Better Is Always About Tomorrow

Nobody wants to believe that the way you do things is actually better than the way it has always been done.  The status quo sticks for a reason – inertia of the known is crazy powerful.  Raised eyebrow, too good to be true is the default mindset, especially for creative businesses.  As far and fast as we have all come, many of the business models and practices are still dinosaurs.  Price first, art second.  When you come along thinking of ways to offer better, more focused value, it just feels strange.  Art first, price second.  For any of you who have practiced anything for a long time (yoga, sports, crafting), when you are shown proper alignment or technique it does not feel right.  Dysfunction over function.  The familiar over the not-yet-understood.  Your creative business is no different, both to you and your customers, especially when everyone else is working in the same old dysfunction.

Think about the RFP process many of you face for just about any project – event, graphic, interior design, etc.  Many times those asking for the proposal are not really educated about what they want and so they make it about stuff not art, price not concept, technical over emotional.  Simply, because they see scarcity (i.e., value) in stuff not good ideas, they do not know the right questions to ask.

Today, “How much will you give me for my money?” is absolutely the wrong question.  The far more relevant question is: “What will you create for my money?  What is your vision?” and the even better question is: “How will you move me and my audience with my money?”  Yet the old guard is the old guard, they still control the proverbial keys (for now) and changing their mindset is like moving an iceberg.  So rather than fighting the tide you play the price/line item game in the name of getting the business and the bar remains lower than it ought to be – for everyone.

However, the point today is not to meet the needs of your clients, it is to make them look like superstars.  Anyone can meet their needs.  Therefore, you have to be in it for the long-haul, working harder to climb into your client’s minds than their wallets.   Along the way, you just have to accept that many, many people will be actively rooting for you to fail, ahem, even if your success will be theirs.  Such is the nature of fear and shifting value propositions underlying all creative business.

If you want to be known as the artist that can envision the desires of your clients and bring them to life, then you have to charge for that vision.  When the price for design has always been zero or next to zero, saying it is everything can be a head scratcher.  Also, telling a client you are willing to put your money where your mouth is by taking a small deposit until you can demonstrate how good your ideas are is something your 50% deposit brethren will laugh at.  Everyone wants to say they are that good, few are willing to prove it, to be judged before the client has no other choice but to keep going.

Believe in your art, your artistry, your process.  Your victories will be one at a time, to those that matter.  Your model may never scale, even be noticed as a viable alternative to the old guard.  Until it does.  Creative business is about relationship, celebrating a shared vision and moving people to another place.  Technology has made all the rest – being the cheapest, the most efficient, the biggest – irrelevant, noise even.  This, to me, is a fundamental truth that is only going to become more obvious.  Better is always about tomorrow no matter what happened yesterday.