Most creative business owners do not ever consider who might buy their businesses. Most consider themselves and their artistry (or artistic vision) the very lifeblood of the business. Without them, there would be nothing is how that thinking goes.
On the one hand, I very much understand the sentiment. Your creative business is the very definition of your voice as an artist and without your voice there really is not a business. However, there is larger point at work here. If you cannot contemplate your creative business beyond yourself, are you effectively copping out of the work that lies underneath you art, beyond brand to cultural ethos that you wish to inhabit for yourself, your art and very much for your creative business. Do you want to mean something beyond your craft?
Not all creative businesses are self-limiting and many, many contemplate selling themselves all day long. Fashion designers are a prime example. They put their vision of the world out there and become available to other creative businesses that wish to acquire the vision as their own.
I will leave classic exit strategy valuation, wanting to cash out, and other considerations aside for now. This post is to focus on legacy and vision; the very idea that art transcends its medium.
Are you willing to really ask yourself why another business (or artist) would ever want to own yours? Can you see how your artistic vision would be accretive to another’s? Here is a specific task for you to consider:
Make a list of what you believe your clients pay for. Make a list of what you hope they would pay for but either do not currently or not enough. Compare the lists. For the hope list outliers, why are you not getting paid for the item and why does it matter that you do?
With the list of what matters, now who exactly does it matter to apart from your clients? What could you do to make what matters (and is currently undervalued) primary to your mission?
My guess is that when you do this exercise you will move past any one thing you currently do (i.e., we are great at logistics, project management, item selection, etc.) and into the realm of acquirable value (i.e., we speak to the client who understands color, values history, etc.). Acquirable value because there is, almost without question, another business that needs the ethos you possess. Quite literally, they wish to be painted with your brush.
Of course, you will likely never sell your creative business and might say this exercise is pointless. To which, I would say fine, do what you do with intention and let the future unfold as it will. Then again, perspective and understanding that the world is always larger than you perceive is the very font of opportunity. As you would never consider your current technique or process the end of discovery for your art, why would you foreclose the same when it comes to the ethos of your creative business.
Move beyond branding, beyond story, all to find meaning. In meaning there is legacy, opportunity and flexibility to become what you have never imagined. Give yourself the permission to go there. Who would buy your creative business and why?
