Lessons

by seanlow on February 8, 2010

I am a sponge.  I believe everything and everyone is presented for me to learn something.

Yesterday’s Super Bowl reminded me that there is no such thing as a good or bad decision, just whether it was the right decision for the moment.  Sean Payton’s decisions to go for it on 4th and goal and do an on-side kick made a statement – he was behind his players.  They were the right decisions for the moment.  On the other hand, Tracy Porter’s interception in the fourth quarter, to paraphrase Malcolm Gladwell, is a testament that the willingness to take the greatest risk (and reap the greatest reward) is, at heart, instinctive.

The analogy for your creative business:  there are times when your decisions set the tone for how you want yourself, your art an your business to be represented.  And then there are times when you have to risk everything and live with the consequences.

Then there is Seth Godin’s new book, The Linchpin.  His unyielding desire for all of us to make ourselves indispensible is reason enough to stop everything you are doing and read the book.

Wrap Seth and the Super Bowl with the new series, Undercover Boss, and it comes to me:  the joy is doing the work, not the result; being an artist as much as creating art.  If a Waste Management customer can come out and hug her garbage woman, a port-a-potty cleaner can radiate happiness and a woman can work four jobs in devotion to her family, then the purpose is not what it is that you are doing, but your intention behind the effort.

The humanity (i.e., the art) behind any endeavor is what will carry you and your creative business forward. Everyone is scared of something and the more you run from it, the more it becomes ingrained in you, your art and your creative business.  However, if you do what you do from a place of conviction, you will give your employees and your clients the chance to embrace (and be irrationally loyal to) the art you create with and for them.  Circumstance presents opportunities for decisions, it does not dictate them.

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Pricing

by seanlow on February 1, 2010

All creative businesses should price from the top down.  Decide what you want (need) to make and then figure out what it is going to take to get there.   Pricing from the bottom up (i.e., “marking things up”) almost never captures the true value of your art.  Where you can, charge a fee and leave the cost of production out of your profit equation.

Even if moving to a complete fee-based business is not possible, a real goal is to include some combination in your pricing.  And, even if your creative business has to be a “mark-up” model, try to focus on maximizing the less risky aspects of your business.  For instance, if you are a florist, perhaps you can incorporate a design fee into your work.  If you are a graphic designer, where appropriate, you can assume the risk of delivery and charge a full mark-up on some of your deliverables.  One caveat, though, if you are not in the business of delivering perishables or managing skilled labor (i.e., a florist, caterer, draper, lighting designer, set or furniture fabricator, etc.) do not assume the risk of delivery.  It is hard enough to make money in these creative businesses if it is all that you do, nearly impossible if it is not.

Regardless of your pricing structure or strategy, the goal is to maximize value.  Today’s reality is that, most likely, you will have to negotiate with your clients.  It might sound counter-intuitive, but your flexibility should be on the lower margin items/services you offer, not on your fees or high margin (and/or less risky) items/services.  Even though you might have more “room” in the higher margin business, it is what is most valuable to you and your creative business.  Don’t give it away.

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Change

January 25, 2010

Scott Bourne wrote a great post today about protecting the integrity of wedding photography.  He rails against those photographers who would massively under price their work.  It is a terrific post and I could not have broken it down better:  massively undercutting on price cheats the client, the industry and, most of all, the photographer.  [...]

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Integrity

January 15, 2010

For me, your creative business can be one step from the grave, the biggest and baddest one on the block or somewhere in between, it does not matter.  So long as you have integrity, you are a success in my book.  Integrity in all that you do:  treating people fairly, being true to yourself and [...]

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Do Less and Do More

January 8, 2010

2009 was the year everything changed:  How you did business, what your clients came to value about you and your art, and what they did not.  While the core of your creative business did not (and should not) have changed, its presentation almost surely did.
The New Year is here.  As this is a (relatively) slower [...]

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Happy New Year

December 27, 2009

Someone shared this quote from R.M. Rilke with me today.  Wishing everyone a very happy and fulfilling 2010:
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which [...]

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Herbie And A Beginner’s Mind

December 16, 2009

Change never happens in a moment of crisis.  Crisis is only a reflection of a system’s flaws.  As with treating the symptoms and not the underlying disease, effective change almost never happens as a reaction to a crisis.  The goal is to create a system that manages crisis much better than it avoids it.
Most creative [...]

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Mentors

December 11, 2009

My first class on my first day at Penn Law School in 1989 was Contracts taught by Professor Elizabeth Warren.  Yes, THE Elizabeth Warren who questioned Tim Geithner yesterday during his quarterly appearance before the Congressional Oversight Panel, which she chairs.
We all had to be ready with Peevyhouse v. Garland Coal and Mining Co. – [...]

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Stillness

December 6, 2009

This time of year, most creative businesses begin to make plans for next year.  For the wedding industry, Michelle Loretta from Sage Wedding Pros is writing a series of posts about setting realistic goals and the terrific Lara Casey is offering an intensive workshop on moving your business forward.  The work is necessary and will [...]

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16 C.F.R. Part 255

November 30, 2009

16 C.F.R. Part 255 refers to the new FTC Regulations that go into effect tomorrow , December 1, 2009.  The regulations concern the obligation of bloggers and celebrities to disclose if they are being compensated when they talk about someone or something.  This interview with a senior official at the FTC, particularly the examples, provides [...]

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