Having just launched my new online course, Marketing Mastery for Creative Entrepreneurs, I’ve been reaching out to some of my connections on LinkedIn to let them know about its release. I’ve appreciated the positive response to the course, but one common reply to my message is that they are too busy right now to think …
Marketing automation is all the rage in our high tech, data-driven world. Platform after platform tempts us with advanced capabilities for click funnels, drip campaigns, and other automated capabilities. There are entire platforms, such as Zapier, that exist simply to integrate one automated platform with another. The capabilities are astounding, but also confusing and can …
Running any business these days requires the use of digital platforms. Everything from basic email, to managing finances, to marketing and customer relationship management, all involve using digital platforms. And for each application there are so many options available it can be staggering! I’ve reviewed and recommended platforms for some of these various needs and …
My new course, Marketing Mastery for Creative Entrepreneurs, is now available. You can watch the first lesson for free. In the introductory lesson I make an analogy between marketing and farming. Farmers don’t till soil, plant seed, and fertilize their fields hoping that if they have enough luck they might get a crop. A harvest …
Transformational Marketing Takes Time (So Get Started Now!) Read More »
About a year ago I ran a webinar class called Marketing Mastery for Creative Entrepreneurs for some of my LinkedIn followers. My intention was to turn that webinar into a digital course. I had hoped to have it ready last winter, but my own creative practice got so busy that I had to put my …
Coming Soon: Marketing Mastery for Creative Entrepreneurs! Read More »
Creative entrepreneurs dread downtime. If you bill by the hour, and especially if you also have fixed staff expenses, a stretch of light work can quickly eat up profits—or sink you deep in the red. Downtime is to Be Expected The first lesson in dealing with downtime is that you have to expect it, and …
In my last article, I mapped out the maximum earning potential for creative entrepreneurs, based on the different business and pricing models that you can follow. While we all want to earn as much as we can from our work, creatives don’t choose this line of work because we think it will be extraordinarily lucrative—there …
How to Preserve Your Joy in the Creative Process Read More »
When you’re hustling and grinding it out, do you push yourself forward imagining a future financial payoff? What are your financial dreams and aspirations for your creative practice? Are you moving closer and closer to those goals? Or are your profit goals slipping further and further into the future? There are many reasons why creative …
What’s Your Maximum Earning Potential as a Creative Entrepreneur? Read More »
In my last article I argued that we desperately need accurate time data in order to correct our faulty and biased assumptions about how we spend our time at work. So many critical business decisions boil down to allocating our time properly. Whether that’s estimating how much time will be needed to complete an assignment, …
According to Einstein time is relative. But unless you’re planning on traveling at the speed of light anytime soon, time is constant enough to be a dependable mechanism to help you operate your creative practice. In fact, time is the most fixed resource you have, and we all get the same number of ticks each …
* From the 1988 track by the Swirling Eddies It’s summertime and that means vacation. In fact, I’m heading out on one tomorrow, so this week’s article may be a bit shorter than usual—still gotta pack! If you’re a freelance solopreneur, taking a vacation can be tricky with nobody back at the office to hold …
The overwhelming majority of my articles focus on the problems we encounter on the path of creative entrepreneurship. And there are plenty! So many of them threaten to undermine our ability to establish a stable, profitable, and enjoyable career. This week I want to take a breather from our troubles in order to refill our …
Contemplating “Creation” in Creative Entrepreneurship Read More »
There are two distinct avenues you can follow in developing your creative practice. The most trafficked avenue is Hustle and Grind. But the more scenic, pleasant, and stable path is Humble and Grow. As creatives seek to build a client base, they often don’t know where to start. When they reflect on how they’ve gotten …
This Spring my daughter graduated from Grove City College, got her first car, and her first job. As a new member of the workforce, and as a new car owner, we took some time to work on her budget. After all, it’s only a matter of time before she’ll need to have a radiator replaced, …
In my last article I began to describe how PinPoint Positioning can lead to highly refined processes that give even greater weight to your positioning and bolster the trust that prospects have in your expertise. Refined processes can really seal the deal as you describe them to prospects. But I also alluded to another benefit …
PinPoint Positioning is the foundation of marketing a creative practice. It’s defined by narrowly answering three key questions: “What you do,” “Who you do it for,” and “How that benefits them.” But once you’ve established your PinPoint Positioning, there is a fourth element that can be added by answering yet one more question: “How you …
How in the world are you supposed to thrive as a freelancer when clients have access to global crowdsourced platforms like Upwork, Fiverr, and 99Designs? Is it even possible to build a freelance practice when the going rate for a logo is $99? Good News, Bad News Freelance platforms put downward pressure on pricing. This …
Is Upwork Dragging Down Your Freelance Practice? Read More »
When you think about providing service to your clients, do you ever fear that you’re being regarded as a mere order taker? Have you ever felt pushed around by a client making demands to “just make the logo bigger?” There is a strong tension between the creative part of what we do and the service …
Putting the “Service” Back into “Creative Services” Read More »
Most creatives get into business out of a passion for their work. Unlike creatives, I’ve never met other entrepreneurs looking to get into a new business or buy a franchise, who looked into the creative service sector and thought, “that looks like an interesting and lucrative opportunity.” Creatives end up backing into business ownership almost …
An old friend of mine (I say old because it was a long time ago, and because he was old) once shared his exercise philosophy with me. His secret? “No pain, no pain!” He had a point. While he may have embraced this idea when it came to hitting the gym, he betrayed his convictions …
As a creative entrepreneur, it can be a challenge to simply maintain your normal day-to-day marketing activities. Producing and publishing content, dropping social media posts, and reaching out to a prospect list takes real dedication. Eventually though, once these habits become routine, you might want to consider kicking your marketing up a notch. Last time …
Marketing is hard work. Right out of the gate the challenge of establishing PinPoint Positioning presents a barrier that many creatives never get over, and so their marketing efforts end up dead on arrival. Crafting and sustaining a content strategy takes dedication and a rigorous writing process. Then you need to spend time building a …
I’m in the process of producing an online course called Marketing Mastery for Creative Entrepreneurs (I hope to have it available later this summer). As I’ve been writing the session on alternative methods for reaching out to prospects using email and cold calling I’ve been reflecting on the old days when those were the main …
Do you know what the biggest misconception is, among creatives, for marketing their own professional services? It’s confusing the kinds of marketing that they help their clients with: branding campaigns, digital advertising, mass mailing, and other forms of business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing, with marketing methods that work for professional, business-to-business (B2B) services like their own. There’s …
Marketing Your Creative Practice Starts with a List Read More »
The last few articles have surveyed important issues creatives should consider when they contemplate growing their firm. Most importantly, you should plan ahead about what role you’ll serve, specifically, whether or not you’ll stay involved in creative production. We’ve identified a few different roles that will need to be filled as you grow such as …
Building Your Team with the Help of DiSC Profiles Read More »
Growing a creative practice is a huge challenge. Especially when, as a creative, you lack business training. Learning on the fly is a big liability. It’s hard enough to grow a company when you know what to expect, but hitting a surprise gap can have dire consequences. Last week we considered one of the early …
The growth of a creative practice often happens organically. As work stacks up, more resources are brought on to help. Soon you realize that you’re spending more time running a company than doing creative work. In your desire to get back into the studio you consider hiring someone to help manage projects and to make …
Do You Need an Account Manager or an Account Maker? Read More »
When creatives find their opportunities increasing, they often end up getting swept up into growth rather than building a firm with intentionality. Without a clear plan, the first step a busy creative makes will likely be to bring on additional production resources. At these early growth stages, all that matters is keeping up with the …
There are many reasons creatives end up climbing the ladder from part-time freelancer to full-time, from solo-practices into small firms, or from small firms into larger growing agencies. Rarely, however, do creatives jump on the growth train having thought through all their reasons, or having established their goals. Some creatives see larger agencies landing big-name …
If you had a magic time eraser, how many projects or clients would you edit out of your history? A project or client relationship can fail for many different reasons, but sometimes projects are destined for failure. There are inherently bad client’s out there, whose only concern is paying as little for your work as …
Being a creative entrepreneur is hard. Creatives get little to no training in business while learning their trade. Art schools can help us build a great portfolio, but it doesn’t prepare us to be entrepreneurs. And so we have to learn on the job. One of the first business lessons we learn the hard way …
Last April, as the impact of Covid on businesses was just beginning to be felt, I reached out to Abby Moffit of Superfan Company. Since Superfan focused on helping artists maximize fan engagement, specifically at live events, Abby’s company was clearly going to be impacted. With 2020 finally at an end, I reached back out …
Resilient Entrepreneurship: An Update With Abby Moffitt Read More »
As soon as you start accepting money for creative services, you’ve entered into the realm of taxes, accounting, and financial reports. Keeping accurate financial records is a necessary part of running a business. If you aren’t at least minimally organized on this score you’re going to end up scrambling just to fill out your tax …
Creative entrepreneurs must learn how to plan their projects. You must forecast project stages, schedules, and time requirements. Success in business depends on cultivating this essential skill. That’s because as creative entrepreneurs, our businesses sink or swim on how effectively we use our time. I’ll be the first one to urge you to get beyond …
When a creative decides to strike out on their own, whether they realize it or not, they enter into the world of entrepreneurship. While becoming a freelancer may not seem like a huge risk, all business ventures involve risks at one level or the other. And risks, of necessity, assume the possibility of failure. Not …
Are You Ready to Take the Entrepreneurial Plunge? Read More »
Imagine how great your creative business would be if you could go back in time and adjust all your pricing so that every hour you’ve ever spent on every project was fully paid. Imagine having the superpower of perfectly forecasting exactly how much time every project would take. Unfortunately for most creatives, we are not …
We’re all ready to put 2020 behind us. Let’s hope 2021 will be a better year. None of us expected a year like 2020, and no one knows what the future will bring. But when you’re running a business you can’t let past disruptions or future uncertainty get in your way. And on this much …
Over the past eight weeks we’ve been running an extended thought experiment. What if we had a chance to seek an investment for our creative business on Shark Tank. This is wholly imaginary. Venture capital is not available for professional service businesses like ours. But by asking the question, and pretending to put our practices …
The idea that a creative entrepreneur would ever go on “Shark Tank” is entirely an imaginary thought experiment. Venture capital investors simply don’t invest in professional services companies. Even the best run firms don’t offer the kinds of returns that would entice an investor. Therefore, as creative entrepreneurs, we remain our own investors. But it …
Shark Series: Are Partnerships an Alternative to Investors? Read More »
When a founder presents in the Shark Tank, one of the questions they will be asked is whether or not their product or idea is patented. The Sharks want to know whether or not the product, if it gains traction, will get easily knocked off by unscrupulous copy cats. One of the problems that many …
Having just launched my new online course, Marketing Mastery for Creative Entrepreneurs, I’ve been reaching out to some of my connections on LinkedIn to let
Marketing automation is all the rage in our high tech, data-driven world. Platform after platform tempts us with advanced capabilities for click funnels, drip campaigns,
Running any business these days requires the use of digital platforms. Everything from basic email, to managing finances, to marketing and customer relationship management, all
Your creative practice’s growth is fueled by marketing, but in order to achieve a balanced, sustainable, and profitable practice you may need help with other aspects of managing your business.
If you need help with a single issue business problem, whether marketing, financial, managerial, or any other aspect of running your business, we’re here to help!