People ask me all the time about what I was most proud of while I was with Preston.  Most expect me to talk about the money earned, deals made, international exposure, even the business model we crafted.  Do not get me wrong.  All of those things are wonderful and were really fun to work on and be a part of.  But when I get right down to it, the thing I am most proud of is that the world got to see Preston’s gift as he was meant to share it.

Preston imagines an unbelievable fantasy world that is to exist for but a moment.  Truly, there are probably ten people on our planet of seven billion that can conceptualize the environments Preston does for his events.  Yes, Preston has many gifts (his ability to listen and be present at the forefront), but they are a distant second to his artistry, the size and breadth of his vision.

I did not make it possible for Preston to play on a grand stage, I just helped his business get out of the way of him actually being able to.  His gift did the rest.  And that is the point – your creative business has to be structured so that it supports the stage you want to play on.  Not all of us want to or can play on Preston’s grand stage.  So what.  You are to play on your own stage – the one that most celebrates the gift you have been given.  If I had to say what I do really well for my clients, this would be it — help them play on the stage that best suits them.  When you allow the way you do business to hinder the celebration or stop it entirely, you are not just robbing yourself of opportunity (which you most certainly are) but the rest of the world of what you are most meant to contribute.

Here is a fact.  When I was with Preston, we deliberately made less money than we otherwise could have for certain of Preston’s international events.  Why?  Because a) it was still a lot of money and b) it was really based on the notion that the bigger the stage for Preston the better.  More important to get cheaper the bigger the event than squeeze the very last dollar we could.  If you charge $100 fee for a $200 event, you are crazy expensive.  But if you charge the same $100 fee for a $1,000 event, not so much.  Add some zeroes and you get the idea that the bigger the event you had the more enticing was it to have Preston design it for you. When I joined Preston he had yet to do a million dollar event. When I left his largest was far more than fifteen times that and I can only imagine what it is today.

All too often I see artists compromise themselves and their creative businesses in the name of, well, business.  The art, the emotion, the love gets sublimated to the shoulds, needs and have tos of the business.  You talk yourself into doing things a particular way because you cannot imagine another way.  More particularly, you cannot imagine talking about what matters most to you and what you deeply want to give to your clients.  Whether it is because it is about the sale, the desire to please or even that you are not fully in touch with what you most want to share, I really do not know.  What I do know though is that it is a shame since you are keeping part of your gift in the shadows.

I had the good fortune to have dinner with Vicente Wolf this week.  He has been a designer for 37 years and has as much enthusiasm for it today as he did when he started.  Just oozes out of him.  I asked him why.  He said it was about emotion, his need to create, to share his art.  Regardless of the fantastic success (financial and otherwise) he has achieved, we both agreed he could have made much more if he were willing to compromise his design integrity.  He just could not though and is ever proud of it.  He knows who he is, believes in the gift he was given and refuses to ever hide it.  Call it what you will – I call it spirit; something larger than you from which you are simply the delivery vessel.  Yes, you have to get out of the way as we all do to let that spirit go as far as it can.  So too with your creative business.  It is there to serve you and your art.  Never ever ever the other way around.

When you find yourself upside down, the work is to acknowledge why you create in the first place.  Joy of expression has to be the end all be all.  If you lose it, come back to it and refuse to allow your creative business (clients, employees, vendors and colleagues included) to ever mute it.  An incredibly simple thought, overwhelmingly difficult to implement, but unbelievably freeing if you do.  It just has to begin with the idea, nay the faith, that your gift is to be shared fully with the world, never in compromised sound bites.

All of us have many different roles in our lives – business owner/employee, artist, colleague, client, parent, child, friend, lover, teacher, student.  We cannot be all roles simultaneously.  We focus on being one or two of them at any one time, mostly dependent on who is sitting across the table from us.  Let’s call those roles the primary roles of the moment.  Playing the wrong primary role in a given situation tends to not turn out well.  Children need parents not friends.  Students need teachers not lovers.  Creative businesses need owners not parents.

The question then is what primary roles do you play in your creative business?  Why and, more importantly, when?  So often, you do not define your role because you believe you need to be all things to all people.  To you, your client expects you to not only create the design, but then draw, build and drive the truck to deliver it.  Your employees expect you to be able to answer all questions no matter how much you tell them it is their job to know.  Welcome to the land of Lilliput.

There is no one right role for you in your creative business, only the one you must play for the world to perceive your business as a business and not merely an extension of yourself.  Extensions do not scale, businesses do.  Even if you are all by yourself, you can still make it clear what your primary roles are.  The rest you can outsource.  The point is that you must do all you can to be viewed in the light most favorable to your creative business.  Designer, technician, craftsperson, it does not matter, so long as you pick your primary role.

Apart from misperception about what is necessary, failing to play the primary role you know you must is about lack of confidence.  You cannot play small no matter your size.  Yes, you can be hungry and scrappy to get where you need to be so long as you never get stuck there.  Ultimately, you have to own the stage.  To do so, you have to allow those around you to celebrate your gifts.  When you allow yourself to play the wrong primary role, you get lost in all that you are not.  No wonder then that your creative business cannot find its place as a business.  Much better to invest the time to do what you do, nothing else.  Only then will your creative business will have something to be built around.  The more specific your role, the further you, your art and your creative business can go.  Ironic in the very best sense.  Know who you are so you can move beyond yourself.  As true for you as an artist as it is for you as a creative business owner.

The value of any creative business no longer (solely) rests on the quality of its final product.  Whether it is a sofa, a photograph, a floral arrangement, lighting, stationary, or a shoe, there is too much great stuff out there for you to rest on your work alone.  You might be that good, but not so good as to stand wholly apart.  Today, you need an amazing process to get to your final art as much as you need to be able to produce amazing art.  Done well, it means putting the spotlight on your creativity and getting paid well for the brilliance between your ears much more than the brilliance between your hands; to get paid for inspiration far more than perspiration.  Engaging and connecting your client to your process is the key determinant of your success as a creative business.  Communicate your ideas well and you will earn trust to continue building the relationship.  Your final product will then be the by-product of the relationship not the definition.

All of which brings me to the importance of presentation.  If you do not invest in the theater of presentation, you are asking for trouble.  Skip presenting and you are dead even if you do not know it yet.  Presenting used to be hard and expensive.  A client knew that creating a rendering, organizing materials and ideas was difficult.  Very few knew AutoCAD and even less could afford to use it.  Even if you could put together a PowerPoint, printing in anything other than basic Kinko’s style was not happening.  The result: one sample, one room, one big investment to give enough of a taste of what was to come to convince a client to take the leap.

Today, Marriot design rooms virtually in 3D instead of building demo rooms and lobbies, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars and six months of design time in the process.  Google Sketchup is $500.  Forget about the wealth of freelance talent out there to use it.  With Pinterest, how can you not know what a client loves?  And how can you not find the perfect image of what you are thinking about if you cannot/will not create one for yourself?

The tools available to tell your client’s story have never been more accessible.  And we all know a killer presentation App is just around the corner.  Clients are right to judge how you tell your interpretation of their story as much as anything else.  Simply, how you present is the single most important linchpin to the value of your art and your creative business.  Just take a look at the difference in philosophy between Vicente Wolf and my friend’s interior designer.

Read Vicente Wolf’s brilliant post on how he presents his design vision to his clients.  To me, it is required reading for all creative business owners to see how someone like Vicente approaches his presentations, where he places the value of his creative business. Vicente is decidedly low tech, but thorough in how he “paints the colors” for his client.  You may or may not want to present how Vicente does, that is not the point.  Look at how methodical and detailed he is to every moment he is communicating his vision.  If you are his client, how can you not appreciate the thought that has gone into his design? The perception of value is clearly on his creativity not the stuff he intends to use.  Your faith in him is defined by his communication of his vision his way.

Juxtapose that with a story friends told me about their experience with their interior designer.  The designer came highly recommended and had worked with several colleagues and friends.  Her fee was $5,500 plus 20% of items chosen.  My friends shared several Pinterest boards, took her to places whose design they liked, and talked with the designer for several hours about likes and dislikes.  What did the designer show?  Ideas in three genres that did not at all represent what was discussed.  No floor plans, no specific ideas, just pictures of items that my friends had found online. The result: incredible frustration and distrust of the designer and whatever vision she might have had.  Instead of wanting to maximize the relationship, they just want to get through it.  They feel like they have invested too much of themselves to start over, but do they value the designer and her talent?  No.  Strong relationship?  Not even close.

If only my friends’ story was an outlier.  I see it over and over – the unwillingness to invest in process and the theater of presentation.  I suppose it is because it is not the norm and, why bother, if the work will speak for itself.  So not true and, even if it did, think of all the opportunities lost when a client only wants to be done.  Today, it costs virtually nothing for your creative business to reveal the soul of your art before you have to deliver it.  Next to nothing to create and be paid for an immutable relationship with your client.  Here is my prediction: in the (very near) future all value to you, your art and your creative business will be put squarely on your ability to present effectively.

I stressed in my post yesterday how important it is to be uncomfortable, to refuse to live in your own bubble.  Seek out those who would challenge your worldview and question the foundation upon which you have built your kingdom.  My presumption is that the bubble is caused by the relative isolation creative business owners too often find themselves in.  But, as Sony shows us, the bubble can also be a direct function of power and ego.  The more you have of each, the less likely you are able to recognize the world as it passes you by.

Imagine if you had a business that dominated music delivery (Walkman), home entertainment (television), games (PlayStation), and home video (Camcorders).  Now imagine that you owned one of the world’s largest collections of music rights, film libraries and production.  You would be Sony in the 80’s and 90’s.  So how would you wind up being very close to losing it all?  Sony has not made any money since 2008 and lost $6.4 billion in 2011 alone.  It is worth 1/30th of what Apple is.  And yet Apple should never be what it is today.  WIth all of its resources, Sony could have outdone the IPod, never let ITunes become the gatekeeper or allowed rivals like Samsung to outengineer their televisions.  The reasons why history unfolded as it has thus far is the stuff of business school case study after case study.  However, for creative business, the one most powerful to me is that Sony lost sight of its core.

My favorite line from the New York Times article that summarizes Sony’s demise is this one, referring both to Sony and the Japanese electronics industry as a whole: “Sony’s woes mirror a wider decline in Japanese electronics. Though executives here are quick to blame a strong yen, which hurts exports, a deeper issue is that once-innovative companies seem to have run out of ideas. And when a nation can no longer compete on abundant labor or cheap capital, ideas and innovation are paramount.”  Sony has so many fiefdom’s with absolute power in each that it is virtually impossible to act like a cohesive whole.  Steve Jobs was a galvanizing force putting forth the simple statement – design and control the user experience from end to end.  Sony did not stand a chance.

So here is the lesson(s) from Sony for creative businesses:

1. Everyone in your business represents your business and if you allow more than one voice to speak, a creative business with one voice will kick your ass.  There can only be one flavor of Kool-Aid – yours.
2. Better to be too early than too late.   You cannot tell me no one at Sony saw the world changing under its feet.  They just thought they had more time to adapt than they did.  Create, innovate or die. Challenge everything you assume to be true about your creative business every time you forget that you are assuming the truth of your beliefs.
3. Building on 1 and 2, know who you are, what you stand for and understand that that is your foundation, not your art.  There was a time we could not imagine a world without a Walkman, just like we cannot imagine a world without a tablet or smartphone.  Fall in love with your art at your own peril.  Ethos is timeless, stuff is not.

I push my clients as hard as I can.  I try to bring all of my skills, experience and worldview to bear as I challenge literally everything about their creative business. If you have to think about and stand with integrity for all that you do, demonstrate how much you believe in your art and your creative business, how can it not steel your core? Without your core, you have nothing.  The stronger your core, the further you can go.  My work circles around who are you and what do you do? – really? – then putting teeth to the business behind the answers.

Yet, most creative business owners live in their own bubble.  Most of us are literally on our own or are surrounded by a few employees that see the world the exact same way.  All too often, there is no one there to say, “huh? I do not get it.”  Down the yellow brick road we go with the Internet validating our every step.  Because that is the thing about a place where every point of view has support.  Unless you are willing to be uncomfortable, you will always find the answer you are looking for.

Truly, I do not care what path my clients choose for their art and their creative business so long as it is from their belly.  What they most want for themselves.  Ultra-luxury, mass market, in-house or out-source all work if it is intrinsic to the business.  To get there, though, my clients have to slog through the “shoulds, have-tos, want-to-be likes” one at a time.  And if they have spent the lives of their creative businesses in the bubble, there are A LOT of “shoulds, have-tos, and want-to-be-likes” to get through.  Yes, life lived more honestly is almost always easier, but change sucks.

All of which is to say, you cannot do it alone.  You have to find someone or a group that will challenge you, if only to help you truly define yourself and your creative business.  My advice is to seek out those that are not like you but close enough to have an opinion.  Event designers talking to interior designers.  Photographers talking to graphic designers.  Fashion designers talking to jewelers. Small business organizations and networking groups that are committed to advancing the state of your (or a similar) industry.  Allow yourself to be vulnerable and open to suggestion  and know it is not the same thing as having to wear someone else’s clothes.  You are just trying them on for size.  But be careful.

Nothing I resent more than those who point to problems with no solution or, worse yet, accept only their solution as acceptable.  One of the reasons I loved law school was because we were forced to defend both sides with equal conviction.  Your sounding board should be as passionate as you to bring out the best you and then let that you shine.  Your belly, your integrity is yours alone.  The point is to get to that place, not away from it.  To find your power, not give it over to someone else.  Those that would insist you are doing it wrong and/or have to do it their way are not helpful.  Ultimately, you will wind up more deeply entrenched in your bubble.  So feel free to walk away, just make sure you knock on someone else’s door.

The beauty of the world we live in today is that the rules are now being (re)written for almost everything.  Enjoying the bounty of the opportunity is a singular function of your willingness to think and act differently.  Finding a community that encourages and respects your desire to be uncomfortable, to live in the unknown, is a sure way to discover where you have to go.

Now is the time when most creative businesses start getting really busy.  Clients want to talk about redoing their homes, weddings are around the corner and that re-brand has moved to the top of the list.  Spring has sprung.

Unfortunately, Spring is also the time that most creative business owners get sucked into the business’ day-to-day, working in the business instead of on it.  Not to say that this is not necessary, just that once you are in it, it is hard to get back to being on it.  So, to keep your eyes on the proverbial big picture, here are three things you can do each day to keep you mindful.

Marketing Budget We all think of marketing as the amount you might spend on advertising, PR, website, paper and digital collateral, conferences, networking, etc.  At the beginning of the year, you might even have assigned a number to what you are planning on spending this year.  All good.  Now how about assigning part of that marketing budget to when things do not go as planned for your client(s).  Most often, you will give too much (time, money or stuff).  Think of it this way: if you are willing to spend your money on that photo shoot to show off your latest project/idea, then you can also be willing to spend your money on a client.  And, make no mistake, spending extra time on a client is your choice.  Not accounting for the choice is a double-down, virtually guaranteeing you will do it again, losing all along the way.  Instead, commit to assigning a marketing number to the extra effort.  Then, be disciplined.  When you reach your budget, no more.  Not a promo, extra anything.  No conferences, networking, PR expense.  Done.  If you can do that, then my guess is you will question, in the moment, whether expending the extra resources for your client is worth it.

The Dress Rehearsal Getting lost in the work you do is essential.  Your art is your art and you need to make a statement with each and every project you undertake.  No such thing as a throwaway.  However, your client is not the only person in the room, so is your next client or the person that can extend your art to another medium.  How are you talking to them?  You can be quite literal as Bryan Rafanelli is and ask to be introduced to two potential clients (love it) at each event, or you can simply make sure that you and your art are speaking to those people you most care about.  Knowing that your client’s project is a dress rehearsal for your next project, whatever that may be, is a great way to keep perspective on the why of your creative business.

The Experiment You have a formula that works, otherwise you would not have any business.  However, nothing is perfect.  Ever.  Paraphrasing Liene Steven’s post on change this week, you have to always be tinkering if you hope to make substantive change.  Of course, I believe in ripping off the band-aid and making huge changes.  I just do not believe in making that big change while you are in the middle of a project.  Little shifts are what is on order.  No, you will not communicate via text 500 times a day.  We will have a ten minute Skype call every other day.  I will not deliver piece-meal. Yes, you can and should be willing to introduce a whole new process to future clients.  So why not use existing clients as the petri dish for how you are going to deliver on that process.  Who cares if you are not getting paid specifically to present?  Do it any way.  Test the change you hope to make.  Do it not to validate it, but to hone it.  Call it your new process in beta.  Hopefully, the tinkering will inspire and cement the new process your future clients will enjoy.

Your success as an artist and creative business owner depends on perspective.  To have perspective you need to be mindful always of where you are and where you hope to go.  Practicing the Marketing Budget, The Dress Rehearsal and The Experiment will, of course, not guarantee perspective, but my prayer is that it will keep you from a few potholes as you speed down the road during your high season.

I like talking about 15 years ago.  Why?  Because the creative business icons we look up to today, for the most part, hit their stride (or made their first big splash) right around then.  Whatever creative business you are in, just think of who you adore and admire and, in all likelihood, they were busy building their businesses fifteen years ago.  The lessons they learned then are what they share with us today.  Understanding how those that have come before and blazed the trail did what they did is invaluable and, often, timeless.  Principles of integrity, artistry, vision and unyielding desire to share their gift with the world should be in the very fabric of every creative business and branded into the psyche of its owner.  No matter where the world evolves to, these principles, nee ethos, will never waver.  However, the world has indeed evolved in the last fifteen years and in particular the last ten.  Seismic shifts have happened literally under the feet of almost every creative business I can think of.  The response has been, well, a response, trying to shoehorn new technology into the old model.  Such is the inertia of change.  But in the paradigm shift, the old model is, at best, limited in the growth it offers and inevitably unsustainable.  Better to create a new model that is a deep reflection of the world as it now is.

Here is what I am talking about.  Think about how you as a consumer would compare musical acts, photographers, any kind of designer, florists, etc. fifteen years ago.  If you were lucky enough to live in a major urban area, you could spend the day visiting each and seeing what they could do.  If not, these artists could mail you a DVD (remember, not everyone’s computer could read DVDs in 1997) or a portfolio for you to look at.  Clearly, if you were going to do a lot of research, it was going to take a long time and a lot of effort.  The result was a somewhat closed circle where those in the position to refer you had tremendous power as did the size and breadth of your portfolio. There was a premium on working.  The more you were seen, the more you were likely to be seen.  So no wonder the focus was on the product and not the process.  Clients drew comfort from the portfolio and had to trust that they would be similarly pleased.  Clients knew how expensive a presentation was and did not expect much beyond a rudimentary understanding of what they were going to get.  Not shocking that the world was a “trust me” world, 50% deposits and all.

Fast forward to today.  The same comparison that was virtually impossible fifteen years ago, takes fifteen minutes today.  Thank you Google.  Not only does everyone have a website, blog, etc., your work is online almost instantly thanks to Facebook, Twitter, etc.  Try as you might, you cannot control your portfolio.  Clients often know as much about your recent work as your employees do.  So now how powerful are the gatekeepers?  And how about just working to be out there?  Do you really want to just be out there with sub-par work (i.e., working for too low a budget or for the wrong client)?  With the virtual sea of work out there for consumers to evaluate, how are they to know how much better (or different) your art is to your competitors.  Especially if you are all about the end-product? Even if your work, to use a technical term, sucks, technology can make it suck a lot less.  Pretty pictures that were once the lifeblood of creative business are now but a mere baseline.  Still want to have a “trust me” business?

What is more, your clients know the cost of presentation is approaching zero and what is certain to follow is the expectation that you show (i.e., awe them) with your creativity before you deliver the final product.  The spotlight has shifted to design as apart from the result of design (i.e., products) because technology has made it inevitable.

While some icons understand the paradigm shift and relish in the idea of living in (and getting paid for design), others less so.  And why should they? At a certain point, their base became so broad and their work so good, they can get away with it. But you cannot and copying their model is a sure way to oblivion. Instead, see that the spotlight has shifted and know that the premium is now on your ideas above and beyond all else.  (Re)construct your creative business to get paid for those ideas specifically.  Live in the paradigm shift.  Relish it for what it affords you: the opportunity to get paid for your vision and see just how far that vision can go with your clients.  Or you can choose to believe that the inertia to change is permanent right up until it is too late to do anything about it.

Boundaries are everything.  If you imagine yourself to be subservient to your clients, vendors, employees and colleagues, you will be treated in kind.  You might get a payoff from the notion that you will do whatever is asked, whenever it is asked, but your creative business will pay the price.  At the end of the day, people wipe their feet on doormats no matter how cute or nice they appear.

To be blunt, nobody has the right to run your creative business but you.  The journey is yours to lead, never ever the other way around.  You can convince yourself that calling/texting/emailing at 3:00 in the morning is all in the name of great service.  Unless you are getting paid specifically and in large quantity for the effort, you would be wrong.  The same client that expects you to talk to them at 3:00 in the morning is inevitably the one that thinks you are expensive.

So healthy, communicated boundaries are essential if you are to protect the integrity of your art and how your creative business goes about producing that art.  However, if you stop there (i.e., in a defensive stance) as you draw your boundaries, you miss the larger point and certainly the bigger opportunity.

Boundaries are moments you get to define why you do things the way you do.  A quick example, a wedding planner who is a total foodie might start with catering first before anything else.  Her weddings are defined by food so it makes the most sense to her to start that way.  Not so much for a design-centric planner.  She would start with all things décor first.  By taking the time to explain to clients how important it is to finalize food and beverage in the case of the first planner and décor in the second, each planner can drive home the intrinsic value they offer.  Clients that would challenge your iconic process need to be educated on the importance of the process to you (those would be your boundaries).  Clients, vendors, employees, colleagues, etc. that continue to refuse to accept your process need to be shown the door (those would be your boundaries too).

Great boundaries let people who most respect you, your art and your creative business, relish in their identification.  You can then use that identification to explore other opportunities.  Without boundaries, those opportunities will never arise because no one will really know who you are.  Your creative business is not a buffet.  Having something for every one, means you talk to no one.  You cannot give lip service to integrity in all that you are and what your creative business does.  You either stand for what you believe in or you do not.  When the wind is at your back, you can, of course, say you would never do so and so.  But what happens when it is not?  When business slows?  The wrong client creeps in?  Employees go sideways (i.e., become victims/martyrs)?  Where are your boundaries then?  And will you use them only to protect yourself or will you see them as an opportunity to let the world know who you are?

We can all be embarrassed when things go FUBAR.  No one likes to get upset or be responsible for when things go kaflooey.  However, whether you are humiliated or validated depends on your conviction in the whys of what you do.   Well drawn boundaries offer the opportunity to own the mistake, work to fix it without self-flagellation and reinforce the very fabric of what your creative business is all about.  Great instincts are born from that integrity.  You cannot pay for instincts but you will not be paid without them.

Artists amaze me.  How you see form, function and color is often wholly different from the way I see it.  I love that.  And in a perfect world, you and your creative business would just do what you do and you would magically receive enough to keep going, thriving, creating art.  Unfortunately, the world is far from perfect and, to keep going, creative businesses have to be fundamentally sound creatively and as a business.  For that to happen though, you have to educate yourself thoroughly on the hows and whys of what you do as a business.  Specifically, you must understand the concepts of margin, risk and the difference between absolutes and percentages.  Why?  Because each project must be profitable on a risk-weighted basis so that you need only hope to get enough business in the door to earn the money you need.  If the last sentence is Greek to you, keep reading.

Margin. Every creative business operates on a gross and net margin.  Simple, gross margin is the percentage difference between what you charge and what you get to keep before overhead.  Net margin is the percentage you get to keep at the end of the day.  If you are a service (i.e., event planning, graphic design) you sell time as opposed to those that sell stuff (i.e., florists, stationers, etc.).  Gross margin is whatever you say it is.  Net margin is a function of volume and overhead expense.  Overhead is what you pay even if there were no sales (i.e., what it costs to keep the lights on).  If you want gross margin of 50%, then just double your cost, 25% then add 35% to your costs.  However, if you want net margin of 15%, then you need to know what your overhead is and hope you generate enough volume to get there.  A quick example at 50% gross margin – you do $100 in sales, so you have $50 left.  If you have overhead of $35, your net margin will be $15 or 15%.  Ahh, but there is the rub:  If sales are different than $100, your net margin will be more less than 15%.  Assuming overhead stays the same, make more than $100, then your net margin will go up, less and it will go down.  Generate less than $85 in sales and you will lose money.  You have to control what you can, meaning you have to make sure that your gross margins have integrity if you hope to make money in the long run.  As much as you would like to control sales volume you cannot.  You can do everything in your power to generate sales, but it is not up to you to say yes.  But you can control your margins, although to do so you need to understand (any) risk associated with your gross margin.

Risk. Bar none, the single biggest mistake creative business owners make is to ignore or undervalue the risk associated with the projects they undertake.  A client changes their mind at the last minute and you have to scramble to make it happen.  You do not charge any more for the (in)decision.  You forgot to bring a vase (or one broke) and now you have to run back to the studio to get one.  A last minute client shows up in your high season and you charge them the same price as your other clients.  The connection between all of these examples – you will get less than the gross margin you expected, meaning that you will be shocked and incredulous when you meet the sales volume you targeted but have nothing to show for it (or are completely fried from overwork – yes, you and your staff are the raw material that gets spent in a service business).  To properly value risk, you have to understand the difference between absolutes and percentages.

Absolutes and Percentages. Creative businesses make absolute mistakes, not percentage mistakes.  If I lend someone money and want to earn a return on that money equal to some number but I mess up the math, I just made a percentage mistake.  I will only get a 10% return instead of the 15% I hoped for.  If I expect, on average, 3 rentals of a chair but get 2 or 5, again a percentage mistake.  However, absolute mistakes are what they are and have very little relation to price.  If you have to go back to the studio to replace the vase – it will cost you $500 whether you charged $5,000 or $5 for the centerpiece.  If it takes you 5 hours to fix a client’s indecision, it does not make a difference if the event is for $500,000 or $5,000, it is your 5 hours.  When there are absolute mistakes, then risk explodes the smaller the project.  A $5 mistake on a $10 project hurts a lot worse than a $5 mistake on a $100 project.  So charging a 50% gross margin across the board is a sure way to fail.  You have to account for risk so that you earn 50% on a risk-weighted basis.  Either you have to remove the risk at the low-end (say good bye to custom) or charge more.  At the high end, you can charge a little (but not a lot) less because the size of the project can cover your sins.

The only money that comes in the door of your creative business is what you charge.  Knowing that what you charge will leave enough at the end of the day to justify your (incredible) effort is the whole ball of wax.  My hope with this admittedly technical post is that you will be able to discover what your real price is for each project you undertake and will price it accordingly.  Protecting yourself and the integrity of what you earn is an extension of the boundaries you create for you, your art and your creative business.  When it comes to pricing, sweat the small stuff so the larger stuff will take care of itself.

There is so much work to do.  The action items are endless.  Whether it is dealing with clients (potential and existing), vendors, employees or colleagues, the number of things we all have to do in any given day always feels like a mountain. Nice thought to work on your creative business instead of in it.  But who is going to answer all of your email while you are indulging (i.e., dreaming) about anything other than email? While nothing makes me sadder than to see a creative business owner lost in her business, it is not that I do not understand how it happens.  So I thought an interesting way to come out of the abyss or to ensure you do not go there would be to suggest what lies (or should lie) underneath.  Three pillars that can change how you run your creative business if you allow them to exist in your daily practice.  Be kind, be ruthless, create joy.

Be Kind . We all know how to be vicious to ourselves, to question our confidence, value, ability, and desire.  An unhappy client, frustration with the work, or a troublesome employee can send us all into a swirl of self-doubt, fear and maybe even panic.  Nothing like a business, creative business in particular, to bring out the depths of almost every emotion you can feel.  Often at the same time.  So be kind to yourself.  Allow the mistakes we all make to be beacons of opportunity, not justifications for shame.  Everything you do is a function of timing.  Sometimes you get it right, others not so much.  If you do not allow yourself the grace of your own value, you lose your ability to adjust your timing.  You will stay lost in the mistake and you will try to fix the mistake, curing the symptom, leaving the disease ready to maim you in a deeper, more malicious manner.  For most creative business owners, your art chose you, not the other way around.  Your talent, your vision, your desire is a gift you are meant to share.  Kindness, your willingness to listen and be heard with equal humility will take you much further than bravado ever will.

Be Ruthless. It may not all work out in the end.  Living in the fantasy that the future will take care of itself is a sure way to be disappointed.  Why?  Because you are not really here, you are waiting for tomorrow to arrive, so the present moment is a mystery to you.  You need the present moment to be ruthless with what does not matter.  In other words, you need to be ruthless with the truth.  If the truth is you have the wrong clients, the ones that run all over you and your creative business, then good chance you are hiding.  We all want to be chameleons in one way or another – whether to get the business, because you want someone (ok, everyone) to like you, or a combination of both.  Except chameleons hide to survive.  To live, you have to show yourself and risk it all.  If your day to day prevents you from being truly creative, do not kid yourself into thinking that you are doing what you have to.  You are hiding what is most valuable about you, maybe because you are scared to have it be judged.  You may not like the truth and may choose not to see it, but moving through the despair it may cause is what generates catharsis.  Only the luckiest of us can grow without catharsis.  The rest of us mere mortals need it to find our truest selves and that of our creative businesses.  Live in the despair of your own truth today so that tomorrow may evolve rather than magically appear.

Create Joy. Why suffer your own truth today?  Why be kind, gentle to yourself and those around you?  Because the whole point of all creative business is to create joy.  To surprise and delight your clients with your artistic vision.  More than any one thing you might deliver – flower, photograph, interior, stationary, logo, website, etc. –  your clients pay you for your vision, your ability to see a world they do not and share it with them.  If you are unwilling to honor the responsibility bestowed on you by working diligently on the clarity of your vision, you might consider not being a creative business owner.  Why?  Joy is the emotion, the state of being we all most deeply desire. If your creative business, your art can elicit that state of being, even if only for a moment, then we are all better off.  As much as joy is what we all seek, it is also unbelievably elusive, especially when we look for something deeper than euphoria.  Art brings us there.  You bring your clients there with how you and your creative business see the world.  However, to create joy, you must know joy or at least search for it.  So as hard as you work to create joy for your clients, be kind, be ruthless in your desire to find your own, both for yourself and your creative business.