Starting a Creative Business? First, You Must Learn to Love the One You’re With… Mostly.
And not like that old Stephen Stills song. Well, maybe it is… yeah, sure, let’s go with that.
The factors that play most in the reasons so many creative businesses fail can usually be seen at the outset of the business being born.
Creatives often believe that what they do is the business.
“I’m a photographer”.
“I’m a designer”.
“I am a writer”.
And those are correct in as much as they tell us what you do.
But that is the problem.
We get all mixed up in between what we do and what we are.
And what we are, my friends, is a business.
Photographers and writers and musicians have spectacular lives when they are making photographs, writing articles, or playing gigs.
But that is what they do.
The moment we say we want to do this for a living, everything — and guys, I mean everydamnthing — changes.
I am gonna lose a few people here. They will say that they love their art too much to do it as a profession. Working in the field takes too much of the fun away, and in the end, they would actually hate the thing they love now.
Yep. For those folks, time to quit reading this and go on about your day. If you feel that way, then it is over before it started and that is super OK with me.
No one would tell you to enter a career so based on uncertainty, self-preservation, and the crushing challenges that living a creative life can bring. That would be cruel.
You know you, and you know your appetite for this stuff.
Watch yourselves, be safe, and thank you for coming.
Interlude photograph whilst 70% of the readers exit.
OK, you rambunctious rebels who want to make art a living and live their art through a creative life. Grab your seats and come right on up to the front of the room.
Romancing the art versus romancing the business.
Here’s where it gets dicey.
I’m a photographer.
I know a lot about cameras, films, digital sensors, lenses, composition, and creating images from practically nothing. And I love every moment I do it.
But if that is going to be the sole focus of my business — my love affair with the technical stuff and tools of the trade — it will be a very short business life.
This is not shocking.
Most people don't give a damn about what I am in love with. They simply don’t.
Why in hell should they? They are thinking more about themselves.
Hey, bucko, do you like pizza? I love pizza.
Now think of that favorite pizza place you have to drive a few miles to get to because the pizza is so damned worth it!
Do you care what kind of oven they are using, where they source their pizza pans, and what the price of anchovies is on any given Thursday? Are you dying to know how long they have been in the pizza-making business, and what personal moment got them started in flatbread and tomato sauce?
“My father bought me my first play stove when I was 5 years old. Ever since that day I have been in love with making stuff on hot machines and cutting green onions into small pieces to put on the dough I lovingly remove from the packaged frozen pizza dough delivered by my supplier, Ed, who also is my mentor in fresh smoothie machines. Recently I got a General Electric “Venetian” with 16 burners, crust dynamic filters, and an app-controlled thermostat. This is a state-of-the-art pizza oven, something I have always wanted”.
Seriously?
Now choose 5 local photographers at random — not famous ones — and check out their bio pages.
See what I mean?
The business is making images for clients. In fact, the business is really creating visuals for clients. Today’s photographer must be able to do some graphic design, a bit of writing, and know how to do some video motion projects.
You know… the fun part.
But they also have to know about asset allocation, funding, insurance, tax planning, accounting, personnel liabilities, legal ramifications of their work… and oh, so damn much more.
You know… the not fun part.
And then we have to add another layer that many do for their own livelihood: Marketing.
Can you be a success without knowing how to market?
Absolutely.
Just not as any type of creative service.
You can successfully flip burgers, work retail, warehouse delivery… all sorts of stuff. When you work for someone else, they do the marketing.
But letting people know what we do is something that everyone who is a creative must delve into hip deep and hope to not drown. That isn’t easy, but nowhere in the syllabus for self-employed creatives is the word “easy” emphasized. The only place you see “easy” mentioned in the charlatan ads for ‘easy ways to a 6 figure creative business’ class someone who has never made 6 figures put together from random blog posts and reading a ten-year-old book.
You get, ahem, what you pay for. And sometimes even then you don’t.
And all of that being said, the biggest challenge to most of us is the various hats we must wear when in business.
Entrepreneur / visionary.
Every business is run by an entrepreneur, whether or not they call themselves one. It is entrepreneurial as hell to start a business and even heller-er to do it with a creative business.
Opening a gift store has got to be difficult.
Opening a business to make gifts to scale enough to sell at a gift store is going to be a bit harder.
The manager.
Someone has to manage. If not you then who? Time management, client acquisition, personnel, billing, paying, collecting. The phone calls, texts, and emails MUST be answered by someone.
The technician.
The creative themselves. The same one wearing all of those other hats. This is the person who makes the art, writes the articles, and takes the photos.
And learns to juggle all of it seemingly effortlessly.
I know, I know. You are going to get a manager and a sales rep and probably a super duper first assistant to handle a lot of those things.
And you can.
But not at first. At first, it is ALL YOU sugarlips. All of it.
Getting to the point where you can hire someone is the goal of the whole thing.
And that takes making it a business. A company. A real entity.
The business — and the growing and nurturing thereof — is the romance worth having.
And just as in any romance, some things are a big deal, some things are petty, and most things are in the middle. And we all get through it by focusing on the thing that is most important; the relationship itself.
Wear your many hats with pride.
You nutty, crazy entrepreneur you.
I am starting up a new group just for you wacked-out, startup, entrepreneurial artists who are slammin’ busy figuring out what to do and when to do it.
I call it The Creative Class. It won’t be easy.
I open the enrollment in January, and we start the 6-month class in March. There will be much more coming soon.
I am a photographer, designer, and photo editor. You can find me at my self-named website or at Project 52 Pro System (enrollment begins January 6, 2023) where I teach commercial photography online. This is our tenth year of teaching, and it is the most unique online class you will find anywhere.
Check out my newsletter and community at Substack. We are new, but growing.
You can find my books on Amazon, and I have taught two classes at CREATIVELIVE.