We're tackling one of the biggest problems creative entrepreneurs face this week: underearning. Too many years of "paying your dues" working for free or for "exposure" have compounded the problem of creative entrepreneurs owning and asserting their value in the marketplace and charging fees equal to that value. Add to that a sense of shame or other self-worth issues, and you can begin to see how and why this problem persists for so many talented people that don't happen to be as famous or prevalent as Beyonce or Bill Gates.
After years of struggling with this issue myself, and working with clients all over the world who face similar issues, I've identified 5 core traits or symptoms that are common among most creative entrepreneurs. I've tapped two important resources that helped me on my journey through this shadowy valley, and share these insights in this week's episode.
Share your thoughts and ideas in the comments. Your insights may spark a conversation that helps someone else!
Mentioned in this episode:
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Music: "Welcome to the Show" by Kevin MacLeod
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
Hoo-rah! We're FINALLY back!
Season 4 is underway, and we've got a slew of great episodes lined up. We kick off the season with a look at the 6-Figure deception, what it is, including real-life examples. I also talk about the differences between the 6-Figure Illusion and the 6-Figure Distinction, so you can understand how they might apply to your situation.
Share your thoughts and ideas in the comments. Your insights may spark a conversation that helps someone else!
Mentioned in this episode:
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In this episode, I'm wearing lovely jewelry from FancyBargain.com. Tell Kerianne you saw her bling on Creative Freedom!
Music: "Welcome to the Show" by Kevin MacLeod
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
Last week, I was witness to some amazing creative entrepreneurs making big strides in their business at my annual Creative Freedom Live event (Super Early Bird tickets for next year go on sale in November. Make sure you're on my list to be the first to know!). One of the recurring themes was a conversation around pricing. In fact, one of the sessions was about resonant pricing - something I'm also covering in my new book, as well as my FREE growth planning workshop at the end of the month.
Pricing is both an important and sometimes scary concept - especially when it comes to raising prices. But there are three ways I've found to navigate changing your prices.
I'll be sharing some more insights and examples in today's Facebook Live. Or you can watch the replay here.
Look, I know the barrier to entry is getting lower and easier than ever to have a flashy, "pretty" website that looks slick, and makes you feel good about yourself.
But really, is that what a website is for?
If you're a creative entrepreneur, the answer is a resounding "Aww HELL naw!"
To be blunt, your website needs to do an outstanding job of presenting your offer in a way that makes it very clear to your right audience that they need to cross your palm with some green. If it doesn't do that, you've got a crappy website.
One of the "ugliest" websites I've ever seen belongs to a company with over a half a BILLION dollars in assets. That would be Berkshire Hathaway. Go ahead and take a look. I'll be here when you get back.
See? Pretty Spartan, right? No images on the home page. Just a simple, some might say "boring" two-column layout that looks more like a book report than a website.
But if there's one thing Warren Buffett knows, it's how to get the most out of every penny (like a true Linear creative). They know that they don't need to woo investors with a flashy website. Their company stock trades at over a quarter-million dollars per share, yo! If anyone could plow tens of thousands of dollars into a pretty website it would be Berkshire Hathaway. But that's not where the money's at.
What about you, creative entrepreneur? I know you've seen those fancy wordpress themes, with their parallax designs, and funky multi-widget layouts that give you the power (ROAR!) to make your site just as flashy as any seven-figure lifestyle entrepreneur in your market.
Back up the truck, bucko!
Before you go spending thousands on a website - yes I said spend, not invest - let's see if your business should even consider it yet. I've mentioned in a previous episode the importance of being sure you're actually ready for an upgrade, but let's take a closer look at what needs to be in place before you plow a crap ton of money into a Stepford Website (looks pretty, but doesn't work).
That's it, in a nutshell. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Did I miss something that you'd include in your check-list before you buy a new website? Share it in the comments. let's be a rising tide for everyone. Also, you can catch the live discussion about this dicey topic on my facebook page or catch the replay here.
Confession time: I have sort of a business crush on Mr. Franklin. I stumbled across his first book, Produced by Faith, just as I was finishing work on my own book, The Secret Watch. His collaborator, Tim Vandehey was a friend of my editor, and I was actually checking out Tim's work when I came across DeVon. I read his book, and immediately fell in love with his vision for spiritual success in a secular world - that comes from staying true to yourself (and how God designed you).
I also saw how he and I were up to the same thing in the entertainment world, but coming at it from opposite ends of the spectrum. And yes, I secretly hoped he would read my book and decide to make it into a movie, but I digress.
DeVon is inside the industry, making decisions, policies, and flipping the script on how business gets done in Hollywood. I'm on the outside, working with the very people that haven't had a chance because of the way the old regime operated - to learn how to "pick themselves" instead of waiting for some big break. We're both working to change the face of entertainment media for the better, so it's only natural that I was a big fan from the start. Where DeVon's first book focuses on the inner journey of the movie that is your life, The Hollywood Commandments is the next installment - how to be yourself inside a machine that may try to make you anything but.
Franklin is a devout Christian, but don't let that dissuade you from reading this book. It is filled with gold when it comes to navigating the rough waters of career success - whether you're in Hollywood, CA or Hollywood, AL (population 1000), whether you're in entertainment or animal training. It's not what you do, or where you do it that matters, it's who you are as you're doing it.
Franklin's book centers on ten "commandments" for staying true to yourself (and your faith) in a secular world. He serves up a lot of common knowledge concepts - like over promise and under deliver - so in that respect, it will feel as familiar as many self-help books on the market. But, as Franklin points out in Commandment #8, Your Difference Is Your Destiny. Franklin's difference is his years behind-the-scenes rising through the ranks in Hollywood, making mistakes, learning as he goes, and doing it all as a person of color and a man of faith to boot.
While Franklin never makes race a point in the book, it shouldn't be ignored. It's tough to rise up in Hollywood, and there's still a lot of disadvantages for a person of color. To see this, his third book, speak so plainly about what it really takes to succeed in anything (and have it come from a place of hard-won experience), speaks highly of his work ethic and how true Franklin is to walking his talk. He came to Hollywood on a Divine prompting, knowing no one, and trusting the process. He went from intern to assistant to eventually owning his own production company, paying his dues along the way. This is the lesson of persistence and discipline that Franklin espouses throughout the book.
Watch the entire review, where we'll dig into the specifics of the commandments, and how they apply to you regardless of your faith walk. Here's the replay:
Not long ago, I was sitting in a group coaching session and one of the other group members made mention of a diagram she'd created to help her have better clarity about her future. She'd taken a piece of paper and on on edge of the paper, she'd made a list of all the data points of her current reality. On the opposite edge of the paper, she'd listed out her future reality - the things she'd like to accomplish and goals she'd like to achieve around her health, business and lifestyle. There was a big gap in the middle representing the distance she had to travel to get from where she was to where she wanted to be.
It fascinated me to have this visual representation of "the gap". It was so simple, yet entirely intimidating when you don't know what to put in the middle. I was inspired to evolve her idea and incorporate it in my own Dreamblazing program and my upcoming event: Creative Freedom Live.
Essentially, I've changed nothing about the way she mapped her goals. What I've done is added depth to the process of filling in the blanks. Using two elements - backward planning and right-sized milestones - you can confidently determine the next steps you need to take to cross the bridge from where you are now to where you want to be.
And today, I'm teaching the entire process to you - free of charge.
This is a virtual workshop. If you've got big dreams you're trying to achieve, this could be the help you need to get unstuck and moving forward with clarity, confidence, and momentum.
Download your Bridge Worksheet here. It's a Google Doc, so you'll need to "save a copy" or download it to your computer in order to edit it. Watch the replay here.
Note: As we get closer to Creative Freedom Live, I've decided to give a few more sneak peeks into the content. Today, as promised in last week's episode, I'm sharing the three different types of Growth Plans that creative entrepreneurs need at different stages of their business. This is also an excerpt from my book, Creative Freedom: How To Own Your Dreams Without Selling Your Soul, that’s coming out later this year. If you haven’t already, take the quiz to determine your creative type. Be sure to get on the notification list to stay up to date on the book’s release date!]
Not every creative enterprise is wired for growth, but they can be. According to author Les McKeown, there are 7 stages in the business lifecycle that every business goes through. Three of those are stages of decline, and that's not what we're concerned with here. Creative Freedom focuses on the growth side of the business development process, and specifically the three types of growth plans you'll need to navigate growing your business.
Let's take a look at each stage in turn, and their associated growth plans:
This stage, according to Les, is a race against the clock to find a profitable, sustainable market for your offering. You need to match your offer to a audience big enough to keep the business afloat. Until you do, it's a continual struggle.
"Big enough" is a relative term, but the idea here is that your Great Work has an audience, and you just need to find one that's the right size to keep your bills paid, with a comfortable margin. A fine artist creating one of a kind paintings who can live comfortably on $50,000 per year won't need as large of an audience (or prices as high) as someone who has to make six figures just to pay the rent (the Six-Figure Distinction).
A large candle making company needs millions of units in sales to make a product viable, but a smaller company might do exceedingly well on just a fraction of those sales. That's exactly what happened in 2005 when one of the industry leading candle companies stopped making transparent candles. A company I owned at the time swooped in and filled the hole the industry giant left behind. Because we were a tiny operation, we only needed a few dozen sales each month to have a profitable product line.
Very often, in this early stage, your business is either limping along as a "side hustle" or a jobby. Either way, it's not likely to sustain you without bringing in some kind of revenue from somewhere else. Otherwise, you'd be out of Early Struggle and headed to Fun (we'll get there in a minute). According to Les, 80% of businesses don't make it out of Early Struggle. So you're going to need a Transition plan that helps you ramp up from zero to profitable, sustainable enterprise, while ramping down your other income source. That could be your day job, your savings account, or even a credit card you're maxing out every month. Transition plans are a type of temporary Growth Plan designed to get you out of one thing and into another.
Because our overhead was low, we were more agile and able to experiment in the market in ways the industry giant couldn't. We were so successful that we branched out into other sizes, fragrances, and shapes, where the industry giant had only 2 shapes available for sale in a single size. That's something we couldn't have done if we'd had the overhead of a large manufacturing facility and staff to support. It was just me (and my husband at the time), making and selling candles on eBay. Because we were able to tap a market already interested in the product, we saw profit quickly, but it wasn't sustainable.
With a new baby, I wasn't able to put in enough hours myself to keep things going. I had built myself a jobby, and didn't have a transition plan in place to phase me out and bring someone else in to continue making candles while I was taking care of my newborn. Like the industry giant, we ended up shutting down the product line and going in a different direction. I needed to build a transition plan to take me out of candle making so that I wasn't working so much and making so little. That's how I ended up working with direct sellers. It took a couple of years to make the pivot, but when I did, I was able to transition out of the candle company and into more ease in my life, income, and work. That's when things got Fun.
As the name suggests, this is probably the most fun time in your business. Cash is flowing freely, business is coming in like gangbusters, and you could pretty much name your price and get it. This is the time of double or even triple-digit growth, according to Les, and that's exactly what happened when I started working with direct sellers. Within a few months of launching my book, Home Party Solution, my mailing list started growing quickly, and I had my first five figure month. That's five figures in profits, mind you. I felt like I hit the lottery and could do no wrong. I had people begging me to work with them, my calendar was full, and I felt pretty good about myself. It's also easy to talk about yourself at this point because you feel successful and can point to all the sales you're making as social proof of your awesomeness.
Think of it like a rocket ship. You've launched and gotten off the ground, but you're still trying to break free from the resistance of gravity, and you'll burn through a lot of your fuel to get into space. As a business, you're still trying to move in an upward direction, so there's a lot of work to be done in this period. You may have found a profitable, sustainable market, but you still have to do the work of selling to them on a consistent basis. Your team may grow, and along with it your spending. Upgrade the website? Sure. Invest in some new infrastructure? Why not? Hire that Director of Marketing? Sounds good to me.
This is the time when everyone's pitching in to keep all the plates spinning. You're small and agile enough that process documents and org charts are laughable ideas. Yet this is the very time you need to be thinking about them. Getting these kinds of repeatable tasks documents is the fastest way to speed through the next (and bumpy) phase, Whitewater.
This is where Fun starts to fall apart. You've been seeing some financial success, but now you're dropping balls. Calls don't get returned and deadlines get missed. At first, it's a rare occurrence, but then the frequency picks up. The business has gotten more complex, either through more staff, more product offerings (and client demands), or both. According to Les, this is the time when you "can no longer improvise your way to success every day." And you can't just sell your way out of it. You've got operational problems that are hamstringing the company: there's no set way of doing things, or if there is, it's still in your head and not documented anywhere, for example.
At this point, you've got a choice: go back to Fun, or press on to Predictable Success. Either way, once you've broken into Whitewater, you need to course correct, and that's when it's time to look at the final Growth Plan.
It's easy to dismiss Maintenance, but I assure you, this is a bona fide Growth Plan. An author friend once told me that there are no lateral moves, because if you stand still and stay at the same level, everyone else is moving forward, which means you're falling behind. Maintenance, then is about making sure there's enough income coming in to sustain the current level of the business without losing ground. That's why, whether you choose Fun or Predictable Success, you'll need to shift into Maintenance mode at some point. Sure, you might continue with a Momentum Plan to increase the scale and scope of your business once you hit Predictable Success, but eventually, you've got to come back to a Maintenance Plan or you'll fall into the decline side of the business lifecycle.
Maintenance is where small tweaks make big changes. Setting up a simple system that makes it easy for you to let go of a task and delegate to another team member may take a little bit of time on the front end, but it frees you up to do the tasks that only you can do (your zone of genius). In fact, systems and processes, combined with the right amount of agility and responsiveness, are the key elements that keep a business out of decline and on the growth track.
Why would a business choose to go back to Fun instead of moving to Predictable Success? Actually, most creatives I've met who are looking to be a "lifestyle entrepreneur" wouldn't move into Predictable Success. They'd stay in Fun, because there's no need to scale. You don't want to scale up. You want to keep things personal and intimate, or you're the sole creator and you have no desire to license your work. You want to keep control of everything and have final approval. In essence, you enjoy being the bottle neck to some degree and don't want the hassle of systems, processes, and organizational structures. Keep it simple, and you'll gladly settle for less growth over time. You've found your Enoughness Number and you're happy to stay there.
But if you've got a vision for a global enterprise (or even a national one), chances are good, you'll want to move into Predictable Success.
When you have a profitable, sustainable business that has scaled beyond Fun, through Whitewater, you've achieved Predictable Success. The only reason to grow to this point, according to Les, is because you want to scale up your business and become an industry leader. Many creative entrepreneurs never need to go this far, but some (like Oprah, Apple, or Michael Graves) do.
What happens next? Theoretically, a company could stay in Predictable Success indefinitely, but more often, a company begins to rely too heavily on processes, policies, and systems, forsaking agility, responsiveness and innovation, and fall into decline. The interesting thing is that you can reverse-engineer these Growth Plans to turn these declining businesses around, but very often, they're too stubborn to listen.
Each creative type responds differently to these Growth Plans, and it's something I'm going to talk about in today's Facebook Live. Here's the replay:
[Note: This is an excerpt from my book, Creative Freedom: How To Own Your Dreams Without Selling Your Soul, that's coming out later this year. If you haven't already, take the quiz to determine your creative type. Be sure to get on the notification list to stay up to date on the book's release date!]
One of the conversations I have pretty regularly with people is around what it means to be a creative entrepreneur. Contrary to what you might think, it has nothing to do with what or how you create. Everyone is creative in some way. EVERYONE. The indicator, then is whether or not you choose to be an entrepreneur around your Great Work.
Not all creatives are entrepreneurs, and that’s okay. Elizabeth Gilbert wasn’t a creative entrepreneur when she wrote “Eat, Pray, Love” and her work impacted millions around the world. She also made some pretty good money, I’d be willing to bet, or she’d never have quit her day job. But you don't have to make good money to be a creative entrepreneur - in fact, you might not make any money when you start.
So how do you know for sure? Here are five signs that you’re not a creative entrepreneur:
For the purposes of this book, if you create as a hobbyist, or for side income and don’t ever plan to make it your primary source of income, you’re not a creative entrepreneur. It doesn’t matter if your Great Work is sculpture, business analysis, architecture, or video game walk-throughs on YouTube. The type of creativity you express has nothing to do with whether or not you’re a creative entrepreneur. It’s your intention around that creation that matters.
As a creative, you can create for yourself and not care what anyone else thinks about your work. As a creative entrepreneur, you have to listen to your audience and respond to their changing needs. That doesn’t mean you can’t create for yourself and your own enjoyment, but it does mean you have to have clarity around what elements of your Great Work will respond to the fluctuations of the market. Jim Henson did a lot of commercial work to have the money he needed to be able to make movies like Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal. He had his own “shrine to the almighty dollar” as a reminder that you can’t make art unless you have the money to do so. Money is freedom for a creative. It gives you the ability to do what you want without having to bear the criticism of others.
Are you creating for a specific audience? Did you establish a legal structure for your business? Are you reporting income and paying taxes? Are you actively marketing your Great Work in the world? If so, then you’re probably a creative entrepreneur, even if you’re just getting started in “jobby” mode (a hobby disguised as a business). If your aim is to make this a going concern, and you’re focused on growing your company as a business owner, you’re most likely a creative entrepreneur. You might not have a profitable business yet, but you’ve got the creative entrepreneur spirit that is needed to grow.
Thomas Edison devoted himself entirely to business. According to author and archivist, Leonard DeGraaf, Edison “vowed he would not invent a technology that didn’t have an apparent market; that he wasn’t just going to invent things for the sake of inventing them but… to be able to sell them.”
Edison himself is quoted as saying “All my life, I’ve been a commercial inventor. I have never dabbled in anything that was not useful.”
Edison was very clearly a creative entrepreneur. If you are actively trying to serve a particular market, sharing your gifts with them, and making sales offers to them, you are also a creative entrepreneur.
Income and expenses. Cash flow. Profit. Do you have your finger on the pulse of what your business is actually doing? Chaotics struggle with this sometimes, because they have an aversion to numbers and structures in general.
In her autobiography, Put On Your Crown, Queen Latifah tells how, due to a clerical error that went unchecked, all her money was out of whack. She was scrambling to pay bills not because anyone was intentionally trying to screw her, but because she stuck her head in the sand and didn’t pay any attention to the numbers.
Latifah then revealed a secret she learned from an episode of Oprah: “always sign the checks.” This was a simple way for her to keep a finger on the pulse of her business.
By reviewing your numbers consistently - even if they’re not where you want them to be - you keep yourself in the know. And knowledge is power.
This is another sign of creating a jobby for yourself, by the way. Each of the type can suffer from this issue for different reasons. Chaotics don’t trust that other people will rise to their (impossibly) high standards. Fusions are so used to doing everything themselves that it feels painful to slow down long enough to get or train help. Linears will micromanage deadlines and budgets, which tends to drive people away.
At some point, if you’re growing a business, you’ll have to ask for and accept help from others who may not do things exactly the way you would. Like when I ask my son to clean his room, it may not be clean the way I would do it, but it meets my criteria for a clean room. If I don’t want to be stuck doing all the cleaning, I have to be willing to let go of the trivial things - like how he folds his socks. So long as the clean clothes fit in the dresser, I’m happy.
That doesn’t mean compromising on what really matters, but chances are good you’re worrying about more than you need to at this early stage in your business growth. Nobody expects a young business to deliver at the same level as a fortune 500 company. Use that to your advantage to surprise and delight your audience - but don’t let it keep you from delivering at all because you’re too mired in doing ALL THE THINGS!
To be clear, EVERYONE is creative in some way. It could be the way you solve a problem or spot patterns, it could be the way you dress up a gift bag with ribbons or paint. The fact that you use your imagination to see or bring something to life that wasn’t there before makes you a creator and therefore a creative.
Entrepreneurs are especially adept at seeing a need and creating something to fill it, but not all creatives are entrepreneurs. The dictionary definition of “entrepreneur” is someone who takes on a “greater than normal financial risk” to organize or operate a business.
Many creatives I know don’t want more risk, they want stability. They’re freaked out by the notion of the starving artist. Like Gilbert, they’re content to rely on their day job and dabble in their creative work during their hobby time. If that’s you, then you don’t need this book.
On the other hand, if you’re ready to make a transition plan from the day job, if you’re already knee-deep in your creative work and need some clarity and direction to make it a profitable and sustainable business, then you’re in the right place.
I developed the Creative Freedom Entrepreneur Type Spectrum to give creative entrepreneurs the clarity they need about how to best set up and run their business - in a way that works with their unique quirks and traits. You’ll get clear on how to use the ninja skills of your specific type to make your business more productive and profitable, and how to clear up your blind spots so you don’t end up stuck like I was, doing things that will only make you miserable.
Does it take longer or more effort to build a business doing something you love? That depends on you. But my experience and that of my clients shows that it’s worth it. You’re building a long-term asset instead of looking for short-term “low-hanging fruit”. And it’s often easier because your efforts are bolstered by the fact that you’re doing something you love, instead of something you dread.
Here's the replay from my Facebook Live on the topic:
Creative Freedom Live
Predictable Success by Les McKeown
We make thousands of decisions every single day. Decision fatigue is a real thing.
How can you make more confident decisions and beat decision fatigue or analysis paralysis on the things that really matter?
Yeah. That's today's episode of Creative Freedom - with a little help from Black Sheep.
Resources from the episode:
Creative Freedom Live - Nashville, TN, October 12-14
Essential Why - the process I use to get to the core of your real motivations. We'll be doing the entire process at Creative Freedom Live this fall.
So there's this show on Netflix that my youngest son has taken to this summer.
Canada's Worst Driver. Well, after several seasons, they decided to round up the worst of the worst for a final season:
Canada's Worst Driver Ever.
I won't spoil it for you, but these drivers are absolutely frightening, sad, and hilarious. What really struck me was how some of the simplest instructions were completely lost on these folks.
Then it hit me that creative entrepreneurs have similar issues in their business.
So I'm doing a a Creative Freedom live episode on my Facebook Page, to share the 3 biggest lessons from Canada's Worst Driver Ever that apply to creative entrepreneurs. Here's the replay:
Resources from the episode: