills on time, skipping appointments, etc.  Too often, I hear a sense of pride (or resignation) in being willing to accept all of this behavior in the name of great customer service.  Just not the case.  And not because of the need to sometimes speak to your client at 2:00 a.m., provide five presentations, accept a skipped appointment or be flexible in payment, but because, if you haven't set the boundaries in the first place, you get no VALUE out of your willingness to break them.

By setting and communicating your boundaries and expectations to your client, you create a much more inclusive as opposed to intrusive environment.  If clients don't know where they stand with you, then the natural feeling is to think that somehow they are intruding on you and your business.  This then makes them MORE demanding of you (they are paying you after all).  Ironic to me -- by not communicating and setting boundaries at the start (i.e., doing nothing), you wind of doing and giving so much more than if you had.

If clients feel included in the process, they will be invested in your success and you will have the freedom to do your best work for them, even if there are snafus along the way.

The Air Your Business Breathes Isn't Free

There are things we all do as human beings that have nothing to do with money.  We do them because they feed our soul, hopefully bring us joy and mostly because we feel it is the right thing to do.  Your creative business probably does all those things for you too.  However, that is not its purpose. Your business' purpose is to make money and your mindset should PRIMARILY be based on analyzing the cost-benefit of EVERYTHING your business does.

You are investing your time and money every day, all day.  The investment has to yield a definable return, regardless of whether that return can be quantified financially or not.  We are all taught as children to not be selfish, to not think of what's in it for me.  However, as a business owner, that is the ONLY way you can think.  Quite literally, your job is to take 2+2 and make it 5.

The cost-benefit mindset will also help you embrace the concept of finite resources.  Every business on the planet has finite resources -- some much more than others, but still.  You only have so much time and money at your disposal at any one point.  A dollar or hour spent one place NECESSARILY means that it will not be devoted someplace else.  Therefore, if you are to make 2+2=5, your goal has to be to use those resources as efficiently and effectively as you know how.  That means placing a value on all that is being done and why.  Usually this mindset stops your ego from getting in the way.  For instance, where you spend money to promote the business will be where you get the biggest bang for your buck, as opposed to where you think you have to be.  Spend thousands advertising on the Knot, WeddingBee, shelter magazines, etc. or use the same money to photograph your work in a relevant way with someone (or some place) that can take advantage of the images.  Spend an hour doing the books or an hour drawing.  Keep an employee in a job because they are "loyal", but incompetent, or find a place where they can really help you (including working for someone else).

You certainly don't have to take cost-benefit analysis to its logical extreme -- you are an artist; but you do have to have a sense of proportion and profitability in mind.  After all, the last thing you or your business needs is to have 2+2=3.

You Are Already There

For any of you who have created a successful creative business, I would like to remind you that you are already there.  Too often, because of the chair I sit in, I hear, "Well, I'm no Preston Bailey, Vicente Wolf, Joe Buissink, Marcy Blum, David Rockwell, Sylvia Weinstock, etc., but I am doing ok."  Then they proceed to tell me about how busy they are (and in some cases how many millions of dollars, yes millions, they are generating).  I am not saying you should not admire your chosen icon; just that you need to own your own power and the power of your art.  The negative implications of not accepting your station in the marketplace are myriad.

You will not price well.  You will be too focused on your competition and what they are doing instead of what you are doing to evolve.  You will have poor customer service because you will have no boundaries.  You will not go all the way there with your art.  You will have no filter and will take on the wrong clients.  You will have no filter and will be drawn into ventures that will, at best, cost you money and, at worst, implode your brand (preferred relationships anyone?).  You will have no perspective on the intrinsic value of your art and your business, and will be at a loss for what your next step should be.

Owning your own power may not prevent any or all of the above from happening.  But what it will do is give you the ability to act with integrity, from a position of strength.  

Nobody can know the outcome of a decision.  In the end, what you choose to do or not for your art and your business has to come from your belly, regardless of the amount of information you have (and you should have a lot).  If you do not embrace your own power, you will not be deciding, you will be guessing.  No matter the result, not a place you want to be.

The Value of Journaling

Every business, creative or not, needs direction -- a road map of where it is and where it wants to go.  And creating a business or strategic plan every six months or so is a great practice to get you to really think about the business as a whole.  What gets missed though is being mindful in between the plans.  Your business is alive and always evolving.  Too often the freneticism of your day to day makes it impossible for you to see the evolution of your business.  I would presume the same is true for your art.  How you check in with yourself as an artist is not for me to say, but I would highly suggest you create a daily journal to check in with yourself as a business owner.

I love the Artist's Way and got started journaling after taking Julia's seminar more than 10 years ago.  Julia's journal is about free form expression.  But that you will be writing about your business, I am arguing you do the same.  The journal is NOT there to solve any problems, develop any plan or do anything rational.  The purpose of the business journal is to give voice to your inner voice.

Your daily business journal should be for a set amount of time every day (Julia does pages, I like time and would suggest 20 minutes) where you write to yourself about your likes, dislikes and vision for a particular part of your business.  Optimally, you should journal at the same time every day.  For instance, topic of the day (or week or month) could be customer service.  What do you like about how you treat your clients?  What could be done better?  What do you wish you could communicate that you aren't?

The journal will keep you in touch with what is confronting you and your business today.  When you read your entries back you will SEE what has to be done -- you will have told it to yourself without even knowing that you did.  You can then set about solving the issue as YOU have identified it (as opposed to how it has been defined for you).  Whether that manifests in a strategic plan or something more immediate is a function of the severity of the issue, time and desire.  And, yes, your journal will show that to you too.  If you can write something once and forget about it, can't be that big of a deal.  But if it shows up every day, time to get moving.

All sound too out there for you?  Try it for a week.  My guess is that you will be able to identify and act on issues affecting your business far better than you did the week before.  If not, then you will certainly be no worse for trying.