What Problem Are You Solving?

You are not your job description.  Your creative business is not its industry category.  If the problem you solve is only being the source for the need, you are lost.  I need a florist for my wedding, a designer to help with my kitchen renovation, a graphic designer with my website.  A need is not a problem to be solved since anyone in the category fits the bill.  Nope, it is the sub, sub, sub-set of that need that begets the problem you create (or identify) for those that care.  For your throwback wedding, you need steampunk flowers, this is what we do.  Even deeper, industrialism of steampunk is your definition of avant garde.  It is ours too.

When you contemplate creating and/or identifying a problem for your clients, it forces you to really think about what they most care about.  Simply, the best problems are the ones only you, your art an your creative business can solve.  Yes, this is a riff on what Seth Godin talks aboutbut I am taking it deeper.  For creative businesses, the problem to be solved has to be emotional, wholly irrational and deeply vulnerable.

You MUST be able to say that if you can create this work with your client, they will feel this way.  The problem to be solved is that if they cannot feel this way after the work is done, they will feel incomplete or, worse, unsatisfied.  Your solution is to ensure they feel as you intend and they deeply desire.

If you go there, then you own that your solution must be indelible.  You and your creative business may produce thousands of creations but for each one the memory is transformative.

There is that word “transformation” again.  I use (overuse?) it because it connotes a sense of obligation and responsibility that “pretty”, “beautiful”, “lovely”, “wonderful” never can.  And, ultimately, “transformation” is the solution to every problem you and your creative business present to your clients, employees and colleagues alike.

If yours is visceral, profound, moving transformation, then you must then be soulful.  Soulful not in the woo-woo New Age way, but in the essence of humanity way.  We react because you and your creative business are proactive.

Then you can understand when I say that, for creative business, “What can we do for you?” is the ultimate cop out that will very very soon find its place on the trash heap of bad ideas, right alongside “package”, “collection”, and, my favorite, “the customer is always right”.  FYI, how can the customer always be right if the customer has no clue how to get what they do not know they most want?

Now, to the practical.  Authoritative conviction.  You do not need to be a snobbish jerk to be the expert but you need to honor the value of your expertise.  No one trusts an expert putting their expertise on display.  Start a sentence with “It is up to you, but I would suggest..” and you are lost.  How about “My choice for you is…”  I cannot tell you how many times I see a creative business owner selling their expertise to a client AFTER the client has hired the creative business.  Nothing undercuts credibility more.  If I were you does nothing for any client, ever.  Own the role you have auditioned for with authoritative conviction.  People pleaser, impostor syndrome, service oriented are back doors designed to sabotage integrity.  Please weld them shut and live with the idea that your vision matters most.  If your vision did not matter most, how exactly would you ever get to transformation?  Authoritative, purposeful conviction lets the world know what you truly care about as an artist and creative business owner.  From this place, all will know you see a world they do not and promises will be fulfilled, problems solved.

To me, anyway, everything else is just fluff that will blow away at the slightest breeze.  Have the courage of conviction in the face of challengers who have no idea the price they will pay without it.