Business Acumen + Creative Industries
A friend of mine told me recently that architects leave school with the unerring belief that their strengths lie in their creativity and their originality, and that is the thing that should make your business successful and bring clients to you.
When clients do come, however, it is a whole other story. Yes, you are selling your originality and they absolutely came to you for your creativity, but go beneath the surface and there’s a business running on a mish-mash of systems and ad-hoc structures. Useful of course, but implemented to solve immediate solutions and applied without much longer-term thought to how the business functions, how it stays in liquidity and remains relevant and profitable throughout its existence.
There seems to be an accepted understanding that creative industries cannot make that much money, unless, that is, you achieve luxury status, but even then that’s no guarantee of profitability, but I digress…This accepted belief is reflected in everything — from the wages paid to the fees charged. It is as if it is somehow dirty or, even more sinister, “selling out”, to consider one’s creativity as a marketable, commercial venture.
We put those that create on a pedestal, and yet often the expectation to pay properly for such value is secondary, especially with those small companies that are just starting out or are a few years in. There’s a fear that the clients will disappear or sales will dry up if you charge more, or that a client won’t appoint you if you don’t do something speculatively (i.e. for free). These are legit fears that come from an age-old master-servant relationship between client and creative. The artist is more passionate about the work than the business, and many clients know this and take advantage. Equally, there is the motivation to create a name for oneself or the business, or “portfolio-building”, which is also legitimate and important in terms of reputational growth.
All of this is driven by the deep desire of the principal to have his or her own creative work realised and lauded by the powers that be; the dream of every creative entrepreneur. But when it comes to true strategy and business acumen, there’s a huge shortfall because the craftsperson starts their business wanting to do the work for themselves, but have little to no understanding of how a business should actually run.
It is as important as the work that’s generated. Without it, the work won’t be seen, appreciated, capitalised upon or provide any financial stability for the creative. It is neither dirty nor weak to know the true value of the maker when approaching clients or collaborators.
As a creative business, you can earn money doing what you love but it requires tough conversations, a re-looking at your business and its internal structures and processes. It’s about devising long-term goals, creating values and defining a purpose that acts as a lodestar to the business and its people. Without it, the life of the starving artist, living hand to mouth, is the reality, and that creativity and originality with which the architect left school becomes about survival, and not about flourishing.
Lindsay Faller is a Business Strategist for the Creative Industries — see more at www.lindsayfaller.com
