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What Matters To You?

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What matters to you, your art and your creative business has a price. The price is vulnerability. You will be vulnerable to those that will say what matters to you does not matter. Notice I did not say does not matter to them. I said it does not matter. Wholehearted dismissal of what makes your art, well, yours.

If I could wipe out one insidiousness in ALL creative business, this would be it.  The willingness to dismiss another artist’s process as insubstantial or, worse, irrelevant in the name of getting business or press or whatever is the road to oblivion. Were this a speck in the creative business universe, but, alas, it is not.

Telling a client, employees, colleagues, anyone, that driving a Mercedes is silly when a Ford does the same thing, is the same thing, does a disservice not just to the Mercedes but mostly to the Ford. Even worse is selling the premium of false equivalence. Because there really is no difference between a Ford and a Mercedes, hire me at more than a cost of the Ford but certainly less than the cost of a Mercedes. Ugh, I need a shower.

The answer to the problem (and it is a problem) is integrity and courage. Acknowledge that what matters to you, whether you are a Ford or a Mercedes, matters A LOT, as in is everything to you, your art and your creative business. Make this the decision any client, employee, colleague, media must make before talking about you, your art or your creative business.

I can give a million examples: the power of design, the importance of clean decisions, the depth/shallowness of collaboration, the size of a production budget, almost anything in The Four Transitions. Really, though, the answer, for you, lies in completing the following sentence: “To me, what we do begins and ends with ___________. This is our foundation and, without it, we really cannot go anywhere.”

Fair enough if that something does not resonate with whomever it is relayed to. They are not your client, employee or even colleague (at least they should not be). However, to those that do resonate with the something, all comparisons must rest in the resonance of that something. If competition resonates better in your something, the call to action is to become more vulnerable, not less; purer in your intention, not muted; resolute in your purpose, not diffused. Why?

The easy road is paved with false prophets and the quick buck. The easy road is an allure – you will get the project, convince yourself that you are the winner. However, the easy road always ends at a cliff and, like Wiley E. Coyote, you will be mid-air over the canyon without even knowing it. And since you will be an artist without a purpose or principles when you land, getting up will not be as simple as it is for Wiley. You will have systematically undone all that you imagined you, your art and your creative business to be.  The road back is treacherous, if even possible.  You might survive but only as a shadow of yourself and your art.

If you think I am being overly dramatic, think again. I watch countless creative businesses every day go down the rabbit hole of compromise (sorry Wiley) until they are barely breathing. Household names, designers we all deeply respect and literally pay to hear speak, who are almost perpetually on the verge of collapse. The façade only matters if there is a deep foundation, otherwise it is just a prop, a Hollywood set with nothing behind the curtain.  Barely a breeze waiting to knock it down.

What you do matters. What matters to you and your art matters. Today, more than ever, no one needs dilution, false equivalence, or anything “who care?” or “I am that too”. In the creative world, your truth is what counts for your art and your business. Without your truth, what you do is just stuff and we are all oversaturated with stuff. The world needs art, not stuff. So please please please live your and your art’s truth starkly, bravely and without compromise. In the face of noise, get louder with what matters to you. Let that be its own reward.

Strategy

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Strategy gets a bad rap. Almost everyone in creative business goes about strategy exactly backwards. Usually, creative business owners start by looking at what everyone else is doing and then try to figure out what they should do to be different. Jane designer charges by the hour, I will charge a flat fee. Fred the florist has a $5,000 minimum, I will have a $7,500 minimum (or a $3,000 minimum). And so it goes until the “strategy” is to be different from everyone else in definable measurement.s   As if that is what will separate you from your colleagues.

Nope, strategy is an internal exercise first and foremost. It starts with what your definition of success is for you, your art and your creative business. Number of projects? Size? Style? Profitability? Type of client? In other words, what matters to you for your art and/or your creative business? For the moment, forget about everyone else around you and answer the question as if you are alone in your art (which, in fact, you are).

To overstate and oversimplify, it could be something like: “I want to do ultra modern design for really edgy clients who have ample budgets but not unlimited resources. I like to work on ten projects a year to feel satisfied as an artist without feeling overwhelmed.” Now the strategy – define the parts that really matter as only you can.

What does ultra modern design mean? Really edgy clients? Ample budgets? Once these key ingredients are established, now define how you are going to serve them. Is ultra modern available or do you have to make it all custom? Are really edgy clients savvy or do they need a lot of hand holding in your world. Just because someone is edgy does NOT mean they are necessarily educated in your art. It only means that they know they want what you do. Of course, the easiest is what should an ample budget look like to you? $10? $10,000.

Measures of success and definitions of those measures in hand, now set out building the business story to support them. All of our work is custom to create the ultra modern look we design. To generate the custom look, we will present to you in a three stage process – general ideas, specific production techniques, and, finally, formal sample designs – to complete our designs. We know that, even though you love and appreciate what we do, it is important that we educate you about what we are doing along the way. Once business process is done to support measures of success and their definitions, and only then, add the cost of your services.

We only do ten projects a year and based on our level of customization, the cost of each of our projects is $X, payable as a deposit, completion of design and delivery of product/service.

Now you have a strategy for what will best serve the art you want to create for the clients you want to create it for. With the strategy in hand, by all means look around to who might be doing similar work. Ask yourself if you would be confused if you were the client between the two (or ten) of you. If not, nothing to change EVEN if the competition is getting more business than you are. Although if you are getting your butt kicked by your competition, the premise that your clients are not confused is probably an exercise in alternate facts.

If, however, you would be confused, then ask yourself how you can make your measures of success and their definitions that much more meaningful and apparent first. Become MORE you, not less.

And that is the thing about strategy, it is about distillation, not dilution. When you start by looking at the world around you, instead of your world, you cannot help but to try to become a better version of someone else. At the end of the day, who wants an artist to be derivative? Not me, not your clients, and, hopefully, not you. Art demands your faith in being iconic. So does your creative business. Strategy starts there.

Understanding Value

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We only buy things if we think they are worth more (or at least as much) as we have to pay for them. For our purposes today, we will focus on money transactions. Value can be delivered with attention, timely decisions, etc., but it is just easier to make it all about the Benjamins.

Here is the overarching concept for creative businesses: absolute value does not matter nearly as much as timing of value delivery with payment. Chew on that one for a while.

I have written about value delivery many times starting back in 2013. My goal here is to set out the framework for everyone to understand why it matters so much and when you get it wrong (or, worse, ignore the concept) you literally shoot your art and your creative business in the foot. Every time.

Absolute value delivery is what you think it is. You buy a bar of soap for a dollar and it is worth a dollar and ten cents to you. Awesomeness. And for contemporaneous transactions, absolute value and timing of value delivery are the same. You pay for the soap and then in pretty short order you use the soap.   If you like everything about the soap – how it smells, how long it lasts, what it makes your skin feel like – you will probably buy the same soap again. Value cycle repeats itself.

Creative businesses do not work that way though. Why? The cycle is over an extended period of time. Most creative businesses measure client projects in months, if not years. As the value cycle stretches, timing of value delivery and payment takes over as the main driver far more than absolute value.

For those of you who live in colder climates and have young children, how much would you pay for cable/internet access during wintertime (say beginning mid-November to mid-March)? What about when the weather is nice and you want them outside and off their electronics? Some easy math. Say you would pay $160/month for the four winterish months but do not want to pay anything for the spring, summer and early fall months. Your value is $640/yr. Now say the cable company charges you $50/month for your cable/internet. You only have to pay $600/yr. Huge win, right? $40 extra dollars in value! Not so fast.

You feel amazing to only have to pay $50 to get $160 of value in January, but you are mad mad mad to write the check in July when you want everyone outside. Absolute value is outweighed by value delivery. If you have enough mad mad mad months of feeling short-changed, you forget about the overall value you have actually received. Translation: you feel ripped off more than you acknowledge the great deal you actually got.

Of course, behemoth cable companies need to standardize billing to be efficient so they cannot have surge pricing ala Uber and they rely on the fact that you are not going to give up your cable/internet when you do not really need it because you want it there when you do. They literally do not care about the mad mad mad months because they know you are not going anywhere.

Your creative business is not the cable company though and your clients are awful at assessing absolute value.

The value of creation is, ahem, creation. Once something is created the value declines precipitously. The first time you hear a song you love is way more powerful than the thousandth time. Yet, so many creative business owners try to get paid for the value of the first time after they perform the song for the thousandth time. Here is how that works: Your creative business charges a fee that is randomly collected and not tied to any value marker – say fifty percent down, fifty percent two weeks before delivery or some other permutation of randomness. Shocker of shockers clients do not enjoy the process of creation and production as they should because you made it all about the end. They do not want to pay for the road map when they are already (or almost) at their destination. Even if the road map and the journey there is what made the absolute value what it is.

The answer is simple: get paid for the value you deliver, when your creative business delivers it. The work is fundamental – you know the steps your creative business needs to take (and in what order) to create your best art. Write them down. Assign a dollar value to each one. If the steps can be batched, batch them (say the design process), add up the dollars and get paid when you are finished with the batch. Then move on to the next set until you are done. That is the secret sauce.

Each moment with your client matters. How much it matters is up to you and your creative business, not your client. If you are unwilling to do the work to demonstrate the value of the moment, why should your client care?  As every silly pop song will tell you, when the moment is gone, it is gone. So get paid for today and tomorrow and leave yesterday alone.

The Happy Business

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Creative business is the happy business. Even if you do commercial work. You exist to transform. You transform by surprising, delighting, energizing, inspiring clients with what you intend for them. They live in the afterglow once your creation comes to life.

So why oh why would you ever make the business of your creativity pure drudgery? Or worse, boring, stiflingly rigid with nonsensical agreements that do nothing for your business or your clients? You wouldn’t you say? Were that true, I would happily be done writing. Instead, I see a sea of packages, form agreements, boilerplate everything and I literally want to scream. I can only imagine what your clients feel.

Since 2017 is the year of challenges from me so far, here is another one: if you must use packages, you are only allowed two (high and low) and the high package must be AT LEAST three times as expensive as the low one. Also, if a ten year old cannot understand what they get for their money and why they should pay for it, start over. You have to be able to define what your creative business stands for at every level. You packages support your definition, they, themselves, are not the definition of value. No way around it, you have to do the work to define why your creative business is worth what you say it is.

Speaking of why a client should pay for what you offer, do not forget about when you offer it. Time is relative and has relative value. For pure design, time is a silly measure of value. Flux Capacitor Issue (not linking, I have given the example many times and I will talk for a half hour to the first person who explains what I mean in a comment). However, production of any design is a measurable event and can be estimated as to who and how much is needed to effectively produce the creation. For production, getting paid for your and your creative business’ time there makes total sense.

The point is: your creative business offers different things at different points of a project. Stop getting paid as if you do one thing always. It does not mean you have to change the method of payment calculation (i.e., flat fee vs. hourly), it just means you have to clearly define the value proposition that exists at the particular stage of a project. Ahem, the value proposition needs to make sense. Or you can let your mind-numbing package do the work. Your choice.

Next, quit making the final promise and instead focus on checkpoint promises. Who cares if clients will love it in the end? A) Of course they will or you would not have a business; and B) even if they do not, what will you do about it then, the proverbial pooch will have already been screwed. Instead, give your word about the next step, give it again, then keep it.

Here is an example: production budget. You say that the project will cost $10,000 to bring your creation to life. They agree. You present your vision (without prices).

During the presentation, you affirm that the production budget is $10,000. Client agrees. You sit down with client to go over production budgets. It is $10,000. Promise kept. Then move on to the next promise. Maybe when a certain element will be finished. All the way until the end of the project. Incremental promises kept along the way make the final one inevitable.

Beware the cruel temptress of getting it done. It is too easy to just let it all slide, to just focus on getting the project finished. Everything in the name of moving on.

Slow down. Evolving relationship, deepening trust, building investment are the foundation of transformation. Let your business be creative. It is there to support your creativity, not be the hurdle you and your art need to overcome to find success. Invest in the intimacy that matters – being the steady hand in the face of uncertainty. You need your business to be a reflection of that steady hand and the only way to do that is to have it be a reflection of who you and your art actually are. Make sense and make promises. Then keep them. No better recipe to create happy than that.

Be The Most In Your Category

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So we are going to step it up today. I have offered a few challenges so far this young year – lose line item pricing, refuse to allow anyone to refer to your work as anything other than an investment. And while not easy, these challenges are specific actions that do not require a deeper understanding of your creative business per se.

Now it is time to roll up your sleeves and look closer at your creative business, understand your community and where you and your art belong in that community. Here is an analogy to get you going.

Say you want to start a high-end restaurant. You know from eating at other high-end restaurants in your city that entrees range from thirty to forty dollars. Since you are new, your instinct might be to price underneath the typical high-end restaurant at, say, twenty to twenty-five dollars. You might even have a little (or a lot of) success and a few years later your prices are still twenty to twenty-five dollars. You convince yourself you are a high-end restaurant, despite wanting to get to that next level. Each time you try though you just cannot crack the thirty-dollar level for an entrée. What to do?

Of course, this is the story of soooo many creative businesses. I call it the Venus Fly Trap of luxury. You are lured into believing that you are high-end, when you really not (at least not in the way that you think) and then chase after that elusive goal missing all that you have created. Sucked in, you, your art and your creative business become exhausted by the chase, stuck in the fly trap.

Own who you are today and be the best there.  Then, if you want to shift, invest in what it means to be in that other place and refuse to be defined by what the past has brought you.

Back to the restaurant example. You were NEVER a high-end restaurant. When you price above or below a category, you are NOT in that category. Period. Why? Clients cannot understand the relative value you offer. Nobody wants to do business with an amateur. We want to deal with those artists who know their work and their craft and can bring us the transformation we seek. Whether you are in business for a minute or twenty years, the transaction is the same: transformation for money. Where that transformation sits (high-end, luxury, accessible luxury, ultra-luxury or mass) is up to you and your vision for your art and your creative business. Still all about transformation though.

Let’s break it down. Own who you are today. That means know your category and strive to be the HIGHEST priced business in that category. If restaurants with twenty to twenty-five dollar entrees are considered a step below high-end, fine. Own that space and try to move every entrée to twenty-five dollars. Of course, to raise your price you will have to define the extra value you are offering to justify the increase. It could be as simple as stopping to offer the very thing your clients never want. For instance, if you are a local photographer who never travels, stop saying you will do destination work.

To be very clear, I am telling you to look at your current category, hone it and then raise your prices to be what you think are the highest for that category. Today. Even if you have booked five clients at the old price yesterday. Raise your prices (telling a better story to those that care) today. You are going to give me a list of reasons why you cannot do that today (or the moment you have finished your analysis of your category) and my answer is I don’t care, do it anyway.

Now, the harder challenge and something you actually cannot do today. If you truly want to move to the next level, you have to do the work to redefine yourself to be there. That includes not just charging the appropriate amount for the category, but more importantly redefining your value to belong at that level. For the restaurant, perhaps it means a new chef, better ingredients, a redefinition of service. For event designers, it might mean actually investing in design, hiring those capable of producing visual art in a way you have not needed to before.

Getting to the next level might mean creating a mechanism where those who cannot afford and/or do not want to afford the work, learn to never show up in the first place. A little safety tip: going to the next level is going to be really hard and really scary. You have to be committed to what it means to you, your art and your creative business to live there. By definition, it means that you have to give up all or, at least a huge part, of what you have become. You will be uncomfortable and you may crawl before you ever have the chance to even walk. Here’s the rub though. It is almost impossible to go to the next level until you are the highest price in your own category.

Think about it. If you are not the top in your zone, why should we ever believe you belong at the next level?  We do not and we should not. You might find after doing the work (i.e., raising your prices to the top of your category TODAY) that you are happiest here after all. Awesome. Rock that role. We need you there to be the leader that you are, with an ever rising voice.

However, if you still want to go higher, now you are primed to see the path that lies ahead. Leap with eyes wide open because you must. Just do not kid yourself into believing that telling the next level your current story will ever work. It will not. To leap you must know that you have to tell tomorrow’s story today.  A daunting task if there ever was one, but compelling for those that know they must take it on.

When The Phone Does Not Ring

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If you have been in business for a while (i.e., more than 3 years), you come to have expectations about how and when the proverbial phone will ring. For many creative businesses, that time is now. Holidays are done and we are looking forward to Spring coming next month. This is when corporations put their plans into motion, people decide to invest in themselves and the wheels of creativity start to turn.

For those of you enjoying a booming resurgence of inquiries, better than awesome. I hope that you are up to the challenge of speaking the new language I spoke of in my last post. Investment not cost. However, for those of you who are not meeting the internal expectations you have for yourself, your art and your creative business, this post is for you.

First and foremost, we have all been there. As important, this is a moment and it will pass. Your choice is to see it as an indictment or an opportunity.

As Marcy Blum will more than confirm, if you gave gold medals for worrying about the future of my and my clients’ businesses, Michael Phelps would not even come close. So this work is very much a daily exercise for me, a practice, a challenge to see the world from a different lens than indictment. Indictment means that you are convinced you are doing something wrong. Your marketing is off. You have to fix your website, social media, your clothing, your smile, your car. Your pricing is too high (no one ever thinks it is too low). You made someone mad. And, my favorite, you are not doing enough. If you just hustled more, then all would be better.

Of course, some of those indictments may very well be true. By all means, work on them. However, change your attitude. Silence brings opportunity for introspection. How can you be more exposed? Go further in all that you do? Consider that the answer is not to trend to what everyone else is doing, but to be more radically you. To be very specific about things, I said that no one ever thinks their price is too low. What if it was? If you go to a fine restaurant and expect your favorite dish on the menu to be thirty-five dollars, because that is what fine restaurants charge for a dish like that, when you see the dish for fifteen dollars, you are not inspired, you are nervous. What should cost thirty-five dollars cannot cost fifteen. Ever. So if your art and your creative business is that featured dish at a fine restaurant and you are charging fifteen dollars, when the phone does not ring, the answer has to be to get more expensive, not less. The power and courage to go there and raise your prices in spite of (and/or because of) the silence is directly related to your willing to see the silence as opportunity.

Doing something because you have nothing else to lose is never a long-term answer. Do not kid yourself to think that closing your eyes and leaping is your version of considering opportunity. Just indictment in another outfit. Usually, at your earliest moment, you will revert back to what you were doing before you leapt. No, opportunity is allowing you, your art and your creative business to be where you are. To see the story each element currently tells and challenge yourself to tell it better. Find conviction in the story’s purity, diligence in tending to the vision and humility in where you and your art belong in the story.

Nobody knows the future. The phone may never ring again. However, given your track record, it likely will. The real question you need to ask, myself very much included, is which version will answer when it does. Perseverance is not courage or conviction, only a willingness to suffer as we all must. Courage and conviction is to see opportunity when the lights are out. Faith lets you believe they will come on again. Persevere in what you know is your and your creative business’ best self today. That, for me anyway, is its own reward. Hopefully, it will be for you and your creative business too.

Make One Change

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We all have visions of a better self. Better art, better business, better clients. We imagine that we will do what it takes to get to wherever there is.

Grand statements are thought about and sometimes even made. The shiny new website, social media platform, office, even a new graphic look can be enticing as manifestations of the new creative business you aspire to be.

Too often though, changes do not happen or, even if they do, they belie the tough stuff that really matters and remains unattended. It is like sprucing up your car with fancy everything and forgetting that you still have cheap (or worn) tires. At the end of the day, the rubber hitting the road will always be critical to your success.

To that end, what is the one change you can make today that makes you sweat? The one change that you know in your belly is the right change for your creative business, but fear of the unknown is stopping you? How can I inspire you to dare to be different? Not shiny, window-dressing different, but substantively different.

I wrote about how line-item pricing is not only fools-gold, but ultimately destructive for creative businesses back in August of last year. Who of you has dared to give it a go? And if you have not, but think you should have, why haven’t you?

Here is where I have empathy and maybe even a little sympathy. THIS IS HARD. Change sucks and the more intrinsic and base the change, the more it sucks. Resistance will come from everywhere – clients, potential clients, employees, colleagues, and, most of all, from that Lizard Brain shouting at you to quit rocking the boat. Except.

You had the conviction to start in the first place. The overwhelming desire to create art for a living. To move clients with your talent, your training, and, ultimately, your wisdom. Why play safe now? You might think you are actually safe and, if everyone is invested in the same same, you might be right. That is, until the powerful minority grows loud enough to say to potential clients, “Hey, pay attention to the tires, ours are better, let us tell you why.” And since they are coming from their own bellies, their own gained wisdom in refusing to accept what is as all there is, that they will get loud enough to one day (very soon) kick your ass. They will win not just with the better mousetrap, but with the intention to use it create deeper, more meaningful relationships with their clients. These who dare embrace the very change you fear will meet their resistance with a handshake (and maybe even a hug) instead of with a fist.

If line-item pricing is too much, here is another change for every creative business owner to implement right now: Stop allowing anyone (clients, employees, friends, media) to ask what you cost. A loaf of bread costs two dollars at one store and maybe a dollar fifty at another. The bread serves the same purpose and, if you can get it for less, you should.

Instead, speak of your creative business as an investment. When we invest in anything, we have expectations beyond the transaction. You invest in financial instruments because you hope they grow bigger. You invest in your home because you hope it appreciates and provides a wonderful environment for you and your family. You invest in things you care about. Investments are not burdens, they are desires. Costs are burdens – something we have to bear to get the thing we need.

I cannot think of a single creative business that should not identify itself as an investment not a cost. Sure it is easier to just answer the question, “What do you cost?” Then again, those who choose to say, “We are an investment, not a cost, let me tell you why” have just started down the road with new tires.

Find your change. Meet your resistance. Dare to be radically authentic to yourself, your art, and your creative business. Any grand statement you think might make all the difference will not. Conviction every day is what does. Make the one change, stick with it and go from there.

Please Do Better

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As I am sure it has with just about everyone reading this, politics and what is happening in America has consumed me and made me really contemplate what is to come. Some of you see positive in what is to come, others not. I am firmly in the other camp. Apart from standing up for what is most important to me and my family, my solace and where I feel most powerful is my work with creative business owners. If I can help artists create businesses that celebrate the size and breadth of their work, give them a powerful voice when it comes to their business, then their success, their ability to change the world is that much more secure. My purpose, my mission.

So to switch fully into the creative business arena, I have to say that I am saddened by just how many creative business owners refuse to even consider another way; refuse to acknowledge that their actions are part of the problem of marginalization running rampant throughout all creative businesses; and refuse to acknowledge the depth the problem of marginalization is in creative business.

If I handed you a scalpel, told you to watch a few videos on YouTube, maybe cut into a few oranges, you probably would not think yourself a cardiac surgeon and would not dare to hold yourself out as one. And those that would would be exposed very quickly by anyone who cared to check the background of the person they were allowing to physically invade their body.

So why oh why oh why do creative businesses allow those who either cannot or are not yet ready to stand in the same light as they who are uniquely qualified to do the very thing the client seeks? Simple. Fear and disrespect for the value you offer. While these characteristics are problems in the pre-information age, today they represent the seeds of demise to so many brilliant and fantastic creative businesses, both established and on the rise.

Specifically, I am talking to those of you who have been in business for more than three years. After three years, you are past the novice stage, have garnered real clients with real budgets who deeply respect what it is you are there to provide. If this is you and your creative business, you matter. You are the leader. You are the future of your industry. You can do better. You need to do better. You have to do better. For all of us.

After three years, you know who your ideal client is, know how best to serve her and what is required financially of your client to do great work. Whether it is a ten dollar client or a ten million dollar client, it does not matter so long as you know that she is YOUR client. And if you do not know, please accept that that is not good enough. We need you to know everything about her so you can do outrageously well for her above all others.

Presuming you do know who your ideal client is, quit having your creative business treat her like every other creative business, speaking the same language as they do, acting the same way as they do. Because it is easy and the way you have always done it is, again, not good enough. She deserves better from you, your art and your creative business. Create a process, a financial structure, a way of relating that is outrageous to everyone but her. Nothing is expensive in this world to those that see the value. It might cost a lot of money but that does not make it expensive. To those that cannot see the value of you, your art and your creative business, you will always be expensive no matter how much you cost. Ignore these people. Dare to look different from those around you because, you are, in fact, different.

Here is my fear and why I continue to be so stirred: in today’s information age, when your clients cannot instantly and intrinsically perceive the value you, your art and your creative business offer them (like they would a cardiac surgeon), they will seek to marginalize you, your art and your creative business. They will reduce you to the value of the thing you provide and you will always, always be subject to those willing to provide that thing for less.

For those of you who have earned the right to be outrageous in how you create for your clients, please live there without compromise, not because you can but because it is your obligation. If you are willing to redefine how your creative business works to do its best work, then you set the stage for those that follow. We all crumble when those who should be paragons act with intransigence or, worse, with callous disregard for their place in their industry. Sure, you may lose to those that are determined to meet the lowest common denominator. But if you give in, we have all already lost. Just a matter of time. So please go the other way. We all rise when you dare to be iconic and invite, nay demand, others like you to act similarly. That is how voices rise and great art is manifested at every level. For me, it is where hope lives.

Fancy Words And The New New Thing

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I explained what delusion was to my nine-year old son today. On the way to school, I asked him to prove to me why the grass was actually green. My daughter says because everyone knows it is green. I said I do not believe what everyone says. My son says that the UV spectrum can scientifically prove that it is green. The scientists are wrong.

Delusion is unshakeable faith in the face of reality, the refusal/inability to acknowledge that you do not know what you do not know. That said, every great entrepreneur is a little bit delusional. Despite overwhelming odds against you, you leap. And the very best of us get knocked down and leap again (and again). The trick is to know when your delusion is, well, delusional.

Enter fancy words and the new new thing. As you go searching for the new new – Social Media Site, PR/Marketing Strategy, Technology Solution, even Business Guru with the best recipe for success in this new new world – you move further and further away from what lies underneath. Creative business is still, wait for it, wait for it, a business. Creating art for a living looks different than, say, selling toothpaste, because it is. But, at the end of the day, how you go about selling art is grounded in fundamentals just like selling toothpaste. The biggest one is the one I see broken over and over again: create value and get paid for the value when you deliver it. You pay for a tube of toothpaste before you use it. It helps clean your teeth and freshen your breath. You buy it again when you run out. Notice the value is in the promise to help clean your teeth and freshen your breath. You pay for that promise. Then, when the promise is kept, you will likely pay again for the same promise despite others trying to get you to buy their toothpaste.

For creative businesses, tell me what your promise is, deliver on the promise and get paid for it, when (or just before, depending on circumstance) you deliver it. There are no freebies. If you offer something but do not get paid for it when you deliver on the offer, it is not free, it is worthless. If you cannot care enough to get paid for it, why should your client care about it at all? Every. Single. Designer. that does not get paid something when he/she delivers a design is guilty here. The delusion thing – you just cannot understand why your clients drive you crazy over design continuously. Yet you refuse to charge for it when you produce it. Hmmmm.

All of which leads me to contracts.

Contracts are the lifeblood of every business, especially creative business. Specifically, your contract is meant to map out what your relationship with your client looks like. What their job is (to pay you and make timely decisions) and the job of your creative business is – to create and, most times, deliver the creation.

I am perpetually frustrated when I read contracts that are filled with important legal concepts and obviously written by expensive counsel but are devoid of any common sense – who does what and when.

So how about some work every creative business owner can do to improve their foundation and set the stage for an even brighter 2017? Define your contracts in the following manner in the following order: What does the project cost to produce? Who does what and when? How much does your creative business get paid and when? Who owns what after the work has been done and you have been paid?

Project Cost – You may not know what the final cost of production is going to be, but you have to know what the minimum is and, hopefully, what the range will be based on what the client is seeking. Doing what you do costs a certain amount to execute – different for every creative business sure, but absolute for each creative business. There is an amount you are not willing to go below. Know it, own it, live it and put it in your contract.

Scope of Work – who does what and when? For some creative businesses, they are part of a team of creatives; for others, they drive the bus; and, for still others, the client is also a team member. Regardless, it is YOUR job to spell out what your creative business is going to work on and when AND to spell out what it is not. Everyone – clients, employees, colleagues – all have to be on the same page – no better place than your contract.

Your Price – Notice that your price is third on the list. I mean really – if clients cannot afford what it is that you do and do not agree to the work you are going to do and not do, what does it matter what you cost? In the context of what the project’s production cost is and what your creative business will and will not do, you can discuss your price to create and then execute the production of the creation (again, if applicable). Clients more than deserve to know what they are paying for and when; in fact, far more than how much they are paying.  Literally, this is the ethos of your bargain and all of it needs to be in your contract.

Who Owns What – you are all artists. You create for a living. Those creations have value beyond the specific project. Photographers know the value of their image better than most creative businesses. If it is your creation, it is up to you to protect it if you want to retain its value. File a copyright if necessary. Better yet and also, put a clear and legally enforceable section in your contract that spells it out. This is where you need a good lawyer to most.  Make the investment.  The value of ideas will only grow into the future. Your choice to embrace and own the value for your creative business now or kick yourself in a few years time.

You can certainly adopt all of the new new elements that come your way. They are awesome tools and, in so many cases, game changers. Just do it in the context of an ever stronger grasp of fundamentals and the foundation underneath your creative business, never in spite of them.

Happy happy holidays.

What Comes Next?

seanlow
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I have been gone from the blog for a while and I am not sure why. Perhaps it is about what has happened in America’s politics or that other business matters took over. No matter the reason, I just felt like I needed to step away to consider what comes next. For me, for creative businesses, for the United States, for all of us.

What I have come to is this: I have no idea, none of us do. The Serenity Prayer has been screaming at me, as I am sure it has for so many of you. That said, it still sucks when I have the pit in my stomach that comes with change and an uncertain future.

I am a liberal, a student (literally) of Elizabeth Warren and believe in the ideal of a nation that nurtures and protects diversity, equality and a global community. That said, I respect those who believe in self-determination and autonomy espoused by conservatives. What I cannot abide as a man, a husband, a father, a son is to be complicit in a world where “other” is normal state of being. I am so with Charles Blow on this one.

What I have come to in my own small way is this: Art will forever change the world. The stronger creative businesses are, the better they will be able to serve as the voice of change. Art is itself intolerant, outrageous, transformative. We all have clients, patrons and serving their vision does not mean compromising ours. In fact, quite the opposite.

Whether you are horrified or elated by the turn of events in the United States, it cannot matter in the context of your creative business. Yours is to do the work so that you can have your voice. Use the fruits of your voice however you choose. Just do not give up your voice.

The absurdity of the cake maker refusing to serve gay couples on moral grounds (cheap press notwithstanding) is the same as a performer refusing to perform at President-elect Trump’s inauguration. The work is the work and, unless you think it a way to garner a market for those who share your beliefs above all others, let it stay there.  But if you choose to go there, appreciate that you are marketing first and foremost, not taking a stand.

I realize many might vehemently disagree with me here, that is fine. My point is only to say that your work, your creative business gives you a voice, the stronger the business, the stronger your voice. And I do have to say, I was once firmly on your side. Principals over business. Then came Preston Bailey.

Preston has done business with many (yes, many) clients that are among the worst perpetrators of human rights in the world. Regimes that would stone him and his husband to death for their relationship and their identity. So why do the work? His answer: because it is his stage and if he can show beauty and what is possible from someone like him (a black gay man) perhaps there can be a shift. And if not with them, then with those that can see what can be possible. It is about the work and it ends there. And Preston is by far not alone here – count almost any designer of note (graphic, event, fashion, interior) and they will likely have done work for clients whose personal politics and beliefs are directly contrary to theirs.

History is literally littered with patrons of art who are less than scrupulous. Ahem, the Borgias to name just one. Doctors operate on murderers all the time. You are not your clients.  I am not complicit in hate if I help a creative business that creates for bigots.

So what comes next for me? All that has come before, except with more conviction. Help make creative businesses stronger, more deeply committed to their story, to fully understand why they matter – to all of us. And to make sure they get paid what they need to create ever better work.

Art matters, today more than ever. My work is to make the megaphone forever bigger.  I will do the work and just leave it there, that is more than enough for me.

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