What Do You Sell?

November 17, 2011

Twice a year, I am honored to have the privilege of speaking at Rebecca Grinnals’ Engage! conferences.  As she fashioned this installment in Grand Cayman after the TED Talks, I need only say that TED is in good company. Engage! is a remarkable experience for remarkable wedding professionals.  Others may try to compare, imitate or [...]

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Going Radical

November 9, 2011

Photographers (basically) giving their work away on Groupon.  Wedding planners offering their services for next to nothing on Gilt Groupe.  World famous photographers offering a chance to win a portrait session for a “like” on Facebook.  Every vendor under the Sun giving it all away to be part of the Kardashian free-for-all.    These are radical [...]

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The Worst Of The Best

November 1, 2011

It is not megalomania to say you are going to be the next so and so.  Why not you?  Presuming talent, desire, fortitude, courage and a heavy dose of good fortune, making your vision a reality is a distinct possibility.  To which, I am amazed at how low the bar most creative business owners (and [...]

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Take A Breath

October 25, 2011

My first job out of college in 1988 was as a paralegal for a big New York law firm.  Not a fun job (read: mind-numbing busy work).  One of my big tasks was comparing changes to a document by hand and marking those changes.  The attorney would then mark his changes to those changes, have [...]

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Loyalty

October 20, 2011

Loyalty matters more than ever today.  How we treat our colleagues, clients, and employees is what defines us.  The temptation to alienate each other has never been greater.  Whether it is to chase after a particular client, enter into another line of business, reinterpret (i.e., copy) an idea, or to support a particular business, loyalty [...]

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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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