As a writer, designer, teacher, 

artist, architect, landscaper,

jewelry-maker, stylist or stage

performer, if you’re not

risking . . . you’re not

being honest!

With special thanks to author Mary DeMuth for the three great words: “Risk being unliked” which were featured in her article, “A Smart Approach to MEMOIR” in the June 2011 issue of The WRITER.

Those of us who create for a living, who own, operate, or manage creative businesses understand immediately what the “Risk being unliked” message is all about. And does it apply to professional selling too? Absolutely.

Whether we create with computers or paint brushes; with crafts supplies, hair, or music; with classrooms or pen and paper, or with the ways we communicate our sales messages, we must –as Ms. DeMuth so aptly puts it– “Tell the truth as you understand it. If you’re a writer,” she says, “you have a moral obligation to do this.”

I propose that truth-telling applies to all businesses, even the least creative.

When your focus, your branding, your website, your messages, your employees, and most importantly YOU are all about telling the truth as you understand it, you are setting yourself up to cultivate strengthened long-term high-trust relationships. Those who unlike you for it are not those you want to deal with anyway.

Honesty is (still) the best policy!

I’m not suggesting any limitations here. What’s the best way to express this idea to people who earn their keep with their creative talents? Could there be any greater and more meaningful statement than the following six words from Shakespeare?:

To thine own self be true.

When you believe heart and soul that the line, the dimension, the color, the musical note, the arrangement, the word choice, the emphasis is what your gut, your intuitive experience, says it needs to be, go with it and don’t waste time worrying about winning a popularity contest. People will judge your authenticity, not your masks or apologies.

For ALL business pursuits, not fibbing to or misleading customers, employees, associates, partners, referrers, investors, professional advisors,  lenders, and the various communities you serve is just one chapter of your build-a-better-business book. Leadership transparency is another. Honoring commitments is yet a third. 

Delivering exactly what you say you’re going to deliver –and more– exactly when you say you’re going to deliver it is the standard by which others will continuously measure your business performance.

There’s risk involved in all of this, but as with the mark of true entrepreneurship, the risk is always a reasonable one. We’re not talking about harnessing creative spirit here. In fact, if anything, the suggestion is to set it free, and to recognize that the results produced by an honest free spirit outperform those born of smoke and mirrors.

Don’t throw the tending to details, business conduct, and tight-fisted money management out with the baby’s bathwater simply for the sake of being more expressive in the products, services, and ideas you create. But do stop cowering away from being straight-ahead with your work and with all those you come into contact with every day.

Your behavior is of course your choice. Where do you think your reputation comes from?                                            

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Hal@Businessworks.US or 302.933.0116

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals. God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

If you’re not selling

your creations,

stop whining

about being hungry! 

You got music, art, writing, design, sculpting, dance, painting, acting, photography, and/or craft skills and you’re broke?

How is that? Because the world you’re trying to make money in is not a music, art, writing, design, sculpting, dance, painting, acting, photography, craft skills world, that’s why.

It’s a business world. Period.

If all you seek is to win posthumous awards and recognition, good luck and God speed (and I hope –in addition to your talents– that your billionaire grandmother left you a great deal of money). But, if you’re looking to make your creative talents make money, you’re going to have to step it up (or maybe take yourself down a notch!).

It’s a business world. Period. 

Will you have to prostitute your skills? Perhaps. Depends on your definition of “prostitute” (as a verb), but if you do feel like commercialization is a process of selling your soul, you might want to re-think the value structure you’ve saddled yourself with, and accept that payment for services is not always about the giving up of one’s spirit.

It is only within your realm of definition of the word, “prostitution” that you choose to accept for an act or creative product or service of yours to be what it is.

Be reminded, in other words, that

you choose your behavior.

When you can accept that truth, you will be able to stop torturing your self. You will free yourself to give up all the self-destructive attitudes you may harbor about having to trade off your creative talents for some project retainer or ongoing fee that you’ve considered unethical or unappreciative of your instinctive abilities.

Or, someone once told me she didn’t feel the stars were aligned for her to feel okay about getting paid for applying the purity of the innermost resources of her mind to a brand name.

She was not independently wealthy.

Instead of using her God-given talents to earn a living, I presume she’s now contributing to our nation’s misguided, deficit-draining, socialist agenda, collecting welfare and food stamps!  

Do you have to market and sell and publicize yourself and the work you produce? Yes. Or hire someone you trust who has those skills and is sensitive enough to your neurotic state to be your agent or rep and stand in the publicity spotlight for you. Easy to do? No. Not if you are truly gifted and struggling to acknowledge the need.

Keep in mind that successful marketing of creative talents and creative products takes great amounts of tenacity and networking and skill-sets that include public relations (events and news release coverage), branding (both you and your creativity), and business applications to Internet and social media avenues.

Don’t feel that you’re lowering your standards. Choose instead to see you are raising your odds for success.

The more you sell, the more you can command the integrity levels of work you deserve, but right now, it may be time to start affording to bring home more than junkfood, and get some nutrition on the table to feed that creative furnace.       

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Your FREE subscription: Posts RSS Feed

Hal@Businessworks.US or 302.933.0116

 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals. God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!