Trust

In my last post, I posited that trust is real, as real as the air you breathe.  Creative businesses sell trust above and beyond their art.  Trust to earn the right to deliver their artistry.  But how to bring the notion that trust is real down to the practical?  What is trust and how do you incorporate it into the process of your creative business?

For me, there are four key components to trust in your creative business: Emotion, Communication, Relationship, and Respect.

Emotion – Your willingness to reveal yourself. If you are creating something for the right client in a process that has intrinsic integrity (more on that later), she has to be able to hurt you.  When she says, “I hate it”, it has to sting, feel like a punch in the gut.  Why? Because if you are not willing to say this is who I am, this is the art I create, and this is how my creative business sets about creating it, you might as well be selling widgets.  And since you are in the business of creating art, you need to be willing to be judged for that art.  Not by just anyone, but by those who you have worked diligently to make sure appreciate you, your art and the process of your creative business.  When you stand naked with your work, clients can clearly appreciate its meaning (or not).  Make no mistake, your job is to deliver meaning, front and center.

Communication and Relationship – How well you listen and then translate what you have heard.  What I do in my consulting work is easy compared to what you as artists and creative business owners have to do.  I get to listen to what my clients tell me and then tell them back in words what I have heard.  Once they know I have heard them I can give my opinion on what they have said, again in words.  Sure there is subtlety and sub-context, but it is all about being present and responding in the same sense.  However, as artists, what you have to do is hear the words your clients say to you (even if they do bring in some pictures, inspiration boards, materials, etc.) and then translate it into another sense.  What do they mean when they say they want cherry red?  Vintage?  A layered look?  A relaxed, comfortable feel?  How you communicate that you have heard your client and deliver your interpretation is everything.  Simply, you cannot do enough to show your client that you have heard them however you can.  Over and over.  Why I think sending a proposal in a vacuum to get a job is antithetical to creative business.  You should get paid modestly to present your translation and then handsomely once you have demonstrated (i.e., proven) that you can, and will always, hear your client.  When your clients says, “you really get me”, you smile knowing that you hear them and have taken a major step in earning their trust.  Why wouldn’t you want to do that over and over?

Respect – Fortitude, Integrity and Conviction. You do not respect your client by giving them a price before you are ready, nor by erasing your boundaries in the guise of customer service, or by changing your process to suit their needs instead of the other way around.  No, you gain and give respect to your client (vendors and employees too) by having the integrity to say that you have looked inside and firmly believe in the way you do things.  You then have the fortitude and conviction to see it through despite the critics, naysayers and friends that would have you do otherwise.  It is incredibly arrogant to say you do it this way just because.  Confidence comes from your belly.  If you believe that the way you do things yields you the best result regardless of whether you have a year, a month or a week to create your art, then you will be able to share your process freely and with impunity.  Your clients want you to be a leader, to guide them through and get them to the other side.  Who cares if your competition would go the exact opposite way if that way would not work for you or your creative business.  If you, your staff, vendors and colleagues drink your Kool-Aid, your clients will too.  And in that space they will feel safe, trusting you to take them where they want to go.

If you can imagine the freedom that exists with earned trust, then certainly you can imagine the resonance you and your creative business will have as you go about the work of delivering both your artistry and your art.  Trust is real and your goal has to be incorporate it into the micro-fibers of your creative business.  The more you earn trust, never forsake it or assume it, the more you will be paid.