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Behind The Scenes

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We have all seen behind the scenes work by creative business owners. Countless videos, television shows, articles and even books of how a particular project comes together, be it an event, a home, a show or even a photograph. We, the audience, love to see what it takes to make “it” happen. Rarely, though, are the behind-the-scenes created for a specific audience, whether for a particular kind of client or business. I can appreciate that from a media and entertainment perspective. From a purely business perspective, however, it is an opportunity lost.

To paraphrase Seth Godin, talking only to those that matter is all that matters. With our ability to communicate infinite and free, content is not the issue, relevant content is. Enter Jeff Antoniuk.

Jeff is a brilliant jazz musician and has a terrific business running jazz groups for avid adult jazz musicians in the Washington, D. C. area (mostly amateur but some semi-pro members too). He has begun teaching music entrepreneurs how he has created what he has created so they can start their own jazz group business. It is all based on the specific community of avid jazz musicians, both amateur and professional, who live to play (and maybe teach) jazz.

Recently, Jeff got offered to be a part of a jazz group that will perform Tchiakovsky’s The Nutcracker set to jazz (ala Duke Ellington) in front of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Jeff will be playing alto, tenor and baritone sax for the performance that will have many solo spots. He has decided to create a Facebook live video series, archived on Youtube documenting his preparation. Although he is a professional musician, he has not played the alto or baritone sax for years. So quite a journey to relearn the instruments, learn the music and get ready to play on a very important stage in six weeks time.

Here is the point: 99.9% of people will not care about watching Jeff get ready for his performance. The videos are highly technical and if you are not an avid player, you will get bored quickly. I know nothing about music and, were I not a fan of Jeff’s, I would have clicked away pretty quickly. However, the video series is not for people with a passing interest in playing music generally or even jazz specifically (definitely not for me) and Jeff knows it. The videos are for those musicians to whom playing jazz is everything.  Instead of talking to the audience to make sure they understand as most teachers would (music or otherwise), he stays at the level of players who can appreciate his process. So far 23 people have subscribed to his Youtube channel in the week or so he has been doing the videos (there are 3 so far).

Teeny tiny, who cares you say? I say he has 23 people that matter, several of whom he says he does not know at all in his very large circle of fellow musicians and students.   Maybe more will subscribe, maybe not. The point is that Jeff has defined his community and they have responded to say that they want to be included.

What opportunity lies ahead for Jeff with this series? Who knows? What I do know is that his business – teaching jazz groups and teaching teachers is sure to benefit directly. Then there will be what he cannot yet see.

Of course it takes courage to expose your creative process, to let the world see an unfinished, flawed product. You have to be vulnerable and that vulnerability can be very hard on the ego. Raw vulnerability is so eminently watchable.  Move beyond mere watchabilty though and towards only your specific community. To take the risk that your specific community might reject you and what you hope to organize for you and your art. This is the risk of creative business. Using the tools available to say “I built this for you.” is easy. Being willing to say and be okay with: “This is not for you”, that is where the work is and where all the rewards lie.

If you were willing to be fearless in this way, what would your communication be then? If two of the wrong clients left because of it, but only one of the right one showed up, would that work for you, your art and your creative business? If it does not, please look yourself in the mirror and ask what exactly it is that you are doing. If it does, keep going and go further every day.

Do What You Have To Do

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We are all a little bit crazy. We have our tics and quirks that make us, well, us. You can probe the depths of your crazy in a therapist’s chair. Doing work on yourself is always fruitful. But there you are.

For creative business owners, it means that what you should do and what you need to do are often two different things.

Many, many times a creative business can make more (often, much more) by doing a whole lot less. Simplest example: if you do 100 projects today at an average price of $2,000, you make $200,000. If you do 50 projects at an average of $4,100, you make $205,000. More money for half the work. Except money might be lumpier – you might make more but it will not feel like it since less projects means less absolute payments. And let’s face it, managing cash sucks. Not all of us have a great controller that will tell us when we cannot spend the money in the account. Oh, and you are bored doing just 50 events. You need to flex that creative design muscle and 50 projects just does not cut it.

It is actually a bigger conundrum than you might think. To lose the 50 projects means you have to build a creative business that only talks to the 50 projects that matter (i.e., the ones paying you more than $4,000). That is a different language and it takes an incredible amount of focus and effort to stay true to the message. If you can get 100 of the “right” clients, fantastic. Likely is, though, you will not and certainly not immediately.

So there is a vacuum between the “should” and “need” for you, your art and your creative business. Ignoring either guarantees its power relative to the other one. Do only what you “should” and the desire to have more projects or the illusion of more money will grow larger every day. Ignore the “should” and you will go broke in every sense of the word.

Live the “should” but honor the “need”. Do the things you need to do to give yourself the freedom to fully embrace the “should”. Go do 15 projects that do not fit, will not make you any money, but will not kill you either. Indulge the crazy because it is not going anywhere anytime soon. Just do not delude yourself that it is the path. It is not and will never be. “Should” will always be the right answer and “need” will be there to embrace the should until you can allow yourself to let it go. You might never be able to let it go for whatever reason and that is okay. Call it the price of doing your creative business.

Conscious containment and acceptance is what matters here. Defend the existence of the need to no one but keep it where it belongs. Never make it relevant to the actual business, only what you need to move the business forward.

Appreciate that giving your need its due runs counter to every piece of rational business advice you will receive. Making more doing less IS the right answer. Who cares. If allowing your need to exist will keep you sane enough to allow for real growth in every sense of the word; if it eases your fear about the should, so be it. Use it. Whatever gives you the strength to live your, your art and your creative business’ deepest truth, I am all for.

Yes, please work to embrace the new reality you seek, the new language you speak, the story that fits best. Truly, there is joy in the reality that tells your, your art and your creative business’ best story.  Honor the process to get there though. We all do things we have to to bring ourselves to the place that will shift us. Your creative business is no different.

The Next Level?

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One of the worst things I hear almost daily from creative business owners is: I want to take my creative business to the next level. Usually it means they want bigger, more expensive projects. Wait, you say, sounds like the exact thing every creative business owner should hope for – do bigger, bigger, better[?].

And sometimes, sure, the grand stage is where you, your art and creative business belong. Most often, though, it just is not true. Toyota makes no aspirations to be Bentley for a very very good reason – it is not what they do. Even more important, Bentley makes no aspirations to be Toyota – it is not what they do. Can there be couture and ready-to-wear? Of course, just not ready-to-wear pretending to be couture or vice-versa.

If you are an interior designer and your work comes in at $50-$75 per square foot, own it, be the best in the world at it and be able to prove it. Prove it being the key phrase here.

Can you prove why you are the best in the world at what you do? “Prove” “Best” “World”.

World – this is your universe, for you to define and encapsulate for your clients. If you are a local wedding planner, do not tell me you are available for destination work. If you design ultra-luxury spaces, the 300 s.f. studio is not in the cards. Your world is who you serve and why. If you cannot state it without apology, start over until you can.

Best – Again, your work is to educate your clients on what best means. Do not tell me it is about doing beautiful work. Of course it is, therefore it is not. And this is the rub – your clients have their own metrics for success – how they want to feel if it is not a specific corporate or non-profit goal, maybe money if it is. Either way, you have to work to educate your clients on what your metrics for success are. If you are a designer and the client wants jaw-drop moment, ok. However, if you want the space to feel like it has always been there, your work has to be to explain the difference between a wedding and a marriage. And if you are all about the jaw-drop moment and the client wants a lifetime memory, explain what that means. Best only matters if you can surpass not only your client’s vision of success but your own as well. You can assume that your and your client’s determination of success are the same at your own peril. Do the work of showing what the mountaintop looks like and, then, when you soar past it you will reap the rewards.

Prove – Words only matter if they connect to substance. If you like to work only ten times a year but charge as if you need to work fifty, you do not pass the smell test. We all have to make what we need to make to feel proud of the work and to keep going. If you know your world and what your best is, make sure it makes sense when you go out to prove what those words mean. There cannot be any disconnects. Clients will see how thin your words are if there is no substance – if you cannot connect the dots. How special can a client be when you need to work on a hundred projects to make enough? Or are you making money a client does not know about? That is a very dark place you do not want to touch.

If you cannot prove why you are the best in the world (or will be) at the next level (whatever that might be), then you are right where you need to be until you can.

Is Personal Communication Dead?

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Personal communication demands a personal response.   If you take the time to write or call someone, they should respond reasonably quickly and personally.

There is something about the digital world that has, ironically, removed the necessity of real conversation. Maybe it is because we are bombarded in an exponentially increasing manner with someone trying to reach us. I get it. However, human dignity is the willingness to listen and acknowledge being heard.

I am intolerant of the notion that someone who wants to personally communicate with me is not entitled to my timely considered response. All bets are off if I am being cold called or blanket emailed. But that is not personal. There is just no excuse today for not knowing something about me and my business before you reach out to try to sell me something.

It sounds small right? I mean all of your creative businesses respond well to clients, employees and colleagues. No brainer. And clients who want what you offer will respond well too. Surely.

Except it almost never happens. Even if there is communication, the platitudes and double-talk, non-answers and the impersonal creep in. After all, there are those other gagillion emails, texts and calls waiting for a response.

Stop. Just stop.

You cannot control how other people respond to you, your art and your creative business, but you can control how you and your creative business respond to them. Be timely and be real. Know what you are saying and why you are saying it. Sure, there might be disagreements and confusion. However, these are not stumbles, they are opportunities. Opportunities to know each other better, appreciate the essence of what is at stake, which has nothing to do with getting done.

Every creative business finishes a project. If everything is directed at getting done then human dignity goes out the window. Of course, finishing is where you are heading and if something is taking you off course, by all means fix it. Then stop and listen. Respond from what you have heard. Be uncomfortable and allow your discomfort to inform what comes next. Being willing to listen and be real does not mean you are any less of a guide or in control, it just means you are a human being living in relation to another human being.

The issue here is the willingness of those around you to serve the platitudes, the non-answers, the formulaic idiocy (ahem, line item pricing), because it is an easier path to the end. In creative business, easier is NEVER better. Why? Because you are tasked with creation, working with those who are (understandably) terrified that you will fail. It is the essence of personal. Fake or non-communication is like patting a kid on the head telling her it will be ok as she watches her house burn down. It might be ok later, but not now. Now requires that you acknowledge where you are, but are resolute that you know how to make it better than ok – later.

Maybe you are comfortable in the realm of non or fake communication. However, if your aim is to be truly indispensible, being present, diligent and respectfully responsive is all that matters. The act of creation is messy and hard, fraught with uncertainty and fear. You can run from it, ignore it or gloss over it. Or you can live in it, see its beauty and share the reality with clients, employees and colleagues alike. Be the beacon in the storm always. Your form of communication  will define a larger future for you and your creative business. My advice, be real, be determined and listen.  Conversation breeds trust and trust is the foundation of opportunity.

Two Sides Of The Trade

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Creative business is different. Sure, you all provide things at the end of the day. Photographs, furniture, flowers, lighting, food. However, it is never just about the thing.

Think about toothpaste. No one at Proctor and Gamble is moved when they see someone buy a tube of Crest, let alone brush their teeth with it. They enjoy selling the product and they are proud that it works well for the consumer. That is where it begins and ends for Proctor and Gamble. They are happy if they sell a lot of toothpaste, not so much if they do not.

Now think about your creative business, your art. If you did not care about the reaction to your work, you would not be around for very long. Every creative business owner I know strives for joy, for transformation. You want that look on your client’s face. The look that says you got them, go to them, moved them. For so many of you, it takes months, maybe years with a client to get that look. Layer upon layer of relationship, trust building, tension and resolution, over and over again.

If this is the essence of what you do – a journey to joy, why would you ever insist on looking like toothpaste? Make it all about the thing, the stuff, what the end product costs, instead focusing on what matters – how you are going to get from here to there, together?

Of course, the cost of production matters. No champagne on a beer budget. It just does not matter beyond expectation equivalence – you can create for them based on their budget or you cannot.

So what stops you from really going there with your clients? Really owning what it is you actually do (i.e., go on a journey, not sell toothpaste)? You can tell me it is fear. Of maybe not getting any business if you look different. Or looking too expensive since what is the price of the journey worth anyway?

Or maybe it is something even deeper – your willingness to erase yourself, to be in service instead of service to those who would pay for your work. Are you intimidated by your client’s money? Their profession? Their education?

Maybe it is a little (or a lot) of both fear and intimidation.

The answer has to be in the value YOU receive when you create. The knowledge you have earned in not just how sweet the end is, but the power of the journey. The reward you receive when your art, your creation does what is intended. Can you see your power and that of your art and your creative business in the equation?

If you can value your own joy, your own pleasure as part of transaction, perhaps you can see your own light. To know that you, your art and your creative business matter beyond the thing you provide. And if you go there, maybe, just maybe, you might refuse to have your creative business look like toothpaste. Art first. Stuff second.

Do You Believe Your Story?

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Whether you charge a million dollars for your art or ten dollars, do you believe it is worth it? Why?

Just so you know, I can disprove every rational argument you make as to why you are worth it.

Look how much you get for the money. I can get it for less. We are super creative. So is the next gal. We have tons of experience. Again, so does the next gal. We are passionate. Who isn’t? We are customer service oriented. Are you kidding?

Nope. The only way you can believe you, your art and your creative business are worth it is to know you are.

Surprisingly, knowing you are worth it has nothing to do with confidence. Sure, you have to be confident in your abilities, your gift and your willingness to own the responsibility given to you by your clients, employees and colleagues alike. That is never enough though. You have to know why you do everything you do. Not just shooting the photograph, but everything leading up to it.   All things with a purpose. The purpose that works for you and makes you and your creative business the best in the world at what you do. Every. Little. Detail.

Clients, of course, will resist. They want to do things their way so they stay in their comfort zone. If it will take you out of your process, your vision for success, it cannot happen. Yes, you work for them but it is your work, your art, that they need. Your show, not theirs.

Think this is easy? Think again. Here is a paradigm that needs to die today and has no place in creative business – line item pricing.

Yes, clients need to know what they are getting for their money so you still have to provide the list of items. But the price of each item? Completely and utterly irrelevant to the conversation. You can either provide an amazing finished product for the budget or you cannot. It will not be more amazing if the sofa is $5,000 not $7,000.

If you are in the money saving business, you lose. There will always be someone cheaper. You are in the value business. Can you deliver on your promise? I will blow you away for this budget. Yes, I will make the money I need to sustain my art and my creative business, no more no less. In exchange, you will receive the transformation you seek. You will be moved. Period.

When you do not truly believe your story, you will argue with me over the value of line item pricing. Clients have to be able to compare, to know what they are buying. Ahem, they are buying your art and its ability to move them. Never the thing.

Standing in your own integrity is beyond hard. There will be panic. Deep desire to retreat to a world of yes even when every fiber of your being says you have to say no. Use the panic as a signal you are on the right track. To build the belief system you will need to only do your best. To be able to explain why every breath matters. Why the journey is yours to share with your clients, not the other way around.  To live the truth of your story as you see it for your art and your creative business.  That is faith and that is the obligation you signed on for when you decided to do what you do for a living.  Owning the obligation is what will bring you and your creative business to yourself.  Nothing better than that for everyone involved in your world.

Are You Willing To Be Left Behind?

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Ten years ago, the IPhone (and all of the smartphone technology behind it) did not exist (at least not on a consumer level); Facebook was two (in 2005, News Corp. bought MySpace for $580million – it was supposed to be Facebook – not so much, today it ranks 1945 for web traffic); Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, Pinterest all did not exist yet.

These are the tools most creative businesses depend on every day today to market themselves. Let’s not even talk about the back end, Basecamp, AutoCad, and the various business management software programs that came along after 2006. Suffice it to say, how we all do business today looks nothing like what it did ten years ago.

So how come your business looks the same? I am not talking about your deliverables – sure you still produce flowers, images, food, interiors, structures, etc. – but the WAY you produce them has more than evolved in ten years. And yet you still have the same payment schedule, the same contract, the same process. Why? Because it isn’t broken? Nobody complains? Ok, fine. But while you are busy accepting good enough, someone else is out there changing the game because they are changing the conversation.

And here is what the conversation is changing to: not what can I do for you, but how well do you know me and how can I be sure along the way. Trust points, activations, systemic approvals are all as or more valuable than the end product. Clients appear to want more control, but what they really want is more validation that you understand what they seek.

Here is a very simple test – if you cannot tell me why you are doing what you are doing right now for your clients, what every word of your website, contract, collateral, etc. means in the context of how you and your creative business create only your best work, you need to change. Today.

Beautiful work is a prerequisite to the conversation and is, therefore, more and more irrelevant. Beautiful work intrinsic to the essence of a client validated along the way is what matters. Can you live in that journey?

Think about what the world could look like ten years from now. Connectivity, virtual reality, experiential, immersive design, all here now, will only grow. Will the expectation be that you will create in VR what will come to exist in “reality” after that? Will you be ready to make that shift? How do you intend to get paid for the experience you will provide above and beyond the thing?

Will you, your art and your creative business own the responsibility of teaching people to see? See in ways they may not yet appreciate or, most certainly, understand. Or will you stick with the tried and true ways you have always done things? It may not be broke (or so you say), but you had better think about fixing it. A call to action if there ever was one.

How Human Are You Willing To Be?

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In 1988, my brother, 10 months younger than I, died. He was 20, my very best friend, full of life and dreams, a free spirit to my intensely narrow, driven nature. He fell from a roof. Gone in an instant.

The end of his life shaped mine forever more. I became more driven, more intense. Angrier. What I did not become was softer, able to own the pain my heart feels every day without him. That would come later, after many years of driving ever further. The pain was weakness and only age has taught me the wisdom of its strength.

I share my transformative moment because we all have them. They are there to teach us, shape us, bring us to our own humanity. I am forever richer for having suffered the loss I have, knowing, without question, that I would do just about anything to make it not so. My brother’s death brought me to the path I likely never would have taken. No unicorns and rainbows on this path, only confidence that I am the man I was meant to be.

My gift is to see creativity and the possibility that exists with its expression as a business. The wisdom my brother gave me is that art and creative business lives beyond the rational. Intellectual grounding and foundation is a must, but it is only the runway to the sky.

Three things compelled this post. Bill Baker’s last blog entry talking about the power of a personal narrative in business, Dane Sanders and a client of mine, Kevin Isbell, who had the courage to be vulnerable to the world on a podcast. Dane told the story of the moment he lost his father as a young boy at Engage! over a year ago. I have carried the feeling and Dane’s message every day since.

Kevin talked of overcoming cancer as a young adult. Jumping into design because it called him home. I know him incredibly well, but it made me want to know him more.

At the end of the day, I come to this: humanity, connection, our willingness to allow others to see our tapestry – our pain, our joy, our hope and our fear – is what binds us. Your willingness to bring this aspect of yourself to your creative business is a choice. I will not stand here and say, if you do not, you will not be successful. All I can say is that it is the place we all search for – to be seen, experienced and held as who we are. Most of your clients want that from you, your art and your creative business. After all, in so many instances, they are trusting you with some of the most precious times in their lives.

Clients believe in your talent, sure, and maybe that is enough for you and your creative business. But if you are willing to go one step further, to be that much more revealing, that much more human, that much more present to the experience, perhaps everyone would be richer. And if you believe you, your art and your creative business exist to transform, to compel hope and vision, satisfaction and confidence, value, then your vulnerability, your tapestry might just be the best place to start.

Who Defines Success?

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Your creative business did exactly everything you promised. You executed flawlessly, there were no hidden anythings. Yet your client was underwhelmed. The “Wow” they wanted did not appear in their eyes. Was the project successful? Who gets to decide? Does it matter?

Easiest question first, of course it matters who gets to define what success is. If everyone is underwhelmed with your creative business and your art, you will not be around for long. The better question is whether you can let your reveal be judged without interest in any definition of success other than your own.

Here’s the thing: building a creative business on the ability to deliver a subjective “Wow” is impossible. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all you can do is put “it” out there. If you believe in your process and all that you have done to get to here, nothing more you can do. Unless.

If you have not spent the time to define what success is and have not earned that success along the way, underwhelming at the end is a huge indictment you need to take as the wake up call it is.

Clients have their own definitions of success. For corporate projects, it might just boil down to money. Was the investment in you, your art and your creative business worth it? Did they make (enough) money on what you did for them to validate their decision to hire you in the first place? Most often, though, a client’s definition of success, even in the corporate world, is much more ephemeral than that. To stick with the corporate market, was the sales force properly motivated, the press/social media on the launch big enough? Traditional yardsticks just do not work. No straight line between your work and money. Success then becomes like the old definition of pornography, you cannot describe it, but you know it when you see it. Just not good enough today.

This then is where so many creative businesses have gone lost. Truly, it is not up to your client to define success. You have to define it for them. And to do that you have to honor the power of the journey. The milestones you achieve along the way have to be your focus. Whether you highlight the milestones by getting paid (which I hope you do) or receive some other recognition for the work achieved to date, is up to you. It is impossible to do if you, your art and your business are only focused on the finished product.

We all want the client to have their “Wow”. You will do all that you can to make it happen. However, if their “Wow” happens to not be yours and vice-versa, yours has to be the one that counts. For that to happen, you also have to be willing to share what your “Wow” is with your client and live with any disconnects. “Our process will get you here, and we will be more than satisfied when we get there. To us, a project is successful if [someone cries, dances, screams, smiles… you fill in the blank].” If success to them is that everyone cries, dances, etc., you simply cannot care.

Everything is measurable if you choose to measure it. In a nod to Gary Vaynerchuk and Seth Godin, some things are better off unmeasured. Is it absolute number of eyeballs, number of clicks, time on a page, bounce rates, etc. that matter in social media today? Or is it about meaningful connections?

For our purposes today, you, your art and your creative business have to define the measurements that matter and allow your clients, colleagues and employees alike to believe in them. Success is how you see it and can prove it. The end is hopefully inevitable, but, even if not, the journey has to be, with every step measured to illustrate its (building) value.

 

Will You Ever Acknowledge Your Blind Spots?

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Hubris is a bitch.

If you have even a modicum of success in your creative business, you might live in the notion that your way is not just the best way, but the only way. You might perceive the world order as defined by your own version of success. You hear those with other worldviews and ways of doing things. You do not really listen though.

Many of you can go a long, long way with your own convictions, true to yourself, your art and your creative business. You may never have to confront the not-so-great parts of yourself and your creative business. Your art and your creative business might just be that good. For the rest of us mere mortals, there are blind spots – places where we shoot ourselves in the foot, miss opportunity, stay stuck. We confront the same problems with known solutions instead of asking a different question, solving a better problem.

The courage to shift begins with humility. Humility is the understanding that you might be wrong, sure, but also that your time for being right is ending. Humility lets you start a different conversation.

Every creative business is vulnerable today.

If you are busy defending how you do things because it has worked for you in the past, you might be lost in the notion that the past is your anchor not your ballast.

Specifically, if you are encyclopedic about your craft and that is what you sold to your clients when you started 20 years ago – I know every high end sofa on the market because I spend my time going to showrooms and talking to every dealer I can get five minutes with. How impressed do you think Millenials will be with that knowledge? They believe they can source product as fast or faster than you. And they might be right. You can get angry that you are no longer respected for your immense knowledge or you can ask a different question.

How do you express the value of your knowledge in another light? How do you own your niche in a way that becomes relatable to those whose lives have never been without a computer?

Oh, by the way, it works in reverse too. The Millenial designer who is so in love with technology and the power of information at her fingertips misses the value of experience and tutelage and education. Every great artist lives on the shoulders of giants and believing otherwise is its own demise.

We are all human. We have blind spots. They will bite us in the ass because they have to. The real question for you, your art and your creative business is will you allow yourself to see that you cannot see. From there, you can ask different questions to find answers that will bring you to a new reality, a new paradigm. Opportunity lives there.

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