What Do You Do When Business Slows?

Rainbows and unicorns, perfect sunsets and idyllic days. Were this a description of our businesses. The reality is is that there are good days and bad, up and down months, even years. Sometimes, no matter how much effort you put into your marketing, business development and social media, the projects just do not come. You can blame anyone and everything – the economy, a bad employee, a bad client, even less than scrupulous competition – the result is the same though, your business is not at the level you need it to be, forget about want it to be.

Marcy Blum gave an awesome speech at Engage! a few years back where she had the courage to talk about her business’ downturn. Her response was pure hustle, call on everyone, figure out how to say yes to everything. And things turned for her.

So yes, your answer has to be Marcy’s – go hustle, do what you need to do to bring people to you, your art and your creative business. But two thoughts – first, it will not happen overnight and, second, it may not happen at all. Such is the randomness of creative business.

What to do then? How do you deal with the abyss that stares you in the face? The panic that sets in that this could all be over? The paralysis of what to do next? Frozen in the idea that tomorrow may never come.

Breathe.

Then ask yourself: are you relevant? Does your work matter to your clients, your employees, to you? Who cares if you love what you do and are passionate about it? We all are. The real question is do you believe that you, your art and your creative business move people? That your gift, your art is transformative?  Now, ask yourself if the way you are doing things actually makes that transformation possible?

Yes, different generations have different priorities. We hear all the time about how Millennial’s are different from Gen X, Gen Y and Boomers. But, but, but, at the end of the day, intrinsic value is intrinsic value. You either can get paid for it or not. Clients will come to you because of it or not. The point is to adapt, not compromise.

And that is the beauty of what Marcy did and the subtlety was not lost on me – the willingness to change the way you do things to bring your value to the fore to those that care the most is adaption. Chasing what you think the world wants is not.

Will you get through your Dip? Who knows? I certainly do not every time it happens to me. What I do know though is that the hardest question to ask is the one that most needs the answer. Are you willing to find another way to express your art, yourself, your creative business? Will you do the work in the face of abject uncertainty? Are you willing to be Marcy?

Longevity, truly, is no measure of success to me. The desire to be relevant is. When you look there in the moments of desperation we all have, new expressions emerge. Let them be your light, your desire to adapt to be a better version of yourself and your art. Believe it or not, tomorrow will come and a new client will arrive. The only thing that matters is who will be there to open the door.