The earth is not flat. You can show me all of the mathematical formulas that “prove” that it is and you will convince yourself of a knowable untruth. For the rest of us, we have to waste our time justifying what has been known for thousands of years and proven, truly proven, innumerable ways. But the time-suck of upending wilful ignorance is not without cost. It prevents us all from the hard-thinking of what to do about our round earth and its relationship to itself and the cosmos as a sphere.
Let us take this notion of having to suffer fools/wilful ignorance a step further, say to your creative business. We are long past the point when the pain of COVID can be considered temporal. The Phoenix has already burned for so many and yet there are those that cling to the notions of yesterday. Everything from how we learn to how we interact to how we even play sports is indelibly changed because of our (non) response to the virus.
I have to say that I am incredibly saddened by just how many creative business owners refuse to even consider another way today; refuse to acknowledge that their (in)actions are part of the problem of marginalization running rampant throughout all creative businesses; and refuse to acknowledge the depth the problem of marginalization is in creative business, no doubt happening pre-COVID, but now beyond rampant post. Pretty is dead and if you are in the business of selling pretty, unless you are capable of massive scale (i.e., Wayfair, Amazon or KnotWeddingWire), you are in for an unbelievable world of pain — hit on all sides: price, competition, and viability. The machine is your competition and it is only going to get better exponentially. Moore’s Law matters everywhere in technology, not just speed of computing but especially when it comes to artificial intelligence (yes, click on this link and if you are not really understanding how AI is coming for so much of your creative business then you are being wilfully ignorant).
If I handed you a scalpel, told you to watch a few videos on YouTube, maybe cut into a few oranges, you probably would not think yourself a cardiac surgeon and would not dare to hold yourself out as one. And those that would would be exposed very quickly by anyone who cared to check the background of the person they were allowing to physically invade their body.
So why oh why oh why do creative businesses allow those who either cannot or are not yet ready to stand in the same light as they who are uniquely qualified to do the very thing the client seeks? Simple. Fear and disrespect for the value you offer. While these characteristics are problems in the pre-information, pre-COVID age, today they represent the seeds of demise to so many brilliant and fantastic creative businesses today, both established and on the rise.
Specifically, I am talking to those of you who have been in business for more than three years pre-COVID. For the most part, after three years, you are past the novice stage, have garnered real clients with real budgets who deeply respect what it is you are there to provide. If this is you and your creative business, you matter. You are the leader. You are the future of your industry. You can do better. You need to do better. You have to do better. For all of us. Now is the time to retrench, reconsider and reconstitute what it means to be in the business of transformation. Look at the story of AirBnB and how they went from all things to back to knowing that people want the privacy of a home they can travel to by car. Bread and butter to them and opportunity to use their platform to service the needs of those that are desperate for the outlet. As the WSJ article points out, AirBnB is poised to go public in November at a value of $30 Billion. Take it as a lesson to find humility, rediscover why you and your art matters and get to work honing that value. Or do not, your choice.
After three years in business, you should know who your ideal client is, know how best to serve her and what is required financially of your client to do great work. Adjust accordingly for our changed world. The paradigm is still there though. She wants to be seen, heard and honored for the life she seeks to invest in. Whether it is a ten dollar client or a ten million dollar client, it does not matter so long as you know that she is YOUR client. And if you do not know, please accept that that is not good enough. Today, more than ever we need relationship, introspection, empathy, sympathy, connection and community to resolve a desired ethos. In short, we need you to know everything about her, including, most of all, the underneath, the ephemeral so you can do outrageously well for her above all others. Heightened emotionality is opportunity to do better work. Ignore the fact of the previous statement as you would the fact of the round earth. And for those of you that know the truth of heightened emotionality, please stop suffering fools, the lowest common denominator goes to the computer and they are not your competition. Live the pressure of emotional expectations and earn the just rewards. It is your future, own it.
Here is my fear and why I continue to be so stirred: in today’s information age and all things post COVID digital, when your clients cannot instantly and intrinsically perceive the value you, your art and your creative business offer them (like they would a cardiac surgeon), they will seek to marginalize you, your art and your creative business. They will reduce you to the value of the thing you provide and you will always, always be subject to those willing to provide that thing for less. It just does not have to be that way today and forever more. However, if we wind up on the other side of pretty, it will be entirely the fault of creative businesses and the decision to be the regular kind today when the challenge is to be anything but. Own that you, your art and creative business matter because you inhabit a world your clients need to touch to feel whole. Respect that this is your reality and is, in fact, reality. Act accordingly.
For those of you who have earned the right to be outrageous in how you create for your clients, please live there without compromise. It is your obligation today more than ever. Nothing about COVID changed that, if anything COVID only exploded it.
If you are willing to redefine how your creative business works to do its best work, then you set the stage for those that follow. We all crumble when those who should be paragons act with intransigence or, worse, with callous disregard for their place in their industry. Sure, you may lose to those that are determined to meet the lowest common denominator. But if you give in, we have all already lost. Just a matter of time. So please go the other way. We all rise when you dare to be iconic and invite, nay demand, others like you to act similarly. That is how voices rise and great art is manifested at every level. For me, it is where I find hope for what a post-COVID world can be for creative business. The responsibility of evolution demands that you thumb the nose of myopia so that we can live beyond today’s understanding. To do this work however, we truly have to quit debating whether the earth is a sphere. Suffering fools helps no one, least of all the fool.
