{"id":642,"date":"2010-12-08T20:14:03","date_gmt":"2010-12-09T01:14:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessofbeingcreative.com\/?p=642"},"modified":"2011-01-12T20:15:56","modified_gmt":"2011-01-13T01:15:56","slug":"year-end-planning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessofbeingcreative.com\/year-end-planning\/","title":{"rendered":"Year-End Planning"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tis the season to think about next year.\u00a0 Many of you will embark on setting your goals for 2011 in the coming weeks.\u00a0 You will probably look back at 2010 to see what has transpired, take a look at what is already on the books for 2011 and try to figure out what holes need to be filled.\u00a0 No doubt, this is a valuable exercise and certainly worth doing.\u00a0 However, I would challenge you to engage in deciding how to move forward in a whole other way.\u00a0 Work on your <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thebusinessofbeingcreative.com\/2010\/09\/30\/a-look-book\/\" target=\"_blank\">Look Book<\/a>.\u00a0 Peel back the \u201cshoulds\u201d and \u201csupposed tos\u201d (i.e., your website is supposed to look like so and so and you really should be doing so and so).\u00a0 Dare to expose the core of your art and your creative business everywhere.\u00a0 Pay attention to what the world loves about you, your art and your creative business today.\u00a0 Hint: it is not what it loved yesterday.<\/p>\n<p>2011 will be the year to manifest opportunity.\u00a0 Circumstance has set the stage for creative business to reap very large rewards.\u00a0 Although financing is very difficult for many, the cost of money is at or near its historic lows.\u00a0 What does that mean?\u00a0 Maybe not a loan for you or your business, but an opportunity for investment that does not come along very often.\u00a0 An <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/12\/05\/business\/05hotel.html?_r=1&amp;scp=1&amp;sq=hotel%20development&amp;st=cse\" target=\"_blank\">article<\/a> in Sunday\u2019s New York Times about the recovery in the hotel industry is a perfect example of what I am talking about.\u00a0 There were words like \u201cwar chest\u201d and \u201cready-to-pounce\u201d with people like <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Richard_Branson\" target=\"_blank\">Richard Branson<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Barry_Sternlicht\" target=\"_blank\">Barry Sternlicht<\/a> mentioned.<\/p>\n<p>Then there is the wholesale shift in the way the world operates from the way it did in 2008.\u00a0 Think of the businesses that have found significant traction since then: Facebook, Twitter, Apple (IPhone (introduced in 2007), IPad (2010)), Zappos, Groupon, and Gilt Groupe.\u00a0 The way we communicate has fundamentally changed as has the way we buy goods and services \u2013 including your art.\u00a0 Forever.<\/p>\n<p>2011 offers a very big opportunity to reinforce, or better yet, redefine all that you, your art and your creative business stand for.\u00a0 An opportunity I do not think will come around again for a long time.\u00a0 So see your world as it is, embrace where it is heading and then shape yourself, your art and your creative business accordingly.<\/p>\n<p>An example: the experts quoted in the New York Times article say that there will be much more re-development of hotels and condos than new construction.\u00a0 If you are an interior designer, how do you offer your services in this arena?\u00a0 New construction is easy \u2013 blank slate.\u00a0 Re-development is constrained by what is there.\u00a0 If you are graphic designer, how do you tell the story of the new look in a compelling way?\u00a0 If you are an event designer, how can you put your spin on what events will look like at this \u201cnew\u201d facility?\u00a0 How will your brand serve the re-launch?\u00a0 For all of you, if you are really interested in the opportunity, how will you align your art and your creative business to serve the coming needs of this redevelopment wave?<\/p>\n<p>And, if you think this is just for the big guys, then you are being a chicken.\u00a0 The trends are macro trends and they will affect your market if they have not already. You have to be able to ask for what you want, know that you have the goods and be relevant to the solution.\u00a0 Need inspiration? Read Daniella LaPorte\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/whitehottruth.com\/business-wealth-articles\/qualified-requests-how-to-ask-for-stuff\/\" target=\"_blank\">post<\/a> on how to ask for stuff.<\/p>\n<p>One of my favorite experiences this year was hearing <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rafanellievents.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Bryan Rafanelli <\/a>talk about Chelsea Clinton\u2019s wedding at <a href=\"http:\/\/thebreakers.engage10.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Engage!10: The Breakers<\/a>.\u00a0 Someone in the audience wanted to know how he got the wedding.\u00a0 Bryan said, \u201cI asked.\u201d\u00a0 The audience member followed up with: how did you know you could handle it?\u00a0 Bryan said, \u201cWe were ready.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The point of your planning for 2011 is not to decide how to be incrementally better, it is to make you, your art and your creative business indispensible for what is to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tis the season to think about next year.\u00a0 Many of you will embark on setting your goals for 2011 in the coming weeks.\u00a0 You will probably look back at 2010 to see what has transpired, take a look at what is already on the books for 2011 and try to figure out what holes need [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-strategy","category-structure"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessofbeingcreative.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessofbeingcreative.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessofbeingcreative.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessofbeingcreative.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessofbeingcreative.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=642"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessofbeingcreative.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":645,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessofbeingcreative.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642\/revisions\/645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessofbeingcreative.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessofbeingcreative.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessofbeingcreative.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}