by seanlow on March 9, 2010
Once all of your marketing, networking and social media efforts drive clients to your door, there are only two things you need concern yourself with: turning potential clients into actual clients and servicing your actual clients unbelievably well. Yet, all too often, when I ask where the business is in both of these categories, the answer is an exercise in “where are we with so and so…” to your staff, a let me rack my brain to see if I can remember it all, and a scan of your appointment book.
There is literally no more important information for you to know about your creative business. No clients, no business. If you are constantly trying to count trees, not only will you miss the forest, you will probably forget a tree. What level of information you need on your potential clients and where your actual clients are in your production process is entirely personal to you. Some of you need only know that everything is on track, others might need more detail. Regardless of your preference, the information should be at your fingertips, always in real time and detailed enough for you to understand where you are, but not so much as to overwhelm you with the sales/production process.
Whether your creative business is just you or if you have lots of employees, the answer is the same as to how you generate the information on your potential and actual clients. First, commit to providing yourself with the information at least weekly. And, if you do have more than one employee, assign rotating power and responsibility to keep the information up to date. Assigning power will require that the task be completed. Assigning responsibility will make sure it gets done on time. Rotating power AND responsibility ensures everyone’s cooperation.
The lesson here is for you to get out of the way. You hired your staff for a reason – to help you run and build your business. If you have hired well, they are all, as Seth Godin would say, indispensible and integrated. It can never be that one person’s best sabotages another. Your job is to make sure that everyone understands that your creative business is a living, breathing organism. Everything and everybody relies on each other and you will definitely succeed or fail together.
Today, it is not enough to tell someone to sweep a floor and then be upset when it isn’t swept quickly enough or in the right way. The sweeper needs to understand why she has to sweep the floor how and when she does AND that her job is as important as ANY other in the business. With that sense of empowerment, maybe she will be motivated to figure out how to sweep the floor in half the time, or, better yet, figure out how eliminate the step altogether.
You instill the value of empowerment and cooperation through the delivery of information. The better and smoother the flow of information, the more you will empower and inspire. With staff handling what is in front of your creative business, you can focus on what is most important – seeing around the corner and discovering where to go next.
by seanlow on March 4, 2010
Before Apple introduced the IPhone, nobody could conceive of all you could do on a cell phone. 45 million phones, over 140,000 apps, 2 billion downloads later and we have just scratched the surface. There may some day be a competitor that overtakes Apple, but it will never happen if they try to play the same game. You need only look at Palm to see the futility of that plan. In one master stroke, Apple turned a one-time sale into a growing annuity. Amazing.
I hear all the time how fiercely competitive creative business has become. Real Simple Weddings recommends brides find photographers on Craigslist to save money. Wedding planners express frustration at all of the new very low cost entrants into the field with their willingness to do “day of” planning for next to nothing. All designers complain about how aggregation sites like elance.com and ifreelance.com turn every project into a bidding war, yet feel compelled to participate.
That the competition exists doesn’t actually bother me. Darwin’s law is what it is. Nature is cruel, but fair. Adapt and evolve or become extinct. What bothers me the most is the response that so many creative businesses have to competition. First, you focus on marketing what you do louder than the other guy with all of the tools in your social media arsenal – website, blog, Twitter, Facebook, UStream, etc.. As if screaming louder in a crowded room full of screaming people will make you stand out. And, second, you try to make sure you look good relative to the planner/designer/photographer next door by making what you offer easily comparable to what he is offering. I am sure the thought goes, if a client understands that you provide a better value than the competition (i.e., you are cheaper or will do more for the price), they will go with you instead.
Makes me shake my head in frustration. The point of all creative business is to create a platform that best supports the art behind it. The artist you are has to have a deep desire to be iconic or else you would not be doing what you do for a living. Your creative business is no different. Your goal should be to be LESS comparable to the competition, not more. To talk to potential clients in a way that NO ONE else is talking to them. You can and should build a better mousetrap that provides clients with only what is most valuable about you and your art and forgets about the rest.
All that being said, there are many artists seizing the opportunity to change the game – in the wedding world, Style Me Pretty, WeddingBee, Two Bright Lights and LiveBooks come to mind. And there are start-ups like my Kate Parker Wedding and even the yet to launch NewlyWish Registry. In the photography world, there are the giants like Pictage and WHCC, sure, but don’t forget about Laura Novak and how she is structuring Little Nest. For interior designers, you only need to look at what Michael Bruno has done with 1st Dibs to see the possibilities that exist for you.
These businesses offer opportunities to help you do what you do better, yes, but what they really offer is insight into how you can adapt, evolve and, ultimately, redefine your creative business.
