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Rowboats and Motor Yachts

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Since Thanksgiving, the Holidays and all things winter are upon us, I thought it would be nice to talk about boats.

When you started your creative business you were a rowboat.  You supplied all of the power, you could turn instantly, go anywhere you wanted, there was nothing you did not know.  Then the business grew and you became a fifteen-foot runabout.  You did not supply the power any more, but you still could go turn pretty well and pretty quickly, go wherever you wanted and you still knew everything instantly.  Then the business grew some more and you became a thirty-foot speedboat.  You definitely did not supply the power anymore, you could still turn, just not on a dime and when you were going full speed you were literally holding on for dear life.  Over the din of the engines, spray of the water, you could still know everything even though it was not easy.

So now you are a sixty-foot motor yacht.  The controls are above deck.  You can no longer turn on a dime and even starting the engines takes an hour.  While you are underway, if there is something going on below deck, without a real crew, you do not know about it and, even if you did, there is very little you can do about it.  Very simple, your job is to steer the boat.  If you go below deck to handle whatever is going on down there, you will crash.  Then again if the yacht is ruined by the time you get to where you are going not much point in getting there.  So you stop the boat to fix what is going on down below.  Of course, when you get back up to the controls, by the time you get there it might just be too late.  What you need is information to make sure that the things you care about below deck are maintained and improved on WHILE you are at the controls steering the boat.

Creative businesses fall down because their models do not evolve as they grow.  You cannot drive a motor yacht like a rowboat any more than you can be all things to all people when you are the President of the United States.  A rowboat, runabout and even a speedboat can have crews that do what they are told, no more no less.  You can still see everything.  A motor yachts needs to have a crew that can think independently, know their roles and problem solve when needed WITHOUT input from the captain.  When you cannot see everything, you need information to make sure all is well in your eyes.  What you need is what you need.  Get more or less than you need and you will not steer the boat as well as you could.

Takeaways for your creative businesses – if you are happy being a rowboat, runabout or speedboat, do not waste your time getting ready to be motor yacht.  Just make sure you are being the best rowboat, runabout or speedboat you can be. However, if you want to be (or are) a motor yacht, know what it will take to operate that boat is fundamentally different from being a rowboat, runabout or speedboat.  If you are not prepared to give responsibility AND authority to your crew for their roles, it is inevitable that you will sink – either you will crash the boat because you chose not to steer or the boat will fall apart while you steer.  If you are a motor yacht (or intend to become one), your success is beyond your control.  So find those that savor the role you offer them and then fully empower them to fail.  Yes, fail.  Evolution is never linear and testing a theory that ultimately does not work is only information equally valuable to the ones that do.  If your staff can never be wrong your creative business will be safely boring, the very best at being mediocre.  All fine until a better functioning motor yacht (or rowboat, runabout or speedboat for that matter) comes along and kicks your ass.  Instead, choose the information you need, make sure you get it and then challenge those generating the information to ask different questions.  Your ultimate success depends on those around you asking what tomorrow should look like instead of trying to make it a shinier version of today.  Assume talent and capability, demand innovation.

Scale matters, business model (i.e., what type of boat you are) matters more.

Who Matters?

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During last Tuesday’s Presidential election I taught my seven year old daughter about the electoral college.  I explained how President Obama did not need to get the most votes, just the most electoral votes which are divided up among the States.  And if certain states cancelled each other out (like Texas and New York), then the only ones that mattered were the tie-breakers, like Ohio.  What she said in response was that talking to everyone was silly.  Only talk to the people that matter and ignore the rest.  From the mouths of babes.  I told her that she was right (and gave her a big hug), but then said what it means is that she should spend a lot of time figuring out who matters BEFORE she starts talking.

I am not a marketer.  I have very little skill in getting clients to your door. However, once they show up, I am your man.  How your creative business discusses what it does, how it charges and how it sets out doing what it does are all my realm of expertise.

Without question, the first move has to be to figure out if the person showing up at your door matters.  As much as you may want the business, you also have to be evaluating if it is the right business.  Suffice it to say, you are not in business to be a doormat, which is exactly what the wrong client will reduce you to in one form or another.  To be successful, yours will be a relationship of mutual respect and candor, reasonable and reinforced expectations, firm understanding of boundaries.

You simply cannot get there if you hide the truth of what it is you, your art and your creative business need in order to be successful.  If you need a response in twenty-four hours, getting one in forty-eight will be a problem.  However, if you think you cannot not say anything or refuse to say anything in the name of customer relations, you have just handed the keys to your client.  They are running your business, not you. And, shocking, just shocking, when your client runs your business their agenda tends to trump yours.  Make no mistake, this costs you money – a lot of it.

Creative business owners fry when surprises happen, expectations are not set and there is no “cost” for the “favor”.  An example, a florist having to send over a “thank you” arrangement at no cost to the client on behalf of the planner simply because the planner gave them the work.  No no and no.  The florist got the job because of her talent otherwise what is the point?  A favor based on tacit expectation serves no one.  Sure, the favor can be granted by the florist but not for free.  There has to be an expectation of future business (not the threat of no business) to make it so.

The client that matters does not expect free, they expect professionalism, guidance and artistry.  They are waiting for you to tell them how it is going to go and will abide by what it is that you need.  If finding the client that matters is everything, doing them justice is more.  Know what you need, explain it, then explain it again.  Enforce your agreements not because you can, but because it is what pros do.  If you do not send a bill when you are supposed to or stop work when you say you will, it destroys the relationship, never builds it.  The whole point of working hard to find out who matters is to constantly remind them why they do.  Iconic process defined and respected shows the love, favors do not.

Hurricane Sandy and Ina May Gaskin

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Having lived through 9/11, Hurricane Irene and now Hurricane Sandy, all I can say is that it sucks.  Big time.  Without question, many are suffering worse fates than I could ever dream of and I do count myself quite fortunate to have only lost power for a few days.  Still, I am a victim without categorization.  My life is forever changed and I, like so so many others, am left to ponder the consequences of what it all means.  I am scared, feel vulnerable and yet somehow have to hold it together for my business and my family most of all.  Of course, there will be healing and we will all come through on the other side.  That will be tomorrow, but today I am still struggling to feel the feelings of being a victim.  Running away from the emotional power of all things irrational is natural to all of us.  We want to be okay even when it is not possible.  And yet, in that place we are away from intuition, our own center that can offer answers when it seems none are available.  My work right now is to not run away no matter the temptation.

For creative business, two thoughts.  First, for those of you who have been deeply affected by Hurricane Sandy, please find someone you trust to talk to you candidly and openly about your business.  If you think I am that person, call me or email me.  After 9/11, I received almost four hundred thousand dollars for a business that was dead.  Hard to deliver dinners downtown when your customers have vanished overnight forever.  In hindsight, I would have loved someone to sit me down and say that the business did not make sense any more and here is where it might make sense (maybe figure out how to move to midtown, etc.).  Instead, very well meaning people gave me a lot of money so that I could prove we were not victims.  Except that we were and I needed wisdom first, money second.  You absolutely need money first for all things imperative – food, shelter, heat, transportation, health care, etc.  However, with regard to your creative business just now — please, wisdom first, money second.  If you run a salt water taffy stand on the Jersey Shore, whose beach does not exist any more, getting and borrowing money to reopen no matter how good it might feel, has to be done with perspective of your new reality.  It might take years and years for people to come back, if ever.  What would it be like if you sold one tenth of the taffy you used to sell?  Substitute your creative business for the salt water taffy stand and you get the idea.

Next, have empathy for your clients, existing and new.  If you are an interior designer with a project that was about to finish, only to see it destroyed by Sandy (either at the warehouse or their home), know that the environment you were creating, together with all of the emotions surrounding it, have been rocked.  A bride and groom watching their day evaporate?  Even a corporate client not receiving its graphic design collateral is a big deal.  Yes, you can have a good contract to cover disasters like Sandy (and here is a very good force majeure provision for the event industry), but no contract is going to take away the fact that it is a mess that will take two like-minded parties to fix.  So start with empathy.  Know that if you have done the true work of your creative business, you will have formed a relationship that will help everyone find a workable solution.  There will be no perfect answers, only workable ones.

Your clients will be able to relate to your issues – impossible delivery, other bookings, inventory already purchased and lost – if you start with relating to theirs.  Give them a voice to what they have lost, without judgment.  When people feel understood, especially about emotions surrounding the incomprehensible, they tend to move through it with you as opposed to trying to stick it to you.  There will be outliers of course, but I have faith in relationship and mutual respect much more than I do fancy words in a contract.

To this point, I bring up Ina May Gaskin.  Ina May is a midwife who delivers babies on her “farm” in Tennessee.  She has been at it for more than forty years despite no formal medical training.  She has a maneuver named after her in OB-GYN training and she routinely delivers babies vaginally that no hospital might consider – breech, after C-Section, etc.  Here is a terrific New York Time article about her and the home birth movement.  Makes no difference to me about whether you believe in home birth or not, I only bring up the fact that in over forty years and three thousand births, she has never been sued and does not have malpractice insurance.  Oh, and things have gone wrong – a mortality, neurological damage, etc. – it is just that everyone knows what is happening and understands the risks.

Here is the parallel for creative business to Ina May with respect to natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy – sh_t happens, really really bad sh-t.  If you work hard enough to find clients that see the world as you do, those who respect what it is you are working to create for them, when the worst happens, you will find your way through it together.  The journey will be a function of your relationship, not in spite of it.

Change The World

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If you have 17 minutes to spare and even if you do not, I would ask (ok, beg) you to please watch Seth Godin’s TED talk about the state of our educational system and how we might rethink things.  As someone who deals with empowering creativity and bearing witness to that creativity, I can only say his talk reminded me of why I am here.

A thumbnail summary:  Seth argues that our educational system is based on the needs of an industrial society gone by.  In the industrial society, we needed workers and consumers.  Workers needed to obediently do what they were told without questioning much.  The better and more specific they were at doing their tasks, the cheaper the product could be made, the more money the industrialist could make.  We also needed consumers — the goal was to have your own home and stuff to go in it.  Car in every driveway, turkey in every pot, that kind of thing.

But along came the digital age and turned everything upside down.  We do not care about obedience, just invention.  Creativity not perfection.  With the sum of human knowledge at our fingertips, the point is not to remember any of it.  Instead, it is about using it to move further faster.

Clearly, a disconnect if there ever was one.  So Seth asked (and asks) the question:  what is the purpose of education?  Start there and then see what is necessary to inspire our children to thrive in our modern world.  I will not reveal them here, but Seth’s eight ideas/solutions are wonderfully brilliant and in almost direct opposition to the way things are done now.

I drew parallels to creative business.  After all, you are the gatekeepers of today and tomorrow.  You define what Seth is talking about.  Creation, at base, challenges everything, opens our eyes to something other and brings us ever closer to a different (and hopefully) higher state of being (nee consciousness).  You are dream makers and dream keepers.  And yet if I asked most of you what you, your art and your creative business’ purpose is, many would give me a terrific corporate answer – to serve our clients well, to deliver a great product, to provide employment.  Good stuff, just not a purpose.  No, your purpose is to change the world.  Specifically how you change the world is up to you (i.e., transform lives with your flowers, spread joy with your music, reveal the beauty of sharks with your installations).  Yours is the responsibility and, yes, obligation to show us the barely possible and the previously unthinkable.  I would suspect that when you live in your head as an artist, you wholeheartedly agree.  Then your business head takes over and you go back to the industrial age and you do what you are told, what the business textbooks and MBA blah blah blahs tell you to do.  Except it will not work anymore, just like our educational system.

Creative business is different from other businesses.  Yours is about relationship first and foremost.  Crafting how the relationship is to go to give you the best chance to change the world.  You cannot do that if the focus is on margin and metrics.  Art is irrational.  We do not need it to live, only to be alive.  How you put a price tag on what it means to be alive has to be done with an understanding that it is connected to something other, never a thing.  More specifically, it has to be related to the very idea that you are about to change the world, one client at a time.

I am not saying for a second that you should not pay attention to formal education.  You might have gone to school to hone your art, learned wonderful technique there and from glorious mentors.  However, you did it so that you could break those rules to chart your own.  Same same with your creative business.  Learn everything you can about sales, production, accounting, legal, marketing, social media, etc. so that you can ultimately chart your own course.

To draw a specific parallel to Seth’s talk, if your purpose and that of your creative business is to change the world (and it is), then acting like a factory, a corner store, or law firm, to use a technical term, sucks.  It deprives you and your clients of the framework necessary for you to do your best work.  My mission, my purpose is to help eliminate that disconnect, to have creative businesses honor that they are about changing the world, communicating the impossible so that it will become inevitable.  What’s yours?

Jimmy Carter vs. Ronald Reagan

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On the spectrum of control freak to, well, not, there is Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.  Jimmy Carter is famous for doing everything himself, including scheduling the White House tennis courts.  Ronald Reagan was far less of a micromanager and let his staff have wide discretion on day-to-day affairs, although he did have final say (he was the President after all).

Of course, when you started your creative business you were Jimmy Carter.  You did everything – sales, production, accounting, and sweeping.  Then you got bigger and hired a few people.  You still did everything, but you had help.  Then you got even bigger and realized you could not do it all.  So the people you hired had to do it without you and, maybe, without you knowing.  You told yourself you did not really need to know because, hey, that is what has to happen as the business grows.  You have to be Ronald Reagan.  Except that you are not. Something goes kaflooey and you only find out after the fact.  Those details you pride yourself on did not happen and you cannot fix it.  Panic.  Huge problem and you have to make sure it does not happen again.  Style. Rinse. Repeat.

Sound familiar?

We can talk all day long about the highest and best use of your time both as an artist and creative business owner, but if you are hamstrung by the size and scope of your business, you will forever play small.  Many professionals and people much smarter than me will tell you that the key is to let go.  I even thought so when I first started consulting three years ago.  As with all things, I have evolved my thinking to the following:  you have to be who you are.  The information you need is the information you need.  Nobody is allowed to judge the quality or quantity of the information, they just have to be in the business of supplying it to you how and when you need it.  What you do have to let go of is only that it is your job to create the information.  It is not and cannot be.  The value of information is in its communication.

In today’s world there is no excuse for you to not get the information you need.  It is not unreasonable to ask that a video be taken and sent to you if it will give you comfort.  A schedule to be updated hourly.  Whatever information you require should be at your fingertips.  Whether it is the job of your vendors, employees, colleagues, even clients, to provide the information, nothing is out of bounds so long as there are no surprises.

The work is to figure out where you stand on the Carter/Reagan spectrum and honor that place.  With that understanding you can then set out making your list of information you have to have to feel like you have a handle on things.  Then you can make sure that information is given to you when and how you need it (i.e., every Monday at 9:00 via email, or via Skype every third Tuesday).  A suggestion – what information is generated is the responsibility of a specific person(s).  However, the responsibility to present the information (i.e., the gathering and distribution) should rotate.  If only one person is responsible for supplying you information, those responsible for generating the information will ultimately lose respect for the importance of the task.  Rotating keeps respect in tact.

What you cannot do, though, is constantly change your mind.  If there are 100 pieces of information you need, then you will get those 100 pieces, not 99 or 150.  Yes, you can evolve what you need over time – move closer to Reagan than Carter — you just cannot do it daily.  That is just crazy making and will keep you small not matter the size of your creative business.

Very well meaning advisors will tell you that you do not need to know or worry about so and so.  Since they are not you, they are wrong.  If you get the information you need, when and how you need it, you will find freedom.  Freedom to explore what is next, to discover your future and that of your creative business.  And, make no doubt, that exploration and discovery is and will always be the highest and best use of your time.

Focus on What Is Going Right – Part 2

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Last year, I challenged creative business owners to first focus on what is going right instead of leaping to dissect what is going wrong (i.e., identifying mistakes and fixing them).  My main thrust was that clients pay for what is going right far more than they do for fixed mistakes.  Today, I am going to go a step further for creative businesses: fixing problems first, as opposed to working harder on what is going right, makes no sense.

Yes, one reason is that clients pay you for what is going right.  But the larger, more important reason is that focusing on fixing problems almost always misdirects strategy.  You wind up focusing on the past, instead of charting how you are going to try to anticipate the future.  For non-creative businesses, it is important to ever evolve the product or service, correcting all the bugs along the way.  We all want the new, improved version of the thing.  Creative businesses do not sell things though (and please do not kid yourself to think that you do), they sell information and artistry. And information and artistry is ever evolving given the state of our world.  Tools completely unthinkable three years ago are part of our DNA today.  What will tomorrow bring?  Focusing on what went wrong only brings you back to even.  Focusing on what went right allows you to use these tools to go ever further.

No, you cannot ignore what is going wrong.  I said this last time and I say it again.  Problems do not magically solve themselves.  It is just that you can no longer start there.  If you do, you will play small in a world where your clients would rather have imperfectly brilliant than boringly perfect.

All of which brings me to the biggest reason of all to focus on what is going right – almost by definition it forces you to live in the present moment, enabling you to discern what merits your attention today versus tomorrow or not ever.  Think about it – if client service is what is most valued by your customers, contemplating how to get better at customer service lets you say no to things/opportunities/conferences/mentors/colleagues that are of no assistance there.  There may come a day when product or service delivery is what is most valued, then you can focus on the things/opportunities/conferences/mentors/colleagues that will help you with that.  Just not today.  Paying attention to fixing problems first will never bring this level of discernment to you, quite the opposite actually.

Honor that your creative business IS different from other businesses.  The difference compels you to question what almost every other business would do and ask yourself if it really works for your business.  Focusing on what is going right first is one very big example.

So here is a challenge – write down everything that is going right in your creative business for the next week.  Can be a huge thing (just landed a huge project) or small (client sent you the most beautiful note of thanks), does not matter.  Then sit down with whoever you value most (employees, clients, vendors and/or colleagues) and whittle the list to your top five.  Now you have your strategy for the next six months: figure out how to do those five things better.  And then do them better.  My guess is that you will be very happy with where that takes, you, your art and your creative business.

Musing on Misperceptions, Innovation and Protectionism

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The news is flying fast and furious these days.  Forget about our coming presidential election and all that may or may not be true about each side’s platform.  I am talking about things that matter to creative business owners.  No, there is no specific news, just a shift in the wind, stuff that should make you sit up and go hmmmm.

The first is an awesome series of articles in the New York Times about just how much power is needed to keep all of the massive data centers going.  Collectively worldwide, they need roughly the output of 30 nuclear power plants every year.  Of the power used, ninety percent is wasted.  At first glance, you would say so what?  But just think about how much is placed on the eco-friendliness of the Internet.  Go paperless!  The future is the cloud!  Shame on China for wasting so much energy and polluting the world!  Turns out that our overwhelming desire to have everything at our fingertips instantly comes at a huge cost.  Just like your $1 burger at you name the fast food joint and the massive, soulless feedlots necessary to support them.  If we can accept that not everything will be at our fingertips (like your 1997 presentation on Excel 5 generations ago), then perhaps we can set out solving the huge energy suck we now face.  My only thought here is that as we get swept away with (mis)perception, what happens when we all know better?  What will you do with your creative business to recognize the price of 24/7 and understand how to value it?  There is always a counter-pose for when perception becomes misperception.  The organic everything movement is a terrific example to the $1 burger.  Maybe it is not the best idea to keep your client’s information available to them forever?  Maybe 15 piecemeal presentations over email is not the best way to go?  Actual prints might work better (and be better for the environment in the long run) than those digital files you supply like candy.

Apple won a huge patent lawsuit against Samsung.  Google bought Motorola’s huge patent library.  Google Maps is no longer part of Apple’s devices despite being vastly superior to Apple Maps.  I am all for the end-to-end user experience Apple promotes, but when that platform for innovation becomes a means to protect what’s yours, look out.  Like it or not, Apple is worth a gagillion dollars today because of its ability to collaborate (albeit strictly on its terms).  Would you really own an IPhone if you could not have your favorite non-Apple apps on it?  Use ITunes if almost every artist was not available on it?  Maybe the news is slanted but, presuming it is not, when innovation shifts to protectionism, we all lose.  Nothing to do with your creative business?  I cannot tell you how many times I hear about creative professionals not playing nice in the sand-box.  As the U.S. outlook turns rosier and work picks up, are you looking to form new collaborations or make sure that you get yours?  The direct parallel to being the best at the world at what you do is that you are not the best in the world at what you do not do.  We would all agree (or at least I hope that we do) your clients deserve the best in the world, so if that is not you, why is it not your business to make sure you put them with someone who is?  Innovation demands that you figure out how to make that happen and still make money at it.  Protectionism lets you believe that so long as your client gets what your creative business does best, they will accept those other parts of the business that are no the best.  Good luck to Apple with Apple Maps.

With every transition, shift in perception, decision to act like the gorilla in the room, there is opportunity.  Creative business, ahem, is meant to be creative, to see a world that does not yet exist and set about creating it.  You do it every day with your art, why not with your business? Think differently, act differently, respect those that want what you most have to offer and set about turning that want into a need.  Live by the mantra of giving your clients only the best, always with the ability to question and redefine what that means.  See where that takes you instead of trying to build a bigger fence.

Why Not You?

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As you align yourself, your art and your creative business with a consistent, iconic statement; when you take a stand, opportunities will come your way.  Whether you are in disbelief that anyone would pay you that much, that a client of so and so size and stature would want to work with you, or your dream project falls from the sky, you will have to confront the idea of your own worth.

Bravado, overconfidence, and, ahem, hubris will say it was always meant to be.  Good luck — hitting the ground hurts — alot.  On the other hand, humility, grace and confidence in gifts given bring you to yourself.  What you were always meant to do was to live your own truth and to bring that truth to bear in your art and your creative business, the rest is just noise and a happy side effect(s).  If someone can categorically tell me how they came to an idea, design, concept, etc., I might come around to the notion that no greater force was at work.  But since no one has been able to do it yet, I am going to hold on to the notion that there are forces larger than us that allow us to create what we do.  Then why not you?

Presuming you have talent, are working diligently on honing that talent, what are you doing to act as if?  Opportunities ALWAYS come.  Whether you are ready for them is another story.  Put yourself there.  Do not imagine what it would be like to be or be doing, instead just do it.  Live the role.  Feel where you are not ready, scared to death, then know what you have to offer.  Hopefully, you will find, as with almost anything in this world, what comes the way of your art and creative business has simultaneously everything to do with you and nothing at all.

Everything because people do business with people.  You might be just that good, but if you are a jerk, your clients will leap at the nice artist who is (almost) as good as you given the chance.  Nothing to do with you because you are not a person in your creative business, you are an asset.  Foolsplay to see yourself any differently.  As an asset, the goal is to use you the best way possible, leveraging your best qualities and downplaying those that are not.  CEOs are not bottle washers for a reason.  Not that there is no honor in bottle washing or that CEOs are somehow better than bottle washers (they are not), only using CEOs to wash bottles detracts from initiating, implementing and maintaining strategy and sales that everyone (i.e., employees, investors, vendors, colleagues, etc.) expect from her.  And, no, there is no inconsistency between seeing yourself as an asset and having faith in your talent and the opportunities coming to you.  We acquire assets for our creative business to get the most value we can from them (lots more than we paid).  Allowing yourself to play a role not meant for you by definition diminishes your value.  If you would not use a laptop as a booster seat, why would you spend your time bottle washing if that is not your primary talent?

When I hear, “That’s just crazy” or “it’s crazy” I try very hard to smile and remind myself that the best things in life make no sense.  I also try to take Tina Fey’s first rule of improv to heart (always say “yes”).  From there I suspend disbelief and get down to the work of analyzing whether “crazy” fits or not.  I try to do it in the context that I or my clients are assets and whether the “crazy” honors the asset and its potential.  If it does or sort of does, I can set out what will make “crazy” not only not “crazy” but probable.  In the end, it always comes back to alignment – you, your art and your creative business – do they speak the same language and to whom are they talking?  I might be surprised at the size and scale of who might be listening when alignment happens, but am never skeptical.  Why not you should always be followed with are you ready even if getting ready mostly means letting go of “crazy”.

What Business Are You In?

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If you ask most creative business owners what business they are in, effectively they will tell you they are in the product delivery business.  Could be a floral arrangement, interior design, photograph, logo, dress or dance floor.  And once upon a time, you were.  Technology just was not there for it to be much more than a trust me game.  “You want twenty purple floral centerpieces?  Here are some pictures of some stuff I have done before, a sample of what one of the twenty will look like (even though it bears little resemblance to what the room will look like with twenty of them on the tables).  It will be fabulous, trust me.”  Just substitute your art for “purple floral centerpiece” and you get the idea.  The world does not look remotely like that today.  The ability to acquire, generate and present information is staggering.  I wrote about the importance of presentation in April and stand by it even more now.

The point of this post, however, is to go even further.  Every creative business I can think of has been transformed into an information management business first, product delivery business second.  Resist as you might, content will always be king, delivery his parliament.  I will only say that your life will be increasingly more difficult if you persist in making your creative business about the end product.  Those of you who wish not to be persuaded, okay.

For those of you who are open to a new world order, let us talk about what it could mean for your creative business.  With the focus on information acquisition, generation and delivery (to clients, employees, vendors and colleagues), we can imagine collaboration and value in a whole new light. But first we all have to agree that creation has huge price inelasticity.  Yes, I was an economics major so it rolls off of my tongue, but price inelasticity is an incredibly important concept for creative business.  It means that, at the margin, an increase in price will not change demand for your product/service.  A fantastic example is a Bentley automobile.  A Bentley Continental costs $189,000.  My guess is that if Bentley increased the price $25,000 not many buyers would say “whoa, whoa, whoa, way too expensive for me now, I am going to buy a Maybach”.  So my main premise for creative business is that the more creative, iconic the art and artistry, the more price insensitivity.  By focusing more and more on the creation, the idea, the information behind the art and less on the actual art, you will make your creative business more iconic, more creative. Only you can think like you do.  In short, by focusing on the idea first, the product as a happy side effect, you will be able to charge more, make more and sustain the margin longer.  The essence of you and your art has no competition.

So here you are as an information management business.  Surprise surprise, your work has to now be on the improvement of the acquisition, generation and delivery of information much more than it is on improving your actual product.  What does it mean?  It turns the typical vendor relationship on its head as much as it does turn your client relationship.  Rather than an antagonistic relationship (no matter how nicey nice on the surface) where the vendor has to deliver more for less, the premium is on information, ergo collaboration.  What if, instead of price, you chose your vendors based on the number of actionable ideas they provided you each month? What if, instead of taking or receiving commissions/discounts, you required a coop of sorts to pay for a graphic design firm so that you can present the ideas most effectively to your clients?  What if you hyper-specialized as the absolute expert in the delivery of, say, purple centerpieces?  What if you created a repository of information that heretofore has not existed.  Just a thought, but there is no TripAdvisor or Michelin Guide for creative businesses.  Directories do not count.  Vetted, relevant information for a specific audience does.

Watch this video about how Kiva Systems robots are revolutionizing how warehouses deliver products to you today.  What does it have to do with this post?  Amazon bought Kiva earlier this year because as soon as you hit “Place Order” Kiva robots are fulfilling your order two to four times faster than any human ever could.  Such is the speed and value of information flow.  For creative businesses, the opportunity is as big as Kiva and right in front of you.  My hope and vision is that you dare to make the leap.

Transition

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Back to school, back to work, beginning of Fall, end of the year, beginning of your busy season, end of your busy season.  September marks for most of us the start of transition from one place to another.  So what better time to talk about the natural order of things: for there to be (new) life, there also has to be death or, if not death, at least a letting go.  Most trees will not survive the Winter unless their leaves die first.  Space has to be made for what Fall will bring.

Why not then take inventory of where you are with your creative business?  Ask yourself what it is that you cling to and why?  We all make assumptions of how things are, will be and how we have to behave.  Is it really true that your clients will never accept you charging a fee?  Do you have to, have to talk to each potential client no matter how big or small?  How important is it that you personally are the proverbial chief bottle washer, dishwasher and chef?  How about those “if onlys” (i.e., if only we could charge x or make sure our clients understand how important y is)?

The lens by which you see the world is always colored by your assumptions.  Same with your creative business.  My aim is not to show you that you are right or wrong, only that you are coloring your creative business’ world with assumptions.  Take away the assumptions and maybe you change how you and your creative business act.  No one said it was easy.  We all get stuck, ignore what is not broken but not necessarily humming along either.  An open refrigerator will still keep things cold.  It will just have to work that much harder to do so.  Leaking energy is only obvious in hindsight.  Nobody likes to hear it but function in dysfunction is still function.  You can go along for years without change.  You may not get close to what you dreamed for you, your art or your creative business.  Who cares?  You will still be around and that might be enough for you.  Would not be for me and I would want to rip my hair out if I was perpetually stuck in third gear.

If you are like me and okay is not ever going to be good enough, then take this time of transition to allow things in your creative business to die (or fade away).  Entertain the idea that the “crazy” idea is actually the logical place for you to live.  Want a practical exercise?  I am of the fundamental belief that there is absolutely NO part of a creative business that should not be a revenue generator.  That’s right – whether design, production or somewhere in between – each aspect of your creative business needs to make money for the business.  Every employee, vendor, and colleague has to be tasked with turning what is traditionally an expense into revenue.  What would it take to make that true for your creative business?

The obvious example I have given many many times is getting paid to present your idea.  Holds true for photographers and bakers as much as it does for designers and architects.  Just be wary your assumptions of how it is just not possible.  Counter by asking yourself what if it were?  What would your world look like?  Then you can set out allowing those aspects of your creative business that do not fit your new vision to rightly die or fade away.  Give deference to the idea that these elements that need to go once had a proper place in your creative business.  This way you will not dwell (or be angry) at the thought that these elements have to die because you will acknowledge that they no longer fit.  You will embrace the elements (and employees?) that are necessary today as neither better or worse than those you are letting go, just necessary for you, your art and your creative business to transition as its nature intended all along.

 

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