Fees v. Mark-up

October 14, 2011

With apologies to Olivia Newton John, let’s get technical.  Should you charge fees and not mark up any of goods or services your creative business provides (save to cover your costs) or lose the fees and just mark things up?  It depends.  For some creative businesses (although way fewer than are out there), charging fees [...]

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Competition

October 11, 2011

Competition is neither good nor bad.  It just is.  There are creative businesses, large and small that do what you do on a macro scale.  They take pictures, supply design of all kinds (event, interior, graphic), sell cakes, light your rooms.  You can look at the world as bountiful (i.e., more than enough to go [...]

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What Do You Sell?

October 5, 2011

As technology advances, the value of mediocre (even pretty good) art will approach zero.  Why would I buy a holiday card from you if I can go choose from literally thousands of designs from TinyPrints?  Have you design my logo and website?  I can get a logo for $150 from The Logo Company and a [...]

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Relativity

September 26, 2011

Creative business owners tell me all the time, “It is not like what we are doing is brain surgery.  We are just providing [a logo, flowers, pictures, lights, music, video, furniture].”  Some go even further and say that their creative business gives clients the “fluff” in their lives. In one sense, they are right – [...]

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Patience

September 20, 2011

We are all busy trying to master the new new thing.  Be it all things social media, business offerings, employees, vendors, markets, even clothes, we just do not want to be left behind.  Staying the course so often is interpreted as sitting still.  The fear of the world passing us by makes it virtually impossible [...]

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Time

September 13, 2011

Good is good enough.  If better were possible, then the statement should make you cringe.  No client deserves a first draft.  However, if your “good” is only a function of your neurosis (i.e., there was a typo, an atomic difference in color, a misplaced pillow) then your good has to be good enough.  To paraphrase, [...]

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Emotional Connection

September 7, 2011

Time away always brings perspective.  Throw an earthquake and a hurricane into the mix and all of the things I am so invested in (career, home, stuff, etc.) disappear.  What matters are personal relationships.  Deep, unyielding, honest relationships with those who we choose to love.  My struggle is to acknowledge that their loss, while wholly [...]

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Dichotomies

August 9, 2011

Last Friday, S&P downgraded the credit worthiness of the United States for the first time in our history.  Unemployment hangs at over 9% (the highest it has been since the Depression).  On Monday, the stock market had it largest decline since 2008.  We are facing financial crisis after crisis and prospects for our economy do [...]

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Walking The Walk

August 3, 2011

When we make change, the biggest ones are often the easiest.  Once we commit to lose the weight, give up smoking, drinking, doing work for nothing, ending a bad personal or professional relationship, etc., the first move offers the most dramatic results.  These dramatic results are the catalyst to keep moving, keep changing.  However, once [...]

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Saying Goodbye and Hello

July 25, 2011

How we turn the page defines us.  Friendships come, evolve, some stay and some go.  None stay the same.  Children grow up.  Those nearest and dearest to us die.  We will have to leave the people we love most when it is our time.  The grace with which we can say goodbye and hello is [...]

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