The Business of Being Creative

I had the very good fortune to attend Engage!16: The Breakers last week. I have been each Engage! (this was the 17^th) and it is remarkable to me what can come if community is allowed to flourish. None better in the luxury wedding world to create and grow this community than Rebecca Grinnals and Kathryn Arce.

As you would expect, great ideas flowed at Engage!. Everything from technological innovations to social media trends and platforms (hello Snapchat) to new business opportunities. And, of course, more than not, tried and true networking with those who would otherwise not ever have the opportunity to be together.

I consider myself a catalyst at any conference I attend, especially Engage! My goal is to create conversations with creative business owners and to challenge any preconceived notion of the way things are. Translation: I like to poke the box. I am a change agent, there to question everything and inspire a vision of what might be. It makes no difference to me how large or small a creative business is, how long the business has been around or what it has accomplished. Truly, if I am doing my work well, it is to unearth what roads might lie ahead.

Back to reality. Change sucks. It is hard, ugly and inertia is a cruel mistress. Leaping is not for the faint of heart and if there is a chance to stay still, most of us choose to stay there. Unless there is wanderlust, a yearning to discover what can be beyond the limitations you place on yourself, your art and your creative business, you will not move. Where the potential joy overwhelms today’s happiness is where change becomes inevitable.

And that was the overarching theme of this Engage!, true for all creative business owners and their art. Paraphrasing Cindy Novotny and Jes Gordon – vulnerability is courage, standing in your rawest self is where the soul of creative business lives. The story has to be stripped of Pinterest, derivative work and exposed as fundamentally unique to your client. Theirs and only their story, from your mind, your gift.

Of course, the question is what that looks like for your creative business. How will you shape your future? Will you reach out to someone like me or Dane Sanders who will challenge and your creative business to find the platform which your art most belongs.  To (firmly) push you past your own conventions. The first question is not where do you want to head, but rather, where can you no longer go? Will you have the courage to say no? You cannot change if you are unwilling to close a door.

Opportunity certainly abounds. Conferences are full of hope, endorphins and the collective spirit of what could be. Reentry is hard in the sense that what you currently say yes to is what greets you at the door. Good enough is always good enough until it is not. The question you have to ask is when you are willing to make the decision to move.

I would suggest to you that if you are unable to say, “I built this for you and only you” you are sitting on a time bomb whose fuse runs shorter every day. The first step in any change is to acknowledge the power of selection. You will not be for everybody. You can only be vulnerable, have courage, demand your own identity, play on the stage where you, your art and your creative business most belong to those that care. Change starts with your willingness to ignore the rest. Not only do they not matter, they are the very definition to stagnation. Your world, your choice, your community. Your gift. Box poked.

Rainbows and unicorns, perfect sunsets and idyllic days. Were this a description of our businesses. The reality is is that there are good days and bad, up and down months, even years. Sometimes, no matter how much effort you put into your marketing, business development and social media, the projects just do not come. You can blame anyone and everything – the economy, a bad employee, a bad client, even less than scrupulous competition – the result is the same though, your business is not at the level you need it to be, forget about want it to be.

Marcy Blum gave an awesome speech at Engage! a few years back where she had the courage to talk about her business’ downturn. Her response was pure hustle, call on everyone, figure out how to say yes to everything. And things turned for her.

So yes, your answer has to be Marcy’s – go hustle, do what you need to do to bring people to you, your art and your creative business. But two thoughts – first, it will not happen overnight and, second, it may not happen at all. Such is the randomness of creative business.

What to do then? How do you deal with the abyss that stares you in the face? The panic that sets in that this could all be over? The paralysis of what to do next? Frozen in the idea that tomorrow may never come.

Breathe.

Then ask yourself: are you relevant? Does your work matter to your clients, your employees, to you? Who cares if you love what you do and are passionate about it? We all are. The real question is do you believe that you, your art and your creative business move people? That your gift, your art is transformative?  Now, ask yourself if the way you are doing things actually makes that transformation possible?

Yes, different generations have different priorities. We hear all the time about how Millennial’s are different from Gen X, Gen Y and Boomers. But, but, but, at the end of the day, intrinsic value is intrinsic value. You either can get paid for it or not. Clients will come to you because of it or not. The point is to adapt, not compromise.

And that is the beauty of what Marcy did and the subtlety was not lost on me – the willingness to change the way you do things to bring your value to the fore to those that care the most is adaption. Chasing what you think the world wants is not.

Will you get through your Dip? Who knows? I certainly do not every time it happens to me. What I do know though is that the hardest question to ask is the one that most needs the answer. Are you willing to find another way to express your art, yourself, your creative business? Will you do the work in the face of abject uncertainty? Are you willing to be Marcy?

Longevity, truly, is no measure of success to me. The desire to be relevant is. When you look there in the moments of desperation we all have, new expressions emerge. Let them be your light, your desire to adapt to be a better version of yourself and your art. Believe it or not, tomorrow will come and a new client will arrive. The only thing that matters is who will be there to open the door.

One of my favorite Henry Ford lines: “If I asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

Yes, you get tasked every day to create for clients. For your creative business to move them with your art. If you are lucky enough, you are busy doing great work for respectful, appreciative clients. Awesome.

But what comes next?

Are you willing to push past your own comfort zone? Can you imagine a place where your art transcends its medium and you are willing to evolve your structure because of it?

Steve Jobs was famous for being proprietary about everything. He wanted to control all facets of Apple, from production to software.  In 2015, Apple made over 6 Billion (yes, billion) Dollars from its App Store. That is from software written by other people. And how fun would your device be without apps? Do you really think IEverything would be what it became without apps? Call it whatever you want, maturity, wisdom, intuition, but Steve Jobs willingness to change his worldview, ahem, changed the world.

Sure, you have to be up on the latest and greatest in your world. So not what I am talking about. I am talking about your willingness to take your structure beyond itself.

I love photography because of how technology has upended every aspect of a professional photographer’s world. Twenty years ago, if you wanted to remember anything of significance you needed a book. The album business existed as a way to organize the memory of the day (wedding, rite of passage, significant life event) as much as it was beautiful in its own right.

Fast forward to today. What is the point of an album when image organization on-line is ubiquitous and very low cost? Albums themselves have to be primarily art; meaning organization is important but the visual story is what is being sold. How many photographers miss the opportunity talk about the story of the album?  Their ability to create this story and their need to be paid to do so?

What if you are the photographer that counts on The Shot? Are you willing to stake your claim to the shot? Will you ignore the album altogether and say my work belongs on your wall? Will you bet the farm on your ability to prove the value of The Shot?  For most of your clients there has been an investment in some sort of visual art in their home. Why not your work?

Invisible walls we build put us in the box where faster horses becomes the goal. “No one will pay me for a fine art print.” “I will lose all of my clients if I dare to be paid as a designer and not just a [caterer, florist, stylist, etc.]” Fear is there, of course. Most of it though is the golden handcuffs of success. People that love what you and your creative business do for them today and are comfortable. They know how you work and respect you.  Will they love the next version? Even if it is better for what they want?  Can you evolve and truly say to your core clients: “I built this for you.”

The world is shifting underneath you. Opportunity is there if you seek it out. The confluence of technology, communication and the willingness to experience everything as our story is a designer’s holy grail. Design is not about any one thing or one creation, it is about the ability to be the universal thread in a client’s life. We are that because your designs made it so.

Now, you can choose not to believe this and be successful in your corner of the world. We will always need credible talent in every nook and cranny of creative business. Talent is always welcome. However, for those of you who wish to dare, are willing to shift your worldview, your app store awaits.

Is your print worth $10,000? Only if you say it is. Only if you truly believe it and only if you are willing live in its value and recreate your creative business around that value.

Nothing ever happens overnight. However, if you see a radical future for yourself, your art and your creative business, be early. Then never leave.

We have been trained to listen well, respect what clients say, answer their questions. Especially if you are trying to make a sale. Sometimes, sometimes you have clients who actually understand the why, how and what of your creative business and value the process you take to create the art you do. Most often, though, yours is a unique project distinct from all experience your client might have. Think social events, residential interior design and architecture, and non-commercial photography. These clients do not have the skill set, no matter their research, to truly understand the why, how and what of your creative business. They just know they want you and your creative business to create for them, transform them. Yes, clients in the corporate world are on a whole smarter in the how and what you do, though not necessarily the why. Depending on the situation, the why might be meaningless or it might be everything. Where it is everything, think Peter Marino for Louis Vuitton, the sensibility trends back to uncertainty.

What I am talking about is a fundamental mismatch between your expertise, your gift, your art and those seeking it from you. To me, what creative business owners have done with the mismatch in the digital age is to set in motion, if they are not careful, their own undoing. Translation: you answer dumb questions.

Access to information is not the same as wisdom, talent and vision. And yet when a client says “What about this?” as they show you an Instagram picture on their phone, you answer.

Here is a graphic analogy I hope you may not soon forget. Your client is a drowning victim, flailing away, you are the lifeguard. You can negotiate with them – “It will be ok, give me your hand” or “Swim over here”. Then you will drown with them. Or you can do what every lifeguard is trained to do: take control in any manner possible and get them out of the water.

You may not want to own the analogy for yourself and your creative business, but it does not make it any less true. The work of any creative business is a journey and requires a guide. You must be that guide and to act as such you have to know your own wisdom.

Wisdom is the conviction that your way is the right way for your clients. Your determination to keep clients focused on what really matters for their ultimate success, their transformation and, yes, your unwillingness to answer dumb questions. If you have established the overall budget for a project and are within the budget, what any one item costs is wholly irrelevant. Your clients trust you to spend their money well or they do not. And if they do not, the problem is not that the sofa costs $20,000, it is that your clients do not trust you and your vision enough to have you spend their money as you would choose.

Of course, there is an alternative to the $20,000 sofa. So good luck defending why you chose the $20,000 one. The real question is does your work transform your client’s vision? Did you really spend their money well and are they just scared at what the transformation might be without actually living in it? If clients could see the world you do, they would not need you. They cannot, so they are scared of what they cannot know. Yours is to restore their faith in you, your art and your creative business, not the sofa.

As much as I wish it were not so, I fear I am swimming upstream here. Why? Because access to information is a very powerful mistress. The instinct is to compete with your client’s access. You know more about the thing, let me show you. And so erodes the trust.

The real point is: it will always be how you use the information, the tool.  What you create with the tool, the thing, the information is what only you and your creative business can.  Your story is everything.  My prayer for creative business owners: stand in your own light, do what you do without compromise, convicted in the power of your art and your creative business. And please please stop answering dumb questions. You cannot remove uncertainty, only live in the notion that you know how to get to the other side. You know because of talent, wisdom, experience, and a deep understanding of your ability to transform, to create joy. Live there.

I am basically tone deaf. I love joking with my kids about how awesome of a singer I am. They laugh every time because of how silly it is. I literally thought my son was using his own creation when he talked about his head voice and his chest voice. And I am a better singer than visual artist. My wife thought our then 4 year old drew a dog I drew when my daughter asked me to.

Asking what I think about an artist’s art is about as useless as it comes. I know less than nothing and my answer is beyond uneducated. And yet I am asked about it all the time. Go figure. We are all human and we all want to transpose trust where it is close enough. You help me with my creative business so you can help me with my creativity. Not so much.

I am a sponge for information. I am thrilled to be part of Editor-At-Large’s LA Summit next Monday, yes, to be able to talk to and meet amazing design professionals, but mostly to learn from the other speakers who are talking on topics they spend their careers working on – contracts, licensing, editorial, etc. We all need to invest in ourselves and hearing the wisdom of others is how I find the deepest reward. The corollary though is that I run away from ancillary discussion. If the marketer wants to talk to me about process from my point of view, not a marketing point of view, I will actively not listen.

Consider the source.

Own what you know and what those you are talking to know. Do not transpose. Survival is no arbiter of success, just a willingness to endure more pain than others. Cockroaches have been around for millions of years. A creative professional that has been in business for over twenty years, who has an awful website, a worse process and absolutely no social media presence is less than useless when asked or offering an opinion on anything internet/social media related. My guess though is that she is speaking at a conference near you very soon.

People can certainly be smart on more than one thing, just not all things. Moreover, the way other creative business owners do things may or may not work for you. Nobody has THE answer. Why? Because the only right answer is the one that works for you, your art and your creative business. The best piece of advice I got when becoming a new parent was to listen to everyone and then ignore the ones that do not matter. No different with creative business.

Please do not lock yourself into your own bubble though. Question everything. Learn from as many different places as you can. Learn from those who have invested their entire being into the subject. Ignore those invested in being right. Focus on those that are just invested.

Every creative business owner I have ever met has the wisdom to share their gift. They are blessed with a talent very few of us have and sharing it makes us all better off. However, very few business owners fully grasp that they can be sustained in every way (financially, psychically and spiritually) if they give meaningfully and purposefully to those that care. Listening to those with the answer they are not qualified to give will never get you there and will likely take you much further away from yourself, your art and your core creative business. Instead, find those who demand of you, your art and creative business to be authentically, outrageously, fundamentally you.  As with your art and its stage, the rest will take care of itself.