There is always room for improvement. Something is always going wrong. Customer service, employee, vendor, pricing, marketing (including social media), delivery, cash flow, or morale issues are everywhere. However, hidden in the mix is a new design, strategy, brand identifier, product or service that your clients, vendors and even employees love. I try not to be an absolutist, but the gems are ALWAYS there.
A few reasons why you might miss the gems: first, you might be too subsumed by all of the issues facing your creative business to notice. More likely, you do not want to let go of what you are doing/have always done to fully embrace what is right in front of you.
Human nature makes it especially hard to let go of what is wrong (or outdated) and plow everything into what is right. Even more if the old way (product, process or service) is not exactly failing, but not flying either. How many of you in the event business (designer, florist, planner, lighting specialist, caterer, etc.) find yourself (yes you) breaking down at 3:00 in the morning? Going to the market to shop before an event even though your business is now in the millions? Working on your website, blog and all things social media without really thinking why? Staying in a particular line of business just because it sounds good on paper or pays the bills (i.e., day-of planning)?
The beauty of the marketplace is that it will tell you what it wants to buy from you. You may want to only do “high-end” work, but if you cannot produce your “accessible” art fast enough, you only do yourself a disservice not to go all the way there. And by go all the way there I do not mean just do more of it. I mean to really delve in and try to understand why this area of your creative business is in such demand. It is fools play to believe it is just about price. Maybe it is about the story you tell. The creativity you offer in the space (i.e., coffee and cigarette cupcakes). Or the resonance you and your art have with these clients. Capitalizing on market demand (even if no one can see it but you) is how great businesses are built.
Pleasant Rowland was an educator who had developed numerous educational texts for children and was a publisher of a children’s magazine. She thought she could teach history through the story of several fictional girls each living during a significant time in our history. The girls were to be immortalized as dolls (with all the attendant accessories) and were to be sold together with six stories. American Girl was born. One person paying attention to the marketplace, using her knowledge of the market (Pleasant knew everything about teaching and telling stories to children) and taking it as far as it could go (which, in her case, was selling to Mattel in 1998 for @$700 million).
What if Pleasant stayed stuck to teaching children through textbooks or believing that there was no room for another doll in the marketplace? Or if she never questioned the idea that girls older than 6 are no longer interested in playing with dolls? Or if she believed those who said the idea was a sure failure? It is easy to say in hindsight that Pleasant Rowland identified a real niche and the rest is history. The truth is she had the experience to know opportunity when she saw it and the fortitude to make it happen. So do you.
{ 4 comments }
Great post Sean! “Capitalizing on market demand (even if no one can see it but you) is how great businesses are built.” – Must continue to innovate – when we think that our last idea was great, we somehow manage to come up with even better ideas. Just have to always remember to never be satisfied with where we’re at!
wow. sometimes it is hard to see what is right in front of us. it’s simply easier to keep trudging a long and do what we’ve always done. going to take a step back and reassess. 🙂
I’m having a hard time trying to figure out what you’re getting at with this paragraph:
The beauty of the marketplace is that it will tell you what it wants to buy from you. You may want to only do “high-end” work, but if you cannot produce your “accessible” art fast enough, you only do yourself a disservice not to go all the way there. And by go all the way there I do not mean just do more of it. I mean to really delve in and try to understand why this area of your creative business is in such demand. It is fools play to believe it is just about price. Maybe it is about the story you tell. The creativity you offer in the space (i.e., coffee and cigarette cupcakes). Or the resonance you and your art have with these clients. Capitalizing on market demand (even if no one can see it but you) is how great businesses are built.
It is about understanding what the market most values about what you offer and fully exploiting it. Look at Malcolm Gladwell talking about pasta sauce. And the Flip video camera.