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Rising Tide Carries All Ships

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On Monday, I presented a talk on The Perfect Egg at Event Solutions Idea Factory 2013 in Las Vegas.  The conference is terrific and offers a wonderful cross section of all that is going on in the event industry.  This year there was a general feeling of “whew, the worst is behind us, business is on a solid up tick, opportunities are coming and we can now breathe a little easier.”  The proverbial tide is rising again.

I view the events industry as a leading indicator for all creative business.  People tend to entertain and corporations host more events earlier than, say, someone decides to redo their house or build a new hotel.  So a general feeling of optimism in the events industry is a very good sign for creative business in general.

Lest anyone call me Chicken Little or Cassandra, let me say first that a rising and growing market for creative business is an incredibly good thing.  No patrons no projects.  Big patrons, big projects.  Huge patrons, mind boggling art.  That we are entering (hopefully) a sustained period of growth in the size and scope of opportunities presented to creative businesses is entirely awesome.

However, I am concerned.  Part of the “whew” energy I experienced, was an “it’s ok to come out of the bunker” energy.  The storm is past and we survived.  Except there are no more buildings.  Yes, the economy went kaflooey, but much much more importantly, the earth literally transformed underneath the feet of almost every creative business.  Many creative businesses recognized this shift and undertook the exquisitely difficult work of redefining themselves and how they do what it is that they do.  Everything from new technology (website, social media, etc.) to process to pricing/contract.  They established their Tribes and work diligently to manifest their work within the tribe.

The same old, same old was never good enough but is a certain recipe for pain today.  The trouble with a rising tide is that it carries all ships.  So those that did nothing but run for cover these last three or so years will meet with some success.  They might even get hired by clients that those who did the hard, transformative work might covet.  Maybe even a little “told you so” might happen.  Certainly, those that did all the work might question whether it was worth it.

And that is the heart of my concern: when you look over and see the other ship floating you forget that you built a new ship that is supposed to go further and faster.  Instead of recognizing the success that is upon you, you go the other way.  “Hey, they got this huge project because they sent out a line-item proposal before they were hired, maybe we need to start doing that again too.”  No no and no.  The rising tide carries your ship too.  Now is the time to step on the gas, push the boundaries further, reach for previously unattainable clients, and reap the rewards of your work, not simply the rewards of a rising tide.  You are probably noticing that those who want you, your art and your creative business do not negotiate for your creativity.  It is not dumb luck or a better market.  It is the fruits of your focus.  Go ahead, charge more for creativity, not so much for the money, but to further define the singular value you offer for it.

When the tide falls again, as it most certainly will, all of your hard work is what will land you in a different ocean.  In the meantime, use your new boat as it was meant to be used, sail further and faster into uncharted waters.  Dream bigger.  Now.  Better that way then to wait around denying that the tide will ever go out again.

Value vs. Price

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Categorically, the single biggest mistake any creative business makes is to lead with price, or, better said, to make it all about stuff and not artistry.  I see it everywhere:  photographers talking about creating packages, some going so far as to offer a “create-your-own” radio button menu on their websites; graphic designers having a cutesy “place-your-order here” vibe going on; interior designers going with a per room price as their bailiwick; and caterers talking about per piece menus. Yuck, yuck and more yuck.

Some of you might say, what is the problem there?  Every potential client wants to know the price and has a budget so we have to tell them our cost if we are even to be considered.  Yeah, no.  Yes, your client has a budget from which you may or may not be able to do what you do.  If you can, great.  If not, not your client.  The rest is noise.

Here is the problem with making price the leader: you run away from value and you make the irrational rational.  Value in any creative business is the artistry, the creative process to get to art, it is NEVER the thing itself.  The price to artistry is what you say it is.  But when you start with price you skip over this value and land squarely on stuff. And in the land of stuff someone is always willing to do it cheaper.

A very fun example to make my point:  you go to Jeff Koons and say, “Hey, Jeff, I want you to do a big flower sculpture for me, what’ll it cost?”  Do you think Jeff says, “Well, let me see, the metal will cost a million dollars, it will take me and my team about six months to do and all the other materials will be a million dollars, soooo how about five million?”  Or do you think he says, “Sounds great, we will get to price soon enough, but let’s talk about flowers first.  Why flowers?”

Since his Tulips sold for $33.7million last year to Steve Wynn, my guess is Jeff does not really care about stuff, his price is what it is, stuff included.  Also just guessing, but I am sure it is far more interesting to Jeff to talk about art first, money second.

When you lead with price, the air leaves the balloon in a hurry.  There is simply no place to go other than down the negotiating hole.  And for those of you who say, “Well I do not do that, I make sure my clients understand what we do for them and what they are getting for their money before I talk about my prices.”  Hmmm.  Maybe not.

Here is a quick test:  If the first part of the conversation with any potential client is to get the details of the project, welcome to price.  No matter what happens afterwards, you just sent the message to them that you are getting the specs so you can tell them what it will cost.  The rest is fluff until you “get down to business”.  In the name of “real” business you leave your artistry, the need for meaningful relationship, at the curb.

Take a Zappos challenge.  Instead of seeing how fast you can get to yes, see how long you can spend getting to I hear you.  Of course you need to know the details, just not right away.  For those of you who do not know, Zappos prides itself on customer service and actually rewards agents for how long they stay on the phone with customers, not how quickly they move through the process.  The record is 10 hours and 29 minutes.  Zappos knows that meaningful relationship sells a whole lot of shoes.

Even if you wind up staying with a potential client for a long time during that first meeting or conversation, starting with details sends entirely the wrong message.  So what would it be like if you started with, “We will get to the nitty gritty soon enough, but let’s talk about [you fill-in-the-blank] first.”  My guess is that, if you have never done it before, not talking about details (so you can get to price) will be almost impossible to do for more than two minutes, let alone fifteen.

Relationship matters more than price, more than stuff, more than anything in your creative business.  Start there.

Money Is Not Real

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Money is a social construct we all buy into (pun intended).  We agree that the paper and metal has value and we can get stuff for that value.  Rather than having to trade shoes for fruit, we just each trade dollars for fruit and shoes.  Works for everyone.  Except dollars are not shoes or fruit, just pieces of paper and metal.  Dollars are valuable because we say they are.  When you start saying that your art is valuable relative to the price of another artist’s art, you have just made money real.  Then you become constrained by money’s realness.

Example:  You are a photographer and everyone in your area charges $5,000, but you want to charge $7,500 because it is what you need (see below).  Fearing that no one will understand your value, you charge $5,250.  Umm, who in the area said $5,000 was the right number?  The photography pricing fairy?

Creative businesses are different.  Barring the rarest of examples (i.e., a 24 carat gold toilet), the stuff pales in comparison to the value of the art and, more importantly, the artistry.  A timeless image caught in exactly the way the client wants it far exceeds not only the cost to create the image, but, more importantly, the thousand(s) of other images that came close but did not get there.  So how exactly did the pricing fairy say that capturing that image was $5,000 and not $10,000?  $25,000? $2?  By getting photographers to believe in the pricing fairy as much as they do in the intrinsic value of money.

For creative businesses, value is what you say it is, what you and your creative business need to create the art that you do, no more no less.  Very quickly – if you want to work 20 times per year, need $10,000 a month to live the life you want to live and it costs you 30% to generate a dollar (i.e., rent, salaries, cost of paper, etc.), then the price of each of your projects is $8,570.  That simple.  When you make money real is when it gets complicated.  “Well, I could never get that much”: “So and so only charges $5,000”; “There are bills to pay, people to feed, and I have to do what I have to do”.

So rather than working harder on communicating why $8,570 is incredibly cheap for the value, the artistry, you and your creative business deliver, you get yourself closer to the value set by someone else who, most likely, is doing the exact same thing.  You can yell, scream, resist as much as you want, but the best part about numbers is that do not lie or care.  You need what you need as an artist not so much to do the project you are commissioned to do, but to have the wherewithal to do the next one.  To be able to do your next project you have to get what you need on every project, no more no less.  It just is.  And the beauty of creative business is that what you need is specific to you and you alone.  If you need a Venti anything every day, then you do.  This is not about budgeting, it is about feeling good about creating what your clients ask you and your creative business to create.  Living the life you need to live to feel fulfilled.  Ask yourself if living any other way (i.e., mispricing your art) is sustainable?

In every sense then, money is energy, literally the fuel you need to keep going.  Its value is wholly derivative to you, your art and your creative business.  If you can go there and figure out what that number is, then the next time a potential client asks you why you charge what you charge, you can say without hesitation that it is what you need.  You will take the rest of the time talking about the incredible value of how you are going to create something just for them, in a way that only you and your creative business can.  Or you can make money real and say because Jane photographer down the street charges $x and you are worth a little more since you have three seconds more experience.

Your choice.

An Apple Tree

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Due respect to Isaac Newton, a very apt analogy came to me last week – your creative business is like an apple tree.

In the beginning, you plant the seed and then work tirelessly on the (blind) hope that the seed will grow.  When the sapling breaks the ground, when you land your first client, you are simultaneously relieved that all your work has not been in vain and fervent in the notion that the sapling will become a tree.

You redouble your efforts to protect and nurture the sapling.  You are tireless with your clients, going far beyond what is asked of you, your art and your creative business.  You are desperate for the sapling to live to be a tree.

Your efforts pay off and the sapling becomes a young tree, still not bearing fruit, but also not all that fragile either.  Your creative business now has employees to help you do what you do.  Clients, vendors and colleagues respect you and you can move through the inevitable FUBAR.  The FUBAR will hurt, but your creative business will not die because of it.  Two FUBARs, however, probably would kill it, just like a strong storm would the young tree.  So you remain ever vigilant and protective.  The tree could still die.

Then the apple tree starts to bear fruit. More apples than can be processed.  At this stage, killing the tree would be hard, much harder than anything necessary to keep it alive.  Reputation, respect, experience, wisdom and depth of relationship means your creative business can survive almost anything.  So the focus shifts (or should) to what to do with all of the apples.  You and all of your friends cannot eat, bake, make applesauce with or freeze dry all of the apples from the tree.  And even if you could use all of them, there will be ever more next year.

This is where the analogy gets really fun.  Most creative business owners get stuck in the idea that their role and that of their employees is to keep the tree alive, far past the time when the tree needs that level of vigilance.   Sure, the tree needs appropriate care, but not hyper-vigilance.  It is a tree after all.  Stuck in vigilance mode, you really do not pay attention to the fruit and what can be done with it.  You might even be incredibly frustrated when a delicious apple rots on the ground.  The new business opportunity, new client, etc. falls away because you just do not have the time.  Arrrggh.  If only you could stop having to do the (you choose the day-to-day task), you could really go after x, y and z.  Hmmm.  Are you sure the tree will not die?  Irony of ironies, the very thing the tree needed to survive in the first place (i.e., hyper-vigilance) is the very thing that could kill it now that the tree is a tree.

Even if the practical is that you have to do the task, attitude is everything.  There is a HUGE difference to believing you have to do it and knowing that the business will survive (thrive?) if you do not.  If you know the tree will not die, you will move on to other things – like seeing what is to be done with all of that fruit.

Now let’s talk about the apples.  If you believe the tree might die, seeing apples on the ground will be terrifying.  So you will overinvest in doing something with all of them, stretch yourself and your staff too thin, work tirelessly on every idea regardless of timing.  Mouse on a wheel.  Move beyond survival and you will know that some apples, even beautiful ones will go unused.  Your focus will be on what you do with the apples you can use.  More importantly, it will be on knowing what to do with the most beautiful apple when it falls from the tree as it inevitably will.

Nobody said it was easy to let go of what got you where you are.  Then again, staying there serves no one, least of all the tree.

Ego

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No art without ego.  The desire to express oneself, to be seen and heard, is intensely personal.  We have to believe in what we are meant to do to even attempt doing it.  Ego says that it could be me, why not me, okay, me.  Inner faith, longing almost, drives us forward, inspires us to overcome.  No creative business can operate without ego.  Without ego, you would all be selling interchangeable widgets and the world would be bored.

Oh, but ego is a cruel mistress.  What you, your art and your creative business bring to your clients is simultaneously about you and beyond you.  All you can do is set the stage, make sure the pipes are clear if you will, and let the rest happen.  The magic comes when you know where “you” end and momentum, energy, flow take over.  Conductor far more than instrument.  Storyteller more than copywriter.  Director more than actor.  In it is the confidence to know what you know and more important what you do not.  Wisdom and experience allow not only those to arrive to fill in your weaknesses but to harness your strength.  Ego can kill it all.

How many of you looking for an employee have started the conversation with “I just need a blah blah blah so I can have time to do x, y and z.” Or, “I am tired of doing (Quickbooks, billing, negotiation, marketing, client management) so I need you to…”  Ego. Really, truly, who do you think is going to show up?  Someone who wants to take the opportunity you give them and show you the ten you have not seen or someone who is going to do the job you give them – rise to the bar as low as you will set it?  Of course, there are terrible employees, but too often, the expectations you set are incredibly out of whack.

Then there is the second worst part of ego.  Ego can define success for you, place limits on what might be possible.  Would be so great if the business could one day make a million dollars.  Why not ten million, twenty?  Not so much that you will ever get to any of those places, but only in the sense that your own vision of success is self-limiting.  Get out of the way.  Focus instead on building the structure that can support wherever you want to go and set out doing those things that inspired you to start in the first place.  If all of your ideas come while you are in the bathtub, stop taking showers because they are faster.  All of which to say that it does not mean you have to stop being a control-freak or obsessive about your art and creative business.  Quite the opposite.  Ego demands tenacious, irrational, fervent belief in a vision.  Otherwise the first person to say no will be enough to send you packing.  It is just that once you build it, let it run past you.  Steve Jobs had no idea what Apps would become and how they would affect Apple.  No one was more obsessive about building the platform though.

Finally, the worst part of ego, past success, experience, and accumulated knowledge as being dispositive of what will work in the future.  Of course, we can learn and bring ourselves to the table.  However, when the world changes beneath our feet, we have to also be willing to actively unlearn what we know, value our success not in riding the horse until it dies, but instead switch horses.  It is beyond insane to think that ANY creative business operating as it does today will be relevant ten years from now.  The art and artistry will without doubt, the platform will not.  Listen to your mentors and colleagues for their wisdom, just please please please find your own voice.  The difference between the right and wrong way is mostly timing.

In the end, my hope, mostly for myself is to deeply honor my ego, but be equally determined to not be its slave.  Do the work, then let it go and see where it takes you.

Boundaries II

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Danielle LaPorte wrote a great post yesterday about how excessive boundaries can create resentment.  How too much of where you will and will not go too soon is a major turn off.

Like Danielle, I am all for healthy boundaries and their absolute necessity in creative business.  This much I talked about in my first post on boundaries last April.  And like Danielle, I do believe too much too soon is as much of a problem as too little.  However, my take today is endemic to creative businesses alone.

Boundaries in business are often protection from pain points.  For non-creative businesses, it is almost a prerequisite.  Our hours are 9-6, you only have thirty days to return the product (unopened).  Caveat emptor.  Payment terms, no fly zones, etc.  Without laying out the fine print, buyers will look to take advantage, mostly with the threat that they will go somewhere else.

Yes, creative businesses sometimes have to go there too.  For instance, do not discuss payment terms at your own peril.  The inclination then is to take it all the way.  Set up boundaries to protect yourself.  So long as your boundaries are respected you will be safe and secure from clients who want more than you have to give.  You can certainly protect yourself from all things, BUT BUT BUT what a missed opportunity.

Creative business sell happy.  I cannot think of any instance where an experience with a creative business is meant to be unpleasant or, worse, painful.  Compare to a lawyer, dentist, doctor, accountant.  I would not call a root canal being in the fun zone no matter how necessary it may be.

Given the positive place all creative businesses live, boundaries are meant to be the path to joy far more than they are protection from pain.  Your work is to make your boundaries iconic to you, your art and your creative business.  Explain why you need what you need in order to get where you want to go.  If you keep vampire hours and your clients love that you are out discovering the latest and greatest hot spot, why not have your office hours be from 8pm to 3am?  The whole point is to honor your kind of weird, to use boundaries to both your and your client’s advantage, not your win, their loss.

If your view of boundaries is getting what you need to deliver happy, you can find boundary setting an enjoyable get-to-know you process rather than “a no chance you will get me” conversation.  Which is why I deeply resent is using past instances of pain to define your future.  “Well, that will never happen again.”  So you put it in your contract, talk about it from the start and, sure enough, the painful episode is prevented.  Do it enough and you will have a whole host of boundaries (and a very intense contract) designed to insulate you from big, bad clients, who, shocker, will be the only type of clients that show up at your door.  Welcome to the bubble. Sad irony, bad boundaries (even overbearing ones) actually shift the evaluation to your business and away from your art and artistry.

What you will have missed is your ability to learn from where YOU lost the joy, where your client lost faith in your ability to deliver them their happiness.  You are paid to have your art and your intention to create that art be vulnerable, raw, open to evaluation by your clients.  It is how they know you “get” them and learn to trust you and your vision.  Your boundaries are there to make that evaluation more, not less intense.   If you can live there, welcome to the fun zone.

Fresh Eyes, The Perfect Egg and Engage!

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I have been dying with anticipation, waiting for Rebecca Grinnals and Kathryn Arce to announce what their plans are for the Engage! conferences this year. The announcement came today – the first will be at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina in June and the second will be at the Montelucia Resort in Scottsdale, Arizona in December.

That I am a fan (ok, lifelong fanatic) about what Engage! is and will be is beyond obvious. You need only search Engage! on this blog to see just how deep the well of loyalty and gratitude goes. No more hyperbole here though (although there can never be enough).

This post is about two things – first, how important it is if you are NOT in the wedding business to consider attending one Engage! this year. And lest you think this is to promote attendance, as those in the wedding business already know, it is not. The waitlist for the last Engage! was over 240 people, almost a person for every chair filled. Engage! is the TED of the luxury wedding market. Full stop. Both events will sell out quickly – read days, not weeks or months.

So why advise going if you are not in the wedding business? Same reason I would advise those who are event designers to attend Las Vegas Market or High Point Market in North Carolina. You will see how those in related industries operate and how you might compare yourself to them rather than to each other. For instance, I believe most wedding designers/planners are as important to a couple’s lives as an interior designer. Arguments can be made all around, but the disparity is not three to one, which is about what an interior designer earns per project relative to a wedding planner/designer. Then again, wedding planners and designers are coming dangerously close to what was only a short time ago the exclusive province of interior designers. Lifestyle is lifestyle. Either way, you both need to know about each other. So if the focus of your creative business is on the (ultra) luxury set, no better place to learn more about them than at Engage!

Now for the second part of the post. How Engage! became Engage!, how it embodies what a Perfect Egg business ought to be and some quick thoughts on what may or may not be next.

To be a viable Perfect Egg business, your “lite” creative business needs to be able to do four things. 1) Show off your core creative business and vice-versa; 2) Charge a substantial premium relative to the competition; 3) Be capable of reaching scale; and 4) Ultimately be able to stand on its own entirely without the core creative business.

Rebecca’s core business is Engaging Concepts, a consulting firm focused on advising those in the wedding market as to both the state of the market and how they can develop their wedding business to best take advantage of the market. Oh yeah, before starting Engaging Concepts, Rebecca started Disney Weddings and help build it to over $100mm in annual sales. Having a conference (congress?) of the best of the best in the luxury wedding market legitimizes her consulting business and vice-versa.

Engage! is not cheap and it is not intended to be. Engage!’s value is distinguished by content and attendees never price. The sustainable premium means Engage! will always have opportunities to distinguish itself further. If Engage! ever becomes about price, there will be no place to go. For perfect egg businesses, distinguishable value based on the core creative business is everything.

It took Rebecca and Kathryn a long time to reach scale. There were times when they questioned whether it was worth it. Putting on two conferences a year is A LOT of work. Making sure the right people were in the seats was not without cost. Compare that to getting great consulting client like Sandals Resorts, Inter-Continental Hotels or the Cayman Islands Board of Tourism and you might question whether it was worth it too. Rebecca and Kathryn believed they would tip, but neither of them knew when. Fortitude, faith, and luck allow you to persevere, but only if the first two pieces (mutual value enhancement to the core creative business and distinguishable value) are there. Anything else would be delusional.

The last part is where Engage! is now. It no longer needs Rebecca’s and Kathryn’s reputation ala Engaging Concepts to drive it forward. Engage! needs Rebecca and Kathryn no doubt, but its value is its own now. When a perfect egg business stands alone, then there is intrinsic, expandable, sellable value. Whatever Rebecca and Kathryn decide to do inside the conference is never for me to comment on, however, what they may or may not decide to do with Engage! makes for fun and happy speculation. Engage! is sellable – which luxury hotel/travel business would not be interested in having this group of attendees twice or more a year see all they have to offer? Engage! is licensable ala TEDx. What about international opportunities outside of North America? There are media plays, education off-shoots, etc. Or there is the Craigslist option. Consciously make less to keep what it is as it is. Focus solely on content of the conference and surprising and dazzling attendees and speakers alike. Maybe double the price.  Only Rebecca and Kathryn will decide. To the extent the next step is a problem, it is one I for one would most certainly like to have.

That Engage! is a case-study worthy of any business school is something I am incredibly proud to have been part of and witnessed and happier still to see what lies ahead.  The lessons for all creative businesses will be legion.

Fear and Panic

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For most creative businesses, this is the slow season. Actual business is slow as is those who will come in and book new business in 2013 and beyond. Now, some who have been in business for a while will have more or less than previous years. Even for those with more, maybe there are open slots that are key times. For a corporate graphic designer, no annual reports this year. Mostly, it does not make a difference what is not there, idle hands can cause fear and panic. Completely irrational, sure, but ever so real. No one knows what tomorrow will bring, but the idea that it will be different from yesterday and today is enough to send a lot (okay, most) of us over.

We can all be Chicken Little no matter the size of our creative businesses. Although, the bigger the business, the more (rationalized) reason to panic. Payroll, rent, heat, food, latte allowance. What happens if the annual report does not come through? The June wedding does not materialize? The client with the new house never calls? History is a cruel mistress – she tells you it will happen, but never exactly the same way twice. So you are left contemplating whether this will be the year it all changes.

Unlike 2008-9, when we knew we were in free fall, nothing is there to indicate this is where we are today. Yes, the Mayans could have miscalculated and the world could end tomorrow, it is just that nothing is out there showing us that it actually will. So we are forced to live in uncertainty of what tomorrow will bring, with faith that our art, creative business, and, most importantly, what they both stand for will carry us forward.

The problem with fear and panic is that it takes us away from ourselves and begs us to compromise in order to assuage ourselves. So when the prized June wedding comes along, you give away the store in order to get it. Your willness to do it for less invites comparisons to those who are not your competition, yes, because you did it for less, but because you did not stand up and say what it is you actually do for the money you are paid. Even more, fear and panic are like blinders on a horse. You see only what is in front and ignore the universe you cannot see. Yes, maybe the annual report did not come in, but there might be three re-brands awaiting you if only you would pay attention. Judge your creative business in the rear-view mirror and you are bound to live there.

The most insidious compromise of all though is not doing something for less or losing opportunity, it is allowing anyone to change how it is that you do things. If you hope to sustain and build your business, your process has to be iconic. How you do things is how you do things. Why? Your clients pay for your best, not your best under the circumstances. Your work is your painting to sign. No one has the right to tell you how to paint it. And yet. When fear and panic set in, the temptation is to let your client drive the proverbial bus in order to win their business. You are not Burger King and you cannot do it their way. So if you win business with this energy, you won the battle (with your competition) and lost the war (with yourself).

Incredibly hard, but when fear and panic are in the air, take a walk. Know deeply that you do not have a choice to compromise your integrity. Assuaging fear and panic is not a cure. Bad business yields more bad business. No business is better than bad business. You can deal with reality when there is nothing, bad business just lets you lie to yourself a little longer. And quick question, when you are knee deep in the bad business, what do you think your fear and panic will be like then?

Instead, work harder on why you, your art and your creative business stand apart, what your mantra is and how you most want to share your mantra, your vision with the world. Be more radically, outrageously you. Invite your client’s into that world and trust its intrinsic value. The rest will absolutely take care of itself.

Only The Best

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I am sure you are all deep into and/or finished making all of your 2013 resolutions, plans, and decisions for you, your art and your creative business. So how about one more? What would it mean if you refused to do anything other than your best work? No compromise, no fear, no thoughts of other. Just your best.

Outrageous? Sure. There are expenses, employees, demands, budgets, deadlines, and clients and their egos to think about. But what if? How would you change everything to put yourself in the position to do only your best?

And there is the rub: too often we have all set things up in a way where our best is never possible, only the best under the circumstances. The reasons are insidious and legion. Anything from working with the wrong client, having uncertain boundaries, a poor process to establish and maintain those boundaries, charging too little (or too much), compromising in the name of customer service, and anything else that undoes your ability to do your best. Whether it is an actual voice or the one in your head, the “right” way is mostly not if it does not resonate with your belly, your intuition of what you need. The slope to justification is slippery indeed.

The beauty of creative business is that your ultimate success is directly correlated to your willingness to be iconic. Such a scary word “iconic” – being radically you in all that you believe in — your art and your creative business at the forefront. So much easier to hide behind the “right” way. Go ahead and take a 50% deposit even though you have not earned a dime of it. Fear tells you your client will run away if you do not and, after all, it is the “right” way. Hmmm. Maybe not. Trust is earned, never bestowed. Your best is belied by good intentions of those who may have gone before you or presume to have the secret sauce. Competition is an opportunity to distinguish yourself as other, not to draw comparison. When you leave your belly for whatever reason, your best leaves too.

I am not naïve though. Employees rely on you, bills are to be paid, business at your door is business. Saying no when it will alienate a client is incredibly difficult.

Practicalities, realities, demands — they scream for you to do what you have to to make it to tomorrow. Ignoring all of it in the name of your art, your willingness to do things as only you can, is a lonely endeavor. The reward is your best or, at least, the possibility of it. Nothing is meant to test your faith in yourself, your art and your creative business more.

Plans, resolutions, goals, decisions are meant to move you forward, to the next level if you will. We all need them to believe in better future. A fresh start. My fear is that finding the “right” way will take you away from yourself. My hope is finding your own center – the desire to do your best without compromise – will bring you closer to the better future you seek.

Evolution

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We work, we endure any measure of hardship for the hope of joy as much for joy itself.  We strive to be better fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, partners, people not for the world but for our own internal compass.  Integrity is the choice to do better, be better.  Courage and honor the ability to abide by the choice in the face of the insurmountable.

Building a business can be about vanity, gobbling, voracious desire to overcome, dominate.  In the effort, you can acquire the resources that may one day be used to benefit everyone despite the ills that may or may not have been done in the name of greed.  Ford, Carnegie, Rockefeller come to mind.  Or you can have your business be a reflection of the world you wish to inhabit.

My hope and prayer is that those in creative business understand the responsibility and authority you have been given.  You shape imagination, give life to fantasy, inspire innovation and help us greet tomorrow without today’s limitations.  Your business’ potential is based not on the newest and greatest, but faith in your art and, more importantly, your artistry.  How you can move your clients, employees and even your colleagues to a new state of being is what you are called to do.  You may dismiss this as too lofty a goal, too preachy or not really your job.  If you do, then ask yourself why you cry at your weddings, smile a full belly smile when you see THE image out of thousands, feel viscerally moved when your design comes alive.  And if you feel as you do, then what of your audience?

As much as money is part of the mission of any creative business, it can never be the larger purpose.  Not because there is anything wrong with making money or having it be a primary goal.  It is just that the objective is too small, too limited.  Of course, no one wants you to be Van Gogh and die penniless, the work first though. Yes, the money will follow if the work is first.  If you believe in the fundamental truth that nobody needs what a creative business does, then you can realize that the basis of value is irrational.  It will never be about the thing, that is just stuff.  It will always be about the idea that creates the thing – no matter how simple or complex.  The value of the idea then is very much what you say it is.  Mostly, the value of the idea is what is necessary to get you to come up with the next one.

All of which brings me to the ultimate point – creative businesses generate value from the potential for change, from that which moves us forward.  Forward in every sense of the word.  To do so, however, requires a spirit of partnership, a willingness to look at whoever is across the proverbial table and decide how you, your art and your creative business can make them better, improve their business, their lives.  Your success will be found in helping others see in a new way, to redefine what they know to be true.  We can stone Galileo for being a heretic or set about embracing the notion that the world is round.  The illusion is not that tomorrow is impossible but that today is certain.  No such thing.

Challenging those creative businesses and their clients who have gotten lazy or myopic will always be an opportunity.  The bigger opportunity though will be to challenge it in you.  The hope of joy as much as joy itself is embracing the (new) world as you may choose to see it.  Your creative business is there to make it happen.

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