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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Your Brand Is Everything

November 24, 2009

How many of you have seen creative businesses describe themselves as some permutation of the following:
“At XYZ Interior Design we pride ourselves on our attention to detail and our personal relationship with you, our customer.  Service is the key to our business. Custom, inspired, elegant design the hallmark of our work. “
“Inspired”, “Flawless”, “Custom”, “Detailed”, [...]

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Transcending Your Medium

November 16, 2009

I have been reading (and watching) Gary Vaynerchuk recently.  For those that don’t know who Gary is, he is the founder of Wine Library TV.com and author of Crush It.  Gary is intense and passionate about the opportunity Social Media presents to all of us to define ourselves and spread that message almost instantly.  He [...]

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The 5 Ws Revisited

November 11, 2009

I have heard too many stories recently that just make me sad.  Some creative business owners are overwhelmed, underpaid and now broke even though business is booming.  Others have unsupportive, dysfunctional staff and feel like they have to do everything themselves.  More than are a few are watching their businesses shrink with no thought on [...]

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Forget About The Competition

November 5, 2009

The fantastic Rebecca Grinnals tweeted a few quotes from last year’s Trendwatching.com: “Just copying competitors is a race to the bottom” and “If you’re obsessed with what your direct competition is doing, you will always end up copying new concepts in your industry.”
If you are interested in copying or stealing from your competition, you should [...]

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