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Why Do You Do What You Do?

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What a fascinating question – why do you do what you do?  For those in creative business, the answer is almost never to make money.  Sure, money is important, but it is not the main driver even if a ton is being generated.  No, the words I hear a lot are love, passion, compulsion, a calling; something inside that has to be shared.

Boil it down and 99% of creative business is the happy business.  Sure, there might be solemn occasions (flowers for a funeral for example), however most often clients come to you because they want you to enrich their lives.  The easy answer is that clients want you to enrich their lives with your art.  When they enter the room for the first time, try on the dress, taste the food, see the picture, their reaction is what you are paid for, no question.  Not all though, or, I daresay, not close to the most important part.  What you are really paid for is your why.

As much as love, passion, calling and compulsion are drivers, they are not the why.  The why is the feeling underneath, the tactile, physical reaction you have when you are in it.  Singers getting lost in song, dancers going far beyond the steps.  Clients pay you to be moved by what their senses cannot experience directly, to relate to the journey you have taken with them and for them.  Perfection is a rare thing and, to me, the antithesis of what you seek, far better imperfectly perfect.  Not that FUBAR is ever acceptable, but fluidity over the perfect technique any time.

And yet.  The investment in perfect, the end result, the wow has never been greater.  Social media is used to celebrate what you get above all else.  All the while, the communication (i.e., conversation) part of things goes lost.  The difference between your creative business and the one next to you is not the love, passion, compulsion or end result.  At a level, you all have this in spades.  It is the feeling, the relationship, your ability to create and transform an experience, mostly to change perception, to affect people.  You do that by sharing the feeling underneath, your connection to other your clients crave from you.

What would your world look like if sharing your feeling underneath was your investment?  Figuring out how to tell your story in conversation rather than narrative?  Making your business about celebrating your client’s happy through your story, your lens?  And getting paid primarily for the conversation?

If you are willing to go there, the presumption is you will reach in to the hearts and minds of your clients to figure out what they need in relation to what you are capable of giving.  Some clients might know it before you do, others might have to be shown what they do not yet see, it does not matter.  The point is you will be having a different conversation than “what can I do for you?”  From there, the world will open to the feeling underneath and the boundless opportunity that comes from that place.

For those who think this idea too woo-woo, consider: the subjective for creative business is everything.  People buy Picasso’s because they love Picasso, not for the canvas, oils or frame it comes on.  It is why spending more of your time defining the “love” part makes a whole lot more sense than having it be all about the canvas.

Power

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Power corrupts.  It is all a power struggle.  Own your power.  Be powerful.

For most of us, the idea of power is sticky.  Some see power as an entitlement, a zero-sum game with specific winners and losers.  Others believe in collaboration, communal, shared power where everyone wins and loses together.  Almost never do we think about power neutrally – as a force that just is.  Inevitably, we bring our own idiosyncrasies, biases, worldviews and connotations to the party.

Your approach to power and all that it means to you underlies everything in your creative business.  To find success, you have to know what your relationship to power is, how you intend to wield it when you have it and what you do when you do not.

Of course, the discussion begins with your own sense of internal power, confidence and willingness to stand tall for your art and creative business.  For purposes of this post, however, I am taking this as a given.  Huge assumption, I know, but go with me.  Instead, my question is where you, your art and your creative business fall on the zero-sum to collaboration spectrum, the take it or earn it scale.

If you think power is ugly, you might find yourself running from it while at the same time grabbing it.  This is my fifty percent deposit example.  Unless you are selling a specific product like an existing dress or a chair, the very notion of taking a fifty percent deposit for an item that will require a process to create and produce is hyper-aggressive.  You have not done a thing to earn the deposit and your reputation and/or referrals are not worth that much.  You want the power but are afraid it will disappear, so you take it.  With fifty percent of a client’s money, they are not going anywhere without a lot of pain.  No judgment here, just perspective that you will have power you have not yet earned.  Inevitably, how you then wield that power will be a response, and not in itself generative.   Whether it is a “trust me, I know what I am doing”, let me go overboard to show you how you made the right choice, or somewhere in between, you are living in the idea that you just took something.

Compare those that see power as immutable and transferable for a purpose.  They want a client to decide to give power as validation of the request.  The client likes your idea so they pay with their power (and money) for you to continue.  Then again, those on the collaboration side of the spectrum can take it too far and one pot of power becomes an unmanageable mess.  Leadership is required and if you are constitutionally against taking it if need be, you may never get done. Leadership is required, even if leadership constantly shifts.

To take it out of client relationship, think about the continuing evolution of corporate structure.  The digital age has hampered the very notion of the traditional pyramid, especially for creative businesses.  Interconnectivity makes it very hard to have defined groups with power layers both within the group and the organization as a whole as the sole operating structure.  Bob reports to Sally in accounting and Sally reports to Fred, the Chief Operating Officer, who reports to Jane, the CEO is mostly a function of a time when talking to everyone at the same time was not possible.

Instead, the idea of the organization as an atom is now ever possible.  There are defined roles as neutrons and electrons, but freedom to move about the nucleus within those roles.  A nod to Liene Stevens, Millennials wriggle against the pyramid and thrive in an atom.  Everyone has a voice meant to be heard equally.  Underlying the worldview is perspectives on power.

The work today has to be to identify where we all are in relation to power.  Know how it shapes us, even dictates the direction and structure of our art and creative business.  From there we can all evolve our own place on the spectrum and see where that can take us.

Depth of Commitment

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In our flip-flop world, the louder you profess your love and desire to your clients, your art, your creative business, the less I believe you.  Unless.

Unless you are willing to walk the walk, know your core, live by your process, honor your boundaries, and stand behind (i.e., be willing to be judged for) your art on your terms, you are a sound-byte.  You will have my attention for a minute and be gone the next.

Depth of commitment is a reflection of integrity, not effort, service to your art and business first, client second.  Yes, your art and creative business first, clients second.

You are the expert.  You do what you do.  You dream about your art, think about how to do it better.  If your clients dreamed like you, they would not need you.  What you provide clients is your wisdom, art and artistry.  If the energy you put out there is that you will do whatever it takes at any cost, how exactly does that honor your wisdom, your power?

I have seen far too much in the name of service, desire to please, hunger for positive reflection (getting hired, being chosen) as much as or more than money.  It looks great to the outside world.  “Man, there is nothing she would not do.  Had her baby and was back at it a week later.  Love her.”  She could be any kind of artist – designer, photographer, architect, does not matter.  Question is: how much does she love herself, her art and her creative business?  Maybe she does and it is from a place of power that she shows up, or maybe it is fear, the need to serve her ego more than her soul.  Who knows? Guessing she does not either and that is the point.  Depth of commitment means knowing why you choose what you do, what you are willing to do and not.

The beauty of creative business is that anything works so long as it will provide your client with your best.  Want to design a project in ten days instead of the ninety that other designers require?  Sure, just get paid for it.  Feel like being completely transparent, down to the invoices for your flowers?  Why not.  Just get paid your profit somewhere else than flowers.  Want to get one hundred percent of an interior design budget up front so you can spend quickly and effectively?  Sure, if you can defend the benefit to both you and your client, go for it.  If you have the courage to say with impunity how you do things will lead you to your best as you know it to be today, then you will be rewarded.  Much easier said than done.

You will meet resistance, naysayers, even downright haters.  What you do with it is the stuff of commitment and conviction.  Your way is not the absolute best way, just the best way for you, your art and your creative business.  If that way does not jibe with clients, employees, vendors or colleagues alike, will you compromise?  Why?  Slippery slope from there to “we do whatever it takes”.  Without the caveat,  “we do whatever it takes, provided you play by our rules and only our rules” you are begging to be ignored.  All that matters to you, your art and creative business will be up to someone else, not you.

No artist ever deserves to be ignored, to be forced into compromise, to have to create something they are not proud of.  If you do or are, you have done it to yourself.  The good news is that you can undo it, if only you are willing to challenge the depth of your commitment to yourself, your art and creative business — and go further.

The Four Transitions

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Every creative business is a series of ever-increasing distillations.  The purer and cleaner the distillation, the purer and cleaner the result.  Here is the ideal all creative businesses need to shoot for:

You start with the known universe of clients looking for the art you create.  Somebody needs flowers.  The client sifts through choices, referrals, past experiences and they land on your creative business.

Transition number one happens.  Your potential client has a vision of who you, your art and your creative business is, but they have no idea who you ACTUALLY are.  When you pick up the phone, write your first email or shake their hand, you reveal yourself to be either a better version of what the potential client imagined you to be or not.  Better and you get the project, worse and they are gone.

Now you have a client that likes the actual you better than their vision of you.  On to your ideas.  How are you going to present what you have in mind for your client in a way that simultaneously honors what they hope for and what you need as an artist?  Clients have to feel heard and seen, yes, but that is never enough. They have to be dazzled by the idea and you have to over-invest in communicating that dazzlement.  Transition number two – ideas to actual design – a window into what is in store for the client with their full buy-in.

An approved design.  Not the holy grail, but the foundation upon which every house is built.  Transition number three – design to production.  How is this amazing design going to come to fruition?  What is the road map and how do you explain what is and is not possible as you head down the road.  Throw in a few more flowers, sure.  Add five more tables three days before the event, not a chance.  The more clients understand what is necessary for you to do your best, the more they will allow you to do just that.

Ready for the big reveal.  All creative business is about theater.  Why?  Theater is designed to move you, to make you feel, not just once but in a series, to take you on a journey.  Theater leaves the patron somehow different after the experience, transformed for a moment or a lifetime.  Transition number four – production to execution.  At a certain point, the story is written, the design is done, the movie is edited, the song recorded.  Done is done and how you move your clients into the moment of done is critical.  This is your crescendo and you will not get another chance at it.  If a client is thinking about all of the production choices, extra expenses, even design, you, your art and your creative business are sunk.  They have to be ready to enjoy the show.  The show is that one drop – the purest essence of you, your art, and your creative business.  A drop distilled from the universe of those who practice your art to your singular expression – for your client.

Transitions are everything.  They are one-way, ever shrinking valves.  Nothing, and I truly mean nothing, is more important than working on your transitions.  The better they are, the better the next step will be, the better your final product.

It is so easy to look past transitions in the name of getting to next place.  Land the client at all costs, ignoring that some clients are wholly wrong for you.  Wimp out on design presentation so you can fudge it at the end.  Redesign as you work through inevitable budget changes.  Finish for the sake of getting done instead of creating a wow.  Transitions all of them.

Make no mistake, transitions are your responsibility as an artist and creative business owner, not your clients’.  Multiple distillations require ever increasing purity of intent.  All things in their own time to the moment that is only yours.

Persistence vs. Tenacity

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I am obsessed with the New York Times Crossword Puzzle.  I worked on at least one puzzle per day since 1990 – that is over 7,700 puzzles and counting.  I can finish most days (even Saturday) and find it a personal challenge even after all these years to see if I can finish. When I started, I could only get a few words even on Monday (the easiest day).  I am tenacious and proud of it.

Then again, I have also gone down (and down and down and down) the same road thinking that my intuition/idea/belief was spot on no matter the evidence to the contrary.  Whether a business idea, personal matter or just a bad habit, I persisted far beyond any rational measure that would have told me to stop long ago.  I am persistent and not so proud of that.

Were that we were all able to tell the difference between persistence and tenacity.  Persistence is beating your head against the wall most often because you think there will be an answer (other than a concussion) if you just beat your head enough.  Tenacity is the intuition/faith/determination that the access is there if only you work hard enough to find it.  You must be flexible, willing to stop, try another way, look at all the angles, think things through to find the key, all the while knowing that you may never find your way in.

Persistence challenges nothing.  You always can point to your effort as evidence of your desire.  As if effort alone was any meaningful measure to success.  You can chop wood and carry water as much as you want, it will not matter if you live with indoor plumbing and gas heat.

Tenacity, on the other hand, calls you to yourself, brings out every emotion you have, good and not-so-good and, most of all, requires you to move past yourself.  You cannot say look at me at the same time you are deep in your search for access.  There are only about 20 or so slips per year in the NYT crossword puzzle, most noticed by only one or two people.  And yet I used to always think there had to be some kind of mistake since I could not solve the puzzle.  Oh, the ego.  To be truly tenacious, you have to be willing to admit you do not know, or worse, that you are dead wrong.  Then you change course and look for another way.

I saw an expert offering to solve the problem of whether an interior designer should charge fees or hourly as part of her business summit.  Two choices, one right answer.  Once she gives you the right answer, she expects you to be persistent in your effort to follow the formula.  Chop wood, carry water.  Will it work?  Who knows.  Does it have a deeper call to those who might choose to be tenacious? Probably not.

I am me though, so let’s have a deeper look.  For interior designers, there is inherent conflict in any pricing model.  The conflict has to be resolved through a transparent value equation that justifies the conflict.  If an interior designer charges a flat fee or a percentage of items purchased, time is her enemy.  One hundred dollars earned in a month is much better than one hundred dollars earned in a year.  So if the business is not built to accomplish its work quickly, there will be tension.  Collaboration, multiple shopping trips, choice after choice after choice is a disaster for the fee/percentage based designer.  The premium has to be on effective presentation, quick, permanent decisions by the client and very little interference with the process.

On the other hand, if the designer charges by the hour, the incentives are the exact opposite.  More time she spends the more money she makes.  Collaboration, availability and access to items is what matters here.

So the right answer (as if there was one) to whether you should charge fees/percentages or hourly is actually understanding that it is the wrong question.  The real questions are what kind of designer are you and what do you do to support how you charge? Tenacity.

Every artist and their creative business are tenacious by nature.  Fear makes them persistent.  My hope, for myself most of all, is that the joy of tenacity will forever call me away from the comfort of persistence.

I Do Not Know

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My eight-year-old daughter was struggling with her homework.  She was frustrated and said, “I cannot figure it out.  I just do not know.  I feel so dumb.”  To which I said, “The smartest people in the room are always the ones that say I do not know.”  Did not help her frustration or give her the answer but made her stop to ask me why.

What we know is always a function of time.  One plus one may always be two, however, sometimes two is not better than one.  Curiosity, humility, persistence, hunger are all drivers behind “I do not know”.  The point of the search is the search, not the ultimate answer.  The answer should always beg another question.

As much as I love all that the Internet and the digital age has done for us, its shadow lies in those out there that portend that they have the answer, that they know.  You need only Google seminars for your industry in creative business, business coaches, life coaches, etc. to see the proliferation.  I can see the allure.  If there were an answer, a formula, an actual right and wrong, then the fear that you are flying blind might somehow be assuaged.  Fear being the key word.  Instead of helping you move in and through your fears as a creative business owner, these so-called experts tempt you with the idea that you can just run from them.  They know and so can you.  For $x dollars, they will let you in on their secret.  Like anything else, it might even work – for a while.  Hey, a broken clock is right twice a day.  Eventually though, the external power runs dry and you are left with your own reflection – the I do not know.

If you have a loaded gun to your head, you should be scared.  Authentic fear.  If you feel like you are lost in your creative business, terrified that you will go broke, frustrated that the business you want is just beyond your fingertips, please do not call that fear.  It is the uncertainty we must all live in, the call to search for the clearest, most transparent version of what you, your art and your creative business stand for.  You have to move towards that uncertainty, not away from it.  When you call it fear and give in to the power of another, you are really just hiding.

What if it does not work when you lay it all out there?  Isn’t it better to keep things going than, hide a little bit, than to have no one respond to my transparency?  The experts who have the answer might say yes.  Business is business they might say.  You have mouths to feed, a future ahead of you where none exists if there is no response to the truest, most transparent you.  And if you use my process, my formula, my answer, my system you will not starve. To which I would say, the universe is neither kind nor cruel.  It just is.  If you are not able to make a living doing your best work, for your best clients, the way only you know how to do, might I suggest you need to move on.  The value of being in “I do not know” is that when you find the answer to the question (i.e., you do not have a business), you can ask another question (i.e., what is next).  Compromise for the sake of maintaining an illusion is just a fancy way of deluding yourself that the future you seek is possible, while what is meant for you remains hidden.

On the other hand, when you do not compromise, when you recognize uncertainty is not fear, and when you find response to your truest, most transparent self, you can get down to the perpetual process of stripping away any noise that will inevitably creep in.  From there, the future will unfold, undoubtedly boundlessly larger than you would envision.

That is the light of the digital age.  There are amazing resources out there if you stand ready to move into what “I do not know” means to you, your art and your creative business.  They have lots of wisdom and answers, just not yours.  You are the only one that can provide those.  Here are some of my favorites:  Jonathan Fields, Danielle LaPorte, Simon Bailey, and, of course, Seth Godin.

The Why

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Persistently curious, subtly skeptical is how I would describe myself.  If I do not know the answer, I will do my best to look it up.  Google and Wikipedia are godsends to me.  Equally helpful is to perpetually ask why.  Why is it done this way?  What does it mean?  What does it communicate?

What I try never ever to do is just accept that that is the way it is.  Even more important, if I do not know what it means, the why, I will not communicate the presumption that I do.  Even if dead wrong, fully informed decisions are always better than guesses.  When you ask something of anyone – clients, employees, vendors and colleagues alike – I believe you have to know the why underneath.  How the why fits into your creative business.

So let us take an inventory.  How many items in your creative business do you not fully understand the why of?  Things that are there just because.  Just because they have always been there, some expert (lawyer, accountant, etc.) told you you had to, or because that is the way the industry does it.  My guess, more than anyone would care to admit.  Hey, if it ain’t broke…

Except it is.  Communication is always in the in-between, what is not said.  An example: you want to be in the high-end social photography business.  To you, relationship is everything.  You aim to capture timeless emotion, expressions and moments that transcend the event.  You start with a long conversation, the beginning of a lasting friendship.  It always lasts at least forty-five minutes.  Then you send them the details – of course, it lists the various packages you offer and lists the stuff you get for each.  Validating to the relationship, the intimate conversation that just happened?  Not close.  But the client books you anyway, you send your draconian contract that your lawyer said you need (without one word of the relationship you now share) and since they do not say anything, all is good.  But of course the precious relationship is now a tattered version of itself and you just cannot seem to break out of the narrow range you find yourself in.  Your clients love your work but never seem to want any of the extras (i.e., the album, framed prints, etc) you love to create.  And the ever elusive high-end client remains just out of reach.

Let me see if I can find a strong enough word for how I feel about the word “package” for ANY creative business – loathe, detest, despise – jump to mind.  Package is not only a cop-out, it is the very antithesis of a creative business.  By definition, it means the client gets what everyone else gets.  No thought as to what the client actually needs, what is demanded of you, your art and your creative business.  Just a slot you into the box energy.  Clients are not farm animals and trying to herd them into their corral sucks as a strategy.  Packages work where the end product or service is defined, not where the whole point is that it is not.

Time to land the plane.  Back to the photographer.  When I, the client, ask her to go through the differences in the packages, I get gobbledy-gook.  Ten hours is better than eight because I might miss that moment at the end of the night.  But you (and your second shooter) will have probably taken over 3,000 photographs in the first eight hours.  I know you might miss something, but is it really worth the extra $3,000 to have you there?  Oh, that is not the real difference?  The number of prints is.  Ok, then why do the extra 100 prints cost $30 each?  Oh, that isn’t it either?  Then what exactly is it?

And down the package/stuff rabbit-hole goes the photographer.  The relationship suffers another blow even though it moves forward (likely at the non-premium package).  Here’s a thought.  Why doesn’t the photographer be the expert she is and tell the potential client what she thinks they need from her to do her best work and what that will cost based on the relationship she started on the phone?

When I ask the photographer why the packages are in her business, there is no convicted answer, no real understanding of why it is there to truly serve her creative business, her art.  Just the usual – so the client can compare, because that is the way she has always done it.

If you cannot defend what is involved in your creative business, the why, how can you expect your clients to have faith in your ability to take them on the journey you are asking them to?  Knowing how to meticulously follow a recipe is great.  It will never make you a chef though.  For that, you need to know the why.

The Other Side Of Judgment

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They might hate it.

Four words that strike fear in the heart of any artist.  The question is, what do you do with that fear?  Go for it anyway, full throttle?  Keep it in the drawer?  Or hide a little bit – soften the edges so to speak – give yourself a little out?

Here is the thing.  Creative businesses do not have a choice.  Anything built to soften the edges, take away judgment, erodes the very fabric of the business.  The willingness to be judged is the DNA of trust.  Trust is the foundation of all creative business, where all profit comes from (the rest is just a reasonable return on stuff).  Mute judgment and you mute trust.  Mute trust and you have nothing.

For argument’s sake, let us say you have done the work to be judged.  Focused on presentation, made sure every step of your process is plainly transparent, ensured that clients understand the decisions required of them.  So what happens then?  How easy do you make it for clients who “hate it” to leave?  How hard do you work to make them “love it” if they do not at first?  When do you acknowledge that a client will never love it and walk away?  Most important, when you have done all that you can to lay out your process, but clients, vendors, employees and colleagues still do not respect your process, will you walk away, and, if so, when?

This is the other side of judgment.  Better said, it is your required return on your investment.  No one would argue that you need to be paid more to put all of your money on black at the roulette table in Vegas than you do to put it in a three month CD at Citibank.  The return on your willingness to be judged is closer to roulette than a CD.  You absolutely are putting your money where your mouth is.  Either way, you win.  If you (fly) past, you get to say what comes next.  Even if you do not pass, you also get to define how far you are willing to go until you do.

When you hide from judgment or prevent it from happening at all (hello 50% deposit), you invite clients into your business process.  No one wants to feel trapped, clients most of all, and when we do, we work very hard to have things go our way in spite of the trap.  Yes, you might have protected yourself from having your client and their money leave, but, in almost all cases, you have also invited them to define your process too.  Either way you lose.

If you are in touch with what you need and where you are willing to be judged, you will not have a problem letting the clients that do not love it leave after two tries, refuse to allow a client to change how you do things no matter how much you have travelled down the road with them or how close you are to getting done.  That said, you cannot have it both ways.

Putting less than your best foot forward – a rushed presentation, unexplained process, winged numbers, etc. – IS refusing to be judged.  You always have a choice – do it the best way you know how for your art and your creative business or do not do it all.  While there are shades of gray in almost every aspect of our lives, our art and our creative businesses, here there is none.  To be paid, to be honored, to stand apart, you must go all in or go home.

What Do You See?

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Creative businesses are almost never in the business they think they are.  Sure, you might take pictures, put flowers on a table, design furniture, install lights, but that is just what you do – the medium for your art.  The business is what lies underneath and supports multiple mediums if you would like it to – think about almost any fashion designer of note.  How you perceive the business underneath will determine the opportunities you see in front of you.

The following will apply to almost any creative business, but, for illustrative purposes, let’s look at two successful event businesses.  Both design and produce more than fifty events a year, sometimes with multiple events happening on the same day.  Both have principal owners/designers who are well known separate and apart from their businesses.  Event Company A has fifteen or so “associates” that do most of the design and producing on their own with a blessing here and there from the principal.  A premium is charged for direct involvement by the principal.  Event Company B has developed a system that requires involvement of many of the fifteen employees it has.  Yes, there are principal producers, but it is a much more team centric approach with all of the resources of the business using the system.

No comment on which is the better business or has the brighter future.  Assume they are equally successful, each with different, but equally valuable opportunities for the future.  The point is to look at the underneath of each event business, understand what it actually is and where the structure will take the business.  Event Company A is an agency.  No real different from a real estate broker or modeling agency.  The associates themselves are revenue generators and use the brand of the principal to drive business.  Of course, this model works, just ask Barbara Corcoran.  The future though is predicated on growing both the number of associates and geography of potential events.  As much as other things might help, volume and quality associates (i.e., agents) are what matters.

Event Company B on the other hand is an information management business.  Its success is predicated on the flow of information, both internal and external.  The faster and more efficiently information is disseminated, the better the event.  Their employees think about how to improve the system and use it for other purposes as much as they do about finding the next job.  While Event Company A might ultimately get more events regionally, Company B might be able to produce better globally.  Also, the information itself might become valuable.  Much more likely that Company B would be in a better position to deliver data (maybe about social media) to clients, employees and colleagues alike.

Again, not a question of which is better, just what each can see or not see.  Company B will see the value of information, Company A the value of a great producer.  Oh, and information management is a pretty good business too.  Just ask the folks at Zillow.

The issue almost always arises when one looks over and wants to be the other.  Inevitably, there is frustration as agents do not want a system and integrated players always look for the system.  Yes, you have to choose who you are underneath and go from there.  If you do not, you miss opportunities that should be hitting you on the head. Clearly, Company A has developed a terrific methodology to train and support independently operating agents.  What is that training and support worth?  Who should buy it and why?  A much better discussion than how can we talk to each other better.  Company B already knows the answer to that question far better than Company A ever will.  Do what you do, focus on how to do it better, then ask where else it applies.  Art always transcends its medium and so does your creative business.

Value Delivery

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We all play chicken with value delivered and value received.  The desire to “lock the customer in” is everywhere.  Contracts on your cellular phone, gym membership, car lease, even your home mortgage are awesome examples.  The theory goes you want to protect yourself from interlopers and competition.  Creative businesses are right there too.  Big deposits, close to the vest on everything until the first born is pledged, etc.  Except it just does not work and skews your creative business towards being really good at one night stands and terrible at even summer romance, let alone relationship.

If the goal is to get to yes and not permission to show what you have, then value delivery itself goes kaflooey.  The goal of every creative business has to be to deliver and receive value at each critical point in a project’s process.  This does not necessarily mean money, although that is the easiest way to think about it.  Value can also be received by permission to go on, final decisions, authority to execute.  For the most part, creative businesses only have four critical value points: 1) reputation/experience; 2) ideation (love that word); 3) execution planning; and 4) final execution.  An example, an interior designer is recommended to design a home and his portfolio is perfect for the potential client.  The client loves the designer and hires him.  The presentation blows the client away and she agrees to the budget set out by the designer.  The process of procuring all items/construction elements goes without a hitch.  The client leaves her house while the designer installs.  Client walks in to a finished home, down to the candles and flowers and gasps with joy.  The question is when/if the designer gets paid for each critical value point.

If the goal is to get to yes, the designer will work very hard to collect as much as possible up front and leave very little room for what is to come.  If the goal is to get to let me show you, the whole point will be to create a series of one way narrowing valves to create the purest distillation in the end.  The axiomatic point is this: if you are not matching value delivery with value received as best as you possibly can, you make it very hard to move on.  In the course of relationship, human nature almost never remembers receiving too much value if it is then followed with not enough.  Yep, we only remember getting too little for our money.  Locking a client in only sets you, your art and your creative business up for this situation mostly because you will not have enough to give later or will have not earned the right to give it even if you did have enough.

The scariest place to be for any artist is to be judged on her art.  So we hide, we rest on our laurels (or portfolio, first meeting, referrals) and refuse to be authentically judged.  We live in the idea that it will all work out in the end, believing the end is all that really matters.  The lie we tell ourselves.  The truth is that the middle is everything and it alone makes the end’s success or failure inevitable.  However, the willingness to be judged is the definition of respect for your art, your creative business and your clients alike.  Laying it out there and saying, explicitly or implicitly, “here it is, what do you think?” offers opportunity for you to get paid for the statement – multiple times.  In the effort, you get to say what matters, not your client, where you may be judged and where you, your art and your creative business may not.

So ask yourself where value delivery and value received do not match in your creative business.  What would it mean if you fixed it?  My guess is that, if nothing else, you would be far better at communicating what matters to you, your art and your creative business.  And knowing deeply what matters is the first step to actually getting paid for it.

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