Time

Good is good enough.  If better were possible, then the statement should make you cringe.  No client deserves a first draft.  However, if your “good” is only a function of your neurosis (i.e., there was a typo, an atomic difference in color, a misplaced pillow) then your good has to be good enough.  To paraphrase, Seth Godin, your goal has to be to send your art out the door.   All of which begs the question, how do you align how you work best to the expectations of your client and the standards of your industry?

Everybody works in a different style.  Some of us procrastinate until the last minute, others need to be finished well in advance.  As much as you might like to be other, you are who you are.  Unfortunately, if you need the pressure of a deadline to create, you place your creative business at grave risk of not being able to deliver its best.  On the other hand, if you need everything finished well in advance, you risk seriously alienating your clients who do not want to be forced to make decisions prematurely just to assuage your need to get done.  In both cases, you are going to probably wind up costing your client unnecessary aggravation and wasted expense.  Your work has to be to figure out what process allows the business to do its best and the one you can live with as an artist.

If only it were scientific to figure out what this process is.  It is not.  You will fall down on both sides and nothing will be perfect, just workable.  No matter, though, what is important is that you can explain to your client and your staff why you have chosen to do things the way you do them.  And please remember, within the bounds of rationality, it makes no difference that none of your competitors do it your way.  The point of the exercise is to create the solution that empowers your art and at the same time honors those commissioning its creation.

Too often, the focus is on earning a client’s business without thought as to what it means to continue earning a client’s business even after they have hired you.  At heart, this is what your process has to be about.  Ironically, it is far less about supplicating yourself to your client’s demands as it is to steadfastly believing in the how of what you do.  What works for you will likely only work for you.  Having your client not only understand your “how” but wholly support it is your mission as a creative business owner.  If your process is a derivative amalgamation of all that you see out there (competition, vendors, industry associations, etc.) you are faking it and you will not make it.

Time matters for all creative businesses.  From the moment you are hired until you deliver your product or service, how you manage the time will define your creative business and your art.  If you have it, why would you ever waste it?  And if you do not have it, why would you not get paid (extra) for the lack of it?  You may very well come through in the end in either situation, but it will not be for free and you will inevitably fall down the rabbit hole.  Better to think about time as currency – you need it and get paid for it only if you use it well – than to ignore its impact on you, your art and creative business.