The Three Changes That Matter

October 26, 2017

None of you sell the thing you create.  No creative business does.  You sell the process of creating the thing.  The experience, the journey, the story of creation matters far more than the thing. Lauren Grove wrote this post about the death of the wedding industry last week.  She could just as easily been writing […]

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Capital Structure

October 20, 2017

Talking about taking other people’s money (OPM) is not often addressed when it comes to most creative businesses.  Of course, most creative business are considered micro businesses and are also incredibly personal to the artist/owner.  That said, taking OPM is in the air and understanding what it looks like is really useful BEFORE you decide […]

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At The Margin

October 17, 2017

How you see your world matters.  Do you see things in context of the immediate?  Like a puppy or a toddler who will have five different focuses/thoughts in a minute.  Distractible by the latest beep on your phone?  Or do you see the world as somewhat fixed?  This is just the way it is done.  […]

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The 21 Day Challenge

September 25, 2017

So much has been written about changing habits, developing good habits, mapping out how you are going to sustain good habits.. The entire self-help industry is built on the notion that change comes from intention, intention to habitual practice, practice to success. Some people tip toe in, I will cut back to 2 hours of […]

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The Five Things That Go Right

September 19, 2017

So we are now on the cusp of everyone being back in full swing post-Labor Day. Busyness awaits. The question is, how are you going to take everything you might have been working on — process, pricing, storytelling, client management, cross-industry work – and put it into practice? And after you use the tools, how […]

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Dealing With Business Upheaval — Irma and Harvey

September 14, 2017

Here is a post I wrote back in 2012 after Hurricane Sandy in New York City. I resisted posting this post today for fear that it might be too soon. However, talking about what to do in the wake of a massive tragedy and business upheaval caused by things like Hurricane Harvery and Irma is […]

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Sunk Costs, Budget Plummet and Houston

September 1, 2017

Although it might not appear parallel, the unbelievably horrific events that happened in Houston and surrounds and reducing budget for a creative budget all center around a firm understanding of sunk costs. As every finance course will teach you, any investment analysis of a future project has to begin with ignoring sunk costs. Easy enough […]

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Owning Who You Are Today Is Everything

August 22, 2017

I was having a fascinating conversation with Maria Bayer last week. If you are in the wedding business and do not know Maria, you should. Her sales techniques are terrific as they are based on selling your intrinsic value as both an artist and creative business. Fantastic stuff. We were talking about The BBC Collective […]

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Foundational Pillars Under All Creative Businesses

August 2, 2017

It is August. Hopefully, time for a breather before a busy Fall is upon you and your creative business. While you are moving a little slower, perhaps it is a great time to reevaluate, perhaps even redefine your foundation as an artist and creative business. What follows is a discussion of the pillars of the […]

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Incremental Change Is An Oxymoron

July 25, 2017

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But if you want to fix it, you have to break it. Every time I hear a creative business owner say that they are going to raise their prices ten or twenty percent a year and hope to make fifty percent or so more five years from now, […]

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