The 80/20 Issue and Being An Expert To Get To The Next Level

April 23, 2018

The 80/20 Issue The 80/20 issue is from Vilfredo Pareto and dates back to 1906.  He was writing about wealth and said that eighty percent of the wealth is held by twenty percent of the people.  FYI, in the U.S. today it is closer to ninety percent, but that is a topic for another day. The […]

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Style Me Pretty Goes Dark

April 12, 2018

Just when it seems are moving along to move along, the wedding industry gets huge news that  Style Me Pretty is going dark in a few weeks.  AOL (now OATH) has announced that they will not be archiving the site but will instead be shutting down. Of course, there are marketing and SEO concerns from […]

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Commissions Are Not Kickbacks

April 5, 2018

I have heard for years that commissions are devil-spawn.  Nobody should take them or give them.  They give all creative business a black eye.  Nonsense. Kickbacks, hidden vendor discounts, and all things under-the-table, these are devil-spawn and give all creative businesses a black eye.  Why? Because the client does not know what they are paying […]

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How Do You Approach Your Busy Season?

March 29, 2018

Chop wood, carry water. Head down.  Just get through it all. Maybe farmers enjoy getting up at four in the morning to milk cows.  Every day.  Or maybe they just see it as a sense of duty and responsibility. Not much emotion either way. We are fast approaching the time when all creative businesses are […]

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Is It Ever Okay To Fire A Client?

March 15, 2018

The issue of whether it is ever okay to fire a client was the topic of my bi-weekly column for Editor-At-Large this week. Here is the link. All I can say is that nothing pushes creative business owners’ buttons more than this topic.  My thoughts in the column were no exception.  I have received comments […]

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Chicken or The Egg? Self-Confidence or A Solid Foundation

March 8, 2018

The idea of The Impostor Syndrome has gotten a lot of presence of late.  You feel like no matter how much you have done with your art, your creative business, that you just do not belong.  The table was not meant to include you.  The feeling then goes that the intimidation prevents you from manifesting […]

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Perception Does Not Make It So

March 1, 2018

We are arriving at the ten year anniversary of the financial meltdown later this Summer.  At the time and for several years after, we heard of how hard things were for luxury businesses, especially creative businesses.  Clients just did not want to spend money on events, design, art, etc. and creative businesses had to cut […]

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The Commitment To Uncertainty

February 22, 2018

We have all learned to live in chaos.  We are bombarded, literally, by a deluge of information — personal, political, business, entertainment, etc. — every minute of every day.  To stop the deluge, we have to consciously stop looking when we are being programmed to do anything but look away. The issue has become so […]

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Noise Noise Noise

February 15, 2018

Fear is a powerful dream killer, bottleneck, myopia-inducing wall creator.  Fear helps us define the possible and live with the notion that “not for us” is good enough good.  I watch it happen over and over and over again.  Artists living with a feeling that what they want is just out of their grasp.  So […]

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Controlling Time

February 8, 2018

One of the questions I often get asked is, “If I were your client, what is the first thing you would have me work on/change?”  Easy.  You have to control time better and the only way to do that is to have a business model that respects time in the way you want to control […]

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